Some people just get tea

She came in with her fiance. A lovely young indian women with hair that flowed past her shoulders. Her boyfriend a slightly bigger man, stepped in like a man unsure of how to act in a new place. I greeted them and told them they could sit where every they like. "Let's sit at the bar." she said confidently and with purpose. She ordered for the both of them, a Phoenix if I do recall, and we began to chat. She told me about how she had met Shunan at a tea show and how Shunan had been joking about all the tea she had drank and how tea drunk she was.

As I began to serve the tea she showed a knowledge of tea. She would tell her boy friend some facts and then turn to me to verify or to ask me a question. "You seem to know about tea" I said pouring out the first brew. "No, no" she said, but then flawlessly explained why we poured out the tea to her boyfriend.
When the first cup was poured she offered me some to share. I accepted and we began to sip tea and chat.

As we talked I tried to get a sense of her tea knowledge. She was obviously very comfortable with tea, but she swore she didn't know that much and she seemed to believe it. While she obviously wasn't an expert on tea, there was something about her that said she knew more than she was letting on. This bugged me even after they left. (I am skipping over a lot for the sake of my point, but we really did have a lovely time).

I later realized what it was; she may not have known about tea, but she understood it. She understood tea was something you had with friends, that's why she sat at the bar and offered me tea. She understood that tea was quiet and humbling, that's why in all her knowledge she still looked toward me for information. She understood the true spirit of tea.

I have seem many people who know about tea. One lady at Harney and Son's was the complete opposite of this lady. She came in talking about how she had been trained uptown in the matcha tea ceremony, but when I brewed her tea she criticized that it was a little watery. Now while she was right, I had added a touch too much water, her attitude and arrogance showed a clear lack of understanding about the heart of tea.

Tea is not being able to have a perfect cup. Tea is about fully experiencing the cup you have. That is what makes tea ceremonies and specialized tea pouring systems so great, they fully emirs you in the tea right in front of you.

Some people get that. Some can take a bad cup of lipton and turn it into a fine afternoon.
Other people don't. Other people see tea as materialism, and miss the finer point of tea drinking for the fancy terms and useless knowledge.

A tea experience is made up of two parts, what the tea brings and what you bring. You are as much as important part of the tea drinking as the tea its self. Remember that, it can kind of be a big responsibility.

Once upon a time in China

Recently I took a two week trip to China. I stopped by Shanghai, Hangzhou and went to the Anhui province. 

Among my time there I met a lot of cool people, saw a lot of cool things, and drank a lot of good tea. The focus of the trip was tea. I wanted to look into a culture that had tea ingrained in their lives to see how they treated it. That is exactly what I saw. 

Over the next few posts I will discuss various parts of my trip to China but first I want to talk about the person who taught me the most about tea, Aaron.

I met Aaron in a hostel at the Touran Hangzhou. (A highly recommended hostel). He was a kid about 19, with short black hair with a calm and almost shy voice. He wasn't very out going but when he spoke you could tell he was smart and had things to say.

 We first chatted on the patio and became good friends. Aaron was studying clean air technology in hopes to help clean up China's air, but his family were tea farmers. His family was from Suzhou and grew Bi Lo Chun. 

Tea was a part of his daily life and always had been. Though he didn't know it, Aaron actually gave me the best lesson of my trip while standing on a busy street corner. 

The staff at Touran hostel was great. Among many things they actually got to know you and hung out with you. One day we all took a trip to the city center. While the girls were going into some store, Aaron pulled me aside to see the tea shops in the area. We first went into a tea house. This was a most upscale place where you sat down to have tea. The atmosphere was quiet and peaceful and every table was in its own room. Aaron would explain the significance of that later. 

Afterwards we went to a chain tea store called Ten Fu. When we first walked in a nice sales lady came up to us with a tray of small paper cups, each about 4 fl oz, and offered us some Lung Jing. 

I knew this wasnt going to be good tea, but I wanted to test my tasting skills. I looked at the color, smelled it and took a slurp, making sure to take in air to enhance the flavor. 

Needless to says I was right, it wasnt a fantastic tea by any means. The color was a simple green, with no shine or anything to make it really noticeable. The smell matched it. It was a light vegetle smell but lacked that fresh mist like quality that quality teas have. The taste fallowed suit. A simple green taste, with a darkness that sat uncomfortably on the back of your tongue after you swallowed it. I finished the small 4 oz cup in two sips and was very proud of my tasting ability, until I looked over at Aaron; he wasnt even half way done. 

