Tea awareness in Thailand

[honu]

Let me start off with a declaration: I am not an expert, or any sort of gourmand with respect to tea, but I do know what I like and can appreciate the difference between what I think is nice and what I think is "pretty normal".

Lipton yellow has been lambasted here.....I suspect it's in the brewing and/or the water. I don't think it's a great tea, but when made properly, it can be quite pleasant. It's what I have here as it's the only tea I can find aside from expensive Twinings and various green teas.

....

I think I've mentioned this but I'm not saying I'm a tea expert either. It's funny how I'm either in the role of very experienced in some places or a newbie in others (tea groups, where people have put decades into their tea obsession).

Do you live in Thailand? I'm trying to help with awareness of where to get better teas, not just the more expensive kinds that wouldn't appeal to everyone but also lower end more affordable teas. Twinnings costs something like 300 baht for 100 grams (about $10; I didn't check that, and don't buy it, just a ball-park) and that is kind of normal range for mid-grade teas, but there are bargains out there for lower-mid grade range. I might repeat that I don't sell tea, so that's not what's at stake for me.

To me most Thai oolongs fall in that range, some more like half that price rate for Twinnings, for decent teas. You have to be careful of what you buy in Chinatown or local shops but some black teas or dark oolongs are also available on the lower cost side.

I think it helps to keep in mind that 100 grams of tea makes 50 good sized cups of tea, so for the cost of a few cups of coffee in a shop or a few beers in a bar, or maybe a half dozen at home, someone is drinking a lot of tea for a month.

[roath]

Liptons is the tea equivalent of Carlsberg Special Brew (or Siam Sato for Thai afficianados). It is correctly called beer, but hardly approaching anything one could call a quality product. I think someone mentioned that it is so popular as it is good for making iced tea (i.e. it's far too bland to make a "proper" cup of (milk) tea. Dilmahs Ceylon is a much better alternative

[honu]

Dilmah's Ceylon (loose tea) is pretty decent as commercial grade teas go, it's just really astringent compared to a lot of other types of black teas (bitter).

If one makes it with milk and sugar that drops out completely, or prepared as masala chai. That is tea mixed with spices and usually sugar and milk, typically with cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, clove, and black pepper, but different blends would work. Made as a heavily sweetened iced tea it's also fine; the sugar gets rid of the astringency too. Really adding milk and sugar to tea isn't a bad thing, if one likes tea that way, but there are dimensions to better tea flavors that might never come up if one stayed with only drinking inexpensive blended black tea made that way.

I was just working on a blog post about a Thai oolong (Jin Xuan) that goes into why some people would never add sugar to tea, and how it relates to grades (more than types, but in this case it ties back to that). I'm only half finished but since grade ties directly to price I'll go straight to that to make a point. The tea I'm reviewing is from Tea Village, costing $2.07 per 50 grams (60 baht, roughly). The commercial grade Thai teas I showed a picture of from Tops were 135 baht for 100 grams of green tea and 170 grams of black, all quite inexpensive really, since we're talking about 50 to 100 cups of tea for that amount. Put in perspective, it's the cost of a cup of Starbucks coffee, or one large beer in a restaurant.

The point is the pricing is low enough that anyone drinking tea bag tea to save money beyond that might not be thinking it through. The oolong is much better tea (of course that's a judgment call; someone else might really like Lipton's better). It's not a fair comparison since one is black and the other lightly oxidized oolong anyway.

What would be the next level up, for grade? It's not exactly just a move upwards since tea-type flavor profiles differ but roughly speaking a reasonable grade of Tie Kuan Yin would be. That cultivar (plant type) can be grown in Thailand but it's not common, and most likely better versions would come from Taiwan or China. Of course how good a tea is depends on the tea, not where it's from, since it's based on lots of factors, some related to growing, others processing, even storage.

Tea Village sells a Tie Kuan Yin for $7.85 for 50 grams, definitely not a higher grade of the tea for that reasonable a price, but most of their teas are a good version. I think I did try it sampling different teas with the owner but I'm not really prepared to offer tasting notes. Compared to the Jin Xuan it would be more floral in flavor profile, a little sweeter, perhaps slightly "cleaner" flavors, more refined, and often it will brew more infusions than other teas (although that Jin Xuan can be brewed a number of times consistently, whereas black teas maybe two or three depending on how you make it).

