A Tea Addict's Journal

Entries tagged as ‘grandpa’

Traveling in China

June 21, 2007 · 10 Comments

These days, wherever you go in China, as long as the hotel is semi-decent it is bound to come with a water boiler, of the cheap plastic kind. This one I’m staying at is no exception. Except, the hotel is fairly new and the water boiler still smells a bit like plastic. Also, they don’t have real glasses here. Instead, I get this:

The white cup is detachable from the base — in fact, it’s just a regular plastic cup slipped into a handle of some sort. It’s not very elegant, nor ideal for tea sipping, but since I wanted to travel light and not carry around a big load of teaware, this will have to do. The stains are from the previous tea that’s still in the cup.

I only took two teas with me on this trip – the Assam that Mr. Lochan gave me, and a Lapsang Souchong. I tried both in the plastic cup by now, and I must say I like the Lapsang Souchong better. It’s got a nice sweet aftertaste and mellows out evenly as infusions go on, whereas drinking the Assam, I really feel the lack of milk was making the tea less enjoyable than it could be. The tea is more bitter, and doesn’t quite turn sweet in later infusions the way the LS does. I think this has much to do with the intended market for such teas, and the preferences of the target audience. A tea like LS will not sell well in China if it doesn’t turn sweet, whereas the way this LS is is probably a touch too light to go with milk.

I think this might also account for the way the Indian Oolongs behave. They brew a bright, strong introduction, but then fades fairly quickly as infusions go on. I think they’re probably just not meant to be drunk that way at all, and drinking it Chinese style is probably not “getting” the tea. Perhaps if stuck in a big porcelain teapot, with some scones on the side, they will beat any Chinese oolong brewed the same way.

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Grandpa style of tea making

April 23, 2007 · 4 Comments

I drank tea the grandpa way today.  That’s because my grandfather drinks his tea this way.  Essentially, it is the simplest way a Chinese person makes tea — throw leaves in mug, add water, drink.  Add tea leaves when the tea gets watery.  Repeat.

This is also how most people in China drink their tea throughout the day.  Whether a cab driver, an office worker, or a house guest — tea is served simply, in a cup and with no other teaware.  Most of the time even a pot is not used.  Drinking the tea using your teeth as a leaf-filter is a skill that everybody learns quite early on.

Since I have no gaiwan with me yet, not having bought one here, I brewed tea this way today.  Even though it sounds simple, there are some things one must watch out, or risk getting a nasty tea.

One must first watch what kind of tea is being brewed… and add the leaves accordingly.  It is always a temptation to add too much leaves, especially when it’s a rolled oolong, such as a tieguanyin or a Taiwan tea.  They expand greatly, and while they look like not a lot of tea when dried… it gets big, very fast.  Since the tea sits in the cup while drinking and is therefore brewed all the time it sits there, too much leaves yields a very bitter cup very quickly.  Therefore, low amount of leaves is essential.

Water temperature… it depends.  If green, not too hot is fine, but if you’re adding water to existing tea, then it must be hotter to compensate.  For all other types of tea, I think the hotter the better.  It won’t keep warm very long in this sort of arrangement.

Also… I like to keep some tea remaining in the cup and refill before I drink it all.  This keeps the flavour stronger brew after brew.  Otherwise… after one or two cups the leaves will lose all their flavour.

Then it’s just a matter of taste… how strong you want your tea, how long before you add new leaves, etc… a cup will last a day.  After a while, it just becomes flavoured water, but if the tea is good, the flavour goes pretty far.  I’ve seen people using very big (1L) water bottles with about 2g of green tea leaves in them.  I’ve also seen people using maybe a 350ml bottle with 1/3 full of leaves… it’s all about personal tastes.

I drank a Dahongpao today doing this, and even after many infusions, the tea remains sweet.  I added leaves once, but not a whole lot.  It was just easy drinking… and much less work than gongfu.

Definitely a different style, but nonetheless, enjoyable.

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Green puerh in a cup

January 16, 2007 · Leave a Comment

I drank the spring 2006 Jingmai cake in a cup today…. brewed the usual way you would if you were lazy — just throw the leaves in and pour some hot water, and refill as necessary.  It makes…. green tea.  Drank this way, with a low amount of tea leaves for the cup, it tastes entirely like any regular green tea, nothing too unusual, nothing too bitter, and after a few infusions, the astringency and roughness of a green tea showed up.  If you didn’t tell me this is maocha of Yunnan tea, I might not even notice.

After all, this stuff is green tea, and for the longest time, they had bags of these kinds of sun-dried maocha for sale as green tea in China.  That, of course, is no longer the case.  Anybody selling maocha on its own like this in tin bags for cheap must be crazy.  All of a sudden, puerh is puerh as soon as it’s pressed into a cake.  Technically speaking… puerh is still only puerh after it’s gone through all the fermentation.

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