Rainy times in Honolulu

 

I usually sort out some sub-theme as a pretense for writing when I move back to Hawaii (living between Bangkok and Honolulu), but I haven't this time.  I've been "here" for a month, and will go back in 6 weeks.

Rain has been the main running theme, beyond spending time with my kids always being what means the most to me.  Here they are:

The little one is going through an emotional time, fueled by hormone changes, but she was just messing around in that picture.  Here they are in a hike photo, along with two others:

the same shot as in the blog margin photo

Back in 2006 or 2007, when I was in grad school here, it rained one rainy season for 40 days, and it has been like that again, the rainiest period since then.  It has caused flooding, road damage, power outages, and brown water advisories that increase risk of swimming, from run-off outlet flow being unclean.  I don't remember us--our family--experiencing much for power outages, ever, anywhere, so it was actually kind of cool going a few hours without power, to freak out and use candles and such.

I didn't hear that there were any fatalities related to this flooding, although I guess people die in car accidents all of the time, so something a bit indirect like that could have cost people their lives, or even the limited flooding.  A potential dam failure in the north could have caused extreme damage, lots of death and destruction, but luckily it didn't.  Family friends in the east lost electrical power for over a day; that would be rougher than spending an hour playing Uno.

Maybe the main impact is that lots of people came for vacation and spent a week getting rained on, although the rainiest three weeks all had a break of a day of clearer weather in the middle.  It's not nothing, that they spent thousands to get here and couldn't do most of what they had hoped to do.  

But it's easy for locals to go past not caring much about tourists on to being resentful of them.  Why?  Because they can be disruptive, some few of them, drunk and disorderly, or guilty of littering.  They might stand on the coral (which kills it), or endanger themselves.  That I don't see as so annoying, since someone getting sucked into a blowhole, or needing to be rescued on a hike, is just par for the course in ocean resort areas.

It might be that the poorer half of all locals might struggle to cover basics, like eating, while tourists show up and are fine with paying $25 for a burger, or $10 for a coffee or juice.  It doesn't affect locals that much, since those prices were never going to be reasonable locally anyway, even outside the resort areas, but it highlights the have / have not divide, and it's easy to see outgroups negatively.

I joined the Red Cross, in part related to the disaster theme coming up, and more related to a friend mentioning doing the same.  Two or three weeks in I'm not placed in a position / support role yet, and I probably won't do much with that in the next 6 weeks.  It's not really set up for someone to live in an area for 2 1/2 months and then join in; it has a more corporate feel to it, if that makes sense.  So next I might look into supporting the central corporate management, since it relates to the work I do (with ISO systems, process, disaster planning, etc.), but apparently it's competitive just to try to volunteer, so who knows.

Usually I'm going on about local culture in these posts, about homelessness issues, or how my kids relate to local schooling.  I might not have said much about my daughter switching schools, and middle school seeming to be a much rougher place.  Lots of that wouldn't be area-specific; social themes change at different ages.  Her school is "urban," but it's not as if she's in a bad part of Chicago or LA.  Walking around that part of the city in the evening might be pushing it, but it would still be safe enough for me, just not for a younger girl.

Keo wraps up high school in a month or so; that went quick.  We've been back and forth for 4 years.  The plan was to change over employment, and after two years or so of intensive job search I gave up on that.

I've covered how this is an ethical concern before; if people move to Hawaii and work remotely that puts pressure on local housing, raising costs for everyone.  It's slightly less of a concern if you live somewhere that outsiders should be, more specifically in Waikiki.  But if we could've bought a million dollar house that could have caused an incremental demand shift, and to some extent these present conditions still do.

It reminds me of another ethical concern I've changed stances on in the past, eating a meat based diet.  Billions of animals must live in captivity now to support people's carnivorous diets, and for 17 years I didn't participate in that, beyond not being completely vegan (a little milk and eggs goes a long way towards resolving protein intake issues).  It's not a problem any one person causes, in any significant way, but altogether it leads to factory farming.  If you've ever visited such a place, a factory farm, it means more to you.  Again there isn't an easy fix, beyond the extreme solution of being vegan.  There may well be environmental trade-offs related to that too, since it's not easy to supplement your diet to be effective and complete, and production of some of substances people add to do so may cause their own impact.

