Black tea, or hongcha (lit. red tea) as it is known to the Chinese-speaking world, never quite hit the bigtime in its own homeland. That is, of course, until the meticulously-made and exorbitantly-priced Jin Jun Mei black tea showed up. Seven Cups wrote about Jin Jun Mei and the ripples it sent through the Chinese… // MORE
An old tea plant turns over a colorful new leaf Though “purple tea” is sometimes marketed as a whole new type of tea in the vein of black or green tea, this name actually refers to the cultivar of tea plant used to make it. There are many purple tea cultivars out there, even just… // MORE
Drought hits Yunnan hard! Puer tea, a 21st century phenomenon, is going to take a big hit in 2019. Climate change has had a direct impact on the quantity and quality of puer tea. 2019 has been especially bad. On May 10, 2019 the Yunnan Meteorological Observatory gave an orange level warning for drought in… // MORE
