Winter Days

I have a small collection of tea samples in the top drawer of my desk at work. They have been there for a few years and for some reason I almost never reach for one of them when picking a tea for the afternoon. Let's change that.

Today is the 2021 Sunskate from white2tea. The website describes it as a very lightly-oxidized black tea made from material destined originally to become puer. The light oxidation leads Paul to refer to it as a strange kind of oolong rather than a black tea. Let's see what he's talking about...

The first steep reminds me of honey and marshmallows. A strong opening act to be sure. It brews light, lighter than the deep red of your typical black tea. I finished it while helping a colleague sort through an issue on one of our systems in the lab. Sometimes teas serve as background music, not remarkable enough to pull our minds out of whatever track they find themselves on in the moment. This tea is not so. The first sip causes me to remark inwardly about the unlikely combination of flavors. Problem solved, I return to my desk to continue with the next steep. 

I had a look at my calendar today and noticed that next Friday, February 2nd, will be my 14-year anniversary at this company. I find myself forced to reflect on what has happened in the last near decade and a half of my life both professionally and personally. I graduated from university, moved across the country twice, adopted two wonderful cats, lost my two remaining grandparents, changed apartments 5 times, went from intern to full-time engineer, to contractor, back to full-time engineer and finally to manager, had my heart broken on more than one occasion, cemented a permanent love of choral music, acted in 11 community theater productions and served on the staff of 6 more, totaled two cars and purchased a third, saw 5 friends married and one have a child, and so much more both significant and less-so. 

This tea has a quality about it that keeps grabbing attention. Calling it a strange oolong is quite appropriate. Its flavors lie close to other black teas, but it has a collection of extra aromas that belie a more complex origin. Floral whispers that flit around this marshmallow-like sweetness. A hint of sourness on the edges of the tongue. A small amount of familiar tannic astringency. It's a shame that this tea can no longer be purchased, but at the same time its scarcity seems apropos my mood today as I sit and reflect on what turns life has taken as I have spent the years of my professional career.

Now, as I nearly enter my fifteenth year with this company, I take on a new sort of attitude that wasn't present before. One of sadness, I think. When I started my career, this company was still a startup. The culture of startups, at least in my experience, seems to be one of shared passion. Everyone wants the product and the company to succeed. You work to further the goals of the company, but you are also beholden to your colleagues in a way that is unique because you are all striving for the same thing together. You don't want to let your colleagues and friends down. The company leadership, at least in what I think was a good startup like the one I had the fortune to join, doesn't want to let you down either. You can feel the community and its embrace is enough to hold everything together. Now, after a couple of acquisitions I find myself surrounded by many of the same people and the same products, but the face of the company is no longer one of compassion. It is one of necessary corporate coldness. I do not begrudge the company as an entity - such a dispassionate mindset is necessary to keep capitalism afloat, but now the community that there once was must be carried solely by the people who remain. We might have even been able to do it too, if not for the ever rising demands and ever lowering shows of appreciation for the people who break their backs on the rocks to drive the success that we have enjoyed together.

Black teas tend to give up their essence somewhat quickly. They don't seem to steep out for the entire day like other teas sometimes can. They evolve quickly, but for the time that they are evolving they are usually very enjoyable company. This one is firmly above-average and a lovely companion. I have a few more teas that I think come from the same purchase as this one. I look forward to seeing what the others are like, given the high bar set by this first one.

Where does this leave me in my reflection? I suppose it leads me to start looking towards the horizon. There are other glimmering cities catching the last light of the day and they look ever more enticing as the days pass. Where I will end up I can't say, but I think that my fifteenth year will be my last in my current location.

Happy tea drinking all, and may you find some welcome introspection in these overcast days of Winter.

Remembering Autumns Past

 Today I am sipping slowly on the last few steeps of a roasted oolong I acquired some few years ago. It is sweet and comfortable, lingering just enough in the throat and on the breath to speak to its quality. It has a pleasant fruit-like sourness along the sides of the tongue that I have associated with good roasted oolong ever since my first encounter with tieguanyin many years ago. 

