News
04/01/2025
– The Tea Cult is almost open, I think its about 2 weeks away. Some final checks and bureaucratic stuff, but the bulk of the renovations is finished.
– Several new teas are enroute already, and many more will be landing towards the end of this month. You can look forward to a new hojicha, daily matcha, high end matcha, high end sencha, daily chinese green, high end chinese green, daily chinese black, mid level chinese black, high level chinese yellow tea, and a restock on some of the old favourites coming in these shipments. You’ll have to forgive me but my attention is definitely focused on my physical shop, so I’ll probably have to neglect this site for a bit once that gets open.
– I’ve finally read ‘Siddhartha’ and ‘The Old Tea Seller’ — important books to check of the list. They were both very good.
11/25/2024
The newest teas are AAAA Tieguanyin and 2022 Shou Pu’Erh. I have some stuff from Taiwan in the mail, an Oriental Beauty and GABA Oolong, though those are coming in rather small quantities. This years Bizenyaki has arrived, I’m not really sure I’m going to add them to the shop online, I might save them for my physical shop when it opens up. Bizendama aka Bizen balls are in the shop though.
Mostly what this post is about is to highlight a certain podcast I had the privilege to be a guest on. I think the conversation is good, and worth your time to watch if you want to hear some of my thoughts:
https://youtu.be/yyJPMwSWrsI?si=NvuQqlJ5q0PZHnM-
08/16/2024
It’s 5:30am, and I should make my way to a bed… I’ve spent the last 5.5 hours adding 2 new Japanese post-fermented teas to the shop: Goishicha and Awa Bancha. Each has a pretty comprehensive article. Goodnight!
08/06/2024
I wish I had better news. The Tea Cult, my new project of opening a physical location in Inglewood is still awaiting development and building permits. The recent issue is the amount of parking spaces, and that I have to classify the business as a restaurant instead of retail. It’s causing all sorts of headaches. Meanwhile I’m paying rent for nothing, out of pocket. Egh, I just don’t know guys, I’m optimistic it will work out in the end but it feels pretty bleak right now.
Regarding tea, this years ‘Scary Fragrance’ and ‘Beautiful Golden Eyebrows’ are quite great, but that’s to be expected. I’ve decided to bring in another version of ‘scary fragrance’ (which I’ll have to name something else) at a lower price bracket to offer more options for everyday drinking. Also slated for import is a palace level ripe puerh, the new harvest of LCDZMLX (The Mirage of Penglai), The Formless One, and 10y aged Mandarin orange zests, called chenpi in Chinese.
I’ve placed an order in Japan for more Bizenyaki cups, and the much loved ‘Bizen Balls’ I used to stock here. They’ll be fired and mailed in mid October.
I’m just getting over a cold, I might have more important things to share, but currently my brain is rebooting. I’ll perhaps get to that later.
06/04/2024
Shikoku was beautiful, monotonous, painful, exhausting, tranquil, lush, thoroughly enjoyable and just what I needed to see. It’s amazing who you become when you don’t have to be anyone. I have a lot to say about Shikoku, but I guess this isn’t the place to do so. More importantly, I’m back, and there are new teas on the way! I have a package from India coming that a friend of mine Praveen sourced for me. Praveen runs a Darjeeling focused company and because of his buying power can get some special exclusive lots. I’m getting 3 blacks, 1 white, and several samples — all in small quantities to start. If they’re as great as he says, I’d expect a few of them to hit the shop this year. I’ve been able to get a bit more Jin Jun Mei this year too, 1.5kg will be on a plane shortly.
The lilac festival was fun as usual. I’ll be sure to do it again next year.
