Ketlee Indian tea

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LeoFox
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Thu Feb 03, 2022 10:12 pm

Interesting mission statement
We are a small tea company based in Bangalore, India. From the land of chai, we source unheard of teas from unheard of regions. We focus on offering Indian teas suited for gong fu style brewing and changing the perception that Indian teas are only suited for western style brewing. Moving beyond FTGFOP1 and similarly graded teas, we offer good old two leaf and a bud. We are also the first company to make teas from old tree forests including Indian sheng pu'erh style teas and wild white teas! We also make handmade teaware from Indian clay to go with the teas!
https://www.ketlee.in/




They even sell unglazed gaiwans made from Indian clay

https://www.ketlee.in/product-page/indi ... are-gaiwan


And indian pu erh!
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teatray
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Thu Feb 03, 2022 11:16 pm

Thanks for sharing, very interesting. I've been looking forward to buying some flown-in Indian tea this spring via a distributor, but I think I might give this a try instead. Google revealed that @John_B has already written about them. Any highlights one shouldn't miss out on?
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mbanu
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Fri Feb 04, 2022 9:32 am

There are some transferrable skill-sets. Even though unglazed gaiwans are uncommon, unglazed clay was once commonplace for disposable cups of tea sold at train stops. Chai vendors would buy a batch of unglazed clay cups and then when people were through they would smash them on the ground -- more sustainable than styrofoam, I guess. :)

There is an Indian dark tea, it is a tea stored in bamboo called Singpho falap. Maybe they are looking for people who have experience making this tea and seeing if they can adjust to pu'er?

Plenty of gushu -- many tea farms are poor and can't afford to replant their bushes, so they will have bushes from whenever the tea farm started, maybe 100 years ago.
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LeoFox
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Fri Feb 04, 2022 9:44 am

One of the things this vendor emphasizes is tea with intact "1 tip+ 2 leaves". Apparently, it was the practice for a long time to break the tip from the leaves, even in so called orthodox higher priced teas from darjeeling - in order to save storage space during shipping. This vendor wants to sell the intact leaves.


Based on my readings, the Singpho region near China was the source of the "wild" native assam bushes that tipped the British towards developing their own tea instead of relying on Chinese seeds and farmers- most of whom turned out to be scam artists (very interesting history as described in Tea War by Andrew B Liu- attached image and text from this book as well.)

It seems the vendor is offering some "gushu" from neighboring area in Manipur India. I am excited to try his teas
Figure . Export tea production regions in India at the turn of the twentieth century. The Tea Committee’s s experiments took place in the upper reaches of the Assam Valley, which grew into the colonial industry’s area of greatest concentration. Cartography by Bill Nelson, based on The Atlas of the World Commerce Maps, Text and Diagrams by J. G. Bartholomew (London: George Newnes Limited, ), –.<br /><br />From tea war by Andrew liu
Figure . Export tea production regions in India at the turn of the twentieth century. The Tea Committee’s s experiments took place in the upper reaches of the Assam Valley, which grew into the colonial industry’s area of greatest concentration. Cartography by Bill Nelson, based on The Atlas of the World Commerce Maps, Text and Diagrams by J. G. Bartholomew (London: George Newnes Limited, ), –.

From tea war by Andrew liu
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Also see

https://teajourney.pub/origin-india-dis ... -of-assam/

Attachments
https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/18111/IN<br /><br />Note pinkish area where the singpho people are found. Manipur, the region whose tea is being sold by ketlee, is in between the population centers
https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/18111/IN

Note pinkish area where the singpho people are found. Manipur, the region whose tea is being sold by ketlee, is in between the population centers
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Excerpt from the book tea war by Andrew liu
Excerpt from the book tea war by Andrew liu
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Last edited by LeoFox on Sun Aug 14, 2022 4:51 am, edited 2 times in total.
John_B
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Tue Feb 08, 2022 2:45 am

I might add something for having tried a number of their teas, a sample set. The oolongs were particularly interesting, along with that sheng being novel:

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.co ... long.html

Indian oolong never really seems like oolong to me, but I don't get too hung up on another mid-oxidation level style reminding me of rolled oolong, Wuyi Yancha, or Dan Cong, or else not seeming like those.

The only trade-off related to Ketlee's teas is that for sourcing very rare, novel, under development versions you end up paying more than Indian teas typically ever cost. Those are all on the order of 50 cents a gram, or maybe only 30-some for some, and you could buy really good Indian or Nepalese tea for $100 per kilogram, or less, if you figure out other kinds of sources. Budget issues are different for different people though, and for some an extra $70 or $80 order is not a concern at all, while for some people they don't get to place that many of those in a year.

Supporting vendors who develop new types and sources of tea is kind of an important thing though, not the same as an established online vendor bumping prices because story lines will support it. Real extra cost couples with having local producers change sourcing and processing styles.

A second vendor doing this kind of thing comes to mind, sourcing interesting Indian teas from small producers, so I may as well mention that here too: https://www.tealeaftheory.com/
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Baisao
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Wed Feb 23, 2022 4:24 pm

After the Jun Chiyabari Shiba impressed me so much in 2021 I decided to try some of Ketlee's teas.

I've tried two of their oolongs so far: "Arunachal Handrolled Oolong" and "2021 Charcoal Roasted Wild Oolong".

Both were interesting in that they felt clean and had unique woody and earthy fragrances. The tasting notes for the 2021 oolong was spot on whereas the notes for the Arunachal were not at all accurate.

I suspect that the Arunachal may have have aged out of the stated aromas:
"The dry leaf smells fruity and floral and has notes of yellow flowers, sweet lime and lemon candy. When placed on the heated ware, the floral notes come to life along with a subtle lemongrass note. The liquor aroma is sweet with a nectar like floral sweetness oozing out of it."


Nope! Woody, musky, smoky, meh.

Ketlee is apparently new to oolongs and what I tried is not a bad effort. However, I'll give them time to increase their skills before trying their oolongs again.

I did appreciate how clean the teas felt.

I have some greens from them still to try. I'll post again should they impress me.
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Baisao
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Sat Feb 26, 2022 10:49 pm

I am trying Ketlee’s “2022 Winter Frost Green” and it’s finally a tea that impresses.

3g/120ml at 185° and it is silky smooth. I’m getting coconut milk, jasmine, and dulce de leche candies (probably the marzipan they refer to). I don’t detect rose, which is listed in the tasting notes. It’s delightfully sweet. There is a minty-nutty flavor to it that I am unfamiliar with.

It feels stimulating to me and is producing a sweat on my brow.

I’d say this is a first rate green!
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debunix
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Fri Dec 02, 2022 3:26 pm

Lots of interesting information and links here… Will have to reserve some time on the weekend to explore in more detail. I love the sound of that green tea!

I remember with great fondness (and sadness), some really marvelous teas that were sourced by Norbu from Nantou in Taiwan in about 2012, that were described as processed with varying combinations of stages, typical of white, oolong, and green teas, and they were just terrific. And there were some thing described as a yellow tea from somewhere in India that was one of the last new products he carried before he switched over to wholesale business. That was really delicious. So I’m definitely open to new styles of tea that combine aspects that I already love.
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