Cha Xi Collective
Month
I don’t write about Bai Hao Oolong enough. Here you go.
As I mentioned last week, I recently was given a gift certificate to review some teas from Adagio. A long time ago I was a regular on their sleek website with all its tea information and community resources, but since then I’ve been more drawn to smaller specialty shops. To really see what they could offer, I decided to jump straight for the “Master’s Collection” teas. My second try was their…
Back when I first fell in love with loose leaf tea, I quickly discovered Adagio. Compared to my other favorite of the time, Upton Tea Imports, Adagio had a sleek website, a more curated selection, and excellent packaging. Their online communities provided a space for tea discussion long before Steepster. While their selection is great, their focus on mass-appeal teas and blends eventually led me…
Last week I had the opportunity to visit Vancouver for a couple of days and so naturally I had to know: what’s the tea scene like?
Short answer? It’s amazing. I need to go back.
I got some fantastic recommendations over Instagram from the Vancouver Tea Society, and did a little planning. It was a pretty short trip, and I had a lot of other things to do so I couldn’t justify spending four hours in each of the (seven!) suggested tea shops. To that end I picked two.
o5 Tea was the closest option to where I was staying in Kitsilano, so that was an easy choice. I was able to taste some impeccable 2017 Darjeeling First Flush while there. The kind and knowledgable Jacob made a great cup, which I paired with an (also delicious) Autumn harvest for comparison. There were so many teas on their list that I wanted to try, I’m definitely going to have to visit there again.
I was in the city with several of my friends who had not been introduced to the wonders of gongfu tea, so I also set up a Puer tasting at Silver Crescent Tea. We drank a very smooth younger (2012) Sheng, a malty 90’s loose Shou with huge leaves, and an older (1998) 7543 Sheng. As I was talking too much with Erick and Keira I didn’t get any tasting notes, but they were a great spectrum of the Puer world.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that yet another West Coast city has such great tea, but it’s welcome news. Next time I hope to be able to spend a week just sitting and sipping throughout the city. Well done, Vancouver, well done indeed.
A short tea adventure in Vancouver Last week I had the opportunity to visit Vancouver for a couple of days and so naturally I had to know: what’s the tea scene like?Recently I had the pleasure to order a pile of tea from Yunnan Sourcing, a company I’ve admired for a long while but from whom I had never ordered. This chronicles my first tea from that order, a 2005 Bo Wen “Yue Chen Yue Xiang” Ripe Pu-erh.
This is a 12 year-old Ripe (Shou) Puer, and as such my expectations are that it would have an earthy sweet flavor with dark liquor and ideally a pleasant mouth-feel. That said, 12 years is still barely middle-aged for a tea like this and while I don’t expect as much nuance from a Shou as I would a Raw (Sheng) Puer, this should only improve in the coming decade.
I used 8 grams of leaf for my pot. The cake was very easy to break apart, which is satisfying to me. Having to chisel into a cake with a jack-hammer is never a fun experience. In the pot, the aroma of the warmed leaves was astoundingly sweet, but not at all overwhelming. It was tempered by a gentle scent of old parchment and mushrooms. Overall a good sign.
For each infusion I steeped the leaves approximately 45-50 seconds. That’s a little longer than I normally would infuse a Puer like this, but any less time and the broth looked much too thin. While an inky blackness isn’t always desirable, I like my Puer to have some color to it, and with the extra wait I was not disappointed.
The dusky red liquor was quite malty and creamy on the tongue. The texture and flavor reminded me of nothing less than marshmallows, yet with a subtle hint of old parchment aroma following behind.
After a few similar infusions, I’d characterize this tea as comfortable. Its notes are not overly dramatic, and the flavor is mostly sweet rather than old tasting, but the thickness is undeniable. It’s neither cloying nor dusty, and I think it will be a delightful sipping Puer.
Sometimes when I describe buying a brick or cake (Bing) of Puer, people are surprised at the cost. This one was not expensive, and moreover, you’re getting quite a lot of tea! Just some quick math: a 350 gram Bing for $35 USD, at 8 grams of leaf per pot, is about $0.85 USD per pot. One pot makes maybe an average of 8 infusions, so that’s about $0.10 USD per cup. And this is for a 12 year-old tea! A good deal if I ever drank one. So go out there, fellow tea lover, and get yourself some old Puer (but leave some for me!).
