Something Smuggled In

Once in a Blue Moon...

2012-01-18T10:08:00.000-08:00

we get some snow in Seattle. This cup of Tie Luo Han didn't stay hot very long! Happy tea-drinking; I'm off to seek out a winter wonderland in Discovery Park!

Yet More Teaware Sale Additions

2011-09-21T14:57:00.000-07:00

I just added two pin zi ni Yixing teapots to my seemingly never-ending teaware sale; ~~an old 1980's ying hua~~ ~~and a newer xi shi~~ (both sold), for anyone who's interested. Every addition reminds me just how many pots have passed through my possession, but I suppose it's better to help them find an owner who'll use them more instead of letting them languish in my tea cabinet, and past sale customers seem pretty satisfied providing loving homes.

Roasted Dancong

2011-09-19T23:58:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I've been enjoying some 11 year old Song Zhong dancong oolong from Jing Tea Shop in this tiny ROC pin zi ni pot originally from Hou De. The pot is probably one of my nicest pieces of teaware; the clay has a sort of viscous visual texture, and the pot has an old sort of energy to it. The clay's pretty high fired for being zi ni and the details are pretty well-done considering how small they are. The only problem is that, although it was listed as having a 65ml capacity, its actual volume is only 55ml. While I don't usually quibble over 10-20ml differences with pots, the difference here comes at that critical threshold that impacts the pot's practicality. Especially with this pot's flat shape, 55ml is simply to small to use with most tea types; in my experience, even concerted efforts to make use of pots this small almost always results in tea that's less optimal than in slightly larger pots. I love gong fu tea in small vessels, but if you go too small, you continue shrinking past the point of utility--the tea leaves stay the same size! Even 65ml was a little on the edge of my ideal capacity; if I'd known the pot was this small I probably wouldn't have purchased it in the first place, but once I experienced it in person it was tough to want to part with it on aesthetic grounds. So, because the leaves are small and I use a much smaller ratio than with other tea types, I can only use this pot effectively with dancong, which brings up some other issues.

While I do enjoy dancong, I don't keep a lot of it around because I go through it really slowly (I only use about 3-4 grams for 70ml of water, compared to about 6 for pu-erh and 7-9 for most yan cha) and because it's tough to find a tea I really want to drink more than two or three times in a season. Like most other oolongs, dancongs are getting really green--the flavors, aromas and brewing durability are all pretty incredible, from what I've experienced, but I usually find myself longing for something with a bit more depth. A good Mi Lan dancong is usually a bit more oxidized, but I've most enjoyed the dancong I've had that undergo at least moderate roasting (surprise surprise). The floral aromas usually become much fruiter, the mouthfeel changes and, though the brewing durability usually reduces a bit, the tea's just much more up my alley. And yet, it seems much easier to find green dancong. This aged tea has mellowed just a bit in its storage, but really I think it's the roasting that makes it most enjoyable to me. I wish I had more of it and more teas like it so I could use this pot a bit more--Jing Tea Shop's current Song Zhong is obviously much less roasted (though it receives comparatively higher roasting than some of their other qing xiang oolongs). Anybody know any good roasted dancong teas? I haven't tried (but am open to) Tea Habitat and am not especially crazy for the dancong I've had from Hou De, but haven't tried much else.

A Tea Video

2011-09-08T15:44:00.000-07:00

Just got the info on this video from a Facebook friend. It's a local newspaper profile of a professor at the school I attended (Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA) who practices the Japanese tea ceremony. In the last few years he's managed to create a room at the college solely devoted to the tea ceremony. I wish I'd been as interested in tea when I was at school as I am now (the interest only really heated up during my senior year)--it would have been great to study the tea ceremony and learn a bit more about it. I did, however, get to attend a presentation by this professor's Japanese Buddhist monk mentor which was pretty illuminating regarding the Buddhist aspects of the ceremony, which he mentions in this video with some brief but fascinating insights. Enjoy!

Experience

2011-08-16T16:59:00.000-07:00

Once I was a boy/An innocent to life and my role in it

This piece has been bouncing around my brain for quite a while now; for better or worse, I think it's time. In general, the subject is a somewhat disconcerting phenomenon I've seen repeatedly with tea hobbyists both in real life and online, as well as sometimes in my own approach to tea--the pitfalls of experience.

The tea world is a fascinating one for countless reasons, and one aspect I've found continually intriguing as the years pass by is the relationship between the rapid increase in the availability and variety of better quality tea and the rapid increase in tea information and discussion available to the non-Asian world. Both increases, I think it's safe to say, have been largely facilitated by the the internet--e-commerce and information exchange/blog/forum advancements have simultaneously occurred across all corners of the online world and the tea industry has developed accordingly. Not to say that good tea wasn't available before 2003 or 2004 or that there weren't people outside Asia becoming tea aficionados before that time, but it's undeniable that, in the intervening years, high-quality tea and interest in it have become much more widespread.

It's now the case that, with a simple internet search, someone who develops an interest in tea can access a wealth of online sources for tea vendors as well as a load of user-generated content pertaining to that tea. Every day, new people encounter good tea, and very often they look to their "elders" in the online community for guidance, advice, recommendations, and examples to follow (just like any other social situation). Funny thing is, most of the "elders" of the online tea community have only been heavily interested in tea for less than 10 years--for most, it's been five or less. And yet, you don't have to look far online to read someone's sage advice based on "years" of experience, someone's opinion about the "old" days, or the subtle implication that tea was somehow more special five years ago than it is now. Here the narcissism of small differences becomes particularly apparent--somehow just one more year of tea drinking can change someone from a bandwagon-jumping latecomer to a wizened clifftop tea sage whose relationship with tea is closer than anything you'll ever achieve in your lifetime because you started drinking tea in 2010.*


"Well, I've been drinking pu-erh since 2007." "A pity--pu-erh was so much better in 2006."

Thinking empathetically, a ruffled-feather reaction is understandable--I'm sure in 2006 the (always) exciting experience of getting to know good tea had more of an underground feel, since it was in many ways undiscovered territory, and the much smaller community of tea-discoverers undoubtedly felt a special "indie" feeling that isn't quite as possible today. The increasing arrival of more and more tea-chasers likely inspired a bit of resentment for the reduction of that feeling of exclusivity--we have to remember, though, that no matter how much you've learned and how long you've been into tea, there's someone out there (whether they're vocal online or not) who knows more and has more experience than you do. Over the past several months, I've wondered quite a bit about the quantifiable benefits that do or do not come with varying amounts of the experience for which so many fledgling tea hobbyists are clearly hungry. As someone who has some professional experience, a few years of heavy tea drinking under my belt, and very little desire to be considered an authoritative source on tea, allow me to humbly suggest that experience has little intrinsic value and has as much or more potential to limit your enjoyment of tea than it does to enhance it.

I've tried to make it the subtext of most things I've written on this blog, but I'll come right out and say it--I'm a relativist when it comes to tea (and most things, really). I believe that each person's experience of tea is individual and equally valid, and that personal taste and the innumerable other factors that come together in a finished cup of tea make a categorical distinction between "good" and "bad" tea difficult and even meaningless. I probably won't make any friends by saying this, but I'm also a little suspicious that "qi" is more often than not a mechanism whereby tea drinkers can describe their experience with a tea as more special than someone else's (qi is really another subject though). What I find most troubling is that, both in real life and online, it often seems that the more experience someone has with tea, the more reactionary and inflexible their approach is. More often than not, when I hear someone describe a certain tea as categorically "bad," or a processing method as "wrong," it's coming from someone whose supposed experience with the scattershot world of tea should rightly have taught them that such ham-fisted dualistic distinctions are illusory. Don't get me wrong--experience and its transmission can be quite helpful when it comes to familiarizing newcomers with different tea preparation methods, suggesting reliable online vendors, and recommending teas based on shared tastes, but I've too often seen people become prisoners of their own experience and take others' experience as the only way.

The narcissism of small differences.

One of my favorite things about newcomers to the tea world is that they seem to give every tea the benefit of the doubt--there's a humility there that's usually lacking with people who have more experience, and it shows up as a willingness to approach each tea as a subject. That is, to assume that every tea has at least something enjoyable or informative to offer, and that it's up to the drinker (and preparer) to meet the tea halfway in effort to discover that exciting secret. Practically, this approach usually manifests itself in a range of preparation experiments wherein no single lackluster session indicates that a tea is "bad"--the drinker simply hasn't achieved the ideal preparation approach that the tea, as a unique individual, needs in order to shine. For all the attractive conflation of Asian philosophy and tea to be found on the internet, I see in the practice of such experienced proponents shamefully little of the "child's mind" or "mind-as-a-mirror" openness to experience things as they are, on their own terms that is so central to such philosophy. Instead, we more often get experienced tea drinkers rigidly applying the same brewing parameters to every tea of a certain type, imposing their experience and expectations onto the tea without making any attempt to let the tea's individuality act on them in pursuit of that numinous experience that every tea offered when the hobby was new. If a tea doesn't turn out the way it's "supposed to" under those conditions, it's not "good" and it's time to move on to something that's hopefully better.

In addition to this almost hubristic attitude toward tea brewing, I've also noticed in experienced tea drinkers an overconfidence in their palates' abilities. Perhaps my tea brewing skills are less consistent than my more experienced peers', or my palate is less discerning and more fickle than theirs, but I find that it often takes several sessions with a tea before I even begin to understand its characteristics, and that any number of different factors can affect how a tea tastes to me. In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with that. Some people I've shared tea with have demonstrated a remarkable faith in their infallible sensory ability to discern "quality" or lack thereof in a tea they're tasting, when I think it's reasonable to experiment with a tea several times before handing down any edicts about its quality or whether or not its processing was "correct." Now, I'm not saying that every tea is great or that different processing methods don't produce teas with different characteristics, but rather that these things aren't black and white and that making an effort to let each tea speak for itself may yield surprising results. I'm certainly guilty of allowing my taste preferences to imply that oolongs of a certain (usually older) processing style are better, but really I think we'd all do well to remember that the long history of tea has been one not of catastrophic change but of gradualism, where changing fashions and popular tastes dictate an ever-changing variety of tea processing. Different processing methods are exactly that--different, not categorically better or worse.

