A Tea Addict's Journal

Entries categorized as ‘Teas’

Luk Yu Teahouse

December 30, 2006 · 3 Comments

Seems like the internet is back to normal faster than I thought. Give it another day, and I can probably start uploading pictures again. Right now it’s still quite slow (think…. 28.8k slow with lots of packetloss)

I went to Luk Yu Teahouse 陸羽茶室 with family today for lunch. It’s a fairly famous old restaurant in Central, best known for rude waiters who only treat you well if you’re a regular, and a murder case a few years ago where a guy was gunned down in the middle of the dining room. Either way though, it’s a bit of a landmark and is not bad for food.

As many of you probably know, going to eat dim sum in Cantonese is “yum cha”, literally “to drink tea”. When we first sat down at the table and mom started looking at the food menu, the waiter commented “so fast?”. The expectation is that you will first sit down, drink some tea, talk, slowly look at what kind of food there is, wait for everybody to show up… and have a very, very leisurely lunch (or brunch, as is usually the case). A lot of Cantonese families I know would go at 9am and stay until well past 1. They sit, chat, read newspaper, etc, and it’s a time for the whole family to get together. Dim sum, the focus of this activity in the West, is only what fills the belly. It’s really a time when you are catching up with family, and tea serves as a lubricant for the conversation.

I think the kinds of tea that are ordered are often jasmine, shuixian, nongxiang tieguanyin, or puerh, with lighter teas being less popular (although I think they are also gaining in popularity). We got a puerh today. There’s no specific thing you order. You just tell them what tea they want, and they give it to you in a pot. There’s no asking of vintage, raw or cooked, or anything. It comes in a big pot where the water stews the leaves. It’s what’s called “cow-drinking”, which basically means drinking in big gulps rather than small cups for fine tasting. They also have gaiwans, if you prefer that, although with 10 people at the table gaiwan is quite impractical.

Usually, the puerh that is offered at these places are cooked or raw-cooked mix puerh, low quality, and quite nasty. The stuff at Luk Yu, while not fantastically good, is not bad. It’s all raw, at least the sample leaves I pulled out of the pot when we were done were definitely all raw puerh. It’s got some age. I can’t tell how long, but it’s not short. Drinking it from a big pot of stewed leaves also doesn’t help. After all, the tea’s just there to help you eat and talk. My family all commented though that the puerh there was better than the usual puerh you get outside, which is often dark and bitter (when overbrewed). I think for what it’s supposed to do, Luk Yu’s puerh is quite good.

I think tomorrow’s a tea shopping day 🙂

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Cheap loose puerh

December 25, 2006 · 12 Comments

I tried the loose traditionally stored puerh today for real, with this setup:

I know a few of you use a water dispenser like this one. My question to you — how on Earth do you control the pouring???? Because I find it extremely difficult, and the water always come out a little too quickly/strongly, and the water sort of spills everywhere. I can hold it up to the spout, but then I run the risk of having it splatter on my hands, which is not pleasant either.

Anyway….

This is the puerh I drank.


This is infusion 2


This is around infusion 8 or 9

The puerh is not bad. It’s got some Chinese medicine taste, and very good chaqi. The leaves are big, and I actually thought it’s not a bad value for the quality of aged puerh that it is. It’s not a fantastic puerh, but if you need a cheap, aged puerh fix….. it will do the job.

Maybe I should go buy a little more. It’s really quite cheap….

And of course

Merry Christmas!

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More puerhs…

December 24, 2006 · Leave a Comment

I went back to the Peninsula for a canister of their Darjeeling. It’s not that cheap, but it’s cheaper than I thought.

I went and visited Tiffany again in the afternoon, and tasted quite a few things today. The first was a puerh brick that they sell — a cake with no clear origin other than some vague “high altitude” claim. The tea was very buddy, with lots of young leaves. The taste was sweet, with a Jingmai taste, but not that impressive, and has some suspicion of green tea taste. It’s not terribly obvious, but Tiffany also said it reminded her of the organic green tea that they sell. We then chatted about the dangers of buying young puerh these days, and it seems…. basically nobody knows what will be good. Sigh

Then we tasted a purely dry stored Mengku cake… somewhat different from the stuff I’ve had before. It’s more refreshing in its taste, although I actually prefer the one that has been through some slight wet storage, as the taste is deeper and thicker. That tea didn’t last too long before we decided it wasn’t that good.

