The English translation of Ti Kwan Yin is “Iron Goddess of Mercy”. I think the translation of our TKY - Green should be “all day tea”. That’s what I like to call it. It is one of those teas consisting of leaves I can enjoy steeping over and over again throughout the day. In fact for me, the beauty begins to really show on the second and third steepings. This estate is high in elevation and partially shaded. The plants enjoy cool crisp air with a decent amount of humidity. At harvest the leaves are sorted and then gently basket tossed to break the skins and begin the oxidation. The oxidation process is not long, so the tea retains a subtle fresh green flavor. I am told this is really where the name comes from, but I think it’s all marketing hype.

When you drink it, you defiantly know that it is an oolong. It produces flavors of good toasted herbs and pine nuts, and great texture of fig or apricot. A light vegetal flavor of beans and bell peppers rounds out the mouth. Across the palate this tea is very soft and mellows with each additional steeping. Make this one an “all day tea” and you will be pleased with the changes in your cup.

While perusing the Art of Tea catalogue, I came across an unfamiliar abbreviation: FTC. I was curious. FTC? It reminded me of that flower purveyor that sells online but I was pretty sure it was unrelated. I let it go. It wasn’t until I was researching the benefits of organic agriculture that I again stumbled across the letters, though this time I had context and a definition.

FTC: Fair Trade Certified

But this raised another question: just what exactly does it mean to be certified Fair Trade. I’d heard the expression bandied about a lot, usually in connection to globalization or protest against globalization, but I never really grasped its meaning. So off to Wikipedia I skipped, and found the answer to be better than I even imagined.

Here’s the definition according to Fine (an informal association of four of the main Trade Networks):

Fair trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect, which seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers - especially in the South. Fair trade organizations (backed by consumers) are engaged actively in supporting producers, awareness raising and in campaigning for changes in the rules and practice of conventional international trade.

One of the tenets of Fair Trade supporters is that the way production, especially agriculture, works when exporting from developing nations to industrialized nations, is fundamentally unfair for the producers. Because the Dollar and the Euro are so powerful, these trade deals can actually keep producers from being able to raise their prices and subsequently, their living conditions. So instead of keeping these workers down, fair trade encourages buyers to pay more for the product with the understanding that this increase will return to the workers in the form of improved housing and working conditions. In order to receive Fair Trade Certification, producers must prove that their workers are not being abused, that there is gender equality, and that there is transparency built into their system of production.

Fundamentally, just because we could buy tea for cheaper doesn’t mean that we should. If you consider the implicit costs in cheap goods, you soon realize that it may not be worth the savings. Take, for example, the cost to the environment of cheap fertilizers that allow for a greater yield but spoil the drinking water down stream. Is that worth an additional savings of ten cents?

And what of the individual harvesting of tea? Is it really worth a savings if we know that the people who provide the product we enjoy can barely afford to keep food on the table for their own families? At what point do we look at where our products come from with the same ethical view that we do production in our own country? As we become increasingly aware of our impact, not only on the environment, but also on the lives of those whose products we so readily consume, it’s is imperative that we begin to ask ourselves these kinds of questions.

Like the organic and biodynamic movements, Fair Trade is catching on. Art of Tea purchases Fair Trade tea whenever possible. Right now we have FTC BioDynamic Breakfast Tea and Herbal Earl Grey (with FTC roobios) available online. Even more varieties are available through our catalogue, and we’re always happy to help you with a selection if you contact our office.

Today we will discover what exactly is Kombucha, where it’s from, and exactly what the heck is in this stuff once fully prepared.

HOW DID THIS WONDERFUL UGLY LOOKING THING COME TO BE?

Story Time - An old country doctor from the Alexandrov district near Moscow noticed his peasant patients had no cancer. The doctor, wondering about this, started looking around… and discovered this: to save money on tea the muzhiks of that locality brewed not tea, but chaga, otherwise known as the birch-tree mushroom. Actually, it’s not even a birch-tree mushroom, but a birch-tree cancer – a sort of ugly growth on old birch trees. It is dome-shaped, black on the outside and dark brown inside. It occurred to doctor Maslennikov that this tea made from the birch tree mushroom could be the magic remedy the Russian peasants, without realizing it, had been using to cure themselves of cancer for hundreds of years.