While there is a sort of self-congratulatory joy in bashing nearly every tea you come across and at best describing a tea as "OK," a bit of suppleness and openness in your tea approach may actually result in more enjoyment of each tea session. When you start hollering about tea online in forums and blogs, it's easy to forget that lots of people are listening and that some of them are taking your words as gospel truth (something that we all know doesn't exist in the tea world). Rather than showing off experience as a final destination to be aspired to, at which tea brewing skills, tastes and knowledge are universally perfected, I think we all should strive to view experience as something to be continually tended with careful attention to the lessons that repeatedly ring true over time and the humility to approach each tea with a respect and an open-ended expectation that it will likely bring both enjoyment and learning, given the appropriate care and sensitivity of approach. I think that cultivating this attitude is potentially both personally rewarding as well as a more helpful way to convey experience of the exciting but messy world of tea to knowledge-hungry newcomers who will soon be adding experiences of their own to your infallible sage words of gospel truth.

*Emphasis added for effect. Authentic wizened clifftop tea sages, please smite me not!

It's Not A Competition

2011-07-21T15:25:00.000-07:00

As far as I can tell, a tea competition is an event designed to increase the amount of packaging and price of the teas involved. Joking apart, the actual role of tea competitions seems to be a little unclear. Though they do give public recognition and exposure to the tea farmers and make attempts to judge the best teas of a particular season, many believe that the tasting preferences of the judges can play too large a role in deciding the direction tea processing fashion is headed--as traditional processing methods fail to impress judges, they fall out of practice for their decrease in marketability. I've also heard from a number of Chinese and Taiwanese people that expensive competition-winning teas often end up purchased as gifts by and/or for people who don't actually like tea all that much and the tea ends up languishing on the shelf with no one to appreciate it. And yet, if it performed well in a competition, a tea's got to at least be good, right?


Tennis balls? Nope, just tea.

I've tried a handful of different competition teas in my time and have genuinely liked a few. When I saw Hou De carrying a competition awarded Muzha Tieguanyin I decided to take the plunge and buy a can, partly just so I could say I bought a can of competition tea at least once in my life, and partly because a good Muzha Tieguanyin is one of my favorite oolong types. The competition tea experience is one with a lot of bright packaging designed to make the tea feel more special than your average tea, including a cardboard box with special seal stickers, a can inside the box with a plastic lid and aluminum pop top, and finally a vacuum-sealed polyfoil bag (how we're used to having our tea packaged). Naturally, the can is mostly for show, but I've been keeping the bag of tea inside it, at least until the bag gets disproportionately small for the container.

On to the tea. A few of the competition teas I've had were de-stemmed, supposedly in order to maintain consistency for the competition. Not the case for this tea, which appears pretty standard for Muzha Tieguanyin--dark, with a few deep green and red notes with stems that take on a somewhat golden hue. What I was most interested about with this tea is the roasting level--how it would compare to the other Muzha Tieguanyin I've had, which at best seem to balance a dryness with lasting high notes and a solid roasted bottom. Maybe it's not a surprise, but this competition tea, though well-roasted, doesn't have a strong roasting flavor--that would probably be deemed a flaw by most judges. Interestingly, the most noticeably excellent trait I notice is the mouthfeel, which is thick and mouth-coating, much heavier than the dryness I usually associate with this tea. The flavor, likewise, displays only hints of (what has been, to me) the region's particular high note, instead existing in more of a juicy realm of fruity/flowery with a bitter streak that can get out of control without timely brewing attention. While the tea's profile is striking in the early infusions, I'd say it doesn't last quite as long as some similar dong ding or gaoshan oolong I've had recently. The tea's creamy body, though unexpected, is really enjoyable and pairs best with one of my red clay pots--the porous ones mute the aroma and somehow promote the bitterness, plus the body's already smooth enough as it is! Interestingly, pretty much all the Muzha Tieguanyin I've purchased does better in zhuni or hongni.

This tea has disappeared and reappeared on Hou De a few times, and there are only a few ounces left at present. Since I've got quantity I'll be happy to share a sample with the first whoever leaves the first two comments--international people included! You'll have to email me your address once you see you've made it.

Black Butte Tea

2011-07-16T17:53:00.000-07:00

Not the blackest butte I've ever seen. Please forgive the titular pun.

Or, Tea on Vacation Part II. This past week I've again been fortunate enough to vacation away from home. This time I've returned to a time-honored summer haunt for my family--Black Butte Ranch in central Oregon. It's been a great week full of relaxation, physical recreation (including a scenic climb up the pictured butte), productivity (music for a couple of songs and a handful of textual contributions), and--of course--tea drinking! As I mentioned but didn't document at the time of our last visit, Black Butte is home to a delightful and accessible spring, from which I've been drawing my tea water for the week.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's also been a week of numerous minor tea learning experiences at the mild, reflective pace of a good vacation. Compared with my last trip, I brought almost everything but the kitchen sink (in terms of tea équipage, that is). The tetsubin, two yixing pots, a gaiwan, and a dozen or so different types of tea. Lesson #1: Even on a "fully-equipped" vacation, it's probably still smartest to focus on one tea type, because you probably won't make full use of all the different teas you brought, and you get the benefit of close comparison between different teas of the same genre. Although I made green tea and a delicious Dong-Ding, I mostly drank aged pu-erh. If I had left the other teas at home, I could have left the gaiwan and one of the pots, not to mention the tea storage space--ah, the joys of over-packing to avoid silly fear of "not enough variety."

It was a pretty decadent week, since I usually only drink an aged pu-erh every couple of weeks, but all of the repetition was illuminating. Firstly, a muted session with an '80's shou/sheng brick reminded me that different weather conditions (it's quite dry here) can affect my sensory faculties and, perhaps, the performance of the tea leaves themselves. Secondly, the failure of an extremely tight chunk of '80's tuo to fully unfurl reminded me that breaking up large chunks (as gently and possible, even if it's difficult) greatly improves the quality of the session--you don't have to separate individual leaves, but getting the chunk into quarters is significant. Thirdly, a sublime one-off session with my 1993 7542 reminded me how not all sessions with a single tea are created equal and that there's no shame in the notion that a certain chunk of the cake might be contain a just right combination of leaves, while others may not (Lessons #2-4, respectively).

The final learning experience relates to perspective. Two years ago--drinking many of the same teas I drank this week, incidentally--I was deliriously eager to try my tetsubin and teas out with mountain spring water. With a couple more years' experience under my belt, my attitudes to spring water and tea preparation in general have mellowed quite a bit. Whether it's my rustic palate or my lackadaisical approach, the difference between filtered/Lynnwood spring/Black Butte spring water is not especially apparent to me. Maybe with some close attention I could tell a difference, but that might spoil the relaxation! Probably the most enjoyable part of making tea with this spring water is retrieving it--it's really enjoyable to collect the fresh, cold water straight out of the earth and reflect on and feel connected to the elements that come together for a good tea session (definitely nowhere close to the extent that those who are attentive to Chinese elemental tradition do, though). The water tastes amazing right out of the ground--perfectly cold for a hot day after the bike ride to the spring. It's also interesting to note that, two years after acquiring the tetsubin and using it with spring water, it still hasn't developed much of a mineral scale/patina at all. I was really nervous when I first noticed the patina was receding, but now I'm little less anxious; the thing still makes good tea water, and preferable to my other kettles--even to my simpleton's palate. If anything, I'm wondering whether or not it's really necessary to drive up to Lynnwood to regularly collect water, since the patina hasn't returned. We'll see after I use up the 10 gallons of water I'm bringing back with me.

Where'd that come from?

The spring is a great spot--issuing straight out of the ground below where I stood to take this photo and running across the ranch. There's also a stone bench--a great spot to sit and read, write or quietly enjoy the babbling stream, insects, rodents, birds and wind through the pines.

Water mushrooms.

Unlike the Lynnwood spring, which is technically an "artesian well" (meaning that it was originally human-drilled and since then produces water without pumping), this is an honest-to-goodness spring, bubbling straight out of the ground. While not quite as convenient for jug-filling, it's an invigorating sight to behold. Here's to drinking tea in the aid of relaxation and contemplation, and to continually learning about it without getting too scientific!

2011 Long jing

2011-06-20T16:37:00.000-07:00

It's once again green tea time. As I've mentioned in past spring posts, I really look forward to drinking Chinese greens while they're fresh from the recent harvest. This year I've been drinking more than ever--mostly from two of my usual suspects in Jing Tea Shop and Teaspring. Today I decided to sit down and try the two long jing I purchased this spring for the sake of comparison.

I've been brewing my teas pretty casually this spring--bring the water to a boil, then fill my celadon fair cup with water. When it's cooled down to the proper temperature (sometimes I'll pour it back and forth between a second fair cup and the cup I'll be using) I'll start steeping the tea, topping the cool water fair cup from the kettle's hotter water with each infusion. After I decant the tea into the second fair cup, I'll pour about half of it into the drinking cup, mixing the next infusion with the remainder, and so on. While this method hardly allows for scientific scrutiny of each infusion, that's not what I'm really looking for and the overall session tends to produce a more consistent standard of quality from each cup.

That's some hairy tea.

