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I only brew in the grandpa style when I don't have time to brew in any other way, so I never think that much about it. I just throw in enough tea to keep me happy and refill around the half-way mark. If I refill more than once or twice, I'll throw some more leaves in. And I almost only use unroasted...

Very glad to see that you can continue where Ethan left off (and, of course, very grateful to Ethan Kurland ). I've usually ordered a few packs across the high mountain spectrum to try and enjoy over Summer, so I look forward to doing the same once again. Taiwan high mountain tea was one of the styl...

Wow !!! The legendary 1960's Benshan lvni dragon egg !?? Yes, the legends are true - dragon eggs do exist (though I hope that mine never hatches...). I'll be feeding it some Dong Ding style tea tomorrow and will see what happens. And Bok : all I'll say is, yes, I agree... But in this case, pot lust...

A teapot that I've wanted to get for a long time has finally made its way over to these shores...

Looking forward to playing with it and seeing what it likes once I have more time.

Andrew

Finishing off the last bits of a sample of a nice Taiwanese old bush ShiCha hongcha in a small pot, after which I'll probably brew something old and relaxing in a bigger pot for the start of a long weekend down here. It's been a while since my last post, mostly due to a combination of re-adjusting m...

Dancong time down here - getting back to trying some samples to learn more about this tea that I've neglected for many years. The first one was a 2023 YouHuaXiang from DaAn - nicely bright and refreshing character, with a cool aftertaste. The second was a 2016 HuangZhiXiang - this one was quite inte...

I've been finishing a few yancha samples, getting towards the end of a packet of some very nice ShuiXian from what I understand to be a higher part of HuiYuanKeng - FengShuKe (枫树窠) , and enjoying some heavily-roasted 2002 TieGuanYin from LiShan. I've also been finishing some of Ethan's teas when the...

There is another factor to count in: The vendor needs to have the palate and understanding of tea to match the quality. Some simply lack the ability to know good from bad tea. This seems like a chicken-and-egg situation: if you don't have much good tea, it's unlikely you'll develop the palate for i...

"Since 2023, the agency has required all domestically produced tea to be labeled with a place of origin, record of production and sale, or an organic label." I don't know how burdensome that kind of requirement might be (nor do I know anything about Taiwanese tea regulations)... Do you know if that ...

I think this topic comes up every now and then, with no consensus on what 'minerality' should mean, or where it comes from (except that it probably has nothing to do with minerals in the soil): https://www.teaforum.org/viewtopic.php?p=35040#p35040 https://www.teaforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2195&s...

And now, finishing that same sample of the 2012 HuiYuanKeng ZhuangYuanHong, and finishing a sample of a 2018 HongJiGuan from GuiYan, which I believe is outside the core area. I found it interesting how the older tea had both aged notes (similar to, say, the plummy notes you get from a 90s puer that ...

Interesting experience indeed; thank you for sharing it. I had thought that yancha was a bit like Burgundy: - the cheap ones aren't very good or interesting, don't come from the classic locations in the region, and don't reflect what the region is capable of producing; - the nice ones are nice, but ...

Playing again with a small sample of a less-typical yancha cultivar - a 2012 ZhuangYuanHong (having finished a pack of a 2023 version of the same cultivar, but different tea, a few days ago). There's not much that I can say usefully in terms of comparing the same cultivar across a decade of ageing, ...

Yea I was actually looking at their Qihong, followed by ZSXZ. But since their wuyi hongcha is sold out, I guess there's no point in simply ordering one or two teas.Was the purple wild varietal weird? I don't think those are in my radar because of bad experience with yesheng types. Then again, their...

Cool, wet, windy day (well, 'cool' relative to usual Summer temperatures around here), so it's a good time to get some hongcha out. Finally getting around to trying a sample of DXJD's LinCang DanZhu DianHong (this one is from 2020 - yes, it's taken a while...). Their website says that it is from a s...