Morning Crane Tea

Vendor news and self-promotion
teasleuth
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Sun Feb 19, 2023 4:37 am

Hi all, This is Eric representing Morning Crane Tea. We are a service that makes Korean tea available to purchase once a year in a group preorder called TeaBuy Korea .
We are often misunderstood and mistaken for a tea shop. We are far from that. We are a not-for-profit (not officially... yet) tea service.
We also plan guided tours for tea and teaware in Korea.

https://morningcranetea.org/
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LeoFox
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Sun Feb 19, 2023 5:55 am

Linking to thread with ongoing morning crane discussion

viewtopic.php?f=78&t=2392
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pedant
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Sun Feb 19, 2023 1:15 pm

hey, welcome to the site!
PamelaOry
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Sun Feb 19, 2023 5:16 pm

Hello!

I am very curious about your program and intrigued. I placed a sample order for a recommended tea and am looking forward to trying it.

Thank you for your work making it available for me to try.
teasleuth
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Mon Feb 20, 2023 6:12 am

Basically it's 3 people, Arthur Park, Minhyeong Lee, and Me (Eric Glass) who have joined together (not at once) to share our love of Korean tea. The vast majority of handpicked, organic, and often wild/"semi wild" tea is very hard to find. Especially when the tea artisans (I call them tea masters) usually make them and sell them themselves with no offer to wholesale.

So how do people taste them? Either go to Korea and drive allllll around the south, or come to us!

We are doing this for love and it's a passion project. We try to only cover our cost because we are only wanting to spread the love of Korea. We all have other jobs, Arthur is a retired pottery professor who is very devoted to community service and helping out in Detroit.

So we somehow find time in our lives to set this up, but we do it because if we don't, who will and no one will be able to aste these! Well, may e and hopefully more places will cary a d sell such quality Korean teas. But a big issue is most of the tea masters won't wholesale.

Well, that's a small but lengthy blurb about us.

During our tea tour of Korea in May, i hope to shoot some ig stories and videos for youtube... We'll see. Haha
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LeoFox
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Mon Feb 20, 2023 3:21 pm

Regarding the "1000 year old" Millennium tree of dosim dawan as described on the website and quoted below - do you have any pictures of the tree? Also, which of his teas that you offer are processed from this material? Also, if not processed from that ancient tree (i am assuming this is the case), how old are the bushes that were used for the teas offered? Thank you!
When tea connoisseurs talk about tea one of the first thing they discuss is the source of the leaf. Dosim Dawan sources from some of the oldest most deep-rooted tea bushes in Korea. They own the 1000-year-old millennium tea ‘tree’. Korean tea connoisseurs believe these older bushes provide the most tender and flavorful leaves and their deep roots encourage the development of the most cha-qi. I receive emails praising their balhyochas but don’t ignore their really wonderful green teas that have also received great reviews. Dosim Dawan is a tea tour favorite stop.
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LeoFox
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Mon Feb 20, 2023 3:29 pm

Regarding green teas - how common is pan fried versus steamed versus "boiled" teas?

Also, based on recommendations on blog, it seems relatively low temperature for brewing is recommended (60C) - which is lower than the standard recommendation for conventional Japanese sencha (70-80C) - and much lower than that for Chinese green tea (80-100C). Can you comment on the rationale for 60C?
teasleuth
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Mon Feb 20, 2023 4:53 pm

Hi!

So, that ancient tea tree. Tbh, I'll have to ask Minhyeong Lee, i believe he would know.

I can also ask Minhyeong the age of the bushes

Niw, those are "traditional" steeping measures.

My personally? I use boiling, or 90c min, for all my teas. The master, Kim Jeong Yeol, suggests always use boiling even with his green teas. And believe me, they can take it!

Most greens are done on a pan. Steaming pretty uncommon (at least in the mainland) I am not knowledgeable of tea from jeju.

And plunging tea is very rare. Park Jeom Ja makes her green tea this way. Her sejak is one of my favorites!

Also, the bigger the producer, the more likly to be using steam...

OH, so about the age of bushes... I more enjoy the fact that many are grown from seed, not clippings.

I'll ask Minhyeong and Arthur about the old tree and the age of their bushes.

