I've been drinking so many green teas lately, I forgot how beautiful a nice steaming cup of a darkish colored tea could look. And this is quite clear with a nice reddish hue to it. Smelling the cup full of tea really brings me back into what amazing aged puerh can be like, even though this is only about 13 years old its got the nice minty camphor aroma, with a lot of hints of lighter fruits mostly berries.

The taste though is remarkably clean, its got everything I'm looking for but not too much of anything. And surprisingly as aged puerh runs a real risk of producing a cup that is so incredibly earthy that to me it can be off putting.

Brewing it a little stronger and certain flavors do rise to the front, mostly the slightly minty and earthy camphor, but for the most part the taste comes across as incredibly clean.

I must say that I do not typically order from Hou de, but while their prices are high they typically offer some incredibly solid tea. Though I really do not know why as shipping from Texas to here is rather inexpensive compared to from Asia.

I love to have tea outside whenever I can. While we were really supposed to write about a memorable experience drinking tea outside, I am already a bit tapped out on that as I wrote an article for Tching about how Scenery can make the Cup which is about a truly horrible cup of tea that is one of my most memorable and remembered quite fondly, simply because I was enjoying it on a Patio in Venice, Italy.

So I decided to reflect a little bit about enjoying tea outside, and my dream outdoor tea experience.

Probably the most received comment I have gotten on my blog has been the fact that people enjoy the photos on the blog. And for that I say thank you.

I do not know if it is a bit more of a personal boredom factor, or the fact that I like to try and be creative how ever I can. Though I will say I try and breath a life into the tea, and my blog with interesting photos.

I wish I could say I have a secret to my photography, and honestly I've done this much with just Sony Point and Shoot. But if I would have to give some advice, though most tea blogs with photos do a good job of avoiding this, but I guess anyone taking pictures of tea and teaware, would be to avoid the obvious angles, and search for an angle that people do not expect to see that still captures what you wish to show.

He said he did, but he was a little concerned about them as the cake did not taste quite like the maocha that he selected, although he did say that the taste tends to change when pressed, and continues to change for a few months after the pressing. But at the time I inquired about it (probably a month after the preorder email went out) he said he thought the cake had improved from where it was when he first tasted it. So that is the background on this cake, now onto my impressions.

So basically I got the cake and my initial impressions were not so good, so I put it away for a month. After a brief conversation with Nada a few days ago, he thinks this tea is starting to become a bit more of what he expected. My impressions of it are still "brew strong."

When brewed strong it becomes very much like puerh we come to know and love, deeply astringent, with that quality that keeps you wanting and desiring another sip. I used to think Nannou was the mountain I had the best chance of picking out of a line up of unmarked cakes. I honestly do not know about that any more, especially after trying a bunch of different mountains in mini series.

But puerh absolutely amazes me in its ability to pull out tropical fruit flavors underneath its "bad tea" initial impressions. All in all if the cake continues to progess like this in the next month or so, I think I will be rather happy.

In someways I wish this sample was not included with my order of the other two Korean Greens offered by Tea Trekker. I wish that because this tea was phenomenal, and now I am going to have to figure out if I should order some.

When I read Matts blog, I could sense there was something special about Korean tea's and he is part of what influenced me to take the leap. And it has been an almost Alice in wonderland sort of thing. As I feel that Korean teas offer something so incredibly different that you can not help but wonder if you are in an alternate reality. Just by looking at the dry leaves I knew this was going to be good.

And yes the infusion was basically a slightly tinted water, as in this shot the cups are full of tea.


If I could describe the taste of this tea, I almost feel I would say walk out into a dense temperate forest right after it rained, and simply breath in and out through your mouth. This might sound a bit cheesy but to me this tea tasted like as much of part of life as breathing fresh air and drinking fresh water.

What could we call peace?

The calm from a cup of tea,

seems quite suitable.

--Adam Yusko

It is actually written due to an article talking about Wine and Coffee, though I felt tea is a much better match.

So I will have to note this in the future to not acquire so much Shincha, as in all honesty I do not go through it nearly fast enough.

I will say this much, I have been impressed with the Yuuki-cha teas I have tried so far, but then again I have liked just about every Asamushi (light steamed) sencha/shincha I have had recently. This one comes across with incredibly broth flavors, its like a subtle wave of umami that permeates the entire tea drinking experience. It is full of flavor and passes what I consider my primary test in a tea "Do I keep on wanting to drink infusion after infusion, and have this tea over and over again?"

I have messed with several recipes, though they all involve matcha and orange juice.

Other things I have found good to add come from the following list:

I guess I will file this under, I am so addicted to tea it is making its way into all aspects of my life!

As such I am still amazed at how little of the packages I have seemed to go through, though that seems to be the fact that the teapot is rather small compared to my Japanese Kyusu's and the cups are definitely smaller, though a hair larger than I prefer for Gyokuro.

I will admit I am still playing around with how to brew, occasionally I rinse, usually I do not, as at least with the Organic tea I seem to get a lot of dust particles either way. But I do love the resulting brew with the first infusion a lot cooler, where the cooling bowl is slightly more than just warm to the touch, for a longer infusion. This time I feel like the first infusion was perfect with this tea, the best I have made with it yet. It is incredibly creamy with a nice almond taste to it. It has a fair bit of sweetness in there also.

So my best estimates on this infusion would be water close to 50C with a steep a little over a minute, but probably not more than a minute and a half.

The second infusion was also good I went a little long on the infusion it probably should have been closer to or less than 30 seconds, but it only came out in a rather bitter almond character with a bit extra astringency. Other than that it was still a delightful brew.

Something about Korean teas just entrance me and draw me into them completely, I do not know what it is but I surely do enjoy it.

by Brother Anthony of Taize and Hong Kyeong-Hee

This book was one of the first books to come out with its intended purpose, and really it remains the only one. Korea as a Tea producing nation often is overlooked in the grand scheme of things quite possibly because their tea production is incredibly minimal compared to the major nations of China, Japan and India. But that being said Korea being located basically right between China and Japan has had its fair share of influence from both nations, and this book shows how Korea's tea culture is a hybrid of both, but still incredibly unique to itself.

This book is an incredibly quick read, and if you are the least bit interested in learning the basics of Korea's tea culture, it will be hard to put down. Not only is it full of amazing information, it also has a wealth of interesting and eye catching photographs.

The only real flaw I have with this book, is the section on the Brief History of Tea in China. The fault is not with the authors' presentation, but rather with the fact that as I have been reading many tea books lately, when ever a book gives a run down of Tea in China they all focus on the same people and their contributions. While I do not doubt the featured figures influence on Chinese tea, I just wish this book hadn't devoted a chapter to Chinese tea, as it is "The Korean Way of Tea." I say that because every book on Chinese tea culture and history will include just as much if not more on those figures.

But as a whole this book is incredibly informative and enjoyable. For days after I read it I would pick it up and sit down and read through a section or two, or just look through the photographs again, simply because I found it that wonderful.