A Tea Addict's Journal

Brewing techniques

December 9, 2007 · 12 Comments

I went down to Miaoli today again to have tea with Aaron. It was, as usual, a good day with good tea.

One of the topics that came up during the course of conversation was the little things you do that can make the tea better. He went to Malaysia recently, and rediscovered the warming of the pot. Heating the pot before and after adding water makes a difference (as well as pouring water into the cup to keep it warm between infusions). I myself have also started to neglect doing it recently, even though I used to do it before. It’s time to try it again and keep it in my habit.

One other thing though that came up — making tea isn’t like doing experiments in a chemistry lab. Measuring out the amount of water, checking the temperature, using a timer…. those might be things that help make somebody starting out more comfortable with the making of tea, but if too much attention is paid to those things, the person making the tea can actually get too busy, too distracted to actually make a good cup. A good story I’ve heard from Action Jackson a while ago was that she’s met a couple who made tea for her, and who were so obsessed with the timer and how long each infusion should be that they completely forgot about keeping the water warm. So, it was a perfectly timed cup with lukewarm water. If they didn’t obsess about the time, perhaps they would’ve remembered to do the other things right, but they didn’t.

The point being, doing all those things (and perhaps even taking meticulous notes on the side while doing all those things) can actually take the person away from the actual drinking of the tea. Maybe while worrying about the temperature, the time, the amount… the actual tea gets lost in the process. There isn’t a right or wrong (just look at how so many tea experts disagree with each other). There isn’t an optimal amount of leaves or water that will make a tea come out perfectly. I know if I used the exact same parameters, teaware, water, etc as somebody else and make tea together in the same setting, the taste will still not be quite the same. Maybe it’s that jerk of the hand, the force of the pour, etc. If one were looking for a scientific explanation, there might be one that’s usable to explain the difference. But does it really matter? Can one truly control all those things? We try our best, but I have always found the best tea making happens when I’m focused and not distracted, then things go smoothly without me having to worry about each specific little thing. When I’m doing other things, sometimes I am drinking tea, but not really drinking tea. After a few cups, I don’t even remember what I drank, basically. Then it’s just a beverage and I might as well be drinking Lipton teabags.

For those of you who use a scale, timer, thermometer… try ditching it for a change. It might mean you will screw up the brewing sometimes, maybe too much tea, too long a steep, etc, but that can happen with those aids anyway. It’s best to try it with a tea you know well. Then move on to things that you don’t know so well. You might just surprise yourself when your eyeballs, hands, and mind do better than scales, timers, and thermometers.

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Old Dongding

December 8, 2007 · Leave a Comment

On the way to my candy store yesterday, I passed by another tea shop that is old looking. It’s terribly shabby. From the door of the shop to the table where the owner, his wife, and some guest were sitting, there was a corridor formed by boxes (some empty), bags, and what not… on both sides stacking taller than me. It was full of junk, literally. The whole store, in fact, was filled with junk. I walked in to look at some of the oldish teapots they had there (70s/80s stuff, I think). Most of it was crap.

At a place like this, they usually serve you a cup of something — whatever they happened to be brewing. I got a cup, of course. It was dark, blackish. I drank it… and I was thinking “hmmm, what is this? Liu’an?” It tasted old, not really puerh like, but not really old oolong like either…. I asked what it was, and she said it was an old (35 years is the claim) dongding.

Hmmm

I went to the candy store first, but when I was on my way back, I couldn’t resist, and picked up a little of this tea to try for myself at home.

This shot is from about 10 infusions after I started… the first shot I took turned out to be horribly out of focus

As you can see, still pretty dark. As I brewed it today, the liu’an like taste isn’t quite as strong, but I can still sense it being there. This is, I think, what Zhou Yu referred to simply as the “old taste”. He said such tastes you can get from the liu’an we tried that day, but also from old Taiwan oolongs of around 40 years or more. I am getting some of it here, I think. It’s a smooth tea, not bitter at all. Not much roasted flavour either, but it is definitely a strongly roasted tea (or repeatedly roasted one, rather). As the drinking went on, there is a slightly greenish flavour that crept into the tea — something that reminds me of the 1990 dongding and the 1980s tieguanyin that I’ve been drinking recently. It’s in that same family of taste, but here only as an aftertaste, a hint, rather than what was at the forefront. I suppose much of that flavour has been changed over time, through aging and roasting, into what is now the “old” flavour.

In some ways, despite its older age, I think I actually prefer the younger stuff — I like that strangely aromatic taste. This tea is a bit more mellow, very interesting, very calming, but lacks a bit of that extra push. Then again, maybe that extra liveliness will wear thin after a while, and stuff like this will, on the other hand, be always welcomed on a coldish day in winter.

The wet leaves are a bit of a mixed bag. There are a few leaves that are more flexible and brown, while some others are black and stiff.

