The difference between blogging in support of tea vendors and shilling

 

This subject just came up, related to an odd pretense, just recommending a vendor.  It was on Reddit, where someone took offense that I had kept recommending Tea Mania, a Swiss vendor who sells pu'er, Wuyi Yancha, Taiwanese oolong, and Japanese teas.  The problem?  It seemed biased, to them.

Never mind that case, the complaint; there was nothing to that.  But it's an interesting sub-theme, how a blogger, who aims to be objective, deals with having favorite vendor sources.  I can unpack that quite a bit.  

It seems best to do so in discussion of my favorite vendors, explaining what my bias is, and why I see myself as still objectively "reporting" tea impressions in their cases.  Maybe not all of that works; it's up to a reader to decide for themselves.  I'll cover the different related factors along with that form, vendor by vendor, starting with a few favorites.

Jip Eu tea shop in Bangkok:  the owners are like an extra uncle and aunt to me.  Of course I would try to help them, even if my experiences there hadn't been as positive, related to their teas, and the value they're sold at.  But the broad range of interesting versions and great values are the main point.  It's why I settled into visiting them more than everywhere else in Bangkok combined, related to buying tea.  I have mentioned other places, summarized here, I just don't go to many very often.

first meeting Huyen!  8 years ago.  she would be my favorite vendor, if she sold tea.

I've already covered the bias, that I like visiting with them.  Related to product diversity I've tried different teas almost every time I've visited them, a count that is in the dozens now.  Who knows how much I've not identified that is available there.  I found brand new--to me--aged sheng versions there in the last two years, that had long since been there, and I've been buying similar aged sheng from them for nearly a decade.  

They specialize in Wuyi Yancha, both good versions and very inexpensive blends, that typical better-than-it-should-be dirt cheap Shui Xian (which would be called Da Hong Pao in some places, but they just go with what it actually is).  Their tins of medium grade Dan Cong are good, and it's a great place to buy either good jasmine pearls (white tea) or inexpensive jasmine green tea.  There are gaps; black teas aren't well represented, and oddly they don't sell almost anything from Thailand.  And it's hard to shop there, harder for others than for me, since they won't just sit and try everything in the shop with you (with friends, sure, but it's not like that for walk-ins).  There is no product list.

I know what these teas are, and what the market values are, and they're all pretty good, related to quality and value issues.  Maybe value and quality are hit and miss, which gets back to the "hard to shop" theme.  I am usually describing the positive side, but I've expressed that it's hard to shop there many times in this blog.  They just ask what people want, instead of talking through the options.  I suppose that's fair, since it would be a long talk covering it all.

Wuyi Origin:  this is a very well-respected producer and direct online sales vendor of Wuyi Yancha, based in Wuyishan, China.  I've never met Cindy, one owner, but I consider her a friend.  That almost covers it; there's no need to justify how good their teas are, or where value stands with them, because searching Wuyi Origin in any online tea group would turn up a list of endorsements.  Their teas are pretty far up the scale, and lots of people are familiar with that.  

I suppose there would always be something slightly better, or a style that's a better match to some preferences, but I sometimes recommend against people starting with their teas because they're too good.  You could never go back and appreciate that Chinatown shop Shui Xian if you explored their teas at first.  

In this case I don't feel it's necessary to say a lot about potential bias in online writing, and I've not been writing about their teas for years anyway.  I moved on to drinking sheng pu'er, and mostly order Thai, Laos, and Vietnamese teas, to maximize value.  Chinese teas can be slightly better, and value relates to quality related to cost, so that's one half of the equation, but for people on a tight budget the second part really matters as much or more.  

I mention them here because it's an example of a personal bias, and I did need to consider and try to address that in a lot of earlier reviews.

Tea Mania:  the source of the trigger for this writing.  I do know and like the owner, and he has contributed teas for review a number of times, but to me it's really about their teas.  Even when my tea budget was limited--it has been, for awhile--at one point this vendor was the source for my main annual order, stocking up every year.  I probably should get back to that, but I've been on a SE Asian tea tangent for who knows how many years, maybe about 5.  Really for 15, since I started on that, but I mean in relation to it being most of what I buy.

a 2016 cake reviewed in 2018 (my photography and sheng background were a little rough)

What's so great about their teas?  One Yiwu cake line represents some of the best value out there for pu'er (Lucky Bee).  And they sell more gushu / higher cost versions, that are significantly better.  Those other tea type ranges are really solid (Taiwanese oolong, Wuyishan teas, and Japanese teas).  So quality level is as high as "curator" vendors often offer, with pricing more in a conventional small vendor range.

Unless I'm judging all of that wrong there isn't more to explain or to justify.  They sell really good tea for below market rate costs.  Not far below standard pricing, but at a good value (except for that Yiwu; that level of value is atypical).  

One more caveat:  a number of vendors have contributed teas that are better than I typically buy for evaluation and review, so I'm not basing my own judgment on a broad range of routine purchases at a high cost level.  I don't buy 50 to 80 cent per gram pu'er; I can't afford it.  I've placed three small tea orders in the last two months, which my wife might already freak out about, which represents about as much tea as I've bought over the last year and a half (for myself; I do routinely buy tea for gifts, which is something else).  All of that tea was a bit below moderate in cost; it was cheap.

So how do I know that I can judge "gushu," dollar per gram range sheng fairly?  Reviewing is always about working with whatever impression you have, based on whatever background.  I've tried lots of different kinds of teas, from different sources; it would have to do.

Trident Bookseller and Cafe:  this isn't the same kind of theme.  I know the one owner of this business online, and like him, and he has sent tea to try once.  I recommend them as a good curator source; they seek out the best of the best kind of range, and sell that at way below a normal price, for what those teas are.

But it is odd, recommending people buy tea through an online outlet hosted by a cafe.  It makes sense, because of what I've described.  In trying those teas, only one set, I couldn't have been more convinced that every version was the best I'd tried of those standard types (Longjing and such).  

