"The middle season, or Swe'pe, crop generally is converted into dry tea. The leaves are steamed overnight and the next morning are compressed and rolled. Then they are loosened and spread out on bamboo mats to dry in the sun. While drying, they are rolled three or four times during the day. When perfectly dry they become letpet chauk, or dry tea, and they are stored away in baskets.
The beverage made from letpet chauk is extensively used among the Shan people and small quantities are exported each year into the Western China province of Yunnan... The infusion is not palatable to European tastes." -- William Ukers in "All About Tea," Vol II, 1935
Mr. Ukers says that this tea, aside from the rather unique green processing, is of a variety called "Miang" which grows wild in Burma and Siam with a very distinct leaf and branch shape unlike other tea plants. More recently this has been called the "Irriwadiensis" jat from the Irriwady river that flows through Burma.
Tea in Burma is interesting because there are two different tea-drinking traditions coming from China and from India and England. I prefer to drink teas with relatively long steeps but without milk, as is typical more of the Chinese tradition. Others prefer a stronger tea made with milk. We first learned about Burmese tea at the Mandalay restaurant in Silver Spring, MD. and we still go there whenever possible.
This was ordered from Myanmar Makers in Brooklyn NY. It appears to be a wild-grown black tea. No other information is available on the package.
This is exactly what I think of when I think of Burmese tea. Slightly smoky, rather bitter but not a typical tannic bitterness. Very dramatic nose to it, but not an earthy nose as much as a fresh green smell.
A first steep is rather bitter but with a nice odor. A second steep has to be done for much longer but there is much less bitterness although the pleasant odor also dissipates a bit. A third steep is watery.
This tea had a strong woody scent and that came through in the cup. It tasted almost greenish but almost sweet. Very pleasant, and a second steep came through the same way although with a flavour of fresh straw added.
Burmese friends say they fill a pot with this stuff and just keep making multiple steeps over and over all evening but they also make the early steeps with large amounts of tea and long steeping times (more than a few minutes). I like tea to be less strong than they do.
While in "Asian Market" in Richmond, Virginia, I saw packages of this tea for sale and it was the first time I'd seen any Burmese import for sale in the US. This is grown by Shwin Chang Lone Manufacturing Company in Northern Shan State.
The package says it's "Produced by poppy substitution tea plantation" meaning that farmers are being paid to grow tea in place of opium, which seems like a very fine thing to me. They have a website at https://www.motherslovetea.com.
Drinking this, it has a very strong "wild tea" odor and flavour up front, and it's definitely on the tannic side. I think this could be drunk with milk. A second steep keeps some of that odor although it's not as strong. But the flavour is almost fruity, although tannic enough to be balanced. If made strong, there is a aftertaste of almond and when that is done the second steep is better than the first although it does not hold up to a third.
This was purchased from myanmarmakers.com in Brooklyn, over the internet. They actually have a reasonably wide variety of teas which they import as well as other Burmese handicrafts. It is made by "National International Commercial Enterprise" in Yangon (Rangoon) but with no information about where it is grown. It has a domestic organic certification.
There is a definite "wild tea" scent in the cup but the scent of the dry leaves is much stronger and more like that of a very powerful gunpowder green. It is very tannic when made with boiling water but not completely overpoweringly so. Of all the teas tried, this is the one most like the tea we liked at the Mandalay Cafe.
A second steep is just as tannic but without so much of the tea flavour. Does not have the smoky flavour that some of the others have.
I would not necessarily have identified this as a green tea unless I had
read the label. Barbara made a face when she drank this, saying it was
like drinking an oak tree. It was in fact very woody.
This is a black tea with loosely-curled leaves, sold in a plastic package with an internal heat-sealed bag. It's marked as containing "naturally sundried tea" and being "All Natural-- No preservative-- Nuts free." It was imported by Yoma in Boston (which runs an excellent Burmese restaurant on North Beacon street). They have a website at https://teasalad.com
I don't know if Peti is a trademark of Yoma or of a Burmese grower, and I don't know anything about the origin of this tea.
When brewed, the liquor was very lightly colored and had little scent. There was some bitterness, but not a dramatic tea flavour making me think this might be a little bit too long on the shelf. I would be very interested in trying a fresher version of this.
Barbara said this tasted like "dishwater with an aftertaste." Had I not seen the label, I would have guessed this was a green tea. I very much am curious about a fresher version of this.
These were purchased from Golden Sea LLC on Amazon, and they are distributed by Hong Sar LLC in Indeanapolis. The manufacturer is listed as being in downtown Yangon (Rangoon) with no information about where the tea is grown.
They are labeled in a confusing manner, with the added stick-on label provided by the importer saying they contain only "dried tea leaves" while the label on the side says it contains "soft green tea leaves and glutinous rice leaves."
"Glutinous rice leaves" is a translation of "nuo mi xiang" or "sticky rice fragrance" which is the Chinese name for the herb Strobilanthes tonkinensis. This is a plant that I don't think smells or tastes like sticky rice at all, but apparently many people in China think that it does.
If that's not confusing enough, the same name is sometimes used in Chinese to apply to pandan, which is a completely different plant.
I was thinking this would be a Chinese-style green tea with a slight sticky rice herb scent, but when I made a cup using boiling water, I could smell the sticky rice herb scent from across the room. This is a very very powerfully scented tea and if you like sticky rice herb scent you might still not like it that strong. Not much detectable tea flavour, though perhaps a slight tannic bent under the strong sticky rice herb.
A second steep is more balanced. Still not much tea flavour, but the sticky rice herb flavour is toned down and there's additional bitterness that comes in and provides a contrasting note.
A third steep goes too far in the same direction, with too much bitterness.
We ordered this accidentally thinking it was something else. Royal Myanmar tea mix is a mixture of evaporated brewed tea with plenty of sugar and mysterious "non-dairy creamer." It is made and sold by Myanmar VB Company in Yangon (Rangoon).
The idea here is that this is instant milk tea, British-style. Drop a packet into a cup and add hot water and you have a cup of sweet milky tea. I thought this would be kind of nasty but actually it was interesting and it did have a clear note of that wild-grown tea taste that was not overpowered by the sweetness and fake-milkiness. I could see somebody who likes British-style milk tea taking this with them on travel for tea in difficult places.