A Tea Addict's Journal

Since I don’t really have my full complement of teaware and I don’t really have much tea here, consumption is going to be simple and limited until I get home to Hong Kong and ship the stuff over. One of the few things I do have with me is one of those bags of loose puerh I’ve purchased in Hong Kong. I got this bag, I think, a year ago. It’s been traveling with me to various places, since it’s a pretty good tea to just throw in a cup and make. Over the year though, it’s taken on a softer, rounder taste — a little more like cooked stuff, actually. I think it’s lost that slightly rough edge from the wet storage, and has acquired a little more aged feel to it while actually enhancing the mouthfeel. I got a few different grades, and it’s obvious that they differ in taste when I tried them side by side. The cheapest one was a little sour. This one doesn’t have a sourness, but is thinner than the most expensive version. The liquor of the teas, interestingly enough, reflect that in how dark the tea is. With that comparison (I meant to post it, but I think it got derailed with the earthquake around December that knocked the internet out), you can really tell the differences between different blends and how the feel and taste different in the mouth.

This is all stuff that one can call “cooked”, and the different grades are almost denoting different cookedness. The cooking was not done by the fermentation piles on the floor, but rather in bags in wet storage facilities in Hong Kong. Some would even say that only stuff like this is real puerh — dry stored tea is not technically right if the humidity never got high enough for it to acquire that distinctive puerh taste. Indeed, drinking a 5 year old, real dry stored tea that was in Beijing all 5 years can be a pretty unsatisfactory experience. I wonder though, has anybody actually figured out exactly what kind of microbe is the one that is responsible for the creation of our drink? Somebody should figure it out.

I had some of those traditionally stored, loose puerh so common in Hong Kong today. I’m no longer sure which particular one was the one I was having. I don’t clearly label these, and they’re not too easy to tell apart, as anybody who’s tried these things would know.

In Hong Kong these things are often not named specifically — usually only with very generic names to denote differentiation of grades, partly, I think, because they’re all blends, so it’ll be difficult to name them anything anyway, since they’re not specifically any one thing. Generally speaking, they are called “Old Puerh”, “Top Old Puerh”, “Aged-taste Puerh”, etc for cooked, and for raw, often they are named “Home-stored puerh”, “Carefully stored puerh”, “Old age puerh”, “Unknown year puerh”, etc. denoting different grades. Home-stored puerh from shop A is obviously not going to taste the same as the one from shop B, and prices can vary very considerably.

This one…. is probably something that might be called “carefully stored puerh”. It’s not great, it’s not too bad, or at least that’s what I remember of it, since last time I tried it was a year ago. This time, however, it presented a problem — the tea is drying. Very drying. After the first cup or two I had to drink some water to moisten my mouth. I don’t know why, but for some reason, it didn’t agree with me. The taste is mostly of an aged puerh variety, a bit bitter/medicinal, but pleasant enough. The drying factor, however, was new. I wouldn’t have missed it if that happened last time I tried.

The colour of the tea is quite dark.

I don’t exactly know why this is the case. Could it be that it was exposed to sunlight or some such? Something happened to it in the year that it sat in the container? I don’t know. I am thinking of airing it out a little before trying it again, to see what happens. Weather here’s been wettish, which is good for airing out problems like these. I hope to fix this, although I really don’t have much of it left.

The wet leaves are stiffish. They’re dark, and small. I don’t think this is Yunnan leaves. Vietnam, perhaps?

Continuing my sample eradication, yesterday I drank the remaining piece of Zhongcha traditional character bing given to me by my friend YP in Hong Kong.

A really clean, but unremarkable, piece of tea. It’s about 5g, not really enough for my pot. So I decided to add a few small pieces of the Guangyungong broken bits that I bought in Hong Kong and see what happens.

The tea first brewed very lightly

But it then deepened into a nice red colour

Notice, though, that you can still see the sediments. The liquor, though dark, is very very clear. The picture doesn’t really do a good job of showing that.

The taste of the tea is a mix of the two. There’s the more fragrant plummy taste of the Zhongcha cake, and then the blander sweetness mixed in with the bamboo wrapping taste of the GYG. My girlfriend thought it was an unsuccessful mix, as they lost their individual characters and turned into a mix of taste. I must admit it probably could’ve been mixed better, but I thought in some ways the tea wasn’t bad at all.

The pieces were too broken for good pictures of the wet leaves, although it is obvious that the Zhongcha tea was better stored with more flexible/nicer looking leaves, while the cheap GYG pieces had darker and stiffer ones. I also think it could be partly a function of the different varietals used, with the GYG using Guangdong tea leaves that age differently compared with the Yunnan ones.

Now I’m wondering what to drink for today….

I had plans to drink another sample sent to me by iwii today. Among the stuff he sent me were a few pieces of a heavily traditionally stored tea. As most of you who regularly read my blog know, I’m a good Hong Kong boy and do not mind traditional storage so long as it fulfills two conditions

1) It is not so wet stored as to have health concerns for me
2) It is not presented as a dry stored tea of significantly older age and thus selling for a price it doesn’t deserve

As I was flipping the few pieces of tea around for picture taking, however, I noticed something

Not clear enough? Try looking at the picture here.

