Visiting Beautiful Kunming

We arrived in Kunming, and I was super excited...it's my first time here! Kunming is a lot more modern than I had imagined. People are quite nice, but they are crazy drivers on the road.

Overlooking Kunming

We started our day off by visiting a Taoist temple built at the end of Ming dynasty.

We were lucky. It turned out to be a very nice day. There are a lot of trees, so we had a great time walking around, enjoying the beautiful temple and space. It felt so nice to walk around after a long flight! Besides the beautiful temple, we enjoyed encountering people dancing in the park, practicing Taichi, or playing cards. They looked so relaxed and were having a good time.

After visiting the temple, we had a fantastic meal and felt very stuffed and satisfied.

But there is a great solution to the problem of being very full: time for some tea!

We went to visit Awoono’s friend, Ms Ja, who owns a tea shop in Kunming. She is a great host, very friendly and patient. She brewed us some Yunnan black tea and we tried one with huge golden needles and another that had wild purple tips. Both are sweet, have round bodies and last many infusions. We also tried some Puers. I liked one loose leaf Puer from the 80s. It’s very smooth and has a clear camphor taste. I will bring back some to share in with you in my shop!

Tasting porcelain jar stored teas

My customers often ask about the benefits of storing tea in different kinds of jars. I stored 4 different teas in porcelain jars for about a month: Alishan High Mountain; 2011 Muzha Tieguanyin;, a traditional Oolong that was just fired for the 3rd time on December 26th 2014, and an Aged Baozhong. 

I tried each of the teas recently. I brewed each tea alongside the same, original foil bag stored. There were 6 people tasting the teas with me that day. Here are our tasting notes:

Alishan: Everyone said it tasted better from the foil bag. They said the bag-stored Alishan had more bouquet. However, I think the jar did make the tea taste softer. I've been told that high mountain teas do best in storage with the least amount of air and light, so I'm not surprised that the Alishan lost some flavor in the jar.

Traditional Oolong: The tea is too strong right now, straight out of the bag. After the tea was stored in the jar for a month, we tasted a big difference. It's obvious the tea has become more balanced and less harsh than the same tea from the bag. 

Muzha TGY 2011: This tasting results for this tea was a big surprise. We all liked it better from the bag. The tea from the jar lost some flavor.

Aged Baozhong: Also a hands-down winner for the jar stored batch. This Baozhong needs a lot of time to open up. It's beneficial to store this tea in a jar. More body and more flavor got released from the jar-stored version

It is a lot of fun to experiment with different teas in jars, as well as different types of jars. I'll be leading my first tour to Yunnan soon, and I've been told that there are many types of jars there, mostly for pu'er. We will be doing more tastings like this one in the future and I would like to do a class on it, too. Look for these in our calendar or sign up for our e-mail newsletters so we can notify you when special events come up.

New Teas - Muzha Tieguanyin Oolong - 2009

I brought back a hearty 2009 Muzha Tieguanyin to add to this season's tea selection. A traditional Muzha Tieguanyin is the tea I go for in cooler weather and especially during the winter. The tea broth is rich and savory, and it brings a lot of warmth. I also really enjoy all that a good Tieguanyin has to offer:  Hui Gan (salivating) and Hou Yun (a wonderful sensation at the back-of-the throat area while the broth passes through it).

When I first tasted this 2009 Tieguanyin, I thought it was on the heavy side. However, as the tea opened up, it kept tasting better and better throughout multiple infusions. The stimulation of anticipatory salivation, the feeling of the tea broth, and the pleasantly warm sensations throughout my body just keep going on and on.

I was very happy I got to taste Tieguanyin with Mr. and Mrs. Zhang on my recent Taiwan trip. It is always a delight to taste tea with them. They let me taste two of the Tieguanyins that were made in November 2014. The tea tasted good, but some of the good features that a high quality Tieguanyin have were not present. A traditional Tieguanyin goes through a lot of rolling/bruising and multiple slow roasting processes. It takes time for the tea to integrate and open. This is different from letting a new bag of tea sit for a couple of weeks before it fully opens. You have probably already noticed by now that Floating Leaves Tea carries current seasonal teas like the Spring and Winter Baozhong, High Mountain Oolongs, Dong Ding, etc.... However, the traditional Muzha Tieguanyin that I chose for the shop is not the current season's production because a good one can take a little longer (one or more seasons) to transform into something really special. Lighter and greener Tieguanyin teas, such as what's popular in mainland China now, do not generally benefit from age or more processing, so mainland Tieguanyin is often enjoyed while it's fresh.