Related to the other local culture themes, culture-shock, transitions in conditions locally, experiencing truly local culture, and so on, there is no news.  Trump's impact on the economy, culture, and foreign impressions of Americans also hasn't come up a lot.  We met with Canadian friends a month ago, and they said that they would no longer buy US made goods, and you really can't blame them.  It might be hard to keep track of which outrageous theme triggered that.  Trump saying that he wanted to annex Canada?  Those tariffs, or two unjustified wars?  The US is a mess.

Cue the conservative 40%, his followers, responding "don't live here then."  It's a mess whether any one person or family chooses to stick around or not, so that's about as relevant as comparing things to historical time period standards of living.  It is a little strange how entire nations have PR images, related to one part of what fell apart for the US.  Russia has been looking terrible for years now, right?  China seems more positive for not invading any of their neighbors, recently.  The bar goes lower.

The local weed booth outlet recently moved from across the alley to down at the end of the alley, making for a prompt to consider what greater acceptance of that means.  I smoked weed, when I was younger, but it's been awhile, a couple of decades.  It doesn't seem any more impactful than alcohol.  I suspect that within a couple more years the theme of long term side effects and problems will be more common, and plenty of people have already experienced that.  

Just yesterday I saw a guy with a 2 or 3 year old child buying weed there, and it didn't seem right.  Would it have seemed different if he had put a 12-pack in a cart in a grocery store?  It might have.  So that's strange, that I'm still biased myself, in spite of that background.

Some of that earlier have / have not theme enters in.  We aren't budgeted for buying those $8-10 coffees or juices, someone spending however much to be on drugs could seem wasteful, like a form of excess.  But of course that's their budget, so the critical judgment isn't well grounded.  If someone wants to spend $100 to breathe more concentrated oxygen that's on them.  We have to be careful of externalizing our own image or limitations concerns.

Having kids changes things.  People smoke weed in our street all of the time, so about one time in 10 or so venturing out you might smell it, just walking through, or maybe even a little more.  People drinking beer in our alley (soi) back in Thailand drives my wife crazy, for a similar reason.  A public street isn't the place for that kind of thing, per one normal take.  In the US eventually there would be repercussions if someone kept drinking beer in public, but with the weed it looks like smoking a cigarette, and it's completely normalized now.  Keoni mentioned there is a normal place for kids to smoke weed at school.  Strange.

Hawaii is great; I should be mentioning that.  I love the feel, the people, and outdoor experience options.  It's a great environment for our kids, even with people smoking weed, and homeless people living on most blocks.  It's culturally diverse, and people really value contact with nature, in their own ways.  Kalani just went ice skating with friends yesterday, without a lot of close parent supervision, and Oahu is safe enough that's still not a high risk.  It's shifting, and in a few more years it might seem so.  But it's nice being here for the time period that it doesn't seem outrageous for your medium age kids to be unguarded, yet.

Being rained on wasn't so bad; that's how life in the tropics goes sometimes.  Not as often as you might expect; there has probably been no corresponding rainy period like this in 19 years.  In Bangkok the monsoon season can get a little rough for a week or two, at times, but there is almost never a completely rainy month over there.  There was, about 17 or 18 years ago, in October, when it's not supposed to rain like that, and they experienced terrible flooding.  It was all pretty touch and go in the 2025 rainy season, close to being too much.  

These climate change related variations of what is normal will be even more awful in the next few years, probably.  But this last one over the last month here hasn't been so bad, unless it ruined your vacation, or destroyed your home, and then maybe it was.

More images of what has gone on this past month:

the Ala Wai, where I run; this is the outflow channel that gets over-filled during rains

view on a really early morning run from Diamondhead

hiking up Koko head, another old volcano

the view in another direction

you end up seeing Diamondhead from all over the bottom of the island

Keo lets his hair grow out

It's not the upload sound quality; you couldn't hear what she was saying.

she is also doing well

Vietnamese tea status, according to two experts

 

Steve of Viet Sun!

