Meeting Paolo Panda, about tea and meditation

That meetup group recently met with someone who has been active in social media group discussion lately, Paolo Panda.  At first glance he is into aged sheng and tea ceremony as meditation themes, which really did work out as primary areas of interest through discussion.  We just didn't get far into details about aged sheng.

Jan joined, that contact (/ tea friend) living in the Netherlands, who I wrote about talking to here.  Huyen didn't make it; something came up.  As with most of these meetups there wasn't really any one clear theme or reason for meeting, just running through interesting ideas.

Paolo described the tea and meditation theme.  As background, he has personal history with the Global Tea Hut, probably the best known organization that promotes tea and religion or tea and Taoist practices themes.  He didn't say a lot about his experience with them, although we started in on that.  I guess they are into tea experience as meditation, with variations in brewing forms or natural experiences factoring in, but not really into linking that to religious ceremony or ideas, or more formal meditation.  He spoke positively of Wu De but not in so much detail.

Paolo's evolved ceremonial form largely involves having people join to drink aged sheng pu'er, selected in relation to what he expects them to like, and to typical effect from a certain tea (which would vary by person).  Then they drink tea without speaking, for an hour and a half.  He said that some people find that experience of tea in silence very moving, experiencing internal scope in a novel and unusually deep way.

In his website he talks about categorizing aged sheng, and about some relatively standard factors affecting how a tea comes across:  growing conditions, elevation, tea plant age, local source area, processing inputs, storage conditions, more natural grown or wild plant source material versus plantation grown tea, etc.  This site has more on the ceremony and meditation side.

Paolo is from Italy and now lives in England (Brighton), and has traveled a good bit, and has experienced quite a bit in relation to themes like tea and meditation.  The meditation and effect of aged sheng aspects just resonate with him; he doesn't seem the "spiritual seeker" type to the same extent one might expect from the rest.  He probably spends more time focused on inner reality and how he relates to external factors than most, but it came across as just being introspective, and open to atypical approaches.

To be clear I'm fairly open to a lot of that other Eastern culture range myself.  I practiced meditation in different forms at different stages of my life, and was ordained as a Buddhist monk at one point.  I don't think I would fit in at Burning Man, which Paolo mentioned attending, but then back in my 20s maybe more so.  Meditation seeming effective is familiar, just not that tea ceremony form.

Suzana's pictures are always better (credit to her)

We talked for awhile, about a broad range of things, but this is going to make it sound like we didn't.  Ralph, Jan, and Paolo talked about clay pots for awhile but I kind of tuned that out; I own a couple of those but don't even use them, since I'm familiar with gaiwans, and didn't make it through a full seasoning cycle.  In discussing aged sheng it helps to overlap quite a bit in relation what you are drinking with someone else, able to use familiar versions as discussion starting points.  I don't spend that much on tea, so the more interesting $1/gram and up range higher demand versions I tend to never try.  Ralph and Paolo might've put more effort into exploring that but didn't.  Jan is not new to sheng and aged sheng, and even sells sheng online in a small shop.

One interesting discussion point came up related to how people combine tea and meditation, or how they tend to borrow Eastern culture aspects.  Suzana mentioned that because meditation practice is so familiar and adjoined to yoga in India people wouldn't ordinarily connect it with tea experience.  There's a lot to that, and a deeper pattern that it informs.  Here in Thailand meditation is also familiar, tied more to religious practices, and internal self-development, and again it isn't regarded as connecting at all with tea experience.  

Keo!  he doesn't look like he's meditating in any pictures I have.

To move back to a broader level, it seems like "Western culture" individuals drawing on Eastern themes tend to see a broad range of ideas and subjects as connected, and import them as if they go together.  Tea, martial arts, meditation, religion, health themes, and even clothing styles can end up combined, when in the original traditions these are all separate subjects, that can have points of connection and significant overlap, but they rarely are tightly coupled, never mind embraced as a bundle.  Or at least that's my understanding.

We talked about how in modern Chinese culture people aren't even that into the same forms of these things.  Gong Fu tea practice isn't all that common, and not everyone drinks tea.  The people who do are far more likely to use very simple brewing approaches, like "grandpa style," brewing in a tea bottle.  We were close friends with three families from China through my kids' school friends, to the level that we did activities on weekends or visited each other's houses, and none of them were into tea in any way remotely like Western tea enthusiasts.  They could try to name a couple of local types they would regularly drink, and maybe not get far with that.  One friend from Japan drank tea but couldn't place any name, not even the category of sencha, just saying that he bought tea at a grocery store.

When I moved to Thailand to ordain as a monk something similar came up related to being disappointed with monks' takes on core Buddhist ideas:  they weren't really familiar with them.  The topics of rejection of a real self or the meaning of suffering as a fundamental condition of life experience they had heard of, but had no opinion on what those really meant.  Their approach was more towards being moral, going with the flow, staying relaxed.  And these were monks!  They said that forest monks do more with such theories, and related meditation practices.  I did study formal meditation (vipassana) at a local Bangkok temple meditation center, a main one too, Wat Mahadat, but even though the support was helpful the depth of practical advice and links to theory weren't what I expected.

