Double headers in June Meet-Up (6/21/2014)

We have been away from our base since March (Traveled to NY, San Diego, Long Beach). This month our meet-up finally returns to Baldwin Park. We decided to have double headers this time... 
Thomas is covering "How Oolongs started in Taiwan" and Jerry talks about "Environmental condition of Taiwan". 

OOLOONG SOMMELIER @ San Diego Tea MeetUp (4/26/2014)

Josephine and I have thought of reaching out to the tea community in San Diego area.  How lucky that we have a good friend Dharlene, who's the organizer of San Diego Tea Group and she has been so generous to help us to arrange this session and also find this nice venue at "The Orchard" in San Diego.  Our topic has set to be Advanced Cupping, and I decide to give "OOLOONG SOMMELIER" a good trial.  This is a great group on this special evening of 4/26/2014, we've made it together.  So glad that "Azusa Tea Club" and "San Diego Tea Group" two meetup groups have this successful co-op event,  and for sure this won't be the last one.  Our hearty appreciation to Dharlene and San Diego Tea friends.

Pictures can say it all... Enjoy the following slideshow:

Taiwan Tea Workshop with TAP-SD on 4/26/2014

Linked by Dr. Paul Chen, and with great support from Grace Lin, the President of TAP-SD, we are pleased to come down to San Diego on 4/26/2014, to offer a "Tea-One Tasting Class" with their members and also a few friends from TACC-SD and NATWA-SD.   Very nice venue and with so many TA friends help... we can have our set up easily.  I am extremely surprised to meet many old friends here in TACC-SD.

Josephine shows her slides about TOST program that we conducted every October...and she has really convinced our TA friends that everyone can find some way to help promote Taiwan and the culture of our motherland.

As usual, we have 4 volunteers to help us do the hands on tea making along our tea tasting.  We have Catherine, Ann, Julia and Tweet, from the right to left, they have done a marvelous job for us.

Pleased to share with you the slides on this tea event:

2014 NYC Coffee & Tea Festival on 3/22-23/2014

Josephine and I were invited by our good friend Jeni Dodd, owner of Jeni's Tea, to participate 2014 NY Coffee and Tea Festival and also to be co-presenters of two workshops in the event.  One is "Taiwan Tea 101" on 3/22 (Saturday morning) and another one is "Finding the Harmony Code" on 3/23 (Sunday afternoon).  Thanks to Sharon Lo, Josephine's classmate back in junior high, to help make samples to serve our attendees.

Finding the Harmony Code (9/21/2013)

Azusa Tea Club is getting more fun and having more experiments for our group learning!
We decided to have this topic: Finding the Harmony Code, right after our previous meet-up on 8/10.  Instead of reminding our tea friends to master the key factors in making a good cup of tea, we thought that with actual experiments will help every one to see and to believe.

This time, we picked one tea - Classic Tung Ting (#80453) as sample for our experiments.  With Karen and Josephine in charge of water, preparation of cupping ware, and Jerry helps control the time... we are having the following 3 groups of experiments:

1.) 3g, 6 minutes, for 3 cups with 210, 195, 180F -

 

2.) 210F, 6 min, for 3 cups with 3g, 4g, 5g -

 

 

3.) 210F, 3g, for 3 cups with 4 min, 5 min, 6 min -

After finding the Harmony Code for this tea:  3g, 210, 6 min.

We have Patti to help us to use 3 different teapots: tetsubin, porcelain, glass with 18oz infusion.
And we try to see which teapot has better performance for this tea.

Treat each tea as an individual, one of a kind, and find out its Harmony Code - then make the tea with discipline to have it presented its best for tasting.

Rediscover Taiwan's Indigenous Tea (8/10/2013)

We are getting more fun now in Azusa Tea Club.
More topics are expected, and with Josephine and Jerry can help lead some sessions, and our members now are also willing to the assignments... this will give us more discussions and group learning about tea and tea culture besides cupping.
How long do these wild tea plants have stayed in Taiwan?
When do we start to be aware there are indigenous tea plants in Taiwan?
Where are these indigenous tea forests located?
Why these indigenous tea plants have not been popularly used in Taiwan's tea plantation?
Why all of a sudden, we are interested in learning about these indigenous tea plants?
Josephine has shared those photos taken from our Oct 27, 2009 trip to the Meiyuan Mountain.
Along the slides show, we have discussed how things have changed,  including the recent development of Brandy Oolong, plus the concerns of getting Organic, Ecology and Terroir in the tea industry... Indigenous tea forest in Taiwan will offer much more resource for our further researches. We can expect many more newer and better tea cultivars will be developed and become Taiwan tea's rising stars....besides Ruby 18 and HonYun 21.

