Tea Education

Let me tell you a secret. When I first came to China in 2017 Huang Shan was my least favorite place. I found the teas to be the least exciting and the area to be a bit touristy, but without the benefits of English speakers that you find in other touristy areas. Now, four and a half years later as I prepare to leave, I am reflecting on Huang Shan and its teas. With each cup I drink I begin to see the full picture of Huang Shan. For all of its beauty, Huang Shan isn't flashy, and the teas...

To start we are going to look at the information collected by One River Tea and myself. We will go through it group by group and then discuss overarching trends. The survey gave takers a series of variables such as growing elevation and asked them to rate it 1-5. A score represented that it was very important to them, one being that it wasn’t.   All Respondents: Out of all respondents (about 150), processing method was most valuable to people while the ground elevation was the least important. The decrease in the importance of growing elevation is a sign of...

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gCquUwvJ1kc" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>I decided to go to Qimen on a whim. That’s the nice thing about living in tea-producing areas, you can visit regions on a whim. I woke up early, kinda, took care of the dogs, and got on the bus. The last time going to Qimen was a mess. I got off the bus on the opposite side of town and could not find a taxi to save my life. After walking around like an idiot for an hour I got on the bus home, in...

From experience as well as from conversations with other sellers I have found that one of the biggest challenges that the western tea market faces is the buying patterns of customers and their hesitancy to buy expensive tea. While in recent year I feel the market has slowly started to accept and understand higher price tags I think choose to write this article to bring up a few point that I often think about. This is an opinion piece and many of my opinions are still being developed. I would love to hear your thoughts and even critiques in the...

Abstract: In this article, I will talk about how I see terroir. I will begin to show you the complexities of terroir and begin to reveal that terroirs can not simply be marked as good or bad as they are usually somewhere in between.Enjoy_________________________________________________________________________ A friend sent me this picture and asked me if this was a good field. He’s not a tea drinker so I spared him the details by simply saying yes. Simply put, yes it is.  Complexly put, yes but not perfect.  The location, Tang Kou, is in the core region of Huang Shan. This is a...