Tea News: Assam Wild Cultivar & Dream
Fragrant wild cultivar black tea, and a whimsical herbal blend.
About Yoshida San's Uji Hikari Matcha
Deliciously bright, crisp and creamy
Why this tea? Yoshida San decided to express the unique, beautiful character of an oftentimes blended tea cultivar. The result is a gorgeous drink, with notes of celery, kale and almond butter.
Book a Guided Tasting
We love hosting friends for tea!
All bookings must begin with either a phone call or an email, this will help us craft your experience by getting to know you better. After our chat, we will send an invoice and once payment has gone through, we can finalize the booking from there. We do ask you give us a weeks notice for booking in order to properly organize your tasting.
Booking a bartender for a full hour enables us to give your group undivided attention. It also helps us to learn a bit about you, and thus create a personalized experience for your taste buds.
Some of your choices are:
- Full Omakase. You give us a couple of guidelines and we create a 1 hour tasting menu (3-5 teas, depending on how many steeps we need to fully express those leaves).
- Matcha Love. We select 3 seasonal matcha for you; depending on your group's taste buds, we may express those teas as traditional usucha, koicha, iced matcha or potentially an 'iced cortado'. We can also help you to troubleshoot your process to whisk delicious matcha at home.
- PuEr Afficionado. We welcome you to this fascinating rabbit hole; if you give us some flavour guidelines, we'll craft a menu of some of our favourite PuEr and fine tune our brewing process to extract notes that are best for you.
- Off the Beaten Path. We LOVE pushing the limits of our tea knowledge, learning about what most people would consider 'weird'. Pickled tea, buttered tea, old school Tang Dynasty coins, tribal style roasted leaves... this 'omakase' option explores cool and weird stuff.
BONUS! Each guest receives a 15% discount to purchase loose leaf tea or matcha. This credit must be used day of.
BOOKING PROCESS:
- Bookings are for groups of 2-4 people.
- Call us at 604 558 0500 (daily, noon to 6pm), or email us at info@o5tea.com. Tell us a bit about your desired tea experience and preferred times. We'll be in touch as soon as we can.
About Wild (Sustainably Foraged) Canadian Reishi
Lauren and Stephen focus on the harvest and supply of locally sourced ingredients native to the lower mainland. With ethics of sustainability in mind, they consider nature a valuable resource that should be both studied and respected.
Tea News | Ban Po Lao Zai, our favourite village in Nannuo Shan
Yang Si, of the Hani (Aini) nation, was an old friend and tea mentor for Pedro.
Yang Si (literally Yang 'Number Four', as he was the fourth child in his family) grew up caring for the ancient trees in his family's groves. In 2009, he invited a perfect stranger (Pedro, who was hiking in Nannuo) for lunch at his home; squatting by the fire with the whole family and drinking some rustically crafted yet insanely delicious tea, Pedro decided to somehow link his life to this mountain and tea. He stayed there for a few days and climbed down the mountain with a 20kg tea sack.
In 2010, Yang Si invited Pedro to harvest and handcraft more tea in the mountain. This rustically crafted tea from wonderful old trees is said harvest.
Yang Si, unfortunately, passed away in 2013. He is missed.
2010 Ban Po Lao Zai
TYPE - Raw (Sheng) Pu Er - 生普洱
ORIGIN - Ban Po Lao Zhai (半坡老寨), Nannuo Shan, Yunnan
CARETAKER OF THE ANCIENT TREES - Yang Si 杨四 (RIP)
HARVEST DATE - 03.2010
Tea News: Yoshida San's Uji Gyokuro & Temomi Gyokuro
Gyokuro (玉露), translates, literally, as 'jade dew'. Like matcha, this tea is grown under the shade (using a canopy of straw) for several weeks, resulting in an intensely green col
About Osada San's 2021 Sakura Shincha
Nothing represents Shizuoka like fresh, ultra-vibrant (oftentimes deep steamed) green tea, cherry blossoms and Mt. Fuji.
Tea News: Oishi's 2021 Shincha
Grown in the warmer, volcanic soils of Kagoshima, these leaves are among the first that we've loved this year from Japan.
About Time Traveller (The Black Tea Made from Ancient Tree Leaves)
While enjoying these teas, we sometimes lose perspective of just how old those trees are.
Considering that throughout the lifetime of these trees, from back when they were saplings (long before the French Revolution and the drafting of the Constitution of the US) to now, the tea harvested could feasibly have been enjoyed by the likes of Napoleon, Washington, Marie Curie, Gandhi, or Serena Williams (assuming that all those folks would be interested in finding good tea, of course)!
Ancient tea trees in Yunnan are usually processed as Pu Er, be it raw (oftentimes using the best leaves) or cooked.
In this case, Gao and Fan did not stick to tradition; they processed ancient tree leaves as black (oxidized) tea.
Authors: Fan Xiuli and Gao Feng are featured often in our newsletters. They are Manchu people from Liaoning who moved to Yunnan because they love tea; it is also a most beautiful place to live and raise a family. Not only do they create some of O5’s favourite teas; they are also very well versed in painting, calligraphy, incense appreciation, ceramics, and culinary arts.
About Matcha San Ryu & Elderflowers
A beautiful everyday treat & a vibrant, soothing, gently floral & earthy tisane.
About Ming Jian GABA, Asatsuyu Matcha by Oishi San, & Handcrafted Daifuku Mochi
Our best-selling ooling, a vibrant, organic matcha for everyday use, and handcrafted Daifuku Mochi.