Good stuff, and it’s not expensive either. Considering that this is definitely older than the 80s/90s teas I’ve had…. I don’t think people who sell this stuff are really making much of any money from it.

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Border tea

December 7, 2007 · 4 Comments

New candy from my candy store.

I went back to the candy store to see if she has any more teas for me. One of the reasons I keep going back to this place is because unlike a lot of old shops, the laobanniang is very kind here and lets me do my thing, and doesn’t mind me asking questions, asking to see things, play with things, etc. A lot of these shops don’t really want to deal with you, and that makes things hard. When it’s a shop like this where the varieties of teas are in probably the hundreds when you account for all the various vintages (among which are gems and duds) it’s not possible to go through everything at once. If I had my way, I’d have all the bins open and spend an afternoon there opening every single bag. But alas, I can’t.

I picked some stuff up, and rummaged through some of her bins. Among the things she showed me were an aged qianlixiang (thousand miles fragrance), old oriental beauty, a slightly sour huangjingui, two bags of old puerh — one cooked, one a mixed bag of cooked and raw — and then some of these old pieces of puerh she has. Old is relative, of course. They sit in the back of the room, in this wall cabinet full of crap, basically, and in there are some leftover puerh from when they still sold this stuff (it’s gotten too expensive for them to buy these things, and they’re not really in this business anymore). Nothing too interesting, but I found this cake above, and it’s very cheap, so I figured, why not.

From the looks of it it looks like border tea — probably Vietnam tea. At first I thought it looked like Guangdong bing, but then the shape of it is not right, so that’s ruled out. It looks the most like some of the “new” Tongqing cakes that some Taiwanese guys made in the 80s. Those are usually wet stored to high heaven. This one’s not too wet, but definitely hasn’t been dry stored either. The dark and smallish leaves, and the smallish indentation in the back, sort of made me think this is the same thing, without the neifei (which is basically just slightly stuck on anyway). Things like this sell for a ridiculous price at M3T in Paris, at least I remember seeing one of them from a guy who bought it there.

The colour of the tea looks ok

But the taste is distinctly different. If you’ve had these a few times, you’d know what it is. I remember reading about it — how in Hong Kong, back in the day (and even now) loose puerh is sometimes (or often) made with Vietnam tea because they’re cheaper, and because back then, the supply of puerh was inconsistent. They probably go into blends, among other things. Even now, they’re supposed to be making their way into puerh cakes and what not.

This stuff isn’t high grade stuff, and don’t taste as good and rich as real Yunnan puerh. There’s a certain edge to it, and the sweetness is not quite there, in comparison. I’ve always wanted a more or less authentic cake of unadulterated border tea. I think I found it 🙂

I also came home with some supposedly 35 years old dongding that really reminded me of the liu’an I had yesterday, oddly enough, as well as some of the biyuzhu I had last week. I should’ve gotten a sample of the old oriental beauty. Oh well, there’s always next time.

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An opening party

December 6, 2007 · 5 Comments

Today I went with Aaron Fisher to Jingmei Tang, Wushing Publications’ teahouse, so to speak. They’re not normally open, but only for events. There’s an event today — the opening of a 1920s (or is it 1930s?) jian of liu’an that they found in some Chinese medicine shop.

So we went there at 2pm sharp. Everybody was already there, and the prize was there too, sitting in the middle of the room. Now, liu’an is a tea that is generally packaged in baskets. When they first come out, they’re basically green tea steamed into the basket — sort of like liubao, although liubao usually comes from Guangxi, and liu’an comes from the Huizhou area, near Huangshan, the same places that give us Qimen, but NOT the same place that gives us liu’an guapian, the loose green tea (that’s farther to the west and has nothing to do with Huizhou). The most famous brands of these is the Sunyishun, and this is what we’re opening today.

Before we went on with the opening (and drinking) though, we first drank the 1930s liu’an that they opened a month or two back and featured in the current Chinese issue of Puerh Teapot.

The bamboo leaf is part of the wrapping of the original basket, and in some cases you brew the bamboo leaf along with the tea (depending on preference, really). The bamboo leaf itself is so old and mixed with the tea for so long that it has taken on medicinal quality. So has the tea. Sitting across me was a gentleman whose family originally was in the medicine business. He said back in the day, teas like this were used as medicine for certain ailments. I can believe him.

So Aaron did the honours in our corner of the room and brewed. The liquor is very much looking like a liu’an

It tastes like a good liu’an, mellow, medicinal, good and obvious qi, but in a pleasant way, and generally a pleasure to drink.

But you don’t want me to babble on about this, so on to the video. This is Lu Lizhen, another one of the Taiwan tea experts, who was doing the honours. Zhou Yu did some introductions and background info for the tea in question.

