There is good reason why royalty was associated with the finer things in life. Kings and government meant taxes, and if gold couldn’t be had, your locality paid in other forms. If your locality was recognized for horses, you worked to contribute your best horses as a form of tax. The emperors of China were [...]
Market researchers continue to predict the continued rise of tea consumption in the US. Of course, this will mean that a wider audience will come to experience teas, but there are few predictions about the depth of those experiences. In order to more fully appreciate the hundreds of teas available, here are 10 that will [...]
While I do generally try to avoid anthropomorphizing inert pieces of manmade stuff, I still find it kind of distressing when a nice piece of teaware languishes unused in the back of a cabinet – even if that cabinet is a beautiful antique Japanese tansu, dramatically striped and accented with richly hued persimmon wood. But [...]
Surrounded by all of the current hype touting green tea as the cure-all tonic for just about every ailment – physical or spiritual – it’s a little difficult to imagine a very different perspective, in a very different era, where green tea could be distrusted and even thought to cause harm to tea drinkers. Sheridan [...]
Vietnam has a vibrant cafe culture, centered primarily around the tradition of drinking Cafe Sua (Cà phê sữa) – a style of coffee distinctly Vietnamese. Coffee was not always important to the Vietnamese, of course, as coffee beans are not grown very close to that part of Southeast Asia. Coffee and the concept of the [...]
Bi Luo Chun (literally “Green Snail Spring”) is one of the teas, alongside Long Jing (“Dragon Well,”) that appears almost universally on “Top Ten Chinese Teas” lists. Grown in Jiang Su Province, it is quite a wonderful tea. Teas Etc’s Bi Lo Chun Reserve is an excellent offering of this very famous tea. From Teas [...]
Shinobi-Cha is quite an unusual method for preparing high-grade Japanese green teas. Instead of using hot water, it uses ice, which has a profound effect on the character extracted from the tea leaves. Technically, the method is quite simple: place dry tea leaves in a pot cover the tea with ice cubes wait The result [...]
Are you feeling writerly on a scale even smaller than one hundred and forty character micro-blogging? Consider entering Ito En‘s haiku contest. Ito En is the company that manufactures a lot of the bottled and canned green and oolong tea sold in Japan and the United States. Submissions are due by July 6th, 2009. I’m [...]
A couple of nights ago, as I sat pondering the stark range of contrasts in flavor and character among the three types of shochu I was drinking (rice, barley and buckwheat) in a Japanese izakaya during happy hour, I listened to a brief exchange about tea between the two patrons at the table next to [...]
Mighty Leaf’s Marakesh Mint Green Tea doesn’t taste like the traditional tea that they make in Morrocco. Only a particular brewing technique and fresh mint leaves can accomplish that, but it does taste like something nice and flavorful, especially if it’s cold. And cold, it also tastes like a drink you might relish if you [...]
