A Tea Addict's Journal

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Will travel for tea

November 3, 2007 · 3 Comments

I went to see Aaron Fisher today again at Miaoli. I don’t think I’ll ever go to Miaoli if I didn’t know anybody there. It’s a small town halfway down to Taichung, and it doesn’t have a lot to offer. But hey, if there’s another tea head there, I’ll go.

Especially if said tea head brews up a nice roasted Taiwan oolong (sweet, mellow, nice aftertaste), followed by a late 70s/early 80s dry stored Xiaguan iron cake (it’s fun when the stuff still taste kinda young when it’s closing in on 30, with a mix of aged and young characteristics — proof that iron cakes can probably benefit from wetter storage), then on to the Blue Label (very nice), and then finishing with a 1930s Liu An (BBB, I see why you love this stuff). Thank you, Aaron. They were all great.

Meanwhile we talked about things tea related, and I also watched him cleaning an old pot he just got using some Japanese pot-cleaning stuff, which he gave me a few packs of to clean my pots. Time to experiment.

I didn’t sleep well last night, and so my tea endurance was a little lower than usual, but it was a good day drinking tea. He also sent me off with a bunch of samples — more on those later 🙂

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A visit to Miaoli

September 9, 2007 · 7 Comments

Miaoli about an hour and half from Taipei by train, and generally speaking, not much there holds interest for a foreign tourist. I didn’t really go there for the sights today though, as I was there to see Aaron Fisher, most recently of the magazine Art of Tea fame, as he’s the Editor in Chief of that publication.

After picking me up from the train station, we went to his place and quickly got down to business… tea drinking.

We first started out with a Taiwanese oolong he picked up recently, I believe, from Lugu Village in Nantou County, which is a major center of tea production in Nantou. The tea, he says, is organic, etc, and he used his silver teapot to make it. It’s an interesting thing, because I think the silver teapot does achieve a certain concentration of flavour that you otherwise won’t get, although since I haven’t tried the tea any other way, it’s hard to tell if it’s a function of the pot or if it’s just the tea. The tea is very good though, sweet, clear, smooth, a touch grassy, very good qi, and overall very pleasant without the sort of overbearing aroma that I dislike in some Taiwanese oolong. It’s I think reasonably oxidized but not roasted. If I can get a hold of this, or similar tea, I wouldn’t mind getting some.

We then moved on to an aged oolong, a 60s Gaoshan Oolong, if I remembered correctly. Now, he whipped out his silver kettle, a gorgeous little thing, somewhat similar to the one I saw a few weeks ago, but with a smoother surface and a more refined look. I tried a cup of water from the silver kettle (before the water boiled) and it tasted sweet. Then, without thinking about the experimental implications of it, tried a cup of the same water without going through the silver kettle. Not so sweet. Very interesting. Various vessels do change the way a water/tea taste. I do wonder how reproducible this is, but I think it should be fairly reproducible. Then, it’s a matter of whether or not such things are worth the price of admission… and that I suppose depends on your personal preferences, priorities, etc

I’ll buy a silver kettle before I buy a big screen TV though.

Anyway, the aged oolong. As I’ve said somewhere before, I think all aged oolongs tend to converge in taste so long as it’s been stored properly and of reasonable quality. This one is the same — a very pleasant aged oolong taste, no roughness or harshness remaining at all, with that “old” taste that is so characteristic of a tea of this type. I am a big fan of aged oolongs, and I think anybody who hasn’t tried one should definitely try to get their hands on some of this stuff. It’s I think less of an acquired taste than puerh, and it is also usually without all the potential health worries that some people have with puerh, primarily because if an aged oolongs has any mould growing on it… it’s no longer good. Too bad such things are rarely available outside Taiwan, and if they are, they’re too pricey.

We took a short break, and then went back at it. This time it’s a dry stored puerh from the early 70s. I believe the dry storage claim, because though the tea is a reddish black, the leaves are very clean, it doesn’t smell of musty books, and it is very light, meaning it has lost almost all water content. The tea brews a clear ruby liquor, round, smooth, one might say fruity. Oddly enough, the brewed leaves are rather dark, but then, lighting was not bright in the room so it’s difficult to tell for sure what it is like, but whatever, it doesn’t really matter. One need not pursue such things too much as long as the tea is good in the cup. This tea lasted, basically, the rest of the afternoon.

Of course, during all this time we’re not just talking about tea, or teaware. Conversation wandered, and tea was just, in some ways, serving as a lubricant for conversation. Tea is fun, but it’s only part of the fun.

