Free tea tasting in Kapiolani Park (Honolulu)

 

The tea tasting I just held went well, in Kapiolani Park, in Honolulu.  Many thanks to all who participated!  Seven people attended, beyond myself, and my kids stopped by while they played with a volleyball in the park.  We tried most of the teas I had planned to share, swapping out one Thai sheng version for another, and adding some of a black tea I hadn't listed.  Here was that original planned list, in the main Reddit post notification:

Shui Xian oolong, 2022 version, Fujian roasted, twisted style oolong, from a Bangkok Chinatown shop

Shu pu'er, 2017 Menghai version from Moychay

Sheng pu'er, 2018 Yiwu "Lucky Bee" from Tea Mania

Sheng pu'er, 2022 Thai wild forest origin version from a Moychay local production initiative

Sheng pu'er, aged, to be determined, probably a 1980 Thai version from Wawee Tea

I added a Wawee Tea compressed black tea (shai hong), the last tea I've reviewed here, and tried Wawee Tea's sheng pu'er instead of the Moychay version mentioned.  There was no particular reason for the change, there's just something catchy about the Wawee sheng I thought they might relate to.  I'll break down reception of the teas separately, but wanted to overview how it went first, and cover some "lessons learned" thoughts first.

As usual it started late; always the way, but there was a Hawaiian band performance and dancing in a pavilion right beside me to catch.  Using a picnic table in the park was no problem, it just wasn't in the shade, and I ended up a bit sun-scorched as a result, as some guests may have.  All the other details came together, buying some extra cups locally (more spare gear is still back in Bangkok), hot water, etc.  It proved easy to manage, because two people showed up first, then two more, then two left and two joined, so it stayed small.  

The guests joining weren't tea enthusiasts, and had mixed background with tea, but that worked really well, because staying on introductory discussion wasn't too boring for some who had been through all that.  The guests were very pleasant; it can be hard to appreciate how a positive, smooth discussion flow evolves because of everyone's input, but it was like that.  Most people in Hawaii are nice, somehow.  It might seem early to say that, or based on limited exposure, but this stay of 3 months spread over the last 8 or so comes after going to grad school at UH Manoa here, which involved very few negative experiences

That one point brings me to the main thing I think could've potentially went better; I probably talked too much, going on and on about tea background.  People joining might've felt more engaged if they had more space for their own input.  We didn't really get into the tasting notes theme much, sticking with basics, why some teas are compressed, how aging works out, basics of brewing, on main types production inputs, oxidation versus fermentation, storage conditions for aging tea, etc.

Kalani, my daughter, joined at one point to pour tea; that was nice.  My kids have practiced a good bit at home with chrysanthemum, a pleasant and mild tisane, since their mother doesn't let them drink much tea.  I made all the tea with a small gaiwan, which is a Chinese term for a lidded cup.  For a very small group, 5 or less, that still works ok, but it would've went better using a 200+ ml gaiwan (which I have a number of back in Bangkok), instead of having people drink 30 ml or so at a time (a fluid ounce, here), hardly any.  I didn't even include a sharing pitcher in the gear that I used (gong dao bei / cha hai / fairness cup), so slight variations in infusion strength experienced on each round could've come up.

that assistant at a different local park

It went well enough that there's not much to list out for what could've went better, so I'll move back to reception, what guests seemed to make of it.

the tasting set-up and space beforehand

Diamondhead!  none of the pictures do justice to the feel of that space.

a cool stand of trees we were in the midst of

Reception / impressions of the teas

We started with a modest quality Wuyi Yancha (Wuyishan area "rock tea"),  Shui Xian oolong, which only either the first two or first five people tried (easy to lose track).  It's a decent representation of the general range, without notable flaws, and significant roast input, but complexity, intensity, refinement, and depth all could be better.  The basic taste is good for that tea, for inexpensive blended Chinatown versions.  That one isn't really over-roasted or thin, not off in any way, with good sweetness and some nice flavor range.  They seemed to like it.

Shu pu'er isn't for everyone, and that earthiness from the wet piling fermentation, a taste a lot like peat (or even dirt, sometimes), appealed to some and not as much to others.  The novelty seemed well-received.  That's actually a pretty good version, a well-settled Menghai version, from Moychay, and I think that helped, it being better than the rough-edged and limited quality Honolulu Chinatown version that I just had with breakfast.

Sheng pu'er is where things get interesting, because the bitterness either would appeal to people or not so much at all.  And this is also where getting mired in too much background context discussion probably limited more interesting talk about what the people joining made of the experience, what they noticed for flavor inputs, how feel or astringency aspects worked out, and how it worked overall.  I really love that Thai sheng version, but it took me years of exposure and acclimation to like that range of teas as much as I do now.  None of what we tried is really "factory sheng," anything like typical Dayi / Taetea or Xiaguan versions, which are often made from more chopped material, that is often slightly lower in quality, a bit challenging and in need of aging transition input.

The Yiwu we tried later on is better, in a limited sense, more interesting and complex for showing off how some years of age changes things, and in a good place for an optimum for not being a challenging tea to begin with.  Again I didn't prompt discussion enough to get clear feedback about how the two differed per guests' take, but maybe it was a lot to process for them, for going through one type range after another.  They would've needed to either talk through background a lot (as we did), or focus in on experiential range, but covering both could've been a lot.

