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.
Friday, July 21, 2017
Monday, January 9, 2017
Tea, the Universe, and Everything
Photo stolen unscrupulously from SeriousEats.
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.
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