ManaTea infuser

Personally, I prefer infusers made of steel or ceramic, but I have to admit the ManaTea is an exceedingly clever idea. And the little guy does look so mellow.





—Mellow Monk

 

blog feed, facebook, reviews, steepster, teas, tweets, videos

Surprise snow on Mt. Aso

I just received this photo of a suddenly snow-covered Mt. Aso that greeted a surprised populace Saturday morning. It's so unusual to get snow after the cherry blossoms have bloomed, the sender commented.

Aso's tea plants are due to be harvested in another month and a half, roughly, and I hope the unseasonal weather doesn't adversely affect them. Only time and taste will tell.


—Mellow Monk

 

blog feed, facebook, reviews, steepster, teas, tweets, videos

The Monk tries DAVIDsTEA High-Mountain Organic Oolong

I recently stopped in at the DAVIDsTEA store in San Francisco's Westfield Center, where I had a fun, tea-centric chat with the knowledgeable and enthusiastic manager Jodet and walked out with a couple of great oolongs.

One was Organic High-Mountain Oolong. Now, I profess no oolong expertise, but I do have a longstanding, well-known fondness for the teas, and this oolong did not disappoint. Even while still steeping, the tea delighted me with its aroma, so wonderfully earthy in that oolong way. The taste delivered on the aroma's promise in a well-balanced manner — not harsh like some oolongs, yet not fleeting like others, either. Even after finishing a potful, the complex fermented taste stayed around leisurely pleasing my palate.

I highly recommend this to fellow oolong fans out there. If you're ever in DAVIDsTEA, be sure to at least give it a whiff. And say hi to Jodet for me.



All ready to brew and review.


But first a close look and the lovely, tightly rolled leaves.


After the first steeping, the unrolled leaves still have plenty of deliciousness inside them.


The brew — rich, tasty, wonderfully aromatic.


—Mellow Monk

 

blog feed, facebook, reviews, steepster, teas, tweets, videos

About freshness

A customer today asked why our tea doesn't come stamped with expiration dates. This is a completely understandable question, so I wanted to share my answer, as follows:

All of our tea is packaged by the artisans themselves, and they do not add expiration dates. In fact, I've never come across a tea packet from such small-farm artisans with an expiration date, at least in that part of Japan.

I suppose they are behind the times in this regard, but on the other hand, the communities where their tea is primarily enjoyed have never pressed them for "best by" dates. These super-demanding tea consumers just assume that if the artisan is still doing things the old-fashioned way (which they often verify by visiting the farms to pick up their tea in person), then all must be well.

[In my original reply, I mentioned another tea company whose tea I had by coincidence just bought when I received this customer's inquiry and which did not come with expiration dates on it. Here, however, I would rather ask readers to comment themselves in general terms about the use of best-by dates by tea purveyors, especially those specializing, as we do, in tea from smallholder estates. — MM]

Stamping best-by dates is just not something that's widely done among smallholder growers, for better or worse. Rest assured, however, that our growers -- whose operations we also verify in person -- are modern in how they store their tea in special refrigeration units right up until they ship it to us. For our part, we have the tea sent to us small batches to assure freshness, too.

And of course we stand by our tea 100%, so if you're ever less than satisfied in its freshness, just send it back for a refund or replacement.

Feel free to ask any follow-up questions in the comments section.

Happy sipping,

—Mellow Monk

 

blog feed, facebook, reviews, steepster, teas, tweets, videos

Now on Pinterest!

We have just put our favorite tea and Japanese photographs on Pinterest. Check out our Pinterest widget:





—Mellow Monk

 

blog feed, facebook, reviews, steepster, teas, tweets, videos

New albums in Google Plus

As part of our new presence on Google Plus, I have uploaded some photos, including this "test embed":

From the album Aso Scenery

—Mellow Monk

 

blog feed, facebook, reviews, steepster, teas, tweets, videos

French "tea palace" christens U.S. flagship

Here are a few photos from the recent grand opening, in New York City, of the U.S. flagship store of Le Palais des Thés, founded by tea explorer extraordinaire François-Xavier Delmas.

He graciously invited me to the opening, but I was unable to attend. I still wanted to post these pics he sent, however.

The shop is located in SoHo, at 156 Prince Street. If you drop in, please tell them Mellow Monk says hi!



Le Palais des Thés founder François-Xavier Delmas (right) with U.S. General Manager Aurelie Bessiere outside the SoHo flagship store.



Inside the busy store.



A staff member interacts with a customer.



A customer explores the self-service tea testers.



