Huyen and Seth held an epic Vietnam themed tea event in Bangkok

 

The tea community in Bangkok is really coming together, and the event Huyen and Seth, two friends, just held is a small part of that, and also a sign of how the rest goes.  It was themed around Vietnamese teas, kind of an odd part, since Thai teas are finally coming into their own, but somehow that part makes sense too.  There are a lot of people from everywhere in Bangkok, and cultures from across Asia and around the world merge to make Bangkok special.

This writing is mostly just about that event though.  Huyen and Seth are researching for a book on Vietnamese teas, and this is their second visit here, after also being here last January.  Of course they travel more in Vietnam related to that subject, but cultures and flow of traditional goods mix, so some Vietnamese tea history collects in Bangkok too.  Their Instagram contacts are here, for Huyen and Seth.

beautiful teaware on display in a Bangkok temple; some of it is from Vietnam

The tasting theme was about sharing unique and interesting tea versions, and the background, the context it came from.  Vietnam's story of tea is different from China and Thailand's, but it all overlaps some.

We tried an aged oolong from the early 90s first, representing a critical stage in tea production development there.  As with in Thailand rolled oolong in Taiwanese style, based on plant types and processing from Taiwan, first entered into production in both countries right around then.  Aged oolong is something people seem to love or mostly not get, since it mostly picks up an interesting depth and a bit of plum-like taste.  As a sheng pu'er drinker I'm a bit ruined for all the other range; I can appreciate refined and complex oolongs, or black teas with interesting depth, but I mostly need that atypical intensity just for tea to seem normal.

We also tried a young / newer Vietnamese sheng, and another modern oolong variation, from the #17 cultivar.  That's usually called Ruan Zhi, in most references and by most people selling it, but per some review I think Bai Lu might be a more accurate name for it.  Ruan Zhi is sometimes described as a reference to an earlier range of plant types (with more on that here, and here, with those two posts probably not saying the exact same things).  So it might be more related to the more original Qin Xin range (or Chin Shin, per another transliteration form).

the original plant type table from an interesting Taiwan tea reference

All that is just a tangent though, nothing like a central theme of that event.  And it's always all but impossible to sort out which resource is accurate, I suppose except for more clearly definitive ones.  This set of references is a good example, the Tea and Beverage Station, Ministry of Agriculture (Taiwan) page, formerly TTES and TRES (they rebrand a lot).

The tasting did well to balance background, history, plant type information, ideas about processing, and stories with the direct experience we were having.  Since Huyen and Seth have been traveling and researching Vietnamese tea for a year, or more, it would've been easy to let the tangents and background take over, but they managed that well.

The attendees were one of the most interesting parts, to me.  Because a dozen or so (11?) people attended the tasting divided into two groups, and I heard more from the one sub-set I was in, but everyone seemed on the same page related to really appreciating and getting the experience.  Really anyone at any exposure level can appreciate better teas, but it's also nice when shared prior exposure helps support discussion range.  

A few of the participants were tea vendors (an unusually high proportion), and the rest already loved diverse tea types.  I might mention business links for people to look further into more interesting Thai tea options, related to who attended:  the founder of Qing Fu Cha attended (a Chinese and Thai tea vendor), someone from Wang Pu Tan tea (a Thai producer of great teas), and the Tea Wala vendor (a local high quality Thai tea curator).

We also tried aged Vietnamese sheng, a light rolled oolong very similar to modern Taiwanese versions in style and quality level, a well-oxidized rolled oolong (sometimes marketed as red oolong), and lotus tea, an amazing and distinctive type that Vietnam is known for.  The sweet, licorice flavored taste of that lotus tea was wonderful; to me it really stood out from the rest.  But then I'd imagine different participants would've connected most with different versions, depending on their preference, or which seemed catchy in a novel way to them.

For having over a dozen people in total attend (counting Huyen, Seth, and I) the form and flow went really well.  I've tried holding events before, managing the brewing and pouring aspects myself, and even a much smaller event can be a challenge, with only half that many people attending.

The hostel space they stay in, at the Pastel House, beside the Suttisan MRT station, is perfect for this sort of thing.  Another half dozen people could have joined, and table space would have still been sufficient.  It was a large, quiet, comfortable open space.  If you're ever in that area the roasted pork restaurant right beside it is exceptional, and the Grow Tea Studio tea cafe is nearby.

So is Bangkok on the cusp of foreigner and Thai tea enthusiast appreciation taking on a new, more complex form?  Maybe.  But this kind of thing tends to evolve gradually.  The new commercial tea events, expos, can be developed quickly, and the next post here will be about a continuation of the series of "Taste of Tea" events, with one going on now in Central World.  But tea preference and private social groups transition over time.  Of course all that really started a decade ago here, among Thais.  In an earlier form groups formed around shop customers, people joining related to appreciating tea in places like Double Dogs, Tea Dee, and Ong's tea, a shop that had been in Paragon, now closed.

All of this brings up an inclination to link to lots of old posts here, going on about visiting these shops, going to events, or holding them.  None of this is centered on what I've done or experienced though, and that would seem implied by that, that somehow my experience represents, or even shapes, this local tea culture.  I've just been here to see it.  Shops really support it, and many other tea enthusiasts and vendors pull these interest groups together.  

