Not Following My Own Advice

Us know-it-all types often dispense advice liberally. I wrote more than 200 hundred articles on my company tea blog giving all sorts of information related to brewing tea, tea appreciation and the like.
Sometimes though, I ignore my own advice and go for irrational purchases. How else can I explain why I have nearly 10 gaiwans despite my belief that tea wares are not the best value for money in terms of improving the taste of teas. (The only reason why I ‘only’ have 5 yixing pots is that I am an advocate of not having too many so I can better season what I have).

So for the longest time I put off buying a Tetsubin kettle- too expensive, I hardly ever boil water with the stove, more convenient to use a variable temperature kettle, I already have 4 tea kettles and so forth.

All it took was a simple question “I’m in Kyoto now, do you want anything?”

Gone was my arguments and fiscal responsibility and for that good ten minutes, I provided him with the specs and photos that I had toyed about in my head for a year.

It was the kind of request that only a blood relation would entertain, given how heavy a Tetsubin kettle is, even a 1.2 litre one weighed like a sledgehammer.

All the way from Kyoto to Singapore to my household where I nearly giggled like a school girl when I saw it, dizzy with excitement when I think of how more amazing my yancha, tieguanyin and puer is going to taste with this.

Sometimes it’s good to ignore my own advice and live irresponsibly.

Drinking Tea Outside

One of the things my friends don’t understand about me is why I usually don’t order tea when I’m outside. Even if I’m meeting to talk about tea.

If we’re meeting for dinner, even if I’m in a Chinese restaurant, I often order chrysanthemum tea or at most Eight Treasures tea- a mixture which is approximately 1/8 tea, as in Camellia sinensis.

Even more egregious is if we’re meeting in a cafe or some equivalent. Even on occasions when I meet and talk tea, almost exclusively I order coffee.

For meal times, it is partially related to iron absorption, something I wrote about in this article about Don’ts of Drinking Tea.

But more importantly is that there is only so much tea we can drink in a day, every cup (huge or small) should matter.

How can I be certain that all teas outside will suck?

Firstly hardware. Apart from tea houses, you’re not going to be served tea in a gaiwan, not a with tea tray and all.

For convenience, most cafes serve tea in a huge glass pot- good for aesthetics, horrible for oolong and green tea- the 2 types of teas that I’m most likely to order. Then your tea steeps forever in it.

Not how I would like to enjoy my tea, personally.

Secondly it’s also related to hardware. Few shops- if any- own a variable temperature kettle. An air-pot that reboils the same water repeatedly is probably all you’re going to get. In other words, more likely than not, whichever tea you order, it is likely to be doused with freshly boiled water.

Third- it is most likely to be bagged. Sometimes shops do a bit better and provide pyramid bags, which is only interesting if you don’t regularly gongfu brew your tea.

Pyramid bags in theory sounds interesting- more space for the leaves to unfurl. But it leads to brewing in a regular mug- which is not conducive for oolong tea especially- and the packaging often seems ill-suited for storing tea leaves.

Flimsy paper packaging, wrapped with a film. Once it’s open, the pyramid bags are often exposed to elements like oxygen and moisture. Even if you used good quality tea leaves in there, very soon it would degrade. I don’t see why vendors would increase their cost in that manner.

This is not to be overly negative though but because I drink so much tea anyway, I rather forgo a significantly worse cup. In the past I used to drink tea in a thermal flask but I decided that the compromise was a bit too much for my liking.

If I come across as a snob, I apologize. It’s just that I strictly adhere to a daily consumption limit of 15 gram of tea leaves. If it’s going to cut into my quota, I want to enjoy myself. Even if it’s not gongfu brewing, if the compromise is not massive, I’m happy to allocate my tea quota.

Unfortunately most places I can drink tea outside- apart from Bak Kut Teh joints- don’t quite justify my daily 15 grams.

Why there is so much misinformation about tea and what you can do about it

As a beverage, tea probably has no equal in terms of depth and scope of knowledge. In fact many would argue that tea is not just a beverage but a way of life.

One of my favorite Chinese quotes on tea goes “人生活到老，香茗知多少” or even when you grow old, you won’t know all there is to know about tea.

Indeed there’s a wealth of information about this little drink- from production technique, brewing methods, types of leaves, cultivars, geography, history and so much more.

It doesn’t help matters that there’s a lot of misinformation about tea and worst still it gets regularly circulated.

For example:

Claim: White tea has the least caffeine.

