Why is tea so expensive?
Posted by Miss Neddy at 08:00 AM | Comments (1) | Permalink
Categories: Tea Related
Tea leaves can vary substantially in price, even for the same kind of tea. In my local supermarket, there are shelves of teas, and i can buy Longjing (Dragon’s Well), Tie Kuan Yin (Iron Goddess of Mercy), Pu’er or Jasmine tea for well under a dollar per 100gm. But the…
Da Hong Pao 大红袍 (Big Red Robes)
Posted by Miss Neddy at 03:23 PM | Comments (2) | Permalink
Categories: Tea Da Hong Pao
Possibly the most famous tea from the Wuyi Mountains, from which hundreds of famous and popular teas originate, Da Hong Pao is one of the 四大名樅 or Four Great (Tea) Bushes. It is certainly the most expensive tea auctioned, as 20gm of the tea leaves can be sold for US$25,000.…
Gao Shan 高山 (High Mountain) - Part One
Posted by Miss Neddy at 03:20 PM | Comments (16) | Permalink
Categories: Tea Gao Shan
This is a Taiwanese tea, and can be grown in a number of high mountains in Taiwan, such as Alishan 阿里山, Li Shan 梨山 (Pear Mountain) or Yu Shan 玉山 (Jade Mountain). The tea bushes are grown at altitudes higher than 1000 feet above sea level, which makes for very…
Flavoured Teas
Posted by Miss Neddy at 03:15 PM | Comments (1) | Permalink
Categories: Tea Flavoured
In the Song Dynasty and before, tea was cooked, not steeped, and often the water used boiling the tea was already infused with various ingredients, such as orange peels, osmanthus blossoms, and even salt. The tea leaves were usually pounded and ground into dust and compressed into dense cakes or…
What else is tea good for?
Posted by Miss Neddy at 05:43 PM | Comments (5) | Permalink
Categories: Tea Other uses
If you have any old tea leaves which don’t taste so good anymore, don’t throw them away! Tea and tea leaves can be put to use in a variety of ways. Put the old tea leaves in a pot of boiling water and steep for at least 10 minutes. Sieve…
Flower Teas
Posted by Miss Neddy at 10:58 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Categories: Tea Jasmine
There is a fashion now of handmade tea balls with flowers sewn into the balls. Various blossoms can be used, but one of the most traditional and most popular is the jasmine flower. The jasmine flower used for Chinese teas is quite different from the jasmine flowers that Indians use…
DIY Bubble Tea
Posted by Miss Neddy at 10:57 AM | Comments (2) | Permalink
Categories: Tea Bubble
Bubble tea started out in Taiwan, and was sometimes called Boba because the term “Bo Ba” (波霸) is used to describe actresses who have very big breasts (”波” literally means “ball”). One of the most famous of the “Bo Ba” actresses during the time the bubble tea craze started in…
Wulong tea
Posted by Miss Neddy at 10:53 AM | Comments (2) | Permalink
Categories: Tea Wulong
My favourite kind of tea, it encompasses a broad range of flavours, colours, textures and names. Taiwan is famous for its wulongs, such as the Dongding (冻顶) , Alishan (阿里山), Li shan (梨山), Gao shan (高山)(these are all names of mountains, as the best Taiwanese teas are grown at high…

