Category Archives: Tea Production

Witch’s Brew 2021: Making Your Own Tea Blends

For Halloween, let’s brew up some unique tea blends using existing teas. Over the next four weeks, we will walk you through the craft of blending tea while creating four new blends to enjoy. So grab your measuring spoons, cup and infuser and join us on our blending adventure.

1st Recipe: Toasted Marshmallow

Our first recipe of the 2021 season is a blend of Lapsang Souchong and New World Vanilla to get us a smooth toasted marshmallow flavor. If you have not tried Lapsang Souchong before, this is a pine smoked tea from the Fujian Provence of China. The pine smoke nose hides a beautifully smooth and slightly sweet black tea that has a full mouth finish.

The good news about this recipe is that the teas are roughly the same size and density. So if you like this combination, you can mix a larger batch and have it on standby in the pantry. The recipe below is for an 8oz mug:

Toasted Marshmallow Recipe

Lapsang Souchong – 1/4 teaspoon

New World Vanilla – 2 1/2 teaspoons

2nd Recipe: Strawberries and Cream

This blend takes two popular oolong flavors, Strawberry Oolong and Milk Oolong, and combines them for a sweet and creamy cup of tea. Using desserts as inspiration for tea blends is pretty common as it allows a drinker to narrow in on a desired flavor.

Strawberries and Cream Recipe

Milk Oolong – 1/2 teaspoon

Strawberry Oolong – 2 teaspoons

3rd Recipe: Mint Julep

There are flavors in cocktails that can be easily mimicked in tea. The bourbon in the classic mint julep cocktail can be replaced with the pine smoked tea of Lapsang Souchong. The smokiness is smoothed out with the vanilla of New World Vanilla to help complete the bourbon replacement. Of course, a mint julep is not complete without mint, so we included Mint Fields. This type of copycat recipe is tricky because you are trying to replicate a flavor profile that can vary widely based on the alcohol that is used in the cocktail. So the goal is to pick the dominate flavor in the complex beverage and adjust the tea accordingly. We love the earthiness of the bourbon, so we scaled the Lapsang Souchong to come through on this recipe.

Mint Julep Recipe

Lapsang Souchong – 1/4 teaspoon

New World Vanilla – 1/4 teaspoons

Mint Fields – 2 1/2 teaspoons

4th Recipe: English Toffee

We wrap up our 2021 Witch’s Brew with a traditional candy, toffee. The subtle flavors in caramelized sugar are mimic by the Japanese tea, Hojicha. This beautiful roasted green tea carries a roasted nut flavor that when combined with our Dulce de Leche turns into a cup of toffee. While there are two teas with different brew times, this is a tea that should still be brewed for 5 minutes with boiling water. The Hojicha can handle the heat without becoming bitter, thanks to the roasting of that tea.

This is a recipe where the density of the two teas is too different to blend in advance (gravity will separate them in storage). So make by the cup or pot only. The recipe below is for an 8oz mug:

English Toffee Recipe

Hojicha – 1 teaspoon

Dulce de Leche – 1 1/4 teaspoons

Kaizen & Tea

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When it comes to Japanese tea culture, most people tend to think first of elaborate ceremonies, poetry, and all the philosophy typically embodied in chadō. And while these are essential components of the Japanese approach to tea, few realize that beneath the history and aesthetics lies a very pragmatic approach to the production of tea. The careful balance of cutting-edge technology with traditional methods, and an appreciation for efficiency, has done well to make Japanese teas some of the most common in the world.

Modern Japanese tea production owes much to the concept of kaizen, a term that was introduced to the business world in the aftermath of WWII. Kaizen, which roughly translates as “continuous improvement”, was conceived by William Deming and made famous by Toyota as a way of constant small innovation that, in the long-term, will help a business attain perfection.

Using kaizen, Japanese tea production is the ultimate in efficiency: from the harvest of one plant, you can get not only sencha, but also shincha, kukicha, bancha, hojicha, and genmaicha. Let’s take a look at all of these teas.

