Tea, Mud and Hope

What a treat to chat with Wenzhuo :) Based in Germany her life is all about tea. Her work gives us insight into tea history, tea art and the wonderful music played during traditional tea ceremony in China. Its fascinating to hear from her about Zhu Quan who lived about 600 years ago in China and wrote a tea manual which hugely influenced tea culture at the time. Wenzhuo translated this book into English and its wonderful to get a look into that time and how tea was enjoyed then. We also hear from Wenzhuo about her plans to grow tea in Germany and I cannot wait to visit her tea garden and make some teas with her :)

Oh what a treat to get this insight into tea growing and making in Canada. In this episode we hear from Victor Vesely from Westholme tea. Victor is a wonderfully passionate tea maker on Vancouver Island where he has grown tea for the last 10 years. I absolutely love his organic, singleestate teas reflecting the Canadian terroir. Enjoy his story :) and if you would like to get in touch with Victor he is on Instagram on canadian.tea.maker and westholme_tea together with his talented partner Margit who creates beautiful ceramics.

A wonderful chat with Andy about his tea life in Taiwan. Andy is an American but has now spent most of his adult life in beautiful Taiwan working with tea. So interesting to hear about the variety of traditional and newer teas being made and enjoyed there. We chat about different tea areas in Taiwan and tea processing. We cover different oolongs and other teas, wild tea trees, organic and other chemical free teas. Its also wonderful to hear about the welcoming tea culture existing in Taiwan and we cover challenges tea makers face in more recent years including climate change and tea pricing. We could have spent all day! Have to continue our Taiwan tea chat some other day. :)

In this episode we hear from Mr Eighty Degrees about his gorgeous tea magazine, how he started and his hopes for the future. We chat about Martin's tea travels to Japan, China and the wonderful biodynamic tea garden in Portugal owned by Nina Gruntkowski. We also hear about the challenges during lockdown and about creativity. We finish off with a laugh when I suggest that his tea mag could do with an agony aunt page :) Enjoy

In this episode I am chatting with Alex from Postcardteas in London about everything tea. Tea making and selling during lockdown, his important role in the Postcardteas team, tea travel, tea growing across Europe and more..... Enjoy :)

This episode introduces various tea growing approaches which may make our growing spaces more robust in the face of climate change. Included are organic, biodynamic, natural growing, agroforestry, wild tea and more. Climate change has arrived and what are we going to do about it? (This article was printed as a shortened version in the beautiful Eighty Degrees Tea Magazine Issue 3) :)

In this mini episode I hear from Maksym Malyhin about his work in the community tea garden near Mukachevo, Ukraine. After being first established about 70 years ago as a trial project, this tea garden is now being revived for the community and the tea produced is being enjoyed together. Wonderful :)

A wonderful tea chat with Denis who chairs the Association Tea Grown in Europe. We hear from Denis about wonderful tea projects across Europe, new and established tea gardens and the excitement of many European single estate teas becoming more available to tea drinkers over the next few years. We also chat climate change and how this may affect tea growing. Hope you enjoy this episode :)

Fine teas in Paris. This episode is about exploring the tea scene in the gorgeous city of Paris. I am popping into tea houses and tea shops and sharing with you some of the wonderful tea experiences Paris has to offer.

Welcome to out tea travel episode where Monica chats with the wonderful Mar about her travel tea adventures in China, Sri Lanka, Japan and South Korea and reveals her favourite tea house : )