It seems that everyone is looking for our September meet-up already...

Vertical Cupping: 3 Pouchongs and 3 Baked Oolongs ( 7/20/2013)

This meet-up is set for a focused cupping, we have to limit number of participants to make sure that each member will have plenty time to work on each tea.
I have selected 3 Wenshan Pouchongs which are with a bigger gap apart from each.  The purpose is not to challenge our friends but to give everyone a fair experiment.  Gradually, we can get some teas that are more close in quality/grading... which will require a lot more details in observation and comparison.   Our friends are actually doing very well on the first half with these 3 Pouchong teas.

The second session, we have arranged 3 Bakded Oolongs for cupping - before and after baking, plus one taken in the middle of turning point during baking process.   Among the three samples, almost everyone did pick it right on the After Baking one.  The before baking one and the sample at 6 hours
did confuse quite a few friends.  The purpose of this cupping is to learn how the tea baking could change tea leaf at different status. Tea Masters did learn from their experiments to know what will be the best baking plan for each tea they will be handling.  Not all tea masters will agree with one another...and that is the beauty of it.  Signature Baked Oolong will be out soon in the Northern American tea market.

Enjoy 2013 Spring Pouchong while sharing our recent trip to Kagoshima (4/20/2013)

Josephine is indeed a good story teller...She shares those photos she took in our recent trip to Kagoshima, Japan. We all got to taste the 2013 Spring Crop Wenshan Pouchong served by Karen while everyone is excited to learn about Kagoshima tea. Our compare cupping today is to have 4 Kagoshima Green Teas made from different cultivars:
1.YABUKITA 藪北
 2.SAEMIDORI 冴緑
 3.ASATSUYU 朝露
4.YUTAKAMIDORI 豊緑
Karen has prepared the water all in 170, and use 3 grams for 3 minutes for first infusion, and the second infusion with one minute steeping, we mixed the first and second infusion for everyone to cup. This is a great study and be able to hear different comments in aroma, flavor and finsih...from our friends about these cultivars. We will have a few more experiences to seek our direction for the new project with Kagoshima Tea.

TEAWARE CHALLENGE: Finding the Right Teapot to Enhance the Taste of Tea (2/16/2013)

Patti Harrison, our good friend, who actually is the first member who has enrolled with Azusa Tea Club since we organized this tea meet up back in December 2010.  We are glad to have her to come up such a good topic.  This is a great experience for most of us.
We might assume and agree before the session, yet her experiments actually give all of us an interesting proof.  The whole session is well presented and not only the volunteers but all our friends interactively cupped and tasted to find the difference from tea to tea, with different teapots...and also different shapes of tea cups...We appreciate Patti's great efforts.  (She did prepare outlines of this presentation, and we will email to everyone after her modification.)
Good luck to everyone, find the right teapot for your favorite tea... The fun journey of tea is long way to go!

Celebrate 2013 Lunar New Year (2/7/2013)

What a great way to celebrate Lunar New Year with community friends!
TUF and San Marino City Library co-sponsor this special tea event on 2/7/2013 evening.  About 70 tea lovers show up on time and they all stay through the workshop.  I can't thank enough to these 4 volunteers who partner with us to present this hands on Tea-One Tasting workshop.

 (From left to right: Joyce, Nancy, Angelica and Ping)

Please enjoy the Youtube video of this tea event, also a slideshow here for your review.



We should give credit to Pasadena Now for the promotion of this event. Also, thanks for the feedback from our friends on this tea workshop:

         My thanks to you and Josephine for having such a wonderful event. I had a great time learning about tea. You make it fun and educational. Also, despite what you say, I think you sing very well. Angelica and I were very impressed. :-)----  Ping Nakkeow

=================

          Thank you Thomas and Josephine! I really enjoyed the tea tasting. I had a ton of fun! 

                                                              ----  Angelica Mata 

"The Language of Experience: Subtleties in Teas" by Jeffrey Lorien (1/19/2013)

This is a full house meet up event for our Azusa Tea Club.  Jeffrey Lorien, the founder of Zhi Tea, comes all the way from Austin, Tx to share with our tea friends this good topic.  We have tasted 4 Amber Oolong with his special approach - Jeffrey encourages our friends to find partner, to taste tea together and share the feeling... Do find these interesting experiences among our tea friends from the following slideshow. 
Azusa Tea Club has many good topics...and we are excited that our RSVP filled up soon every time.

