In this episode Derek tries to tackle 2023, what teas were we into, what teas did we source, where did we go and more. It ends up mainly being about the stories untold, the life behind the tea and a few trips with liminal connections to tea itself. We talk about tea friends in our city, the sourcing trips that revolved around the history of tea episodes, the birth of the Tea Soup Podcast in January of 2023, Between the Cracks - the video podcast we've been doing for Tao Teaware on Youtube, and the incredible quality development visible this year. Be sure to check out OneRiverTea.com and TaoTeaware.com if you feel the urge to support, a subscription and a review also goes a long way! Here's to another year of Tea Soup!

Welcome back to the second episode of the history of Puer Tea. In this episode, we cover the past 300 years of this teas development, from the Qing Dynasry tribute tea gardens to the State Owned Enterprises of the Maoist era. We share the logic behind the secret recipes and talk about suspicions, paranoia, and knockoffs in the world of Puerh tea. Remember to check out onerivertea.com for all out single origin puer teas sourced in 2023

In this episode, Derek takes on a new type of tea: Pu’er (often romanized as Pu’erh). We give an in depth overview of the geographical make up of China’s Yunnan province, talking about its incredible biodiversity and myriad climate zones. We talk about different origin myths about puer and the naming conventions, and even get into the historical relevance of these myths and what truths we can glean from them. If you’re interested in sampling any puer tea, just head over to the onerivertea.com website to check out the teas we have sourced personally from this incredible region!

In this episode of Tea Soup, Derek goes deep into how to decipher, select, and appreciate dancong oolong teas. We talk about the cultivars, the prices to expect, the characteristics of old and young bushes, and much more. Derek spills the tea on his tasting methods when selecting teas for the onerivertea.com website, and gives some tips into buying the teas you want, descending high and low quality dancong oolongs, and what to expect from certain teas. A very informative episode that even groups all 200 dancong cultivars into the top ten fragrance families.

In this episode Derek talks about his time living in Chaozhou. How do they drink Dancong oolong tea in the city of its origin. How do the Chaozhou people drink Chaozhou Gongfu tea. We discuss tips on how to get your session more authentic, what kind of water to use, what kind of teaware to use, and talk a lot about how tea is viewed in this city of tea.

In this episode, Derek walks through the rather long and complicated process of making Dancong Oolong teas. Derek talks a bit about Chinese terms related to tea production and we have even created a little cheat sheet for you on our website here (https://onerivertea.com/pages/dancong-oolong-glossary-of-terms) don’t worry, we won’t test you on this yet! We talk about the people we have made tea with in the mountains these past 6 years and relive some of the more fun experiences while spending those long arduous hours properly oxidizing the tea. If you ever thought making tea was easy, get ready to be awestruck by the time, energy, and labor that goes into every cup! Also feel free to check out the new dancong oolong teas we have just released on our website onerivertea.com

Join Derek in this episode as we travel out to the heart and soul of Dancong Oolong production, that’s the Wudong Mountain. Meet our new phenomenal maker Wen Zitong, a young prodigy making some of the best teas we have ever had. We talk at the start about production times for making dancong oolong, the history of the land and the farms out in the phoenix mountain range, and talk a bit about another podcast we have just started with Dart from Tao Teaware called Between the Cracks (Check it out here https://youtu.be/cqsd0ezThMI?si=nhn8Hy8JPgEhfzZY). All the teas we discussed this episode should be on the onerivertea.com website by September First, so be sure to browse those flavors at your leisure!

This is the second part of a conversation between the Oner River Tea Cooperative’s Co-founders Alex Witherspoon and Derek Poskin about our plot of land in Hefeng, Hubei. We talk about the Loushuiyuan cooperative we work with out there, as well as all the villagers on the mountain top we cooperative with. Get ready for some difficult talk about the sustainability of organic farming in these rural hamlets of China, the state of cooperative funding in modern China, and the general issues of implementation we see on this mountain.

In this very special episode of Tea Soup, we do something we’ve never done before, a two-person conversation between One River Tea Worker-Owners Derek Poskin and Alex Witherspoon. Alex is calling in from a mountain top in Hubei province (the Mayintai in Hefeng County to be precise), while Derek is sitting comfortably at home in Jiangsu, Yangzhou. In this episode, we talk about the origin of the One River Tea Cooperative, what brought both the American co-founders to China so many years ago, and the failures and successes along the way. Alex, who has been getting his Masters in Economics in Hubei for the past few years digs deep into the economic history of the rural agricultural lands out there. We cover the collectivization of the 1960s, the Land Redistribution Act of the 1980s, and the eventual dissolution of all things collectivized. We talk about the modern reintroduction of the steamed tea processing famous in the Hubei region and bring into question the validity of its historical lineage while ending on a positive note about new government incentives for cooperatives in the region. Next episode we will talk more closely about our actual time in Hefeng, our projects, and the people we work with on the mountain!

As always, if you want to support us and our projects in anyway, check out the onerivertea.com website and consider buying some tea or signing up for some WWOOFing volunteer projects!

In this episode Derek talks about the tea makers he has met in the Phoenix Village outside of Chaozhou, Guangdong. Recounting how he met each of these initial makers this serves as a peak into the lives of these tea farmers, tea makers, and dentists (you’ll see). Derek talks a bit about Chinese-American history, the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad in the United States, and recommends a book by Shelly Fisher Fishkin called “The Chinese and the Iron Road: Building the Transcontinental Railroad”. There is also an interesting tangent on the inner workings of Chinese public hospitals towards the end for the interested listener. As always, you can support Derek and the show by checking out the teas he sources at onerivertea.com and the teaware he uses at taoteaware.com. Thanks so much for the support as always, and see you next week!