Tea Origin by Percentage (c.o. Wikipedia.org)

It would not be a proper lesson on tea without sitting down and discussing the origin of tea.  Where is it grown?  More importantly where can it grow?

Let’s start with tea’s origin.  Where did it originally come from?

Originally its natural form was believed to have originated in China.  The most celebrated of teas come from the area of China known as “The Golden Triangle.” This area is found between the mountains of Huang Shan, Mogan Shan, Qi Shan and Tianmu Shan.

In the country of Taiwan, it is well known for its oolong teas.

India has grown in popularity due its Assam teas (which are grown in the Brahmaputra valley) and Darjeeling teas (which is grown in the ex-British hills of the Himalayas).  Darjeeling teas are known as the “Champagne of teas.”

This also spreads into Nepal.  In their side of the Himalayas, they have their own tea that resembles Darjeeling.

Sri Lanka is the source of the famous and fragrant Ceylon tea.  The principle growing regions of this country are Nuwara Eliya, Dimbula and Uva.

Of course, we can never forget Japan renowned for its green sencha, courser bancha and matcha.

But that’s just the Asian countries.

Tea growing has also made its way to East Africa to the countries of Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, and Tanzania.   These countries have made a dent in the mark by way of making large quantities of black teas.  However, they have not been able to deliver the same quality of Chinese Yunnan or Indian Darjeeling.

But it does not stop there.  Tea growing has also spread to the Americas to the following countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, and the good old USA.

Tea has spread all over the world and it will continue to do so as it continues to also grow in popularity.

Pretty cool, no?

Check out my coverage of both Day 1 and Day 3 of the 2011 World Tea Expo.

Day two of the 2011 World Tea Expo was spectacular! A couple presentations, a number of formal tastings, a private tasting and dinner with the Nepali delegation, Thomas Shu’s traditional Taiwanese Hakka Tea Songs and more! All packed into one wonderful day!

As fast as the day went for me, a lot happened this day between 10AM and 5:30PM. So let’s get started!

Day 2

Saturday morning I arrived a bit early for the show. I tend to do this each year. You never know who you’ll end up meeting at the Starbucks at the convention center over breakfast! I had a very nice chat with one of the new girls over at Runa. Runa makes and wholesales the wonderful Guayusa (why-you-suh) product I reviewed a couple flavors for last fall. It’s an exciting tisane I really enjoy. After she had to get to the booth though, I took the chance to chat with a lady sitting behind me. Her name was Sharon Misdea and she’s a cultural anthropologist with a concentration on beverage history! How fascinating is that! My mind is still full of all kinds of questions to ask of her. I hope to do an interview to share with everyone here in a month or so!

After the breakfast chats were over, I headed out to the show floor. With the press badges you get in a bit early so I was able to squeeze through just a tad before the doors opened to everyone.

I was able to make a b-line for my friends over at QTrade Teas & Herbs who co-exhibit with my friends at Kopius Teas at the expo. These are some fantastic people who custom blend for all sorts of brands. If you have a chance to check out Infusions of Tea, it’s a brand run by Ron Eng and Emilie Yanagi of Kopius Teas and they have some very nice, high quality stuff!

Sungarden Teas

Elmwood Inn across the way was next. They’re more ‘local’ to me, being right across the river in Kentucky so I thought I’d say hello. I had a nice conversation, contemplated snagging a couple books including a beautiful copy of their illustrated version of Okakura Kakuzo’s “The Book of Tea,” and headed on down the isle.

Next, I made a stop over at Art of Tea. These guys are really some master blenders. Some of their teas are really inventive. Just after the show I’d requested a blend with Kiwi for kicks, and they blended a new Watermelon Kiwi Black Tea I am hoping to review here soon!

I didn’t spend a lot of time back in the China part of aisle 3. There was some stuff there which looked and smelled nice, but I had the urge to check out the Taiwan Tea Association booth where a lot of activity seemed to be centered. Here I found the venerable Thomas Shu singing some of his renowned Hakka Tea Songs. These were pretty engaging and fun to learn, though I really don’t remember them at the moment (BAD Tea-Guy!). They had a beautiful booth and I took the time to sit in on a presentation on traceability with Taiwanese teas and on a couple cuppings of Taiwanese teas which were both very engaging and fun!

Thomas Shu, Steven Huang and I

From the Taiwan tea booth, I made my way to a nearby booth from CTC Inc, distributors of the Bret brewing device and of Zealong, the New Zealand Oolong tea introduced at last year’s show. I snagged a Brewt unit I’ll be pitting against Adagio Teas’ ingenuiTEA and Teavana’s PerfecTEA Maker II in a couple weeks.

The Taiwan Tea crew and a buyer

The Taiwan Tea crew and I

I also made my way to the booth for Royal Tea of Kenya who had some unworldly spectacular orthodox black, green and white teas. What’s special about this is that Kenya isn’t really known for their quality, primarily their quantity. They’re the single largest producer of black teas in the world. Kenya produces more than China and India and Sri Lanka. It’s unbelievable. What’s great about this is that we’re now seeing some really good quality stuff coming from a region which needs the agricultural income and the exposure. I’m very happy to see this quality increase from Kenyan teas, and  to see much needed attention on a region which could use it.

