I've been fortunate enough to have had some teas that were just out of this world insane. Teas that were so good, or so moving, they changed my life at the time. For a couple of them, I might have even cried a little. I know that sounds batshit crazy but I'm going to tell it like it is, because when I'm on my deathbed, I'm not going to remember the TDS count of the water I used to compete at Tea Masters Cup, or the cultivar of whatever Darjeeling I sourced for a client one year, as much as I love that side of tea... I'll remember these moving as f*ck teas, though, because of the way they made me feel. Just to name a few: 2008: White Ayurvedic Chai from my sister in a pretty Teavana tin.2010: Some nameless souvenir oolong from Taiwan, from one of my dad's friends at work.2015: Da Yu Ling oolong from my tea family at jhentea.2016: 1970s Baozhong from Eric Glass, originally from Shiuwen at Floating Leaves Tea.2019: 2012 Wild Mountain White from …
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Feeling all Frankenstein in a matcha bowl
There's nothing like a good ol' fashioned bowl of legit matcha, whisked with a chasen with hot water, until it's so rich and creamy that it makes you see stars on the first sip. Matcha like that is my jam. Sometimes I get bored enough to ruin a good thing though, since I just whisked up the rest of this tin of Uji matcha with oolong tea as a base instead of water. - Back in March, I first tried whisking matcha with jasmine green tea pearls, really just as a joke. I brewed the tea in a gaiwan, then used that to prepare the matcha in lieu of hot water. It turned out so shockingly delicious that it's since spun off many more trials of gutsy matcha-and-tea combinations, in pursuit of something just as good, using lots of perfectly good (and expensive!) matcha. To much less success. - So far, I've tried this matcha + tea base experiment with: Jasmine green tea.Silver Needle white tea.Milk oolong.Baozhong oolong.Muzha Iron Goddess …
But wait, what about sencha?
Last week, we discussed a little something about green tea and boiling water. In a nutshell, I believe that truly good green teas can handle -- and even thrive -- with the hottest temperatures possible. But what about sencha? Of all the green tea types out there, Japanese greens, like sencha and gyokuro, are known for being particularly sensitive. Compared to Chinese and South Asian greens, Japanese greens have soft, delicate leaves that tend to brew much faster in hot water. This is because of the shape of their leaves (small and thin, more surface area for extraction) and their processing (steamed, rather than pan-fired). Also, Japanese green teas often contain higher amounts of catechins. (Here's a study on that.) Catechins are supposed to be healthy for us, but when overextracted, they can make tea taste bitter. All of this contributes to the kind of scary reputation that Japanese greens have for being super finicky and …
Your green tea is not a baby
I believe that any green tea worth its salt should be able to take boiling water. If it can't, then it's objectively not a great tea. I'm a little nervous sending this out because to be fair, the more common problem is that people use water that's too hot for their green tea. But that's because most green teas on the market are just not that well made. That's OK. Most green teas require a little babying. But it's also a misconception that green tea, as a category, inherently requires cooler water. In my experience, a truly good green tea should be able to take boiling temperatures just as well as any oolong or black tea, often even better. Here's why. Basically, boiling water exposes processing flaws in tea. That's why we often use boiling water to brew teas for formal evaluation in the tea industry. The better the tea, the better it performs under the most extreme brewing conditions. No flaws = no reason to become bitter or …
Like putting an intern in charge of a Michelin Star restaurant
Teamaster Rie here checking in. Just kidding. (Give me another 2 lifetimes or so...) This weekend, I got to do one of the most exciting things so far in my tea journey: make tea completely on my own, from start to finish. Here's what happened: My tea family let me pick a batch from their old, 100-year-old tea garden, then let me take the leaves to Taipei to process them myself. No guidance, no oversight. Just me calling the shots. It's the tea equivalent of putting an intern in charge of a Michelin Star restaurant. - As much as I'm around the tea farms, it's not every day that I get to handle raw tea leaves. For people like us, making tea may seem romantic and fun, but for tea producers it's all business. It costs a TON of money to grow, maintain, harvest, and then process tea. We're talking $10k - $100k+ USD sometimes for a single day's harvest, after you factor in farm work, tea pickers, factory workers, etc. And a single decision can make …
Being wrong all the time
