Taiwan Tea Crafts : Winter 2013 Da Yu Ling

Today I will be discussing another tea from Taiwan Tea Crafts.  It is another gaoshan oolong, this time from the Da Yu Ling mountain range.  Geographically speaking, Da Yu Ling is within the Li Shan mountain range of Taiwan, however its peaks reach even greater altitude than the rest of the range.  They are the highest peaks in the country and the teas from the region often command the highest prices when it comes to gaoshan.

The leaves have the typical high mountain oolong look to them, tightly rolled and lightly oxidized.  The smell of the dry leaves is very sweet and creamy, with a more muted floral aspect when compared to the Li Shan Cui Fong.  Again, this tea is extremely fresh, harvested just in October of this year.

The wet leaves smell sweet and floral, however they also hide a slight toasty smell.  The toastiness reminds me of cookies for whatever reason.

My first two sessions with this tea were using the same weight of tea that I typically use for my gaiwan.  The early infusions are light and slightly vegetal, with a good throaty aftertaste that brings a delicate sweetness as I exhale.  The fragrance of this tea is a little more reserved, taking longer to open up.  The tea is not what I would call sweet, at least not in the very bright, high, fresh way that the LSCF tea was.  The liquid itself is actually slightly astringent, however its aftertaste is sweet and fragrant. 

Somewhere around the fourth or fifth infusion, the aftertaste changed dramatically.  It became much more fragrant, sweeter, and had an edge to it which reminded me of tropical fruits. 

My third session with this tea, I used less tea than I had in the earlier sessions.  I was hoping to try to bring out some of the creaminess that I was smelling in the dry leaves.  What happened, however, was that the tea itself became much sweeter.  The fragrance was improved, too.  The tropical fruit notes of which I spoke were also enhanced.  The aftertaste had many layers of flavor, quite special.

I have pushed this tea in excess of 10 infusions, and never did it hint at any sort of bitterness.  The taste becomes lighter as the infusions drag on, however I could still taste the character of the tea.

To compare this tea to the LSCF directly, I would say that this tea is probably of higher quality.  Its aftertaste is situated in a different part of the mouth.  This tea has a very throaty aftertaste, something which I spoke about in my previous post.  The LSCF's aftertaste sits more in the top of the mouth.  The LSCF tea is extremely fragrant, almost to the point where it is like drinking perfume.  It completely penetrates the nasal cavities, whereas the DYL has a more reserved floral profile that is certainly there in the aftertaste, however it is never as penetrating as the LSCF.  The LSCF is also sweeter in a sort of sugary way.  Its sweetness fills the mouth when the liquid is still present, whereas the DYL's sweetness hides briefly before displaying itself in the aftertaste.

Overall, the DYL I would call a more reserved tea.  It is, for that reason, more complex and what I would call of higher quality.  It is hard for me to rank them against each other in terms of which is 'better' to me.  I think I would enjoy drinking each one under different circumstances. 

There is one more gaoshan from TTC which I have to try, perhaps I shall be able to rank them against each other after that. 

Taiwan Tea Crafts : Winter 2013 Li Shan Cui Fong

We are firmly within the holiday season here in the States, and while I have been drinking plenty of tea lately, I have been more focused on other things than keeping up my journal of tasting notes.  This tea is the first in a while which I have thought more seriously about.

Today's tea comes from a tea company located in Taiwan; Taiwan Tea Crafts.   Taiwan is famous for its tea, most notably its bao zhong and high mountain (gao shan) oolongs.  This tea is of the latter category.

Generally speaking, a tea is classified as high mountain if it is grown at an elevation of at least 1000 meters.  High mountain oolongs exist towards the greener side of the oolong 'scale' and are revered for their orchid aroma and sweet, throaty aftertaste.  As you can see from the image above, the tea is rolled into tight balls which unfurl quickly and display a dramatic increase in volume.

This tea, grown on Li Shan (Pear Mountain), displays a very low level of oxidation, as evidenced by the slight discoloration of the edges of the leaves themselves.  Taiwan Tea Crafts notes the harvest date of each tea they sell so that a prospective customer can be aware of the freshness.  This tea was picked in November of this year, and is certainly the freshest high mountain tea I have had the pleasure of drinking.

The wet leaves have a thick, sweet, creamy floral scent to them.  During the first few infusions, the floral aroma is so strong that the leaves smell more like perfume than tea.  Early infusions display more muted floral notes, leaning more towards a gentle vegetal sweetness that lingers on the tongue and in the top half of the mouth.  As the infusions progress and the leaves open, the tea becomes increasingly floral, peaking around the fourth infusion or so.  At this stage, the aroma is extremely penetrating, completely filling the mouth and nasal cavities with scent.

The aroma dies quickly after the fifth infusion, and the tea becomes more gently perfumed liquid until about the eighth infusion, at which point I discarded the leaves.  At no point during the infusions did the liquid become astringent or bitter.