I pulled out the Jingmai sample that I have… and tasted it sort of in comparison with the first tea we had.

The one on the left is the brick, and the one on the right is the cake. You can really see the difference in size and completeness of leaves.

The Jingmai cake is a little less obviously sweet and aromatic, although I think it is still quite aromatic (the dried fairness cup smells a VERY strong floral fragrance). The cake also has obvious “throat feel”. I think maybe I should grab a few of these when I get back to Beijing.

At this point, some other tea drinker came in. She seems experienced, although mostly a client of another sales who works at the Best Tea House, and generally I don’t see her. She wanted to try something nice…. and so Tiffany pulled out the Zhenchunya Hao.

This sample cake they were using is at least poorly stored. You can see evidence of mould on the cake — some slight white dots on the leaves that weren’t on the surface of the cake. You can also smell the storage from the dry cake and the first few infusions. The tea… is nice and sweet, with an obvious Yiwu taste, but honestly… it doesn’t not merit the price being charged. The last Zhenchunya Hao I had at the Best Tea House in their main store was better — it was also better stored.

I heard that Mr. Chan of the Best Tea House actually bought this batch from somebody who originally got it from sources in Taiwan, and this is after he sold out (pretty much) his own supply. Therefore, storage conditions are not quite the same, and it’s obvious that this batch I’m seeing is not as well stored as the other ones…

Either way though, it just costs too much…. with a nice 25% markup to the price since I was last in Hong Kong… in August!

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Two darjeelings

December 23, 2006 · Leave a Comment

I had two darjeelings today at two different hotels. Colonialism dies hard, and afternoon tea is one of those institutions that the Brits have left behind in Hong Kong. At the better hotels and restaurants they generally serve loose leaf tea of various kinds, although some places I’ve been to charge you $6 USD for the privilege of drinking an insipid teabag.

So I went to two places today, and the reason it’s actually blog worthy is because the difference was night and day. I don’t know exactly where they’re from or anything, but the first one, served at the local Conrad, was a bit boring and probably not a real Darjeeling. It was a second flush type of tea, dark, strong, but without a lot of the signature “Darjeeling” taste that I like (and the only reason why I’d order it). This is why I suspected it’s just a blend, instead of pure Darjeeling leaves. The leaves were very broken, small, low grade. It was not worth the $$ they were charging for it.

The second one, tasted at the Peninsula, was so obviously better after having had the first one. The tea was lighter — most likely a first flush Darjeeling. The leaves were less broken (forgive me for not knowing the British grading system by heart). The taste… was exquisite. It’s got that lovely fragrance of a good Darjeeling, with a nice bite to the tea but still very smooth going down. I loved it.

Of course, it probably helped that there was a band playing there for the whole time in the lobby, churning out Christmas music for the crowds and what not. It also cost more, but IMO, I’d pay the extra $$ to drink the Darjeeling there than the much, much lesser version of the first.

I wonder if they sell this tea at their gift shop. It might be worth it. I should go back and take a picture of the place, as it’s really well decorated for the Christmas season this year, and drinking afternoon tea in the Pen is something that a good tourist to Hong Kong ought to try.

Categories: Old Xanga posts · Teas
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Buying tea…

December 21, 2006 · 7 Comments

I’ve felt less urge to buy tea in Hong Kong now that I’ve been in Beijing. I suppose it’s only natural.

Whereas before I left for Beijing I was only too eager, now…. I feel like I can wait. Of course, having bought a bunch of stuff there helps cure the urge, but I also think I’ve sort of passed the initial “rush to buy” phase, and have settled down a little. I noticed that tastes really do differ widely between here and Beijing, and what people here consider good tea might not be what people in Beijing consider even ok tea, and the same is true vice versa.

Which means that…. there’s always a market for any tea, regardless of “quality” because tastes differ so much.