“So it started in Russia, great let’s move on”… well not so fast!

Often it is said, that the Kombucha fungus had already been used 2000 years ago in China. It is also said to have existed for a long time in Japan and Korea. Particularly in China, it was the Grandmother who kept a jar of it on hand at all times and was responsible for the preparation of the tea. When a daughter in the family got married and moved out to live with her husband (remember there were nucleus families back then when everyone lived together until they got married, and even then they might have continued to live together – side note: don’t tell my mom about that or she’ll expect the same of me!)- The Kombucha culture was passed down to the grand daughter to provide health and longevity to her family. Sort of like a family heirloom. Can you imagine getting that instead of a diamond ring!?!

SO WHAT THE HECK IS IN THIS STUFF ANYWAY?

Below is a complete breakdown of what is found in Kombucha tea along with the associated beneficial function of that ingredient. Remember, this is the finished product of the kombucha tea that has been fermented with a kombucha culture for about 10 days, and not just the kombucha culture itself. This is a truer representation, as usually it is the kombucha tea that is consumed by the individual and not the SCOBY (though some do ingest the SCOBY, it is rare and requires a special technique).

LACTIC ACID: Found in Kombucha in its most potent form L-lactic(+). Lactic acid is essential for the digestive system.

ACETIC ACID: Its main function is to inhibit harmful bacteria. Acetic acid is used as a preservative because of this action. It is also what gives Kombucha that ‘kick’ to its smell and taste.

MALIC ACID: Is also used in the body’s detoxification process.

OXALIC ACID: Encourages the cellular production of energy and is a natural preservative.

GLUCONIC ACID: Is effective against many yeast infections such as candidiasis and thrush.

BUTYRIC ACID: Is produced by the yeasts and when working with gluconic acid. Might help combat yeast infections such as candida.

NUCLEIC ACID: Work with the body aiding healthy cell regeneration.

AMINO ACID: A group of acids which are the building blocks of protein. Your muscular system is made of proteins.

ENZYMES: Are proteins that act as catalysts, speeding the rate at which biochemical reactions proceed.

Kombucha also contains Vitamin Groups B and C, Beneficial Yeasts and LIVING Bacteria.

HOW MUCH CAFFEINE DOES KOMBUCHA HAVE?

Since Kombucha is traditionally prepared with tea leaves, which contain caffeine, it is easy to think that kombucha itself has caffeine in it. Right? Well, yes, BUT the amount is way less than the caffeine that was found in the tea before it was fermented. That’s because the caffeine gets “converted”, (just like the sugar but through a different process) into many of the different elements that we just discussed above. A good rule of thumb is caffeine is cut by 1/2 the amount once fully fermented. So if an 8oz cup of black tea started out with 40mg of caffeine (about 1/3 of a cup of coffee), if you took that same black tea and used it to prepare kombucha tea, the caffeine would yield 20mg (about 2 sips of coffee)

CAN I GET DRUNK ON KOMBUCHA?

If by drunk you mean a high consumption of alcohol, than NO. Kombucha tea does contain a trace amount of alcohol, usually .5% to 1%. That means that drinking an entire gallon of kombucha is the equivalent of drinking a half can of beer. To put it another way, kombucha tea has the same amount of alcohol as a fermented piece of fruit (leave an orange out in the sun for a day).

Though this small amount of alcohol will not get you intoxicated, it is a wonderfull attribute to the tea, as it achieves many beneficial results. Besides aiding in circulation in our bodies and, helping with our lymphatic system alcohol works as a preservative allowing your tea to brew and ferment continuously, without requiring refrigeration so long as the kombucha culture is in contact with it and the brewing container has a breathable cloth on top. In fact, this is one of the great benefits we took to create the concept of the continuous brewing system.

by: David Lindenbaum

Working hard, playing hard and the changing of the seasons brought my immune system to a crashing halt last week. Can anyone relate? My recipe for recovery was a tidy regime of good rest, hot soup and large doses of Vitamin C, all ably complimented by copious cups of Art of Tea’s very own French Lemon Ginger.

