Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Spring Tea

Low elevation spring tea is already in. It looks like I will be arriving just as the higher elevation tea harvest begins. I will arrive in Taoyuan on the 15th and then I have about three weeks time to travel the island looking for tea. The weather has been relatively warm this season, so the tea is a bit earlier than expected. Currently, some cold weather has come in. Hopefully this will have a positive impact on the high mountain tea. With the excessively warm temps, it is hard to say how much great tea there will be. There is one good bit of news and that is that the rain has not yet begun. I remember now that rain is more likely in the spring and this is one factor that can really have a negative influence on the tea. Well, I am glad to hear that the rains have not yet begun. This promises to be an interesting trip and I look forward to sharing my adventures with all everyone that has interest.

Saturday, March 06, 2010

Newsletter Excerpt

Kanye West is back in the news and is singing about herbal chai. He likes it. We have it. 2009 was a great year for J-TEA and it is all due to your support. Our new packaging has been well received. More and more people are getting into oolong and puer. It seems like the interest in tea culture continues to grow.
Tea tip: Did you know that one way to judge for tea quality is to compare the weight of a tea by volume. For example, if you have two separate one pound packages of oolong tea, the smaller package will typically be of higher quality. Right now, our heavy tea is Tender Leaf aka Shan Lin Xi Early Winter.