There are lots of cakes out there made by famous personages, most of whom are from Taiwan. The quality of these things vary from very good to very poor, especially when factoring in the price involved, which is almost always high, because there is usually a substantial premium charged for these things, precisely due to the fame of the person who made them. This cake, the Zipin hao from 2003, was made by Zhou Yu of Wistaria House. I distinctly remember seeing this at Wistaria the first time I visited in 2005. Back then, my thought was “my god, this thing is expensive”, which it was. I can’t quite remember how much it was, but it was heads and shoulders above what a normal cake sold for back in the day, and being a poor graduate student, I balked and never bought it. Nor did I try it at the … Continue reading →
Tea, unless it’s a gift, costs money. So when we talk about tea, like it or not, we have to mention the cost of the tea. When we say a tea is “good”, do we mean it’s good, full stop? Or is it good, for this price? Or good, at any price? I am guessing when most of us are writing or reading reviews, we read “good” as being “good at this price”. So when someone writes about how a tea is very interesting, stimulating, multi-faceted, etc, and is really good, I suspect s/he is saying that it is really good at the current prices at which the tea is obtainable. It may also be written with no reference to prices at all, and may simply mean that “this tea is good in comparison with others of this type I’ve tried”. There are probably some teas that fall into the … Continue reading →
A recent development in my tea consumption is the fact that I got a new credit card that allows me direct access to Taobao – whereas previously one needed a mainland bank account to pay for things on Taobao, which means dodgy bank transfers and annoying paperwork, with this card I can use it directly without any hindrance and get a bill at the end of the month. This, as you can imagine, is a very bad thing. Among the things I bought recently is a total surprise. It’s a surprise because I didn’t buy it – I was buying something else entirely, but somehow the vendor sent me the wrong thing – something he doesn’t even lists as being sold, but he obviously has. The cake in question is the Douji 2011 Yudou (jade dou). The dreaded sticker – which, I’m happy to report, is no longer as sticky … Continue reading →
One of the perils of shopping online for tea is that you don’t get to try the stuff you’re about to buy. A little while ago I recommended the 2005 Chenguanghe Tang Menghai Yesheng to Hster as something worth buying. The only place online that sells it is Hou De Asian Art. I recently procured a number of this cake from Taiwan directly, and I’ve always like this cake. Since I am fairly sure Guang from Hou De sourced his teas from the same place I bought mine, I was rather confident in recommending the cake. Well, Guang, rather unhelpfully perhaps, doesn’t offer samples. So when I sent Hster a bunch of teas recently for her to try, I included a sample of this 2005 tea for her as well. I didn’t realize that another tea from, Ira, also sent Hster a sample of this, but his sample is from … Continue reading →
In the Western hemisphere people who reads blogs like this one and drink mostly Asian teas in loose-leaf form are a distinct minority, and shops that serve our kind of needs are, by and large, niche players who get relatively little business from those who are not so serious about tea. I suspect that the largest source of loose leaf tea consumption in retail format comes from places that serve loose leaf tea as part of a cafe style operation – with cakes, scones, snacks, and the like. There are different ways in which such teas are served. On a national scale, the large chains almost all serve teabags, and for good reason – teabags are easy, they’re cheap, the margins are high, and they’re consistent. Anybody can stick a Tazo teabag in a cup and throw hot water in it, and out comes a breakfast style tasting tea that … Continue reading →
Generally speaking, I don’t drink much green teas because I find them to be relatively one dimensional. Although it was the type of tea that got me started drinking seriously, I now consume less than 100g of green tea every … Continue reading →
Taiwan Beer is so good, I had to buy a whole case and had it shipped express to Hong Kong
Just kidding
I just came back from another trip to Taiwan, this time having a few days between work and tea hunting. Taiwan really is the island of teashops, and the kicker is, quite a few of them are very decent places, … Continue reading →
One of the scams I’ve come across, as related to me by another tea seller, goes as follows. You walk into a store with tins lining the wall. The tins are not labeled, and the store specializes in yancha. You … Continue reading →
I had an opportunity to drink some old tea the other day with the King of pots and some others. It was an interesting experience, going through the decades and trying something that’s your grandfather’s age. During the conversation, one … Continue reading →