"From Newbie to...Newbie. My journey with oolongs." by Thuy Ly (12/15/2012)

Holiday is here...a few friends were cancelling their RSVP for this meet-up.  I told Thuy, we will only have tea, just you and me...  Yet, by the time we start, we already have 10 friends here to join Thuy for her journey of oolong.  She decided to use Guywan for the tea tasting. 
The three teas are: Da Hong Pao (Big Red Rope from Fujian, China); Phoenix Dan Cong (from Canton, China) and Brandy Oolong FB-78 (from Hsinchu, Taiwan).
Thuy found Pomona College Tea Club with a few friends while she was studying in Claremont, CA.  I admire her willing to share and have the courage to lead tea tasting with friends. (*As we often say, the most effective way to learn is to teach...) Leading a tea tasting session can really enhance one's tea knowledge and expertise by preparing beforehand, and by the actual doing it in front of your audience.  It ain't easy...and Thuy has done a marvelous job today.
These three teas are quite similar from the leaf appearance and color.  Actually, their oxidation and baking level are so different...A tasting session like this one, the conductor might better run a cupping on the three teas...to find out each tea's special character.  Experience could be accumulated...and to examine the wet leaves will surely help.
I hope we can come up more topics and invite our members to lead the tea tasting from time to time.

A long day of tea making...by Josephine Pan on 11/17/2012

November 2012 Azusa Tea Club's meet up was set on 11/17 and it's sort of short notice to our friends. Since Josephine and I just returned from our 2012 Taiwan Oolongs Study Tour program, we thought it might be a good idea to share the still-very-fresh slideshow of one particular day (10/24/2012) while our TOST members having a long day of hands on making Alishan Jade Oolong at Ruili, Jiayi County.
The leaves plucked from tea garden, and turned out to be in our cups to be sipped...this journey might take different process subject to what kind of tea we plan to make.  Jade Oolong in Taiwan usually takes two working days to finish up.  The first day ends when the leaves were pan-fired, finished the first rolling and drying... The leaves will then get an overnight rest...while our members also can take a break.   Our day began at 7:30am and ended at 11:45PM (due to good weather, we got
lucky to have our leaves withered outdoor, and then moved indoor for continuous withering, and oxidized...it is smooth and a bit faster than previous year we were here.)  By watching the slideshow tha Josephine presents and explains,  I also got to refresh my memory of that particular day.

Karen served the tea we made at Wang-Ting, (Mr. Wang is very nice to helped us finish up the canvas wrapped rolling, also lightly baked our tea before pack in 2 oz/pouches for our members.) to our Azusa Tea Club friends...we also prepared two of Wang-Ting's Spring Crop - 2012 Alishan Jade Oolong - one made from Chinsing Oolong cultivar, one from Jin Suang cultivar.
(*You can order these two teas...as we have packed them for our friends' Holidays Sipping.)  Simply send a private message to Thomas Shu over facebook....

From the photos, you might see Thuy, one of our members, help use Gongfu style to make tea for us.

In addition to these nice Jade Oolong we cupped and tasted on 11/17, our friends are lucky to sip the 2012 Summer Crop Oriental Beauty (*a little bit sample as gift to me from a great tea master...I hope this tea will win him award from the tea contest...Boy it will be extremely expensive...then)

Holiday Season is here... we believe more and more tea lovers are looking for fine tea for themselves and their beloved.  Sip more...and spread the love!

 

Please click on YouTube Movie to see the action.
 

Understanding Pu-Erh Tea by Linda Louie on 9/22/2012

September 22nd (Sat), we have the great honor to invite our good friend, Linda Louie to Azusa Tea Club to lead this special session - Understanding Pu-Erh Tea.  Linda is the owner of Bana Tea Company, an on-line tea company specializing in high quality Pu-erh teas. She studies with a renowned tea master in Hong Kong and has traveled extensively through the farms and villages of the Pu-erh tea regions of Yunnan China in her quest to find the finest teas. Linda is a life-long tea enthusiast and takes particular interest in the study of tea culture.  We all enjoy an informative tea presentation and also get to learn about how to prepare and appreciate Pu-Erh.

