Talking Tea

Balhyocha is a tea unique to Korea - it's not produced anywhere else - and its rich and varied flavor profiles are also unique, not quite like any other teas we've tasted here at Talking Tea. But for many tea drinkers, even afficianados of balhyocha, it's also rather mysterious. What exactly is balhyocha? How is it processed? What gives it its unique, lovely complexity? To explore these questions we're chatting with Eric Glass, who, with Arthur Park, runs the annual TeaBuy Korea at Morning Crane Tea. Eric talks with us a bit about his own tea journey and how we came to discover Korean tea and in particular balhyocha, and then we delve into what balhyocha is and what it isn't. We discuss what defines balhyocha and what makes it difficult to categorize, we talk about the subcategory of balhyocha known as hwangcha or "yellow" tea (not to be confused with Chinese yellow tea), we discuss flavor profiles of balhyocha and we look at comparisons with oolongs and black tea or hongcha. We look at the origins of Korean