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.

regions and processes

the leaf behind the pages — region by region, family by family

Our editorial work is anchored region by region and processing family by processing family. Yellow tea is measured against Jūnshān Yínzhēn (君山银针) needles rising and falling in a glass — the reference every new lot is tested against. Bái Háo Yín Zhēn (白毫银针) withering on Taimu Mountain and mēnhuáng (闷黄) yellowing in Huoshan are both taught on tea.school. Wuyi rock tea comes to the table as charcoal-roasted Ròu Guì (肉桂) alongside Fenghuang dancong. Every winter the lychee-wood charcoal roast in Wudong village finishes a dancong’s aroma — the process behind the Mí Lán Xiāng (蜜兰香) masterclass. All of it is taught on tea.school, written up on puerh.app, or offered as a bookable session through tea.services — the constellation’s way of putting real expertise 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