Fresh Cup Magazine

Tea Trek: Thailand
by Allen Kinast

With Bangkok firmly established as the trans-Pacific gateway to Southeast Asia, Thailand has become a modern-day crossroads between East and West. For many world travelers, it is a treasure trove of memories: beachside buffoonery at Ko This or That. The mad dash across 12 lanes of Bangkok traffic to see "just one more temple." The friend who bought "very fine rubies" not more than two hours before reading about the con. Saffron-robed monks walking through a shopping mall on their way to prayers.

   Perhaps our fondness for the country has much to do with its unique ability to assimilate external influences while retaining its exotic charm. While countries all around the kingdom of Siam have been subjected to colonial intrusions over the centuries, Thailand has always managed to successfully retain its sovereignty, picking and choosing which elements of the outside world to let in.

   For tea connoisseurs, however, Thailand remains a baffling riddle. How can a place so ideally situated between two of Asia's leading tea producers, India and China, produce so little quality tea? Until recently, Thailand was probably the last place one would expect to see featured as an origin of premium tea. But a growing number of tea buyers are expressing interest in unlocking the secrets of Thai teas, wondering if the country might offer potential as an up-and-coming premium tea origin.

   Frank Miller, owner of the Blue Willow Teahouse in Seattle, saw something in his travels to Thailand a few years ago that left him wondering if the tea-making arts were perhaps a deeper part of Thai culture than the current state of the tea industry there would suggest. He recalls having lunch in a remote village outside of Chiang Mai one afternoon at a primitive food court set up in the middle of town. The local landlord had hired a few women to do folk dances in traditional costumes as entertainment for his paying customers. Miller learned that the ancient dance these women performed was called the "Tea Plucking" dance. The women made beautiful plucking gestures, but instead of moving their hands at their waists as someone familiar with tea cultivation might expect, the women "plucked" with their hands well above their heads. Could the dance be a reference to a wild form of Camellia sinensis that the hill tribes harvested?

   Adding fuel to that fire is Tomislav Podreka, president of Serendipitea, an importer in New York City, who says that botanists have discovered a subspecies of the tea plant, Camellia lasiocalyx, indigenously growing wild in the Golden Triangle area of Thailand. String these bits and pieces together, and it becomes evident that tea has a deeply rooted-albeit mysterious-history in Thailand.

   The vast majority of Thai teas are CTC black varieties that are consumed domestically. A fair bit of Thai tea actually suffers the dubious fate of being turned into Thai iced tea, a popular street vendor concoction. The drink combines black tea with a mélange of spices, such as cinnamon, star anise, cardamom, vanilla, and cloves. It bears some resemblance to Indian chai, though its bright red color seems to warn that what follows will be anything but subtle. Some U.S. retailers have expressed interest in trying to unlock what goes into the drink, speculating that it might have potential in America as a trendy summertime beverage.

   While much of Thailand's tea is of little interest to discerning tea buyers, there are indeed some premium oolongs showing up in specialty teahouses that deserve attention, teas that may ultimately give connoisseurs cause for pause. Veerinder Chawla, owner of the Tao of Tea in Portland, Ore., is one such retailer. He has been carrying two Thai oolongs for the past year, and he plans to visit Thailand in the near future to work with several tea estates in developing the unique properties of their oolongs. "There are very few people doing it there, and while the market does have potential, they need to keep at it," he says. Chawla thinks much of oolong's appeal comes from the incredible diversity of flavors, aromas and colors they impart. He particularly enjoys oolong's "ability to be roasted and not gain much in the way of tannins."

   Chawla's high-mountain Thai oolong is loosely rolled, bearing a resemblance to Formosa oolongs. The leaves are fairly consistent in form, and they impart a light, vegetative smell. With the first rinse, the leaves don't open immediately, but subsequent rinses reveal a smaller, more narrow leaf, with delicate bruising on the edges. This bruising comes about when farmers place the leaves in drums and turn them for several hours to begin the oxidation process. Pleasant floral flavors and a relatively full body are the tea's signature features, and it yields a rich, gold liquor with a faint amber glow. Subsequent rinses will bring out citrus notes and a subtle dryness that, in the hands of a master teaman, never becomes too astringent.

   Chawla is also excited about a new Thai oolong that he'll be carrying soon. Called "Oriental Beauty," the tea resembles a fancy Formosa oolong and is harvested only after a certain insect begins to nest on the tea plant's leaves. The insects' arrival produces a defensive enzyme in the plant that results in a tea with an intense floral flavor.