I hope this cleared a few things up.
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LeoFox
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Mon Feb 20, 2023 5:12 pm

teasleuth wrote:
Mon Feb 20, 2023 4:53 pm
Hi!

So, that ancient tea tree. Tbh, I'll have to ask Minhyeong Lee, i believe he would know.

I can also ask Minhyeong the age of the bushes

Niw, those are "traditional" steeping measures.

My personally? I use boiling, or 90c min, for all my teas. The master, Kim Jeong Yeol, suggests always use boiling even with his green teas. And believe me, they can take it!

Most greens are done on a pan. Steaming pretty uncommon (at least in the mainland) I am not knowledgeable of tea from jeju.

And plunging tea is very rare. Park Jeom Ja makes her green tea this way. Her sejak is one of my favorites!

Also, the bigger the producer, the more likly to be using steam...

OH, so about the age of bushes... I more enjoy the fact that many are grown from seed, not clippings.

I'll ask Minhyeong and Arthur about the old tree and the age of their bushes.

I hope this cleared a few things up.
Thanks this is very helpful!
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pedant
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Mon Feb 20, 2023 5:30 pm

as another tea-related 'unofficial nonprofit' (and will probably never bother filing), i have to say i dig your style.

thanks for making these teas available 8-)
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LeoFox
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Mon Feb 20, 2023 7:11 pm

@teasleuth

Reading through the blog, Arthur hints at offering Korean teaware as well. Are there plans for this in the future? Also, am curious about the teaware used by Korean tea connoisseurs in Korea:

Do they tend to stick to Korean teaware?
What are their thoughts of using Japanese teaware? (Maybe a hard no given history?)
Do they like using yixing pots?
How common is use of gaiwan?

Thanks!

Sorry for so many questions. Am pretty curious about Korean tea culture.
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debunix
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Tue Feb 21, 2023 9:19 pm

Glad to see this topic! It saves me a lot of repetition. I was worried about how long this sharing for fun and not for profit venture would be going to the last time I ordered, so I will not be participating in TeaBuy Korea 2023 only because I still have tea from previous Tea Buy offerings.
teasleuth
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Tue Feb 21, 2023 10:12 pm

@LeoFox
I will have to ask Arthur whether or not he will sell teaware. I think there are a few issue keeping ME from doing it, and keeping me from selling any nice teaware... Capital. We have to buy the ware before we sell. I myself do not have the spare money to put forward for this.

However, when I go to Korea this May, I might look into doing this.

@LeoFox, what type of teared would you, and others be interested in seeing? And price range. This would help me a great deal... But i can't say I can do this for sure.
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debunix
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Sun Mar 05, 2023 10:32 pm

At yesterday's LA group tea tasting, we enjoyed a first session with Nokcha Goryeo SM Dancha "A" made by Shin Mog that I bought through TeaBuyKorea 2021.
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The tuo is highly compressed, but did not require the ratcheting scissors needed for some ultra-compressed puerh bricks.
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This one was fine with water just at a boil or a bit below, and despite sitting sealed in its bag for almost 2 years before I opened it up, the tea tasted very fresh, herbaceous, sweet, a little floral--a spring wildflower meadow with the flowers just starting to open. It reminded me very much of a young sheng puerh, but gentler, missing the bitterness that forces very short infusions as I usually brew those teas. The liquor was golden, but I forgot to take a picture of it. My overall impression Is that this is a remarkable tea, and it was clear that the leaves still had a lot to give when we stopped after 4 infusions to make time for another tea.

I'm now working on another set of infusions, and it held up well to some strongly spicy soup I'm having for dinner. I'm preparing more dilute infusions now--a similar 110-120 mL pot but only 2 grams of leaf--and after 4 infusions, it's still delicious, but I'm not sure how many more it can give. It will be nice to see how long it keeps going....since there probably is very little caffeine left in the leaves, I'll keep this one going until bedtime or the leaves give up.
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pedant
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Fri Mar 24, 2023 3:33 am

hi @teasleuth, quick question:

i am looking at your dancha by Sin Mog.

i see there are the Green (SM Nok Goryeo Dancha) and Balhyocha (SM Balhyo Goryeo Dancha) and versions of it.

are these the teas formerly referred to as SM Dancha A and SM Dancha B? thanks
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