Tea Soup

In this episode we reflect on the wild spring tea tour we just finished in 2025. We visited the Jingmai mountains in Yunnan, Anji in Zhejiang, Hangzhou's West Lake for Dragonwell, Chaozhou's Wudong Mountain for the dancong, Yiwu, Huazhu Liangzi, Laobanzhang, Laoman'e, Menghai, and Bada for the puer. It has been a wild ride and we have so much to say, but first let's just talk about seeing some old friends in Hangzhou and Wudong Mountian, that's Shanshan and Zhang Hailang from Nine Trees and Wen Zitong in Wudong. Hopefully a lot of the green teas mentioned here are already in your tea cups at home! Some still available on the One River Tea website.

This is a very special episode that takes a look into a region famous for tea production for over a hundred years, Darjeeling. Alex took a recent three week tour of some old tea estates and some interesting cooperatives out on the border between India and Nepal. They toured many estates all around Darjeeling, from the Calcutta to the Nepali boarder. Alex recounts his meeting with the father of Moonlight White tea, an Indian Gentleman by the name of Rajah Banerjee. While we currently don't sell any Indian teas not he One River Tea Website, there is one special cooperative mentioned toward the end of the episode that we look forward to cooperating with in the future, that's the Fall Orthodox in the Sample Freebie we got from out in Sitong.In the meantime, for all you Indian tea connoisseurs, we highly recommend checking out Ketlee Teas, thats ketlee.in we have a great respect for the main force behind the project Susmit Pratik, Alex mentioned that he saw some tea from the Okayti Estate on offer, which is in Alex's opinion the most legitimate of the old estates.

This episode is all about the tea (and teaware) sought and found and loved in 2024, the year of the Dragon. Derek gives his hot takes on Jingdezhen, the Mecca of Chinese porcelain, and Yixing, the birthplace of Chinese teapots. We talk about the spring tea rush, living out of a backpack for 30 days, and go all through the land of mountains and rivers of southern China seeking true tea culture. As always, check out Onerivertea.com and Taoteaware.com for the tea and the teaware mentioned on the pod. Thanks for your support, and brew happy!

This episode is our second annual year in review episode. We talk about the year of the dragon, but keep it rather personal, this part one is all about the stories behind the tea, the discoveries and growth we're experienced this year with One River Tea, Tao Teaware, and our very new Empty Cup Tea Space. Stay tuned for the more tea-centric part 2 soon to come. And as always, brew happy.

In this episode, Derek from One River Tea talks about how he found the Lapsang Souchong we source from the Zhang family up in the Masu Village of Tongmuguan. We start out musing a bit on craftsmanship, of products created with intentionality and soul as we wander up to the Tongmu mountain pass between Fujian and Jiangxi. While this area is restricted to non-residents (including Chinese people from other regions), we were able to meet the right person to open the gates for us and take us up to her beautiful village. If you're interested in the origin point of the world's first tea, we hope this episode delivers!As always, almost all the teas mentioned in the podcast are available on the Onerivertea.com website!

In this episode we dig into the history of the world's first Black Tea: Lapsang Souchong. In another solo episode, Derek not only gets back into the ancient history of Chinese teas, but also talks about the six different kinds of teas and the strange space occupied by puer. We share the origin myth of Lapsang Souchong, aka Zhongshan Xiaozhong, and explain its significance in the explosion of tea drinking culture in the West at large. We just released six new Lapsang Souchong teas from the Tongmuguan region and from the Masu Village, all of which are available on the onerivertea.com website !

In this episode, Alex joins the podcast to talk about the time spent sourcing the most famous yellow tea in all of China: Junshan Silver Needle. We get deep into the history of yellow tea and the sorry state of the modern market. Derek muses on the differences between Japanese and Chinese teas and reflects on his recent time in Japan. The Junshan Silver Needle and other finds from this trip are available to try on the onerivertea.com website. Thank you for your interest in our teas!

In this episode, Derek is joined by Alex, also a founding member of the One River Tea Cooperative. We talk about our adventures in making white tea, the attempts, the mistakes, the failures, the victories, and the eventual brown shoumei tea cake we pressed and gave away earlier this year. Alex shares some interesting first-hand experiences of brewing tea in the traditional way: with a tea jar. And Derek shares the secrets on how he made the his beautiful micro batch of green shoumei. As always, all the teas talked about are available on the Onerivertea.com website, so be sure to support us with an order if you're enjoying the podcast!