When I looked over Aaron was carefully smelling the cup. You could tell he had taken a small sip already and was smelling it for what was probably the second time. What struck me the most was how he was smelling it. He was smelling it slowly and was paying full attention to the tea as if it was telling him a secret. By the way he took the long sniffs you would think he was holding a high quality tea, not a free sample at a chain. He glanced over to me, saw my empty cup, and almost in shock he said "You finished that fast". 

We walked out of the store and on the corner Aaron gave me one the of the best lessons of my trip. "Tea is the practice of peace. You drink tea in the spirit of slowing down and appriecating. That's why all the tables in the tea house were sectioned off, so people could have peace." 

This struck with me. In the tea store I had been so worried about tasting the tea right, I hadn't tasted it right. Sure I had gotten the tasting notes, and had very systematically determined the quality; but I hadn't given the tea its full respect and attention. I had taken all of the soul out of the tea. 

I laughed, told him that I now understood I had drank the tea too fast and promised him I would slow down next time. He laughed and we went back to meet the girls.

Tea Review: Verdant Tea's 2014 Wild Picked Sheng Pu'er

Gotta love a company that offers 5 samples to new subscribers for only $5.
That's Verdant Tea for you. A great American tea company, Verdant offer's different teas and different picks of the same tea. (When my review skills have increased a bit I will review their wonderful 1st pick LungJing.

One of the samples I got in my five pack that I will talk about today is their 2014 Sheng Pu'er picked by Master Han.

The dry leaves were long and thin. There were a few twigs in there but it was generally pretty leafy with some decent sized ones in there. The leaves had the classic dark green pu erh color, but I noticed some redness in there too. They gave off a dark green smell to them but I picked up a peppery ting and a bit of a malt roundness.

First brew

The leaves wet leaves began to give a hint of the complexities to come.

There was clearly two tones of the leave, a lighter green and a darker redish brown.

The first brew (not including the rinse) was light with a grassy sweet flavor. It didnt really press anywhere on the mouth but instead was kind of aromatic

Brew number two:

This brew let you know that you were drinking a Pu'er. The greenness turned into a soft maltyness and that sweet taste matured in to an stringency that while spread across the tongue, found a home at the edges of your mouth. The body was also much more prevalent in this brew than the last.

Brew three:

The leaves are open and its time to party. The smooth malt is most noticed here while the green still lingers on the side. The astringency had gone straight for the sides of your mouth, they aren't playing around anymore. There is a citrus note that lingers after you swallow, which is kinda nice as you sit back and enjoy the peace.


I did a few more brew, but nothing new really came out. At the end I destroyed the tea and got a fully mouth of astringency but also a more prevalent citrus note underneath.

All and all I enjoyed this tea. You defiantly get that pu'er flavor but a little more casually than an aged pu'er. Good for a relaxing day where you crave a pu'er but you're not trying to be overwhelmed by body and flavor.

For 12.50 for 1 oz its a good buy for people who are looking to keep their pu'er needs filled while their wallet fat.
http://verdanttea.com/teas/master-hans-2014-loose-leaf-sheng-puer/

Be honest with your tea self

"I only drink the finest teas" She said with her nose turned so high up I could count the burgers. "Ok" I replied as a proceeded to show her our high quality Oolongs and Chinese greens. "No" she said after taking a whiff of each one. "Just give me my usual Hot Cinnamon Spice".

I see this sort of thing all the time. People act as though they are the truest tea conessiour out there and yet only drink flavored tea. Don't get me wrong I find no personal beef with flavored tea. As much as I wish every only drank high quality traditional teas, I know that's not everybody's cup of tea. My peeves are petted when someone is not honest with what type of tea drinker they are.

There are many different kinds of tea out there. From teas with sprinkles to tea grown in poop. There are so many types of tea it is almost too simple to simply say I'm a tea drinker. It's like saying I'm a music listener. What type of music do you listen to? The tea world has grown to a point where to really have a conversation about tea with someone you need to know what type of tea they drink, and more importantly what type of tea do you drink. This is where it is time to get honest.

