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After a few intense days of tea hunting we were all keen to be heading to Jingdezhen. It was my first time here and I was feeling excited!  Ceramics have long been a passion of mine - our tea bowls made by UK ceramicist Rachel Dormor are core to the Comins experience.  I was keen to learn more about the place and people living and working in the 'Porcelain capital of China'.  A stop here had not been on the original itinerary however one of our great customers who joined us on the trip had suggested it & we agreed it would...

Arriving in Qimen town in the late afternoon we were immediately struck by how much smaller the city seemed than places we have visited before.  The main hotels were along a straight strip running through the city so we dropped off our bags and headed out.  The town was busy - it was holiday season full of families and friends enjoying the early evening.  Wandering through the town we came across these couples dancing - a common sight in squares across China in the early evening.  Old & young, experienced & novices this is a wonderfully spontaneous sight & the very talented Howard Boyer [who...

Day 6 started early in Huangshan town having had some time to explore the 'old street' crammed full of shops & restaurants the night before.  We wandered up the road, for breakfast.... ...past the tourism toilets [sorry couldn't resist a photo!] before hailing a cab to our next destination.  You can already see a hint of the magnificent mountains in the background. Anhui province is home to four of the top ten Chinese teas.  As well as Huangshan Maofeng tea there is also Qimen Black Tea, Lu'an Guapian tea & Taiping HouKui tea.  Breaking down the name 'Huangshan Maofeng' we see that : "Huangshan" means...

Those of you who know us at Comins well know that we take the provenance of our tea very seriously - travelling all over the world in order to visit the people and places that produce the teas we serve you everyday.    Back in March we teamed up with the Soil Association to bring you the first in a series of short articles focussed on tea & one of our favourite topics - soil. You can read the first article focused on Kenya here - the next will follow soon. Over the coming months we will be sharing stories from around the tea world...

TAIPING HOUKUI | THE PROCESS People often ask how we plan tea trips, make decisions on where to go, who to meet.  Well, it often starts with an interest or curiosity about a certain tea.  The trip then grows around the area that tea come from.  This year the trip was really all about Taiping houkui, one of the top ten teas in China which is produced in the HouKeng area of Taiping county at the base of the Huangshan Mountains, Anhui province.   We have long been fascinated by this tea and the manufacturing process that results in the long pressed leaves - take...