A Tea Addict's Journal

Xiangshu 2004 Anniversary cake

September 7, 2007 · 1 Comment

I got a sample of this tea from iwii yesterday, so I tried it today. I’ve been curious about this tea for a little while now.

I’m not entirely sure this is actually from the Mengyang Guoyan factory. On the wrapper it says “Xiangshu Tea Enterprise” and it says it’s commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Xishuang Banna Mengyang factory, and also the establishment of the Xiangshu Tea Enterprise. No mention of Guoyan anywhere, which makes me think this might not be linked to the Mengyang Guoyan we’ve been hearing about recently.

But it doesn’t really matter.

The tea is buddy. Quite a few tips in the leaves, and not many big ones. The colour of the dry leaves are more or less consistent with the picture shown on ebay — maybe a touch greener

The tea brews a golden colour, slightly reddish

It’s quite smooth, thanks to the tips. Even at its roughest, around infusion 4-5, the tea is still acceptably smooth. The Menghai characteristics of the tea shows quite prominently. It has that bass note that is quite characteristic of the area, and that finish is quite typical as well. Iwii thought it’s a bit bland, but I like it. It’s not something to jump up and down in joy about… but it’s not too bad either.

The tea’s been pretty dry stored, but I’m sure it can use a few more years before drinking again.

The leaves… as you can see, are mostly buds

With some bigger leaves mixed in. I need to try this tea again, but first impressions are not too bad.

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Water issues again

September 6, 2007 · 6 Comments

Before I get on to the topic of water… some unfinished business from yesterday.

This is what yesterday’s tea looked like when I brewed it this morning

This is what it looked like late afternoon

The top cup is yesterday’s tea. The bottom is today’s Wuyi…

And this is how the leaves look when I finally cleaned the teapot

So, yes, suspicions of cooked tea still remains, but the longeivity of the tea itself, and the fact that he has really no good reason to lie to me, makes me think that he’s not lying. It doesn’t matter much, because the tea tastes a bit cooked. I can probably boil it with water and get a few more cups of rather tasty tea out of it, actually.

Anyway, water. I’ve been fiddling with my water here, since I am starting with a new supply and not the steady Nestle water I used in Beijing. I have noticed over time that filtered tap water here is slightly acidic… just a hint of acidity. I don’t know why that is the case, but it is. The building is new. Will new pipes lead to a slightly acidic water?

The effect on tea, however, hasn’t been really obvious until today when I brewed the Wuyi that I thought was slightly sour. I thought I should drink it up, so I made the tea again. Only today, because of a water supply problem (something broke in the building so they shut down water for a few hours) I bought a big bottle of water from the convenience store across the street. The water is light in minerals and quite sweet in its taste. Not a bad water. I used about half tap water (I still had some left in my filter) and half of this bottled water. The effect is dramatic… the Wuyi tastes better than last time, and the sourness? Gone. Absolutely gone. There was perhaps a tinge of it somewhere in the first infusion, but it is so faint that it could very well be placebo.

This of course reinforces the well known fact that water is very important, but since the water itself doesn’t taste sour when drunk, I was surprised that the tap water did that much damage to the taste of the tea and the manifestation of sourness. I always knew that water will do a lot of things to the body of the tea and the way it acts in the mouth, but I didn’t think something like whether or not an oolong will turn sour is so affected as well by what must be a small shift in the ph of the water.

Well, lesson learned. One of these days, I should re-do my water experiment from way back…. when I first started the blog, I drank the same tea for four or five days in a row, each day using a different kind of water. I remember the differences were big, but these days, I think I can probably better discern and describe the differences.

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Zhengshan

September 5, 2007 · 4 Comments

I buy samples sized things a lot because it’s fun, and because it exposes me to different kinds of tastes. Oftentimes they are educational in one way or another, while other times they’re just…. bland and boring. That, and all the things people end up sending me, means a lot of oddities and small bags of tea that are left around to drink. It’s part of the fun.

Today’s another one of those “leftover bag of samples” day. This is a tea that is sold at an old tea store in Hong Kong, labelled simply as “Zhengshan”. It’s basically a very (and I do mean very) wet stored cake that was supposedly raw puerh when it was first made. It’s hard to tell for sure given the way the leaves are

These are some pretty hard little nuggets of tea. They’re not cha tou though.

