A Tea Addict's Journal

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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!

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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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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Thinking about tea on a plane

December 17, 2006 · Leave a Comment

The past few months in Beijing, aside from my dissertation research, has been fairly productive in terms of my tea studies. Maliandao is a valuable resource for those adventurous enough to go and seek out the teas. Although I have been told by some that only lower end puerh exists in Maliandao, I don’t find that to be true — it just takes some effort to locate the stores with nice puerh. As for other types of tea, while Maliandao is woefully inadequate in roasted tieguanyin and roasted dancongs, it has a reasonable selection of Wuyi teas and more qingxiang tieguanyin than you’d care to drink. There are also an amazing array of green tea, which I almost never touched. The presence of a lot of government officials, important businesses, and simply a lot of people has made sure that the supply of tea is varied and good.

I have probably tasted at least 150 teas on all the trips I’ve taken to Maliandao and other tea gatherings. I have made a bunch of purchases, usually in the form of one or two cakes at a time, that seem to suit my fancy. Some are supposed “big tree” teas, others are teas that seem to be genuine big tree or high quality puerh, and then there are the oddballs, the ones that I bought more out of curiosity than anything else. All these, of course, present a wonderful opportunity for learning about the nuances of all the teas that are available, and to use as reference points for separating the good from the bad.

I have learned a few things so far. I think I have finally started divorcing myself from getting too attached to particular flavours in a tea, especially when looking for puerh for aging. Instead, the important point is to go for the “mouthfeel” of the tea, and how it literally feels while swirling in the mouth. This also includes how your mouth feels after the tea is swallowed, as that also yields important clues as to the quality of the tea. Flavours are, in short, a smokescreen. It’s not that they are not important. If a puerh is sour… something’s not quite right. If it’s extremely bitter and does not turn into a sort of “huigan”, something’s not quite right, but to get too carried away by individual aromas is, I think, missing the point, because the aromas will change very quickly. A fresh puerh that has a certain aroma will most likely lose that within the first 5 years, or at least, it will be changed enough so you no longer recognize it as the same thing.

That, of course, is only if you’re looking for teas that are for storage. If you are looking for a puerh that is for immediate consumption, whether raw or cooked, then any of the above-mentioned things really don’t matter. As long as you like it, and as long as the price is right, then anything else does not matter at all.

But what about other teas?

I can only talk about the ones that I’ve tasted a lot recently, namely Wuyi mountain “rock tea”. There is a whole spectrum of these teas, ranging from basically no roasting to heavily roasted teas. Here, again, it depends on individual taste, first and foremost. I personally find that roasted teas will generally last longer in infusions, and have a depth and character that cannot be matched by the lightly roasted ones. Of course, the light roasted teas will have an initially alluring aroma that is unparalleled, but that is really up to individual taste.

I think when it comes down to it, buying tea that suits your taste is simply the most important thing. If somebody tells you that dry stored puerh is good, but after comparing dry and wet stored tea, you decide that you like the sweetness and smoothness of wet stored puerh… then what’s wrong with that? Go buy it, and consider yourself lucky because wet stored teas are cheaper. Similarly, if you like that $10/lb tieguanyin over the $100/lb one…. go for it!

The danger in all this, I think, is imperfect information and a “mob effect”. It is more pronunced for puerh than other teas, and certainly more obvious here in China, where information regarding tea travels faster. Those in North America or Europe are quite insulated by this as there is a real information barrier, and whatever is the current fad in China often takes a long time before it gets translated over. For example, current guesses is that teas from the Mengku Rongsi factory will be the next candidate for speculation — its prices are likely to rise in the coming year. It has already begun, with the heavy promotion of their early 2001 tea, the Yuanyexiang bing. There are also a number of merchants recently who have been touting the Mengku Rongsi made Big Snow Mountain wild tea brick (made for Ruirong trading company), and when I went to the Ruirong store yesterday to taste stuff, I asked if that brick were available as well. In one of the few useful pieces of information she gave me, she said lots of people have been asking about this brick lately, whereas half a year ago, nobody even knew about this thing. BBB and I tasted it when he was here, and honestly… it’s not any greater than any of the other Mengku stuff. I will be surprised, however, if the price of this brick does not skyrocket in the next two years.

