Coupeville WA
February 3, 2012 | 
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Gorreana Broken Leaf
Gorreana grows and processes tea on the island of S. Miguel, one of the Azores islands in the mid-Atlantic that belong to Portugal. This tea is unique in that it is grown in what is politically Europe. Gorreana teas are characterized by their lightness, the fact that they have very little bitterness and astringency.
This time I tried Gorreana’s Broken Leaf. I had the idea that this tea would brew up richer than the regular Pekoe, but when I opened the package I found irregular leaves, not the uniform ones of the Orange Pekoe, but if they were broken they certainly weren’t the fine cut preferred by the British for their breakfast teas.
The tea has a fairly pronounced smell with hints of fruity, floral, and woodsy (but not as fruity and floral as the Orange Pekoe). It brewed up to a yellow tinged orangy light brown liquor. The flavor was light and a touch woodsy. There was just a hint of bitterness after a longer than normal steep. On the whole, even though the leaves are broken, I find this tea actually has a little less flavor than Gorreana’s Orange Pekoe.
Roland at Tea & Treasure
Posted in Coupeville WA, Orange Pekoe, Tea and Treasure, Tea from Europe, Uncategorized | 
Tags: Gorreana tea, Orange Pekoe, Pekoe, tea grown in Europe | 
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Kwong Sang Tea
During the 70s and 80s, anytime I was in SanFrancisco I’d make a point of going to Chinatown where I’d always purchase some of those colorful little tins of tea from the Kwong Sang Tea Company of Hong Kong. My favorites were Lemon Tea and Lychee Tea, both of them being flavored black teas. During the 90s I lived in Japan and other places, and I forgot all about Kwong Sang.
Recently, I came across them again as one of my tea suppliers sells their tea. So now I have those cute tins in my own tea store, and I’ve recently tried the black Mango Tea, the fine cut Russian Tea, and the green Mint Tea. All are delicious. Kwong Sang also exports more traditional Chinese teas with names like Titkoonyum, Po Nee, Shou Mee, and Lok On. I decided that I needed to know exactly what these teas were, so here is what I found:
Titkoonyum is one of China’s everyday drinking green teas.
Po Nee is a Yunnan high grown tea popular in South China, and the consensus seems to be that this is actually Pu’erh.
Shou Mee is an affordable white tea.
Lok On is a hearty green tea with a heady aroma.
Now I’m going to have to order these and do tasting reports.
Roland at Tea & Treasure
Posted in Chinese Tea, Coupeville WA, Tea and Treasure, Uncategorized | Tags: Chinese tea, Green Tea, Hong Kong tea, Kwong Sang Tea, pu'erh, white tea | No Comments »
I procured a couple of gai wans for sale at Tea & Treasure for the first time recently, and yesterday a Chinese lady customer showed me how they are used. As you can see from the photo, these Chinese tea systems, invented around the time that the Great Wall was built, have a saucer, a cup, and a lid that is smaller than the rim of the cup. At first I thought it to be shoddy workmanship, but now I understand the reason, so I can pass on the knowledge I gained yesterday to you.
Tea is brewed in the gai wan directly. When ready to drink, the gai wan is picked up by the saucer using the left hand. The right hand then picks up the lid, tilts it, and sweeps the edge of it across the tea, thus pushing the floating tea leaves away from the side of the cup from which you are going to drink or pour. The lid is then place on the cup at enough of an angle to leave a crack from which to sip or pour the tea. You can now pick up the cup with your right hand while resting your right index finger on the center of the lid to hold it in place while you sip the tea or strain it into smaller cups. The saucer not only makes holding the gai wan more comfortable (the cup will be too hot to hold directly), but it also catches anything that might drip.
Not only is the gai wan functional for brewing, straining, and drinking tea, but it’s also a remarkably compact system and also quite a little work of art to look at and appreciate.
