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As Rob prepares to leave South Korea we continue our journey around the tea world as part of series of  #60partners60days stories.  Our next destination is Japan the fascinating country where many of our best loved teas are produced.  We first travelled here in 2009, young, tentative in our exploration fascinated and delighted in equal measure with everything we encountered.   On this first trip we explored the Uji tea region while also visiting Kagoshima, Takayama and the Noto Peninsula >>             ..it was also on this trip we first experienced chanoyu at cultural centre in Kyoto       Returning in 2012, again to Uji, we focused...

Hi, its Rob here.  I thought it might be interesting to share a number of short blogs from my trip to South Korea - so here goes with day 2.  Any questions please do just get in touch!  Cheers Rob _____________________ . After breakfast on day 2 I accompanied Seong Il on a visit to potential exhibition space in a private gallery in Gangnam-gu, an affluent area of Seoul, made famous in the west by ‘Gangnam style’, a track by Psy. Incidentally he is far from a one hit wonder in South Korea! . Following this fascinating insight we travelled...

Hi, its Rob here.  I thought it might be interesting to share a number of short blogs from my trip to South Korea - so here goes with day 1.  Any questions please do just get in touch!  Cheers Rob _____________________ . After a long journey to Seoul via Beijing I arrived an took the airbus and a taxi to meet up with Seong Il Hong at his newly opened pottery exhibition. His work is part of a large exhibition for the eight top teaware makers from South Korea.  It was great to get a taste for the city on the journey...

In the next part of our #60partners#60days we move to South Korea.  It would be fair to say that of all the regions we work with this is the least familiar to our customers which for us [and hopefully you] is exciting, so much to be discovered, so many stories to be told.   Compared with the rest of Asia, Korea produces a very small amount of tea per year, and a limited amount is exported.   There are four major tea-growing regions: Mount Jiri, Boseong, Jeonnam and Jeju Island and a whole host of new tea names and terminology...

China is the country that, at the start of our journey, simultaneously excited us whilst filling us a feeling of slight trepidation.  China is the historical birthplace of the use of the tea plant over 4000 years ago. Many myths exist of this time, the most widely used is that of the emperor Shennong. He is said to have discovered tea itself, although many believe the tea plant was used thousands of years before this. More of this in the book! Whatever the timings are, it is known that the bushes of today are descendants of wild trees that grew in a giant primeval tea forest stretching...