Tea-One Horizontal Tasting: Green Tea, Jade Oolong, Amber Oolong and Brandy Oolong

Tea-One Tasting is a very effective format of tea education. I have used this system in many colleges (for the ITASA programs) successfully to have fun of sharing tea knowledge and culture promotion. We have also offered modified versions of Tea-One Tasting Class in trade shows or staff training programs for private business.  But for our Azusa Tea Club, this is the first time we introduce Tea-One Horizontal Tasting.  

On 8/18/2012, we are tasting the following 4 teas: Sanhsia Breeze Green Tea Bi-Lo-Chun., Chilai Chinsin Jade Oolong, TJK Amber Oolong., and Brandy Oolong FB - 27.  

I have 4 volunteers from our meet-up friends: Sean, Maira, Don and Ellen.
They each have one tea and one set of tea apparatus, including Tea-One Brew, Thermo, tea spoon and towel, plus one personal cupping set (one aroma cup and one sipping cup).

The whole process, start from knowing your tea...by carefully checking the tea's appearance, the color and the shape/style of tea leaf.  (*we usually suggest our participants to ignore the labels, bring the tea out of the tea caddies...let tea become "the center" of our workshop.  We want to learn about the tea's color to judge the oxidation or baking process...We want to see the tea's shape/style to guess the tea leaf's density and figure out the weight of the tea we are measuring out for the infusion.

After the identification of tea's appearance, we will use the tea spoon to measure the leaf for infusing. But how many tea spoons for each tea to be measured? Or, should be rounded tea spoon, level tea spoon?  A little experiment to have all audience to find out the tea spoon / tea leaf density and the weight actually could be calculated...

Having the heated water stored in Thermo for each volunteer to use...it is handy and also for the safety concern...Make sure the heated water will be poured properly to the inner infuser of Tea-One Brew.  

Suggest volunteers to raise the infuser to be sit on the top of pitcher.  So, everyone gets to see...
The Agony of the Leaf ...

When the tea leaf unfurled and settled... Ask each volunteer to press the button to release the tea
from the leaf...down in the pitcher.  Invite all audience to check the clearness of the tea liquor...
also identify the color of each tea...  Invite the discussion on the tea's quality in regards to its liquor...

Before sipping the tea... always ask the volunteers to focus on the aroma by asking the volunteers smell to the lid of Tea-One Brew... where the steam remained under...  Let each volunteer to have a good memory on the aroma...  Then, switch around the four lids... encourage the volunteers to find the one belongs to his/her tea...  This will encourage our audience to make sure that each tea experience should include enjoy tea's aroma first... while the tea is still too hot to sip...

Then, it is time to taste the tea... again...show them how to properly taste and appreciate the tea... (Always have different suggestions...just for fun...)  and the volunteers can cross serving tea to each other...Always invite the discussion about each tea's taste, finishes... Every one has different taste profile...always fun to listen to different comments during the tasting.

After the tea tasting... will be time for examining the wet leaves... Use the same tea spoon to scoop out the wet leaves on the lids, now serve as coasters...  Guide the volunteers to read the wet leaves and invite the discussion with audience...

There will be question after question during the workshop... those questions raised right at each move by the volunteers...The interaction between the volunteers and audience...will remain in high gear.

Please enjoy the slideshow of these four outstanding volunteers, from left to right: Sean, Maira, Don and Ellen.  Thanks to their excellent performance...and I bet they are the ones who benefit the most from this workshop.  Next time, when we are having Tea-One Tasting Class, always try to be the volunteers. No kidding.

A Guide to Taiwan Oolong with Jeni Dodd

Azusa Tea Club has great honor to invite our tea friend, Jeni Dodd, from New York to join us and share a tea cupping and tasting session: A Guide to Taiwan Oolong with Jeni Dodd, on 7/22/2012.
We use to have our meet up on the third Saturday afternoon of the month. This month,  we moved it to Sunday afternoon...maybe causing some inconvenience of our members and we apologize.  We are so happy to see a few new faces in our audience.
Please enjoy the slideshow of this meet up.