I’m calling this one Marshmallow Puer. Recently I had the pleasure to order a pile of tea from Yunnan Sourcing, a company I’ve admired for a long while but from whom I had never ordered.It’s no secret that I love a good Shou Puer (熟普洱茶). Misty Peak Teas just began offering a new cake they call “The New Black”. Even though the name is light on information (region, factory, etc.) I’ve come to appreciate these elegant names for Puer cakes; they give a little personality to the tea and make it memorable. I’m still very much enjoying the “Brown Sugar” Zhuan Cha from White2Tea, for example, and their labels really make a splash. Of course, the best is when I can get a fun name in addition to some real production notes, and like White2Tea, here Misty Peaks provides.
This tea is a 2012 harvest, whose leaves were aged for one year and then fermented for four months. The description on the site lists it as having a, “fresh tea taste while still bringing a wonderful earthy character” and I think this is fairly accurate. Having brewed this tea around thirteen times, I noticed both a sweet energetic quality as well as a lot of earthy flavors.
I brewed 9 grams in my Jianshui (建水) pot for about 10 seconds to start and increased the infusion time from there. The flavor I found that most stood out in the first handful of infusions was a distinct leatheriness with a bit of an iron tang. It reminded me of visiting leather workshops when I was young. Walking in, the scent of of oil, cured leather, and metal pervaded the room like an incense. The aroma of my cup was much the same. In the mouth, the leather was complimented by a lingering sweetness that gradually grew stronger as the infusions progressed.
The wet leaves gave off the dusky aroma of a wet stone cellar that was delightful. I wanted to leave my nose in the pot as the steam billowed around me. The liquor was a beautiful gold and black color in the fading sunlight of a late summer afternoon.
As infusions number four and five trickled into our cups, I realized that the leather had faded to the background and the sweetness had come to the fore. It was definitely a “wet”, clean taste and texture, bringing to mind bold black cherries. It was not a candy sweetness that I’ve tasted in very young generic Shou, but something with a bit of astringency holding it together. I’m not sure what to attribute as the source of the wetness, but it was distinctly different from the “old book” dryness that appears in so many of my older Shou cakes. I wonder if with age the sweetness will evolve to a dry texture, or if it’s a property intrinsic to this cake? Such mysteries are a source of great interest to me with aging Puer.
Over the course of a few hours I managed to derive around ten infusions out of these leaves and only reached about a two-minute infusion time. I continued drinking them the next day, and the pot continued producing a clean tasting, wet, ruddy liquor that was a comforting complement to yet another afternoon. It’s worth noting that the tea was sent to me as a sample, and the part of the cake (or “Bing”, 饼茶) which I received was the very center, which in my experience tends to last longer than the outer edges. Still, this Puer clearly has a lot of life to it and doesn’t wash away easily.
The often encyclopedic names of Puer cakes can be difficult to parse for those who don’t make it a topic of study, and with a growing market for aged tea in the West, I’m glad to see the evolution of interesting titles from reputable tea vendors like this one. I have a feeling that the fascination with real Puer has only just begun on our side of the world, and that I’ll be drinking (and sharing) many more teas like this in the near future.
Puer is the New Black It’s no secret that I love a good Shou Puer (熟普洱茶). Misty Peak Teas just began offering a new cake they call “The New Black”.This afternoon my wife found a nice-looking little bag of Puer leaves in our Sheng Puer box. It was labeled (in my handwriting) “2003 Tong Qing Hao”, but had no other information. What was this mystery tea? We decided to drink it to find out!
We were originally going to do a rinse, but the rinse (a nearly instant infusion) was so golden and beautiful, we ended up drinking it as the first infusion instead. This proved to be a great idea.
As the liquid rested in my mouth, the aroma held a delicate fragrance. It was sweet but not cloying, like the smell of a honeysuckle bush as you walk by on a spring day.
