Compare a 90's Small Yellow Label Puer From Two Different Storage

In one of our recent tea club meetings, we had a wonderful chance to try a 90's Puer tea(Essence of Tea) from two different storage: One in a clay jar at a participant's home in Seattle, and one in a pumidor at another participant's home in WA.

The person with the pumidor has a wonderful tea blog: Listening To Leaves and wrote an article on this specific tea tasting. I thought you might like to read it. Enjoy reading!

Seattle Holiday Tea Fundraiser - December 8th

In December 8th, a group of Seattle area tea professionals will be offering series of tea tastings, along with a sale of tea and tea-related merchandise. Enjoy, learn, and shop local! 20% of the proceeds from the event will be donated to Wellspring Family Services, a local Seattle organization that helps families affected by homelessness and domestic violence.




Admission: $10 at the door.

Schedule:

Noon
Phoenix Tea: Hunan and Anhui Hei Cha
Miro Tea: Green Tea

1:00pm
Floating Leaves Tea: Taiwanese Oolong
McIntosh Tea: Puer

2:00pm
Tea Geek: Black Tea
Guitian's Tea: Chinese Oolong

Noon to 3pm
Cannata Fine Tea Imports: Tea and Chocolate pairing



Where:
Embrace The Moon Taichi & Qigong
1716 NW Market Street, Seattle WA 98107

For more information, please check out our facebook page: Seattle Holiday Tea Fundraiser
Questions? Contact Shiuwen at Floating Leaves Tea: tea@floatingleaves.com or 206-276-9542

Looking forward to sharing some tea with you!


*picture is provided by Becky Lee.

Floating Leaves Tea Club and New Schedule For Tea Tastings

Our 7-year anniversary sale was very successful. I want to thank you all for your support! I am very happy and thankful that this season's tea has been selling well. A lot of teas have sold out much faster than I expected: Aged Baozhong, Alishan, ShanLinxi, Dong Ding Select, Buddha's Hand, and 2011 Muzha Tieguanyin.


I have been seeing an increase in business at both the store and on our website. I have very much enjoyed sharing tea with people who came to the store, and have had wonderful tea chats and email correspondence with customers who can't visit us in person. At the same time, I have been encountering a challenge: it's become more difficult for me to get things done.


I am very excited to add some new services and benefits for our customers. I would like to announce some changes to our tea tastings, the launch of a tea lover's club and the introduction of more tea classes both for the shop and for the online customers. I am hoping that these changes will help me to organize my time, while still allowing me to share tea and tea knowledge with all of you.


-Tea Tastings: I will offer tea tastings from 12 to 3pm on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. This is a great opportunity to sample some teas that you are interested in. These tastings will be informal and fun. Seating will be first-come, first-served: $5.00 per person. The tasting fee will be applied towards purchases of $25 or more.

-Tea Classes: I will be updating tea class schedule once a month. In the next month or so, I am hoping to set up a web cam system so that I can offer classes to tea customers who can't visit the shop.


-Floating Leaves Tea Club: I am very excited about the tea club. I am planning to meet twice a month, possibly on a Friday afternoon and a Saturday morning. Among other benefits, Floating Leaves Tea Club members will have exclusively access to taste rare teas that I source on my tea trips and from my suppliers, as well as being able to taste our new season's teas first. I will also be providing different tea brewing experiences, competition style tea brewing, and hosting discussions and topics on intermediate and advanced tea topics. This club will focus on Taiwanese Oolongs, but over time, I plan to bring in high-quality puer and Chinese Oolongs for our club members. I will also being teaching directly from Chinese texts written by some of the great tea masters. In the future, tea members will be able to make requests for special tea purchases.


If you are interested in becoming a club member, I will be offering the first two meetings for free. To sign up, please talk to me or contact me at tea@floatingleaves.com. For our online customers, please give me some time to set up our web cam system before I will be able to offer similar membership to you.



I hope that by making these changes, I will be able to offer you a better-organized, in-depth tea education and experience. Meanwhile, your comments and feedback are welcomed.

With Autumn here, our Charcoal Roasted Dong Ding has arrived, just in time. It's full bodied and fruity, with a nice touch of warm charcoal-roasted notes
lingering in the mouth.


*Photo provided by Douglas King.

Floating Leaves Tea Is 7 Years Old

I can't believe that Floating Leaves Tea will be celebrating its 7th anniversary! It doesn't feel like that long ago that we set up our teahouse in our original location further down Market Street. I remember that both Rob(co-founder of Floating Leaves Tea) and I had jobs when we started our teahouse. We painted the shop ourselves and did the buildout after work. Even though it was tiring, it was so much fun because we were fulfilling our dream. Floating Leaves Teahouse offered tea drinkers a place where they could contemplate, read books, and have conversations over pots of tea. Four years ago, Floating Leaves Tea moved to its current location. I remember that in the beginning, there were boxes everywhere, but it didn't stop the regulars from coming in and drinking tea. We would just move things around to make space for enjoying tea! It has been an amazing 7 years on this journey and I sincerely want to thank you all for your support! We would not have made it this far without you, and I am excited to share tea with you for years to come. To show our gratitude, everything in the shop will be 15% off from August 8th to August 19th. Use this opportunity to stock up on your favorite teas and to try new ones. On another note, I have been very happy with this season's Taiwanese Oolongs. If you haven't had a chance to try them yet, please do. I know it has been very hot. If you don't feel like drinking hot teas, there are some teas that you can easily turn into delicious and refreshing iced teas. For example, you can cold brew Oriental Beauty, Taiwanese Ruby 18 Black Tea, Baozhong or Japanese Green teas. Or you can hot brew white teas and green teas and pour it over a glass of ice cubes. These teas are extremely refreshing. Enjoy the weather and enjoy the tea! *Photo is provided by Douglas King.

Our Newly-Arrived Spring Teas... and Upcoming Tea Tastings in Portland

The new spring Oolongs arrived about three weeks ago and they are opening up beautifully. I have been very happy with this season's tea. A lot of them have very full flavors with an exquisite softness underneath. Many people have already tasted this season's teas with me and the feedback has been very positive.

Normally by this time, I would have been able to choose my favorite tea for the season, but it has been difficult for me to make a decision. I like the warm and full-bodied 2011 Muzha Tieguanyin. I like our Dong Ding Traditional that has a solid mouth feel, whereas our Dong Ding Select is very soft and gentle through many, many infusions. I like the boldness of the Buddha's Hand, which at the same time, feels so soft on the palate. The high mountain Oolongs are all unique, but wonderfully complex with creamy, buttery textures. If you haven't tried out this season's teas yet, please do!

I am also very excited to share these delicious new teas with some tea friends in Portland. I will be in Portland on June 29th and 30th to present four tastings: a Baozhong Tasting; a High Mountain Oolong Tasting; a Dong Ding Tasting, and an Aged Oolong Tasting. If you live in Portland or know friends who you think would like to join me, please pass on the information. For detailed information and to sign up, please contact:

David, Portland Tea Enthusiastis' Alliance (PDX TEA):
www.pdxtea.org
mail@pdxtea.org
971-258-2832.

Special thanks to Jan Ellis and David Galli for putting this event together in Portland.

Follow this blog