The aged sheng pu'er version wasn't as positive as I'd hoped, the Wawee 1980 version.  A tea needs to have the right starting point to age well across so many decades, and most versions, even many sheng pu'er versions, would just fade, and slightly odd age-input tastes like mustiness or storage-area flavors could stand out more than positive transitions from an originally very intense tea character.  It was like that; interesting, not really including much for off notes, but clearly quite faded.  I explained how you need a Menghai-type character to begin with to have the potential for very long term aging (if 43 years is seen as that; the pu'er world is so focused on novel experiences and one-upmanship that for some that could just seem like normal range).  It was still interesting, and generally positive, just not including the depth that I'd hoped for, those incense spice or aged furniture notes, evolving positively over rounds.

I wanted to add more on what people seemed to connect with most, but it already seems implied.  All the range of these teas was unfamiliar, for the most part, so the learning and initial experience seemed interesting to them.

That leads to another context theme:  what teas would be more ideal for an introductory tasting than these, what would I have guests try if I had access to everything out there, instead of what I usually drink?  I've only brought a dozen or so tea versions with me for my stay here, of 2 or 3 months.  A visa processing errand will bring me back to Bangkok, either for a week or two or potentially for longer, depending on how job hunt issues work out.  That job search isn't clicking yet; I've had no luck in getting IT services / data center quality assurance / ISO process implementation / internal auditor work to transfer to openings here, but I'm still optimistic.

I usually recommend that people should start on light rolled oolongs, like Fujian Tie Guan Yin (with Taiwanese alternatives often a little better, with careful sourcing).  Or else flavorful, complex, approachable Chinese black teas, like Dian Hong (Yunnan black tea, which is really a broad range).  The one compressed shai hong, a Thai version, isn't too far from Dian Hong range, but it's less flavorful, less sweet, and not in quite as positive a range as more fully oxidized, oven-dried versions in a similar range.  

that Thai shai hong cake; like pu'er, but a little redder

Rolled oolongs I recommend because they're really approachable, pleasant with no acclimation, and easy to brew, in addition to being good at different quality levels.  Light versions can be sweet and floral, and with more oxidation cacao and fruit tones, or whatever else, can enter in.  Lots of sheng is astringent and bitter instead, really rough-edged in lower quality versions, but even the versions I love are surely better with lots of prior exposure.  Shu is fine for a starting point, I think, but then half of everyone would dislike that earthy range.  The roasted oolong we tried, Shui Xian, isn't bad for early exploration, and the roasted flavors range might be familiar to coffee drinkers.  Other versions have more depth and refinement to offer, but starting out with plain and basic examples seems fine.

Lessons learned for a future outing (I probably will do another later)

I think I'll improve as a host if I don't get too caught up in being busy with preparation details and mind how much personal perspective sharing everyone is able to offer.  The most open and outgoing guests, people with the opposite personality type I normally exhibit, in group settings where I'm not essentially presenting, would find openings to share, but that could leave out some others.  I don't think I "talked over" people much (maybe a little?), but I could've been more aware. 

There isn't much I would change.  To try out a different theme it would be interesting to split the difference between describing background (about the teas) and personal experience, what everyone made of it all, especially focused in on people who were less inclined to share thoughts, to give them their own space to share.  It would be nice to switch up tea range but I only have so much with me; I could support another tasting with different versions, but most of the range would be similar.  

I have two more really old sheng versions, samples, from the 70s and 80s as I remember, and either one of those may be much more ideal to show off the potential of that range.  Or both could be quite limited in different ways, maybe really musty from wetter storage input, too heavy on one odd flavor, or from that time period fermentation can transition them to mostly tasting like charcoal.  All of that is why that one aged tea seeming a bit faded by age isn't so bad; it all has to come together for the most positive aspect range to really shine, which is true in different senses across most tea categories and types.

I'd like to close with thanks to the people joining; meeting them all was great.  The mix of people at any given tasting is as much an important part as the teas, the gear and other details, or the host, and it all came together just fine.

that general area, from visiting friends' condo with a view of there

this zoo parking lot view shows just how close it all is to the ocean

Kailua, a more remote beach on the east side of Oahu (later that day)

the view in the other direction, later with some clouds moving through

Tea culture appreciation versus appropriation

 

I just caught an earlier discussion between So Han Fan and Riu Liu on this subject, which was quite interesting.  It wasn't what I expected; much more developed and refined, and very insightful, just great really.  One would expect this kind of discussion to never move far off saying that white people new to tea aren't well-trained enough or "Chinese enough" to have a developed opinion worth listening to about Chinese cultural aspects, and that was part of it, but it kept going from there, uncovering layers of how all that really maps out.

I won't be able to summarize everything they said; it covered too much ground.  People should watch that instead of reading this, if it came down to choosing; just put it on 1.25 speed if nearly two hours seems like too much, and listen to it while you're doing something else.  

As far as further commentary here goes let's take it bit by bit, point by point, without ever trying to tackle the grand scope in one go.

white people new to tea aren't well enough informed or Chinese enough to have a developed opinion worth listening to:  this was never expressed or addressed directly, at least in clear detail related to fully unpacking this, but it definitely was a sub-theme that factored in early on.  Both speakers, So Han and Riu, touched on examples of how this really did manifest in real life problems they've experienced personally, and that worked, probably better than a regressive development of ideas, exploring layer after layer of context and assumptions.  

In some of those cases people really did cross over from appreciating Chinese culture (positively engaging with it), exploring it, into taking it on as their own, and using it for personal gain and profit, while promoting overly summarized and partly incorrect ideas.  Without clear examples the nuances of what really happened wouldn't have shown through, and how complex inputs come together.