The flavor was dry, sweet, and also definitely astringent, but the astringency only served to balance the sweetness rather than take the tea into bitter territory. A perfectly ripe lychee fruit came to mind, or the pith of a sweet orange. There was perhaps the mouth feel of a sour apple with a little bit of the texture of chalk. Altogether a very interesting and delicious tea!
This was a good tea to kick-start an otherwise lazy afternoon. Seven infusions later we were awake and ready to get things done. I can always recommend an energizing Sheng Puer for a productive day!
2003 Tong Qing Hao Sheng Puer This afternoon my wife found a nice-looking little bag of Puer leaves in our Sheng Puer box.I’d like to share my experiences recently with a 2004 “Ordinary Treasure” Sheng Puer from Global Tea Hut.
I had tried this small package of Puer once casually when we got it in the mail, and I enjoyed it immensely. I love a good raw Puer (Shēng chá, 生茶) now and then, but most of my collection is still fairly young. Older raw Puer tends to be expensive, and certainly wasn’t something I expected to receive from with my magazine.
Fortunately there was enough left in the tin for another try because I wanted to write a little about my experience. Today I brewed the last 7 grams in my Jianshui pot, gongfu style.
The liquor had a beautiful golden orange hue, like a sunset over the water. Being fairly loose, this tea does not need any rinse, nor a lengthy first infusion. The sunset appears almost at once. In fact, I had to cut my first infusion with a little extra water because it was a bit too intense. It actually felt elegant as I added the extra water and watched the tea’s deep orange fade to gold. Perhaps that’s where I saw the sunset for the first time.
Smooth and mellow, the flavor was comforting and energizing at the same time. While there was a definite sweet taste, it wasn’t the sweetness of fruit. More the earthy sweetness of oats and barley with a little bit of toasted almond. Despite it being only early afternoon, sipping this tea brought to mind the beautiful mountain sunsets of Yunnan; I think I could feel the cool breeze on the evening of a hot summer day.
At the third infusion the body became thicker with more of a eucalyptus effect, though still sweet and mellow. How enchanting! I found the heaviness unexpected for a Sheng and yet very welcoming. I wonder if this is the stage between a young Puer’s sharpness and the aged earthiness that I’ve found often arrives when raw Puer gets closer to the 20 year line.
The fourth and fifth infusions mysteriously remind me of nothing short of a Hong Cha! So rich and mouth filling with that hint of tannin. Even the liquor’s color belied its processing.
Brewing this tea was quite a delight, all the way to the last drop. Many thanks to Global Tea Hut for bringing these leaves to the community. I hope to find more gems like this in the mysterious world of aged tea, and I hope you find some too.
An Ordinary Treasure I’d like to share my experiences recently with a 2004 “Ordinary Treasure” Sheng Puer from Global Tea Hut…Spring rain, dappled sunlight on leaves, and fresh tea: these things come together in my cup, a gift from the hundred hands of the earth. Last month I received an exciting gift! Nicholas from Misty Peaks tea sent me a small package of their 2016 spring harvest. Misty Peaks is a unique and fascinating tea company. Where most vendors on the Internet sell various lots chosen from among hundreds of…
My notes on a 2015 Laos Maocha, and a little explanation of Maocha in general.
Today I found a package in my box of Sheng Puer that I haven’t yet opened (let’s be honest, there’s two boxes of Sheng Puer and many unopened packages, but I digress). This beauty is from my last trip up to Camellia Sinensis in Montreal. I remember having it recommended to me by one of their tea crew, and being intoxicated by the smell of the leaves. Much like the aroma of roasting oolong in…
I wish I had a better name for this tea, but it’s a little bit of a mystery. A birthday present from my friend Ben, these leaves are a blend of various Taiwan-grown cultivars carefully aged since 1993.
Read the rest on someteawith.meTea as Patience. The Vigil of the Leaf.
I make a fair amount of tea during the average day. By the time some evenings roll around I’ve brewed three or four pots of different teas, each one usually three to six times. One thing that this practice has shown me is that not all tea preparation is equal. Many infusions end up being brewed while I’m working, reading something on the Internet, or having a deep conversation. The result? The…
My experience with warmed teapots and Japanese green #tea: Kabusecha and the Warm Teapot.
