If you’re not drinking something that makes you happy, then you’re not drinking the right tea. This Yunnan yellow tea is likely a step in the right direction though. Made from fangyang (left to grow) material that is typically used for puer, this tea is sweet and smooth up front. There’s a noticeable pine and mossy fragrance that is subdued at first, but slowly takes over the mouth and throat, lingering well after you’ve finished a sip. We highly recommend this tea for anyone new to the less-common yellow teas, as well as those in search of a long-lasting and enduring yellow tea – in other words, we recommend it for everyone (that includes you).
Temperature: 175° F Amount: 3 grams Steeping Time: 1-2 minutes
The dry leaves have a light aroma with notes of pine, moss, and sweet oats.
The aroma of the pale yellow infusion has light notes of sun-warmed moss and straw with a hint of perilla or sesame. The taste is lightly toasty and herbaceous with a long sweet finish.
The mossy and woody notes reminded me just a bit of sheng puerh. I was also reminded of the field I would play in during the warm summer months when I was very young which was an unexpected, though not unwelcome, flashback. Steeping for 2 minutes worked very well for the first infusion and I preferred a shorter 1-1.5 minute steeping time for subsequent infusions. For those who prefer something a little stronger, mild astringency developed in the second and third infusions when steeped for 2 minutes.
This tea was received as a gift from a third party.
Anhui Huo Shan Huang Ya Yellow Tea Teavivre
Type: Green
Origin: China, Anhui Province, Liu’an City, Huoshan County, Taiyang Village
Product Description: Huo Shan Huang Ya Tea, made through a unique process involving the special step of “heaping” to yellow the leaves, is a lightly fermented tea that is gentler on the stomach than green tea. It originates from the Dabieshan area.
The fresh tea is hand-picked before Guyu, the 6th period of the traditional Chinese solar calendar, which usually begins in April 19. Only the tips of the tea leaves are picked - it’s standard practice to pick one bud with one leaf, or one bud with two unopened leaves. Including more leaves makes the taste mellower and infuses the tea with a more prominent chestnut flavor. This strong chestnut flavor is the most significant characteristic of Huo Shan Huang Ya Tea. It’s highly recommended to use a Gaiwan to brew it in order to better enjoy the strong fragrance and delicious taste.
Temperature: 175° F
Amount: 3 grams
Steeping Time: 5 minutes
The dry leaves have an aroma that is nutty with notes of brown bread and brown rice.
The pale green infusion has a buttery, nutty and green aroma and taste.
Steeping for 5 minutes at 175° F produced the most savory results which appealed most to my tastes. A longer steeping time of up to 8 minutes developed mild astringency and fewer savory notes. The first infusion was the most complex with each infusion after tending slightly greener in taste. This tea was still going strong after three infusions and I would expect it to produce several more.
Treasure Green Tea Company was Vancouver's first Chinese tea shop, opening for business in 1981 at 275 East Georgia Street under the name Super Fine Tea Co. Original owner and tea merchant Mr. Kwok Sun Cheung passed along his knowledge of tea to his daughter Olivia who expanded her studies, becoming a tea master and taking over the family business. In 2003, the tea shop moved less than a block away to its current location at 227 East Georgia Street between Main Street and Gore Avenue under the new name of Treasure Green Tea Company.
Treasure Green offers a comprehensive selection of teas and tisanes as well as tea oils and teaware.
Guests can enjoy tea prepared hot or iced, in-house or to-go. There are also worthwhile opportunities to attend a tea tasting session or tea ceremony class hosted by Olivia.
Address:
227 E Georgia St, Vancouver, BC V6A 1Z6
Hours:
Monday & Wednesday-Friday 11:00 am to 6:00 pm
Saturday 11:00 am to 7:00 pm
Sunday 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm
Closed Tuesday
In 2016, Phoenix Tea Shop moved to its new location in Burien on SW 152nd Street near 6th Avenue SW, less than half a mile from their previous location. I've visited the new tea shop many (many) times since the move and an update has been long overdue.
The tea shop is spacious and well-lit with a wide variety of teaware and supplies, as well as fascinating and beautiful not-for-sale pieces, on display throughout the space.
The tea selection is extensive and ranges from standards to unusual and rare teas from around the world.
100 Taels (3.625 kilos) of Bai Liang Hunan Heicha
Among the teaware available for purchase are incredible pieces by artists such as Richard Brandt, Mark Mohler, and Christopher Shaw.
