Open Mike: Teavivre (Tea Update) (OT)

["Open Mike" is the often off-topic Editorial page of TOP. It appears with iron discipline on Wednesdays. So is today Wednesday?! It is!

That's the story and I'm stickin' to it. —Yr. Hmbl. Ed.]

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Bao Jia Cun Organic tea garden in Zhe Jiang Province of China
where some of Teavivre's teas are sourced.

...And the adventure continues. So far I've tried about 25 different kinds of green tea.

I don't like green tea very well yet, but it's healthier than coffee. The caffeine dose in the coffee I like messes with my heart (I've had a-fib). I had to prove that to myself: stayed off coffee for a week or three, then had my usual mug. Sure enough, I could feel the effect. Not good.

So that's it for coffee for me. (I don't like the idea of decaf.) I was a daily coffee drinker for most of 45 years—even roasted my own beans for a few years, which was delightful, a real pleasure.

But life is change, and ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

First step with green tea was to get away from teabags. Processing and handling dried tea leaves results in a certain amount of dust, flakes and bits, and those are used in teabags where what you can't see doesn't hurt you. Tea dust over-extracts easily, resulting in bitterness and astringency (that sourish taste with a "dry" mouthfeel—the goal with tea brewing is to extract for as long as you can before tasting any astringency. This requires some experimentation; good suppliers give you a starting point, but don't let it end there. Experiment for yourself). I did find a few teabag teas I like. One was in a sampler from Stash Teas that, alas, I've never been able to find again, and another was Tazo Organic Pan-Fired Green.

But loose leaf tea is the way I'm going to go.

Second step was to work out a brewing method. I got that lovely Willow & Everett electric kettle with temperature presets which is a fantastic luxury—it works perfectly and is surprisingly accurate. It was a good purchase; I love it. So nice to be able to heat water to just the temperature I want. (The 205°F setting is perfect for pour-over coffee, too.) And it turned out that the little glass teakettle I bought has a large oversized strainer that happens to fit perfectly in the top of my old Shaker Village mug I've had since I was nine years old. The glass top of the teapot covers it nicely. So the pot itself was prematurely retired and I brew tea right in the mug—it makes about 15 ounces, which is two of the traditional American "large" cups of tea. (Our cups of tea are about 8 ounces; Asians tend to drink cups of 3.5–4 ounces.)

Brewing tea. (Here's that timer. It's weighted so it doesn't slip around.)

I've tried a number of sources such as Harney and Sons, Tea Source which Ctein likes, Teavivre, Têtê Tea (from the Himalayas in Nepal, which I think is cool), Clearview Tea Co. which is owned and run by the wife and daughter of a Canadian TOP reader, and several others.

I've settled on Teavivre as my chosen source, for four main reasons:

1. They offer free samples of your choice with your first order. Very nice. You can buy samples too, with enough tea for two American cups or four Asian cups. Good for exploring.
2. You can choose for your tea to be delivered in a tin. If you buy the smallest (3.5 oz.) amount of tea, the tin only costs a few extra bucks and will hold 6–12 ounces of tea. They're high-quality tins with double-seal tops. You only need a few for the favorite teas you'll keep in stock, but it's nice to be able to get these cheaply.
3. They offer a wide variety of teas, good if you want to experiment to find the ones you like best. (Têtê Tea by contrast offers only three, white, green, and black.)
4. They're based in Fujian province in China, which is where the people who own my favorite local sushi restaurant come from. Through that connection I know several people from Fujian province, and I've gotten interested in it and have learned some things about it. So I like that connection. Of course that's just me.

Many of the teas come direct from China when you order them (all the samples and tea in tins come from China, for example), so it takes 8–10 days. Teavivre does have a new American warehouse now, in Arizona, so certain teas in zip bags bags come from there and take less time to arrive.

I've found a few I like, but I won't mention which one I've settled on as my daily drink. It's got a flavor I love and is low in caffeine. My choice isn't a big secret or anything, but everyone should choose according to their own taste and everyone's taste will be different. I'm certainly no tea expert. (I don't even have a very acute sense of taste.)

Finally, I should mention in passing that I like the language on Teavivre's website. It reads like expressive English written (or translated?) by a Chinese person, which seems honest to me. I hope they don't change that. It's perfect just the way it is.  :-)

Mike

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

TC: "The community college where I teach photography recently had a field trip for teachers, taking us out to a tea plantation in the mountains of Pinglin, Taiwan. There we not only listened to presentations on the tea-making process, we were able to pick and process some tea ourselves.

"It was very interesting, and gave me a renewed appreciation for tea even though I drink it every day."

Antonis R.: "Easy to see the underlying connection to TOP. Teavivre founder Angel Chen writes: 'My husband, Chris, also my partner, sometimes would laugh at me, Since all earnings are spent on more trips to further discover great tea. In return I would say: 'Why don't you talk about upgrading your camera?'"