The super rich, spinach-and-seaweed aroma of a Japanese green tea is the result of many different factors. One technique pioneered by Japanese tea farmers is the practice of covering some of their plants for a few weeks just before harvest. The covers are permeable mesh or bamboo, allowing only a little sunlight to reach the tea during this period. The result of this practice darkens the leaf as…
What a great birthday tea: 2015 Kuwapani second flush from Nepal.
This delightful surprise was sweet and quite chocolatey. I felt like I was drinking a fancy dark chocolate. The effect was notably drying but with a wonderfully thick mouth-feel that raised my spirits considerably after drinking (not that I was feeling particularly down to begin with, but still). I had the good fortune to stop by Stone Leaf Teahouse on my birthday for a few pots of Chá (actually,…
You heard me, Just. Drink. Tea. Many of us get caught up in where a tea comes from, what harvest, cultivar etc. and sometimes that’s good but many times it distracts us and detracts from enjoying the tea for what it is.
Recently, Paul from white2tea had a moving sale where he gave equal amounts of tea for what people purchased sort of like a buy one get one kinda deal but better!
Rather than giving samples and things from the teas he carries on his site, he gave many people random things from his own stash that he either had know idea what they were or just because he really needed to scale down for the move (kinda like giving away clothes you don’t wear anymore even if they fit.)
While some people might not appreciate Paul’s casual but true-natured and grounded approach to tea, I find it refreshing. There’s no bullshit. If he doesn’t know about a tea, he’ll tell you and price it accordingly, if he does have the info, which is usually the case, it’s clear and concise without a lot of the “lore and legend” the many vendors use for marketing. His teas truly speak for themselves. Often humble, always delicious.
I have only tried one of the teas so far (I usually let tea rest for a few days after travel before I try them as I find they haven’t “landed” let if you open right away) The teas included were 30gr of a mystery shou “some shu… no idea…” and the other one is what I tasted yesterday. “mid 2000′s (fake?) Changtai Brown 150g” is written on the bag containing a haggard wrapper and possibly bug bitten but still pretty Nei Piao.
Here’s where things get interesting. So we have a rough age, which even with varied storage can only taste so young or so old. We also have a known producer, Changtai, and even the specified product, the brown Label. Even with all of that “known” info, I have no idea what this tea is. As far as I can tell The label doesn’t specify if it is Sheng or Shou. The leaves are mostly intact and decent size, leading me towards sheng, but the tea is quite dark, even for an early 2000′s wetter-stored pu. The taste is similar to the 2001 Lahu from Camellia Sinensis and also a 2004 Liu Bao I got from Chawangshop. Root vegetables are in the aroma of wet leaves and the first sip on the tongue. But… the mouthfeel has me leaning towards shou, the tea soup is rather thick. My internet research lead me to many Changtai bings and My initial hunch was true, they rarely produced Shou and All the “brown” labels I saw (even if they were fake) were sheng. So why then the Shou taste? I think the reason is that there are so many teas out there and even in my relatively experienced tasting over the 8 years drinking puer, I have had such a minuscule amount and have likely just not had enough tea that tastes like this.
All that being said, I am grateful for teas like this because it gets me thinking. Thinking that it doesn’t matter where this tea comes from. It is delicious and makes me feel great. It could have no label, it could have a picture of dog shit on the wrapper and I would still love it.
So next time you taste a tea, take a step back and just sip and enjoy for the tea that it is, regardless of any info you have about it. This can actually be quite helpful if you are a tea reviewer because you need to rely more on your tastebuds than info regurgitation.
Thanks Paul! Can’t wait to try the mystery shou as well as the teas I already know I like!
