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recent arrivals

Spring 2021 teas from Sichuan have arrived

choice February harvests of Meng Ding Shan

Nannuo Pu'er Selection

juicy Meng Hai boldness

Aged White Teas from Zhenghe County, Fujian

teas, medicines, & treasures in various styles

2020 Yiwu Manzhuan Raw Pu'er

expansive textured soup, layered flavors

recent words

Dimensions of White Tea, an Introduction

You might have heard of White Tea: "one year tea, three years medicine, seven years treasure.” But what allows white tea to transform so remarkably — into medicine, and then treasure as they say — after just a few years?

Yiwu Part I: At a Glance

Not just a township, but a larger area and even a mindset, we look at why Yiwu occupies an inimitable cornerstone of the pu'erh experience. Series by Gus

Tea as Ritual

Tea scholar, educator, and Rivers & Lakes community guest writer Miles Cramer pens an essay providing a tasteful glance at tea's journey through time as a ritual communion.

riversandlakestea

Soon Rivers & Lakes will be taking a two week hiat

Soon Rivers & Lakes will be taking a two week hiatus, one that involves a long overdue deep wilderness and spring wildflower exploration in our home of the southern appalachians. Take 10% off our store now; orders will be taken up till Friday. Use APRIL10 code at checkout. We’ll have some surprises to unveil when we get back. amazing artwork by @jacquelinemaloneyart

Tea kief | 茶毫 — chá háo —
“tea hair” 🍃 Ever see little hairs floating around in your tea soup as seen in photo 1? Ever wipe your finger on the inside of the bag and get out a finger full of kief? No, you’re not having a weed grinder flashback, those are just the trichomes of the other dank bud you like 👍 Found on just the earliest plucks of recently emerged tea buds, these tiny kief-like hairs are thought to be indicators of high quality tea. The tender buds which flaunt these hairs typically contain some of the highest levels of compounds associated with earlier pickings: caffeine, amino acids, polyphenols. Hairy bud teas are thought to be sweeter and less bitter. More of the bitter compounds tend to emerge later as the leaves mature with the shift in weather and season (as another type of defense against the insects that will hatch around that time) 🪲 Of course this doesn’t mean other teas that don’t have tea kief aren’t high quality; many oolongs and teas that feature more mature, leafier, less bud-heavy pluck emerges will not produce as many hairs. Nothing wrong with that. So, is the presence of tea kief merely a promise that the tea you bought was indeed plucked early? Or is there a direct and added benefit to them as well, besides being fun to play with? As it turns out, the presence of 茶毫 directly makes a batch of tea more fragrant, as there are gland cells at the base of each tiny hair that secretes aromatic substances. ♨️ In the case of this year’s Meng Ding Gan Lu, I open the bag and smell a bouquet of cooling melon and savory ham and veggie notes. Thanks tea kief. ☁️ source: “茶叶茸毛的化学成分测定” #teakief #greentea #trichomes #gongfucha #mengdingganlu #teatime #teaanalysis #工夫茶 #pekoe #teaculture #timefortea #teaholic #ilovetea #teamoment #tealifestyle #pekoetea #teaceremony #headybud #dankbud #teaclass #tea #cha #🍵 #차 #çay #gaiwan #чай #teachemistry #茶毫

[edit: happy April Fools] 🔥 NEW WRAPPER ART fo

[edit: happy April Fools] 🔥 NEW WRAPPER ART for our 2021 pu’er productions 🍃 A blend of ambiguous raw material sources with vague descriptions, we’ve decided to step away from our model of transparency and ethics to offer you distractingly edgy branding. Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned during our time as a values-driven tea sourcing venture, it’s to never underestimate an ability to find ways to distract an audience while supplanting eons of meaningful spiritual and ethnobotanical history with delusional thoughts of modern western ego-driven gangsterisms. You know they say data is the new oil — well, I say branding and hype is the new Lu Yu 💹 Stay tuned for the release of our forthcoming essay,
A Tea Bowl Meditation: Five Dried Grams in Total Darkness 🕯 #gushu #puer #chadao
#researchchemicals
#pihkal #sasha #alexandershulgin
#puerhtea #puerwrapperart
#luyu #theclassicoftea #puercha #gushucha #ancienttreetea #nannuo #jingmai #yunnan #yiwutea #hongkongstorage #kunmingstorage #工夫茶 #普洱茶 #gongfucha #teatime #teaholic #ilovetea #teamoment #tealifestyle #teagram #teaaddict

An early morning scene taken from the stay at our

An early morning scene taken from the stay at our hostel in Wuyishan to greet your morning, wherever you are. After selling out, we’re glad to have our Da Hong Pao Light Fire finally back in stock. This is an ideal time to drink last year’s rock oolong, as the roast has had time to settle into the leaves. With a super light & classy 炭焙 tàn bèi (charcoal roasting), a common response to the first sip of this tea is an exclamation that it tastes a bit like a dancong oolong. You can still taste a lovely vegetative quality firmly residing below the roast. Glad to have back one of our favorites. ☁️ #riversandlakestea
#dahongpao
#岩茶 #yancha
#oolong #wuyishan
#gongfucha #工夫茶

