A Tea Addict's Journal

Entries tagged as ‘teaware’

Ebay misadventures

January 7, 2008 · 10 Comments

I think almost anybody who’s tried buying stuff from Ebay or other auction sites have had bad experiences with inaccurate descriptions, false advertising, etc. I am just reminded how sometimes things don’t work out on these things.

I bought a tetsubin through Ebay from a Japanese vendor. It looks nice, the price’s reasonable, and I have been wanting to get my hands on one to play with. So far, so good. It arrived…. and it looks good. Except one thing — there’s a small hole in the bottom of the tetsubin that the seller didn’t mention. Since there was no shot of the bottom of the pot, it was not possible for me to look at it either. So… I got a pot that will leak water right through the center. Since my name’s not Moses, I can’t part the water in the middle to keep it from dropping through the hole.

So now I’m dealing with the seller through paypal. Has anybody tried using the conflict resolution thing? How did it go?

Oddly enough, I felt somewhat uneasy when I purchased the first one, and I stumbled upon a second one, obviously inferior, but still a tetsubin… and very cheap (cheaper than one of those small enamel-lined tetsubin teapots you normally see). So, I ended up buying that one too, and that has arrived at the same time. It works — although I don’t know what the previous owner has used it for, because water that’s been through it smells like chamomile, and the outer surface of the pot was covered in some sort of grime. Now I’m trying to boil out the nasty sweetish chamomile smell from it… hopefully it’ll be usable after some treatment.

But tomorrow, I’m back on the road…. this time to Portland OR. Fun.

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Survival kit

January 6, 2008 · Leave a Comment

This is what I’m surviving on while away from home

It does the job. They have a fancy Cuisinart coffee machine with Lavazza coffee, but the only tea the hotel can muster up is some Celestial Seasoning Chamomile. Hasn’t anybody told them that chamomile isn’t even really tea?

Good thing I decided to bring my pot, and my electric kettle, because otherwise, I won’t have anything to drink tea with. Now, some hot water, a mug, and some aged baozhongs, and we’re in business.

Incidentally, because I’m relying on bottled water (boiled tap water in DC tastes awful — I tried) I got to test out two different waters for this baozhong. There’s Fiji, which worked really, really well. There’s also Poland Springs, which is so obviously inferior I wonder why anybody should pay money for it. It’s actually similar to the conclusion I reached almost two years ago in the early days of my blog — Fiji is a pretty good tea water, in that case a qingxiang tieguanyin. The aged baozhong is much heavier, but it also benefits from the Fiji water. It’s definitely better than my usual mix of filtered tap water plus some mineral water. It worked really well, actually.

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Trying a different pot

December 29, 2007 · Leave a Comment

I used my other new pot yesterday to brew my tea and wanted to see if anything was different… it’s the same aged baozhong as the first tea I drank when I came back to the States

I somehow feel that when I had this tea yesterday, using the zhuni pot instead of the black one, the tea came out a little more sour. The black pot softened the sour a little, it seems, whereas the zhuni pot is a little more “honest” and gave me everything. This tea is a little sour when made in a gaiwan — as are most aged baozhongs of one kind or another. Somehow, if I am not fooling myself anyway, the black pot seems to more or less eliminate the sourness in this tea. The density of the material used to make the pot might have something to do with this.

This isn’t as good a tea as the competition oolong. It doesn’t quite have that level of aroma or flavour, but it does have its virtue, and turns quite sweet with a sort of raisin aroma at some point (although with my water here it really does taste rather darjeeling like sometimes). I guess I can’t complain when I’ve bought enough of it to make this an easy everyday aged oolong, and I am hoping that perhaps with some more aging, it will change for me from bag to bag as a sort of experiment in and of itself.

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More last minute shopping

December 22, 2007 · 9 Comments

I finally went back to the teapot store again today. It’s a bit of a pain to go there, because the place doesn’t really have regular hours. It’s more like an office in an obscure building with semi-functioning elevators, and I have to call ahead to book a time to go up.

I lingered for a while, and came home with these

It’s strange, because normally, I’m no fan of squarish teapots. Somehow though, both of these caught my eye — especially the black one.

Which I discovered is actually dark dark brown

The other

I thought looks almost like one of those pewter tea canisters.

While there, he brewed some truly nasty Taiwan (?) oolong. It’s somewhat roasted, but still has that grassy flavour. I did my best to pretend I was drinking it, but it really made me think that for many, good pots are an end in itself, and good tea…. is not important. For me, tea always takes precedence. Teaware only enhances the tea, and that’s their function.

I came home and made some of the competition tea that I picked up yesterday, although under sub-optimal condition since I don’t have my normal set of tools with me, having packed them and shipped them off on the slow boat. The tea is interesting — tastes a bit like an older version of the biyuzhu, without tasting like a puerh from the get go. It’s obviously a good tea — the qi is strong — but I need to make it again to confirm my thoughts on this one.