So it is both a blessing and a curse when information travels imperfectly and slowly. On the one hand, valuable information regarding various teas are difficult to obtain in English (not to mention any other foreign language), but at the same time, it also filters out much of the rather commercially motivated “information” available as well. The key, I think, is still to try as much as you can and take everything everybody says (including this very blog) critically. In the past few years we’ve seen a few things being speculated on with skyrocketing prices. Some Menghai factory stuff (new ones) are literally “one price a day”, as if there’s hyperinflation going on. Changtai group teas have, over the past few years, appreciated in value significantly. Xiaguan is also undergoing the same process, according to people on Sanzui, and I think I am seeing a similar maneuveur beginning for Mengku. When all is said and done, however, it isn’t about who made the tea, but the tea itself. There are reports of people buying fake Menghai stuff, but ended up laughing when they took it home, because when they tried it against the real one at home… the fake was better. That’s probably not common, but it’s not inconceivable either. The point is, of course, that a lot of people are simply buying teas per recommendation of “experts” who peddle various things, but as all experts in all agricultural products are… in order to have something to write every week (or month, or season, or year) you end up recommending a lot of teas that may or may not generate the buzz necessary for a huge increase in demand and price. In a market as young and uninformed as puerh (9 out of 10 people who drink puerh have probably started within the last year or two) there is a lot of demand for information, but it is also in this kind of atmosphere where manipulation of various channels (whether they are virtual places like Sanzui, tea fairs, or various publications) can easily create the appearance that something is in hot demand. As recent studies have shown… human beings put a lot of faith in what others are doing when it comes to purchases, and are easily influenced by that sort of information.

This is not to say never buy anything Menghai (or anybody else). This just means that when buying a tea… it is important to evaluate it simply on its own terms, and not on whether or not it says “Banzhang” on the label or whether or not others are also buying it in droves. It is, of course, not easy for those far away from any real life puerh vendors to try things out, but by studying the cakes, looking at the way it is pressed, the wet leaves, the tastes, the feeling of drinking it, the liquor…… and trying a wide variety of teas is an important place to start. It’s also what makes this so much fun.

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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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Weekend Maliandao excursion

December 9, 2006 · 2 Comments

I was originally not going to go today, but then I remembered I promised a vendor there to bring her some of the old loose puerh from the Best Tea House to try, so … I went. This is the same person who sold me the Quan Ji puerh a few weeks ago. I enjoyed talking to her, and I think it’s probably rare for her to get a customer who likes the stuff she sells. A lot of times people just come in, browse, and then leave. Since none of her teas are name brand, it’s difficult business, I think (and as far as I can tell, her livelihood does not depend on it).

After drinking that supposedly 30 years old loose puerh, I tried two of her teas. One is a cake of Lincang puerh, using old maocha (2-3 years old) but pressed this year. It’s not bad, tasting like Lincang tea — a bit like the Mengku stuff, with its odd aroma that is rather unique. It’s bitter, but Lincang tea tends to be that way.

The second one is a Jingmai tea. Her store, interestingly enough, has LOTS of Jingmai teas of various kinds. She said it’s because she likes the taste and aroma of Jingmai teas, so she keeps a lot of them around, and will in fact go to Jingmai next spring to press some cakes. She has at least four or five different big tee Jingmai cakes, a few Jingmai bricks, Jingmai tuo… you name it.

The cake I tried was actually pretty good. Very nice aroma, mellow, not bitter, got some nice cooling sensation in the throat. Not bad, and I might consider it, but… the Quan Ji is better, I think. I’m still debating if I should get a second tong of them…

By then, I was feeling the tea. It’s been a long parade of young puerhs the past few days, so I think my tolerance has been lowered. Also, the Jingmai tea was brewed with an incredible tea-water ratio (i.e. very high), so …. it was strong.