We went to one of the teashops in town that also sort of doubles as a vegetarian restaurant, and then ended up having a little more tea there — this time an 80s tuo, wet stored, but quite decent. It lasted many infusions, and is reasonably priced. Not dirt cheap, mind you, but perhaps worth considering. I’ll have to do some more thinking in that regard.

As if all that was not enough, my host sent me away with many bags of teas to try and experiment with, including some truly interesting pieces of tea (or bits, or balls….), as well as all three issues of the magazine in print and a cup that he designed. I felt ashamed that I didn’t have much of anything to reciprocate, the bad Asian that I am. I’ll most likely talk about all of these things in the not too distant future in detail, as I drink/use/play with them. For now, though, I must thank my host of the day for his hospitality, and I’m quite sure I will bother him again before I leave Taiwan.

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A productive tea gathering

June 30, 2007 · Leave a Comment

I had tea with L today.  Also present was a Taiwanese gentleman who apparently is quite an important man in the Taiwan tea business.  We had a long discussion on various topics around tea, from puerh to green.  The guy definitely has experience, and you can tell he knows what he’s talking about.  Much of it is just him lecturing, since we all know so little about tea production.

One thing that definitely comes across is that knowing about how tea is made is essential for a higher level understanding of why a tea tastes the way it does.  Being able to say “this tea is astringent because so and so did this during production” is very important.  For all types of tea, there’s a different set of rules, but there are also common things that are true for all teas.  It is obvious that knowledge from one kind of tea will transfer, at least somewhat, into others.  This man, for example, gathered a lot of data and knowledge from individual farmers and tried his best to improve Taiwanese oolong.  Everything from the wind direction, to the specific hour of the picking, to the location of the slope, soil type, etc etc are all important things to consider, and the way one processes a tea will change depending on any one of those factors.  Whether a tea is good or bad depends greatly on whether or not one is able to grasp all of these variables and make the tea come alive, a term that he stressed throughout the day.

What’s also important is that I’ve actually never heard of this man before, and I doubt few outside the trade has.  There must be many such low profile tea makers out there who are just really knowledgeable.  The people who know tea best are the makers, and all pursuit in tea, ultimately, goes back to the production process.  I wonder if it’s ever possible to learn so much, without being a producer myself.  But it’s a nice thought and certainly one goal to aspire to.

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An outdoor tea party

May 2, 2007 · 4 Comments

Today was a very nice day, and I invited two friends to come to have tea with me.  Since it was a warm but not too warm day, I thought it best to sit outside, next to the blooming roses…

We started off with one of the Douji Maocha samples that I got from the tea expo. To refresh your memory, it’s one of these:

Since I’m a fan of Yiwu… we drank the Yiwu.

The amount of maocha was just right for the gaiwan… not too little and not too much.  One of my friends is a tea novice, so I thought other mountains might be a little too bitter.

The Yiwu turned out to be quite fragrant, thick, smooth, and generally very pleasant to drink.  It lacked a bit of a “throat feel” that I hoped for, and huigan is mild, not as strong as can be.  The tea is obviously spring tea, although I’m not sure if it’s actually 07 spring tea.  I’d imagine it might be, but it could also be an 06.  It’s hard to tell and I personally am not sure.

The wet leaves are quite beautiful

I think I liked this tea quite a bit.  Now I wonder how the other mountains taste.

We then went on to a qingxiang tieguanyin given to me by Toki.  I brewed it using the pot I got yesterday

It worked pretty well.  It’s a little bigger than the amount of tea was good for, but at the same time, we were looking for something a little less strong.  It brought out the fragrance of the tea quite well, although I always find the newer qingxiang tieguanyin these days to be a bit grassy for my taste.  I haven’t had a qingxiang tieguanyin for so long!  Thanks Toki 🙂

This is what’s left of it at the end

We then drank the cheap Yunnan green, or rather, tested the cheap Yunnan green I bought.  I wanted to contrast it with the maocha just to see what’s in the tea…

I think it’s pretty safe to say that if this were pressed into a cake, nobody can tell for sure if it’s puerh or not without being able to smell it and try it.  It can look quite like the real deal.

The taste, however, is distinctively beany.  Many green teas have a “bean” taste, and this tea, I think, has a classic “bean” taste that can go into a tea textbook.  If I ever want anybody to know what a “bean” tasting green tea is like… this is it.  This is also something that a puerh shouldn’t taste like, lest it will not age well in a few years….

The wet leaves are rather green too.