Roland at Tea & Treasure
Gai Wan with Peony Design
Posted in Chinese Tea, Coupeville WA, History of Tea, Tea Accessories, Tea and Treasure, Uncategorized, White Peony | Tags: brewing tea, China, Chinese tea, Chinese teacup, gai wan, gaiwan | No Comments »
If you have a restaurant, serving tea to the public is no issue, but what do you do if you just have a retail tea outlet like I do? My solution was a help yourself tea bar. The things I had to avoid were washing dishes or equipment (I don’t have a three compartment sink) and touching a product that someone else is to consume (I don’t have a separate sink for the chef to wash his hands). So how does one boil water, brew tea, and serve it without having to wash pots, cups, or hands?
For the cups, the obvious solution was to use paper cups which are disposed of after use. Paper doesn’t alter the taste of tea, so all we’re missing here is a little refinement. The cups come with heat proof sleeves to slip on so that hands don’t overheat while enjoying the hot tea.
I have the water delivered by a bottled water company from whom I also rent a hot and cold dispenser. At the expense of the coldness of the cold water, I have the hot water heating set as high as it will go; this dispenses water at a good enough temperature for tea brewing.
For the tea itself, the obvious is to offer tea bags; however, even though I offer more interesting tea bags, this doesn’t put my tea experience much above that of an office. So I also offer a rotating selection of looseleaf tea in the canisters that the tea company packed the tea in. The procedure is this: the cusomer takes a plastic disposable spoon and a paper easy fill tea filter. The customer then chooses a tea, opens the can, and spoons some tea into the filter, folding it over at the top and putting it into the cup. Then it’s to the hot water tap and, when the tea is brewed, to the individual packets of sweetener and little containers of shelf stable half and half if desired. The spoon is disposed of, and the customer can take the tea to go or enjoy it in the store’s sitting room, where chess and other games are available, or outside in the beautiful and tranquil tea garden.
Roland at Tea & Treasure
Self Serve Tea Bar at Tea & Treasure
Posted in Coupeville WA, Tea and Treasure, Uncategorized | Tags: tea bar, tea house, tea store | No Comments »
People often walk into my tea store and ask if I have loose tea. I tell them that all of the cans they see contain loose tea. “No,” they say, “loose tea; you know, in jars.” I then explain why I don’t sell tea that way.
Like a lot of products, the enemies of tea are air and light. Tea stays fresh longer when it is packaged in air and light proof containers. There are drawbacks to this, of course, as you can’t see or smell the tea. On the other hand, if you can see it and smell it, that’s not the tea you want to take home. Tea & Treasure gets around this by having selected teas open on our help yourself tea bar for people to see, smell, and taste. These teas are consumed quickly enough to maintain their freshness. Some tea purveyors offer small samples of their teas in little containers for the specific purpose of letting customers see and smell the tea.
My line of flavored teas arrives in sealed silver cansiters where air and light can not penetrate. They have a fill date on the bottom, and the company guarantees freshness for two years from that date. My line of green and oolong teas are packaged in ziploc plastic bags with foil backing. These are specialized teas that you really do want to see, so I keep them on a shelf that is always shaded and I stack them so that only one bag of each type has the see through side exposed. Loose tea that comes in paper boxes should be sealed in foil or plastic as boxes allow air through.
Back to the bulk tea in jars. You see the tea, but that’s an issue. The jars are constantly being opened, and that’s an issue. Also, how long has tea been sitting in the jars? Does the proprietor top the jars off or wait ’till the entire batch is sold prior to refilling? Did someone forget to replace the top prior to leaving for the day? How would we know any of this anyway? So yes, those jars stacked against the wall look cool and you can buy your tea by the ounce, but can anyone guarantee what you’re buying? When I explain all this, most customers say something like, “Ah, I see,” or “Yes, you’re right.” Some customers, though, are obviously buying the experience as a whole, not just the tea, and they, unfortunately, must go elsewhere.
Roland at Tea & Treasure
Posted in Tea and Treasure, Uncategorized | Tags: presenting tea, retailing tea, storing tea, tea freshness, tea packaging | No Comments »