Steep Stories

Tag: black tea

  • The Arakai Estate

    Australian Tea Week! Day 1: “The Arakai Estate” Australia. The Land Down Under. Oz. Or whatever other people (including the locals) call it. Our southernmost Pacific neighbor is known for many things: weird and diverse wildlife, a wicked sense of humor, numerous flora and fauna that can kill you in a heartbeat, sometimes good beer…

  • A Kanchan View Darjeeling Pairing

    The Kanchan View tea estate in Darjeeling has a rough history. The garden was first established in the 1880s, where it first went by the name “Rungneet”. At the peak of its hundred-plus-year production, the 250-acre garden accounted for at least 100,000 kilos of tea a year. Now? It only does about ten percent of…

  • Japanese Black Tea . . . from Brazil

    It may be a surprise to a lot of people, but Brazil used to produce a lot of tea. As early as 1812, even. The ugly truth of it was, though, most of those old plantations were dependent on slave labor. When slavery was abolished in 1888 . . . tea production collapsed. Enter the…

  • The Great Guan Yin Duel

    Over the years, I’ve had some fun at the expense of Guan Yin—the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Whether portraying her as having an illicit affair with Scottish botanists, or depicting her as a scorned goddess seeking vengeance against the writer of the illicit affair (me), I can’t say I’ve dealt with her fairly. Hilariously, yes .…

  • All Four Doke First Flush Teas In One Day

    Begin Doke Diary transmission. I’ve already written about the Doke tea estate in Bihar, India on several occasions. Everyone who reads this blog already knows my leanings toward it. That being, it’s my absolute favorite Indian tea garden. Yes, in all of India. But out of the countless tea profiles, taster notes, and lapses in…

  • An Awakening on a Meghalayan Tea Cloud

    I seem to be on a weird streak lately, talking about growing regions that shouldn’t exist. First, it was puerh variants in the hills of Thailand, then it was Kickstarter projects in India, and last week, it was mystery gardens in Russia. (I’m not done there, yet, by the way.) This week, we’re heading back…

  • Russian Tea Garden Profile: Solohaul

    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…

  • Tea Grown in Guatemala

    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…

  • Scottish Tea to Silence my Snark

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

  • A Bug-Bitten Beauty of a Black Tea

    NaNoTeaMo, Day 28: “A Bug-Bitten Black Beipu Beauty of a Tea” If you’ve spent any time around hardcore Taiwanese tea drinkers, you probably ran into the term “bug-bitten”. And probably thought of this. No? Just me? Anyway . . . “Bug-bitten” refers to teas that come from tea plants where pest involvement is encouraged. In…