Lingering Lemon Myrtle in a Cup of Dragon Well

I haven't been updating much, and I have not yet explained why, but perhaps I can save that for a future post.

Today I am drinking a cup of dragon well green tea from TeaVivre (quite outstanding, I might add), and I used a basket infuser, brewing it in a mug. When I brewed it, I had forgotten that the last thing I had brewed in this infuser was lemon myrtle.

In spite of washing out the infuser, the cup has a noticeable lemony quality. I've noticed that lemon myrtle tends to linger like this, more than other lemony herbs.

I find I actually really like the result...dragon well with a hint of lemon, more than I like most blends involving green tea and lemon. The reason is that it is subtle; often, when people add lemon flavoring to a tea, the lemon is intense, often masking a less-than-high-quality green tea. In this case, I'm drinking a very good green tea, and the lemon is just a hint.

How about you?

Have you ever tried lemon myrtle? Have you found that its lemoniness lingers on your teaware even after rinsing it out? Have you ever enjoyed a hint of a lemony quality in green tea? Do you think you'd like this more than the strongly lemony blends sold by most tea companies that sell lemon-flavored green tea?

Blind Oolong Tea Tasting with Evan, Brandon, and Others

I recently had the pleasure of attending a blind tea tasting, hosted by Evan Draper, who runs the not-so-active blog Pluck Tea. Incidentally, Brandon of Wrong Fu Cha also attended.

Pictured here is the setup at the very end of the tasting:

In addition to the tea, there were bowls of figs and concord grapes to snack on.

There were seven of us, and Evan proceeded to brew up 7 teas, each of which had been packaged with a mystery label that we opened after the fact. We drank four infusions of each tea. We each took note of all the teas while drinking them, and discussed them before revealing their identity. I took separate notes on each infusion.

I think this sort of setup is a great exercise, because it forces us to pay attention to the tea itself, without allowing us to bring preconceptions based on the tea's origin. We knew nothing about the brands or types of teas, although it was quickly evident that they were all oolongs. Evan used a gaiwan for brewing, rather than an Yixing teapot, which allowed for a purer experience of each tea, rather than having it be influenced by the seasoning of the pot.

Brewing for richness of experience instead of consistency:

One thing I liked about how Evan approached the brewing in this gathering was that the way he brewed these teas brought out different characteristics of the tea in each infusion, which I think helped greatly in the blind tasting setup. By contrast, some people (Evan has done this before) often carry out Gong Fu brewing in such a way that the tea keeps a more consistent character through each infusion. Although this can be pleasant for enjoying the tea, I found the approach Evan used here was more fruitful for actually understanding the tea.

The difference between these two approaches? I'm no expert at Gong Fu brewing but I tried to pay attention to what Evan was doing, and from comparing to my own experience, using a briefer second infusion, and a slightly longer first infusion, often seems to result in a more consistent character, whereas keeping the first two infusions closer in length seems to result in more of a difference between the two cups. The difference usually manifests in the first cup being more aromatic but the second being more flavorful, which I find helps to separate these two characteristics of the tea. However, it also can bring out different qualities of aroma between the first two cups.

Brandon's knowledge impresses:

If you are a die-hard tea enthusiast living within driving distance of Wilmington, Delaware, and have not yet had the opportunity to meet up with Brandon, I would recommend doing so. His knowledge and expertise of teas is uncannily impressive...it reminds me of my Ornithology professor, Greg Shriver, who can walk out in a salt marsh and hear a tiny, brief buzz noise, so quiet or distant that most people in the group did not even hear it, and he would immediately identify the sparrow to species level, long before anyone was able to actually see the bird.

Brandon not only pinned down the variety, county of origin, and style of production of most of these teas merely by sampling them, but was also able to identify the production date of the aged teas with a remarkable degree of accuracy. This level of tea identification skill not only shows that he has sampled a great number of teas, but that he pays attention to nuances of the tea's character enough to identify them with such specificity.

My thoughts on the teas:

I have not yet posted reviews of all the teas, but you can find my reviews of the first two, both from Seven Cups: Old Style Tie Guan Yin 2011, and Old Style Tie Guan Yin 2012. I liked the 2012 tea better, although I did not dislike the 2011 tea quite as much as the others present did, nor did I like the 2012 tea as much as the others seemed to.

The other teas were from the small company Floating Leaves, and I have yet to write up and post reviews.

To be honest, I was not wowed by any of the teas. The first two Tie Guan Yin's were in a similar style to a tea that I gave a 100/100 rating, Life in Teacup's Tie Guan Yin Traditional Roast Master Grade. That tea, granted, is pricier, but I thought it to show a world of difference. I've also had cheaper Tie Guan Yin's that I enjoyed more. The 2011 tea had too much sourness and too little flavor, and the 2012 tea had too much astringency, for my tastes.