   Bill Waddington, owner of TeaSource, a retailer and wholesaler in St. Paul, Minn., says the Thai oolong he last carried was "lighter with good body and some nice floral notes, similar to a Tung Ting." While he thinks the tea was slightly pricey compared to its relative quality among other oolongs, he feels it was an interesting addition to his tea menu. Waddington says that Thai teas possess a unique ability to transport some of his customers to a different time and place. "Here in St. Paul, we've had quite an influx of Southeast Asian immigrants over the past few years, especially the Hmongs," he says. Many of these immigrants grew up in tea-growing areas, and while the bulk of production there may have been mechanized and destined for the cities, there were often excellent regional teas that were hand-produced and enjoyed locally. More than one of Waddington's Hmong customers have told him that his Thai oolongs conjure up vivid childhood memories.

   While Thai oolongs can offer a unique counterpoint to more well-known Taiwanese and Chinese oolongs, the feeling among most tea experts who have cupped premium-grade Thai oolongs is that tea producers in Thailand have some work to do on the production and marketing end. Waddington, for instance, hasn't stocked Thai oolongs for well over a year. The absence of the product in his catalog comes more from a lack of consistency on the marketing end than from a quality problem, with unanswered e-mails and disconnected telephones being too common an occurrence. For tea buyers considering offering a line of Thai oolongs, the advice might go something like this: As with any developing industry, expect a fair bit of fits and starts.

   Miller feels that Thai oolongs are "years behind Taiwanese oolongs-literally." He is referring to the fact that most of the tea cultivars now being planted in northern Thailand originally came from Taiwan. He says that the Thai tea industry invested significant sums of money into tea research in conjunction with the Taiwanese government in the early 1990s. Taiwanese tea masters came to the Chiang Mai area and worked with local Thai farmers to raise the level of expertise. Hundreds of acres of Taiwanese cultivars were planted there during the mid-'90s, and the tea world is just beginning to see their results.

   Miller thinks Thai oolongs can sell well if producers don't get ahead of themselves with pricing. "Taiwanese cultivars or not, the quality is still behind what the Taiwanese do on a regular basis. Whether it's the soil, the climate, or the farmers' relative inexperience at making top-quality oolongs, they have to realistically price their product, especially when you factor in lower labors costs and the fact that there hasn't been much marketing 'oomph' behind the product up to this point."

   The Thai government's Agricultural Land Reform Office, together with private companies like Suvirut Thai Tea Partnership, are working hard to overcome this perception. In a region long known as one of the corners of the Golden Triangle, efforts are underway to replace the notorious poppy trade with a more healthful product, and about 100 growers have begun planting Taiwanese tea cultivars. The partnership between government and commerce provides farmers with cultivars and irrigation equipment, cultivation and processing instruction, and a promise to purchase the product at a set price. According to a recent Bangkok Post article, the local climate and soil lend themselves to higher productivity, with the tea plants maturing in 12 months and cropping occurring every 45 days. According to the article, these higher yields, together with lower labor costs, make Thailand's new oolongs very competitive.

   One tea producer, Choui Fong Ltd., has used its region's well-known past as a marketing advantage. Selling a variety of tea products under the "Golden Triangle" brand, the company recently received the Best Quality Oolong Tea Award from Thailand's Ministry of Agriculture. The estate, established in 1992, is one of the largest tea producers in Chiang Rai, one of the northern-most towns in Thailand. At 1000 meters above sea level, the highland climate affords excellent conditions for growing premium-grade oolongs, although the estate grows green and black teas as well. Choui Fong exports around 40 percent of its product overseas, with its main markets being in North America, Latin America, Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Asia Pacific.

   Another, the Alpine Tea Estate, has more than 200 acres of Taiwanese cultivars planted on the steep hillsides outside of Chiang Mai. Alpine's top-grade oolongs are picked four times a year, twice during the spring season between late March and early April, and two more times in December and early January. Curiously, much of Alpine's annual half-ton volume of premium-grade oolong makes its way to China, where it often commands prices between $80 and $100 per pound. The demand in markets like the U.S., however, has been slow to develop.

   Perhaps the Thai people are once again adopting a foreign idea-in this case, the rich tradition of premium Taiwanese oolong production-and gracefully making it their own. The resulting product might never be identical to a Tung Ting, but maybe that's the point. Soil and climate variations will always contribute to a tea leaf's final flavor, much like a wine grape that successfully migrates to different parts of the world with wonderful, unexpected results. Twenty years ago, there were plenty of folks who insisted that pinot grapes would never thrive in Oregon. Most of them are cellaring away their shortsightedness to this day. Perhaps oolongs will soon put Thailand on the tea map in a similar fashion.

Allen Kinast divides his time between freelance writing and designing/building art furniture in Portland, Oregon.