A Tea Addict's Journal

Yeah, I don’t really know what I drank today. More precisely, I can’t remember, as is so often the case, what it is that I drank today.

This is a sample from Aaron Fisher when I visited. He gave this to me, along with a few other things. I know this tea is a Wuyi tea of some sort, fired quite high by an old (since 1890) Taiwan shop. But I can’t for the life of me remember what it is exactly. Since I am not good enough to tell all the varietals apart, I will rather not guess. I don’t think it’s a shuixian though, nor is it a rougui. A dahongpao? Maybe a beidou? Not entirely sure.

He did give me a lot of it though, so I used up a good bit

On second thoughts, I should’ve used less, because the tea is rather broken up. Wuyi teas get broken up when they roast it and re-roast it — naturally, obviously, as they have to move the tea around while roasting. This is probably also remains of a much larger bag, and as usual, the stuff nearer the bottom will be more broken.

The resulting tea was therefore strong

It was by no means nasty, although a bit of sourness came through, probably because I haven’t stored it very carefully since I got it (and weather was very humid with typhoon and rain). It tastes like a dahongpao. Solid, roasted flavour, some age, not a lot though, and some sweetness. The tea turns more mellow after a few infusions, and becomes nicer and sweeter. Sourness also toned down. The broken nature of the leaves probably contributed to the very strong first few cups.

I’ve been meaning to go visit some older shops, but on the weekends when I have lots of time to go, the weather inevitably turns nasty, and many such places don’t open on Sunday (in fact, many places in general don’t open on Sunday). That complicates things. I’ll have to find a weekend to head out and look.