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.

Hunting for Aged Things

I have been curious about aged oolong (and really all aged teas) for some time. Aging tea was first introduced to me when I started getting interested in puerh. Back then I read through much of marshaln's blog and I noticed that he also devotes a large amount of text to discussing aged oolongs.

James at TeaDB has also devoted time to discussing aged oolongs, and I have read his reports with great interest. I can commiserate with him in the fact that much of what is available to me in the West is largely overpriced and uninteresting. I have been meaning to try some of the more premium aged oolongs from Tea-Masters, however I haven't gotten around to it yet.

A work colleague and friend of mine, whom I have spoken of before, hails from Taiwan and primarily drinks oolong tea. I can credit him with sparking my interest in loose-leaf teas in the first place, so I was curious to discuss aged oolong tea with him. He did not know much about it, and hadn't really encountered many people selling it in Taiwan. A friend of his did have some aged oolong that he obtained for somewhere around $1/g, which we tasted on a break at work and I wasn't particularly impressed by it. It seemed kind of thin and lacked depth.

My work friend, J, had to travel to Taiwan recently to aid at a customer site and he asked me if I wanted him to get me anything. I asked him to try to find some aged oolong.

On his one free day, J went with a friend to the town of Yingge, which is famous for their pottery. It was raining and they had missed their bus, so they had to sit around for a while till the next one came. My name was mentioned ('I have a work colleague, a white American' - I quote) and J told his friend that I was in search of aged oolong tea (particularly the variety that hasn't been re-roasted). As it turns out, an older woman was eavesdropping on their conversation and leaned over to say that her brother sells aged oolong tea, and, as luck would have it, has a shop in Yingge.

J and his friend accompanied the woman on a visit to her brother's shop. It was tucked into the corner of a back alley, and J would have never found it unless he had days to simply wander around.

The gentleman who ran the shop claims that tea these days is impure, that it contains pesticides and pollutants that didn't exist long ago, and so he strives to find old, "pure" teas. He claims he tastes something around 600 teas a year and only selects a few to sell. J and his friend tasted four teas, three of which J bought some of to bring home.

The teas are a 1969 Zhushan oolong, a 1972 Lugu oolong, and a 1978 black tea. All come in around $0.30/g. There was a fourth tea, an alleged 1934(!) green tea, supposedly obtained by a military fellow from Japan. This fourth tea is something around $1.30/g, and J did not have enough cash to purchase any.

Are any of these teas authentic? Who knows. The price for the quality was there, so I'm extremely fortunate to be able to try them. Many thanks to J for the teas, and many thanks for those who have read through all that story just to reach descriptions of actual tea.

1969 Zhushan 

This has a definite smell of Chinese herb shop. This tea was originally stored in an herb shop - it was given to customers to drink along with the herbs that they take. The shop owner passed away and left his business to his son, who found a bag of this tea in the back. The son did not want to continue in the business, so he sold the tea to the gentleman who now sells it in Yingge.

The tea is composed of very small leaves, many are broken now. There is the odd leaf which is bigger, and it was once loosely twisted and given a fairly strong roast. After many infusions, green can still be found in the leaves.

Its taste is thick, and the liquid sits in the top of the throat, producing a 'pooling' effect and a returning sweetness that lasts a good long time. This is the best tea of the bunch, in my opinion.

1972 Lugu

This tea comes from Lugu, the area in which Dong Ding oolong is produced. Was this a 1972 equivalent of dong ding? I can't say.

What I can say is that the tea is is not as good as the 1969 Zhushan. It still provides a nice aged taste, but its body is thinner and it lacks the throatiness of the previous tea. It also steeps out a bit faster. It is extremely difficult to overbrew it, never presenting sourness or bitterness, even when pushed. We have larger leaves here, many of which are mostly intact.

It reminds me a little bit of some of the aged wuyi oolongs from the now defunct OriginTea, albeit with less throat taste.

1978 Black

I'm not sure on the story behind this one. This is the first aged black tea that I have had, and it is an interesting tea. The dry leaf smells very strongly of malt and sweetness, just like a fresh black tea. There is a hint of something darker within the leaves, but it's difficult to detect.

The taste is very fruity, with a throatiness greater than the 1972 Lugu, but not as thick as the 1969 Zhushan. It is very sweet, and it has a mineral character which makes the tongue tingle. I think perhaps this is the aged taste?

I find it brews out rather quickly, although after letting it sit overnight and revisiting the leaves, I was able to get a few more infusions out of them. Its color is also very fresh black tea-like. More orange than the deeper, almost ruby red of the two aged oolongs. If I can find some more aged black tea, I'll be interested to compare. I know TaiwanSourcing has one..