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Another candy store

December 2, 2007 · 2 Comments

I went to another kind of candy store today

In case you can’t see very clearly — the back of those cabinets are mirrors, and you can see another line of cabinets on the wall opposite of these ones.

This is the antique teapot store that I visited a while ago. As I said, they say they have a lot of old pots…. and I am really no good judge of whether any of these are real or not. Some looked authentically old, some less so. Almost all pots, however, are of high quality — good make, no real flaws, etc.

I ended up spending a few hours there looking over many of the pots he has. The guy is interesting…. rather laid back and just likes to talk about his wares. He keeps throwing me pots to look at (while I’m reading for others myself) and he just wants to show off his collection while talking about it. He claims he has more stuff at home — some are duplicates of the ones he is selling. Entirely possible… Yixing pots are made in batches of three, anyway.

The prices of these things go from the rather reasonable (under $100) to the very high ($1000+). Sizes also vary, and looks too. It’s a dizzying array of stuff, and I honestly am out of my depth. Do the clay all seem good? Most, yes. Do they all seem old? Many do. Some are obviously youngish, while others look old, but maybe faked. But if a fake pot that is well made is, say, $120…. is it worth it? I don’t know.

I took pictures of a few pots I saw, but these aren’t the best ones… I felt sheepish asking if it’s ok to take pics of the best looking ones for some reason. I don’t even know why.

So here’s a “Please Drink Chinese Oolong Tea” shuiping.

With the maker’s name under the lid

Another shuiping — supposedly earlier, actually. Very thin walls. I felt like I could crush it in my hands.

And then a weird one…. a big pot with possibly Manchu carved on it. My girlfriend is trying to figure out if that is actually Manchu — some of the spellings are off.

I really should’ve taken pics of the better looking pots….. maybe next time.

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Treasure troves

November 30, 2007 · 6 Comments

I had some extra time today, so I went back to the same tea shop that I visited last weekend today. Specifically, that was the one with the big tea canisters (picture in the bottom of the post) and where I picked up a few aged oolongs.

I wanted to get some of the tieguanyin which was so good, and hopefully, to find more stuff there that’s hidden in those big canisters.

The laobanniang (literally owner’s wife, or female owner, of a shop) was pretty happy to see me coming back, and when I asked for the tieguanyin, she promptly went to it. I also asked if she has other stuff — stuff that is more like this and less like the qizhong, which I told her is a bit too sour. She said there are lots of different stuff in her store, but she might need to spend some time looking for them. I think she could sense that if she finds anything good, I’ll be willing to buy them. I also venture to guess that she doesn’t sell much of this stuff normally.

Now, to give you an idea of what we’re talking about…. this is a closeup of one of those tea cans. This is the smaller sized ones (the ones you see lining up on the left in the last entry about this shop)

On one can it says “Pu’er Cha”, the other “Ridong Hongcha”, a type of Japanese red (black) tea (here’s a link to Nittoh Black Tea, their proper name). What’s in the can has nothing to do with the words on them, and this is true for pretty much all of them in the store — about 4-5 dozens of them.

Inside each of them are bags

Like this (this is a picture of one of the bigger cans on the right hand side). In each of these bags are kilos of tea — some more, some less. The little slip of paper indicates what it is, and how much it should be. Some of these bags probably haven’t been opened for years, and I suspect many of them are simply leftovers from stock they had years ago — half a kilo here, two kilos there, etc. Tea that is valuable enough to keep, but after a certain time passes, not easy to sell. How do you tell a regular customer that you have some three year old oolong you can sell them? They’d think you’re a crook. So in the bags they sit. Year in, year out, and the older bags probably sink to the bottom. The opened bag is the one with the tieguanyin that I want. The other two unopened bags? Other kinds of aged oolongs that I haven’t even tried. She opened one bag for me and got me a sample. The piece of paper says “ROC Year 77 (1988), Spring, 2400”, 2400 being the price of the tea. It’s a lightly rolled oolong. Not sure exactly what it is, but it sure looks old and doesn’t smell sour. Let’s hope it’s good. If I could, I’d spend a whole day at the store, opening each can, and looking through them, trying teas. I’ll be like a little kid.

She said she will prepare some more samples for me when I go next time. I told her I’d like to try anything she has and decide what I want. I know that other than Taiwan, buying aged oolongs is difficult, and so I should take advantage of the fact that I’m here to snap up enough for at least a year or two’s worth of consumption.

Not only do they have old tea… they also have old neglected teaware

Too bad teapots don’t age the way teas do. Most of the teapots are pretty mediocre anyway.

So…. I made off with some of the tieguanyin, and two samples. One’s that 1988 tea, the other is also an old tea that was recently re-roasted. I want to compare them and see. I think, though, that given what I’ve tried so far, I prefer stuff that haven’t been re-roasted.

