Elevation and Climate: Visiting Boreal Forest on a Mountain

One of the things that I have become fascinated in in recent years is weather and climate. This interest is evident in the level of detail about weather which the articles go into on RateTea's pages on the various tea-producing regions. One of the key factors in tea production, which is explained in more depth on the page about climate, geography, and tea production, is elevation. A quick summary of the influence of elevation on climate is that temperatures get colder and precipitation (rain and snow) gets greater as elevation increases. And, as hikers at very high elevations are aware of, the air gets noticeably thinner.

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit Massachussets, where I went to the top of Mount Greylock. Mount Greylock is quite remarkable from an ecological perspective. From a distance, it looks a lot like any of the other surrounding hills, but when you actually climb to the top, you will find an ecosystem quite remarkable for a point so far south:

Pictured above is a meadow on the edge of Boreal forest, or Taiga. Boreal forest is common in Canada, Alaska, and the extreme northernmost parts of the continental U.S. But Massachusetts is far enough south that only a small amount of this ecosystem exists, only at the top of this one mountain. Boreal forest reflects the adaptation of plants and animals to cold temperatures, long winters, and short summers. Some of these adaptations include:

• Trees have a conical shape. This helps to shunt off the heavy loads of snow falling in the winter, so that the trees do not lose limbs. Evergreen trees (like pine and cedar) growing in southerly climates tend to have a rounded shape, because there is little to no snow in the winter; round shapes capture more sunlight, but increase the risk of limbs breaking during a snowfall.
• Most plants are evergreen. This is because the temperatures are so cold that there is not enough time for the nutrients in the soil to break down and become available to plants; because nutrients are scarce, plants cannot afford to drop their leaves each year. Incidentally, the tea plant's evergreen status is also an adaptation to low nutrient levels, which is why it is able to survive on rocky outcroppings like those in the Wuyi mountains.
• Deciduous trees have light-colored bark. Think aspen and paper birch (white birch). The temperatures are so cold in winter, and the sun is at a low angle, so that if a deciduous tree (which drops its leaves in winter) were to have dark-colored bark, the sun shining on it horizontally would heat the bark so much that it would crack. This is the same phenomenon of thermal shock that I explained in my earlier post about why teaware can shatter when pouring boiling water in it. The light color of the bark reflects the sun and prevents the heating and cracking of the bark.

These ecosystems extend even farther south, at even higher elevations. For example, one can find a similar ecosystem in the mountains of New Mexico, although there, the ecosystem only shifts to boreal forest somewhere around 8,000 feet. Mount greylock, pictured above, is under 3,500 feet.

Birds galore:

As a birdwatcher, I was excited to explore this ecosystem to find birds that normally only winter or migrate through the areas where I live. It was July, a time when migration has stopped and usually only breeding resident songbirds are found. And I found quite a few birds that I normally only see during winter or migration, including white-throated sparrow, dark-eyed junco, purple finch, winter wren, Blackpoll warbler, yellow-rumped warbler, Blackburnian warbler, black-throated blue warbler, and black-throated green warbler, among others. The Blackpoll warbler in particular is a species that breeds only in boreal forests.

Above is a photo I took of a singing white-throated sparrow, near the summit of Mount Greylock. In Southeastern Pennsylvania and Delaware, these birds are normally only winter residents.

Try looking for the changes in ecosystem with elevation:

If you have the opportunity to hike or drive to the top of a tall mountain in any region of the world, I would recommend doing so. It will not only help you to learn more about ecology, but it will also help you to see firsthand some of the aspects of how geography influences climate which are most important in the production of tea. If you live in an arid climate, such as the southwestern U.S., you will be even more able to see the phenomenon of how precipitation increases with altitude.

These same factors control where the tea plant is able to be grown. In drier countries like Kenya, tea is only able to be grown at higher elevations, where rainfall is higher. But as the elevation becomes too high, temperatures eventually become too cold. In humid climates, tea can be grown the whole way to sea level, and in colder regions, it can only be grown at low elevations.

What do you think?

Do you think much about elevation, and its influence on climate and ecosystems? Have you ever noticed these sorts of changes, when driving or hiking? Do you live in an area with easy access to mountains or changes in elevation? Do you live in or have you ever visited an area that is dry or cold enough that you can see major changes in an ecosystem as elevation changes?

Could Tea Be Grown Commercially In Puerto Rico? Probably, But Not As A Major Crop Like Coffee

In the United States, tea is grown commercially in a handful of locations, including Hawaii, South Carolina, Washington State, and Alabama. These operations cannot compete with other countries for producing tea as a bulk commodity, but several commercial operations persist, probably in large part due to the novelty factor of teas produced in unusual regions. RateTea's page on The United States as a tea producing region has more information on these locations, and the relationship between the climate in various parts of the US and the feasibility of growing tea there.

Prior to visiting Puerto Rico, I never thought much about the possibility of growing tea in this region. Tea is grown commercially in Latin America, in Guatemala; I recently tried tea from Guatemala, Los Andes from Shanti Tea, which was good, and interesting, although it was CTC tea and not among the best black teas I have tried.

Also, prior to visiting, I did not realize how mountainous Puerto Rico was. Look at this photo which I took from a car while driving across the island:

The highest point on the island is 4390 feet, or 1338 meters, considerably taller than the highest point in my "mountainous" home state of Pennsylvania. Puerto Rico, incidentally, mostly uses the metric system, using liters, kilometers, and Celsius, but, in an odd reference to the US way of doing things, displays their speed limit signs in miles per hour.