Richard Brandt
Mark Mohler
Christopher Shaw
While on the topic of art, Scarlet Ibis Art Gallery is located within the tea shop, and features the work of established and rising artists alike. Their current exhibit (at the time of this entry) is Contemporary Japanese Prints. Follow Scarlet Ibis Art Gallery on Facebook for the schedule of exhibits and receptions.
Luxe Night by Judith Rayl
Phoenix Tea Shop also holds monthly tea tasting events that are free to the public.
Burien Tea Tasting Club takes place monthly on Sunday mornings and is an opportunity to taste and learn about a variety of teas with other tea lovers.
Tea & Sound takes place on the last Sunday of each month at 6pm when the shop closes. During this event, conversation and electronics are discouraged. Guests can then decompress and relax while listening to music and drinking tea.
Follow Phoenix Tea on Facebook for updates on tea and tea events!
Wild Jun Shan Yin Zhen/君山銀針 Treasure Green
Type: Yellow
Origin: China, Hunan Province, Dong Ting Lake
Product Description: Authentic Jun Shan Yin Zhen is amongst the rarest of China’s famous teas. Its restricted growing region and labor intensive production restrains the output of genuine Jun Shan Yin Zhen to a total of only five hundred kilograms each year.
Jun Shan Yin Zhen is lightly pan fried, oxidized, and then charcoal dried. masterfully produced, brews liquor with a very floral nose developing as the tea cools. Body starts in front pallet, lingers and migrates to mid pallet where it sustains its rich complexity. Although strong in flavour, it doesn’t shock the rear palate with a sour tang like some green teas or light oolong. It is exquisite!
Temperature: 195° F
Amount: 3 grams
Steeping Time: 2 minutes
The dry leaves have a sweet aroma with light notes of honey and hay.
The pale green infusion has a sweet, buttery, and nutty aroma with a nutty green flavor and a clean finish.
Following the first infusion, the flavor mellowed and floral notes made an appearance in the second infusion. As I experienced before with Jun Shan Yin Zhen, you get the fresh taste of green tea with none of the astringency.
The Wall is made from lab-grade borosilicate. Though it feels lightweight and delicate, it stands up to a fair amount of rough use. If you're still worried or have my history of marble countertop vs. glassware disasters, keeping a cork coaster handy should alleviate any lingering breakage fears.
Medium-to-large leaf teas and tisanes that aren't susceptible to over-brewing are ideal candidates for The Wall. It sits in that happy middle ground between the enjoyment of drinking tea grandpa style (in an open cup or bowl without an infuser) and being able to do so without having to use your mouth as a strainer.
The Wall comes in 310ml and 440ml sizes and is available in right-handed or left-handed styles. I have the 310ml model which holds 10 ounces of liquid when filled to the bottom of the built-in infuser. Smaller tea leaves tend to escape around the edges of the filter when it's tipped for drinking, which can be prevented by leaving approximately 1/2" of room. The larger the leaf, the safer it is to be generous with the water.
For this review, I started off with Sun Moon Lake, a Taiwanese black tea with moderately large leaves that stands up well to over-steeping. The water was just below the infuser and none of the leaves slipped over the filter while drinking.
There's a certain satisfaction in watching the leaves unfurl and the color develop through the clear glass of The Wall.
During the warmer months, I like to cold brew single servings of tea overnight in the refrigerator. The Wall works beautifully for this purpose and, since cold brewed teas don't develop tannins, results are almost always delicious. My cold-brewed Ceylon black tea from Kenilworth Estate was sweet and refreshing. The only issue was with the small tea leaves escaping over the sides of the filter because I didn't leave room below the filter.
Consisting solely of large buds, Baihao Yinzhen and Junshan Yinzhen (the final tea for this review) are ideal for The Wall. The leaves won't over-steep and watching the leaves dance up and down can be mesmerizing.
The Wall is fuss-free, versatile, and aesthetically pleasing. It's a welcome addition to my teaware collection and worth considering for your own collection.
Pros:
Keep re-brewing tea (tea for days!)
Lightweight and easy to hold
Few-to-no leaves sneaking through the filter
Easy clean up
Cold or hot brew
Clear view of the leaves unfurling and the liquor color developing
Cons:
Feels fragile (though it isn't). Nerves easily soothed with a coaster.
Not ideal for teas and tisanes that can be oversteeped, have small leaves and stems, or were steamed during processing.
Lucky Dragon Hotel & Casino opened November 2016 and houses the Cha Garden tea room. It is located near the Las Vegas Strip on West Sahara Avenue and a short 10-15 minute walk from the Las Vegas Monorail SLS Station.
Lucky Dragon has garnered positive attention among tea people over the past year for its tea room, for providing complimentary in-room tea for hotel guests, and for hosting this year's Southwest Tea Fest.
