Tea Tasting Event Sun 8-1, 12pm to 2pm

August 1st will be a lineup tasting of our teas purchased directly from small farms in Taiwan. All teas will be presented as cold brew iced teas (Mizudashi) and the event will be a free sampling format.

Come in, ask questions about the farms, and taste our entire lineup!

Cold brew coffee and teas

We have been dong a lot of cold brew over the last few years and the occasional cold brew tea. Cold brewed coffee was a big hit when we opened the bar at the roasting location and we fulling expect that to continue into the future. Hi Rise on Brattle St. also does the cold brewed coffee in the summer quite successfully and we feel this will expand to other cafes in time.

What's exciting and noteworthy is how nice our recent attempts at cold brewing the teas have been. The Fulu Red Oolong has produced multiple cold steeps to give an excellent cup and one of the most fantastic iced teas I have ever tried. It has been so delicious that each and every one liter steep has been quickly split among staff and friends before it could be offered to customers. Along those lines, we are going to try a cold brew of the Cicada Honey Black Tea.

The last time I cold brewed this tea was while I was still in Taiwan after just purchasing the Cicada tea. I took some of the samples we had been given and brewed them in a water bottle for what was a beautiful and aromatic expression of the tea. Smooth, sweet, and complex.

As new crop Fulu Red Oolong arrives in a few weeks, it will be one more addition to our menu that gives a reason to look forward to warm weather.

Chia-Ming tea visit

Chia-Ming is a relatively famous tea producer in Taiwan known for it's Honey Cicada Black Tea. In our visit to them, we found out more about this particular tea as well purchasing another pristine Oolong from them.

The Oolong is a semi ball style Dah-Yeh (broad leaf) cultivar. For this elevation, the broad leaf cultivar is quite ideal and produces a sweet clean cup. We were visiting Chia-Ming as this tea was being packed post processing. The leaves are beautiful and unfurl with each steep to reveal nearly perfect preservation of the pick. This doesn't surprise because Chia-Ming is know for it's superior processing skills.



The other tea, Cicada Honey Black, was the byproduct of a unique method noted for it's use of tea green leafhoppers. Normally considered a pest or associated with novelty teas, this particular tea uses these little pests to produce an exemplary experience. The folks as Chia-Ming have learned to identify a specific type of bitten leaf as an ideal pick that when processed to an exacting methodology results in one of the more unique teas experiences you can have. This black tea yields strong aromas, complex sweetness, and a very distinct cup.

I admit being skeptical about this tea coming in. I had sampled it before through other sources and had what I can only describe as skunky results. Once I arrived at the farm and cupped through all of their lots, the distinctions became clear as to our preferences. We took the silver medal competition lot which was picked as the favorite in the competition by the tea research facility manager in the area. Compared to the gold medal lot, which Chia-Ming also submitted and won, it came as so distinctly special that it was better in our opinion than the more singular gold medal lot.