A Tea Addict's Journal

Entries tagged as ‘aged oolong’

What I learned about aged oolongs

November 29, 2007 · 5 Comments

Ok, I was going to talk about the Wuyi Qizhong that I got along with the aged Tieguanyin and the aged shuixian that I got…. but that got derailed, because the tea turned out sour, enough so that it’s no longer pleasant to drink. If made lightly, I can probably get something out of it as an occasional beverage, but that’s about it.

So…. instead, let’s talk about aged oolongs in general.

As those of you who’ve been reading the blog have probably noticed, I’ve been on a binge for the past few months drinking various sorts of aged oolongs. Much like what I was doing with youngish puerh, I’ve been trying to get my hands on a wide variety of aged oolongs and drink them, becuase I think that’s the only way I can learn about them properly. What other people tell you is all fine and good, but nothing replaces actual drinking experience.

So with that in mind I went around Taipei looking for them. I asked about them no matter what tea store I walked into. The first thing I’ve learned is that everybody has some “laocha”, or “old tea”. When you say old tea here, you are usually talking about aged Taiwanese oolongs. Some people have assumed I was talking about puerh, but that’s often because I’m young and young people usually don’t drink old oolongs. Puerh is more fashionable to drink.

Just because everybody has them doesn’t mean they’re all real, or good. First of all there are very very roughly two kinds of Taiwanese teas that are often aged, at least among the stores I’ve been to. Baozhongs come in abundance, but there are also a number of places that sell aged oolongs — the rolled kind, often from Dongding, but sometimes from other places.

There are roughly three types of aged oolongs, I think. One is your “often reroasted” kind. Liquor from these will be dark and sweet, mellow, not too floral. One is the “dry stored from strong roast”, I think anyway, with a more puerh-like flavour and a residual note of floral quality. Then you have the younger, “still kinda green” aged oolongs. Those are actually nicer than current year stuff, I think, but I’m not sure how viable they are for long term storage. More honey like, some floral notes…. still quite nice.

This is, of course, discounting the fourth and most common kind – oolongs turned sour. These are teas that are usually stored improperly — picked up moisture, or itself had too much moisture when stored. Reroasting will take care of it, sometimes, but not always. There will also be people who tell you that some sourness is natural in an aged oolong, and some might even say it’s the mark of a good aged oolong. Take that with many grains of salt. A hint of it can be a nice thing, but…..

And… there are also the fakes. Since there is simply no way for you to tell with certainty (at least I haven’t discovered a surefire way) just by observing the dry leaves if the tea really has been aged or not, fakes happen. Most often, they are just heavily roasted teas that have been, one way or another, doctored to make them seem aged. I’ve been to stores that gave me a few aged oolongs that are obviously just roasted oolongs with no age behind them. I’ve managed to avoid most of those, but still, a few slipped through because I couldn’t taste the tea or because I wanted to make sure. For people who haven’t had a lot of exposure to this type of tea, it’s an easy trap to fall into.

Because of aging, firing, etc, no two aged oolongs are exactly the same. Especially since there are no identifying marks of an aged oolong — there are no wrappers, neifeis, etc (unless your tea came from a competition with the accompanying documentation) so stuff from store A will always be different from store B.

This gets us to the question of price. Prices for these things vary wildly. Among the types of teas I’ve tried, they range from something like $50/600g to $300/600g. Yet, stuff that are on opposite ends of this range can taste remarkably similar. I’ve also had stuff that taste better but are cheaper than the more expensive counterparts. Obviously, taste is taste, and some others might disagree with me with my preferences, but generally speaking, when the price difference is, say, 3 or 4 times, and when the tastes are very similar…. one starts questioning whether the more expensive tea is worth the extra cost. It is also worth noting that the places with the high priced aged oolongs are generally speaking of the more “arthouse” variety — nice decor, good location, etc, that means you’re paying for a lot more than just the tea itself. In fact, some of these teas are probably sourced from the places where I’m buying the cheaper varieties — many of these arthouses haven’t been around long enough to store the teas all the way since their birth.

I haven’t really tried any of the aged oolong offerings that one can buy off the internet, so I don’t know how they compare, or what categories they fall into, or if they’re even aged at all. But aged oolongs can be wonderful, and I think the good ones offer many nuances that can rival (or even beat) an aged puerh. This is especially true when you factor in the price of many older puerhs these days, and the high proportion of fakes out there. Anybody who makes a trip to Taiwan should at least give this stuff a try — I think it’s well worth the effort.