This fabulous herbal concoction is a blend of organic lemongrass, ginger and rooibos. Each of these ingredients can infuse a wonderful, steaming cupful of healing on its own. Combined, look out! But let’s break it down. The delectably spicy-sweet gift we call ginger, originating in China and then spreading throughout Asia and as far as West Africa and the Caribbean, has a long history of uses both culinary and medicinal. Its benefits range from an analgesic to a stomach settler, and it has been noted for its antibiotic properties as well.

Lemongrass, which is also known by such exotic names as barbed wire grass, silky heads, citronella grass and fever grass, is native to the warm, tropical regions of the Old World and Oceania. It has also long been enjoyed in the cuisines of Asia and Caribbean. Lemongrass stands out with its uniquely tart taste and aroma, created in most part by a component of its natural oil known as citral. Research has shown that this wonderfully flavorful plant, which can be used dried, powdered or fresh, possesses certain anti-fungal properties.

Our third ingredient is found only in the Cederberg region of Africa’s Western Cape province. Rooibos, sometimes called “red tea” because of the reddish-brown brew it produces, is a wonderfully smooth and slightly nutty flavored infusion. An increasingly popular caffeine-free alternative to coffee, this tisane has been used for medicinal purposes natively for centuries. It has been praised for its antioxidants and low tannin levels.

With all of these wonderful benefits, you can just imagine the effects when they join forces in one spectacular infusion! Not to mention to aroma, and then the flavor! With all this available to you in a hot, steaming cup, or chilled over ice for that matter, there’s no need to wait for the changing of seasons or burning the candle at both ends to burn you out. Enjoy French Lemon Ginger now and maybe you won’t need the extra bed rest! And by the way, I’ve bounced back beautifully!

One of the BIG perks of writing for this blog is getting to sample not only the tea (thus far my desert-island pick is Earl Grey Crème) but also the equipment used for making loose leaf tea.

Art of tea carries these awesome Finum teapots that use a patented tea control. Because a good cup of tea is dependent upon the correct brewing time and water temperature (check out our chart for the right temp and brew time for your favorite tea), the folks at Finium created this tea pot that allows you to separate the tea leaves from the water. All you have to do is turn the lid, which condenses the tea into a separate chamber. Confused? Don’t be…it’s so easy. I even made a little video to show how easy brewing a cup of Black Tea with this teapot is. Check it out:

HOW TO BREW BLACK TEAMaybe the best thing about this is how clean it keeps things. All the pieces can be thrown in the dishwasher (if you have one, which I don’t, but that’s another story) and it’s perfect for taking to your desk because you don’t ever have to deal with dripping bags and filters. Everything stays contained within the glass pot until you’re ready to brew your next batch. I found that the glass does a nice job of keeping the tea really warm as well.

I sometimes consider myself a convenience freak – especially when it comes to tea. If I’m going to switch from coffee, then it has to be as easy and mess-free as brewing a pot of joe. I have to say, this teapot, coupled with the divine tea from Art of Tea, has made me a convert.

I have recently brought tea into my daily routine, and I’m amazed at the difference in my day.  Every morning I wake at 6 am. The first thing I do, upon climbing out of bed, is to boil water for my tea. I then get ready to climb to the rooftop of my building in Park La Brea towers.  I grab my tea and the morning paper and ascend to the roof.  Opening the door, I am greeted by a panoramic view of Los Angeles that is complemented by the enticing aroma of my Caramelized Pear Tea. As I settle in to read the paper, the rich flavor of my tea eases me into the day’s news. Of course, it’s so good that I end up sipping a little too fast. Before I know it, I’m back downstairs retrieving more hot water for a second cup of that sweet (but not too sweet) beverage.

