Floating Leaves Tea

High Mountain Blind Tasting : Gongfu Brewing

We drank FOUR TEAS this episode. FOUR! And Shiuwen brewed them all gongfu style in an yixing pot, one by one. Needless to say, we did get a little silly by the end.

This was a seriously fun episode to record. This is the second time (out of potentially three) that we recorded drinking the Spring High Mountains blind. Enjoy, and we sincerely recommend trying it for yourself!

High Mountain Blind Tasting : Cereal Bowl Style

This was our first session blind tasting all four of your new Spring High Mountain oolongs! We had a lot of fun, and we both agreed after the session that it was REALLY DIFFICULT to get the names out of our heads, even when we didn't know the names. This was a great exercise in seeing tea as it really is!

We drank the teas cereal bowl style, ie with ceramic bowls and ceramic spoons, ever soaking in water, as we drink them and watch the changes over time.

The blind tasting sampler are available for purchase on the site now. We are keeping the price down so more people can join. The 'big reveal' will be done in a Live Session on July 7th. 

Spring Baozhong Party!

New Spring Baozhongs are all here! This episode we had a fun time tasting all three new Baozhongs. That's Farmer's Choice and Competition Style from Mr Chen in Pinglin, and Smooth Water from Nangang.

I hope this episode can give you an idea of what it's like for us to taste new teas and predict how they will open up over time. Enjoy!

Spring High Mountain Oolong : The Butterfly Tea

We just got new Spring Alishan and Shan Lin Xi high mountain oolongs in! The teas are tasting good and we're looking forward to how they will open up.

We drank a LOT of new teas today. By the end of the episode, Shiuwen was listing her favorite flavor of baked goods XD

"Singing Brook" Charcoal Dong Ding

This episode we broke out the new Charcoal Dong Ding! Shiuwen took the tea and used our 'fundamentals of tea' practice to section up and analyze the parts like mouthfeel, spreading, throat sensation, scent and so forth. Then we talked a little bit on the name, Singing Brook, that the roaster gave to the tea and explained how it feels to us.

This is a strong tea! Soft tea, but strong tea. We got a little crazy by the end. Enjoy!!

This Lala Shan is like a Sah-OO-nah

New Lalashan Hongshui! We got new tea from Mr Zhan, and Shiuwen is considering it her mother's day gift!! This was a fun session with a beautiful tea.

This also marks the end of our Fundamental Structures episodes. We will reference the ideas from those episodes, of course, pretty much every time we drink a tea. We are still systematically covering the structures of tea on our live sessions, so join us there if you want to study them! Happy Tea Drinking!

Fundamental Structures of Tea : Scent Pt 2

As far as we've planned, this is the last installment of the Fundamentals Structures episodes. If you haven't yet, I recommend you start from the 'nose and mouth' episodes and follow along chronologically to get the most out of it. 

This episode we compared the scent structure of two heavily roasted oolongs; Da Hong Pao and Charcoal Alishan. Shiuwen got into the subject of how to go deeper with your tea practice if you have a very busy schedule. 

May the Fourth be with you!

Old Growth Tie Guan Yin

This week our Old Growth Anxi Tie Guan Yin arrived from Taiwan, so we decided to take a one episode interlude in the midst of our Fundamental Structures episodes, and explore this tea more deeply. The tea showed up beautifully, and I don't know if it was because our brewing was especially good, or because the tea wanted to show us something. Whichever case it was, we had a relaxing session with an old friend of a tea, and ended up seeing it in a new way.

Fundamental Structures of Tea : Scent Pt 1

This episode we went back to examine the structure of scent! We compared two lighter oolongs, both Tie Guan Yin from Anxi, China. One is a more standard production, with an accenuated floral fragrance, and the other is harvested from old growth tea bushes and charcoal roasted by a master in Taiwan. I love exploring the texture, shape and movement of a tea's scent, and I learned a lot through this exercise. Enjoy!

Fundamental Structures of Tea : Body Sensation Pt 2

This episode was really fun; we drank an excellent puer :^D

To really get into the body sensations that a tea can provide, we compared our Charcoal Dong Ding oolong with a 1998 Aged Puer from Yiwu. The session was really fun, and I think there's lots of good information in there, too.

Also, we have a new slogan. "Floating Leaves Tea : He's Hallucinating, Like Me!"