(List of help resources in bio, harm prevention st

(List of help resources in bio, harm prevention steps listed in comments) #stopasianhate As we crest over the one week mark of the Robert Long shooting in Georgia that killed eight people — six of them Asian women — I’d like to address the issues this event has brought up and more, before the relevancy of this particular issue for most folks is muted back to a privileged background din; a distant highway noise. Growing up in the South and seeing racism in its many vicious forms, I know all too well the feeling of disillusion and defeat by what seems to be an unshakable cultural institution. I often perceive well-meaning progressive folks engaging in digital virtue signaling and even gatekeeping in the name of combatting racism as mostly ineffectual in healing the profound rift that they may not even have a full grasp of. And how can one have an entirely full grasp? Peering into any one of the range of hate incidences, one sees a mosaic of intersections — race, gender, age, psychological, geographical, economical — none precisely determinate of how to actually remediate or prevent the damage on their own. And while we would do well to strive to engage complex issues from both a specialized AND non-reductionist approach, let’s choose to focus on one issue right now: Asian hate. As a tea business with an audience of people who like tea and are engaged in at least some degree of Asian culture by proxy, this conversation here is entirely relevant, as our actions and beliefs will have an impact on the state of matter just as much as others if not more. Some stats for context: While 2020 saw a decrease of 7% in hate crimes, an astounding surge of 149 percent was seen in hate crimes directed at Asian Americans. 31% of Asian Americans have reported racism slurs or jokes since the pandemic began. Additionally, women report 2.3x the hate incidence compared to men. Reports show that businesses are the primary site of these increased hate incidences. Of the categories reported of particular hate incidences on Asians between March 2020 and February 2021, physical violence comprised 11.1%. Sources: CSUSB, Stop AAPI Hate, Pew Research Continued in comments ⤵️

This is where the cultivation
of tea all began — the epicenter of where a fated tale between humankind and the wild camellia began to be told. ☁️ These photos were taken from our 2019 journey to the top of Meng Ding Mountain. At the top of a grueling summit lies Wu Lizhen’s imperial tea garden. The story goes that through the dynasties, these seven shrubs were reserved for tea made only for the emperor and his court. They were to be harvested only at a certain time in the spring and only a select number of leaves from each bush were to be harvested. In the sixth slide is his well he drew water from for his tea plants — the first ever cultivated in written history — over two thousand years ago. The family who produces our Sichuanese teas’ gardens is merely walking distance from this tea world mecca. Read more about this amazing summit journey in our blog — link is listed above in the bio ⬆️ 🍃
🍃
🍃 #teacultivation #teahistory #wulizhen #吴理真 #daoisthistory #taoism #sichuan #chinesetea #mengdingshan #mengdingganlu #greentea #工夫茶 #gongfucha #gongfutea #teaculture #timefortea #teatime #teaholic #ilovetea #teamoment #tealifestyle #teagram #teadrunk#teastagram#🍵 #growingtea #camelliasinensis #cultivatingtea

☁️ Scenes from Meng Ding Mountain in Sichuan d

☁️
Scenes from Meng Ding Mountain in Sichuan during our trip in 2019 🍃
🍃
🍃 蒙顶 Meng Ding translates to Misty Peak, and at a foggy 4500 feet high, the famous tea mountain lives up to its name. Over 2 thousand years ago, a Taoist monk named Wu Lizhen settled on the peak and began domesticating wild tea plants. The first one to write down this process, this mountain will forever be renowned as the seminal place of tea cultivation. The mountain’s tea probably experienced the height of its acclaim during the Tang and Song Dynasty eras (~ 600 - 1200 AD), & these days the mountain serves as a living shrine to its long history of imperial grade tea production. When you drive from Ya’an up the mountain towards the historic gardens you get the idea why it was chosen by ancient taoists pretty quick. It’s stupid perfect for growing tea. The climate is misty and cool, the air is super clean, and the plant life is lush, thriving, and diverse. The seasons there are mild — there aren’t harsh cold winters, nor are there sweltering hot summers. Ya’an (the city by the river in the last image) achieves over 70 inches of rain on average per year. Higher climes in the area are enshrouded in mists and fog most of the time. This dims the sun’s harshness, allows for an attenuated photosynthesis process, and results in slower growth for the tea plants, thought to produce superior tea. Because of this acclaim and history, tea on these slopes will likely always benefit by being truly appreciated by a group of people regardless of the market trends. Yet unlike recently famous teas whose success is within a bubble, Mengshan teas aren’t overinflated with hype and therefore the relation between quality and price is actually very ideal if you know what you’re getting. Meng Ding is famous for a few teas, mostly green styles, and one yellow. If you missed the educational stab at a yellow tea post we made about a week ago, check it out. Unfortunately we are all sold out of our yellow tea Meng Ding Huang Ya for the year. We are proud to still offer a limited supply of Meng Ding Gan Lu, harvested incredibly early: Feb 15th between 1200-1500 meters. Get it while it’s fresh!

Happy Birthday to Gus! To celebrate, most of his

Happy Birthday to Gus! To celebrate, most of his favorite teas on the site are on sale. Let’s drink tea! 🎊
#riversandlakestea

Wow — this last weekend put a huge dent in our f

Wow — this last weekend put a huge dent in our fresh spring 2021 stocks! Meng Ding Huang Ya is almost out. All before the equinox 😝 Thank you all for the support! #riversandlakestea

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