But more immediately, it means that I need to sit on my stash of puerh, maybe only buy a small amount from now until….. a few years later, and see how my holdings so far develops before making any bigger commitment to buy more. I think I still want to go to Yunnan, and will still want to press some cakes, if the opportunity arises. Yet other than that, I think I should really stop buying until I’ve got more aging experience under my belt.

Of course, this is easier said than done, with something as big as Maliandao there. I probably will succumb to temptation as soon as I get back. I’m sure you all know the feeling.

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Hung Chong Tai loose pu

December 20, 2006 · 3 Comments

I went to the old, wet storage tea store today to pick up the tong of tea I ordered back in the summer. Now that I think about it, I’m overpaying them for it. However, a search through Taobao showed that nobody sells this tea. There’s one item that’s similar, but it’s not the same thing.

I only have a vague memory of the tea I tried. I remember it being somewhat bitter, and quite “strong”. Mainly, I bought it because I want to see what these people pick as a good young puerh (since this is the ONLY young puerh they sell). I think I might just leave it in the tong here and let it sit in Hong Kong. It can use some moisture to age.

I also bought a little of this:

Some wet stored loose puerh (raw), packed in a pretty little bag…. kinda retro

Below the Chinese name of the company, it’s written on the leaf that this place is a “hub for famous teas”. They sell mostly wet stored stuff. Quite a cute place though. I might go back and see if I can find a cake or two of wet stored cooked pu and try it, and maybe take a pic or two of the place itself.

I made my tea:

Mellow, sweet, definitely raw tasting, although somewhat flat as the storage was pretty wet, I think. It’s not nasty though, just flat. I made many infusions, although since I was adding water when it reaches about 40% full, I don’t know how many infusions I can actually count. For the price (40 USD for 600g) it’s not too bad. I’d drink this regularly over a very young cake. It’s probably better for my body.

Some of the leaves… you can see how some are browner, while others are blacker (and stiffer). Did I say wet storage?

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More Best Tea House

December 19, 2006 · 1 Comment

I went back today to the Tsim Sha Tsui branch of the Best Tea House. When this was closed, it was a trek to go all the way out to their main store, so I didn’t go very often, but now… it’s much easier.

A younger tea drinker, B, was there, and they were just about to brew a 1975 old tree tea. The cake itself looks somewhat unappetizing:


Yes, that’s white stuff on the tea. It’s been pretty wet stored (or just pretty poorly stored). You can smell it.

The tea brews a dark brown/black liquor. The first two infusion has a “wet store” taste to it, quite prominent, and somewhat unpleasant. However, it does clear up, as they usually do, after a few, and the resulting brew is still pretty reasonable, and nice to drink. I think wet storage really gets a lot of bad rep, but when it comes down to it, I think I might prefer this cake to the 88 qingbing, which was just a bit bland and flat. Of course, it’s got another 10-15 years extra aging, but still…. in terms of prices they are very close to each other.

The wet leaves:

Then some Japanese customers came in and they tried some tea, and bought a bit. After that, I pulled out my Mengku 2002 cake for them to taste. They all liked it — thought it was pretty decent and tasty, especially given the price. I told them that the Beijingers don’t really like this when I brew it for them, and they were surprised. I think the Hong Kong palette and the Beijing one are so substantially different. They look for different things, different tastes, different feels, and I’m not sure which one’s the right one. The Hong Kong one places heavy emphasis on how a tea feels — whether it’s soft, round, smooth or not. The Beijing one, although also taking these into consideration, is very particular about whether or not a tea is clean — something that Hong Kongers rarely consider. When they say clean, they mean whether or not there are traces of wet storage, and if there is, they generally don’t like it, even if it’s just a hint. I personally think that’s great, as it means that I can usually say “this cake was wet stored” and try to get a discount on the tea in question in Beijing. Can’t do it here.

We also tried the water experiment with this tea… and the tea tasted softer with more mineral water involved. Mark this down in the “mineral” column.

In the middle of this, two guys walked in, one being a famous calligrapher/painter and the other his friend (and host, I think) in Hong Kong. They sat down and tried some tea, and the calligrapher got very happy and wrote some words for Tiffany & Co. After they left, we drank a few more cups, and I took my leave.