I don't think there is the body of endorsement comments out there in groups confirming this; people who know know, and most others don't, and people tend to "gatekeep" good sources.  They're not really trying to blow up as a main vendor source anyway.  They already sell books, and coffee, and tea on-site, so the online outlet is for profit but also for playing a broader role as a source.

I'm not overly sensitive about my image as possessing an ideally reliable opinion, in case that's how this is coming across.  People can think that I am biased, and "out of pocket," as my son says; it's all the same to me.  People who know know.  I expect that not everyone's subjective preferences and value judgment would match mine; that would be normal.  In the loosest possible sense I suppose that I am a tea expert, but that's not at all how I represent myself.  I'm a tea enthusiast who tries different things, and also likes to write.  Every experienced tea enthusiast realizes that there are a lot of thinner spots in what they've experienced; it's just how that works.

Viet Sun:  I wanted to keep this mostly to vendors that I'm buying tea from, since that makes the most sense (even though Trident was an exception to that).  I've bought more tea from Viet Sun over the past few years than anyone else.  It might seem that I've went quiet on that, since really tightening my budget last year involved skipping that order.  I bought a little in Chinatown, and from one "local" Thai source, and that was it.  I think I'll skip mentioning Aphiwat here; he's as much a favorite source as any, but you can search that in this blog to find a half dozen related posts, tied mostly to Thai sheng.

Steve and another friend covered Vietnamese tea market status here

Viet Sun is a unique vendor.  For a time Hatvala was the only Western-facing, good quality, great value Vietnamese source.  Or maybe only the Western facing part is enough; it was where you could get tea from Vietnam, and it just happened to be good tea that was moderate in cost.  Viet Sun expanded that and shifted range, to much better Vietnamese sheng and black tea.  

I did just order some tea from them, checking out this year's versions, so I'll write plenty of posts expanding on that over the next six weeks or so.  There's a pattern where unheard of new range is inexpensive at first, and slightly inconsistent, and then as consistency and demand ramp up so does cost.  The days of Vietnamese teas being an amazing value could be winding down; the original production level pricing also increases, as awareness and demand expands, which is fair.

On that quality side, maybe this level of Vietnamese sheng didn't even exist a decade ago.  I tried a pretty good version nearly that far back, from a Hanoi shop, so it probably did, but there wasn't much, and it was almost impossible to find.  Now it's not.  

If I'm wrong about all of that then I'm wrong.  But I've tried about as much South East Asian sheng as anyone alive, so that would have to relate to a bias working out much differently than I expect, or my overall judgment being wonky.

Could it be?  Sure, why not?  Once or twice a year someone will confirm that their preferences match mine, and I've been a huge help to them, but that's not much validation or feedback given my posts are viewed many thousands of time per year.  My judgment must also conflict with some others.  

Those views are mostly by bots, probably, but my guess is that around 10,000 views per month might be people, or at least 5,000, and then an order of magnitude more are AI bots, at this point, more than 10 times that many.

This is not an airtight case for me being completely objective, is it?  I don't think it works that way, that any one person can strip out their own judgment from their experience of tea.  I think that people can get better and better at placing their perspective within the landscape of others', but there would be limits to that.  I'm not claiming that I'm exceptional at it.  My guess is that I'm as successful as people tend to be on average, who put in moderate effort, but for sure others with different strengths and more deliberate or dedicated approaches can do better.

I get the sense that even from a source that means a lot to me personally I can still judge a tea fairly, in the same way I would if bought at random, or sent by a vendor source for review.  Or maybe that's not quite right.  We tend to like what we expect to like; it just works out like that.  We can zoom in on positive aspects or flaws and limitations in experiences, without noticing doing so.  It's probably impossible to accurately score yourself in relation to this factor.

I'm going to mention one more factor related to my "policy" of reviewing teas, to help place my approach.  I review what I like, not what I dislike.  You would have to go back pretty far here to find a tea that I describe as unpleasant.  

I'll cite an example, where I would do that:  I reviewed tea fossils and resin, two forms of instant tea, awhile back, and I don't really like either.  That was here, in 2024.  Looking back one was from a friend, and one from Tea Mania, a sample contributed for review, and I pretty much said that I didn't care for it.  

Here's an excerpt from that review, starting with the Tea Mania cha gao (tea resin):

[about the cha gao]:  I can't say that I like it.  There are redeeming characteristics, but it's rough, harsh.  Of course very heavy mineral dominates it; one might expect that.  It tastes like drinking rainwater condensed down to a brown liquid after sitting out in a plant pot, reducing there.  A pine note isn't bad though, and it lacks a lot of the disagreeable character of cheap shou.  It's not a lot like peat, it doesn't include off earthy flavors, or fishiness, and so on.

I diluted it again, and it's slightly better, but it's still going to taste like that, so heavy on mineral tones.  It's not so close to the flavor range of shou pu'er, but of course it is closest to that.  I overbrewed some Fu brick tea recently and this also reminds me of that.

tea fossils:  it's better, but only in comparison with the other tea.  I wouldn't drink this.  I will drink these cups; I tend to not waste tea, but I mean there's no way I would purchase this, or repeat this trial to check if other versions are better.  Related to the experience being novel it is quite interesting though...

So that's it; I will only review a tea I don't like if the flaws are interesting enough to warrant it, if there is a story.  If a pu'er just misses for you, or a black tea is missing a dimension or two, then there's no story.  It's bad tea, per your subjective tastes.

On the other theme I pass on as objective an opinion as I happen to have in reviews.  I've always wondered how that's affected by expectations, but we don't really get to know that, about ourselves.  To a limited extent we can work around that using blind tasting, which I've mentioned recently, but that's kind of a different subject.

Lessons learned from tea business successes and failures

 

I'm not the most natural person to be writing on this topic, since I don't sell tea, or earn any income from writing about it, but as usual this topic came up in online conversation.  A few tea sales ventures that looked like they were definitely going to succeed ended up not working out, in spite of taking novel steps that poised their businesses to do so, and there are lessons to be learned from this. 