Many thanks to J for the tea, and many thanks to anyone who has taken the time to stop by and read.

As a side note - I'm always open to doing some sample swapping with anyone who is interested. I'm always in the market for some more aged oolongs, so shoot me a message here or on Instagram if you wish :)

Happy Tea Drinking!

Taste vs. Cost

Spring is here!  Okay, more accurately it is Summer in the northern hemisphere, but it has only been as such for the past week or so.  Spring means a fresh harvest of tea.  This year I decided to purchase a sample of every raw puer tea that white2tea has produced.  This order came in at just under $100 for 200g of tea, with samples ranging from just over $2 all the way to an alarming $34.

Something which I have spent a lot of time thinking about is price justification in tea.  The cost we see as consumers reflects raw materials cost, processing, travel expenses, warehouse space, web hosting fees, operational costs, potential sample markup.. the list goes on and on.  This post is not intended to rail against the cost of tea in general, but I feel it bears mentioning.  What exactly makes a tea worthy of a price an order of magnitude above another?  Also, can I even discern such differences?

I am in no way an experienced puer drinker, although I have been getting a bit more serious about it over the past year or so.  I wanted to expand my palate in the realm of fresh raw puer and I also wanted to see whether my tongue's preferences align with the cost of a tea.  To do this, I set up a blind tasting of the 8 different samples I purchased.  I measured out 7g of each tea and placed them in numbered bags and have been drinking through them and taking notes for the past month or so.  Each was steeped in a 100ml gaiwan and went through around 8 infusions.

I'll include my full notes below, along with the ranking I gave the teas after each subsequent sample.

Notes

#1 -  Smooth.  Thick, silky mouthfeel.  Grapey/slight apricot sweetness.  Virtually no astringency.  Slight smoke.  Not overly complex.  "simple".  Pleasant throaty aftertaste.

#2 - Juicy.  More up-front than #1.  Similar flavor, hedging towards more fruit.  Better aftertaste with a slight cooling feeling in the throat.  Some tongue-drying astringency.  Developing a coating quality on steep #3, a bit bitter.  Some noticeable energy from this tea.  Caffeine is definitely present.

Rank - 2, 1.

#3 - Thick.  Surprisingly soft, however small amount of hay-like 'barnyard' taste.  Coats the roof of the mouth.  Slight cooling.  Aftertaste is mouth-centered rather than throat-centered.  This 7g is rather stemmy.  Becoming throatier as it steeps out.  Bitterness on par with yesterday (#2).  Vaguely 'grapey' aftertaste.  Slight disorienting feeling like a head fog.  Huigan is building as steeps go on.

Rank - 2, 3, 1.

#4 - Stimulating.  Produces an immediate tingling, cooling tongue sensation that lingers after swallowing.  Almost all taste centers on the tip of the tongue and makes it salivate.  Floral, grapelike aftertaste blooms in the mouth.  On steep 3 the taste moves back in the mouth and develops strength.  A thick sweetness is developing, too.  Mouth stimulation continues as it steeps out, but moves back towards the throat.

Rank - 4, 2, 3, 1

#5 - Throaty.  Produces a 'pooling' feeling in the throat, as if it were physically sitting there.  Interesting cured meat smell on gaiwan lid.  Quite soft overall, less obvious huigan as compared to #4.  Leaf is very bud-heavy.  Huigan building in later steeps.  Developing astringency, too.  Ignore earlier huigan comment - it is extremely apparent now.

Rank - 4, 5, 2, 3, 1

#6 - Subtle.  I'm really not getting much from this.  Fairly astringent, especially in the middle tongue and roof of mouth.  Very few noticeable flavors.  Not really getting much sweetness either.

Rank - 4, 5, 2, 3, 1, 6

#7 - Crisp.  Good smoothness, some tip of tongue astringency.  Bottom of cheek and throat aftertaste - like apples or gentle grapes.  Some salivation, good huigan that builds across the steeps.  Quite sweet on its own, too.  Grainy base.  Good endurance.

Rank - 4, 5, 7, 2, 3, 1, 6

#8 - Sweet.  Medium astringency in the middle of the tongue, but high degree of natural sweetness.  Aroma confirms that.  A candy-like sweetness is within these leaves.  Just very pleasant, easy-drinking sweet tea.  Nice aftertaste at back of tongue and top of throat.  Small leaves, though this is a 'center of the beeng' sample.  After a half-day's rest, not as sweet.  More vegetal, some floral quality now too.  Very nice overall, body still apparent.

Rank - 4, 5, 8, 7, 2, 3, 1, 6

----------------------------------------------

What are the teas?

