Tea Tasting Event

With life returning to an approximation of normality, it gives me great pleasure to introduce a new tea-tasting event.

Let's drink some tea.

It's about time

Tea for this event is being generously provided by Yunnan Sourcing. We're going to be sampling the five 2009 Yunzhiyuan / Ruicaoxiang* cakes made recently by Scott and his colleague. Long-time victims readers of the Half-Dipper will be familiar with the format:

1. Please e-mail me (hobbesoxon at gmail dot com) if you'd like to join in. The 15 available places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Places tend to fill up very quickly, so I will add names to a "reserve" list after the first 15 have been filled, in case anyone withdraws. There is no charge - thanks to Yunnan Sourcing for providing support.

2. Please only join if you're willing and able to taste each of the five samples within two weeks of receiving them. The samples should be with you in the next few weeks, so if you're going away on holiday and won't have time to taste them, please think twice about taking a place in the event.

3. The five cakes come from five different mountains/regions: Yiwu, Banzhang, Youle, Bulang, and Wuliang. The samples will be anonymised, and we'll find out which cake is which at the end of the tasting.

4. I'll publish an article for each one of the five teas, one every three days. Please pop your notes for that tea into the "comments" section of that article, so that we can collate ideas and opinions. If you have a tea-blog, feel free to write your opinions elsewhere, too - but please be sure to at least leave a comment here, so that we can get a discussion going.

I hope that you enjoy the event!


*Yunzhiyuan: YOON-DJER-YOOAN, lit. source of clouds
Ruicaoxiang: ROOEE-TSOW-SHEEANG, lit. auspicious grass scent

Auspicious grass

Disclaimer: I trust that it goes without saying that there is no personal profit involved. I even bought my own samples of these teas already - silly me.

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Edit:  Holy smoke, thanks everyone for the e-mails.  I've received over 50 in the first half-day!  I'm sorry to have to disappoint the majority, but I've allocated all of the 15 spaces (first-come, first-served basis) and regretfully have to close the event now.  I have tried to reply to each e-mail: if you've not made it onto the main list, I've got you on the reserve list as promised. 

Late edit: two more requests have arrived while I've written this.  I feel terribly guilty not to be able to include everyone, but I'm sure you understand.  Next time, perhaps!

(Of course, anyone is welcome to join in the discussions if you have these samples already.)