I excused myself from their store, not having bought anything. I’m sure I’ll go back there again. The owner is nice (unlike the manager).

I then thought I should stop by the Wuyi rock tea store before heading home (as it was already 6pm). It’s nice, and I thought I should buy some other kinds…

I went there, and they were, just as I was walking by, ready to go out for dinner. I ended up eating with them at a local shop that specializes lamb shoulders, stewed. It’s quite good, and did a good job of restoring my stomach, although one of the guys eating with them kept pressing beer on me, which I really wasn’t in the mood of (especially just bland Tsingtao)….. but I obliged.

After dinner we went back to the teashop, and had three different teas. We also had a nice long chat about different kinds of Wuyi, how to differentiate them (basically, you can’t tell by looks unless you’re in the tea making business, and even then, it’s not easy), and some of the processes that they do to make the tea. I find my education in Wuyi tea pretty lacking. Although I can, on a whole, appreciate what is a good and what is a bad Wuyi tea, I cannot, for example, tell apart some of the more similar varietals by taste. The spectrum of possible tastes that a Wuyi tea possesses is quite wide, and I’m afraid I’ve only scratched the surface of it. Sadly, I can tell puerh apart better than I can Wuyi teas. That’s a shame.

So I need to fix that.

An interesting side note… while the first two months I was here I was always asked the “where are you from?” question, nowadays, I get more the “do you sell tea?” question. I’m not sure why it is that people started asking me this all of a sudden, but there have been at least a dozen different people who asked the same thing — if I sell tea one way or another, and when I tell them no, I only drink for myself, it’s usually met with some skepticism. I suppose someone who asks a lot of questions is going to prompt that comment….

Lastly, I got an electronic scale. No more caffeine overdose when I do a double-tasting 🙂

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Gaiwan purchase

December 4, 2006 · 2 Comments

I went back to Maliandao today, mainly to get this

Two sets of idential teaware, tiny gaiwans with cups that are big enough to take one infusion. This is so that I can conduct taste tests of two things against each other without overdosing myself on tea. Ideally, I should also have an electronic scale, but I didn’t get one today :(. It’s good enough anyway…. for now. I also got the puerh knife on the right. I never had one.

Then I stopped at a puerh store, and got stuck there.

The owner is quite a character, a Northeast China guy who went to Yunnan some years ago (probably got sent there during the Cultural Revolution) and stayed there for quite a while, and started dabbling in the tea business more than a decade ago, so he claims. A chain smoker who probably goes through at least two packs a day, he was pretty excited to have someone to babble to, i.e. me, and I stayed there for something like three hours.

When I walked in, there were already two customers there. They bought 1200 RMB worth of goods (two cooked bricks, and two raw cakes), which will come out to…. something like 300 RMB a piece. I honestly don’t think any of those things are worth that much. They got screwed, especially on the raw cakes which are worth at best 100 RMB a piece. But these are the people keeping all the businesses on Maliandao alive, I suppose.

The raw cake they had, I also tried ,and I thought it was not very good. It claims to be Yiwu, but it can’t be. I then tried another much better looking (and tasting) cake, but it’s also not pure Yiwu. I didn’t even ask for a quote — it’s not bad, but not that great. I can find much better stuff, so why bother with this?

The cooked brick, however…. is quite interesting. I ended up with one at home. I think I paid a little too much, but it’s 1kg, and per gram, it’s very cheap for what it’s worth. Since I never buy cooked puerh, I think it says something about this brick 🙂

It’s got none of the nasty cooked taste. Instead, the taste is an overwhelmingly sweet, mellow, and with a dry date aroma that I really liked. I figured it’s not a bad thing to drink when I feel like something more mellow. It looks quite nasty in appearance, but what the heck…..

So that was my afternoon at Maliandao. I didn’t even make it to one store that I wanted to go. Oh well, there’s always next time.

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Maliandao day

December 3, 2006 · 2 Comments

Maliandao day today, although I had some errands to run so I didn’t get there until a bit later than usual.

