I'm still starting most days with sencha, lately working through some individual serving packets of Obubu teas from various harvests. Always a nice start to the day. But I'm back at work after some time off and I've got different teas handier here than the Imperial Pearl oolong from Mountain Tea and variations on Alishan oolongs mostly from Floating Leaves tea.
I filled a thermos to share some Hui Run of Bulang shu puerh (2011 version from Yunnan Sourcing) on Tuesday, a lovely reminder of how unfussy and forgiving this is, and the office tea crowd were very happy to have me my tea back!
And some Wuyi Origin blended Da Hong Pao from 2020 has been just lovely on overcast chilly mornings.
I also opened up some Hong Man Soo Jeda Balhyocha today, so fruity and delightful, obtained via the Morning Crane Tea Buy Korea program a couple of years ago.
It's good to be back sharing more teas again!
Your day in tea
Morning 5 AM
Darjeeling Rohini Clonal Musk SF
Not bad
A little of muscatel but i see big problem to find real "muscatel" Darjeeling SF 
Teaware: tea set from Czech ceramist Mr. Petr Procházka
Darjeeling Rohini Clonal Musk SF
Not bad
A little of muscatel but i see big problem to find real "muscatel" Darjeeling SF Teaware: tea set from Czech ceramist Mr. Petr Procházka
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First tea of the day was the 2003 "Serious Formula". Second session with a newly acquired cake, been three years (I thought two until I checked, boy has time flown by) since I finished my last. Same old familiar Henry, glad to see the storage isn't off. Brewed it in tin today, perhaps the most surprising discovery I've made over the last few months is that my tin pot works excellent for mid-aged Sheng. I wouldn't have guessed, as I typically reach for some sort of zini for these
Second tea of the day was the 2006 BSX QLC. Going through a bit of a QLC-spree (drinking and updating myself on) these (holi)days, the gaiwan ain't a vessel I'll typically reach for here (especially for the stuff with some age) but this is large enough for heat retention not to be a big limiting factor.
Second tea of the day was the 2006 BSX QLC. Going through a bit of a QLC-spree (drinking and updating myself on) these (holi)days, the gaiwan ain't a vessel I'll typically reach for here (especially for the stuff with some age) but this is large enough for heat retention not to be a big limiting factor.
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Enjoying the quiet that snow brings with a rich aromatic Baozhong from Floating Leaves. I’ve been on the Chesapeake Bay for a few months now and running out of tea, so instead of ordering directly from HY Chen in Taiwan and Thunderbolt in Darjeeling, I decided to order stateside to expedite shipping. So far Floating Leaves 333 Shan Li Xi and Competition Baozhong are both very good, I would order again. For Darjeeling and Silver Tips I ordered, for the first time, from Uptown Tea out of Massachusetts. I’ve tried their Jungpana Estate 2024 2nd flush White Darjeeling and China White Jasmine Silver Needles both are good, very drinkable, but not AAA in the way Thunderbolt always delivers. I ordered from Upton because they had a larger range of White 1st/2nd flush teas, or it seems more so than other US based vendors.
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Family issues brought me to Missouri last week during their very very cold snap...so I was really enjoying fresh hot tea while snug indoors i'm looking out at the fluffy fluffy snow that was so well preserved with temperatures in the single digits and below zero...
5 AM and Phoenix Dan Cong Mi Lan Xiang
Teaware: chamotte clay pot, Huaning pottery pitcher and cup
Teaware: chamotte clay pot, Huaning pottery pitcher and cup
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Some older RouGui in an older HongNi in an older japanese bowl (glazed with copper and iron pigment)… on a cloudy morning. Strong spiciness fills the air.
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It's been warm enough in Los Angeles for chilled sparkling tea to be back on the menu. Lately I'm putting a little tea in a flask, covering with boiling water, letting that sit covered for a while; then taking a bottle of chilled water from the fridge, carbonating it, and pouring the chilled water into the flask. A few minutes for a bit more steeping and gentle rocking to make sure all is blended, then tea delight...
