Bon Teavant

Bon Teavant http://bonteavant.com/ Bon Teavant en info@bonteavant.com Copyright 2012 Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:28:05 -0800 Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:38:25 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=4.37 info@bonteavant.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss chinese new year greetings http://bonteavant.com/2012/01/chinese-new-year-greetings.html 252@http://bonteavant.com/

]]> Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:28:05 -0800 http://bonteavant.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/144 0 http://bonteavant.com/2012/01/chinese-new-year-greetings.html#comments letting tea settle http://bonteavant.com/2011/12/letting-tea-settle.html 251@http://bonteavant.com/

It is the natural inclination to act on your excitement when receiving tea in the mail by opening the package immediately and sitting down to steep it. If you happen to feel mildly surprised or disappointed that the tea is not "performing" as you had hoped, try letting it rest for a few weeks or more, then steeping it again. You will likely be rewarded.

Just as people can often feel a little out of sorts after moving homes or travelling long distances, tea can take some time to re-orient and settle after being jostled over miles of ground travel or pressurized at 30,000 feet during air transport.

I noticed this strongly with my recent shipment of Asian Beauty, which after five weeks of settling in my storage, now offers a rich, smooth, round body and soft mouth feel that were, shall we say, "struggling" when I first received it.

People whose passion is the study of tea will tell you that tea requires careful handling and rest when being moved from one storage space to another, even within the same town or village. Plants are extremely sensitive to change, and just as a person can suffer jet lag or mild disorientation when traveling or moving homes, tea can experience "shock" when being transported or changing venues, and is best left alone for a while to find its equilibrium.

I have experienced this with several teas, and noticed that some teas can take a few months of "regrouping" to reach their fullest potential, particularly when the tea has travelled from one country to another.

If you are willing to be patient and let your tea get over its jet lag, you will often be repaid with a bright, smooth tea that provides the resilience it has developed, as well as the rest and comfort as it has been given.

]]> artisanal tea Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:29:10 -0800 http://bonteavant.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/143 0 http://bonteavant.com/2011/12/letting-tea-settle.html#comments roy fong on wuyi teas http://bonteavant.com/2011/11/roy-fong-on-wuyi-teas.html 250@http://bonteavant.com/ Imperial Tea Court has been visiting Wuyi Shan (Mountain) in China for thirty years and has watched processing methods change over time. View the Bon Teavant video below to hear what Roy has to say. If you would like to hear the entire 12-minute video, buy a copy of Roy's book The Great Teas of China from Bon Teavant Market and receive a custom download code to hear the full-length video.
(Note: if you have trouble viewing this video, you can see it on Vimeo or try a different browser like Safari)

]]> artisanal tea Mon, 28 Nov 2011 16:19:00 -0800 http://bonteavant.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/142 0 http://bonteavant.com/2011/11/roy-fong-on-wuyi-teas.html#comments charcoal roasted teas http://bonteavant.com/2011/11/charcoal-roasted-teas.html 249@http://bonteavant.com/

A great tea master once told me that the best tea processing is the processing that cannot be tasted. In the case of charcoal-roasted teas, I would tend to agree. Some people might really like to taste the charcoal, but I like to taste a rounded, balanced, full-bodied tea with sweet notes that add to the tea, rather than a mouth full of charcoal. Just as when one grills meat over charcoal, the objective is to heighten the flavor of the meat, not to taste charcoal or, worse, lighter fluid.

Charcoal-roasted teas have a very distinctive character that is usually quickly recognizable. When the tea is both carefully roasted and brewed optimally, the roasting adds a rich carmelized sweet note that heightens the flavor of the tea and rounds out or balances other notes in the tea. When charcoal roasting (or brewing) is done carelessly, what is left is the flavor of the charcoal which overwhelms the taste of what otherwise might have been a marvelous tea.

Teas that lend themselves to charcoal roasting include Taiwanese Dong Dings, Wuyi varietals grown in China or Taiwan, and Ti Kuan Yin varietals grown in China or Taiwan. These teas are typically brewed in hotter water (190-200ºF), but I notice that if I brew them in slightly cooler water (175-185ºF), the sweeter notes become more dominant, the tea has a smoother mouthfeel, and the charcoal roasting is not as pronounced.