I'm not pushing their tea with this example, the point is explaining how grades work. If you don't mind spending three times as much for a couple dozen cups of tea--still not a lot--the taste is different, and perhaps even the aftertaste or body (feel) of the tea. If that cost is a factor then adding a little sugar may make a similar difference, it just wouldn't be exactly the same.

By extension I'm sort of implying that if cost isn't a factor, that if someone has $20 or $30 a month to spare on tea, with no concern about that expense, then they might well drift towards drinking better teas, and keep drifting, exploring new and better teas. That can happen. I like to drink a lot of types of tea, to mix it up, and I don't mind some being common grade / everyday tea (just not Lipton's--too common grade), but I would sorely miss drinking some better teas as well.

I've paid $20 to $30 on a comparable amount of tea to those packages, or much less, and sometimes it seemed a good value. When I didn't really like the tea it was a bit sad, and I guess that range of expense wouldn't be for everyone, great tea or no.

[honu]

I wrote a blog post reviewing a Thai Jin Xuan oolong that overlaps with that last comment, and even refers to some of it:

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2015/07/sweetening-tea-grades-of-tea-and-thai.html

To make a long story short, I explain that to me it's ok for people to add sugar to tea (some people are judgmental about that), but that it seems natural to me to drink it plain if it's better tea or after getting used to it that way.

And I explain why I think tea-bag tea isn't as good as inexpensive loose teas. I mean those teas taste better, and I don't go into why (tea-bag tea is dust, basically, I should have mentioned that). So it's about explaining what a decent inexpensive black tea is like, with a couple examples.

Jin Xuan is the main type of Thai oolong. It's the name of the plant type, or cultivar, usually prepared as a lightly oxidized oolong, or similar to green tea versus being similar to black tea.

[mike324]

I've drank Chinese tea that gives off a hint of sweetness in the end, do you know what that type of tea is called?

[honu]

About the question about the Chinese tea, I'd assume you are talking about a black tea, since some of those seem really sweet to me. There are a number of different teas I've tried that are made in the style of a Golden Monkey tea that are like that, the last I reviewed here:

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2014/11/comparison-tasting-dahongpao-and-golden.html

If we are talking about the same thing I don't like that style of tea. The sweetness is a bit much to me, like they've added some apricot preserves flavor to a tea.

This really mixes two completely different subjects in one post, but I also wanted to talk a little about tea cafes in Bangkok, related to visiting one in Chinatown recently, Double Dogs café:

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2015/07/double-dogs-tea-room-visit-shui-jin-gui.html

Back to teas more than cafes, the tea I drank was in a style I really do like, Wuyi Yancha, or rock oolong (darker roasted oolong from the Fujian, China area). They're less oxidized than black teas, but much more oxidized than the "greener" oolongs you typically find in Thailand, which are usually made from different tea plant types, Jin Xuan or Ruan Zhi. Shui Jin Gui is the name of the plant, essentially, although it is possible for teas to have different names assigned to them. I think the name actually translates to something about a turtle, with more on the story about that in the blog post (two different versions). Wuyi Yancha teas in general have rich, woody, slightly sweet flavors, more towards toffee or caramel, with a lot of flavors possibly mixed in (leather, cherry, floral elements, etc.).

About cafes, in a lot of places that's a common way to experience tea, but not so much in Bangkok. There are a number of tea cafes, and I've written blog posts about other places, but people drink thousands of times more bubble tea, iced lemon tea, and "Thai tea" here (powdered tea with milk and artificial flavoring) than brewed tea. Related to cost, the people commenting here that feel put out by spending 200-300 baht for 100 grams of ordinary loose tea would be outraged to spend that on one pot of tea. I wrote a blog post about a café in Silom (Peony) which I think only charged 100 to 150 or so for lower grade loose teas by the cup (pot; a few cups), but still an order of magnitude higher cost than brewing at home. It has to be about enjoying the atmosphere.

The strange part is everyone walks into work in my office with cups of coffee and tea that cost between 30 to 150 baht every day (depending if it's powdered tea from a stand somewhere or a Starbucks with whatever added to it). On the low end it's not so expensive but someone just mixed a powder and water and served that to them; I'm not sure why they wouldn't buy the powder and mix it themselves.