By this time it was getting a little late, and we finished up with the Qimen Haoya B that I bought a few weeks ago here in Shanghai.

I didn’t use too much leaves as I didn’t want to overdose my guests.  It yielded a nice cup of tea, quite nice to drink to finish off this session.  I always like to drink something warming/mellow to finish a tea session to keep everybody on a happy note.  Something too high-strung can really make one feel jittery or uncomfortable after many teas.  The hongcha did the trick, I think, and we proceeded to dinner after the tea.  Not before I take a shot of the wet leaves though…

By this time the sky was turning dark.  The camera was doing funny things to compensate for the lack of light, so the gaiwan is showing up in interesting colours.  I played with the colour balance to try to approximate the colour of the wet leaves, but this is still a little off.  Oh well.

It was fun, and I think I should definitely do this again.  Drinking tea outside has its charms, and so long as it’s not the mosquito season… it’s a very pleasant thing to do.

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Yet another tea gathering

April 29, 2007 · 7 Comments

I went to L’s place today for tea again.  Quite a few people showed up throughout the afternoon, and we drank quite a few teas in the process.

They were already drinking when I got there.  But the first two teas we had after I arrived were the two samples sent to me by Davelcorp.  They were labeled sample A and B.  We started with sample A, as I assumed that was the order I was supposed to go in.  Sample A, when dry, smelled a little cooked for some reason.  It doesn’t smell quite like a regular puerh would after a few years of aging.  It’s a little dark, somewhat brown in colour.

The tea brewed up a reddish brown liquor.  After a few infusions, it looked like this

The tea tastes a little funny for some reason.  While the tea looks like a great puerh, and smells like an ok one, it has a funny taste… it’s got some slightly plumish taste, but not in the way that the 1997 Xizihao Yiwu taste.  It’s also got a little sourness to it on the side of the mouth, and has a strange finish.  I can’t quite pinpoint what’s wrong with it, but multiple people thought it a little odd without quite able to put their finger on it.  In fact, I think I’ve tasted this before in my Keyixing bricks… they are somewhat, but not entirely, similar in taste.  They are both a little thin in body.  I wonder if this is a tea that didn’t have enough “kill-green” and turned a bit into a red tea.

The second tea we had was Sample B.  Sample B smells a lot better than Sample A when dry.  It’s got a nice aroma, smelling like maybe a Yiwu would after a few years of aging.

The tea has a lighter colour liquor than Sample A, but the taste was obviously fuller, with a nice aftertaste that hits the back of the mouth and the top of the throat.  Everybody liked this tea.  I am quite certain this is a Yiwu, perhaps Davelcorp’s beloved Menghai Yiwu cake that has been a subject of discussion on the LJ community recently.  Whatever it is, it’s quite nice.

Here’s a comparative shot of A and B’s wet leaves

A on the left, B on the right.  The colour might be a little too light, but B is definitely greener than A.  B also has a more pungent “puerh-like” smell than A, which smells a bit vegetal.  A is really quite similar to my Keyixing bricks, down to the smell of the wet leaves.

We then drank the Bulang that I bought recently.  I like it, but L doesn’t, thinking it’s too bitter.  I find it to have good energy, but maybe I’m just deluded?

Compared to the Zhongcha Banzhang cake we drank next, the Bulang is stronger, oddly enough, but the Banzhang has an obviously different flavour profile.  I think for the cost differential, which is very substantial, the Bulang obviously wins.  Without factoring in the cost, it will have to come to individual preferences.

We then sat around for a bit, and in the meantime, L got a call from Beijing about the newest prices from Zhongcha (with whom he has a dealership relationship).  Prices have been reduced a little, which is definitely a good thing.  I think there’s now some downward pressure on new cakes’ prices, and also on new maocha prices, because the level reached a month ago was simply too high — many stores could find no buyers, especially retail buyers, for their tea.  At least L doesn’t gouge me, that I know.  Not that I have bought much of anything from him, mind you.  I think I’ve drank more tea from him than actual tea bought, which is a scary thought in and of itself.

Another guest arrived, and we switched to a dahongpao that Action Jackson got as a gift from Xiaomei, L’s business partner in Beijing (and which I hauled over).  It’s actually quite nice, aromatic, and a very, very welcomed change from all the youngish puerhs we were drinking.  We finished the day with a wet-stored cooked brick, which I didn’t find particularly interesting, but then, I rarely find any cooked stuff interesting, and certainly cannot justify high prices paid for such things.