I consider myself a midlevel tea drinker. I stick solely to traditional teas and I have a decent amount of information about the process of making tea. So while I can tell you about the effect of shade on a growing tea plant, or interesting facts on western tea culture got started, I know that I am by no means a tea expert. I was on the Manderin Tearoom's website the other day, and I was looking at the teas they sold. Just by the price and the way he talked about tea I knew this was some high  quality stuff. And as much as I wanted to spend $15 dollars on five grams of tea, I had to ask myself if I really knew enough about tea to truly enjoy it. The simple answer is no. In all my vast knowledge of tea facts, the other day I had trouble distinguishing a yellow tea from a green, and white from an oolong. (not my best day).

The point I am trying to make is that we need to be honest with ourselves and what sort of tea drinker we are. Sun Tzu has a quote that more or less goes "Being able to see the sun in not considered great site, being able to hear thunder claps is not considered acute hearing, the ability to catch a hare does not make you a great hunter" (I cant find my book so the wording is not 100%). If you drink Teavana that's fine, do you. If you drink flavored teas because you don't really taste anything in the finer teas that ok. But if you drink Teavana, please understand the fact you're drinking Teavana. Understand that the reason you cant taste the light berry notes, is because there are actual berries in your tea.

Part of the beauty of tea is that its a giant fucking rabbit hole. You may be drinking David's Tea today, but next year you may be staying in on a Saturday night so you can save money to spend on more expensive teas. (He wrote pretending he wasn't talking about himself again). But if not like I said that's cool too. Just drink your tea with honesty, cause that's the only way you really should.

My trip to China: an introductary

When I'm asked why I choose to go to China the only honest answer I can give is "I dont know". Cause the truth is I'm not sure. I first got the idea about a month ago, while sitting on some steps in soho. I was sitting on the steps watching the clouds, a personal hobby of mine, when the thought kinda just came to me. "I should go to China". There was no train of thought, no connection to a previous idea, it just kinda came out of the blue. I had never been to China, I don't know chinese and I couldn't think of anyone who would want to go with me. At the time I merely laughed at the thought, and put it in the back of my mind to save for a rainy day. 

Paulo Coelho once wrote "And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.". A few weeks after my epiphany on the steps of American Apparel, the universe gave me a gift in the form of a crazy landlord.

Above the store I work in is the landlord of the building. An interesting character to say the least, he always comes down complaining about the noise we are making. There is nothing really as mind boggling as a man who constantly complains about the amount of noise a tea house is making. And as much as we would like to tell him to shove off and stop blowing weed smoke in the vents, he is out landlord so all we can do is smile apologize and evidently soundproof the ceiling. 

Now soundproofing a ceiling is no small talk. You have to take down the whole ceiling, install the sound proof material, then put the ceiling back up. This was going to be a two week long project. Two weeks that the store was going to be closed. A two week break that we were going to get paid for. This is exactly what I needed. Less than five days after we were told the dates we were going to be closed I booked my tickets. 

After about of day of excitement it hit me, what the fuck do I know about China?

I want this to be a tea themed trip. Of course I will see some temples and such, but my main reason for going to China will be for tea. I want to see what the tea culture is like in China. Obviously China being such a diverse and large country there is not going to be one way they drink it, but growing up in a culture where you tea always takes milk and sugar, a culture who appreciates the raw tea will be a nice change. 

In the week or two since then my dad has managed to contact a business associate in Shanghai who is willing to show me around and is luckily also a tea drinker, so I will be able to see great tea houses and markets. I am looking at going to Hangzhou and maybe Wuyi Mountain. The details are fuzzy but they get a little clearer everyday. I have 38 days to figure out my trip and no matter what I choose I'm sure this is going to be fun. 

Nepal Tea Trader Review #1: Khumbu Black Tea

Hello loves

I have chosen this rainy night to write my first review. It only seems fitting.

I will be reviewing a Khumbu Black Tea by Nepal Tea Traders.

First let me say these people are lovely. I found NTT when looking for a Nepal source for a company I am starting. I spoke with Ellen and she was fantastic. She told me all about the teas and how part of the profits go to helping Nepal children. So with out further a due, lets begin.

To start off the leaves themselves are very interesting. Each leaf is twisted and seems to twist and turn, sometimes tying its self into a knot. It is mostly black with a little gold worked into each leaf. There is a smooth finished wood smell. A mixture of light and dark gives me the idea of a piece of cut wood freshly varnished. The leaves themselves are sturdy. A good density that makes it impossible to break one with out a soft crack.

I did about a 3 minute brew at boiling water in a gaiwan.