I'm also not really part of a "tea clique" here.  I was in an online version of one, with Huyen, Suzana, and Ralph; that really helped make Covid seem less isolating, back in 2020 and 2021.  Locally in Bangkok I know some people into tea, and that's nice; it works out without being part of a close circle of tea friends, or some form of networking group.

meeting Huyen and Seth online awhile back

I met Huyen and Ralph first here, at Jip Eu, and many others

people connecting was the nicest part

A controversy over adding lemon and salt to tea

Facebook tea groups are wrapping up a phase of discussion about the theme of adding lemon or salt to tea, a recommendation from a recent book on tea.

This relates to Steeped: The Chemistry of Tea, by Michelle Francl. Basically salt is supposed to offset astringency and lemon reduces tea scum or cloudiness caused by calcium compounds. Here are the claims, cited in an article reviewing that book content (which I guess could contain some error in summary, to be fair to the original author):

Francl’s pro tips for the perfect brew are:

Adding a pinch of salt – the sodium ion in salt blocks the chemical mechanism that makes tea taste bitter.

Steeping teabags quickly but with plenty of dunking and squeezing – to reduce the sour-tasting tannins created by caffeine dissolving slowly in water.

Decaffeinated tea can be made by steeping a teabag for 30 seconds, removing it and discarding the liquid, then adding fresh water and rebrewing for five minutes.

A small squeeze of lemon juice can remove the “scum” that sometimes appears on the surface of the drink, which is formed from chemical elements in the tea and water….

There are two sets of problems with these ideas: one is that they make no sense, presented in this form, and the other is that what they really probably refer to that could be accurate, after some editing and adjustment, is still problematic.

It’s possible that the first claim is that when you taste salt you also notice less bitterness. It could instead relate to a claim that sodium is going to offset extraction of compounds resulting in astringency, which is a mouthfeel effect that is often confused with bitterness.  Bitterness is a flavor, not a mouthfeel aspect, but people conflate the two. It doesn’t clearly say that; that’s only one possible interpretation of this summary. 

Caffeine really does taste bitter, as some other medications do, like aspirin, but surely salt isn’t going to offset caffeine extraction. Salt doesn’t seem likely to affect tannin extraction either, but I suppose I wouldn’t know if it did. In the following point, related to caffeine, tannins aren’t created by caffeine, and again it seems doubtful that caffeine could affect tannin extraction.  Again the feel effect of tannins is more often misinterpreted as bitterness, not sourness.

A short tangent can help place that first possible interpretation.  I add salt to masala chai (spiced black tea) to increase flavor depth, which happens even without noticeable salty flavor, as can occur with food.  Once out with family to a Mongolian grill place a niece and I added salt to our dishes that ended up way too spicy.  Salt doesn’t decrease the experience of spice, the heat, but it can help spicy food flavors balance better and make more sense.  This may be the claim here, that the salt isn’t blocking any compound extraction, or shifting feel effect, but that the overall flavor balance might seem more positive when shifted a little, potentially even without the tea tasting salty.  Maybe.

That decaffeination hack listed has been debunked over and over; this study’s caffeine extraction rate testing results work as good a summary review as any to show why:

30 seconds: 9% caffeine removal

1 minute: 18% caffeine removal

So no, removing 9% of the caffeine isn’t going to help much, and you're probably removing 9% of the flavor along with it. Beyond these errors some main points work, to a limited degree, which I’ll move on to critiquing.

One problem with these claims goes back to why a tea would be astringent or would have a scum on it in the first place. It’s talking about brewing low quality, ground material, tea-bag black tea, which is very astringent for a few different reasons.

The form of the leaf is a main input; whole leaf tea is less astringent, because compounds extract differently in ground material (tannins, to use the informal designation; let’s get back to what those really are shortly). The more you chop or grind the material the faster it brews, and the more overall flavor is extracted, just not necessarily the most positive flavor or feel related compounds.  This is why tea bags that contain 2 or 2 1/2 grams of tea leaf material are quite chopped or even ground up, to get more out of a little leaf content, which brews faster. So you can use better quality, more whole-leaf tea instead and skip the salt, but it’s more expensive, and you would need to use a bit more leaf.

a Ceylon (Sri Lankan tea) tea bag I cut open awhile back.

It doesn’t add much to what I’ve just expressed but lets consider what tannins even are, in relation to some of the flavor compounds being discussed, from this Tea Epicure source:

There are an estimated 30,000 polyphenolic compounds in tea.There are several known categories within polyphenols…

Within the flavonoid group are flavanols, flavonols, flavones, isoflavones, and anthocyanins. Flavanols (short for flavan-3-ols) are the most prevalent and thus the most studied. Flavanols are often referred to as tannins or catechins. 

The major flavanols in tea are: catechin (C), epicatechin (EC), epicatechin gallate (ECG), gallocatechin (GC), epigallocatechin (EGC), and epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). EGCG is the most active of the catechins, and this flavanol is often the subject of studies regarding tea antioxidants.

Flavanols are converted to theaflavins and thearubigins during oxidation. They are the compounds responsible for the dark color and robust flavors that are present in oxidized teas…

The same kind of theme repeats with adding lemon. If you use water very high in calcium compounds, which is not so unusual for a lot of water sources, a light scum can form on the top of your tea, from polyphenols in the tea interacting with those calcium compounds. Lemon juice can clear that up. Or passing the water through a charcoal filter might help, removing some of the calcium compounds instead, before they combine with brewed tea and form a scum. 

