News
August 19th 2026
Hello everyone,
The last of the 2026 teas are now in stock, which include the late summer teas such as jasmine and oolong. This years jasmine tea is different than what I’ve carried in the past, it’s less fruity and juicy than I’d have liked, and in a sense, I’d consider it more masculine. On one hand it’s more versatile with food because it doesn’t come off as sweet-nuanced and lush in the mouth, but on the other hand, that sort of feminine girly-ness is what I’ve liked about the jasmine pearls I’ve carried in the past.
I haven’t tasted through everything yet, but I’d note the Milky Oolong and Magnolia Oolong teas are exactly what I hoped for. The Tieguanyin is the best I’ve ever imported (this is huge), I feel very lucky about it. There is a new green tea (Lushan Yunwu), meant to be this years ‘everyday drinker’, something that ‘Picnic Under 1000 Pines’ covered in the past. I’ve only brewed it twice so far, but I noticed there is something cold cauliflower and potato soup-like about it — garnished with chives.
There’s a pretty cool white tea I’ve been selling at the tea cult under the name ‘Royal Jelly’ — a 2024 Gushu Bai Lu (Yunnan White tea) that is worth considering if you’re into the aged whites.
In the coming days I’ll be tasting through the new years duck shit and mirage of penglai.
The Tea Cult website has a calendar up that covers all the new events I have planned.
To my American customers, I’m so sorry, the bureaucracy of mailing things to the states has become something so unappealing I’ve made it very hard for you to order tea. It’s no longer something you can just do. If you want to support what I do, or you’ve found something here that you just can’t find elsewhere, I can still sell it to you, but we’ll have to have a dialogue by email about pricing, shipping times, and stuff.
April 21st 2026
A few important things.
1) The Tea Cult is nearly 1 year old. We will celebrate its birthday on April 27th from 12pm until 10pm. Feel free to stop in and have some tea on us.
2) I will be away in Japan for pretty much all of May and June. Please don’t place orders on this site during that time as I won’t be able to ship anything out. I have a few friends operating the tea cult while I’m away, you’ll have to go there to pick stuff up!
3) Most of the spring teas have arrived. There are 4 black and 4 greens that I’ll try to write about before I leave for my trip. In descending order from ‘best to least best’ I’d rank them as follows:
Black:
Matryoshka Giant Golden Needles
BBC Jin Jun Mei
Temple of Jelly Golden Pagoda
The Old Coyote Gushu Dian Hong
Green:
Immodesty Long Jing
Furry Tips Huangshan Mao Feng
Swords Dance Emei Zhu Ye Qing
Scary Fragrance Bi Luo Chun
Some don’t have articles yet, or the articles are not finished. That’s Life! Ciao!
April 5th 2026
Some fresh green teas have arrived at the shop already, I’ll update this website with them as I find the time to write about them. The Long Jing this year is unreal. It’s not available on this site yet, but the Mao Feng is (and that’s very good too)
January 3, 2026
Happy New Year.
I’m in the process of adding a few teas to the shop, and I’ve been drawing a bunch in my time off from the restaurant. This most recent image is from Mermaid Medicine, a Taiwanese black tea based on the cultivar called T-18. That’s in the shop and available for tasting at The Tea Cult
I don’t have much to update for sale here, most of the new stuff I’m bringing in is more for tasting. Competition level stuff, I have a lot of excellent gyokuro’s at the moment. Incoming in the near future, restock of smokey lapsang souchong, magnolia oolong, tieguanyin, and hibiscus. New to the shop will be ginseng oolong and dried ginger (somehow I’m really looking forward to bringing in ginger…)
05/11/2025
Oof. It’s been way too long. There is a lot going on in life, I’ll use that as my excuse. There are several new teas that have been added. A non smokey lapsang came into stock and snuck into my inventory. I was too busy to catch it. I started selling it and disappointed one of my regulars. The physical shop is doing well, I have many more options in there than I have online here. One day perhaps there will be continuity between them. The events are the features of what I do, I post about them on www.theteacult.ca and on instagram @thethecult.ca
Other than that, I’m just writing this to say hello, and that I’m doing well. Thanks for stopping by. I hope to see you in person.
11/05/2025
2025 organic Bai Mu Dan (white tea) is available
‘Picnic Under 1000 Pines’ Enshi Lu Yu is available
05/05/2025
The Tea Cult is open — the first day was April 27th 2025. Despite only being open for a few days, I’ve made many happy memories and seen many visitors. Thank you all for your support. You can see the details (hours and such) with a quick google search. I’ll begin to update that website shortly.
The 2025 teas have begun to arrive. Great Tai Ping Hou Kui and Lapsang Souchong. TPHK is a rather difficult tea to package, only 20g fits inside of my bags. The lapsang is much friendlier for packaging, and I am finalizing my brewing recommendations and label art before I launch it on the site. That may happen soon.
Lots of tea in the mail, and there are many options I have in my shop that I don’t have online here for one reason or another. Come visit!
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.
