A full article "Varieties of Formosa Oolongs" is available for download.

Following the news of the No. issue "The Art of Tea" magazine, I was very excited to receive a copy of the issue today. I quickly browsed through the magazine, and my "woooww" just kept coming and coming : ) Nice, clean and very illustrative layout, loaded with high-quality pictures. No surprised that the ads page are just a few in No. 1 issue. Total 23 topics, covering pu-erh, oolongs, yixings, tea wares and accessories, history, and market news. Indeed a lot of interesting information.

Here I post pictures below to share with you some of the content:


Table of Content

(1) Travel to Ling-Cang, Yunnan

(2) Appreciating Pu-erh Tea with Reason

(3) 2006 Taipei Tea Expo

(4) Varieties of Formosa Oolongs

(5) The History of Old Taiwanese Tea Street (Oh, I love this article!)

(6) Deciding on an Yixing Teapot

(7) The Types of Purple Sand Ore and Clay (interview of a Yixing clay master)

(8) An Analysis of Moisture, Microbes, Storage of Pu-erhs

(9) Tea Review - Pu-erhs from 2000


I think, with some topics such as the interview of famous bamboo tea-accessory carver Ong Ming Chuan, Yixng Master Ho Dao-Hong, this magazine put good emphasis on the real "art" side of Teas. Other articles bring in-depth information about pu-erhs, Formosa oolongs, yixing and the clays. The tasting of several 2000 pu-erhs nicely records how pro-style tea tasting was done.

The width and depth of this issue are both impressive. For the first-ever try of an English Tea magazine, I believe it has done a great job! Several articles are translated from the Chinese-version magazines. Hope in the future we will see more and more original English articles in it.



Guang

What makes the "88-Ching Beeng", in fact 1989/1990 #7542, be able to retain its milestone status, zealous collection pursuit and the premium price? It is not only more expensive than most, if not all, 80's pu-erhs, but its price also appreciated faster than most 80's.

The storage is the key.

An article in No. 16 issue of Pu-erh Teapot Magazine interviewed the owner Mr. Chen Kwok-Yee of Cha Yi Le Yuan (Best Tea House, HK) regarding his unique way of storaging/aging pu-erhs. Below is a picture showing the 88-Ching Beeng in the article:

You can see the healthy dark, clean and semi-glossy surface of the cake.

Mr. Chen discussed the unique "Sky Bridge" shelf design that not only maximized the total available storage spaces, but also kept the cakes in an "easy to breath" and clean environment.


Those that have to be stacked on the floor, he put a wooden support to keep the cake from contacting directly with the ground that might caused the cakes to absorb excessive moisture.

More ...

Guang

I ran across a news from China's official news Xin Hua. The news clearly pointed out the crisis that the art of Yixings is facing: The sources of clays are becoming depleted, and the traditional craftsmanship is gradually lost.

>> Click to read the original news in Chinese. <<

Here is the translation of the first several paragraphs for you:

" Yixing's Zi Sha teapots are well-known worldwide. The raw clays to make Zi Sha teapots are mined from Huang Long Mountain area, and is Nature's ir-reproducible resources.

However, the raw clay of Zi Sha is getting so rare that locals say "inch of clay, inch of gold". In the past, one ton of raw clay was worth only tens dollars(RMB), but now is increased to 7 or 8 thousands dollars(RMB). The chariman of Yixing Ceramics Business Association, Mr. Shi Jun-Tang, pointed out the current natural Zi Sha clay mines are very rare. And if a proper preservation is not started as soon as possible, the natural recourses will become depleted quickly.

The local Yixing authorities have noticed this problem. Since last year, they stopped issuing any mining license in the Huang Long Mountain area. And they promised no more mining license for the following three years.

No only the natural resources are facing crisis, the traditional Zi Sha craftsmanship are also becoming a lost art. According to the locals, driven purely by business profits, the modern machinery-process, coloring the clay with chemical dyes, and the use of gas-kilns have push the traditional Yixing craftsmanship to the brink of extinction.

..
..

"

So does this news ring any bell for you? I have, not once, mentioned the problems of Yixings in several places/forums. I guess some people may think I was creating the "Wolf is coming" story to justify Hou De's prices on our yixings. Now here is a good reference of the "Wolf".

Yixings locals are worrying the depleted resources and lost art, and could it be possible that we can be so lucky to find "genuine Yixings" at great online/ebay prices from kind-hearted Chinese vendors?

Guang

From the publisher of the prestigious "Pu-erh Teapot Magazine" in Taiwan, the No. 1 issue of English-versioned "The Art of Tea" has been issued!



Hou De will be the first distributor of this exciting new Tea magazine outside the Asian market. First shipment of copies will arrive very soon (scheduled the 2nd week of Dec.2006).

We sincerely hope this magazine, the first-ever step to bridge the professional Asian tea world to the passionate English-speaking tea lovers, become a success.

Contrary to the Chinese-versioned Pu-erh Teapot magazine in which half of the volume are just advertisements, the English "The Art of Tea" will limit the ads section to no more than 20 pages out of a hefty 180-plus-page volume. The goal of this magazine really is to bring worthy information to the readers, instead of an overly-ads platform.

We will make it available immediately when we receive the copies.

Guang : )

Time to harvest my oolongs (soft-stemmed cultivar) in the backyard! See how lovely and happy they are:



They grow slower than they were in the summer time in Houston. So this harvest I collected only 30g of raw leaves. In the end, I probably will only be able to make 5~7 gram of oolong (Pou Chong). Next year I will plant them into the ground and they will grow quicker.


Guang