There were a lot of oolongs from Muzha in Taiwan, which had been aged in various amounts, and one that was fresher, from 2011. None of these really impressed me. The only tea from Floating Leaves that I really liked was a Dong Ding Select, from Spring 2012. This tea had some interesting complexity, suggesting caramel in the aroma, but with a hint of mint in the finish, something I have never before encountered in a Dong Ding. But at $10 an ounce, it did not seem to compare with other teas in this price range.

The whole experience started to make me wonder if I perhaps have developed somewhat different tastes from the group gathered for this tasting. This morning I'm drinking a rather inexpensive Chinese green tea from Zhejiang province, Mountain Rose Herbs Dao Ren Tea, and I am enjoying it much more than I enjoyed any of the oolongs, in spite of Evan's greater skill at brewing (I've nearly always enjoyed a tea better when Evan brews it than when I prepare it myself).

How about you?

Have you ever participated in a blind tea tasting like the one described here? Have you tried teas from these two retailers? Have you experienced drinking tea with someone who has an insane level of tea identification skills? Have you noticed or thought about the distinction between brewing tea so as to retain consistency between different infusions, vs. brewing it so as to bring out different characters in each cup?

A Dream About Tea in an Asian Supermarket, Keurig K-cups, And An Interpretation

Last night I had a dream about tea. I recently published a page on Cazort.net outlining my philosophy of dream interpretation, and in the spirit of this page, I will share an interpretation. The setting of this dream is a place you can visit if you come to World Tea East, as it is right around the corner from the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

The Dream:

I was at an underground supermarket in Chinatown in Philadelphia, one that actually exists, under the building on the SE corner of 11th and Race, and I was buying tea there. In real life, I'm not crazy about this store's tea selection, and there is another store in Chinatown that I prefer for buying tea (across Race street), but in the dream, I was finding a lot of long jing (dragon well) green tea that I liked.

I suspect that the reason for the dragon well tea in the dream is that I've recently sampled two of these teas from TeaVivre, so I have been thinking about this type of tea. If you're curious, you can find my Review of TeaVivre's Organic Superfine Dragon Well, along with my Review of TeaVivre's Superfine Pre-Ming Dragon Well.

Back to the dream...in the dream I noticed some dragon well that looked very good in quality (it was a brand that I trusted) and was low in price, but when I put it in my shopping basket, I noticed that it was not loose-leaf tea, but rather, K-cups for a Keurig coffee maker. Frustrated, I put them back on the shelf and was looking through the boxes on the shelf to find actual loose-leaf tea instead of processed tea in a K-cup. There were few boxes of loose-leaf tea, but I found some.

My interpretation of this dream:

I suspect that the reason for the appearance of K-cups in this dream is that I have been reading about tea packaged in K-cups recently, and that I am not a fan of this idea, and have been considering writing a post on this topic. But, as I have yet to write the post, it looks like my subconscious created a story about them first.

In some ways I think this dream is symbolic of my struggle to promote loose-leaf tea, and food culture in general, and the way I often feel overwhelmed by a sea of consumerism, in which the products that I am working to move people beyond, still seem to be the dominant ones in society. K-cups seem to symbolize processed foods for me, as they're more processed than even tea bags, and they represent an even farther move away from brewing your own tea, and towards instant brewing, convenience at the cost of quality and sustainability.

Do you ever dream about tea?

Do you ever dream about tea? What do you think of my dream? Do you share my loathing of Keurig and K-cups?

Tea Bag Buddy, and on Selling Tea Infusers in a Supermarket

Lately I've been on a supermarket kick, exploring the selection of tea and teaware for sale in various supermarkets. Here is a picture I took in a Stop and Shop supermarket in North Adams, MA:

This product, highlighted in a special hanging display clipped in front of the shelves in the aisle with the tea, is Primula's Tea Bag Buddy. In this post, I am not going to comment at all on this product itself, as it is one that I have little interest in as a loose tea enthusiast. Rather, I'm going to propose an alternative of a product that could be sold in a similar location in supermarkets.

Selling tea infusers and loose-leaf tea in a supermarket?

I find the product placement of the tea bag buddy in the aisle with the tea to be interesting, as it shows that people are already selling tea accessories alongside the tea itself. This is important because it highlights a method that could be used to enable supermarkets to sell loose-leaf tea to an audience of tea bag drinkers, not accustomed to drinking loose tea.

