TeaDB

Category: Oolong

  • Traveling in Taiwan, Things I Like & Don’t Like. TW Report Part 1

    Big thanks to Max, Tony, and all the others who tossed in bits of advice or recommendations. Another high-recommendation but less personal thanks goes out to Marshaln whose blog and archive was and is highly valuable in navigating Taiwan in search of tea.

    I recently embarked on a trip to Taiwan and Hong Kong. I’ve been to Asia a couple times, but this is my first time traveling to both of those places. Needless to say I was rather excited, both to travel and to explore teas. I went with three friends, two from high school and the last one from college. The three friends have varying degrees of tea indoctrination. One of them is moderately into tea (MS), another (DW) drinks a ripe pu’erh from Yunnan Sourcing daily, and the third’s (JF) caffeine of choice usually ends up being coffee. A fourth (ZM) showed up for a few tea spots at the end of the trip and is a fairly regular drinker with broad(ish) preferences. I hadn’t planned on writing a report but when I got back and was bombarded with.. “James how was your trip?” “You might be talking about this on TeaDB soon, but I wanted to ask…“ (more…)

  • Baxian (Taobao) Yancha [Episode 127]

    A good for the price Yancha directly from China.

  • Cross Tea Price Comparisons

    I’ve written in the past about relative price comparisons and a couple different models of how we frame tea cost. Tea vs. coffee. Tea vs. wine, etc. How about inner-tea comparisons. Aged pu’erh frequently gets put up against younger tea, Taiwanese Oolong high-mountain tea, low-elevation, Yancha. One comparison I only occasionally see made is types of tea put up against one another. If you focus too heavily on specifics of raw pu’erh like 2015 $100/beeng gushu A vs. 2015 $120/beeng gushu B, it can be easy to miss the big picture. You may forget that according to your taste perhaps raw pu’erh as a whole is under or overvalued. Instead of asking if a $0.40/g ripe pu’erh is twice as good as $0.20/g ripe pu’erh, maybe you should ask if you’d rather have the $0.40/g ripe pu’erh or $0.40/g Taiwanese Gaoshan. This is a casual, fun little thought experiment that tries to make these comparisons. As expected, It’s impossible to make this comparison clean. Vendor markup varies one to one, but here’s what I would choose at these ranges! (more…)

  • Tea Reports 2015 & 2016, Soliciting Feedback & Looking Forward

    As many of you may have noticed the tea of the month reports haven’t exactly been on schedule. They’ve often gone longer than expected and I still have countless unfinished samples which I am trying to drink through. First things first.. I’ll be finishing the last two reports at the end of 2015, Taiwanese oolongs to age & the box (aka aged oolongs). While it may seem premature to brainstorm/discuss how to continue these sorts of reports, it often takes a time to get these together without placing extraneous orders. These reports are the most personal tea journeyish projects that I do on TeaDB, but I’d certainly be curious to solicit some feedback. (more…)

  • Essence of Tea’s 2011 Zhulian Dancong Yancha [Episode 124]

    A delicious Yancha from Essence of Tea. The roast has worn down nicely, putting this tea in a great place to drink!

  • White2Tea’s Clover Patch Oolong [Episode 123]

    A lightly roasted Yancha from White2Tea. Very fragrant/aromatic.

  • YS Phoenix Village Shui Xian & W2T Clover Patch Oolong — TeaDB James InBetweenIsode Episode #45

    Meet joins James for inbetweenisode 45, a comparison between the White2Tea Clover Patch Oolong and Yunnan Sourcing’s Phoenix Village Shui Xian.

  • Tea Urchin’s Old Bush Zhi Lan Xiang [Episode 121]

    A blind session with a sample of Tea Urchin’s Old Bush Zhi Lan Xiang kindly provided by Richard.

  • Evaluating & Purchasing Teas. A Few Things That Might Alter Your Perception.

    You’ve just come back from an amazing experience at a tea shop at your local Chinatown. Not only did you strike up an engaging conversation with the tea shop owner but you got to drink through several different teas and eventually pick out your favorite of the bunch. Eager to recreate the experience, you dump $40-100 on a 150g bag of tea (not saying it was cheap). Except there’s one problem. You can’t make the tea taste the same. It’s not necessarily bad or worse, just different. You’ve tried using a lot of leaf, a little leaf, brewing for a long time, brewing for a short time, different water, lower temperature, higher temperature, yixing, no yixing, etc.. Other than adding cream & sugar (because you have a soul), you’ve pretty much tried everything. Disregarding the possibility of being duped (bait & switch) or other sorts of foul play, what’s going on here? (more…)

  • Taiwan Sourcing’s Lishan Tieguanyin [Episode 116]

    A more normal TeaDB episode but featuring Scott Wilson (Yunnan Sourcing) and another important part of Yunnan Sourcing his wife (XY). This is Denny and James first taste of the Taiwanese teas of Taiwan Sourcing, with their Lishan Tieguanyin.