Tea Production in Doi Mae Salong, North Thailand: the picking and processing of our Oolong Nr.12

The following video shows “the becoming” of our Oolong No.12, together with the Oolong No.17 the major trademark of tea cultivation and production in Northern Thailand. Both hybrids originate from Taiwan’s Lishan Highlands, from where they were brought to the mountains of North Thailand for cultivation in 1994. The effort has definitely been worth it, as our little film clearly demonstrates.
Principally, three main categories of tea processing can be differentiated: the processing to
• Green tea (not fermented)
• Oolong tea (part-fermented)
• Black tea (fully fermented)
Two more (sub-) categories can be added to the above-mentioned classification
• White tea (very light fermented)
• Pu Errh tea (post-fermented)
In the following description, we take orientation on the conditions at our producer partners in Doi Mae Salong, North Thailand. READ MORE…

Letha Hadady’s Asian Health Secrets

Please meet Mrs. Letha Hadady, one of the US’ leading capacities on Traditional Chinese Medicine and author of a series of renowned boods on natural healing resources and philosophy!
READ MORE…

Tea Preparation and Accessories: The Chinese Tea Ceremony

There are numerous ways of preparing tea… The following video illustrates the preparation of Oolong tea (here the Oolong Nr. 17) in a variant of the Chinese tea ceremony as it is practiced by our Northern Thai suppliers… The tea ceremony has its origins in China, the country that is quite the cradle of all tea culture… One could say, the Chinese tea ceremony is a mixture of ritual framework, situational cirumstances and individual arrangement/personal discretion… Purpose of the tea ceremony is to achieve the best possible taste of the tea, the realization of the highest possible degree of beauty in the ritual’s arrangement, and a social or individual situation of utmost harmony, in other words: the perfect moment in space and time… Besides the Taoist ones, Confucian and Buddhist influences, references and analogies can be found in the Chinese tea ceremony… Tools and Accessories of the Tea Ceremony… The “Tea Boat” (Tea Table)… The Teapot… The Teacup… Degustation Cup/Smelling Cup… The Gaiwan… The Tea Bowl… Tea “Cutlery”… Glass Pots… READ MORE…

Tea Cultivation in Northern Thailand – History and Development

While the world map of tea cultivation generally offers a rather stable appearance with little changes over the past centuries, a new spot had to be added to it just recently: Northern Thailand. Where opium fields dominated the mountainous terrain’s altitudes beyond 1000 m until about 20 years ago, making it an integral part of the infamous Golden Triangle, today a highly diversified variety of cash crops covers the slopes, among them fruit, nuts, vegetables , coffee, and, last but not least, tea. How Opium Fields turned Tea Gardens… Two factors played a key role in the initiation and development of the commercial cultivation and processing of high quality teas in Northern Thailand:
1. Thai Royal Projects 2. Ethnic Chinese Communities Especially Doi Mae Salong soon developed a broad spectrum portfolio of tea products, ranging from high quality Green Teas via Chinese and Taiwanese classic Oolong teas such as “4-Seasons Tea”, “Dong Ding Tea” and “Oriental Beauty” Tea and a range of scented or flavored teas, for which Jasmine Tea, Osmanthus Tea or Rice Tea, a particular Northern Thai/Shan areas specialty, might serve examples, to some herbal teas made from local herbs such as the Chinese “immortality herb” Jiaogulan and Safflower Tea. Just recently, Doi Mae Salong has even started producing a Black Tea that is often compared to a high quality Darjeeling by tea connoisseurs. READ MORE…

Doi Mae Salong – Center of Northern Thai Tea Cultivation

Venue Doi Mae Salong, Northern Thailand, in the heart of the Golden Triangle: it is 6 a.m., when Mrs. Sumalee lifts the roller shutters of her tea-shop, located at the main street of the town in the Northern Thai mountains that is populated exclusively by ethnic Chinese… Just little more than 20 years ago, the hills of Doi Mae Salong, whose slopes today show a picture of one tea garden besides the other, were still covered with opium fields. The inhabitants of the Chinese mountain enclaves in Northern Thailand, Doi Mae Salong and Doi Wawee, deprived of their main source of income made a virtue of necessity and bethought themselves of another, millennium-old Chinese tradition, the knowledge of the cultivation and processing of tea. READ MORE…

Doi Wawee

June 5, 2011
0
Doi Wawee

Doi Wawee is a very remote village in the mountains of Northern Thailand, located about 45 km west of Doi Mae Salong at an altitude of about 1500m above sea level. I had repeatedly received hints from private and Internet sources that maintained that, just like Doi Mae Salong, the resident community of the Chinese Kuomintang village of Doi Wawee grows tea on a larger scale… The town’s only accommodation option is the Laolee Hill Resort, run by a Chinese family that, as we learn later, does not only own most of the surrounding tea plantations, but also played a crucial role in the idea and realization of importing tea plants from Taiwan, and the subsequent years of development of Doi Wawee’s tea cultivation and distribution… The conversation soon turns to tea, and we hear a brief history of the tea cultivation at Doi Wawee, where, amongst other things, we learn that Doi Mae Salong, Doi Wawee’s larger Chinese “sister city” in Northern Thailand, was initially inspired to the cultivation and processing of tea by the Doi Wawee community… Visit of Doi Wawee’s tea plantations

