A Whirlwind Tour of China - We just got back from a whirlwind tour of China. I was lucky to have a strong team: Brigitte, my wife and our Millerton store manager, and my tasting buddy, Elvira Cardenas. We had two main goals: review the teas we buy by the container load to make sure they’re still great, and find some new small-batch teas. We started in Hangzhou and met our supplier of Meijiawu Lung Ching. The teas were a bit different because of the weather. We also tasted many special teas in the offices of our old friend Lu, and bought some Jin Shan and Chun Lu. The next morning we had the pleasure of seeing our Bi Luo Chun supplier, Water. Then off to see Shao Hui in the Keemun area, where we buy special black tea. We toured a huge factory with a museum tracing Keemun back to its origin in 1875. Later we tasted some artisanal Keemuns, and I have to say we appreciated the special flavor in the smaller shop. Keeping up the pace, we saw Steve He in Changsha, Hunan. We tasted the black teas we buy by the container load, looking at how to improve the blends, always chasing sweetness and that mouth-filling umami. Steve makes one tea so lovely we use it in our large production runs, like Paris and Earl Grey. Then we left to explore two unusual tea-growing areas. Hunan is a big province with many teamakers, we’ve seen maybe 20, and there’s room for another 40 in the future. The first was Yanling. Its claim to fame is that this is where Emperor Shen Nong, the first tea drinker, is buried. We visited his tomb and gave him our thanks; without his adventurous, and dangerous, tasting of wild plants, we’d all be much worse off. It was there, at the prettiest little tea shop, that we bought some Yanling Green and Black. The plant is related to Anji, so it’s loaded with that same mouth-filling theanine. Yum. On our last day, we took an hour-long boat trip across a lake to the Yao Tea factory on MaiDuShai Island. There, among orange groves, we toured the factory and found a nice green and a nice black, both made by the Yao, one of China’s indigenous peoples. A great trip, existing blends improved, new artisanal teas found.