Bon Teavant carries a traditionally harvested and crafted Charcoal Roasted Dong Ding which sometimes has a little more charcoal flavor than I like, so I brew it just a hair cooler and longer, which diminishes the charcoal flavor and still creates a rich, smooth, roasty cup of tea with a terrifically smooth mouth feel. If you are a person who likes to taste the charcoal, that is there for you also. Either way, this special tea provides an extremely satisfying cup that is distinctive and memorable.
]]> artisanal tea Mon, 07 Nov 2011 09:56:27 -0800 http://bonteavant.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/141 0 http://bonteavant.com/2011/11/charcoal-roasted-teas.html#comments professional tea cupping http://bonteavant.com/2011/09/professional-tea-cupping.html 248@http://bonteavant.com/

There is a common protocol used by tea professionals to judge teas which is called "cupping". When visiting a tea farmer or wholesaler in Asia, for example, the person who is selling tea will put out several white porcelain cups and several plates of tea. They will then weigh four to five grams of tea, and put it into each of the cups. They then pour near boiling water at the same temperature into each of the cups, which contain the same amount of tea. A timer will be set for five minutes, and when the five minutes is up, the buyer then begins sampling the teas, using a white porcelain spoon to dip into the cups, smell the aroma, and also serve him/herself some tea into the sampling cup.

By using the same weight, water temperature and steeping duration, all of the teas are treated exactly alike. While teas are naturally grossly over-steeped with near boiling water, (which is counter intuitive to making a great cup of tea), this method of employing extremes brings out the characteristics of the teas to the highest degree, allowing the tea professional to quickly assess both the strengths and weaknesses of the tea.

Generally the buyer will be sampling one kind of tea and therefore judging many different options of the same tea. For example, (s)he will be tasting five or six different Lishan teas or Asian Beauty teas (if in Taiwan). From time to time, a seller will also include a sample that is a different kind of tea to the others.

If you want to learn the ins and outs of cupping, hop on over to Seattle this weekend to check out the tea cupping workshops offered by Suzette Hammond at the Northwest Tea Festival.
]]> artisanal tea Wed, 28 Sep 2011 16:14:12 -0800 http://bonteavant.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/140 0 http://bonteavant.com/2011/09/professional-tea-cupping.html#comments tea poem: a shared tea ritual http://bonteavant.com/2011/09/tea-poem-a-shared-tea-ritual.html 247@http://bonteavant.com/

There are three primary tea traditions that influence Western society at present: Chinese (including Taiwanese), Japanese, and British. From these, other tea traditions have emerged, including Moorish, Persian, Russian and Indian, and what I call "fusion tea", which is the creation of a tea experience that might borrow from traditional tea cultures, but ultimately offers its own unique expression of tea or tea rites, rituals and customs. When you create your own tea ritual, you may want to borrow aspects of traditional tea rituals practiced by Chinese, Japanese, British, or any other tea culture.

Here is A SHARED TEA RITUAL, which you can "practice" with a friend:

Tea Poem Ritual:

•    Invite a creative friend to tea. Tell him or her that you are going to create a tea poem together.
•    Provide a special piece of paper, maybe Japanese rice paper or a watercolor paper.
•    Put the paper and one colored pen on the table in your designated "tearoom". (This can be in your kitchen or dining room, or on the floor of a sunroom or even in an office.
•    Bring your favorite tea to the table and make whatever kind of tea you would like to have. Pour (or whisk, if Japanese matcha tea) a cup or bowl of tea for yourself and for your friend.
•    Enjoy a first sip of tea together. Invite your guest to write the title of the poem on the paper provided. This means your guest begins the poem.
•    Have your guest then hand the paper to you. You will take a sip of tea and then write the first line of the poem. Return the paper to your friend.
•    Continue to take turns writing a line of the poem, one after the other, until you have decided that your poem or your tea is finished. Give the poem to your guest as a gift, along with a small bag of the tea that you shared with him or her.
]]> artisanal tea Wed, 21 Sep 2011 12:39:03 -0800 http://bonteavant.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/139 0 http://bonteavant.com/2011/09/tea-poem-a-shared-tea-ritual.html#comments heating elements for tea http://bonteavant.com/2011/09/heating-elements-for-tea.html 246@http://bonteavant.com/

Many variables play a role in the making of a great cup of tea: water quality, water temperature, and amount as well as the type, quality and quantity of tea leaves, and of course, steeping time. What few consider, however, is the impact of the heating element on the tea.

Some tea people are mindful of this, and go out of their way to find or create just the right heating element. Possible sources for heat include charcoal fire, wood fire, electric coil (stove), gas range, and ceramic heat, among others including electric plug-in appliances.