Instead of the tea bag buddy or a similar product, the store could sell tea infusers, in the same location, clipped to a prominent hanging display. If I were running a store, I would choose to carry Finum Permanent Tea Filters. I would price them at cost, with the idea that the item was included only for convenience, not profit, and the product would encourage shoppers to purchase loose-leaf tea.

Then, I would carry a modest selection of loose-leaf tea. I would draw attention to the price-per-cup and number of cups in the loose tea, because people unaccustomed to preparing tea from loose leaf tend not to have a good sense of these things. It would make the product more accessible and appealing. Here is a marketing idea:

I chose Twinings as an example of a tea to show, because I have found Twinings to be the loose tea most frequently available in supermarkets in the U.S., and in many cases, the only loose-leaf tea avaliable.

Of course, Twinings or other tea companies could probably come up with much more attractive-looking specials. Even if the tea companies selling loose tea do not change anything about their packaging to draw attention to the number of cups of tea in the container, or the cost-per-cup, the supermarket or store selling the tea can do this themselves, perhaps in a special display, label, or sign. Most supermarkets already place a price-per-count on the price tag for various products. The label shown here is for Bigelow tea bags, and shows a unit price per 100 count:

Such labels would immediately show the clear lower price per cup of loose-leaf tea. With the extremely generous serving of 2.5 grams per cup (much more than most tea bags), Twinings loose-leaf tea, which usually sells for around $4 for the container shown above, would be much cheaper than all but the most bargain-priced teas. And there are numerous brands selling lower-priced loose-leaf tea as well.

What do you think?

Do you think that a display highlighting a small selection of loose-leaf tea, with a few low-priced, high-quality tea infusers clipped to hang prominently in the aisle in front of them, would get people's attention and draw some new people in to switch to loose-leaf tea? Do you think this sort of setup could be financially viable, or even possibly lucrative, for a supermarket?

SpecialTeas - Featured Defunct Tea Company

Back in June I featured an inactive tea blog, Tea Nerd. Today I follow suit by featuring a defunct tea company, SpecialTeas. SpecialTeas was still in business when I founded RateTea, but I did not have the opportunity to actually try any of their teas until after the company closed.

Most of what I know about this company is from reading the reviews and commentary of others. Here is a screenshot of the company's website in April of 2008, a typical example of what it looked like:

What did I like about SpecialTeas?

• A clear focus on single-origin pure teas - Although SpecialTeas had quite a selection of blends and herbal teas as well, the company had a strong emphasis on single-origin pure teas. The website classified tea both by type and region, drawing attention to the influence of region on tea.
• Large and diverse selection - SpecialTeas had a very large selection, not only carrying many different types of tea but many specific teas of certain types, such as a rather large selection of Chinese green teas and Indian black teas.
• Good prices - The prices of the few teas from this company that I tried were quite reasonable, and I heard good things about the company's prices from people who had sampled more of the company's teas. All but a few of the ratings of this company's teas on RateTea give this company 5/5 or 4/5 on value.

If you want to read what is probably going to be my last ever review of this company, I recently posted a review of SpecialTeas 546 Mountain Peak Mao Feng Organic, a green tea from Zhejiang province which was quite pleasing.

Why did SpecialTeas close?

SpecialTeas was bought out by Teavana, and then closed. The buyout may have happened as early as 2005, even though SpecialTeas remained open for years after that; there's some strongly suggestive evidence for this buyout highlighted on RateTea's page on SpecialTeas. In 2005, the company was bought by a company that shared a business address and two key corporate officers with Teavana. The company has now officially announced that SpecialTeas has been merged into Teavana. The domain name specialteas.com now redirects to a page on Teavana's website announcing this merger, and offering free shipping to former customers of SpecialTeas. You can use this as a clever trick if you wish to obtain free shipping when buying from Teavana's website.

I personally think that much was lost when Teavana closed SpecialTeas. The two companies had quite different selection and pricing. SpecialTeas in particular had a much broader selection of single origin pure teas, and their prices also tended to be lower. I also never heard any complaints about pushy sales practices associated with SpecialTeas, which has unfortunately been a persistent complaint about Teavana, although to be fair, SpecialTeas did not have physical store locations of its own so it is hard to compare the two companies on this level.

Dragonwater Tea closes:

As another loss, there used to be a company named Dragonwater tea, which was supplied by SpecialTeas, and which closed when SpecialTeas was closed. I learned about this company through a 2009 thread on TeaChat about Teavana and SpecialTeas, in which people were speculating about the relationship between these two companies before any information had been made public officially. I found it interesting to learn about this company, because it showed how value can be lost in society when a company buys out its supplier and closes it.

