2016 Spring Tea Trip: Muzha - The Visit

My fabulous tea travel companions were David Galli, who has been giving me a lot of recordings from this past April's trip to Taiwan and Jake Knapp, who has given me 100+ beautiful photos he took (more are coming - Yippee!).

It was really fun to listen to some of the recordings and look through the photos. They gave me a chance to relive those moments. Thank you, David and Jake!

I love visiting Farmer Zhang at Muzha. Some of you who have been there with me know that I don't like to take the Gondola. I am afraid of heights! However, I would do it because I think it's a fun experience and the view is great! I would do it for my son, too. He loves riding the gondola.

 A beautiful view that Jake took from the gondola ride

What a great temple!

I was thankful that it was not raining that day. It had been raining a lot in Taiwan. Seeing the sun break through the clouds, I knew we would be lucky and get to see some tea picking and some tea processing.

We arrived at Farmer Zhang's tea house and it was very quiet. His son came out. I introduced myself. He said his mother is sleeping because she worked very late last night, or I should say until early morning. I asked him not to disturb her. I asked about his father. He said his father should be on the roof processing some leaves. He asked me to wait. In my mind I thought, "No way I will miss the chance to watch him process tea." I said kindly and firmly, "would you please go tell your father that I am here and I hope he won't mind us watching him. I promise we won't disturb him." He left and came back, "my father said it's OK. Come. I will show you the way." Yeah!

We followed him to the next building and went up to the roof. Here's the face I have been waiting to see:

I love his beautiful smile

In the next post, I will write about outdoor oxidation.

2016 Spring Tea Trip: A Quick Tea Update

Due to the snow in February, and lower temperature after that, Taiwanese spring tea harvest is delayed for roughly two weeks.

I visited Muzha for Tieguanyin in April 12th, they were just starting to harvest the Si Ji Chuan( Four Season Spring). This cultivar grows faster than the majority of cultivars in Taiwan. The True Bush Tieguanyin was not ready for harvesting yet. Farmer Zhan told me that there was no sun for two weeks before this day.
I was at Dong Ding Mountain on the 14th and 15th, farmers were harvesting JinXuan( Tawan Tea #12). It was misty with sunshine breaking through here and there. Farmers were deciding if they had to pick Soft Stem varietal, because the weather was not looking good for the following week.
Same thing happened in PingLin. Farmers are waiting for Chin Xin varietal to get mature enough for harvesting.

I did bring back some amazing roasted Dong Ding and traditional Tieguanyin. For darker roasted style teas, I like them at least one year old, so that the roast can have time to intergrate. I will put them on my website as soon as possible.
For High Mountain Oolong and Baozhong, my two tea buyer friends will be sourcing them when the spring harvest is ready.

There will be more posts about this spring tea trip. Stay tuned.

2016 Taiwan Tea Trip: Muzha

I was very happy to see Farmer Zhan's smile and to taste his tea. Here are some photos to show a beautiful day at Muzha. I will write more after I return to Seattle.
*Tea harvest is delayed this season, due to the snow in Feburary and long rainy and overcast weather.

A very fun gondola ride to Muzha. 

Farmer Zhan working  on outdoor oxidation

picking tea

I got some very nice traditional Tieguanyin. Can't wait to share!

Mrs Zhan cooked us a delicious lunch!

Taiwan Tea Photos

I had a great time this past weekend at the NW Tea Festival. I was very happy to see some tea friends that I haven't seen for quite a long time, like Jason Chen(C.C. Fine Tea) and Brett Boynton (Black Dragon Tea Bar). I was also very happy to see many of the people that had joined my Taiwan Tea Tour and had showed up for my presentation! The presentation went well. Thank you all for coming.

I also want to thank Jennifer Sauer (Bon Teavant) for turning some of the photos from a part of our Spring tea tour into a short but terrific video slideshow. Here is the link. It is pretty neat and shows some of the fields where our tea comes from, as well as how some different types of Taiwan oolong is processed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMs9YsqKcSk 

Enjoy!


*Dong Ding photos, Lishan photos and part of PingLin/Oriental Beauty photos are from Jennifer Sauer. Alishan photos and part of the PingLin photos are from Dance Smith.

Taiwan Trip

I will be in Taiwan for tea this May! One of the exciting things about this trip is that I will be working with a professional photographer/videographer and we will be shooting some informative tea videos. We already have some ideas for possible projects. One of our ideas is to feature an organic tea farmer. Another one is to compare different tea making processes.

I thought that it would be a great idea if you, my customers and blog followers, were interested in participating in our project as well. Start by gathering some of your thoughts together. If you could talk to a tea farmer in Taiwan, what would you ask him and what kinds of things would you like to know? Here's your chance to find the answer to your important questions!