An Introduction To TeaBuy Korea Tea
It Is Spring! Can Tea
Be Far Behind?
An Introduction To
TeaBuy Korea Tea
What? Wait?!! What do you mean, "It Is Spring!"? Spring won't come until March 20. That may be true in the calendar you are using but we just celebrated the Lunar New Year on February 1, 2022 and the lunar date IpChun the beginning of Spring in Korea came, as it always does, on February 4 and IpChun is the beginning of Korea's lunar spring.
My guess is that a month of now we will be beginning to say, "Spring arrived in South Korea, and it came early. The blossoms have bloomed! Can tea be far behind?" We have had at least 3 early springs in a row.
I wonder how many woojeons they will produce this year?
Korean producers have produced as many as three
different woojeon teas before April 20 when Spring came early. Imagine, three
plucks of those tiny delicate leaves that make Korea's amazing Woojeon tea.
I am using the term "pluck" instead of "pick". The plucking standard
describes the gentle lifting of the usually two leaves and a bud including stem
from the bush. Plucking demands a skilled approach and practice while picking
is a much harsher approach and can be done by anyone even a machine. Most of
the teas we offer at Morning Crane Tea are hand plucked.
If you have been following me at all, you know that
Woojeon is plucked before Gogu April 20. On April 20 Gogu-cha is
plucked and the next day they begin plucking Sejak. Our famous Muwi Sejak is
most often plucked on or just after Gukwoo. By late May most producers will
have finished plucking and processing their three main green teas - Woojeon, Sejak
and Jungjak. They might pluck well into June for all their balhyochas or later nokchas. Each tea type is plucked during five of the twenty-four defined
two weeks plucking seasons based on the lunar calendar.
Knowing the traditional dates for plucking Korean teas may
be helpful. We must understand that the basis of Korean teas is green tea. Their
balhyochas or oxidized teas are made from the same type leaves as the green tea.
Again, Korean teas are plucked according to Korea's 24 seasonal lunar calendar. They use five of these seasonal dates as the
general times for plucking tealeaves at their various stages of development. Why
two days? It is the lunar calendar it changes.
The five seasonal date
used for plucking tea are:
Gogu April 20-21
Woojeon is plucked before Gogu.
With climate change some producers make more than one woojeon.
(Gogu-Cha is
plucked on Gogu day usually April 20)
Sejak is plucked after Gogu and before Ipha.
Ipha May 5-6
Jungjak is plucked after Ipha and around Soman.
(Some producers
make Ipha-Cha plucked usually May 5)
Soman May 21-22
Daejak is picked after Soman and around Manjong.
Manjong June 5-6, Haji
June 21-22
Yip Cha is picked after Manjong and around Haji.
Haji June 20-21
Yip Cha is picked around Haji
While they begin making Yip Cha before Haji. Some producers continue making it after Haji thus
producing a truly summer tea.
Note: These are standard
and traditional dates. Since the growing season does not remain precisely the same each year, there are some
differences based on the producer's understanding of
their particular tealeaves and weather.
At the same time our tea farmers are producing their green
teas they may also be producing their balhyochas - Korea's oxidized teas. If so, they
are producing some truly amazing teas. While it is true that various producers use different type leaves for their balhyochas most choose the Jungjak leaf. Larger leaves are often used for Dancha Korea's compressed tea.
Also don't listen to the hype that balhyochas are new to Korean tea. Balhyochas have been made for centuries in Korea often by individual producers for their own use. It is true that more balhyochas are being made for commercial sale. If you have never tried a Korean
balhyocha, you are missing some truly wonderful teas. As far as I am able to
determine, we were the first to introduce Korean balhyochas to the Western
market.
Most artisan tea farmers only produce these three main
teas, Woojeon, Sejak and Jungjak, but in addition to these three main green
teas, two additional green teas are produced by Dong Cheon Tea. Those teas are Daejak and Yip-Cha. Those teas are hand picked but machine made. Before we become too disappointed that
a Korean producer machine makes some of their teas, we must remember that many
if not most teas that are produced in other countries like China and Japan are both machine picked and machine processed. That is also happening with some farmers in Korea whose teas we do not offer but can be easily found on the web.
We must also realize that an earlier pick does not mean
that tea is better than a later picked tea even when it costs more. Each tea
type has its own taste profile and should be experienced so that you can choose
which tea type suites your personal tastes. The price difference is the result
of leaf size and leaf availability. Tea farmers must pick many more of the tiny
leaves used to produce Woojeon and the availability of these tiny leaves is
often less than for any other tea. I often wish that all Korean tea producers would
name all their teas, like some are beginning to. That practice reduces the
presumption of "higher quality or
better tasting tea", based on price and
leaf size.
You may already know that we at Morning Crane Tea offer
some of these teas at our actual cost. That is because Morning Crane Tea is an
educational tea enterprise not a big for profit Tea Company. We offer the
teas we have selected at reasonable prices simply because we want you to
discover some of the great teas Korea has to offer.
We have as our goal to get these teas into your hands as
soon as possible. July is our goal possibly early in July. This will not be an easy goal to reach. You must order the teas, receive an invoice
and pay the invoice. Your funds are transferred to Korea and used to purchase
the tea. Your special order tea is ordered from the various farmers you choose
and shipped to my partner Mr. Lee in Korea. Mr. Lee packs your order with
the other orders in our TeaBuy Korea 2022 group buy and ships the teas to us directly from Korea. The shipping of the
various individual orders together to the USA reduces drastically the shipping costs for our customers in the Americas. Alternatively, some but not all teas for clients living near to Korea, can be shipped to you directly
from Korea. The Teas shipped to us i the USA must be repacked before shipping to you. Each step takes time. Thanks for your patience.
Special Note: When purchasing teas
in our TeaBuy you are joining a group buy and are placing a special order.
Since we stock few teas on a regular basis and do not have many regular
year round tea customers, I cannot return funds once the teas have been purchased from the
producer.
Morning Crane Tea is basically a not-for-profit
educational enterprise. However, we are not an official Non-Profit because our parent company Morning Earth Korea offers tea and teaware and host tours. Even
though we offer our tours on a non-profit basis and we offer some teas at our actual
cost. In truth we always operate in the red because our websites cost more than
any profit we make offering these teas, teaware and tours put together. It is truly a labor of love. We
appreciate those of you who are adding a few dollars to help us continue or who occasionally contribute to us on our Morning Earth Korea website. Your
generosity is greatly appreciated.
Can we get the teas into your hands in
July? Maybe. That's why we started TeaBuy Korea early this year.
Note: Some of the teas we offer are from very
small productions. Order now.
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