When I’ve returned home after a long day and the twinkling lights are just starting to turn on all over town, I grab another cup of water and head back up to the roof. This time my tea of choice is a little less sweet and a little more soothing. Chamomile is more my speed at this time of night. Chamomile has a soothing taste and helps calm the stomach after a day of eating. I sit on the roof and sip my tea while going over how the day was and anticipating that after a restful sleep I’ll be back in the same spot, greeting the day.

My journey through the day has been complemented nicely with Art of Tea, so I think I’ll stick with this routine for a while.

This is how the conversation went last night between my husband and me:

Him: “Hey, y’know. I’m feeling like a cup of tea right now.”
Me: “Really? You usually drink coffee.”
Him: “I know, but my nerves are a little jangled.”
Me: “Cool.” [re: the tea, not the jangled nerves]
Him: “You’ve got a bunch of tea right? I want something sleepytime-ish”
Me: “Yeah, grab that box and I’ll find you something”

He proceeds to pull out my Art of Tea collection of teas, then pauses and looks back in the cabinet.

Him: “Oh, wait. I don’t want this fancy stuff. I just want to throw a tea bag into a cup.”

Upon this I rise from the sofa (ok, actually I stand on it in)

Me: “WHAT!?!?! That’s not fancy! That’s everyday tea. You can’t drink tea from a tea bag! Didn’t you read my last post!!!”
Him: “But that teapot you have is so tricky to use.”
Me: “No it’s not” (I promise it’s not – my next post should be a video showing how very simple it is)
Him: “Yes it is”
Me: “No it’s not” (and so on…mature right?)

At this point I’ve gotten up from the couch, pulled down the tea pot, picked out some Amore tea (I’ve decided to end the disagreement after all) while he’s put the kettle on to boil.

When the water is ready I show him how to place the leaves in the central chamber of the pot. He pours the water in. We settle back on the couch and resume watching a movie.

Three minutes pass.

Him: “How long do I have to wait!?! See I told you this takes FOREVER.”
Me: “It’s ready”

He pours. He sips. He smiles sheepishly, realizing, of course, that I was right and the Amore Tea is much better than the old, tired bagged tea at the back of the cupboard that he would have had. But the truth is that we both won: he got a much better cup of tea, and I got to be right (as usual ).

Having recently started working at Art of Tea, I have embarked upon a tea-sampling journey. For an avid long time tea lover like myself. this is like being a kid in the candy store! A couple of nights ago, I brewed a variety of teas including Jasmine Pearl, Kauai Cocktail, and Assam Gold. Each unique tea brought me to a different place and time. Jasmine Pearl reminded me of waking up in the morning at my grandmother’s house, whereupon I would find her in the kitchen, sipping on premium Jasmine tea. The Kauai Cocktail made me feel as if I was on vacation. This was tangy yet sweet and fruity, like the island itself.

I was overly ambitious in my tea selection that night and so I didn’t get to drink the last cup of tea, which was a sweetened cup of Assam Gold. I ended up refrigerating it before I went to sleep. In the morning I woke up in dire need of a caffeine fix, but I also wanted a refreshing ice cold beverage. The dilemma was palpable. Then I opened my refrigerator and found the solution: the now-cold Assam Gold. I added some nonfat milk to it, and the result was stunning. The rich, yet mild (compared to coffee) flavors made me actually happy to be up at 7AM. What a nice alternative to coffee! I personally love milk tea, and this drink was a treat because it brought me right back to my childhood in Taiwan where street vendors sold milk tea, which sometimes contained boba.

These three cups of tea brought me so many good memories, that I can’t wait to see what my next cup will bring!

It is ubiquitous: that tea-filled gauze bag attached to a string with an identifying tag at the end. The tea bag is perhaps one of the great injustices thrust upon tea drinkers everywhere. It wasn’t always so. In fact, the tea bag wasn’t invented until the 20th century. The story goes that an American tea purveyor named Thomas Sullivan began sending out samples of his teas to customers in little silk bags. His customers, thinking this was a more convenient way to brew tea, placed the packets directly into their cups of hot water rather than dumping the tea into the pot directly, as was the tradition. Thus the tea bag was born. Silk eventually gave way to gauze, and today approximately 90% of tea prepared in Britain and America is from such bags.

