Tag: Oolong
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Rou Gui’s Revenge
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but Rou Gui was the first Wuyi oolong (or Yancha) that I ever liked. Before a certain Da Hong Pao back-flipped my palate, I never really took a liking to Wuyi rock oolongs. They always tasted like . . . well . . . roasted rocks. In leaf form.…
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Looking for Hui Gan in High Mountain Oolongs
“This tea had quite a bit of Hui Gan,” someone said to me once. “Who’s Hui Gan?” I asked, thinking they were referring to a Chinese scholar. Clearly, I’d never heard the term before. Several people had used it in my presence, and I nodded as if I knew what they were talking about. Of…
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I “Heart” Doke
I “heart” the Doke tea estate. No, I’m not ashamed to use the word “heart” instead of “love”. Especially today. Okay, I winced a tiny bit at the grammatical incorrectness of it (and the cutesiness of it) . . . but the sentiment still stands. And, given when this blog is going up, the cutesy…
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The Harendong Estate
Four years ago, I “discovered” the Harendong estate. I put “discovered” in air-quotes because . . . it’d been there for eight years by the time I ran across it. Perhaps I should say, it was new to me. They had a booth at the 2013 World Tea Expo—under their Banten Tea brand—and the thing…
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Once Bug-Bitten, Twice Shy
Well . . . I guess it’s time to put a certain theory to pasture. And it’s all because of these two. Who are they? I’ll get to that. What theory? Oh, I had this hypothesis that tea and dating (or courtship, whatever) didn’t “blend”.
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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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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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A Totem Tea Story
The definition of the word “totem” is thus: “A natural object or animal believed by a particular society to have spiritual significance and adopted by it as an emblem.” It is derived from the Native American language, Ojibwe; the word, dodaem. The concept, however, is not limited to just Native American cultures and religious practices.…
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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.…