The Tea Table with Megumi Tanaka
Spend your Sunday afternoon learning how to drink tea. This intimate session combines lecture and guided tasting, perfect for a tea date or solo exploration.
You'll taste a flight of three exceptional teas brewed gong fu style in a gaiwan, experiencing how successive re-steepings reveal layers of flavor, aroma, and even memory. We'll cover tea history, geography, processing methods, and how to evaluate quality by examining leaves, liquor color, and taste.
Expect to leave with personalized recommendations for incorporating tea into your daily life—whether you're looking for an alternative to coffee or want to deepen an existing practice.
Seats are intentionally limited to 6 to encourage connection and space for questions.
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tea flight
➀ green tea (huangjin cha, hunan, march 2025)
➁ oolong tea (lishan green heart, taiwan, may 2025)
➂ black tea (wild tree yunnan red, yunnan, april 2024)
All teas are sourced from Song Tea & Ceramics. Additional teas will be available for your selection during the tasting.
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learning outcomes
❀ distinguish between tea types (green, white, oolong, black/red, aged) and understand how processing methods create their unique characteristics
❀ evaluate tea quality like a professional by examining dry leaves, wet leaves, and liquor color using traditional cupping techniques
❀ understand the chemical composition of tea including caffeine, l-theanine, and other compounds that affect energy and flavor
❀ understand gong fu style brewing with a gaiwan, server, and tasting cups to reveal a tea's full flavor across multiple infusions
❀ identify how terroir and production affect flavor through a guided tasting of three exceptional teas: a hunan green, a high-mountain taiwanese oolong, and a wild-tree yunnan black
❀ trace the journey from plant to cup: the history of camellia sinensis, major tea growing regions worldwide, and how harvest timing and processing techniques shape what you taste
❀ develop your personal tea palate and receive individualized recommendations for incorporating high quality loose leaf tea into your daily routine
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about your host
Megumi Tanaka (they/them) has been immersed in tea culture for over 15 years. with formal training at Song Tea & Ceramics, Red Blossom Tea Co., and Lupicia Fresh Tea, they spent years leading daily tea tastings and guiding people to discover their new favorite teas.
Their education continued after leaving the tea industry and moving to Taiwan to live near tea mountains, visiting Shan Lin Xi (their favorite mountain), visiting matcha factories and sencha farms in japan. For Megumi, tea is a daily ritual exploring the synesthesia of flavor and memory, the experience of re-steeping, and discovering what stories the leaves hold.
Now a designer and educator who has taught at Parsons School of Design and Index, Megumi brings the same enthusiasm to tea education that they bring to all their teaching: making complexity accessible while leaving room for personal discovery.