Nice bit of recognition for the leaf as this coming May 21st has been officially designated as International Tea Day…though for many of us, we could simply call most days “International Tea Time”. If interested, please join in some leaf-fuelled chat on May 21st (International Tea Day) on Youtube live at 17:30 EST. I’ll be sipping and chatting all things Puerh. It is part of an all-day streaming event honouring tea and its people from around the world. This ‘Sofa Summit’ will

So many sips and times of tea that have made their way into me have been enhanced while sitting in the surrounds and spaces in which the tea actually grows. In the words of mentor and extraordinary pan fryer of leaves, Mr. Gao, “You see leaves at the source and the sips you take will not be the same”. Mr. Gao’s presence never hurt either. Of the Hani people, his home in Lao Banzhang in southwestern Yunnan is one of the epicentres of Puerh. The gentle man of tea and wisdom, Mr

A flow westward out of one of the most precision oriented cultures of the leaf to a tiny corner (and an old home of mine) in southwestern China, where the leaf is still at times an imprecise thing of random beauty. Japan gives way to Yunnan. Teas with a time and a moment give way to teas with an unpredictable possibility of brilliance. A last blast of Gyokuro and its Umami before the flight west Those taints of Umami still rolling around like a veritable memory within and upo

A little moment of respite for our incredible hostess who remains still, one of most formidable characters in my memory palace. While running around researching the Tea Horse Road, a friend who was from the Yi minority invited me to meet his grandmother, who had lucid memories of the old trade route. As much as the time with her was about tea and the route itself – which steamed through her region near Xiaguan, Yunnan, – she herself became a kind of all-encompassing subject o

Every single year on the tea foraging and sourcing missions I go on, there is a tea that – for any number of reasons – I miss out on acquiring. Here, I’m speaking about good teas that ‘hit’ me. The qi is there, the liquor carries some bite, and the mineral depth of the flavours over infusions seems to evolve. These teas more often than not, come into my sphere (and onto my palate) by simply being in the tea zones – a bit of good grace by being able to immerse myself in source

Puerh – The Forest Journeying back into Yunnan’s Xishuangbanna for a later than usual annual immersion into Puerh sourcing, learning and into the clay-heavy heartland of Puerh cultivation. Joined on this journey by Sofie Vercauteren who has been on a months’ long set of immersions into teas’ people, their methods, and into the zones where the glorious green stimulant grows. There is much around Puerh in particular that is linked to the land and this trip reveals some of those

Looking forward to this little tea infused event hosted by Museum of Tea and Floating Mountain in New York City. Director Andrew E.M. Gregg (aka “Legs) and myself will be calling in to chat and sip about our film, The Tea Explorer. Event information is here as well as contact info and address. Reservations are recommended. A particularly good Matcha will be served up in a stunning space filled with the memories of the Tea Horse Road, the eternal leaf, and the wonderful charac

Snow has that wonderful natural ability to paint big swaths white, and slow everything down to a trickle. “Cooperate or perish” say many Himalayan inhabitants of the natural elements and their forces. Snow and Puerh seem an ideal way to begin! The little tea that did from one of our favourite mountains, Bulang Mountain Sheng Puerh. And so, things slowed in Toronto for this most edition of the Toronto Tea Festival, amidst snow that came in delicious diagonal chunks from above.

A local with a freshly unveiled ‘tong’ coming out of its bamboo home. The round cylinder of compressed Puerh, known in southern Yunnan to many as “Zhu tong” pays tribute to an ancient and often forgotten form of Puerh tea. While cakes, balls, discs, bricks and ornately shaped tribute teas – including the melon shaped tribute teas – all circulate and are still largely available but there is another, ancient compressed mold that has largely disappeared from view. In this cylind

We’re delighted to announce that our documentary film The Tea Explorer film is getting an additional airing on Sunday Sept, 10th at 9 pm ET/10 PT on CBC’s Doc Channel in Canada. Best taken with a cup of leaves and water in close proximity to the hand. I’ve been hearing from people in the US about the film being shown on AWE tv as well. Below a couple of the inspiring characters when telling the story of the Tea Horse Road. Mother of Ajo of Litang and known to many as simply a