Fact: If anything, if you’re talking about authentic white tea- i.e. Fujian white tea, they have among the highest caffeine content due to among other things- early pickings and lack of high heat during production which melts caffeine

You can read about more common misconceptions regarding tea here

A lot of factors contribute to this- I thought of 7- but I will only highlight 3 more relevant ones:

Technical knowledge

Image taken from http://bgr.com/2012/11/08/google-chrome-beta-24-release/

Unfortunately the technical knowledge that has more weightage would be that of the intricacies of search engine algorithms as opposed to the effect of sunlight on the chemical composition of tea leaves.

Most of us don’t go beyond the first page of the search engine which more often than not is the almighty Google. In other words, our learning of tea is often more influenced by Larry Page and Sergey Brin than Wu Jue Nong, Zhang Tian Fu or even James Norwood Pratt.

Webmasters with knowledge of how to appease the search spiders have a leg up on genuine content providers and useful information (if any) are buried in wasteland otherwise known as page 3 and beyond of Google’s results.

Language and Linguistics Deficiencies

This statement has to be worded carefully- much of the information about tea is not written in English nor in the possession of native English speakers.

It’s not arrogance or ethnic pride (yes I am of Chinese- more specifically Hakka and Teochew- descent) but a statement of fact. Every single category of tea- green, white, yellow, oolong, black and dark (or post-fermented) tea was first produced in China and in fact China remains the only nation that produces all 6. In terms of diversity- green tea for example- it is unmatched.

This is not a statement of superiority again but is one echoed by many who deal in quality tea- even of non-Asian descent.

The problem is that much of this information is not translated in English and when it is- besides the obvious difficulty of translation from a language with a completely different grammar structure- it is often difficult to read because most native Chinese speakers aren’t entirely fluent in English and vice-versa.

The result is that some sites with pretty good information on tea such as Vicony Tea’s blog can be a tad clumsy. Case in point- its name is Tea Seek which sounds rather obtuse in English but my guess is, in Chinese the original text was cha xun <茶寻> (Tea & Seek) which sounds exactly the same as <查寻> (Investigate- a deeper search). A word play that is lost in translation.

Coupled with the short attention span of web readers and the proclivity to skim and bounce, these sites don’t get much attention or repeat readers.

Vested Interest

Tea blogs were originally a dime a dozen. You only need to look at the Association of Tea Bloggers to see how many have ceased updating the blogs. This trend is by no means restricted to tea as far as blogging goes but of those who remain, many are vendors. You would expect apart from a handful of long time seasoned tea drinkers, only vendors have the time and motivation to pursue the wealth of knowledge in tea.

Very often you read about overblown health benefits or other generally inaccurate information. Some birthed out of commercial interest, some of plain ignorance, some because the vendor was fed inaccurate information.

There is a lack of perceived independence when a vendor writes about tea. Indeed, I too run an online tea shop and blog regularly about tea appreciation, brewing tea, background of tea, selection and other tips to enjoy tea.

Some of it- I am not ashamed to admit- has a commercial slant which needs not be a dirty word since I provide more fodder for potential customer to make an informed decision. Many more articles do not. As a friend commented that I wrote 3 articles on the merits of a gaiwan, why do I not sell a gaiwan (at least at point of writing- I might in half a year’s time if I find the right batch but I’m not actively searching now).

Do I have a vested interest?

Absolutely!

I want to help more people appreciate and select quality tea as well as store and brew it right. These people would be more likely to purchase teas from me than people who drink out of a tea bag, in a huge mug but they might just as well buy from some of the other serious stores out there.

*More on this in a later post- we are starting to digress*

So what can you do about it?

Fortunately with the Google updates, the average reader has more power to influence it. How you may ask?

Sharing.

Sharing helps boost search ranking. So if you see an article you like, it doesn’t need to be our tea blog, other good sites that you ought to share include the Tea Guardian and MarshalN despite the former selling tea as well

Source of information- an ever growing library

Unless you’re really so moved (though we hope you are, we want to be a commercially viable enterprise ), you don’t really have to share our articles with an outright commercial slant- such as our weekly specials- but with 165 articles (at point of writing) there is a good chance that there is something that you might find useful.

You can start by visiting the content page which organizes some but not all of the topics. We may not know all the answers, but we know where to search.

When you share, you let your friends know more about tea and boost the search placement of good information. You can help combat the misinformation on the web.

