Explore the future of Tea Education with the innovative Tea Color Wheel developed by the Australian Tea Masters, seeking to enhance communication and tasting precision.
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• Tea
Journey through leaves and brews that define the world’s cups.
Oxygen Boost: The Science Behind Better Black Tea
Strategic oxygen treatment during black tea fermentation significantly improves taste profiles and liquor color quality through optimized processing methods. This scientific breakthrough offers tea producers, manufacturers, and sellers evidence-based methods to enhance their product quality through optimized fermentation processes.
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Armenia – The Home of Herbal Teas
Armenia’s herbal teas have ancient roots, with shepherds collecting wild herbs from mountains and valleys. Today, brands like Nazan and MounTea continue this tradition, creating natural remedies.
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Beyond the Kulhad: India’s Cold Tea Revolution
Explore the fascinating juxtaposition of India’s hot chai culture with the burgeoning trend of iced teas and cold brews, and delve into how traditional Indian tea consumption is adapting to modern preferences for cold beverages, especially among the younger generation.
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The Acapella Plantations: The Song of Roussillon Tea
Jean-Marc Sanchez is pioneering the photovoltaic greenhouse concept in tea production and is the first to cultivate tea in the Occitan region of Southern France.
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Pioneering Organic Tea in the Phoenix Mountains
In the Phoenix Mountains in China, the Dancong Oolong reigns. We meet 33 year old Huang Huan who chose to return home to take over his family tea farm. He has made it his mission to produce only organic oolong from his 10,000 trees.
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Jérémy Tamen: The Earth and the Senses
When asked what the key to a successful blend is, the first word that comes is “love,” love of the plant and love of the producer, from which stems a desire to always enhance the products and never distort them.
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When Tea Became Chai
If you imagined that Chai was part of the traditional Indian kitchens and comes with a long history, you’ll be surprised to know that chai is very much a 20th-century creation. This week, India celebrates Independence Day, and seeing how many celebrations feature Chai as a cultural motif, I thought it was a good time to talk about chai and how tea became Chai.
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Argentina’s Matcha Style Powdered Tea
In our Tea Discovery series, we make our acquaintance with Argentinian powdered tea, resulting from experiments by farmer Mario Paredes. “Tea plantations were being destroyed because black tea had stopped being profitable.
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Tea Discovery: Lumbini Tea Valley White Tea
In the lower elevation gardens of the Lumbini tea estate, bordering the pristine Sinharaja Forest, a decade-long pursuit has led to a special white tea range, produced in small batches for discerning tea seekers.
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Aspiring to Be Good Fathers: Dreams of Boys
Fatherhood is not just about being there physically but also about being emotionally present and engaged. Boys are motivated to create and sustain meaningful relationships when they witness this healthy behavior in their fathers.
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Withering Enhances Florals in Japanese Tea
Ichō or ichoucha is withered tea. The first process in producing Japanese green tea is steaming the leaves as soon as they are picked to stop oxidation and keep their strong green color. However, by withering them first, the leaves undergo a slight oxidation between harvest and steaming, bringing out the floral notes.
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Tea Stories: The Language of Tea
In January 2024, once my South American trip was in its full planning stages I emailed Dan Bolton: Did he know of any passionate tea person in Buenos Aires? His reply came swiftly: Horatio Bustos of Gyokuro Circulo Argentino de Te. Buenos Aires is some 5,659 miles from Kansas City, […]
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Pyrénees: The Birth of a New Tea Terroir
A tea enclave has emerged amid the Pyrénees Mountains, a natural barrier between France and Spain that runs over 430 kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. A young agronomist, Lucas Ben-Moura established a new terroir in the Argelès-Gazost valley, a few kilometers south of Lourdes.
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Tea Discovery: Indian Chai
Masala chai is like a mini meal, as it not only includes the well-documented health benefits of tea but also has protein and calcium from milk, anti-inflammatory properties from ginger, and superfood benefits from spices.
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Artisanal Tea Maker Utilizes Rare Roseate Cultivar
Rose reserve tea is not just a mark of the enchanting flavors fostered by Nepal’s unique high-altitude micro-climates and terroir but also an embodiment of the keen talent of a new generation of tea-makers.
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Important Notes about Teabag Teas
Teabags are easy to deal with; sachets are also easy but somehow fancier and certainly more expensive; and loose leaf is even more expensive and is often much more complicated to brew. As a nerd, I decided to look into the issue by buying the same tea packaged as a teabag, sachet, and loose leaf, to see the differences. Presumably, then, they will all taste the same when brewed. (Spoiler alert: they don’t!)
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Reinventing Darjeeling Tea
Planter Rishi Saria is reinventing tea production in the fabled Darjeeling hills. “It has been over a hundred fifty years since the British brought Chinese tea to Darjeeling and over three-quarters of a century since they left,” he says, “yet we Indians continue to process tea the same way the British did rather than learning from our fellow Asians.”