On my way back to home, waiting for the Star Ferry, I am reminded of how nice it is to spend Christmas in Hong Kong

It’s good to be home.

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First day back in Hong Kong…

December 18, 2006 · 8 Comments

and where do I go? I go to Tiffany & Co., of course… (actually, I prefer Cartier)

Anyway, I haven’t even been to the new Tsim Sha Tsui branch of the Best Tea House… and like bearsbearsbears said, it’s quite small. Here’s a shot looking out from the vantage point of the tea drinker/brewer

But believe it or not… it’s actually bigger, physically speaking, than the older branch. The older branch, however, was square, so even though it’s physically smaller, sitting in it feels better.

When I got there after lunch, there were already two older tea drinkers there. They were all getting ready to taste another tea (obviously much has happened already before I arrived). Tiffany was making the tea…. with two gaiwans. Here are the contents:

They are two “thousand taels tea”. The one on the left is an offering of the Best Tea House, whereas the one on the right is brought by one of the drinkers who were there. Thousand taels tea is basically a heavily compressed stick of tea — a very big stick. It’s usually some 5-6ft long, and the diameter is similar to a regular puerh cake. You can imagine how much tea that is. I believe it’s made with Hunan leaves… and it’s got all sorts of stuff in it.

These are how they are brewed, in the same left right setup. Although the way the tea reflected light makes it seem as though the right side is darker than the left, the reality is that they are very close.

The taste, however, is not. The left is sort of medicinal, but a bit thin. The right has everything the left has, but more, and has also a “chen” taste with a sweetness to it that the left doesn’t. Quite nice. Supposed to be around 50 years old (and in the hands of the tea drinker for 15 years already). I’ve tasted a very young thousand taels tea, and that one tasted very rough and unready for consumption. These are both drinkable, although not at these prices….

Then, we tried a Chaozhou gongfu tea — heavily roasted oolong. We brewed it in a pot — sour. We brewed it in a gaiwan… not sour. Something’s wrong with the pot. The owner (the guy who brought the thousand taels tea) said he’ll have to go home and re-season the pot thoroughly to get rid of the nasty taste.

Then… I brought out the two puerhs I brought (well, I brought more). The first is the Yiwu maocha, and the second is the Yiwu girl cake.

Everybody liked the Yiwu maocha… flavourful, smooth, full bodied. It tasted better than when I brew it, so I thought Tiffany’s tea brewing skills are obviously better than mine, for good reasons. I’m glad it tasted so good.

Then we tried the Yiwu cake…. and something was seriously wrong. It was thin, rough, not fragrant at all. Nobody wanted to drink it after three infusions, and I myself felt uncomfortable with the tea too. Something was wrong, quite wrong.

While we were discussing why this might have been the case, we brewed up a little 88 qingbing (88 raw cake) for taste. I’ve never had it, and neither has the other guy who brought the tea and the pot, so we figured it’s not a bad thing to try.

Boy, was I disappointed. Astronomical price tag aside, the tea is thin, bland, lacking in huigan, etc…. only of middling quality all around, if even, and did I mention it’s expensive?

A shot of the wet leaves

I asked a guy I know on Sanzui who’s also from HK about it… and he said “duh… anything left in the Best Tea House at this point that’s a 88 raw cake is not going to be good”. Good point. The good stuff is long gone — picked out by the people who bought it in bulk, or simply lucky enough to buy early.

Meanwhile, we figured that it was probably a water problem — namely that the water I use in Beijing and the water here are different, with the water here (filtered tap water) being very soft and low in mineral content, while the water I use in Beijing is harder. So, to test, I went out, found the closest 7-eleven I could find (2 minute walk away) and bought a bottle of Volvic for our experiment (my preferred option, Vittel, was not for sale there, and I don’t like Evian).

We mixed the Volvic into one of the water kettles, making it an even mix of the tap water and the Volvic, and the other was just tap water. We brewed the Yiwu girl tea up again after a quick rinse.

The result…. was a flavourful, fragrant tea, much, much smoother, and more full bodied. Closer to what I’ve tasted in Beijing. Not quite the same, mind you, but closer.