Coffee in Puerto Rico:

Puerto Rico currently grows a substantial amount of coffee commercially; the coffee is a product of pride among the locals. A lot of people talked about it, and I saw it for sale many places on the island (in contrast to the states, where I infrequently see Puerto Rican coffee for sale). Puerto Rico also grows a substantial amount of shade-grown coffee, and interestingly, many of the birds in Puerto Rico rely on shade-grown coffee plantations as habitat.

The above field guide, Birds of the West Indies, which I used in Puerto Rico, and which I'd recommend as the best compact field guide to the region that I was able to find, explicitly mentions shade coffee plantations as a habitat of a number of bird species. Shade coffee plantations, although nowhere near as rich a habitat as natural rainforest, provide a rainforest-like habitat which can be valuable for bird species whose natural habitat has been mostly destroyed by humans.

The climate in Puerto Rico:

Puerto Rico's climate is tropical with seasonal rainfall, and moderate variability in climate from one region to another. The southwest of the island is semi-arid, supporting tropical dry forest; the higher altitudes support tropical rainforest, including El Yunque, the only tropical rainforest in the U.S., and part of the national forest system. Much of the region has what would be considered a tropical monsoon climate. Unlike South and Southeast Asia, the monsoon pattern is weaker and has two distinct peaks, with a brief wet season in May, followed by a brief dry season, and then a longer, wetter season Aug-Nov. Other parts of the island have less variability in rainfall.

The following map, from the National Weather Service, shows how the average precipitation for Puerto Rico varies in different regions:

To see what effect this difference in rainfall has on vegetation, look at this photo from El Yunque, which is located around that bright purple spot of high rainfall on the map; in spite of the fact that it did not rain at all when we visited the rainforest, there was water everywhere, and lush, dense vegetation:

Contrast this with the tropical dry forest, Guanica State Forest, which was full of agave, cacti, and sparse tree cover, with short trees letting a lot of light through:

Although some of Puerto Rico is probably too dry to grow the tea plant, I suspect that there would be substantial areas in the mountainous interior of the island, with cooler temperatures and higher rainfall, where it would grow well. I also imagine that the asymmetrical bimodal precipitation pattern, with short and long wet seasons, could result in unique tasting teas, with harvests from different times of year having different qualities of flavor and aroma.

Economically, tea probably would not compete favorably with coffee, which fetches a much higher price per acre of production in most of Latin America, but an artisan tea operation, growing unique, high-quality tea, and appealing to an audience of tea enthusiasts willing to pay a premium for something different, might be able to survive. Another model, using tourism, perhaps eco-tourism, to supplement the income of the tea operation, might also make it possible for a tea garden to support itself in a region where the economics don't seem to line up; the Los Andes tea garden doubles as a nature preserve and offers eco-tourism opportunities, and the Charleston Tea Plantation in South Carolina, owned by Bigelow, also offers tours and various special events.

What do you think?

Is this just a crazy idea, or do you think a commercial tea operation in Puerto Rico could be a worthwhile undertaking?

Top 5 Countries Producing Fair Trade Certified Tea, According To RateTea

The issue of fair trade certification is complex, not only in the tea world, but across the board. Anyone who has read my article on fair trade tea on RateTea will know that I don't see fair trade as an instant solution to the problems associated with the large disparities of wealth between the industrialized countries like the U.S. and Japan and the historically poorer ones like China and India. That said, I think fair trade is a generally good idea, and I like to support it, such as by making RateTea's listings able to be searched and filtered by fair trade status, as well as supporting critiques that can potential strengthen the system of fair trade certification.



This post highlights some interesting observations about which countries have the most fair trade certified teas on the market in the West. These coarse observations are not exact, they come from RateTea's database, which may have various biases, but the difference is pronounced enough that I feel pretty confident with the order. Here are the leading countries producing fair trade certified tea:

• India - India comes out a clear leader in this contest, with China coming in a noticeably-lagging second. This was intuitive to me; although China and India produce a roughly comparable amount of tea on the global market, and although China definitively leads India in terms of diversity of the teas it exports, China lags behind in terms of transparency, a key factor in fair trade certification.


• China - Second place, as discussed above.


• Sri Lanka - The only other country to produce an appreciable amount of fair trade certified tea, Sri Lanka produces fair trade certified teas in a number of regions, including Uva, Dimbula, and Nuwara Eliya.


• Nepal - The only fair trade certified teas I know of come from Kenchajangha / Kangchenzodnga estate, but there are so few runners-up in fair trade tea after the big three that this one tea garden, whose teas are relatively widely available in the west, seems to be enough to put Nepal on the map.


• Kenya - Kenya barely makes it onto this list; interestingly, all the fair trade certified Kenyan teas in RateTea's database are tea bags, sold by UK companies.

There's only one runner-up, Vietnam, with two fair trade certified teas. Every other country is a big zero.

Interestingly, the ordering in this list is the same regardless of whether or not you include flavored teas when compiling the ranking.

Do you have anything to add?

Do you have any interesting information that I have missed, possibly explaining this ranking? Are there any important fair trade certified teas that I've missed (and that would put other countries on this list, or possibly, even change the ranking of the countries, because the sample size is so small for the last ones?)

Top 5 Most-Viewed Chinese Provinces on RateTea

Previously, I wrote about the top 5 most-viewed pages on tea producing regions on RateTea. RateTea not only has pages on each country that produces tea, but also on sub-regions of the country, on the level of states (provinces, prefectures, etc.) and even counties or districts.

Incidentally, we just did a major improvement to the region pages on the site, rolled out March 8th, so if you haven't explored them recently, I would encourage you to do so! Even more recently, Mar. 23rd, we just added maps of county-level divisions within Fujian province.