The tea I bought in that cafe was 260 baht for a tiny pot (silly how small, really, it held about an ounce), with some "cakes," like a sesame biscuit. It was good tea, probably worth the 670 baht per 50 grams they charged to buy it loose, although that really depends on the person's judgment of value more than the grade (the primary reason teas cost what they do). On the lowest end Three Horses tea in a grocery store costs around 40 baht for a package (80 grams?) but the version I tried of it once was not worth any more than that.

[honu]

Greetings again! I wanted to mention on new experience that definitely related to tea awareness in Thailand. I visited a restaurant in Bangkok with "tea" in the name (Tealicious) and they served almost all tea-bag teas. I wrote a lot about that in a blog post:

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2015/07/tealicious-bangkok-cafe-visit.html

Might seem like I'm being judgmental about both the restaurant and tea-bag teas, and I guess I sort of am. You can get much better loose teas than that, for roughly the same cost. I've tried "high end tea bags" (kind of an oxymoron in tea circles) in five star hotels but they're still no better than very mediocre loose teas.

To be fair, that restaurant served one loose tea I did get and liked, and the food was quite good, so I'd recommend the place, but definitely not as a destination for above average tea, or even tea on par with the relatively inexpensive versions I normally drink.

I think it just comes back to awareness. The shop owners and tourists know no better, or Thai customers, so tea bags are good enough. An online friend I talk to in England claims that's quite normal there, that awareness of teas is generally limited to a few grocery-store tea-bag brands, even though people do drink a good bit of tea in terms of liquid volume.

An intern from Nepal recently gave me a commercial masala chai tea, which I wrote about here: http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2015/08/masala-chai-revisited-tea-gift-from.html

At least they have different options available as commercial teas (there in Nepal), but it doesn't seem like tea awareness is on the same level as in China or Japan (or I guess in India, but I'm only familiar with better Darjeelings from there, not how the common person identifies with tea).

There is a tea enthusiast movement in America, and lots of online outlets and shops turning up, but the average person in America has never tasted brewed loose tea, aside from what they serve in Chinese restaurants (not a great example, but a start).

[honu]

At the risk of talking to myself, which has already kind of happened, I tried out the best tea I've been served in a tea shop in Bangkok recently, at the relatively new Peace Oriental tea shop.

The tea was Jin Guan Yin, a hybrid version of Tie Guan Yin, combined with a second tea plant type (details on that in a blog post, link follows).

I'd highly recommend this shop, along with the qualification that teas there are between 300 and 650 per small pot. It's enough to brew 9 or 10 one ounce cups of tea, or one relatively normal size cup of tea that takes a half hour to brew and drink in ten parts. It's definitely not for everyone, but for some people just the thing.

Two other places that may or may not sell equivalent quality teas come to mind, but it's likely you couldn't buy a close equivalent to any of the teas, at best different variations of the same quality level.

I'm an advocate of people enjoying whatever tea is appropriate for them, and there are lots of places to get more reasonably priced tea in Bangkok. Even there you could buy this tea for around 1000 baht for 50 grams, so you could brew it 10 or 12 times for three times what one pot costs, maybe even 15 if you use such a small teapot as they do. I've already mentioned other places to get decent tea that costs a fraction of that, just not quite as good.

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2015/08/jin-guan-yin-at-peace-oriental-tea.html

[Gbean93]

Hi!

I am looking for organic butterfly pea flower tea to import into the UK from Thailand.

Does anyone know the best way of sourcing this, or know anyone that does!

Thanks

[noidontwantatuktuk]

Fellow tea lovers,

There's a new place opened up in park lane Ekamai, best place for tea I have been too, in particular many good oolongs , the guy really knows his stuff. He does cold brews/slow drip too and depending on the tea serves gongfu style. Love this place!

https://www.facebook.com/7sevensuns?fref=ts&ref=br_tf

Edited October 3, 2015 by noidontwantatuktuk

[honu]

Nice to see talk about tea!

About butterfly pea tea, here are some places to take a look, but these are retail. You really want the source where they are getting the teas, and that I don't know. Google might help with that but a search would go better in Thai language, always a problem for anyone that's not Thai.

Any tea vendor is likely to sell higher volumes for less but you'll still pay a good bit more than they bought the tea for, but it still can't hurt to check that rate:

http://tea-village.com/en/9-herbs

http://tea-side.com/herbal-teas-for-healing/

About the Ekamai shop, nice to hear of it; I'll take a look.