So, that's how I brewed my dragonwell today. First, Teaspring's Emperor Long Jing and second, Jing's Shi Feng Long Jing. I get the impression from reading the notes that Jing's tea is a bit more on the hand-selected side, but who knows for sure? Both sites have offered teas that I've enjoyed for the last four years or so, and I usually have very few objections. To my surprise (I thought Jing's would be better), they're both pretty good long jing--but different. The Emperor example is more up-front, with a more robust body, a bolder flavor and more of the chestnut notes people usually associate with long jing. The Shi Feng example, though, is subtler, with a lot of sweetness but less of a bold body. It reveals its character in the aftertaste rather than immediately, and develops more of a vegetal flavor throughout the infusions, even appearing greener to the eye after the session ends. As usual, I'm glad I tried both teas together, because I likely wouldn't have picked up on the differences trying them days apart.

Somewhat on the subject, I just added an Eilong studio gaiwan to the Teaware For Sale page.

A Teapot

2011-06-17T16:09:00.000-07:00

Nothing too exciting happening today--just sharing a relatively recent and strange Yixing purchase and some thoughts on Yixing in general. I've coveted a nice, classic shi piao teapot for a while, since the ones I've owned so far haven't really worked out (too big or just not good enough). It's a classic shape that I find attractive in a lot of ways--the unassuming-yet-jollily-angled spout, the graceful lid handle, the characteristic shape of the pot handle, and the generally solid performance pouring and accommodating most tea types. So, I purchased this one from Jing Tea Shop, which, incidentally just listed a handful of nice-looking xiao pin teapots for those in "need." At 120ml it's a little larger than my ideal size (usually around 100ml) but I enjoy having a slightly larger pot around, and you don't always have to fill the thing completely full. When the pot arrived, though, I was quite surprised--thought the listing described the pot as "flat," the pictures couldn't quite capture just how smooshed this pot actually is--it's like somebody squashed it before it was fired, and the main body is barely over an inch tall (for comparison you can see my tiny 70ml hong ni dancong pot, which looks immensely tall in comparison).

Consequently, the pot is quite wide (probably about four inches) for its volume. Also interesting is the clay, which is described as "Cu Sha Hong Pin Zi Ni." "Cu Sha" is straightforward--there are some pretty knobbly sand grains blended into the clay, but "Hong Pin Zi Ni" is something I haven't heard of before--pin zi ni is a general term to describe a blend of different zi ni clays, so there can be a pretty broad spectrum of different appearances between different clays labeled as pin zi ni. But the "hong" is a strange addition--is this pin zi ni blended with hong ni? Or is there a type of clay that somehow qualifies as zi ni that's actually red? The answers to these questions sit firmly in the "hell if I know" category. The origin of the clay's blending aside, it's pretty cool-looking. The picture below probably best displays the simultaneous visibility of both red, more traditionally brown pin zi ni, and the sand in spite of the bright conditions caused by the "hot" Seattle sun (hey, I'm not complaining).

Despite how unusual it is, this pot actually works quite well--obviously the lid opening is huge, so it's quite easy to get the leaves in and out, and the pour is much smoother than I expected--a lot of times weirdly-shaped pots don't perform very well. Another thing I've noticed using this slightly larger pot is that the traditional "rules" about tea-type-to-pot-shape pairing become less and less important the larger the pot is--if this shi piao were 80ml, it would be quite ill-sized for brewing pellet rolled oolongs, as the tea wouldn't have the proper space and shaped area in which to expand. A bit larger, though, and there's plenty of room, so the pot can be used with really just about any kind of tea, though I'm sure some work better than others with the unusual clay. I've only been using the pot occasionally to brew mostly steeped-out teas or a weak pot with just a few leaves, so I haven't been too picky about what goes in there. Works for me.

1990's Small Yellow Label CNNP 7532

2011-06-04T18:52:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I promised Matt a post about this tea--partly because Seattle's weather has been pathetically uncooperative for tea photo shoots. Anyone who's followed the online pu-erh market for any length of time has surely noticed the most recent surge in prices of both aged and young pu-erh. Unsurprisingly, a lot of us have felt a bit alarmed and have made attempts to nab up a few teas before their prices reach unpurchaseable levels--nothing like a good old market panic to drive the prices up even more. Having avoided buying much aged pu-erh for a while, I decided to join in the frenzy and purchase some teas I'd been eying for a while. Like most of the aged pu-erh I tend to post about, this tea comes from Essence of Tea, which means that the strength of the British Pound Sterling versus the US Dollar is an additional factor. Thankfully it's been pretty stable around $1.60-$1.65 as of late--about average for the last few years, but thankfully nowhere near the $2ish levels it reached around '06. I suppose the point is that, for once, I actually planned a bit before plunging into this purchase.


Let's find out: One, two, three...three.

So, this is only the second full tong of pu-erh I've ever purchased. What was the first, you ask? Back in 2007 when I knew very little about pu-erh I bought a tong of this tea on sale from Royal Puer in celebration of the shop's first anniversary, thinking it'd be good to have a large amount of "some pu-erh," as if all pu-erh is pretty much the same. Talk about falling down the rabbit hole. For the foolish but fairly inexpensive $70 investment, it's a pu-erh of acceptable quality, though I have my doubts as to how well it'll age starting from complete immaturity in the Pacific Northwest. My main regret is the fact that I ripped the bamboo wrapper completely off right after receiving the tea and the cakes have been loose ever since. With my most recent tong purchase, my past mistake resulted in behavior of a polar opposite nature--perverse neurosis. So obsessed with keeping the tong whole for who knows how long, I decided I needed to buy one more cake to work on in the meantime. Perverse neurosis.

Oh no, almost gone! Better buy another cake so I don't have to break into the tong!

Now that I've so greedily hoarded a substantial stash of this tea, perhaps it'd be a good time to try it for the first time? Joking! Only joking--I tried numerous samples of this tea before making the purchase. What do I look like, 2007 me? This 90's cake is by no means an exceptional aged pu-erh. Like very few aged pu-erhs, though, it actually inhabits a sweet spot of agedness, quality and price I like to call "value." Since the tea's only labeled "90's," I assume it's toward the late end of the decade. If considered as a twelve-year-old aged tea, it's remarkably mature (even for a tea from the mid- or early-90's, I'd say). There's very little in the way of astringency remaining, the liquor is quite dark and it's only bitter if egregiously oversteeped or too many leaves are used. I can only assume that it's gone through some fairly humid storage, though the cake surface is really quite clean and mold-free. There is, however, an attractive staining of the wrapper and tickets that would indicate a bit of humidity, juiciness or both.

Flavor-wise, it's no paragon of complexity--the notes are mostly what I'd expect from my past experiences with 90s CNNP--standard pu-erh plus a solid dose of sticky huang pian sweetness. There's plenty of humidity and earth in the flavor to corroborate the other evidence, but this tea's storage is by no means as tough to handle as the stomach-churning (for me, anyway) Hong Kong storage of its similarly-priced EoT brethren, the Late 90's Grand Yellow Label. There's no sparkling complexity that can be found in more special aged sheng, but it's a far cry from the one-dimensionality often exhibited by aged loose teas, for example, providing a handful of simultaneous flavor and mouthfeel experiences and a noticeable progression during a long brewing session. This is a tea I thoroughly enjoy drinking now and will be happy to continue drinking whether or not its aging progresses, which gets at the primary motivation behind this purchase.

I find myself less and less often looking for amazing, unparalleled examples of a certain type of tea, but more often for good, solid examples that are "the way I like it" and can be enjoyed repeatedly without the stress of budgeting a tiny quantity. Not that I don't appreciate amazing tea, but I can't afford a ton of it and tea drinking is such a part of my lifestyle that I can't always pay the kind of attention that extremely expensive, good tea deserves. This tea fits bill, and after buying so much of it I can virtually drink as much as I want without any fear of running out before finding out whether or not it's continued aging. Also importantly, if I simply feel like casually drinking "some pu-erh" I can turn to this tea instead of a much more expensive one, thereby making my more modest stocks of those teas last much longer. In the months since I special ordered my tong I see the full cakes have sold out. I'm hoping David and Kathy restock this tea soon, as I feel it's probably the best value for its agedness on the Western-oriented web--what an affordable way to learn about aged pu-erh! At roughly $90 for a cake, this tea is priced below innumerable cakes of 2005 or later vintage that provide no insight into the experience of drinking aged pu-erh, an experience I feel is usually unjustifiably difficult and expensive to achieve in the Western tea drinking world.

Tea on Vacation

2011-05-16T22:02:00.000-07:00

Kaua'i felt like the inside rim of that fair cup.

Whenever I leave home for more than a couple of days I end up having to deal with the tea issue--how much and which kinds to pack (if any), what type of equipment to bring, etc. If I'm going somewhere to work I'll often bring the whole setup (tetsubin, hotplate, multiple teas and yixing wares), but probably more often I'll just bring a bag of everyday yancha to quickly throw in a mug with some hot water. Unsurprisingly, most of my traveling companions and family members aren't too jazzed about an hour-plus gongfu tea session every morning.

I was fortunate enough to return to Hawai'i (Kaua'i) last week for the second time in a year--luckily this time the place I was staying had an actual range and kettle, rather than a microwave for heating the water! I decided to bring an yixing pot and a bag of some decent Da Hong Pao, which I drank every morning for a week. My usual tea ritual involves a lot of variety, switching between oolongs most mornings, with maybe a pu-erh in the afternoon, so committing to a single tea for a week is an interesting proposition--brewing the same tea over and over gives a better overall assessment of its characteristics, as any brewing inconsistencies tend to average out and sensory faculties get multiple chances to experience the tea. I've been meaning to explore these issues more for a while because of some troubling patterns I've begun sensing in the tea world, but I'm not sure this is the place to address them full-on.

