Tea-Masters

[teataiwanlover]

Shine Magical orders from TeaMasters frequently and has posted often about teas he’s tried. In fact, just checking here there are 150 posts about Tea-Masters here on the forum

I feel confident at least 130 of those posts were made by me.

I am a loyal customer of TeaMastersBlog and for good reason.

[dayulingteaa]

Shine Magical orders from TeaMasters frequently and has posted often about teas he’s tried. In fact, just checking here there are 150 posts about Tea-Masters here on the forum

I feel confident at least 130 of those posts were made by me.

I am a loyal customer of TeaMastersBlog and for good reason.

me too !!!!!

[Sweetestdew]

I bought his tea once and then met him and Tea Parkerr once.
Neither were favorable expirences but I know I am the odd minority so I will just leave it at that.

[Bok]

I bought his tea once and then met him and Tea Parkerr once.
Neither were favorable expirences but I know I am the odd minority so I will just leave it at that.

I know what you mean... you are not alone

[StoneLadle]

When I first stumbled upon the YouTube channel I thought I took brown acid by accident...

[Bok]

When I first stumbled upon the YouTube channel I thought I took brown acid by accident...

Funnily you can also identify a lot of his – and by extension, teaparkers – followers by the way they talk about tea...

[Baisao]

Awesome, so no question of the quality or legitimacy ...but prices are higher with certain teas...but that might indicate better quality even between 2 exact teas based on storage etc.....

Sounds legit I’ll grab a few samples.

Thanks!

I don’t think there’s any question about the authenticity of his teas. I’ve had wonderful green oolongs from him in the past.

The pricing of some of his aged oolongs are laughably outrageous. He’s selling an oolong from 1980 for $27/gram. Another oolong from 1998 is $1.5/gram. I also think that is way overpriced.

I seem to remember there being more of these old, overpriced oolongs on the site last year. Perhaps Teaparker asked for them back.

When I can’t get a line on Taiwanese Bi Luo Chun I’ll order from Stephane. Same for Baozhong. I mostly drink darker oolongs but I personally like these two styles a lot.

He seems to have an unfavorable personal reputation (nothing unethical afaik) from multiple people I am friends with who have spent time with him. On the other hand his business has a generally favorable reputation.

[Bok]

Second that, persona and business are two be looked at separately in this case.

On that note I recently browsed through a few of Teaparkers books in a shop, they are all quite badly produced, printing, paper and atrocious pictures, look like they are self-published(which is maybe the case). I was curious and asked a few tea friends about him, many had heard of him, but everyone was quite puzzled how he’s so well-known among foreigners, as in Taiwan he does not seem to enjoy any notable distinction as a “tea master” – whatever that is in the first place…

[StoneLadle]

... does teaparker have youtube also?

[LeoFox]

Many of his blog articles describing his obsessive searches are pretty entertaining. His level of obsession reminds me a little of Hojo.

[StoneLadle]

Many of his blog articles describing his obsessive searches are pretty entertaining. His level of obsession reminds me a little of Hojo.

Makes me feel like watching bad docos on bad tea... I mean you don't see me and friends wearing berets and sailor shirts extolling Bordeaux...

[LeoFox]

One of Teamaster's earliest blog posts, piqued my interest:

http://teamasters.blogspot.com/2004/06/ ... l.html?m=0

This 2004 post mentions a Taiwanese potter, "Master Gu, Chuan Ze":

"making of clay for his pots. Instead of relying on the purple clay of Yixing , or the classic dark red clay, he will grind anything from dry tea leaves or stones to add to his clay"

Unfortunately the link on the blog post is dead so i contacted Stephane. This is his response:

Hi Leo,

Thanks a lot for your interest for my blog and reading it so far into the past. 

From what I know this person is still active and making teapots and bowls. However, being so famous for such a long time, his wares are particularly expensive, much more than the Yixing teapots I have in my selection! 

But I don't know what channels he's using to sell his wares. Sorry.

Best,


Stephane Erler

I was wondering if anyone here ( maybe @Bok) has heard of this potter before.

As an aside, I would have posted this in a Taiwanese teaware thread if we had one. I am not sure if this is the right place for this post.

[Baisao]

As an aside, I would have posted this in a Taiwanese teaware thread if we had one. I am not sure if this is the right place for this post.

There deserves to be one. I think Taiwanese pottery is hugely underrated and so much more than the ubiquitous teapots with driftwood handles. There’s a dearth of information about their teapots but the craftsmanship/dollar ratio is far better than Yixing.

[Bok]

@LeoFox I’ve never heard of this guy but Chinese characters would make it clearer who he is.

A lot of the more famous guys started mainly selling to China and this raising their prices to levels where they became uninteresting for the Taiwanese market. At the moment they’re all complaining that they don’t sell as they used to: the Chinese now caught up with them and have their own fair share of wooden fired and more wabi sabi kind of pottery... golden era for Taiwanese pottery has come to an end I think, unless they find a new direction to develop. But that’s just my observation, I might be wrong.

[.m.]

@LeoFox @Bok
Maybe: 古川子老師 gǔchuān zi lǎoshī
https://web.archive.org/web/20040831092 ... r_list.php