Seth and Huyen, visiting Bangkok

The tea industry in different countries in South East Asia can be dynamic, and Vietnam has a broader range of good tea to offer than any of its neighbors, except for China, and styles and higher quality levels seem to be developing there.

I asked two friends to share input on this.  Steve of Viet Sun is a main Western facing vendor, focusing on pu'er, or the local equivalent type.  Seth is a tea researcher, working on very developed writing on tea, along with Huyen, one of my favorite tea friends.  Seth is too; they're both great, and knowledgeable to a degree that's hard to relate to.

How does the perspective and demand on tea seem to be changing in Vietnam (by consumers)?

  

Steve:  I work mostly with old tree assamica teas (what many people in Vietnam call trà shan tuyết or shan, snow shan tea in English) as well as wild varietal non-sinensis teas so I’ll only speak on that segment of the industry. I see a lot of people getting into these types of tea, many just over the past few years. There are more and more tea shops opening and offering many styles of higher quality teas in bigger cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The demand is still quite low compared to green tea from Phú Thọ and Thái Nguyên provinces though. 

Many tea makers are experimenting with different styles. For example, you can go to villages in Cao Bồ, Hà Giang and find multiple teamakers who make halfway decent- good versions of many different tea styles, while 5 or so years ago it was difficult. Many producers see other producers making new styles of tea (raw puerh, black, white) and they start producing it themselves with varying degrees of success. 

An example of this is some time in the past couple years, a couple tea makers started making tea stuffed wild tangerine tea. Now many tea makers all over Hà Giang are making them. Many however, apply that higher volume “export tea” mindset into making these other styles and often fail to sell these teas due to competition from higher quality similarly priced options. 

Yt Y local area tea trees; photo credit to Steve

that tea, prepared as a tea cake, or bing

the right spelling (accent / diacritic)

Seth:  Matcha has exploded in popularity among the general public. Matcha products are now widely available in cafes all around Vietnam, and many tea factories have started producing matcha. This fits easily into the milk tea trend that started more than ten years ago. 

In terms of tea shops offering specialty teas or a general trend of specialty tea consumption in Vietnam, that is still only a small part of the overall market. Most locals middle aged or older drink green tea produced in Thai Nguyen, but there’s a rising demand for teas that use less industrial production techniques, which has created an opening for teas from Vietnamese heritage varietals like the various Assamica varietals locals call “Shan.” 

On the higher end, there are a lot more players in the market than there were ten years ago. These are mostly business people from Hanoi who see opportunities to invest in tea as a luxury product for higher income brackets in Vietnam. Some of the tea makers who focused on the Chinese market in the past have started expanding into the Vietnamese market since COVID forced them to look for new markets due to border closures. The shift to local markets seems to be enduring. There is also a rise in Chinese teas being sold in Vietnam, and some Vietnamese are making major investments in bringing Chinese tea to Vietnam, teas like Wuyishan wulong, Liubao, and Yunnanese teas. This is a small trend but seems to be prominent.

Editing input:  just a random tangent, but it's interesting that "oolong" always should have been "wulong," that the original transliteration was pretty far off (per my understanding, at least).  Now the right term depends on how you see language use conventions and transitions, and it really doesn't matter.

How is the industry changing in response to that, or do industry changes lead that other consumer perspective change?  Are producers exploring new styles, or is awareness of traditional tea styles broadening?

Steve:  The general attitude of many tea makers I know seems to be to focus more on higher quality tea or at least higher quality compared to the high volume “export grade” tea they were making for China. The Chinese tea industry seems to be quite unstable at the moment so many people are focusing their efforts locally as well as internationally in countries besides China. 

Seth:  Traditional tea styles in Vietnam are mostly dead or dying out. Most are extremely localized, within a few towns or districts, and they are not something that most Vietnamese people are even aware of, or would have an opportunity to try. In the specialty tea community in northern Vietnam, there is some interest in reviving tea production methods for Vietnamese yellow tea, which is made using an older technique for making Puer tea. Some are using this as material for making lotus tea, which is closet to the techniques that were used to make lotus tea about 100 years ago. 