The main lesson, as I take it, which I communicated to an online friend developing a tea business, is to stick with it, to give the venture time to build up, and accept not making profits early on.  I think all of these examples of "failures" described here would have eventually been success stories if they had stuck with it.  Let's see though, by examining those cases, with the obvious limitation that I'm guessing about why these businesses didn't succeed in time to continue.  The vendors didn't tell me the reasons, even though I did talk to two of them a little about that subject.

A few opposite examples of success stories are included at the end, not so much to contrast approach, but really just to show how similar approaches can work with either a bit more background work foundation or more time allowance to build up a business.

Temple Mountain Tea:  

This vendor made a great tea reference, a tea flavor wheel, so many years before the Australian Tea Master's group made their own quite good version.  It's this one:

Their last Facebook page post was in 2014, so they were there pretty early for this latest round of ramping up of specialty tea interest (much as that goes by distinct cycles).  Just for timeframe reference Phyll Sheng's blog (not his real name?) was active from 2006 to 2007, back when Marshal N was getting started in blogging, which I take to be one of the earliest online documented specialty tea interest "waves."  He posted some again in 2016 and 17.

We might speculate that they were starting early enough that uptake was limited.  I don't know though; maybe as awareness and demand ramps up vendor market entry does too, and maybe that was as good a time as any to get into vending.  The unique point here is that this vendor at least took time to make a great practical tea reference, and then later didn't keep on with tea vending.  They were probably busy doing something else; tea businesses are often set up as a side interest.

Tea Setter:

Again the theme here is that a vendor took a very promising and successful novel approach, only to see that not work out in terms of business longevity.  This vendor, a business owned by Matt Kitchen, reached out to the blogging community and was very well promoted by a lot of online posts back when they were active.  Here is an example, a Tea For Me Please post, or this one tops a Google search for the vendor name.  As the vendor name indicates they were promoting sales of teaware and also loose tea, with a shu pu'er being reviewed in that post (oddly not referenced as sheng or shu, but that can happen, especially back in 2013, before a standard list of details about versions became more customary).

So what went right, and wrong?  Tea theme issues or vendor mentions have always came and went in tea blog and tea group discussion circles, and this vendor was the talk of those right around then.  It seemed a great way to gain promotion.  Most of that talk was positive, with some reviews less positive about a shu version tasting a bit fishy, if I remember right.  I doubt that was any singular reason for this vendor dropping the theme (assuming they have, but the vendor name being Google-proof definitely implies that, beyond those reviews).  

I would guess that patience for the business to become profitable to a certain level was more of a concern, since tea demand would've been limited, as is still true today.

Lots of vendors across a broad time period have made good use of social media forms to promote awareness of their brand, I just don't remember any one of them generating this much positive buzz at one given time.  Tea related social media was more limited and consolidated back in 2013, so it would be hard to get the same proportion of online tea community attention today, for the forms and channels being a lot more diverse.  Bloggers seem to not have the influence that they once had, and my own blog gains far less readership than it did two or three years ago.

Tea Journeyman:

This example would be familiar to anyone active in online tea discussion at that time period (Kevin's review posts ran from 2013 to 2018, with the business active in a narrower window between those times).  It was a competent and well-developed blog, and a mature and well-formatted tea business attempt.  Kevin took training courses to support background knowledge, so he could've made some sort of sommelier / expert / master claim, but given how those tend to be received in the tea industry he mentioned that without overextending a related status claim.

My review of a Satemwa Malawai white tea version sold by the Tea Journeyman indicated that business had closed by 2015.  I had bought a Harendong Indonesian tea from him then too, which should indicate how trendy the vendor sources he was carrying was, since both were very well regarded.  Harendong must still make great tea, but again the buzz about new and interesting types, origins, and producer sources keeps changing over time, and those were "hot" back then.

Given how much I respected Kevin's blog content and his business approach I don't want to add too much speculation here about what parts worked and what didn't.  I'll cite his own 2018 explanation a little related to putting time into a tea interest and move on:

Yes, the tea reviews have been few and far between lately here. Life gets busy sometimes, and unfortunately taking time to prepare reviews is not always a priority.

I remembered there being more to that; maybe I was remembering a reference from his "about me" section as combined:

Other personal notes: I received my Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and Accounting from Clarion University of Pennsylvania. I am a licensed agent/broker of property, casualty, life, accident, and health insurance in the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New Jersey. I also hold the Certified Insurance Service Representative designation through the National Alliance for Insurance Education and Research, and earned the Certified Insurance Counselor designation in 2018 through the same organization. 

So he had career objectives to focus on around the time he stopped blogging, and maybe family or other obligations as well.  It may have been great for him if a tea business could've "blown up" in short order, but a recurring theme here is that it takes dedication, time, and a long view to make a tea business work.  He was really active from 2013 into early 2015 but it's still not long, probably less than two years of business attempt.

And that's already most of the story, about tea vendors who experienced interesting and positive successes, but not eventual business success.  I wanted to contrast those with three other vendors who have lasted through the long haul, very successful businesses, in order to guess at what differentiated them.

Yunnan Sourcing:

It's not really a fair comparison, referencing one of the most successful Western vendors there is. I think there is good insight into business perspective and developing a tea business background step by step in his Scott Wilson's example though.  This Tea Epicure post (surely formerly World of Tea) blog post by Tony Gebely tells part of that story:

...I came to Yunnan in 1998 and just fell in love with the place, especially the tea and the food. In 2004, I got fed up with being in the states and decided to pursue my dream of living in China and doing something with tea... 

We have a tea room in the Kunming Wholesale tea market. It is a place solely to drink tea. We have a library of more than 600 pu-erhs that are available to try! Our eBay store is our only online presence at the moment. Most business is conducted outside of eBay. In fact, individual customers with small orders can contact me directly and get at least 10% (or more) off the retail price. We will open yunnansourcing.com and yunnansourcing.us before the end of 2009. The latter site will feature products that will ship from the USA instead of China...