Jeni Dodd – Jeni Dodd is the owner of Jeni’s Tea, a company dedicated to importing hand-crafted, specialty tea and offering tea education for groups and events. Jeni’s Tea seeks to expand the public’s awareness of the specialty tea market and help consumers discover the exquisite joy of the leaf. Over the last few years, Jeni Dodd has dedicated and committed herself to learning as much as possible about the tea industry, tea culture and tea processing. She is a Certified Tea Specialist through the Specialty Tea Institute and has completed all of STI’s Level IV courses offered to date. To further enhance her knowledge of tea, Jeni Dodd has traveled to several countries of origin, including Taiwan, Japan, Korea, China, India and Nepal, where she has visited several tea estates and tea gardens where she observed and participated in the various growing and processing methods unique to each country. As she was finishing law school in London, Jeni Dodd first developed a passion for tea. Earl Grey was her ‘gateway’ tea and that tea eventually led to her appreciation of specialty tea. While practicing as a corporate litigation attorney in New York City, she found that her desire to know more about tea outweighed her desire for the law and she formed Jeni’s Tea. While she still does some legal work, her primary focus is growing her tea business and continuing to learn about endlessly fascinating world of tea.

Indulge in Excellence: Taiwan Oolong @ Azusa Tea Club (5/19/2012)

Azusa Tea Club's May meet up is a pure tasting... so we will do the tea infusion for our friends to taste 6 different Taiwan Oolongs, one after another.  This is indeed a treat to all from Taiwan Tea Manufacturers' Association.  These samples are sent here for forwarding to World Tea Expo 2012 to be used on World Origin Tasting Tour.  I got a bit of each sample to be tasted in our Azusa Tea Club.    We have a lot of comments sharing while having great fun together.  (*I think most of our friends rate Oriental Beauty and Amber Oolong the highest remarks...)

Cheer Up with Brandy Oolong (4/21/2012 @ Azusa Tea Club

Azusa Tea Club is having the April meet up on 4/21/2012.  Total 14 friends are participating this topic - Cheer Up with Brandy Oolong.  We prepare 6 different teas - Ruby 18, HonYun 21, FB 27, FB 74, FB 68 and FB 11.  (*FB 11 is same cultivar with FB 74, most are Haoya and tender leaf were picked and made for the tea.)   Our first session is a standardized cupping.  Followed with a short discussion and sharing the comments. Then, we have 6 volunteers to do the actual tea infusion for tasting.  I have to say, we have a great group of tea lovers in our Azusa Tea Club that every one is willing to volunteer to take the assignment.  Actually, without knowing the tea and tea ware in advance...to make a good pot of tea for tasting is a huge challenge to any one.  But, that is our meet up for... we are learning together.  Also, I thank to all for offering me more ideas that what to do in World Tea Expo for the similar cupping.   Enjoy the slideshow.

Tea Basic: Cupping (3/30/2012)

Pomona City College's Tea Leave and Friends came over to do the Tea Basic: Cupping on 3/30 evening. Thuy, Maira, Lauren and Sarah, four seniors of their tea club plus Karen and Ben, a very cozy tea event on a Friday evening. We have four teas for cupping: Two Green tea PiLoChun and Dragon Well, one Oolong tea Oriental Beauty and one Black tea Mao-Fung.
Share with you the following slideshow of our fun study on tea. There are two rounds - first run we cupped with traditional cupping sets - measure 3 g of tea and steep with rolling boil water for 5 minutes. Second run we use Harmony Teapots to experiment, 3 grams of tea with 250 ml of water to steep. We use rolling boiled water for the black tea,. 190 for Oriental Beauty, and 175 for the Dragon Well., and 165 for PiLoChun... Together, we all watched carefully... while the leaves unfurl and settle, we simply remove the drainers to rest them on the coasters. They were suggested to do their cupping logs...with each tea's aroma, flavor and finish, plus examine the color of tea liquor and wet leaves... Each time, doing this with new tea friends...refresh up my own experience and actually...something new to be added...

Tea Ritual in your daily life (Azusa Tea Club 3/17/2012)

This is Azusa Tea Club's March/2012 MeetUp. We have 13 RSVP and a wonderful group that enjoy a great afternoon together. As our topic set to have friends to bring in their own tea sets and may the teas they enjoy in daily life. Robert and Karen did show how they prepare Dark Oolong for a bigger gathering...instead of using tea pot, they use a larger pitcher to steep tea. Thuy from Claremont College shares her Classic Tung-Ting in Gongfu style with a travel tea set that use Guy-Wan to infuse...Maira, another college student, belongs to same tea club with Thuy, shows her jar that she use for her Fridge-Brewed iced tea and a ceramic harmony tea mug for her daily hot tea... We got chance to exchange ideas on how to make a good cup of tea from the tea's appearance, the style, shape and color. We also discussed about how the tea to be processed to make it the way it looks... Linh bring a big flan for our desserts. Good to see Margaret, Henry, Alpha, Francis, and Oana, too. This is a good topic, we should do it more often...