Cha Garden is located adjacent to the hotel lobby in the building across from the casino where the amazing golden dragon art installation resides.
The tea room is spacious and filled with natural light from the poolside windows. Seating is plentiful and may be found at the tea bar and at tables with sofas and arm chairs.
Cha Garden offers a fine selection of white tea, green tea, yellow tea, oolong, and puerh. For the tea connoisseur, the tea menu includes information on each tea's growing region and elevation, growers and producers, and harvest dates. The tea room also offers tea flights, cocktails and tea cocktails, and food.
For this visit, I took a seat at the bar alongside Tea Sage Lu Yu. My gracious host, Mario, prepared Da Hong Pao gongfu style on an impressive stone tea table. After he introduced the tea and prepared the first infusion, I was free to prepare the subsequent infusions for myself.
In the case of teas that aren't on the menu, like this high-grade Da Hong Pao, I do recommend asking about the price before making your selection so it will not affect your enjoyment of the tea. I enjoyed ten flavorful cups of oolong before having to leave for a flight and the leaves could have easily produced several more infusions, making it well worth the expense.
Be sure to visit Cha Garden on Tea Tuesdays to receive a 50% discount on tea.
Day Three at the World Tea Expo wrapped up with a brief yet rewarding visit to the Exhibit Hall.
Sugimoto America has created an intriguing series of flavored tea blends intended for use in the food industry. It would surprise no one that I dropped by when they were serving their ceremonial-grade matcha. It was great seeing Kyohei, Noli and Sara again!
JADE:LEE has been hand-making teas and tisanes since 2010. It was a pleasure to meet the owner and to taste samples of his delicious teas. Even the pumpkin tisane was unexpectedly tasty.
Boseong Jedaprocesses their teas using a combination of steam and pan-firing.
Before I left the Exhibit Hall for the final time, I was given a paper crane by the daughter of a tea vendor. This gift brought my time at World Tea Expo 2017 to a heartwarming conclusion.
Day Two at the World Tea Expo was spent almost exclusively in the Exhibit Hall.
The morning kicked off at the Sara's Tea Caddie booth where Sara Kadowaki lead a tasting of teas from all over Japan. While I was there we tasted Tenryu Sencha Special, Fukuoka Zairai (cultivated from seed from 100 year old bushes), Sakimidori Sencha, Organic Oolong Black Tea, Kabusecha (shaded for 2 weeks in Mie), and Gyokuro Goko (shaded 16 days in Yame). During the tasting, I learned that high-grade shaded teas will be shaded with natural materials while lower grade teas are shaded with synthetic materials.
Chazen founder Rie Takeda is a Japanese Tea Association Instructor and holds the title of Associate Professor with the Urasenke school. She offers a variety of tea ceremony experiences and workshops at Chazen tea room in Ginza, Tokyo (next to Kabuki-za). This year she unveiled a matcha gift set, a decorative mailer the size of a greeting card containing a single portion of matcha, a fold-out whisk, and instructions for preparing the matcha. It's a clever gift idea for tea loving friends and family and it's ready to mail with no additional packaging. Look for a review in a future post.
While visiting the Chazen booth, I had the opportunity to pause for a moment of peace to enjoy tea prepared by Takeda-san.
Please enjoy this beautiful promotional video for Chazen.
The Real Beauty of Japanese Tea
Nihoncha Instructor Oscar Brekell, in association with the Japan Tea Export Council (JTEC) and hosted by JETRO, made an informative presentation on Japanese teas on the Special Events Stage. Notably, Oscar holds the distinction of being the only foreigner certified to make hand-made sencha.
Japan's main growing regions are Aichi, Fukuoka, Kagoshima, Kumamoto, Kyoto (Uji), Mie, Miyazaki (Saga), Nagasaki (Gifu), Nara (Shiga), Saitama, and Shizuoka.
We learned about several Japanese tea cultivars and their characteristics. Among them, Yabukita is the dominant cultivar in Japan because it's easy to produce and provides a good yield of high-quality tea. Production of single-origin and zairai (native) teas propagated from seeds has increased over the past ten years. Japan exported a lot of tea to the U.S. as far back as 150 years ago and hybrids of assamica and sinensis in Japan are the results of attempts to produce black teas to appeal to the U.S. market.
Most tea in Japan is a blend from many farms. Tea farmers produce aracha (crude tea) and sell this to wholesalers who will blend, store, and refine the tea (firing and sorting), then distribute it to retailers. The general term for refined tea is shiagecha. It's worth noting that aracha has a high moisture content (~5%) so it is not good for storage. You also can't taste the uniqueness of the cultivar in aracha that you can taste in shiagecha.
