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Bad is not that bad

We are offering some bad teas, yes you are hearing me, this is our first trying to break the rule and widen your tea world, tea is not boring. Check the bad teas for sale below:


There is nothing bad to fear, once you have crossed that threshold, all is well. Another world, and you do not have to speak.

Franz Kafka

That is pretty true, growing in the greenhouse is very fragile and big limitation. No one wants to be born bad but we can learn a lot from it and thus improve it.

Why that tea is bad?

Tea is not just a product, it’s a natural gift that make it happen by gifted people. The weather, the soil and the people, it’s all tea connected. Drought is a real threat to us this year, 6 months and only one raining. Some of the bad teas showed above are the result of this bad situation. These teas might drag you to the field, to face what we face, to think what we think, to thrill what we thrill and you are not just owning a tea.

In my philosophy, the most interesting part is how to embarking on the challenge, normally everything will be evolved after that. Let’s take a look at The Prometheus Drops, it’s the fight back of desperation, the image is still so clear in my head. That was a very comfortable day in late September, the temperature of early morning and night was about 20°C, under the sun it’s much higher, as high as 38°C, but because of the high altitude one will feel cool once go into the shadow. This is the perfect weather for White tea making, I had this idea, still have. So everything of tea processing went into common route, then 2 days later I found a problem, the moisture didn’t go out as usual thus the White tea characters didn’t show out clearly. Then I asked myself, if we continued this way, the final tea we had would be same as other 90% tea in the market, is that what I want? Sure it was not, we need to find a solution but firstly I gotta to find out what caused this trouble. After checking and talking, I found the 1st direct cause was the fresh leaves plucked, over half of them were very big, too much big which means too much moisture. I can not blame our pickers, as in the past they always got the job done perfectly, besides they are all on the grandma age, how dare I piss them off?! The deepest crime is the long time drought, it had not been raining for over 6 months. The tea plants can survive is indeed a miracle as I saw many many dead bushes there. They survived and grew by the chewing of dew, so tough plants.

So what should I do now? how could I revert this situation.

Misfortune got blessing from luck, luck hides misfortune in somewhere.

BC 571 by Lao Zi

That’s totally true, with wisdom and patience the bad can turn into good. Too much moisture is the bad, let’s make use of it, then I had to break the tea making rules and import Fermentation into White tea, so I got the tea rolled, fermented and finally roasted, that’s ridiculous if you show this to an old tea master who might angry and shouted “how dare you make white tea this way?” I do. I am a creator which means break rule sometimes.

Then how is the final tea? Don’t guess, try it I am sure you will get a little surprise. Enjoy the bad tea.

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Dragon and China tea

  • Dragon Well – Long Jing Green tea
  • Dragon Head – Long Ding Green tea
  • Dragon Buds – Long Ya Green tea
  • Dragon Sword – Long Jian Green tea
  • Dragon Beard – Long Xu Oolong tea
  • Dragon Pearls – Long Zhu Jasmine tea

How many of these teas you ever tried? You may wonder why so many tea names are dragon connected, actually there are more, the Chinese people just can not stop loving dragon, it’s the representation of chasing for a better life.

Dragon Well

Dragon Well green tea
Long Jing green tea

Dragon Well is not just a tea name, it’s the name of spring water that locates in West Lake of Zhejiang Province. Thousand years ago people didn’t have so many solutions for drought and flood, they only way they can do is to pray.

Intriguingly this spring water never dry or overflow no matter how bad of the drought and flood, people believe it has a channel connected with the sea and there is a dragon king in the sea. Dragon King is not just a god, it also has the ability and responsibility for raining.

This spring water has been existed for thousand years, this tea has been called Dragon Well for thousand years too but it’s not the no.1 China tea until the Emperor Qian Long arrived.

Emperor Qian Long

Warriors of Qin dynasty
Warriors of Qin dynasty

In China, since BC 221 the first Emperor Qin unified the whole China, only him can ware or use anything has dragon image, the emperor claimed himself to be the son of god, embodiment of dragon.

After almost two thousand years later, the Dragon Well village welcomed a special guest, the sixth emperor of Qing Dynasty, Qian Long was a both civil and martial man, he liked this tea very much and wrote six poems for it, also eighteen bushes were knighted. From this time on, Dragon Well tea became more and more famous. I assume he might be very happy to meet another dragon as a dragon.

Paint the dragon

Can you imagine a dragon has no claws or horns? The dragon image we see now has a long time evolution, in the beginning it’s just a totem of tribes, when time moved to the cultivation era, it became god, a god of water but there were many many gods at that time.

The important time to distinguish it from others is the man mentioned above, the first emperor of China, from that time on, dragon began to have patent rights, it means power, noble and inviolable. According to the archaeological findings, the next dynasty Han started to have four claws then scales in the following dynasty Tang.

Phoenix and dragon

Emperor is dragon, in turn Queen is phoenix, they always come together, just like Yin and Yang. In Guangdong province, there is an Oolong named Phoenix Mountain Dan Cong, it’s said the plant seed was gifted by the phoenix.

Dan Cong means single bush, this tea was picked and processed one bush by one bush, different craft is applied to each bush as they are different, a very fine manufacturing. In this big machine time this might means insane but it helps to create remarkable quality, the most impressive character is strength of aroma, if it’s no.2 there is no no.1. Interestingly many styles of aroma available, the most famous one is Duck Shit Aroma.

Emperor tea man

Emperor Zhaoji
Zhaoji, the emperor of Song dynasty

Historically the most powerful tea man was emperor Zhao Ji who was the eighth emperor of Song dynasty, Da Guan Tea Comments is the book written by him. The first classic tea book was written by Lu Yu but the crown of most delicate belongs to this one.

He pushed forward the tea to the highest level in the entire China history even today, and the representative work is Dragon Ball Phoenix Cake (aka DBPC, Long Tuan Feng Bing) which is the origin of Wuyi Rock tea.

The minister would be very lucky to get one DBPC from the emperor, as this tea is not just monopolized by the emperor but indeed cost very very much. So almost everyone drinks tea, no matter rich or poor, high and low, still today a lot of people are studying the tea life in Song dynasty.

A better life, a cup of tea

What would you do if have only ten minutes life?

I would have a cup of tea, a cup of DBPC.