To back up quite a bit, this already assumes that there is a traditional, unified, accepted, authority based, accurate version of traditional Chinese culture, or strands of that, sets of ideas and practices.  Does this work?  Yes and no, probably.  But then it would really take the nearly two hours to develop only this point.  It's something I've been considering a lot for many years, in the most recent form repeatedly discussing this with a friend who is exploring Chinese tea culture as a research anthropologist, in China, Taiwan, and the US, with only early research and summary academic publication related to China completed.  That anthropologist friend looks for "schools," training organizations, or "masters," and for looking for that kind of thing he is able to find it. So Han and Riu both explicitly covered how it doesn't occur in the form one might expect, as a Westerner, related to exactly that context, which I'll get back to.  

So where does this leave us, setting this aside, if we can't fully unpack this dimension?  It's a little awkward, because it's not clear how we can specify the contrast with a Chinese person who is a part of an original culture, who can speak for that perspective, without clarifying to what extent a unified historical culture even exists.  

Different levels and factors enter in, related to the second part about someone being a suitable representative, brought up by both speakers:  someone being racially Chinese, part of a Chinese culture (foreign or in China, which is different), speaking Chinese languages, exposed to a strand of the tradition ("study under a master" and such), with background engaging with tea producers, vending experience (both a pro and a con, as I see it), and so on.  

Indirectly So Han ends up justifying his position as "Chinese enough" based on family history, race related genetics, language proficiency, visits to China, and contact with producers.  That's Chinese enough, probably, but someone else could try to move the goalposts and demand exposure to some other background or training of some sort, or claim that the sourcing exposure was actually very limited.  Let's set that aside.

tea producers as a reference:  one of So Han's examples is clear and easy to consider, about producers identifying types of tea, with this serving as a more distinct and accurate identifier of type than Western oriented categories.  This gets a little odd; he was saying that a partially oxidized green tea was identified as a green tea by the producer, so it is that, even if Westerners see it as some sort of exception, or not in that category.  It's hard to say if that authority justification would work in every case, but there's something to it.  Then Riu started in on saying that organization of categories and use of concepts might be slightly different within different cultures, which they both developed further, and I'd like to add more on here.

A friend who produces oolong in China once almost apologetically offered that they don't really use the category of oolong (/ wulong) there, and just call tea versions by the name of what they are, per individual plant type input.  The same kind of divide has came up related to saying whether sheng pu'er is a version of hei cha.  A driver for it needing to either be that, or to not be, relates to the familiar initiative for Westerners to put every tea into one of a limited set of main categories (green, black (/ red), oolong, white, hei cha, yellow).  

Per seemingly good input from people familiar with local Chinese perspective sheng pu'er is just sheng pu'er, and hei cha is something else, and they don't need to force that complete division into main groups to work out.  Surely some people in China would want the groups to stick, and they would have their own opinion, but in general it may well just not be a typical Chinese project.  Other examples So Han and Riu covered reinforced that.

Buddhists and Taoists have lineages, but not tea cultures:  a great point by So Han.  I'm not sure this is right, since the "master" and "schools" themes come up in China and Taiwan too, but I agree with and love the point he's making, that tea culture is a living, diverse, locally oriented theme in China instead, not at all unified and codified as religions are.  This single point I keep returning to in discussion with that anthropologist friend, how it may not be valid for some people in China to try to fix, package, and essentially sell one version of Chinese tea culture, regardless of what credentials they can collect together or justify.  Riu mentioned her own experience studying under a "master" (I don't love that term, but it must apply in some cases).  I can't do justice to summarizing that, and would make it less accurate by trying to, so people should check it out there instead (around 53:30, with So Han introducing the set of ideas there first).

To be clear I'm not the right person to try and place those claims of people being masters, with lineages, tied to training classes and certifications, etc., in both China and Taiwan.  Even relatively unified or standard approaches to ceremonial Gong Fu Cha brewing I'm just not familiar with.  Oddly a main stepping stone in exploring tea was a ceremonial brewing demonstration, held at a Huawei product display site on a visit to Shenzhen a decade ago for an IT project, so it's not as if I've never seen any versions of it.

Was that an example of cultural exploitation on their part?  I don't see it that way, but an argument could be made for that, depending on what was presented there, and how it was framed.

how does all this relate to Buddhism scope?:  it's a bit of a tangent but I did study Buddhism for quite awhile, on my own and in academic scope, and was ordained as a Thai Buddhist monk at one point (only for a bit over two months, which is normal in their tradition), and have lived in a Thai Buddhist family for the last 15 years.  So how do these parallel themes overlap or differ; would it be ok for a Westerner to have the same kind of exposure that I've had, or a few years' worth instead of 30, and to position themselves as some sort of teacher, or cultural authority?  Of course not.  Even if a respected member of that tradition officially sanctioned it that would still seem sketchy, especially if it was for-profit.

To be clear it's fine to comment on Buddhist themes in online discussions, for anyone, even with very limited exposure.  There's no reason why someone couldn't answer Quora questions, comment on Buddhism group threads, write a blog, or post videos to Youtube.  It would be best if they clarified their level and type of exposure, but that's up to them.  Selling anything drawing on their own authority in relation to Buddhism, or promoting themselves as a teacher or representative, even without a commercial angle, would be a step too far.  Wearing robes and such would be context dependent, if that would make sense or not, but in general a little would go a long way in terms of adding on such trappings.  It would be as well to not do that, but of course anyone can if they want to.