And in case you want to see pictures of the jian of tea in detail

There are ten stacks of tea in this bundled together, each stack consisting of six baskets. The small writing on the canes that hold the baskets together says “Xin’an Sunyishun zihao jianxuan yuqian shangshang yinzhen”, which means, “Top grade (literally top top) silver needles selected by Sunyishun company of Xin’an”, with Xin’an the older name for the Huizhou area.

So of course we drank this too… stronger, more lively, and more aggressive. The tea’s been kept in excellent condition, and the finish of the tea even has a hint of that greenness that you find in younger teas. I even came home with a sample of it…. which is worth quite a bit, considering the whole ball of tea, 60 baskets in all, is said to be something like $400,000 USD.

Aaron and I stayed behind to drink some more tea with the owner of Wushing Publications, a good tieluohan and an extremely good shuijingui, both of them Wuyi varietals. It was a pretty good outing.

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Lazy brewing

December 5, 2007 · Leave a Comment

Sometimes when I don’t really want much tea… I get lazy

Big pot, big glass…. not much leaves, and just brew easy.

The requirements for such tea are

1) lots of water for the amount of leaves
2) for some kinds of tea, water temp might want to be slightly lower than boiling — too hot, and it can be too bitter
3) long steeps, but not too too long

Those kinds of parameters can make almost everything taste good, even young puerh that is usually nasty. What you lose, of course, is the depth and complexity, but if you just want a pleasant drink, this is not bad. I’ve also noticed that sometimes if a certain tea is particularly strong in the throatiness department, doing it this way actually makes that more obvious — perhaps because it doesn’t have to compete with all the flavour in your mouth.

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Some theories apply to all

December 4, 2007 · 5 Comments

The above photo consists of two sets of leaves. On the left are the leaves of the roasted oolong I had yesterday. On the right are the aged tieguanyin I had today. Put together, I think the contrast is much more obvious. You can not only see the colour differential, but also the way the leaves are — one’s much more open, flexible-looking, and lively, while the roasted one is quite black, don’t really unfurl, and if you try to pry it open, breaks apart as it is very brittle.

Reminds me of cooked and raw puerh… or maybe wet stored and dry stored puerh.

Now, obviously, the parallel isn’t exactly. The tieguanyin in this case must’ve been roasted as well, as some of the leaves show evidence of that. However, it is the degree that matters… and I find, in the case of aged oolongs, that lightly roasted and then left alone, they produce the most interesting results. Lively and vibrant, they retain some of the original character of the tea while having changed enough so that you won’t recognize it. The roasted stuff are softer, mellower, but lacking in that liveliness that really spices things up (sometimes literally). I like it still better than cooked puerh though.

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Roasted oolong

December 3, 2007 · Leave a Comment

The second sample I got from the same place

“Old Oolong — recently roasted, 3000 (this refers to NTD/jin)”. That’s what I drank.

Today I was wiser and only put in about half a bag…. no more overfilling of the gaiwan

Looks roasted all right.

Sure looks roasted all right.

The tea actually is less charcoal-tasting than I thought, but still charcoal tasting, a bit. Cool in the throat, a bit, and when the dust settles, you can feel the aftertaste of an aged oolong. It’s not the most exciting thing, but it’s actually better than I thought. Some roasted stuff can taste more charcoal-like and less pleasant… sometimes that’s fixable by just leaving it around for a while. The charcoal taste will dissipate. Sometimes though the roasting is too much… and the tea becomes flat and boring. Thankfully, it wasn’t the case here.

I also put in exactly one pebble of the biyuzhu from two days ago in today’s tea — I noticed it was sitting in the other sample bag. Can you find Waldo?

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Another candy store

December 2, 2007 · 2 Comments

I went to another kind of candy store today

In case you can’t see very clearly — the back of those cabinets are mirrors, and you can see another line of cabinets on the wall opposite of these ones.

This is the antique teapot store that I visited a while ago. As I said, they say they have a lot of old pots…. and I am really no good judge of whether any of these are real or not. Some looked authentically old, some less so. Almost all pots, however, are of high quality — good make, no real flaws, etc.

I ended up spending a few hours there looking over many of the pots he has. The guy is interesting…. rather laid back and just likes to talk about his wares. He keeps throwing me pots to look at (while I’m reading for others myself) and he just wants to show off his collection while talking about it. He claims he has more stuff at home — some are duplicates of the ones he is selling. Entirely possible… Yixing pots are made in batches of three, anyway.

The prices of these things go from the rather reasonable (under $100) to the very high ($1000+). Sizes also vary, and looks too. It’s a dizzying array of stuff, and I honestly am out of my depth. Do the clay all seem good? Most, yes. Do they all seem old? Many do. Some are obviously youngish, while others look old, but maybe faked. But if a fake pot that is well made is, say, $120…. is it worth it? I don’t know.