When I saw that White2Tea had revived the legendary 2002 White Whale puer tea, I immediately placed my request. Google that tea, it has quite a reputation. It’s a shame to order only one item from such a noble company, though, right? I decided to add just one more tea to the order, conscious of my ever-expanding puer collection. Two-thirds of what I have are Sheng, so I felt justified to add a…
I saw my first tea pet the first time that I saw someone brew gongfu tea. It was a smooth stone turtle, serenely resting on the bamboo brewing tray, the tea flowing gently off its back as the tea master doused it with a rolled oolong. “A gift for the tea gods”, he said, or something like that, and I could sense the beautiful humility of such a gesture. Since that day I have met many tea pets,…
Last weekend I gathered some friends together to get to know a handful of my Shēng (生, raw) Puer. I confess that most of the time I drink Puer I go for my favorite Shóu (熟, ripe) cakes. The deep, earthy flavors are very comforting and they tend to pack less of a punch. Also, many of my Sheng cakes are either too young to be tasty yet or expensive enough that I often think I’m saving them for a special occasion. It was easier, therefore, to create a special occasion just for them!
Read the rest on Someteawith.me!Ales Jurina, one of the two founders of Dobrá Čajovna (“Good Tearoom”) in Czech visited Burlington this week.
What a ridiculous title for a post, eh? “Grab the handle and pour”, is the expected response. However, as anyone who’s tried to use a yixing pot for the first time can probably tell you, there’s a little more to it than that.
How to pour a (small) teapot: my ode to broken lids.“Bada bing!”
That’s what I crow every time I make some of this great Sheng Puer from Jalam Teas. Not just because it’s really fun to say (and it is!), but also because for a relatively young Sheng (Summer 2014) it’s got quite a lovely character. Jalam Bada 2014 Sheng, or as I like to call it, “Bada bing!”
So it’s Spring. And by “Spring”, I mean apparently Summer because within one week the temperature here in Vermont went from 40°F (4°C) to 80°F (26°C). But I’m not complaining, because Spring is Fresh Tea Time!
My first hits this year have been from India. I’ve been drinking some great 2015 Darjeeling First Flush (Rohini estate from Stone Leaf Tea was the first, followed by Mimm estate from Dobra Tea). There’s really nothing like fresh First Flush. The malty, woody fragrances followed by a burst of energy that I think compares only to Matcha are an experience that can’t be beat. If you’ve never had some, I highly recommend it. But be sure to get it brewed by an experienced brewmaster or give yourself some time to experiment, because First Flush is the opposite of your average black tea. If you’re new to making First Flush the best advice I can give is to treat it more like a Chinese green tea or a light oolong.
I’ve also had the opportunity to sip some fantastic fresh Chinese Greens. And just like every year, I’m amazed at what fresh tea can be compared to even leaves that have been packed six months ago. I’ve been drinking what I have too fast, but I did manage to get some photos of a White Buddha Mao Feng from Stone Leaf.
The World Tea Expo is going on right now in California, and if I wasn’t doing a hundred other things right now I’d be right there shaking hands with the giant ginseng. In lieu of being present with such great people and leaves, I direct your attention to my fellow tea bloggers Oolong Owl, Tea For Me Please (nothing posted yet, but I assume we’ll see some coverage; and congrats!), Tea Moment, World of Tea, Steep Stories, or just follow WTE2015 on Twitter or wte15 on Instagram.
In conclusion, welcome (foolishly hot) Spring, and may we all be sipping fresh hot tea (to cool down)!
It may be way too hot for Spring, but fresh tea makes this time of year very exciting anyway. So it’s Spring. And by “Spring”, I mean apparently Summer because within one week the temperature here in Vermont went from 40°F (4°C) to 80°F (26°C).In the US, it’s extremely common for people to walk into a shop asking after “a cup of tea” and then ask for Chamomile, Peppermint, or some blend of flowers and spices. What these customers actually want is a Tisane.
Tea : a shrub (Camellia sinensis of the family Theaceae, the tea family) cultivated especially in China, Japan, and the East Indies.
Tisane: an infusion (as of dried herbs) used as a beverage or for medicinal effects.
When I was growing up, I learned from colloquial usage that “tea” meant something like, “an aromatic beverage prepared from various plants by infusion with boiling water”. What I didn’t realize is that there is actually one plant (Camellia Sinensis) which is actually “tea”, and everything else is, technically, a “tisane”.
