Since the topic was brought up and we have quite an authority on the
subject, it is an area I am fairly ignorant of and would love to learn
a bit more or at least enough as a jumping off point for further
exploration. I'm not sure if the topic has come up in the past but I'd
love to hear from anyone with any experience or tasting notes.

I have a number of Korean friends and my father had been stationed on
the DMZ for some time before I was born, but my father's recollection
mainly involves just jasmine green tea and even of that he wasn't
really into tea while there. My other Korean acquaintances are also
not really into tea and their "tea" generally consists of Ginger root
boiled to make a strong ginger tea, instant ginseng powder tea,
instant chrysanthemum powdered tea, JuJuBe teabags, and maybe some
sencha. So as you can see my experience and knowledge is fairly
limited and not really centered around real tea per-se.

Is this common? Are the flavored/fruit/herbal teas more prevalent in
every day drinking?

On 2008-03-04, Dominic T. gmail.com> wrote:

Franchia! In NYC - tea shop and cafe branch of Hangawi restaurant (vegan
Korean place). Expensive, but great wild green Korean green tea, Korean
teaware, and a lot of (free) information on their site about brewing tea
Korean style.

http://franchia.com/

Their first and second picked teas are very delicate... a lot of people
probably would actually prefer the third picked. The prices on their
site are for 3 oz, not the weight listed, which I believe is the
shipping weight. In the US, there aren't a lot of other vendors selling
this stuff, so it's hard to get a frame of reference for how overpriced
their tea is. I suspect it is a little overpriced, just because the
place itself is pretty frou-frou, but the tea is (IMHO) excellent, and
I'm generally not a big green tea person. I guess closest comparison to
something else I've had would be a really delicate long jing, but
earthier and sweeter.

On Mar 4, 3:00 am, Will Yardley <&...@no.spam.veggiechinese.net>
wrote:

Hello,
In the lower part of the index page for my tea pages at
http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/kortea.htm I do mention one Korean
tea store and tea-room in LA, Chasaengwon, run by the daughter of a
well-known Korean tea-producer. Other major online American tea stores
do sometimes offer Korean teas but of course, since I am on the spot
here in Korea, it is not a question that I spend much time with. I
believe that certain Korean food stores across the US sometimes stock
tea, if they have enough customers asking for it. Usually Sullok tea,
I expect.

As Dominic says, most ordinary Koreans are not into green tea at all.
The tea revival of the 1970s and 80s has had some impact but on the
whole Koreans drink coffee, or those other kinds of fruit or herbal
'tea' that owe nothing to camellia sinensis. The closest they come is
tea bags of 'green tea' but often they prefer those where the tea is
blended with roasted rice husks, giving a sweeter taste. The tea-
drinking situation in Korea is totally unlike that of Japan, where you
get served green tea everywhere for free before you order your cup of
green tea.

When tea-drying emerged from the temples and first became a commercial
activity in the 1970s in the Hwagye Valley region of Hadong county, in
Jiri Mountain, the target market was either rich Koreans or...

On Mar 5, 3:46 am, An Sonjae sogang.ac.kr> wrote:

The traditional seasonal names used in Korea (brought from China) are
Ujon, Sejak, Jungjak (spellings vary, alas!) and I assume that these
correspond more or less to '1st, 2nd, 3rd flush.' The main problem in
answering your question, of course, is whose tea you are buying! The
Kwanhyang tea I am privileged to have access to is splendid right
through, even the broken leaves etc they pack and sell separately are
better than the top grades of a lot of other teas! On the whole, I
would say that Ujon is very often grossly overpriced (mentioned
yesterday) and since it tends to be volatile, the very delicate flavor
sometimes evaporates quickly once the pack is opened, or seems to
weaken within a few months even when sealed (Koreans do not use vacuum
packaging). So Sejak is usually the best for quality / price but a
good maker's Jungjak can be fine. There is no way other than actual
tasting, really. And sometimes nothing is specified, the tea is simply
sold as 'Chaksolcha' (sparrow's tongues tea) which is the traditional
name for what we now term Korean green tea (you only need to specify
'green' when the default is 'red / black tea'). Again, tasting will
tell. The Panyaro Tea I celebrate in my pages, made by Chae Won-Hwa
for use by herself and members of her institute, has no distinguishing
seasonal labels but on certain boxes the label is printed in gold, on ...

On 2008-03-06, An Sonjae sogang.ac.kr> wrote:

I'm pretty sure it's actually even less - as I warned in my post, I
think it's 3 oz of tea, so about 85g. The containers in their retail
store are labelled prominently, but I don't know why they aren't clearer
about it on their website. I think they just mean that the shipping
weight is a pound, because I'm sure their packaging with the tea in it
doesn't weigh a full pound.

The place you mention in LA (Chasaengwon) is the place that I was saying
I've been meaning to visit. I'll try and get around to checking it out
sometime soon and report back.

I'd be interested in hearing what the price range tends to be in Korea
for the different grades of tea you mention (realizing, of course, that
the price range is probably huge).

w

my Korean friends in LA and also going to couple korean restaurants,
mostly drank barley "tea"
at korean supermarkets they have lots of all kinds of root teabag
teas, some green, and lots of barley.

Right, more info!
Barley tea: made by pouring boiling water onto roasted grains of
barley. Common variations use roasted grains of maize, or the dried
roots of Solomon's seal. Other possibilities too. Drunk hot or cold
instead of plain water and traditionally poured into the rice bowls at
the end of a meal as a final drink / mouthwash and to ensure that no
grains of precious cereal are wasted. Perhaps inspired by 'nurungji'
which is a rather more substantial fluid traditionally made by pouring
boiling water onto the crust of burned rice at the bottom of a rice
pot that has been cooked over a fire (now that 120%% of Koreans use
electric cookers, they can buy separate electric cookers to make this,
though few do) and served after or sometimes even instead of ordinary
rice at the end of a meal...