Tea from Non Traditional Tea Producing Countries

Nov 25, 2009 Last reply: 16 years ago 6 Replies

I am a new member to this group and am looking forward to lots of conversations regarding tea. For now, I was wondering if anyone knew places that one could purchase tea from Indonesia, Vietnam, or Bolivia. I found a Bolivian Black at a small tea shop in Cumberland Maryland which was wonderful. Art of Tea has Purple Oolong from Indonesia, but I understand that Vietnam has come a long way in it's tea production and there was one other. Just have a large tea collection from Sri Lanka(Ceylon), India, China and wanted to diversify a little


You can find all three of the countries you mentioned here:

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I've tried some of their teas from Georgia, which are quite good.

/Lew

Buy any Indonesian tea that contains the word Java. Youll have to find a tea shoppe that carries a selection. In the Asian stores look for the Vietnamese tea packaging Thai Nguyen Tra. This is the unscented green tea from Thai Nguyen province. The Asian brand YamoMotoYama tea plantations are in of all places Brazil. Kenya is another large exporter of teas.

Jim

Yes, Thai Nguyen green can be delicious: fresh and sweet, somewhere between Chinese and Japanese greens in its profile.

/Lew

I had a wonderful silver needle from Malawi. I also had a very interesting (good or not depends on the palette, some folks hated it, I liked it) from Kenya.

There are a couple Vietnamese teas available from Upton's, which are pleasant but undistinguished, and I have seen some random Vietnamese teas (mostly scented but some unscented) at the Vietnamese markets in Northern VA.

Don't know about anything from Indonesia, but the Boh teas website will allow you to order online, and I cannot say enough good things about their Palas Afternoon tea. Even their cheap bulk tea is pretty good.

Don't know about Bolivia at all. There is a huge amount of tea being grown in Argentina, but most of it is pretty dreadful.

And of course there is Georgia.... do a search on this newsgroup for the url for Caucasus Arts. I really like their teas although I wound up having to send five-pound notes in the mail to their fellow in the UK because they had no US distribution.

--scott

Hi Scott

Nothing But Tea

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are the sole importers of artisanal teas from the Repulic of Georgia. We carry a larger range then any other provider and we accept credit card payments.

Happy tea drinking

regards

Helga

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