Brewing Tea at Home: Tea Trays

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There is more to brewing tea than mugs, thermoses, and tea bags. Please do not misunderstand me, I appreciate these conveniences, especially first thing in the morning on my way to work, or with my hands busy while I am working in the garden. But one of the most admirable things about the global diversity […]

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Tea Travels to Xishuangbanna, 2018

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(As unfortunate as the current situation is, it has given us the opportunity to revive some old projects that had fallen by the wayside, like finishing our travel log from our 2018 visit to Yunnan, China!) This was my first experience visiting a tea-growing land. John and I flew into the city of Jinghong(景洪) early […]

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“Tea is a Tree?”

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In every workshop I teach or tasting I host this question in one form or another always gets asked: “Are all the different kinds of tea made from one plant?!” My first answer is usually “Yes, isn’t that amazing that one plant is so versatile?” And then I follow up with a seemingly contradictory answer […]

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Winter’s Come and Gone, a Little Tea Leaf Told Me So.

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Wherever you are, you are probably noticing Spring churning the cold clock of Winter forward. Perhaps leaves are sprouting or even are fully out on trees and bushes. Fields of dandelions have just bedecked the land with yellow or are already bloomed and given way to violet and wild mustard. Can you feel this change […]

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How do you pronounce Pu’er?

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Exploring the basics and some of the mysteries around fermented teas. The esteemed John Wetzel, creator and founder of Stone Leaf Teahouse, pronounces Pu’er 普洱 as something that sounds to me like pour. Though with an open and elongated “ou” and a soft shortened “r“. John is the most expert in our shop so I […]

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Gui Fei Cha Tasting

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Many of our Stone Leaf Tea regulars are familiar with our Taiwanese oolong, Gui Fei Cha (GWAY-fay-cha). The tea is named for Yang Gui Fei, the famous “Precious Concubine”, or Imperial Consort of Tang dynasty times (but that’s a story for another time) What you may not know is we currently have two harvests in […]

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