The aged oolong market in the west leaves a lot to be desired. Most of the time the teas are usually significantly flawed (re-roasted/sour), overpriced, or more often than not both. A couple years ago, I was lucky enough to sample a number of aged oolongs from Tony of Origin Tea that were offered off-shelf. This helped to give me some perspective on aged oolongs, but also move me into the cranky, old curmudgeon category of a drinker who seems constantly dissatisfied and cynical with the online tea scene at least for this tea genre. Don’t get me wrong, I’m nowhere near an expert but I have gotten a taste of the Taiwanese market to at least know that the idea of aged oolongs being good value teas with consideration to age (true in TW) is not extended to the western market. (more…)
Category: Taiwanese Oolong
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TeaHome’s Mid-Fired Dongding [Episode 149]
Getting back to our roots, with a mid-fired Dongding from Teahome. Sweet, aromatic, and easy to drink.
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The Much Delayed Taiwan Oolongs Teas to Age Report
Better late than never, right? I announced this tea of the month about a year ago and have had samples sitting around forever. The original goal of this report was to find some decent oolongs to age for the future. The samples from Mountain Tea and Teahome, two vendors that each had a few inexpensive options for roasted oolongs. Because these were acquired a while ago, they’re mainly teas from Winter 2014. (more…)
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Teahome’s Legend of Dongding — TeaDB James InBetweenIsode Episode #71
Another oolong!? This one is the Legend of Dongding, a very reasonably priced, decent tea from a very underrated vendor.
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Global Tea Hut’s January Tea Club — TeaDB James InBetweenIsode Episode #70
Another review of the tea club. This is of the Taiwanese-based magazine Global Tea Hut puts on featuring a small amount of “Old Man Dongding”.
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Shopping for Tea in Taiwan
Forever alone.. Being a pu’erh addict in the west is a lonely endeavor and how we intake information and buy tea is in all likelihood very different than the average Asian pu-head. We’re often resigned to the tea table/closet all by our self. If we’re lucky we can get a good friend/significant other to come over once a month to humor us but we’re mainly drinking alone and talking to each other on instagram.. It’s no wonder why teapets are so popular..
In the western tea scene… 65ml teapots are in high-demand.
In the western tea scene… we get teeny, tiny boxes of tea shipped monthly.
In the western tea scene… a cake is most definitely not a sample.
In the western tea scene… we occasionally indulge with **gasp** multiple 200g cakes that we we still have trouble getting through! (more…) -
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…)
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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…)
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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…)
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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.