On tea themed gatherings, and a local one hosted by Sasha

the perfect size for a small gathering:  small

rough version of a two picture composite photo, his Bangkok apartment view

Typically I wouldn't mention such an event, gathering with a few friends for tea, or meeting new people, unless there is a clear point.  I'm returning to the idea of holding or speaking at events, still in the planning stages, and this ties in with what would work for that, and might also give others ideas for hosting small and informal gatherings.  Sasha is this guy; he and his significant other Nok have turned up in lots of outings mentioned here.

As background context, I just took a week off tea, which doesn't come up so often.  I don't think caffeine and whatever else is in tea is all that potentially dangerous, even long term based on high exposure, but I still try to moderate the habit anyway.  For me that includes getting a break from caffeine once a year or so.  It's also about just taking a break, to keep it from getting too routine.  I made sure to drink a decent amount the day before this gathering, just to help adjust, in case this session went long.  I could say more about how quitting cold-turkey works out, or how I use very limited caffeine input to taper off on breaks, but that's all a complicated subject.

breakfast on a Koh Chang hiking day; they had this strange tea substitute

This made for a good chance to meet an online-associated local tea enthusiast, Pop / Danitha (Thais essentially always have a nickname and a formal name), and her boyfriend Yusuke.  Credit for these tea photos belongs to her; I tend to get too caught up in talking to get around to that.  It's an unusual extra connection that she recommended the tea source in Vietnam for the sheng from there in an online discussion, a tea I'll say a little more about here, and will review later; cool how the themes interrelate like that.

In addition to describing the details of this outing this is also about what might work and might not for informal gatherings, for other tasting formats, but still I'll start with an account of what we tried during that visit.

nice and basic set-up, just enough to cover the function, with no extra stuff

We drank a half dozen kinds of tea or so, a good amount, and all interesting and unique kinds (all but one of which Sasha provided; he is good about sharing novel teas).  Those sessions tend to not follow a very tight tea category subject theme and this time we started on white, tried a Vietnamese sheng I really liked, and moved onto some black teas.  It seems to make sense to taste lighter to heavier and those more or less followed that pattern.  Sheng is complex enough that it doesn't naturally fit well into being considered light or heavy, but placing the tone in between white and black works.  Following that pattern if we'd drank an aged sheng or shu it would go after a young sheng, and still probably before black tea, but it didn't come up.

Two silver needle or silver tips whites were kind of subtle (how that goes), and one moonlight-white looking atypical white version was a bit towards sweet and savory, pleasant and interesting for being novel.  I think that I've only ever tried one golden snail black tea version before, a coiled-style tea that seems to more or less resemble a black-tea version of bi luo chun.  It was nice; the character was light but really pleasant.  A golden needle was a bit similar but even more subtle, and a good version of jin jun mei was heavier for having a heavy enough flavor tone that it almost seemed like a roasted tea.  There is no such thing as roasted black tea, I don't think, it was just oxidized more and worked out like that.  It covered a lot of range in interesting teas.

The others present didn't seem all that taken by the Vietnamese sheng; so that goes.  I think I've grown to love that characteristic "more local" sheng range, how Vietnamese, Laotian, and Thai Northern region sheng versions seem to be.  The flavors and style might be a little off what is typical for Yunnan versions, an idea I'll be coming back to soon enough in posts here, a couple more times.

golden needle, or at least that's how I thought of it

unusually shaped black tea, sometimes called golden snail, I think

looks like a Moonlight White (Yunnan version) but I'm not certain it was

a stem-only version I left out; this was nice, subtle and pleasant

Onto the second theme about what works or doesn't work in small gathering tastings, getting back to more about how it went on this one.

Tasting or tea event variations

Narrow theme:  we didn't go there, but for experienced tea enthusiasts who already know each other more (limiting the social introductions scope) a very narrow tea-type theme would work best.  It's easy to compare teas to other very similar teas; it makes it easier to match up minor differences and get a feel for what really stands out from a common baseline (eg. thickness in feel, length of aftertaste, sweetness or bitterness, flavor complexity, overall balance).

Switching between category types moves away from that comparative referencing.  It can get to be a bit much to experience; tasting a half dozen completely different teas in a sitting could easily just become a blur of varied input, while trying that many that are very similar would just be a bit much, with 4 or 5 an easier number to focus on.  If the focus is on the social aspect all that matters less anyway.

a Yiwu village themed tasting event, hosted by Bank (Thaneadpol), on the left

Setting a schedule or conversational tone:  it would be natural to set a very narrow tone for tasting process in some settings, making it more like a wine tasting class.  A central authority on a subject might act as more of an instructional leader or guide.  I wouldn't typically be as into all that; it's nice to talk about other subjects just as much or more as the tea.  Then again it depends on what you are tasting, with who, and why.


