A Blog About Puer, Teaware, and Gongfu Tea- BITTERLEAF TEAS

Chaozhou Dancong Oolong: How It’s Made, A Visual Guide

In this video we show you, not tell you, the steps involved when making Dancong Oolong maocha. This is the initial processing for Dancong, after...

July 22, 2021

Making a Wrapper – Priceless 2020 Charitea Cake

As difficult as 2020 has been, it has also been an opportunity to take inventory of the things we are grateful for, and to shift...

November 27, 2020

Charcoal Roasting Dancong in Chaozhou

If you've ever why people bother mentioning that a tea is charcoal roasted, it's because this process not only adds cost and time, but also...

September 11, 2020

Weeding Tea Gardens: 3 Methods of Removal, Pros & Cons

As with any tea-related process, the different methods for weeding a tea field offer a trade-off between cost and quality, or more specifically cost and...

April 29, 2020

Drinking Tea All Day: How to Fit the Most Tea Into a Single Day

Yes, drinking tea all day sounds like a fantastic idea. And for the most part, it is, but you've got to remember that caffeine is...

March 29, 2020

Yixing vs Jianshui Teapots & Teaware: Differences & Similarities

When getting into gongfu brewing, Chinese tea, teapots and the like, there are 2 clays you’re most likely to hear about. Yixing zisha and Jianshui...

March 9, 2020

Inside a Jingdezhen Teaware Studio

Behind the scenes in the studio where our 1001 series teaware is made. There are several steps producing any piece of teaware, but teapots in...

January 27, 2020

How to Store White Tea (or Just About Any Other Type of Tea)

As the popularity of white tea increases, so do the number of questions about proper storage for this minimally processed tea. Well, we’re going to...

January 19, 2020

How Its Made: Firing Tea Jars in Jianshui

While in Jianshui this past summer, we decided to shoot some footage of a custom batch of tea (and water) jars we ordered being loaded...

September 10, 2019

The Tea Market Experience – April 2019

The Tea Market Experience is a non-subscription tea club that offers unique, interesting and possibly dubiously labelled teas, bringing you as close as possible to...

April 19, 2019

The Tea Market Experience – March 2019

The Tea Market Experience is a non-subscription tea club that offers unique, interesting and possibly dubiously labelled teas, bringing you as close as possible to...

March 7, 2019

The Tea Market Experience – January 2019

The Tea Market Experience is a non-subscription tea club that offers unique, interesting and possibly dubiously labelled teas, bringing you as close as possible to...

January 18, 2019

The Tea Market Experience – November 2018

The Tea Market Experience is a non-subscription tea club that offers unique, interesting and possibly dubiously labelled teas, bringing you as close as possible to...

November 15, 2018

The Tea Market Experience – October 2018

The Tea Market Experience is a non-subscription tea club that offers unique, interesting and possibly dubiously labelled teas, bringing you as close as possible to...

October 11, 2018

Digging in Yixing Part III

We were quite fortunate during our visit to have several contacts ahead of time in Yixing, all who serve different markets – low, mid and...

January 31, 2018

Digging in Yixing Part II

After much discussion, research and digging during a week spent in Yixing, it’s not difficult to see that the price of an Yixing teapot is...

January 18, 2018

Digging in Yixing Part I

For many, gongfu tea can be an overwhelming hobby to get into at first. There are so many different types of tea from different areas,...

January 18, 2018

How to Choose a Puer Tea

This is one of the most common questions we field, especially from those who are new to puer. It can be a fairly packed question...

January 5, 2018

Jingdezhen Ghost Market

In late May we decided to sacrifice some sleep and wake up at 4am in order to check out the Ghost Market in Jingdezhen, which...

September 6, 2017

Jingdezhen – Junction of China’s Past and Future

We wasted very little time between sourcing our 2017 teas and venturing on our first teaware sourcing trip to Jingdezhen this year. Perhaps labelling it...

June 7, 2017