I finally found a good tea shop in Chinatown, Jip Eu, the kind of place that sells good teas for decent prices, and cheap teas for next to nothing, and doesn't sell the teas out of bins or large glass jars. Really such shops are all over the place, so it was more a gap in me never spending an afternoon wandering around Chinatown than such places being rare or hidden away.

Here is the link to my post about the place (trying a Ban Tian Yao, a relatively rare Wuyi Yancha, but of course they sell "normal" tea), and the shop Facebook page. About Ban Tian Yao, really unless someone is really set on trying versions of Wuyi Yancha they've never had the more common types are fine, just each different (Da Hong Pao, Shui Xian, Rue Gui, etc.). The real trick is finding a really good version, a tea grown properly in an ideal environment, roasted and prepared well, etc., not so much the plant type.

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2015/09/ban-tian-yao-wuyi-yancha-from-jip-eu.html

https://www.facebook.com/threeshelltea?fref=ts

[llp]

Your thoughts and comments on tea labeled organic tea vs regular? A quick google search is showing that many Chinese and India Teas have EU banned pesticides, any truth to this?

I never buy chinese fruit/vegtables, mostly everything is from NZ and some veggies are Thai organic/ hydroponics / Royal Thai Projects, should the same rules apply to Tea? Also I've read even if a say a Chinese product is labeled organic the water source used for the plants might be filthy with contaminates.

How do you go upon finding a reputable tea/company if you are trying to avoid chemicals? Buying directly from a trusted friend farmer is one thing, but some loose leaf tea unbranded at an unknown shop, it would be hard to know the source.

Been drinking this Green Tea, how does it rate:

[samuijimmy]

The only tea I buy here now, is loose TATA tea, in a green bag from Sri Lanka,.... usually Makro has it, but can sometimes be found in Indian or Burmese shops...

Now that's a good cuppa!

[honu]

About the question about pesticides and chemicals in tea, and the real value in buying organic teas, those are good questions. I'm not sure.

There are Thai certifications for organic products but I wouldn't be certain that means much in practice. It's hard to imagine how US or Canadian certifications could be meaningful here either. Then again, since very little tea is grown in the US or Canada if foreign standards can't be effectively applied overseas then labeling for all the products there doesn't mean much either.

What I've heard of such issues is just hearsay, nothing of enough credibility to pass on, but people seemed to interpret organic standards more positively in direct relation to them having an interest in using them for marketing.

I've recently read of problems related to importing teas from one place to another because testing to ensure safety is difficult (really a separate issue, but related), with too many potential contaminants to effectively test for even most, and different standards for different allowable thresholds in different countries. That was about a familiar name in tea, just one case of one failed test, so hard to extrapolate from that, just interesting reading related discussion points.

If it helps at all what one comes across related to the issue of risks also varies. Some sources (which could be more closely tied to tea sales interests) cite studies saying test results are generally positive across all categories, and that in general chemicals don't make it from application to leaves into a brewed liquid tea very easily. Of course other sources say the risks are real, and higher, that test results can identify contamination and this can pass on to what you drink.

In the end one might wonder how to minimize risk, aside from making friends with tea farmers, how much buying organic products seems to offset that. I really don't know. I doubt any amount of internet based research would point in any one direction, so at best one could try to judge source credibility and then interpret different findings after that step.

It's kind of a completely separate issue but I've never had any luck finding drinkable mass-produced Thai tea of any type (in reference to the one shown). It would seem more of a shame to risk long term negative health effects for tea that doesn't taste good to begin with. People sell semi-wild teas based on the claims that tea trees not cultivated through conventional farming methods would use no such chemicals, but I'm not sure, maybe not.

[noidontwantatuktuk]

Can anyone comment on where to buy real handmade yixing teapots? China town seems to be a minefield, many fakes, i'm sure there are some good teapot places in china town but it's knowing where to find them. Obviously there is paradise mall, but it's pricy. Anyone care to weigh in?

Cheers,

Paul

[honu]

This is really not my area of expertise but I did just discuss this at a tea shop in Chinatown, the Jip Eu shop I'd mentioned. They said one way to identify the real jixing pots was to review the certification letter that came with it.

If someone knew what they were looking for the stamp at the bottom of the pot also identifies maker, but then if the pot is a fake that's the kind of thing that could be faked. Really the certificate could be counterfeited too; it's just a paper record. I suppose it wouldn't help with review if it was written mostly in Chinese, but then that relates to the country the pots are typically coming from.