Sencha: The most common type of Japanese tea, accounting for roughly 80% of the country’s tea production. Sencha ranges in quality from top-end to ready-to-drink dust & fannings, and is produced throughout the growing season. After harvest, it is steamed to stop oxidation, rolled into thin needle shapes, and oven-dried.

Shincha: The very first yield of sencha, shincha is composed of young new leaves that are plucked early in spring before the main harvest begins. Shincha is prized among connoisseurs for its rarity, complex flavors, and freshness.

Bancha: Harvested from mid-June to September after sencha production is finished, bancha utilizes fuller, more mature leaves and sometimes stems to give it its characteristic notes of sweet hay and bold grassiness.

Kukicha: Kukicha is made from stems and leaf cuttings leftover from sencha production. It is more delicately flavored than sencha or bancha, with savory sesame notes.

Hojicha: This unique green tea is made of sencha or bancha leaves, sometimes blended with kukicha, that have been roasted at 200°F for several minutes. Roasting imparts a rich, sweet, and nutty flavor – along with a lower caffeine content that makes it perfect for the evenings.

Genmaicha: Originally a staple of fasting monks and the poor, genmaicha is sencha or bancha that has been blended with toasted brown rice, which gives it a wonderfully mellow quality and full body.

Kaizen approaches in Japanese industry have been a tremendous gift to tea drinkers, allowing aficionados the chance to enjoy the diverse range of flavors that come from a single plant. Have you tried sencha and all the teas derived from it yet? Which is your favorite?

By: Jen Coate

Aged White Tea History

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Aged White Peony Tea Cake

If you’re a more adventurous tea drinker, you may already be familiar with compressed tea, which is tea that has been processed and pressed into a brick or a cake. Durable, shelf-stable, and easy to store, these cakes are typically Chinese puerh teas that are fermented and designed to improve with age. In recent years, however, a new type of compressed tea has been moving into the market: white tea cakes, first innovated during the early 2000s in Fuding, Fujian Province.

To better appreciate the role that white tea cakes have come to play in the aged tea market, we must first step back for a look at contemporary Chinese history. In the late 1970s, after the death of Chairman Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping assumed leadership of the People’s Republic of China and began a series of sweeping economic reforms designed to modernize the country. To provide a sense of stability and cultural connection amidst such changes, Deng and the Chinese government encouraged citizens to consider the values and doctrine of classical Chinese thinkers. Ancient literary and philosophical masters such as Confucius and Lu Yu (see Notable People in the History of Tea), previously condemned by the Communist party, were looked to as a source of stability and national identity. With this change in ideology came a renewed appreciation for all things traditional, historical, and aged – classical texts, classical education, classical tea.

Aged White Tea Manufacturing in Fuding

The next few decades saw a surge in demand for compressed puerh. Savvy merchants emphasized the value inherent to aged dark tea or thousand-year old cultivars, and puerh cakes sold briskly in both domestic and foreign markets. Inspired by the ongoing trend, white tea growers began to experiment as well. Their hope was to produce a tea that, while not fermented, could withstand aging and even improve in flavor over time. By the early 2010s, Bai Mu Dan (White Peony) tea cakes had begun to sell across China and were moving into Western markets. As it turned out, the floral and delicate characteristics of this white tea matured beautifully over time, gaining a woody complexity and sweet, muscatel finish. What had begun as a gamble to take advantage of market trends had actually produced a complex and high-quality tea unlike anything that had been seen before.

As the world of white tea cakes continues to expand, more and more varieties are appearing in Western tea stores. In addition to Bai Mu Dan, Bai Hao Silver Needle and many other white teas are beginning to become available in aged cake form. As tea producers look to history to inspire new innovations, many cite an ancient Fujian proverb: “One year a tea, three years a medicine; seven years, a treasure!”