It's not as if there is a fixed timing or exposure level after which changing a role would make sense, but anyone participating for a few years in such a tradition and then making it their own, taking on the role of teacher and passing on adjusted ideas, would seem to be acting in bad faith, or at least poor judgement.  Tea vendors just selling tea don't parallel this context concern at all, but a little goes a long way related to re-packaging Gong Fu ceremonial or aesthetic practices.  If that kind of thing is offered as something they've taken up as a derived and adjusted individual practice, versus a direct continuation of an older tradition, that changes things a little.  Training certificates make for a strange scope; I'll stop short of getting into that part.

why do Westerners need to apply the Chinese cultural context framework?:  this is more a tangent here than coverage or response to what they said, my thoughts on how this tends to go.  It seems like people don't need for their tea experience to follow a traditional Chinese form, right, they could just drink tea?  A couple of natural exceptions to that come to mind.

Plenty of Western tea enthusiasts love both the experience of drinking tea, the taste, getting brewing right, learning types, etc., and also the formal, ceremonial, and aesthetic forms and aspects.  I don't see anything wrong with that.  Collecting teaware is fine, or setting up a room in a Chinese decoration theme, adopting a formal way of brewing drawn from some external source, even going further and investigating Taoism, and so on.  Once someone starts wearing traditional Chinese clothing it all gets a little strange, because why, and what imagery is being borrowed?  Then it's hard to say where a natural dividing line should occur.  It's subjective.  

my friend Huyen's family appreciates traditional aesthetic range without making it strange

at least the goggles go a step beyond more original scope (credit Wikipedia Gong Fu cha page)

Still I have no problem with that, people adopting and adjusting foreign cultural traditions, but what if the person taking this up is a tea vendor?  Now we're on to that all being a marketing angle, which somehow seems worse.  

Two lines of concerns come up:  is that even ok for someone with limited exposure to these themes, and how would there ever be a line drawn as to when it's ok?  What if So Han was American born Chinese but he didn't speak the language, and hadn't visited China, and learned from text sources and discussions instead?  It's hard to say how that would be different.  Someone could visit China dozens of times and still not have relevant additional cultural input, even though that would tend to come up if they were interested.  Lots of people visit China once or twice and take up a mantle of being an expert, and I've been to China three times, and Hong Kong and Taiwan as many more, and I had limited exposure to tea themes.  Visiting producers changes things, but only a little.  Short visits are tourism, even if someone brings back some tea they bought from a producer.

It's hard to place how it would all be different if So Han was white, if his genetics were different.  Is it really more "his" for being Chinese?  In one sense yes, but in another maybe not.  If he grew up as a third generation Chinese American with almost no contact with that aspect of Chinese culture it would only be "his" in a very limited sense.  If someone else, who is white, somehow entered into close contact with a Chinese family or local culture over an extended time, along with a tea tradition, the genetics would seem to drop out as a most relevant factor.

A European tea vendor friend commented that he is in the no-win situation of cultural borrowing being expected of him, that if he hosts tastings with absolutely no reference to Gong Fu cha background it would be seen as problematic, as not fulfilling expectations.  Then no matter what he learns and incorporates of course it can't apply as a universal, valid, appropriate inclusion from Chinese culture, which is a very diverse thing on its own.  So what should he do?  Probably intention and framing is important, to address why he is including some components, what background he is drawing on, and what kinds of claims he isn't trying to make.  Then of course you can't add a disclaimer to every sentence; that kind of thing could only be an early framing point.

Finer points made in examples in the video:  I think this is worth touching on a little, especially since that Reddit discussion went there, without the clear benefit of someone having an informed perspective to review these points made.  Let's examine some:

American tea enthusiasts rejecting that shai hong is red (black) tea (a sun-dried variation of Dian Hong, Yunnan black tea):  that's crazy; what else would it be?

questioning if green tea can be partially oxidized:  this breaks down to how people use categories, and the Western project of making things fit in boxes doesn't map back to China (as So Han explained).  For the most part I think if a producer says a tea is green tea then it is, with that broad scope potentially varying more than one might expect.  That's a problem with awareness and perspective related to the negative judgment, but to a limited extent people are also just talking past each other.  There are many kinds of green tea made in China, in lots of regions, and it's quite reasonable that some of that scope is unfamiliar.  

This comes up a lot with sheng (pu'er-like tea) made in Southeast Asian countries either being oxidized a bit much (from a long wither, maybe?), heated too hot, so taking on some green tea characteristics, or seeming unfinished by not being heated enough, taking on an in-between-white character.  To me it's still sheng, but a stylistic variation, with aging potential likely impacted, more than there's a concern over any naming or type convention.  Call it whatever you want; that doesn't change what it is.

is yellow tea fermented or oxidized?:  I don't know, really, maybe both.  The person making the comment, interrupting a presentation with a correction, was clearly wrong on that level, so we could almost just stop there.  If a green tea stored wet and warm transitioned based on a chemical reaction involving enzymes and an input from oxygen then it oxidized; if bacteria or fungus was involved it fermented (as we commonly used the term; really food science uses two other terms for both these things), and it could be both.  