So Scott took five years to build a business from an onsite presence in a main Chinese tea market, up to an Ebay store, and then finally onto China and US based sales sites and businesses, only after that.  In writing about talking with an even earlier pioneer of tea sales, David Lee Hoffman, I cited a tea blog post that looks to include an image of Scott in that market in 2008, but it's not labeled as such.

Of course it's not really fair to go back and select one of the most successful tea vendors and then say a narrow set of inputs led to that success, when luck, or good timing, or any number of other factors could've came into play.  To me the success seemed to relate to putting the right work in, over time, but that's just a personal read on it.  In retrospect there was a gap in China based sales options that didn't extend to "the West." Moving to China is a bit extreme; of course I'm not implying that's the appropriate or essential level of commitment and input.

What Cha:

To me this is a positive success story, about a vendor starting out at almost exactly the same time as the Tea Setter and Tea Journeyman business, drawing on almost exactly the same business theme as the Tea Journeyman, probably matching products back then in many cases.  I'm pretty sure this vendor followed a pattern of carrying teas I reviewed not so long after I posted about them some years back, but really why not use blogger references as sourcing leads?

Their "about us" page adds detail about their theme:

I started What-Cha in 2014 with the goal of sharing my love of tea and it's incredible diversity and unique taste with others.  I wanted What-Cha to be different and unique from other tea stores and to serve both the tea producers and consumers.  To that end, I have tried to abide by the following principles:

Unique Sourcing:  It is my belief that too many companies rely on a small pool of wholesalers from whom to source their teas from. This is negative for consumers who find a lot of the tea stores selling identical teas to each other and a huge problem for tea producers who are forced to give large discounts to wholesalers due to their negotiating power derived from how much of the tea market they control.

This is why I have chosen to source all my teas direct from the producer where possible... 

This is exactly what Kevin Craig of the Tea Journeyman business was doing, and a founding principle for Tealet, and so on, a very common theme.  This makes perfect sense, only one step extended beyond producers venturing into selling tea directly.  Execution is everything; they made it work, which probably took a lot of doing.  For being based in Britain Brexit must have been something of a business nightmare for them, but they're still around, surely making adjustments as necessary.

Alistair, the owner, mentions a commitment to keeping pricing low in that vision summary; let's check that with a benchmark version, Jun Chiyabari teas from Nepal.

This What-Cha NEPAL JUN CHIYABARI 'HAND-ROLLED TIPPY' OOLONG TEA lists for 12 British pounds per 50 grams, now on sale for 10.80, which converts to $14.28 USD.  That is pretty good for that tea, or even the $15.86 cost prior to sale seems pretty fair.  

How can I really support that, that the value sounds good to me?  Another US vendor outlet (and favorite online contact / friend, their manager Peter) Trident Bookseller and Cafe lists what I would bet is a really exceptional Nepal black tea selling at a great value, so we can use that as a baseline:

Nepal Needles, Kanchenjungha tea estate in Eastern Nepal, $7.50 per ounce.

That works out to be just under $15 per 50 grams, since two ounces equates to 56.7 grams; roughly the same.  That Trident version:

I'm not sure that value necessarily means more in relation to business success than the many other factors that come into play:  branding, marketing, product range and quality, unique offerings versus standard product listings, active social media exposure versus just running ads, and so on.  Quality and value are relevant considerations for customers though.

Tea Mania:

This is a really interesting business example, and a vendor I've ordered tea from a few times, with an owner I've actually met (only once, if it matters).  Their sheng pu'er selection seems about as good a quality and value as anything in that range selling online.  Let's unpack their approach, background, and business theme a bit.

This is a Switzerland based online-only vendor, which started out as a Thai tea outlet.  That subject is pretty familiar; lots of people visit producers here and notice that pricing is quite low for wholesale level volumes.  His website shop looks pretty good; that part can't hurt.  Early on he was developing a Teapedia site, which still exists, and interesting endeavor that was really more about expressing his own interest and developing broad awareness than serving as a promotion tool.  

And this is where the standard business development story varies:  Peter Pocajt (the owner) went on sourcing trips in China and Japan to learn more about types and to expand his product range.  That's taking a long view, putting that kind of effort and expense in, but per my understanding his personal interest in tea allowed it to double as a vacation experience.  In discussing this business theme with him just a little he said the initial ramp-up was really slow, so patience also played a big part.  The business isn't a main revenue source, which led other business owners to let it drop once the return didn't come early, but Peter took that the other way, as a good reason to keep making changes and try harder.

A bit of an aside, some of the key red flags related to describing teas and marketing context are glaring in his product descriptions.  I'll focus on two:  almost all of his sheng are described as gushu material, and said to be produced by a local "tea master," Master Panda.  Ordinarily that's reason enough to not even try the products, since at least 9 out of 10 outlets exhibiting those warning signs are selling pretty random versions of teas, probably not really realizing which parts or those stories are true and which are made up.  Here's the thing though, if we set aside that problematic "master" designation if you go to Yunnan, as Peter did, you could meet people who are part of old tea traditions, who are very adept at making tea versions.  It's better to never include that one concept in claims, but it could translate over from something less loaded and unlikely to be nonsense from a Chinese language.

There is an interview post about Panda's background on Peter's site; he moved from another region in China to start making tea in 2004, and learned under the kind of teacher that might more naturally wear that kind of label, if it ever makes any sense.

Panda is on the right; I think I can guess that nickname origin

As an example about that "master" designation, a tangent within a tangent, my "family monk," who I lived with for over two months while ordained as a Thai monk, I have no real role definition for.  The concept "master" is probably the one that applies most, I just don't use it.  From there "teacher" is second best, but he never taught me all that much, because even though I lived with him and spent all my time with him back then, and try to visit often now, he never taught me that much, because of the language divide.  Someone else might just take the leap and say that's their Buddhist master, but I really think of him as extended family, as a beloved but slightly formal uncle.

a pandemic era temple visit; must've been a dip in exposure for an event to be held

10 years ago; he can't touch Kalani, for being female, but he always liked visiting with both

getting accustomed to Thai traditions while young

Back to Tea Mania, I don't know how the gushu / plant age / natural growth origin claims work out in relation to any of their teas (which they discuss a little in that interview; many aren't presented as that, instead as shengtai or arbor origin teas).  Maybe the origin type descriptions are just nonsense, almost entirely wrong, or maybe it's entirely accurate, and good local contacts are enabling buying pretty good, high demand tea material from modest demand local areas, without pushing on to the typical $1/gram final cost range.  Maybe the material is quite mixed; that's possible.  To me the teas are good, distinctive and clearly high in quality, which is the main thing. 

