Monday, October 19, 2015

New 'American Tea Room' in Down Town L.A.


10/8/2015 evening, Josephine and I arrived in downtown Los Angeles.
Congratulations to our friend, David Barenholtz, on his beautiful 'American Tea Room' grand opening!
Very nice tea bar and seating area, it is modern and cozy.... And good tea too!!

I will say this definitely is a new landmark for our tea industry!

 
 Tea information on the big touch screen


'Starbucks Reserve Roastery & Tasting Room' in Seattle's Capital Hills

After our presentations in 2015 Northwest Tea Festival, we decided to pay a visit to the legendary yet still quiet new 'Starbucks Reserve Roastery & Tasting Room' on Capital Hills. 
We are very impressed and also admire the idea... and who won't be?

For Taiwan Oolong, it is about time to have professional designed 'Oolong Tasting Room' with all sorts of DIY workshops, for the tea lovers to visit, having fine Oolongs plus fun learning.  I believe Tai3Route will be such a great tea district to launch.

I hope these photos will inspire some of our tea friends.

 



Thursday, October 15, 2015

Harmony tea mug and Harmony teapot

Enjoy fine Taiwan Oolong with Harmony tea mug., or serve with Harmony Teapot.
Please see this YouTube link for an overview.

 TE-012N  (Harmony tea mug, 12 oz)
TE-046 (Harmony teapot, 12 oz)

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Finding the Harmony Codes

A few similar questions from our tea friends about Harmony Codes that I often mention, and why using these glass teapots in my cupping room?

We do standardized cupping with the traditional cupping sets for Black tea and Green tea.
We do Taiwan Oolong standardized cupping with TTMA standard cupping sets (*slightly larger than traditional cupping sets as Taiwan Oolong tends to unfurl with larger leaves.)

When standardized cupping- every one can has his/her set combination on amount of leaf, water temperature, steeping time - to do the cupping in consistency. So we can give a better evaluation on each tea we are cupping.

Yet, to define the best tasting and try to bring the best of each tea...We will need to make some experiments of infusion tests... With these glass teapots, 3 oz/5 oz/12 oz, which are so much easier for me to find the proper steeping time... That is how I usually write my Harmony Codes. Some lightly oxidized oolong I tend to add more amount and shorter the steeping time...on the contrary, some higher oxidized oolong, I will have less leaf and longer steeping...


 TE-005P  (3 oz)
 TE-035  (5 oz)
 TE-029    (12 oz)