Now enjoying Mountain Tea's Imperial Pearl as sparkling tea. Not sure what should be up next.
Started the day with organic kabusecha from O-Cha, vegetal and lovely sencha.
Now enjoying Mountain Tea's Imperial Pearl as sparkling tea. Not sure what should be up next.
Started the day with organic kabusecha from O-Cha, vegetal and lovely sencha.
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 my tea routine after moving places, and a bit of being busy with work. I also need to order some more yancha to drink now, instead of ones I'd like to age for a little while to see what happens. It feels like I've 'run out', despite having lots of the stuff lying around...
Andrew
It's been a while since my last post, mostly due to a combination of re-adjusting my tea routine after moving places, and a bit of being busy with work. I also need to order some more yancha to drink now, instead of ones I'd like to age for a little while to see what happens. It feels like I've 'run out', despite having lots of the stuff lying around...
Andrew
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even when the weather turns gray and chilly, and smoky and earthy and toasty who wears and deep roasted oolongs suddenly come to the fore, morning still start with Japanese greens (this morning, some Tsuen Aoi sencha from O-Cha).
I have been enjoying, but not sharing , some BaoZhong from Mountain tea that I ordered in August, right before the tariff madness kicked in. I think I may have ordered BaoZhong from them before, but this time I am really noticing how gorgeous it is, rich, sweet, mellow, like a late summer field of wildflowers and drying grasses, and there's impression last swell through multiple infusions and through the abuse of being infused in a thermos and held for several hours (a quality that I prize because of work conditions).
And now I need to go back and take an inventory of my teas in the chest and consider whether need to order some more of this wonderful stuff, even with tariff madness. And definitely, when tariff madness ends, I will make another order for it, even if I am not already needing some of their Imperial pearl (my hot weather favorite for sparkling tea).
Today's deeper and darker tea Choices still gonna have a little bit of brightness, some Nilgiri Jasmine black tea from Ketlee, which I'm going to prepare in the thermos for this morning's shared Tea for for work. Fingers crossed I get it right and it doesn't overbrew to bitterness.
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And now I need to go back and take an inventory of my teas in the chest and consider whether need to order some more of this wonderful stuff, even with tariff madness. And definitely, when tariff madness ends, I will make another order for it, even if I am not already needing some of their Imperial pearl (my hot weather favorite for sparkling tea).
Today's deeper and darker tea Choices still gonna have a little bit of brightness, some Nilgiri Jasmine black tea from Ketlee, which I'm going to prepare in the thermos for this morning's shared Tea for for work. Fingers crossed I get it right and it doesn't overbrew to bitterness.
Not exactly a single ‘day’ in tea, but rather a few days in and around tea after I took a little last-minute trip to Hong Kong and Taiwan (almost entirely in Taipei) over the Christmas and new year period.
I actually had no expectation of spending any time drinking or hunting for tea in either destination – I thought I’d be spending all of my time gorging on food (and I just wanted to be somewhere other than hot and humid Sydney before work got busy again in the new year). However, I actually managed to surprise myself and had fun trying and buying a bit of tea (especially in Taiwan).
As to Hong Kong, there would have been practically nothing for me to say about tea in Hong Kong had it not been for a visit to SunSing, where I took them up on their offer to have a tea session in their store. You get 2 hours of brewing time, and you can either choose from some basic teas options (from the lower end of the pricing scale that gets you some generic tea varieties, up to the pricier end that lets you try, eg, some 1990s loose leaf puer or 2001 FuHai), or you can pick one of their cakes and spend 1/30 of its retail value for a tea session. I chose the latter with a very good 1990s tea – a very nice and relaxing experience.