There was a time when an oxidation process was often translated as fermentation instead, and it could less than perfectly clear what role bacteria and fungus are playing in some processing.  But again it sort of doesn't matter, and communicating respectfully is more important than taking better and better guesses about such things.

claiming a lot of Chinese tea is at high risk of being contaminated:  I think So Han's explanation of why the context and framing of that perspective is absurd is worth considering.  Again that's the main point, the form and tone of exchanges, but this kind of claim or belief comes up over and over.  I've heard vendors based in China say the same thing (one Chinese and one European, that come to mind).  Was that because of awareness of real risks, due more to personal bias, or just marketing?  

Here in Thailand my wife buys into this bias a lot more than I do because of isolated cases, like people in China once putting melamine (plastic powder) in powdered milk, to increase protein test level results.  The way that played out in the example So Han shared was clearly way out of line, but it's not really only racism that fuels that concern, even though it is mostly that.  

On my first visit to China our local guide went on and on about how many foods are at risk of such problems, and he explained that a whole egg can be "faked," re-created from other ingredients.  I'm not so sure about that, but it's an interesting thought.  The tricky part about interpreting such comments is that it can become a joke to Chinese people to play up the absurdity of the more extreme rumors, so all that part could've definitely been a put-on.  Or urban rumors and myths enter in.  Then people drinking powdered plastic in powdered milk was real, and not necessarily only isolated instances, so the worst cases are definitely bad enough.

what about appropriation being an example of appreciation?:  this seemed to be covered from lots of different angles in the video, on different levels.  People taking up foreign culture based practices are fine, but communicating their own expertise and authority, and utilizing these for their own personal gain, is all typically a step too far.  Even if a good review and sorting process could extract a dozen or two individual aspects of the broad Chinese tea cultural landscape patching those together to serve as a functional "school" of sorts doesn't really work.

Setting aside vendors taking things a bit far atypical personal practices can seem a bit absurd, viewed in one way.  Lots of people wear natural fiber robes to drink tea out of beautiful hand-made teaware.  Per one take this is functionally ceremonial (it supports relaxation and meditation functions), and also aesthetically pleasing, or it could just seem odd to someone else, or related to a subculture that might be overly dependent on borrowing aspects from other cultures.

a NY Times article sums up a take on an LA subculture (photo credit and article)

a finer point about prior context of discrimination mattering:  So Han raised a good point about how all these ideas don't necessarily stand alone as a guide to what works and what doesn't related to borrowing from other cultures, because the context of how different cultures interact in the present matters.  If there was no racism against Asians, or negative stereotypes at play to work around, different forms of uptake could be regarded as more reasonable, because the broader context would be simpler, and less problematic.  On the negative side Chinese people can be regarded as potentially deceptive, an unfair stereotype since anyone can be like that, and I don't see that as necessarily being a broad cultural condition (even though my wife does tend to claim that "Indians are tricky," even after we've been mutual friends with several Indians, and I count even more as friends).  

This can be a little harder to place than it might seem at first.  Black people in the US experienced a fairly consistent and broad form of racism in the US in the 1950s and 60s, which unfortunately isn't completely resolved today, but discrimination against Asians in the US never took as consistent a form.  There are negative aspects to common Asian stereotypes, and the ongoing culture war surely has made racism worse instead of better, relating to plenty of examples of incidents, but it all varies a lot, and keeps changing.

what about Chinese people exploiting Chinese culture?:  tied to another less than fair or ideal stereotyping anyone with a certain nationality or "race's" genetics can also be granted freer reign to speak for broad traditions that they may or may not have a lot of exposure to, or the right type and degree of background.

In one of my first exposures to differing tea types a local Chinese-Thai woman was selling sheng pu'er.  Looking back what she communicated about tea was quite limited, over the course of a number of visits (her shop was close to where I worked), a bit odd given how that would've factored into selling it.  Per what she shared it seemed like either her father or uncle was into tea, and it wasn't clear that she had learned much about the subject from them.  About 10 years ago I bought a cake of modestly priced "young" or new factory sheng at that shop to drink, to explore and acclimate to the type.  That purchase was based on a recommendation of a fellow visitor there instead of that shop owner, who made no recommendations, related to limiting discussion of any background.  It was probably roughly as poor a choice as I could've made, quite harsh without significant aging input.  Still, it worked out; I acclimated to bitterness, some, and went on to explore oolongs more, returning to sheng exposure and preference some years later, only after her shop had closed.

That shop owner was also selling Chinese artwork, in some seemingly traditional form, having people produce high volumes of quickly made versions using related site space as a studio.  Looked at one way both ventures represented exploiting a connection to "her" culture, two different subject themes which she may or may not have been an expert in, or even as knowledgeable as an average tea enthusiast or fan of art.  Or maybe that's a completely unfair and inaccurate take.  Thais don't put much thought into topics like cultural appropriation, or even racism for that matter, so it wouldn't have been discussed as being an example of that back then.  

Maybe this doesn't connect as well to this point for a second reason, because the stereotype image of Chinese people is completely different here in Thailand.  In one sense it's not negative at all, and in another it could be seen as such.  All that is complicated, and maybe a bit off the point, but somehow it seems relevant to clarify that there isn't the same sort of otherness or negative connotation here that Chinese people would experience in the US in most places.  A lot of people have Chinese ancestry, and people with Chinese family background tend to be among the most wealthy members of society.

That last part may muddy the waters a bit in relation to a strand of other related themes matching up better.  I suppose it works to be mindful that simple conclusions don't work well related to unpacking and understanding complex issues and perspectives.  That's why So Han and Riu offering their thoughts and examples worked so well, because they touched on broader scope issues, then brought up examples of personal experiences relating to those points, and clarified how they saw it all fitting together based on the benefit of hindsight and further consideration.