“Tea enthusiasts” often use some special water version, bottled spring water from an ideal mineral profile source, or they’ll treat water to strip all the minerals, reverse osmosis filter it, and re-add an optimum mineral blend. All that might be going a bit far; in most cases using filtered tap water is fine for a decent outcome.  The extra level of concern seems to relate to optimizing outcome from a much better quality range of tea, the opposite extreme.

So in conclusion, no, salt and lemon have no place in tea. 

Or if you really want to use cheap tea bags to make tea, and brew it with relatively unsuitable high calcium content water, then sure, add those things. It’s your tea; it’s up to you.

If the goal is to experience above average quality tea that changes things, but that’s not everyone’s goal. Lipton or Great Value tea bags are really cheap, and easy to prepare, and if you add milk and sugar to that tea it can be ok. Or sugar and lemon, I guess; I don’t think it’s going to work to add both lemon and milk, since drinking curdled milk in tea won’t be pleasant. It’s just nothing like what tea enthusiasts drink.  

Most of the time, at least; I’ll drink Lipton sometimes at our office, because I’m only in there once a week after work from home was instituted.  Dilmah is better but they usually stock Lipton there.  There probably is no standard example of a tea enthusiast, so I couldn't possibly be one, but the generality of not using tea bag tea still holds up.

this meme breakdown makes for a long story

It’s too long a subject to treat as a short tangent here but pleasantness of the tea, flavor character and such, is only one part of range of concerns. Tea enthusiasts tend to take up the idea that more natural grown tea could be healthier, from forest or more natural growing condition sources, versus standard plantation teas, which are potentially grown with more pesticide input. Maybe it works out like that.  My guess is that Lipton is safe enough, but once you switch over to the lowest cost bulk sources from Chinese or Indian markets you are taking some real risk.

The same astringency that is a concern for “bitterness” input can also lead to stomach problems, for some. I wrote about this concern awhile back related to a co-worker needing to quit tea due to stomach impact.

The short version of that writing is that it will probably be necessary to drop out drinking matcha, black tea, green tea, and sheng pu’er entirely once these problems have already developed. Prior to experiencing damage to your stomach eating food before drinking any tea could protect you, at a guess most effectively if that food contains both complex carbohydrates and fat.  Eating just fruit doesn't seem to help, based on my experience. 

There are other types of tea that are milder than these, oolongs or white teas, and routinely alternating the types of tea that you drink could help.  Drinking more whole leaf tea would be better.  Once you already have a problem switching to shu pu’er could help, or going off tea entirely for a long period of time.

Let’s get back to the starting point and think all this through one more step: who is going to be interested enough in tea to buy and read a book about the subject, and then also prepare it from Lipton or Great Value tea bags?

Vietnamese black tea, the last black tea I bought a few months ago

whole leaf tea and CTC tea (from an early blog post, before phone camera quality had improved)

I would assume that this “better quality” tea is a familiar subject to anyone reading my blog posts or Quora answers, but in case it’s not this post covered more on that divide.

Meetup with Mr. Mopar

privacy concerns give this meetup capture an unusual look

I've talked with this well-known tea enthusiast in group discussions for years, and he agreed to join an online meetup session with those tea friends.  It seemed a great chance to hear about US sheng pu'er storage, and tea circles, even onto earlier forms of US tea culture, since he seemed to be at it for awhile.  First some background.

John (he shares my name) got into tea around a decade ago, and seemed to move fast towards pu'er obsession, a process that took me and many others some time to develop.  He's from the East Coast of the US, with the reference in his online name related to car interest.  We actually met online twice, since the first session was limited in time and two of my regular circle of friends were dealing with illness issues.  Per usual this summary is just some ideas that seemed interesting to me, with filtering to focus on a central theme, on talking to John, versus serving as a faithful representation of everything expressed.  They both had a lot to contribute, that I've left out describing, or at least attributing.  One writes a tea blog, Teakurrim, worth checking out.

We talked a lot about storage, favorites, and vendor options in the first session, which only Ralph also joined.  It was interesting, but a lot of what one might expect.  I was wondering if he focused mainly on aged factory teas, since those came up most in online discussion, but at least not exclusively at this point, since he is exploring a little of everything.  He likes intense versions of sheng, so not so much the lighter, sweeter, fruity and floral "oolong pu'er / pulong" range.  Seemingly he is more into aged teas than drinking it young, but even that doesn't seem to work as an absolute generality, since he described his taste preferences as broad.  The preferred vendor and source list he mentioned included more than it left out, on from Yunnan Sourcing and through many other names into atypical source options, just stopping short of random trials through Taobao.

His storage preference is kind of conventional for US tea circles, towards the safe side of wetter.  He uses the mylar isolated, boveda controlled approach.  Ralph and I really grilled him about how many tea cakes he has, and the range is in the hundreds, if I remember right, so a good bit.  

John sells tea, which he described as not really a conventional vendor practice, but just selling some cakes to free up funds to buy more of others.  I noticed a post about selling some of a version not long ago, on Tea Forum here, for an early 2000s CNNP Bulang.  I remember mention of him selling one particular Dayi numbered version as a known theme, just not which one.  We didn't talk that much about vending issues, related to him selling tea.

