Tea Writings

A blog about tea from the desk of Cecilia Tan
Subscribe

Archive for September, 2012

TeaVivre: Five teas

September 11, 2012 By: ctan Category: Tea Reviews

I received five tea samples some months ago from TeaVivre with intention to review them all. Fortunately they sent enough quantity that I was able to taste and take notes when they first arrived, though I was too busy to write up the reviews, and then also brew fresh samples now that I do have the time.

TeaVivre is a relatively new company selling Chinese tea online into the US, Canada, and France. The principal founders appear to all be in China, with offices in Hong Kong and Fujian. I’ve written about Fujian before. It’s not one of the touristy areas of China, mostly agricultural, which means lots of tea plantations. It’s on the mainland at the same latitude as Taiwan, and has similar climate, so you find many similar teas grown in both areas. (For those using the archaic nomenclatures, Taiwan=Formosa, Fujian=Fukien.)

Today I’ll write about all fives teas I received. There were some winners and some losers.

*White Peony (Bai MuDan)
*Jasmine “Dragon Pearls”
*Taiwan Jin Xuan Milk Oolong
*Tie Guan Yin “Iron Goddess”
*Yun Nan Dian Hong (more…)

Heaven Scent

September 09, 2012 By: ctan Category: Tea Reviews

Delicious, delicious tea.

I sit here this evening, after the thunderstorms have passed, as the sudden coolness of the night reminds us that summer proper is over and that fall is knocking on New England’s door. A pot of warm (but not too hot) tea is perfect.

With cold weather coming, I’m doing my annual restock of my tea inventory. I just placed orders with Imperial Tea Court and the Aroma Tea Shop in San Francisco, with a few others to do in the coming weeks.

Aroma sent me some samples and I’m sipping one of those right now: Heavenly Fragrance Iron Goddess. Haymen, my favorite tea pusher, wrote on the package “Call to order. Not online.” (more…)