2014 Taiwan Tea Tour

I am very excited to announce that I will be leading a tea tour to Taiwan this December! I have not been back there during the winter time for the past 12 years. I can't wait!

On this tea tour, we will focus more on tea processing and how to taste tea. For tea processing, the goal is for the participants to learn the basic concepts about outdoor oxidation and tea roasting. We will be tasting teas with farmers from 4 different farms and will learn from them what they look for in a tea that they specialize in producing. The tea farms that we will visit will be PingLin, Muzha, Alishan and Dong Ding.

The trip is scheduled to be from December 23rd to 31st. I will be updating the logistics on Floating Leaves Tea Website soon.

The following photos are from our May 2013 trip. They're so much fun to look at and bring back really nice memories.

Farmer Chen showed us outdoor oxidation at PingLin

Tea field on Dong Ding mountain

Tea picking in Muzha. Photo provided by Matthew Kraus

Indoor Oxidation on Alishan. Photo provided by Matthew Kraus

May Online Tea Class - Tieguanyin

I have set the date for May's Online Tea Class:

May 25th at 10am Pacific Time.

In this tea class, we will taste and learn more about lightly oxidized Anxi Tieguanyin, Modern Processed Taiwan Tieguanyin, Traditional Muzha Tieguanyin, Aged Muzha Tieguanyin, and I am hoping to get some traditional Anxi Tieguanyin for this class, too.

For information on the materials you will need for this class and how to sign up for it, please refer to our previous Online Tea Class Post: http://www.floatingleavestea.blogspot.com/2014/03/floating-leaves-tea-april-online-tea.html

I look forward to sharing some tea with you soon!

Muzha Tieguanyin Farmer Talking About Tea - Part I

I have been planning my next Taiwan Tea Tour (it's tentatively scheduled to be around Christmas/New Year's time - more information coming soon), and remembered that I didn't finish writing about 2013's May Tea Tour. It's almost the anniversary!

I have been wanting to write about what the Muzha Farmer taught us during our previous trip. One of the tour members, Stephanie Wilson, is a great note taker and she has been very generous to share her notes with me. When I went through her notes just now, it immediately brought me back to when we drank tea at the Muzha tea house.

photo provided by Matthew Kraus

I have known Farmer Zhang for about 4 years now. He is one of my favorite tea people in the whole world. I love his smile and his dedication to good tea. The more I know about him, the more I respect him as a farmer and as a tea person. He doesn't simply grow tea and make tea. Tea is an art and love for him. And he "designs" his tea and hopes that tea drinkers can understand what he tries to present.

After we sat down to have tea with Farmer Zhang, Stephanie noticed and wrote in her note," Great smile, dirt under his nails....being from a farming family myself, I love that." I love that, too! The following picture is Farmer Zhang, and I hope you can see what we saw in him that day.

photo provided by Stephanie Wilson

The first tea he served us was one that he had just finished roasting about an hour before we had arrived. Through this tea, he guided us to taste the base and broth. He told us that the tea was not quite ready and the energy wouldn't be showing up fully yet, but he wanted us to taste something that was he had just finished working on. He then asked me where this group "was" in their tea abilities. I told him some of them could taste tea very well.

He proceeded to brew the next tea. He said, "Tieguanyin is a slow tea - you cannot hurry it. It takes about a month to open. If hurried, it becomes bitter. A good Tieguanyin liquor is yellow with a red base." Then he continued, "When I am checking a tea, if I can make a pot for 9 to 10 times, then the tea can withstand 50 years. Good tea is hard to find, just like true love. One must know the tea by going really far to see if it's good. Whether a tea can last through the years is dependent upon the tea maker."

photo provided by Matthew Kraus

While I am writing this, I am sipping his 2012 Tieguanyin. Part of me is here and part of me is in Taiwan. I think I will stop now and just savor his tea for a while. I will continue with the notes in my next post.

Meanwhile, if you want to read more about our trip, please check out Stephanie's blog: http://stephcupoftea.blogspot.com/search/label/Taiwan%20Tea%20Tour She has wonderful writings about the trip and the tea!

Floating Leaves Tea April Online Tea Class

I recently finished my first online tea class. I was a bit nervous, but it went really well! Thank you to my 9 wonderful tea class attendees for signing up for the first class. You guys were great and I had a great time sharing tea with you.

Photos from the first online tea class were taken by Steve Littky.

The April online tea class is ready to go. Here is the information:


Date: April 27th at 10am (Seattle, Pacific Standard Time)

Subject: Taiwanese Regional Oolongs. In this class, I will talk about the five major Taiwanese Oolongs. We will be tasting the teas together, and I will go through the basic differences between these teas and the major features of each tea.

Teas to be tasted:
-Baozhong from PingLin region.
-Tieguanyin from Muzha region.
-Oriental Beauty from PingLin region.
-Charcoal Roasted Dong Ding from Dong Ding mountain.
-High Mountain Oolong from ShanLinXi.

Materials you will need for this class:

-It is preferable for you to use gongfu style teaware.
-Convenient access to boiling water.
-Google Plus account (I am using Google Plus Hangout for online tea classes)

Fee: $30 includes the tea lesson, samples of the teas we will be tasting during the class and the cost of shipping the teas to you (For European and International customers, I will need to charge a bit extra for shipping).

Duration of the class: Please prepare one and one-half hour to 2 hours for the class. 

To sign up, please contact me at tea@floatingleaves.com and I will confirm availability and arrange payment with you. 

Let's drink some tea together again - over the internet!

Grandpa Style Tea

Some of you might encounter some issues with having enough time and space for brewing Gongfu style tea, especially when you are brewing at your office.

Well, the good news is that you don't have to brew tea Gongfu style all of the time. Some Oolongs taste delicious when brewed with the Grandpa style. You just need a big enough cup, into which you toss some leaves and pour in hot water. You will have a very yummy cup of tea in no time.

In fact, there are a couple of Oolongs that I prefer to drink using the Grandpa style, such as Oriental Beauty and HongShui Oolong. I like Muzha Tieguanyin and Charcoal Roasted Dong Ding with either tea brewing style. I have heard that Wuyi Cliff is excellent with the Grandpa style. If you prefer lightly oxidized Oolong, Baozhong can be a great tea for it, too.

Tea can be this simple and delicious! Enjoy!

*Photos taken by Douglas King.