Steep Stories

Category: Tea Features

  • Deck the Halls with Balhyocha

    T’was the night before Christmas, And all through the flat, Every creature was stirring Because of my hungry cat. For the last couple of weeks, I was feeling humbuggish. But I awoke with a streak… If a little bit sluggish.   After running some errands For the night’s holiday supper. I thought to myself, Man,…

  • The Golden “Tea”-cket – A Tandem Tea Tasting

    Back in March, when I was visiting The Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants, I ran across a particularly unusual tea. It was a small brick wrapped in gold foil, bearing an uncanny resemblance to a candy bar. I asked the teatender on duty at the time if I could sample it. She obliged and explained to…

  • Oolong for the Old Otaku

    I have always had a fascination with Japan for as long as I can remember. The first seeds of wonder were planted by early-80s dubbings of Robotech, and continued on well into my teens and twenties with samurai films galore. One could even say my otaku (read: fanboy) brain was hardwired to like everything Japanese…

  • Nan Nuo – My Favorite Mountain

    Anyone that’s developed some sort of taste for tea starts to identify flavors with places. As palates develop, so do preferences for terroir – i.e. the characteristics tea plants take on based upon their geography. Where do Assams get their malt, or Darjeelings their muscatel notes? Why do Hawaiian teas tend to have fruit-sweet/tropical sensations…

  • Smoked Tea with Friends

    Days like this are frustrating. One casually glances around at different tea vendors, and then…it happens. There is a particular tea that catches the eye and doesn’t let the gaze turn away. That was my reaction to Norbu Tea’s Jin Xuan Xiao Zhong. (Try saying that name three times fast.) The extensive bio said everything…

  • Talks with a Tea Fairy

    Over a year ago, I came in contact with a particular gal through another gal. (And I just like using the word “gal”; I don’t care if it sounds old-fashioned.) Tea MC Tiff – who I’ve mentioned on a couple of occasions – made a trip to Kyoto, Japan and visited the Obubu Tea Plantation.…

  • Ceylon and Thanks for All the Oolong

    Let’s travel back to a more innocent time – November of 2011, to be precise. It was around that time that I finally found a purpose for this here tea blog. My goal was to track down unique teas, unusual blends, and/or teas with fascinating stories behind them. To commemorating that unusual sense of focus…

  • Assam Green Tea?!?!?!?

    Let’s rewind back to April of this year. I noticed a new follower of my “Twit”-arded updates. Their handle was about as descriptive as it needed to be to perk my interest – “@AssamGreenTea”. Green tea. From Assam. Assam green tea? That’s a thing?! I thought to myself. I’m convinced that – biologically – I’m…

  • I Heart Tandem Tea Tastings

    I missed the last Tandem Tea Tasting because of prior writer-related obligations, but promised (crossed my heart and everything!) that I would be there this time ‘round. That and I felt it mandatory, since Rachel “IHeartTeas” Carter had sent me samples to contribute. To not go would mean being a chump. To recap: Tandem Tea…

  • A Gongfu Greek Mountain Tea Adventure

    Epic tea adventures have to start somewhere. It is sheer coincidence (I think?) that a lot of mine start at Smith Teamaker. Some seemingly uneventful week in late-Spring, I received a message from Tea MC Tiff saying she’d be working the tea bar that Saturday. Those were usually my busy days at work, so I…