David Evans: "That is a beautiful kettle, but I would be lost without a water level indicator. Also I'm amused at the claim that with a 1000-watt element 'your water boils in a fraction of the time compared to a normal kettle.' In the UK a normal kettle is 2000 to 3000 watts."

Mike replies: Yes, but I would assume that you in the UK know best when it comes to tea kettles!

Mani Sitaraman: "The Internet really is a fount of knowledge. Here's a detailed explanation that is a good follow-up read to David Evans' comment about electric kettles in Britain as compared to those in America, titled 'Why Kettles Boil Slowly in the US.'"

Mike replies: And here's an explanation of "fount of knowledge" vs. "font of knowledge."

Comments

[Jeff]

Maybe you haven’t given good quality decaf coffee a chance. I now enjoy it more than some of my former regular coffee favorites, without my caffeine intolerance issues. Some people just don’t like the thought of decaf, but blind tasting can surprise...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.gourmettraveller.com.au/amp/news/food-news/does-decaf-coffee-taste-as-good-as-regular-coffee-2733

[JB Hogan]

What Ginger Baker had to say about tea in the States.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTuXBoA688Y

"and a pot of water
though it may be hot
but boiling it isn't
so tea you have not"

[Tom Robbins]

Switched from coffee to green tea for the very same reasons several years ago. Amazing coincidence.

The effects of green tea are subtle, in my experience. Lower caffeine levels aside, something akin to magic takes hold while sipping that second cup of brew.

Sometimes I still miss the coffee morning punch in the face, but sooner or later we all have to get out of that ring.

[Brooks Wilson]

I drink lots of tea! 1-4 pots a day. I buy my tea from Porto Rico which is a coffee store/distributor in NYC. They have a great collection and the best price I've found anywhere. You can order an ounce up to a pound and it's free shipping anywhere if you spend over 75$. I usually put in a large order a year. I store the bag in the freezer and keep some in mason jars for daily use.
https://portorico.com/store/

[Scott]

If you are looking for a low/no caffeine warm drink you need to give Rooibos a try. I won't call it a tea because it is not a Camellia plant, it's actually a legume, and it is not fermented. It is however caffeine free, very healthy and has great flavor profile.

[Hans Muus]

Being a tea-drinker myself (loved coffee also, on mainland Europe good coffee was widely available long before Starbucks made life bearable in the U.S., but when I quit coffee temporarily to try and sleep better, almost instantly the headaches that had plagued me for years at least one day a week disappeared completely), I wonder why you settled for green tea and not for black Darjeeling - arguably the best tea there is, and available in first flush and second flush choices. Have I missed an earlier tea-post?

[Chris]

"(I don't like the idea of decaf.)"

I'm hoping you've actually tried a good quality, Swiss Water varietal decaf? I have a (UK) supplier that always has a range of 3 or 4 different varietal decafs, most single source, that are just wonderful (and only a small amount dearer than the full-caf equivalents). Every few weeks I go to Warwick Market to pick up my order; if I haven't pre-ordered I'm out of luck because it appears however much they put on the stall it sells out before the afternoon (the supplier says demand for good quality decaf is increasing by leaps and bounds)! The flavour is as close as you could imagine to the full-caf version, just misses that caffeine buzz. So far I've had Brazilian, Colombian, Guatemalan, Peruvian, Ethiopian and PNGian... the only trouble is, they can only get limited supplies of any but the first two...

[Mike Ferron]

I am no expert on tea but I do enjoy green tea when mixed with mint tea. One teabag of each in a cup and then let the Keurig pour hot water over it all. Not sophisticated but neither am I so for me it works.

[Charlie Ewers]

Mike,

Good decaf coffee (e.g. Dean's Beans Peruvian French Roast) tastes a lot better than green tea. Principles are important, but so is the actual taste of the stuff you drink every day.

--Charlie

[Tham Jing Wen]

Have you tried Japanese green tea? I usually get mine from Kyoto and their gyokuro and sencha are wonderful! Ippodo and Nakamura Tokichi both offer online sales.

[Earl Dunbar]

One of CTEIN’s articles eventually made me a Tea Source customer. And now you’ve introduced me to other purveyors. Oy vey! As a Canadian I’m sorely tempted to give Clearview a spin; your choice of Teavivre confuses the issue further. Thanks, Mike. Just Thanks.

Since taking up tea I found my tastes have changed and I drink far less coffee. Part of that is that coffee purchased at all but the best coffee shops is not good; some of it is dreadful. And brewing at home can be fraught with disappointment because the formula (amount, temperature, steeping time, etc.,) for different beans, vintages and roasts can be a real challenge.