Anyway, returning home it was interesting to see the difference in how yancha (a different one) tasted from one to which I'd become accustomed for a week--due to the difference in tea (it's a bit older and a different cultivar), water and water preparation, it was noticeably softer in the mouth, mellower and less bitter. I probably should have tried the tea I'd been drinking to really see how big a difference the equipment and water were making. It's easy not to notice the small differences when you're switching from, say, a Dong-Ding to a yancha, and this kind of experiment is a good reminder of what sets similar teas apart from each other. I wish I had fresh papaya to eat every morning after tea...but I won't miss waking up with an 8" poisonous centipede in the bed.

Checking in on some Dong-Ding

2011-04-22T11:14:00.000-07:00

Not feeling inspired to drink any of my usual teas this morning, I dipped into a container of heavily-roasted Floating Leaves Dong-Ding from 2010. Shiuwen brought back an unhappily small quantity of this tea last spring and couldn't remember from whom she got it, so it's unlikely we'll be seeing another harvest (though it's good enough I'll never completely give up hope). So, I've got my jar full and my wish that I'd bought more. After sampling it several times last June, I decided it needed some time to rest--the roast was high enough that an acrid charcoal note accompanied most of the early steepings. That kind of thing is ok with me when I'm in the mood, but I knew that if I let the fire taste mellow out for a bit I'd be much happier with my average encounter with this tea. The question is, how long will it take? I wrote earlier about roasted teas that taste best given a relatively short rest--considering the quantity I have of this tea (not much) I'm not holding out for 20 years of aging.

Other blogs have deliberated quite heavily on the pros and cons of different storage methods--unfortunately most of my tea budget goes toward actual tea and yixing ware, so I don't have much money to experiment with different vessels, which can often be quite pricey. For a roasted oolong, I feel safe enough with well-sealed porcelain, filled as full as possible. Since I periodically try this tea, I'm not sealing with wax or anything--plus, a feeling inside seems to tell me that a wee bit of air will probably be beneficial when it comes to mellowing out this tea's charcoal.

Maybe I was just in the mood today, but this tea is tasting really good--the acrid bite on the front end is much diminished, and considerably more balanced with the tea's base flavor. The real help is that this is great tea--I've come across very few heavily-roasted ball oolongs that combine the best of both worlds: the roasting is perfect; quite heavy but not enough to make the leaves crinkly and unable to unfurl (they stay a bit squiggly but become good and soft after brewing). At the same time, the tea used is obviously of high quality--the base comes through after a couple of steepings, reminding that this is actually tea, not just soaked charcoal, and later steepings repeatedly bring out a broad sweetness that usually craps out quite early in most high-roast teas like, for example, this now sold-out Dong-Ding from Camellia Sinensis, whose roasting disappeared during brewing to reveal...not much. There's still a bit of astringency hanging out in these leaves, but if today's session is accurate, I won't have to wait too much longer before this tea hits its sweet spot. Until then, I'll have to keep drinking the other great, not-quite-as-heavily-roasted Dong-Ding that Shiuwen (and subsequently I) purchased much more of.

Tea in the Out-of-Doors

2011-03-25T11:47:00.000-07:00

As Mr. Sun starts showing himself more often and for longer periods, it's inevitable I'll want to pack up the tea setup and move outside for a session en plein air. The back porch is South-facing, so if the sun's shining it doesn't need to be much over 50ºf to feel like summer back there. A warm cup of tea in hand, and it's even more amicable.

The other day, during my first outdoor tea experience of the year, I sort of realized that, for me, tea on the back porch is mostly pleasurable for the enjoyment that sitting in the sun brings. The open air seems to significantly reduce the sensitivity of my nose and taste buds, and on cool spring days the water can take forever to heat up! I've had several sessions with rather nice teas that just came across as ho-hum; perhaps the wind carries off some vapors and aromas that tend to linger better in a still room. Additionally, there's more competition with other delightful aromas--the buds are on the trees, people are mowing lawns, and let's not discount the sensory competition of chirping birds and bright colors (my brain can only focus on so much stimulation at once). There is less of a wait for the cup to cool to drinking temperature, though, and direct sunlight brings out a lot of interesting nuance in the surface of yixing ware that you don't normally get inside. The moral of the story is probably just that I should just select simple but enjoyable everyday teas when I get the bug to venture outside with my tea set. That, and it's time to start working on an indoor sun room solely dedicated to tea drinking.

Another teaware sale addition

2011-03-08T07:00:00.000-08:00

After much internal deliberation I've decided to add this 95 ml bad boy to the ongoing teaware sale. ~~More info here~~. Sold.

Dipping into the Stash

2011-03-03T17:20:00.000-08:00

I recently made the somewhat difficult decision to open a large canister of oolong I'd been planning to age. It's a 2008 Traditional Shui Xian from Jing Tea Shop, and I've been storing it for just about a year myself with hopes of opening it much later and enjoying a delightful aged yan cha (right?). The present question is, why open it instead of continuing to age it?

From what I've experienced, there seem to be three different types of aged yan cha. First is the well-roasted type that tastes overly of charcoal when it's first processed. Impatient me, I usually enjoy and drink these types of tea regularly without aging, but have also had numerous examples of three to five year-old teas that taste really nice. The charcoal aspect seems to lose its sharpness and ease off into a more rounded, mellow darkness. I wouldn't really consider these teas aged--more "set-aside" to balance the flavors and become ideal for drinking. For the most part, they still taste like young yan cha. The second kind of aged yan cha is the well-aged, old variety. Here we're talking much older, definitely more than 10 years and upwards of 15 or 20. These teas don't taste much like young yan cha at all. They're more like other aged (usually Taiwanese) oolongs--plummy, mellow, sweet, and without as strong a tea taste. If they were heavily roasted when they were young, they're usually full of dark flavor notes, and if they were less roasted then they tend to have more shifting, sometimes sour high notes. I'd venture to call this the ideal for aged yan cha. The third type of aged tea is more of an odd duck--I've tasted teas of this stripe that were supposedly from the 90's, and I've tasted teas that taste eerily similar that range from five to only a couple of years old. They generally don't taste like young yan cha (not much of a charcoal note at all) but they don't taste like the other aged yan cha. The flavor is vaguely plummy and a bit aged, but not usually as complex as the second type. There's nothing wrong with this type of aged tea, but from the ones I've had, they all taste pretty similar to each other and none have been as satisfying as an "ideal," a "set-aside" or just a good new yan cha. My experiences are pretty limited, so this type may be what's considered standard aged yan cha, so maybe I'm getting it wrong, but I'm really hoping that not very many of the teas I've set aside turn out this way.

This brings me back to the tea I've just reopened. When I chose to age some of it a year ago I did so based on the fact that I really enjoyed drinking it--though it's a very reasonably-priced tea ($7/oz, I think) it has the roast level, body and flavor/aroma I look for in an everyday yan cha. I've since had a bit of trouble finding teas like this to drink regularly, let alone age. In the meantime I've been trying a number of "aged" teas of the third variety that make me worry for my aging experiments. If this tea were to turn out like those, I'd end up with a passable but not excellent aged tea that I would have enjoyed much more in its youth. It seems like it's probably better to leave the aging risk to the other teas I've set aside that aren't quite as high on my "ideal to drink now" list. If they don't turn out fantastic, at least I won't have lost the chance to drink them when I would have enjoyed them most. After a year's home storage, this tea is still tasting really nice. It's still a bit drier than the 2010 Traditional Shui Xian, but it still has the nice creamy mouthfeel that its younger counterpart has in even more abundance. Its roast is pretty high, if not the highest I've had, which puts it in the first category, which is probably the one I prefer most on a daily basis--it's a tea that's been set aside for a few years and it's reached an ideal balance but still tastes like new yan cha.

This last point touches on an interesting lesson I have to continually remind myself about. That is, you always have to ask yourself why you're aging a tea. Is it an experiment--can my aged tea taste as good as the one I bought that was aged by somebody else? Is it because the tea is shitty and you're hoping the aging process will turn it into something worth drinking? I've got a couple of those. Is it because you prefer the aged version of the tea and aren't interested in the young one? That's basically my stance on young sheng pu-erh, which I appreciate but rarely drink for enjoyment. When I buy young sheng, it's purely for the sake of aging--the main risk is that it won't age. If you buy something with the intention of aging it but actually love it just how it is now, you could find yourself wishing you drank it when it tasted how you liked it. It's easy to get caught up in the "aged is better" attitude but you'll always benefit if you're realistic about your tastes. I drink aged oolongs casually and occasionally, so why should I commit a huge amount of tea to aging when I'd enjoy it more now, even if it turns into a good aged tea? No sense incurring "ager's remorse"!

Jing Tea Shop 1984 Jia Ji Tuo Cha

2011-02-24T15:39:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've done a specific tea review, so here's one. This tea's either still available or now unavailable, depending on where you look on Jing's website ('Rare Teas' for the former, 'Raw Pu-erh Tea' for the latter). I eyed this tea for quite a while from afar--watching as it sold out and was restocked, wondering if it was worth $1.45/gram. I try not to nickel and dime too much about these kinds of things, but this tea wasn't available as a per-gram sample, so the stakes were higher. Obviously I eventually caved under the auspices of the classically pathetic "birthday present to myself."

This tea is ultimately a bit disappointing, but mostly in relation to its price--I can point with every finger on one hand (maybe some on another) at less expensive teas at Essence of Tea that I prefer to this one. In brief, this tuo isn't as mature as I'd hope from a 1984 tea, and it's also less complex and less enduring than I've come to expect from aged pu-erh. Does this all come down to its storage? Surely, when it comes to maturity and remaining astringency, but when it comes to complexity and endurance I really have no idea. A more humid might transform the flavor with a little more depth, but then again the original source material might just not have the complexity found in more famous blend bings.