The most popular traditional Vietnamese tea is still boiled fresh tea leaf. Locals will buy it at morning markets and drink it throughout the day. But this is mostly the older generation. The younger generation doesn’t tend to drink fresh tea leaves because there are lots of other beverages to choose from now. 

Editing input:  without some context it may seem like this input contradicts his last comments about people tending to drink Thai Nguyen green tea (sometimes branded as "fishhook" style).  Seth is surely aware of a range of very local tea styles that most of us will never hear about, even though I don't intend to add too much here to clarify what he really meant.  Western marketing tends to make it seem like there is really a much narrower subset of types out there than we see in online markets, even related to Chinese teas, which get the most exposure.

-are Facebook pages or online platform shops changing how tea is sold in Vietnam?

Steve:  Yes, many tea producers are on Facebook and many customers buy tea directly from them. Many tea shops have websites but they are often not updated. You usually have to contact them directly to see what their current offerings are.

Seth:  More rural tea makers are able to sell their teas directly to customers via Facebook. This offers the possibility of much higher income that they would make selling tea harvests to factories. However, the quality is not always consistent, and some of the tea can be quite rough, so Facebook marketplace doesn’t always translate to long term economic benefits for rural tea makers. In some cases, they wind up with bags of tea that they struggle to sell because of quality issues. Customers also have a higher risk of getting a product that isn’t satisfactory.

Editing input:  I've had very mixed experiences trying to buy tea locally, more in Thailand, but also from Vietnam.  Sometimes it works well, especially with others' help related to awareness of types and options, but you never see clear product listings, and issues like communication (language issues), money transfer, and shipping are all typically quite problematic.

-has foreign Western tea demand changed (consumer purchasing from outside of Vietnam)?

Steve:  I see interest in Vietnamese teas in the West growing year after year. Many people both tea business related and consumers travel to Vietnam to visit tea producing areas and tea shops in the cities. I don’t know exactly how other tea businesses are doing here but our sales have been growing gradually year after year.

Seth:  Changes in Chinese demand are pushing Vietnamese tea makers to look for new opportunities in the local market. The exact numbers are unclear.

The market for specialty Vietnamese tea is still miniscule outside of Vietnam, but awareness of Vietnamese tea is continuing to grow as tea enthusiasts introduce it more regularly to markets in the US, Europe, and Japan. Overall, this is still pretty small scale.

-can you add a little more about what is of interest to you related to Vietnamese tea experience or tea culture development?

Steve:  I really enjoy spending time in the tea mountains. The scenery is beautiful, there are many regional food and drink specialties and the culture of the different groups of people living in these areas is very interesting. Some tea areas have tea trees but there is little or no tea making happening there. Some areas just sell raw leaves to factories in other areas. I work with the local people and share what I know about tea processing and the tea industry in Vietnam. The state of protection of the tea trees is quite depressing in many tea areas here so It’s important to demonstrate the value and potential of what tea can provide with the people living there. 

I am currently focused on exploring new tea areas, learning more about tea production and the history of tea culture in Vietnam especially in the different tea producing areas. My favorite style of tea is raw puerh so I really enjoy getting to appreciate teas from many different terroirs in northern Vietnam. It’s also always fun to meet people interested in Vietnamese tea and share with them what I think are good examples of teas that represent the current state of tea in Vietnam. 

Seth:  There are more efforts now to create a unique Vietnamese tea identity by encouraging local ceramicists and potters to make tea ware, and locals tea enthusiasts are putting a lot of effort into spreading Vietnamese tea to an international audience, and pushing to improve the quality of Vietnamese tea products. 