The following list shows which of the 14 Chinese provinces listed on RateTea gets the most views. The list is relatively predictable, although there's one surprise:

1. Yunnan - This province doesn't surprise me at all. Yunnan province, besides being the origin of Pu-erh, also produces well-known black, green, and white teas, and it has a bit of a reputation for "weird" or "esoteric" teas, and it's just an interesting province in general. Yunnan would be high on my list of provinces that I'd imagine tea enthusiasts would want to read about, both because it's interesting in its own right, and because the people who tend to like teas from this province tend to be those most interested in tea's origin and production.


2. Fujian - If I had to pick one province that is most important in tea production, I'd probably pick Fujian. It is undoubtedly the most important place in the world with respect to white tea, and it houses both Anxi (producing Tie Guan Yin and numerous other oolongs) and the Wuyi Mountains, making it where most of the "oolong stuff" (other than dancong) happens in China. And Fujian is also is the origin of numerous well-known green and black teas.


3. Zhejiang - Zhejiang province, just nort of Fujian province, along the coast, is a major producer of green teas, and the origin of many famous varieties of green tea, including Dragon Well, gunpowder green tea, and Anji bai cha. There's no surprise for me here.


4. Anhui - Anhui is the origin of Keemun, and also produces Huo Shan Huang Ya, a yellow tea, and numerous green teas, including Huang Shan Mao Feng, Tai Ping Hou Kui, and Lu An Melon Seed. This one was also not a surprise.


5. Jiangxi - This was the only surprise for me on the list. I know relatively little about Jiangxi, having only ever sampled three teas from there (the only memorable ones being two Wuyuan green teas). Up until very recently, RateTea's article on this province was briefer than many others, so why it has been getting so many views is a mystery to me.

Runners up, in order, were Sichuan, Shandong, Hubei, and Hunan. The other provinces got even less attention. I was a little disappointed to see Guangdong, the origin of most Dancong (single-trunk) oolongs, even lower down on the list.

What do you think?

Does anything on this list surprise you? How would you explain Jiangxi, or the absence of Guangdong?

Top 5 Most-Viewed Region Pages on RateTea

RateTea has pages with brief to long articles on individual tea-producing regions, including both countries and smaller divisions, such as states, provinces, prefectures, districts, counties, or whatever divisions exist in the countries that grow tea. This post highlights which of these articles or pages are viewed most often on RateTea.



This list was surprising to me.

1. Japan - Japan comes out a clear first, beating out China by a long-shot. Why? This result was not intuitive to me; although Japan certainly has a very well-developed specialty tea culture, the volume of tea and diversity of tea produced by China is much greater, and the number of Chinese teas listed on RateTea is much larger. However, when I looked at when this page started being more viewed, I realized exactly what was going on...this page received few views before march of 2011; people seem to be coming here to learn about their tea in response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.


2. China - This one is to be expected.


3. The United States - Another surprise....the United States barely produces any tea commercially, but, given that the bulk of RateTea's audience is in the U.S., I think it makes sense that people would be interested or curious to check out this page. The page itself is fairly extensive, and talks both about the sparse tea production in the U.S., the climate of the U.S. as related to growing the tea plant, and herbs grown in the U.S. used in herbal teas.


4. India - Another expected one.


5. Sri Lanka - No surprise here either.

There you have it. Interesting, huh? Oh, and guess what one was number six on the list? Guatemala.

Top 5 Tea-Producing Regions for Single-Region Teas, by Number of Teas on RateTea

For today's Sunday Top 5 post, I'm focusing on the top tea-producing regions, but I am not ranking the regions by volume, but rather, by the number of teas listed on RateTea. If you are interested in the volume of bulk production, you can visit the Production section of Wikipedia's article on tea, which has a very interesting table of this ranking. The top 5 countries of this ranking are, in most common order, China, India, Kenya, Sri Lanka, and Turkey, although the order changes subtly from year to year. The ranking of teas on RateTea shares only three of these countries in common, and the ordering is different:



Counting the number of teas on RateTea is by no means scientific, as there are a lot of arbitrary factors that have gone into influencing which teas have gotten listed, but I do think that this listing is actually a very good coarse indicator of which countries are more important or influential in the Western market for specialty teas, specifically, single-region teas, as blended teas will not be counted in this list.

• China - 1079


• India - 565


• Sri Lanka - 262


• Japan - 265


• Taiwan - 160

After this top five, the count falls off precipitously. Kenya comes in with 39 and Nepal with 29, and there are no other countries with more than a handful of teas. Of the well-over 5000 teas listed, the overwhelming majority (1424) are still blends or teas of unlisted origin (1016) which are probably mostly blends.

Some thoughts on this list:

I find several things interesting about this list. For one, even though China and India are roughly equal in terms of volume of tea production, China almost doubles India in terms of representation among single-region teas. Another interesting factor is the absence of countries such as Turkey, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Indonesia in this list...all of which produce substantially more tea than Japan. Taiwan isn't even in the top-10 of producers by volume, but it muscles its way onto the top 5 list as a clear leader among single-region specialty teas. Taiwan and Japan clearly focus on the specialty market.

Do you have any interesting observations about this list? Do you think it's a good coarse indicator of these countries representation in the Western market for single-region teas? Are there any factors here that I may have overlooked?

Makaibari Estate - My Favorite Darjeeling Estate

I was inspired to write this post by a review I read on Sarah's blog Latte Tea Dah: I Now Dream of Darjeeling: Makaibari 2nd Flush Organic .

A couple years ago, I had sampled a few single-estate Darjeeling teas, but the prospect of being able to have opinions on individual estates was still way out of grasp, something that I could perhaps imagine others doing, but was nowhere near doing myself.