Really, though, a few years ago this would have been the best aged pu-erh I'd ever tried--the drier storage does bring out a sweetness that for some reason always reminds me of blackberry bushes. It's quite sweet and soft in the mouth barring a little astringency, and it does survive more brews than an unaged pu-erh. If this were the only aged pu-erh I'd invested in, I'd probably be pretty upset. As it stands, it's a rather expensive addition to my modest stash of aged tea that I'll be able to occasionally dip into in order to take the pressure off the better stuff. I suppose part of the expense goes toward the reminder that not all aged teas are good, and that years aren't always an accurate measure of maturity.

More Pot Pics

2011-02-18T13:28:00.000-08:00

The last yixing pictures went down pretty well, so here's my other most-used pot. I use this 1980's tall shui ping for pu-erh. Since I primarily drink aged sheng pu-erh, that's mostly what's going into this pot, but on the occasion that I drink some younger or adolescent teas, I use this pot too. It really isn't that important to militantly reserve pots for specific teas or tea types, as the effects of past brews are pretty negligible on how the pot typically brews a tea, especially if you only brew a certain type of tea in it once or twice. It's really not going to make much of a difference.

Rather, I'm more focused on how the clay of a particular pot affects the brew, and this pin zi ni is just tender enough to round out the body wile at the same time supporting the tea's aroma. Since this pot is a bit "newer" and since I don't dip into my stash too often these days (it's easier on my wallet!) the patina is coming a little bit slower, but the inside seems to be darkening more quickly than with some other pots (it's only slightly visible above.

This pot's chop is the same as this one (which is upside down in the picture), and it refers to the fact that the pot was made at Yixing Factory #1 as a graduation model. Shui ping isn't the most adventurous style of pot, but there's still something powerful about the simple aesthetic. I really like that this one is a bit taller--the lid isn't quite as wide and has more of a vertical energy. I think the compressed shape also contributes to its pour, which isn't the fastest but hardly leaks at all. I've gone through a lot of pots trying to find one that feels right for a particular type of tea, and I hope this unassuming pot will be brewing my pu-erh for many many years.

This is your pot--on tea.

2011-02-16T15:46:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been enjoying watching my teapots accumulate patina--it's the perfect hobby for a lazy nogoodnick like myself. Here's some photojournalism with the help of a long-overdue new camera. Yippee for close-ups!

This is my newer hei ni pot. I've been using it for aged oolongs. The shape is accommodating for just about any tea and the pour is great. In my experience, hei ni, despite being classified as a tender clay, tends to brew pretty bitter greener oolongs, so it's a better match for something that's mellowed with a diminishing roast, or an oxidized low-roast oolong with little remaining bitterness. I've been enjoying a light pot of aged oolong in the afternoons as I haven't been drinking a whole lot of tea during that part of the day.

One of my favorite features of this shi piao is the bottom--it's ever so slightly concave, with slightly rounded edges. It feels great in-hand.

I've been using this pin zi ni pot for yancha for just over a year now, and it's certainly showing its use. My unstated goal with this pot has been to get it as filthy as possible--I don't pour much tea over the top of my pots, but it definitely shows where the tea drips. The tea stains are obvious, but what's pretty interesting is how the overall color begins to darken over time. The only polishing I occasionally do is to gently rub off the water mineral deposits that build up around the opening and spout.

One of the enduring mysteries of yixing has been the accumulation of patina on the lid skirt--for some reason it builds up fastest there, to the point that it's completely covered, then the thick patina will start to come off in patches as you can see above. It's already happened to several of my pots. Is it friction? The thick patina getting looser when the hot tea contacts it? Who knows why? Surely not I.

The inside of the pot seems to build patina at a much slower rate--the inside of the lid here shows graded evidence of patina, and the more-difficult-to-photograph interior is somewhere around that color. It's hard to believe the photos I took when the pot arrived are even the same pot--it looks like plastic! Hopefully I'll be able to hold off breaking this pot for a while so I can see just how dark it'll get. It still makes great tea.

Here's another one I've been using heavily for quite a while. It's about in that phase where the skirt is covered in patina. We'll see if it starts to come off like the others. This pot also makes awesome tea--roasted Taiwan oolong, especially Dong Ding. I can tell that the more porous duan ni clay soaks up the patina more than hard clays, and the seasoning has resulted in more balanced brews. The mouth feel is still velvety.

The bottom of this pot is flat, so there's some interesting build-up there too. The huge lid doesn't fit too tightly, so there's some nice drip trails between the lid and spout and down the spout. It seems like the more porous clay types tend to actually soak up the tea more than have it pile on top. I feel like if I tried to polish this pot, the darkened areas would stay dark, but on a zhu ni pot the patina would probably just come off. At the time of this writing, Jing Tea Shop still has one of these pots in stock...somebody's going to be happy.

Even when tea life isn't too exciting, there's still fun to be had watching the daily brews leave their marks. You may have noticed I'm no longer posting under a pen name. Don't get me wrong, I still love Gong, but I've decided to consolidate my blogging endeavors for convenience--my music blog is in the blogroll now if you're interested in checking it out. I also work and blog for Seattle's Miro Tea, so it should probably be said that this blog is about my personal tea explorations and isn't affiliated with the store. Plus, the idea of a blog pseudonym is a little ridiculous and paranoid anyway--there's not too much reason to worry about privacy violations (please request copies of my birth certificate and/or social security card in post comments) unless of course you're planning a group gathering in downtown Tehran. Happy tea drinking...I'll hopefully be back soon with a rundown on two new traditional yan cha from Jing Tea Shop.

Elliot

Vendor Adventures

2010-11-19T15:13:00.000-08:00

I just recently branched out to a couple of new vendors with some success. Tea life is still pretty unexciting for me--I'm mostly on the lookout for a handful of reasonably-priced teas to consume often as staples. Most notably, heavily-roasted yan cha and charcoal-roasted Dong-Ding.

The main adventure was with Camellia Sinensis. A tea friend had shared with me a couple of their aged oolongs and I thought they were pretty good for the price. So, we went in together for an order and explored a few other aged oolongs, some yan cha and a couple of fresh Taiwan oolongs. It seems we picked up the last of their stock of 1987 Muzha Tieguanyin; it's quite tasty and I'll likely be trying the 1994 option the next time I return. The 1982 Wu He is also quite interesting, with a much earthier beety flavor. The 1995 Dong-Ding doesn't really taste very aged, but the roast is heavy and satisfying for when I want one of those teas that's roasted to the limit of acceptability (but in a good way). We also tried the un-aged "cooked" Dong-Ding and Muzha Tieguanyin. The former really isn't roasted much at all, which is not the kind of Dong-Ding I'm looking for, but the Tieguanyin is nice--almost as good as the 2009 one offered on Hou De, which is more than I can say for the 2010 Hou De TGY. I think it was a successful experiment, but I was thwarted in finding good yan cha (Shui Xian was average and the Tie Luo Han has a downright funky note) and didn't really succeed in finding a good Dong-Ding with the roast level I was hoping for.

The second vendor was Dragon Tea House. I only ordered two teas--a 1999 Dong-Ding which appeared to be well-roasted, and a 2010 Shui Xian which also looked to be high-fire. The Dong-Ding was kind of a bust--not much of a charcoal flavor (probably because it's 11 years old, right?) and sort of a weird hybrid character. The wet leaves reveal some suspicious results, looking like a blend of two different processing styles, so I'm not quite sure what to make of the tea overall, though the flavor shows evidence of aging. The "Nonpareil" Shui Xian, on the other hand was a resounding success--exactly what I've been looking for for quite a while. It's heavily roasted but has a nice solid tea base, and I'm hoping to save up the cash for a large order. I've got a hunch that this is the type of yan cha that produces the round, thick aged yan cha that I've had the pleasure to experience just a few times. Either way, it's a nice drinker now for the days I'm not in the mood for more contemporarily-processed yan cha. I have to give kudos to Dragon Tea House for providing so many and such helpful photos for their oolongs--I was able to identify the characteristics I was looking for (blistery leaves, dark wet leaf color and dark liquor color) with relative confidence and the tea that arrived didn't disappoint me. I'm intrigued to check out more of their yan cha--I don't think I've ever seen a vendor with so many obscure cultivars available, and some of them look to be traditionally processed, too!

I just posted two yixing pots on the Teaware for Sale section, for anyone interested. Happy tea drinking to all!

Nerd Stuff

2010-09-30T16:35:00.000-07:00

A scientist friend of mine gifted me this righteous graduated cylinder. With it I'm now able to precisely measure the volumes of my teaware.

For instance, this little "70ml" qing shui ni pot? Well, it's actually 80ml. I'm not sure what sellers use to measure their teaware before estimating the volume, but I find it generally varies 10-20ml from the professed volume, which can sometimes be a bit of a pain--like the time I bought a "65ml" pot that was actually 50ml, a noticeably less practical size.

Of course, this sort of preciseness has little bearing on the intuitive tea brewing of a gong fu mystic (which is what we're all trying to be, right?), but the nerd in me really would find knowing the exact volume of his teapots very interesting. You didn't see, but I just pushed my imaginary nerd glasses back up the bridge of my nose. Really, though, on the occasions when I round up four or five pots to compare how they brew the same tea, it's pretty helpful to know exact volumes so I can either attempt to fill the pots differently or use a different proportion of leaf when setting the parameters of the comparison. Other than that, this cylinder is a nifty but impractical addition to my ironic quasi-high school science class tea setup!

In other news, for those who are looking, I added a nice tea boat to the blog's "Teaware for Sale" section.

I'm on the verge of branching out to a couple of new tea vendors--Dragon Tea House on eBay and Camellia Sinensis of Canada. My tea budget isn't anywhere near its high water mark (which means I'm unfortunately unable to splurge on things like aged pu-erh at the moment) but I'm running out of my staples--good, old-fashioned Yan Cha and roasted Taiwan oolong. Time to venture out!