The bag has enough leaves left for perhaps one more session yet. Soon it too will fade like everything else must. I will remember it fondly as I search for another tea to take its place in my stash. I hope that everyone else can have a similarly good session with their tea of choice. May it be comforting to you in precisely the ways you need.

Happy Tea Drinking.

p.s. I want to try something new. I have been journaling in an abstract manner for several years now. It isn't consistent, but when I do latch on to some topic or memory or other, my pen sometimes writes something I find worthwhile. 

I'd like to begin sharing these little diversions with anyone who happens to stumble on this blog. Maybe they will evoke some emotion from you, unnamed reader, or at least be an entertaining read for a few minutes.

Like old Honey

 My tea today tastes like old honey and mature forest floor. Something not too dissimilar from slowly decaying hay and the smell of a handful of warm leaves in fall. As it leaves my mouth, it reminds me of tannic apricot skins and long days spent out of doors. Of following the sunset as it migrates slowly across a valley floor, trying to keep its warmth on our backs and savoring the last kisses of its light on the earth.

I don't remember the provenance of this tea. I broke a chunk off of a cake and placed it into a resealable silicone plastic bag some months ago and have since forgotten its source. I can't remember whether it was cheap or expensive, where it was grown, or its exact age. There is freedom in not knowing anything beyond the tea itself.

I don't normally think this way. Normally I am concerned with whether there is something better out there. Perhaps this tea is good, but what about an even better tea? The feeling that I need to find it is usually all-encompassing. This feeling pollutes many avenues in my head. It stretches far further than the simple leaf infusion that I drink daily.

The second steep brings subtle wisps of smoke to its character. It wraps the other flavors briefly in the mouth, but its influence lingers much in the way that the smell of a campfire sticks to your clothes long after the embers have cooled. This steep also brings a smooth sourness as the tea cools, making it feel more alive somehow.

I honestly feel like my habit of constant dissatisfaction with what is before me is an immense detriment to my life. It makes me feel like I am always missing something despite not feeling like anything in particular is lacking. It is a feeling of continual imbalance, like the ground I am standing on isn't at rest. 

I treat this dissatisfaction usually by one acquisition disorder or another. The exact class of which shifts from week to week or month to month. It has been tea at several points over the years. It has been a long list of shifting hobbies. It has been coffee. It has been games. It has been people. I don't ever feel any more whole through the process of acquisition. The itch isn't scratched, the floor is still off-kilter, and I am always a step away from slipping again.

The wet leaves have a warm, dusty wood character to their smell. It reminds me of the smell of my parents' garage corner where the table saw and drill press once sat. Old sawdust caked into the corners of smoothly milled steel. Hours spent hunched over one project or another, classical music playing on the ancient FM radio perched precariously on the edge of a cobwebbed router table. This garage doesn't belong to my family any more. Only the memories live rent-free in my head with smells drawing them forth unbidden but welcomed.

This feels to me, ultimately, like a simple sort of tea. It is uncomplicated. It lacks any particular aromatic experience. It has a slightly slick texture, but is mostly just easy to drink. Its aftertaste is not particularly exciting, but it is comforting in all the ways I have put to page in the last 600 words or so. My guess is that I didn't pay very much money for this cake, but it got me writing again which may be its most important contribution of all.

Maybe I am getting too philosophical for a Monday afternoon, but I appreciate the chance to reflect. I hope everyone else gets a chance to do so whether it be over a cup of tea or otherwise.

Happy Tea Drinking.

The Puerh Conundrum

We are firmly in the clutches of Summer. Summer brings with it many things. Those of us in New York City are in the middle of the first "official" heat wave of the year. The city hums with the sound of a million air conditioner compressors as well as the usual din of cars, buses, trains, and people.

Summer, for those among us whom are tea drinkers, also means that the western-facing internet tea market is inundated with fresh Spring puerh harvests. Weather in Yunnan this past Spring was not the most favorable overall, so many harvests were delayed. I have no doubt that for many the waiting game has caused such personal stress that the sweat dripping from their fingers would be enough to cause any tea held in their hands to spontaneously brew, but I digress. 