Talking to an anthropologist about tea culture changes

 

Some time back I first talked to an anthropology phd student researching tea culture, Thiago Braga, first about online or Western tea culture issues, and later about his research related to China.  Then we met with him and a Vietnamese tea vendor in an online meetup session, Steve of Viet Sun, (a few weeks prior at time of writing this draft, but that was months ago now).

Here I'll try to summarize a good bit of discussion across a lot of subject scope, since I think it would be interesting to others.  A lot of what we covered related to me sorting out what an anthropology research perspective amounts to, which will get less focus here, or next to none.  Since I've delayed posting this due to reviewing it further, then letting it hang, I'll mention how these ideas seem in looking back.

The parts about China are especially interesting, I suppose because we are still going through details of how Western uptake of tea culture themes go.  The research and writing about China is much more developed, in a final paper form, related to what Thiago has produced.  My impression and summary of that is still going to be partly wrong, because I could only do so much with specialized use of terms and arrangement of ideas, so this works better as a general impression than an accurate summary. 

His take, or my take on it, is that in modern Chinese society people take up specialized forms of tea interest, kind of corresponding to "tea enthusiast" practices elsewhere, in part to connect them to interesting forms of traditional society.  They take classes in "tea arts," to learn ceremonial brewing.  

It's partly a way to add more meaning to their lives, which may have been reduced by the standard modernization themes:  relocation to urban areas, emphasis on less traditional job and career advancement, consumerism / materialism tying to status concerns, modern hobby interests not necessarily being grounded in tradition (eg. online range).  Playing video games is fine, or participating in Chinese equivalents to Facebook and Twitter, but there would be a natural appeal to connecting with older forms of traditional culture that hold meaning in different ways.  Participating in traditional and ceremonial tea study and practice can support that.

At first I more or less rejected that this is a modern movement that seems valid or widespread.  I have experienced three main contact points with Chinese culture, beyond visiting China three times, which I won't count as that:  a few close family friends were Chinese families, I talk regularly with some Chinese producer and vendor contacts, and I did work projects that involved routine contact with Chinese companies and individuals (not so many, but the contact was significant).  From all that it's my understanding that traditional tea interest isn't ubiquitous in China, but it remains common enough, at least related to just drinking tea, but that uptake of the more limited special ceremonial forms is quite rare.  None of those family friends drank much tea, or had any special interest in the subject, but I suppose it matched the form and level of interest in coffee drinking in the US prior to Starbucks helping change that landscape slightly in the 90s.  They bought what was in grocery stores or local markets, and weren't familiar with much for tea types, even in a local range, but they still drank tea.

Thiago's interpretation of a movement in modern Chinese tea culture

Thiago saw more of another side of modern tea culture, one I wasn't familiar with.  "Marshal N," the tea blogger, has described tea practices in terms of people taking classes in tea background and tea preparation in Hong Kong in a Tea Addict's Journal, one of the absolute best and most influential Western blogs on the subject--it was like that.  It went even further, because Thiago described chains of these sorts of places offering not just information and classes but also certificates, passing on an accreditation that someone has learned tea background and ceremonial practice competency.  I guess this overlaps quite a bit with the "sommelier" oriented classes in "the West."  I hadn't heard of this, beyond blog posts mentioning training classes that didn't really sound like that.

Next one might consider how this may or may not be considered mainstream.  Probably not, if the idea is that uptake involves a significant percentage of the population.  Then that drops out as a special concern, in this case, because from his research defining cultural aspects and forms is about the range of potential perspectives within modern cultural development, not only what is most common.  It's no less valid for being somewhat rare, and probably no less interesting.  Conclusions about what it means might shift a little related to level of uptake, in the end, but maybe not even that so much.

It was a little frustrating at first trying to place how he was framing this interest (/ movement, form of practice, expression, and self-definition) in terms of it being a valid historical movement, if it really was based on historical cultural practices.  It just wasn't coming up as a concern.  Then it turns out that maybe that doesn't matter, depending on how and why you are doing the cultural review.  If ceremonial tea practices are presented as authentic, part of an old inherited tradition, then it's all a bit more genuine if it really is that, but a similar result occurs either way, related to the newer form of culture being influenced.  Then eventually it can be seen as dropping out as a concern, whether it traces back to earlier forms or not.  Surely some focus within anthropology study weights that kind of concern more than others, but it still makes sense to analyze the current forms, practices, ideas, and perspective separate from that accurate historical connection as an over-riding concern.  Maybe brand new, ungrounded forms of cultural expression are even more interesting, for some reason.

Thiago's use of the concepts of ethics and logic threw me off a little in that writing, related to being exposed to very narrow forms of those ideas in the past, in studying philosophy.  He actually referenced part of what I understood them to be, even tying aesthetic experience back to a Kantian framework in one section, but his use also clearly went beyond what was familiar.  It's easy to see how ethics could easily be extended beyond purely moral framework scope, and logic could be extended beyond a narrow range of rational cognitive functional scope.  It's just not as easy to follow that use implied within very formal academic paper presentation context.

Readers might be waiting for me to get back to basic themes; what does it all mean, if Chinese people try to redefine themselves in reference to older tea culture traditional experiential practice forms?  I guess it means whatever they take it to mean.  It's a little unsatisfying, but probably not as wrong as any other answer might be.  It's like philosophy classes never even starting in on the meaning of life, or logic classes never venturing towards claims for or against people actually being rational.  You just don't get that, the over-arching, final, context placement explanations.