See those yellow dots in the middle? There are conflicting information regarding these things. Some call it “golden flowers”, and claim that they are good for you. Others say that there are two types of golden flowers — one is the good kind, the other is a harmful kind that is really a mould that will produce a carcinogenic toxin. Needless to say, I was a little alarmed to find this. I then searched around the pieces some more… there were more of these on other pieces, scattered around, and also some white mould

As well as that white dusting that covers pretty much everything, inside and out.

Properly traditional stored tea should have some of these white dusting, but white mouldy spots or yellow ones are generally considered bad. I put off the tea and brewed some of my Mengku 2002, which I haven’t tried in at least half a year. I used the shavings that have accumulated inside the wrapper, plus a little off the cake. The tea brews a nice amber colour

It’s bitter, and strong, but smooth. There’s a strong taste to it…. something akin to dark chocolate. Obvious qi, with a bit of huigan, not quite hitting down the throat, but definitely towards the back end of the mouth. It’s not a great tea, but not a bad one either, and it now costs at least double what I got it for about 9 months ago.

While drinking it, however, I was sorely tempted to try the sample that iwii gave me. I was planning on throwing it out, but decided that I can at least brew it and see what happens.

I washed it a few times, and then brewed one infusion for trying. The obvious aroma coming from the tea is a medicinal smell, but not in a very aromatic way, rather in a slightly pungent and unpleasant way. I tried a few small sips of the tea, which brewed an almost pitch black drink. It’s surprisingly bitter, given that it’s been so wet stored. Normally teas like this should be fairly sweet and pleasant, but this one isn’t.

The leaves for this tea are rather rigid and inflexible

It’s lost much of its vitality, and I couldn’t really find many examples of leaves that were both whole and open-able. This was the best one after some exhaustive searching

Even then, it didn’t really open up, and it’s already gone through 5 very long infusions. Properly traditionally stored tea should only be lightly wet stored, and then dry stored for a few years to let the wet storage dissipate and develop before going on the market. This tea has been mismanaged — too wet, and not enough time/treatment afterwards to make it palatable. Perhaps given some years in a dry, airy environment it can be saved a bit, but I don’t think so. It’s quite far down the road to being a cooked puerh, if you examine the leaves. There isn’t a whole lot that can happen to it, and the existence of the yellow mould pretty much seals the deal. Whoever sold this cake is doing a disservice to tea drinkers it serves.

So, iwii, where did you get this cake? You should ask for your money back, especially if they told you it’s dry storage or it’s 30 years old (which it can’t be).

I’ve been drinking more teabags than I care to mention these days. It’s really quite sad. Most of it is because I don’t have time at home to brew my own tea — I am on the go and thus am stuck with some sort of take out tea or another. If I’m not in the Square, then buying teabag is the only way to get my caffeine fix.

Luckily, today was a relatively lazy day. I got a chance to brew my teas, and I picked out those Guangyungong bits to brew.

The stuff is really quite tightly compressed, and the first infusion of the tea looks weak

By the third infusion, it gets much stronger

The tea has a taste of corn husk in it, with woody notes in the 3-5 infusions, and what my girlfriend describes as “generic aged puerh” taste. The corn husk returns later on, with a mild sweetness to it. There was a little bit of bitterness in the tea today, mostly probably because I added more leaves than I really should. Because of the hard compression, it’s really hard to tell how much leaves I’m really using, and thus I’m prone to using too much.

Now I’m on about the 20th infusion, and it’s still giving me stuff. It’s a mild, sweet, and smooth tea now. It’s a relaxing drink, even if not the best.

Ok, so here are some pictures now that I’m sort of done with the tea, although I’m still brewing yet another infusion in my pot.

These are broken pieces of Guangyungong cakes that I bought in Hong Kong. I find them rather good and tasty, and as is obvious, long lasting.

You can see that it hasn’t been stored very well. There is obvious evidence of wetness.

I’ve got more of them… all in pieces

The tea is very sweet and smooth and mellow. The owner of the store said that it’s just broken cakes, because in storage you inevitably end up with cakes that don’t survive. Since part of the process of storage is that you have to move the goods every few months to prevent mould from developing, the movement, etc will always cause some breakage. That’s the stuff you sell in jars.

This is the first infusion:

A few infusions later:

A day and half later:

At this point I ought to be boiling the leaves in water, but I have no such implements, so keep rebrewing will have to do.

The tea is woody up front, with a good sweet taste throughout, and a bit of a cooling effect down the throat. The woody/musty taste dies after 5-6 infusions, leaving only sweet tea taste, but that lingers on and on forever. It’s really quite nice to drink 🙂

The wet leaves are rather dark, and I will take a better shot of them spread out once I feel like having finished with them. For now…

This is taken with natural sunlight.