The wet leaves look good. They maintain a solid dark color with out and splotches or blisters, evidence of an uneven oxidizing process. Once wet you can unroll some of the leaves to reveal a medium sized, mostly unbroken leaf. The smell has matured to a malty mushroom smell, with a slight sweetness in there. It has yield a light brown liquid. Looking at it you understand how black tea was originally called red tea.

Let's take a sip.

Oh how lovely. The tea lavishes you with a medium body that tingles on the front of the mouth and rests in the back. When you first take a sip the front of your toungue is greeted by a medium body with a light sweetness, like honey in wood. As it moves toward the back of your mouth the body gets more heavy and the sweetness transcends into a more malty flavor. Less strong then an Indian tea, but strong enough to let you know this is a black. Toward the bottom of the cup, where I find the best flavor to be, an almost fruit like flavor surfaces briefly before heading down to your tummy.

Overall this seems to be a great example of Nepal teas. The high altitude growth gives the whole tea a lightness to it, while still letting you know its a black. This would make for a great late afternoon or early evening black tea or a tea for a time where you want a light body with out sacrificing the black tea feel we all love so much. This tea can take a little sugar or a little milk, but due to its natural lightness I not much is needed nor suggested.

Read more about this tea and the wonderful charity it benefits at
http://www.nepaliteatraders.com/

To some extent you cant deny Tea.

Steep 0:
Lucy's eyes started around the small tea shop that bordered alphabet city. "Where is the music. This place needs music"
"What is a tea pet? What is it for?"
"What tea is good for health? I want to be healthy"
"This is kinda boring"

A Hou Kui was ordered and the first brew poured.

Steep 1:
"I dont like toasted teas" She said pausing after her first cup. "They taste like urine to me. Im sorry is that rude?" I laughed and said no not at all, trying to ignore the fact my tea now kinda reminded me of urine.
"You know what this reminds me of?" She said pausing to think, searching through her memory bank. I prayed she wouldn't say urine.
"It reminds me of home" She proceeded to tell me a story of her time in Korea whens she went to a tea farm and tried teas whose nuttyness reminded her of pee.

Steep 2:
"It's so weird that this made me think of home. I haven't thought about home in a long time" She was silent for a moment thinking about her past, as if looking at an old photo she had kept on the dusty mantle in her mind.

Steep 3:
"It's like I never get time to think about that sort of stuff anymore. Everything is rush, rush, rush."
"It's important to slow down. Nobody does that any more."

Steep 4:
"This place is so nice and quite. I want to take my girlfriends here. We go to starbucks but its always so rushed, and there is music playing and it's very impersonal."
"Oh my god look at the tea it's such a beautiful neon green."
"Aren't you glad there isn't any music playing" I said
"Yea I love it here."

A tibetian adventure, in Flushing

Good evening.

It's about 10 pm in Brooklyn, cool skies, and my Harney and Son's Earl Grey Supreme is cooling a few feet in front of me.

Tonight I will tell you the story about my quest for Tibetian tea, in flushing.

It all started when a few days ago I was talking to a customer and he mentioned he had tried Tibetian tea and a store in Flushing. He also mentioned that they had given him for his birthday a jar of 100 year old Liu Bao. Now when I hear stories like this I am always a little skeptical. For example, I heard that during the cultural revolution many pu erhs were destroyed because they were considered too much a part of the old culture. So when I hear that a store gave a customer, no matter how loyal, a jar of "100 year old" tea I get suspicous. In any case though it sounded like it had good tea so I wanted to try.

Now I'm from Brooklyn. Flushing Queens is about as far away from Brooklyn you can go with out getting off the train. Luckily I have friends in Queens who are happy for somebody to come to their borough for once. (if you live outside of manhattan, you understand this feeling).  I met up with my friend Angela in soho and after a lunch of Indian food and awkward Okcupid date stories we rode off into the sunset that is Queens.

We caught the 7 and rode it all the way to the last stop. We got off the train and ascended the stair to Flushing Queens. For those who don't know Flushing, is this small area of queens that is densely populate by chinese. I have only been there once before so I will reframe from writing about it too much, but when I got off the train I was met with the sights of older asian women blocking the sun with umbrellas, small shops, and a old women repeatedly asking for a dollar who has aperently been doing that for years.

Luckily for us the tea store was on the same block as the train. If it wasn't for a small sign in the window that said Jang Tea, we never would have known it was there. Between two small shop fronts there is a hallway. Going down the hall you pass a one room office, what looks like a tiny antique shop and then you reach Jing.

