Some Tea With Me
A blog about the deep world of tea, featuring tasting notes, experiences, and instruction.
“Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence… It is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life.”
– Kakuzo Okakura, The Book of Tea
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2006 Fengqing Sheng Tuocha Puer
Twice now I’ve had the wonderful experience of tasting this Sheng puer, another sample sent from TeaVivre. Both times I’ve been very pleased with the result. This tea held a special interest for me since I’ve visited tea factories in Fengqing before, but never one that produced Puer. The city is known mainly for its
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Teavivre 2013 Qing Xiang Dong Ding
…or, How it’s hard to judge an Oolong before the fourth infusion. This was a sample sent to me from the lovely folks at Teavivre. Dong Ding (sometimes Tung Ting or “Frozen Summit”) is a very beautiful tea mountain in Nantou county near the west coast of Taiwan. They produce a lot of rolled oolongs
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The little gold sample pack
Don’t write off the sample pack! This beautiful little golden pouch contains one of the most smooth examples of a black tea I’ve ever tasted. Mellow, round, and with some sweetness to the taste that reminds me of Qi Men hong cha or Bailin Gongfu. This tea is a little bit of a mystery. Supposedly it
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A taste of Caffeine
Back in the old days I wrote a post on Dobra Tea’s blog about caffeine. This is an updated version of that post. The myth of green tea having less caffeine than black tea is rampant in our Western culture. This is even more surprising when contrasted with the attitude I found in Taiwan that
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2011 Buddha’s Hand
Buddha’s Hand oolong, or Fóshǒu (佛手), is an oolong made from a very large leaf cultivar of Camellia Sinensis. The taste of the tea is a bit of a mystery, because to me it tastes very roasted, but very light at the same time. It’s like Yán chá (rock tea) White tea. I’d really love
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Mysterious Ku Fu Phoenix
Ming Tao Xuan in Montréal, where I purchased this tea in 2011 has labeled it as “Phoenix Ku Fu Cha (Chinese Red Tea)”, which is confusing in many ways. Its mystery, however, can still be unraveled with some careful tasting. And the process can be so rewarding. My taste buds tell me that this is
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How Much Tea?
With all of these posts about my tea making process, I realized that I hadn’t ever said much about the amount of tea that I’m using. Time and Temperature are very important factors when making tea, as well as the tools you are using. But the amount of leaf in your pot can have just
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2011 Shan Lin Xi from Wu Siou Nature Farm
It’s been a while, so I decided to try another tea from my stash of old oolongs. This time, I opened a pack of rolled Shan Lin Xi (aka: Shan Lin She, Sanlinxi, or any number of other things, but really 杉林溪烏龍). It’s getting difficult to remember which high mountain oolongs I got from where,
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Some Notes on Oxidation
Back in the old days I wrote a post on Dobra Tea’s blog about tea and oxidation. This is an updated version of that post. If you have learned a little about tea processing, you have doubtless come across the saying that Black tea is more “fermented” than Green tea. This is more than a