I did want to touch on one theme that I noticed from that experience, which we discussed as a topic but that I didn't add in that conversation, about how sitting on a floor to meditate works out.  Many people notice that this makes them uncomfortable, and then it's often accepted that they could meditate sitting in a chair instead.  But there is a deeper function behind sitting meditation in relation to the physical posture playing a practical role, that links to internal perspective.  

We all carry stress in our bodies in relation to posture and tension; it's normal.  A practice like yoga helps regularly "clear" that, and a lot of kinds of exercises would minimize the impact or experience.  Something like sitting at a desk 8 hours a day would make it much worse, both the routine posture and degree of tension.  When you sit without support (the cross-legged theme) the lack of support and motion activates that tension as causing discomfort.  Mental experience and physical experience meet in this form, to a certain extent; as you relax and clear your mind the tension naturally reduces.  It's not about amount of time spent, and really also not about "not thinking," although thoughts racing and shallow chest breathing do adjoin the opposite experience, feeling tension and experiencing internal noise.  As you relax your mind and body together the physical tension can subside.

Anyway, we didn't really talk about that.  Per usual we did skim across introductions, with a bit on tea preferences and experiences, travel, and social media experiences.

It was great meeting Paolo and hearing his take on those themes.  I think the connection between tea and meditation is much more routinely embraced by Western Gong Fu Cha practitioners than I take up, but of course I see it as perfectly valid and functional.  It was interesting hearing about a developed perspective and approach to that.  The rest about tea exploration, varying cultures, and travel added up to more than I captured in this summary, but it didn't work to go back and add details to fill it in.  These written summaries need sets of connected ideas within main themes to sound more interesting, but organic discussion can be something else, about lots of diverse ideas.  

There is a more standard interview form discussion with Paolo that covered more background available through this link, conducted by Pascal Djpas of the My Tea Pal community.

On roasting sheng pu'er, and tea culture confirmation bias

A friend who has been visiting from Germany recently, Ralph, author of the new Daily Tealegraph blog, discussed the theme of roasting teas with me.  It came up in relation to him trying some moderate quality oolong.

this actually looks pretty cool (details and photo credit)

Ordinarily rolled oolong would be ideal for messing around with roasting, to see how that changes aspects, or to improve it related to a flaw.  It would work with any oolong (or other tea types, I guess) but I've barely considered it since I don't tend to buy teas that require adjustment in any way.  Oddly I'm partly through an exception now, a very inexpensive light Tie Guan Yin I bought in Shenzhen on that visit there, which is so-so, and I have considered that step.  I've only tried roasting an oolong once before, that I remember, and results were relatively positive.  I just don't usually keep inexpensive oolong around to mess with.

meeting at Jip Eu; I did like the higher grade of those basic oolongs

those less expensive packs convert to around $3

All of this is headed somewhere, so I'll get on with it.  We also talked about roasting green teas, or even pu'er.  I've heard of re-frying Longjing to freshen up the character, I've just not tried that myself.  Roasting pu'er is something else; that leads onto the theme I wanted to get to.

I first saw mention of it related to Don Mei of Mei Leaf selling a version.  It's unconventional.  After some discussion it came up that the practice is not unheard of in China, just not common practice (per a single claim that wasn't completely verified, to be clear).  I didn't turn up that discussion I'm remembering, but this one works as an example of people questioning if that's a good idea, and what would become of the micro-fauna (bacteria and fungus) that allows sheng pu'er to age transition / ferment.

That Mei Leaf version will work as a starting point for that starting point, with a video reference here, and their website description including this:


Psychic Stream Seeker:  Lao Man E 500 Year Old Gushu Raw Spring 2017


This is made from Gushu Lao Man E tea trees aged between 400-500 years old and house roasted by Mei Leaf in London.

Lao Man E is well known amongst PuErh lovers as an area producing potent tea with nuanced fruits and sweetness fighting their way through layers of bitterness... 

Many people find Lao Man E PuErh to be crude and overwhelmingly bitter to begin with but Love and Hate are two sides of the same coin and there is something about Lao Man E that keeps you tasting until it captures your enthusiasm. Lao Man E has shifting flavours and complex subtleties that you often have to discover through later infusions - after the bitterness is manageable...

For many, the best way to temper Lao Man E is to age it for several years or longer. This will calm some of the bitterness but the tea will lose some of its youthful fragrances...  After all it works for Oolongs...

...This PuErh has all the punch and strength of the original, raw Lao Man E, but the bitters are rounded and shortened to allow a crescendo of woodsy fruits and starchy sweetness to fill the mouth. The roasting has added a depth of colour and caramel warmth similar to a roasted Oolong. It has tempered the rushiness of young PuErh to leave you feeling high without any jitteriness...


I'll be frank:  I might have seemed a little hard on Mei Leaf in some online comments because their teas seem overpriced to me.  Quite decent, based on what I've tried, but probably exaggerated in description framing, and just not sold at standard internet outlet prices.

Physical shops tend to charge more for teas, often in the range of 30-50% more, which to me is reasonable, since they need to cover location rent and staffing costs.  I'm happy to pay a little more in a shop, to support them, especially since that adds extra valuable services for customers.  Mei Leaf seems to primarily be an online shop outlet that retains physical shop pricing, which isn't completely fair. 