So, if this has been useful to you, like it, tweet it, +1 it……. You get the idea.

Random Musings

Now that I have blogs with more specific themes, this blog is becoming an avenue for me to pen some random musings down- you know more like most blogs.

In recent months, I am quite quiet on all tea forums for various reasons that I won’t go into here except to say that considering the scarcity of time for a small business owner, it’s not the best idea for me.

I do scan the forums on occasion though, most times to search for inspiration to blog about on the corporate blog. I came across this post where an individual told a vendor outright that her stuff are extraordinarily expensive.

Now a bit of background, the vendor was not soliciting for opinions, she was advertising her blog which admittedly is a crude way of advertising her business. Which anyway she is far from the only one to use forums in that manner.

On un-policed forums, vendors would take every occasion to tout their wares- apocalypse coming? We got just the thing for you!

Coming back to that person, I don’t think its proper to go on a public forum and say that someone’s wares is expensive unless it’s a review site or something.

And I don’t think tea is ever really expensive- it is very often overpriced but inexpensive teas are often overpriced and pricey teas are often fairly priced. This is a case of the massive price difference on the market.

You can overpay for a $15 ‘Big Red Robe’ which has nil ‘yanyun’, probably not grown within the confines of Nine Bend Streams and tastes like JianOu shuixian more than anything else. At the same time, it can be a bargain to pay $50 for 50g of genuine Big Red Robe with traditional high firing done right and the distinctive ‘yan yun’ shining.

That person’s opinion in fact could be valid but his reasoning stemmed from ignorance more than anything else.

Now I am not saying this because I sell tea, personally it irks me that vendors sell overpriced low quality tea. This may not be pricey teas but low grade variants that sully the name of the tea.

For example I love Longjing but most of the Longjing on the market are not worthy of the name. They are flattened wok-roasted green teas, that’s where the similarities end. Flat tasting, highly astringent, none of the beany fragrance and virtually no lingering sweetness to speak of.

To pay even $10 (50g) for that quality of tea is expensive.

On the other hand, a good quality Longjing- forget about labels like ‘shifeng’ and ‘mingqian’, genuine ones are extremely pricey- can be a bargain at $20 + per 50g but you need to search.

Think I went on an unnecessary tangent but hey, that’s what blogs are for. ;p

 

Yet another Tea Blog

What? Yet another tea blog?

I have this tea blog, blog on our company site now I just started yet another tea blog. What’s with all these blogs?

Well, thematically it differs.

On our corporate blog it is generally more informative. Stuff on brewing tea, storage, history, background of tea leaves we carry etc.

This blog has eventually gone down a more whimsical path, stuff that I needed to talk about but didn’t seem appropriate to on the company blog. Corporate image- small privately owned business notwithstanding- needs to be upheld.

As for the new one, the name- Tea Odyssey pretty much tells you what it’s about. It chronicles some of the interesting teas I have come across in my life. A bit of background and how it is brewed and some thoughts on the tea.

It is not meant to be of a commercial nature- though some of those may eventually be sold on our site-but rather a document of our explorations. Hence you will not see any disclosure on retail sources of the tea, whether good or bad.

Rather, I meant for it to stir the reader’s interest in finding out more about those teas and how they came about.

So far I have written about Hong Jin Gui (a Fujian black), Dinggu Dafang (Anhui green) and Jiuqu Hongmei (Zhejiang black).

You can expect similar less well-known- at least outside of China- teas being covered though I won’t discount writing about famous teas.

Only commonality is that those won’t be sold on our online tea shop at point of writing.

So do take a look and leave your comments.

Musings on Starbucks acquisition of Teavana

The first thing I did when I woke this morning was to reach for my phone and within a few clicks- metaphorically speaking, who doesn’t use a touchscreen-I was at Twitter.

No kidding? Starbucks acquired Teavana for $620 million??

For the longest time everyone has been using the expression ‘The Starbucks of Tea’ and lo-and-behold it turns out to be Teavana?

Because I am in the tea industry- notwithstanding the minuteness of my impact- I had to delete a couple of my initial responses and snide comments.

Initial shock aside, this is actually a good thing for the industry- with a couple of caveats.

If anything, Starbucks has a proven business model. They can carve out a new market that didn’t exist. Specialty coffee in the States, cafes in China, so if nothing else they can bring tea, loose leaf tea, to the mainstream, to a wider audience. As a tea lover, there shouldn’t be much to complain about, is there?

