Talking Tea

Willi Singleton is a Pennsylvania potter who's well-known among students and teachers of the Japanese way of tea as a maker of beautiful, lustrous teawares that are joy to use. Today we're sitting down with Willi in his Kempton, Pennsylvania studio, at the base of Hawk Mountain, to explore his creative process and the techniques and philosophy that go into the creation of his unique teaware and other ceramic art. We chat with Willi about his introduction to clay art and especially Japanese clay art, his time in Japan studying and working with traditional Japanese potters, and his transition back to the US and the beginnings of his Kempton studio. Willi almost exclusively uses local and regional clay and glazes in his work, and we talk about the importance of connecting to the place, the locality, in which a work is made and how that plays out in Willi's process and its results. We discuss the techniques and challenges of working with place-connected materials, the "flavor" and what Willi calls the "veto power" of the clay, Willi's focus on elemental processes and mateirals, and the mystery and unpredictability inherent in the way Willi creates clay art. And we talk about Willi's connection to the tea community, how the community has influenced and continues to influence his teaware, about the communal aspects of art-making, and how each of Willi's pieces are a confluence of potter, place, landscape and community. Willi Singleton's website is at willisingleton.com   Follow Talking Tea on Instagram at talkingteapodcasts. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen.  more about Talking Tea    The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.  

Balhyocha is a tea unique to Korea - it's not produced anywhere else - and its rich and varied flavor profiles are also unique, not quite like any other teas we've tasted here at Talking Tea. But for many tea drinkers, even afficianados of balhyocha, it's also rather mysterious. What exactly is balhyocha? How is it processed? What gives it its unique, lovely complexity? To explore these questions we're chatting with Eric Glass, who, with Arthur Park, runs the annual TeaBuy Korea at Morning Crane Tea. Eric talks with us a bit about his own tea journey and how we came to discover Korean tea and in particular balhyocha, and then we delve into what balhyocha is and what it isn't. We discuss what defines balhyocha and what makes it difficult to categorize, we talk about the subcategory of balhyocha known as hwangcha or "yellow" tea (not to be confused with Chinese yellow tea), we discuss flavor profiles of balhyocha and we look at comparisons with oolongs and black tea or hongcha. We look at the origins of Korean tea cultivars and the impact of seed-grown versus clonal bushes, terroirs and processing techniques unique to balhyocha on the flavor profiles and body-feel of the teas. In addition to the TeaBuy Korea, Eric ran Morning Crane's tea tour to Korea in 2023, and we discuss some of the challenges Eric saw tea producers encountering and the uncertain future they're facing. Eric also shares his perspectives on why Korean teas in general and balhyocha in particular aren't widely known outside of Korea, and he makes some recommendations for what kind of cups to use to best enjoy balhyocha.   Morning Crane's website is at morningcranetea.org. In addition to his work with Morning Crane, Eric Glass has his own tea company, The Fragrant Cup. Though The Fragrant Cup's website is currently being redesigned, for info about Fragrant Cup's offerings you can contact Eric directly at Tea@fragrantcup.com. Follow Talking Tea on Instagram at talkingteapodcasts. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen.  more about Talking Tea    The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Episode image of the Dosim Dawan tea gardens, discussed in the episode, by Eric Glass. Adapted from original. Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.

Today on Talking Tea we're exploring a tea origin and tea culture we haven't yet visited on the show. Turkish tea isn't widely known outside of Turkey, even though Turkey is a significant tea producer and has one of the largest per capita tea consumption rates in the world. To introduce us to this unique tea and tea culture, we're joined by Aimée Lévesque, owner and founder of Le bruit de l'eau, an online and brick-and-mortar tea house located in Rimouski, Quebec. Aimée tells us about her own tea journey and the impetus for her starting a tea house in her home town of Rimouski, located on the St. Lawrence River about 500 km northeast of Montreal. And then we delve into Turkish tea. We discuss the history of tea production in Turkey, from early attempts at tea growing to the establishing of tea agriculture in the Rize region of northeastern Turkey, as well as the influence of Georgian tea and the use of assamica and sinensis cultivars in tea production. We chat about Turkish tea culture, which is ubiquitous in Turkey, the uses and benefits of the uniquely shaped Turkish tea glasses, and methods of brewing Turkish tea, especially in the traditional tea pot known as a çaydanlık. More information about Le bruit de l'eau, including the location of the teahouse, its online store and special event info, is at its website, lebruitdeleau.ca.  You can also find Le bruit de l'eau on Instagram at lebruitdeleau  and on Facebook at salondetherimouski.  The article on design and aestheics in Turkish tea glasses Aimée references in the episode is at design-and-semantics-of-form-and-movement-desform-2010-november-3. Nilgün Yalçın, the Turkish tea educator Aimée mentions, is on Instagram at @nnilgunyalcin.  The tea we're drinking in the episode is Hemşın Çayı from Çaykur.   Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Image of Turkish tea served in glasses, courtesy of Aimee Levesque. Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.

After nearly a year hiatus from releasing new episodes, and nearing what's hopefully the end of a worldwide pandemic, we're very happy to welcome back Robert Coons to talk with us about tea as a medium for meditation and health, from a Daoist viewpoint. Robert is a well-known teacher and writer on Daoist meditation, a tea vendor, an acupuncturist and practitioner of qigong and martial arts,  and was our guest two years ago in our episode “Tea & Daoism: Adjacent Connections”. He's about to launch an online course on tea meditation, so we took this opportunity to get an overview of Robert's perspectives on tea as a meditation practice. We begin looking at the origins of tea as herbal medicine in China and possible historical roots for tea meditation, and we also look at tea meditation as a novel practice built on older influences. Robert chats with us about how our setting and intention in preparing, serving and drinking tea can lead to the generation and movement of qi, or energy,  and we discuss the roles mindfulness, physical movement and tactile sensations, as well as our choices of tea, play in this process. We talk about why tea meditation is gaining a lot of attention at this moment, how tea fits in with goals of opening the mind and improving health and longevity, and why tea can serve as a gateway for deeper levels of meditation practice. Robert also gives us a peek at his new “Tea Mastery” course and how it will be part of a broader platform for tea meditation and self-care resources. For more info on Robert's upcoming course, go to the Tea Mastery page on Robert's Qigong Meditation website (https://courses.qigongmeditation.online/tea-mastery-course), and be sure to subscribe to the email list for updates and registration info. Robert's other online platform for qigong and traditional Chinese medicine resources, mentioned in the episode, is https://tcmsix.com/. Internal Elixir Cultivation: The Nature of Daoist Meditation is available on Amazon at this link.  Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Image of Robert Coons courtesy of Robert Coons.

Today we're continuing with our periodic series of shorter episodes focusing on one tea, one producer or one region that may be new to the tea stage or that we're excited about and want to explore further. We're joined by our frequent guest Kevin Gascoyne, co-owner of Montreal's Camellia Sinensis Tea House and one of the world's leading experts on Indian tea,  to explore Lakyrsiew, a young boutique tea garden in India's very wet Meghalaya state. Kevin chats with us about the history of tea growing in the Meghalaya region, from its origins in the mid-19th century to its revival in the early 21st century. Meghalaya is situated just south of Assam and has some of the highest rainfalls in the world. We discuss the effects of the climate, soil and altitude of Lakyrsiew on the Darjeeling plants being grown there and the cultivars finding success in this terroir. Kevin gives us some tips on comparing the Lakyrsiew autumnal flush with other teas, particularly Darjeelings, to see how the same cultivars can exhibit different qualities when grown in different terroirs. And we look at the recent development of the Lakyrsiew garden and its efforts to find what Kevin calls the "magic" to unlocking what's unique to the leaf. Kevin also gives us a brief update on the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Himalayan tea production regions and updates us on Camellia Sinensis' online and in-person programs and operations during the pandemic.   For more info on Camellia Sinensis, including its online store and blog, go to its website at camellia-sinensis.com. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Image of the Lakyrsiew garden courtesy of Camellia Sinensis. Adapted from original.  