While many may flock to their favorite websites, eager to break up the tea into the gaping maws of their gaiwans, I sit at the computer with a profound sense of bewilderment. I have been drinking this bitter artichoke water for about four years now, and while my taste preferences are still developing, I have a reasonable idea of what I like to drink.

While you or I may know what types of teas we enjoy drinking, the problem becomes developing a buying strategy that will ensure a consistent supply of tea moving forward. All fresh tea is marching slowly towards becoming compost. Will we enjoy the type of compost that it becomes? Who's to say..

I only mention New York City as a point of reference for my personal storage solution. Since moving here, my pumidor (a non-functioning wine fridge) has maintained a constant 80 degrees and about 62% RH with no intervention. Only time will tell if this is a sufficient environment for tea aging, but it smells good inside so I remain optimistic.

We finally reach the point of this long-winded article: What, if anything, should we purchase? In my personal tasting I am trying to get a handle on general regional characteristics, but am finding it difficult to do so consistently.  Much like with coffee, there is a huge degree of emphasis placed on single-origin teas in the majority of the market. With coffee this isn't a huge problem, since the price of coffee is more or less the same regardless of origin. There are exceptions, but by-and-large it is a stable market. Not so with tea.

If you're reading this I'm sure I don't have to explain the wild price differences in puerh-producing sub-regions.

With infinite money the solution to our problem becomes easy; buy all the samples. I would love for it to be that easy, but sadly it is not. The samples game is difficult to play for many reasons and often a sample may not be representative of an entire cake, depending on its treatment. Further, something that you like in its current state may not be as pleasant once it has aged in whatever storage solution you are implementing. The reverse may also be true - something you dislike now might be incredible once it has had a chance to sit for a spell.

What, then, should we purchase?  I don't have an answer, but I would love to hear what strategies other people use.

Happy Tea Drinking.


  

Tea, the Universe, and Everything

Photo stolen unscrupulously from SeriousEats.

I was listening to an episode of one of my favorite podcasts - Hardcore History - on the subject of World War I when I started thinking about something. Quick sidebar - Hardcore History is endlessly fascinating and I wholeheartedly recommend it. It is the author's deeper musing on historical events which brings me back to the podcast time and time again, despite its multi-hour episode lengths.

At any rate, Dan Carlin was discussing the Fermi Paradox. The Fermi Paradox, in essence, poses the question: If the probability of intelligent life existing elsewhere in our universe is so high, why is there no evidence of it? Or, perhaps more simply, where is everyone?

One theory is that it is the natural progression of intelligent species to destroy themselves. 

When did we, as humans, acquire the potential to pose a truly existential threat to ourselves? Many would argue July 16, 1945 - the day the first successful nuclear weapons test was conducted. Dan Carlin argues that it was right around the start of WWI, a little over thirty years earlier. WWI was the first large-scale military conflict in which both sides possessed automatic weapons. The brutality of our own killing machines had advanced so quickly that warships constructed a mere decade prior to the start of the war were outclassed so completely by warships possessed by other nations as to be almost useless.

I only bring this up because I began thinking that if our civilization is indeed marching towards its inevitable self-destruction, then what will inherit the earth? My guess is micro-organisms. I do not mean from the standpoint of the next organism to evolve consciousness, but rather the organism which will outlive all of us - human, animal, and plant.

We are already slaves to our invisible future-rulers. We rely upon them to aid our digestion, to keep so-called "bad bacteria" at bay, to produce the food which enables our plants to grow (and in that sense, enables our lives as well).

We are also at their mercy. Something we cannot even see, if introduced at the wrong time to our systems, can start a cascade which can take our very lives away from us. In some sense our tiny neighbors are more advanced than we are. Dramatically shorter generations enable exponential rates of evolution and thus adaptation we can only dream of as a species. 

Cheese, yogurt, pickled foods of all kinds (a list nearly too long to count), alcohol, leavened bread, vaccines, pharmaceuticals.. the list goes on and on.  

And of course, tea.

