Stéphane Erler has two great articles he recently published on the Tea Institute at Penn State. The first details all of the past Chinese tea exhibitions and shows how much they have grown and changed.
The second article is about the first day of this years exhibition on Chinese Porcelain. It was an amazing event, and the Institute is so thankful that Teaparker and Stéphane keep coming back to teach these esoteric topics.
I am overjoyed to have been honored by the Tea Institute at Penn State as they announce our new new art gallery in the Chinese Tea House.
The gallery came about because of the work of he leadership after me, particularly the 2nd Executive Director, Ryan Ahn, and the 3rd Executive Director, Zongjun Li. The two of them raised funds for the renovation of the Chinese Tea House, and included the installation of an art gallery in the new design.
This is old news at this point,
but I got interviewed back in February by the NVIDA AI Podcast on the work we’re doing at Analytical Flavor Systems.
I talk a lot about how our AI platform is now integrated deeply into new product development, and how we’re helping companies make a greater variety of niche products, which are more competitive products, which makes better products for everyone.
Give it a listen here:
Dear Readers,
It has been quite some time since I’ve written to you personally. As I’ve written about in the past, a small team and I have been diligently working on a startup company, Analytical Flavor Systems. I’d like to update you on how things are going and what we’re working on through the rest of this post.
Overview
Analytical Flavor Systems (AFS) has built a narrow-band artificial intelligence (AI) to quantify and predict what individuals, demographics, and populations will taste in food and beverage products. The AI is linked to the production process, allowing end-to-end optimizations in flavor profile consistency and consumer hedonic perception from raw ingredients to finished product along every step in its creation.
We (currently) work with beer, coffee, and spirits producers. We’ve also developed applications for chocolate and tea.
Updates
AFS has recently raised a new round of venture capital, and we have moved our headquarters to Manhattan, New York City. John, Emily, and Ryan, all Tea Institute Alumni, are based with me at our new headquarters.
Living in NYC has been a dream come true, with the exception taken for the lake of tea and tea education… I might have to do something about that.
Asks
For AFS, please reach out if you have an interest in the intersection of food technology, data science, and artificial intelligence for beverage manufacturing, own a beverage company, or just want to grab coffee with a founder in NYC.
For tea, I’d like to gauge interest in starting a new tea group in the city. It would be amazing to start teaching again, with a new group of tea lovers.
Overall
I am very lucky to have been this successful in my endeavors thus far; overjoyed at the continued success of the Tea Institute, and working hard to ensure the success of Analytical Flavor Systems for our clients, investors, and employees.
Luck, as they say, is 99% preparation and 1% opportunity. I hope to do a better job of writing down what I learn and discover about tea, and to create more opportunity through connections fostered on this blog.
Cheers!
– Jason
The raw yixing dirt needs to be processed and refined before it can be fired into a beautiful, usable, teapot. The clay starts as a dusty, soft, colorful dirt and goes through 8 processing steps that can take up to 50 years to complete – the longer the clay is aged and rested, the higher the quality (and the less likely it is to break in the kiln from uneven shrinkage caused by impurities).
This process list only applies to higher quality yixing clay. Obviously, lower quality yixing clay (and fake or fraudulent clay) cuts corners and the aging and resting process.
The Process:
Remember: the clay is the single most important attribute to consider when purchasing a yixing teapot. You should be purchasing the yixing teapot for its positive affect on the flavor profile of a single type of tea – and the clay is responsible for 99% of that effect. The shape and size matter much less than the purity, quality, and firing of the clay.