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True kudos to a tea vendor

I know I've covered some of their teas here and at my blog, and as anyone here would know I have no affiliation or benefit from it, but I want to publicly thank Daniel and Teaspring.com for service above and beyond anything I could have asked for.

I have an upcoming wedding planned, and since tea plays such a large role in mine and my fiance's lives we wanted to incorporate it into our day. I came up with the idea of building the gifts around the concept and including one of her favorite teas and one of mine with information on the tea, brewing, enjoying, and our story and tie in with the chosen tea.

Everything was coming along nicely until we hit a snag in that while Teaspring had plenty of my fiance's favorite Shui Xian they had no more Bi Lo Chun for my part and none up to snuff available. Of course there are other sources, and even higher quality hand produced options, but either prohibitively expensive or we were over the quantity available with our need for around 600g each. These two had been selected specifically for other reasons which I will share the final result here once everything is done... so I was driving myself crazy trying to pick a suitable alternative. Also, we fully realize that some guests may not really care and the potential to massacre an even more delicate tea was high.

After placing my order for just the bride's half, I figured it was worth one last shot to email Daniel and ask nicely if it was worth it for him to either find a source or find a good enough BLC since it was a decent sized order (but not so huge as to really request special favors). He obliged and while he could make no promises he would try. Today I got an email that he successfully sourced some and he can complete my order! I really could not have asked for more, and that type of service deserves some recognition in my book.

If anyone is looking for a solid, daily drinkable, affordable, Shui Xian or BLC I can't suggest you at least try their offerings out as they easily eclipse most other offerings in the price range and even slightly above. Yes, there are some expensive crafted versions which are in another league which I still treat myself to but FWIW, these are unbeatable values. My other hope is that by planting the seed if even one guest gains an appreciation or learns more about tea from this, it would make it all worthwhile to me.

I figured I would share the tale,

- Dominic

Reply to
Dominic T.
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Nice tale. But there is one t to many in it, ain't there?

Good plan to incorporate fine tea into your wedding!

Lars Stockholm

Reply to
Lars

Dominic,

Congrats on your nuptials.

Include me as a very, very satisfied customer of Teaspring. They are my main tea source now, and when I am in the Chicago area I found a nice tea shop in Evanston; but Teaspring is the best mail order shop for me.

What are the "expensive crafted versions which are in another league"? Are you referring to other Xian's and BLC's?

My most recent order from Teaspring was:

Pu Ti Cha Song Zhong Dan Chong Traditional Da Hong Pao Huang Guan Yin Yang Yan Gou Qing Sichuan Gongfu

Thanks,

Alton

Reply to
Alton B. Wilson

Oh, I mainly was referring to the Shui Xian. I have had a number of specimens that were so amazing it is almost hard to put in words (but I'll try ;) To start I always kind of enjoyed oolongs, never the green flowery ones, until an acquaintance shared two Shui Xians with me that simply blew me away. The greatest was from Singapore and was so heavily roasted and re-roasted that it was brittle and almost like charcoal... which doesn't sound nice but I assure you it was ethereal. I'm not a fan of smoky/roasted teas like a Lapsang so the best I can say is that it was very reminiscent of raisins, a touch chocolaty, and maybe even a bit of flavor similar to the scent of a good quality tobacco (not smoke but the tobacco itself). The other was a high-fired version I believe came from The Tea Gallery in NYC. They were my true introduction to Shui Xian even though I had tried low-mid quality ones before that weren't even remotely memorable. I was hooked, and Kelly even more. It instantly rocketed to the top of our lists.

I have since had the pleasure of trying a few that were hand crafted in what I consider an artisan manner, by a man who personally fires, stores, and re-fires his tea to perfection. I've also ordered some from a few other boutique vendors that has that higher fired, brittle, texture which just outclasses even the Teaspring offering... but are way too expensive to drink daily even if I had the money to throw at it. I have ordered more than I required from Teaspring though, and I'm looking forward to re-firing some myself to try to achieve similar results. I'll surely post my results and trials.

As for BLC it is less about artisans and more about differences. Since I came from a Japanese green background it was a hard sell to retrain myself to Chinese greens, but I'm glad I did. As much as I hate to say it, I think the tide turned at Teany in NYC. The water was the wrong temp, the BLC was good quality, and even still it managed to capture my attention and caused me to start sampling and learning. I have to admit that I've only sampled maybe 12 different BLCs as I get pulled back to the same 2 all the time, Teasprings is one of them. I've yet to really dig in and sample a ton just because I'm stupidly happy with what I have.

I added their Huo Shan Huang Ya (yellow tea) to my order to try theirs as well, as it is a favorite.

(sorry for the abnormally long followup to an already long post, I just realized how much I typed in response)

- Dominic

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Reply to
Dominic T.

Dominic, Which other boutique tea vendors can you recommend for the highly roasted Shui Xian? It sounds great.

Reply to
TokyoB

Well, everything I had was from 1+ years ago and some were gifts from folks which I don't have sources for. Mr. Wang is one of the artisans I was speaking about and twice I have had the joy of drinking Shui Xian from him. Hou De and Jing's are two other places to find good Shui Xian. I do know Stephan (Teamasters) did a writeup on Mr. Wang a while back and may also be a resource. Everything else (like the gifts I spoke of) came from small shops and individuals who either live or travel extensively in that part of the world and I've never been able to put their name or info together with anything online or even via phone/mail/email so I'm S.O.L. there. I can ask and get the names and info like address etc. for those who could make use of it but it isn't in my notes.

Outside of that I just scour the web and places like eBay for some that catches my eye or is mentioned to be fired with charcoal or looks particularly roasted and give it a shot. Sometimes I catch a winner and then the seller is never to be found again and sometimes I get some terrible tea and those sellers are always available :) Any vendor who deals in really good WuYi Oolongs or Oolong in general can be a hit.

I'll try to add to this post later if I can dig up anything from my notes this is all from the top of my head.

- Dominic

Reply to
Dominic T.

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