We talked about how far along he prefers teas in relation to fermentation level, and a running theme that kept repeating was that he sees his own preference as a yardstick that doesn't apply to others, that he just happens to like what he likes.  He said that different teas are better or more ideal fermented more or less, a pretty standard take on things.  One thing he said, that's not something you often hear, is that fermentation level can go too far, and that it makes sense to adjust storage conditions once a tea is where you like it.  This would relate to discussing 20 or so year old versions, most likely, or older, and tie back to the conditions designed to keep fermentation pace moving.  I reviewed an 80s Thai sheng once that tasted a bit like charcoal, seemingly degraded, and it was nice after the first 4 infusions or so, but definitely further along for fermentation than it needed to be.

Since Huyen was also present in the second round it was interesting checking on her take on fermentation preference for sheng there in Vietnam.  It's a type they drink a lot of, her and her family, all from there (with a partial background intro related to them making tea here).  It seemed likely that they wouldn't be focusing on drinking 15 to 20 year old versions there, and what she said bore that out, that relatively fully aged sheng isn't a popular theme there.  

I tend to like a lot of younger or partly aged versions myself, and can appreciate and relate to trying lots of more fully aged versions, and own some cakes that are like that, but nothing like the hundreds that John owns.  Huyen showed a couple of pressed Vietnamese sheng cakes that she had handy; although the tea type may come up more as maocha (loose versions) there pressed cakes are also around.

Related to other participant themes, two others joined us in the second session, which made it interesting for drawing on different input.  I suppose it diluted the "Mr. Mopar as meetup theme" subject a bit too, but those talks are always organic discussions, never structured as interviews, or subject-oriented.  This summary rounds off their input to stick with a theme more than them not contributing ideas or input.

It was interesting to me how across themes John kept returning to the idea that preference dictates what is best, related to tea types, storage conditions, and so on.  We all get that, to an extent, but it's also easy to let our own preference sort of organically take on the function of determining what is best, even beyond that scope.  In taking about brewing he covered how he likes to make tea, and variations based on different daily preference, all offered as trial and error informed outcomes based only on his own preference.

As far as social media channels go I knew him first through Steepster, which is relatively inactive now (I think).  He seems to check in most with Discord servers, the pu'er sub on Reddit, and Tea Forum.  He brought up an interesting sounding past Hong Kong based pu'er forum that I missed out on, which he said went inactive some years ago, probably before I focused most on sheng, as of about 4 years ago.  John said that he's open to talking to people about tea issues, and of course there's that vending sideline theme, so I'll include his email contact here, per his request, a step that never comes up here, since it's usually easy to cite Facebook profiles instead (mrmoparnrv@gmail.com). 

A bit of a tangent, to me the main tea discussion areas are still on Facebook now, like Gong Fu Cha, with the Pu'er Tea Club a bit quieter now.  The FB group I moderate, International Tea Talk, is currently in an awkward place for being mostly frequented by international vendors, which can be interesting, but really leads to too much commercial promotion.  All of these groups seem to thrive based on having a half dozen or more most active members fill in a social network feel, and it's interesting how Gong Fu Cha stays active without that.  It's nice the Discord groups sort of change the balance a little, enabling people to set up small groups that use an old mainframe discussion format, versus FB groups and such being an option.

It was interesting talking with John, although for it just being about ordinary tea preference and storage themes this summary doesn't seem to come together as a story.  That is the broader story of tea culture though, lots of people taking up different preferences and practices, now including social media and meetup channel options.

Talking to tea enthusiasts in the Hague and Paris

 

meeting with Jan

This meetups series has been interesting, about a group of friends talking to people about tea online, related to different countries.  We've met with a founding member of the Russian tea tradition, one Russian developing an interest group and another producing tea out of Laos, tea producers from Wuyishan China, Assam India, Nepal, and the US, a vendor doing development work in Laos, a vendor in Latvia, and a Canadian tea sommelier.  One potential guest had been in the works representing the next level of "tea celebrity" but scheduling isn't working out.

It was interesting bridging that into talking to a couple of more conventional tea enthusiasts, versus those producers or vendors, in the Netherlands and France (following talking to two tea enthusiasts in Amsterdam previously).  One of those has served as such a helpful guide on different tea issues to me that I see him as a mentor of sorts.  The other was a chance social media contact with a couple of ties to our group.  This isn't going to be as novel as some of the rest of the discussion scope but shifting to consider normal tea habits and perspective worked well.  Not "normal" in the sense of common; both guys have explored tea for at least a decade, to the extent that unusual types of tea interest has normalized for them.

Conversation also drifted off the scope of their perspective, and even tea themes, into other life experience, but under the circumstances I'll keep this mostly about tea.

 

Jan Falkenstein, living in the Hague, Netherlands

This is out of order since we talked to Jan second, but at least in the first draft I'll include more detail about Jan than the other guest (contact, friend).  These write-ups are to pass on interesting ideas and to give the people joining a bit of exposure, even though my blog audience is limited (about 100 people read each post; not so many).  Jan works in software development with an interesting background in experimental music (a phD in that; different).  His Instagram page is here, with links to that music here and here.  