“Forget about worrying about age. Forget it! If a tea isn’t made well, it isn’t going to become better. It is just going to age”. Teacher, Provocateur and wonderful palate for all things tea…at work in one of his many playgrounds: the Bulang Mountains One of the many voices that have counselled and often chided me comes from Mr. Li from Guangdong. Buyer of exceptional teas throughout China for collectors for decades, he runs a teashop that specializes in teas that are simply

Love when the word ‘conversation’ is used instead of Interview. Had a wonderful ‘conversation’ with the eloquent Ruhani Sandhu of Rangsaa and Love for Teas about our upcoming Tea Explorer documentary film. No conversation in recent times could be had without referring to one of my very favourite people, Konga. Here a moment during one of our own conversations about the days of tea trade in Lo Manthang, Mustang, Nepal. The conversations ( Part 1 here) touched on some of the mo

After much time, edits, permits, scoring the music and still more editing down from the team at 90th Parallel Productions, our first airing of The Tea Explorer took place on July 23rd. The first reviews are in. Film critic John Doyle from the Globe and Mail  called ‘The Tea Explorer” “Visually sumptuous”. and “The program, made by Andrew Gregg, is an enchantingly successful hybrid of adventure tale and extravagant celebration of tea and you will never be blasé about tea again

Nothing quite ‘scars’ the palate like a magnificent hit of a powerful tea. From that moment forward something has changed and it might as well be an actual mark or scar because it is memorable and it changes everything for all time. Whatever it is that has grabbed the molars, wafted into the cavities of the mouth and nasal cavity, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that from that moment on a portion of the brain has decided that something stunning just occurred, and it is a c

Worlds of tea exist in twisted semi-fermented forms, flat green shapes and black beetle bits. Formats, ferments, withering, fries and dries and even the all-too-often mentioned colour designation at times drag some of the thought around tea into a place of too-much. A Hani harvester balances within the arms of an ancient tea tree in southern Yunnan. The spelling, phonetics, and even the often disagreed upon geographic designations bring into focus how tea has lost some of the

There is much made of a tea’s geographic designation, its altitude, its harvest season, and its growers…and there should be! The earth, the temperate surroundings and the handlers and coaxers of the leaves are to be thanked and acknowledged. Within the Bulang Mountain’s ancient tree forests in southwestern Yunnan. Every effort and breath within the mountains and forests, every little build up to harvest time matters. Harvesting for the purists is a time not simply when leaves

“Discussions about a specific tea should be left until during and after the sipping and too many words simply lead one to question the speaker”. – Ms. Lu, Tea Master – Kunming Pu erh in its ripe or ‘Shou’ version. Artificially aged with bacteria and humidity. Shaped teas were and still are common in the Pu erh world, though not all Pu erh is formed or moulded. There is always time for a little ‘destruction’ when too much mystification takes hold. This applies to everything fr

Flights can anesthetize one from a full-on experience at times (however brutal that experience might be) and so it is that the journey that Frank and I take from China’s east coast to Yunnan’s capital of Kunming in the deep southwest of the country. We arrive, somehow having crossed a great span of much of China with little of the chaos, personality, or feel of the space that we cross. No trains, errant taxi’s, or delays somehow either and though slightly welcome the authenti

Winter in the Himalayas “Often leaves in small stages…but sometimes it simply leaves one night” says Kersang from her village near Deqin in northwestern Yunnan. It is still ‘spring’ of this year when she says this. Being Tibetan she feels the winter and sees it as something more than simply cold but rather as a time. Spring this year is but a word as snow still lines the mountains and the north-facing valleys padding everything in white muted padding. Winds are constant and t

Returning to northwestern Yunnan’s snow-clad mountains and their precious waterways. We’ll wander up the Salween River (pronounced Gyalmo Gyul Chu and written རྒྱལ་མོ་རྔུལ་ཆུ། in Tibetan) to the eastern extension of the Himalayas and a slow route south along portions of both the Mekong (pronounced Dza Chu in Tibetan and written རྫ་ཆུ) and Yangtze (Ma Chu at the source and written རྨ་ཆུ) Rivers. All of these waterways find their way off of the Tibetan Plateau and collectively