I still don't have many opinions, as there are a large number of estates that I've tried only one or two teas from, and many I have yet to try any teas from. But I do now have a favorite tea estate, and that is Makaibari estate. Furthermore, the Makaibari tea estate has an official website:



It's worth visiting the website, which has more information about the estate, including the garden's commitment to sustainability and ecological principles, and a photo gallery. You can also buy some tea directly through the website. It is rather unusual for individual tea gardens to have websites, and Makaibari is one of only a few that have extensive websites.

Discussion on the "best" Darjeeling estate:

I really don't like the word "best", but I want to point out that there was a discussion over 4 years ago on teachat, best darjeeling estate?, and of the four replies that name gardens, all four name Makaibari. Other gardens named are Castleton, Jungpana, and Arya. I haven't tried Jungpana but I will say, of these, I've tried enough teas to say that I like Makaibari the best of the others mentioned, simply because I've tried teas from Castleton and Arya estates that I was less a fan of.

Makaibari's teas are pretty diverse. I find them to tend on the lighter side, but still have some bite to them. One of my favorite teas ever was a long-leaf green tea produced by Makaibari estate. I also love their first-flush, and have had very good blended tea (blends of different flushes) from this estate, sold by the Hampstead tea brand. With each of their teas, I have been impressed by the complexity of its aroma. Their are two reviews, including mine, of their first flush as sold by Arbor Teas, on RateTea if you want to get an idea of what these teas are like.

Sustainability, Organics, and Biodynamic Agriculture:

Makaibari estate also stands out from the other tea gardens, not only in Darjeeling, but around the world, as it has been a leader in sustainable agricultural practices. Makaibari was one of the first organic tea operations, and also practices biodynamic agriculture, which goes above and beyond organic certification. Both the organic and biodynamic practices have been in place since 1991, but the history of conscious sustainability-promoting decisions goes back to long before the word "sustainability" entered the mainstream: in 1971 the garden shifted over to a permaculture-based system. There's a great Wikipedia page on permaculture: it's an ancient approach to both human settlements and agriculture that emphasizes stability and long-term prosperity, using awareness of ecological principles, and it's an approach that I support wholeheartedly. You can read a bit more information on TransFair's page on Makaibari estate...which also leads into one more remark: Makaibari estate also produces fair-trade certified tea.

I find it interesting that I first got interested in this estate because I liked the way its teas tasted so much, but then came to learn that it is doing all these fantastic things that are in line with my values and goals in life.

How about you?

Have you tried tea from Makaibari estate? Were you aware of all of the sustainable, ecologically-sound practices of Makaibari estate? Would you too like to see these sorts of practices be the norm, rather than the exception, not only in tea production, but in all agriculture, worldwide?

Seasonality of Tea and Nature

One of my favorite aspects of reading tea blogs, which is more evident in some blogs than others, is reading about nature. Among these blogs, one of my favorites is Tea for Today, where Marlena often adds detailed little notes about birds she observed, and often includes nature scenes. I also love Tea Musings, a blog with original poetry; many of these poems focus on aspects of nature and the changing seasons. I very highly recommend both of these blogs if you love nature as much as I do.

The way I view it, becoming interested in and knowledgeable about tea, beyond a certain level of introductory knowledge, requires becoming interested in nature. In this post I want to show how the seasonality in tea is part of a broader trend of patterns that exist in numerous other plants and animals. Here's a picture that, for me, captures this time of year, early fall:



This photo shows a black-and-white warbler in fall plumage. This is a first-year bird. The fall migration season of birds is characterized by an abundance of newly-raised first-year birds, travelling south for the winter. In the background are the yellowing leaves of a hackberry tree, partly bare already. Hackberry trees, of the Celtis genus, lose their leaves relatively early, but this year, many of these trees lost their leaves particularly early. In nature, there are fluctuations in the health and population of nearly all living things, including plants and animals. Just as the tea harvest is different each year, each tree species fares better some years than others, insect infestations wax and wane (attacking stressed trees more easily), and bird populations grow, shrink, and move in response to the abundance of food. These hackberry trees, partly defoliated and full of insects, and also full of ripe fruit, attracted huge mixed flocks of migratory warblers, who help to control the populations of these insects.

The changing of the seasons is evident in this bird; compare its appearance to a photo I took of the same species in spring, in the same area:



The background shows the intact, yellow-green leaves of spring, in this case, on a white oak. This bird has a black throat and cheek, signaling that it is a male. (I'm pretty sure the first bird is male too). You can click the photos to learn more about these birds.

One reason I wanted to share these birds is to make an analogy to the seasonality of tea. Both of these birds are clearly identifiable as black-and-white warblers. The differences between them are noticeable, especially after someone points them out, but they might not be immediately evident to an untrained eye. This difference is a lot like the difference between the different flushes or harvests of tea, for instance, Darjeeling black tea. A connoisseur would usually (not always) be able to easily distinguish first flush from, say, autumnal flush (which, by the way, is coming available right now). But inexperienced tea drinkers often (not always) would not. I think in this respect, seasonal distinctions in the different qualities of tea are a lot like the seasonal differences in bird plumage. There is a certain unity in how nature works and is organized.

