Black tea, China, Tea review, White2Tea, White tea
Carole Kurowski
White2Tea Tea Club: September 2021

Well, hasn’t it been a while. After the craziness of Christmas, I admit, it’s taken me some time to get back into the blogging groove. In the meantime, my White2Tea tea club packages, previously taking their very sweet time to get over here from China, have unblocked. I now have a big stack of intriguing teas to dive into. Here’s the lowdown on September 2021 tea club.

White2Tea Tea Club: September 2021
Oolong, Japan, China, Finland
Carole Kurowski
Curious Cultivars: Oolong Tea Tasting

Curious Cultivars: Oolong Tea Tasting [Japanese Oolongs and Dan Cong]

My interest was most certainly piqued when I saw that my favourite teahouse in Helsinki, TeeMaa, was putting on a tea tasting of Japanese oolongs. Oolong teas are unusual in Japan, a country most famously known for its green teas. So I was very intrigued to taste some Japanese oolongs. Plus we were going to taste them alongside a favourite category of oolongs for me, Dan Cong.

Curious Cultivars: Oolong Tea Tasting
Kombucha
Carole Kurowski
How to make Kombucha

Kombucha has seen a huge rise in popularity over the last few years. Once an obscure potion on the shelves of health food stores, it’s now gone mainstream! Known for its probiotic health properties, Kombucha is a slightly sparkling fermented tea drink made with a live culture called a Scoby. I’m a relative newcomer to kombucha. It’s only over the past couple of years that I’ve started to drink and appreciate it. And now I decided to give home brewing kombucha a go!

How to make Kombucha
White tea, Tea review, China
Carole Kurowski
White2Tea Tea Club: August 2021

I’ve been meaning to join White2Tea Tea club for some time now. So this year I gave myself a birthday present and signed up! That was back in July, just in time for August's tea club. I knew it was going to be a waiting game, what with the state of shipments from China. So I was pretty excited when the notification of its arrival came towards the end of August.

White2Tea Tea Club: August 2021
Japan, Matcha
Carole Kurowski
Matcha Tea Tasting: Uji, Fukuoka, Nishio

In my Matcha 101 blog I wrote about the four main Matcha producing regions in Japan. Matcha has a very distinctive vegetal and savoury (umami) taste. And each region further adds its own unique flavour which is influenced by the growing environment - its climate, landscape and soil. In this post I compare Matcha from three of the regions - Uji, Fukuoka, and Nishio.

Matcha Tea Tasting: Uji, Fukuoka, Nishio

Green tea

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Matcha workshop at TeeMaa teahouse

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Matcha workshop at TeeMaa teahouse

I have found a beautiful, tranquil little teahouse in the heart of Helsinki specialising in Chinese teas! TeeMaa teahouse is run by a lovely woman from Hunan. They are doing a series of tea workshops, and the first one I attend is actually about a Japanese tea! Matcha is a Japanese green tea in fine powder form. It’s used in the traditional Japanese tea ceremony where the whole tea leaf is consumed.