What’s in This Video In this video, we cover how to brew your tea in different types of teaware and we review which vessels are ideal selections for various categories of tea. We cover conventional types of teaware that are often used: Porcelain Pot Glass Pot Glass Cup We also cover the use of gaiwans… // MORE
Identifying Whether Your Scented Tea is the Real Thing or Not The most popular scented teas are those scented with jasmine (although we also carry a tea scented with orchid flowers). Teas can be scented through a natural means where the tea is scented for an extended period of time over multiple scentings or they… // MORE
In this video, we demonstrate the use of a gaiwan for brewing tea. We’ve chosen the category of yellow tea for our brewing–in particular, Meng Ding Huang Ya (Yellow Buds). This gives us an opportunity to discuss one of the rarest categories of tea that exist. Skip ahead to 5:40 if you prefer to observe… // MORE
In an article from The Hindu, a national publication, by Sushanta Talukdar, failure to provide safe drinking water to garden laborers is being cited as a serious health issue according to the Health Minister. The complaint is being leveled against tea gardens in upper Assam’s Jorhat and Golaghat districts who had ignored demands to correct the problem… // MORE
Many of you have heard about Lu Yu, the man that wrote the Cha Jing, the first book about tea, written during the Tang Dynasty. Some of you may know that he wrote the book while managing the emperor’s tribute tea factory, which was located near the city of Changqing in China’s Zhejiang province. It… // MORE
I know some of you are aware of the volatility in the puer market, and I would just like to share with you my experiences on my last trip to China. I spend a lot of time in China and also a lot of time in Yunnan. As I travel around the tea producing provinces… // MORE
Lawmakers, tea farmers and activists called for a suspension of tea imports from Vietnam, after the Department of Health discovered residue of a banned pesticide in Vietnamese leaf tea imports earlier this month (see article here). The department found more than 0.09ppm of dicofol, a pesticide prohibited from use on tea plants, in 21,000kg of… // MORE
This slideshow covers general information about the original wulongs from Wuyi Mountain (Wuyi Yan Cha) located in Fujian province in Eastern China. These particular wulongs are known as Rock wulongs. Wuxi mountain is composed of 99 different rock formations, each with their own name and character! Over time, the weathering of these formations have created… // MORE
“Since the beginning of this year, the price of Pu’er has soared, reaching its peak in May at 20 times higher than last year’s price. In terms of returns, Pu’er is a better investment than stocks or gold, isn’t it?” a tea collector in Guangzhou said. “In the first four months of this year, the… // MORE
I visited the quake site on the 19th of June. We saw the tent city sheltering the 5000 people left homeless from the quake. The majority had lived in buildings that had sustained some damage and had been condemned. Some houses were destroyed typically from the roofs collapsing. It was estimated that it would take… // MORE
I am writing this from Hangzhou, and I will be visiting Puer City in about a week and a half, so I will get a better picture of the real impact of the earthquake. I called around Yunnan and the story that I received was less dramatic than the tone of what was reported in… // MORE
This year, not any cake, but the hundred year old Golden Melon Tribute Cake given to the last of the Qing Emperor and certainly the most famous puer cake in China returned to Yunnan on a museum tour. The priceless tea was sampled for the very first time. When we met with Luo Shou Jun,… // MORE
This story is doesn’t mention tea, but it is still meaningful in relationship to Chinese organic tea. We completely believe that future for farmers worldwide is organic farming and a return outside of China to the small highly skilled farmer, growing organic crops. There are many layers of irony here. As Americans, few of us… // MORE
Yes, don’t be fooled. According to China Daily, Long Jing has new self-proclaimed brother. These Longjing teas are close in appearance, processing methodology, and even grow in the same area. Perhaps you should know a little bit more to prevent that from happening, and just what fake means, because this is a very complicated issue.… // MORE
I’m writing from Huangshan in Anhui province and the weather here for the last two days has been great, and tea is being harvested now that the weather has warmed again and the sun has broken through. The high-end tea crop was damaged a little bit by the unseasonably warm weather in February followed by… // MORE
SPRING TEA ARRIVES EARLY! Zhuping has been in China since a couple of days before Chinese New Year and I will be going next week. There has been a very warm winter this year and an early spring. In Sichuan where the first tea of the year is harvested the news is not good for… // MORE
As I browse the talk these days on the internet, the tea that I see discussed more than any other is puer. For a tea that was virtually unknown outside of China five years ago, I think that is pretty remarkable. Actually, prior to 2002, puer was not very well known inside of China either.… // MORE
Every Chinese student tasked at memorization as the key component to education knows how helpful tea is to memory, but this is really important for all of the families struggling to take care of a family member with dementia. This is great news to me personally because I take care of my dad and he… // MORE
I promised to answer a question I received through an email (Sorry it has taken so long) on the blog, because it is an issue of concern to all of us. The person that wrote me had heard a lot about Chinese tea being contaminated with pesticides, lead, and other contaminates, and he wanted my… // MORE
Yes, it has been a slow month for news related to tea. I get a little bit bored after reading thousands of news reports about green tea being good for your health. How long will it be news? This is one article that I just had to mention. It is a press release from the… // MORE
Can We Take the American ‘Tea Industry” Seriously? I’m back from a great trip to China. As usual it is a very inspiring experience for me. China is what tea is all about, and nowhere outside of China is tea being produced that is even in the same league as Chinese tea. Sitting on my… // MORE
Remarks on the Current Climate of Fair Trade & Its Realities Contrary to organizations involved in fair trade who will claim that benefits trickle down, critics have made claims that the money goes in to the pockets of middlemen and retailers. This was recently reported on by Jennifer Alsever of the New York Times in… // MORE
Sometimes you just have to stop in amazement and laugh. For those of you that have been following the continuing saga of the world’s largest tea company, Tata Tea, this little peace of news is going to crack you up, that is of course is you can find humor in misery of plantation workers that… // MORE
In a recent article by the National Science Foundation, another benefit of green tea has been discovered. It actually outperforms current machine compound industry standards. Last Saturday an amazing man came into our tea house, Dr. John Lombardi of Ventana Research here in Tucson, Arizona. Having spent a lot of time being amazed by tea… // MORE
I was deeply saddened to hear that Yao Yue Ming had made his way to Heaven and would no longer be seen in the tea gardens of Wuyi Shan. He was truly one of the great tea masters of the world. He was one of the first to put to work his love of science… // MORE
This is a timely story since we are featuring WuYi Shan oolongs this month. This is from the Herald Tribune/Asahi a national business paper published in Japan. Japan, as a tea producer, is strictly green tea. Chinese tea is the rage in Japan, and pretty expensive. The Japanese tea industry leads the world in tea… // MORE
It is very interesting to me to see an Indian business publication talking about the new success that is coming to China in the way of an ancient business model, the tea house. There is a little bit of irony here since the Indian tea business is in crisis. Last year when I was in… // MORE
“Affluent young professionals spur craze in which vintages are valued like fine wine.” BEIJING — It was a savvy investment for the young Chinese couple — an impressive 900 per cent return in just two years. But instead of cashing in, they plan to drink it.” As you might guess, this is a story about… // MORE
Going through information about tea and health is, at best, murky and confusing. What tea is good for your health and why?There is so much research out there that a full time researcher would be necessary to sort through it all. The FDA recently refused a request to issue a “qualified health claim” to label… // MORE
This was a question that was posted as a comment that I thought deserved to be elevated to a post. Puer is a hot topic and pretty controversial because of the wide variation in price and amounts of money some Chinese and Japanese collectors are willing to pay, mysterious even mystical qualities ascribed to puer… // MORE
