Author: lazyliteratus
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Hugs, High-Fives, and Farmer Style Sencha
A couple of years ago—on a visit to the Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants shop— I tried a Japanese tea (that wasn’t sencha) that just . . . blew me away. It was a black tea blended with yuzu rind. Yes, the Japanese orange. When I described it to people, all I could muster was, “It’s…
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A Transparent Tea Liquor
This is a white tea called Doke Silver Needle. I . . . may have written about it several times. I know exactly where it comes from. (The Doke tea estate in Bihar, India.) I know who owns the estate. (Rajiv Lochan.) I know who makes it. (Rajiv’s daughter, Neha “Dolly” Lochan.) And I know…
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Puerh . . . After a Fashion
Shou (or cooked/ripe) puerh is difficult to market. Hell, puerh in general is difficult to spin. How do you convince people that something that’s fermented is something they want? Fermented leaves, no less; in cake form. The conundrum gets even hairier once you try to explain to people what the “cooking” process even is. Example:…
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Cooked “Puerh” from Laos
LaosTea—a wholesaler of heicha from Laos—had a booth at World Tea Expo again this last summer. And I didn’t visit it once. In my mind, I kept saying, Eh, I’ve already tried everything they have to offer. What I should’ve been thinking was, I really need to solidify some of my vendor networking contacts! Hindsight…
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Dark Tea from Burma/Myanmar
No one likes to talking about Burma . . . or Myanmar . . . or whatever it’s calling itself, now. Even the name of the country is a hotly contested issue. At college parties, whenever some Eastern Philosophy major brought up Buddhism as an example of a nonviolent religion, all someone had to do…
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My Detox Horror Story
Over the last year or so, I’ve expressed my . . . displeasure with detox culture. I particularly took issue with the belief that someone could eliminate “toxins” from their body by ingesting weird herbs and other unlikely ingredients (like literal silver and gold). When talk of these practices spilled over into my tea life…
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Dong Ding Near-Death Experiences
In 2009, Shiuwen Tai—the plucky owner of Floating Leaves Tea in Seattle—made her first trip to Dong Ding Mountain in Taiwan . . . . . . And almost died.
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Mengku Puerh Plastered
A couple of weeks ago, while attending the Northwest Tea Festival in Seattle, a few tea connoisseurs hosted . . . after tea parties. Basically tea parties removed from the regular events of the festival. One such small partyholder-to-be was my ol’ Agarwood puerh dealer, Jeffrey McIntosh. He planned to host two puerh tastings—one that…