When a friend who's a longtime Buddhist meditation teacher asked me recently if "emptiness" comes into our study and practice of chado, the Japanese way of tea, I didn't quite know how to answer. On Talking Tea we had chatted a bit about emptiness in a Daoist context, and its relation to tea, in our episode Tea & Daoism: Adjacent Connections, and we touched on some of the connections between tea and Buddhism in a few of our earlier episodes. But I hadn't thought about how, or if, emptiness comes into play in the specific practices of the Japanese way of tea. To explore this question further, we asked Drew Hanson, an instructor in the Urasenke school of chado and founder/owner of the Boukakuan Japanese Tea House in New Jersey, to join us again on Talking Tea. (Drew was our guest in two earlier Talking Tea episodes, Tea, Heart to Heart and Chabana: Flowers for Tea.)  Drews begins by talking with us about what emptiness might mean in the context of tea: about thinking and non-thinking in our tea practice, about being and breathing, physicality and non-verbal communication between the host and guests at a tea gathering. Drew discusses how, through all of this, there is "mindfulness but also emptiness". We look at spatial components of emptiness in chado, from the pathway leading us to the teahouse, to the space in the tea room, to the "spaces between" (you'll have to listen to find out what that means), and how these components allow us to let go of everything that defines us in the "outside world". Drew chats with us about the importance of dropping our agendas in tea practice, about what our objective (if any) should be, and how the emptiness pervading all of this ultimately leads to joy. For more info on Drew Hanson and the Boukakuan Japanese Tea House, including info on Japanese tea ceremony classes and demonstrations, go to the Boukakuan website at njgreentea.com. Some resources on emptiness or other works mentioned in the episode are: Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness, by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, translated and arranged by Lama Shenpen Hookham, 2016 edition, available as an audiobook on Audible or in paperback/Kindle editions on Amazon. The audiobook version was narrated and produced by Talking Tea's Ken Cohen. Baisao, The Old Tea Seller, translated by Norman Waddell.  The commentary mentioned on the Heart Sutra is The Heart Attack Sutra by Karl Brunnholzl.   Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

There's a certain novelty factor to bamboo pu'er - sheng or shou pu'er packed and (usually) aged in a bamboo tube. It's not the way we usually acquire our pu'er, and it can be both challenging and fun to crack open the bamboo log and see what's inside. But aside from the novelty, are bamboo pu'ers worth exploring for serious tea drinkers? To look inside the bamboo log a little more deeply, we're joined once again today on Talking Tea by John Wetzel, founder and owner of Stone Leaf Teahouse in Middlebury, Vermont. Specifically we're focusing on one bamboo pu'er, a 2016 sheng from Naka Shan.  John chats with us about the location in Yunnan Province this tea is from, and how the bamboo used in the processing of this tea is a link to the culture, natural environment and life of this region. We discuss the process used to make this particular bamboo pu'er and the flavor profile that results from it, as well as some of the challenges in making bamboo pu'er. We talk with John about how and why this tea evolves rather quickly after unpacking it from its bamboo home, and John gives us some suggestions on how best to store it after unpacking.  More information about Stone Leaf, including the location of the teahouse, its online store and special event info, is at its website, stoneleaftea.com. You can  also find Stone Leaf on Instagram at stoneleafteahouse  and on Facebook at Stone Leaf Teahouse. And for the backstory behind Stone Leaf, check out our episode "A 'Tea Cave' In Vermont". Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Image of Naka Shan bamboo pu'er courtesy of Stone Leaf Teahouse. Adapted from original. Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.

For quite some time we've been wanting to explore Korean tea culture on Talking Tea, so we're very happy to be joined in this episode by Brother Anthony of Taizé, a prolific writer, translator and teacher and co-author of two notable books on Korean tea, The Korean Way of Tea and Korean Tea Classics.    Brother Anthony chats with us about the roots of his own passion for tea and his connections with the modern revival of Korean tea culture, and how that revival was spurred on in large part by the initiatives of the Venerable Hyodang, a Buddhist monk and tea maker at the Dasol-Sa Temple near Jiri Mountain (pictured), and his wife Chae Won-Hwa, who carried on the initiatives after Hyodang's death. We look at the history of tea in Korea and the connections between Buddhism and Korean tea culture, we discuss some of the unique aspects of how high-quality Korean green tea is processed according to the methods of the Venerable Hyodang and Chae Won-Hwa, and we look at why the quality of the tea and the tea-making process is central to Korean tea practice.  Brother Anthony gives an overview of some of the history of Korean tea literature, and also talks with us about the history and method of making balhyocha, a relatively recent innovation in Korean tea. And, perhaps most importantly, we discuss with Brother Anthony what he views as the essence of the way of tea, a practice of mindfulness, stillness and communion with nature, whose motto is: "No fuss." The Korean Way of Tea: An Introductory Guide and Korean Tea Classics  are both available on Amazon at this link.  For more info about Brother Anthony and his many translations and works on Korean tea and (non-tea) literature, visit his website, anthony.sogang.ac.kr. Morning Crane Tea, a vendor mentioned by Brother Anthony in the episode, is at teaatmorningcranetea.blogspot.com.   Follow Talking Tea on Instagram at talkingteapodcasts. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.   more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Episode image "Jirisan 008"  of Jirisan mountain, a historic Korean tea growing region, by travel oriented, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original. Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.

Today we're exploring connections between tea and Daoism, the millenia-old Chinese religious and philosophical tradition that has had such a profound influence on culture and history in and beyond China. We're joined by Robert Coons, who straddles both the tea world and the world of Daoism. Robert is a well-known tea vendor based in Canada and China and is also a writer, teacher and podcaster on Daoism, qigong and Daoist meditation.  Robert tells us a little about his own journey from martial arts and other Daoist-related activities into tea culture, and then we delve into the relationship between Daoism and tea. We begin by looking at some of the definitions, history and relationships of some key practices in tea - chado or sado, chadao and gongfucha - and Robert gives us an overview of Daoism, its core elements, its history and its cultural forms. We explore references to tea in Daoist texts as well as concepts of energy, or qi, in Daoist medicine and traditional Chinese medicine, and Robert explains how both tea and meditation are seen as elixirs in Daoist tradition. We chat about the Daoist role of harmonious energy in chado, chadao and gongfucha, and we look at Daoist concepts of "action", "non-action", "action without action", "knowing sufficiency" and emptiness, and how they can come into play in our tea practice.  Robert is the author of Internal Elixir Cultivation: The Nature of Daoist Medititation, published by Tambuli Media and available on Amazon at this link.  Info on Robert's teas, as well as some of his classes and teachings, is at his websites, chayotea.com and daoistmeditiation.com. Also be sure to check out Robert's new podcast Sinotexts, available on YouTube, and his older podcast, This Daoist Life, on Soundcloud. Note about Robert's classes: In the episode Robert mentions classes he holds in the Toronto area. During the COVID-19 pandemic, please check with Robert on the status of these classes. If you need to know how to contact Robert about his classes during the pandemic, reach out to us and we'll do our best to put you in touch.   Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Episode image "Teacup" by Cosmin Dordea, used under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license. Adapted from original. Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.

In this episode we're at the 2020 Toronto Tea Festival and its kick-off event, Kevin Gascoyne's Rare Tea Tasting. Kevin is an internationally recognized leader and innovator in the tea industry,  a co-owner of the Montreal-based Camellia Sinensis Teahouse and a frequent guest on Talking Tea, and this is just the second time Kevin has presented a tasting in this format. Kevin's Rare Tea Tasting was the most unique tea tasting experience we've ever had, and we think it's safe to say, probably unlike anything experienced before by most everyone attending the event. We were able to chat with Kevin after the event about the inspirations for and origins of the evening, its connections with sports and wine training, and what Kevin hopes to accomplish through these carefully planned tastings. In a nutshell, through the course of the evening we tasted six teas in a darkened room, with no information given to us about any of the teas until after the event was over. But this nutshell summary doesn't begin to describe what really happened that night, in that space. Because of the unique nature of the event, we're avoiding any spoilers. But to get a sense of what went on we're including in this episode short chats we had with five attendees just after the event concluded. Their reactions and comments give some great insights into the event and tell a story of our connections with tea, and with each other. We don't yet know where or when Kevin Gascoyne's Rare Tea Tasting will pop up next,  but you can check out Camellia Sinensis' website and social media feed to get updates. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.

When a listener requested an episode about teapots. we realized that this was a topic we haven't really delved into on Talking Tea. And having attended one of tea blogger, writer and teacher Scott Norton's incredibly comprehensive seminars on yixing teaware, we invited Scott to join us for an in-depth overview of teapots, their design elements, their history and how to best match your teapots with your teas. You may remember Scott from our episode Glimpsing Tea's Past, Finding Tea's Presence, at New York's Floating Mountain.  Today we begin by chatting a bit about Scott's "teapot journey" and his background collecting, curating and teaching about teapots. And then we begin to explore various styles of Japanese and Chinese teapots. We start by comparing two very different teapots from 19th century Japan, a larger blue and white porcelain teapot and a small lotus-leaf design kyusu, and we discuss the advantages offered by small teapots in control over the brewing process and obtaining more pronounced flavors from our teas.  As we move to Chinese teapots, we compare porcelain, glazed ceramic and unglazed clay teapots and the relative advantages and disadvantages of each. Scott chats with us about how to tell if an unglazed clay teapot is highly fired or low fired, and how the levels of firing and coarseness of the clay can create distinct differences in flavor and the results of our brewing. We also touch on the history of teapots and the influence of the Silk Road trade on teapot design and evolution in China. Scott has some rather large teapots in his collection, and we discuss when we might want to use a larger teapot and how to best use a large-size pot. Finally we chat with Scott about the questions we need to consider in matching our teapots to our teas, and Scott gives us tips on buying teapots and how shopping for a teapot can and should be an extension of our tea practice. Scott Norton's blog is at  scotttea.wordpress.com. You can find Scott on Instagram @cutechajin, and videos of a number of Scott's workshops and seminars are available on his YouTube channel. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   All images on this episode page, other than the header image, are courtesy of Scott Norton. This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.