Someone might wonder, what does it mean for a clay pot to be fake? Those certificates list the maker and composition of the pots, and the whole point is that different types of clay have different properties (as I recall yixing is a regional designation that refers to the clay type used). I know nothing about all that, of course. If someone wanted to spend hundreds of dollars on clay pots they'd do well to research it further. That does raise an interesting question; what is the range of what such pots are supposed to cost? Again I'm not a good reference for the subject but I've seen them for next to nothing (surely not "real" yixing pots, whatever that means), and then from $60 to $500, with others surely costing more.

Someone might also wonder, what else is there to consider beside the type of clay used? Size, of course, and people into pots talk about the shape of the pot being critical, the thickness, the finish (outside and inside appearance and texture), how well the lid seals, even how fast the spout discharges the tea.

[honu]

a blog post about chocolate tasting compared to tea tasting, maybe a bit more specific than most tea drinkers would be interested in (about review and palate training, etc.), but it is also about specialty chocolate:

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2015/10/comparing-tea-and-chocolate-tasting.html

[A Lurker]

Currently trying to give up caffeine and so am in the market for a reasonably priced, palatable green or herbal tea. There are no specialty shops in our area so it would need to come from Makro/Lotus/Big C.

I'm missing my routine of sitting down with a warm mug so I really hope there's something out there (don't like decaf).

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

[honu]

Your timing is perfect for this question; I just spent a few years completely off herb teas / tisanes, and in the last couple months have started back in on them. So I'll answer the question in two parts, about what types of herb teas someone might like, and then about where to get them.

I've been drinking mulberry leaf tea (popular in Thailand, said to be healthy, easy to find lots of places), and lately sage herbs as a tea, and also rosemary as tea. Those last two are not different than cooking herbs. One I had a vendor send to use as a tea (the sage, which is not easy to find in good quality in Thailand, so I ended up getting it from Croatia, odd as that sounds). The rosemary I just had lots of so I tried it as a tea and I like it.

There are lots of others. I just posted a guest blog post on chrysanthemom tea, which is popular in China, and not so uncommon here. Thais also drink herb teas (tisanes--same thing) from things like bael fruit and goji berry, or really from any number of herbs. The catch might be that you don't really like the taste of most of those herbs, which run from fruity, or floral, or herbaceous, but they're not that much like tea (camellia sinensis types). The thing is they are never oxidized, like black teas are, or even like oolongs are, so if you already loved the grassy, vegetal taste of a green tea you'd be ok, but otherwise it might not seem so nice.

To buy the teas you could get tea-bag versions lots of places, maybe easiest in the small organic-themed shops they have like separate stores beside Tops, or separate in malls and even as stand-alone shops. As with regular tea you can get different versions, and the quality varies, so maybe once you find what you like you could refine sourcing a bit to get better versions. Tea-bag versions are usually just a bit of dust in that bag, and you can do a lot better with loose tea, and it's not that hard to make it, put it in hot water and strain it somehow.

I'll add a couple online shops as well, vendors in Thailand, since that will help page through what's out there, as well as provide more sourcing options:

http://tea-village.com/en/

http://tea-side.com/

[A Lurker]

Thanks for the suggestions Honu

[honu]

Drifting just a little off topic here, but a friend of mine just won a Wuyishan tea competition involving most of the local farmers, getting 1st place for Rou Gui and 2nd place for Shui Xian.

For most people the only response would be "what?," but for people that know tea that's huge, a little like an Olympic medal, but for tea. Not everyone loves Wuyi Yancha (more oxidized oolongs from Fujian province) but for a lot of tea lovers that's a great stopping point for final preferences in tea type.

Here is a blog post comparing two of them, along with a third Da Hong Pao from a local Bangkok source, the Jip Eu shop in Chinatown, which was pretty good as well:

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2015/11/comparison-tasting-two-rou-gui-and-da.html

To be honest I've tried a lot of teas, and more Wuyi Yancha than most, but I couldn't really tell those teas were that extra bit better than really good. It's a long learning curve and if I kept at it in another couple of years I might be up to making that kind of call.

[harrry]

Although it is not a specialty brew the TOPS brabd Ebgkusg Breakfast is reasonably drinkable at about a third of Dilmahs price here, Unfortunately it is teabag only. I think it beats Liptons.