I took pictures of a few pots I saw, but these aren’t the best ones… I felt sheepish asking if it’s ok to take pics of the best looking ones for some reason. I don’t even know why.

So here’s a “Please Drink Chinese Oolong Tea” shuiping.

With the maker’s name under the lid

Another shuiping — supposedly earlier, actually. Very thin walls. I felt like I could crush it in my hands.

And then a weird one…. a big pot with possibly Manchu carved on it. My girlfriend is trying to figure out if that is actually Manchu — some of the spellings are off.

I really should’ve taken pics of the better looking pots….. maybe next time.

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Biyuzhu

December 1, 2007 · 2 Comments

So I went ahead and tried one of the free samples I got from yesterday’s store.

ROC Year 77, Biyuzhu, which literally means “Bluish-Green Jade Pearl”, or perhaps slightly better, “Bright Jade Beads” or some such. There’s nothing jade-ish about them, since they’re now rather black, but I suppose once upon a time, they were really nice and green.

The tea was a spring pick, and the leaves are all very small and tender. The tea brews a darkish colour

Although by the time of the third infusion, I realized I had horribly underestimated the amount of leaves in the little bag, and had overfilled my gaiwan. I took a bit of leaves out of it, but I suspect I could’ve taken out more and still gotten a good cup. The tea is nice… very perfumy despite the long age, no sourness detectable, not too sweet, and in fact, still a little green in the taste — you can sense that this was once a green Taiwanese oolong. Now it’s an aged green Taiwanese oolong. The laobanniang said this tea was never re-roasted, and I sure believe that, because I don’t detect any sort of roasted taste. It’s a very interesting tea, although perhaps not an everyday kind of tea.

The wet leaves are still greenish-brown.

Definitely worth picking some up though. The perfume notes are quite alluring. I should try making it with even less leaves next time — brew it just like a light Taiwan oolong.

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Treasure troves

November 30, 2007 · 6 Comments

I had some extra time today, so I went back to the same tea shop that I visited last weekend today. Specifically, that was the one with the big tea canisters (picture in the bottom of the post) and where I picked up a few aged oolongs.

I wanted to get some of the tieguanyin which was so good, and hopefully, to find more stuff there that’s hidden in those big canisters.

The laobanniang (literally owner’s wife, or female owner, of a shop) was pretty happy to see me coming back, and when I asked for the tieguanyin, she promptly went to it. I also asked if she has other stuff — stuff that is more like this and less like the qizhong, which I told her is a bit too sour. She said there are lots of different stuff in her store, but she might need to spend some time looking for them. I think she could sense that if she finds anything good, I’ll be willing to buy them. I also venture to guess that she doesn’t sell much of this stuff normally.

Now, to give you an idea of what we’re talking about…. this is a closeup of one of those tea cans. This is the smaller sized ones (the ones you see lining up on the left in the last entry about this shop)

On one can it says “Pu’er Cha”, the other “Ridong Hongcha”, a type of Japanese red (black) tea (here’s a link to Nittoh Black Tea, their proper name). What’s in the can has nothing to do with the words on them, and this is true for pretty much all of them in the store — about 4-5 dozens of them.

Inside each of them are bags

Like this (this is a picture of one of the bigger cans on the right hand side). In each of these bags are kilos of tea — some more, some less. The little slip of paper indicates what it is, and how much it should be. Some of these bags probably haven’t been opened for years, and I suspect many of them are simply leftovers from stock they had years ago — half a kilo here, two kilos there, etc. Tea that is valuable enough to keep, but after a certain time passes, not easy to sell. How do you tell a regular customer that you have some three year old oolong you can sell them? They’d think you’re a crook. So in the bags they sit. Year in, year out, and the older bags probably sink to the bottom. The opened bag is the one with the tieguanyin that I want. The other two unopened bags? Other kinds of aged oolongs that I haven’t even tried. She opened one bag for me and got me a sample. The piece of paper says “ROC Year 77 (1988), Spring, 2400”, 2400 being the price of the tea. It’s a lightly rolled oolong. Not sure exactly what it is, but it sure looks old and doesn’t smell sour. Let’s hope it’s good. If I could, I’d spend a whole day at the store, opening each can, and looking through them, trying teas. I’ll be like a little kid.

She said she will prepare some more samples for me when I go next time. I told her I’d like to try anything she has and decide what I want. I know that other than Taiwan, buying aged oolongs is difficult, and so I should take advantage of the fact that I’m here to snap up enough for at least a year or two’s worth of consumption.

Not only do they have old tea… they also have old neglected teaware

Too bad teapots don’t age the way teas do. Most of the teapots are pretty mediocre anyway.

So…. I made off with some of the tieguanyin, and two samples. One’s that 1988 tea, the other is also an old tea that was recently re-roasted. I want to compare them and see. I think, though, that given what I’ve tried so far, I prefer stuff that haven’t been re-roasted.

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