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Aged tieguanyin

November 27, 2007 · Leave a Comment

This is an aged tieguanyin that I picked up along with the aged shuixian I had yesterday

No indication of when this was, other than that the loosely rolled style signifies something from at least probably 10 years ago — nowadays tieguanyin are mostly tightly rolled, Taiwan style. I haven’t seen many tieguanyins that are new that are loose like this.

The tea smells musty when water first hits it. I thought puerh. In fact, the wash and first infusion smelled so much like puerh, for a little bit I wondered if she gave me a puerh instead.

Doesn’t it look right?

When I sipped it, it tastes almost just like the Yetang aged Dongding that I have. There are subtle differences — this one is a little less floral (it’s orchid like), and a bit thicker — perhaps because it is a tieguanyin and not a Taiwan oolong. The finish is also different, with this one being obviously stronger. Yet, the similarities are stirking.

The tea lasted many infusions — mostly keeping to the orchid like quality, but at times something else shows, a different kind of aroma than what I got from the Dongding… I don’t really know how to describe it, but it’s unique to this tea. It also cools the throat a bit, like a puerh sometimes will. Doesn’t happen too much with tieguanyins though.

And to think this is only about 1/3 of the price of the Dongding, ugh.

The leaves are quite robust

Much better than the shuixian yesterday. Costs more, but not that much more. Between the two, there’s no competition. I’m surprised this tea isn’t sour at all, but it isn’t. It’s really quite a nice find, I think. Now I have one more tea left from this store — I have high hopes now, given how the last two have turned out. I wonder why it’s kept so well?

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Shuixian from …. 1988, supposedly

November 26, 2007 · 2 Comments

At the store that I took a picture of, I picked up some of this tea as a sample.

It is supposedly from 1988 — there’s a little piece of paper in that big bag of tea that says ROC year 77 — which translates into 1988. I don’t know if it’s real, but the chances of somebody asking for that particular tea is so slim, and the price is too low, for the ticker to really work. It also smells aged.

I didn’t use enough leaves today

The tea turned out weaker than I imagined. It’s a bit on the thin side, but that might very well have to do with the fact that I didn’t use enough leaves. I should’ve made it in a gaiwan, but didn’t. It’s got that aged taste, but instead of the Taiwan finish, it has a very strong “yanyun”, or rock afterglow, that is typical of Wuyi teas. It’s actually much stronger than some of the more recent shuixians I’ve had. I wonder if it’s because teas in the 80s were just… well, better. I should give this another try before deciding. No sourness, which is always a good thing.

The leaves don’t look that bad, but nothing too interesting either.

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A tea walk

November 24, 2007 · 3 Comments

I decided to go for a walk today, since the weather is finally nice (albeit briefly) after many many days of rain and almost-rain (which is I think partly why the cake started growing mould). So, where to go? I went to the Chongqing N. Rd area, where the old shops are. I’ve only explored a small area of that street, so I decided to walk the other way and come down from the north.

There are indeed lots of teashops on the way, many of which look like old wholesale stores. Some scenes from the street


I visited three stores. The first is a more touristy/retail oriented one. I drank an aged oolong that’s more fired than aged, but it was pretty interesting, especially the strong tangerine peel notes in the aftertaste. There isn’t much else of interest there though, and I wanted to keep walking…

I passed by a few stores that pretty much ignored me — the man might be watching TV, or busy doing something else. I just poked around. Then I passed by this store that looked newish, with puerh and stuff and not at all like all the other places I walked by today…. so I went in. My, the guy was rude. He didn’t look too happy to start out with, and then asked “so what do you drink? sheng or shu?”. This is a pretty typical question to ask a new customer in a puerh shop. I said I drink pretty much only sheng. Then came the response, “oh, these days it’s pretty hard to afford to drink sheng”. It was said in a way that actually meant “it’s pretty hard for people like you to afford sheng”. Needless to say, I walked out of the place right away. I don’t mind stores that ignore me or whatever — it’s almost charming, but I’m not about to walk into a store that actually insults its customers. And this wasn’t even one of those charming old stores. This place is for “rich” people who can afford their teas (which were for the most part standard issue 80s or 90s teas… nothing spectacular)

Anyway, I left with a sour taste, but quickly forgot when I was further ignored at another store that was obviously some Grand Old Shop that does wholesale. One kilo of jasmine for $2 USD, anyone?

