Chinese Tea Guide
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We’re excited to show you our new 2018 Huangshan Maofeng in this post. This year’s maofeng is once again a great leap forward relative to the maofengs we’ve offered the previous years.
A full review of our new 2018 spring Jin Jun Mei with our steeping and tasting notes.
Underpaid and long working hours. That's what you'll often hear in the news when it comes to the tea industry. What's the situation is China? Is trade fair?
Are you planning to visit Wuyishan to learn more about Wuyi tea or find local suppliers? Teasenz offers custom tea tasting, sourcing, sight seeing and/or educational travel programme, to that is tailored to your goals. On this page you'll find information about all the possibilities.
Wuyishan Tea Tasting & Training
The best way to enjoy and learn about the different teas that Wuyishan has to offer is by tasting unique teas made by local farmers. Each farmer may grow a different cultivar and process their teas in different ways.
During these tea tastings, the preparation steps of the teas will be explained. You'll taste many teas and compare the flavour and aroma.
At last, you'll also be shown around tea gardens as well as the factories where the teas are processed!
Wuyi Tea Sourcing
If your main goal is to find reliable suppliers, feel free ask the farmers about the prices of the teas you like. Keep in mind the weight unit used in China is 'yi jin' (一斤), which is equal to 500 grams (17.5 oz) of tea. Your local guide will help you communicate with the farmer.
A few tips:
- Focus first on tasting the tea.
- Communicate about how much quantity of tea you're looking for, when asking prices.
- Let the local guide know what kind of grade of teas and what price range you're looking for. The local guide can let the farmer know in advance, and select teas that suit you the most.
Wuyi Mountain Sight Seeing & Activities
Tea tasting and sourcing might be the main reasons for most people to visit Wuyishan. Yet, there are a few important attractions that you can't miss:
- Wuyishan scenic area
- Xiamei village: an ancient and picturesque village in the Wuyishan area along the ancient tea horse road.
- Da Hong Pao Impressions show/performance
- Bamboo rafting
- Eat local food such as da hong pao eggs!
Prepare yourself before the trip
To get the most out of your travel, make sure to learn more about Wuyishan before hand. We can recommend the following two articles:
Wuyi rock tea classification, benefits, caffeine
Also try out our Wuyishan tea sampler before you visit!
General services
Other services may include the following depending on your budget:
- Pickup at airport or train station
- Dedicated local driver
- Local English speaking guide
- Arranging accommodation
Example: 4 Day Wuyishan Tour
A 4-day programme may look like this:
Day 1:
- Airport pickup and drop luggage at hotel
- Tea garden sight seeing.
- Visit ancient Wuyishan preservation area to see the oldest Da Hong Pao mother trees.
- Visit tea village to visit local tea farmers. Taste tea & learn about about tea processing.
- Evening (optional): Impressions of Da Hong Pao show (optional, but highly recommended).
Day 2:
- Visit Royal Tea Garden to learn about tea accompanied with classic Chinese music.
- Zhu Xi academy to learn about Chinese Confucian culture.
- Visit different peaks in Wuyishan including: Heavenly Peak, Cloudy Nest, Tian You Peak etc.
- Visit tea houses and taste different teas.
Day 3:
- Visit Xiamei village. A historic village along the ancient tea horse road near Wuyishan.
- Bamboo rafting.
Day 4:
- 1-2 day tour to Zhenghe, the white tea mekka.
Contact us
Contact us at [email protected] if you're interested to know more. You'll be surprised how affordable our personalised packages are. Depending on the duration of your stay, your budget and the goal of your trip, we can design a tailor made programme for you.
Let us know the following so we can help you better:
- Which day will be arriving and leaving Wuyishan?
- Are you travelling by air or train?
- Have you already booked a hotel? If so, what's the name and address of the hotel?
- What are you main goals of the trip?
There are 1.6 billion muslims in the world and tea is the second most consumed beverage after water. Given just these two facts, and you can imagine that this is a frequently asked question: “Is tea halal?”
In this article, we're providing a quick answer to two questions that our support team often receives about green versus oolong tea.
Oolong tea is not a black tea. Learn about the difference in processing, appearance and taste.
How should you store pu erh tea? Aging your pu erh optimally while taking into account important pu erh tea storage factors such as humidity and temperature.
A delicious rice cake with a sweet lingering aroma of osmanthus: it’s the taste of Southern China. Here's the perfect recipe for osmanthus rice cake (gui hua nian gao, 桂花年糕).
When buying pu erh tea, some people care whether the tea is a blend of leaves or single origin tea. There's a lot of negative perception on the word 'blend' amongst tea lovers. The common believe is that low quality leaves are blended, while good tea is pure. However, blends aren't necessary bad. Big brands like Xiaguan and Dayi both offer pu erh that are mostly blended. Learn more about the advantages and disadvantages of pu erh blends versus pure pu erh.
In the early days of tea, tea production was as simple as simply picking and drying and/or roasting the leaves. But during the Ming Dynasty people noticed that tea leaves can actually be allowed to wither and oxidise. These allowed the leaves to develop more flavour and black tea was discovered.
We're excited to introduce you small baskets that includes 84 pieces of miniature pu erh cakes. They're packed per 7 pieces like traditional pu erh (tongs). Each piece is 7 grams, which is perfect for one pu erh tea session.
Along the ancient tea horse road, the story of Ashimei should be remembered.
Previously we've introduced a full guide on the traditional Gongfu tea ceremony discussing the meaning and brewing tools required. In this post, we introduce a detailed 21 step gongfu tea ceremony.
Should you drink green tea before or after meals? In the morning or during the evenings? And before or after exercise? Find it!
You might think that Chinese people all brew tea the ceremonial way. In such a setting, careful steps are performed to make the perfect cup of tea. That’s far from the truth. In fact, most people brew in a very casual manner, which is known in the West as ‘grandpa style tea’.
Recently we received an email from a tea lover wondering why Tie Guan Yin is an oolong tea. Why isn't it a green tea? What's the difference?
Mei Zhan is a tea cultivar from Wuyishan that produces a bold and rich oolong tea. Recently we've received a request from a tea lover to source this tea for him. And as curious as we're we made sure to get some more to try it out ourselves.
