Tea Guides

  1. Read more: Ancient Tree Tea: What Gu Shu Actually Means
    Solitary ancient tea tree with wide canopy atop a stone-walled platform in Yunnan, a Gu Shu heritage specimen

    Ancient Tree Tea: What Gu Shu Actually Means

    by Andriy Lytvyn

    Ask ten vendors what is ancient tree tea and you'll get ten different answers, most of them unverifiable. It might be the most abused phrase in the...
  2. Read more: High Mountain Tea: What Elevation Actually Does to Leaves
    Lone Taiwanese farmer in a conical hat harvesting tea on terraced high-mountain oolong slopes

    High Mountain Tea: What Elevation Actually Does to Leaves

    by Andriy Lytvyn

    So what is high mountain tea, really? It's not a marketing slogan, and it's not a vague vibe about misty peaks. It's a category with one real defin...
  3. Read more: Japanese Black Tea: A Guide to Wakoucha
    Rolling rows of Japanese tea bushes with snow-capped Mount Fuji in the background

    Japanese Black Tea: A Guide to Wakoucha

    by Andriy Lytvyn

    So what is japanese black tea? Most people think of Japan as a green-tea country, and mostly they are right. Around 98 to 99 percent of what the Ja...
  4. Read more: Hong Cha: What Chinese Black Tea Actually Is
    Aerial drone shot of a terraced Chinese black tea plantation in concentric curved rows like a fingerprint

    Hong Cha: What Chinese Black Tea Actually Is

    by Andriy Lytvyn

    Here is the first confusing thing about what is chinese black tea: the Chinese do not call it black. They call it red. Hong cha (红茶), literally "re...
  5. Read more: Chinese Green Tea Guide: Types, Flavors, and How to Brew Them
    Bright green Longjing tea buds in a woven bamboo basket nestled among lush tea bushes

    Chinese Green Tea Guide: Types, Flavors, and How to Brew Them

    by Andriy Lytvyn

    If your green tea reference point is sencha or matcha, you already know half the story. The other half is Chinese, older by several centuries, pan-...
  6. Read more: Hei Cha: A Guide to China's Dark Post-Fermented Teas
    Three stacked compressed dark hei cha tea bricks on wood showing coarse stems and dark leaves

    Hei Cha: A Guide to China's Dark Post-Fermented Teas

    by Andriy Lytvyn

    Most English-language writing on hei cha falls into one of two camps. Either it treats "hei cha" and "pu-erh" as interchangeable, or it insists pu-...
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