I used up the remaining bag, maybe about 10g or so. The first infusion was particularly interesting — it had a very strong taste of Chinese almonds (which are apparently apricot seeds). I don’t know how a tea can acquire the taste of almonds… but here it is in unadulterated form. That in itself is quite interesting.

The tea, however, will probably scare any novice tea drinker by the way it looks

Yum. Some of you are probably thinking “you sure this is not cooked tea?”. I’m not 100% sure, to be honest, but the owner has no good reason to lie to me, since it’s not expensive at all. Other stuff that is priced higher he tells me are cooked, so it would be odd for him to try to lie to me about this particular tea. I do think, however, that this is tea so wet stored that it is effectively cooked over the years that it’s been in the storage (I think he said 10+).

After the almonds went away in 2 infusions, the rest of the tea tastes like very sweet, mellow, and rich puerh, but not really like a cooked tea. It doesn’t have that nasty cooked taste, and it also lasts much longer — this is what it looks like in maybe 12 infusions

It’s not a particularly lively tea. It doesn’t have a lot of qi. It doesn’t have that exciting factor that a well stored raw tea will have. But as a drink, I’d take this over any regular cooked puerh any day.

There are better offerings at that store, such as the broken Jiangcheng bricks, so there’s no good reason to buy this tea again. But for what it’s worth… it’s kinda fun. I think I’ll drink some more tomorrow morning when I get up, since I definitely haven’t exhausted it yet, so it’s being left alone in the pot for now.

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Baozhong revisited

September 4, 2007 · 1 Comment

I wanted something light today, so I figured drinking the baozhong again, this time in my little pot, will be a good thing. Last time’s double tasting means I couldn’t taste each tea very well, individually. Those tasting sessions are great at alerting you to differences in mouthfeel, flavours, etc, but are not so good if you want to really examine a tea on its own with no interference, because the other tea there is interference.

I opted for the more expensive one to drink, but as I noted last time…. when dry, they look basically identical. When brewed:

They also look pretty much the same.

I tend to brew light Taiwan oolongs delicately. Temperature of water is still kept high, but poured from high up and in a small stream, but that depends on what’s going on and can change… There are different schools of thought of what makes a good cup, and as I’ve observed it really runs the gamut, but I find it just fine like this usually. Add to the fact that my body generally doesn’t like a large amount of Taiwan oolongs that are not roasted, and it makes perfect sense why I brew it this way….

The resulting tea is overwhelmingly sweet, with a soft floral aroma and just a slight hint of grassiness if I overbrew it a bit. There’s some qi there, as I could feel my body reacting to the tea after the first few sips. The body is thick enough, and all in all, quite a pleasant drink. It’s a bit mellow, and perhaps less strong than some of the better stuff could be, but those are sometimes too punchy for me in their flavour, making it taste almost artificial. There’s a sort of saccharine quality to that kind of aroma/feeling that I don’t personally enjoy.

The tea passed on with about 6 infusions. It’s not an overly complex tea, but once in a while… it’s good for what it is.

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Yangqing Hao 2006 “Hundred Years Fragrant Tea”

September 3, 2007 · 6 Comments

This is a sample I received from somebody on a Chinese forum. The guy was generous enough to send me two samples of Yangqing Hao teas. One of them, the 04, was once available on Hou De but has been long gone. This one, the Baisui Xiangcha, or “Hundred Years Fragrant tea”, I don’t believe has ever been sold there…

The leaves are quite dark when dry. It’s supposed to be a mix of six mountain tea, so not all Yiwu like many of his other cakes. I think this is a lower grade cake, relatively speaking.

The tea brewed a golden colour — quite pretty

The first cup was extremely smooth and soothing. There was a fair bit of bitterness, in a very subdued fashion, in the first cup. It’s an interesting feeling — the bitterness is simultaneously there and not there. The smell on the bottom of the lid was a reassuaring grassy/green smell, while the fragrance lingered in the bottom of the cup. The tea, however, gradually got a little more rough as time went on. There was not a lot of qi, and the aftertaste/throatiness varied in degree, depending on which infusion. Sometimes it’s stronger, sometimes it’s weaker. It started turning sweet around infusion 5, and then got sweeter, while still remaining a bit rough.