From here I should let Thiago say a little (this just doesn't lead there; a review process didn't end in that), about whether I've misconstrued what he was getting at.  Of course I have left out the specifics he did describe about what Chinese people are taking that traditional tea culture to be.  It's the "cha dao" theme, the way of tea, with one other main term and description scope tying to one other broad practice range that I don't remember.  It never became as clear as it might have, in his paper, because it was never mostly about that anyway, just as much about how it all maps over to modern practice, the forms.  All that tea tradition background was treated at length, but the writing was more about how people seemed to be reacting to that base of ideas, not so much individually, but how sub-culture was being adjusted by the contact.  He never used the term "sub-culture," I don't think; maybe there's a reason why that's not something an anthropologist would reference, perhaps too imprecise a term, or regarded as an incorrect framing.

Then what Thiago identified as that ceremonial, traditional take in terms of the ideas being discussed was mostly familiar, but partly not.  Not as much sticks in my memory as usually might, because it's a review of the causes, impact, and effect of ideas and forms as much of as the ideas themselves, and I personally don't take all that traditional practice / historical stories range to mean all that much.  I don't care for tea drinking as a ceremonial practice, or try to collect devices to connect tea experience to that range of aesthetic interest.  What's left over is pretty much simple experience, and then a range of shared ideas about what that experience might mean that tend to not come up explicitly.  Let's go there, and draw on an example, switching back over to how tea culture and forms of interest map over in US culture, or to Western culture in general.

Western tea culture

I co-founded a large tea group, International Tea Talk, and serve as the only active admin / moderator for that group, along with a Chinese vendor who isn't active.  It works as a starting point to consider what it might mean for people to engage with an online group like that, to discuss background, forms of interest, types to explore, brewing practices, tea references, social experiences, and so on?  It's really just about pursuing those directions.  Then there must also be a degree of self-definition involved, as a "tea enthusiast."  Or a vendor, more frequently in that group, since commercial interest and participation as a producer or vendor is more common in that particular group.  That's part of tea culture, people making the products, and selling them, but there's a more natural central focus on the demand and final experience side.

That group had been about discussing tea forms and background, but now the Gong Fu Cha group on Facebook works as a much better example, or various Discord groups do, in a shared chat format.  That's how it goes with online groups; what is popular or active changes.  Eight years ago Tea Chat and Steepster were the two main places for such discussion, and now both are relatively completely inactive.

This leads to considering a parallel between Chinese people attempting to connect with an older form of their own culture, finding meaning in parts of their tradition that they didn't inherit directly from the influence of their parents and grandparents, or at least not in a complete form, and this foreign association.  Westerners must be seeking contact with foreign Asian culture, to some extent, beyond just liking the drink.  Or could it be mostly about only making a new beverage choice, and developing that food related interest form, exploring better tea?

This is especially interesting as a personal tangent, related to my own case, because technically I live within Asian culture, as a resident of Bangkok, and member of a Thai family.  But very few Thais drink tea, or at least embrace what I consider to be "tea enthusiasm."  A half dozen exceptions come to mind, but that number drops further when you remove everyone I know without commercial interests, that don't sell tea.  One local guy I know loves tea but doesn't sell it, and even he offers informative class sessions that he charges for.  So essentially every Thai I know, and almost every foreigner here into tea, takes up developed tea interest to earn income from it.  Ok then!  I suppose that's still a sub-culture form, it's just that the causal background shifts a little.  I may be confusing the matter here, and lots of people do discuss tea online without attempting to sell it, but past a certain point of developing knowledge and interest there is a natural trend to seek a compensation return, an income from the interest.

Related to my own impression of these ideas, about examining forms of cultural input more in terms of what people are seeking from ideas and drawing from them as forms, versus the actual content, it led to an interesting new way to look at Western tea interest.  Why is it happening, and just what is happening?  Again not much is happening, in relation to uptake in terms of numbers of people participating, but some limited degree of cultural borrowing and development is still occurring.  

I'm a part of that, not just in terms of experiencing it, but also as a cause, helping shape it.  I don't mean that as a claim of importance, as if a tea blogger or online group founder is what it's all about, instead as clarifying that those are two of many contact points with this cultural form, or range of forms.  Tea textbooks also would be, and tea classes, tea meetup groups, cafes, and so on.  The ideas are transmitted through blogs and texts, but really the practices seem like a more central part, to me.  At the very center of it all drinking an infusion of dried leaves play a main role, and that has to be a part of the contact, but it's hard to place the role the rest plays.

Later thoughts on personal interest forms in Western tea sub-culture 

That was where the initial draft left off, but I feel it hasn't captured what I kept re-thinking about those themes over time.  Why is it that some Westerners are very attracted to the idea and then practice of tea drinking?  It's just the same central question:  can that be reduced to the potential and later experience of the beverage experience itself, or is there more to it?

Again it seems to tie to an interest in Asian cultures.  Then that part is strange, because even in China tea drinking isn't as widespread as one might expect, but outside of there, and Taiwan, Japan, and Vietnam tea drinking isn't common at all in Asia, in any form.  If the idea is to connect with a perceived form of general or specific Asian culture maybe that doesn't matter, just as it doesn't matter whether Chinese people studying "tea arts" are really connecting with an authentic earlier tradition or not.  There's a modern tradition to get in touch with, and the history doesn't necessarily matter, as much as commonly accepted interpretations and revised forms of that history.

