Valley Brook TeaBlog 105: What’s the Real Handcrafted Tea? In industrial age, hand-made things become rare and expensive. A luxury Mercedes-Benz can cost as low as $30,000, but a “handcrafted”...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 104: Buying 2019’s Silver Needle Already? Recently, we published a general guidance to our 2019 spring tea harvest schedule. In this blog, we’ve listed our harvest schedule of...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 103: What Defines A Good Black Tea? In English, black tea has a controversial name. Because in its birthplace China, “black tea” is actually called “red tea” (Chinese: 红茶,...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 102: Understand The Spring HarvestThis year’s spring harvest is just around the corner. In our tea mountains, tea leaves are growing flourishingly. They have been...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 101: How Do We Protect and Enhance Our Tea Mountains? Tea production is agricultural, which means it must follow certain natural rules to be sustainable. But unlike many other essential food...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 100: A Tea Maker’s Guide to Tea’s Nutrient Contents Today’s blog marks a small milestone for us. This is our 100th tea blog. When we started this blog last year, we didn’t expect to be able...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 99: Why Can Aged White Tea Be Brewed But Not Over-steeped? There are multiple ways to enjoy a white tea. In fact, white tea is the most versatile in terms of the tea experience. White tea can be...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 98: Visible Caffeine on Tea Leaves? There are few teas have white tea leaves. In fact, among all major teas, only white tea has white leaves. White tea’s white color doesn’t...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 97: The Naming of Tea Mountain Fields (Wuyi Oolong/Yancha) The naming of premium teas often carries the name of the tea-producing region. For example, the famous Wuyi oolong tea (or Yancha/武夷岩茶)...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 96: Why Do Some Oolong Taste Like Green Tea? The most common OOLONG question is whether it is a green tea or a black tea. Actually, oolong tea is neither. Oolong is an independent...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 95: Can You Tell An Oolong’s Quality From Its Dry Leaves? Oolong tea leaves, especially Wuyi oolong (Yancha/岩茶), are the most distinguishable among all tea categories. Oolong tea leaves are...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 94: Signs Your Tea Is “Fading Away” Most tea products come in a dry-leaf state. This makes an illusion that tea products are “non-perishable” goods that can be stored...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 93: Good Teas Do Not Fear Boiling Water Tea is nothing without water. If we have to rank the importance of a perfect tea experience, the quality of water is definitely on a par...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 91: Is Yellowish Leaf in Oolong Tea Normal?Most teas are named after colors. Even oolong tea (Chinese: 乌龙, which doesn’t mean anything in English) has the color “black/dark” in...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 90: Why Shou Mei is A Great Introduction to White Tea Hundreds/thousands of years ago, tea leaves were ground into powders or compressed into bricks for easier shipping. Tea merchants, who...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 89: Control the Caffeine Level in Tea Many of our first-time tea customers are regular coffee drinkers. Naturally, we get a lot questions about the caffeine level in tea...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 88: Understand “Yan Yun/岩韵”If you like Wuyi oolong (Yancha/岩茶), you must have heard Wuyi oolong’s “Yan Yun” (Chinese: 岩韵). Tea leaves are tangible, but “Yan Yun”...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 87: How to Differentiate Tea from Spring and Winter Harvests In our last tea blog, we discussed the real differences between spring and winter harvests (please click here for Blog 86). Today, let’s...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 86: The Real Difference Between Spring and Winter Harvest As we all know, the price of a product is determined by the balance of supply and demand. Given a fixed demand, more the supply, lower...
Valley Brook TeaBlog 85: Door Threshold and White Tea WitheringI have to admit that the title is quite odd. How can white tea withering have anything to do with a door threshold? If you’ve visited...