The wet leaves are …. interesting

They come in all shape and sizes and colours

The blending is obvious, both in the way the leaves look but also in the cup. While it does taste like the six mountains area, there is a fair bit of change going on in the cup and in that sense, the tea is quite interesting. I don’t, however, believe the leaves are of very high quality. I think it is a blend of old and new tree teas, and while the body is fair, the strength, in terms of aftertaste, qi, and that kind of thing, are not quite there. The blending part can does make up for some of the deficiencies in other areas though…

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Jingye Hao revisited

September 2, 2007 · 3 Comments

This is a sample I bought from Hou De probably a year and half ago. I remember trying it once, and then forgetting about it while it sat in Beijing. I discovered it today while looking for things to drink… so I pulled out a few grams of it

The leaves look big and are quite long, not too hardly compressed and easily broken off. The leaves are on the reddish side of things. They look very clean — dry stored.

I brewed it normally


(Still trying to figure out the lighting, sorry)

The tea has a dry stored taste for something 6 years old, with a lot of high aromatics, a bit of that sweetness, some roughness, and in the second infusion, a clear flash of sourness. The tea is not very thick at all — in fact, I’d say it’s a bit thin. This is a bit of a contrast to what I remember from my last tasting, when I thought it was quite good. It could be the fact that much traveling and a year of Beijing storage in a paper bag did some damage to the tea, or maybe a year more of drinking teas actively and thinking about what I’m drinking has made me notice these problems. I have noticed that by blogging about the teas I drink, I’ve gotten more sensitive to things I see in tea — perhaps because I actively process them while drinking, rather than just drinking them.

The leaves of this tea are quite green, still

And more importantly… they are a little on the thin side

As well as oddly shaped, I might add.

I still have more of this. Maybe I’ll keep it and see what happens after another year and half.

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Tea spirit… in practice

September 1, 2007 · 3 Comments

In a recent entry Hobbes has talked about the fact that some tea companions are better than others, and speculated as to the reasons why that is so. Today I had an interesting experience that made me think of this very topic.

I went back to the Yongkang area, since I haven’t really explored a lot of it yet, and there are places that were on Corax’s list of places that I haven’t visited. Why not? It’s a saturday when stores are still open (many shops close on Sundays in Taiwan) and the library is not open today.

I was tasked by a friend to look for some aged baozhongs specifically, so with that in mind, I went and hunted.

The first place I stopped at was Yetang, a secluded little place tucked into a back lane in the Yongkang area, completely unmarked, and impossible to find unless you knew the exact address. The place was a little dark, tastefully decorated, and very calming. You do feel like you’ve walked into a sort of urban sancturary, with the cups lining the wall and the dim lighting giving the place a warm glow. It just rained heavily, and I was soaked (even with an umbrella), so it was nice to walk into the place.

It was empty. There was only the proprietor and who I presume is his partner. I asked for an aged baozhong, and he said they ran out, but they have two other aged oolongs, a dongding and a shanlinxi. The dongding, he said, tastes more like the aged baozhong he had, so he’ll make that for me first. Sure, why not? I walked around the place (it’s not a store — at least it in no way feels or looks like a store, at all). There are some interesting teas there, but not a lot of it. I think most of the things he sells are hidden, only offered when you ask, or when he knows you better. The stuff on display are, I think, more likely to be stuff for the tourists who throng Yongkang.

The tea brewing area is a little medicine cabinet looking thing, and the chairs are on another side of the … space. He put down the cup for me on a table, and went back to his tea brewing cabinet. I think he was trying to let me drink in peace, although coming by myself, it was odd that way.

The tea itself is very nice. It feels like a dongding in the mouth, but tastes very aged with that unique sweetness and aroma that only aged oolongs will have. It has a long finish, and is a little numbing on the tongue. Very pleasant. Good qi. I really liked it.

I, however, slowly moved to the little work table that they had that was right next to the tea brewing area, because I needed to talk to somebody. It felt increasingly strange sitting there sipping the tea by myself while they did their own things around the cabinet. We chatted a bit, and I asked him to brew me the shanlinxi for comparison. It was much lighter, not too aged tasting, even though it’s only 3 years younger than the dongding. It’s mostly because of the storage condition — the shanlinxi was stored in a very well sealed container, while the dongding was not. Makes sense.

