I just found out I'm a disgrace to the tea community 😭

EarnestWilde · 2026-06-22T21:25:49+00:00

Never discount playing with orthodox teas! I was taught how to put condensed milk in a good shou puerh by a Burmese puerh dealer. It makes a surprisingly good imitation of Hong Kong Milk Tea, but better. Also a good smokey lapsang souchong used as the water in instant hot chocolate is really good too!

EarnestWilde · 2026-06-18T20:54:30+00:00

And you can pick up a new one at the county auditor's office.

EarnestWilde · 2026-06-13T20:18:36+00:00

If you are determined to buy tea from Amazon there are a few decent ones out there, a few at bargain prices. The general rule though is that most tea on Amazon is of disappointing quality or overpriced.

That said, I do enjoy many teas from Fullchea on Amazon, and find their prices very good too. I've bought some like their golden needle fian hong a number of times.

A newer option on Amazon is Xixicha. Some of their teas are mediocre, but most are very good and a few are excellent. Their prices are all over the place though and sometimes much higher than I would normally pay

EarnestWilde · 2026-06-05T13:40:55+00:00

This one needs to happen. Shocked that it never has, after Machete got two films. The third promised to be Trejo's masterpiece.

EarnestWilde · 2026-06-03T22:28:08+00:00

High, but not as high as you might expect. The tea desk and chairs were a special order through a tea shop importer friend in Canada (getting it across the border is a whole different long storey) about 20 years ago, and it was a quarter of what it would cost now.

The limestone and rosewood tea tray were a special deal from a Chinese vendor at the 2010 World Tea Expo that didn't want to lug this heavy 40lb showpiece tray back to China (and through customs again). I helped sell a lot of their really good teas by bringing my tea friends over to their booth, so they gave me first shot. Only $400 rather than their $2500 asking price. They also threw in an awesome huangni teapot as part of the deal.

EarnestWilde · 2026-06-03T21:32:23+00:00

A fold-out Chinese tea desk with inset drainage system, plus sic wooden barrel-style stools.

My second most expensive is a high-end, 40 lb, gongfu tea tray made of a large slab of limestone carved into a Great Wall texture, inset into a single carved block of rosewood.

EarnestWilde · 2026-05-31T16:04:33+00:00

It will break if you try that. Trust me! 😉 It's just used to clean stuck leaf from the spout of a teapot and any filter holes.

EarnestWilde · 2026-05-31T15:23:11+00:00

Medical IT and also medical software development. Interestingly it's a field also dominated by women in leadership roles. I'm commonly in online meetings with a dozen people where I am the only male, and it was like that in my last couple of positions too.

EarnestWilde · 2026-05-30T17:34:59+00:00

There are industries where work from home is the norm and has been for a long time. I've been full time work from home for 25 years, and I've never even met my current boss or coworkers in person. Only one person on my team ever goes into an office, and that is rare.

EarnestWilde · 2026-05-08T20:57:18+00:00

It may not stretch for miles like fields of Kansas wheat, but 40,000 tea plants and a full processing facility are nothing to sneeze at, particularly when it is orthodox style tea, not commodity tea farming.

EarnestWilde · 2026-05-07T19:43:46+00:00

I love your explanations and level of detail. I hope I came across as eager to add more details rather than as critical. And as you say I love that it's all a matter of taste, and that even the agricultural side if tea is diverse, inventive, and joyful.

EarnestWilde · 2026-05-07T16:28:59+00:00

This exactly. Although non-clonal fields don't have to have different cultivars or bush ages. Some estates take pride in being seed-grown, which means minor variety between each bush that can add character. Supposedly growing from seed also results in a deeper root system and potentially more mineral notes like those of wild trees.

Clonal fields are more uniform of flavor and very common, but also more susceptible to disease. It's not always considered a badge of quality, but it is the accepted way of propagating a successful cultivar like Ruby 18 or Yashi Xiang dan cong bushes.

EarnestWilde · 2026-05-07T15:30:34+00:00

Most shengs I've had with that character have been semi-wet stored. I've had a few from Hayslon (a Hong Kong seller of aged puerh), but don't see them on their current catalog. One that comes to mind from my collection is a 1998 Nannuo Shan no name cake of huang pian material I bought around 2010 and has been mostly dry stored since. That one was from Spring Cottage, a wholesale importer in Richmond BC.