His exploration and preference landed where you might imagine, on sheng pu'er.  It's probably not coincidence that the other guest drinks mostly that type, and that Ralph and I also do.  It is an interesting and complex tea type, with a lot going on in individual versions, as a singular experience and related to aging letting every single tea version be different year to year.  Some people tend to only drink 15-20 year old aged versions, seeing that as a relative optimum (or personal preference, framed differently), but it seems like both of them can relate to a range.  

It's strange how I see it as strange for sheng to work as such a universal preference end-point, even though it did so in my own case (I've drank mostly that for about four years).  Oolong is just as "good," and I love black teas too, but regularly rotate through about 20 different versions of sheng (which hasn't been changing much yet this year).  All those versions are kind of different from each other, and won't be the same teas after resting until next year.

We didn't talk about sheng that much.  A little, towards the end, after Huyen and Suzana both left, getting into sourcing issues and aging concerns.  Jan was curious about Indian tea range so that took up a lot of focus.  I won't repeat much of that here since it's all scope I've covered at length in earlier posts, about Darjeeling and Assam being main growing regions, with other production areas as part of the scope, how masala chai variations work out in practice, and related to older plant growth pre-dating the British tea history in India starting in 1830 or so.  Not a lot of that history came up, or to what extent any of us have actually tried "wild-origin" old plant source Indian teas.  I've not tried much, related to that last "wild origin" point; some falap was probably quite local origin, but maybe no other tea I've tried from India was made from wild, forest-grown plants.

The usual theme of introductions and tangents not being ideal for summary here occurs again.  Huyen had some connectivity problems so we never covered Vietnamese teas in the same way Indian range was discussed.  Kind of a shame; to me Vietnamese tea is the most diverse and interesting, and in some cases positive, of all teas from South East Asia.  I've had some relatively fantastic Laos, Thai, and Myanmar versions, so I mean in general, not down to best versions level.

In the late discussion we talked a little about how social media channels are changing, and what tea culture is like in Discord and Reddit (r/puer more than r/tea, but tied more to interesting special cases than actual group shared interest form).  That kind of discussion almost has to be about over-generalizations; on any given day someone is on a slightly different page in any tea group.  Form differences can be interesting.  Discord is like an old mainframe chat room format, and Reddit subs are closer to traditional forum discussions, with Facebook posts and groups mixing in more focus on links and media.  Scandals and conflict end up being the more interesting parts, although those themes can definitely get old.

Jan has an online store for selling tea; we talked about how that came up, and testing issues based on his experience with that.  A lot of people may be familiar with relatively strict and comprehensive testing requirements for European tea outlets.  It adds workload for vendors there, and expense.  He mentioned how most teas passed all that, in part because he tried to buy versions from more natural origin sources.  That part could use some unpacking; it's still mass-produced "factory" tea, and of course not all vendor or producer claims are accurate (or maybe more aren't than are by count), but I'm on general themes here, not sales-pitch scope.  

He said that a conventional Xiaguan failed for a pesticide level rate, and we talked about how relative risk for those levels might go.  Jan mentioned that the regulatory agencies would shift levels over time, to adjust for cut-offs not always being practical in relation to naturally occurring levels of some toxins.  Best to take all that as interesting input than a guide to how testing goes in Europe, of course; it's surely complicated.

We talked just a little about his experimental music prior to Suzana and Huyen joining; you can check that out here and here.  To me it sounds like something that might work well as 2001:  A Space Odyssey background.  Some is a bit melodic but Jan mentioned that most isn't because it's experimental, about exploring how different kinds of sounds could be experienced, not what you put on when you hang out.

I asked an old college friend about tea interest and options in the Hague once (where he lives); odd that had came up.  He's a university professor there so he asked his students, and they mentioned a favorite place (the Het Klaverblad shop in Leiden).  Jan mentioned Theemaas as another good local option, but said that he didn't like visiting a shop that sold both coffee and tea for those smelling like coffee.  It makes sense.

photo credit their web page (of course)

A bit of follow-up discussion about varying takes on tea themes was interesting.  The Dutch shops I'm seeing reference to don't seem so different than the T2 or the now-closed Teavana chains, maybe including a little more emphasis on plain teas, but not narrowed to what is familiar to specialty tea enthusiasts.  Moychay, that Russian outlet I've reviewed a lot of tea from, now based in Amsterdam, is regarded as selling great value and high quality narrow-source specialty tea, or sometimes that is criticized, and both of those ideas are rejected, but in any case it's more towards that end of the range.  

Jan mentioned how a main source works out in Germany, Teekampagne:

It looks fine, but a little odd for not mentioning an actual plantation source, it's just "second flush Darjeeling."  Contrast that with a Camellia Sinensis vendor page selection: 

Of course these are different kinds of offerings; a low-cost blend of inputs versus a much higher cost narrow type.  The blended second flush shown costs $13.71 for 250 grams while the cheaper of the two first flush versions shown costs $16.54 for 50 grams.  I would imagine that the German mixed input tea is better than Twinings range, but it's closer to that in style.  