At this point, two tourists came in and walked around, tried a tea, and left. And then… some regulars started trickling in. I could feel more of them coming, so before more of them came, I bowed out, with a box of the dongding in hand. I felt awkward in that place, charming though it is physically.

Then I went to my second stop — Huiliu, barely 20 meters away from Yetang. Huiliu looks and feels a lot more commercial. I was at first mistaken as yet another Japanese tourist and was greeted with a friendly “o-cha desu ka?” (which is not really a correct way to ask this question… but no matter). I asked for an aged baozhong, which their new website (I was told it’s not entirely functional yet… they don’t know if payment and stuff works, and it’s a work in progress) advertises as being available. I was then told by the server (the place is more of a sit-down-and-drink-tea-with-friends-over-some-snack kind of place) that I have to wait for the owner to come back to try it, because they don’t know where that tea is stored exactly. While waiting, they kept me amused with this

A bowl of dongding oolong. It’s somewhat roasted. It’s new. It’s decent, and quite sweet when brewed this way.

The owner came back, a somewhat middle aged woman who looks very kind. She said no problem, let’s try it… and started rummaging through various things to find her aged baozhong.

As she was making the tea, a woman came by who the owner obviously knows… turns out she’s the person helping them to write the webpage. We started having a nice discussion of web buying practices, her upcoming travels (to SE Asia) and the like, and the owner chimed in… and I think that broke the ice. It was a sharp contrast from Yetang… where things were so quiet it was a little unsettling. I think it is partly a matter of personality, but also a matter of just the compatability of the people involved, the topics that come up, and the way the interaction has proceeded. We drank quite a few infusions of the aged baozhong, which tastes actually rather similar to the dongding, but a bit more aged and a little less powerful (all aged oolongs, if aged properly, start tasting broadly similar, IMHO). It was a good conversation.

While the web-developer left, I tried another tea that they had — a “medicine tea”, as the owner called it, made by a man who now no longer makes tea (he’s in his 90s). This was the last batch, 2006 stuff. It looks sort of like a baihao and sort of like a baozhong, but lighter in colour. It’s hard to figure out what it is, but looking at the leaves, it doesn’t look very high grade.

When she brewed it… the taste is very similar to some green teas I’ve had. It has reminders of biluochun in it, but not quite. It’s very sweet, and mellow in the mouth. It’s a bit rough. But what is very interesting about the tea is the qi. It hits you very, very hard. I normally can feel a tea’s qi, but the reaction on me is usually mild. This one, however, started making my heart pump right away, and I could feel it creeping up my back and it forced me to sit up more properly. I was a little light headed — but not in a bad way. It was probably the closest I’ve been to getting a high from anything.

Ok… confessions aside, it’s a tea with very good qi 🙂

We drank some infusions of this, while still chatting about tea and what not. I left the place with a few small bags of the baozhong, but also feeling like I made a friend in the place. I think, reflecting on it, that’s what was different about the two places. Even though Yetang is very non-commercial looking, I felt like I was treated as another tourist-customer who was just in and out. Perhaps the owner is naturally more reserved, and if I go back a few more times he will open up more. Then there is Huiliu, facing Yongkang park and very touristy, which is usually not a great thing, but somehow, it felt much more hospitable and welcoming. Maybe you’ll be writing it off as a matter of the quality of the teas, but really, the teas at both places were quite decent. I think it was more of a matter of a match in personality and expectations… and somehow, it just clicked better at Huiliu.

Both places, however, are worth repeat visits, as I haven’t tried all the stuff they’ve hidden away yet, so I’m quite sure I’ll go back to both in the not-too-distant future.

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When teas turn sour

August 31, 2007 · Leave a Comment

… you should finish it quickly.

I opened up a canister of Wuyi yancha today, some stuff I bought early on last year when I first arrived in Beijing. I know I don’t have much of it left, and figured it’s time to drink it up.

It’s quite broken — partly because this is nearing the bottom of the pile. It’s also a little more broken to begin with, given it is heavier roasted.

When I brewed it though….

I noticed that it was sour 🙁

It wasn’t terribly terribly sour, but it was definitely not sour when I had it last time, maybe two or three months ago. Now, however, it’s turned sour, a bit. There’s a puckery taste to it, and you can feel it pretty well. I adjusted the brewing time and managed to keep it under control. I also noticed that the sourness faded after about two or three infusions, so the damage is limited, so far.