Relaxation

2010-09-16T15:09:00.000-07:00

Ah, to kick back with a relaxing cup of tea. I've been way too busy lately with planning and executing my CD release. Now the event is over and it's a perfect opportunity to pause reflect over a few cups of tea. Today I'm drinking 1996 Menghai 8582.

This is an interesting tea in my collection; I own a few cakes but it's not really to the point where I really enjoy every session. Compared with some of its mid/late 90's contemporaries it's not the most mature tea--the mouthfeel is fairly rough and the longevity isn't particularly impressive. Occasionally, though, it'll show flashes of the light, silky sweetness that I've tasted in much older versions of the same recipe. It's certainly aging, but it needs to mellow out quite a bit. This is the kind of mid-aged pu-erh that I'll check in on every several months and by the end of the session I usually decide that I should wait longer before trying it again. Still, it's been months since I last drank it and I haven't really drank much aged pu-erh lately.

Whilst in Portland picking up my finished CDs I also managed to make a couple of purchases. The first is the nicest acoustic guitar I've yet owned--a Larrivée D-03R--and the second is the antique Japanese porcelain cup pictured right, which I found at Shogun's Gallery on NW 23rd. I've been disrespectfully sullying the cup with Chinese tea for the better part of the last week! I've been on the lookout for a decent blue and white old porcelain cup for a while and this one fits the bill--its pale blue swooping bird is pretty cool and I enjoy the irregularity of the foot, which means that the cup is permanently cocked at a slight angle. Shogun's Gallery was fun--they have quite a selection of tetsubin in the $200-$350 range. Although I was informed that most of their customers buy them as decorations, there were a few with visible mineral patinas that I would be excited to take a chance and brew some water in. I was quietly appalled to see an old tetsubin on the proprietors' desk repurposed as a pen-and-scissor holder. Gasp! Hopefully there was a good reason. I rarely get to go to nice teaware stores, so my "don't buy something" threshold is quite low. Luckily I got off pretty easy with the teacup. The new guitar means I won't exactly be splurging on any tongs of pu-erh or old pots any time soon, but a guitar that begs to be played is worth several times its weight in gold.

Seattle's summer came and went over the course of about 3 weeks. It's now drizzling interminably....it's warm enough to open the windows, though, so at least my pu-erh cakes are going to enjoy the weather.

Tea Masters

2010-09-03T17:22:00.000-07:00

Let me preface these reviews by pleading Stéphane to forgive me for taking an inexcusable amount of time to write up my tasting notes for these teas that he kindly donated for review! I've mentioned how busy I've been these past three months, but it's really not much of a justification. I've been in hermit mode--working hard, trying to save money, not drinking much tea, and I've even retrogressed musically, mostly listening to a playlist of albums I haven't listened to in over a year--what started at 4500 songs is now threatening to drop below 1000. Maybe I should try that with my pu-erh stash! So, my relaxation time has been devoted to "pure" relaxation activities rather than constructive ones like rhapsodizing about the sensory delights of tea. Time to make amends a bit.

If you've found your way to my seedy, unkempt corner of the tea blogosphere, then you're already well familiar with Stéphane's blog, Tea Masters, and the varied, high-quality and multilingual content he's been posting for years. Stéphane actually contacted me after a music- and Tea Masters-related post and offered some samples. We had a nice exchange of emails that resulted in some oolongs and pu-erh winging their way to me--Stéphane wanted to know what I thought of his pu-erh because I write about it so often. Also, and more unusually, he sent me 6g of his 1990 Hong Shui oolong (at the time retailing for $18/6g) on orders that I should "pay what I think it's worth." Tasting these teas was fun.

The festivities started with two unaged hong shui oolongs. Direct comparison seems simultaneously appropriate (since they're both hong shui) and inappropriate (since they're from different years, seasons and growing regions), but here goes. Of the two, the fall 2009 tea was darker in character--more of a roasted aroma, more fruity notes, and more of a cereal character--but somehow a greener liquor. The spring 2010 tea, on the other hand, did seem to have more of a gaoshan character, with a more lingering aftertaste, fuller mouthfeel, and somehow a redder liquor. The leaves weren't in the best shape but were clearly hand-harvested. I've had a number of hong shui oolongs in the past year--probably over 10, come to think of it. They seem pretty popular right now, at least in the Western tea market. Although there have only been a few that I'd consider buying quantities of, I like what the tea represents--higher oxidation, a bit of roasting, and an emphasis on more than just aroma. I've also noticed a wide variation in how much oxidation and roasting are employed to make a hong shui--these fall into the majority category (medium oxidation and light roasting), but I've seen a few that are more like black (red) teas.

Next was a 2010 spring Alishan soft stem oolong. One of my online tea buddies was subtly ribbing me for not drinking much gaoshan oolong--we all have our tastes, I guess, and mine usually favor something with at least medium roasting. If a gaoshan oolong is good, though, I always leave the session wishing I felt like drinking gaoshan more often. High mountain oolongs are one of those tea types where, for me, it's less about comparing minute differences between mountains and harvests and more about whether the tea "has it," that is, if it displays the level of characteristics it should for being the type of tea it is--I'd rather drink no gaoshan oolong than mediocre gaoshan. This Alishan fit the bill; refined, subtle, floral and just a touch fruity. The leaves were soft without any harsh texture, and the infusions rode the edge of bitterness on the first couple infusions, gently tapering into fruity squash sweetness. Satisfying.

The younger pu-erh (whose URL I can't seem to find) is Stéphane's fave, a 2006 Lincang. I fear I may have given an inaccurate impression of my drinking habits--though I do love pu-erh, I know very little about the different growing regions, factories, recipes etc. Although pu-erh's one of my top tea types, it's still another tea where I try to find a tea that "has it." For pu-erh, usually "it" is a certain amount of agedness, since drinking aged pu-erh provides an experience I haven't found in any other tea type. I do dabble in younger pu-erh from time to time, though, and this Lincang was a reminder of how such dabblance (new word I made up, what do you think?) can be pretty rewarding. This tea tastes a bit more aged than the other 2006 teas I've been recently drinking, with a character that tends more toward the hearty rather than the high and sweet. I'm not really in the market for 2006 pu-erh, so it's hard to say whether I'd buy this or not if I were. Like a lot of semi-aged pu-erh it's beginning an awkward adolescence but has enough going for it that it's still enjoyable to drink.

The second pu-erh is a loose 1970's sheng. This tea definitely fall in the "has it" category--I think my sample was 2.5g, and it was sufficient for over 10 steepings in a 100ml pot. Gentle, vibrant and well-aged. I don't have too much else to say about this one, other than that it fits the bill of what I look for in aged pu-erh; just a nice relaxing drinking experience with enough complex flavor to keep things interesting--leaves were pretty complete with some twigs. For the price, you could probably get a better deal, but this was a good pu-erh.

Finally, we have the 1990 aged hong shui. This was the tea I'd been anticipating the most, both because of the price and because I'd read a number of Stéphane's posts about it. I'm gradually being convinced that aged oolong is a viable tea genre, and this tea was another item of evidence contributing to that conclusion. Dark leaves, loosely rolled. A bit of hot water sets free a grainy aroma and commences an entirely enjoyable session. This tea lasted a valiant number of steepings, considering it's getting rather long in the tooth, and the initial 5-8 were full of robust complexity that gradually became simpler as the infusion times lengthened. I eventually steeped this tea for 10+ minutes at a time and was interested to try it next to an aged Fo Shou oolong that was at a similar place steeping-wise. Though they were both steeped-out, the hong shui had a much more medicinal character than the fo shou, which was still very floral/fruity. It would be interesting (if impossible) to see how one of the other hong shui oolongs from this group tastes in 20 years compared to how this one tastes now. It's hard to imagine they'd be very similar, but who knows? As far as deciding how much this tea is worth, I think $18 would be a reasonable price if I sat down in a nice tea house and ordered it off the menu; the quality of this tea is as good as the better aged oolongs I've tried, and simply having the experience of tasting a tea like this is worth the price now and again. I would definitely not be trying to stock my tea cabinet at this price (or even rushing to order another 6g), but for a one-off experience (like going to the movies or a concert) an $18 treat is permissible. Luckily, Stéphane's reputation is well-supported so spending the money on one of his more expensive teas isn't much of a risk.

To wrap up, I'll mention the brewing suggestions Stéphane made. One of my favorite things about Tea Masters is that it's as much about the details of brewing tea as it is about the teas themselves. Stéphane recommended using a gaiwan and told me the samples would be small in order to illustrate that it's possible to get more out of less tea. I couldn't agree more. When it comes to yan cha or charcoal roasted Taiwan oolong, I'll generally load the pot sot it's completely packed when wet. When it comes to gaoshan oolong and young pu-erh, though, I'll use much less--usually a scant covering of the bottom of the pot, or slightly more than the bottom of a gaiwan. I don't really enjoy much bitterness or aggressiveness in highly floral oolong, so 3-4g/100ml usually does the trick. When the samples arrived, I was excited to see that Stéphane's leaf allocation was pretty close to what I would choose, though I might pile on a pinch more leaf for the more oxidized oolongs. As for the gaiwan/yixing dilemma, I think it's a style thing--I'm happy to use a gaiwan for testing teas but I'll probably always be thinking in the back of my mind how the tea could be seasoning one of my pots. Good tea tastes good no matter what. Thanks Stéphane!

Up for Air (Dong-Ding & More Teaware for Sale)

2010-08-12T09:33:00.000-07:00

Wow, another two-month hiatus! The time has sure passed quickly. Music is again responsible for my retreat from the tea blogosphere; finishing recording, mixing, mastering and designing the album has taken nearly all of my spare time (and a large number of my sleep hours). It's been a good kind of busy, though. Very fulfilling and engaging on a level that few other things can match. I've still been drinking tea, of course, though I've been buying less of it in order to fund the upcoming CD release. I've also been keeping up on my favorite tea blogs, though after a few years of doing this it seems like summer is generally a slower period for tea blogging and tea vendor releases. A bit surprising, I guess, considering the summer is when almost all of the fresh tea is finally available! Maybe everyone is just too busy drinking to write.

