Episode 39 - Sourcing Junshan Silver Needle

Welcome back to another episode of Tea Soup! First episode of 2026, and we are hitting the ground running. In this episode we briefly recap 2025, and talk about our spring tea trip out to the Jingmai Mountain. One of the new six famous tea mountains, Jingmai boasts the largest cultivated ancient tea garden on the planet! We talk about our experiences on the mountain, the culture, the tea, and of course hit some excellent tangents.If you’re curious about Jingmai tea, check out the Illud Tempus tea cake available via One River Tea.

Another episode with both Alex and Derek of the One River Tea Cooperative. We sat down while in Anhui searching for Qimen Hongcha to talk about a summer trip Alex and Xiaoyan took to Zhangping, home of China’s only pressed oolong, the Zhangping Shuixian.We als briefly talk about our experiences in Qimen County, just west of Huangshan, and the curious people and teas we haw encountered. We finish the episode talking about the Cooperative structure of One River Tea and muse on a few organizations that have a very impressive social element like the Pang Dong Lai grocery store in Xuchang Hunan.

In this episode we reflect on the wild spring tea tour we just finished in 2025. We visited the Jingmai mountains in Yunnan, Anji in Zhejiang, Hangzhou’s West Lake for Dragonwell, Chaozhou’s Wudong Mountain for the dancong, Yiwu, Huazhu Liangzi, Laobanzhang, Laoman’e, Menghai, and Bada for the puer. It has been a wild ride and we have so much to say, but first let’s just talk about seeing some old friends in Hangzhou and Wudong Mountian, that’s Shanshan and Zhang Hailang from Nine Trees and Wen Zitong in Wudong. Hopefully a lot of the green teas mentioned here are already in your tea cups at home! Some still available on the One River Tea website.

This is a very special episode that takes a look into a region famous for tea production for over a hundred years, Darjeeling. Alex took a recent three week tour of some old tea estates and some interesting cooperatives out on the border between India and Nepal. They toured many estates all around Darjeeling, from the Calcutta to the Nepali boarder. Alex recounts his meeting with the father of Moonlight White tea, an Indian Gentleman by the name of Rajah Banerjee. While we currently don’t sell any Indian teas not he One River Tea Website, there is one special cooperative mentioned toward the end of the episode that we look forward to cooperating with in the future, that’s the Fall Orthodox in the Sample Freebie we got from out in Sitong.In the meantime, for all you Indian tea connoisseurs, we highly recommend checking out Ketlee Teas, thats ketlee.in we have a great respect for the main force behind the project Susmit Pratik, Alex mentioned that he saw some tea from the Okayti Estate on offer, which is in Alex’s opinion the most legitimate of the old estates.

This episode is all about the tea (and teaware) sought and found and loved in 2024, the year of the Dragon. Derek gives his hot takes on Jingdezhen, the Mecca of Chinese porcelain, and Yixing, the birthplace of Chinese teapots. We talk about the spring tea rush, living out of a backpack for 30 days, and go all through the land of mountains and rivers of southern China seeking true tea culture. As always, check out Onerivertea.com and Taoteaware.com for the tea and the teaware mentioned on the pod. Thanks for your support, and brew happy!

This episode is our second annual year in review episode. We talk about the year of the dragon, but keep it rather personal, this part one is all about the stories behind the tea, the discoveries and growth we’re experienced this year with One River Tea, Tao Teaware, and our very new Empty Cup Tea Space. Stay tuned for the more tea-centric part 2 soon to come. And as always, brew happy.

In this episode, Derek from One River Tea talks about how he found the Lapsang Souchong we source from the Zhang family up in the Masu Village of Tongmuguan. We start out musing a bit on craftsmanship, of products created with intentionality and soul as we wander up to the Tongmu mountain pass between Fujian and Jiangxi. While this area is restricted to non-residents (including Chinese people from other regions), we were able to meet the right person to open the gates for us and take us up to her beautiful village. If you’re interested in the origin point of the world’s first tea, we hope this episode delivers!As always, almost all the teas mentioned in the podcast are available on the Onerivertea.com website!

In this episode we dig into the history of the world’s first Black Tea: Lapsang Souchong. In another solo episode, Derek not only gets back into the ancient history of Chinese teas, but also talks about the six different kinds of teas and the strange space occupied by puer. We share the origin myth of Lapsang Souchong, aka Zhongshan Xiaozhong, and explain its significance in the explosion of tea drinking culture in the West at large. We just released six new Lapsang Souchong teas from the Tongmuguan region and from the Masu Village, all of which are available on the onerivertea.com website !

In this episode, Alex joins the podcast to talk about the time spent sourcing the most famous yellow tea in all of China: Junshan Silver Needle. We get deep into the history of yellow tea and the sorry state of the modern market. Derek muses on the differences between Japanese and Chinese teas and reflects on his recent time in Japan. The Junshan Silver Needle and other finds from this trip are available to try on the onerivertea.com website. Thank you for your interest in our teas!

In this episode, Derek is joined by Alex, also a founding member of the One River Tea Cooperative. We talk about our adventures in making white tea, the attempts, the mistakes, the failures, the victories, and the eventual brown shoumei tea cake we pressed and gave away earlier this year. Alex shares some interesting first-hand experiences of brewing tea in the traditional way: with a tea jar. And Derek shares the secrets on how he made the his beautiful micro batch of green shoumei. As always, all the teas talked about are available on the Onerivertea.com website, so be sure to support us with an order if you’re enjoying the podcast!