Tag: heicha

  • Beengs and Purge

    As some of you might remember, a couple of years ago, I co-hosted of a tea-themed podcast. On the above episode, we had a guest—James of TeaDB—to discuss puerh storage. I contributed nothing to the episode, save for a couple of queries and quips here and there. James was star informant on the subject of…

  • Tea at the Temple Gates

    On the odd occasion, I leave the house to hunt for tea. It’s a rare occurrence—much like a hermitic groundhog hailing the arrival of spring—but it’s been known to happen. Sometimes that urge falls upon me at night, on a Friday. And on one such night in the spring of 2018, I found myself at…

  • What the Heicha?! A Shou “Puerh” from Fujian?

    Back in the spring of 2017, tea afficianado Nicky “Steady Hand Tea” Evers passed on a unique specimen. A Wuyi oolong from 2005 that was wet-piled, dried … and stored in Taiwan. It fell into no discernible category. The taste was “like” a Hunan heicha … with notes of cliff side roast. I compared it…

  • Should Sheng Cha Be Considered Heicha?

    In May of 2017, I asked tea peers on social media a simple question: Is Vietnamese sheng puerh style heicha a thing? At least . . . I thought it was a simple question. That query sparked a minor debate about the nature of heicha, and whether or not sheng puerh (or sheng puerh-style tea)…

  • Rethinking Tea Categories

    Editor’s Note: This is merely a thought exercise by the author. The opinions reflected in the below narrative do not reflect the opinions of the teaware on staff . . . or this editor, for that matter. Seriously, I just work here, guys. A thought occurred to me over the years. No one has come…

  • Heicha Happy Hour

    For most of this spring, I’ve been on a bit of a heicha kick. Not puerh . . . heicha. As in, dark (or fermented) teas not from Yunnan province, China. I’m not sure when it all started, but I have a feeling this dude had something to do with it.

  • Putting “Tea: A User’s Guide” to Good Use

    In May of 2013, I finally met this tea-bro in person. Tony Gebely—award-winning tea blogger, tea business insider, and all-around nice guy. When we first met, we did what any self-respecting tea people would do on first impression. We drank beer. While we were downing pints, he mentioned he was working on a book, and…

  • 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…

  • Dark Tea from Taiwan

    In late 2013, I thought I tried the rarest, weirdest, most unheard-of tea unicorn out there—a heicha (dark tea) from Taiwan. After three years of palatial growth, though, I’m now convinced that it was a Yunnan grown puerh that was merely stored in Taiwan. Still unique, but not quite the unicorn I thought it was.…

  • Dark Tea from Thailand

    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. For obvious reasons, it grabbed my attention.