Floating Leaves Tea

Dark Roast Alishan

This is our second crack at the dark roasted Alishan from our teacher in Taiwan. This time we did a side by side comparison of the version we stored in a stoneware jar and the version that has been in a foil bag the whole time. You'll have to listen to see which one we like more!

Red Peony with Oolong Owl

This was a nice lighthearted episode with our tea colleague Char, who blogs under the name Oolong Owl. We drank the new crop of Red Peony, which we are very happy to say is an especially good crop. Enjoy!

What Does It Mean to Rest a Tea?

This was a really fun episode to record. We drank an excellent heavy roasted Alishan oolong from our teacher Mr Zhan. It's been resting for a year or so, and although it has mellowed out we are looking forward to how it develops further. It has a lot of potential. This got us on the topic of how to watch for and experience your tea as it 'rests' and develops over time.

Why No Brewing Guidelines?

We started out brewing "Mystery Dong Ding #A" from our blind sampler this month. Then the conversation took a turn when we got onto the topic of brewing guidelines. A customer had asked over email why we don't provide guidelines for each tea, and we liked the question enough to pretty much dedicate a 40 minute episode to answering it. I think it did turn a little heady, but there's some good info in there. Enjoy!

Revisiting the Same Tea Every Day

This episode we revisited the Yunnan grown Tie Guan Yin from an episode a few months back "Slapped with the Enlightenment Stick". This time around it went a little more smoothly, but it still wasn't all rainbows and butterflies. Shiuwen got really into the topic of revisiting the same tea again and again, because this TGY was a tea that she has studied a lot. And her challenge for all listeners is to consciously drink the same tea every day for a week.

Little Iron Bush

Following the Dong Ding trend, we drank "Xiao Tie" this week. It's a Tie Guan Yin from Mr and Mrs Su on Dong Ding Plateau. It's big on flavor, has a mix of Dong Ding feeling and TGY feeling, and actually packs a punch. We were kind of wired by the end of the session!

Stories from Dong Ding Plateau

This week we pretty much just told stories about Mr and Mrs Su, the tea farmer couple who live on Dong Ding Plateau. We compared two batches of Dong Ding Traditional A, including the new roast that Mrs Su did for us in August. It's a fun episode, and Shiuwen got a chance to talk more about what she likes about a good Dong Ding oolong.

Structure of a Tea

This week when I was doing my editing, I thought this may be one of the best episodes so far. We drank a 1970s Aged Baozhong, and it got Shiuwen deep on the subject of how teas are structured. And really, we dove into the overall fundamentals of tea drinking. It sounds weird at first, but tea drinking is something that you learn, study and practice. Also, I am trying to get our podcast to the approximate volume of other podcast recordings. So if you generally turn your sound way up for this show, maybe turn it back to regular volume. And let me know if you have any feedback in that department.

Comparing Crimson Lishan Harvests

The new batch of Crimson Lishan, a high elevation red oolong from Lishan, just arrived in the shop. So for this episode we compared this harvest with last year's harvest. A lot of caramelized notes in this tea, which lead us to the topic of bubble tea! This session was pretty easygoing :)

Oriental Beauty

The teas keep coming in! We bought so much on this last trip :) This session we drank the new Oriental Beauty, actually 2018 crop but much more buds and white tips when compared to the last crop we had in the shop. We took a bit of a detour to describe what Oriental Beauty is in this episode, so there's some good 'facts' in there, too.