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Spirituality of Tea: Buddhism, Christianity, Daoism

March 8, 2014 by Jason

Consider, for a moment, how times, places, and everyday objects can influence our faith practices. Religion or spiritual traditions are not created in a vacuum. For example, Jewish Passover might include congee instead of unleavened bread if the Hebrews had exited ancient China instead of Egypt. How does a Christian missionary translate the import of Jesus’s “I am the bread of life” statement to a people who live without bread? The intertwining of foods, culture, and spiritual practice have taken place with tea, Buddhism, Christianity, and Daoism. Let’s take a look at how tea shapes, and is shaped by, faith practices.
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Special Offer: Aiya America

March 1, 2014 by Jason

Sign up for the Walker Tea Review newsletter to receive a special offer from Aiya America.

Sign up for the newsletter before March 31st.

Indulge yourself in pure grandeur. Not all Matcha are created equal, one taste and you’ll agree.

Aiya, offering premium quality Matcha since 1888.

Walker Tea Review- a tea blog with tea reviews and tea tastings.
Want to see a tea reviewed? Contact me: jason@walkerteareview.com

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The Mandarin’s Tea Room

February 14, 2014 by Jason

Courtesy: Timothy Hsu

Tucked quietly away in New York City’s Chinatown, The Mandarin’s Tea Room opens doors to awareness.

Canal Street in New York City’s Chinatown is a bazaar. One store doorway after another offers t-shirts, perfumes, and cheap souvenirs. Hawkers stand in the middle of the sidewalk. Locals and tourists side-step each other and dodge the merchants calling them into their shops. The street roars with 6 lanes of busy traffic.

Rounding two street corners and entering The Mandarin’s Tea Room creates a welcome contrast. Someone suggested the tea room be called a speakeasy, but the concept doesn’t really fit. Perhaps “tea sanctuary” is more appropriate. It is a place to cultivate awareness.

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Book Review: Wild Tea Hunter

February 4, 2014 by Jason

Somewhere in the lush forested corners in the deepest recesses of Yunnan Province lives an Ingenious Gentleman. In his quest, our hero uncovers the shady dealings of big tea business and seeks to protect a waning, sustainable tea culture. But is our hero tilting at windmills?
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Fang Gourmet Tea Expo

January 17, 2014 by Jason

Rock Mineral Teapot

A trip to Flushing from New Jersey is not exactly a hop, skip, and jump. It took about 2 hours from door-to-door. It included walking, switching trains, and navigating subway lines. Is a cup of tea worth this much trouble?

It was for the Fang Gourmet Tea Expo.

For more than five years, Fang Gourmet Tea has hosted an Expo in the Sheraton LaGuardia East Hotel. The Expo lasts several weeks, and includes demonstrations on topics like pestle tea, gongfu tea steeping competitions, and exhibits of jade or pottery.

Fang Gourmet Tea’s Expo is one of those places where you can find a cup of tea worth climbing mountains for. It isn’t just the tea – it’s the whole experience.

If you’ve attended the Coffee & Tea Fest and have that in mind as the typical expo experience, you will find Fang’s expo to be a refreshing change of pace. The atmosphere is more relaxed, yet more focused. Here, you can sit with other attendees around a gongfu tea service as tea is steeped before you. You take in all the sights, aromas, tastes and other impressions of the tea makes upon you.

The expo is a richly rewarding experience. The Fang expo is one of the (maybe the only) places in New York where you can smell tea being freshly roasted while learning to appreciate wood-fired and rock mineral teaware.

Wood-fired Teaware Set

Wood-fired ceramics require extra care to create. Clays need to be heated to certain temperatures at certain points for certain durations in the firing process, so there are recipes of woods that used at various stages of firing. Some woods burn hotter. Some burn faster. As a result, not every wood-firing attempt is successful. But when they are, each piece has its distinct colors and marks from the tea and ash. Each piece has something to admire.

Rock mineral teaware are true treasures. The combinations of clay and pulverized mineral used result in distinctive works of art unique to each creation. But these are not minerals chosen simply for their beauty. Rock mineral teaware enhances the quality of tea.

To test this theory, Fang conducted an experiment. They invited customers to purchase a tea storage jar made of rock mineral clay. Those jars were then filled with tea leaves. The owners of those jars signed a seal on the jar, agreeing not to open these jars for 6 months. When the time had passed, the jars were opened, and the tea was steeped alongside the same tea leaves that had not been stored in the rock mineral jars. In blind tastings, the rock mineral stored tea garnered significantly more votes than the other teas.

If that weren’t enough, Fang also offered liu bao teas. Like its cousin pu’er, liu bao is a “dark tea” that is growing in popularity in the U.S. Fang had liu bao teas aged 5 and 9 years.

Of course, Fang offers teas and teawares year-round, but the expo allows these stars to shine a little brighter.

Get even more in the Member Content.

Walker Tea Review- a tea blog with tea reviews and tea tastings.
Want to see a tea reviewed? Contact me: jason@walkerteareview.com

Subscribe in a reader or by email

Teavana Tea Bar + Fine Teas Exclusive Preview

October 31, 2013 by Jason

Little was left to chance last night (23 October 2013) at an exclusive preview of Teavana’s new Fine Teas + Tea Bar in NYC. A car service delivered attendees to the Madison Ave store to help assure everyone arrived conveniently, comfortably, and in the most agreeable mood possible.

Media members from NPR, food and lifestyle publications, and tea publications were on hand. Starbucks and Teavana execs were there as well.

As an event, it was delightful. The design and feel of the store brings an element of Starbucks with some Oriental styling.

And to the keen observer, there were other, noteworthy aspects about how Starbucks + Teavana view tea and tea customers.

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Considering Terroir

October 24, 2013 by Jason

This article originally appeared in the September 2013 issue of Tea & Coffee Trade Journal.

Terroir is becoming an increasingly important consideration in selecting tea for the North American specialty tea market, as was reflected in the courses and show floor interactions at the 2013 World Tea Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Terroir and the French phrase “gout de terroir” have been more frequently used by the wine industry in speaking of “the taste of the earth,” or “a sense of place.” The word is also employed to describe those signature flavor characteristics of artisanally crafted tea that are direct results of growth condition and location.

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