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Hand Processing Tea in Yamazoe, Japan
Farmers and other locals run the five-hour tea-making workshop near Japan’s Yamazoe Village. Tea Journey contributor Greg Goodmacher attended to learn from teacher Kenichi Ikawa Sensei how to select, pan-fire, and hand roll freshly picked raw leaves transforming them into sencha tea using centuries-old techniques.
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Honing Oolong Cha Qi Through Fire
Before the advent of electricity, all oolong tea was charcoal roasted to reduce moisture in the leaf. It’s only natural that many producers choose the gentle, stable heat of electric burners and ovens. It makes tea roasting easier and more consistent. The tea makers who remain loyal to the charcoal fire often learned by tending the coals at a young age as part of a long-standing family tradition. Others find that they simply cannot resist its captivating call.
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Hengzhou is Jasmine’s Promised Land
Spring begins a romance as jasmine flowers meet the newly plucked tea. Spring green tea and summer jasmine flowers are mixed at a strictly-calculated ratio. Hundreds of processes exist to make the miracle tea. The bitterness of tea and the sweetness of flowers are a perfect compliment. Jasmine grown in Hengzhou meets the high expectations of famous brands at home and abroad.
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China’s Gou Gu Nao “Dog’s Head” Mountain Tea
Mountainous Suichuan county in Jiangxi Province offers an incomparable microclimate for local cultivars, producing an exceptionally tender leaf. Gou Gu Nao Green Tea is highly prized. The processing method is quite complicated. It is refined through eight processes. The shape of Gou Gu Nao Tea is tight and rolled to a slight curl. The color is bright green, the aroma is fresh and elegant, and the taste is fresh and thick with a sweet and long aftertaste.
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Meitan County’s Tribute to Tea
Meitan Cuiya is an early spring green tea oxidized for a few hours in the shade before processing. It is made from high-quality fresh and tender tea leaves and undergoes 20 complex processes, including spreading, fixing, shaping, and drying. The leaves appear straight and flat. The aroma is long-lasting above a bright green liquor. The tea has a fresh taste with abundant amino acids, polyphenols, and vitamins.
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La Ruta del Té
Knowledge of how tea is grown and processed came naturally to fourth-generation Argentine grower Carolina Okulovich but she observed that was not so for the tourists and visitors to the farm who found tea cultivation and processing fascinating. That was how the idea arose to create a learning experience for visitors touring the 15 hectares known as La Ruta del Té.
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Fine Tea from the Island of Jersey
With its 1,800 hectares of soil, the Jersey Royal is spoilt for choice when it comes to deciding where to plant tea. The islands’ acid soil is perfect for the tea plant to grow. Thanks to the Gulf Stream, Jersey winters are mild, without any risk of frost, while summers are moderately warm and sunny. The island’s high humidity also provides ideal conditions for the tea plants to thrive.
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Anhua’s Dark Allure
Growers in Anhua county invented the dark tea processing technology before 1524, which led to the rise of dark tea production and marketing. The compact and easily transported tea was very popular locally and in 1595, Anhua dark tea was formally designated as the “Official Tea” of the Ming dynasty government making it a regulated form of currency.
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A Heritage Tea for Modern Times
Tanyang Gongfu tea is experiencing notoriety as well as increased demand that dates to the 1980s when local growers collectively raised their production standard, earning a reputation for quality hongcha (red tea). The tea is grown in Fu’an which takes its name from a poem in which a Song dynasty emperor bestowed five blessings: “Lucky Heaven, Lucky Earth, Lucky Mountain, Lucky Water, and Lucky Tea.”
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Gyokuro: Deep Sea Savory and Sweet
The aroma that swirls from a package of gyokuro, especially one of the highest grades, is so extraordinary that you could stop right there and be satisfied. The aroma that swirls from a package of gyokuro, especially one of the highest grades, is so extraordinary that you could stop right there and be satisfied.
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The Importance of Water
Shun the expensive spring water If you want a better-tasting cup of green tea ― your water of choice should be from the tap. If it is health benefits you seek, choose bottled or deionized water for superior extraction of catechins, nearly double that of tap water.
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Craft Tea for Younger Generations
During the past few decades, all types of tea, from herbal to Pu’er, have re-emerged in premium formats favored by younger generations. “What makes the super-premium tea category unique, in my view, is the importance of storytelling with regard to ingredient origin, processing, and functional appeal,” says Euromonitor Beverage Analyst Howard Telford.
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How Chinese Describe the Aftertastes of Oolongs
What would rhyme have to do with a tea’s aftertaste? To understand the many layers of this play on words, it is important to know that Chinese singing and by extension Chinese poetry have a Yang (masculine) and Yin (feminine) rhyme system.
