Tea from South Korea

Korean tea has undeservedly ended up in the shadow of teas from the tea giants China and Japan. The country has fantastic teas of the highest quality. However, they have largely stayed within the country or been exported to the more initiated tea fans around the world.

Most of the South Korean teas are green and can be found both steamed and roasted. In terms of taste, they are often on the borderland between Chinese and Japanese - Chinese purity with a certain Japanese fullness could be generalized.

The very best Korean teas are produced on a small scale. We get South Korean tea from the Kim family's small farm in Hwagae, Hadong. This area is the origin of the country's tea cultivation and we still find here the main and more traditional teas. The farm's fantastic teas are award-winning and the family has its own stock of semi-wild tea plants / shrubs (locally this type of tea is called “yasaeang-cha”, ie “wild tea”). The farm's teas are hand-picked and made entirely by hand. It is not so easy to get hold of this quality of small-scale Korean teas and we are the first tea importer from Europe to visit this award-winning tea farm.

We have brought home green teas from the farm according to the country's traditional division into categories, corresponding to the four harvest periods (divided according to the lunar calendar):

1 Ujeon

2 Sejak

3 Jungjak

4 Daejak (all harvests after the jungjak harvest, ie even simpler qualities).

Ujeon is the name of the first harvest of the spring, the harvest takes place before "Gogu" on April 20. Gogu is the same as "Guyu" in China, which means "before the rains" and is an important date in the delimitation of tea crops. The recent harvest, Gogu, usually takes place later than in China, when Korea's climate is cooler.

In addition to these green teas, we recommend that you try ours Balyocha, an unusual tea, partially oxidized in a unique process of rolling and oxidation which is rather reminiscent of oolonggteer.

When preparing the green Korean teas, we recommend that you remember to keep the water temperature down according to the instructions.