Tea Story

TEA ORIGIN:  VIETNAM FIRST IMPRESSIONS In May of 2022, after years of penciling Vietnam in our 'tea travel goals', we flew to Hanoi and started a road trip to Northwest Vietnam.  After one week of riding mopeds in winding country roads, we barely got a taste of what this beautiful land has to offer. First impression of Vietnam:  it feels like a time capsule.  It is reminiscent of my trips to Yunnan 15 years ago, before ubiquitous electricity  cars and concrete buildings.   Just like in Yunnan, the land is stunning and people are hospitable and generous.  If you have not yet explored Vietnam as a tea origin, please do! A few facts about Vietnam: It grows A LOT of tea.  By volume, it is the 2nd largest tea producer green tea in the world and the 6th of black tea (FAO, 2022 International Tea Market: market situation, prospects and emerging issues) . Some of the tea made in Vietnam is world-class.  For years, the lion's share of Vietnamese tea produced was inexpensive and not t

HANDCRAFTING JA AUM (BHUTANESE FERMENTED TEA) as taught by M. Lhamo (author of every video presented here) Location:  Wangdue Phodrang, Bhutan.  ~4000m above sea level Ms. Lhamo was our first guide into the world of Bhutanese buttered tea.  She is the youngest of 10 children, speaks fluent English (besides Dzonkha, of course) and happens to be a most gifted teacher.   Hospitality at her family's home was unbelievable. Before we dive deeper into the consumption of traditional buttered tea, we must tackle perhaps the most surprising fact that we encountered when we landed in Bhutan:  a VERY large proportion of the 'tea' consumed in the country is not made with Camellia sinensis plants.   Bhutanese people, like other ethnic Tibetans, traditionally imported tea from China (primarily from Yunnan, Hunan, Sichuan).  But since Bhutan was isolated many years, its people developed techniques to handcraft tea from a variety of wild plants that are readily available.   Ms. Lhamo provi

Bhutan - Tea Leaves & Friends I claim no mastery or erudition on the topic of Bhutanese tea.  Our good friends, however, have provided extremely valuable information for those who want to start exploring this fantastic ta origin.   Thank you to old friends M. Lhamo, D. Pelden, L. Choeda, J. Lophyal, P. Tshomo and Dawa for their guidance in exploring Bhutan’s wonderful tea culture! Any errors in conveying Bhutanese tea traditions are mine alone. Thank you also to old friends who joined the adventure: Miyu and Jared (from Jagasilk Tea) and Jeremy (from our Leaf & Steel project). Where to Start: It’s fair to say that Bhutanese tea culture is an extension of Tibet’s.  There are records of tea consumption as far back as the 7th century CE.  It was, however, the 13th century when the consumption of buttered tea became widespread.   If you want to get an idea of why, try a hot bowl of tea with rich butter and a pinch of salt on a freezing morning at high altitude.  As soon as that br

BHUTANESE TEA C hapter 1:  Dragons and Madmen In 2023, the Year of the Water Rabbit, we finally made it to one of the coolest countries on Earth: Bhutan.   Home of the highest unclimbed mountain in the world (Gangkhar Puensum) and 19 peaks that tower over 7000m above sea level, the stunning Kingdom of Bhutan had been in my bucket list for years. Why had it been in the bucket list?  This surreal land is a wrinkle in time, quite unlike any other country in the world.  Here go just a few examples: Cows, not stoplights. Thimpu is the only capital city (that we know of) that has not one single stoplight.  With a population of just over 100,000, Thimpu's happy citizens have little trouble commuting without electronic traffic signals.  They do, however, make road stops when happy cows block a road - which happens fairly often. Gross National Happiness:. this is the 1972 brainchild of HM Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the 4th King of Bhutan.  He recognized that well-being is composed of many fac