Stories

Tea through history, the body, craft, and the way it shows up in the world.

13 stories · newest first · By the TEAKI editors

Featured · 24 April 2026

Tea High, Tea Drunk

A real bodily state, a thousand years of mythology, and a chemistry that explains most but not all of it.

13 min read

Purple buds and the Ya Bao family

Zi Ya, Zi Juan and the silver, purple and red Ya Bao, explained: why some tea buds are purple (pigment) and some turn red (oxidation), and how to tell them apart.

5 min read · 9 October 2026

Purple, invented several times

Purple tea is not one thing. How Yunnan, Fujian, Kenya, Japan and Taiwan each bred or found a purple tea from different plants, and why they taste so different.

8 min read · 9 October 2026

After Matcha

Matcha got you into good tea. Here is the other half of the tea world: Chinese and Taiwanese loose-leaf, brewed small and many times over, that tastes nothing like the bowl and keeps changing as you steep.

4 min read · 6 October 2026

Tea Mania

For about forty years, Britain's medical and moral authorities decided tea was dangerous.

9 min read · 28 May 2026

Korean Tea and the Japanese Occupation

A thousand years of Buddhist tea culture, thirty-five years of colonial Japanese substitution, and the people who rebuilt Korean tea.

18 min read · 23 April 2026

How Much Caffeine Is in Your Tea

Less than coffee, more than you think. The honest answer is it depends.

6 min read · 22 April 2026

Theabrownin

The compound behind shou puer's reputation for lowering cholesterol. What the science can and cannot say.

7 min read · 22 April 2026

How to Taste Tea

English vs Chinese tasting frameworks, and six terms that expand what you notice.

12 min read · 21 April 2026

Puer for Non-Collectors

Sheng vs shou, what aging actually does, and why you do not need to spend $200.

18 min read · 21 April 2026

The Gongfu Starter Kit

What you actually need. At three price points. No filler.

12 min read · 21 April 2026

Gaiwan vs Yixing: When to Use Which

Two vessels. Different philosophies. When each one earns its place.

8 min read · 21 April 2026

Seasonal Tea: When to Buy What

The same garden, the same tree, picked two weeks apart. Completely different tea.

10 min read · 21 April 2026