Today we're exploring a bit of tea science on Talking Tea. We're joined by Eric Scott, a a tea scientist and researcher at Tufts University, to chat about some of the many ways a basic understanding of the science of tea can benefit us as tea consumers and tea professionals. Eric tells us a bit about his own tea journey and the work he's doing in tea chemistry, the chemical ecology of tea and the effects of climate change on tea. We chat with Eric about how even a little knowledge of tea chemistry adds to the story behind the tea we're drinking, can enhance our enjoyment of tea and our perception of flavors, and, if we're working in the tea industry, can help us educate consumers. We look at tea's relationship with caffeine, the importance of caffeine to the tea plant and how understanding this can bust some myths about caffeine and tea. We touch on two topics relating to shou pu erh and heicha: we look at why you might want to rinse your leaves if you're drinking shou pu erh or heicha, and we look at "fermentation". Most of us in the tea world have probably heard that oolongs and black/red teas are oxidized, not fermented, but we go a little deeper into what "fermentation" actually is and why it's not what actually happens in the processing of dark teas and shou puerh, even though those are often called "fermented" or "post-fermented".  Eric also gives us a peek into his research on the impact of climate change on tea. We chat about the effects of climate change on the monsoon season in Yunnan, and it's potentially game-changing effects on pu erh the pu erh market. We touch on the effects of drought on tea farms in India and Taiwan. And we look at Eric's work on climate change and bug-bitten teas, and how bug-bitten teas may help tea farmers succeed and innovate in the face of climate-change. Eric's Tea Science Tuesdays video series is available on the Tea Geek YouTube channel (and sometimes on Instagram). Eric is on Instagram @leafyeric and on Twitter @leafyericscott. More on Eric and his work is at his website, ericrscott.com. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   Image “Chemistry is Awesome!!!”, by erika.hicks, used under a Creative Commons CC By 2.0 license.  Adapted from original. This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.  

We're delving into some sticky topics today on Talking Tea as we look at the roles mass marketing, gender, racism and modern British history have played in shaping tea markets and tea culture in the West. Joining us is historian Erika Rappaport, author of the recently published book A Thirst For Empire: How Tea Shaped the Modern World. Erika's work as a historian focuses in the areas of gender, consumer culture and British history, and "A Thirst for Empire" delves into all of these areas in looking at the forces that shaped tea culture and tea markets in the West. Erika talks with us about how tea can shine a spotlight on the role of mass marketing in shaping modern tastes and trade. We discuss the origins of her book, exploring the long association of tea with women and feminine culture in the UK and the US. We chat about the influence of the "temperance" movements of the 19th century, promoting tea and tea culture as a healthier and spiritually beneficial alternative to alcohol, and the role of industry lobbies in promoting sweet tea in the West and especially iced tea in the US. We look at the reasons for the shift in Western consumer preference from green tea to black tea in the 19th and 20th centuries.  And we look at the disturbing use of racism and nationalism in advertising by British tea planters to promote "Empire" tea over Chinese tea, and how this eventually led to the widespread preference in the West for industrialized, mass-produced commodity tea. A Thirst for Empire is published by Princeton University Press, and is widely available at retailers.    Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Image of British soldier drinking tea in 1944 India, © IWM (IB 1882), courtesy of the Imperial War Museum. More information on the photo is available at https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205193624 Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.  

Today Talking Tea is in Middlebury, Vermont, at Stone Leaf Teahouse, a unique tea space in this bucolic town. Joining us is John Wetzel, founder and owner of Stone Leaf. The town of Middlebury may be best known for being the home of Middlebury College, but since its founding 10 years ago Stone Leaf has also become well-known in and beyond Middlebury for the quality of its teas and for the warmth and tranquility of its teahouse. We chat with John about Stone Leaf's origins, how he developed his vision for the space and for the company, and how he drew on both US coffee culture and tea culture in Asia and Europe as influences for his design. The teahouse sits partially underground (it's built into a slope), and though John half-jokingly calls it a sort of "tea cave", he also explains how he used this feature as part of his design, to create a space well-suited for the storage, preparation and enjoyment of tea, a space that allows for both focus and connection. Stone Leaf carries a wide variety of teas, and we chat about one of their newest teas, a hongcha (red tea, known as black tea in the West) from Alishan in Taiwan. Alishan is usually known for its oolongs, and this tea is in fact made from the oolong Jin Xuan cultivar. We talk about the use of this cultivar in making a hongcha, the influence of cultivar and terroir on the tea's flavor, aroma and appearance, and about emerging trends in making new styles of teas from cultivars and regions traditionally associated with different varieties. More information about Stone Leaf, including the location of the teahouse, its online store and special event info, is at its website, stoneleaftea.com. You can  also find Stone Leaf on Instagram at stoneleafteahouse  and on Facebook at Stone Leaf Teahouse.    Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Image of interior of Stone Leaf Teahouse, courtesy of Stone Leaf Teahouse. Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.        

Most everyone is familiar with pairing wine and cheese, but pairing tea and cheese is much less well known and less understood. (By the way, that's tea in the glass in the photo above, not wine.) Some tea drinkers may even find the idea of tea and cheese pairing a bit counterintuitive, if not a bit, well, odd. But at Talking Tea we've experienced some delicious pairings of tea with cheese, so we wanted to explore the issue more in depth. Joining us today to talk about pairing tea with cheese, and to do some pairings with us, is Lisa Boalt Richardson. Lisa is a tea writer and educator who has written and taught on the subject of pairing tea with cheese and other foods, making tea and food pairings accessible and easy to understand. We begin our chat by looking at the basic premises behind tea and food pairings from a common-sense perspective, and then we start to look specifically at pairing cheese with tea. Lisa explains why cheese and tea can pair very well together, and we chat about the importance of identifying levels of fat in cheese and astringency in tea, as well as other elements in the flavor and mouthfeel of each, in order to create excellent pairings. We discuss different goals in creating pairings, as well as different methods of tasting the tea and the cheese we're pairing. And then we do two pairings together: a triple-cream cheese paired with a first flush darjeeling, and then the same cheese with an assam, as we talk about the reasons Lisa suggested these pairings, the results of the pairings and why some pairings are likely to work better than others. More information about Lisa Boalt Richardson, including info on her book Modern Tea: A Fresh Look at an Ancient Beverage (referenced in the episode), is at her website, lisaknowstea.com. You can  also find Lisa on Facebook at lisaknowstea. Lisa is also an instructor at the World Tea Academy; info on their courses and programs is at worldteaacademy.com. The cheese used by Talking Tea was St. Stephen's triple-cream, made by Four Fat Fowl and purchased at DiBruno Brothers in Philadelphia. The teas Talking Tea used in our pairings were purchased at Camellia Sinensis Tea House and at Tea Dealers.   Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.  

We've been wanting to explore chaxi on Talking Tea ever since we visited the Tea Institute at Penn State University back in 2016. Tea was prepared and served to us by students in the Chinese tea track at the Institute with a degree of artistry and calm precision we had never quite witnessed anywhere else, and when we asked some of the students where they learned to prepare tea in this way, they suggested we speak with one of their teachers and mentors, Stéphane Erler, to learn more about chaxi, an artistic expression of tea originating in Taiwan. It took us a couple of years, but we finally caught up with Stéphane recently on one of his visits to the US, and we're proud to welcome him to Talking Tea. Stéphane is a tea educator, seller and blogger based in Taiwan - he hosts the very well-respected Tea Masters Blog - and, among other things, Stéphane practices, teaches and writes about chaxi. We talk with Stéphane about his own beginnings in tea, his study and work with tea master Teaparker, and about the history of chaxi in Taiwan, and then we delve into the practice and principles of chaxi. Chaxi means "tea play", and Stéphane chats with us about how chaxi is a kind of performance but also a way of creating a tea mandala, a picture of a harmonious world through tea. We discuss the priorities of function and art within chaxi, and we explore the question of how the host can best express the character of the leaves as well as the host's own sentiments and feelings through the chaxi.  In this context we talk about the choice of teaware, the importance of colors and visual harmony, the use of flowers or plants, the addition of music or other background art, and most importantly the skills and mindset needed to prepare the best possible tea in a beautiful setting, finding resonance and harmonious connections between the tea, the teaware, the setting and the participants. Further resources for learning about chaxi are on Stéphane's blog, teamasters.blogspot.com. Stéphane's selection of excellent teas (we've tried several of them, and they were all fantastic), teawares and other items for use in chaxi are available at his online boutique, tea-masters.com.  You can  also find Stéphane on Twitter at @TeaMastersBlog and on Instagram at @stephane_erler.   Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events. Talking Tea's 2016 coverage of the Penn State Tea Institute is in our episodes Tea Goes to College and Tea, Heart to Heart.    The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Photo of a chaxi by Stéphane Erler, courtesy of Stéphane Erler. Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.  

