-
Manufacturing tea is an art, it’s poetry in motion, it’s farmer-chef-craftsman-mechanic-chemist, all melded together. A few weeks ago, I did it in a conference room in Atlanta, GA. And "they" were right, even trying this was crazy... but, son-of-a-gun, the teas actually turned out pretty good. You can come to TeaSource Eden Prairie on Sunday, December 8th from Noon-2p and taste them for yourself!
Our fresh tea leaves: soon to be white, green, yellow, oolong and black.
In late October, I co-presented a workshop to tea professionals at the World Tea East Exhibition in Atlanta, GA. This workshop was called Processing Tea: An Experiential Workshop. The idea was we would fly in just plucked tea leaves from Hawaii by Overnight Air. Then over the two days of the workshop, using these fresh tea leaves we (along with the class attendees) would manufacture: white, green, yellow, oolong, and black tea. I presented this class with Donna Fellman of the World Tea Academy (part of World Tea Media). Donna and World Tea Media deserve tremendous credit for taking a huge chance, putting up the cash necessary, and providing all the support possible. Donna is one of the world’s great tea educators. For the record, this was the third time we did this class. In this blog, over the next few posts, I am going to tell the story of what happened. In Hawaii, Eva Stone, proprietor of Tea Hawaii & Co., supplied us with fresh plucked tea leaves.
The tea fields and the home of Tea Hawaii & Co.Based on experience, Donna has developed a system of packing and layering and insulating the tea leaves using dry ice and coolers: so that when we unpacked the tea leaves in Atlanta, they looked like they had been plucked off the bush about three hours before.
Donna Fellman, unpacking and sorting the just arrived tea leaves.
Take a look at those leaves. This is what tea leaves look like, a few hours after being plucked. A relatively small amount of withering has taken place, so the leaf gets kind of floppy (I try to avoid the word flaccid). This also happens as the leaves come in from the fields to the factories. In our case, the withering took place on the FedEx plane ride, but this withering was slowed down considerably by the packing and dry ice. The leaves arrived pretty much ready for the first step in manufacture.
The fresh tea leaves, laid out, ready for processing.
More tea leaves laid out, ready for manufacture: loosely organized into piles for white, green, yellow, oolong, and black tea.[/caption]
During two, three-hour workshops, over each of the next two days, we were going to try to mimic what happens at a tea factory, as the freshly plucked tea leaves are brought in from the field. By definition, this is kinda crazy. We weren’t in a tea factory—we were in a conference room at a convention center. We were going to try to make five different types of tea: all in the same room, at the same time. We didn’t have any of the equipment available at a tea factory. The climate was totally wrong and uncontrollable (we were battling hotel-level air conditioning). And most importantly we are NOT tea manufacturing experts. Donna’s a great communicator, and I’m just a tea merchant. They were right, this was crazy—who the heck did we think we were ??? But we were determined to try and manufacture by hand all categories of tea: except for Dark Tea & Puer --- I admit it, we chickened out on this --- maybe next year. And not only were we going to manufacture these teas, we were also going to demonstrate and teach others how these teas are processed.
Donna and Eva, kicking off the class.
Over the next few posts I will show and tell details about processing all five of these teas. The bottom line is, the class worked. And on Sunday, December 8th from Noon until 2:00pm at our Eden Prairie TeaSource we will be steeping and sampling all five of these teas we made. I should note there is not much of each tea, so when we run out (and we will) that’s it. This is almost a once in a lifetime experience, especially if you are unlikely to ever visit an actual tea estate.
Also, I will be there just to talk about tea, answer tea questions, and chat about all things camellia sinensis. Stop by if you get the chance.
-Bill Waddington
-
As the Tea and Cheese Pairing Class drifts into history, the flavors are still lingering in our minds. On the afternoon of October 26th, Steven Levine, a local cheese Guru, showed up at the Eden Prairie TeaSource with eight exceptional specialty cheeses. Class attendees took their seats as regular customers looked on with curious expressions tinged with jealousy.
The fragrance of cheese was threatening to overwhelm the aroma of tea, so I got the first tea steeping and the class commenced. The pairings ranged in flavor, intensity, and complexity. Some were smooth, decadent, and buttery like the Delice de Bourgogne Brie with Milk Oolong, Traditional. Others sharp and brisk like our ‘Everyman Pairing’: the Collier’s Powerful Cheddar with the classic breakfast blend style tea, Ceylon Lumbini FBOP.
The favorite tea of the evening was the new Fujian black tea, Jin Jun Mei, for its rich depth and unique bold character. This is not an inexpensive tea, but it would make a fabulous holiday gift. The cheese that stole the show, and my personal favorite, was the beautiful Humbolt Fog. This cheese literally tasted like fog. It was so complex that every tea we paired it with pulled another layer of flavor out of the cheese.
Our final pairing was St. Pete’s Select Blue Cheese with the exquisite 1999 Sheng Puer, both aged and riddled with active microbes. This Puer comes as compressed cake of tea, a tea-making method new to the West, but with deep roots in China. This tea reminds me of something Aragorn would have carried across Middle Earth and steeped up for the Hobbit’s breakfast on the road to Mordor!
All of the incredible cheeses for this workshop were purchased from Surdyk’s Liquor and Cheese Shop - my favorite place in the Twin Cities to buy cheese (and wine). Their variety and quality is fantastic.
Everyone went home full of calcium and caffeine, making it a tea and cheese success story. I speak for both Steven and myself when I say the class was exceptionally fun, filling, and informative. We hope we can teach it again for the spring class cycle.