This topic has been covered in many places, and while it sounds like mere snobbery at first (and it can be!), I think that making the distinction between tea and tisane is more important than it appears for two reasons.
Firstly, true tea has a poor reputation for taste in the West and having accurate terminology makes it much easier for vendors to identify their product. Think how confusing it would be if people said, “wine” when they were referring to grapefruit juice. Perhaps that’s hyperbole but I think it’s pretty close to the truth. If you have a chance to drink a cup of tulsi-peppermint-licorice tisane and a cup of Si Ji Chun oolong side-by-side I think the difference will be dramatic. Both are delicious; but they have very unique qualities.
Bai Mu Dan (白牡丹茶) Tea
Secondly, there is the matter of health. If, while traveling to India or China, some poor traveler orders tea and then specifies a “caffeine-free” version, they are likely to be met with only confusion. Tea (even decaffeinated tea) always contains some caffeine, just as chocolate always does. Wanting a caffeine-free chocolate, the wise consider something else, like carob (which we usually don’t call “chocolate”, despite its similar properties). Conversely, there are several herbs which have known medicinal properties, but the healing properties of actual tea are much less specific and are still being studied.
So why do we like to use the terms interchangeably, particularly in US culture? I’m not really sure, but I think some of it began with the experience of the American colonies during the Revolutionary War. During that time, tea (actual tea) was a major staple of many people on both sides of the Atlantic, and taxation of its importation was symbolic of the control levied by England over the colonial citizens. The colonists were strongly inclined to find a substitute, and so invented what they called “freedom tea”, or “herbal tea”, which contained no tea but could be sourced locally without import fees. I believe that from that point onward the idea of “tea” and “herbal tea” became so conflated that each subsequent generation lost the ability to tell the difference.
In today’s quantity-over-quality global market, however, the heavy manual labor and precise skill required to produce real quality tea leaves is fading from disuse. Fortunately for us, there is a small revolution in artisan tea production that is slowly catching on. Companies like Camellia Sinensis, Stone Leaf Tea, Red Blossom, Song Tea, and White2Tea (just to name a few) are importing real quality leaf with a focus on education and tradition. Groups like Global Tea Hut are working to improve the tea market for organic farming and appropriate pay for artisan labor. I believe that keeping our terms straight and educating (compassionately) those who are uncertain is one of the best ways to honor this burgeoning movement.
So, be proud of your Chamomile! Enjoy your Rooibos! Slurp Yerba Mate by the gourd-full! But when the leaves of the Tea plant make their way to your cup, remember all the history that they represent and honor those who struggled against a global industry to bring them to you.
What are we even drinking? Tea and Tisanes In the US, it’s extremely common for people to walk into a shop asking after “a cup of tea” and then ask for Chamomile, Peppermint, or some blend of flowers and spices.Just this past week I was privileged to be able to prepare tea for a meditation group I attend weekly. Our practice is Insight Meditation or Vipassana, a very old Buddhist practice that migrated to the West through Thailand. Besides wanting to share some delicious tea, I also had an interest in discussing and experiencing tea as a meditation object. Tea and Buddhist thought have been intertwined…
Some Tea in the Year of the Wood Sheep
This weekend morning I drank some lovely Lishan Winter Sprout (kindly sourced by Song Tea) as the chill wind shifted the piles of snow outside my window. It was a peaceful and delicious way to start the day. To bring a timely quality to this gathering, a small ceramic sheep (who followed me home from Montréal many years past) joined the Chaxi. He likes to celebrate special occasions, this sheep,…
This morning’s treat was to share some waffles and a pretty unique tea with my wife as we watched the snow gently fall outside. This is one of the teas I bought from a small shop in Taipei called DigniTea, which is a family-run artisan tea company that grows (as far as I know) all of their leaves on Alishan (a rather famous mountain outside of Chiayi). I have of course written about their lovely oolongs before. Unlike their other offerings, however, this one is an “oolong black”, which seems like an unlikely descriptor, yet there it is, right on the package.
Well, ok, the package also reads “大紅帖”, or Dàhóng tiē, which to the best of my ability to translate means “big red ribbon”. So perhaps the title in Chinese is just as mysterious and unexpected.