The economics and ethics of the buyout:

Acquisition of a competitor is a prime example of an anti-competitive practice, generally agreed on by economists as having a negative effect on the economy because it reduces competition and thus reduces market efficiency. As such, these sorts of buyouts and closings raise ethical concerns for me. They are usually legal (with the exception of certain buyouts, restricted under US anti-trust law), but I am not convinced that they are the most ethical decision. I recognize that people have different values and beliefs about business and economics, but personally, I believe anti-competitive business behavior to be something that is often unethical.

Beyond ethical concerns about indirect economic effects, in the tea industry there is an additional, more direct ethical and human rights concern related to anti-competitive behavior. If a company buys out and closes a competitor that sells the same tea for a lower price, leaving the tea only available on the market at the higher price, the result of people buying the tea at the higher price is that a smaller portion of the money being spent on tea reaches the original producer. This causes wealth to concentrate in the already wealthy country, keeping the poorer producing country poor.

This is also a matter that concerns me.

What do you think?

Did you ever try SpecialTeas? What do you think of their buyout and closing by Teavana? Do you think Teavana provides a comparable experience to SpecialTeas, or has something of value been lost by the closing of this company? Do you think that this buyout constitutes anti-competitive behavior, or just part of normal, healthy business activity? Have you ever thought about how this sort of buyout could hinder fair wages for tea producers by causing wealth to concentrate in already-wealthier Western countries?

Packaged Loose-Leaf Tea in an Indian Store: Lipton Yellow Label, Brooke Bond, and More

Recently I wrote about a Lipton Tea display in the Supreme Shop n Bag grocery store in West Philadelphia. One block east of this store is a small Indian grocery store, officially called "International Foods and Spices", but known by most people in the neighborhood as "The Indian Store on Walnut", distinguishing it from a similar store one block away on Chestnut street. (I love multiculturalism!)

Unlike the supermarket, the Indian store sells primarily loose-leaf tea, although it also carries some tea bags. It was hard for me to take one photograph that shows the whole of this store's selection, because it was rather spread out, so here's just a brief snapshot that shows only a small part of it, but gives you a general idea:

Reflecting the heavy influence of British culture on India, particularly Indian tea culture, there are numerous British brands represented here. Yorkshire Tea, PG Tips, and Brooke Bond are all represented, but there are quite a few others. There is single-origin Darjeeling and Ceylon tea available as well. Most of the tea sold here is straight black tea.

Lipton Yellow Label:

Lipton Yellow Label tea amuses me slightly, since the mainstream, generic "black tea" marketed throughout the U.S. also has a yellow label, but it tends to never be explicitly named this way. For some reasons, Lipton Tea imported from outside the U.S. often bears this name explicitly.

I have yet to try this tea, so I can't say if it is the same as the tea sold in the tea bags in the U.S. or not. I have been told that it is higher-quality.

Brooke Bond:

Brooke Bond is a particularly interesting brand to me. Most Americans do not know this, but Brooke Bond was originally a tea company of its own, and was the originator of the PG Tips brand. In time, the PG Tips brand soared to great popularity, and Brooke Bond's own brand of tea eventually fell out of popularity and was discontinued in most Western markets. Both brands are now owned by Unilever.

In many non-Western markets, however, including India and Pakistan, the Brooke Bond brand of tea is still not only strong but dominant. The Indian store mentioned above imports Brooke Bond tea, as it is not directly distributed in the U.S.

More to be said later perhaps...

There is a lot more to be said about this particular store's tea selection, but I will save it for a later date.

Have you tried Brooke Bond tea? Have you tried the "Lipton Yellow Label" tea imported from outside the U.S.? For those of you overseas, in which locations is Lipton Yellow Label sold as such, and, have you had the opportunity to try it to see if it is the same blend sold in the U.S. or if it is a different tea entirely?

Mindfulness and the Dangers of Tea Blogging

I blog frequently, and of course, also review teas on RateTea, because I love to write, but there are sometimes downsides to my high level of enthusiasm for writing about tea.

One thing that I've noticed about blogging and reviewing teas online is that, when I write about tea often, I reach a point where I am constantly looking for ideas. I go through my day, and I see various things relating to tea, and think: "Oh, I can blog about that!" or "Oh, I really want to take a picture of that so that I can include it on my blog!" While this can lead to some interesting blog posts, it can also unfortunately take away from my experience of things in the moment; getting too sucked into this mentality can be a threat to mindfulness (or a different page on mindfulness for those of you more oriented towards pyschology than Buddhism).

Today there are no pictures, and I don't have anything to say about tea. I want to experience everything not only my tea, but everything in my daily life more mindfully.

Have you ever experienced this?

Have you ever struggled with the desire to write or blog about things taking away from your own mindfulness of them in the moment? If so, how do you balance your life and resolve this struggle?