#1 - Poundcake ($6.50) [7]
#2 - Milk, Cream, & Alcohol ($2.35) [5]
#3 - Bosch ($16.00) [6]
#4 - If You're Reading This... ($6.50) [1]
#5 - Tu Hao as Fuck ($18.50) [2]
#6 - Last Thoughts ($34.00) [8]
#7 - Colbert ($10.50) [4]
#8 - Little Walk ($2.60) [3]

I find it extremely interesting that I rated one of the cheapest teas as my favorite, whereas the most expensive tea I ranked dead last.  Indeed, the price fluctuation between my rankings is about as random as I expected it to be.

What does this mean?

1) My palate for young raw puer teas is not appropriate to appreciate high-caliber teas (Last Thoughts, I'm lookin' at you...)
2) I tend to prefer the easier-drinking teas, and specifically ones with good mouth action beyond just a simple sweetness/astringency. 

I will most certainly be re-visiting all of these teas until my samples are gone.  There are a few anomalous experiences across my tasting which I wish to resolve with a more carefully tuned awareness.

Most of all, I think this goes to show that there are so many factors that go into whether a tea is worth it to a particular person.  Personal taste is definitely the biggest.  You simply cannot make someone appreciate something more expensive if they do not already have a taste for such things.  I'm glad that I took the price of the teas out of the equation for my first tasting.  I still have around 18g of each of these teas left, so I can proceed with a bit more background knowledge when I approach them again. 

If you reached the end of this rather long-winded post, thank you!  I encourage you to take everything I have written with a grain of salt, since I am in no way an authority, or even someone you ought to listen to.  I hope you have found this somehow informative!

Happy tea drinking.

What's in my Cup : Nov 13, 2014

2002 White2Tea White Whale

Still riding the pu'er train today as I drink a tea about to hit puberty.  Twelve years of age have turned this tea into a very smooth affair.  It has a firm undercurrent of wood, hay, and smoky apricots that lingers in the mouth and throat for a significant amount of time after swallowing.  It has a pleasant sourness that is accompanied by a slight tongue-drying astringency.  

It is notably sharper when brewed in a gaiwan, however the rounding of flavors offered by this yixing teapot is very welcome on a day where I needed some extra smoothness and relaxation.  

If you are interested in pu'er and haven't been to White2Tea's website.. check it out.

What's in my Cup : Nov 11, 2014

Though it may come as a surprise, I am not paid to take down complex tea tasting notes while on the job.. Alas the format of this blog was perhaps a bit too ambitious given my limited time.  As such I shall be trying out this new format for a bit and see how it goes.


What's in my Cup : November 11, 2014

2014 White2Tea New Amerykah 2

After many months of drinking nothing but oolongs, I am expanding my horizons into pu'er.

This one is brash: wet hay and floral notes dominate the smell of the wet leaves, while the taste is apricots, grass, and the slightest twinge of smoke.  It is up front with its bitterness which transforms to sweetness at the top of the throat for minutes after swallowing. Very nice.

Origin Tea : Winter 2013 Alishan Shi Zhao

Back in the saddle!  The end of the fiscal year for my company is February 1st, so naturally there has been quite a bit of ado in the office and sadly I can't spend as much time paying close attention to the tea I'm drinking... what a shame.

Today I'm reviewing another Winter 2013 gaoshan tea from Origin Tea.  Normally I wouldn't think of high mountain oolong as being a winter tea, but winter here in California has been one of the mildest I can remember. 

This tea comes from the Alishan mountain range.  It is situated at a lower elevation than the Li shan mountain range, however it is still well above the 1000m cutoff for high mountain oolong.  Additionally, Alishan teas are typically much more affordable than other high mountain teas.

This particular example has a more pronounced oxidation than then previous teas I have written about.  This style of processing, according to one of my tea friends, is more traditional for Taiwan.  With slightly more oxidized tea such as this, one can expect more pronounced fruit notes and perhaps even enhanced sweetness.

The wet leaves have a very deep, candy-like sweetness to them as well as a toasty scent which I again associate with baked goods.  The first infusion is light in flavor and body, however it already hints at its fruity, sweet nature.  The second few infusions have a much more pronounced sweetness and tropical-fruit taste which lingers in the throat and back part of the mouth long after swallowing.  The tea is equal parts classic high mountain floral and slightly buttery, tropical-fruit that blend very nicely in the mouth.   

This tea begins to loose its character around the fourth or fifth infusion, however it remains fairly consistent up until that point.  The level of complexity and aftertaste far outshine this tea's price.  I like it better than some Li shan tea that I have had.  If I had to pick one word to describe this particular tea, I would choose 'balanced'. 

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!