Origin

Origins: Black Sea Georgian Tea

Many sought to establish a tea dynasty in Georgia, and failed until a tea merchant named Popov invited the Cantonese (Guangdong) tea expert, Liu Junzhou (刘峻周) and ten of his countrymen, to Chakva, just north of Batumi, in 1893. Liu brought 1,000 kg of tea seeds and 150,000 saplings from China. By 1950 under Soviet control Georgia tea supplied half the world. Read what happened next.

Destination: China’s National Tea Museum

China’s National Tea Museum, established in Hangzhou in 1991, is considered the epicenter of knowledge and appreciation of China’s most treasured beverage. Whilst there are small tea museums sprinkled across China

Kakuzo Okakura and the Cup of Humanity

Kakuzo Okakura first described Japanese tea culture to a readership in the U.S. in The Book of Tea in 1906. Since then, his book, his ideas, and Japanese tea culture have traveled across the world.

Round the Bend

The Nine Bend River (Jiuqu Xi) is a masterpiece one hundred million years in the making, cutting through China’s oolong tea capital.

India’s Oldest Manager in Tea

KOOMTAI, Assam – Forty years ago executives of Goodricke Group, which had just split from Duncan Brothers & Company Ltd., […]

Chicken in the Pot

Straight out of university with a masters in English, I found myself at age 22 up in the High Ranges […]

Announcing the Incredible India Issue

Long before cut, tear and curl (CTC) dominated tea processing in the West, India exported sizeable quantities of handmade orthodox tea to an appreciative world market. Small factories at small gardens cultivated the art of rolling

Tea Discovery: Jin Jun Mei is a Wuyi Red Legend in the Making

Daniel Hong’s whimsical online profile picture has him adorning a Charlie Chaplin hat with an oversized black cardboard moustache.Chinese millennials don’t usually do whimsical, so I thought I might soon be meeting an over-the-top eccentric…

Tasting Notes: Jin Jun Mei

Red teas in China are experiencing a Renaissance. One of the most sought after of the high-end red teas is Jin Jun Mei – a fully oxidized tea created in 2006. It is made wholly of tea buds picked in early spring…

Tea Discovery: Crab Pincer Tea

Eons of evolution in the ancient tea forests of China has established a complex and delicate biomass. The gnarled, pale-grey and green trunks of the oldest trees are home to myriad adaptations of spiders, lichen, and the tree parasite known to locals as crab pincer, a tea mistletoe.

Origin India: Kangra Valley

A scant 2,000 kilometers west of Darjeeling, on the opposite side of the Indian subcontinent, lays a scenic valley of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, a place steeped in Hindu mythology.

Origin India: Tamil Nadu and Kerala

The Western Ghats, South India Backbone of South India The six-hour drive south from Balanoor Tea Estate in Karnataka to […]

Origin India: The Deep South

Balanoor Tea Estate, Karnataka   Piece of Cake His birthday was celebrated in a leafy residential section of Bangalore, one […]

Harvest Review: Vietnam

Vietnam in 2017 ranked as the world’s seventh-largest producer of tea and fifth in exports. It has 124,000 hectares under […]

Origins: Tea Cultivation Takes Root in Oregon’s Willamette Valley

Tucked away near Oregon’s Willamette River in Salem, is Minto Island Tea Company: a nearly half acre plot of land containing Camellia sinensis var. sinensis bushes. More botanic laboratory than tea farm, it’s a 29-year-old science project and the only place in the state of Oregon where tea is being cultivated and sold.

Harvest Review: Australia

There is a clear emerging trend in the Australian market away from mainstream black tea to more specialist offerings. Australians’ […]

Harvest Review: Australia

Australians have a history of being black tea drinkers and following their mostly British heritage, but that is rapidly changing. […]

Tea the Hero Crop

Large government-supported tea estates are failing. Scarcity of labor, the cost of large-scale production and reliance on chemicals and pesticides […]

Harvest Review: South Korea

Green tea (nokcha in Korean) is called “sparrow’s tongue tea” (jaksulcha) due to the tea leaf’s delicate shape. In Korea, […]

Harvest Review: South Korea

Stephen Carroll is one of 42 Tea Journey tasters reporting on the 2016 harvest. Look for his posts on South […]

A woman plucking leaves in Northern Vietnam.

Mother’s Day Teas That Empower Women

The tea industry runs on the backs of women. Their strong yet nimble fingers pluck the delicate buds from the trees, and sort the imperfect from the perfect leaves. Yet in many tea-producing countries, women are far more likely to live in extreme poverty and have less access to education. However, some people are striving to change that narrative by educating, empowering, and enabling women in tea to rise up and bring others with them. This Mother’s Day Tea Journey wants to celebrate the companies and individuals who are helping make a difference for mothers and female tea workers around the world. 

Origin Mongolia: Making Nomad’s Tea

ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia The nomadic way of life shapes Mongolia like no other country. Mongolia is the most sparsely populated country […]

Zhulu tea leaves

Of Morning Dew & Half-Day Sun – Taiwan’s Zhulu Tea

A high-mountain wulong known for its elegant aroma and sweet lingering aftertaste, Alishan Zhulu tea is appreciated by connoisseurs worldwide. Discover its story from Ren Zhi Deng, who was a catalyst in transforming his hometown into one of the most revered tea-producing areas in Taiwan.

Tea for Generations to Come

KITSUKI, Japan Small family-owned tea gardens are inseparable from the economic and social past of historical places such as Kitsuki, […]

Discover Authentic Nepal

Nepal’s altitude, seasonality, soil, and various microclimates combine to establish a remarkably well-suited terroir for growing tea. The country’s finest teas are delicate with subtle aromas; Handmade teas are an expression of the tea maker’s art, inspired by new demand for delicate whites, oolongs, and airy black teas sold directly to retailers in Europe, Asia, and North America.

Origins: Historic Ceylon

From the vibrant colors and culture of Colombo to the peaceful hillsides of Kandy, Sri Lanka is both a tea […]

Origin India: Garden by the River

It took ten years for Rajiv Lochan to acquire and consolidate various plots into a single garden known as Doke Tea, an organic farm along the south bank of the Doke River in Bihar, India.

A woman plucking leaves in Northern Vietnam.

Mother’s Day Teas That Empower Women

The tea industry runs on the backs of women. Their strong yet nimble fingers pluck the delicate buds from the trees, and sort the imperfect from the perfect leaves. Yet in many tea-producing countries, women are far more likely to live in extreme poverty and have less access to education. However, some people are striving to change that narrative by educating, empowering, and enabling women in tea to rise up and bring others with them. This Mother’s Day Tea Journey wants to celebrate the companies and individuals who are helping make a difference for mothers and female tea workers around the world. 

Arkasa Tea Room

Arkasa Tea Room

With every delicious sip and satisfying bite, the Araksa Tea Room in Bangkok is revolutionizing Thai tea culture. Araksa means “to preserve” and both the tea garden and restaurant promote Thai traditions while simultaneously elevating the way tea and food are produced and consumed.

Anything for Tea: Budget Backpacking in Nilgiris

Travelling through the Nilgiris on a comfortable budget, Anesce Dremen finds that it costs little to make real connections, have real conversations. As she allows her journey through the Nilgiris to unfold at will, she finds herself immersed in memorable encounters and experiences. Told with honesty, written vividly, it’s a view of the Nilgiris not often seen. (Itinerary and costs included)

HARVEST REVIEW: Nepal

DO NOT PUBLISH http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/printedition/news/2016-05-02/tea-exports-down-as-production-up.html May 2, 2016- Tea exports dropped 1.13 percent in the last fiscal year despite a significant […]