News & Blog

We’ve been meaning to buy some more of these magazines for a while. They are one of the very few publications in English that deal with Chinese tea in any real depth & we’re happy to be able to offer them. We’ve just restocked most of the old issues and we also have issues 11,12 […]

Unfortunately our last shipment of Yixing teapots took a bit of a bashing and there were three more pots with broken spouts. I’ve tidied up the spouts and one of these is available for free with each order over £100. Just add the pot to your order using this link: http://www.essenceoftea.co.uk/amputee-yixing-teapot.html There are two Shui […]

Well, it hasn’t been quick & I’ve been living in fear of having the unfired clay pots damaged, but we’ve finally managed to get Master Zhou’s Yixing teapots fired. He made each of these in less than a couple of hours during his talks in the UK – the first in Postcard teas in London, […]

We had a small shipment of teapots arrive from Yixing today. Inside were some small Shui Ping pots and some Xian Piao pots made by apprentices of Master Zhou. Upon unwrapping, my heart sank as I heard the tell-tale tinkling sound of broken clay. At final count, it turned out that three of the Xian […]

The culmination of several weeks of planning, tasting, bank transfers and email writing, I’m very excited to introduce a range of puerh teas of a very high standard. Over the past year we’ve been trying to find some good ancient tree puerh to offer for our website. We’ve been tasting many samples from many producers, […]

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been tasting some puerh samples from a producer in Yunnan. The samples were from teas he has pressed over the past 5 years and the quality has been outstanding in general. The quality of the teas and my satisfaction in drinking them has made me think about what […]

We had a great time with Master Zhou and Master Lim during their recent visit. They stayed in the UK for 2 weeks, first in London for a week, then retreating to the seaside for a week in Cornwall. Since Master Zhou’s visa for the UK wasn’t approved until a couple of days before he […]

As it’s getting close, I thought I’d post an update for the tea talks we’re hosting in Postcard Teas, London with Master Lim Ping Xiang. I haven’t been able to announce it before now, since his visa for the UK wasn’t confirmed, but Master Zhou Qi Kun from Yixing will also be visiting us at […]

We arrived back in the UK a couple of weeks ago & have been busy rearranging our lives. It’s nice to be able to settle a bit after several months of traveling to tea places. It also gives us a chance to taste some of the new puerh teas we pressed this Spring. In general […]

We’ve been in Yunnan for the past 6 weeks or so, finding and selecting the maocha for our 2012 Spring Puerh pressings. As is becoming the norm, it’s been a strange season for fresh puerh. There’s been another drought in Yunnan, meaning less leaves and higher prices. The pricing has been a bit crazy this […]

We have the pleasure to announce several talks on tea by Malaysian tea master Lim Ping Xiang in June. We’ve been trying to arrange for Master Lim to visit the UK for some time now and have recently finalised the dates of his visit and booked his flights. Master Lim is widely regarded in Malaysia […]

We have just arrived in Yunnan, having spent the past few days in Wuyishan visiting Master Huang and his family. This visit turned out to be quite special – before we have only gone in May, during the Spring harvest, but my brother’s wedding this May forced us to make the trip a bit earlier. […]