I wanted to get some gaiwans — two, to be exact. Two small ones. This way, I can brew two teas together, and have a comparative tasting using the same water, same infusion time, etc, to let me better compare teas. This will also mean buying new fairness cups, that sort of thing. I should probably also invest in a scale. However, I never got around to shopping for this.

The other goal was to taste the Meng Pasha from Haiwan factory, which BBB seemed to like a lot. Since I finally located their factory store, I went there. It’s in a new building behind the Beijing Tea Corporation mall — tucked in the back. That’s why i never found it. I already need to update my map of Maliandao, and it’s been less than two months since I blogged about it!

I was pretty straight to the point and asked to taste the cake right away. It was brewed… and to my surprise, it tastes a lot sweeter than I imagined it to be. I thought it’ll be a somewhat bitter and harsh tea, but powers down my throat. Instead, it’s not quite that. It’s bitter, of course, but not THAT bitter. The tea is a little thin, and while there’s a certain amount of huigan… I’m not sure if I want to pay that much for this tea. It’s quite expensive for what it is, and the looks of the leaves, at least in the one cake I saw, wasn’t terribly good. It was pretty broken up. I’m not sure if this is due to the way they broke the leaves, but it seems like the leaves themselves aren’t very complete… there are also lingering doubts about the temperature it was processed, as I got some notes of sourness as well as green-tea like bitterness from it (i.e. bitterness that doesn’t really go away)

The price/quality ratio calcualtion is made after I also tried the “Deep Mountain Old Tree Tea”. It’s half the price of the Meng Pasha, but more than half as good. I generally liked the way this cake tasted a little better than the Meng Pasha. I ended up with two. Probably not the greatest buy, and it’s 1kg of tea…. I am quickly buying too much tea.

I then walked around Tianfuyuan. There’s a store with Chamasi’s teas in there, so I walked in. They were doing some calligraphy thing in there. The whole place is very well decorated…. almost too well. Then I realized that they really just sell older puerhs, and the Chamasi stuff is just a sideshow (and discontinued — just really their leftover teas). The owner sat me down and gave me a cup of what they were brewing. I tasted it… it’s weak and a little thin. The aroma is like a cooked puerh, with that slightly ricey taste. I asked if this is a cooked puerh…. the owner and another guy laughed.

I looked at the wet leaves… then I realized that this can’t be cooked puerh, but some really old stuff. According to the guy, it’s a 50 years old loose tea. The pot was too big, not enough leaves were put in, and while the tea is very good quality — I started feeling the coolness in the throat about two cups after the fact (there was no initial feeling, thus meeting all the criteria for a cooked taste) — it was too weak to taste the nuances. Too bad. They’re almost wasting the tea.

After chatting with the customer who was sitting there and having a few more cups, I left. It was about time Tianfuyuan closed, and I decided to call it a day. So much for the teaware….

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Tenfu visit

November 29, 2006 · 1 Comment

Today was an afternoon trip with L and some of his business associates (tea people from Zhongcha). I first went to the store where L has a stake in at Maliandao. It’s in a new mall there that opened recently, and I finally found the Haiwan factory store. I need to go there next time to check that out and try the Meng Pasha cake that BBB likes so much. I also found a store that only sells Chamasi stuff, that I want to try as well.

At the store, we tasted many of the same things that we tried two days ago, as L and his associates were deciding what to order for stock. We also tried some Menghai stuff. I brought my Mengku along as a comparison with the one we had at Zhongcha’s office. It’s really quite similar. It has a little less age, since it was from 2002, but the profile is remarkably similar… and mine’s about 1/5 of the price of that piece of tea from Zhongcha. I can’t say I’m not happy about that.

I also brought the Yiwu maocha that I like… but something’s not quite right. It seems like the aging is doing something to the tea, and the taste is changing. I need to try it again myself in my own home, with me brewing it, and see if it’s the brewer doing things to the tea, or if it’s actually changing on me. I am losing that wonderfully fragrant and sweet maocha taste that so impressed me. I hope it doesn’t disappear as it turns to aging…. or whatever it’s turning into.