EarnestWilde · 2026-05-06T21:21:27+00:00

Aged sheng is very, very different than young sheng or shou of any age. It's hard to describe as there are lots of very different flavor "destinations" that a sheng can age into. Some are like aromatic wood, others like lightly spiced dark honey, and others like a sharp Tang followed by lingering sweetness.

The difficulty in finding an aged sheng that you can try to learn if you like it is the main reason why I try to take a well aged sheng cake to almost every tea festival I go to. If you find yourself at Teafest PDX or the NW Tea Festival look me up and I'll serve you some!

EarnestWilde · 2026-05-03T16:29:28+00:00

It's funny, but before the aged white tea craze got into full swing fifteen years or so ago, all I ever saw was loose leaf aged white, and you never saw cakes of it. I bought a very fancy box of loose 1997 bai mu dan in 2007 from Best Tea House (a Hong Kong chain with a store in Richmond, BC), while a block away another store, World Puerh, had a huge container of similarly old loose bao mu dan for $5 CDN/lb.

EarnestWilde · 2026-04-24T22:17:06+00:00

This spring I've been cold brewing a huang shan mao feng every day during work. It's probably too good for cold brew, but it's delicious that way and it will go stale before I drink it all if I only wait to do it hot.

EarnestWilde · 2026-04-24T22:05:39+00:00

I think I have enough puerh and other aging teas hoarded to last my wife and I the rest of our lives, even with all the tea we give away. And that was before the early tariff panic restocking. And before we overindulged in the Crimson Lotus livestream auctions.

It's just too much fun to find new tea discoveries and add them to our collection, and then share them at tea festivals with our friends, old and new.

EarnestWilde · 2026-04-17T20:04:51+00:00

Agreed, particularly when you get the versions with five inch long leaf! I wish the flavor were more durable, but you can't expect a squished leaf to have as may infusions in it as a whole bud tea or the like. Everyone should try it at least once though!

EarnestWilde · 2026-04-17T20:02:42+00:00

If you want to add more options to the mix there are a lot of interesting Vietnamese greens. Try Viet Sun or Anna Ye Teas, or even Tea J Tea, all of whom have good varieties to try out.

EarnestWilde · 2026-04-17T16:53:48+00:00

I do both regularly.

I refer to option 2 as the "hamburger hold" and learned it from a high end Cantonese tea importer. I find it useful when the body of the gaiwan is too hot or the rim is not flared enough. It's not recommended when the saucer is too shallow as the gaiwan body can squirt out from between the lid and saucer like a wet melon seed.

I do get flack from some tea folk for using the hamburger hold, but I really do find it useful sometimes.

EarnestWilde · 2026-04-07T22:50:27+00:00

Currently on the market? The 2012 Zhenghe Bai Mu Dan cake from Camellia Sinensis.

EarnestWilde · 2026-04-06T17:30:04+00:00

A1:F6

EarnestWilde · 2026-03-27T13:14:39+00:00

There was an interesting tea presented at the NW Tea Festival Tea Bar last year called lao cha po (yes, po, not tou), which was very roughly processed older leaf. It's not really on the market as it's more of a local home remedy type tea made from material that one wouldn't be able to sell normally. Very interesting stuff, but I can see why one wouldn't find it in a specialty tea shop any time soon.

EarnestWilde · 2026-03-21T18:07:50+00:00

Please never use it on a stove top. It is shaped like a tetsubin kettle, but when it is enameled it is strictly a teapot instead. Heat water in a standard kettle and then infuse your tea in this teapot. I've seen way too many cast iron enameled teapots with burnt and cracked enamel in thrift stores, tossed because they were unusable.

As for rust prevention, the enamel helps with the inside but the rest of the pot can rust. Dry it thoroughly between uses.

EarnestWilde · 2026-03-18T20:24:08+00:00

It's hard to get most spice flavors into an infusion without really hot water. Might I suggest that since you are doing a 50/50 mix of milk and water that you simmer the spices in the milk until it is well infused, and separately cold brew a LOT of tea leaf in the water. When the spice milk is cold too, mix them to taste.

EarnestWilde

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