thinking of an American teaseller

Although being in a little village up in the Bavarian Alps means I'm not personally visiting new teashops, the tea world gets more and more intimate partially due to the web.

Every year I say I'll do my best to make it to next year's World Tea Expo, which is wrapping up in Las Vegas, but things get in the way and I'm left promising myself that it's not the last one. I can always go there for the next one, right?

So here I am enjoying very mercurial mountain weather while browsing tea shop sites (If I can't be there in person, I can go there virtually). I've been meaning to write a glowing review of Upton Tea Imports since I had such a fantastic experience ordering from them back in the spring, but things kept getting in the way.

About that review of Upton Tea Imports? Well here it is. Everything about the ordering process was effortless, and it seemed as if the tea arrived much more quickly than was possible. But there it was. The hyper-critical among you will say, 'They're an tea seller who offers tea online. That's what they do. You order tea from them, and they send it immediately.'

Well, be that as it may. The website was easy to understand, and regardless of what some might consider service to be expected, it seemed above-average to me. I had it sent to my brother's house while I was travelling in the States, and upon my arrival my sister-in-law and I had some wonderful Pu-erh fannings, which I wrote about here: fannings aren't always teadust

With my tea the Upton Tea Quarterly was enclosed. There was a very interesting article about the history of Ceylon Tea. There's something similar, and much more brief, on the Information page of the above-mentioned website, but the in depth article seems to be only in the Quarterly itself. I'd read versions of the story in various places, but it was nice to see it compiled in such detail there on the page.

That's all I have for today. Need to get back out in the mountain air, but I wanted to mention the excellent experience I had. Were I more often in the United States, I'd definitely take advantage of this site/company more often.

Here's a photo of Bayrischzell. It's nearly as far south in Bavaria as you can go before you're in Austria.

drinking while unwell

What do you drink when you absolutely can't taste anything?



That's a bit of an exaggeration, because although I have a bit of a cold, I'm still able to taste. It's just that I'm sniffling and wheezing and all I want is something that soothes my throat. Last year when I was in Greece, I introduced Greek Mountain Tea when I wrote:

You needn't Climb a mountain

I remember when I wrote that I thought, 'I'm so rarely ill. It might be years before I actually get to find out if this helps when I'm under the weather.' So back to my question. If your sense of taste is muted or even deadened, what tea do you drink?



Was in my local Asian Supermarket this weekend, and look what I found. If you've been reading lately, you know I'm slowly getting deeper into Pu-erh tea. Whenever I wander into such a shop, my fantasies take me to a place where I make some fantastic find. Some tea that has nondescript packaging, but is excellent tea. I had to find out if this was any good.







I'd had enough Greek Mountain Tea loaded with honey. It had soothed my throat, but I needed tea. Real tea. Just so happened that my friend Jeffrey the Contrarian was visiting, and I cajoled him into trying this stuff. But not before he indulged himself in plenty of jokes about the name Pu-erh and how the un-steeped tea smelled of 'poo air'.

Jeffrey the Contrarian had had the fannings that I wrote about last week, and was less than impressed. He said the taste was noticeably fermented, and it was clear this wasn't a complement. So I wanted to see what he thought of this simple Yunnan Pu-erh.

He said it was less pungent. It was definitely drinkable. I thought it had almost no taste, but my above-mentioned muted sense of taste might have something to do with that. My suspicion is that I'll use this nondescript tea in some blends, but that it won't easily become a regular tea in my rotation.

What about you? Do you even forego tea entirely when you're ill? Do you drink infusions?

fannings aren't always teadust

I'm not a Pu-erh drinker. Not that I have anything against Pu-erh. I'd like to be one. I've certainly drunk it, and I'm always looking for more, but it's one of those few sorts of tea that I've read a lot about and I just don't have enough direct experience with it.

When I first discovered this stuff, I'd read about decades-old cakes that were worth thousands of dollars/euros. So for a while I thought this tea was just out of my price range. There's reasonably priced Pu-erh out there. You needn't start with the most expensive stuff. Actually, I've read that not knowing more about this tea can actually make an amateur more easily duped to believe a highly-priced cake is more rare or more valuable than it really is.

I researched buying this tea with trepidation. Seemed like the whole ordeal was going to be a bit of a minefield. Where to start?

Well, when I was going through the Upton Tea website I came upon this.

It's almost as this blurb was written for me and those of my ilk. And I quote directly: A flavorful Pu-Erh offering suited for those who want a quality, flavorful infusion at a modest price. That's me-that's me.

So the only thing that's worse than ordering tea that you really don't like is getting a tea like this that you like so much. What? Are you really complaining about liking a tea too much? Well yes, actually I am.

The idea of fannings made me nervous. When people complain about teabags, they often say that the teabags were filled with teadust or fannings. I thought these were synonyms.

In the case of this tea, this is definitely not teadust. There's a fermented taste to the cup, and the colour is as dark brown as a cup of coffee. And strong, too. There's no doubt that this tea packs a punch.

Like I say, as good as this experience is, it makes me a bit nervous that I'm getting to the end of my supply. I guess this is a problem I'm grateful to have.