Knowledge Base
Coffee & Tea Guides
Brew better and explore more — buying guides, how-tos, and explainers for every coffee and tea ritual.
Explainer
Jeju Green Tea: South Korea's Volcanic Island Tea
South Korea's volcanic island grows a green tea all its own — porous basalt soil, sea fog, and a nutty-clean cup. Inside Jeju green tea: its terroir, the Osulloc estate, grades, flavor and how it compares to Japanese and Chinese greens.
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Kandy Ceylon Tea: Sri Lanka's Mid-Grown Region Explained
Kandy is the mid-grown heart of Sri Lanka's tea country and the place where the whole industry began. Here is what shapes its bright, coppery cup, how it differs from the high-grown districts, and why it remains such an easy tea to love.
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Dimbula Ceylon Tea: Sri Lanka's Classic High-Grown Region
Bright, brisk and golden in the cup, Dimbula is the tea that made "Ceylon" a byword for clean, everyday elegance. Here is how Sri Lanka's classic western-highland region grows, tastes and earns its seasonal reputation.
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Uva Ceylon Tea: Sri Lanka's High-Grown Region Explained
Uva is the high-grown Sri Lankan district famous for a wind-driven "quality season" that gives its black teas a sweet, faintly mentholated character found almost nowhere else. Here's the terroir, taste and grades.
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GABA Tea: The Nitrogen-Processed Oolong Explained
Gaba tea is the oolong made in an oxygen-free nitrogen chamber — a Japanese lab invention refined by Taiwan's tea masters. Here's its origin, terroir, flavor, and how it compares to ordinary oolong.
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Tanzanian Tea: East Africa's Highland Tea Explained
Tanzanian tea is East Africa's understated highland black tea, brisk and full-bodied from volcanic Southern Highlands soils and the misty Usambara Mountains. Here's its terroir, history, flavour and how it compares to Kenya.
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Krasnodar Tea: The World's Northernmost Tea Explained
Grown on the Black Sea coast near Sochi, Krasnodar tea is famed as the northernmost tea on Earth. Here is its terroir, history, flavor, and how it compares with its Caucasus neighbors.
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Lahijan Tea: Iran's Persian Tea Region Explained
On the rain-soaked slopes above the Caspian Sea, Iran grows a delicate black tea few outsiders know. Here is the story of Lahijan, birthplace of Persian tea — its terroir, its smuggled origins, and what sets the cup apart.
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Hawaiian Tea: Volcanic Island-Grown Tea Explained
Grown on young volcanic slopes by a handful of tiny farms, Hawaiian tea is one of the rarest true teas in the world. Here is where it comes from, how it tastes, and why it drinks unlike anywhere else.
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Charleston Tea Garden: American-Grown Tea Explained
The Charleston Tea Garden on Wadmalaw Island is the best-known source of genuinely American-grown tea. Here is its terroir, history, harvest, styles, and how the leaf compares to the imported teas beside it.
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Tregothnan Tea: England's Home-Grown Leaf Explained
Tregothnan is the estate that made tea a home-grown English crop. Here is the story behind Cornwall's tea garden — its River Fal terroir, its camellia heritage, what the leaf tastes like, and how it sits beside other rare European teas.
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Azores Tea: Europe's Last Working Tea Gardens
On a volcanic island in the mid-Atlantic, the Azores grow, pick and process their own leaf — the only place in Europe to do so at commercial scale. Here is the terroir, history, grades and flavor behind it.
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Argentine Tea: South America's Iced-Tea Workhorse
Argentine tea is the low-tannin, deep-red black tea behind much of the world's iced tea — grown flat and machine-harvested in the subtropical northeast.
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Rwandan Tea: High-Altitude African Tea
Rwandan tea is a bright, brisk, high-grown African tea from Rwanda's volcanic hills. Here is where it grows, why the altitude and volcanic soil matter, its regions and estates, how it tastes, and how it compares to its neighbours.
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Nuwara Eliya Tea: The Champagne of Ceylon
Nuwara Eliya tea is the highest-grown, palest and most fragrant of Sri Lanka's Ceylon black teas. Here is where it grows, why its quality season matters, what it tastes like and how to brew it.
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Boseong Green Tea: Korea's Terraced Tea Country
Boseong is South Korea's largest, most iconic tea region — home of the sculpted terraced fields and of nokcha graded not by leaf size but by pluck date, from ujeon to daejak. Here is what makes it distinctive and how it tastes.
Explainer
Anji Bai Cha: The Green Tea Called White
Anji bai cha means “Anji white tea,” but it is really a green tea from Zhejiang. The reason is an albino cultivar, Baiye No. 1, whose pale spring leaves make an intensely sweet, umami, bitterness-free cup. Here is what it is, why it is called white, where it grows and how it tastes.
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Biluochun: China's Green Snail Spring Tea
Biluochun, or "Green Snail Spring," is a downy spiral green tea from the Dongting hills beside Lake Tai in Jiangsu. Here's what makes it distinctive and how to brew it.
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Huangshan Maofeng: The Famous Green Tea of Yellow Mountain
Huangshan Maofeng is a downy, orchid-sweet green tea from the misty peaks of Yellow Mountain in Anhui. Here is what makes its terroir, downy buds, grades and flavor distinctive — plus how to brew it.
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Sun Moon Lake Black Tea: Taiwan's Ruby Red
Sun Moon Lake black tea is Taiwan's famous red tea from the misty Nantou lake basin, built on the Ruby #18 (Hong Yu) cultivar and its natural mint-and-cinnamon aroma. Here is the origin, flavor and how to brew it.
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Dong Ding Oolong: Taiwan's Classic Roasted Oolong
Dong Ding oolong is Taiwan's classic roasted oolong from the hills of Lugu: a ball-rolled, medium-oxidised tea finished with careful roasting for a toasty, caramel, honey-floral cup. Here is where it grows, why the roast defines it, and how it compares to greener high-mountain oolongs.
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Taiwanese Tea: The Island of High-Mountain Oolong
Taiwanese tea is the world's great high-mountain oolong island, from creamy gaoshan oolongs to the leafhopper-bitten Oriental Beauty. Here is what grows where, why the land matters, and what it all tastes like.
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Vietnamese Tea: Ancient Trees and Lotus-Scented Green
Vietnamese tea is mostly fresh green tea, but its glory is rarer: ancient shan tuyet trees in the northern mountains and lotus-scented tra sen from Hanoi. Here is what it is, where it grows, and how to brew it.
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Indonesian Tea: Java and Sumatra's Volcanic Highlands
Indonesian tea is high-grown black and green tea from the volcanic slopes of Java and Sumatra, a Dutch-colonial legacy and a quiet backbone of global blends.