[honu]

One more topic related to tea awareness came up recently in a visit to Indonesia. Who really knows about Indonesian tea? It's not something the casual tea drinker really needs to know anything about, since one could skip tea from every country but China and still have lots of options. Or in Thailand it would be natural to add Thai teas to the review list. Anyway, here is a blog review of one, about a tea I bought directly from a plantation in Java:

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2015/12/wonosari-plantation-indonesian-green-tea.html

To save people from clicking through I'll give the short version here. I tried a green tea that was interesting but not great. Trying one tea doesn't represent everything a country produces, of course. I've tried and reviewed a much better black tea from Indonesia before, and I expect they produce a lot of range of tea I'll never really get around to trying. I've also since did a little research and another provider sells Indonesian oolongs, really my favorite type, so I'll try those at some point.

It was interesting they sold commercial tea for next to nothing, even by Thai standards, and I bought some, so if it was even average tea it was an incredible deal.

On a completely different subject, I personally would like to see awareness of lots of types and aspects of tea expand in lots of places. To me it's under-appreciated, a great beverage choice, most likely healthy, and sold at a great value for the whole range of quality levels, although the most expensive teas are really more about quality than cost-effectiveness. If anyone reading this has suggestions about how that might happen I'd be happy to hear them.

[WitawatWatawit]

^^^ I think if that was going to happen, it would have a long time ago. There is a prevailing "tea culture" in most developed countries - but it is not as sophisticated as it is in some Asian countries - and it has always been somewhat subdued, it seems to me. No hysteria as with coffee (and maybe that's not such a bad thing). From personal experience, I have seen many friends switch over to tea as they have grown older, some of that being driven by the healthy qualities of tea, some simply because drinking tea seems to blend better with their slower and more mature outlook on life.

Though the ritual of making and drinking a cup of nice tea in good company is something to savour, it doesn't seem to fit with a fast-paced lifestyle. Even some of the older, retired people around me can't seem to shed their old hurried life to sit down, relax and enjoy the convivial atmosphere of a shared cuppa. It seems they just want to snatch a quick cup of coffee and rush off to do something else. So in the absence of a "culture" of sharing the enjoyment of differing teas, there is only the "let's have a quick cuppa" concept - add some milk. This is despite the wonderful teas out there - which I am now discovering.

Discovering. Ahh. But it takes time, and it needs time, and it is using that time which makes it so enjoyable. That is what needs to be translated to people who enjoy a cuppa but are not imbued with a "tea culture".*

* I use the term "tea culture" merely to signify an enjoyment of a wide variety of teas and, perhaps, some of the ceremony and paraphernalia. I don't mean it to be pretentious (heaven forbid) in any way.

[honu]

This is something I've been considering lately, what local culture even is, and how tea fits in. It relates to this type of media description of local culture:

http://bk.asia-city.com/city-living/news/things-shaped-bangkok-2015

This kind of media can be a bit superficial, not intended to accurately represent modern culture, more just coverage of trends, and definitely not addressing traditional culture at all.

As I read this kind of thing I wonder who would chase down the latest trendy restaurant, or mall event, since this list of 50 things would have kept them busy every week this year. But it is part of what local culture is, and indirectly it says the same thing Witawit just mentioned.

And yet #12 on that summary article states "we started taking our tea as seriously as our coffee," linked to this:

http://bk.asia-city.com/restaurants/article/bangkok-best-cafes-coffee-shops

But none of the articles I ever see talk about what tea actually is. You don't see a description of what oolong is, versus black tea, or if green tea really is healthy. Or anything deeper, or basics, how to brew tea, what Tie Kuan Yin is, or deeper yet, about duck shit Dan Cong or Wuyi Yancha.

People make tea into something it's really not, it seems to me. It works well to sit with a friend and chat over making tea, spending an hour on that, but it also works to have it with breakfast, to make it and drink it with a quick meal that spans 20 minutes.

This is the kind of awareness I'd like to promote, that tea works across a range of experiences, as discovery of exotic types best studied at the feet of a master, and also as a healthy and inexpensive alternative caffeine source. Among people really into tea most get focused on tangents, as into gear as tea--clay pots or whatever, for example, but all that's completely optional.

[honu]

I just posted a Thai tea review, seems a good excuse to say a little more here:

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2016/02/tea-side-thai-hong-shui-dark-oolong-tea.html

That tea was a darker style rolled oolong made in a style originated in Taiwan (Hong Shui) based on tea plants developed in Taiwan.

