Steep Stories

Author: lazyliteratus

  • Confessions of a Tea Cake Artist

    This all started because of a tea cake. No, not that kind of tea cake. An actual cake. The kind you eat; not drink. Instagram has been a useful tool for several reasons. One, it put me in contact with new tea people across the world—some personal, others professional. But it has also helped me…

  • Bros, Bug Shit, and Black Tea

    I don’t get out much. Of course, with how “well” these brew-based blogs turn out, that goes without saying. In the last couple of months, I tried to make a concerted effort to step out of my comfort zone (i.e. my basement) and—maybe—explore new teashops. Well, that didn’t happen. I mean, there are places I…

  • Rou Gui’s Revenge

    I think I’ve mentioned this before, but Rou Gui was the first Wuyi oolong (or Yancha) that I ever liked. Before a certain Da Hong Pao back-flipped my palate, I never really took a liking to Wuyi rock oolongs. They always tasted like . . . well . . . roasted rocks. In leaf form.…

  • Looking for Hui Gan in High Mountain Oolongs

    “This tea had quite a bit of Hui Gan,” someone said to me once. “Who’s Hui Gan?” I asked, thinking they were referring to a Chinese scholar. Clearly, I’d never heard the term before. Several people had used it in my presence, and I nodded as if I knew what they were talking about. Of…

  • Going Back to Bitaco . . . with Video

    About a year and a half ago (from the time of this writing), I wrote about Bitaco Tea—an outfit based near La Cumbre, Colombia. Their specialty? You guessed it. Colombian grown tea. I encountered their booth at World Tea Expo in the summer of 2015, and they passed on several samples of their wares. Several…

  • I “Heart” Doke

    I “heart” the Doke tea estate. No, I’m not ashamed to use the word “heart” instead of “love”. Especially today. Okay, I winced a tiny bit at the grammatical incorrectness of it (and the cutesiness of it) . . . but the sentiment still stands. And, given when this blog is going up, the cutesy…

  • Revisiting Russian Tea Gardens

    I’ve written a lot about Russian tea gardens over the last couple of years. But I didn’t think, for one second (at the time), that I was one of the only English language sources on the subject. That is, until I got a message from Thomas Tomporowski of Tea in the City, a vendor op located…

  • Green Teas of the Arakai Tea Estate

    One uneventful day, I was checking out the Arakai Tea Estate‘s Instagram feed, and I noticed this picture. Simply put, they were showing how their black tea was rolled. They also left a humorous anecdote about the foam that formed as a result of the rolling . . . and wondered (jokingly) if it had any possible…

  • Black Teas of the Arakai Tea Estate

    Two months ago, I wrote about two teas from The Arakai Tea Estate. They’re a family-owned tea garden/forestry farm situated in Bellthorpe, Queensland, Australia. I was notably impressed with what I tasted. Just as I was impressed with the garden owners’ ingenuity. Because . . . BIKE HARVESTER!!! Anyway . . . shortly after that…

  • Teas I Bought at the Northwest Tea Festival

    I spent a lot of money last October. A loooot of money. Like, “had-to-get-a-second-job-for-two-months” lot of money. The reason? Northwest Tea Festival. Train tickets, hotel stay, Uber rides, class/tasting prices, entry fees, and—of course—tea. I bought a few weird teas while I was there, and I thought I’d highlight some of them. Er, now that…