In this final episode of sourcing puer in Spring of 2024, we talk about the Dong Guo Village. A lesser known village with a large amount of Gushu trees in Yunnan's Mengku region just South East of the Big Snow Mountain. We discuss different philosophies of making tea and fall deep into tangents on Daoism, Sun Wukong: Black Myth, deep Yunnan culture, and even a bit of food anthropology. As always, all the teas we source and discuss are available on the OneRiverTea.com website for all those interested in supporting our podcast and our little cooperative. Thanks for your interest in tea!

In this episode, we leave the tombs of the Wang Family and wander through their wild gardens of tea trees on the Kua mountain. We talk about the skinny chickens, the knock off Adibas shoes, the connection between the land and the teas. We finally get out to Xiao Hu Sai, home of the largest garden of ancient tea trees in Mengku and we talk about why we love these teas and how we designed the new tea cake wrappers. As always, if you're enjoying the podcast, consider checking out what teas Derek has sourced on www.onerivertea.com

In this episode, Derek talks about the Qingming Festival, he maps out some of the spring tea harvest times in China, but really focuses on late March and early April. He talks about the modern rituals undertaken for the Tomb Sweeping Festival from East to West in mainland China, and frames all of this within his most recent Spring 2024 tea trip. There is a brief review on how to make Fuding White Tea, as well as a lot of behind the scenes for the makers of the Kuashan raw puer and Lincang white teas. As always, all the teas sourced here in Tea Soup are featured on the onerivertea.com website. Brew Happy!

In this episode of Tea Soup, Derek is joined by another One River Tea Worker/Owner, Alex Witherspoon. Together we recount our recent travels into Sichuan searching for jasmine tea. We talk a lot about Alex's project in Hefeng, where One River Tea hosts WWOOFers, farming volunteers from all over the world. We talk about the incredibly bloody history of the 19th and 20th century Sichuan, and of course we get around to talking about sourcing the Jasmine Tea which should appear in one the onerivertea.com website later this month. This podcast is part of a video which will be available on the One River Tea Youtube Channel as well.

Welcome! Today, Derek and Alex talk about their journey to the top of Golden Chicken Mountain, one of the cheeriest tea prodcuers east of Luan (Liuan?), and the holisitic state of the yellow tea market in China. Is it fermented or oxidized? What is dry and wet yellowing? What even is yellow tea? We share our journey to answer these questions and grow from skeptics to yellow-pilled enjoyers. Come hear more about what goes into that mellow corny aroma you can brew up from nothing else. If you're interested in yellow tea, please check out our very own onerivertea.com website.

In this episode, we talk about West Lake Dragonwell, we just got back from Hangzhou a few days ago with some incredible insights into the making of longjing. We share tips on how to buy the right longjing on the mountain; talk about the risks of drinking same-day tea, get into the TCM of green teas both freshly made and moderately aged. We bring back some old favorite characters Tang Xiaojun and Tang Hejun. We introduce our new source for this fantastic tea, Little Wang with her garden of Longjing Cultivar 108. Finally we talk about meeting Jürgen from Tea Addicts (https://www.tea-addicts.de). We have a lovely moment sharing tea between friends, and we consider the idiom 可遇不可求 (Ke Yu Bu Ke Qiu), “Things that can be found only by chance, not by seeking”. As always, most the teas mentioned can be found on our website (https://onerivertea.com) and the Chaozhou teapots we mentioned can befound on our teaware website (https://taoteaware.com). Thanks for your interest in our tea adventures!

2024 Spring Tea has just started being picked, and the prospects are looking good! We spend the first part of this episode talking about green tea and what it's like living through the Mingqian hype here in China. We get onto the topic of this episode, sourcing Puer in Menghai, and we say goodbye to the cast of characters we met in Lincang and we share a new set of faces we meet down in Menghai. We talk about the mysterious Paul, the man behind White2Tea, we talk about sketchy border teas, over-talkative taxi drivers, and of course farmer Tan and his remarkable Huazhu Liangzi Gushu. As always, almost all the teas talked about in this episode are available on the OneRiverTea.com website, and any tangentally talked about teaware can be found at TaoTeaware.com. As always, thanks for supporting our podcast and your interest in Modern Tea in Modern China!