I ended up walking into a random store. I don’t know why I ended up there instead of the other ones, but I walked in, and first poked around, looking at the (bad) pots they had along the wall. Then I asked the lady if she had some aged oolongs, my standard opening line these days. She did (they all do, no matter what). I saw it, asked around…. and then saw there were cans that said “Wuyi Shuixian”. So I asked if they had shuixian…. of course she does, and then she proceeded to open some of these cans. Interestingly enough, the ones she opened said “puerh” on them. In fact, the cans are basically unlabeled — the names on the cans have no relation to what’s actually in them, but she remembers exactly what’s in which. I ended up buying a bit of aged qizhong, and some aged tieguanyin. I also got some shuixian from the 80s.

Now I only need to try my new acquisitions….

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Using teapots

November 17, 2007 · 5 Comments

I drank the Yetang aged dongding oolong today again, but using my new teapot I acquired a few weeks ago rather than a gaiwan. Even though I used less leaves, I think the result has been very good. What, though, is it that makes teapots work better? Temperature? The clay? I’m not totally convinced the clay is what does it entirely. I suppose the fact that a pot keeps higher temperature than a gaiwan might be part of the reason, but is that it? Or is it placebo?

I have friends who swear by pots and will never use gaiwan unless they have to for one reason or another. Then there are some (albeit a minority) who generally only use a gaiwan.

Over time I’ve migrated more and more tea over to pots… but it’s not always possible to do so, and when I evaluate a tea I’d prefer using a gaiwan sometimes, although even that’s changing these days. I can just see myself end up with a few dozen pots… oh, the horrors

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Aged? Taiwan oolong

November 6, 2007 · 2 Comments

One of the things that makes dating aged oolongs difficult is the lack of any sort of packaging. They usually just show up in a canister, and packed for you on the spot depending on how much you want. You’re lucky if the canister is labeled, but the label sometimes has nothing to do with what’s inside, so go figure…

This tea I found in a teashop near National Taiwan University after dinner with a friend. The shop was interesting looking. It was sort of like a regular mom and pop shop, but better stocked (so it seems) than most. I asked if they have aged oolongs, and the owner said he had a bunch. I ended home with just one, although there was another one that was made purely of buds that looked more aged and very interesting, but the price tag was pretty steep and I didn’t want to gamble on it.

So this is what this tea looks like

Doesn’t look much aged, does it? When he opened the big canister the tea smelled more aged. In smaller quantity, it’s not as obvious.

It brews a darkish yellow/orange tea

The taste… is decided that of a younger Taiwan oolong but with a touch of that “aged” character to it. That aged character is very fleeting and isn’t at all obvious at first, but having drunk a lot of that stuff recently where it’s much more prominent, it becomes a lot easier to identify. The taste is without a trace of the grassy notes that I dislike in a Taiwan oolong, and the tea itself is full bodied and VERY smooth, lacking that slightly rough edge that one often finds in the lighter Taiwanese oolong. If there was roasting done for this tea, it must be very minor, and given the small amount of this tea that the store keeps, I doubt it’s worth reroasting. The taste is primarily that of honey-like aromas, plus a bit of that typical Taiwanese floral note. It also has the additional benefit of not making me dizzy even though I drank it on a mostly empty stomach before dinner. Can’t say that for most Taiwanese oolongs.

I think this tea probably rarely sees the light of day, as few people will seek out a tea like this from a store like that one. The price is a bit high, mind you (something like $180 per 600g) but I do like this tea quite a bit. I bought a new, slightly roasted oolong that, from my memory anyway, tastes similar and is cheaper. Maybe I should drink that tomorrow and compare them against each other to see which one’s better and if the aging of this has done anything to it.

The wet leaves are healthy, thick, and the stems are kept

It is probably best drunk just as a typical Taiwanese oolongs with a honey note, rather than anything aged per se. Yet… pretty enjoyable all around.

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Dry stored aged baozhong?

November 2, 2007 · 2 Comments

I am thinking that if that super-heavily roasted tea can be thought of as a “cooked” version of aged oolong, then this tea today can be called a “dry stored” baozhong.

The dry leaves are not too indicative of anything. You can sniff a faint smell of aged oolongs, but the leaves are obviously quite intact and look good — it doesn’t show very well in the photo

The cup of tea looks similarly good

It starts out a little sour — the first cup or two has some sourness in it, but it dissipates quickly and by the third infusion you’re not getting any sourness from it anymore. Instead, it’s got a nice aged flavour to it — I can’t describe quite how “aged” it taste, but it reminds me of old puerh, plus a little fruitiness. There’s no roasted flavour at all to the tea, and in fact, after a few infusions you start tasting some greeness in the back end — it seems like there’s a green oolong undertone to the tea. It hits the throat well, with an obvious aftertaste that lingers well after I swallowed. There’s also some qi — I was feeling the effects of drinking this tea. It’s always a good thing.

