The Essence of Tea Blog

Most people don’t give a lot of thought to the processing of puerh tea. The trees matter, their age, health and environment where they’re growing.  This tends to be the main determinant in the selling price of tea.  If the area is famous or the trees especially old, the tea can sell for more money. […]

As we packed up the last of our teas a few days ago and brought them to be pressed, I took a few moments to look back on the progress we’ve made in the tea mountains over the past years.  This spring was our 9th consecutive spring in the tea mountains of Yunnan & in […]

We don’t seem to have stopped this year. Though exhausting, it’s been an exciting time for us. As we’ve been having more and more demand from wholesale customers in China, Malaysia and the West, we’ve realised the need to lay the groundwork for steady, long term relationships with various farmers. In Wuyishan we’ve got an […]

We’ve been a bit quiet of late, both here on the blog and on our Facebook and Instagram feeds. This year has been non-stop for us. Young Puerh We spent almost 3 months in Yunnan this Spring. I took my Chinese driving license test and was able to drive legally in the mountains for the […]

We’re back from the mountains, finishing up our trip in Yunnan and consolidating our teas in our Jinghong warehouse. Over the next few days we’ll be preparing and arranging shipping for the Spring shipment of our puerh tea club. I know there are a few people who’d mentioned that they’d like to be included in […]

Each year in the tea mountains we come across high end teas that are available in too small quantities to deal with on a commercial basis. They tend to be single tree teas or from special places that friends are willing to share a couple of kg of, but no more. We tend to buy […]

We’ve just arrived back in Yunnan from a week in Wuyishan. We had a great trip and spent most of our days in the studio and the mountains with Master Huang and his sons. I think this year more than any other we started to understand the importance of location for the trees in the […]