Today we're chatting with Zhen Lu and Phil Rushworth of Zhen Tea about a category of tea that's not widely understood outside of China or even within China, and that's heicha, or "dark tea", hailing from outside the pu erh region. You may remember Zhen and Phil from our earlier episode "Lapsang Souchong - Beyond the Smoke", and today we're chatting at the Zhen Tea headquarters in Ottawa, Canada. Now pu erh (at least shu pu erh) is a dark tea, and plenty of people know plenty about pu erh. But the many wonderful non-pu erh dark teas don't enjoy the same celebrity status as pu erh, and those teas are what we're focusing on in this episode. (We're intentionally avoiding the highly controversial issue of whether sheng pu erh is properly called heicha, which could be a topic for an entire episode on its own.) Zhen and Phil carry a varied selection of dark teas, and they chat with us about the sometimes confusing nomenclature of heicha, its somewhat murky history, its regions of origin and terroir, and "wet piling", the fermentation process that makes heicha unique among all teas. We sample and discuss two dark teas - an aged Fu Zhuan from 2013, and a new experimental take on traditional Tibetan tea - as we talk about the variations of flavor and mouthfeel in non-pu erh dark teas, how the flavors differ from typical shu pu erh flavor profiles, and how these variations are influenced by terroir and growing conditions. Zhen and Phil also brief us on some of the innovations we're beginning to see in heicha and the delicacy and difficulty of the wet-piling process, and we talk about the relaxing, almost meditative, physical and mental sensations many of us experience with heicha. Zhen also gives us some tips on storing dark teas at home. More on Zhen Tea, including its teas, teaware, online store and new online magazine Charen, is at zhentea.ca. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Photo of Zang Cha-Gan Hong courtesy of Zhen Tea. Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.        

Today we welcome back to the show Kevin Gascoyne, of Montreal's Camellia Sinensis Tea House, to chat with us in depth about how our choices of teaware impact the flavors, aromas and overall experience of the teas we drink. Kevin is often seen sporting his signature Royal Albert teacup, and that prompted us to ask Kevin what's the deal with this oh-so-English-looking cup. His initial answer inspired us to want to explore more fully how our choice of cup and brewing vessel affect our enjoyment of tea. In our chat we focus mostly on the effects of the cup on our tea experience (though we also touch on some elements of teapots). Kevin talks with us about how the shape of the cup controls the delivery of the tea to the mouth and the placement of the tea on the tongue, how the material, size and shape of the cup affect the thermodynamics of the tea, and how all of this impacts the flavors and aromas of the tea we're drinking. We chat about some of the design features of teacups that have evolved for comfort, warmth and delivery, and also how the visual elements and aesthetics of our teaware influence our enjoyment of tea. Contrasting tea served in wine glasses and in small tasting cups as examples, Kevin points out how different styles of teaware and brewing create different moods and spaces for our experience of tea.  We wanted to do these comparisons hands-on, so Kevin served us two teas in very different styles of cups: first with teaware from the Royal Albert collection, and then from the innovative Peter Ting tasting kit. Listen to the episode to hear the results of this tasting experiment. For more on Camellia Sinensis, including its teaware, teas, online store and locations, go to camellia-sinensis.com.     Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Photo of Kevin Gascoyne and his Royal Albert teacup courtesy of Camellia Sinensis. Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.

As December comes to a close and winter deepens here in the northern hemisphere, we're continuing our turn inward as we conclude our two-part series on the spirit of tea as reflected in chado, the Japanese way of tea. Today we're focusing on chabana, the art of flowers so integral to Japanese tea ceremony. To chat with us about chabana we're welcoming back Drew Hanson, an instructor in the Urasenke school of chado and founder/owner of the Boukakuan Japanese Tea House in New Jersey. (You may remember Drew from an earlier chado-related Talking Tea episode, Tea, Heart to Heart.) We're with Drew in the tea room at Boukakuan, and Drew talks with us about the guiding principles of chabana and how the flowers in the tea room relate to us as humans, mirroring our own constant state of transition and transience. Drew gives us specific guidance on how to choose and present flowers for tea, and we discuss the history of chabana and its relationship to Buddhism in Japan. We chat about bringing nature into the tea room in a very focused way, relating the flowers and their container to the season and the differences between chabana and Western traditions of flower arranging so vividly pointed out in Kakuzo Okakura's The Book of Tea.   For more info on the Boukakuan Japanese Tea House, including info on Japanese tea ceremony classes and demonstrations, go to the Boukakuan website at njgreentea.com. Ken Cohen's audiobook edition of Kakuzo Okakura's The Book of Tea, published by Spoken Realms, is available at Audible.com , Amazon and iTunes.      Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

We're getting a bit contemplative this time of year here at Talking Tea, as the weather turns cooler and our bodies and minds begin to turn inward. So this December we're offering two episodes exploring the spirit of tea as reflected in chado, the Japanese way of tea. To kick off this two-part series we're looking at the life, work and influence of Kakuzo Okakura, best known for his modern classic The Book of Tea. As some of you may know, Talking Tea host Ken Cohen narrated and produced an audiobook edition of Okakura's The Book of Tea in 2015. Today Ken is chatting via Skype with Bruce Richardson, of Elmwood Inn Fine Teas and its publishing arm Benjamin Press. Bruce wrote and published an extensive and scholarly intro to the print version of The Book of Tea, and Bruce shares a bit of his own tea journey with us and tells us how he was first drawn to this text. We discuss Okakura's early life in Japan and his exposure to the West, the origins of The Book of Tea and its connection with Okakura's work at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and Okakura's influence on iconic American art collector Isabella Stewart Gardner, American artist Georgia O'Keefe and the design principles of Frank Lloyd Wright. Bruce chats with Ken about Okakura's perspectives on the connections between tea, art, and Zen, and Bruce shares his own perspectives, influenced by Okakura, on tea as an adventure and a creative path, on the importance of the space within and why the way of tea is the way of life.    Bruce Richardson's illustrated print edition of The Book of Tea, with his introduction, is available through Elmwood Inn Fine Teas or though Amazon. Ken Cohen's audiobook edition of The Book of Tea, published by Spoken Realms, is available at Audible.com , Amazon and iTunes.      Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

Today on Talking Tea we're doing something a little different from our usual format. A few weeks back we were invited by the folks at Tea Dealers and the 29b Tea House (featured in our prior episode Ambassadors of Tea) to join them in conversation at an evening of tea and alcohol experiments they were planning and record the event for Talking Tea. We did just that, and we're pleased to bring you the event as a Talking Tea episode. We join Andreas Vagelatos and Graham Pirtle of Tea Dealers, Jesse Ferguson of Interboro Spirits & Ales and a crowd of about 30 guests at New York's Hotel on Rivington for this evening exploring new approaches to tea and mixology.  Graham, along with Stefen Ramirez of Tea Dealers, had come up with three innovative cocktails for this event, and Graham chats with us about their unique approach to tea in mixology, borrowing pairing ideas from the culinary world, and the challenges of leveraging the flavors and textures of the teas and the other ingredients in the drinks. We also chat with Graham about the long history of tea in cocktails and its current revival. The cocktails used three teas - matcha, hojicha and rou gui - and as Andreas guides us through the tastings he talks with us about each of these teas and their use in the cocktails, the philosophy behind 29b's tea cocktail programs and the similarities between the nomenclature, flavors and other sensory experiences in tea, wine and spirits. Jesse chats with us throughout the evening about Interboro's spirits and how they interact with the other ingredients of the cocktails, and we discuss the overall flavor profiles and sensations resulting from the pairings and the various flavor components in each of the drinks. Andreas and Graham point out how the flavors and aromas of tea, spirits and mixed drinks can sometimes be nostalgic, and how Tea Dealers crafted these cocktails not only to bring out excellent results in flavor, aroma and sensation, but also to highlight some of the nostalgic and evocative qualities of the teas and the spirits. The episode also includes comments and questions from the guests at the event.   More info on Interboro is at its website interboro.nyc and at its Instagram feed. Info on Tea Dealers and 29b is at tea-dealers.com/pages/29b and Instagram feed. For info on the Hotel on Rivington, visit hotelonrivington.com.    Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

Today on Talking Tea we're witnessing tea history brought into the present at the serenely beautiful Floating Mountain teahouse in New York City, where ongoing programs on tea history and tea meditation are opening fresh perspectives on tea preparation and on tea as a contemplative practice. We're chatting with Lina Medvedeva, owner of Floating Mountain, and with Scott Norton, who runs Floating Mountain's tea history workshops and, with Lina, leads the tea meditation sessions at Floating Mountain. We first talk with Lina about the origins of Floating Mountain and some of it's unique design features, as well as Lina's own tea journey and her perspectives on tea and spirituality. Scott has become known in the New York tea community for his experiments in re-creating Song dynasty style whisked tea (the precursor to matcha), and we chat with Scott about the importance of not just learning about but actually experiencing tea history as we sample two of Scott's approximations of Song-style tea using Song-era tea ware. Lina re-joins our chat as we discuss how (and whether) tea can be a tool for meditative practice, why the quality of tea matters for the contemplative drinking of tea, and how the experience of drinking tea can be ordinary and extraordinary, simple and mysterious, in the same moment.   More info on Floating Mountain, including its online store, shop hours and events, can be found at the Floating Mountain website, https://www.floating-mountain.com/, and at its Instagram feed.    Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Photo of Floating Mountain tea house courtesy of Lina Medvedeva.                  