In this episode of Tea Soup, Derek talks about the 10 million train trips per day during China's Spring Festival, the curious mythology surrounding the Dai Minority Water Splashing Festival, and his pilgrimage to the world's oldest tea tree (2,700 years old!). He mentions Joseph Campbell's book “The Hero With a Thousand Faces: The Cosmogonic Cycle”, Mercia Eliade's Book “The Sacred and the Profane”, Laozi's “Dao De Jing”, and Zhuangzi's “Zhuangzi”. It is a surprisingly philosophical introspective episode that takes place between sourcing Lincang Puer and his trip down south to Xishuang Banna. As always, if you enjoy the podcast, feel free to show your support by buying tea at onerivertea.com or teaware at taoteaware.com. Thanks so much for your listening support!

In this episode Derek talks about pressed tea. Why is compressed tea so popular these days, what unique virtues does it possess, and what does it take to press tea into these 100, 200, or 375 gram disks that are so common to see in teashops all around the mainland. We muse on the creative process of running a business and circle back to the existential dilemma of sourcing ‘good tea'. We also talk about the pressing process for these teas in Lincang, Yunnan. As always, the best way to support tea soup is to subscribe to our podcast, our YouTube channel, our instagram and of course browse any of the teas we source at onerivertea.com thanks for all the support!

Still on the tea trail, Derek recounts and ranks all the most difficult to access teas, as he travels through Yunnan in the grip of a deep drought. He makes his way to the Bangdong Village, drinks the raw tea just made yesterday and compares old bush, with gushu, and single tree productions with Puer blends. Eating tea with the pickers, he makes his way out to Mengjie's ancestral home in the mountains. We reflect a bit on pastoral routines and they affect our concept of time and explain why the Puer from Bangdong has been called Yancha, or rock tea. As always, the teas mentioned in this podcast are all available on the onerivertea.com website, so please browse and support our project if you can! See you next time!

In this episode of Tea Soup, Derek continues talking about his Spring Tea Sourcing trip in April of 2023. Starting at the peak of Wudong Mountain in Chaozhou, he talks about the wholly hand-made teapots he sources from his ceramics Master Kemin's apprentices in Chaozhou (only available on taoteaware.com). He talks about getting into Lincang in Yunnan with zero puer tea connections, and in a mere 5 hours finds his way into a Xigui production household frying a wok of freshly withered Xigui himself. Really a lot of insights into what it takes to source tea in China, and the sourcing ethics of One River Tea. All teas mentioned in this podcast are available for purchase worldwide via the onerivertea.com website! Thanks for listening, we greatly appreciate your support, please rate and review, and consider browsing our teas or teaware at onerivertea.com and taoteaware.com! Brew Happy!

In this episode Derek tries to tackle 2023, what teas were we into, what teas did we source, where did we go and more. It ends up mainly being about the stories untold, the life behind the tea and a few trips with liminal connections to tea itself. We talk about tea friends in our city, the sourcing trips that revolved around the history of tea episodes, the birth of the Tea Soup Podcast in January of 2023, Between the Cracks - the video podcast we've been doing for Tao Teaware on Youtube, and the incredible quality development visible this year. Be sure to check out OneRiverTea.com and TaoTeaware.com if you feel the urge to support, a subscription and a review also goes a long way! Here's to another year of Tea Soup!

Welcome back to the second episode of the history of Puer Tea. In this episode, we cover the past 300 years of this teas development, from the Qing Dynasry tribute tea gardens to the State Owned Enterprises of the Maoist era. We share the logic behind the secret recipes and talk about suspicions, paranoia, and knockoffs in the world of Puerh tea. Remember to check out onerivertea.com for all out single origin puer teas sourced in 2023

In this episode, Derek takes on a new type of tea: Pu'er (often romanized as Pu'erh). We give an in depth overview of the geographical make up of China's Yunnan province, talking about its incredible biodiversity and myriad climate zones. We talk about different origin myths about puer and the naming conventions, and even get into the historical relevance of these myths and what truths we can glean from them. If you're interested in sampling any puer tea, just head over to the onerivertea.com website to check out the teas we have sourced personally from this incredible region!

In this episode of Tea Soup, Derek goes deep into how to decipher, select, and appreciate dancong oolong teas. We talk about the cultivars, the prices to expect, the characteristics of old and young bushes, and much more. Derek spills the tea on his tasting methods when selecting teas for the onerivertea.com website, and gives some tips into buying the teas you want, descending high and low quality dancong oolongs, and what to expect from certain teas. A very informative episode that even groups all 200 dancong cultivars into the top ten fragrance families.

