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It's All About Tea — hei cha

Liu Bao with Tiffany. Interview with an expert on Hei Cha

Posted by Misha Gulko on

During our last visit to China, while in Shenzhen, we visited Tiffany Lau. Tiffany is Liu Bao tea collector, editor-in-chief of "Liubao Tea Microjournal", national tea evaluator and identification expert of Liu Bao Tea. She served as a judge for Liu Bao Tea Battle Competition sessions. Over the years, Tiffany promoted Liubao Tea Culture to tea enthusiasts both domestically and internationally through many articles, videos, and offline tea gatherings. We had many teas and a long conversation about all things tea. This blog post is a compilation of our friendly talk over numerous cups of Hei Cha, put in the form of an interview for the convenience of reading. We hope you'll find it insightful. (Read More)

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Discovering Delights: A Tea Tasting Experience at a Tea Market

Posted by Boyka Mihaylova on

Today, we continue our tea tasting experience, climbing up to the third floor of the tea market's dedicated building. This place is reserved for private tea places. Here, tea owners often invite friends and customers and organize thematic events.

We enter a place with a charming atmosphere imbued with old-times charm. A collection of antique tea items, including various Zisha and Nixing teapots, graces the glass window, and the heaps of medicine-flavored tea promise a memorable experience for a tea lover's palate. This is a company dedicated to the exclusive sales of Liubao - a fermented tea from China. The owner greets us and starts preparing one of the exclusive teas we will try in today's tea tasting experience (Read More)

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Asian tea: Chinese teas produced in Japan

Posted by Boyka Mihaylova on

Tea has been a staple in Asian culture for centuries, with various types and flavors that vary from region to region. The popularity of Chinese tea has long outgrown its borders as entrepreneurs introduced tea seeds and plants to other Asian countries. That led to the production of Chinese tea types in other countries.

In today's blog post, we'll explore some of the most popular varieties of Asian tea produced in some of China's neighboring countries. We'll explore the production specifics that vary by each country, and some teas with unique profiles, that stemmed from these bold experiments. We can even offer you some of them in our tea store, too, so make yourself a cuppa and let's dive in! (Read More)

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On Tibetan tea: interview with a tea master and brewing tips

Posted by Boyka Mihaylova on

Today, we invite He Jin - a local producer of Tibetan black tea, and our proud supplier - for a chat. She will teach us on the various types of this chinese fermented tea, and will share tips and tricks on storage and brewing methods in order to get the most out of this artisan tea.

He Jin lives in Ya'an city, where she's been engaged in Tibetan tea production for quite a few years now. She creates fine-quality Yaxi Tibetan tea in loose-leaf form and the region's signature Tibetan Jasmine tea. (Read more)

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Hei Cha: Tibetan black tea – a thousand year old treasure

Posted by Boyka Mihaylova on

Tibetan black tea is made from more mature tea leaves. The picking standard for it includes a bud and up to five leaves. Modern days processing includes typical steps for producing Hei Cha – fixing, rolling, wet piling (Wo Dui – 渥堆), drying, steaming, pressing, and finally, aging. While the processing changed with time, some believe it is namely Tibetan tea that precedes all other types of Hei Cha and served as a model for all subsequent Hei Cha production and processing in other areas of China. 

Tibetan tea processing includes 5 stages and a total of 32 processing steps. The aging period alone requires a minimum of 6 months. Some claim its production process is the most intricate and time-consuming among all tea types. (Read more)

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