Today I'll consider my most recent yixing purchase as well as one of the most recent tea purchases I made (all the way back in June!). The pot comes from Jing Tea Shop (who still has at least one identical pot still in stock). Good quality duan ni clay; ~100ml capacity. The lid opening is the largest out of any pot I've ever owned, which makes getting leaves in and out extremely easy. I don't recall seeing a lot of duan ni teapots around on blogs; though a fair number of vendors sell them, they aren't often lauded by consumers. Well I'm here today to do just that. I think people are often a bit worried by this clay's porosity. Yes, it is quite porous--usually not high-fired and with plenty of potential to draw something out of your tea. It's probably that characteristic that worries some people: "Well it'll just suck the flavor out of my tea." Yeah, maybe if you're using it with green gaoshan oolong or young sheng pu-erh. After a fair bit of experimentation, I've found this pot makes certain teas taste better than any other pot I own--teas where something NEEDS to be drawn out. For example, heavily charcoal roasted teas like Wuyi Yan Cha, Taiwanese oolongs like Muzha Tieguanyin, Dong-Ding, etc., or aged sheng and cooked pu-erh. In addition to merely rounding out the actual flavor of the tea, I find more porous clays can smooth and thicken the mouthfeel to an astounding degree.

However, pots like this do take some seasoning before performing at their best (probably another reason why people are a bit tentative about trying this type of clay). When I first started using it, this pot only brewed one tea ideally--a very heavily charcoal-baked Dong Ding that I'm saving for a couple of years. After some patient seasoning, though, this pot produces mouth-wateringly smooth, full-feeling sessions from most Dong-Dings and now expertly handles teas with higher floral notes like Muzha Tieguanyin and traditional roasted Anxi Tieguanyin. I won't lie--I had to sacrifice a couple of teas to the seasoning of this pot--in particular a decently machine-roasted competition Dong-Ding from Hou De, which was just a bit too green to overcome the porosity. All in the name of an awesome pot, though.

Needless to say, I've been drinking a whole lot of Dong-Ding lately. The aforementioned heavily charcoal-baked Dong-Ding and a less heavily charcoal roasted Dong-Ding both came from Floating Leaves Tea. Although I've been tea friends with Shiuwen for a couple of years, I haven't bought much tea from her because I consume very little of gaoshan oolongs like Baozhong, Lishan, etc., and those are her speciality. This spring, though, she bought some really tasty aged teas and small quantities of a few Dong-Dings. I apologize for being part of the reason that these teas never made it to her website! I'm hoping Shiuwen continues to expand into the arena of charcoal-roasted teas, because with her seasoned palate she picked some really good ones that exhibit both skilled roasting and solid tea bases. The lesser-roasted of the two gave me constant companionship through my final recording sessions--a week of 10-12 hour working days--so it's got a special place in my heart, not to mention some really solid seasoning for its pot. Those two teas and the success I had with my new duan ni pot inspired me to crack open a charcoal roasted Dong-Ding purchased from Hou De about a year and a half ago; unsurprisingly that one's now nearly gone!

Well, I owe a couple posts--one on a handful of tea samples that Stephane at Teamasters was kind enough to send me quite a while back, and another on the brand new Essence of Tea sheng pu-erh cakes that recently completed their long voyage from China to England and thence to Seattle. Until then, those interested can have a look at my TEAWARE FOR SALE page; it's time to thin out the tea shelf again and there are 3 very nice yixing pots available (one rather old) and 2 Xu De Jia cups (originally from Hou De). Best wishes, and I hope everyone is enjoying their respective summers. Weather in Seattle has been, to be blunt, piss-poor. Luckily, though, cool weather is better for tea drinking!

1985 Loose Menghai 8582 & The Mandarin's Tea Room

2010-06-06T18:01:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I had a nice session with this 80's Menghai 8582 pu-erh from The Mandarin's Tea Room. Tim has been blogging for several years, but only recently started selling tea. I'm far from the first to write about his teas, and I'm sure plenty of you out there have already been attracted by his shop's alluring-looking teas and hyperbolic prices. Like you, I've been interested since the site went up but only recently did I take the plunge and order 5g each of this tea and the 80's brick, as well as some of the 2009 high-fired Anxi Tieguanyin.

My time with this tea was very pleasant. The loose leaves show the spectrum of aged pu-erh colors, from dark brown to more of a rusty red for the buds and yellowed leaves, and there are enough white specks to indicate some period of humid storage. My 5g sample was quite loose--not really any chunks to speak of, which makes me wonder when this tea was last in cake form, and why it was broken up (assuming it's been broken up since before Tim bought it). Brewing loose pu-erhs takes a bit more attention; since the leaves are all already separate, the flavor and essence of the leaves comes out a bit quicker and I have to adjust my tried-and-true brewing parameters a bit and be swift pouring off the rinse.

The aroma is rich, perfect for these final damp spring days, and each brew fills the cup with thick darkness topped with swirling mist. I've tried enough Menghai pu-erhs of this vintage that experiencing this tea isn't a revelation, but more of a very happy comfort. As with most aged pu-erh, the mouth feel is a main attraction--smooth as the day is long, though there's a tiny trace of astringency that some more aging could probably take care of. Likewise, the flavor is well-developed and mature, but as the steeping times first start increasing there's a vanishing hint of bitterness. When a tea's character is so full, though, it's hard to fault it for exhibiting the last vestiges of its youth--if I owned a cake of this tea, I doubt I'd be telling myself "Wait 5-10 more years, then it'll be fully mature." If anything, a fleeting whisper of youth only adds complexity to an aged tea--more important to my palate is that the aged characteristics outweigh the youthful ones, and there's no contest here. I'd also note that this tea's flavor seems to exhibit more high notes, maybe more acidity than other aged 8582's I've tried, which is a welcome addition to its complexity--clearly I'm not even close to having this recipe mastered! Although there are better values out there for sampling, I'd confidently add this tea to the short list of "good" aged pu-erh options if you're unfamiliar with the genre and want to gain a better understanding of the baffling relationship between young and old pu-erh.

I also have to mention the packaging (pictured above), which seems to be designed more with NYC residents in mind rather than seasoned tea drinkers. Yes, my 5g of 8582 really did come in a glass vial with a cork stopper. The ornate tag describes the tea. The glass vial came in a white box (along with my other 5g sample, in its own vial, of course) sealed with a sticker that reads "Pure Premium of the Choicest China Teas...Superior Quality Leaves." The white box was in turn wrapped in tissue paper, which was sealed with another special sticker, and a separate embossed card details brewing instructions for the tea. I acknowledge and want to be respectful of the effort that's gone into selecting and providing these quality teas, but to me this kind of packaging is over the top and arguably wasteful. I appreciate the impact of an attractive and classy look when it comes to branding, but so much extra material and frill seems designed to either attract people who don't know enough about tea to be attracted by the teas' virtues themselves, or to make the rather "NYC" prices seem to be more "worth it." The second option is a little ironic, considering the fact that the expense of the custom stickers, cards and multiple individual wrappings is only driving the prices up more. If there were a "No fancy wrappings, please, just tea in bags adequate for storage" option on the site's checkout, I'd gladly select it, but instead I'm feeling guilty about instigating the waste. However, I give Tim credit for so completely conceptualizing the look of his product and not compromising on presentation--it's just not my style!

Unfortunately I don't have enough time these days to individually review all of the teas from this purchase, I will say that the 2009 high-fired Tieguanyin is my top pick. The tea's sumptuously complex, easily the best of the few fired Anxi Tieguanyins I've tried, and I've been surprised at how vibrant the high notes and acidity are. I'd venture to say that the tea's flavor profile is the closest thing to Taiwan's Muzha Tieguanyin I've tasted from the mainland, and that Tim's tea is close to being as good as the great Muzha TGY currently offered on Hou De, though neither are inexpensive. As always, all quibbles aside, I'm thankful for the opportunity to try such good teas.

2006 Ban Tian Yao

2010-05-27T12:50:00.000-07:00

This 2006 Wuyi oolong comes from Hou De. Ban Tian Yao can be had from a number of different vendors, but this is probably the best one I've tried. It's the last remaining Hou De yan cha available from a series offered (I think) in 2006, before they started only offering yearly Da Hong Pao/Rou Gui/Shui Xian. The roast is right in the middle range and it tastes like a 3-4 year old yan cha--the punchy high notes have mellowed and the initial mouthfeel has become a lot softer. Around this age, it seems like medium/light roast yan cha become quite a bit more subtle. I haven't had many light roast teas of this age, but I imagine their greenness wouldn't hold up too well--the 2 year-old light roasts I've had mostly seemed dulled, not refined, which leads me to my next point.

As I've mentioned ad nauseum, I'm on a perennial hunt for well-roasted yan cha that reach a peak after a few years of aging. I bought this tea for a second time hoping it would be a bit more like some of the other teas in its series--the Tie Luo Han, Bai Ji Guan and Shui Jin Gui (the stocks of which I think I personally finished off for all three) were probably my three favorite yan cha ever (in that order), and over the past year I polished them each off with a happy mouth and a heavy heart. So far, I've found few teas to replace them, and this Ban Tian Yao doesn't quite fit the bill either--today I loaded the shit out of my pot, which sometimes increases the flavor concentration, but with this tea it mostly just increased the caffeine experience. It's a pretty good tea, though, and demonstrably better than most of the yan cha I've been drinking daily this year--it just doesn't have the roasting level/quality I'm hoping for. I get the feeling that this is what a lot of the "heavier" roasted teas currently available from Jing Tea Shop, Seven Cups and perhaps even Hou De will taste like in 3-4 years: a bit of mellowed improvement, but not worth storing for much longer after that for danger of diminished potency. No way to be sure without storing some, though, which I'm doing to a limited extent. All I know for sure is that the charcoal taste in my favorites has been strong enough that they were probably undrinkable during their first couple of years, which doesn't describe any of the teas I've tasted this year. Ah well, there are still plenty of tasty and drinkable yan cha available out there even if I don't get my way. Probably more than many other tea genres, though, there are some pretty shitty examples.

