It's All About Tea

If you go to our “About Tea” section on Path of Cha, you’ll find our trusty-dusty tea glossary. It’s filled with terms from the vast worlds of Chinese and Japanese tea, so you’ll never have to question what tea heads are talking about. Another problem that often arises is pronunciation. While Japanese pronunciation is more or less straightforward, Chinese is where it can get tricky. With many words having the same compounds, it would certainly be frustrating to receive not what you asked for. In today’s blog post, we’ll go over common Chinese tea spelling and pronunciation. (Read more)

In our recent blog post, we talked about the history of the Japanese tea sage — Sen no Rikyu. Without a doubt, he had a significant effect on The Way of Tea in Japan, and his legacy continues to this day. Ultimately there are three separate schools of Chanoyu (Japanese tea ceremony) that follow his teachings to this day, although all slightly varying. These schools refer to "San Senke" — Three Sen Families. (Read more)

Our fermented friend pu-erh… The tea world seems to split in half when talk is centered around this tea. Some pu-erh enthusiasts don't venture much into other tea varieties. Some have had it and don't particularly take to it. And, there are those, who have been treated to good pu-erh, liked it, but don't necessarily know how to take the next step in the journey. In today's post, we'll talk about doing a pu-erh tasting and choosing the right one.  (Read more)

Shincha is a most fleeting experience in the world of Japanese green tea. Waiting a full circle to once again get the first sip of the first tea harvest of the year is something many seasoned tea drinkers around the world practice yearly. At "Path Of Cha", we are no exception. We take the year communicating with the tea farmers, awaiting the news of this year’s harvest season. (Read more)

Sen no Rikyu (1522 – 1591) is known by everyone to have the most profound influence on chanoyu, the Japanese "Way of Tea". Also known as matcha tea ceremony. Rikyu took to tiny grass-hut tea houses for his tea practices and kept promoting the wabi-sabi style of tea ceremony that he and his tea master started. (Read more)