It's up to them to decide what to charge, so "fair" isn't part of it, but at some point it moves from an arbitrary marketing decision to mis-representing the quality level, which is a main input related to a likely market rate for a tea.  If you sell an oolong at 50 cents a gram that amounts to an implied claim that it's relatively high quality, unless it's Dan Cong, and then that might just be normal for decent versions.  If a vendor sells the same kind of Tie Guan Yin that routinely sells for $12-15 per 50 grams for $25 instead it would be a bit misleading, especially with marketing content filled with superlatives describing the tea (even if that reads about the same as the conventional priced version descriptions--there's another odd part).

Mei Leaf provides great online video content for people new to tea; it would be fair to interpret that as a value addition.  This isn't going to be about all that, so I'll move on, after mentioning how price stacks up in this case.

That tea had been selling for $76 / 100 grams.  Gushu pu'er from an in-demand area, what it was sold as, often sells for the range of $1 / gram, so if anything it's a lower than average selling point.  Is it from 400-500 year old trees, or even from Lao Man E area?  Who knows.  Tea plant age claims are the main point of contention in discussion circles, and there is a conventional understanding that it's impossible to accurately date tree ages over 100 years old, and that most claims about such things wouldn't be accurate.  Personally I doubt it's even gushu, 100+ year old plant sourced tea, or from anywhere near Lao Man E village, but who knows.

I wanted to move on here to the idea that when word of this came out the discussion consensus was that it made no sense at all, to roast sheng pu'er.  Of course the degree to which it does really relates to the results.  Is it pleasant?  Is it anywhere near the level of appeal in relation to other options of a similar type and expense level?  Novelty can be nice in tea, and this type and preparation just doesn't come up.

In the one discussion it later emerged that it's not unheard of in China, just not all that conventional there either, and that changes things a little.  If a Western vendor decides to apply a processing step or advocate a brewing approach that seems to make no sense that's looked at negatively.  If they instead adopt an uncommon Chinese practice reserving judgment is a more natural initial starting point.

If you Google "roasted pu'er" (looking for a discussion of the topic, or other reference) the first entry that comes up on my results relates to the exception for a main pu'er-related type from Yunnan that is roasted, a Yunnan Sourcing bamboo pu'er.  I just tried falap for the first time, what I take to be a relatively identical Assam (Indian) variation of this same tea.  That was great, kind of in between conventional hei cha range and how sheng normally is, not bitter or astringent, or even smoky, which I expected.

This is Scott's description of the version I just mentioned a link for:


First flush of spring Dehong area tea is gradually steam softened and tamped down into bamboo sections in fire pits.  This aromatic bamboo is unique to Mangshi area of Dehong and must be harvested in August.  Small fire pits are dug in the village ground and are stoked with bamboo charcoal.  The bamboo sections are placed closed end down into the fire pits, as the bamboo heats up the aromatic water vapor in the bamboo sections is released as steam.  The sun-dried mao cha is gradually pushed into the hot steaming section of bamboo, and tamped down as it becomes softened by the steam.  

Once the bamboo sections are filled with tea the sections are allow to roast in the fire a while longer before being removed to a kind of oven room where they are allowed to dry for 2 or 3 days.  The charred bamboo sections are then removed and will be processed into bamboo charcoal for further use.The tea itself is subtly aromatic with floral tones.  The tea brews easily and isn't too fussy.  The tea liquor is golden yellow and transparent.  With aging this tea will develop orchid aromas with a hint of sugarcane.

falap cross section, the one that I tried

Of course applying a typical roasting process to a Lao Man E conventional sheng is something else altogether.  It's still interesting to consider, to what extent there might possibly be any overlap.

Acceptance related to a separate case

Moving on a little, maybe it's only my own way of organizing ideas, but I connect the acceptance of what goes by the name "Grandpa style" brewing with the original Chinese origin too.  The results for that can be fine; it works.  But it's my impression that if the approach didn't have the same credentials it would be completely rejected in Western circles, but as things stand it's not.

To back up and explain, that's the practice of just putting some leaves in a tumbler or jar with hot water, drinking it while still mixed, then re-adding hot water, maybe a few times.  It's a counter-intuitive approach because it doesn't control infusion time at all, so it's the exact opposite of both the standard Western and Gong Fu approaches in that one regard.

It's my understanding that the author of The Tea Addict's Journal popularized this in Western tea enthusiast circles, but it really is how many people in China make tea, maybe most of them.  That term "popularizer" can be a bit of an insult, in some uses, but it's way too long a story to get into what I mean, about bringing down ideas or theory from academic sources to the masses, in simpler form.  He didn't do that, he just mentioned a normal way to brew tea in China.

grandpa style brewing in a tea bottle, and child eating ice cream

Versus a standard meaning of confirmation bias

This isn't exactly an example of confirmation bias, of selecting what information you accept based on a predisposed understanding.  It's a source-type bias that accepts things much more from within a foreign culture instead.  Applied the right way that actually makes sense; Chinese people have been brewing tea for a long time, and it's worth at least considering their preferences.  If they fry their green tea, re-roast an oolong, or even roast a sheng pu'er then why not try it and see if they're onto something. 