In this episode Derek talks about his time living in Chaozhou. How do they drink Dancong oolong tea in the city of its origin. How do the Chaozhou people drink Chaozhou Gongfu tea. We discuss tips on how to get your session more authentic, what kind of water to use, what kind of teaware to use, and talk a lot about how tea is viewed in this city of tea.

In this episode, Derek walks through the rather long and complicated process of making Dancong Oolong teas. Derek talks a bit about Chinese terms related to tea production and we have even created a little cheat sheet for you on our website here (https://onerivertea.com/pages/dancong-oolong-glossary-of-terms) don't worry, we won't test you on this yet! We talk about the people we have made tea with in the mountains these past 6 years and relive some of the more fun experiences while spending those long arduous hours properly oxidizing the tea. If you ever thought making tea was easy, get ready to be awestruck by the time, energy, and labor that goes into every cup! Also feel free to check out the new dancong oolong teas we have just released on our website onerivertea.com

Join Derek in this episode as we travel out to the heart and soul of Dancong Oolong production, that's the Wudong Mountain. Meet our new phenomenal maker Wen Zitong, a young prodigy making some of the best teas we have ever had. We talk at the start about production times for making dancong oolong, the history of the land and the farms out in the phoenix mountain range, and talk a bit about another podcast we have just started with Dart from Tao Teaware called Between the Cracks (Check it out here https://youtu.be/cqsd0ezThMI?si=nhn8Hy8JPgEhfzZY). All the teas we discussed this episode should be on the onerivertea.com website by September First, so be sure to browse those flavors at your leisure!

This is the second part of a conversation between the Oner River Tea Cooperative's Co-founders Alex Witherspoon and Derek Poskin about our plot of land in Hefeng, Hubei. We talk about the Loushuiyuan cooperative we work with out there, as well as all the villagers on the mountain top we cooperative with. Get ready for some difficult talk about the sustainability of organic farming in these rural hamlets of China, the state of cooperative funding in modern China, and the general issues of implementation we see on this mountain.

In this very special episode of Tea Soup, we do something we've never done before, a two-person conversation between One River Tea Worker-Owners Derek Poskin and Alex Witherspoon. Alex is calling in from a mountain top in Hubei province (the Mayintai in Hefeng County to be precise), while Derek is sitting comfortably at home in Jiangsu, Yangzhou. In this episode, we talk about the origin of the One River Tea Cooperative, what brought both the American co-founders to China so many years ago, and the failures and successes along the way. Alex, who has been getting his Masters in Economics in Hubei for the past few years digs deep into the economic history of the rural agricultural lands out there. We cover the collectivization of the 1960s, the Land Redistribution Act of the 1980s, and the eventual dissolution of all things collectivized. We talk about the modern reintroduction of the steamed tea processing famous in the Hubei region and bring into question the validity of its historical lineage while ending on a positive note about new government incentives for cooperatives in the region. Next episode we will talk more closely about our actual time in Hefeng, our projects, and the people we work with on the mountain! As always, if you want to support us and our projects in anyway, check out the onerivertea.com website and consider buying some tea or signing up for some WWOOFing volunteer projects!

In this episode Derek talks about the tea makers he has met in the Phoenix Village outside of Chaozhou, Guangdong. Recounting how he met each of these initial makers this serves as a peak into the lives of these tea farmers, tea makers, and dentists (you'll see). Derek talks a bit about Chinese-American history, the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad in the United States, and recommends a book by Shelly Fisher Fishkin called “The Chinese and the Iron Road: Building the Transcontinental Railroad”. There is also an interesting tangent on the inner workings of Chinese public hospitals towards the end for the interested listener. As always, you can support Derek and the show by checking out the teas he sources at onerivertea.com and the teaware he uses at taoteaware.com. Thanks so much for the support as always, and see you next week!

In this episode, Derek takes on the daunting task of giving a brief history of Tea in Chaozhou, Guangdong, as well as discussing the evolution of Chaozhou Gongfucha in the area and in China at large. After living in Chaozhou for all of 2021, Derek has a lot of deep insights on life and tea culture in this Mecca of Chinese tea. Derek also mentions his new project with his friend Dart, Tao Teaware, a curated teaware company that digs deep into Chinese history and cultural wares. Check out the offerings on taoteaware.com and follow the Tao Teaware YouTube channel for deep digs into the history behind the pieces! Take out a pen and paper for this episode because it's a bit of a deep dive!