Changing of the seasons:

The changing of seasons is a very fundamental aspect to human existence. Some areas, such as the eastern United States, where I am located, have four well-defined seasons, whereas other areas have fewer, more subtle, or different seasons. For example, San Diego has a cool, slightly rainy season in their "winter", a cloudy but generally rainless spell around May-June, and then a sunny late summer and early fall, sliding back into the cooler, slightly rainy winter. Only certain climates produce the familiar fall or autumn with changing tree colors and fallen leaves of diverse colors:



Many of the major tea-growing regions have very strong, well-defined seasons, but these seasons do not always correspond to what most Americans or Europeans know of as seasons. South and Southeast Asia has a strongly pronounced monsoon season, much more pronounced than any of the seasonal precipitation patterns in North America. Most of Asia has wet summers and dry winters. The dry winters produce a greater swing of temperatures during the winter than similar areas experience in North America...but Asia experiences fewer heavy snow events. Some tea-growing areas, including much of Sri Lanka, and parts of Africa, have a bimodal precipitation pattern, meaning that there are two distinct wet seasons and two distinct dry seasons in each year. In many tropical regions, the seasons are poorly defined at low altitudes, where it is warm year-round, but as altitude rises and it becomes both colder and rainier, the seasons become more pronounced. This effect is evident on the west-coast of the U.S., such as in how high altitudes in Southern California show a full four seasons like the east coast.

Unfortunately, our modern society has often disconnected us from the seasons. Carefully climate-controlled interiors of offices, homes, and cars make us comfortable, but disconnect us from the world outside. Year-round avaliability of normally seasonal foods like apples, oranges, or even lettuce, further disconnects us. We lose touch with nature. Is this what we really want? I don't want it at all, and as I've gotten older, I've realized that I'm willing to give up something (i.e. no apples in spring, no plums in winter) in order to be more in touch with what's really going on. I also have found that the food I eat tends to taste better, and also be more affordable, when I eat what's in season. Living this way is also more sustainable, as eating and using what is seasonally available requires fewer resources; it involves working with rather than working against nature.

The following photo of a red Bartlett pear and a Valencia orange looks natural, but is not: Bartlett pears are a fall crop of cold climates, and Valencia oranges, a late winter / early spring crop of milder climates. It's simply not possible that these were both produced locally--not even both on the east coast of the US. One of these was clearly shipped across the globe from a different climate:



The same things are true of tea, to a degree:

Single-harvest teas vs. blends:

Naturally, as the growing conditions of the tea plant change throughout the year, the character of the tea produced changes, sometimes radically. Large tea companies, including the brands of tea owned by Unilever, seeking a consistent product, often blend-out these differences, changing the proportion of teas used in their blends in order to retain a consistent flavor and character of their tea year-round and from one year to the next.

While I can understand the drive to consistency, I resist it. I want to taste that variability. And I want to stay true to production methods that work with nature, rather than working against it. Nature has variability. I want to taste that variability, and I certainly don't want to pay to blend it out.

How about you?

Disappearing Tea Companies: Fresh Darjeeling Tea

This post is about a tea company that, unfortunately, has disappeared...presumably it is now closed.

In late fall of 2009, I received three samples from Fresh Darjeeling Tea, a company, started and run by Sonam Paljor Lama, selling exclusively Darjeeling tea. The company shipped directly from India, and specialized in what I would consider to be true artisan tea: carefully-selected, single-estate, single-harvest teas of unusual varieties and with unusual characteristics. Pictured here are all but one of their offerings:



This collage, which I constructed from the thumbnails saved on RateTea, shows the astounding diversity of teas offered by this company. Although some of these teas look a little bit like other Darjeelings, many of them do not. Of the company's 13 offerings, 5 were Darjeeling oolongs, two were Darjeeling white teas, one of which was in the silver needle style, and one was a Darjeeling green tea. But even the black teas were unusually interesting.

I corresponded with Sonam Paljor Lama, and he was very friendly; I was also very impressed with his level of knowledge of Darjeeling teas.

My experience of the teas:

When I opened the three samples from Fresh Darjeeling Tea, shipped directly from India, I was immediately struck by the freshness of the aroma; although green tea, especially fresh green tea, often smells grassy or vegetal to me, these teas had a certain freshness that I usually only ever encounter in actual live plants...a sort of smell of leaves and plant juices.

Upon brewing them, I was initially a bit overwhelmed by the vegetal character of all three teas. But the sample sizes were large, and I soon acquired tastes for two of the three samples (one I cared a bit less for). You can read my reviews of Golden Wire - GhopalDhara, Monk's Reserve - Castleton Estate, and the Soureni Organic Oolong. To this day, the Soureni organic oolong remains my favorite Darjeeling oolong.

The tea gardens and the traditions of them still exist:

I have not seen or heard from Sonam Paljor Lama in a long time, so I have no idea what happened with this company. It is a sad fact of business that an overwhelming number of businesses close or go out of business during the first two years of operation (usually during their first year). Although I was very sad to learn some time ago that this company was not still in operation, it gives me peace of mind to know that the tea gardens that produced these teas still exist. There are a number of companies that sell single-harvest, single-estate Darjeeling teas, including special batches of unusual teas like the ones pictured and described here.

How about you?

Did you try any of these teas? Do you have any information about what happened to this company? Have you ever tried these teas, sold through other companies? Which companies do you prefer to buy artisan Darjeeling teas from?

Yunnan Gold: More Expensive. Better?

This weekend I attended World Tea East, and it was wonderful. I hope to write more about this event soon, but for now, I've been catching up on more routine tasks, including reading blog posts that I was behind on well before attending the expo.

