A while back, I wrote a press release for Kilinoe ("Misty Mountain") Green Hawaii-Grown Green Tea from Narien Teas. It's a very enjoyable tea and a strong sign of Hawaii as a significant new tea terroir, so I thought I'd review it here.
The Leaves: Wiry and dark with silver tips
The Brew: Clean and clear; befitting the taste, it's the color of a Bosc pear
The Aroma: Light and clean, like a just-ripe Bosc pear, with touches of clover honey and farm notes of fresh-tilled soil and dry plant matter
The Flavor: Light, fresh, clean and sweet with a slight flavor of fall grasses, some pear notes and a hint of raw walnut halves
The Finish: Lush gardenia flavors with clove, violets, nuts and a touch of minerality
This tea starts at $9 from Narien Teas. They have some very unusual teas, including Kilinoe and Kokeicha green tea (not a mis-spelling of Kukicha, I promise... it's and extruded form of matcha paste that brews like tealeaves). Oh, and they sell tea seeds. Cool company -- check them out!
Showing posts with label terroir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terroir. Show all posts
Monday, September 21, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
New Article: Unusual Tea Origins
You can blame it on climate change, shifting economic status or connoisseurs' need for something new, but the fact remains that unusual tea origins are getting to be hot right now. I just covered the trend for World Tea News. Excerpt:
Terroir, the concept of distinct flavor imbued by region-specific factors such as climate, soil and varietal, originated with French wine-making, but it also applies to tea. Pettigrew said today’s tea consumers want to treat tea like wine and are taking a new interest in origin.
“You don’t excite people with just average tea; you need the unusual experiences (such as new origins) to make it more exciting,” she said.
Cain said this new-found connoisseurship does not mean tea businesses should forgo old favorites – then, he went on to passionately describe his current favorite tea, a “fruity and full” first flush Nepalese black tea with “fascinating” peaks and levels in flavor.
This kind of excitement about new discoveries – and the work of people like Melican, who has traveled to 26 tea-producing countries on six continents – is encouraging the expansion of specialty production techniques into a multitude of new and unexpected places.
Some traditional origins are also producing orthodox teas and using foreign processing methods in response to customer connoisseurship, Cain and Pettigrew added.
This was fascinating to research. I hope to write more on some of these individual origins in the future, when they are further along. In the meantime, you can read the full article on World Tea news.
Terroir, the concept of distinct flavor imbued by region-specific factors such as climate, soil and varietal, originated with French wine-making, but it also applies to tea. Pettigrew said today’s tea consumers want to treat tea like wine and are taking a new interest in origin.
“You don’t excite people with just average tea; you need the unusual experiences (such as new origins) to make it more exciting,” she said.
Cain said this new-found connoisseurship does not mean tea businesses should forgo old favorites – then, he went on to passionately describe his current favorite tea, a “fruity and full” first flush Nepalese black tea with “fascinating” peaks and levels in flavor.
This kind of excitement about new discoveries – and the work of people like Melican, who has traveled to 26 tea-producing countries on six continents – is encouraging the expansion of specialty production techniques into a multitude of new and unexpected places.
Some traditional origins are also producing orthodox teas and using foreign processing methods in response to customer connoisseurship, Cain and Pettigrew added.
This was fascinating to research. I hope to write more on some of these individual origins in the future, when they are further along. In the meantime, you can read the full article on World Tea news.
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