We then used the tap water to make another infusion of similar time… thin, rough, just like the first few.

Volvic water again… much better. This time the infusion time was short, and it was even more apparent that the tea OBVIOUSLY improved.

However, I think the maocha tasted better with the tap water. What gives?

We tried this with one other tea. This is a tea brought over by the other guy sitting there today, a Wuliang Shan young cake from 05. We tried it with both waters… and the tea was better with the tap water.

I’ve still got to figure out what it is that makes the Yiwu girl tea better with the high mineral content, while the other two better with the regular tap water. This is a bit of a mystery and needs much, much more experimentation.

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Packing and tea

December 16, 2006 · Leave a Comment

How much tea should I bring? My father would like to try some of my teas here, after discovering my blog. I would like to bring some samples back for friends in Hong Kong to try. I also need to drink some stuff at home too.

But then, there’s no water boiler in Hong Kong. Buying one there will be more expensive than getting it here (way more, probably). As it is, I am looking like a traveling tea merchant already, with 3 cakes, two samples, three bags of Wuyi tea, and some other random bits…

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Last Maliandao trip of 2006

December 16, 2006 · Leave a Comment

Tomorrow I’m flying back to Hong Kong, so today was the last hurrah of 2006 for Maliandao tea shopping.

It was the coldest day so far this season today… hitting something like -10 degrees (around 14F for those of you in backward countries that still use Fahrenheit). After freezing in the antique market at Panjiayuan, I and my house guest went to Maliandao for some tea.

We first stopped at the store that sells that aged dancong, where I bought 500g of the tea. I figured it’s good enough for some regular drinking, and since it will keep, I decided to buy more of it. Again, the tea is not great, but it is unique, and I’m basically paying for that unique flavour. It goes down smoothly enough, and I quite like it. We tried a few teas there aside from this one, but all were only so so (and one, a winter pick dancong, was not good at all). I think my business today is probably the first (and maybe the last) for him today. I feel bad for them — sitting in a corner of a big puerh/teaware store. I don’t think they get much business at all, selling dancongs in Beijing, but what can you do. It’s not an easy business.

Then…. we went to the Ruirong shop. These guys have their headquarters in Hong Kong, and I might very well visit them in Hong Kong when I get the chance. I tried two teas there today, but neither of them were good. The first was a Yiwu from something like 2001. It looks great. The leaves look thick and meaty, and the cake is well pressed. I thought it would be nice, but instead…. something’s wrong about it. It’s bitter, very bitter. I don’t think it’s Yiwu at all, but something else (or only with a small amount of Yiwu mixed in). The tea also had some off flavours that I can’t really describe, but which leaves a nasty aftertaste.

The second is a “Banzhang” which definitely was not Banzhang either. I thought my taste buds were off… but I don’t think it was me. The cake was slightly Banzhang-ish, but compared to some of the other Banzhang stuff I’ve had, especially the Banzhang maocha that was amazingly nice, this was…. crap. Both teas also suffered from being very coarse, and the seller of the tea was clueless (I think she was just subbing in for the regular shopkeeper who might’ve been gone for a while). All in all, disappointing.

With those two teas down…. it was KFC time to recharge, and then we went to Chayuna, and entered the Wuyi tea place again. My guest wanted some gift teas for family. I figured young puerh is not really a good idea, interesting though it may be.

When we went in, they just finished trying two tieguanyins, and they gave me a cup each of the xth infusion — pretty weak. I was happy to be able to tell the good one from the lesser one (800 vs 600 RMB per 500g). The pricier one is more “pure” in its taste, while the cheaper one, though initially more fragrant, has a subpar aftertaste. Not bad, mind you (600 isn’t that cheap) but not great either.

Again…. like everytime I go there, I get stuck drinking a dizzying array of Wuyi teas. Too many. All sorts of flavours. It’s really a difficult genre to fully penetrate, and I feel like I’m still just scraping the surface. I think I can now tell apart what’s a good one and what’s a great one with more accuracy now. Since there’s no aging worries… in some ways as long as you’ve got that down, you are ok.

Next time I go to Maliandao it will be 2007. Meanwhile…. Hong Kong calls.

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