Forgiving a few special varieties, nearly all the tea we consume is alive. Puer probably most of all. Many people have touched on this subject before and I find it extremely fascinating. It leads me to believe that humans have far more than the acknowledged "tastes" - sour, salty, sweet, bitter, umami (protein?). I would argue that we have evolved another - fermentation. Sure fermentation is predominantly a mixture of the other tastes, but there is something inherently old and complex about it which many find pleasing. 

What is more interesting is how people who find one or more member of the fermented food family to be to their liking will often find other foods from the family to their liking as well. Liking pickles can lead to liking kimchi and sourdough bread, liking puer tea can lead to appreciating whiskey, and so forth. Complex foods beget desire for other complex foods.

I for one welcome the future lords of our planet, and I invite everyone in this New Year full of doubts and uncertainties to remember that ultimately, we are all insignificant. Practice love, practice compassion, share life, and share tea.  It is the only way forward. 

Happy Tea Drinking. 

Protecting the Stash

I hear that some people use their cubicle drawers to store office supplies, files, that sort of thing. Like any good tea-hoarder, mine are filled almost entirely with the object of my obsession. This makes sense, because I do the majority of my tea drinking at work. While I would like to dedicate more time at home to drinking tea, the nature of my commitments makes that difficult on most days, weekends included.

My stash circa 2013

I do try to keep my setup to a respectable minimum : 4 teapots, 1 gaiwan, 1 shiboridashi, a half-dozen teacups, cha hai, strainer, scale, tea-picks, and electric kettle. I even have one of those Tawainese-style competition brewing sets, for the odd work-sanctioned tea tasting, of course.

My drawers contain binder-clipped bags of oolongs, metal canisters of aged oolong, and many, many sample bags of puer, ripe and raw represented. I also keep my ripe cakes at work for the time being, since I do not have a storage solution for them at home yet. I am confident that were my drawers inspected by a casual observer, they would assume that I had quite the drug problem.

As much as I would love to continue describing the extent of my tea-hoarding at work, I must shift the topic to the subject of a different kind of observer. A non-human observer.

I used to sit in a square 4-cubicle pod with J (tea friend of mention in posts past), J (another fellow tea-drinker), and a vacant cubicle. It was quite nice - we even had a communal table at which to conduct very important work-centric meetings involving copious amounts of tea. H (another tea-drinking colleague) from over the wall would stop by to offer her input. I have since moved locations within the building, but I stop by to talk with the two Js frequently.

Monday

"Did you know about the mouse?", asks H.
"Mouse?", I reply.
"A mouse got into our drawers, J and J had to throw away a bunch of their tea."
A feverish shiver runs up my spine as my mind rushes to the rather formidable stash of tea a short walk away.

It appears that mice had found their way into a drawer in J's cubicle which contained, unknown to him, a chocolate bar. After finishing off the chocolate, the mice chewed holes into vacuum-sealed bags of oolong. It would appear the tea obsession extends beyond our species.

My tea was, mercifully, unharmed, owing probably to the fact that I sit further away from the scene of the crime. As a precaution, however, I packed up any tea not stored in a metal canister and brought it home until I can purchase a sealed container to keep it all in.

Is that really it?

It is rare that we, as hoarders, face the true extent of our obsessions. We all have underlying knowledge that we might have some sort of problem, but when everything is distributed it becomes harder to keep it all in mind at once.

Inside the fridge minus a few newer cakes, of course.

And no, that is not all of my tea. There are a few cabinets in my kitchen to contend with, along with my small collection of shu puer. Distribution is key, of course.

I even keep a spreadsheet of all the tea that I drink. Mostly for my own curiosity, but also because I like a well-organized spreadsheet. I'm currently consuming tea at a rate of about 115g/month on average. This is well below my acquisition rate, although I do not keep track of that figure.

All this to say - keep your tea safe out there my friends and fellow collectors. As for the m(ice)ouse? We won't speak of that, but suffice it to say that we have not had any visitors since this incident.