Aurelie with fellow U.S. General Manager Cyrille Bessière.



François-Xavier with store manager Emery Cooke.



François-Xavier chatting with bloggers Nicole Martin and Mario Nicholas.



Training the next generation of tea lovers.


—Mellow Monk



blog feed, facebook, reviews, steepster, teas, tweets, videos

Dani Pigeon reviews Frosty Garden™

Over at Sage and Spice, multitalented Danielle Pigeon has reviewed Frosty Garden™, Mellow Monk's shiraore*.

This comes on the heels of her most thoughtful review of Monk's Choice™, so we are profusely grateful to Dani for helping to get the word out about our grower–artisans and their wonderful (even if we do say so ourselves) green tea.

Thank you, Dani. Many happy steepings to you.

*A shiraore is a green tea made with some leaf stems. Although sometimes confused with kukicha ("stem tea"), shiraore contains primarily green tea leaf, with only a few stem pieces blended in to soften the flavor.



As I said previously in a tweet, I think this is one of the most beautiful photographs anyone has ever taken of our tea (yours truly included).


—Mellow Monk

 

blog feed, facebook, reviews, steepster, teas, tweets, videos

Dani Pigeon reviews Monk's Choice

Tea drinker, photographer, and belly dancer Dani Pigeon has written a review of our Monk's Choice green tea — a review thoughtful and thorough as befitting a person so renaissancical [pretty sure that's a word].





—Mellow Monk

 

blog feed, facebook, reviews, steepster, teas, tweets, videos

Just made four more Kiva loans

Mellow Monk just added another four loans to our ever-growing Kiva portfolio!


The hard-working recipients, who will use the funds for things like buying seed and fertilizer and building greenhouses, are Bilal (Lebanon), Bidii Group (Kenya), Bahrom (Tajikistan), and Chai Hun (Cambodia).


By the way, you can join our Kiva lending team to help us support family-based agriculture all over the world.

Chai Hun, a rice farmer in Cambodia, will use her loan to buy rice seed and fertilizer.


—Mellow Monk

 

blog feed, facebook, reviews, steepster, teas, tweets, videos

SororiTea Sisters review Yuzu Dream

The SororiTea Sisters really like our Yuzu Dream. We are honored.





—Mellow Monk

 

blog feed, facebook, reviews, steepster, teas, tweets, videos

MacGyvering some green tea

Seen on r/tea: a photo of the poster's boyfriend brewing loose-leaf tea at work, MacGyver style.

Clever, no? You could even poke additional holes to allow the tea to drain more quickly.



—Mellow Monk

 

blog feed, facebook, reviews, steepster, teas, tweets, videos

Single estate, defined

We received an inquiry asking what "single estate" means and whether our tea is single estate. Here is the answer we sent.

Thank you for getting in touch.

All of our tea is single estate, meaning a single artisan grows it, harvests the leaves, and crafts the leaves into tea.

The term "single estate" is to distinguish from teas where a tea-processing operation buys harvested leaves from various outside tea farms.

Our growers, in contrast, are complete, start-to-finish establishments: the artisans plant what they harvest, harvest the tea themselves, and use *only* tea leaves harvested from their own land.

Single-estate tea artisans are the biggest sticklers in the tea world -- they don't trust any tea leaves they didn't grow themselves. There is a practical reason for this: there is no way to truly assure tea quality unless you have overseen the entire process, starting with planting and caring for the tea plants yourself.

Please let me know if you have any other questions. Thank you again for contacting us.

You can read more about our growers here.





A mother-and-daughter pair of growers in one of their tea groves. All of their tea — including, of course, what they provide to Mellow Monk — is single estate.


—Mellow Monk

 

blog feed, facebook, reviews, steepster, teas, tweets, videos

Minako's magnificent art

Minako Yoshino is a New York-based artist who creates wonderfully lifelike works in marble, dreamlike stone abstractions, and hypnotically engaging paintings, including my personal favorite, Aria—Water Spirit.

—Mellow Monk

 

blog feed, facebook, reviews, steepster, teas, tweets, videos

We're back

Some of you may have had trouble accessing our website in the last couple of days, but we have fixed the problem completely, and the site is once again up and humming along smoothly.


Thank you for your patience during the brief outage.


Now, back to brewing.






—Mellow Monk

 

blog feed, facebook, reviews, steepster, teas, tweets, videos

Two more Kiva loans

We have just added to our Kiva portfolio with two new loans. It's just our way of paying it forward!








—Mellow Monk

 

blog feed, facebook, reviews, steepster, teas, tweets, videos