The dry leaves are dark and rolled into small balls, already giving a unique impression. It is as though one took the dark roasted leaves of a Wuyi oolong and rolled them like a tiny Dong Ding. Infused, they produce a beautiful amber liquor reminiscent of a Sun Moon Lake black tea.
The taste as well is similar, I think, to that famous Taiwanese black tea (Hong cha, really) known variously as Sun Moon Lake, Red Jade, or Number 18. Sweet and caramel-thick, but with a slight dryness and rough mouthfeel that reminds me of a charcoal roasted oolong, this tea has a gentle but unexpected character. Indeed, every time I drink some my palate is always a little confused. Is this oolong, or is it Hong cha? The DigniTea page designates it as the latter, but this may be one of those cases where the question is simply one of experience and not semantics.
The uniqueness of this tea has earned it a special spot on my shelf over the last few years, although there is precious little remaining. But that is a good thing! The way of tea is to remind us that the present moment is fleeting, and that change exists in all things. The seeds of a flavorless teabag exist in even the finest high mountain oolong, if it is not consumed. I am fortunate, and it speaks to the quality of this tea, that my Alishan oolong black has lasted so long while retaining its delightful character. It is time to drink it and move on, giving thanks for all the joy and mystery it has brought to my life.
May your tea be warm and delightful during the frigid winter snows. And may your mind find peace in the cup.
What an interesting oolong that I discovered in a small package I brought back from my trip to California. I remembered good things from this tea, and today’s snowy conditions seemed like the perfect day to bring back some memories of sunlight.
External imageThe first thing that hit me upon opening the package was the scent. There’s an amazing dry-leaf aroma of pineapple that brings to mind nothing short of a…
I’m in Vermont. I don’t have regular gatherings per se, I usually just get in touch with a friend and we drink tea.
My experience with Old Man Camphor (老夫樟) from @globalteahut
What a great name Wu De and associates have chosen for this month’s tea. The gift from Global Tea Hut this December is a bit of loose Spring 2007 Shou Puer they call “Old Man Camphor” (老夫樟 or Lǎofū Zhāng).
Earthy and with a wonderful aroma. Just by the smell it makes me think of some really great old Sheng (生 or raw) Puer that I’ve had in the past, but those teas were all more than 10 years old…
Having recently been hooked on Serial Podcast, I’ve revisited something that has been on my mind a lot recently:
Defending tea.
Ok, so tea is not on trial per se, but so often the average tea conversation amongst non-regular drinkers of traditional loose-leaf tea devolves into the discussion of health. Yes, for hundreds (thousands really) of years tea has been treated as plant medicine and serves this purpose alongside other plants like ginger, mint, dandelion for many cultures. It is still sold this way in China (Puer for weight loss, green for skin blah blah blah) When this is the lead in your sales pitch you are doing two things: Underselling the quality of the leaf as tasting good and overselling a potential benefit that may or may not be provable, even when the science is good. There have been numerous studies to suggest that because tea contains the vitamins or amino acids they can do such and such - That’s kind of like saying definitively because I have arms and hands, I will punch someone. It doesn’t mean tea is medicine. At least not in the way cough syrup is considered medicine.
When you sell something as medicine, it is taken into the consumer as medicine. If I decanted some pepto bismol into a glass and gave it to someone feeling queasy and told them it would make their stomach feel better, they would likely drink the bright pink liquid not expecting it to taste good but instead to make them feel better. The same can be said in reverse. If I gave the same pink liquid to someone feeling thirsty and told them it’s a milkshake recipe from my Aunt, they would likely expect it to taste good but not make them feel better, remember they are just thirsty not sick.
Tea is sometimes marketed somewhere in between these two versions. Maybe this conversation will help. “Here drink this. It’s good for your heart” “does it taste good?” “yeah” “why didn’t you just say it tasted good, it would’ve been more convincing?” What if you gave someone wine for the antioxidants of the grapes and they didn’t know it will get them drunk if they have too much? These are odd hypotheticals, I know. I just want to show people how strange marketing can (and often is designed to) mislead.