We ended our tastings here with, oddly enough, a tieguanyin… a super light fired tieguanyin that is what they call “qingxiang” in Beijing. When I asked the girl brewing the teas if she knew of a place that sells nongxiang (heavy fire) she said yeah, and then showed me a bag of stuff that I would also consider qingxiang…. basically, to them, stuff that is made with more traditional craft is “nongxiang” while I think a newer method, which results in a rather grassy and IMO disgusting tieguanyin, is what they call qingxiang. The leaves are unbelievably green, and the taste thin and grassy…. I had two cups and stopped.

After that we had dinner, and then went to Tenfu, where there was, basically, a graduation ceremony for a tea class at their Luyu Tea Center, where they hold classes. This is also where they developed their “Luyu Small Pot Method”, which, from what I can tell, is pretty similar to anybody else’s gongfu brewing, except with great attention to things like
1) keeping the brewing surface dry at all times with their proprietary tea desk (which is only slightly different from the usual ones)
2) using a TIMER!!!!!
3) …. that’s about it

I can’t seem to notice anything particularly exciting or new about it, other than their slightly modified proprietary desk which I’m sure costs an arm and a leg. Basically, instead of a screen with a water-capturing device underneath, so you can pour to your heart’s content, it’s replaced with a solid wood surface with a hole where the water goes. This means that if you don’t wipe the surface, water stays, so you have to constantly wipe the water off …. which I find rather silly.

There’s also not a whole lot of attention paid to the way the water’s poured into the tea. It’s done in a slightly haphazard manner, from what I can tell. Boo. The use of the timer’s just the last straw. I’m sure it helps beginners, I suppose, but when I took my first course from Best Tea House (before I realizing that such lessons are generally a waste of money) it was made plenty clear that times are only suggested, and should vary depending on the individual tea, amount of leaves you put in, personal taste, etc. Using a timer, IMHO, encourages a more rigid and scientific way to brew tea, but ultimately takes away the art of tea making which in my opinion is an essential part of the experience of brewing tea. After a while, you get an idea of about how long to use for each infusion anyway. It shouldn’t take a timer for someone with a few months, or even a few years’ of experience.

But of course, they should be applauded for bringing this sort of tea making and culture to people in China, and for that, Tenfu is very successful. Their presence makes it easier for people to approach the world of fine teas. Otherwise, many more Beijingers are going to be drinking jasmine tea only.

Anyway… I digress.

So while the students who are graduating today have this nice little gathering, with calligraphy, music, art, and tea making ceremonies (those little artsily set up stalls… each done up by the student and with them brewing tea), those of us who came with L just went upstairs to take a look. Some of them know many in the crowd, and stayed for the most part, while people like me who don’t know anybody in this group (or think it’s too many people, which it was) left quickly and went back downstairs into a more private room to brew more tea.

One of the guys from Zhongcha, as I mentioned two days ago, is a taster of sorts for them. He is also responsible for developing their puerhs. Let’s call him ZH. ZH was well prepared today — he joined us during dinner, and came with a whole bagload of tea. We ended up drinking mostly stuff from him for the rest of the night.

First up was a Mingqian Longjing. Supposedly, this tea came from a once-abandoned field of tea trees in Meijiawu area of Hangzhou, one of the more famous Longjing producing locales. Anyway, the brewing was a little… weak, thanks to a slightly low leaf-to-water ratio. However, you can tell that this was a nicely aromatic, smooth, and slightly different Mingqian Longjing than the usual. Its aroma is not quite the “bean” aroma that we normally ascribe to Longjing…. there’s a slight twist to it, and I am at a loss for words to describe that subtle difference.

We then drank a cooked puerh from Tenfu, supposedly from the Nannuo area. ZH said he can tell it’s from the Menghai area, but since it’s cooked puerh…. it’s extremely difficult to tell exactly where it’s from. To me, it all tastes about the same, and I don’t really have much of an interest to figure it out any further… suffice to say it was not bad, smooth, without too many of the nasty flavours you sometimes find in cooked puerh, but expensive. For the price I can buy a very nice Yiwu cake.