Royal Tea of Kenya

A stop over to Octavia Tea yielded some new friends as well. Some of their blends were pretty interesting, and I look forward to reviewing some of them soon.

The Octavia Tea crew and I

On the side opposite CTC was the ItoEn booth. ItoEn makes more bottled ices teas than anybody. They literally invented the modern game of bottling teas for consumer consumption. It’s a really great story, I hope to transcribe at some point. I’ve become annual friends with Rona Tison, their VP of marketing for North America over the years. She’s pretty fantastic, so if you ever have the chance to say hi, you should do so!

They have some really great new bottled teas out now too. Their Crisp Apple Iced Tea and their Mango Iced Tea taste fantastic! I’m set to receive some samples of ItoEn’s loose leaf teas as well and hope to review some of them soon.

Rona Tison of ItoEn and I

An aisle over and further back was The Tao of Tea (Tao is pronounced like dow.) This company has a single premise. Never compromise quality while protecting our people and resources. I am in love with this group and look forward to reviewing some of their teas.

Tao of Tea has a pretty large amount of shelf-space at a local international food market in my area called Jungle Jims. If you’re ever in the Cincinnati area, you should really check the place out. They have acres and acres of floorspace inside devoted to foods from around the world!

A buddy from Tao of Tea and I

Tao of Tea

I dropped by a booth for Harshita Designs, a wonderful Indian fashion designer who often incorporates tea related aspects into her work. Mr. James Norwood Pratt had his mug emblazoned on a poster celebrating some form of anniversary wearing one of the purveyor’s ties, so I obviously had to have one as well! I snagged a nice red tie with blue circles encompassing a pretty two-leaves-and-a-bud motif. It’s a pretty nice tie actually.

I moved on to the Joyce Chen booth where they had some nice teapots and other paraphernalia.

Harshita Designs

Joyce Chen

My friends over at Eastrise Trading Corp. always have great stuff. They’re the North American distributor for the Chinese brand called Foojoy. I know and like a number of Foojoy blends and am always impressed with their loose tea quality. Above all else though, I really love chatting with these folks. They’re a lot of fun, and I always learn something new.

From Eastrise I moved on to some adventurism! I took a trip to the last aisle and stopped by a neat little booth for a company called Indie Tea. This little brand has some interesting blends. At the show I was a fan of their “Dirty Bird” and “Masquerade” blends. I hope to give them a fair shake with some reviews down the line. India Tea donates a whopping 5% of their sales to charity. We as consumers might not tack that as a lot… but really, it is. It’s 1 of every twenty dollars the company doesn’t get to use for its own growth. CHeck them out if you can.

The Yedi Houseware booth was colorful and fun looking. I dropped by for a gander, but didn’t get to try anything out.

Yedi Housewares

The Yamashiro Busan Company of Japan has a neat product out this year as well. They’ve developed a cold-brew green tea powder which is actually very good. To brew, you take one of their pouches and insert it into a bottled water (after either draining or drinking a bit.) Then you put the cap back on and shake vigorously for a few moments. All the sudden, you have a fine tasting ices green tea in a bottle! FOr those familiar with the crystal light-to-go- packets, this is similar. However, you’re inserting a packet into the bottle, and not dumping a powder in directly. The idea is so new from the company, they don’t have a US facing site in English yet.

I hope to give these a review down the line as well.

To finish my day I headed upstairs to a private tasting of the Nepalese teas for this year. Here I met some wonderful industry luminaries such as Bill Waddington of TeaSource and NPR Tea Time fame. I also met  Martin Kushner and Chandra Bhushan Subba. The presentation given was very nice. They walked us through the history and culture of the relatively young Nepalese tea industry, some production processes and a tasting of some of their latest productions.

To say they had splendid teas would be benign. To be honest, one of their teas was just okay. Several were pretty good and two were downright spectacular. In particular I was impressed by an extra curled black tea produced by Bushan’s factory. For such a young industry, they’ve matured quite a bit in a very short period of time and are offering teas with a remarkable amount of differentiation in palate texture and flavor profiles on top of visual appeal. This is a country to watch!

Chandra Bhushan and I

This is coverage of Day 1 of the 2011 World Tea Expo. Please also check out coverage of Day 2 and Day 3.

While the World Tea Expo remains an industry only event, there’s much going on here which is indicative of progress and growth beyond the tea industry itself. My trip out this year was for more than just keeping you and I up to date on the happenings within the tea industry.

From news and concern of radiation seepage in Japanese teas to judging the quality of this year’s first flush Darjeeling’s after a labor crises led to later than normal picks, there’s much to understand for this year’s crop. Floods AND droughts in China have impacted crops there as well.

Mix in a little business with my blogging pleasure. I’m working on a tea related startup I’ve been needing to drum up some support for. I’m very excited for its future and overwhelmingly positive feedback from the market I feel will continue to lead to great things to share with you in the future.