One recent blog post that struck me as notable was Lahikmajoe's post you pay more for appearance. If you haven't yet read this, I recommend at least glancing at it, as it will make this post make more sense. This post talks about the appearance of tippy Assam teas. A comment on the post then brings up Yunnan Gold or Golden Yunnan teas, a tippy type of Dian Hong or Yunnan Red, the style of black tea produced in China's Yunnan Province. In the spirit of this subject, and in case you don't know where Yunnan province is, here is a map of China with the province colored in a rich golden color:



When I first started sampling and researching Yunnan teas, I was under the impression that all tips were golden in black teas, and that the golden color corresponded in a fairly straightforward way to the portion of buds. According to the post above and the conversation it references, this correspondence is not so simple. I had seen tippy Assam with golden tips as well, and I had read that the Yunnan Pure Gold teas were made exclusively of tips. But if you are a Yunnan enthusiast, as I am becoming (the more of these teas I try, the more this becomes one of my favorite styles), or if you are experienced with trying a wide range of tippy black teas, you will likely know from experience that the golden color does not always correspond perfectly to the portion of tips, nor to the character or quality of the tea.

But it does seem to correspond fairly well to price, which begs the question:

Does Golden = Better?

I was curious to see if I had been roped into the idea of golden = better, so I looked back to my recent ratings and reviews on RateTea to find some Yunnan Gold teas that I had tried recently. The three teas I most recently sampled, starting with the most recent, were Adagio's Yunnan Gold, Life in Teacup's Yunnan Golden Bud, and Rishi Tea's Golden Yunnan. These links will take you to my reviews.

Keep in mind, these companies also sell other Yunnan teas (Rishi has a less golden and more golden one), so I'm not necessarily comparing teas of similar grades. But that's the point. These three teas are pictured from left to right, Adagio's, then Life in Teacup's, then Rishi's:



These photos were not taken side-by-side. Although the lighting and composition of these photographs is obviously different, and it's hard to get an exact comparison of the way the leaf looked, I will say that having seen all of these teas up-close, Rishi's looks the least golden of them, as the picture suggests, and the other two teas are similar in color and appearance.

Interestingly, Rishi's got the highest rating from me. The other two I gave identical ratings. In my review, I noted when trying Adagio's that I think I prefer the darker teas somewhat.

How do they compare by price?

Rishi's is $4.00 an ounce, or $14.75 a quarter pound. Adagio's is 1.5 ounces for $12. Life in Teacup's is $7.99 an ounce. It looks pretty clear...golden is more expensive. And at least from my limited sample size, I do not necessarily prefer the golden color, and at this point, I do not think it is worth paying for. This impression may change as I sample more teas and/or as my palate develops, but for now, I'm thinking it's at least possible that this golden color is more for show than anything else, and does not adequately reflect higher quality as manifested in the flavor and aroma of the brewed tea.

What do you think? I'd be curious to hear your opinions and experiences on this matter.

Tea Blends: Three Types of Blends: Bad, Boring, and Artful

I read a post titled Tea Blends on the Taste of Tea Blog which got me thinking about the distinction between single-origin (single-region or single-estate) and single-harvest teas, and blends. Among die-hard tea enthusiasts there seems to be a general impression that "blends are bad". At least as far as my own opinion is concerned, I think that this is not the most constructive way of looking at things. It's a generalization that glosses over what I think are some of the more true and useful distinctions.

"Generic" And Low-Quality Blends:

Some tea companies seem to bolster their offerings by throwing together a large number of flavored teas, using a low-quality black or green tea, using the same base tea for each blend, and often using essential oils or even artificial flavorings rather than whole ingredients. Suffice it to say, if you're criticizing these sorts of flavored teas, I'm with you on this one. These would be the bad blends.

Blending to Uniformity:

Another type of blending is that which happens in big companies like Unilever, which owns Lipton, PG Tips, and a distressing number of other tea brands. Teas are blended in order to maintain a consistency of flavor. It's the McDonaldsification of tea: it always tastes the same. These would be the boring blends.

Boring is not always bad: some of the teas coming out of the Unilever complex and other big corporate behemoths can be pretty good. But, deep down, there's something artificial about them: tea isn't meant to always taste the same. Weather changes from year to year, and taste changes as you sample tea from different regions. Each batch is different and it takes a lot of effort and energy to make them taste the same. So in principle, I am also not a fan of this type of blending...it seems like wasted energy, doing a lot to achieve something which, in my opinion, is not a good thing.

Artfully-Blended Teas:

The final, and in my opinion, best type of blending is when the blending is done as an art. Obviously, these are the good blends These blends often have whole ingredients such as spices, herbs, or dried fruits, and they often involve traditional scenting methods such as the repeated scenting with jasmine blossoms used to produce jasmine tea. Artful blends have carefully chosen base-teas, chosen to mesh well with the other ingredients or flavorings used in the blend. Tea-only blends, if artful, are blended to highlight the unique qualities of the ingredient teas, not blend-out certain characteristics. In short, they're blended to be interesting rather than uniform.

In Conclusion:

There is nothing inherently wrong with blends. I find across-the-board criticism of tea blending to be baseless: what really matters is how and why the blending is carried out. Rather than going around criticizing blends we could be focusing on the companies that are artfully blending teas, especially those that are blending single-origin teas in such a way that highlights their unique characteristics.

I will probably always prefer pure teas and pure herbal teas, as I like to get to the bottom of learning which tastes and aromas are which. But I think blending can be an art and I want to encourage people to think positively about it.

The Taste of Yunnan Province

I've read extensively about how the region in which a tea is grown influences its flavor, and as I've sampled more teas and honed my palate, I've begun to taste some of these distinctions, particularly the unique characteristics of tea from Darjeeling and nearby Himalayan regions, but also in other areas as well, such as Vietnam. Most other regional distinctions still elude me.