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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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A busy tea day

November 16, 2007 · 5 Comments

Today was a busy day (yesterday internet died again). I first went out to get some tea for Action Jackson, who has a tea mule waiting for me to bring back stuff from Taiwan. I was on my way to get her some aged baozhongs, when, along the street, I saw a sign saying “Antique and Famous Masters Teapots, 6th Floor!” with some truly dubious looking pots in poorly taken photos next to the sign. Hmmm

What the heck, I had time, I thought, so I went upstairs to the 6th floor. It looked a little creepy. I thought about leaving. Then I saw the teapot sign…. the door was open, so I figured it’s not a bad idea to peek. Taiwan has a lot of scams going on, so I was a little worried about getting sucked into one. Inside that little office were a few shelves full of pots, and an older guy just walking around. I entered, and he greeted me and started talking pots.

This place was pretty interesting. There were, by my estimate, about 200 pots of various shapes and sizes on the shelves in that place. Every one of them had a little sign in front of it, listing the approximate age, the seal (or signature) and whatever else info there is. Most looked like credible zhuni pots. Many looked old, some very much so. They’re clean, well kept, and obviously in good hands. The only question is…. are they real?

The man claims he’s been collecting pots for about 20+ years. Makes sense. The 80s was when Taiwanese went nuts collecting yixing pots. What happened to puerh in the past few years happened to yixing pots in the 80s. Then, of course, the market went bust and prices of many of the older pots dropped dramatically. Tea probably won’t suffer as bad a fate, since it’s perishable and will continue to be consumed, whereas pots aren’t. Nevertheless… it is entirely possible that somebody’s sitting on a big stash of older pots.

The craft of many of these pots obviously look good. Some are very good, and have intricate details and fantastic calligraphy. Some have very rough finishes, especially on the inside, which I learned from another source is quite typical of older pots — it was not usual for them to make picture perfect finishes inside back in the day; it just wasn’t done. So you had a lot of what one might consider a rough finish now on the inside (outside all look good). I didn’t bother inquiring about prices, but some had prices on those labels and they ranged from what seems like a hundred or two all the way up to a few thousand. Age of pots range from the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) to 1970s.

I didn’t have much time there, only spent about an hour chatting with the owner, and looking through an incredible array of pots. The guy obviously wants to talk, and isn’t particularly pushy or anything. He clearly loves his stuff… and kept showing me pot after pot. Unfortunately I ran out of time and had to go (I still had to buy the tea and then rendevous with the tea mule). I will most likely go back to this place though.

The buying of the tea was itself fairly uneventful. I did drink some 20 years old cooked puerh mixed with osmanthus. That was interesting.

After dropping off the goods with the tea mule, I had to meet with two people — and we chose Wisteria as our meeting place. I haven’t gone there since I arrived in Taiwan, and figured it’s time to go. Their original location is under renovation. This is a branch of sorts.

Wisteria is mostly a place for you to drink tea (unless you want to buy stuff there). The way it works is this: you go in, you sit down, and you look at the tea menu (there are a few snacks, but no real food). Everybody has to order something… or at least, everybody has to order one serving of tea or its equivilent. So, for the three of us, we had to get three servings of something. I leafed through the menu. For a Taiwan oolong, say, one serving would cost 350NT. So for three of us getting something of that calibre… that’s 1050 NT or thereabouts.

Then I flipped to the back where the good stuff (Tongqing, Red Label, etc) are… for three-four people, a serving of a 30s Sun Yi Shun is…. 1980 NT.

Is this a no-brainer or what?

I suggested we go with the SYS. The other rationale is that it was near dinner time… and drinking something as green as a gaoshan oolong right before dinner is potentially suicidal.

The tea is as I remember a SYS to be…. nice, medicinal, mellow, had a soft kind of qi, easy on the body…. very durable. Nice tea, even if not mind blowing. People in Hong Kong told me to try to find them in Taiwan, as they think it might still be reasonably priced there for what they are. Either way though…. good tea needs good company. It always makes a tea more enjoyable 🙂

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This is how you clean an old pot

October 30, 2007 · 11 Comments

I went back to Fuxing (Fushen) today… and as usual, the owner talked and talked, interesting info spewing out during the tea session. Among other things, I asked — how do you clean an old, dirty pot?

“Bleach”

Huh?

“Yeah, bleach — stick the pot in bleach, cover it in bleach, leave it there for a day, and then take it out”

So, apparently, what you’re supposd to do is to bleach the damn thing, inside and out. Then, you take it out, rinse it a few times with water (I suppose cold is good enough?). Then, you use spent tea leaves — throw them in, fill the pot up, and fill it up with water. Leave it overnight. The next day, your leaves and the water will smell like bleach, but the bleach from the pot will be gone. If you feel queasy, repeat this a few times.

Sounds rather insane to me.

But… maybe not? After all… we use bleach on a lot of things.

Maybe that’s what I should do?

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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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