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Tasting Notes: Wang Hai Green Tea
Wang Hai tea is a pre-Qingming green tea that is grown on Mount Tiantai in China’s Zhejiang Province.
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Fungi Love Tea, Too
Fu Brick Dark Tea, also known by its visually descriptive name of Golden Flower Dark Tea, is a relatively unknown fungi tea in China that is awaiting one clever and energetic entrepreneur to bring it into mainstream awareness in the West.
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Why Tea Leaves are Plucked in the Morning
We don’t yet fully understand why time of day matters when plucking tea leaves. At dawn leaves wet with dew may take longer for drought responses to set in. Differences at mid-day may arise because of the circadian rhythm of aroma volatile production. Master tea makers know these patterns and […]
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How Leaves of Different Ages Provide Flavor in Your Cup
A growing body of studies of leaf chemical composition is beginning to support the experienced tea maker’s choices. A striking difference is found in chemical composition as you go from the shoot to lower leaves. We often hear that the best loose-leaf teas come from buds or shoots, the […]
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Tech tools: Enhancing Tea Without Reducing Quality
From drones to DNA fingerprinting, technology is enhancing tea without reducing quality.
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Amazing Lessons on Japanese Tea at Cafe Seisui-an
Tea farmer, seller, event coordinator, gourmet, and nationally certified tea appraiser, Yasuhiko Kiya radiates love for his tea-growing neighborhood, Japanese tea, and his son, who will become the fourth generation to run the family business.
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Review: Tea Aroma Kit by The Scents of Tea
This is an unusual Tea Journey review: a kit of 45 vials of chemical compounds that correspond directly with the primary scents of tea. The Tea Aroma Kit: Mastering Tea’s Language of Smell is an experiential tool supported by a short guidebook and a mapping of the scents in relation […]
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Restful Tea and Tisanes
If you are wondering if tea can help you sleep better, the quick answer is yes so long as the tea is caffeine free.
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Pekoe Tea Grades: Unmuddling OP, BOP, SFTGFOP System
There’s the only one method of tea grading that amounts to a system: pekoe grades. It’s comprehensive, precise, arcane – and also easy to misinterpret.
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Tasting Notes: Yellow Goddess of Mercy Oolong Tea
Background Yellow Goddess of Mercy, also simply known as 105, is a relatively new oolong tea from Mount Wuyi in China’s Fujian Province. It was officially introduced in 2003 after 20 years of hybrid experimentation. A creation of the Fujian Tea Research Institute, it is a cross of the famous […]
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Clean, Elegant, Approachable Teas
Peter Luong is not a tea mystic. The founder of San Francisco’s Song Tea & Ceramics knows and values the subtle, complex characteristics of tea, but displays a polite skepticism about the many claims for its physical and mental health-enhancing abilities. “I don’t like the ‘fetishing’ of tea,” he says. […]
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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…
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Suiting Beauty to a Tea
Global beauty industry embraces tea’s rejuvenating power “We’ve benefited from rising awareness among about the detoxing power of puer tea and the virtues of drinking this unique tea.” A few years ago, “polyphenols” and “flavonoids” weren’t considered sexy beauty product ingredients. Now, thanks largely to the use of multiple kinds […]
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Luxury Line Cha Ling’s Focus on Puer Resonates Globally
Tea Journey last spoke with luxury Franco-Sino skincare line Cha Ling’s Director of Development Elodie Sebag two years ago about the then-new line’s focus on puer tea as its key ingredient. Here is an in-depth update about the line’s new developments. Tea Journey: What has been the response to the […]
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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.
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Tea Aroma: The Intimate Journey
Tea offers adventures unlike those of any other beverage. We can all invoke our own special and intimate adventure in our minds and senses as we sip our cup. The first step begins with our eyes. We anticipate the adventure as we look into the cup, even before the tea’s aroma wafts to our nose.
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Tasting Notes: A Taste of Winter in South India
There is a revolution going on in South India, right under our noses. Up until the late 1980s perhaps, South Indian tea – from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala – was predominantly comprised of mid-grade CTC (cut, tear, curl) produced for the local market. In addition, there was a range […]
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Tea, Cha and Tisanes: Botanicals Reshape Tea Demand and Supply
There’s been a growing shift in the strange, unfamiliar and exotic words you’ll see on a tea ingredient label or description: it can be summarized as yesterday chemistry and botanicals today (and probably biogenetic propagation tomorrow.) Yesterday’s chemistry: sodium caseinate, modified corn starch, resveratrol extract, riboflavin, soy lecithin, ascorbyl glucoside, […]
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Time-lapse of Japan’s Shincha Harvest Tea
KYOTO, Japan — This time-lapse video captures the beautiful birth of this year’s shincha harvest. A special video camera, positioned at the Nakakubo Tea Farm, advanced a few frames every 5 minutes for about 30 days last month to show us the dance of the new leaves. The digital […]
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