But enough about me, let’s move on to Day 1 of the 2011 World Tea Expo!

Day 1

A trip down Aisle 1 instantly yielded a chat with the girls from The Tea Spot. Last year they’d provided me with a sample unit of a little steeping tool called a Tuffy Steeper. This year they’ve a little gadget called Brewlux which is supposed to be used for brewing loose leaves in a cardboard/paper cup you may get from a coffee shop or some such. This little item is actually really neat. Biodegradable and compostable it reacts to bacteria or chemical breakdown assistants. Without those assistants though, this item can be used, reused, re-reused, placed in a dishwasher for cleaning (top rack only) and used again. If you drink loose on the go and often find yourself in need of a method to keep the loose leave separated from the water while drinking on the go from an average vessel… this little diddy is for you!

The Tea Spot

A trip slightly further down the aisle led me to an interesting booth from… Portugal? Gorreana has grown tea for mass consumption in Portugal for more than a century. Now they’re looking to expand into the US market. The tea provided appears primarily CTC style black in different grades of fineness. The flavor is there, but seems like it doesn’t quite match with what I’ve come to expect from more notable growers.

Further down Aisle 1 I paid a visit to my buddy Ankit Lochan from Lochan Tea Estates. Ankit is from Darjeeling India and produces some very wonderful teas. You won’t find Ankit’s teas on the shelves though, he sells to companies and wholesalers, not to retailers. Look for products from Teas Etc., Tea Source, Adagio and others to try teas produced by the Lochan plantations.

Ankit Lochan of Lochan Tea and I.

The back end of Aisle 1 was primarily filled with companies producing products used to manufacture tea bags )not the tea inside). I skipped this part because I didn’t see it as added value for the blog coverage. (If you’d like me to cover these companies and their equipment next year, let me know.

Aisle 2 held a collection of Sri Lankan and Indian tea growers. A number of American firms too. Some of my usual friends weren’t present this year which I found unfortunate, but new companies took their place nonetheless as the expo expanded its exhibitor list.

The heart of Aisle 2 held Adagio Teas. Adagio remains one of the best selling online tea brands in the United States. During the past year though, they’ve opened two brand new sparkling pretty new stores I hope to drop in on one of these days. Ilya, Cynthia and Charles have all become great contacts these past few tea filled years! I remain excited to see what Adagio has in store!

Ilya, Cynthia and Charles of Adagio Teas posing for a shot with me.

Day 1 coverage was fairly light. I have much more for Day 2 and Day 3. Come back tomorrow for more!

A pretty tea display.

A pretty tea display from QTrade Teas & Herbs.

I’m used to seeing these CTC style teas, their leaves all cut and curled into the smallest imagineable miniscule balls. The dry aroma sweet and malty with hints of spice.

Once brewed the leaves form a very dark red-maple liquor. With an equally malty and buttery aroma. On the tongue the brew is relatively astringent and puckery. There’s a drying of the tongue, but not of the rest of the mouth.

Hints of honey are light but notable. This tea begs for some sweetener though, and I find honey to be a perfect complement as opposed to artificial sweeteners or granulated sugar.

Fans of breakfast teas will love this brew.

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As it happens, there are roughly three million (with an M) tea farmers in Kenya. But they each have only a few acres of farmland on average, making quality control notoriously difficult.

Kenya is not alone. Most of the African tea producing nations seem to struggle with this. From Rwanda and Tanzania to Kenya and Somalia African nations just aren’t known for high quality teas.

It’s mostly from these countries we find most black teas in tea bags. Classic Lipton and Twinings mostly come from Kenya and Tanzania. And while these are some of the most widely consumed teas, they’re not what the industry would consider ‘premium quality’ and very few of them are offered loose.

I have been on a quest for a while now to find truly outstanding orthodox teas from Africa, and Kenya in particular. I have some friends who do humanitarian work over there and wanted to give them something they could enjoy and identify with.

That’s why I was so surprised this Kenyan tea from Stash Tea was orthodox. Even modern and inspirational young brands from Kenya such as Ajiri Tea don’t do orthodox teas. The quality is just too difficult to control. I’m not sure how they did it, but this tea is fantastic!

The leaves are short and slender twists of a grey-black color and have a mild dry aroma which reminds me of a block of hay or straw. Oddly relaxing in its own way.

Once steeped, the liquor brews a nice amber color and shares a warm slightly spiced, slightly fired aroma which is equal parts comforting and enticing.

This Kenya Black from Stash Tea is soft on the palate. Unlike similar teas from Africa, it doesn’t seem to dry out the mouth. The finish is ever so lightly astringent and provides just the right pucker.

If you like milk and/or sugar in your tea, this Kenya Black becomes ultra smooth. I admit I enjoyed a cup or two that way myself. But for the purists, this Kenyan is equally good.

I recommend this tea for fans of Darjeelings, Ceylon (Sri Lankan) and Nepalese and Bangladeshi teas. Orthodox Assams, while even more difficult to find, are also a good barometer for whether you’ll like this brew. And I think you will.

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