Then, we drank a very nice tea — a real Lao Banzhang maocha that ZH has, a spring tea. It’s sort of the only thing that’s truly picture worthy today

The leaves don’t look overly big in the dried form — very thoroughly rolled. You can smell the Banzhang even when it’s dry. The tea is very smooth, nice body, full flavoured like a Banzhang usually is — but far less bitter than your usual Banzhang tea. A good “throat feel”, but really, the tea goes down nicely, never being too bitter, as some Banzhang tend to be. There’s a sort of subtleness to the tea that you only find in higher quality maocha, and this is no exception. Even when overbrewed with long infusions…. it’s still not terribly bitter, and most improtantly, the huigan speed is very fast — meaning that the transition from bitterness to the resulting sweetness is extremely fast, which I think is why we don’t feel it’s very bitter. This is something that lower quality teas, and plantation teas, do not have…


The leaf colour, when brewed, is very nice, with little evidence of redness. The single leaf is about 4cm long, I think, just to give you an idea. This will age really well, methinks, and best of all, ZH gave me the rest of his sample, enough for another brewing and half 🙂 🙂

After the Banzhang, we had a curiosity piece — he first didn’t tell us what it was. He opened a bag, which was vacuum sealed, and took out two mini-tuos that are about 2-3g each. He threw it
in the gaiwan, brewed it…. and it’s….. sweet. Really, really sweet, but with a tangy slant to it, sort of a citrus like taste/smell. The liquor is a nice orangy/red colour. I thought it could be puerh at first, but the taste told me no with the citrus smell. We made our guesses. Mine was either a puerh that was wrapped in a mandarin and aged a bit, or older teas of some sort, maybe a red tea that was placed together with chenpi, which are dried mandarin skins. No, ZH said — it’s just the tea, and this is the original seal that he just broke.

Turns out it’s a Yunnan red tea made for export, but somehow kept in its original seal all these years (something like 10 years old). The taste in the tea developed over time…. and I have to say while it’s not the greatest thing, it’s definitely a very, very curious thing. Something I’ve never quite tasted. It was odd, and it was fun.

Which reminds me that I still have a weird tea that I haven’t tasted since I bought it.

We ended the night with one more tea from ZH — a mini brick from Menghai, 1995, supposedly. It’s wet stored, or at least it got pretty damp at one stage of its storage. Some whiteness on the surface of the brick, and the taste is quite similar to the “home stored” loose puerh that I bought from the Best Tea House… except this is probably more expensive. He said this is what he liked two years ago, but now, he prefers the young Banzhang. Interesting. I think it’s just a wet stored tea that has gotten rid of most of the nastiness of wet storage taste, and thus produces a black, sweet, pleasant tea that most recognize as puerh. To the uninitiated, they might even think cooked.

That concluded the night, and I think I will be inviting ZH over for tea in a day or two. He did, after all, pull out a few good things, and you can sort of tell that he is actually interested and loves drinking tea in all its various guises. Also, he’s not trying to sell anything. He will be going down to Yunnan next spring again to press cakes for their company, and maybe, just maybe, I can tag along. That will be awesome.

Categories: Old Xanga posts · Teas
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Maliandao shopping

November 26, 2006 · Leave a Comment

Cloudstea just reminded me of something I looked at yesterday while at Maliandao. Since new comments don’t really show up anywhere other than with the original post, probably all of you will miss it (with the silly 5 post per page limit that Xanga imposes on me).

I flipped through the Puerh Yearbook 1998-2003, written by Chen Zhitong, for verification of the Yichang Hao I tasted in Paris. I was less than 100% sure of its provenance, and it turns out to be from 2001, not 1999, as I erronously thought. I thought about buying the book, but I know I could get it for less in Hong Kong. Here at Beijing they’re charging like 20% over what they would in Hong Kong. I don’t feel like paying a premium :(.

You can find the original post here.

Categories: Old Xanga posts · Teas
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