The part about automatically rejecting Mei Leaf doing it works better as a match for the acceptance / rejection basis.  Their standard customers might think it sounds great because they've embraced other novel products and story lines from them with positive results.  Rejecting them roasting sheng falls under this scope too; it confirms what some other people already "know," that they are an opportunistic vendor who seeks to promote and sell any number of products or make any claims to turn a profit, if possible playing on customer ignorance, regardless of how positive final results are.  Even though they contradict to some extent both perspectives about Mei Leaf might be accurate.

Of course the main drawback related to sheng roasting is that the tea version probably should never age the same again.  That's not to say it couldn't still age-transition / ferment positively, it just seems less likely.  Good-case fermentation results occur based on carefully prepared versions exhibiting a standard range of initial compounds that are favorable to this transition, along with exposure to bacteria and fungus responsible for fermentation, and storage within an environment conducive to that biome thriving.

Anyone could roast some sheng and wait a decade to find out how that goes, testing out only roasting some and leaving the rest as it was, but short of trying that the most likely outcome would be anyone's guess.  If someone bought one 100 gram cake (as this was sold) it seems unlikely they would plan to set that aside for a few years to see how it changes; that's a good amount to drink over a relatively short period of time.  Nothing would stop someone from buying two cakes, one to save, that would just be a relatively expensive experiment, given the indeterminate nature of any expectations.

I haven't yet mentioned if I think this would work, that you could adjust the bitterness in a version of sheng by roasting with the same effectiveness and positive results of using aging for the same purpose.  I really don't know.  I'm familiar with how oolongs transition when roasted, but there wouldn't necessarily be a close parallel.  Oolongs aren't bitter and astringent in the same way young sheng are; partial oxidation changes the character, with the raw tea leaves starting out different anyway, made from different types of plants.

Ralph should check on all this for the good of the tea community.  I could toss some sheng in the oven myself but it seems disrespectful to the tea, even for inexpensive, moderate quality versions.  I rarely even write opinion posts here lately, never mind experimenting with something like that, or a water type tasting, something I've been meaning to get to for a couple of years.  Once I get through the next dozen or so reviews I'll be caught up, and maybe then I'll get to it.  But then I always think that, and then I come by more tea.

A separate non tea related case, beyond confirmation bias

That tendency to embrace all practices related to tea from China, but not so much from other sources, wasn't exactly confirmation bias, more another form of carrying over expectations.  I've ran across an interesting example of this recently I'll only touch on here.  One might think it's odd that people could embrace Trump as a wacky, abrasive, off-the-cuff reality TV show star, then also as a US President, but I don't mean that.

Online discussion brought up an odd sub-culture case of Roosh V, a celebrity of sorts, and advocate sex tourism / hook-up culture.  It's a little like the incel or mens-rights themes; shocking that it even exists in the forms those do, when first exposed to them.  That part was interesting, but a twist all the more so:  at one point that founder (Roosh) dropped those practices and converted to a conservative form of Christianity.  And he didn't lose all of his following for doing so.  It was interesting for me to check out his perspective in national speaking tour related travel videos, and I wrote about his take that America is in decline in a post on a work-space blog, which is supposed to be about Buddhism.  The short version:  I think the US is just in a time of transition, and the social-perspective issues will moderate, although I am concerned about the long term health of the economy.

Roosh V; maybe the beard ties to a monk-themed appearance?

Back to the point, how could that be, that promoting opposing views could draw following from the same people?  How could there be overlap in treating women like objects in that way, developing strategies and practices related to having sex with strangers, without forming any relationship, and the moral values of conservative, traditional Christianity?  I'd be guessing to speculate about that, but it seems there isn't as much of a contradiction in these perspectives as there first seems.  Gauging online following is difficult, relating to judging level of acceptance.  His videos level off at around 11,000 views.  Is that a lot?  By tea blogging standards, sure, but compared to podcasts or travel blogs not at all.

One might wonder, how does this relate to tea?  It doesn't, but the underlying theme seems to connect.

It seems like people start with conclusions a lot more often than they probably think they do, and then work back to why they arrived at them in the first place.  They already liked and followed Roosh, so any change he proposed, including completely rejecting the basis for the community he founded, could somehow be acceptable, even appealing.  No pu'er enthusiast is going to be quick to embrace roasted versions that tea type, but if someone followed and related to Mei Leaf teas they may well be open to trying something they would never consider otherwise, even at the commitment level of paying $76 per 100 grams.

Other examples would keep coming up.  Tea enthusiast purists uniformly reject flavored teas (not all of them, but it's as universal a running theme as any other), but due to them being part of a Chinese tradition shu pu'er stuffed tangerines / oranges are well accepted as an interesting novelty.  Outside of that context, if a Western vendor decided they wanted to stuff a dried fruit peel and store tea in it, that appeal would be much more limited.  Not to say it couldn't "fly;" using whisky or rum barrels to store and flavor tea seemed to have its moment not so long ago, and I'm not familiar with there having been a traditional basis for that.

sometimes they look strange, sometimes really strange

Bug-poop tea and civet coffee seem like related examples.  Drinking a brewed beverage made from animal feces sounds about as unappealing as anything one might dream up, but these being traditional practices at least opens people up to trying them out.  Just not me; once an animal or human digests something I've lost interest in repeating that process.