I can't distill their case to a "lessons learned" summary; I'm just describing parts of it.  It seems to me like sticking with it and escalating business effort and input instead of dropping it all in relation to early limited demand and profit return was the main key, but maybe that's not exactly right.

Related to one subject that keeps repeating here, to me an example of a current trial in progress for online exposure is represented by the vendor-specific Discord groups.  I'm registered to participate in two, hosted by Farmerleaf and Liquid Proust.  It's a little less straightforward than actively discussing tea in Tea Chat and Steepster, and sending bloggers some samples, but it might be a current effective approach, even though activity level at both of those seems moderate.  The running theme in this post was that there is no magic bullet though, that any one highly effective outreach tool can be very helpful, but all the conditions really need to come together, typically requiring support of extended time for positive business influences and consumer awareness to build up.

Video interview with the Russian Tea Lovers founder

I just did a video interview with Alexander Vorontsov, the founder of the Russian Tea Lovers group (one founder, at least), with that video here.   I just realized that I'm sideways in that, checking it out to post about it.  It's always the little details.

I've met him before, and discussed Russian tea culture, most of which is summarized in this post.  It's a bit redundant to say a lot about the video since that content stands alone, but I'll introduce who that group is and what we talked about in order to help people determine if watching it would be of interest.

meeting Alexander at the one local shop I always go to, Jip Eu

That group holds local tea tastings, with members sharing both tea and information about exploring tea elsewhere.  Chinese teas have the most influence in Russia, I think, but there is local Sochi area production, and a deeper history of tea production in Georgia (with more on that history here). 

On my end we visited Russia a couple of years ago, with a travel oriented post about that here.  Russia is amazing, and the local tea culture runs deeper there than here in Bangkok, even though Chinese culture is the main influence on Thai culture, with Thais mostly descended from multiple waves of Chinese immigrants.  I've reviewed a lot of tea from Moychay, one of their main suppliers, who also runs tea clubs there (something different).  Their one Nannuo sheng pu'er I bought on that first trip was one of my overall favorite tea versions.

tea tasting in Moscow with Dasha and Alexander, the Laos Tea founder

In that video we talked about international tea culture themes, and how local perspectives go back in the US.  I mentioned what I'm up to related to tea, and my own favorite other tea blogs (Steep Stories, Tea DB, Tea Addict's Journal), and we discussed why Tea for Me Please is probably the most influential US blog, and how that subculture works out.  Then onto organic themes related to tea, online group culture, sourcing, and so on, pretty much all what one would expect.

so many cool places to visit there

Five years of blogging about tea

Originally published on the TChing site here.

It's been five years that I've been writing a blog about tea--the time flies.  I wrote about how tea culture seems to be changing last year so I'll go into how my own perspective and experience of tea has changed instead.

I got started just before my daughter was born; a lot has changed beyond tea.

meeting her family, in that first hour

Starting a blog and the rest was as much about exploring social media through a subject interest.  It does carry over into tea group discussions, which ties to co-founding a Facebook tea group.

a Laos tea garden (credit Kinnari Tea)

Of course the interest in tea did precede writing about it.  We traveled to Laos when my son was quite young, maybe 8 years ago, and I saw tea plants growing in a small farm there.  I was more interested in the coffee they produced but bought both.  That tea being a bit mediocre, probably related to processing limitations, to the farmers probably just letting it dry, probably slowed up what could've been a faster start for subject interest.


Discussing tea in groups keeps renewing my consideration of a "path to tea," of a typical experience curve.  I guess there wouldn't be any typical version; the starting point, steps, and how far it all goes would vary.  It is just a drink; I love it but can relate to people not really becoming obsessed.  I don't tend to pass on guidance for what to experience, or approach, although I did lay out some basic factors in an introductory guide once.


I seem to have come full-circle for preferences, in a sense.  I've just spent a year delving into sheng pu'er, a type and subject that takes more exploration to piece together, so that kind of review keeps going.  New types, like a Japanese black tea I just reviewed (only the second I've tried), keep coming up, but less of them.  What I really meant was that I can appreciate a broader range of types and quality levels than ever before now.  For a long time teas being new to me or as good as better versions I've tried, or even better, made them seem all the more appealing, but now the main appeal is whatever the immediate experience offers, which varies.

it doesn't get much more Thai than this

I'll give an example:  I've purchased that orange colored flavored version of loose Thai tea for the first time this year.  Even more unconventional, for a tea enthusiast, only this year I went back to drinking tea from tea bags.  Sometimes people who know I like tea but don't know which types pass those on.  In the past I'd give them away again.  Trying a version of Lipton early this year seemed to reinforce that those just wouldn't work for me.  But I tried again, mixed with sweetened condensed milk at work, and kept on with it.  One was a tea version from Kenya, mentioned in this post reviewing Cold War Berlin tea history, covered there related to mixing it with willow herb, Ivan chay.  I like willow herb now too (even though it's odd), and I've been dabbling in tisanes more.

Of course I can still relate positively with better tea, very exceptional Chinese oolongs (like my overall favorite tea, Wuyi Origin's Rou Gui).

Wuyi Origin Rou Gui; some versions do stand out

Lately I've been wondering where to go from here, related to blogging.  A classic blogger that I've learned a lot from has been saying that he's worked through a lot of what he has to say.  There seems to be an experience curve related to talking about tea that ends in just experiencing it, and not talking about it.  Another older local friend seems to have even cut back drinking it.  I doubt I'll do many more 100+ post years, or keep up the reviewing pace, but for now interesting subjects and new tea experiences keep coming up.  I'll stick with it.