PS I’ve been VERY happy with Teasource - the one time I called them to get advice was one of the most pleasant customer care experiences I’ve ever had. They are a first class operation - highly recommended.

[Mathew Hargreaves]

Well the bad news about green tea is it concentrates fluoride, which is bad for the thyroid. I occasionally do coffee but only about once or twice a month. A few months back I have taken to making my own hot chocolate beverage. I have three cup mug which I put in five packets of stevia, a large scoop of ground cocoa bean powder, and a small dose of ground cinnamon. At boiling water from a Silex vacuum coffee maker and life is good. The long term effects have been good on the body. Hot chocolate on a cold day or night is very nice.

[Peter Croft]

Not where I am, Mike. Your Wednesday column appears on Thursday this side of the Date Line. You're always a day late, mate. Better drink coffee.

[sebastel]

I happen to just be back from a trip to Fujian province, where I visited Wu Yi Shan.
That's where Da Hong Pao tea comes from, which is one of the most famous teas in china.

Here is a mobile phone produced panorama picture of the place where the only remaining "original" Da Hong Pao tea trees grow.

https://flic.kr/p/2bNZzfs
only as URL, because the format of the picture will not suite the layout of this page

you can see a guy arranging a ladder, left third, upper image area. he's approaching those tea trees, a little bit to the right on the picture.

sorry for the harsh contrast ... that part of the picture is almost blown out. but that's the risk of mobile phone photography, especially when doing panoramas.

my choice for the cold season: oolong tea with osmanthus flowers (Gui Hua Wo Long).

cheers,
sebastian

[Paulo Bizarro]

Good luck with you tea exploits Mike. As an aside, may I send you a link about the only tea plantation in Europe? It is located in Sao Miguel island, Azores.

https://gorreana.pt/en/

[Peter Baglole]

Have you tried Gorreana? We did a tour of the plantation this fall and the tea is very nice. It is also the only tea plantation in Europe. You can sign up for an account and they will ship to you.

Just something for variety.

[Richard Parkin]

To say the Azores are in Europe is stretching the definition a bit, though may be technically true AFAIK, but it does not have the only tea plantation in Europe because it is also grown in Cornwall, see http://www.tealaden.com/teaweb/articles/britain_grows_tea.htm

[Matt Ruhlen]

I enjoyed this post, and have a very similar kettle for the same purpose. I wanted to call your attention to one more tea source, the Grace Tea Company at gracetea dot com. It's not green, but I was given a tin of their Winey Keemun English Breakfast years ago and it's become my regular morning cup ever since. They also offer a selection of clay teapots from China, which you might find interesting (from any source) if you continue to cultivate the practice.

[Severian]

In the last ~20 years, I seldom have caffeine, at least by intention.

Repeating some earlier comments - good decaf coffee certainly exists - though it is seldom found by accident.

Reliably finding good, freshly roasted decaf was a challenge for me, so I took to roasting my own about 2 years ago. Roasting decaf (as well as grinding and brewing) is a different game from regular, but it has allowed me to arrive at a very good decaf coffee experience.

Using the Swiss or Mountain Water process (similar concept, but different enough to keep lawyers happy, I'm guessing) to decaffeinate is not near as violent to the coffee bean (or its taste) as traditional chemical methods.

That said, the best decaf bean in the world will always fall short of the best regular bean in the world - but the gap doesn't have to be gargantuan - as it typically is at Charbucks or the typical grocery store.

Roasting my own decaf has largely spoiled me for consuming anybody else's - unless it is a specialty place that is very serious about its pour overs.

Allegro Coffee Roasters sells a few types of decaf beans at Whole Foods here in Colorado. A couple of them are consistently better than what I can roast myself - but at about 3X the price of roasting for myself.

[Robert]

If you are not yet really sure about green tea, there are two very healthy alternatives I can strongly recommend:

1. Oolong tea. I think the best is Formosa (from Taiwan), though the Chinese Oolong is also very good. It is a semi-fermented tea, less bitter, or sharp than green tea, has a more complex, rounded flavour, often with very feint hints of peach in the background. I've been drinking it, brewed fairly weak for a subtle impact, for 30 years now, and I have never grown bored with it.

2. Roasted southern lupin coffee, from a German brand called Café Pino. It is not coffee, of course, but it comes as a coarse-ground product that can be used in an espresso machine or a cafetière. I am an odd fellow that prefers weak nutty coffee (I don't like the bitterness of many strong-brewed coffees) and this fits the bill better than any coffee I've tasted ( though I am still a fan and drinker of the finer arabica beans from India). This Café Pino is not like any other coffee substitutes I've tasted and seems a far superior product. I am a recent convert, so cannot claim a long acquaintance, but so far it is looking good.