For a while, we climb about the tea slopes, where photographic tea plantation motifs and perspectives open up in abundance… Visit at the tea factory

In front of the factory, large amounts of tea leaves are spread out for drying in the sun. Further piles of tea leaves are just about being evenly distributed on the ground… Teas from Doi Wawee… …a branch of the tea-processing in Doi Wawee, which is unique for Northern Thailand: the production of Pu’er tea. Pu’er tea is a Green Tea, post-fermented over a longer period, non-oxidized and usually pressed… READ MORE…

Teas from Thailand NOW at Siam Tea Shop!

For your personal needs tea order please visit our Siam Tea Shop: Oolong Teas, Green Teas, Black Tea, naturally scented Teas, Herbal Teas, Jiaogulan Tea, Safflower Tea, Pu’er Tea, Shan Tea

Product and Price Information for Resellers:
Oolong No.12; Oolong No.17; 4-Season Oolong Tea; Dong Ding Oolong Tea; Beautiful Girl Oolong Tea; Oolong Tea, leaves; Oolong Tea, gunpowder; Green Tea; Green Tea, leaves; Green Tea, gunpowder; Black Tea; Black Tea, leaves; Black Tea, tea bags; Jasmine Tea, Rice Tea; Osmanthus Tea, Oolong Ginseng Tea, Jiaogulan Tea, Safflower Tea, Pu’er Tea, Shan Tea!
READ MORE…

Project Shan Tea

May 15, 2011
0
Project Shan Tea

Like so many good things, Project Shan Tea was born over a pot of tea… Help Without Frontiers is a German refugee aid organization that has dedicated its work and its commitment to alleviate the plight of ethnic Shan refugees and displaced persons from Burma. In this context, Help Without Frontiers conducts training and educational programs and initiatives to generate income, health, medical, nutritional and a number of other social projects… In Burma’s border area with Thailand, where refugees and displaced people from Burma gather to seek a better life and fortune in escaping to Thailand… Where they come from, arson, rape, robbery and killings through Burma’s military are the everyday agenda… Tea from the Shan states just sounded like a great idea, possibly another good and even rare tea specialty for the Sia Teas portfolio… Shan tea is a dark, not fully fermented tea that tastes like the land and soil, on which it grows. READ MORE…

Teas from Thailand: Products and Species

Green Teas, Oolong Teas, Black Tea and (naturally) scented teas from Northern Thailand… Oolong teas are partially fermented teas of the “Camellia Sinensis”… The degree of fermentation varies between 8% and 85%. The origin of Oolong teas is China… From there, the cultivation of oolong teas spread further across South Asia: Japan, Taiwan, Korea (Guangdong), and more recently Northern Thailand. The tea plants for cultivation in Thailand were originally imported from Taiwan’s Alishan region… Green teas are unfermented teas of the “Camellia Sinensis” species… Black tea is fully oxidized or fermented tea… Northern Thailand produces a range of naturally scented Oolong and Green teas, to which natural aroma donors such as jasmine, Thai jasmine rice, ginseng or osmanthus flowers are added… Jiaogulan – “Gynostemma pentaphyllum” – the Chinese “Immortality Herb”, is an herbaceous climbing plant that has earned itself a worldwide reputation as traditional Chinese “miracle” herb…health benefits… Oolong N°12, Oolong N°17, 4-Season Oolong Tea, Beautiful Girl Oolong Tea, Dong Ding Oolong Tea, Green Tea, Black Tea, Osmanthus Tea, Ginseng Oolong Tea, Jasmine Tea, Rice Tea, Jiaogulan, Shan Tea… What we call Shan Tea is tea from a tea plant that has been native to the mountainous regions of Thailand and Burma for a long time.. grown by Shan farmers… READ MORE…

Journey to Doi Mae Salong

April 18, 2011
0
Journey to Doi Mae Salong

Destination of our journey is Doi Mae Salong… …Chinese town high up in the Northern Thai highlands… The history of Doi Mae Salong
…the town was a sort of Chinese Wild West, living from the opium trade… The area today produces more than 200 t of tea a year and the quality particularly of the local Oolong Teas… Doi Mae Salong, Thailand, is just perfect for the cultivation of tea: altitude, landscape patterns, and climate… Oolong Teas, Green Teas, Jasmine Tea, rice-scented tea, 4-Season-Tee as well as Jiaogulan and Ginseng Teas… During the following factory visit and demonstration of the processing of the freshly harvested tea leaves… visit to the tea plantations… READ MORE…