One of the things that came up during discussion between me and Action Jackson today about younger puerhs is the matter of taste… and I realized that I no longer really drink any flavours of a youngish puerh, but rather the feeling of the tea.  She said she liked the taste of one of the teas we had today over another, and asked me about flavours.  It was then that I realized I was no longer looking at flavours… I didn’t even really pay much attention to it.  Of course, I noted whether or not something was like what I think is the taste of a certain region, but… that almost no longer enter into the equation when I make that decision of whether or not this is a good tea, and whether or not this is something I would want to buy.  It’s something worth thinking about… I should perhaps pay more attention to describing flavours, something which I’ve never been very good at.

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Tea Expo Shanghai 2007

April 27, 2007 · 5 Comments

I went to the Tea Expo today.

First of all… the thing is a little surprising given the amount of puerh tea vendors in there.  Granted, puerh is all the rage these days and is the new darling of the tea industry in China, but I didn’t expect quite so many of them.  A fully 80% of the stalls, by my estimation, were puerh ones, and the best attended/decorated ones were definitely the puerh ones.

All the usual suspects were there… Menghai, Xiaguan, Mengku, etc etc.  Mind you, the Xiaguan stall was deserted (while the Menghai one was pretty well attended).  There were some green tea ones, and a few tieguanyin stalls, but not many.

The other thing odd about this thing is timing.  It’s obviously designed with green tea in mind, because this is a perfect time for manufacturers to showcase their newly picked green tea in late April.  However, for puerh it is too early.  Most factories present didn’t have their spring tea ready… many showed up with only the packaging of the teas, but not the teas themselves…. because they haven’t finished making them yet.  It’s a rather odd situation.  The “official puerh vendor” of the expo only had one spring cake ready — the rest were still in various stages of production.  It was a strange thing.

Here are a few sights from the place… it wasn’t too big, and we went through a backdoor (we don’t even know where the front door was) and just walked right in.  You don’t need to pay anyway to get in, so it doesn’t really matter.

The prices at the expo were actually fairly high by Maliandao standards.  One store quoted me something that was 4x what I could fetch at Maliandao… so why should I buy from the expo?  I don’t know.  Prices in general were quite high, and no bargains were to be had, as far as I am aware, especially considering this was the “trade” day.  Non-trade visitors were only supposed to visit tomorrow and Sunday.

Then again, as at all expos, there were freebies to be had.  Action Jackson, especially, got a free cake from some gentleman from a relatively unknown factory

Sometimes, it pays to be a foreigner in China.

I also had my first experience drinking tea from a huge teapot today

The tea inside is similar to what I had at the Xinjiang restaurant, except with a bit more spiciness in the tea.  Maybe it’s the same thing brewed a little stronger.  If it’s what I think it is… it’s Fu Bricks from Hunan.

Thanks to L’s connection, all of us got some freebies as well from the puerh sponsor.  He knows the manager of their factory in Yunnan, who was there today, and he gave us this:

Which, if opened, reveals the goodies:

This is maocha from all six of the Six Mountains.  In order from top to bottom they are Yiwu, Yibang, Wangzhi, Manzhuan, Youle, and Gedeng.  Yes, I’m going to try them all, and of course, you’ll all hear about them when I do.

After the tea expo, where we only spent about two hours and change, we went to Tianshan Tea City to buy some stuff.  We stopped at a Wuyi store, drank a few things, including a fairly interesting, but very high fired, Wuyi tea.  This stuff was black and tasted quite strong of charcoal taste.  I liked it, Action Jackson didn’t, and neither did L’s business partner from Hangzhou.  L himself wasn’t around, but I don’t think he would’ve liked it either.

We made it out of there with a bit of tea, then looked around for the cheapest gaiwan we could find.  I finally have a gaiwan for the house now for a whooping 5 RMB.  I don’t have a cup, but that is easily fixable.  I also saw some curious cakes on our way out, but I already had enough.

We drank even more tea as we went to L’s office, including a 2003 Purple Dayi and a cooked cake of some kind from Zhongcha.  All this while a few Menghai factory dealers were there drinking stuff and basically saying only Dayi teas are good.  It was too much for me… and my stomach complained when we didn’t get to eat dinner until after 8.  Sigh.

All in all, a long day for tea.  Gotta get some work done tomorrow to compensate, and at some point in the near future, I need to head back to Tianshan to try some tea I don’t get to try in Beijing.