As Oscar said, the beauty of Japanese tea lies in the flavor. The main taste elements for Japanese teas are astringency, bitterness, sweetness, and umami. These elements can be broken down into the basic components of tea:
Arginine - bitterness
Caffeine - bitterness
Catechins - astringency and bitterness
Free Sugars - sweetness
Glutamic Acid - umami
Pectin - tasteless, accentuates sweetness
Theanine - sweetness and umami
Vitamin C - sourness
Catechins dissolve easily in hot water resulting in a bitter or astringent taste while amino acids dissolve easily in lukewarm and cold water resulting in a sweet taste.
When serving Japanese teas pour a little into each cup, making as many passes as necessary to empty the teapot. By this process called mawashitsugi, the tea will have even strength and color in each cup. Taking the lid off after pouring allows the heat to escape, resulting in a tastier second infusion. Oscar recommends boiling water to soften it before using it for cold-brew (mizudashi) tea.
During this presentation we were served a cold-infused single-origin gyokuro (Amakai cultivar) and Koshun-cultivar tea made using local water.
ITI Presentation
The ITI booth held a talk and tasting with Hidenori Moriguchi (MîTÉ Co., Ltd.), Bhavin Shah, and James Norwood Pratt. MîTÉ is the global distributor for Ise-cha, the branded name for teas produced in Mie Prefecture which was once known as Ise Province. Mie is the third highest producer of tea in Japan, specifically aracha (unrefined tea). They produce tencha, but not matcha, as well as a significant amount of fukamushicha (deep-steamed sencha). During the talk, we tasted sencha, fukamushi sencha, and organic kabusecha.
Zealong produces single-origin teas from a Taiwanese cultivar, grown and processed in the Waikato region of New Zealand.
Nepal Tea LLC is celebrating a successful Kickstarter campaign. I've had the pleasure of reviewing several of their teas and it was great being able to speak with founder Nishchal Banskota again.
JusTea directly sources fair-trade teas like the Kenyan Purple Leaf Tea produced by Tumoi Teas. This was a rare opportunity to meet Tumoi Teas farmers Boaz and Jamilla.
Tea Spot introduced their Mountain Tumbler featuring double-walled stainless steel and a removable stainless steel filter. Since it's lightweight, insulated, and handles hot and cold beverages, it may be just what I need to reduce my collection of tumblers and bottles.
Silk Road Teas specializes in sourcing rare and artisan Chinese teas, including "fresh" teas produced in spring by local custom and to local preference. I've had the opportunity to sit in on a couple of their tea tastings at the Northwest Tea Festival and it was great to see them at the Expo.
Bitaco teas are grown and harvested in the Andes Mountains of Colombia at elevations between 1,700 and 2,000 feet. I had the opportunity to review some of their teas a few years ago and it's great to see how much they've grown and made refinements to bring out the unique characteristics of their terroir.
Teas Unique sells teas from several famous growing regions in Korea. I've had the opportunity to review a few of their teas and I was happy to finally to meet them at the Expo this year.
Kanei Hitokoto Seicha has been producing tea in Shimada, Shizuoka since 1865. They have a a store in Shimada near the Ocha no Sato (World Tea Museum) and their products are sold in other retail locations.
Dobashien is the overseas distributor for JA Kakegawa and they had a joint exhibit this year. I was honored to enjoy tea prepared by Tea Instructor, Akiko Dobashi.
Kagoshima Seicha has been in business since 1881. Their retail tea business, Birouen Tea, was established in 1883 and Kagoshima Seicha Co., Ltd. was established in 1947 to handle the wholesale side of business. In addition to a visit to their tea shop, they also offer factory and tea field tours.
Nanami Tea has been producing tea in Uji since 1859 and currently produces single-origin USDA organic green teas.
World Tea Awards
Bruce Richardson and Kevin Gascoyne co-hosted the 2017 World Tea Awards. In addition to the award recipients, we joined Sri Lanka in celebrating the 150th anniversary of Ceylon Tea and the Sri Lanka Tea Board.
Award Highlights:
I was seated next to Linda Gaylard who won Best Tea Publication for The TEA Book and seeing her light up with surprise and joy at the announcement was priceless.
Rona Tison (ITO EN) won The John Harney Lifetime Achievement Award and we were treated to a slideshow of memorable moments in her life and career, including photos with culinary celebrities and an amusingly candid photo co-starring a fellow tea blogger who shall remain nameless. (I might have taken a photo for posterity.)
Honorable mention goes to our table's lovely teapot floral centerpiece.