Jang chose quality over quantity. The store is a single room with a cash register in the middle and two serving table on each side. Lining the walls are class cases with tea pots inside. But these are no ordinary tea pots. Each pot is unique in its design and material. The one that caught my eye was a small tea pot made out of a black mineral whose name I have forgotten. You can tell when you look around that while it may not look like much, this place is going to have real tea.

We were greeted by a lovely young lady, whose ears perked in controlled excitement when I asked about Tibetian tea. She offered us a tasting and we happily excepted.

The tasting was simple, lovely, and friendly; everything you should expect in tea. She took us through the traditional chinese tasting style with the Tibetian brick tea. The tea fit the occasion almost perfectly. While it was not exploding with flavor the tea seemed to have a smooth personality of its own. Through the five or so brews that she made the tea stayed light and a little sweet. The first cup we tasted reminded me of an aged Tiguanyin. It had a light woodsie flavor to it. Like the orange leaves in Autumn right before the fall from the tree. As the brewing got on it kept that lightness but gained a full ness at the same time. It turned into more of light maple syrup like flavor, but was easy on the tounge, while giving you a little body in the back of the mouth when it went down. After a few cups the host, who had been chatting with us the whole time, told us to not just notice the tea but to notice how the tea made us feel. Angela and I noticed that while the tea was light, it also made us feel light. Like gravity was just a little easier on us. The host nodded and told us that was a characterstic of tibetian tea.

Next we tried a raw Pu Erh. The first thing I noticed was that this tea felt hotter. When I asked, the host told me that they were brewed at the same tempature. We then discussed a bit the chi of tea. That besides the taste and smell, tea has energy. While the tibetian tea had a more cool or yin energy, this tea was more hot or yang; and you could tell right away if you compared them. Comparisons aside the Pu Erh was still good. There was a fruit note that really came out in the third cup and persisted through to the end; going from a light lychee to a darker black currant. The heat of the Pu Erh made me appriecate the tibetian tea a little more.

At the end both tasting for two people came to $20 all together and took at least 30 minutes. It was a very fair price for the exiperence. I tried to buy a brick of the Tibetian, but I didnt have the funds that day. (One brick was 67, the other 92 and they didnt sell smaller quntities.) I will deffiently go back for that tea, more tasting and other information from our very well informed host.

After we left and got a little Mochi I convinced Angela to go to Jackson Hieghts with me to check out a Tibetian resturaunt that suppousedly had Yak butter milk tea. When we got off the train though we realized it was closed and so we instead when to another small tibetian place.
It was a small quant place across from a more fancy tibetian place that seemed a little too official then what we were in the mood for. At the smaller place I ordered the butter tea.
Man was it buttery. The thick creamyness was combined with a saltyness and a little sweetness from the tibetian tea, that I would not have been able to pick out if I hadnt just tried it. It mostly tasted like what it was, turned butter not yet solidified. While it was a little strange on its own it paired well with the tibetian food in a weird way. If you're ever around Jackson stop in and give the butter tea a taste, just for kicks.

All in all I learned a few things.
1. Tea has chi its self. I kind of knew this already, but the tasting really brought the idea home.
2. Tibetian Tea is good and not just because of the taste.
3. Flushing is surprisngly easy to get to. The 7 quickly goes to and from times square.
4. A hang out with a girl you are kind of friends with, start to feel like a date.

Introduction

Hello,
Welcome to my blog.
In this blog I will discuss tea and other tea like topics.

The inspiration for this blog came from,

First, general lack of understanding about tea. I currently work in a tea store and everyday I hear a costumer say something that shows a general misunderstanding of tea culture or tea its self. This can range from "Is it ok to add milk to my tea?" to "what is an oolong?".
America is opening up to tea. And we seem to be interacting with it like we do most new things, by breaking it down to a science. Everybody wants to know what tea is better for you or which one has more caffeine. While these can be important to know they kind of kill the simple soul of tea.
It would be like asking for the benefits of laying in a field of grass on a sunny day. It's just beautiful as it is.



The second reason for this blog is to promote and allow you to connect with a tea company I am starting. I have a clever idea that I will keep under raps, for now ;).

I look forward to talking and sharing you all of you and please expect my first article by the end of the week.

Thank you
-Dylan Conroy