Tea with the Black Dragon

This was the very first year I went to the San Francisco International Tea Festival. I first learned about it from my friends who were posting about it on social media....the day after. I was so bummed! So, I planned it out for the following year and scheduled my vacation around it. A friend of mine (also first time going) came with me and I planned to meet up with other friends while there.  I had an amazing time this weekend; tried so many teas and learned a bunch of things! This year the venue was at the Palace of Fine Arts, and although parking was not the greatest, it was a good venue -- plenty of room. There were so many vendors with such good tea, but I had (more or less) a list of things that I wanted to get/try: A good Assam / Keemun A good puerh Try out Kenyan purple tea Try Korean blue pea flower tea Try out different vendors And there were so many different vendors with various types of tea ranging from mixed blends to one varietal to tisanes. I ...

 I decided to try and find some new tea vendors for me to sample their offerings. I looked on Steepster at some of the folks I follow to see who they drank the most as well as the discussion forums, and found a vendor, Whispering Pines, that looked promising. I checked out their tea ratings, read their descriptions, and ordered a few things on September 26th. A week later, I had my tea! Everything was well packed. Thumbs up for their shipping! Mostly, I ordered oolongs and black teas just to give it a taste. They also sent me a small sampler of their Imperial Gold Needle. I can't wait to try them all out!

For the tea of the day, we have Emperor’s Yellow Tea from Yunnan Sourcing. From Yunnan Sourcing We are proud to offer a Certified Organic YellowTea from Yunnan. This tea was grown in the area of Simao and was harvested in April 2017. This is a "Pure Bud" Yellow Tea (单芽黄茶) made from a 50/50 blend Yunkang #10, and Xue Ya #100 varietals growing at and altitude 1300 meters (4300 feet) on the southern slope Ma Wei Mountain (just west of Pu'Er City). Fresh leaves from both varietals are picked and blended together before processing. The blend of the two varietals gives a balanced complex taste and increases the number of steeps that the tea can be brewed. The processing is similar to black tea with sun withering, rolling, oxidization, and finally drying. The main difference between the Yellow tea and Black tea processing done by our organic tea growers is the sun withering stage and the oxidization stage are quite a bit shorter for the Yellow tea. You will notice the dry...

Hello & Greetings! Thank you for visiting my little part of the internet, where I try to document my journey on the path of tea (aka Cha Dao ). I've been drinking tea since I was a child, but only recently started exploring cha dao as method of focus, meditation, and just enjoyment of tea. This blog has various tea tastings entries of the teas I've tried over the years (which is more than some, less than others), anecdotes of my tea journey, and what I've discovered along the way. My tea tastes have changed over time as I have become more aware of what I'm drinking and how I drink it. I've cataloged some of my tea logs from various other places (such as Steepster and posts on various social media) so I can have a chronological record of how things have changed over time in a single location.