My tea friend and colleague, who hails from Taiwan, explained to me that the two things that people look for in a high mountain tea are the floral fragrance and aftertaste which lingers in the throat.  This tea has the first aspect in spades, however the aftertaste of this tea is felt more in the top half of the mouth and in the nasal cavities, rather than the throat.

We tasted this tea along side an unopened bag of 2012 high mountain tea to compare the similarities.  The 2012 tea had a more muted fragrance, however its aftertaste was apparent in the throat, a lasting sweetness that could be felt every time I exhaled.  I can assume that fragrance, and perhaps a degree of sweetness,  are the first things to leave a tea as it begins to age.  This 2013 Li Shan was certainly the sweeter and more fragrant of the two, however the main difference could be found in the placement and length of the aftertaste.

I, for one, am extremely pleased with this tea.  I do not mind that the aftertaste has different placement in the mouth.  What I am most impressed with is the freshness of the tea, which can be so easily felt in the sweetness and the powerful aroma that the drinker experiences.

I inadvertently had a session of this tea which was brewed with a smaller quantity of leaves than I intended.  What happened was interesting.  A creaminess in the tea which was not present in other sessions was revealed.  The taste itself was more milky, and interestingly enough, the floral aspects were more muted.  It is perhaps possible that the creaminess existed in the other sessions as well, but was just overpowered by the high floral fragrance.  It was an interesting result, and I think that I will try varying the amount of tea in the future as I work my way through some other samples.

Jing Tea Shop - Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong 'AAA'

Second of four teas I will be discussing from Jing Tea Shop, is the Mi Lan Xiang 'AAA' oolong.

 The dry leaves are extremely long and have been curled and roasted to what I would call (from my limited experience) a medium roast.  Mi lan xiang translates to 'honey orchid fragrance', and while the dry leaves themselves do not give off much aroma, the leaves in a warmed gaiwan give off a wonderful aroma of honey and flowers.

 

The wet leaves give off an intoxicating smell which is a mix of tropical fruits, flowers, and thick honey sweetness.  I have not smelled wet tea leaves which had a better aroma than this.

The tea seems to be all about fragrance and flavor.  The tea is light in body, however its flavor simply blossoms in the mouth and lingers for a very long time, especially in the back of the mouth and top of the throat.  Early infusions display a strong aroma of flowers and honey, whereas the later infusions turn more towards tropical fruits.  The flavor, at certain points, reminded me of oriental beauty tea.  Perhaps it is the level of oxidation, but the aroma profiles certainly overlap somewhat.  Both have a honey-like taste and aroma, however this is most definitely a more complex tea.  I would consider Oriental Beauty to be much more similar to black tea.   

While drinking the tea, a sense of calm and focus settles in and leads to a good amount of work getting accomplished, along side keeping track of tasting notes.

The first time I brewed this tea, it had an incredible sweetness unlike anything I have experienced before.  The tea tasted like it had sugar added to it.  As the liquid cooled down, the sweetness only became more pronounced.  While my later sessions with this tea have had a great amount of sweetness that lingers in the throat, I was unable to obtain that amazing sweetness of the first session.  I am beginning to think it has something to do with what I eat in the mornings before making tea.  For something this aromatic, I should consider eating something with a lighter flavor beforehand.  

I have pushed these leaves in excess of 8 infusions.  While it does start to lose some of its character around the 5th or 6th steeping, it still retains its fruitiness and a large part of its aftertaste.  This is excellent tea, and very encouraging for an exploration into more dan cong oolongs.  As always, there exists far more tea than time.  What a wonderful problem.

What is Gong Fu Style?

In speaking to a friend about my desire to make a tea blog, I was reminded that not everyone knows what the gong fu style of tea preparation involves.  I thought I would offer my take on the matter to clarify.

Gong fu style, put simply, is a method of brewing loose-leaf teas with a high leaf to water ratio, much higher than many people are traditionally accustomed to, and brewing many consecutive, shorter steeps of the same tea.  The intention is to bring out characteristics of the tea which may not be apparent when it is brewed in a different fashion, and to also offer the drinker a means by which to observe how the tea changes as the steeps progress.

This is traditionally performed inside a device called a gaiwan, or in an unglazed earthenware pot, such as a yixing clay teapot.

 Gaiwan with my morning tea inside

If you have a look at Wikipedia, you will find an extremely elaborate description of what the gong fu 'tea ceremony' entails.  Most of what is described is ultimately unnecessary for practical tea drinking.  From speaking to my friends from China and Taiwan, I have learned that gong fu is not a ceremony, but rather simply the tea preparation style which I have described. 

There are numerous methods for brewing and enjoying tea, and gong fu is simply one of these methods.  No method is inherently better than another, I simply have come to appreciate this particular method, and it has become the method I use most often.  Gaiwans are very inexpensive, and can be found in tea shops, for those who are interested in trying this method of brewing tea.