Post-script:  about traffic, and some favorite posts

I keep the TChing content limited in word-count because even 700-800 word post versions seem to run long related to what else appears there.  I wanted to mention two more things here though, about readership volume, and mention some favorite past posts.

In a sense it doesn't matter how many or few people read this blog since it's not about validation through traffic as a way of keeping score, and there's no commercial angle that volume relates to.  All the same I'll mention readership, since it is one dimension, best shown by a stat graphic:

As of about a month ago individual page views dropped considerably, seemingly mostly because Facebook changed their feed-display algorithm in a way that decreased it, since most viewer traffic had been routed by Facebook link notices.  Popular posts had been viewed 300 or so times in the first few days, or over 500 for some non-review themes, and that's way down now.  

No matter.  It's hard to be sure how many of those 300k views were even people anyway, versus bots.  I'm not sure what the point is, really just sharing that, since that dimension never comes up.

I wanted to mention some all-time favorite posts too; somehow that seems appropriate to the retrospective theme.  Picking favorites among review posts just didn't work.  I liked lots of different teas for different reasons, and most of the write-ups seemed a bit wordy. 

Most of these were written in the last two years, when I've branched into topic research and tangents a bit more than I had before then.  Only two don't mention tea at all, about my son becoming a novice monk.

Tea Related Research

Pu'er Storage and Fermentation

Pu'er storage optimums, and relative versus absolute humidity

Fluoride in Tea; Summary Version

Caffeine in Tea Revisited

Tea taste profiling and machine testing "tasting"

Making rock oolong (Wuyi Yancha): an interview with Cindy Chen

Other

My Son Becomes a Novice Monk in Bangkok, and Keoni's Take on Being a Thai Novice Monk

Travel to Russia, to Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Murmansk

Advice to Beginners About Tea

Mission Impossible; Reviewing Teas from North Korea

Tea Shopping in New York City

not so into it yet but these two will be my favorite tea drinkers later

Oolong pu'er, about sheng aging potential

Related to reviewing different sheng versions lately considering which sheng pu'er will age well and which won't keeps coming up.

A comment about a Moychay Nan Nuo sheng relates directly to that (here on Reddit, by Jay, if he's familiar, who sells tea here):

It'll be interesting to watch it age over several years but my gut instinct is that it will fade rather quickly in BKK. The fruity flavors often indicate oolong style pu that will fade out with age.


I had framed a similar idea in that original review more as a question.


I love the fruit in it, and that overall "bright" effect.  Often when I'm drinking sheng made within the past year I'm saying this might be better in a year or two, a little less edgy, but in this case I'm not so sure.  If that brightness were to decline, as it would to some extent, the balance might be just as positive, or more so, or the tea could've been best drank when very young like this.


Of course the deeper issue is what aspect range indicates a tea will age well, and to what extent that varies by preference, or is it not possible to tell by trying a tea.  All of that is essentially what this post is about.  I frame that as a question in the response to that comment by Jay about "oolong pu'er":


I've ran across this description, and take it to mean sheng pu'er that resembles oolong in aspect character, smooth, not astringent or bitter, sweet, sometimes with fruit aspects.

The odd twist is that often mentions of that term pair it with descriptions of processing variation (or error, depending on interpretation) with the tea heated more in the kill-green (shaqing) step causing conversion of compounds essential to sheng pu'er fermentation (or whatever someone wants to call that, since there's more back-story about that term too). But only at that simple one-step variation description it should become more like a green tea, shouldn't it? 

Some other descriptions, which usually don't mention "oolong-style" as a comment, say sheng that's heated too much more or less is green tea. But green tea usually tastes nothing at all like oolong, with more initial oxidation being a main difference in the two, beyond difference in resulting aspects. That additional oxidation wouldn't be present in sheng that got a bit hot during processing. 


Jay mentioned that Tea Chat discussion link for further reference, along with a concise overview "some of the stuff that is aromatic and flavorful and easy to drink today can die in a matter of three years."


I'll look into that Tea Chat discussion here, citing parts of it.  It never really resolves, but it's interesting to consider individual points made.  I want to touch on another tangent first, about people using the terms fragrant and aromatic in different ways.  I'm sure it means something very clear and consistent to the people using it, probably even well agreed upon in limited groups or circles, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that the meaning varies among people.

exploring sheng aging by trying six years of consecutive samples (here and here)

more to follow about turning another page in trying interesting versions

More on aroma, fragrance, and other aspect descriptions

It's common enough knowledge that basic taste / flavor is really divided into two parts, what our tongues pick up (salty, sweet, umami, etc.) and aromatic compounds, identified in sensors in the lower rear of the nasal passages instead, related to our sense of smell.  I've mentioned this "basics" video summary by Barb Stuckey before, author of "Taste What You're Missing."

It would be simple if aroma is intended as only the information carried by aromatic compounds that are identified by sensation related to smell.  In this tea vendor blog post that's essentially how it's being used.

The problem is that I've ran across other range of uses before, and it doesn't seem to be quite that simple in these citations.  Jay mentioned in that comment "some of the stuff that is aromatic and flavorful," apparently contrasting the two (which I had just cited).  It doesn't work well for flavor to mean what's tasted by the tongue in that, although it could still work.  Typical language use of the concept of flavor includes both types of sensory input, but then the concepts of taste and flavor tend to blur together in common use.  In lots of citations related to tea use of all of the terms seems to vary, but to generally incline towards one specific concept range, assumed as shared and understood.

A research article (Tea Aroma Formation) summarizes aromatic compounds present in tea, reflecting that simple version:

The current review summarizes tea aroma compounds and their formation in green, black, and oolong tea. The flavor of tea can be divided into two categories: taste (non-volatile compounds) and aroma (volatile compounds). All of these aroma molecules are generated from carotenoids, lipids, glycosides, etc. precursors, and also from Maillard reaction. In the current review, we focus on the formation mechanism of main aromas during the tea manufacturing process.