Today we welcome back to Talking Tea Shiuwen Tai of Seattle’s Floating Leaves tea to chat about one of our favorite teas, Taiwan’s celebrated Dong Ding oolong. Shiuwen believes that Dong Ding represents everything that Taiwan has to offer in terms of producing tea, and we chat about the qualities that make Dong Ding unique in this capacity. We discuss three basic styles of Dong Ding – traditional, fragrant and charcoal roasted – and together we taste and compare both a traditional and a charcoal roasted Dong Ding. Shiuwen points out that Dong Ding is a very “physical” tea, and we talk about the tea’s physical sensations as well as its flavors and aromas. We discuss the impact of Dong Ding’s terroir (particularly its soil) and oxidation levels, and Shiuwen tells us about a continuing controversy over Dong Ding’s cultivar.  When we move from tasting a traditional Dong Ding to a charcoal roasted Dong Ding, Shiuwen chats with us about the effects of charcoal roasting, both for Dong Ding and for oolongs in general, and how a good charcoal master can focus and amplify the complexity and beauty of a tea.   More info on Floating Leaves, including its online store, shop hours and classes, can be found at the Floating Leaves website, http://www.floatingleavestea.com, and at its Instagram feed.    Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Photo of charcoal Dong Ding by Payton, available under a Creative Commons CC BY 2.0 license. 

At Talking Tea we've long wanted to explore the seemingly deep divide between tea and coffee, and between tea drinkers and coffee drinkers. But lately we've come to realize that the divide might not be very deep at all, and that there might be more similarities between the two beverages, and the two communities, than we ever imagined. To help us look at how the gap between coffee and tea is already being bridged, we're chatting with Nate Cochran of Spirit Tea. Part of Spirit's focus is the introduction of high quality specialty tea to the coffee roasters and cafes, and Nate himself has worked in third wave coffee as well as in specialty tea. Nate chats with us about his background in coffee and tea, about Spirit's focus and how they create accessible tea menus for coffee environments. We discuss differences and similarities between tea and coffee from the perspective of process, oxidation, terroir and cultivar, but mostly from the perspective of flavor and aroma. We look at what flavor profiles in tea may attract coffee drinkers and how tea drinkers can approach coffee. And we talk about how  education and community propelled the success of third wave coffee, and how they're crucial for the success of tea as well.   Spirit Tea's website, including its online store, is at spirittea.co.     Photo of Nate Cochran talking tea and coffee during Talking Tea's February 2018 workshop, at Pilgrim Roasters in Philadelphia, courtesy of Jeremy Zimmerman.   Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

Today on Talking Tea we welcome back Kevin Gascoyne of Montreal's Camellia Sinensis Tea House. If you've heard any of our earlier episodes with Kevin, you'll know that Kevin is a specialist, and one of the world's leading authorities, on Indian tea. Kevin returns to the show today to chat with us about some of the challenges currently facing Indian tea production, and how an innovative new project in south India called the Tea Studio is attempting to address these challenges. Before we dive into the Tea Studio, Kevin gives us an update on the state of affairs in Darjeeling and tea production there following a lengthy labor strike in 2017. We also sample a black tea from the Indian state of Sikkim and talk a bit about Sikkim tea. Kevin tells us about significant issues facing Indian tea production today, ranging from climate change to labor shortages, and how the Tea Studio Project was born in an attempt to address some of these problems. We discuss the origins of labor shortage issues in the Indian tea industry, why Kevin feels that the Indian tea industry is not keeping up with the growing demand worldwide for high quality teas, and how the Tea Studio is combining carefully designed mechanization with hands-on skill to produce small-batch artisanal teas in India's Nilgiri region.     For more info on the Tea Studio Project, visit its website at teastudio.info, and for more on Camellia Sinensis, including its online store, locations and now the first teas from the Tea Studio, go to camellia-sinensis.com.        Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Photo of the Tea Studio courtesy of Camellia Sinensis. Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.

There is an amazement of tea that's hard to capture in words. It can happen when we experience a tea for the first time and are astounded by flavors and aromas unlike anything we've experienced before. Or when we revisit one of our favorite teas and find elements we never noticed before. Or when we find ourselves drinking a tea that's been expertly prepared and artfully presented in a way that awakens all of our senses.  Today we're at 29b Teahouse in New York City, where the owners and staff strive to create and recreate these moments of tea amazement every day. We're talking with Stefen Ramirez and Andreas Vagelatos, two of the owners of 29b, about their unique philosophy and approach to tea. We chat with Stefen and Andreas about their backgrounds and the origins of 29b, and how they developed their goal of fostering a sophisticated but easily accessible process of understanding tea for both new and experienced tea drinkers. Stefen talks with us about the inspiration he drew from vertical wine tastings, and he and Andreas share their views on the importance of cultivars, process and oxidation and the role of comparative tea tastings in developing tea knowledge and awareness. Andreas has a background in the mingei school of Japanese art, and we discuss the impact mingei principles of austerity had on the design of 29b and the selection of 29b's teas and teaware. And Stefen and Andreas share their insights on how 29b has combined a carefully curated tea menu, tea pairings and elements of design to create a deeply inviting experience of tea.   29b Teahouse is an outgrowth of Tea Dealers, a tea company based in New York City. For more info on 29b Teahouse and Tea Dealers, including opening hours and Tea Dealers' online store, go to Tea Dealers' website, tea-dealers.com.     Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Photo of a Stefen Ramirez at 29b courtesy of Tea Dealers. Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.

One of our guiding principles here at Talking Tea is that conversations about tea and tea culture have the power to deepen our understanding and enhance our experience of tea. Today on Talking Tea we're exploring one of the ways people are increasingly coming together to share and talk about tea: tea meetup groups. We're joined by Roy Lamberty, founder and organizer of the New York Tea Society, a popular tea meetup in New York City. Roy tells us a bit about his own tea journey, how and why he came to organize the New York Tea Society, and how the group has grown and evolved since its inception. We talk about the challenges of running a tea meetup group and discuss choice of venue, theme and other important considerations in planning a successful meetup. But we also chat about the bonds that are formed through sharing tea, the value of learning from each other and the appeal of the meetup format to tea drinkers of all levels of experience. Aside from his role as meetup organizer, Roy Lamberty is the owner of myteaguy.com, an online seller of tea and teaware. For more info or to join the New York Tea Society, go to its Meetup.com site.  The New York Tea Society was featured in this New York Times article on September 26, 2017.  The Facebook group New York City Gong Fu Cha, mentioned in the episode, can be found here.    Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.    more about Talking Tea  Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.   The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Photo of a New York Tea Society meetup courtesy of Roy Lamberty. Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.              

Today we welcome back Kevin Gascoyne of Montreal's famed Camellia Sinensis Tea House to explore tea pairings, and specifically pairing tea with scotch. We begin our chat by looking at some current developments in tea innovation and sophistication, and then begin to look directly at pairing and explore how two different flavor profiles can play against each other. Kevin gives us the how and why of "sandwich" pairing - tasting a scotch sandwiched between two tastings of tea - and we discuss the importance of focusing on sensory experience in pairing, as well as the fusions, contrasts, clashes and harmonies that can result. We get to explore first hand the amazing complexity of taste and aroma that emerges as Kevin takes us through a sandwich pairing of a single malt scotch with a rock tea.  Kevin encourages everyone to experiment with pairing on your own. If you can (legally) drink alcohol and want to try the pairing we did with Kevin, the tea is Bai Rui Xiang, a Wuyi mountain rock tea, and the scotch is Aberlour highland single malt, aged in sherry casks. Bai Rui Xiang is available at the Camellia Sinensis online store and website, which also has more info about Camellia Sinensis, its locations, hours and products. If you want to try pairing tea with other foods or beverages, let us know what you're doing and what the results are in the comments section.    For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.    This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Photo courtesy of Camellia Sinensis.  

To kick off Talking Tea's fourth season, we're at Té Company, an exquisite teahouse in New York's West Village, talking about an exquisite tea - the aptly named Oriental Beauty.  We chat with Elena Liao and Frederico Ribeiro, owners and founders of Té Company, about the origins of their teahouse, how they've created a cohesive whole between tea and food, and the unique ways they help their customers gain an understanding and knowledge of tea in an easily accessible way. The uniqueness of Té Company is mirrored in Oriental Beauty, a remarkable Taiwanese tea with a signature sweetness. Its unique flavor and aroma are created in part by the tea plant's interaction with an insect, the tea jassid, and Elena chats with us about how this interaction, along with cultivar, climate, terroir, oxidation and roast, come together to create a truly amazing tea.  Elena also gives us tips on how to identify the quality of an Oriental Beauty by looking at the dry leaf.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.    The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Photo courtesy of Té Company.  

