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London 2024 – 4th Installment – Tea Stop #3 – Mei Leaf Tea

August 7, 2024 Admin (kateri) Leave a comment

As many of you know – sourcing quality post-fermented teas – like puerhs and hei cha (dark tea) has been an ongoing challenge for me. Occasionally I have been able to get some special teas from my friend Eric (Fragrant Cup) who is most knowledgeable in the area of Chinese teas. So, I asked him if he had any suggestions for London shops and he turned me on to two that I got to visit, and intend to source from going forward, and I hope will have finally resolved our post-fermented tea “shortage”.

The first is Mei Leaf tea. They do sell retail online, so some of you may have heard of them before. What I focused on from them this time is more yellow teas and some “puerhs”. Because I was able to sign up for wholesale terms I was able to bring in more from here than most of my other stops. I have not yet had an opportunity to personally try much of what I bought. I did enjoy a glass of iced purple leaf tea during my shopping excursion. It was quite refreshing, but not significantly different than anything we currently offer.

Available now in shop and online: GABA Oolong, 2 of the 3 Yellow teas, a couple of Puerh bings (White Shou and a Sheng), and a really cool glass tea brewer (8oz)

Amber GABA Oolong – organic oolong version that we have not offered for a couple of years. Tea researchers discovered that by exposing tea to nitrogen during the oxidization process brings forth the naturally occurring (gamma-aminobutyric acid) GABA amino acid compounds in tea. GABA is a natural chemical produced in the brain that relaxes the nervous system and reduces anxiety. When we offered this in the past, some customers reported that it did help them with migraines and general relaxation.

Cleveland Clinic article about GABA https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22857-gamma-aminobutyric-acid-gaba

” GABA is present in some fermented foods, including kimchi, miso and tempeh. It’s also found in green, black and oolong tea. Other foods that contain GABA or boost its production in your body include brown rice, soy and adzuki beans, chestnuts, mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, sprouted grains and sweet potatoes. ….. Like supplements, it’s not fully clear if eating GABA-containing foods allows GABA to reach your brain. More studies, with large numbers of people, need to be conducted.”

Yellow tea is very rare. Originally only available in China, it was considered a gift or tribute tea to the Emperor. As you may now know, Great Mississippi Tea Company is successfully producing a yellow tea as well {we are currently sold out on our stock}

We are offering 3 versions of yellow tea – try one, try all three and see what differences you note!

The Mei Leaf website offers a wealth of educational information, and we will be exploring and learning together!

If you browse and find teas you would like us to offer in the future, please let me know. Here is a link to a great video describing essential info about tea production (about an hour long)

Your comments and questions are welcome here!

Next installment – Tea Stop #4 – Postcard Teas

General, News

London 2024 – 3rd Installment – Tea Stop #2

August 5, 2024 Admin (kateri) Leave a comment

Mariage Frère [If you go, time your visit to be there after Noon so you get to try their fancy tea-based drinks and/or food, that I missed out on]

This tea shop has been a Paris institution since 1854 and I know that several of our customers have purchased tea from them – either in person or online. When I discovered they had opened a shop in London’s Covent Garden area I knew I had to add it to my visiting list.

It did not occur to me to take photos inside the shop until too late – this installment documentary was an idea that arose after I started to put my thoughts and tea experience in writing

The shop is huge, and opulent and everything is very accessible. Every tea has a 100gm tin that can be opened and sniffed. They have looseleaf and teabag versions of nearly every tea, though some newer or special flavors seem to only be in teabag format. Where to start? We have a fraction of their volume and new customers can be overwhelmed coming into our shop!

I explained to the gentleman who greeted me that I have a tea shop in America and I wanted to bring back something special for my customers. He steered me directly to Marco Polo as a blend that is popular with Americans. I had certainly heard of it before.

Described on their website as:

Wonderfully fruity & flowery fragrant black tea

And: Our overwhelming success is a mysterious blend that will take you to distant lands and unforeseen territories.

Fragrances evoking Chinese and Tibetan flowers lend it a uniquely velvety taste.

Its extraordinary bouquet makes Marco Polo the most legendary of flavoured teas.

And that is It.

No ingredient list – I had asked him about ingredients before I left and he assured me I could find them on the website. If you have more experience with this please let me know, but I looked high and low and with every search term I could think of, with no success. Are allergies not a big deal in Paris?

The best I could find, on every tea item I viewed:

For better or worse, this is the only tea I purchased. I did bring back about 20 ounces of both the black and green tea versions of the blend and they are Now available for purchase in shop & on the website in 1oz and 2oz packages only, plus a handful of trial sizes. The only decaf version they had was rooibos based. They had no other decaf blends that were not rooibos based. [To my dedicated decaf customers, I’m sorry, I tried]. I haven’t yet tried the green tea version but both are quite fragrant, and the black version is quite tasty!

Next installment – Tea Stop #3

General, News, Tea Info

London 2024 – 2nd Installment – Tea Stop #1 and Jessica’s Wedding

August 3, 2024 Admin (kateri) Leave a comment

Tea Stop #1 – Scottish Grown Tea “Nine Ladies Dancing”

For nearly 2000 years tea was primarily known to be grown only in China (and Japan circa CE 804). In the 1800s adventurous explorers and botanists began to bring seeds and plants to other countries so China would no longer have a monopoly. Now, in the 21^st century tea is grown on nearly every continent of the world.

The United Kingdom boasts tea gardens in Cornwall and Wales and then, around 2016, nine Scottish women got together and began the process of growing tea on their estates.

It is my understanding that each of their tea gardens produces a limited amount of hand-crafted teas; and a few years ago they made tea news by getting their “Nine Ladies Dancing” tea blend (with leaf from all 9 farms) picked up by Fortum & Mason (UK provisioner-grocer-department store in operation since 1707). These limited edition teas sell out quickly and are impossible to get outside the UK (as far as I can tell). Visiting F&M to procure some of this tea was my #1 goal for this trip.

Oh my, it is expensive – 60 grams (slightly more than 2 ounces) is all they had available at the time I was there; with the exchange rate (at F&M prices) it cost over $3 per GRAM. 3-4 grams are used to make a cup of most black teas (!).

I look forward to exploring this tea with you – and to get feedback – IS There sufficient interest in this super premium exclusive tea that I should invest in 8-16oz, to sell in more affordable small trial and gift size portions? …. I Could do this – maybe not this year anymore, if they don’t have any left, but in the future???

We will be scheduling 1 or 2 sampling sessions soon. Guests will get an opportunity to taste this Scottish grown tea, as well as a number of other teas from this trip, as will be described in the next several installments. Invitation/Announcement will go out via email to our existing local customer list.

JESSICA’s Wedding – on the Isle of Portland, at the very southern end of England.