The tea lasts many infusions — this is taken after maybe 10 cups?

The wet leaves are a bit interesting

You can see there are some leaves that are almost green, while most are brownish. Most leaves feel a bit roasted — they’re not soft and pliable like unroasted oolongs, but are a bit stiffer, but not stiff enough so that you can’t open them up. The roasting done on these teas is probably fairly light — and I even wonder if it was reroasted at all. The taste is sufficiently aged to tell me that it’s probably not faked, and it probably took some time to develop, especially considering the relatively light roasting done.

You can see the slight variations in the colour of the leaves

It did occur to me whether or not this tea was blended with some new baozhongs. I would think though that the dry (and new) baozhong would stick out like a sore thumb with its dark green rather than dark brown colour. I didn’t see any of that when I put the leaves in. I’ll probably look more carefully next time to make sure.

Regardless though, I really like this tea, and it’s also nice that it’s not expensive at all.

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Cooked oolong

October 29, 2007 · 1 Comment

As far as oolongs go, the tea I had today is what you’d call a cooked oolong.

Sometimes reasonably roasted oolongs are called cooked (shu) oolong, but there are different degrees of this stuff, and today’s is pretty extreme. Look at the liquor

I picked this tea up at the Fuxing store. They had a small amount of it left, and I thought it was fun, if nothing else. They claim it’s an aged oolong, 10 years or so. I somehow don’t buy it. Look at the wet leaves

They’re almost pitch black. The leaves are like little springs — you stretch them and let go, and they bounce right back to their original shape. They won’t unfurl no matter what you do, and will break if you try too hard.

Don’t get me wrong though, as far as super heavily fired oolongs go, this one doesn’t taste too bad. It has its share of charcoal notes, but it also does have a little bit of an aged taste, and plenty of woody notes in the tea. It is probably better if brewed a little lighter because of its very heavy firing, but I want to compare it on a more equal footing to the other stuff I’ve been drinking recently. Whereas some of those aged oolongs you’ve seen can actually look quite normal, this is anything but. Yet, there will be people who tell you this is aged stuff… and I suspect that with enough work put into it and giving it some more time to lose the “fire” flavour, it can indeed be a reasonable aged oolong. It just isn’t one yet.

There are charms of such teas, but they tend to be a bit boring and sometimes just a little too much charcoal. I think I will revisit this tea after leaving it around for a few months and see what happens.

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Chayuan

October 27, 2007 · 3 Comments

There’s a tea mall in Maliandao called “Chayuan”. “Cha”, you all know, is tea. The word “yuan” ç·£ in this case can mean “predestined affinity”, or something like that, anyway. Chayuan, when combined, can mean something like “some natural affinity through tea”, either between two people, or between a tea and a person.

I suppose I had some of that today, when I went walking around the Chungking North Rd. area again where the old teashops of Taipei are located. There aren’t that many of them nowadays, and one or two that I went by looked downright imposing…. even worse than the “Grand Old Store“. They were so imposing, I didn’t go in at all.

Then I found this place that’s across the park from Youji. It still looked like a Grand Old Store — old decor, lots of big (I can comfortably sit in one) canisters for tea, all lined up along the store and two women sitting there watching TV. No customers. I walked in, and asked if they have “laocha”, old tea. This is parlance for old Taiwanese tea, usually, when one’s in Taiwan. Surprisingly, she took out some puerh — cooked, loose puerh at that. “No no no, old Taiwanese tea”, I said. “Ok, we have some”. She popped open on of those big cans, inside of which is a big plastic bag, and there it was… kilos of what look and smell like aged baozhong. It was then the owner of the store, a man in his 60s, came out. Wanna try some?

Sure…

The tea itself wasn’t very good. It’s a bit too sour — sour enough to make it unpleasant. The conversation, however, was going well. I think the owner liked the fact that I know a few things about tea, and that I am a young person seeking old Taiwan teas. These days, he laments, young people don’t know these things anymore. They just drink the new stuff, and all those new stores that are popping up — those owners know nothing about tea. You can’t drink that green stuff too much. It’s too stimulating, and is bad for you. This is what we drank in the old days, etc etc

Not surprisingly, he then brought out some better aged baozhong… they look better, and tasted far better. It’s a little sour in the opening, but it’s only a touch sour and is entirely acceptable. There’s an aged taste to the tea, although not a lot of the fruity sweetness, but the qi is strong and obvious — I was sweating profusely, and today was hardly hot. This rarely happens with me, so I know I’ve got a winner here.