Sometimes starting point issues could go either way; people might be open to accepting or rejecting sources, practices, or products in relation to how appealing the theme is to them, to prior bias.  I wrote about possible tea cults not so long ago, citing Global Tea Hut as the most likely example of one.  In a case that like it would either elevate or reduce the appeal of their teas, even though the tea itself would have to be relatively separate from the religious-practices themes.  It's either good tea or it's not. 

to me sub-cultures varying is a good thing; how could it not be?

Reading a discussion of them as a source recently in a Tea Forum thread reminded me of this connection.  There is no consensus there, not even enough input to frame competing views, just one relatively positive and one negative take.  I wouldn't be surprised if judgment of the tea often corresponded to acceptance of their sub-cultural / religious theme, even though comments there explicitly made that separation.  The right person could completely ignore the context a tea was presented in (related to source, not consumed in; I don't mean atmosphere as a real factor), but it would seem more common for that to play a significant role.


All of this isn't headed for a tidy conclusion; that last idea is about as close as it comes to that.  It was interesting to me the way the ideas seemed to link, to some extent, beyond roasting sheng pu'er seeming interesting and a little strange.  Preconceptions are a funny thing.

Russian tea culture

I've meant to write something related to Russian tea culture for awhile.  We visited Russia over Christmas and New Years of 2018, which led to more research, writing, and online contact related to that theme.  But never to a blog post specifically on Russian tea culture, except a TChing post about it, which was really to summarize a lot of other content in short form.

I'm still no authority on the subject, but one of the more interesting contacts I'd talked to online visited Bangkok not so long ago, Alexander Vorontsov, one founder of the Russian Tea Lover's group page on Instagram.  Or it was not so long ago when I started this post draft a month ago, since I kept adding to it.  That online group corresponded to a number of people who regularly meet and drink tea together, not stopping at online discussion, as many groups do.

with Kittichai, the Jip Eu shop owner

This covers my limited understanding of tea culture in Russia, what I took away as Alexander's input about that subject, combined with input from other discussions.  Any tea enthusiast active in related groups living in Moscow or St. Petersburg would have a more informed perspective, but then I do end up talking to Russians about tea more than most.  Part of that relates to this blog, and to talking to people in the role as admin of an international themed Facebook tea group.

the last Russian tea enthusiast to visit in April, Tatiana Zhukova

Background:  vacation experiences and other pre-conceptions

It goes without saying that I had no ties to Russian culture prior to visiting Russia, but all the same I'll say it.  I know two Russians selling tea in Thailand, one of those only through online contact, but to me that doesn't count as significant input about there.  That made visiting the country all the more interesting.

There was the Cold War background, since I'm old enough to have grown up during that (I'm 50; to save younger readers from doing the math I graduated from high school in 1986, five years before the end of the Soviet Union).  My family loved that vacation visit, which I won't go into here, sticking to the subject of tea (but I already did cover that other travel scope in this post).

lots of pictures like this in that post

Ceylon tea bag tea at reindeer farm (with great company)

I visited a few tea shops there but it didn't amount to much.  One interesting version was Perlov in Moscow, a truly beautiful place.  But the tea was on the ordinary side, mostly boxed versions with a good-sized set of one loose version per category type jar teas.  That's a great start for a tea shop but only a start.

a very helpful local, in the Perlov shop

Moychay shops went further; I bought tea in those in Moscow and St. Petersburg.  Georgian black tea was the closest I came to finding Russian tea, except for a green version from Perlov, which sort of doesn't count since that's my least favorite tea category (although it was a good version).  One Moychay Nan Nuo sheng pu'er I bought a cake of on a whim was one of my favorite sheng versions I've yet to try, way fruitier and more intense than sheng typically ever is (and approachable in style as a young version; that wouldn't be for everyone).

a small Moychay shop; (you can interactively browse that shelf here)

friendly Moychay staff in a St. Petersburg branch

That link below the first shop photo goes to a page with a very interesting feature; you can look around the shelves and room of those shops, using what seems to be Google Streetview as a viewing platform.  It's especially cool for me because I've been inside those two shops, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and it's like stepping into them again.  Moving on.

Still on the subject of vacation outings and visiting, meeting the owner of Laos Tea at a tasting in Moscow stood out as a cool exception to the limited tea theme exposure.

Laos Tea tasting, Alexander Zhiryakov (left) and Dasha (smiling)

Onto more general starting points:  Russians are into tea but the tea enthusiast context is an exception there too, just a much more common and better developed exception than where I live, in Bangkok.  That's odd, isn't it?  Chinese culture underpins Thai culture, along with Indian influence and secondary local influences.  Tea probably played a bigger role in mainstream culture here at one or more points in the past but it's just not much of an influence now.  Bubble tea is popular.

