UPTON TEA QUARTERLY .Established 1989. Vol 26 No. 4 Holliston, Massachusetts Fall, 2017 Understanding Taste The Quest for Flavor TEA-TASTERS DECIDING UPON THE QUALITY AND VALUE OF A NEW CARGO IN A WHOLESALE WAREHOUSE A sketch from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, February 12, 1876. W hen professional tea-tasters sip a spoonful of tea, they do so with an enthusiastic slurp that would be considered inappropriate at the dinner table. In an interview published at businessdailynews.com, veteran Tetley tea-taster, Sebastian Michaelis, described the slurping as sounding “pretty horrendous if you’ve not heard it before.” Whether or not the average tea-taster understands the complex flavor cognition system that Gordon M. Shepherd refers to as the human brain flavor system, they have known for over a century that exposing the retronasal receptors to tea vapors, with a pretty horrendous sounding slurp, is essential to proper tea evaluation. Please turn to page 48. Copyright 2017 Upton Tea Imports, LLC. All rights reserved. Page 2 Upton Tea Quarterly Fall, 2017 Our Customer Service Order online, by mail, fax, phone or e-mail department is available A fax can usually be sent for less than the price of for personal assistance a stamp! Orders are typically shipped the next Monday through Friday from business day. Refer to the order form on page 55 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Eastern Time. for details and hours of operation. Noteworthy... Visit our website at Over two dozen new teas have been added to www.uptontea.com this issue of our newsletter. Phone Orders: . .(800) 234-8327 Other Business: . .(508) 474-6840 The peak of the 2017 buying season has Fax Orders: . .(508) 429-0918 passed, however, we will continue to sample new E-mail: . [email protected] teas throughout the coming months. We’re excited to introduce a full complement of Pre-Chingming teas in this catalog. You may find them on page 17. Table of Contents More teas are due to arrive this fall: Assams and Understanding Taste, The Quest for Flavor . 1,48-50 Noteworthy . 2 second flush Darjeelings from India, as well as teas A Note to our Valued Customers . 3 from Africa, China, and Japan. As always, new teas Our Custom Tea Thermometer and Cupweight Scale . 4 will be posted on our website, www.uptontea.com, Electric Kettle and Chatsford® Teapots . 5 Replacement Infuser Baskets . 5 as they arrive. The Upton Tea Imports Mailing List . 6 First-time customers are often surprised to Organic Certification. 6 see that packets and tins of tea are personalized. Glass and Ai Cha Teapots . 6 Packaging Options . 7 Those who prefer no personalization, or who wish Samples . 7 to have alternate names printed on certain packets, Current Tea Offerings Teas of India . 7-15 may specify their choice while ordering. Web Teas of Nepal & Himalayan Region . 16 customers may do so during checkout (after Teas of China . 17-27 address confirmation). Refer to Our Packaging on Iced Tea Selections . 28 page 7 for limitations and additional information. Season's Pick Teas . 30-31 Teas of Formosa (Taiwan) . 31-32 www.uptontea.com: We are a traditional mail- Teas of Africa . 32 Teas of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) . 33-34 order company with a focus on personal customer Teas of Korea, Indonesia & Vietnam . 35 service. Our website is an extension of our service Teas of Japan . 35-37 and provides information and convenient order Traditional Blends & Earl Grey . 38-40 Fruit & Flavored Teas . 40-42 entry 24 hours a day. Visit our website for the most Decaffeinated Teas, Premium Decaffeinated Teas. 43 recent additions to our tea list. Our website also Tisanes & Infusions . 44-46 lists a number of limited-edition products and Sampler Sets in Tins . 47 specialty items that are not included in the Upton Warranties and Return Policy. 51 Gift Certificates. 51 Tea Qu ar t erl y , such as Japanese Sencha teapots and Tea Infusers & Strainers. 52-53 Matcha bowls. Finum® Permanent Filters and Filter Cups. 52-53 Our website is secure and non-intrusive. We Cosies for Chatsford Teapots. 53 Tea Scoops . 53 are committed to protecting your privacy and Gift Sets with Optional Gift Wrapping. 54 never buy, sell or trade e-mail addresses. We decline Order Blank . 55 offers from web advertisers and promotional The Chatsford Teapot by Homer Laughlin . 