So I got some of this, and then, the guy was like “want to try some of our gaoshan oolong?”. I think he likes educating a young man in tea. I’m a happy and relatively knowledgable audience, so he was having a good time talking and brewing. He took the stuff out — looks like good gaoshan oolong. Roasted about 8 hours, he said. You can’t really tell by the way it looks when dried, or wet. The stuff is still pretty good.

You can, however, tell by the taste. There’s very little of the grassy notes in this tea, which I loathe in a green Taiwan oolong. Rather, it’s fruity, smooth, with a nice hint of sweetness and also some floral notes. The difference between something like this and some of the unroasted stuff is quite obvious. It doesn’t have that nasty, green, and metallic edge to it that I really dislike in green Taiwanese stuff (and which generally makes me feel unwell after too much drinking). This tea was good… not awesome, mind you, but good, and I don’t say that very much about green Taiwanese oolong.

The best part was the conversation though. He was telling me a variety of things, some of which I knew, others I’ve heard for the first time. It’s always interesting to hear a man who’s spent his life in the tea business (since 13, he said) tell you his take on things. As I’ve said before, these are the real tea masters who really know their stuff.

So I got some of both, left…. picked up a gift along the way, and ended up at the place that sold me that $10 pot again. I couldn’t resist going back there to see if there’s one or two more pots to pick up that are cheap enough. I ended up choosing two…. he sold them to me for even less than 350 per pot. Amazing, eh?

So here they are. The first one is not bad, I think, the second a little more iffy (the nub on the lid, as you can see, is not well done). The clay on that thing though feels awfully silky and soft. You almost feel like you can push it in and turn it back into a ball of clay. Heck, it’s not even $10. All in all, a pretty productive tea shopping day.

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Another aged baozhong

October 26, 2007 · 4 Comments

Back to the lineup of aged oolongs…

This is an aged baozhong from Youji that I visited last weekend, and that I might visit again this weekend. When I asked them for aged tea, this is what they showed me. When I tried it at the store, I didn’t like it too much, because it’s a bit sour and a bit weak, but it was brewed lightly in a porcelain pot. It wasn’t the ideal setup for me, given my drinking habits, so I decided to buy some of this and try it at home. Despite the fact that one can try teas out at stores…. there’s nothing like trying a tea out at home.

You can’t tell too much from the dry leaves

The liquor tells a little more… although I actually forgot to take a picture before a few infusions went by, so the colour lightened up a bit.

The tea actually is quite similar to the alleged 60s baozhong I had a little while ago. The tea opens with a bit of sourness, and then delivers that aged taste…. etc

There’s only one obvious difference — the price.

The tea I tried last week costs something along the lines of $270/600g. This one today costs about $55/600g.

Yeah, 1/5.

Here’s the deal with aged oolong prices — it’s all over the place. Every store has some of it. They will tell you it’s aged, it’s been in their store for years, etc etc. Sometimes they can tell you where it’s from, other times they can’t. They will show you the tea, you can try it, and their taste is also all over the place — some taste like newly roasted tea, others taste like slightly aged green oolong, more taste like real aged oolong…. and the level of agedness has almost nothing to do with the price. I think one difficulty is simply because these things are not, and cannot, be labeled — a 5kg canister of tea is a 5kg canister of tea. Unless they come in those competition or whatever boxes that can be dated, it’s just loose leaf tea, and whether it’s 3, 5, 10, 50 years old… is up to the seller to claim and the buyer to decide.

Which, in some ways, is how things should be. You can decide if you like the tea or not on its own merits — not based on a wrapper or a reputation or somebody else’s opinion. After all, tea is for drinking. Do I (or will I) enjoy this tea? Is it worth it? Those are the two questions that I try to answer whenever I try out a new tea. If the answer to either of these is a “no” or even a “maybe”, I won’t bother.

I think it’s a shame that aged oolongs don’t get much coverage outside of Taiwan, let alone in the West. They’re every bit as good as old puerh, I think, but often for far less money (an aged puerh would be considered cheap even at the price of the more expensive baozhong here). Their problems are 1) lack of large volumes, 2) relative difficulty in storage, 3) difficulty in authentication, and thus 4) lack of consistency, again due to storage and authentication. There isn’t a lot of money to be made in these things, if at all. Like today… I know that I shouldn’t get the expensive one, but the cheap ones might be a good buy, and I might go and get some more to stock up for future consumption. At $270/600g, it’s not really an everyday tea (although still not too pricey, I suppose). At $55/600g, I can do whatever I like with it and won’t feel any guilt. The choice is pretty simple.

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