There are inherent problems with the reliance on tea bags as a means for tea enjoyment. The most glaring is that some of the worlds best teas are not produced for tea bags, so to drink only bagged tea is to miss a huge selection of fabulous teas. A second and related problem is that the tea that is bagged is often no more than the dust from good loose tea. This is often not even bagged in sufficient quantities. The result is a cup of weak tea that lacks the depth of an authentic cup of tea.

There is another less obvious and more philosophic problem with bagged tea. It has to do with how we as modern people approach life. At this point it’s pretty much a given that the pace of our lives has quickened. Everything from information and communication to food preparation has sped up dramatically in the past decade. More and more people rely on fast food for their sustenance (this issue alone is topic enough for another post, or whole blog, or really doctoral thesis) and the results are obvious. Our population is becoming increasingly obese and unhealthy. How do we counteract this epidemic? I believe that one way is to slow down. Take time to prepare a meal, instead of wolfing down something from the golden arches as you drive in your car. Stop and take the ten minutes required to brew a pot of authentic loose-leaf tea and then breath and enjoy it. If we spend our lives racing around, by the end all we’ll remember is the race and not the life.

I, for one, would prefer to savor the pot of Earl Grey I shared with my husband over breakfast of eggs strata and fruit, given the option between that and a breakfast McSandwich grabbed on the fly with some burnt coffee. And there is always that option. We live the lives we choose for ourselves. If we don’t actively decide to slow down and live a life more balanced, then we will get swept up into the sped up flow of contemporary life. So put down your travel mug, ignore your microwave for a week, stop buying tea that come in bags, and try brewing a pot of Monk’s Blend; you might just find that slowing down and creating a little ceremony in your life is good for you. I know I have.

Let’s take a closer look at Fucha in all of its splendor. Fermented teas come in many forms, but Pu-erh is the most common tea for these unique shapes. Fucha follows in Pu-erh’s footsteps with its popular compressed shape and structure. Two of the most popular forms of Kurocha are Toucha, which is compressed into a bowl shape, and Heicha, which is compressed into a disc shape. Korucha presents itself in a myriad of ways, not simply these two, whose forms we will expand upon in another post.

Kurocha (koo-ro-cha) is a highly valued post-fermentation tea, which is kept in conditions of high temperature and high humidity where airborne microbes cause the tea to further ferment. As time passes, this tea increases in mellowness, depth and flavor and becomes easy to drink. Kurocha is a fairly new tea in the Western market, appealing to health-minded individuals because it promotes digestion and is an effective at washing away fat inside the body.

The miraculous Fu Cha is produced during the final stages of the Kurocha fermentation process. During the final forty days of the manufacturing process, the tea is dried, creating Fu Cha. The fine yellow powder, called the Golden Flower, which Fu Cha yields, is unique to this tea. High-grade Fucha is harvested by selecting only young leaves that are three to a stem. The long fermentation process coupled with the unique property of the Golden Flower creates a type of metabolic and digestive harmony, supplying a rich content of catechins, dietary fiber and amino acids. Because of Fucha’s abundance of vitamins and minerals, such as calcium iron and zinc (it is very gentle on ones body with the extremely low caffeine content – less than that of green tea), many cultures recommend a daily drink for adults and children.

The conditions must be perfect to create the Golden Flower. If they are not, the Fucha tea will lose its function and the Golden Flower will not form. The diet of our modern western society has come to resemble that of the Northwestern Chinese, Mongolian and Tibetan nomadic people, in that their diet is mainly composed of heavy oily foods with lots of meat and milk products and a reliance on saturated fats. In these regions this seemingly unhealthy diet is maintainable because they burn so many calories living in a high altitude and dealing with extreme weather conditions. However, our similar diet is not counter balanced by our environment and so it throws our bodies out of whack. By exploring the diet and choices of other tribes around the world perhaps we can find healthy alternatives in our society. By drinking Fucha in conjunction with a natural diet it is possible to maintain one’s health and to offset the disturbance to the balance of nutrients and minerals that occurs during improper dieting.