The date for tasting the new season's Oolong teas is Feb. 21st from 11am to 1pm. You can request the tea you want to try and there are no reservations needed.  Come early as it may get busy and it will be first come, first served. If I am organized enough, I will try to have some treats for Chinese New Year on that day, too!

New Teas - Dong Ding Traditional

Aside from this season's high mountain tea, there are two other teas that I'm proud to have brought back to share with you. Today I'd like to talk about one of them, my traditional Dong Ding. This tea is made from Qingxin leaves and has a light roast to match its light oxidation (for a Dong Ding tea, but the oxidation is still higher than for my high mountain oolongs). This tea is very satisfying when I'm looking for something with a bit more weight and body than a light oolong or a green tea, without being as thick or full as a traditional Tieguanyin.

This season's Dong Ding offers a satisfying tea broth and some light fruit notes. It has a good back-of-the-throat sensation, which many of my best tea's also have. We've been working with this Dong Ding farmer for many seasons now and he tries to stay on top of the subtly changing tea trends to give tea lovers something that's a bit more interesting and fresh each season, while still providing the solid taste profile that his teas are known for.


I've been meaning to set up tastings for the new teas this season and I will do so as soon as my tasting notes for Tieguanyin are posted. I've been really busy putting together a very exciting tea tour to Yunnan province later this spring, where we will search for some amazing tea and we'll have some amazing experiences as well!

NEW Teas - The Winter Oolongs Have Arrived!

The NEW teas are here!!

I returned from Taiwan about 3 weeks ago and have been so busy tasting, inventorying and tidying up the shop that I’m just now sitting down and writing about all of the beautiful teas that I was able to find this season.  I had a great trip and spent several days with my buyers and my tea farmers in Taipei, and I also got to spend some time with my family.  I love Taiwan!

Seattle had a record-breaking year of warm weather this year.  Taiwan was also a bit warmer than usual, which resulted in a warmer tea season with an earlier-than-usual harvest.  The fragrance of the High Mountain oolongs’ bouquets is a bit more muted than last year’s harvest, but the tea broth is solid, round and full.  Here are some of my notes:

Alishan: the lightest and the brightest of the high mountains this season.  Pleasant and refreshing, with a clean aftertaste.

ShanLinXi: soft, creamy, and citrus-fruit flavors.  My buyer knows that I especially like an exquisite tea broth, and he was right on in helping me pick this one. He predicted that the ShanLinXi’s complex flavor would be my favorite of the season.  It is very good, but still too early for me to pick a favorite.

Lishan: Heavier body and stronger aftertaste than the ShanLinXi.  Bold flavors, fruity, and a satisfying finish.  I am enjoying this tea very much and am having a difficult time deciding if I like the ShanLinXi or Lishan better. 

I had an interesting experience with this season's High Mountain teas that I want to share. While I was in Taiwan, I tasted the same ShanLinXi that I brought back.  I noticed the bouquet was stronger in Taiwan, so I thought it might have something to do with the water I used.  After I came back to Seattle, I tasted the Lishan and I thought the bouquet had disappeared, which really shocked me!  I tried it the next day and the bouquet was still not there.  I tried the Lishan from the same bag again on the third day and it turned out just as lovely as I remembered it in Taiwan!  The body, the taste, the scent and the aftertaste were all there!  I noticed that on the first two days, it was dark and rainy outside, but on the third day, it was sunny.  I wonder if the air pressure, weather, etc has some impact on how much of the bouquet shows up.  Anyway, I’m glad the right flavor profile has returned.  I have found that tea sometimes gets “jet lag,” too, and may need a little bit of time to open up. 

I’m excited about these teas and will be doing tastings soon – the schedule will be arranged and posted later this week.  I also brought back other teas, including a nice moderate roast Dong Ding, so I’ll post the notes about those teas, along with the tasting schedule, soon.