It's especially odd given that Thailand produces tea, but then I'm not claiming that no one drinks any of it, instead that forms of what I would consider to be tea enthusiasm almost doesn't exist here.  If you ask 100 random people what Da Hong Pao or Longjing are maybe none will know, and for sure none could taste an example of a version and let you know if it's typical of either.  I know at least a dozen people who are probably exceptions to that in Thailand, but it took a lot of doing getting in contact with them, and half are tea vendors.  There's only one well-known tea cafe in Bangkok, in Chinatown (Double Dogs), with related shops scattered around, especially in that area.

Russians as a whole are more into basic Ceylon black tea; fair enough.  Back to the tea enthusiast scope Chinese tea culture has a strong hold there, and not much else.  I walked into a business selling Japanese green tea looking for one of those Moychay shops in St. Petersburg, and talked to the owners a little, but I don't like Japanese tea enough to have seriously considered trying or buying any.  It's clear enough why some people are on that page when I do taste those, and I've reviewed versions, but it's just not for me related to how my preference maps out, at least for now.

I researched Russian tea history related to a random contact asking what an East German tea blend might have been just after the Cold War started, covered in that post.  Not much new turns up in that, except the idea that at one point Russia consumed a lot of tea from Georgia.  This is the kind of idea that one runs across pretty early on in any exploration of Russian tea culture.  Other themes:  how a samovar works, how Russian tea was typically prepared, about mixing tea and herbs there, or stirring jam into it per one older popular practice.

old version of a Cold War tea (original source credited in an earlier post)

We even tried tea mixed with herbs prepared in a samovar in a visit to a dogsled camp in Murmansk.  It was ok.  The general idea is to brew the tea very strong, to "brew it out," and then to dilute it with water to taste, and probably add milk and sugar too given the flavor profile that results.  Adding herbs--particularly Ivan Chay, also known as willow herb, or fire weed--helps on two levels, making it more mild and further stretching the tea.

As to current Russian tea enthusiast context and forms of experience, I'll say more about that related to what Alexander mentioned.

Meeting Alexander Vorontsov; about Russian tea culture

We met at my favorite local Bangkok Chinatown shop, at Jip Eu.  The owners of that shop feel like family to me; they're great hosts.  I was going to say more about that shop in general but since I've visited there a few times recently I think I'll split that out to a later post.

meeting a friend from Laos there, within the last week (Somnuc Anousinh)

This also won't cover that visit in terms of most of the personal discussion details, beyond the parts about Russian tea culture, because it's running too long.  Alexander seems nice, and genuine; I'll mostly stop at saying that.  And he's genuinely obsessed with the subject of tea, so we have a good bit in common.  To shorten the rest I'll cover it by subject.


Tea groups:  this stands out to me as the main difference between Russian tea appreciation forms and elsewhere.  His Instagram page / group has 5295 followers (at time of first draft; surely some from overseas enthusiasts, since people tend to just click add related to their topic interest), so probably a lot of real-life local "club" members.  I don't know how formal that club really is or how many local active members ever meet, but all that isn't really the point here, at least in this section.

that's him, along with group stats and a cool logo

There are at least two other large groups of somewhat organized enthusiasts in Moscow:  Global Tea Hut more or less has a branch there, and Moychay operates a series of tea clubs (like cafes, but not like cafes), that seems to represent a fairly well organized social group.  And Tea Masters is there; that probably counts as a fourth, although it's something different than a social club, sort of a training organization that holds very formal, developed competitions.

The trend seems unique.  Eastern Europeans seem a bit more organized in forms of tea practice and social networking (as reviewed in looking into tea culture in Poland here and here), but seemingly nowhere else is on that level for group structures.

I'll clarify what I mean by that.  There are a lot of small, informal groups of tea enthusiasts in the US, and Facebook groups, and shops and cafes, but as far as I know almost nothing related to those forms of groups.  Tea Masters just started up there in the past year; there's that.  Global Tea Hut would have US followers, but as far as I know nothing like a branch outlet.  And no "tea clubs," in the sense the Moose and the Elks were US social clubs in the past (and still are, just "traditional" forms of them).

Global Tea Hut Zen tea master monk Wu De; different (story here)

Taking tea interest way too far:  lots of people in different countries go there, right?  Maybe not in the same form.  Beyond those clubs and the prevalence of shops and small vendors there's an emphasis on trying rare or interesting teas with developed back-stories, like those narrow regional theme versions tied to Longjing, Da Hong Pao, and the rest.  Everyone likes a good story, and an exceptional tea, but I get a vague sense that sub-themes take on a life of their own there.

In Western tea circles--which the Russian form could be considered a part of, but I mean elsewhere--there are one-upmanship games that get played related to experiencing high quality teas, possessing deeper knowledge, or owning teaware, a sub-theme that branches a bit.  Maybe I'm mistaken but I get the sense that Russians extend that to embracing stories more, to really appreciating traditional background themes and rarity in versions, and of course also tied to those other familiar forms.