Telling a Story

Neither my girlfriend nor I have ever been backpacking. To be precise, and to be fair, I have never been camping at all. The closest that I have come was in the Summer of my junior year of high school. Some friends and I stayed but a single night at a campsite a mere three minute walk to the beach, about two hours south of where I live. There was a bathroom just a moments walk in the opposite direction.

My parents, forced out of the neighborhood of my youth by skyrocketing cost of living, cashed out and moved to Oregon last fall. No longer are they a simple ten minute drive away, and sadly I cannot see them as frequently as I would like to. As it happens, my girlfriend has family in Vancouver, Washington, so we arranged a trip to see my family and hers. 

We traveled by way of Crater Lake. If you have never been, allow me to recommend it with the greatest enthusiasm I can muster. It is one of the most breathtaking natural features you will ever see, a sight which defies all words, a sight which leaves one feeling so very, very small.

Saddled with her brother's backpacking gear, my girlfriend and I arrived at Crater Lake at 5:15 in the evening with the hopes to find a back-country campsite for the night. Our troubles began when the ranger at the entrance informed us that we needed to obtain a permit from the Ranger Station by 5pm. Stricken with fear, we dashed down the road to the station and found that it was not yet closed. We were greeted by a cheerful park ranger who happily issued us a permit. Small crisis averted, we drove back down the road to the nearby market to pick up a couple of essentials and a freeze-dried meal for our dinner.

With our car parked at the lot closest to the trailhead we had selected and, backpack loaded with far more gear than two people could possibly need for a single night in the woods, we made our way downhill and away from the sounds of cars and other humans. 

Hiking at any elevation above a few hundred feet is tiring for a city boy. Barely ten minutes and already exhausted, we passed a helpful couple who told us that some campsites were only another ten minutes ahead. We soon arrived at what looks to have been a campsite at one point in a small clearing surrounded by scorched, dead trees. We shed our kit and took to setting up our tent. 

It is a good idea to put a tent together at least once before you need to really use it. If not only to make sure that you understand how to put it together, but also to make sure that you aren't missing any pieces. Don't be like us. Don't skip this step. Missing no fewer than four stakes and at least one tent pole made putting our shelter together much more difficult than it should have been, but for one night, it would do.

Mosquitoes in suburban California are so small you can hardly see them. Not so in the forest. We were in our campsite for less than one minute before they descended upon us like an air raid, but without the courtesy of a siren to warn us. Bug spray does not smell good. It also does not taste good, so keep that in mind when applying it to every inch of exposed skin on your entire body.

Getting a fire going, now there's something I had done before. Lesson learned here was that when the air is damp, it is much harder to get even small kindling to catch fire. Start slowly, and add larger pieces very carefully.  It was about this time that my girlfriend discovered that a swarm of mosquitoes had settled on my back, which she brushed off, but the damage was done. Turns out these buggers can bite through clothing; I had no less than twenty bites on my back the next day.

After dinner (a freeze-dried vegetarian chana masala, quite good actually), we set to finding a tree to hang our remaining food in for the night. Much of Crater lake had been ripped through by forest fires last year - indeed we could see huge swaths of dead forest as we drove out of the park the next afternoon. We happened to be camped in one such area, and as a result most of the trees nearby were dead, causing their branches to hang downwards rather than outwards. Dark was approaching quickly and we finally managed to throw a rock tied to our rope over the one good tree branch in the entire area and get our bags into the tree.

Night, even in July, was cold. The sky was immaculately clear, lit by an extremely bright full moon. Somewhere out there in that frigid darkness came a yelp of a small animal, followed by a (much closer) set of three distinctive thumps. We shall never know what type of animal was our visitor that night, but when the sun rose, we were once again alone in our little valley. We breakfasted on the remaining food from our hanging bags (still there, I might add) and broke camp.

In spite of all the small things we went through in our endeavor to gain a better understanding of camping, we both agreed that the adventure was more than worth it. Life, it seems to me in the relatively few years I have been around, is all about gaining those small bits of knowledge to better appreciate the world and its small pleasures. These bits are not without cost, but sometimes you need to venture more than just money in order to grasp them.

Happy Tea Drinking.