Tea as I know it is delicious. Sometimes subtle, sometimes bold flavors that tickle my taste buds like nothing else. That is first and foremost why I enjoy tea. I do find it relaxing and creating a chaxi is a form of art for me and therefore therapeutic. Are there health benefits? It depends on what you mean by health and what you mean by benefits. In my life health is a general term I apply to how I am feeling. If I am happy I feel healthy, and sad, unhealthy. This is as much my mental well-being in addition to my physical well-being, let’s remember that everything IS connected.
If I drink a cup of tea and it tastes good, I become happy and healthy. This is not to say that on days when I don’t drink tea (yes, it happens occasionally) I can’t also be happy. That’s like saying my friends make me happy and on days I won’t see them I am unhappy. These things aren’t mutually exclusive. If on the day I don’t have tea I have been treated to a delicious meal or saw a great movie I am still happy even without tea flowing through my veins. Similarly, if I don’t see friends but I get to catch up with my sister or write that blog post I’ve been contemplating for too long, I have replaced that cathartic feeling.
Is tea good for me? Yes, it makes me feel great and positively changes my outlook on everything. Does it help lower my cholesterol or help me lose weight? I don’t know. I’m not sure if my cholesterol needs to be lower and if it does how could I attribute its lowering solely to tea? I don’t drink tea for these reasons and because of that I don’t need to defend it for those reasons.
I understand that taste is subjective. Many people have different genetic wiring that causes them to taste things like soapy cilantro or boar taint in pork. I don’t expect everyone to love a particular tea that I do, I just hope they can understand that I enjoy it as taste, comfort and the feelings that I get.
Ok, what IS that feeling you get when you drink tea? It’s hard to say definitively, I’m not sure I want to - this also falls into the subjective category. Is caffeine a factor? Sure caffeine has a known effect and is present in tea. But there’s also a lot of other things in tea and the processing can change the amounts and levels of these things the way some vitamins in cooked vegetables become soluble at higher temperatures. That’s not to say a cooked carrot becomes poison the moment you sauté it, it changes. In tea there is also Theanine – according to Wiki - Able to cross the blood–brain barrier, theanine has reported psychoactive properties. Theanine has been studied for its potential ability to reduce mental and physical stress, improve cognition, and boost mood and cognitive performance in a synergistic manner with caffeine…and Theobromine which is mainly found in chocolate. These are widely known and should be taken with a grain of salt. There are often a myriad of factors that can be attributed to “having a bad reaction to caffeine” how can you be sure it was the caffeine acting alone? Did you take a caffeine only pill and start freaking out? I understand that some people are more easily affected by caffeine. I’m not going to say it doesn’t do what it does. I’m saying know what else is going on, don’t look for a scapegoat and blame it or anything that contains it.
Another factor in how tea makes people feel is the oft mentioned and hard to describe in English, cha Qi. I think there is a very simple solution to what this is. Tea is a plant that has roots that gather nutrients from the soil and push the nutrients up into the trunk, branches and leaves. Older trees have a deeper, richer, mellower “qi” because the nutrients are coming from a deeper place in the earth. Not trying to get all crunchy on you folks, to me it’s way more basic than that. Think of a pole in cement. With a shallow foundation (roots) the pole will fall or become dislodged over time. If the plant has shallow roots it can also become dislodged but more likely dry out and die. The roots carry the life of the plant and that is where the qi comes from. Naturally, older teas and trees are more grounding.
One final thing, I like to remind people not to take tea too seriously. It is a large part of my life but does not control it. I don’t hold it to unreal standards I know it can’t live up to. I regard it like a good bagel for breakfast or a song with a nice melody. A simple pleasure that can, for whatever reason, make you feel good.
A Reprisal of Gaiwans for infusing #tea
I posted a while ago about how to pour a gaiwan, but I wanted to talk a little more about this super-useful device.
What is a gaiwan? Why should you have one? Where do you get one? How do you use it? These are all good questions! Let’s break it down.
External imageWhat is a gaiwan?
It’s this ceramic thing with a lid. In fact, gaiwan literally means “lidded bowl”. Usually there’s also a base or saucer making…