Some Western vendors do use stories to sell teas (a number of examples come to mind), but it seems a minority practice.  Most would talk about the teas themselves, their positive attributes, and largely leave the claims about exclusivity and tea history out of it (beyond reference to legends of statues coming to life and such, good for entertainment value).  Except for claiming that sheng pu'er versions are gushu, from old plant sources, I guess; that's as common as grass.  There's some degree of push-back related to people flagging gaps in the stories that do come up, with tea tree age claims making up the main point of contention.  Not necessarily about pu'er being gushu, although low-cost gushu is often questioned, more about the 1000+ year old plant claims.

Or then again maybe I really am overthinking all this, or basing it on limited input, and Russian tea enthusiasts really are mostly just looking for interesting and higher quality tea.


Tea and popular culture, especially music:  I once saw a Russian rap music video of a guy stealing a pu'er cake, and the trying to smoke it at one point, that I'd love to find again.  It lost something for me not understanding the words or being completely into the music form but the impression stuck with me.  That's not necessarily an exception; there is a connection between the two themes and scopes there, popular music culture and tea.

One tea shop that comes up a good bit in images has a tie to a famous music performer as the primary owner, a type of association that I'm not familiar with in the US.  The shop is Gazgolder (with that link seemingly tied to the primary manager, versus a business profile page, and this a Trip Advisor link about visiting), owned by a rap star Basta, with this video on the tea club part there.  This is a music video (by Basta / Баста) with a connection to those other themes and tea.  With over 8 million views this isn't related to marginal following, quite mainstream instead.  Watching foreign language music videos typically doesn't go well but that one is worth a look.


Tea and prison culture:  Alexander told a cool story about what "prison tea" refers to, about how brewing up a large pail of very strong tea in prison works as substitute for alcohol.  I'm sure the stories of this connection go a lot further, and the real-life linkage does too.  It's hard to imagine the popular culture image of US prisons matching up with any form of tea consumption.

He mentioned a reference about this describing this connection, which I won't go into further here.


Tea sourcing differences:  I'll summarize prior discussion with Alexander and others related to this point more than what we actually talked about.  He had said before that Russians tend to focus on using Russian sources for tea, vendors that buy and resell Chinese versions.  It's my understanding that Yunnan Sourcing (a main US vendor) also sells a reasonable amount of tea in Russia too, but the ideas still don't necessarily conflict; the theme and generality is about relative proportions.

In fact smaller vendors or larger resale theme outlets are how consumers in the US obtain most tea too, by a large margin, so me expecting tea to be purchased directly from abroad instead probably just relates most to my own preconceptions and personal experience.  If we had more Thai shops and online outlets selling better teas maybe I'd not have expected that.

The amount of "better" tea being purchased and consumed in Thailand is probably negligible compared to in Russia, with most of that Thai-produced oolong.  It would be natural for some to see that as "not that much better," but the use here seems clear enough, better than what tends to turn up in tea bags or on grocery store shelves.  Which just depends on the grocery store too, I guess, as much as local culture and broader demand.  Grocery stores in Russia did tend to have slightly better selection for black teas, flavored versions, and blends than I typically see here, just a bit more limited range related to inexpensive oolong since Thai versions are around.

so many iconic places there (GUM in Red Square)

Moychay:  I've reviewed a lot of tea from this vendor and have even written some article content for them.  Their main owner, Sergey Shevelev, seems like a genuine tea enthusiast to me, surely focused on business goals, but also personally connected by the same interest tea drinkers experience (more obsessed ones; the people discussing it in more advanced theme Facebook groups).  That's essentially true of every tea vendor, but the form and level of knowledge and experience varies.  You don't need to take my word for all that; scan some related background videos on Youtube, which can even do automatic translation now to make that content more accessible.

Their diversified role as a main physical shop chain, online tea source, and provider of tea club experience (like a cafe, but not really that) stands out as something unique.  In the US this would almost seem to be too much influence for any one vendor to have, even beyond there being no parallel to the club theme.  But there, with tea culture a bit more mainstream, and options more diverse, the context is different.

helpful Moychay staff; meeting Russians made visiting Russia great

Why US popular tea culture and vendor concerns don't match up with those in Russia

There is an unrelated concern about Western (US and other) tea culture and vending, which I'll cover in the form of a long tangent here, since this helps place the broader context difference.

Teavana consolidated a lot of US physical shop ownership and sales under Starbucks at one point, only to see profit margins narrow, and then folded, leaving a gap in shop availability.  This is really only one individual concern, that one vendor growing too large and then failing could impact local consumption.  Prior to that Teavana put focus on blends instead of better individual teas, which can command a higher mark-up and profit margin.  This used their influence to offset what I see as the main opposite trend in natural personal tea preference transitions, moving from blends to original, single-type and source teas.