Now, SunSing prices are very far from being cheap or affordable, but I actually think that paying 1/30 of their retail price to have a two-hour session with a genuine and well-stored old tea is better value as a special treat for puer lovers than, say, paying a 2-3x markup on some easily-obtainable bottle of wine in a restaurant. It was a quiet period, so I also had the good fortune of speaking with the staff, and I’ll try to share what I learnt in due course. I also walked into some other tea shops in Bonham Strand towards the end of my trip, but didn’t end up spending any real time there, and I ran out of time to visit Yee On.
As to Taiwan, unsurprisingly, I didn’t manage to find any hidden treasure troves of cheap yet amazing old tea (or ‘candy stores’, as MarshalN called them on his blog almost twenty years ago), but there were still a few places where I was able to sit down, try some teas, and ‘speak’ to the owners or shopkeepers (through the medium of translations on my phone or theirs).
There are obviously some basic tea shops that aren’t worth visiting (or are worth leaving once you get their feel), and there are some places that only do specific things (like fresh baozhong, or wholesale), but walking around and trying to strike up some tea-related conversations was surprisingly fun and rewarding, even for someone with no Chinese language knowledge like me (as well as someone like me who is not the most sociable or outgoing). Walking around aimlessly in Taiwan was far more enjoyable and rewarding than in Hong Kong, even more than I had expected.
Anyway, a fun and rewarding little trip which did more than just give me a break from work, and actually reminded me why I like tea so much. Maybe some of my recent Taiwanese acquisitions will show up in my next posts around here…
(oh, and, no, I didn’t look for any old teapots – I wasn’t brave or foolhardy enough)
Andrew
I actually had no expectation of spending any time drinking or hunting for tea in either destination – I thought I’d be spending all of my time gorging on food (and I just wanted to be somewhere other than hot and humid Sydney before work got busy again in the new year). However, I actually managed to surprise myself and had fun trying and buying a bit of tea (especially in Taiwan).
As to Hong Kong, there would have been practically nothing for me to say about tea in Hong Kong had it not been for a visit to SunSing, where I took them up on their offer to have a tea session in their store. You get 2 hours of brewing time, and you can either choose from some basic teas options (from the lower end of the pricing scale that gets you some generic tea varieties, up to the pricier end that lets you try, eg, some 1990s loose leaf puer or 2001 FuHai), or you can pick one of their cakes and spend 1/30 of its retail value for a tea session. I chose the latter with a very good 1990s tea – a very nice and relaxing experience.
Now, SunSing prices are very far from being cheap or affordable, but I actually think that paying 1/30 of their retail price to have a two-hour session with a genuine and well-stored old tea is better value as a special treat for puer lovers than, say, paying a 2-3x markup on some easily-obtainable bottle of wine in a restaurant. It was a quiet period, so I also had the good fortune of speaking with the staff, and I’ll try to share what I learnt in due course. I also walked into some other tea shops in Bonham Strand towards the end of my trip, but didn’t end up spending any real time there, and I ran out of time to visit Yee On.
As to Taiwan, unsurprisingly, I didn’t manage to find any hidden treasure troves of cheap yet amazing old tea (or ‘candy stores’, as MarshalN called them on his blog almost twenty years ago), but there were still a few places where I was able to sit down, try some teas, and ‘speak’ to the owners or shopkeepers (through the medium of translations on my phone or theirs).
There are obviously some basic tea shops that aren’t worth visiting (or are worth leaving once you get their feel), and there are some places that only do specific things (like fresh baozhong, or wholesale), but walking around and trying to strike up some tea-related conversations was surprisingly fun and rewarding, even for someone with no Chinese language knowledge like me (as well as someone like me who is not the most sociable or outgoing). Walking around aimlessly in Taiwan was far more enjoyable and rewarding than in Hong Kong, even more than I had expected.
Anyway, a fun and rewarding little trip which did more than just give me a break from work, and actually reminded me why I like tea so much. Maybe some of my recent Taiwanese acquisitions will show up in my next posts around here…
(oh, and, no, I didn’t look for any old teapots – I wasn’t brave or foolhardy enough)
Andrew