5 Tips for DELICIOUS TEA on your Travels

I'm not that freak of a tea to bring it wherever I go, even tho I got a huge collection at home, but whenever I'm in Asia, I always look for opportunity to get some tea straight from locals to bring back home. Pretty often you hit the gems that are private and unobtanium ))

I would freak out if I opened a cupboard looking for any teabag at best and then saw a bag of **Long Jing** in there...

A weird question, but when travelling with tea, when you are done drinking, how do you clean up tea ware? I tried drinking tea at the park and I dispose of tea by throwing it in the trash and clean up wiping my tea ware with paper towel I bring, and when I get home I wash the tea ware. Just wondering wondering what you do?

Dear Don from @meileaf,

First we would like to thank you for your amazing videos and all the knowledge you share with us! We found your channel few months ago while we were in Phongsaly, in northern Laos, very close to Yunnan province, China. There, they produce really good teas (green, white, cakes and cigars) from 400 years old tea trees and we were fascinated by the way they were processing the tea by hands in these huge woks! So our curiosity brought us to learn more about teas and we started reading articles on the internet until we discovered your channel. Since then we've started our tea journey and tea became our main interest while travelling. We then went to some very isolated villages in northern Vietnam to taste the teas they were producing. Well, we are 200% tea-heads addicts! 😁

Now we are back to France and we are living in our little van, still enjoying all the teas we bought during our journey in South-East Asia but we would like to know if you could maybe make a video about the water and your advises about how to filter it because here, the tap water is too hard and already ruined many of our teas... Now we buy plastic bottles of mineral water but it's not very good for the environment. What would you recommand?

Thanks again and hopefully we'll come to visit you at the shop in London one day! 😉

Idea to leave good tea in Airbnb is super cool!!

I haven't done much travelling but you can get hard camera cases with removeable foam blocks so I think, if they had small ones, I would maybe try something like that and adjust the case to the teaware you are planning to bring. Obviously the tea should stay in pkgs that are easily identifiable to customs (no one wants confiscated tea b/c customs thinks it MIGHT be weed or some other plant they don't want travelling country to country).

Flute Brewer for travel?
couldn't use it on a bus,
seems delicate and limited.

Completely disagree with any Tap Water being suitable.. No matter where it is from. 90% of tap water has chlorine and fluoride. Unless you're using a reverse osmosis / alkaline filtration system, it isn't viable. Fluoride is notoriously hard to get out of drinking water. Spring Water is my personal choice.

I want two of those Flute Brewer’s so bad. Tea lovers need so many options to make tea.

My biggest problem when travelling with tea is the hot water. I tend to travel only with teas that want boiling water but even this is sometimes not available in hotels. What are your recommendations here for getting variable temperature water?

@meileaf My question is: how do I carry teaware in my backpack when I'm on a longer hiking trip? The backpack is quite cramped and I need the tea ware to survive. I picked up your Gong Fu Solo in the hope it comes with a fitting case for transportation, but it comes with the usual square case that pots come in. Which is sturdy, but takes a lot of space. By the way, it would be nice to have a picture of the carrying box for the solo on the homepage, I had no idea how it would look like when I bought it.

That said though, through the size of the gong fu solo, it is currently my go2 gaiwan for samplers. You often only get 5-10g, sometimes a bit more and having a roughly 50ml gaiwan is a blessing to play around a bit with the tea.

Really helpful to hear about the calcium thing! Thank you!

The Best Way to travel with tea is by having a full stomach of it

What a sweet coincidence, I'm traveling right now 😃

Great tips, however I wouldn't feel comfortable when buying bottled water specifically for tea brewing and ending up with soft water that comes in a plastic bottle. The micro plastic is far worse for health and flavor than a high concentration of calcium, in my humble opinion. But I understand that soft water in glass bottles are hard to find for reasonable prices.