Comparing that to forms of interest in tea, and groups of people who tend to share that interest, turns up a divide in approach points.  For sure there are "progressive" minded individuals who attempt to pair tea interest with religious pursuit, getting into Buddhism and tea ceremony, for example.  Global Tea Hut is an organization based around supporting that interest pairing.  That's far from the most mainstream form of American tea enthusiast approach, to the extent there even is such a unified theme (and there's not).  That doesn't necessarily matter though; it seems like the people open to tea experience might well be open to other aspects or facets of either that experience range or loosely connected range, themes like collecting teaware, ceremonial brewing practices, Asian religions, and martial arts.  

I might mention here that I've been interested in Buddhism for many years myself.  I was ordained as a Thai Buddhist monk at one point, and studied Buddhism and Taoism (and also Christianity) as religion and philosophy in two degree programs, just stopping short of getting a phD to support teaching.  I don't necessarily connect that to tea experience, but I'm definitely also on that page. 

The spread of tea interest connecting to Asian cultures isn't happening through the channels that you might imagine, for example that Chinese immigrants support local interest group formation, or hold ceremonial or simpler forms of tastings, coupled with selling tea.  That happens, for sure, and it was a main earlier channel for introducing tea to "the West," or the US, but now it's on to other types of groups and proponents playing a role.  Usually the driver is commercial, as it is here in Bangkok, with almost everyone promoting tea selling it, or at least selling tea oriented content or tasting event participation, or some forms of tours, and so on.  

I suppose this is exactly what one would expect, that many Westerners are now selling tea.  Blogs also promote tea themes, as this one does, but those tend to be temporary ventures into communicating shared interest, the kind of thing one might take up for a few years and let drop, whether the tea interest itself wanes or not.  Instagram profiles show off what individuals experience, even when they don't sell it; that's an updated replacement for the earlier text blog form.  There are tea clubs at some universities, but that kind of thing is a rare exception.  

Maybe I should bring up one form that relates to how most Western tea vendors got their start in China:  over and over the case of a white foreign man marrying a Chinese woman repeats.  Touchy stuff, just introducing that context.  I'm married to an Asian woman myself, just Thai instead.  I suppose focus on Asian themes was reinforced quite a bit by that context, and that's partly why I've been writing about tea for nine years, although the Buddhism studies came before that.  As I think through the number of foreign vendors I know in different places it's crazy how often that same form repeats.  A few guys are married to Asians from outside of China, and one favorite tea vendor is a Western woman who married an Asian guy, but that form as a driver of introduction and then developed interest might have played more of a role than any other factor in tea industry development.

Back to a running theme in the first part here, maybe that doesn't matter at all, how the cultural mixing actually happened, since the final concern is that it did happen.  Maybe if someone like Bruce Lee had been more interested in tea that would've rushed the process by a few decades.  Looked at this way it's interesting how tea is adopted by other cultures, but the pathway and triggering steps aren't necessarily critical.  Or that could seem very interesting and still not matter, with regards to the final form of uptake and expression.

I've had fascinating discussions about this with a main founder of the modern Russian tea tradition, Bronislav Vinogrodskiy, with some of that described here.  He approached tea interest from a relatively academic standpoint, combined with researching Taoism, and then helped convey practices from both back to Russian culture, switching to an unusual "practical" role.  That started in the early 1990s, surely no coincidence that was when the USSR ended, or maybe that was only a main turning point, with critical early steps before that.  He was involved with developing a "tea club" theme that took off, leading to commercial development of supply chains and outlets there.  That almost seems kind of backwards, right, developing the awareness and interest first, and then the sales foundation to support that?

His take is that conditions were right for that movement to develop then, that it wasn't anything novel he or others contributed that made the difference.  There was an openness to Asian cultural input, and tea and religious / philosophical ideas and practices helped develop that.  It's possible that he misunderstood the cause and effect sequences, but this still seems like a rare form of first hand insight, even if so.  And it seems likely to be mostly correct, that conditions were right for a triggering introduction, and foreign culture interest led the beverage choice change.  Russians had drank plenty of English style tea in the past, earlier on from India and Sri Lanka, later switching to production in Georgia (covered more here).  But later ceremonial forms and other types of tea interest developed right then, which was all completely different.

Judging from slow, incremental development of tea interest in the US and Europe maybe the conditions aren't similar.  Exposure and uptake of tea interest by any one individual needs to be more organic, developed from physically running across the conditions for tea experience, seeing it in a farmer's market and such.  There is one successful Tik Tok channel about tea, and lots of other isolated online examples, so that must help as a secondary cause.  But tea isn't "having a moment," and it seems like it won't, until causes and conditions shift slightly.  

I've been considering for years how I might help give those a nudge myself, and next year a new form of that might be possible.  Or maybe it will never happen until the right time somehow arises, the right cultural moment, as they experienced in Russia awhile back.  Tea could have adjoined that hipster subculture interest in craft goods a decade or more back, but it seemed like coffee filled almost all of that role instead.  I just wrote about discussing that subject with my brother, who feels that tea will never take up the same role in US culture that coffee already does.

As for next steps related to better identifying an anthropology oriented take on tea, I'm not sure.  If I discuss this further with Thiago and he clarifies which parts are way off I'll pass on a clarification here.  If his published work becomes publicly available I'll mention a link to that in a post. 

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.

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