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Latest — Jun 20, 2025

Guest Post: Pat Penny – Yiwu - Tea Technique Research Trip 2025

Here it is folks, my personal mecca of tea trips – Yiwu, Yunnan. We battled the bugs, the snakes, and the escalating political tensions and tariffs to go and study with a variety of knowledgeable Charen in Yiwu and the experience did not disappoint. Yiwu has been a bucket list tea

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Where Heaven is Close and the Emperor is far Away: Tea Technique Research Trip 2025 – Yiwu, Yunnan

Yunnan was the south western frontier of imperial China, populated by sinofied tribes, the gateway to Southeast Asia and India, the nexus of the southern silk road and tea horse trail. Yunnan is still a tribal land, far from the imperial heartland of China, where heaven is close and the

Object Impermanence: A Fleeting Forlorn Future

A friend, a good friend, a conscientious friend knocked a teapot off my shelf. It wasn't rare, or expensive, or antique. It was, in fact, purposely flawed, part of a set I commissioned to study for the book on Yixing teapots. The set, now incomplete; the tea session

Guest Post: Patrick Penny, Research Trip 2024 – Wuyi

Dear reader, you find me writing this from the comforts of Wistaria Tea House in Taipei where I end my travels reflecting on this year’s research trip over a 2003 Tze Ping sheng puerh, enjoying a moments peace before flying back to the US and returning to daily life.

I Barely Wuyi (武夷) - Tea Technique Research Trip 2024

Listen to the Tea Technique Podcast on the 2024 Research Trip to Wuyi: Intro Wuyi may be the most mythical of China's tea origins, unique in history, environment, natural preservation, production process, and flavor profiles. It may also be the most hyper-real, a place of collective modern myth-making,

A Grand Adventure: Taiwan 2024 - Part 2

Tea is a window, a lens, a reflection. Tea is a means of sharpening the mind to see into the internal and external. The cultivation of self is aided by a study of tea, the understanding of culture is aided by the study of tea. There is more than tea,

A Grand Adventure: Taiwan 2024

Part 1 A year to the day since the last post - I don't think the wait has been in vain. After a brief layover in Taiwan last year bookending the 2023 TT Research Trip, I started planning a true return to form - a month of tea

Guest Post: Patrick Penny, Research Trip 2023 – Chaozhou

After a 9-hour high speed rail from Yixing and an hour-long taxi ride we made it to Chaozhou old town, which would be our home base for the next few days. It was about 11pm once we’d dropped off our bags, stomachs rumbling and blood sugar low we raced

China Spring 2023: Post-Trip Update

As I sit here in NYC, comfortably at my desk, writing my notes after a brief weekend of rest from 3 weeks in China and Taiwan, it all feels like a dream. Returning to Yunnan was a form of homecoming, to a home I no longer knew, in a place

China Spring 2023: Mid-Trip Update

The Tea Technique Team's triumphant return to the origin of tea and tea culture is well underway - with half of the trip successfully accomplished. Our time here has exceeded our wildest expectations, both wonder-inducing, gratifying, and humbling. The level of care and knowledge our tea friends in