We cruise often, and my flute brewer goes with me every time! I don't know if I would make it otherwise. lol

💪

Honest opinion, I don't travel with any tea since I prefer to spend as much time as possible on activities and sightseeing - not really any time left for tea sessions afterwards. I do like to try local drinks which often happens to be some form of tea! But definitely you've got me thinking about having tea grandpda style on my travels!

How did you find Argentina? Good food there, or was Brazil better food-wise?

I made my husband a travel kit for his tea. Mini stainless containers for tea storage, collapsible silicone mini kettle, a mini cup, and a mini clay pot with a built in filter holes. The cup and pot went in a little padded bag I had from a little gong fu set I had that where the gong fu broke. It worked really well until the cheap little kettle but the dust!

Is this a new packaging for the flute brewer?

Hey don you sould go to PEI CHEN is in buenos aires close to Palermo is in Belgrano . Ryan is the owner is a guy from alaska and he is living on buenos aires he speak perfect spanish , english and chinese. he have a chinese tea house there. a great guy . he go to china and buy the teas theres. and he give tea class. Go and talk with him great guy .

I would like to know what exactly it is you don't like about "conventional" travel sets? Most of the ones I've seen are just a gaiwan, a gong dao bei, a few cups, and a towel stacked into each other and held together by a fitting case. All you need then is any random bowl or other vessel to function as a waste container, and you have a perfectly normal dry brewing setup. Doesn't get much more Gong Fu than that imo.

Aliexpress have great travel tea options

Hey Don, what about day trips only or hiking, sailing, or going to the beach? I usually bring a thermos with my own water. Also, how do you manage on long flights?Great video. Thanks!!

Nice to see you on a trip that's 100% leisure. Have a great time in Brazil! Thanks for these useful tips that will make traveling more fun!

you could use ionised water, that has nothing in it just water. I wonder how would that make the tea taste compared to normal tap water

Still waiting for that Gonfu Story Mini 👀

Perfect oppurtunity to try some Mate Tea, Don.

I’m to stingy with my tea 😂

Not keen on glass, especially not when traveling. I just bring a cupping set. They are sturdy, work with a range of teas and I don't need to be worried about finding a substitute if it breaks because you can easily buy a new one.

I found a travel set that is similar to Mei Leaf gong fu vessel tea tray in padded carrying case. You pack 100ml gaiwan (or teapot) and 2 cups and teas inside. I've replaced the included gaiwan and cups and pad everything with small towel.
Now I use the set even wit solo brewing, is is that good..

Hey Don from Mei Leaf, tea head here. I wonder if it would be worth the hassle to give buyers a few possible tea gear configurations/sets, which would fit into the Gong Fu Story.

I usually just bring a half-used cake with me but just had an idea--if you think you'll prefer having such a variety selection on a trip, do you ever just take a couple dozen grams of each and put it into a divided container? Maybe a Mei Leaf compartmented travel container design is in order!

Great video don

My city's tap water has around 30 mg/L in calcium and hardness (CaC03) is around 120 mg/L. I feel the water tastes "good", but should I consider buying mineral water or bamboo filters for brewing tea? I would be interested in a "Tea Masterclass" video on water chemistry.

Why is it blue though? When im in nature drinking tea I want to blend in. Not really harmonious. Otherwise I think its perfect.

Likewise, I have packed the glass decanter on trips. I would be interested in the usage of a portable “camping” filter and how it performs for water performance. I am heading out on a rustic canoe/camping & purify my own water.

Mixing mineral water or spring water with distilled water works very well for me

I haven't flown yet with tea, but I have been known to pack up my entire Zojirushi and a teapot for road trips.

Oh! Excellent offering! Much enjoyed and appreciated

Massive tea-head here! I wonder if you'll also consider adding mate/chimarrão your collection, since you're in Argentina and Brazil. I love your work with true teas, especially the Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese varieties thus far - and the odd tisane ;)

Hi there, Eduardo from Brazil here. Are you having any "tea agenda" over here?