Know your grower

Red Blossom also obtains the tea directly from the producers of the tea. Although some people clamor for organic and fair trade teas from China, Luong knows his farmers so intimately that he doesn’t need an outside certifying body to come in and tell him what he already knows. The teas he buys are not sprayed and are grown by small family-run farmers.

“Lots of people say they buy the tea direct,” Luong says while he brews the Tung Ting, “but oftentimes that means they went to one of the huge tea markets in China”—they didn’t see the tea farm, meet the producer or the roasters. “We are upholding the integrity of tea culture while other people are taking the easy way,” he asserts.

Luong is getting ready for his late-circuit trip to China, where he’ll spend five to six weeks tasting this year’s crop of oolong teas—he’ll travel to Fujian, Taiwan, and Yunnan. Many factors affect the taste of the tea, including the weather. A wet winter will mean a more bland tea. But the master roasters work with the teas to draw out their best characteristics.

As we sip the amber-colored Charcoal-fired Tung Ting, Luong describes a few of his many memorable trips, including an August visit to Fujian. In the Fujian region, jasmine-scented teas are made by introducing jasmine flowers to tea leaves, often over a period of days with several freshenings of the flowers. “The jasmine smell just permeated the entire place,” Luong recalls. “It was kind of overwhelming.” On a trip to the mountainous tea region known as Alishan, where the most beautiful maidens are said to pick the tea leaves: “They were pretty old by the time I got there. All the young girls go to work in the cities.”

Because Red Blossom sells wholesale to restaurants like Waterbar and Firefly, plus Ritual Roasters cafe, Luong is able to buy more tea, which ensures not only the freshest product, but also gives him the freedom to buy more unusual teas too. Like the Ancient Tree Shui Xian, an oolong made from some of the oldest trees alive today. He recently sent some of this tea to a new Charlie Trotter restaurant in Las Vegas; the chef immediately commissioned it for the menu.

As Luong and I sip our tea, we watch the bustle of the tea shop unfold: a middle-aged woman walks into the shop, followed by some hipsters wearing expensive tennis shoes. They read the labels that tell the story of tea together. Pretty soon, the woman is seated, trying a few of Alice’s favorite green teas. The couple buys some Gold Thread, a tea from Yunnan that makes “a golden red infusion with hints of caramel, licorice, and chocolate.”

Red Blossom’s philosophy is to offer a one-on-one education for people who know a little bit about tea but want to branch out. Someone who loves green teas, for example, can go into the shop and try a few types of oolong or pu-erh, under the patient tutelage of a Red Blossom employee, many of whom are either family or beloved former customers of the shop. (“I don’t have to train them,” shrugs Peter.)

We finish our tasting, and Luong pulls out the leaves from the tea pot. They are floppy and green and look like seaweed. I had never thought to look—really look—at tea leaves. “See how it’s still a little crinkly?” he says, caressing one of the leaves. “It still has a little bit more flavor to give.” I suddenly feel overwhelmed by how much one has to learn about tea. Thank goodness, I think, that someone like Luong is around to filter out all the bad tea, and educate his customers about what might become their favorites.

Before I leave, he tells me about a tea maker he met in Taiwan. Luong begged him to teach him what he knows about tea. The master said, “I could spend a month or two months with you, but you will not learn as much as if you just take a sip, taste the tea, drink the teas. You will know them.”

Luong takes off his glasses, rubs his eyes, gets ready for another day of educating a mostly ignorant public about tea. “Tea takes time,” he says. “Slow down and enjoy it.”





Above: Red Blossom Tea Company in San Francisco's China Town.

The ABCs of Tea

2,600
Number of tea plant varietals, all from the species Camellia sinensis.

‘Tis the season
Green and white teas are harvested in spring; oolongs have four different harvests.

Green tea
Unoxidized leaves of the tea plant, the closest to drinking the living tea leaf. Picked in the early spring, it grows stronger in flavor the later it is picked.

Oolong tea
Red Blossom offers three kinds of oolong: Formosa, from Taiwan, are lightly oxidized; Anxi hail from southern Fujian; and Wuyi, which come from the birthplace of oolong tea, the Wuyi Mountains of northwest Fujian, and are highly oxidized oolong teas that have been fired.

Black tea
Fully oxidized leaves, usually imbued with flavors by smoking or including flowers with the tea leaves.

White tea
Silvery leaf buds gathered in early spring in Northern Fujian. Light and ethereal taste.

Pu-erh tea
Large leaves that are plucked, oxidized, fermented, fired, and then aged, sometimes for many years. Rich and dark flavored.

Blossoming or presentation teas
Tea leaves and flowers sewn together so that they “bloom” when hot water is added. Banned during the Cultural Revolution for being too fanciful.

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