Tea Features – Page 11 – Steep Stories

Russian Tea Garden Profile: Solohaul

On April 15, 2016

A few months ago – as some of you have undoubtedly seen – I received samples from What-Cha. Many of them were from Russian tea estates in Krasnodar krai, specifically the Dagomys region near Sochi City. Yeah, the place where the Winter Olympics were held two years ago. I’ve written about Russian teas rather extensively in the last couple of years, but I had yet to do a profile on one specific garden.

What-Cha’s owner, Alistair Rea, sort of nudged me to sample a couple of black teas from the so-called “Solohaul Tea Estate”. As with any tea company or garden, there was very little information available online. And unless I somehow managed to become fluent in Russian (and the Cyrillic alphabet), that wasn’t about to change anytime, soon.

Alistair, however – in his usual, resourceful way – did find an article about the garden, complete with lovely pictures . . . one of which I mooched.

Image owned by Tea-Terra.

A Kickstarted Kumaon White Tea Story

By lazyliteratus

On March 25, 2016

In Tea Features, Tea Musings

A little over a year ago I made the acquaintance of Raj Vable of Young Mountain Tea.

Raj

We met up for lattes at Tea Bar PDX (where the above picture was taken), and he passed some samples on to me. Including an interesting Nilgiri black tea that I took a liking to. But that wasn’t the only reason for his visit. He was also starting up a rather ambitious Kickstarter campaign, and he wanted some help spreading the word.

Several Cups of Kamairicha

By lazyliteratus

On March 23, 2016

In Tea Features

Kamairicha literally means “pan-fired tea” in Japanese.

I first tried it a year ago, and I dug it. I even wrote a poem about it. The less spoken about that, the better. Moving on . . .

kamairicha

Tea Grown in Guatemala

By lazyliteratus

On March 18, 2016

In Tea Features

Before I get to rambling about black tea from Guatemala, I’m going to do something a little different to start this off. I’m going to turn the introduction over to my blogger friend, Chris “Tea-Guy” Giddings, since he’s the one who introduced me to the tea I’m about to discuss. Take it away, Chris:

“It was a dark and stormy night… no… literally… that’s what it was! You still don’t believe me? Whatever!

I got a message from William and Jace Longnecker from TRW Fair Trade. I kid you not! No, seriously! Would you let me finish!?!

So, it was a dark and stormy night, when I got the message offering a chance to review a black tea from Guatemala. GUATEMALA! I’d never heard of quality tea from Guatemala, so of course I was intrigued. I mean, wouldn’t you have been?

Anyway! When it finally arrived a few weeks later, it was beautiful! I couldn’t believe my eyes! Long black , twisted leaves presented themselves. OK I thought, this looks good… but IS it good? IS it really?

I’ll let Geoff take it from here. I don’t think you’ll believe me anyway.”

Photo by Chris Giddings.

Dark Tea from Thailand

By lazyliteratus

On March 10, 2016

In Tea Features

Well over a year ago, Tony “World of Tea” Gebely posted a photo of a dark tea on Instagram.

It was an aged moacha (i.e. the rough stuff used to make puerh cakes) . . . but it was from – of all places – Thailand.

Used with permission by Tony Gebely.

For obvious reasons, it grabbed my attention.

Tan Yang Gong Fu Tea Achievement: Unlocked

By lazyliteratus

On February 25, 2016

In Tea Features

The term “gong fu” translates to “achievement through great effort”. It’s the same word as “kung fu”, but spelled differently . . . because English translations suck that way.

tea achievement unlocked

Gong fu also refers to a method of brewing tea, signified by the use of short, successive steeps to bring out a given tea’s extra dimensions. The term also refers to a graded style of tea, often used interchangeably with the term “Congou”. Case in point, Keemun Gong Fu or Rose Congou.

It’s all kinds of an achievable headache, as Chinese tea terms often are, but it’s used most effectively to describe the grade and style of three types of black teas from Fujian province, China. There is Bai Lin Gong Fu, Zheng He Gong Fu, and Tan Yang Gong Fu.

The Green Teas of Nepal

By lazyliteratus

On February 3, 2016

In Tea Features

I’ve confessed (here and there) to turning into a bit of a Nepalese tea fanboy lately. I may have even made a lofty claim that whatever it is they’re doing may very well be a possible future for the tea industry. (But that’s a whole ‘nother article.) While I’m not going to retract that statement, I am going to clarify it a bit. Simply put, imagine that India is the “Reinheitsgebot” (Bavarian Beer Purity Law”) of South Asian tea growing countries. Nepal would be Belgium. They take the old rules and just . . . toss ‘em out the window.

Nepal’s tea growers, farmers, farming collectives, and estates don’t have a solid model in which to base their industry on yet, but they have a pretty good start. They’re not afraid to buck tradition to try something wacky. And I was recently sent three green teas – courtesy of Norbu Tea Company – that solidly illustrated my point.

Nepali green teas

A Sidrapong Heritage Story

By lazyliteratus

On January 15, 2016

In Tea Features, Tea Musings

The Arya tea estate has a fascinating history, even among the many that dot the Darjeeling region, especially because of its original name – Sidrapong.

Arya, formerly Sidrapong

According to legend, the original site was home to Buddhist monks on an unknown pilgrimage in the mid-to-late 1700s. They were looking for a place to build a new monastery and somehow ended up in Darjeeling. The monks, then, planted a garden with various Chinese seeds and dubbed it “Sidrapong”. To date, I have yet to come up with an exact translation for this. And believe me, I looked. The nearest thing I could find, after consulting several sources, was a claim that it meant “house on fire” in the old Lepcha language.

Eventually, the garden was renamed “Arya” – a Sanskrit word meaning “noble” or “respected”. In 1885, it was transformed into a tea garden, presumably by the British. Over ten years later, the garden became home to a new tenant – a technological one.

Scottish Tea to Silence my Snark

By lazyliteratus

On December 23, 2015

In Tea Features, Tea Musings

I’ll confess that sometimes I can be a snarky bastard.

will snark for tea

Many of those times, some of that snark bleeds through onto this blog, or into other parts of my life where it’s not entirely welcome. Case in point: Social media. If ever there was a platform where my snarky nature can’t help but thrive, it’s there. Often to my detriment and to the undeserved.

Allow me to highlight such an example.

A few weeks ago, the lovely, gracefully-wordy, and diplomatic Jen Piccotti wrote a blog covering an announcement from Scotland. Many of the new tea growers – including one I was familiar with, Dalreoch (aka. The Wee Tea Plantation) – staged their first ever Scottish Tea Growers Association meeting.

Scottish Tea Growers Association: (Left to Right); Tam O’Braan – Perthshire, Mike Hyatt – Lismore, Charlie Ball – Dunfries & Galloway, Dan Harrison – Midlothian, Lynne Collinson – Orkney, Martyn Gibson – Isle of Mull, Rev. Liz Gibson – Isle of Mull and Richard Ross – Perth & Kinross. Photo by Angela Hurrell.