Taiwan Tea Odyssey

Tales of drinking tea in Taiwan

  • A hundred-year-old aged tea party

    Occasionally I attend tea tastings for aged teas, and have written about two of them here and here. After those articles, I didn’t think I had much more to say on the matter. But then I was invited to one with a particularly exciting theme: 100yr+ teas. Most of the aged teas I encounter are… Continue reading

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  • What to expect when visiting Taiwan

    I regularly hear from tea drinkers planning trips to Taiwan, and I’ve noticed some common misconceptions come up again and again. So I thought it’d be interesting to explore a few of these. A lot of it is exactly what I expected when I got here too, and coming to terms with the realities has… Continue reading

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  • Down a kettle rabbit hole

    For the past 9 months, I’ve been testing kettles in my regular tea drinking. The differences from one to another have been pretty significant, so along the way I decided to start documenting it. It’s been a fun project. It started about 18 months ago, when I got a clay kettle, after many years of… Continue reading

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  • How Taiwan has changed my tea drinking

    It’s been two and a half years since I moved to Taiwan, and I’ve been thinking about how it’s changed my relationship with tea. In California, I’d been a regular tea drinker for over a decade, but since moving here, my understanding of tea has deepened so much, and so quickly, that it’s hard to… Continue reading

  • An aged oolong tea party

    This past week I attended another private tea tasting with Liu Laoshi, or Teacher Liu, about whom I wrote a few months ago. Last time, we drank some truly wonderful old pu’er. This time, the focus was aged oolong. And the group was a bit larger— a total of eight people. Most of what we… Continue reading

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  • A private tea party

    Recently I was invited to a private tea tasting, with a pretty specific focus: very old teas. I wasn’t told much else, except that there’d be 8 of them, and it’d cost 3000 NTD ($93 USD). A few weeks earlier I’d stumbled upon a similar gathering hosted by the same man— Liu Laoshi, or teacher… Continue reading

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  • Water matters

    Recently I was having tea with a friend and she started talking about the different ways she pours water. We were having a pretty strong shengpu from Lao Man’e, a region within Bulang known for particularly bitter teas. As we waited for the clay kettle to boil, she explained how there’s two ways she might… Continue reading

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  • Tales of Fake Xiaguan

    There’s a lot of fake tea out there. By which I mean knock-off tea— technically still tea, but not what it claims to be. And usually not great. Recently I’ve ended up with several of these, and thought it would be fun to share some findings. If you’re buying from well-vetted sources, then this is… Continue reading

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  • A pu’er private collector, hiding in plain sight

    There’s an antique store in my neighborhood that I walk by all the time. I’ve never paid it much notice until recently, when some yixing teapots in the window caught my eye. I’ve also noticed that the owner likes to sit out front and drink tea, often late into the evening. So the other day… Continue reading

  • The alternate reality of Dayi pu’er investing

    There’s a small subset of pu’er drinkers in Taiwan who buy large amounts of pu’er for investment, not unlike investing in stocks or bonds. While they tend to be serious drinkers and value the quality of their teas, it’s a slightly different mindset, with different intentions. I’ve been curious about this for some time, and… Continue reading

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