When we serious tea drinkers start to broaden our knowledge of tea, we often encounter two terms that can seem mysterious or confusing: cultivar and origin. What is a tea cultivar, and why is it important? And what exactly does the origin of the tea refer to, and why should we care? To begin looking in depth at cultivar and origin, we're joined today by Austin Hodge of Seven Cups Fine Chinese Teas. Austin is a prolific tea writer and blogger in addition to being a seller, and he's also the founder and director of the International Specialty Tea Association, a non-profit focused on developing quality standards for tea. We chat with Austin about his background in tea and his views on the importance of tea standards, and then we look in detail at two of those standards, namely (you guessed it) a tea's cultivar and its origin. Austin talks with us about what "cultivar" means and how it relates to issues of biodiversity, tea production, the value and pricing of tea,  a tea's authenticity and transparency in marketing. We chat about origin in terms of the specifics of the growing location of a tea, why detail is important in looking at origin, and how soil makeup, micro-climate, altitude and sunlight exposure all come into play. We also chat with Austin about the historical and cultural elements of both origin and cultivar, and how the history of a tea can impact our perception and enjoyment of it. In this connection we touch a bit on the history of China's Mengdingshan, the place where tea was first cultivated, and the teas grown there to this day. You can find many of Austin's articles and blog posts, as well as the Seven Cups online store and info on the Seven Cups shop in Tuscon, Arizona, at the Seven Cups website, sevencups.com. Austin is also a blogger at tching.com. More on the International Specialty Tea Association is at specialtyteaassociation.org.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.    The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Photo of Austin Hodge at Mengdingshan courtesy of Austin Hodge.        

Earlier this year, TJ Williamson of the World Tea Podcast invited us to join him in leading a session on industry-specific podcasting at Podcamp Toronto. And when the nice folks at Podcamp also gave us the opportunity to record a Talking Tea episode in front of a live audience at Toronto's Imperial Pub,  TJ graciously agreed to join us as a guest on Talking Tea, to chat about the backgrounds of our two podcasts, why we do what we do, and about TJ's work in tea outside of his show. TJ tells us a bit about his own tea journey and some of his experiences working at a Japanese tea farm, and then we respond to one of the questions we received several times after our panel talk: why neither of us include a focus on herbal infusions in our podcasts. TJ's views on herbals are somewhat different from our own, and we chat about our differences as well as our two approaches to tea and tea podcasting. Of course, since we were recording this show in a bar, we had to talk about TJ's line of alcohol-aged teas (shown above), as well as the tea tasting logbook TJ produces.  And that brings us back to the focus we share: exploring tea's amazing spectrum of flavors and aromas, and delving into the science, artistry and craft that goes into producing them. World Tea Podcast is at worldteapodcast.com, and you can also follow TJ on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. If you're interested in hearing what we had to say in our seminar on industry-specific podcasting, check out a recording of our session on TJ's site here.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.    The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.   This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Photo courtesy of TJ Williamson.                      

We're calling this episode "learning tea" because learning about tea can be like learning a language - like learning English, or French, or Chinese, or any other language. There's a vocabulary to tea, and the world of tea is so vast, with so many words, facts and concepts to learn and keep track of, that it's easy to get overwhelmed. Compounding this in the English-speaking world is the fact that tea terms are often actually in another language - most commonly Chinese or Japanese. So what's a tea drinker to do? To look at one solution to this problem in the world of Chinese tea, today we chat with Lew Perin, the creator of a free website app called Babelcarp. Lew calls Babelcarp a Chinese tea lexicon, but it's much, much more than a dictionary. We chat with Lew about his background in tea, what Babelcarp is and how it works, and how its structure and system of links and cross-references make Babelcarp a virtual encyclopedia of Chinese tea. As an example, we type a sample tea phrase into Babelcarp and look at the answers and cross-links Babelcarp provides. We also chat with Lew about the Babelcarp add-on in the Pleco Chinese dictionary app and how it can be useful in purchasing tea online. You can find the Babelcarp web app at babelcarp.org. Lew Perin's Twitter feed is @babelcarp.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.    This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.    

Most tea consumers never have the opportunity to visit the source of the teas we drink - the tea growers and tea makers in the various tea-producing regions around the world. So here at Talking Tea we've been wanting to hear an insider's take on sourcing trips, to get an idea of what sourcing trips are like and what tea retailers look for when they source their teas. Today we welcome back Shiho Kanamaru of Montreal's Cha Do Raku, to get that insider's look at sourcing. Shiho tells us how she began Cha Do Raku by developing a network of sourcing connections in Japan and then Taiwan.  We chat about sourcing trips as a form of tea self-education, about the cultural differences between networking and sourcing in Japan versus Taiwan, and about Shiho's use of instinct and sensation to find high quality, unusual and extraordinary teas on her sourcing trips. Shiho also talks with us about some of the challenges of gaining entry into the world of tea growers and producers, about the hard work and rewards of going to source, and shares an example of how she's "arrived at" extraordinary teas through a combination of connections, spontaneity and experience. More about Cha Do Raku, including its online store and info on its Montreal shop, can be found at Cha Do Raku's website, cha-doraku.com, and on its Facebook page.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.    This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Photo of a tea farm in Taiwan's Pinglin District, courtesy of Shiho Kanamaru.

As temperatures begin to drop outdoors and autumn settles into early winter, the scent of smoke rising from chimneys fills the evening air in just about every place we visit in the cooler climates. But the unmistakable aroma and taste of smoke is not something many of us actively seek out in our teas, and the famously smokey Lapsang Souchong is often overlooked by serious tea drinkers. So it's been quite a pleasant surprise discovering that high quality Lapsang Souchongs can have great levels of complexity and depth of flavor. Joining us today to chat about Lapsang Souchong are Zhen Lu and Phil Rushworth of Zhen Tea, an online tea company specializing in Chinese tea. We chat over two interesting varieties of Lapsang Souchong carried by Zhen Tea: we first sample a non-smokey version of Lapsang Souchong, which allows us to explore the base of the tea without the influence of the smoke, and then a top-grade Lapsang Souchong (pictured here), made by the same family that invented the Lapsang Souchong process several centuries ago. Zhen and Phil talk with us about the origins of Lapsang Souchong and what distinguishes it from other teas, and especially from other smokey-tasting teas, in terms of its cultivar and processing. We discuss components of aroma and taste in both the non-smokey and top-grade versions. And Zhen and Phil also share some of their own tea journey with us and tell us a bit of how Zhen Tea came into being. ADDED VIDEO COMPONENT: Phil and Zhen wanted everyone to be able to see as well as hear about brewing techniques for Lapsang Souchong, so after we finished our audio chat Phil switched on his camera and added a video component to this podcast. You can hear (and see) us talking about brewing this tea on Zhen Tea's YouTube channel by clicking here. More info about Zhen Tea, including their online shop, is at the Zhen Tea website, zhentea.ca. You can also follow Zhen Tea on Facebook and Instagram at Zhentea, and on Twitter at @zhentea2014.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.    This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Photo courtesy of Zhen Tea.            

Today on Talking Tea we focus on the nuances of flavor, and how to fully appreciate the taste of tea by engaging all of our senses. Guiding us through this exploration of tasting is Billy Dietz, a tea development specialist based in Montreal. We chat with Billy via Skype as he shares a little of his own remarkable tea journey and then takes us through two methods of preparing a tea he selected for this episode, a Muzha Tie Kwan Yin oolong from Taiwan provided by Naivetea. We compare the preparation of this tea in the traditional Chinese covered cup known as a gaiwan with the professional tasting method known as "cupping". (In the image here the gaiwan is in the left foreground, the cupping set to its right.) Billy explains the purpose of each of these brewing methods, gives us details on brewing tips in each style and discusses how these details of preparation affect the taste. We chat about how the other senses come into play as well - the visual aspects of the dry and infused leaf and the brewed tea, the aroma, the tactile sensations of the tea after we sip it, and even how we breathe before and after taking a sip - how to fully engage with all of these to allow a fuller discovery of the tea. Throughout,  Billy emphasizes the need for playful experimentation with our tea, so that our tea drinking becomes an art of discovery, an opportunity for mindfulness and self-awareness.   You can follow Billy on Twitter and Instagram at @sirwillotleaf. You can find his blogsite at sirwilliamoftheleaf.com.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.    This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Photo courtesy of Billy Dietz.    

What did Talking Tea do this summer? We went to summer school, of course. Tea summer school, that is. In August we attended one of the English-language Summer School workshops offered through the tea school at Montreal's Camellia Sinensis. After the workshop we sat down with Kevin Gascoyne of Camellia Sinensis to chat about current and emerging trends in tea education. Kevin talks with us about Camellia Sinensis' model for tea education, how its tea school began with a goal of giving consumers better access to tea knowledge and how it's evolved to include programming oriented to tea industry professionals as well as consumers. We discuss the Summer School and the benefits of small, seminar-style workshops where students and instructors have the ability to share first-hand experience. Kevin also shares his perspectives on what students should look for in choosing a tea education program, identifying a student's goals and finding a program to fit those goals, the pro's and con's of certification and the ability of tea education to empower consumers and industry professionals for their own tea journeys. We also sat down in the Camellia Sinensis tea house with four participants in the Summer School workshop to chat about their perspectives on tea education: Tea researcher/educator/author Selena Ahmed and chef Noah ten Broek talk with us about increasing awareness of the nuances of taste and sensory experience, and tea sellers Zhen Lu and Phil Rushworth discuss addressing misinformation within the tea industry and the importance of educating tea vendors as well as consumers. More info about Camellia Sinensis and its tea school is at the Camellia Sinensis website, camellia-sinensis.com. To inquire about next year's Summer School, contact Kevin Gascoyne at info-en@camellia-sinensis.com More on Selena Ahmed, her work and publications, are at Montana State's Food and Health Lab website. More on Zhen Lu and Phil Rishworth's company, Zhen Tea, is at the Zhen Tea website, zhentea.ca.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.    This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.                