Thoughts on this input

A Vietnamese tea friend, Huyen, who any longer term readers would be familiar with, just posted photos of a new tea shop in Hanoi (or a relatively new place; it could be an update about a renovation, or new space).  It's my understanding that shops are developing, especially in Hanoi, as mentioned in comments.  Huyen and her family (Tra Viet is a family business) sell a broad range of teas, of course, but they also focus on sharing demonstrations of traditional tea brewing practices, which are essentially the same as Gong Fu Cha, but surely also slightly different.

Huyen and her brother (her family is also great)

that shop, in Hanoi

It's a great time to explore Vietnamese teas, before that trend for higher demand catches up with expanding production supply, and costs rise.  

More basic range is also high in potential for exploration, so one might stay open to that side too.  That range isn't as widely available online as one might expect; Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, and Indian teas draw a lot of online focus, and Chinese and Japanese green teas are more popular.  It's kind of a shame, because even basic Thai Nguyen region "fishhook" style green tea can be nice (and I don't even love green tea), and higher quality, more novel types all the more so.

tea meetup with them in Bangkok

Trying high quality Dan Cong in a Bangkok Chinatown tea shop

 

I visited my favorite tea shop to pick up some tea before I travel back to Hawaii, that CNNP cake I reviewed not long ago (a 2007 8281 Mengku origin sheng pu'er), and to get a bit of tea to give to monks I know on the way out of town.

While there the owner let me try some exceptional Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong (Chaozhou, Guangdong origin oolong, of course).  It was presented as from a single tea plant, which is possible, but you kind of never really know.  The quality was really high; it was at least one of the best Dan Cong versions I've ever tried, and maybe the best.  There wasn't that much room for improvement, only style difference.  

The pricing was eye-watering:  500 baht or $15 for 7 grams, so it's pretty much $2 / gram tea.  Too much, for an ordinary experience.  But I suppose people might see it as a unique experience they wouldn't get around to repeating, that "once in a lifetime" kind of theme.  I don't even consider such things; my tastes and appreciation are fine with drinking ordinary teas.  And I'm adapted to Bangkok pricing ranges, where you can eat a meal for a lot less than $15, or eat and also travel around all day.

To start we discussed processing, relative degree of oxidation and roast.  Kittichai, the owner, said that it wasn't in the modern very lightly oxidized and roasted form, that it was more in a medium range (for both), so a step towards a more traditional, older form.  Really whatever works best for that tea material is best, along with personal preference determining that.  It worked out.  

The scent of the tea was incredibly sweet and floral, or maybe floral and fruity, but very fragrant either way.  It didn't really come to life until he put it in a warmed gaiwan, then it did, even dry.  He was using 4 grams in an 70 ml or so gaiwan (not that I can assess volume like that).  Probably the infusions were even smaller, with the top that you don't fill and the tea taking up space.

It was bright, fresh, fragrant, and intense right away.  The taste was as fruity as floral, even though that type (Mi Lan Xiang) is described as honey orchid, and it's usually more floral than fruity.  It tasted like fresh lychee, the other owner claimed, and that was a good match, even if the power of suggestion may have helped cinch that judgement.

From there it intensified over a few rounds, really turning it up around the 4th infusion.  Sweetness was off the scale, astringency fairly moderate, although there was some, and flavor intensity was crazy.  It was really clean, with great aftertaste expression, and positive mouthfeel.  Good enough to justify the  $2 / gram value?  Who knows.  It was roughly as good as Dan Cong probably gets, although I suppose someone who has been exploring the high end of that range for awhile could judge better.

It didn't transition that much until around 9 rounds in, and then a little astringency started to pick up, which one might interpret as tasting like bitterness, even though the two things aren't the same at all.  It wasn't really pronounced until about the 10th infusion, and we let off around then, or maybe at 11 or 12.

Flavor complexity was so intense that you were just being blasted by floral and fruit range, so it might've been hard to do the normal round by round description of shifts.  If the relative balance of all that was there kept changing I didn't keep track.  It was definitely clean, sweet, intense, balanced, and complex.

I didn't mention the color; it started out with a pinkish sort of color, then I think it transitioned to a more typical light golden amber oolong range.  I'm not sure what that's about, the extra touch of pink, or if it signifies anything.

