Why We Specialize in Loose Leaf White Tea
To our knowledge, Shang Tea is the only tea shop in the United States that specializes in white tea, and specifically loose leaf white tea. Based on that statement, you may be asking why white tea, and why loose leaf?
Shang (rhymes with "gong") came to the United States in 2000 and had been working at various jobs, but he had been wanting to open up a tea shop for some time. What prompted that desire was Shang’s previous work at his cousin’s tea shop back in China. Shang enjoyed being around good tea—he appreciated the aroma and flavor of the tea, but also the helpful properties from the tea. Shang wanted to start a business where he could provide high quality tea for a reasonable price, and in 2005, he founded Shang Tea.
Shang actually started off selling a tea other than white tea, though. In the spring of 2005, Shang went to tea farms in China and directly purchased two different types of green tea that he brought back to the US to sell. Shang went back to China in the spring of 2006 and bought more green teas, as well as jasmine, wu-long (oolong), and black teas to take back to the US to sell.
Later that year, while in the US, Shang experienced a really good White Peony (Bai Mu Dan) white tea that had come from the Fujian Province. Shang decided to go to Fuding County of the Fujian Province (the hot spot for white tea in the world) for a few days in the fall of that year with the intent of purchasing white tea to bring back to the US to sell. His friend whom Shang had bought green tea from the year before was only about 30 miles from the Fujian Province. That friend called another friend in Fuding County of the Fujian Province to be a guide for Shang when Shang arrived in Fuding. After arriving in Fuding, Shang and the guide were drinking tea one afternoon in a tea shop. The shop was operated by a friend of a man who is a white tea farmer named Mr. Fang (which also rhymes with “gong”). As Shang was drinking tea, a rain storm suddenly developed. Mr. Fang had been traveling by the tea shop, but due to the storm, Fang came in to the tea shop to take shelter. While in the tea shop, Fang met Shang. Fang was surprised that Shang came to Fuding from the US to purchase white tea, and both men were impressed with the other’s passion for high quality tea. Shang went and had tea with Fang the next day and bought some white teas from Fang (White Peony and Silver Needle) to take back to the US to sell. Shortly after that, Shang decided to partner with Fang and his tea farm and focus on specializing in white tea. Shang really appreciated the clean feel, smooth body, and natural sweetness of the white teas, but he mainly appreciated the healthful properties of the white teas and how his body felt after drinking good white tea.
In early 2007, Shang started selling off his inventory of other teas in order to focus on selling teas that he and Fang produced. In 2007, Shang began to go to Fujian three times a year to work on the farm—working for at least 60-75 days a year in Fujian, China. In that first year of Shang going to work on the tea farm in China, he brought back two types of Jasmine White Teas, along with the Bai Lin Kung Fu Classic Red Tea and the Golden Needle King Red Tea (our red tea is like black tea and is derived from white tea). The next year in 2008, they developed the Tangerine Blossom Red Tea and the White Tea Wu-Long (Oolong). High Mountain Green Tea (the first tea they developed not derived from white tea), Honeysuckle White Tea, and Pao Blossom White Tea were produced in 2009.
Maintaining the partnership on the farm with Fang while having a family and a shop in the US got to be too much, though, so Shang officially stepped down from the partnership with Fang in 2012. Fang and some of his other tea students continued to support Shang with high quality tea, though, and Shang would still go back to Fujian twice a year in the spring and the fall (about a month at a time) through 2019 to oversee the spring and fall tea harvests. Over the years, Shang has offered different types of teas and teas harvested in different areas, but we still specialize in organically grown, loose leaf white tea.
Speaking of loose leaf, the reason why we specialize in loose leaf tea instead of tea in bags is that loose leaf tea allows for a fuller flavor and more health properties (if you are using good quality loose leaf tea) due to water being able to fully encompass a greater surface area of the tea leaves (if you have a brewing vessel with enough room for the leaves to expand). Each serving size of the loose leaf tea can be steeped multiple times as well.