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Tea gathering

April 4, 2007 · Leave a Comment

Today I had two tea guests over, and together we drank four different teas. As is generally the case at these meetings, everybody has way more tea than we can possibly drink in one session, and we really only got to drink a fraction of the stuff that we actually had.

The first was a very light dancong, unroasted. The tea is quite nice, subtle, and sweet, although I think I probably could’ve made it a little stronger and make it better. I usually am not a big fan of light dancongs, although this one I could handle. Sometimes they are just too fragrant… taste almost fake.

The second was an oddball of a tea… the Eiabora King Tea Biscuit from Dadugang. Now, the name of the tea itself is a little odd, but in this case, the smell was even odder. It has been sitting in a plastic bag, as far as I can tell, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Instead, it seems as though something is happening with the tea. When I sniffed the dry leaves, it smelled funny with an undescribable smell. Then, when brewed, it somehow came out even stronger.. a nasty smell that is rather unpleasant. One of my guests commented that this is rather like that of a rotten fruit smell… which is probably pretty close to what it is. We had two infusions of this before deciding to give it up. There’s a possibility that this is just spoiling instead of aging — it’s turning into something bad. The tea just didn’t taste right at all and had some very odd flavours to it… entirely unpleasant.

Then, to wash it out a bit, I offered to make my Yiwu maocha, which I now increasingly think is a mixed Yiwu and Menghai area teas. While it has a hint of that Yiwu taste, it also has that smell that I seem to find in a lot of Menghai area teas. The tea is still nice… it’s just not exactly what it claims to be.

We didn’t have a lot of time today to drink a lot of tea, so we ended up with my broken Guangyungong bits as a finish. While it took only about an hour to drink the three previous teas, we spent probably just as much, if not more, time on this puerh. Before my guests left, it was at least at infusion 12 or 13. The tea keeps giving, and I can just let it drag out longer and longer in infusion time and still get a cup that, while losing the woody and thick aromas, retain just enough to make it much more interesting than drinking water. It is sweet and smooth, and leaves very little doubt that this is an aged tea — the longevity is not matched by your usual cooked puerh.

It’s too bad that I’m leaving soon, because otherwise we could have another such session. Alas, I must go back to China soon to keep doing my work there.

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Tea Gallery

March 29, 2007 · Leave a Comment

Today was a total loss for tea, spent traveling, etc…

Yesterday, however, was not. I went in the afternoon to the Tea Gallery in NYC. Many of you have probably heard about this place. If you haven’t, it’s basically… the best place to go for tea if you want Chinese tea in New York City, as far as I am aware anyway.

They apparently have regular Tuesday gatherings there, and I met, again, Toki, but also another friend whom I’ve only corresponded with on RFDT. When I walked in, they were already drinking — four teas from different cakes of a private production, but somehow all tasting quite different. The first was smokey, the second a little more bland and weak, the third and fourth tasting more like Yiwu, but different in their own ways. All were different and with varying degrees of bitterness and thickness. It would be rather difficult to believe they were all from the same production if I wasn’t told, even though the dry leaves don’t immediately look different. The colour of the wet leaves are also different…. some were darker, some lighter. The variation is simply quite striking. I think at least part of it has to do with a slightly uneven production process — not all the cakes were made/pressed at the same time or using the exact same batch of leaves.

Then we tried a dancong I brought over. This is a gift from somebody in China, supposedly of some pretty decent quality leaves. The tea is very sweet, with a nice hint of something like apricot, but the taste is a little on the light side. I need to try brewing it with my own pot and experiment with it. I might go back and buy a little more if the price is right.

We also drank a very nice, fragrant, and deep shuixian. I’m not sure where it’s from, and neither does Michael, the owner of the Tea Gallery. He got it from somebody in Taiwan, and it is, from what I gather, a gift. It was nice drinking though.

There were people coming in and out of the place while I was there. It was pretty busy. We all had fun and it was particularly interesting drinking those four rather strong puerhs.

All in all, a good day, and finally got the chance to meet somebody I’ve been corresponding with but not met. It’s really a rare thing to have in the States to be able to sit at a teahouse and chat for hours on end about various things related (or unrelated) to tea. It is also a great thing to meet like minded people. If only we had such a place in Boston….

Or maybe it’s a good thing there isn’t one here. I know I won’t get work done if it exists!

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Three time’s a charm

March 27, 2007 · 1 Comment

I started today’s journey to NYC with a cup off McDonald’s tea.  Yes, McDonald’s tea.  It tasted just like the decaf English breakfast the other day, only it doesn’t have the excuse of being decaf.  I even have
a picture to prove it.