Here's one big lesson that my collection of tea books never prepared me for: I'm constantly wrong about tea. (And I teach tea for a living!) I like having my facts straight, and I like getting things right. So when I got into tea, I studied it pretty obsessively. I took notes, looked up brewing techniques, and made sure I could name at least 20 cultivars of Wuyi oolong, cause I liked those. But the truth is, tea is one of those things that's never absolute. No matter how much we study, research, and memorize, there's always a "well, actually..." tagged onto the end. There's always someone who knows a little more. They can name 50 or even 100 Wuyi cultivars AND the years they were established. Even the experts get things wrong all the time. And you know what? That's OK. At the end of the day, tea isn't about memorizing facts. It's about using them -- and questioning them, if need be -- to brew better tea. Being right all the time is boring. Sometimes, …
Tea & travel conditions
Tea is not static. It's a living, breathing entity that reacts to changes in its environment. And just like people, tea reacts when it travels. Case in point: when I came to Taiwan this summer, I brought my favorite white tea with me, a 2012 Fujian wild white. It's pressed into a cake (like a pu'erh), and has a fermented flavor, so it's probably microbially active. More on that later. After traveling from bone-dry Las Vegas (30% humidity) to muggy, stormy Taipei (75% humidity), this cake is definitely undergoing some interesting changes: Dry leaves feel more moist, almost wetAroma is more potent now, especially the fermented aromaTastes more sweet and smooth, but lost some complexity, especially the high notesSeems to have lost some stamina: I get fewer steeps than usual It didn't take long for these changes to pop up. I noticed these changes within the first few days of arriving in Taipei. I brought other teas to Taipei too, but this tea …
Sometimes, I can be selfish about tea
Sometimes, I’m afraid to share my absolute favorite teas with other people. There are a couple reasons why: 1) I’m afraid that the tea will fall through for some reason. I’ll talk up a special new tea for weeks, then when I finally get to brew it for friends, it’s… Disappointing. Maybe it’s the water or the teaware I chose. Maybe I messed up the brewing. Either way, my friends don't love it like I do, and I feel a little crushed. (It’s natural for us to want other people to like what we like, I guess.) 2) I'm worried that the other person won't "get it". Too often, the thought crosses my mind that it’d be a waste to brew this awesome tea for a stranger who might not understand what I'm trying to share with them. This is especially true when the tea is particularly expensive, or if I have just a little left. More often than not, I find myself hiding away the good stuff out of fear or a little selfishness. Of course, there's a …
New Ways To Understand Tea & Health [2019 Edition]
Tea has a mighty reputation as a healthy drink, but is there science to back up those claims? In this article, learn about the latest research on tea and health, including some new ways to understand how tea affects the body, as presented at the 2019 UC Davis Global Tea Initiative. As far as drinks go, tea is always seen as the healthy option. If you're a tea drinker, you've probably had family members ask what teas to drink to solve this problem and that. They've seen all the miraculous teas on the market. Weight loss teas. "Detox" teas. Lose-20-lbs-and-also-cure-cancer teas. Tea's been put on a pedestal for all sorts of curative properties, but what research do we have to back those claims? While tea isn't the magical cure-all that the market wants it to be, science is definitely finding links between tea and better health. So far, we've found that L-theanine, an amino acid found only in tea, is linked with better mental performance, while …
Silver Needle: A Guide to China’s Most Iconic White Tea
Silver Needle is a classic white tea from China, but also one of its most misunderstood teas. In this article, get to know Silver Needle and learn how to identify and brew it with confidence. Silver Needle Common Names: Silver Needle, Bai Hao Yin Zhen, 白毫銀針 Profile: Crisp, energizing character with fruity, floral and sun-dried hay notes Region: China (Fujian Province; Yunnan Province) - Silver Needle is one of those teas that you can really fall in love with on first sight. It's a gorgeous tea, with beautiful, downy white buds that sparkle a little in the light, and in the early days of my tea journey I was infatuated with it. In tea terms (and real life terms, too) I was young, dumb, and easily impressed, so when I saw my first Silver Needle at a Teavana I was doomed. It came with a hefty price tag and a backstory that involved emperors, monks, and secluded mountain monasteries in China, and the salesfolks did me in good. It seemed too cool, too rare to pass …