However, it is probably only going to get worse from now, especially given the more humid climate here. A sour tea that isn’t too sour can be salvaged by roasting it again. A sour tea that is sour all the way through though is hopeless. Some people actually like a tiny litle bit of sourness to their yancha. I find any sourness to be detracting from the overall experience… which means that I should really drink the rest of this tea up quickly before it turns for the worse.

Oh well, at least I don’t have another 200g of this to go.

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Water preparation

August 30, 2007 · 4 Comments

One of the perculiarities of Taiwan that I’ve noticed is that it runs a dual voltage. While most household sockets deliver 110v, some deliver 220v. I’ve noticed that it’s not just my apartment either — the subway station has clearly marked “110v” and “220v” sockets. Why any country would run two systems is beyond me…

But being mostly 110v, it means that I can’t use my water boiler from China. What I used to do was to heat up the water in the electric boiler, and then transfer it to my glass kettle with the alcohol burner. Since I couldn’t find the right fuel at first, I resorted to using the stove, which is basically a heating plate of sorts, with my glass kettle. It worked, but there was one problem — water was either not boiling, or boiling too quickly and reached a rolling boil in no time. I also couldn’t keep it on a constant heat easily, since it behaved strangely.

Thankfully, I finally located a place that sells the right kind of fuel. As an added bonus — it no longer smells at all, unlike the stuff they sold in Beijing. I wonder if there were some nasty impurities in the Beijing stuff.

What I do now is to use the stove to heat the water up sufficient so it’s close to boiling, and then let the boiling happen with the alcohol burner. I think this actually achieves a better boil — the water temp is kept high throughout a session easily, and I can also control the water temperature better by adding splashes of cold water throughout the session. With using the stove it was more like an all or nothing issue — since I don’t brew tea right next to the stove. Now I’m a happy man with the right water making equipment 🙂

I think I would recommend something similar (not necessarily glass, although glass is useful for letting you look at the water). I think a small flame is always preferable over a heating plate type thing, not necessarily because of contact with metal or any such thing, but rather because it lets the tea maker have a much better sense of the temperature of the water being used and to maintain a more or less constant temperature throughout a session.

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Mystery cake

August 29, 2007 · 2 Comments

I bought this cake a week and half ago, and haven’t tried it yet since my purchase. Given that yesterday I had a 90s tea, I figured it would be a good thing to do to compare it with this cake. I know they’re not very comparable — this one being younger by a good bit, but it’s good to have a reference point sometimes.

The wrapper is a CNNP one — since I’m no wrapperologist, I am not sure what it is. The owner of the store said it’s a special order cake from Menghai. I have my doubts based on the way the cake is shaped. For people like us who are only buying the tea for personal consumption, factory provenance doesn’t matter too much as long as the tea is fair (and the price too, since Menghai and other big factories command a premium).

This is what it looks like unwrapped

With a closeup

And the bit that got bitten by the mouse…. no, it was me 🙂

It’s odd, but under this lighting it looks better than when I am staring at it live.

The tea is probably around 5 years of age, or thereabouts. I’m not sure.

The first thing I notice is that the aromas are “higher” than the tea yesterday. It being younger and less aged probably has something to do with it. The liquor is also lighter in colour

The initial infusion was very sweet, with a bit of an aged taste showing. It gradually got a little rougher as I brewed it on, but the aroma also intensified. In fact, it took a good 3-4 infusions before the tea really hit its stride and I could feel the strength of the tea that I remembered trying in the store. The bitterness was kept well under control, but I know if you overbrew it (as the owner of the shop deliberately did) it will come out quite bitter. When it was good, it showed me some throatiness as well. It’s also got some qi, as I could feel my body reacting to the tea.

At the same time, there were a few infusions of this tea when I felt it was a bit watery — not thin, but watery as in lacking an obvious taste. The roughness was also a downside, although I suppose that can be remedied. The tea did eventually return to a sweet water state with no roughness, which is good, and after 10+ infusions.

So I don’t know exactly what to make of this tea. Maybe it’s in that transition phase between different stages of aging, and so tastes a bit like an awkward adolescent?

Here are some wet leaves

The cake comprises leaves of all sizes…

It might be interesting to drink this again after a few more years. I can see it changing, although I’m not sure in what direction.

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