Today I became newly aware such a phenomenon when drinking a cup of Rishi Tea's China Breakfast, which is a Yunnan Red or Dian Hong, a black tea produced in China's Yunnan province, the same province famous for being the origin of Pu-erh. The location of Yunnan is highlighted on this map of China:


The cup of Rishi's China Breakfast that inspired me is pictured below:



I've drunk numerous cups of this particular tea, but today, I noticed something different about it. My brain somehow isolated and identified a particular component of the aroma, and recognized it as one familiar from Pu-erh teas, and that has been present in all Yunnan red/Dian Hong that I've tried, and one that I do not recall ever experiencing in any other teas, black or otherwise. Unfortunately, I can't find words to clearly articulate what this aroma smells like. It's a quality that I like, however, and one that I like when Pu-erh has more of.

If I had to grope in the dark for words to describe this quality, I'd say it is suggestive of incense and slightly of shitaake mushrooms, but not at all like the familiar button mushrooms.

Have you noticed any qualities like this, unique to Yunnan province, or any other tea-producing region, independent of the style or variety of tea? Are you able to articulate them at all? I'd be curious to hear different perspectives on this.

Snowy Dawn and Nilgiri Tea

It snowed today; here's the view out my window as I drink my morning cup of tea:



There wasn't that much snow here; as I'm writing, my car is already shoveled out, pre-emptively, as I don't need to drive anywhere today.

Nilgiri Black Tea:

Nilgiri tea is just tea from the Nilgiri district of India, the next most well-known tea-producing region of India after Darjeeling and Assam. Today I drank my first cup ever of Nilgiri black tea, a loose tea that I picked up recently at Wegmans. I've actually had a Nilgiri tea before, but it was a green tea, from Upton Tea Imports: TN63 Nilgiri Green Tea from Korakundah Estate, which is both organic and fair-trade certified, very reasonably priced, and remarkably unique.

I often hear Nilgiri black tea described as being similar to Ceylon black tea. After drinking this cup, I agree with that analysis, at least in the case of this one particular tea. In contrast to the Nilgiri green that I tried, which was unusual, interesting, and unlike anything I had ever tried before, this tea was fairly mainstream, normal, "typical" for a black tea. This stands in contrast to Assam or Darjeeling black teas, both of which have their own peculiar aroma and flavor characteristics which somehow set them apart from the "typical black tea" profile, if there is such a thing.

For those of you who are more familiar with Nilgiris, how would you describe Nilgiri black tea?

Less-Known Teas: Grab Attention With Tea from Unusual Regions & of Unusual Varieties

A discussion on the LeafBox Forums, which is unfortunately no longer available, titled "What do you want from an online tea seller?" got me thinking. When writing my reply, I realized that one thing that draws me to an online retailer of tea (or any tea retailer for that matter) is when the company sells tea from unusual regions, or interesting-looking varieties of tea that I am able to verify are legitimate named varieties of tea, but that I have not heard of.

Unusual Regions:

One such company is Shanti Tea; I have yet to try anything from this company, but their offerings look interesting. Besides selling single-region and single-estate teas from a number of well-known regions, Shanti Tea has some unusual offerings, including tea from Jalpaiguri, India (a district in West Bengal that borders Darjeeling), a green tea from Shandong, China, and even a tea (not an herbal tea) from Guatemala.

I also have noticed that I tend to love green teas from Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. Upton Tea Imports sells a few teas from Thailand and Laos, but these constitute a tiny portion of their offerings.

Unusual Varieties of Tea:

It is no secret that I am a huge fan of the se chung oolongs, including Mao Xie, Ben Shan, Qi Lan, Fo Shou, and Huang Jin Gui. It is so easy to find Tie Guan Yin--to the point that I virtually ignore it when I see a Tie Guan Yin offered by a tea company--it doesn't get my attention. Any of the se chung oolongs immediately grab my attention because they are hard to find, and from my experience, even though they are regarded as "less desirable" than Tie Guan yin, they are generally only sold by companies that have a distinct focus on high-quality Chinese oolongs. Part of this is because they aren't well-known...so they have no value when dropped as a buzzword.

I also think there are other teas like this. I've generally had good experiences with various styles of Chinese green teas that are not well-known as well. I also like Yunnan greens, which again, seem to take a back burner to Pu-erh and even to Dian Hong (Yunnan red) like Yunnan Gold.

The same goes for scented and flavored teas. Most tea companies sell an Earl Grey and a Jasmine, but it's harder to find Osmanthus-scented tea (which I absolutely love). Also, some of the unusual blends, including plants and flavorings I've never heard of, can grab my attention, such as Teatulia's blend of black tea with the Neem tree. Another example would be Chicago Tea Garden's pu-erhs, which include several scented pu-erhs that stand out among the typical offerings.

Break out of the pattern:

Perhaps most tea drinkers aren't like me...and perhaps some tea companies need to cater to the masses by carrying mainstream and widely-known teas that everyone is looking for. But I know that I appreciate it when tea companies offer something genuinely unusual and different. Perhaps if more people sought out to experiment with trying tea from new varieties and regions, it could create a strong impetus for all tea companies to diversify.

Dragon Well: Style or Region of Tea?

Again I am inspired by one of the posts from Gingko at Life in Teacup: Discussion on Long Jing (2).

Is Dragon well (Lung Ching / Long Jing) just a style of tea or is it wedded to a particular region, like Pu-erh? (Pu-erh is named after a county; technically, the style of Pu-erh could be called hei cha--"black" tea, or post-fermented tea). I think it is ultimately good for tea producers and for the interest of sustainability and promoting and preserving local tea cultures to distinguish the notion of style and region in order to allow the non-controversial marketing, distribution, sampling, and purchase of teas of one style produced in many different regions.