In this episode, Derek not only outlines the 9 main steps of making Dragonwell green tea, from raw leaf to dry tea, he also dives into a deeper understanding of Chinese names. He mentioned the history of the west lake, the myth of the Running Tiger Spring, almost loses his drone over the tea fields, and recalls ancient poems from 1300 years ago.

In this episode, Derek travels out to the West Lake area of Zhejiang Province's major city Hangzhou. Here, for the past 1000 years, longjing, or Dragonwell Green Tea, has been being grown, processed, and drank. Meet four masters out here, Tang Xiaojun (唐小军) who makes immaculate Lion's Peak Dragonwell, Tang Hejun (唐鹤君) who makes a very natural Baihefeng Dragonwell, Zhang Hailiang (张海良) who makes a Baihefeng Dragonwell in a wood-fired wok, and Xie Chunhua (谢春华) who has a large garden of the traditional Quntizhong Dragonwell varietal. We talk about the five main regions in the West Lake are, which are the Lion, the Dragon, The Cloud, the Tiger, and the Plum (狮，龙，云，虎，梅). And we compare the traditional Quntizhong (群体中) cultivar with the more modern Dragonwell #43. Check out the onerivertea.com website to sample the difference between core region, extra regional, handmade, machine made, Cultivar 43, and the Quntizhong cultivar dragonwell green teas!

In this episode we hike through the Dongting Mountain south east of Lake Tai right by the modern city of Suzhou. We are seeking the ancestral home of the Biluochun green tea, and find its heirloom bushes mixed in this slightly acidic soil with a plethora of fruit trees and other vegetation. We talk through the processing of this curled and fluffy tea, which is entirely made in a wok, which in the best instances is heated by a wood flame. Enjoy this deep dive into one of China's most unique and iconic green teas!

In this episode, we talk about what it means to have a traditional tea master in modern China. We explain the differences between, a teacher and a master, as well as the relationship between an apprentice and the master. We mention more Chinese philosophies and reference a scene from the lovely little book The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. While we have just finished the first week of a five week tea tour, we have a lot of tea sourcing content to dish out over the next few episodes, so be sure to subscribe if you haven't already!

In this episode Derek discusses the origins of West Lake Dragonwell Green Tea, or Xihu Longjing. We go all the way back to the Jin Dynasty, the monk Xie Lingyun from the Tiantai mountains bringing the first seeds to the West Lake area. We talk about the 18 imperial tea trees. And we even cover the modern Republican Era of this region in the mid 1900s, wherein we hit an interesting tangent on the nature of Truth, Revolution, Nihilism, Marxism, Taoism, and a little bit Buddhism all in the West Lake Dragonwell production area.

In this episode we talk about how we sourced our traditional Biluochun from Xishan Island in lake tai outside of Suzhou. We hit some excellent tangents on the socio-economic environment of this Jiangsu region, we revisit our musing on the four kinds of luck, we finally bring up Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, and we sit you all down for a serious lesson on modern Chinese history. We are so excited to showcase one of our favorite tea producers Master Chen and his traditional handmade Biluochun, which is currently featured in our green tea pre-sale box on the onerivertea.com website. For the sourcing video and live interview with Master Chen, check our our Youtube video, and be sure to subscribe to that there. One day I'll re-upload these episodes with visual components, maps, graphs, photos, and videos of all the things I talk about here. https://youtu.be/k4ox0eqFz54

In this episode, we talk about three different origin myths surrounding the creation of Biluochun, a tender curled green tea produces outside the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu province. We take a trip from Fujian up through Zhejiang and into Jiangsu, stopping by Shaoxing and Hangzhou. There is also a shout out to Dylan from the Sweetest Dew and Sohan from West China tea in here, so listen closely for those! This is the first in a series of green tea episodes we will release in time with the green tea harvest here in China. All mingqian teas are currently available for presale on the One River Tea website!

In this episode, we break down the different kinds and picking grades of Fuding White Tea. We also cover the very important Chinese agricultural calendar, introduce all 24 two-week Solar Terms and talk about how they are used by farmers all over the land of Mountains and Rivers to know when to plant grain, harvest tea, and expect snow. We cover the four picking grades of silver needle, the three grades of baimudan, the two grades of shoumei, and the one and only notoriously vague gongmei. Big Bud Silver Needle, King Peony, White Dew Shoumei, and even an autumn Gongmei are all available on the onerivertea.com website for those interested in sampling these teas!