Packaging was definitely a bit much; it came in tiny aluminum canisters, like weed might be sold in, if there is such a thing as elaborately high end versions of that.  Then that was in a custom case.  This isn't so unusual for Chinese teas, presented as exceptional; they can go a little overboard.  I suppose status would be part of the appeal, drinking what is expensive, refined, and rare, and the packaging helps support that.  

Things are just different in China too.  One might expect lots of things to be rougher edged or more basic, somehow, but there's a broad higher end range of lots of types of experience or aesthetic context that's more the opposite.  Not that I've ever really been living the high life in China; I've visited that country three times, but as a value-oriented tourist (twice), and on a work trip once.  That almost leads into telling a story or two, doesn't it?  I probably shouldn't, but let's.

I went to China on business a long time ago now, maybe just over 15 years, so what I relate might be dated.  I'll skip the parts about the work context; it was somewhat IT related, since that's the field I work in, and from there it doesn't matter.  I was introduced to better tea in a Gong Fu ceremonial brewing demonstration at the company we visited (probably the one company you might think of).  

They were pretty good about not making it seem like tall, beautiful women were the norm in that country, even though they were that as hosts, and extending that not to make lots of claims about the tea brewing, hyping ancient traditional forms as being something they're generally not.  People might make wishes when they pour tea over tea pets; a fairly basic idea like that comes up.  Maybe that frog relates to money (it is holding a coin), and another to success with family, so it would be a good place / context for asking for a next child.  

Chinese people love to make wishes, as Thais do.  My wife loves to visit Hong Kong temples and go through all of that, or there are lots of Chinese temples in Thailand too.  We just happened to be walking into a local Chinese temple in Korat, Thailand, when we had just picked up Myra, our cat (then a kitten), back in 2021, so I took her in there and asked the multitude of Chinese gods to keep an eye on her.  So far so good.

 

some people might recognize this old Shenzhen mall space

Hong Kong; a temple, of course

Apparently drinking alcohol plays a role in business connections.  That's probably the last time I've been good and drunk.  The next time we met with another Chinese company I kept it bit more reeled in; it matches an expectation to go there, but it's really a bit much for me, as a non-drinker (now even more so, but mostly that back then too).

Enough stories.  Later I bought some tea in a shop, waiting for others to buy other things, and that started my next level of tea exploration.  But it was all normal enough.

Back to this tea, it was amazing.  Others would probably appreciate it a lot more than I did.  Earlier on in my exploration of teas I was really into broadening my horizons, and trying out exceptional range, and now I'm fine with just drinking good tea, and by that I mean anything with character and aspects one can appreciate.  That's most teas; they just offer different experiences.  Maybe the low end grocery store versions aren't like that, and other ranges that are comparable, but so, so much of tea range is interesting and pleasant, or at least just pleasant.

But it was nice having a unique experience.  I ran through a tasting set of pretty decent Dan Cong from ITea World a year or so ago (more now?), and it was nice trying the other types.  Mi Lan Xiang and Ya Shi / duck shit get most of the attention in "the West."  And they're often quite pleasant, so I suppose that they should, but others are also interesting.  I tried a number of them from Cindy, of Wuyi Origin, and that's a good source for exploring pretty far up the quality scale, at pricing that's quite fair for what they sell, even approaching $1 / gram.

Cindy!

Being more into sheng pu'er I don't even buy that much oolong now, of any kind.  Eventually I'll probably cycle back through a long exploration and experience phase again, but who knows how long that will take.  Good black tea is more my fallback, most often Dian Hong.  By good I don't mean searching out the high end, best of the best, I mean basic and pleasant.  And if good comparable forms are from Thailand and Vietnam I'll drink that instead, so I suppose calling that Dian Hong style tea is more accurate (DH adjacent?).

This shop sells pretty decent, upper medium quality tin packaged Dan Cong, at a much lower price point range.  That's more what I'd drink, but I only buy it there to give away to monks, to save my tea budget for the next sheng cake, or maybe black tea.

that tea I just bought, and already reviewed earlier, 2007, so perfect for getting to now