It's not the kind of version that's available here in Thailand, in stores, or even online.  A broad range of blends of Wuyi Yancha oolong is available through many Chinatown shops here; that's more the page we are on.  At the lower quality end those can cost a lot less than $13.71 for 250 grams, but quality might be somewhat comparable for a mid-range offering priced around that.  The main difference might be that more people in Germany or the Netherlands are drinking those loose teas, but I would imagine that tea-bag tea still has a firm hold in both countries.

I don't want to go too far with discussion details like that in relation to the other visit, covering less personal details for that guest preferring to not be referenced by name, but I would like to tie together some perspective that came up.

Talking to a tea contact in Paris

Earlier we had met with a tea contact in Paris, who we can call David (not his real name). His personal story was interesting, about getting into tea through chance contacts, then that bridging into sheng preference faster than many experience, maybe around 15 years ago now.  David had lived in NYC and checking out Chinatown led to earlier forms of tea interest, and a chance personal contact led to the sheng range.  Both had experienced plenty of other tea range with considerable focus on sheng.

One really interesting point was about how conventional French experiences of tea goes.  It was a common theme there before it even became popular in Britain (per my understanding; not something we discussed at all).  We talked about modern tea culture themes instead.  He mentioned that he had a circle of friends based around tea interest there but over time the tea focus diminished, and they just became a circle of friends, with strictly tea themed gatherings less common.  That's interesting to consider, isn't it, how tea interest might serve a role in social circle development and then shift off that subject?  Back when my local friend Sasha held tea gatherings the tea was a critical part of the form but it was always more about who joined and other discussion range. 

meeting with Sasha (next to far left) and Pop (beside me)

I didn't take notes on what we discussed, or plan to communicate about it here.  David had travelled a lot in Europe, and elsewhere, and I'd expected to get into a lot on that but it was also a lot about personal scope, about what Paris is like, and how visitors see it differently than locals, and about French food, and so on.  He mentioned how a conventional impression of French food in other countries tends to be about a formal or somewhat atypical scope, and how everyday foods are positive and pleasant in a different way, but not as closely linked to a French food image.  I don't remember that an extensive list of dishes covered the divide, but the general point seems clear enough, about how basic but carefully selected and prepared foods could be everyday fare and then those that require extensive training to prepare are something else.  His description of a local market experience there was especially interesting, about a traditional shopping experience, getting to know local product range vendors.

Both cases, taken together, lead to consideration of what it means to be a tea enthusiast, and what local tea culture is really like.  David mentioned how good loose tea doesn't turn up in cafes and restaurants that much, a common enough theme everywhere.  Tea awareness in Paris has a long history, and more people are probably "in on it" than elsewhere, but it never integrated to anywhere near the uptake level as in China.  Or probably Vietnam, per my understanding.  Then bubble tea and ready-to-drink consumption muddies the waters a bit, related to US and Thai culture; people are drinking tea, just not specialty tea, loose tea versions that they brew themselves.

The people we talk to aren't at the conventional level for tea interest, so we will keep talking about the far end of the curve for developed preference.  That still works, related to getting an image of a general level, and cafe options, and so on.  It's interesting how patterns of exploration and self-definition work out related to tea in practice.  For being really active in one or more online groups a perspective or approach there, or a range of those, can serve as a norm, but very developed tea preference can work out quite differently.  Jan had been quite into tea for many years before he ever realized there are so many tea groups online, and that other friend never did embrace those forms of social contact or discussion that much.  Somehow I had started talking to David in relation to asking about shops in Moscow online he must have been somewhat involved with a tea group or site.

A Buddhist take on the designation of tea master / artist

An online friend posted an interesting question recently:  What does it mean to be a Tea Artist?

This was first published in TChing, here and here.

My own response is the general theme of this post.

This mentions but never really does explain the claim to represent Buddhism, and if you read that related response detail carefully I'm not saying that at all.  The claim is that my interpretation of use of personal labels and roles has been influenced by Buddhist ideas and practices.  It doesn't relate to having been an ordained monk, to completing two degrees related to Buddhism, or to living in a Buddhist family in a Buddhist country, even though those have been some of my own personal contact points with Buddhism.  Since it's not essential to the rest it's as well to not really develop that part further.

with a cat I think of as my first daughter; a kitten in this picture but now 12

Some framing discussed with that friend addresses issues that underlie fixed role or status designations, related to tea:


I really do think the people who embrace ritual tea interest or competitive tasting aren't getting anything wrong.  It's just a different way to take it all.  Once you take up titles or labels that changes things a little, but even then that could be fine, getting ranked, certified, or acknowledged.

That relates to a Tea Masters Cup group that people join and compete in, an educational interest group that--per my understanding--hosts competitions related to ceremonial form practices and tasting identification.  The last would seem to represent overlap with wine sommelier scope, more or less.


I never really do unpack use of "artist" as a designation versus the more common "tea master" in what I added to that discussion.  Along with those "tea expert" and "tea enthusiast" form a sort of continuum.  My own input relates to underlying context, so not directly about that theme anyway, how those varying terms map out.

Tea production is something else; this response is mostly about the consumption side.


My response to the initial question, what does it mean to be a tea artist?


As someone influenced by Buddhism I tend to use labels and extra concepts sparingly. They can help clarify meaning but they can also limit it. If a few people are tea artists then everyone else has a shallower expression or experience of tea compared to them.  To me the opposite is more true instead, that any of us brewing and drinking tea are sharing common experience. If you put yourself above others for any reason you typically do an injustice to them, and also to yourself. Extreme humility is a very functional position, and an especially valid personal choice.