What do you know about tea? What is there left for you to learn? In this episode we talk about how we can share information and learn from each other. The tea community in the western world is largely virtual for many reasons (tea lovers seem few and far between, Covid imposed isolation, etc), thus a lot of conversations happen virtually. We want to look at how we talk about tea online, how we address truth, untruth, misinformation, and outright lies in the tea world. We share a personal experience that has resulted in our growth, and encourage everyone to maintain a growth-oriented mindset. In this episode, we talk about the Chinese idiom 盲人摸象，blind men feeling an elephant, and delve into the neuroscience of brainwaves and information processing. We mention the podcast Collective Insights (particularly the episode on Nerofeedback) and Ian McGilchrist (his book The Master and His Emissary). Next week we will get back into white tea, so enjoy this impromptu in-betweenisode!

In this long-anticipated episode Derek unpacks the 2022 Fuding government regulations regarding the growing, making, and selling of Fuding White Tea. We cover regulated harvest dates, annual yield maximums, the freezing of agricultural tea farming land, and much more. A few fun tangents are the power of official seals in China, the one social media app to rule them all in mainland China, and the burning of the gongmei bushes. For a closer glance at this circular, check out the One River Tea blog post we wrote last spring https://onerivertea.com/blogs/one-river-tea/fuding-white-tea-state-of-the-industry-spring-2022 Also, check out what Fuding white teas we offer on the site https://onerivertea.com/collections/white-tea?page=1

In this episode, Derek, Alex, and Xiaoyan of the One River Tea Cooperative stumble upon a huge conspiracy regarding aged white tea in Fuding's wholesale market. We hike through a mountainous village turned yellow with ripe rice to a producer's dilapidated childhood home. We talk about the nature of truth and value and wonder if a podcast like this can survive in the post-truth world we are ever marching into. And of course, we talk about the black-sheep of the Fuding tea villages: Guangyang. Here are a few links to blogs and videos mentioned (or not) in the show! All white teas mentioned in this and the last few episodes are available on the One River Tea website below https://onerivertea.com/collections/white-tea Below is the Oolong Drunk's blog post about the Brown Shoumei Conspiracy. https://www.theoolongdrunk.com/single-post/the-inconceivable-lie-we-ve-all-been-told-about-white-tea Below is our initial blog post on the green vs brown shoumei discovery. https://onerivertea.com/blogs/one-river-tea/the-browning-of-white-tea Below is an impromptu YouTube video we made after our second day in Diantou in 2020 (one I totally forgot we had made, and don't mention in the show, but serves as an interesting video diary of the tea haul) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4IvSx8L6IY

In this episode of tea soup, we talk about Bailin and Taimushan through the lens of a tea trip we led in 2021. Enjoy the extra stories about our tea makers Zhang and Jinzhi as well as Derek's introduction to the story behind the Chinese zodiac.

In this episode, we begin our three-part deep dive into the major production villages around Fuding responsible for growing most of Fuding White Tea. In this episode, we visit Diantou and Panxi. Join Derek as he recounts his initial impressions of Fuding, talks about his methods for sourcing good teas, confesses a few embarrassing moments, visits a white tea factory, stares the stories of the incredible people he has met, and muses philosophic on the nature of Luck.

In this episode, we take a look back at the origin myths of White tea, as well as the historical precedent of Fuding being the birthplace of all Chinese White Tea. Join Derek as he talk about his time on Taimushan, the farmers burning their bushes, the taste of a brew made from dry tea leaves harvested from a single branch of gushu tea tree in Menghai, and much more!

In this Episode, Derek from One River Tea talks about tea from its prehistoric roots in China all the way to the dry loose leaf tea we know of today. Did you know tea used to be powdered, mixed with salt and onion and drunk as a thick soup? Did you know that many people in Medieval China thought tea was unhealthy? What do you know about the true origin of tea (what does anyone know really)? Join Derek as he takes us all the way through the three main eras of tea: Prehistoric, Medieval, and Premodern/Modern. During each of these eras, we see tea change from a medicinal herb, to a sacred beverage, to a hot commodity, and finally to the de-enzymated leaf we know of today. We learn all about ancient Chinese dating systems, the beginning of high-brow tea snobbery, the first faked teas, and much much more!