It has been two years since we closed the tea house, and if there’s one question we get more than any other, it’s “When are we getting back together for tea?”
We are thrilled to announce that we are bringing back regular in-person programming with the Weekend Tea School, by Tea Drunk Academy. Highly engaging tea education straight from our founder Shunan Teng.
The School is currently open weekend afternoons.
Your Roadmap to Connoisseurship
We want you to be a connoisseur with a discerning palette. Tea is an academically explored subject, yet it is also an important part of our everyday enjoyment. We are combining the academic with the practical to provide a knowledge structure comparable to tea courses in China’s top universities.
Learning tea is a practice of cultivating our intuitive sensory relationship with nature. Knowledge enhances the texture of our experiences, and we believe the true pleasure of drinking tea derives from the pleasure of profound understanding.
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Fundamentals
Terroir l
- Know the micro and macro elements that shape the characteristics of a terroir.
- Identify and describe the significance of 10 historic terroirs.
Cultivar l
- Familiarize yourself with the categorization system of tea cultivars.
- Describe 6 key cultivars and their distinguishing features.
Crafting l
- Explain the characteristic processing steps for each major tea category.
- Articulate the basic flavor profiles of the main tea categories, focusing on Wu Long and Sheng Pu sub-categories.
Tasting/Evaluation l
- Discern between the six main tea categories and the sub-categories of Wu Long and Sheng Pu.
- Perform a basic visual assessment of dry leaves, focusing on consistency in size, shape, color, and elasticity.
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Intermediate
Terroir ll
- Know the characteristics and significance of 10 Nei Shan terroirs.
- Assess terroir quality visually based on singular micro and macro factors impacting a terroir.
Cultivar ll
- Describe and categorize a wider range of cultivars.
- Distinguish visually between heirloom and clone cultivars.
- Identify the characteristics and tasting notes of 6 cultivars.
Crafting ll
- Explain the differences in processing techniques for tea sub-categories.
- Articulate the key primary and fining steps involved in tea making.
Tasting/Evaluation ll
- Discern between comparable cultivars.
- Evaluate the quality of dry and spent leaves using standard picking grades.
- Describe tea profiles using a taste hierarchy.
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Advanced
Terroir lll
- Perform an in-depth analysis and visual assessment of any terroir’s quality.
- Compare and contrast 5 Nei Shan and Wai Shan terroirs.
- Know all the first-level historic terroirs.
Cultivar lll
- Evaluate the quality of tea leaves in terms of their cultivation and growth cycles.
- Assess the differences between maturity levels and cultivar characteristics.
- Identify the characteristics and tasting notes of 10 cultivars.
Crafting lll
- Understand the principles of tea making in relation to moisture, temperature, vintage, cultivar, and processing environment.
- Simulate scenarios to predict how fresh leaves will react under varying conditions.
Tasting/Evaluation lll
- Understand how terroir, cultivar, and processing collectively impact tea quality.
- Conduct a comprehensive sensory evaluation of tea quality through:
- The Inspection dry leaves.
- Tasting the tea.
- Analysis of spent leaves.
- Assessment pf the color of the liquor.
Design Your Own Tea Journey
We acquire knowledge in many different ways. For each core topic in tea studies, we offer a variety of modems for you to gain essential tea knowledge — the way you learn best.
At Tea Drunk, we believe in a balance of book knowledge and experiential learning. A comprehensive understanding of the possibilities of tea and how these potentials are fulfilled is the golden ticket to tea mastery.
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Tea Foundation Courses
Like the name promises, these are lecture heavy courses aimed to build a solid foundation for anyone who wants to understand tea through both structure and methodology.
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Workshops - Get Your Hands Dirty
Highly interactive, practice-in-real-time sessions. Think: blending your own tea, practicing different brewing styles, and tea evaluations. Learn on the “job” is the anthem of these courses.
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Seminars - Dive Deep
The most academically-oriented of our class modalities. These usually won’t include a tasting element, but they will be an oasis for those of you who are overflowing with curiosity and questions about your tea!
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Guided Tastings - Explore Your Palette
The ultimate test of your tea knowledge: can you taste it? These are carefully curated tasting sessions aimed at honing our senses to experience the finest details of a tea’s terroir, cultivar and crafting techniques.
The Weekend Class Pass
A Weekend Class Pass will get you unlimited access to our classes on a monthly or annual basis. For our many friends who aren’t located in NYC, we’re also pleased to offer a Virtual Weekend Class Pass, where you’ll be able to join us in real time, wherever you are!
Welcome Back!
It’s our passion for tea knowledge that prompted us to open the tea house over ten years ago. We’ve been hopelessly and happily down the rabbit hole of knowing tea ever since, and only wanting more. The Weekend Tea School is Chapter Two of Tea Drunk’s commitment to carry forward the millennia-old knowledge of tea and the aesthetic of taste.
We hope you’ll spend your weekends with us at our new Weekend Tea School enjoying top terroir teas. Join a community of tea enthusiasts and start your journey to tea connoisseurship.