Tea of the Day - Jing Tea Shop Rou Gui 'A'

I was reading an old post by another tea blogger, MarshalN which I agree with.  He was speaking about not being able to accurately give a sort of review of a tea without having sampled a reasonably large quantity of said tea.  While I have trouble deciding to purchase in increments of 100g of unknown teas, I decided I would sample today's tea several times before forming an opinion.

About a month ago, I ordered 4 different teas from JingTeaShop.  Among them are three examples of Wuyi yancha, and one dancong.  I have little experience with either of these particular types of oolongs, so I thought this would be an interesting sample.

First up is a Rou Gui, designated only by 'A', presumably some arbitrary ranking of quality.  The dry leaves smell of roast, a smell I associated with chocolate, simply for no real other frame of reference.  There is also something I can only sort of describe as "unknown" or "spice".  When they hit the warmed pot, the smell transforms into a very deep, sweet smell with fruity undertones.

The first infusions yield a sort of flavor which I can describe as 'prickly'.  It feels prickly on the tongue, sort of how mineral water can taste.  There is something in this taste which I can associate with the word 'spice', though I cannot place my finger on precisely which spice.

The roast reveals itself more heavily in the second and third infusions, especially in the aftertaste.  The prickly feeling stays with you to some degree as well.  I notice that as the tea cools down, the mouth feel thickens dramatically.  It feels much heavier, especially in aftertaste.

After the 3rd infusion, I feel like this tea falls off dramatically.  It develops a sort of sour/bitter edge which I can sort of relate to young pu erh.  In reading about brewing yancha, most people recommend using at least 3/4 of the volume of your pot with dried leaves.  I read this information after having already used only 1/2 of the volume of my pot.  At this point, I only have about 6 grams of this tea left, which is not sufficient to produce this ratio.  Many tea drinkers seem to believe that a smaller amount of leaf can generate a sort of 'insipid' brew, and perhaps that is what I am experiencing.  I will certainly be taking these pieces of wisdom when I move on to the two other yancha that I received.

Something interesting is - When I was cleaning my teacup that I had been using for the past couple of days, an aroma of cinnamon seemed to leap out of the residue that was being dissolved by the rinse water in the cup.  It was completely unexpected, something which I did not taste in the tea itself.  I can't decide whether my mind was playing tricks on me or whether the smell was actually coming from my cup.  I suppose stranger things have happened.

Tea of the Day - Shing Hwa Tieh Guan Yin

Today's (or more accurately, the past two days') tea is a typical Taiwanese Tieh Guan Yin tea from the Shing Hwa tea company.  The company offers two grades of this tea.  The tea pictured is their lower grade tea ($15/100g).

According to a tea friend and colleague of mine, you will find Tieh Guan Yin in both mainland China and Taiwan.  The main distinction being that Chinese TGY tends toward the greener side of the oolong scale, whereas Taiwanese TGYs are typically roasted and rolled multiple times to varying degrees of roast, until a very dense rolled tea is produced.

I have only ever had one other example of Taiwanese TGY, which was roasted more heavily than this tea.  If you have a look at the picture, you will notice that not all the leaves display the same roast level.  I do not know whether this is related to the tea grade, the skill of the roaster, or if it is a common thing to find in roasted TGYs.

The dry leaves have a toasty, fruity aroma, with a smell which I can only describe as slightly 'sour'.  Once the leaves hit the warmed pot, they give off a very strong, thick, sweet smell.

One thing that I noticed right away was how consistent the flavor stays throughout multiple brews.  It starts to change around the 3rd or 4th steeping, however the aftertaste and aroma remain quite constant.

There is a sour/acidic taste which begins around the 2nd steeping.  I would describe the taste as the sort of acidity you would get from fruit, similar to what would be present in a tart grape.  This acidity decreases as I progressed into the 4th steeping, and the tea's malty/toasty flavors start to come out more.

There is a very strong sweetness which lingers in the bottom of the cheeks and top of the throat, and the aroma of the tea stays inside the throat and nasal cavities.  I can taste the tea every time I exhale through my nose. 

This is very good tea.  For the price, I couldn't possibly have expected better.  I am curious to sample this tea company's higher grade of TGY to compare the difference. 

Welcome!

Do you like tea already, or are you thinking about starting to drink tea?  Do you want to learn more about tea?  Do you have 10 minutes to kill and just want something interesting to read? 

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then this blog may be for you.  I would consider myself to be an amateur tea drinker with some (hopefully) useful opinions to share with the world.  I will discuss the teas I am drinking and offer insight into all things tea-related.  As I expand my horizons by sampling teas from around the world, I hope to encourage others to dive into the vast world of tea and come out with something more than just a cup full of flavored water. 

I am always opens to comments, questions, suggestions, etc., so please feel free to read and respond.

So, welcome!