If you drop the label you only need to keep in mind what is positive that potentially gets lost, and then choose to retain that if it's worth keeping. Unique experience of tea or expression through tea experience can be positive, but linking that to achievement or personal status I would typically see as negative.  Maybe within a competitive interest group that's different.


I might add a little about the one part, what could come along with the label or designation that might be positive. People use tea expert--or artist, master, enthusiast; whatever it is--to describe a range of competencies. Some people are into ceremonial forms, others into experiencing and being able to differentiate types and quality levels of tea. Just being able to brew tea effectively gets a lot of focus, and I suppose to some limited extent the most positive outcomes also require that, careful progress through a learning curve.

this organization relates to tea practice competition (maybe not related to ITMA / Tea Masters training)

To me it's useful to stay open to appreciating teas across a range of quality levels (a theme that only overlaps a little).  Emphasis on only exploring and appreciating the highest, most unique, most rare and sought after forms of some teas could work out even better when coupled with broader interest.  To be clear, as an ordinary tea drinker, with some background and experience, I sometimes drink good versions of teas but nothing too rare, unusual, or costly.  Working from a limited budget makes that choice for me.

I can be more specific about what I mean by type diversity. I think Earl Grey and masala chai are valid, interesting, and pleasant forms of tea, even though I focus more on plain, single-input, higher quality teas. But then I'm a generalist myself, related to tea preference, and of course it's just as valid and reasonable to focus on one type (eg. aged sheng pu'er, or Dan Cong oolong), and to explore higher quality level scope as a main range of interest.


To summarize, it seems that "tea artist" would of necessity mean a broad range of things to different people. Again, tea production is a completely different theme that I've not included in this answer, but of course it could be included.  Making great tea would require even more knowledge and skill than brewing it.

I don't reject this or other role or status designations as valid, or potentially quite useful, I just don't include use of such terms in how I approach tea.

a Vietnamese friend embraces the aesthetic side of tea, and formal brewing, but all that only overlaps

A tea enthusiast quits tea

Originally posted in the TChing blog site as part 1 and part 2.


It might seem like this should have a twist ending, that this tea enthusiast might re-discover a love for tea all over again, but this isn't that type of story.  An online friend, Paul, is the only person I've known here in Bangkok to take up an interest in tea since I did so a number of years back.  He became a bit obsessed with it, trying lots of new types and sorting out tea gear, then he quit it again, all in well under half a year.  Some of the aspects he loved and why he quit are worth considering, with some points that might serve as cautions for people that stick with it.

The main reason he cited for quitting was the negative effect of too much caffeine.  In his words:

When it came to the point I was being negatively affected from the caffeine in tea, and believe me I was, then I knew from past experience that zero tolerance was the only way.


He'd had a related experience with coffee, which he gave up a year before, and knew he was inclined towards extremes.  Still, it seemed unusual that something others experience as generally so positive he experienced so differently.  As he described that cycle:

Trying out all the different sizes, how long do I need to steep 160cc, do I need more than 5 grams?  etc, etc.  It became an obsession, and like many things I then abused it.  When I woke up all I could think of was making some.  My skin and my mind took a toll from the caffeine.


It seems dehydration could have also been a problem.  I also have trouble alternating between tea and water enough to offset the diuretic effect of tea.  There are different references and opinions about the degree of this effect, which seems to vary by person.  Of course there are a few notable extreme cases to this effect, relating to medical problems (like this one; but that person drank a gallon of tea every day, and the problem wasn't caffeine, but is described there as too much oxalate from the black tea).

The proportion of water consumed to tea required is hard to identify, even in my own case, based on lots of practical experience, with the course of every day an opportunity to experiment.  It would seem to vary based on lots of related factors (weather, other diet issues, etc.).  How much tea relates to too much caffeine must also vary.  I've worked it out and I usually drink between one and two liters a day; a good bit of tea.  Not drinking tea in the evenings helps limit that.

Paul describes the amounts of tea he was drinking:

Paul after a two liter session

I was experimenting with timings and temperatures all the time, and before I knew it I was filling up a one liter vacuum carafe several times a day with hot water for tea.


So indeterminate but a lot.  Drinking it brewed gongfu style, as he describes, doesn't necessarily vary the brew strength, which relates more to preference, so he might have been drinking very weak or very strong tea, or a mix of the two.  He said he tried to drink water as well but hard to guess how that went in practice.

The negative effects of caffeine

I've ran across anecdotal accounts about the negative effects of consuming too much caffeine before.  In particular I remember a co-worker who gave up drinking coffee throughout the day for extra energy, who claimed he felt much better after he quit, with more energy overall.  Of course the effect of the caffeine in tea is offset by the effect of theanine, both of which affect a person in different ways.  Tea doesn't give someone the same caffeine jolt but the cumulative effects of too much caffeine still might add up.

How much is too much?  Probably no one given amount, but per a Mayoclinic source 400 milligrams is a good cut-off point:  That's roughly the amount of caffeine in four cups of brewed coffee, 10 cans of cola or two "energy shot" drinks.