So why not just leave it at that?  "Taste" can be reduced to what the tongue is picking up, "aroma" to the rest, to aromatic compound input.  Or on the looser side taste or flavor could mean both, and someone could be more specific about how they're using the terms if it's really necessary.  The reason I'm not comfortable leaving it at that (that first option) relates to running across the terms being used in different ways.  Generally loose ordinary language use of broad terms is something else, but I mean in discussions about tea.

Of course most of the flavor of all teas is carried mostly by aromatic compounds.  Sweetness is picked up through sensation by the tongue (mostly, as far as I know and can determine), even though it's not typically sugars causing that in tea, but also other compounds that come across similarly.  The same is true for the feel of teas, astringency, and bitterness and sourness, obviously, but beyond that most is "aromatic," or from the contribution of volatile compounds.

Onto the complication:  often the pronounced floral or fruit range in a tea like a Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong is referred to as flavorful, while the more subtle, different range in a Ya Shi (duck shit) Dan Cong is referred to as aromatic instead.  Of course some people will disagree completely with that; my central point is that people are using the terms in different ways.  Is that convention--if correctly identified--only because someone is using the terms in the wrong way, or that they aren't clear on how limited tongue-based taste perception is?  Maybe.  But it seems to represent a different convention that breaks "flavor" apart differently than just between tongue and nasal passages instead.

I've been through some degree of training in wine tasting but referring back to that doesn't help (which could instead relate to limitations in my own training and memory).  And even if there had been a clear convention and terms break-down there it still might not carry over.

Ordinarily I'd speculate, and say that a certain range seems to have represented what people are meaning by "aroma" in some cases, with the rest pushed off to "flavor" or whatever else.  I have expressed thoughts on this before but I can't really get much clearer to pinning this down.  I tend to use "aromatic" myself in a specific and limited sense that's probably not universal, or who knows, maybe almost entirely incorrectly.

Just because someone is from within the Chinese tea tradition (like my online friend Cindy, who even makes tea) they're not necessarily a great reference for a universal use of terms.  Even if someone could site a tea-master or ancient tradition school lineage that wouldn't necessarily support their use of any description terms as universal.

All of this isn't really central to this discussion, the part about oolong pu'er, but it sort of does keep coming up in the parts of it.

Kalani checking out a dragon.  Happy New Year!

About types of sheng, and "oolong pu'er"

Part of the broader idea of exploring sheng lately has been to start to sort out how different types of age differently.  Of course aging input is just one issue related to judging or enjoying a sheng pu'er.  Related to exploring that, most recently I tried a series of Yiwu sheng samples designed to show aging effect (here and here), and before that  attended a vertical tasting of those (narrowed to teas from Ding Jia Zhai, a village in that larger Yiwu area).

It's a review that I understand is going to be a process, nothing I'm going to get far with in any limited amount of time.  It goes without saying that I'm barely getting started, but I do keep saying that anyway.  "Just getting started" means different things to different people, and what I mean is that I've tried and reviewed some related teas over the last four years, but not that many of them, something like a few dozen.  There are probably less than 20 related reviews here, of versions of sheng. 

Tea quality is another issue, beyond any sort of count related to what someone has tried.  It would be possible to keep trying low to medium quality versions of sheng pu'er and not really see that half of the picture, or to many, to get much relevant exposure about what the tea type is really supposed to be about.


The discussion in that Tea Chat thread about "oolong pu'er" goes a lot further with isolating aging concerns, with the main two references here:

Tea Chat forum "Oolong Pu'er Processing" thread

Related, The Mandarin's Tea "Oolong Pu" post

A citation from the author of the second personal blog post (by Tim) within that original thread outline the central theme and concept definition of "oolong pu'er:"


Those high aromatic new style Puerh which goes stale in 8 plus years. They can't age and a total waste of time and money...  

...flat in the body, don't last many brews in a balanced way (aroma and body) but high aroma from the production of 2006 to current?  [2013, at that time of writing]


From there discussion varied related to root causes or descriptions of effect.  One vendor offered an summary of some issues and conditions, but it's not intended as a consensus take here, or even representative, just a good place to start (cited from "Bannacha's" post):


If you're refering to tea that got too much Sha Qing, they are quite easy to identify: the leaves are very green, they are astringent and they get bland very quickly, just like green tea.

By controlling the Sha Qing time and the wok temperature, you can make redder or greener tea, and, as long as it's not extreme, I think there's a large span of well processed tea. Then, it depends on your personal taste, what kind of aroma you prefer, and which mountain you're dealing with. I like a greener processing on Mengku tea, because it brings out the high pitched fragrance of this area. Redder tea might be good to emphasize on the body, the mouth feeling.



Later discussion identified a potential difference in the drying step as a potential main issue, that replacing sun-drying with an alternative process (citing "Nada" on page 2)


...He's been experimenting with how cakes have been ageing that have had different processing techniques & noticed a big difference between those that had been dried in a heated room after pressing vs those that had been dried in the open air. 

...We tasted some of his past pressings and there did seem to be a strong correlation. The naturally dried cakes did seem to be ageing better. 

In freshly pressed teas, the difference seems to be huge - the cakes dried in a heated room had strong aroma and tasted fresh soon after pressing, while naturally dried cakes seem to take months after pressing to recover from the process and have a much more subdued aroma.

Really all of these citations are just samples, and the whole thread is well worth a read. Of course people are going to be using some terms in slightly different ways (me even more so than them), and preferences would vary, but it seems possible to read past those issues and extract some clear insights.  It would be interesting if I could even tentatively link any of what I've experienced back to these patterns, but passing on guesses at this point would seem less than helpful. 

the "Oolong Puerh" FB business page.  that might've not worked out.

The various points raised don't really fall together as a clearly connected, narrow-range set of ideas, as this summary hasn't (so far, but it does keep meandering).  If you read through even the first four or five pages of that Tea Chat discussion it's narrower than this review of it makes out, but still hard to summarize.  