It wasn't really an inexpensive tea (around $10 for 50 grams) but then that's not so unusual for rare styles of tea, and that's the only one of that type you'd be likely to find in Thailand. I'd probably choose a third of their other teas over that one, but that comes down to preference (like this one, a great black tea at two thirds that cost: http://tea-side.com/red-and-black-tea/red-tea-jin-xuan/)

I don't get the feeling I'm really talking to anyone here about a tea they'd be interested in just related to that price range. And this is the odd thing: a Starbucks coffee would run about $5 for a large cup, or maybe the $6.50 depending on what someone ordered, and that black tea--which they are calling red, the direct translation from Chinese--would make 20 or 30 cups of tea for that, better tea than almost anyone knows exists, better than any tea-bag tea by quite a bit, even if still mid-range for what tea enthusiasts tend to drink.

Any other ideas on how I'd get the word out? Expat forums don't seem to be converting anyone, and local media just mention Bangkok cafes opening, which I guess is a start.

[NotWhatItWasnt]

I tried and enjoyed these, both bought from Foodland in Pattaya

Jasmine tea 125 grams for 54bht.

Green tea number one 200grams for 66bht which has jasmine in it.

[honu]

I'm not accusing any tea vendors of anything, or trying to spread fear about teas, but an online friend living in Indonesia passed on a personal account of negative health effects from drinking inexpensive teas (from there, not Thai teas).

I had tried the same teas, a little, but per his account after drinking them for a long time (a commercial jasmine black tea) he suffered unusual muscle cramping. He kept changing his diet and other environment factors to figure out what was causing it and after cutting out the teas that gradually dropped out.

That's actually the end of the story. There is no decent guess about what was causing that in the tea, could be pesticides, or chemical fertilizer residue, or something else. It seemed more likely to me they were using some solvent to get the most out of the jasmine flowers, or an artificial flavoring, since I've never heard of any comparable health impact from any teas, and I've read a ridiculous amount about tea, and it seems a coincidence a jasmine tea did it. But who knows.

Relative level of risk is hard to assess, or how it might relate to the Thai jasmine teas someone else just posted about. I have tried Thai teas with a chemical taste but I didn't actually finish one container, and my friend probably only experienced the effects because he was drinking the tea every day for awhile. All the same one really wouldn't want to consume smaller amounts of a toxic chemical with no noticeable effects, except maybe health problems that could build up over time, to show up years later instead.

It might sound like I'm going somewhere with this, to suggest people should drink better tea, or organic tea, or not drink jasmine or flavored tea. I can't really suggest what to drink or not drink; no matter what's on the label you take a leap of faith, at least here in Thailand, but to some extent everywhere. But if you buy the absolute cheapest teas on the market it seems certain those were made with lots of chemical fertilizer and pesticides, so the issue is really about if you end up consuming any of that and if so what the effect of what they used will be. More "natural" pollution might pose the same risks, using water sources contaminated by heavy metals, for example (just a hypothetical example; what do I know about pollution and food safety).

[honu]

I just wrote a review of a tea cafe in Bangkok, Seven Suns, with a section that described seven other cafes that I've reviewed here.

I'm not really big on going somewhere for a cup or a pot of tea, really, because it's a much better value to buy good loose tea and brew it at home, but writing about tea sort of leads to checking such things out.

A lot of this post is about the thread theme, tea awareness in Thailand (Bangkok, really). That shop owner is trying to make tea accessible by creating healthy iced-tea blends and such. They sell traditional single-type teas, the kind enthusiasts like me drink, but part of his mission is to ramp up a middle ground between what old Chinese people drink and bubble tea:

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2016/03/seven-suns-tea-cafe-and-visions-of.html

[SheungWan]

PG Tips - can be bought at TOPS but expensive. Normally get friends to bring box loads with them when they come over.

Liptons - shocking if you want an English cup of tea. However, it was originally produced for the English abroad when they wouldn't use the local milk. So it is quite weak thus being ok for a cup of black tea or to make iced tea.

I am always offended when offered Liptons...it is awful awful stuff. Bland and makes you want to cry at the lack of a decent tea!!

What is your view on Dilmah and Heladiv product, both items are disappearing from availability where I live?

Dilmah is good quality.