Dragon Well originated in Zhejiang province, whose location is shown on the map below: (public domain image from Wikipedia, thanks to Joowwww).



But, as Gingko and many others have pointed out, you can find tea labeled as Dragon well from other provinces as well. Also, within Zhejiang, dragon well is produced in many different areas. According to Gingko's post, the tea produced in Hangzhou has been considered more desirable over the years.

What is "authentic"?

I think it can be problematic to say that a tea of one style produced in a different region is not "authentic". If the name of a tea refers to the style and not the region, such a label is incorrect. Is Vietnamese Sencha not sencha? What about Tie Guan Yin from Nantou? Or Ceylon Young Hyson? These are all examples I've tried...and I picked them because I all think they are outstanding teas...and they are all radically different from their counterparts from the original regions that produced these styles.

I love tasting how the aroma and flavor varies across different regions, even for tea produced according to the same or similar processes. I think that being able to make these comparisons is good both for preserving local tea traditions and for encouraging the creation of new ones. I also think that it improves people's sophistication...fitting in with the whole premise of the slow food movement, something I have been becoming more a fan of lately.

I think the ideal way to handle these things is to draw attention to where each style originated, but, except in the cases where the name refers directly to a region (such as Pu-erh) to refrain from judgments or value-statements like "authentic" or "fake". A term like "original" is a lot more descriptive. The naming scheme for some Chinese teas already incorporates both style and region. For example, mao feng green tea is grown in different regions; Huang shan mao feng is mao feng from yellow mountain in Anhui, whereas Wuyi mao feng is tea produced in the same style from the Wuyi mountains, and Ilam mao feng is produced in Ilam, Nepal.

How do Shoppers React to Accusations of "Fake" Teas?

Everyone is different, so I can't predict others' responses, but I can at least share how I react. When I read writing on a tea company website that makes disparaging comments about teas from other provinces, my first reaction is skepticism. One question immediately pops into my head: "Why do these people have a bone to pick?"

It is obvious that the vendors of tea from the original region feel threatened by similar products from other regions. But why respond with negativity? Negativity shows weakness and a lack of confidence. If they want to make their product stand out, though, they can do so by one simple method: push for accurate labelling of place of production. If a certain region is superior, and labelling is accurate, people will soon realize this and the producers in this region will be secure. Throwing around disparaging comments about teas being "fake" just because they originated in a different region communicates that the seller feels threatened--which communicates that, deep down, they are worried that their product might not be superior as they claim. Why send this message? All it will do is make fewer people want to buy the product.

I think a more positive response is that which Gingko has taken--put more information out there about the tea. I also think that, by questioning the notion that Hangzhou Dragon Well is necessarily superior, and pointing out that many tasters cannot correctly identify the region of production, Gingko demonstrates a critical mind--which immediately cuts through the B.S. and talking up of their product that some tea companies are guilty of. At least as far as I'm concerned, this makes me feel more comfortable buying a product.

So why talk up your product? Just put accurate info out there and it'll speak for itself!

Locally Grown Tea

There are a lot of issues relating to both sustainability and tea. My page on RateTea summarizes a few of them. A lot of them, including fair trade, organic certification, and composting, are topics that most people are familiar with and that a fair amount has already been written about. I'm starting to think about another issue, however.

People don't talk much about locally-grown tea in the U.S. and Western Europe. It's generally assumed that tea grows in warm, tropical climates and needs to be imported in these countries. But this is not true. The tea plant, Camellia sinensis, is a relatively hardy plant, and while it generally likes a subtropical climate, it can be grown farther north than many people realize. Many of the famous tea-growing regions, such as the Darjeeling district of India, or nearby Nepal, are located at a high altitude where the temperature can actually get fairly cold and sometimes drop below freezing in the winter.

It would make sense that the continental U.S. and western Europe would have a number of areas suitable for growing tea, especially in the more moderate areas. Some interesting commercial tea operations prove this:

• Pembrokeshire Tea Company's Tea Gardens - Located in Pemrokeshire, on the coast of Wales. - This claim has been since taken down, and I have received reports or allegations that this claim was fraudulent, and that no tea was ever commercially produced here.
• Sakuma Brothers Tea - Grown in the Skagit Valley of Washington State
• The Charleston Tea Plantation - Owned by Bigelow Tea and located near Charleston, SC.

Herbal teas:

Herbal teas, encompassing virtually any plant used in tea other than the tea plant, grow virtually everywhere that plants grow, from the tropics to the arctic. North America and Western Europe, in particular, are the origins of a countless variety of delicious herbal teas. Many of these can be easily grown in your own garden or backyard. Many plants used for tea, such as mint, are aggressive in certain climate zones, and can be grown in massive quantities with minimal effort. In addition to growing tea yourself, many herb teas are available locally--not just through small retailers but also from friends and neighbors who might have more gardening space (or expertise) than you do.

Why locally-grown tea (or locally-grown anything) is good:

Locally-grown anything, including tea, is important for promoting sustainability in that it:

• Reduces transportation costs
• Improves self-sufficiency - helps make your region (and you) less dependent on the outside world
• Promotes diversity, especially in tea - because the flavor of any plant source of food or drink depends on the conditions in which it is grown, and the climate and soil conditions vary from one region to the next, each area will produce tea (and other produce) with a unique flavor.
• Creates economic stability - droughts or disasters often happen only in one region of the world; as the total supply of a commodity becomes produced in more regions, the supply and price become more stable in the face of events that could catastrophically effect one source of the commodity.
  

Buying locally grown tea is something that only a few people in the U.S. and western Europe can do right now...but drinking locally grown (buying or growing your own) herb tea is something that almost anyone can do. But it's certainly something worth thinking about!