I'll cite a part that was particularly interesting, some comments on positive attributes of sheng by Shah82 (a name reference that might ring a bell; I've mentioned other input from him in this blog before), from page 4 of that discussion (edited down only a little for length):

Nobody is an expert. Not really, because this hobby is far too young as a broad phenomenon. Virtually everyone's experience in the West consists of furtive samplings of tiny quantities of the well stored aged tea, usually of well known tea like 7542 or 8582. So everyone is making best guesses, especially given how processing methods and blends have changed since the 80s and 90s. So you have to come up with a system that estimates how you should think of a tea. 

So for me, I go with: 

1) Does the aroma endure? You can't fake or process a quality aroma with depth/complexity/fullness, rise off the cup, and lasting more than a minute or so. 

2) How comfortable is it to drink? Is there astringency or bitterness? Is that astringency/bitterness productive in generating lingering aftertaste and huigans? Silky, gloopy, whatever texture? 

3) Is it like drinking water or some kind of soup? Body is a bit different than texture--you can have a thinner body, with a silk texture and that'd be pretty cool. Or a thick one that isn't right in some way. 

4) How much power, activity, and presence does the soup have on top of, and inside the throat? Too many people think mere cooling is a sign of quality. It is, sorta, but what sets off the really good from the mundane is the nature of the cool. Good tea has a different kind of cooling that's more ben-gay than mint. The effect tends to go down the throat and up the nose. It can also travel around the mouth, as in "wind rain effect" as the Chinese call it. 

5) How much qi does it have? Does said qi move along the meridians, so to speak, or does it just sit there? Is it comfortable or harsh? 

6) Does the tea have several stages in flavor as you go through a pot of water? Are the finishing brews pleasantly sweet and comfy? 

... You have to make choices about what you want. You'd read me or any of the bloggers strictly in the context of where your preferences and priorities tend to overlap with mine or anyone else... 

I will say that taste itself is highly deceptive. It depends on your water, whether you let the dry leave sit in the bowl a week or two, or any number of things. It can change with the years. The classic way people buy bad tea is by preferentially buying "approachable" flavor or aroma puerh. Which is why you see so much problematically tinkered puerh that gives a oolongly fruity or floral taste (or more red and mellow malt). 

For me, the easy way to tell, again, is to see whether that aroma *endures*. Many of these teas also will betray badness by becoming hard to drink or pointless to drink by about brew 6-8. *Few* puerh, however, are done straight processing green. A little butteriness is sought after. Or a little hongcha, or some nice smokiness. That's alright, so long as most of the underlying qualities are still there to age.

Ok, not edited down much.  There's lots interesting there, which I won't really comment further on.  I will mention that the one sentence about communication and shared perspective does deserve some extra thinking through.  It's insightful and clear enough, but perhaps easy to miss what is really being said.  As I take it he acknowledges that preference is a real issue, a context framework that the rest of the experience rests on, and that input from him or from tea bloggers is only valid to the degree that a general approach is shared.

Put another way, reading others' ideas about how they approach tea, and what they prefer, only goes so far.  There would seem to be better and worse references beyond that issue of generally matching preference scale.  As an example, a tea blogger could be on exactly the same page as a reader relating to general preference (for types, relating to subject concerns, and brewing approach, etc.), and still pass on a lot of wrong information, or could describe teas very badly.  And I suppose the opposite could be true; an online reference or discussion point could relate to a completely different scope than a reader is typically interested in or exposed to (eg. be written about a tea type that isn't of interest, or be based on very different personal preference scope) and it could still be interesting.

Typical mapping related to that, identifying who is speaking from a similar perspective framework, is simple enough; you just find an example of discussion of a favorite tea type, and see if the observations match (likes, as part of that, but also the details of the take, like aspect descriptions).

That last citation is a good example of how such ideas can be interesting, or even potentially helpful, probably not just related to people who are clear on what he's talking about.  At times others' perspectives are paired with attitudes and personality aspect inputs that can be a bit off-putting, and I suppose it all has to balance.

that one blog mascot again

Oolong pu'er as a positive description

Oddly this doesn't come up.  If there really are differences in processing approaches, and differences in aspect range of young teas, and in personal preferences, it would stand to reason that there couldn't be a completely clear division between what is good and bad.  But that's essentially how the term "oolong pu'er" tends to be used, only as a criticism of a specific version of a young sheng. 

The implication is that teas should be able to improve with age, or that people should prefer some other aspect range than is found in such a tea.  But that's usually not explicitly stated.  More often one or two aspects are criticized, and the person commenting just moves on.  I suppose the way this review of the discussion plays out accounts for one reason why that might occur:  it's not simple outlining what one might desire in a sheng, even when someone has the experience and communication tools at their disposal to do so.

All of this is only food for thought, to be compared to actual personal tea drinking experience. 

One interesting complication is that tea related preferences change over time, and that preference related to specific types of aspects changes.  It would seem problematic to try and like what you think you're supposed to like, to steer personal preference along the path of some consensus-defined natural learning curve.  Or maybe that could work.  Even for taking external input seriously, in a case when a tea drinker tries to branch out and add depth to the range of what they can appreciate, someone would still need to experience tea enjoyment tea by tea, and sip by sip, to work with where they are to some degree.

And so I come back to where this started:  will that Moychay Nan Nuo sheng age well, will it continue to improve?  I'm not sure.  I did just try it again with breakfast, to keep tabs on if my impression changes, and to compare it to the other related tea versions I've been trying this year.  I just checked; four of eleven posts this year were about sheng, with six versions reviewed, and two more in draft form now.  It's not a bad pace but a slow start to the blogging year, versus last year.  I still really like the tea.

I plan to keep drinking some, to enjoy it as it is now, and leave enough to try some later too.  Of course there's a bit of a gap in that approach:  if it does seem to improve over several years, or go through an "awkward phase" between years 8 and 13 (or whenever), it will essentially be gone by the time it has improved, already drank.  It would seem best if I could set aside a good bit of varied tea now to hedge my bets related to versions changing in different ways.  As far as making better guesses about likely changes I'm not getting far, yet.