Tea cultivation in Thailand

In the area today forming the border region Northern Thailand/Burma, tea was already harvested from wild growth at a very early stage…The Kuomintang Army…Doi Mae Salong, a small, picturesque town, situated at an altitude of 1800 m above sea level…part of the legendary Golden Triangle…Royal Thai Tea Project…Tea cultivation at Doi Mae Salong…the opium cultivation in the mountain enclave being completely replaced by one of the cultivation of tea…more than 200 tons of tea annually, and the quality particularly of the locally grown Oolong teas, but also the Green Teas, and more recently Black Teas, for which the plants were originally imported from Taiwan….Doi Mae Salong provides just perfect conditions for tea growing…also produces tea scented with jasmine flowers, the Chinese “immortality herb” Jiaogulan, as well as Ginseng Tea and other scented teas like Rice Tea or Osmanthus Green Tea…Other Tea Cultivation Areas in Northern Thailand, especially the regions Doi Tung and Doi Chang…Tea cultivation in the Shan areas…The Shan call their plants ‘Ning Lung’…ideal conditions for a particularly fine tea…Many Shan are from childhood on familiar with the cultivation of tea trees…benefit the Shan refugees via a percentage levy on the realized proceeds from the sale of ShanTea amounting to 20% of total sales..READ MORE…

The History of Tea

February 27, 2011
0
The History of Tea

Origin of tea culture, cultivation and use of the tea plant…
Most sources date the discovery of tea as a beverage and as medicinal herb to about 2700 – 2800 BC…
… is taken from the tea bible “Cha Jing”, written by the Chinese literate Lu Yu (733-804 AD). Accdording to the Cha Jing, tea first became known through the Chinese healer Shennung (2737 Chr BC)…
Lu Yu in his writings advocated this traditional method of tea preparation and transcended the consumption of the tea beverage to a spiritual act…
Not only the commercial marketing, but also the further development of different tea processing methods (e.g. Green Tea, Oolong Tea, Black Tea, scented or flavored teas), up to a certain point can be mainly attributed to the Chinese…
Tea was first brought to Europe from China by a portugaise priest, Gasper da Cruz… …tea then held its great march of triumph through all of Europe in the course of the 17. century…
eversince, tea, as well as the culture and rites surrounding the comsumption of tea, have claimed a well-established position in European life…
READ MORE…

Pang Kahm: Tea Village in No-Man’s-Land

Our trip to Pang Kham, Northern Thailand, near the Burmese border, is closely connected to our Project Shan Tea, where we buy greater amounts of a fine, traditional tea as it has been grown for hundreds of years by Northern Thai and Shan people from small farmers along the Thai/Burma border, providing them with a sales market and a livelyhood… They grow a tea species that is local to the area, and produce a dark, delicious tea, with a high degree of fermentation… Amazingly, the first thing we see is a pile of tea spread for sundrying in the yard… In Shan language (again with our escort, who speaks an excellent English, translating), the tea farmer explains his processing method to us, which is for a large part similar to what we saw the Chinese doing in Doi Mae Salong. Just the “machines” used here appear to be a bit more old-fashioned… Only on second sight I realize that we are actually right in the middle of a tea plantation. All around us, there are tea trees seemingly randomly scattered, with coffee plants and other trees dispersed between them in irregular patterns…Our host tells us that his father, a tea farmer himself (who supposely lived to become 99 years old), passed the skills of tea cultivation on to him, when he was a kid joining his father growing tea in Shan State… What impresses me most is that the tea is grown here without any addition of fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides whatsoever, meaning this tea really is 100% organically grown… The tea trees, which are partially up to 2 m high, with trunks up to 15 cm thick, are regularly cut back to keep their leaves accessible for harvest and promote the formation of new tea leave sprouts. READ MORE…

Siam Tea Blog

January 12, 2011
1
Siam Tea Blog

The purpose of this blog is to introduce you to the world surrounding the cultivation of Tea in Thailand… the mountain community of Doi Mae Salong…this blog deals with the tea and general culture of the various mountain tribes and particularly with the ethnic Shan people…One of the Shan’s centres of tea cultivation on the Thai side is the village of Pang Kham. More about the dark local tea grown there…The Project ShanTea is a concept for the provision of a sales market for small Shan tea farmers…20% of the sales price of Shan Tea, a dark, savory tea harvested and processed by the villagers of Pang Kham from up to several hundred years old tea trees…A general overview of the origins of tea cultivation in China… particularly Green Teas and Oolong Teas have been enjoying growing both national and international popularity… tea cultivation in Thailand…the tea plants grown here, which were mainly imported from Taiwan originally…For more than a decade now, an increasingly vivid tea culture and tea cultivation develops particularly in the region of Doi Mae Salong, coined by its Chinese population… teas from Thailand…a range of Thai Green Teas, Oolong Teas, and Black Teas, naturally scented Thai Teas such as Jasmin Flower Tea, Oolong Ginseng Tea, the Chinese “Immortality Herb” Jiaogulan, and, of course our product Shan Tea… Siam Tea Shop…Tea Music… Siam Tea Blog… newsletters…discounts. READ MORE…

Albizia Theme designed by itx