[Ken]

I don't know about the tea grown in the Azores or in Cornwall, but there is some excellent black tea grown in the black sea region of Turkey, which is a European country even if the tea growing region of the country is actually in Asia Minor (and that area is geographically still closer to "Europe" than are the Azores). And I recall reading a few years ago that Turks have overtaken the British for drinking the most tea (per capita) in the world.

[Oskar Ojala]

Some excellent Oolong tea comes from Fujian province, worth a try if you want something else than green tea for a change.

[alex]

Portland based vendor the Tao of Tea is also worth checking out; they'll sell tiny amounts of their teas so one can experiment with the myriad varieties.

When you decide to pick up another teapot I recommend looking at Beehouse. The metal bits of their pots can be removed so the ceramic can go in the dishwasher, they're available in many pleasant colors, the stainless baskets get along with loose tea, and they're not very expensive.

[BH]

When I have my wits about me, I switch back to tea from coffee. For years I've purchased tea from Adagio (www.adagio.com). My favorites are Irish Breakfast, Earl Gray Bravo, Ceylon Sonata, Assam Melody and an Oolong called Fujian Rain. I could never really warm up to most green teas.

For a setup I use a $17 Bodum Bistro kettle, which boils water quickly, and I brew it in a Zojirushi "travel mug" that has a filter. After the necessary steep time I pour the tea out and the leaves stay behind.

[Thomas Paris]

I see they've already been mentioned, but if you haven't, you should give Japanese green teas a try. Distinctly different from Chinese green. Probably not worth wasting your time with bancha but sencha and gyokuro are, IMNSHO, worth a try. There's more to Japanese tea than these three kinds but that should give you a good taste for what Japan has to offer that you can't find in China. And no, Chinese sencha doesn't cut it. Not the ones I've tried, at least.
Oh and speaking of other experiences, have you tried oolong teas? Low in caffeine and very, VERY diverse.

[Chris Wells]

Sorry to be late with this comment. I have two stories. In the late 70s I had been working at a high-pressure job for a couple of years and started to have stomach aches that I thought might be from an ulcer. I went to a doctor, who very fortunately was one of the good ones. He told me that he could run several very unpleasant and expensive tests, but instead he started by asking what my usual diet was each day. I told him that I started off each morning with cereal and toast and a mug or two of Chemex drip, high-end, fresh ground coffee. After that I drank a cup our two of office coffee during the day and usually none at night.
He suggested an experiment: stop the coffee and drink hot tea of any kind. So I bought some Irish Breakfast Tea, brewed it, added milk and sugar, and drank that for breakfast. In just two or three days, my stomach ache was gone. I have been drinking black tea with milk and now Splenda Naturals (great stuff, even healthy) every morning since, except when traveling and good tea is hard to find.
Story two: My wife and I were in London several years ago and visited the Science Museum. We happened on a tea lecture by a person billed as the world's foremost tea expert, a Ph.D. in Chemistry. She made a few basic points that I recall, saying that the internet and the popular tea fact sources often repeat a handful of myths and untruths about tea that have become "conventional wisdom," even repeated by tea reputable vendors online.
The facts as she told them: All true teas -- white, green, and black -- are essentially the same, coming from the same plant, but picked and handled in different ways. Second, her studies show that white and green teas usually have the most caffeine per unit. They are often wrongly described as lower in caffeine than black tea. That would be true only if brewed lightly or drunk in smaller quantities, which they often are. Black tea is simply green tea bruised and allowed to age and ferment a bit for flavor. The aging tends to reduce the caffeine per unit, but people often drink black tea in larger quantities, like coffee. The fermentation might also trigger allergies in a few drinkers.
Coffee has a lot of oils and components that tend to be unhealthy and yield gastric problems (as with me), and is a kind of one-trick pony--its stimulant, caffeine, provides a strong jolt and then a crash. If requires repeated doses to reverse the crash, eventually causing jangly nerves. Tea, on the other hand, has a number of stimulants, including caffeine, and has chemicals that yield a kind of time-release of the stimulants. The net effect is a gentle lift and no discernible crash. Of course, if drunk in very high quantities, the tea's caffeine could produce jangly nerves, too.
I occasionally brew green and white teas for a little variety or for guests, but I don't much like them. I still start each day with two mugs of Irish breakfast tea, often mixed with other black teas for a change. I usually have one or two cups later in the day. For many years all my tea has come from Upton Tea in Boston, whom I highly recommend. Their knowledge, selection and prices are excellent, and they ship ship fast. You can choose how your tea is packed, both in quantity and container style, and it will come labelled with your name and brewing instructions for each container. As with coffee, brewing temperature is important, but most black teas just require boiling water and 3-4 minutes brewing time, so they are easy.

Bon apetea,

Chris