Then in the afternoon, I got myself a teabag of Harney & Sons Darjeeling.  Not too bad.  The leaves were really green.  I was wondering if you can properly call this a black tea at all.

Then, tonight, after dinner with Lew Perin, programmer of the very useful Babelcarp, he treated me to a sample of the 88 Qingbing, which is far better than the one I remember from the Best Tea house.  It had some similarities, but this sample was much better in the fragrance department.  Better than the tea though is the company, which was what was really enjoyable about these encounters.  🙂

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Tea meeting

March 18, 2007 · Leave a Comment

Yesterday I had tea from 1:30pm to 6:15pm with D, a local tea friend whom I’ve met last time we went to Royal East. We had a whole bunch of stuff…. including
1) Chen Guang He Tang’s Yiwu Yecha from Hou De
2) Lapsang Souchong I got from Beijing
3) 1990s Yiwu loose puerh from Hou De
4) Loose puerh, unkonwn age, from Hong Kong
5) Yiwu cake sample I have from Beijing

I’ll skip over 1, since I still need to taste the Yiwu Chawang to compare it against, and to post my results then. I might do that late tonight.

The lapsang I just find pleasant, and I didn’t use a lot of leaves (it’s very dangerous drinking tea with two people — very easy to overdose). It lasted…. 6 infusions? Something like that. It’s something that can, I think, be enjoyed anytime.

The 1990s Yiwu loose puerh is an interesting piece. D wanted me to try it because he thought it’s nothing like what he’s tried before. When I opened the bag and sniffed, I think I could smell what I know as wet storage smell… that musty, pungent smell that accompanies wet stored tea. The leaves look rather uniform. We used a gaiwan to brew it… and…. after the wash, I smelled it, and there was something odd about the tea. I couldn’t explain what exactly it was, and I don’t think D could either, although he said this is exactly what he thought was odd about it. We tasted it… and the tea is thin, with a little bit of bitterness in the undertones, and not really tasting like any puerh I’ve had before. The thing that it reminds me of is actually a Yunnan hongcha (red tea), or something similar.

The tea looks really good. It looks like a well aged puerh in colour, but when brewed it has none of that taste. Comparing it with, say, the Xizhihao Yiwu 1997, for example, this one is obviously lacking. I think the thing that I am missing is the sweetness that comes from puerh… it doesn’t turn sweet like a puerh should, but instead stays the way it is. We didn’t drink too many infusions of this… about 5 or so, before giving up and moving on.

I pulled out a bag of loose puerh I got in Hong Kong (I bought quite a few different kinds today). I haven’t tried this for quite a few weeks now, and it’s been sitting in the bag since I bought it. When I opened it, there was a strong, pungent medicinal smell coming from the tea. It’s definitely stored poorly as well, I think, and the age isn’t that old. I used my pot to make it, and interestingly enough… there was, underneath everything, a similar taste to the Yiwu loose tea, but with something overlaying that bitterness base. I don’t think the taste was entirely pleasant, and D didn’t think so either. It tasted a bit different from when I tried it in the store, and I thought perhaps it has to do with the fact that what I tried in the store was the surface of a big bucket of tea, whereas this is something that was scooped up. It was also sitting in the bag for a month now… which might make the unpleasant tastes more apparent. I think I need to air this tea out before drinking it.

Since we didn’t go too many infusions on this one, I left it in the pot and brewed it again today. Funny enough…. the unpleasant taste is not apparent anymore, and the tea is infinitely more drinkable. I’m not sure why. The guy who sold it to me told me that I should leave the tea out, all spread out on a flat surface, and let it sit during the days when humidity is high in Hong Kong. Then, take it back in after its gone through a few days of dryness. He thinks this will make the tea much better. I can’t do that, but it’s something to keep in mind.

Lastly, we ended with a sample of a Yiwu tea I got from Beijing. D said he hasn’t really tried a young puerh (under 3 years or so, I suppose) that he actually enjoys, and I thought this could be one that is enjoyable. This tea is… a little odd, in that it doesn’t really have much of the bitterness so characteristic of young puerh, yet not bland either like a lot of bad, un-bitter puerhs tend to be. I don’t really quite know what to make of it, but I bought a few liking the huigan and the overall complexity of the tea.

By the end of the session, we were both rather buzzed with caffeine. It was definitely an enjoyable afternoon, and it is not easy to find tea company around here to both talk about and to drink a lot of tea. I’m hoping that before I go back to China, that we will find time again to get to gether and drink some more tea.

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