This week on Talking Tea we're exploring the intricacies of sencha, the most ubiquitous of Japanese green teas. Sencha? Intricate? Many tea drinkers don't think of those two words in the same context, but we sit down with Zach Mangan of Kettl, a Japanese tea seller based in Fukuoka, Japan and Brooklyn, New York, to sample some senchas and to look at how multifaceted this tea can be. Kettl has developed a reputation for being a purveyor of tea to some of the most acclaimed restaurants in New York City, and Zach talks with us about his own tea journey and his inspiration for launching Kettl. We chat about how sencha is grown and processed, how differing production techniques result in variations in taste, aroma and complexity, and how Japanese tea producers mix tradition with modern technology to create their teas. As we sample and compare a blended sencha from the Uji region and an unblended single-cultivar sencha from Nagasaki, Zach talks with us about why sencha is often (but not always) a blend, and about how differences in steaming result in the quite notable variations in appearance, texture and flavor of asamushi, chumushi and fukamushi sencha. More information about Kettl, including its online store, info about its retail shop, classes and events, and where you can find Kettl teas in New York City, is available at Kettl's website, kettl.co.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.    This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Image of Kettl's Asanoyume sencha courtesy of Kettl.        

Since we launched Talking Tea in 2014, one of our main areas of focus has been the continuing growth of tea enthusiasm in North America. We've chatted with tea sellers, educators and writers, but we haven't had the chance to talk with anyone actually farming tea in the US or Canada. Until now. Today on Talking Tea we welcome Eliah Halpeny and Cam Muir of Big Island Tea, a pioneering tea farm and producer on the (you guessed it) big island of Hawaii. Eliah and Cam have created an ecologically complex forest environment for growing tea on the fertile slopes of Mauna Loa volcano. They chat with us about how they came to tea production, their model of sustainable tea farming in a self-replenishing forest and how that model impacts the flavor, aroma and quality of their teas. We also chat about Hawaii's budding tea industry and about how the artistry and science Cam and Eliah bring to their work go into creating what Cam calls a "symphony of flavors" in their teas. And from our perspective, that symphony is a masterpiece.   More about Big Island Tea, including retailers and restaurants carrying its teas, can be found at its website, bigislandtea.com. Additional images are on its Instagram feed. For info about private purchases of Big Island teas, contact Eliah at eliah@bigislandtea.com.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.    This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Image of the Big Island Tea farm courtesy of Big Island Tea.          

This week on Talking Tea we return to the Tea Institute at Penn State University to explore the evolution and burgeoning growth of interest in Japanese tea ceremony study at the Institute and beyond, and the transformative nature of tea ceremony practice. We first chat with Drew Hanson, founding instructor of the Urasenke program at the Institute. Drew talks with us about his own journey from art to tea, the history and development of the Japanese track at the Institute, and changing demographics and perspectives among students of Japanese tea ceremony. Aside from his work in tea, Drew's teaching background is in literature and theater, and since tea ceremony has been called an "improvised drama", we look at whether tea ceremony in the Japanese tradition is a form of interactive theater. We explore the roles of action, dialogue and utensils, the "parts" played by participants, and those transformative moments of giving freely from the heart which are common to both theater and tea ceremony. We're also joined by Courtney Singley, current student director of the Japanese tea ceremony track at the Institute. Courtney is an architecture student at Penn State, and she shares with us her perspectives on openness and intimacy in the spatial elements of tea ceremony, and how those elements can be internalized and then used in building for ourselves and our world.   More about the Tea Institute, its programs, events and tea house, is in our earlier episode, "Tea Goes to College", and at the Institute's website. For information on Drew Hanson's private classes in Japanese tea ceremony, go to his website, njgreentea.com. Info about Japanese tea ceremony classes offered through Urasenke Philadelphia and Shofuso is available at Shofuso's website or at phillytea.org.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.    This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

If you've listened to our Talkin' Matcha episodes you'll recognize the name of Tyas Huybrechts. Tyas has been a blogger and tea ceremony instructor based in Osaka and Kyoto, Japan, and we're delighted to welcome Tyas back to Talking Tea to chat about his new venture, The Tea Crane, a company focused on chemical-free Japanese tea. Tyas shares his views on how the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has impacted the taste and aroma of Japanese teas and influenced the preferences of tea consumers.  Tyas is also an instructor in the Enshu school of Japanese tea ceremony, and we discuss his vision for spreading an awareness and understanding of tea ceremony through emphasizing the role of the guest in tea ceremony education. More about The Tea Crane, including information about its programs, workshops and classes, can be found at its website, http://www.the-tea-crane.com/ and on its Facebook page.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.    This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Photo of tea farm in the mountains of Nara Prefecture, Japan, courtesy of Tyas Huybrechts.

An institute dedicated to intensive, interdisciplinary tea education and research is not something you'll typically see at a college or university in North America - or anywhere else, for that matter. But it's exactly what you'll find at Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania, where an initiative originally undertaken by students has resulted in the groundbreaking, university-funded Tea Institute at Penn State. This week on Talking Tea we visit the Penn State Tea Institute and chat with its current Executive Director Zongjun "Sam" Li, Director of Research John Miraszek, founder Jason Cohen and past Executive Director Ryan Ahn (all pictured here, along with host Ken Cohen), to explore the Institute's history, curriculum, public programs and research. Jason first talks with us about the Institute's beginnings as a student club, how it grew into a tea house and finally, in 2009, into an institute with an established international reputation and funding from the governments of Taiwan, Japan and Korea as well as from Penn State University. The group gives us an overview of the curriculum in the Institute's three tracks of tea study (Chinese, Korean and Japanese) as well as a more in-depth look into its lineage-based Chinese track and instructor certification program. All of our guests this week are scientists, and we chat about the integration of science and art in tea and the impact of aesthetics and environment on taste perception and appreciation. We also discuss the Institute's libraries of books and historical teas, its past and current research projects, its upcoming programs and its successes in introducing students to the world of tea. Information about the Institute, its programs, events and contact info, social media links and the hours of its tea house, are at the Institute's website. Dates of the events mentioned in this episode are subject to change - visit the Institute's Facebook page for updates. Additional links mentioned or referenced in the episode are: Jason Cohen's ongoing research at Analytical Flavor Systems - www.gastrograph.com The Korean Way of Tea, by Brother Anthony - available through Amazon.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.    This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.  

This week on Talking Tea we look at the growing popularity of tea and tea culture among youth and teens. Chatting with us (via Skype) is Connor Adlam of Tching.com, the well-known blog and online forum for tea information. Connor, the intern social media editor at Tching and also a member of this demographic, shares his perspectives both from a personal standpoint and from his work at Tching. We chat about what makes tea and tea culture attractive to younger drinkers, the role of social media in breaking through misinformation and stereotypes, and how tea connects with the rising interest in mindfulness and spirituality among young people. Connor also talks with us about his own “tea ride” and how tea drinkers of all ages can use online resources to increase their knowledge of tea and connect with the depth, passion and diversity of the worldwide tea community.   You can find Tching's many resources (including articles by Connor) at Tching.com, at its Facebook page and Twitter feed and on Instagram at tchingblog. For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us.    Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.        This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Photo of Connor Adlam courtesy of Connor Adlam. Connor's shirt by Teaprints (http://teaprints.com).

We're releasing this episode in between the Western new year and the Asian lunar new year, and we took this opportunity to quiet our minds, turn inward a bit, and look again at tea as a contemplative practice. Chatting with us in this exploration is Ven. Hyeonmin Prajna, a Zen teacher in the Five Mountain Zen Order based in New York City, and a student and practitioner of Japanese tea ceremony in the Dai Nihon Chado Gakkai school of tea. The history of tea culture is so intertwined with Zen Buddhism that it seemed natural to ask a Zen teacher to give us some perspectives on the practice of tea, and we talk with Hyeonmin about the essence of Zen and how to apply Zen ideals to both tea ceremony and casual tea drinking. Hyeonmin sheds light on how the Japanese tea ceremony in particular reflects some of those ideals, gives us suggestions on applying these principles to everyday tea and everyday life, and discusses how all tea culture can, from a Zen perspective,  expand our awareness and help us “correct the mind and the heart”.   More info on Five Mountain Zen in New York City can be found at zen-nyc.info and on Ven. Hyeonmin Prajna's Facebook page. To learn about tea ceremony programs in New York City in the Dai Hihon Chado Gakkai tradition, go to http://www.tea-whisk.com.    For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us.    Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.        This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.  

In our last episode of Talking Tea we began to explore the elements of a quality tea with Shunan Teng of New York City's Tea Drunk. As examples of what to look for in choosing tea, Shunan selected two historically famous teas from China. We began in our last episode by looking at Gua Pian, a green tea, and now we chat with Shunan about Bai Hao Yin Zhen, also known as Silver Needles, as we continue discussing how to spot a quality tea. Shunan chats with us about some of the unique characteristics of Bai Hao Yin Zhen and white tea in general, and common mistakes buyers make in choosing a white tea. One of the things that makes Bai Hao Yin Zhen unusual is that it's composed only of buds of the tea plant, and we talk with Shunan about what the appearance, aroma and texture of the buds can tell us about the tea's quality and how it was harvested and processed.    More info on Tea Drunk, including its online store, shop hours and events, can be found at its website, http://tea-drunk.com/. The website also has links to Shunan's fantastic videos of her sourcing trips in China. The direct link to the videos is http://tea-drunk.com/pages/tea-trip-videos.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us.    Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.       This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Photo of Bai Hao Yin Zhen courtesy of Tea Drunk.