I can envisage a lot of people would beg to differ on that.

But let’s just look at the positives.

All those who ‘know’ coffee say that Starbucks isn’t real coffee. And all that.

Well, to me it’s good enough. Of course this comes with the caveat that I’m not all that picky about my coffee, to me coffee is largely functional, get me my caffeine kick when it’s too early for tea or when I can’t get access to good tea.

It’s not coffee that’s to die for like some of those indie cafes sprouting up or frankly the good ol’ Nanyang style kopi in Bedok Central but Starbucks coffee is something I might conceivably drink.

Now this sounds like a backhanded compliment but consider this: I don’t order tea when I’m outside 95% of the time unless it’s a shortlist of outlets and the times that I try anyway, I wish I ordered coffee, leaving behind 90% of the tea unconsumed.

In a sense, that’s what Starbucks has done for us, it introduced ‘Specialty coffee’ to cultures accustomed to paying a fraction of the price and made coffee more than just coffee but a way of life.

Once upon a time, before it was cool to diss Starbucks, it was cool to be at Starbucks. For many people, Starbucks was their introduction to ‘real coffee’ and what it entails.

Now imagine Starbucks doing that for tea.

I will reserve my comments on the present quality of Teavana or Tazo teas except that I order coffee when I’m at Starbucks.

Starbucks has the ability to introduce tea to masses that only thought of tea as a “time of the day”, “milk and sugar”, “pass me the sugar syrup” and “I would like green tea, what do you mean which kind?”

Hopefully with its reach, clout and if it raises its tea standard to make it in line with its coffee standard, Starbucks can add a jolt to the tea industry, making it mainstream.

Just as we used to be satisfied with instant coffee, Starbucks shook us out of that and Expresso machines eventually became a staple of many a household.

Perhaps if Starbucks stuck to some traditional sensibilities- gongfu brewing perhaps- we might see every other household owning a tea tray and gaiwan.

Just so long as they raise their standard of tea, not necessarily to ‘premium tea’ levels but at least one that is respectable.

Disclosure:

Though I own a business from which you can buy tea online the notion that Star Nirvana would consider me a competitor is laughable at best

Musings on Tea & Health Benefits

One of my fundamental stand is that I sell tea not health benefits. Of course I believe there are health implications to drinking tea- both good and bad- and that I am bothered by the health implications of them doesn’t mean that I care any less about the taste and quality of the tea I consume.

Is it a hallmark of a true tea drinker to be hedonistic to the point of martyrdom- he died from over-consumption of tea, what a way to go!

Perhaps it’s age, perhaps it’s having a child to care for, I examine the health implications of everything I consume- including tea. Tea is an excellent choice for me because it doesn’t force me to choose between health and gastronomic delight. That doesn’t mean if today there was irrefutable evidence that rooibos (yes I am aware its not true tea i.e. camellia sinensis) would enable to live forever and be a fountain of youth and what not, I would say

“I’m in no way interested in immortality but only in the taste of tea”

Yet because I drink so much tea- on average 1-2 litres of tea- per day, I do care a lot about the implications. Often its a matter of observing certain consumption habits:

i) Don’t consume tea that has cooled- ‘chilling’ in TCM nomenclature and damaging to stomach

ii) Don’t consume tea half an hour before and after tea- hinders iron absorption

iii) No more than 15 g of tea per day

and so forth.

At the same time, being a recent convert to Traditional Chinese Medicine, I try to keep in mind balance and the TCM nature of teas. My choice of tea often is influenced by my constitution which is heaty in TCM nomenclature and I often try to include green/white/yellow tea in my daily consumption.

Suffice it to say, I believe that different teas have different health implications.

At the same time I don’t advocate that anyone should drink any particular type of tea for its health benefits alone. This implies that these teas are not worthy of appreciation on their own gastronomic merits which is ludicrous.

Some advocate green/white for antioxidants, oolong/puer for weight loss which seems to imply only black tea is worthy of consumption for taste reasons alone- an assertion that is about as far from the truth as you can get.

Unfortunately many low quality varieties of the aforementioned categories of tea flood the market which frankly are no worse than bad black teas except it is ‘socially acceptable’ to mask bad black teas with milk and sugar.

A decent quality green tea is sweet and refreshing, a white is subtler but also sweet, a puer is  smooth while a decent oolong is fragrant, delightfully pleasing in so many different ways depending on which style it is.

None of them are in any way less pleasing to the palate than black tea.