-Jessica Hanley
TeaSource Manager
Chevre Goat Cheese 88th Night Shincha Collier’s Powerful Cheddar Ceylon Lumbini FBOP Delice de Bourgogne Brie Milk Oolong, Traditional Bent River Camembert 1995 Aged Pouchong Spanish Garrotxa Jin Jun Mei Humbolt Fog Tung Ting Light Roast Five year Gouda Assam, Harmutty Estate St. Pete’s Select Blue 1999 Sheng Puer -
We’re pretty excited right now down in Atlanta. TeaSource has just won first place at the Taster’s Choice Awards at the World Tea East Exposition in the Black Tea category for our Golden Dragon tea. World Tea East is a gathering of tea professionals from around the world and part of the World Tea Expo, the largest tea exposition/convention in the world.
All teas that placed in the North American Tea Competition are lined up for dozens of tea professionals to evaluate and then vote for the best tea. It’s actually pretty cool. The people evaluating are tea growers, tea brokers, tea-tasters, tea scientists, tea merchants, and tea journalists, from India, China, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, Europe, and more. Some of these folks are the people I admire and respect most in this crazy industry I’m in. And Golden Dragon knocked their socks off! The leaves of this tea are golden, thick, luscious, and downy with a rich aroma. The steeped liquor is deep, complex, very sweet, with tremendous mouth-feel. This is an incredibly high-grade tea, almost never seen outside China. After winning, of course, I had to deal with all the glam and glitter of being a tea champion; the paparazzi, the all night parties with all the adoring tea groupies and over-the-top debauched behavior. It’s a wild life we tea people live. Thanks to all the people who voted for us. -Bill
-
After nearly six weeks of travel, I am back in Minnesota. In addition to the piles of mail on my desk, there are many packages of tea from all over the world, waiting to be evaluated. Last week, we laid out 19 different Darjeeling 2nd flush samples to cup and evaluate.Everyone always thinks this is one of the coolest things about my job, tasting teas, and sometimes it is. Yesterday, however, was not one of those days. Nineteen Darjeeling teas in a row and out of all of them there were only two remote possibilities. And even those two weren’t that great, they were only OK. That’s 90 minutes of my life I wish I had back, and boy did I have cotton-mouth. But that is a major part of my job; tasting mediocre teas, so our customers don’t have to. And it just means I have to work a little harder to find some great 2nd flushes, and I’m confident we will. We’ll keep you informed. -Bill
-
And with that, the 2013 World Tea Expo has come to a close. Bill, Michael, and I are all back in Minnesota, the booth has been torn down and packed away, and we're all looking forward to a really good night's sleep and to see our families again. That's not to say we didn't have a great time, and we certainly managed to make sure our last day was eventful. As mentioned in yesterday's post, Bill taught a two day course on tea processing using freshly plucked tea leaves flown in just for the class. Not only were the participants satisfied with their experience, but other WTE attendees were impressed with the logistics of getting fresh tea to Las Vegas and producing it in a convention center room. Quite the experience for everyone! Michael and I spent a little time walking the show floor and chatting with some of the other exhibitors before the Expo opened for the day. The variety of teas and tea accessories available on the market today is impressive, and it was nice to have a chance to talk to people about the growing tea markets all over the country.
The big event of the day, however, happened at our booth. Bill brought along a portable, variable-speed bandsaw and a log of 100 Taels Dark tea which was cut into pieces right on the Expo floor. After a short talk about Dark Tea, we pulled names from a basket and gave the pieces to the winners (we were in Las Vegas, after all). About 50 people crowded around our booth, clogging the isles and generally creating a scene. It was an experience I'm not likely to forget! We didn't have time to take too many pictures while we were here, but we did get a few and we'll post them on Facebook [and the blog] in the next few days. We're already looking forward to our next trade show, so be sure to check Beyond the Leaf often to catch all of our updates! -Timothy Otte Assistant Wholesale Manager
-
We were very grateful for the opportunity on May 6th to have Taiwanese Tea Ambassador, Thomas Shu, visit the Twin Cities for an evening course on Taiwanese oolongs. As anyone who has ever spent time with Thomas knows, you’re not just getting a world class tea education, but a chance to share in the deep and genuine love of a beverage that has been with his family for generations. I was lucky enough to join Thomas in Taiwan in 2011 on one of his annual oolong study tours. I learned quickly that his talks and teachings, unwittingly and without fail, end up being interspersed with history, personal musings, and even singing – all of which are sincere and sure to charm even the harshest cynic. He insisted we learn the songs too, and tried to teach us. The words I have lost, but the melodies I still hum.
His visit to Minnesota reminded me that some things go unchanged because they are simply true. Always happy to have an audience, Thomas jovially walked us through the various styles of Taiwanese oolong, from Pouchong to Oriental Beauty to Baked Ti Kwan Yin to Brandy Oolong (wonderfully complete with all the tangents mentioned above). As the evening progressed, our un-expecting guests slowly realized this was not going to be an academic lecture on definitive methods, but rather an invitation into a world not often seen (or tasted) from this side of the Pacific - a culture where tea is ingrained into both the toil and philosophy, as evidenced by Thomas’ ever-present smile, patience, and good humor. It’s his own pleasant way of effectively passing on the teaching that we should use all of our senses to experience tea, and how to use those senses in making decisions on how to prepare, assess, and enjoy it. In America, it has been my experience that we seem to like very specific and rigid instructions on how to prepare our food, and employ these same tendencies when making tea. In Taiwan, I saw only scientists use tools other than a teapot. Everyone else just used their own experience – something much richer and more valuable that goes to the heart of the lesson: There is no right or wrong. Be present, trust your senses, share if possible, and enjoy.
Thank you to everyone who was able to attend. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you were not there for it, check out our full photo album of Thomas' events on Facebook. -Michael Lannier TeaSource manager For more information about Taiwan oolongs click here.