  This week on Talking Tea we return to Tea Drunk in New York City to chat with Shunan Teng, founder and owner of Tea Drunk, about tips and tricks for identifying quality teas. As an example of what to look for in choosing tea, Shunan selects a Gua Pian, a historically famous green tea from China.  Shunan uses our exploration of Gua Pian to break some myths about tea quality, and tells us what to look for in appearance, aroma and taste. We chat about how different methods of plucking, shaping and firing tea affect the taste, what to look for in the appearance of the dry and infused leaf, and what the dry leaves' aroma can tell us about the quality of the tea. (The Gua Pian leaves Shunan shared with us in our chat are pictured above.) Shunan also chats with us about what makes Gua Pian unique among green teas, and the qualities which, in Shunan's view, define a truly artisanal tea.   In our next episode, we continue our chat with Shunan by looking at a classic white tea from China to further explore the elements of a quality tea.   More info on Tea Drunk, including its online store, shop hours and events, can be found at its website, http://tea-drunk.com/. The website also has links to Shunan's fantastic videos of her sourcing trips in China. The direct link to the videos is http://tea-drunk.com/pages/tea-trip-videos.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us.    Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.         This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.  

We're continuing our exploration of Taiwanese oolongs this week with a focus on one of the most celebrated of Taiwanese teas, Baozhong. Shiuwen Tai, of Seattle's Floating Leaves Tea, gave us such a fantastic and comprehensive intro to Taiwanese oolongs in our last episode that we had to invite her back to give us some more in-depth knowledge, and we asked Shiuwen to talk about Baozhong because, well, it's one of our favorite oolongs. Shiuwen chats with us about Baozhong's history, from its origins in China to its later cultivation in Taiwan, and how this history along with Taiwanese innovations in growing and processing Baozhong give it the distinctive flavor and bouquet it's known for today. We also talk about the birth of floral teas in Taiwan, about aged Baozhongs and aged oolongs in general, and about how a tea maker's skill can create an experience for the drinker that, in Shiuwen's words, is "almost beyond imagination."   In the photo above, Shiuwen visits the Baozhong fields of Farmer Chen, in Taiwan's Wen Shan district.   More info on Floating Leaves, including its online store, shop hours and classes, can be found at the Floating Leaves website, http://www.floatingleavestea.com, and on its Facebook page. Shiuwen's blog is at http://www.floatingleavestea.blogspot.com.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us.    Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.         This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Photo of Shiuwen Tai in Farmer Chen's Baozhong fields, courtesy of Shiuwen Tai. 

This week on Talking Tea we begin exploring the spectrum of Taiwanese oolongs with Shiuwen Tai of Seattle's Floating Leaves Tea. Shiuwen chats with us via Skype about the history of tea in Taiwan, and how Taiwan's tea production has been influenced by its relationships with both China and Japan. We discuss some of the factors that go into forming the unique flavor profiles of oolong teas from Taiwan, including aged oolongs, why mouthfeel and texture are important in evaluating tea, and then take a closer look at two oolongs: Alishan, a high mountain Taiwanese oolong (the photo shows an Alishan tea garden), and the famous Tieguanyin.  Shiuwen also gives us tips on best brewing practices,  and shares her perspectives on how "science, art, love and patience" come together to create exceptional Taiwanese oolongs.  More info on Floating Leaves, including its online store, shop hours and classes, can be found at the Floating Leaves website, http://www.floatingleavestea.com, and on its Facebook page. Shiuwen's blog is at http://www.floatingleavestea.blogspot.com.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us.    Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.         This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.   Photo of an Alishan tea farm  by Wm Jas, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license. Cropped from original.

We’re back in Montreal this week on Talking Tea chatting with Kevin Gascoyne of Montreal’s famed Camellia Sinensis Tea House. Kevin, a co-owner of Camellia Sinensis, is known around the world as a prominent tea taster, educator and author. We talk with Kevin about his passion for Darjeeling teas, how classically grown Darjeelings compare with newer clonal teas, and current trends in tea processing. Kevin also discusses fair trade and labor conditions at tea gardens in India and elsewhere, and shares his perspectives on the future of tea’s popularity and growth, both in North America and worldwide. And, as an added bonus, we chat with Kevin about Camellia Sinensis’ groundbreaking studies on caffeine and anti-oxidants in tea.   More info on Camellia Sinensis, including its online store, shop hours, blog and upcoming seminars and events, can be found on its website, http://camellia-sinensis.com, and also on its Facebook page and Twitter feed.   Among Kevin Gascoyne’s many publications are two acclaimed books he co-authored with his partners at Camellia Sinensis: Tea: History, Terroirs, Varieties (the original French version is Thé: Histoire, Terroirs, Saveurs) and Green Tea: A Quest For Fresh Leaf and Timeclass Craft (in French Thé Vert: A La Rencontre D’Un Art Millénaire). Both are available on the Camellia Sinensis website.     For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us.    Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.       This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Photo courtesy of Camellia Sinensis Tea House.

Today at Talking Tea we’re in Montreal beginning our exploration of this city’s vibrant tea scene. Our first stop is Cha Do Raku, a new tea house and shop in Montreal’s Plateau district. Cha Do Raku (it means “decadence of tea” in Japanese) and its owner and founder, Shiho Kanamaru, have already made a name for themselves through the highly regarded teas offered through Cha Do Raku’s online store. Today we visit Shiho in her new shop and chat about how she realized her dream of a tea space that embodies the spirit of doraku, a simple, relaxed enjoyment of tea. Some of Cha Do Raku’s most talked-about teas are “icho”, an unusual, slightly oxidized green tea from Japan. Shiho talks with us about some of these teas, how they compare with other Japanese green teas and with Taiwanese oolongs, and best methods for brewing them. Cha Do Raku also carries high quality matcha, and Shiho shares a little-known preparation technique she discovered for bringing out the aroma and sweetness of matcha. More on Cha Do Raku, including its online store and upcoming events, can be found at http://www.cha-doraku.com. You can follow Cha Do Raku on Facebook at Cha Do Raku.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us.    Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.       This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Photo courtesy of Doug Lerner.  

On today's episode we have two guests speaking to us from  Oxalis Tea and Coffee in the Czech Republic. First up is Petr Zelik, owner and founder of Oxalis. Petr chats with us about tea culture in the Czech Republic, and especially about the challenges and successes of building a tea company after the fall of Communism. We also explore Oxalis’ offerings of Korean teas, which are not easy to come by among quality tea offerings in the US. Our second guest is Julian Overall, who coordinates Oxalis’s English-language social media flow. Julian's Twitter and Facebook feeds have become an invaluable source of news and connections for many of us in the tea world, and we talk with Julian about his views on the roles of social media and online information sharing for the tea community.   Here's a brief break-down of today's show, with time marks: 1:00    Petr's vision: starting a tea company in a nation without a tea culture; initial challenges 9:14    Success! The growth of Czech tea culture and the phenomeon of the Czech tea house, the "cajovna" 18:38  Green teas from Korea: unique taste characteristics 27:08  Connecting tea drinkers through social media, blogging and podcasting   You can find information about Oxalis' teas, as well as its comprehensive online catalogue, at its English language site, http://www.oxalis.cz/en.  And you can follow Oxalis on Facebook under Oxalis Tea and Coffee, and on Twitter @julian_overall. Oxalis' videos on tea can be accessed through the "Videos" tab on its Facebook page.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us.    Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.     This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. Photo courtesy of Oxalis Tea And Coffee.

One of the things we hear over and over again from people in the tea world is how so many great relationships have been created and nurtured through tea. But what is it in tea culture that's so good at bringing us together? In this week's episode we get philosophical about tea and relationships with Benjamin Olshin and Alex Schein,  two men whose own friendship was forged over tea and who have helped build community through tea in their professional and personal lives. Ben, a writer, teacher and consultant, teaches philosophy (among other things) at the University of the Arts, and has co-owned a Taiwanese-inspired teahouse in Philadelphia. Alex, a media producer, singer and songwriter, has run two teahouses in the U.S. and has produced and directed a documentary about Dobra Tea. Together we talk about why tea is not just a beverage but an experience, a practice, a way of being, a way of relating with each other and with the universe.    You can watch Alex's film, "Dobra Tea: The Good Tearoom" at http://www.goodtearoom.com. More information about Alex's work is at skyhuntermedia.com, makingsensefilm.com and alexschein.com.  You can find Ben's books on Amazon.com under Benjamin B. Olshin.   For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea. To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com. Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @KensvoiceKen.      This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original. The image "Tea is Served" (http://tinyurl.com/nrt7f6j) by ~Mers (https://www.flickr.com/people/barnkim/) is used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/).   The views, positions and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views, positions or opinions of Talking Tea, its host, producer or staff.