It's too much of a tangent to firmly establish here but it's my impression that T2 (a chain originated in Australia) represents a similar problematic theme, again related to a large corporate interest.  I bought good, single-origin, high quality teas at a T2 on a visit in Australia some years ago, and upon checking selection later after their Unilever buy-out those types I'd bought just weren't part of the stock.  That's too much to claim in a tangent, isn't it?  Judge for yourself; here's their current oolong selection page, and a version captured from July of 2012, a year before Unilever bought the chain.  You don't need me to interpret what changed.

they had a cool aesthetic going; it's a shame selection quality didn't match it

Of course I'm not saying that Moychay or any other large vendor there shouldn't be expanding or covering different roles for some reason; quite the opposite.  It's my impression that more large chains have developed there; that alone offsets this kind of risk and problem.  If anything I'm positively biased towards Moychay as a vendor, and the rule of supply and demand and open competition keeps their direction in check.  Their teas seem to represent generally good range and value to me, and to be sold with a reasonable degree of information about what products are, adding more value for educating consumers about tea options.  The two shops I've visited--smaller versions, per my understanding--were beautiful, with good selection of different types, sources, and quality levels of tea, and very friendly and helpful staff.

a Moychay pressed tisane; extending a current trend beyond "real" tea

Moychay did seem to possess the potential for a similar degree of local tea-culture influence comparable to all of the current US tea vending combined, since there's more developed tea culture there to begin with; that's what really led to this line of thinking and comparison.  It's just not as singular an influence as happened to occur with Teavana; a consolidation and unified development didn't occur in the same way.


Of course Unilever "gets" tea, just not the teas I drink, or what some of the range of tea culture is all about.  Offering flavored teas and blends to consumers based on demand is fine; that's quite appropriate.  Steering away from also offering the other range of "better" teas because per-unit profit margin is lower is something else altogether, especially if there wouldn't be other store options around.  Those other parts of the tea market should be supported, and expanded demand for Lipton and flavored teas should serve as a gateway to other types.  Both the demand and the shops would have evolved together more organically in the US, with the consolidation and then closure perhaps setting that back a bit.

I'll be clearer yet; it seemed short-sighted to me for large outlets like Teavana or T2 to disregard rather than embrace the entire range of teas produced and available.  It seemed likely that a single-minded focus on per-unit return and short-term profit offset educating consumers.  Or maybe that happened because demand would naturally extend onto what other vendors are selling, outlets like Yunnan Sourcing (and others), and it made more sense to restrict expectations to a narrower range than to try and compete across a broader scope. 

I really don't know the causes, but it is disappointing that more potential wasn't realized, to increase broader US demand and to help support specialty tea producer demand.  Large scale high volume producers, who make the teas used to make blends, are more securely positioned, and although surges in individual type demand could increase prices (an issue on the consumer side) small growers and producers are often working within narrower margins for success.  That's my understanding, at least.


Including so much discussion of a few particular vendors serves a secondary purpose; I see commercial structure and direction as one main underpinning condition for local tea culture, even if the internet helps broaden that back out.  If I were to talk further about present US tea culture, beyond discussing Teavana, I would explore why tea subscriptions have come to play such a large role in organizing consumers into groups, or why Yunnan Sourcing has a vendor themed Facebook tea group, what causes that to make sense and what it means.  I've discussed the problems and limitations with such a single-supplier theme in that group before; as you could imagine that went over really well.

It's a positive thing that the themes of people gathering into social networks and groups mix with those of vendors providing commercial services.  This only becomes negative when the normal forces of supply and demand become disrupted, and marketing issues steer people towards the highest return forms of tea, versus supporting awareness of options and naturally evolving demand.

Back to the main subject here, Russian tea culture.

Conclusions, and what I don't get

These are glimpses and fragments related to why I find Russian tea culture to be fascinating, even though to be sure I understand relatively little about it.

I really don't completely get the Tea Masters or Global Tea Hut themes at all.  I don't do much with formal tea ceremony, or tea in relation to religion or mindfulness practice.  That's even though I do have a long personal history with the study of Buddhism, and I'm sort of a part of an Eastern culture due to living in Asia (Bangkok).

more into religious practice at one point, but not drinking much tea there

Surely beyond these more formal forms or expressions of tea interest I'm not familiar with where other Russians fall, in between drinking Ceylon from a grocery store and the rarest of rare types, and training in formal tea ceremony practices.  Broad categories of ideas that would come up I've not addressed here, for example a demand for organically produced teas, concerns about health risks related to chemical use in production.  Alexander mentioned this is a significant concern among Russian consumers, but that there aren't always good ways to address risks related to different kind of growing conditions as teas are now sold, at least not in a lot of cases.

A lot of people there must just like tea, in a basic form.  One of the nicest people I met in visiting Russia (and most of the people we met were very kind) helped me check out what was in those jars in the Perlov shop, and he clearly liked tea but wasn't swept up with an obsession with it.  He probably would have passed that Da Hong Pao / Longjing identification test I mentioned, spotting familiar types.  But probably not in the same form Alexander and I would, related to really being able to place examples, and the next sets of main types as well.

This seems no suitable place to end, as if exploring disconnected themes just leaves off.  Learning about foreign cultures is like that.  My children have had a number of Chinese school friends (and from Japan, India, Taiwan, etc.), and as we get to know them and their parents better perspective and customs become more familiar, but the learning process is slow.  Visiting a place doesn't lead to as much insight as one might expect, because short discussions with locals only go so far, and local travel themes tend to dominate concerns.  I'll keep learning about tea culture related to Russia, and other places, as shared observations from others fill in details.

not a common type, not even a standard hei cha, but something interesting