In a more social outing when people don't know each other initially random, fragmented conversation can make a lot more sense, which matches up well with not really trying to critically assess the teas, or to compare them to each other.  A local tea expert (of sorts; that's almost always a relative designation) / online contact held a tasting once more along the lines of a wine tasting that followed that premise and structure; everything I discuss here will relate more to themes along a spectrum of a few friends gathering, or something else more in the middle.

meeting a local tea authority at my favorite shop (Kenneth of Monsoon at Jip Eu)

Setting:  this has been coming up as a stumbling block related to doing other public versions of tastings, like that one in a park or in a local zoo.  For a very limited number of people tasting in someone's apartment is perfect, sitting on cushions on the floor in a small circle.  That would work well up to including around a half dozen people; for a group of 8 it just wouldn't hold up as well, and beyond that it wouldn't really work at all.  The park theme was cool for being different, and outdoor, but the noise level in a zoo food-court area for another event really took a lot away from what one could notice about the teas.

Air conditioning is something of a must for tasting now in Bangkok; it's in the upper 30s these days (C; that's upper 90s in F).  I do review tastings around noon now when it's exactly that hot without AC but I've been drinking hot tea in hot weather for years, so it's just normal for me.  The only work-around required is using a napkin to wipe the sweat from my forearms off the keyboard.

trial run at public tea tasting; that guy was an interesting addition

Timing:  tasting in the late morning or early afternoon works, but even drinking a lot of tea in the late afternoon wouldn't match everyone's daily cycle.  We tried to start at 10:30 for this event and of course I ran late; unfortunately that's normal for me.  It might seem like drinking tea for an hour could relate to drinking a lot of tea but 2 to 3 hours works better for a time-frame, given a slow pacing to trying lots of teas, over many very small cups, with plenty of time for conversation.  Tasting one or two teas for a written review can take a good bit over an hour, with some allowance for messing around; the focus on round after round takes time.  I can't relate to the endurance-session theme some people mention about drinking tea non-stop for six hours, burning through a dozen versions or more.


For larger group size:  this moves onto considering what else might work.  Those group gatherings for public tastings did run slightly larger, up to 8 or so people per event, and I've been considering how to go further.  It's way too much of a concession to switch to Western style brewing, but that would enable tasting by 15 people or so, easily enough.  I can only think that having two people pour tea in two groups might enable extending gathering size up to around that level (15).

In theory Gongfu brewing is really about proportion, not the device used or specific quantity, but I could do without ever attempting to brew a half-liter at a time for a large-group tasting by somehow ramping up the same proportion at higher volume to a Western-brewing scale, just based on different ratio and timing.  Someday I probably will try it though, Gongfu brewing at high volume in large ceramic teapot.

Unless there is some formal function demand it would seem like going further to having three or more groups would be too much (but this older 2007 tea blog post covers an event where that made perfect sense given the context, was planned in detail, and worked out).  Even doing two group tastings in one session trades out everyone missing half the discussion and personal association at the event, and doubles up the logistical concerns (gear required, water, setting, matching parallel structure, form, and timing, etc.).

in the middle as events go, small but a little structured

Mixing intro and advanced themes:  this never seems to come up, but at some point it might be a real concern.  Anyone could have appreciated the teas we tried that day but it would seem natural to switch themes if a more narrow-focused tasting was the idea, and to focus more on the tea versus conversation.  In a sense it doesn't matter, but for people already really into the theme and drinking rarer teas the focus might tend to shift on its own.  We barely even commented about the teas at this social gathering, more focused on the thread of discussion, which works for me.  Description doesn't do tea experience justice anyway, it's more something you just do, and I overwork that theme in this blog writing.


Adding background discussion, mixing event themes:  I've been considering this related to doing a health-interest group function event here.  Before those two open, casual tastings I held a couple of more structured events designed to serve as introductions to the subject that were different in tone, one an actual presentation, the other a small-group tasting (in the last picture).  All that would seem to link up well with a narrow-type focus, something like exploring teas from an area, or within a type, to set up focus on the general type, or enable exploration of more minor differences.  Rolling in a secondary underlying theme, like the health aspects of tea, might lead in that direction.  A more set time-table might make it trickier, if the point is to combine tasting and group discussion, especially problematic for larger group size, over 8 people.  I'll see how that goes.

at an expat subject presentation event, more or less

Shop based tasting events:  this always seemed like the most obvious way to work around these issues, to base an event out of a shop.  That would simplify staffing, role assignment, related gear use, and timing, since the location would already be set and time-frame could be an open span of 2 or 3 hours.  I've considered setting this up for some time but haven't just yet.  It's a huge trade-off to just present teas from that shop, and shifts theme to ordinary marketing, and I may never choose to go there.

I've met friends at my favorite shop, a good number of times, so maybe it will have helped experiencing a really informal version of such a theme before.  It's cool how at Jip Eu, my local favorite shop, sometimes the owner will share teas he doesn't even sell (more often than one might expect), so it's not really just product promotion.

Again it all wouldn't work as well if the participant count increases, within a really narrow range.  Back at the outset of planning those public tastings I had thought through last-minute work-arounds for variance in participants (eg. mix in a round or two of Western-brewed tea), but the simplest fix would be to control and limit the number.

a local Seven Suns cafe event; that was an exception

a cool tasting in a Moscow bookstore, with Laos Tea, Alexander and Dasha

always great seeing that baby try it out; Huyen and her nephew on location