The amount in tea would vary, by strength, by the tea type, etc., but per another Mayoclinic page the variance is from 14 to 70 mg. / 8 ounce cup (237 ml) for black tea, with green tea within that range (24 to 45 mg.).  To reach their recommended limit one could still drink ten 8 ounce cups of tea at 40 mg. / cup, or over two liters of tea (possibly relating to too much oxalate consumed, per the other reference), but Paul probably did exceed that, potentially even on average.  It's interesting that the one article cited says that children shouldn't consume caffeine, any of it, and adolescents less than 100 mg. (three Cokes a day; seems like plenty).

Paul's assessment of this caffeine cycle related to coffee, based on having experienced it from that beverage as well:

People can feel a buzz from coffee, and if they don't drink it often it may be beneficial.  But when they have it all the time they don't feel ok without it... They think the coffee is making them feel better, but in actual effect it's because they need the coffee just to feel normal.  The benefits of caffeine are illusory, in my opinion.


It makes you wonder how quitting tea cold-turkey like that might go, from the amounts he was consuming, in particular how long it would take to readjust, which he explained:

After three days the withdrawl headaches stop.  But it takes a good week to really experience the normal mind state that comes back.  To be honest I continued to experience a rise in benefits way over seven days.  I feel exponentially better, and the clarity I experience from not using caffeine is really nice.



So that quitting cycle sounds just like the opposite of the experience tea enthusiasts ascribe to drinking tea, a mild lift that brings added clarity and calm.  But then dosage did seem the likely main issue in his case.

Cost of a tea habit

Another different type of negative concern relates to the cost.  Of course he was prone to excess, and ramping up a tea habit and setting up a gear infrastructure is one of the more expensive parts, but he admitted to spending something like $700 or $800 on tea and gear over the course of three or four months.  In a sense it's not that much, compared to how an enthusiasm for wine or other alcohol might go, or other types of habits, but that is a significant expense related to what tea generally costs.  Given that he was visiting cafes in addition to tea shops, and had been experimenting with different forms of gear, including yixing teapots, maybe that's still on the low side, or maybe it was only part of it.

There are few references out there about what typical enthusiasts spend on tea, or atypical ones, but this Steepster discussion thread is all about that.  It's impossible to narrow it to a normal range, and self-selection for that kind of input complicates things.  In that thread some people admit to spending $500 to $1000 per year on tea, so his expenditure does seem on the higher side related to that.

It's really up to the individual on what is desirable or reasonable, of course, a function of preference and expendable income.  On the broader level better tea making the trip from Eastern Asia (typically) to the rest of the world depends on economic factors, so specialty tea availability depends on people making those sorts of purchase choices.  Based on my own limited knowledge of economics it's better all around for tea drinkers as well as vendors if a demand base is there; the range available and pricing moderation depend on there being more demand and spending.  Of course there are some assumptions mixed in with that assessment, and my own judgment, and I'm only drawing on a few college Econ courses as background theory.

It's interesting to consider that better teas aren't necessarily inexpensive in places like China, where they originate, where they are also sought after.  There the highest income levels afford some people substantial expendable income, and a tradition related to tea makes it a potential priority.  A vendor I bought tea from in the Bangkok Chinatown once claimed that the tea I was buying--a Bei Dou I mentioned here--would sell for more in China.  Even before he'd commented that I was considering the same idea, that based on my experience it might well.  This would at least be true in shops in cities like Beijing and Shanghai, where I had bought teas, and a friend living in Beijing had confirmed that range of pricing based on his own experience.

The positive aspects, entry to tea

I was also curious about what drew Paul to tea, and what he had appreciated most.  People new to tea might focus first on any number of different aspects.  For some it's about trying new tea types, or from different locations, or for others about gear and brewing process.  There are other potential tangents; cafe experiences, or researching relatively abstract aspects of tea, history, rituals, and so on.  In Paul's case the focus was on trying different teas, mostly oolongs and pu'ers, experimenting with brewing process, and on brewing gear, straight to yixing pots.  He describes his favorite aspect:

The surprise when you make one that blows your mind.  I think there is a skill to it.  Some people say however you prepare it is just right, but there is something to the rewards of exercising a skill and reaping the benefits.  There's something about the surprise when you adjust a water temperature and get much better results from the same tea.

What's next for Paul related to tea

He's finished with the conventional forms of tea enthusiasm, selling off his gear, giving away teas, done with the whole cycle.  He does retain some interest in trying decaffeinated tea, and dabbling in tisanes a little, trying out some rooibos.  I'm not sure where it will lead for him since he's just made the transition.

In my own case the tea interest fills a gap for such an interest, which is a pattern that seems clear in his own exposure, that preferring coffee, then tea, and then onto tisanes represents an interest in the general range of interests.  Before tea I was into tisanes, and wine, and coffee, all at different times, with a more complicated prior history with alcohol.  Other interests took different forms, like reading, or snow sports and mountaineering.  For these activities an obsessive attention to details and learning might even be required just to participate safely.

Some of Paul's story seems to relate more to a personality type inclined towards exploring interests aggressively, in this case over a relatively short duration.  But really what would the difference be if he had taken up and lost interest in tea over a period of three of four years instead of three or four months; he's only shortened that curve.  The concerns about caffeine consumption and hydration anyone consuming a lot of tea probably should consider, but these would seem easy enough to address through moderation.