In earlier times, and still now in some parts of the world, people had no choice but to heat water over a wood or charcoal fire. From experience, I can say this does enhance the pleasure of a tea event, but how does it influence the tea itself? Does it matter if you boil tea over a hot flame or stove or more slowly at a medium high temperature?

According to Lu Yu, author of The Classic of Tea (Ch'a Ching) in eighth century China, "The ancients placed a great store in tea's flavor when it was brewed with firewood that had been cured for a long time." If using charcoal, he said, be sure to use new charcoal so that it does not "give off a musty, rank and greasy smell". He also advised against using "oily wood or worn-out or discarded utensils as fuel."

It is hard to know what he would have thought of a gas or electric range or a Zojirushi, but my guess is that he would think electricity to be too excitable for the best in tea.

In American society, we tend to like the quick fix - the electric kettle or Zojirushi. Some among us still revert to wood fire, but usually when camping, and not on a regular basis. Others use ceramic hotplates, which heat the tea at an even rate, and have high marks among tea connoisseurs for its impact on the tea.

Japanese tea ceremony relies on the ritual making of a charcoal fire in a pit as well as the cleaning of same. There are even special procedures for placing and removing particular pieces of charcoal as part of the ceremony. For the making of the fire to be a part of such an important tea ceremony, the quality of the fire must have impact on the quality of the tea and the tea experience.

Some people think electricity disturbs the energy of the tea water and that a wood or charcoal fire lends a natural element which cannot be duplicated by nuclear generated power. Whether these enhance the tea itself is up for speculation. Any comments?
]]> artisanal tea Tue, 13 Sep 2011 09:31:53 -0800 http://bonteavant.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/138 2 http://bonteavant.com/2011/09/heating-elements-for-tea.html#comments dong ding tea pickers Thanks to the women of Dong Ding for plucking tea so beautifully so that we may imbibe! In this video, Bon Teavant features the tea pluckers in Nantou County, Taiwan, where Dong Ding tea is grown, harvested and processed. Please... http://bonteavant.com/2011/08/dong-ding-tea-pickers.html 244@http://bonteavant.com/ Dong Ding tea.

]]> artisanal tea Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:04:16 -0800 http://bonteavant.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/136 0 http://bonteavant.com/2011/08/dong-ding-tea-pickers.html#comments why not flavored teas? http://bonteavant.com/2011/08/why-not-flavored-teas.html 243@http://bonteavant.com/

Lu Yu, one of the original tea connoisseurs and author of The Classic of Tea, a treatise on tea in the eighth century, advised against mixing teas with other ingredients. "One must guard against...adulterating it with other plants or herbs," he wrote.

The tea plant, Camellia sinensis, provides a bounty of different teas, ranging in the thousands, and each unique in flavor because of the terroir, varietal, harvesting methods, and processing that influence it. Truly good teas need no flowers, fruits, sweeteners or other flavorings to enhance them, and in fact, may even have a negative impact on them.

Many tea merchants, including Bon Teavant, will offer at least a small selection of "adulterated" teas for the tea person who craves jasmine or chrysanthemum in their tea, but the connoisseur will generally seek out the essence of a tea in its pure form. Snobbery aside, the tea aficionado will moved toward single estate, single lot, even single trunk teas (which come from only one tea bush or tree), rather than blends, and rarely, if ever, teas mixed with fruits, flowers, herbs or spices.

There is something really special about knowing the flavor and other characteristics of one plant on its own. If you want to know rose, drink rose; if lavendar, drink lavender; but if you want to know tea, drink just tea!

I love a great chai and also love flower/herb tisanes. But to really undersand and appreciate tea at its finest, you will want to seek out unflavored, unblended teas that are processed at a level that produces an incomparable taste and experience that cannot be duplicated or "improved" with the inclusion of other plants and spices.
]]> artisanal tea Wed, 03 Aug 2011 12:29:22 -0800 http://bonteavant.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/135 0 http://bonteavant.com/2011/08/why-not-flavored-teas.html#comments morning tea I have found no better way to spend the early hours. JLS... http://bonteavant.com/2011/07/morning-tea-1.html 242@http://bonteavant.com/

I have found no better way to spend the early hours. JLS

]]> artisanal tea Wed, 27 Jul 2011 11:23:11 -0800 http://bonteavant.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/134 1 http://bonteavant.com/2011/07/morning-tea-1.html#comments