Here at Dominion Tea, we are excited to currently be carrying 2014 Bai Mu Dan tea cakes, 2019 Moonlight White cakes, and perfectly travel-sized aged White Tea Buttons. Stop by today to explore this new and innovative corner of the tea world yourself!

By Jen Coate

Shincha – 1st Flush Sencha

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First Flush Shincha

Within the world of Japanese teas, sencha and shincha are two terms that can easily be confused, especially by English speakers. But while sencha is a broad category of popular Japanese green tea, shincha refers to a specific harvest of sencha that is highly prized among tea connoisseurs.

Sencha, with its vast array of varieties, has long held sway over the Japanese tea market, accounting for more than 80 percent of the country’s overall tea consumption. Production styles vary tremendously depending on region and desired quality. Highest-graded sencha is typically harvested and processed from late April to mid-May. Like all Japanese teas, sencha is steamed shortly after picking to dehydrate the leaves and forestall oxidation, giving it a characteristic vegetal and grassy freshness.

When cultivating sencha, Japanese tea growers divide the growing year into four harvests – referred to in the industry as flushes – named for their order in the year: ichibancha, nibancha, sanbancha, and yonbancha. The first flush, ichibancha, is what produces shincha. Delicate buds and top leaves, harvested by hand and briefly steamed, are plucked when they are still small. By plucking these leaves early, growers capture the intense expression of the all the rich nutrients and flavors that have been cultivating in the soil during the plant’s winter dormancy.

Bright green infused liquor from shincha.

Shincha Fresh from a Kyusu

Shincha leaves are small, tender, and vibrant, with a scent that is both freshly herbaceous and faintly mineral in character. When infused, shincha leaf steeps into a smooth paste yielding a bright green-gold liquor. The flavor, as compared to standard sencha, is notably bolder, livelier, and complex. A strong oceanic minerality overlays undernotes of fresh vegetation, with a faintly bitter finish that gradually gives way to a lingering stonefruit sweetness. The mouthfeel is full and sharp, slightly less astringent than sencha but still decidedly pronounced.

Like other Japanese green teas, shincha is perfect for brewing in traditional kyusu, but is just as delightful steeped in a pot or an infuser. Steep three grams of tea at a low temperature, between 160°-185° Fahrenheit, for two to three minutes. Shincha can also be enjoyed for multiple short steepings.

By Jennifer Coate

Caffeine Free vs Decaffeinated: What’s the Difference?

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Chemical Makeup of Caffeine

Caffeine free and decaffeinated mean two totally different things, yet many Americans use the words interchangeably. Here is what you should know, especially if you are trying to limit or minimize caffeine in your diet.

Caffeine free means that all ingredients occur in nature without caffeine. Therefore, there is no special process to remove the caffeine from them. Real tea is never caffeine free. Other plants, like rooibos, honeybush or chamomile which are common in herbal tea are caffeine free. If you are looking for a 100% caffeine free drink, you need to use the term caffeine free and not decaffeinated. Tisanes and herbals are caffeine free and get to count toward your water consumption since there is zero caffeine in the final brew. Decaffeinated teas do not.

Decaffeinated means that the product has undergone a special process to strip most, but not all, of the caffeine out of it. CO₂ decaffeination is commonly used in the tea industry to remove caffeine from tea leaves. To read in depth about this process, take a look at this blog post. The decaffeination process, however, still leaves residual caffeine. In both the United States and Europe, there is not set amount of residual caffeine, but a percentage of the original caffeine of the batch that is allowed. Given that the original amount of caffeine can vary dramatically between teas and even harvests of the same tea, there is no exact way to find the amount of caffeine remaining. Quite frankly decaffeinated teas do not and cannot taste as good as the original tea. While the caffeine is being removed, other polyphenols are also being removed that provide the original flavor to the tea. This normally leaves the decaffeinated tea tasting flat, so for many people, tisanes and herbal teas are more appealing when avoiding caffeine.

These differences between decaf and caffeine free make a huge difference in your tea drinking experience. Use them wisely.