56 services in order to maintain our site as a spam-free zone. The UPTON TEA QUARTERLY is published four times per year. Upton Tea Imports Mug Subscription is free to customers of Upton Tea Imports. We offer a 10-ounce porcelain mug with the Copyright ©2017 Upton Tea Imports, LLC. All rights reserved. No Upton Tea Imports teapot logo. At the base of part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval sys- the mug are the names of the principal tea tem, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, sources: “Africa - China - India - Japan - Nepal mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise) without the prior written - Sri Lanka - Taiwan”, printed in reverse (white-on-black). permission of the copyright owner. The name “Upton Tea Imports” is in dark green. A gold POSTMASTER: IF NOT FORWARDABLE, rim tops the mug. Hand washing is recommended to pre- PLEASE DELIVER TO CURRENT RESIDENT. serve the gold rim, which is not microwave-safe. Item AM50: $5.25 (MA price $5.58 including sales tax) (800)234-8327 www.uptontea.com © 2017 Upton Tea Imports, LLC. All rights reserved. Fall, 2017 Upton Tea Quarterly Page 3 August 15, 2017 A note to our Valued Customers: We are now celebrating our 28th year in business! Because we are passionate about tea, doing business doesn’t seem like work to us. Our strategy of providing the highest quality tea at the lowest possible cost remains true. We greatly appreciate your loyalty as many of you have been with us for over 20 years. It is also exciting that we are adding new customers to the Upton Tea family every day. Thank you for supporting us! We continually look at ways to improve our customer service. As you may know, we imple- mented a new computer system in June, designed to support a new website, which we will launch this fall. We are very excited about our new website. We’ve listened to your suggestions and believe the changes will be beneficial. Some of the features include larger images of our teas, easier navigation, and the return of the quick buy function that allows you to quickly order your favorite teas. We believe that you will enjoy these changes and are always here to help, if you have any questions. We continue our commitment to offer over 400 teas from around the world. As you can under- stand, in some years that has proven more difficult than others. For example, this year Darjeel- ing tea production was severely impacted by political unrest in the region. After cupping over 300 Darjeeling teas, we were fortunate to purchase 25 teas meeting our high quality standards. Along with these Darjeeling teas, we are excited about our other selections arriving from Assam, Sri Lanka, China, Africa, and Japan this fall. We always enjoy hearing from you. It is so special to receive your emails and notes of thanks. One customer recently complimented our customer service department. We were thrilled as that is our no. 1 objective. He wrote, “You folks make Upton the clear customer service oriented tea purveyor.” This note succinctly conveys what we value for our customers. We have not changed that for 28 years and we don’t plan to ever change that. Happy tea drinking, Your friends at Upton Tea (800)234-8327 www.uptontea.com © 2017 Upton Tea Imports, LLC. All rights reserved. Page 4 Upton Tea Quarterly Fall, 2017 DIGITAL POCKET TEA SCALE Premium teas come in a wide range of leaf styles, varying from fine CTC grades to ultra bold-leaf white teas. This tremendous range of leaf style makes measuring tea by volume imprecise. Our digital tea scale solves this problem in a unique way, by introducing a special Cupweight mode. In this mode, the scale displays the precise number of cups that a portion of tea will yield, based on the industry standard of 2.25 grams per 6-ounce cup. Note Scale in Cupwt mode weighs in that this scale will also weigh in grams, ounces and pennyweight (dwt cup units, equal to 2.25 grams. mode). SPECIFICATIONS www.uptontea.com Capacity: 200g / 7.05 oz / 128.6 dwt / 88.88 Cupwt Readability: 0.05g / 0.001 oz / 0.05 dwt / 0.01 ozt / 0.05 Cupwt Auto shutoff (default): 60 seconds off Operating temperature: 10-30°C (50-86°F) Battery: Four (4) AAA Alkaline batteries (not included) Capacity: 200g Graduation: 0.05g Display: Backlit LCD 5 digits with 2 or 3 decimal places Dimensions: 128x77x19mm, 5x3x0.75 inches (hinged cover closed) Weight: 134g with batteries Each scale is precisely calibrated at the factory. For those who wish to Detail of Backlit Display periodically calibrate their scale according to the instruction manual, we offer a 200-gram calibration weight. To test calibration, place a dime on the scale platform. A dime will weigh approximately 2.25 grams (1.00 cupwt), depending on wear and condition. Variation from 2.25 grams by more than 0.05 gram may indicate a need for calibration. Made in China. Item AR44: Digital Tea Scale Price: $26.75 (MA price $28.42) (MA price includes Item AR45: 200-gram calibration weight Price: $4.75 (MA price $5.05) 6¼% sales tax) TEA THERMOMETER Using the right water temperature is very important when preparing a cup of tea.