Thirty-six houses, one leaf — a plain-English way into Chinese tea

the houses

six tea families, eight kinds of house — knowledge, commerce, community, travel, equipment, and more

The constellation groups into eight kinds of house. Knowledge houses — tea.school chief among them — teach structured paths from leaf identification to wòduī (渥堆), the wet-piling step that turns raw sheng into ripe shou pu-erh. Commerce houses — shop.thetea.app, shop.puerh.app, and the B2B hub at wholesale.teamotea.com — sell single-origin tea and teaware to US addresses. Community houses like tea.community hold tasting notes and seasonal releases. Travel houses — tea.travel — run small-group trips to the source — the old-growth gardens above Yìwǔ (易武) in Yunnan, the cliff-face tea of Wǔyí Shān (武夷山) in Fujian, the dancong slopes of Fènghuáng Shān (凤凰山) in Guangdong. Equipment houses — tea.equipment — stock the gaiwans, kettles, and clay pots the practice runs on. And tea.events gathers the workshops and tastings on the calendar. Every house serves Chinese tea only, no blends — a single pressed cake can move from a Yunnan press to a US shelf through commerce, get taught in a tea.school lesson, and turn up in a tea.community tasting thread, all inside one constellation.

resident tea experts

the hands behind the leaves — five tea experts guiding the constellation

A handful of resident experts shape how the constellation talks about tea, each anchored in one region and one processing family. Zhōu Xiāng, trained on the sensory panel at Hunan Agricultural University, grew up watching her grandmother’s Jūnshān Yínzhēn (君山银针) needles rise and fall in a glass — the yellow tea she still tests every new lot against. Chén Huìyí, based between Chaozhou and Fuding, learned Bái Háo Yín Zhēn (白毫银针) withering on Taimu Mountain and mēnhuáng (闷黄) yellowing in Huoshan, and now teaches both on tea.school. Fāng Tíng apprenticed under a Wuyi rock-tea roaster in 2011 and now splits her table between charcoal-roasted Ròu Guì (肉桂) and Fenghuang dancong. Méi Yáng returns to Wudong village every winter for the lychee-wood charcoal roast that finishes a dancong’s aroma — the process behind her Mí Lán Xiāng (蜜兰香) masterclass. And Ā’ěrgālán Chin (Amgalan Chin) keeps a second cellar in Buryatia, aging sheng pu-erh through a colder, drier climate than Yunnan gives it, and can usually tell a Bulang leaf from a Yiwu one by the way it chews. Each of them teaches on tea.school, writes on puerh.app, or hosts a bookable session through tea.services — the constellation’s way of putting a real specialist between a reader and an unfamiliar leaf.

how to use this page

where the six paths lead — study, buy, join, travel, equip, attend

If you already know what you are looking for, the fastest route is direct. Want to learn the difference between shēng (raw) and shóu (ripe) pu-erh, or how a rock oolong gets its mineral finish — start at tea.school. Want to buy tea or teaware shipped to a US address — shop.thetea.app for retail, wholesale.teamotea.com for case quantities. Want other drinkers to talk to — tea.community. Want to see the mountains a cake came from — tea.travel. Want the gaiwan, the kettle, the clay pot — tea.equipment. Want a workshop or a tasting near a date on the calendar — tea.events. If you are not sure yet, the US guide on this site sorts those six intentions by what a first-time US buyer usually needs first.

The collection

26 properties