This pin zi ni pot has developed a pretty healthy sheen since the end of January, thanks to an almost daily diet of yan cha. I'm not very meticulous about brushing the pot with tea liquor or polishing it with a cloth. I'll pour the dregs of a cha hai on it occasionally, but if the tea's good it's more likely to end up in my mouth, so most of the external patina on my pots ends up a) where drips repeatedly happen, and b) where what little I pour on the pot is likely to sit without running off. Pots look so much better after they've been used for a while--even if the burnishing isn't great, a bit of tea residue brings out so many more visual dimensions.

Gong Fu Tea - Like a Cloud Hanging in the Sky?

2010-05-24T23:14:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot recently about gong fu tea as an art form--there are so many different ways you can go with it beyond the simple goal of making tea well. Lately the aesthetics I've been attempting to focus on are minimalism and utility. Too often my tea mat is piled up with three different cups I'm not using, a couple of tea pots, innumerable tea crumbs, and the rest of the table is littered with bills, place mats and whatever else got dumped there in the past week. Ideally, though, the gong fu equipment is designed to bring the focus on the tea and the moment of the tea session, so all of these other things are superfluous at best, or total distractions at worst. Making an effort to clear off the table and pare things down to the bare essentials has been a good way for me to really focus on the tea I'm drinking and the time I'm taking out of my day to sit quietly--no trips to the computer, no music, no reading, no writing. Every piece of equipment has a role that isn't duplicated by any other piece, and hopefully it all comes together to shed more light on the tea that's being drank--perfect for special teas like yesterday's 80's pu-erh, but I sometimes wonder what I'd discover about my daily teas if I paid this much attention to every session.

I've spent a lot of free time in the last few months roaming the trails of Discovery Park wrapped in an aural blanket woven by free improvisation pioneers AMM. Although some may disagree, I don't think it has to be too difficult to enjoy "modern" (classical) music. Without getting into things too deeply or technically, I'll offer that it's a pretty simple process--it's a matter of loosing yourself from the bonds of your preconceptions and unlearning the patterns and criteria your brain has been trained to seek out in music, instead letting the arrangement of sound just be what it is, appreciating it on its own terms. Only after digging into a handful of AMM albums did I become aware of an ironic confluence of ideas--a number of their "song" titles are drawn from directly from the Zhuangzi, which is probably my favorite piece of writing in any format. The irony is that I unknowingly first started cultivating an appreciation for the type of left-field music that AMM creates by analyzing it from a perspective that I gleaned from reading the Zhuangzi. I spend so much time thinking that we each inhabit our own discrete, subjective spheres of thought and mind experience that a clear connection like this can catch me totally unawares. With such low expectations, it's exhilarating to encounter some fellow travelers who seem to understand the same ideas in such a similar way.

Anyway, the tea connection comes down to this: these principles aren't exclusive to music or Daoist texts (or even Daoist thought, since they're echoed in a number of Buddhist texts and the mystical traditions of many other world religious traditions)--the beauty is that they can be applied to illuminate any number of sensory (or intellectual) experiences with the blinding light of a less dependent perspective. When I'm really trying to pare my gong fu down to the bare, elegant essentials, it's an effort to allow the tea to be experienced as solely as possible: not as a product tied to some website with a typed description, a wrapper and a bunch of disparate tea blog descriptions, but as a thing (tea), which comes along with a bundle of sense experiences made possible by a complex, disciplined skill (gong fu, the arrangement of the parameters necessary for a successful tea session). If I can reach that level of attention once a month with a good tea, I'll be a happy man.

Early 80's Da Ye

2010-05-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

This tea (pictured R, below a thorny intruder!) can be had from Essence of Tea (formerly NadaCha) for a mere £750/350g bing. Even with the GBP taking a beating like it's taking right now, this tea's price is daunting. Luckily, it's also available by the gram, and for an achievable investment a pot's worth can be yours. I'm not here to ramble or moan about the price of teas--I feel that this goes on way too much on too many tea blogs for my tastes. When a certain level of quality is assured, price is far from the forefront of my mind as a factor of interest. Instead, knowing from plenty of experience that the quality of Essence of Tea's offerings has satisfied me many times (with only a few exceptions), this tea's price indicates that it's what Asian collectors (probably Taiwanese) view as "the good stuff" from its time period--this tea is a learning experience waiting to happen.

For me, the chance to ponder so many questions when tasting a tea like this is partly what makes it worth the price of admission: How does a $1000 aged cake taste? How should a pu-erh taste after almost 30 years of aging? More specifically, what does a Menghai 8582 recipe (this is supposedly an earlier prototype of that now famous recipe) taste after decades of aging? What kinds of characteristics in aged teas are sought out by collectors? When you're trying some of your first aged tea, the answers to these questions become the entire universe of your experience, but the more teas you try, the broader your knowledge becomes and the more you can start asking other questions: How is this different from other aged teas I've tried? How mature does it taste compared with contemporary productions? How much less mature does an 80's tea taste from a 70's tea? Is it more worth purchasing a tea of this price and maturity or a less expensive, less mature tea in hopes that it will reach a state similar to this tea? The list goes on and on. I have a very small amount of experience with teas like this, but I can imagine that even those with a host of experience with contemporary pu-erhs and beyond still have plenty of questions to probe with every tea they try.

5g in the pot and a quick rinse. With teas of which I own whole cakes, I may use 6 or more grams for a session, depending on how the tea is apt to behave. I'm a little worried that my decision to buy only 5g may result in a weak pot, but the ensuing session quickly disabuses me of that notion. Most of my experience with 8582 recipes older than 10 years has given me the impression of light, thinner sweetness--less of the directness and high notes that you'd find in an aged 7542, and maybe even a little less of a distinct character. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing--I'd be happy to have some of these aged 8582 cakes in my collection, but I can't say they'd be my favorites. This one is rather different, though, with a thicker mouthfeel, darker cup color and something of a bolder flavor. I probably shouldn't compare it too directly to other 8582's, since it's a prototype and it's made from wild trees instead of plantation bushes.

The tea's broad, sweet and cooling, but there's also a hint of something edgy--I can't tell if it's some vestiges of youth or just a facet of the tea's flavor. This is the point where I wish I had three or four pots' worth of this tea so I could decide whether or not that specific flavor is something I enjoy or dislike. Around the tenth infusion I'll be damned if I didn't taste--for a fleeting second--some sort of tropical fruitiness, something I'd never expect from a pu-erh. The surprisingly dark color of the liquor persists through probably about 15 infusions, at which time the flavor turns to that generic stewed-aged-pu-erh taste. Sweet, smooth and drinkable, but with very little of a distinct character left. I know a lot of people like to continue steeping the tea over and over at this point, but I prefer just 2 or 3 long steeps, maybe 20 minutes at the most, and call it a day--overnight steeped pu-erh just doesn't taste great the next day when it's at room temperature. Overall, this tea was quite enjoyable to drink. I've just written a lot here about studying and learning from aged pu-erhs, but ultimately I'm in it for the enjoyment and mellow buzz of drinking a good aged pu-erh. I'm not always ready to spend $20 on one pot of tea, but with the offerings from Essence of Tea I'm confident it'll be worth it. I always recommend that enthusiasts of young sheng pu-erh try at least a few old ones if they think they're collecting with the intention of fully aging tea--how can you decide a tea is good for aging if you don't know what good aged tea tastes like? I probably wouldn't start with a tea as expensive as this one, though. Something like the 1993 7542 will set you back about $5 for a pot, which seems to be a reasonable price for the pleasure and learning that can be had with a tea like that.

The leaves certainly live up to the cake's moniker and reputation as 8582 predecessor--they are big. A bit of prodding reveals that some of the used leaves are much softer, suppler and lighter brown than others, which is interesting. There's a lot of zealotry happening online these days about so-called questionable processing practices in today's pu-erhs--namely over-oxidation and "improper" kill-green--but teas like this seem to me to be a gentle reminder that a) pu-erh processing is a much larger and more complex subject than some of us would like to believe, and b) a lot of aged teas that are valued by Asian collectors and are also tasting pretty delicious exhibit evidence of some of the processing characteristics that are being decried as foul play. In situations like this, agnosticism seems to be the most prudent position, rather than setting yourself up for some serious foot-in-mouth action. To be fair, though, it's a lot easier to say a certain processing technique is "ok" when you're holding a delicious, obviously successfully-aged cake in your hands. What to buy, when you want to eventually have a tasty home-aged cake? Familiar dilemmas persist.

Old Favorites

2010-05-21T10:21:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again...as I've written before, Chinese greens have for me become almost solely a seasonal pleasure. Buy them fresh, drink them quickly and enjoy the experience when it's most intense. So this morning we enjoyed a tea I've been delighted to drink every year for the past four years--Xu Fu Long Ya from Teaspring (m'lady never seems to tire of hearing me ape the pronunciation sound clip offered on Teaspring's page for this one; any cheap laugh I can get).

It's nice to have old favorites to return to, especially when you never know what nuances are going to be prominent that you didn't pick up on last year. Likewise, my music choices lately have been in the comfort zone--something like 20 new albums that I haven't listened to yet, and what do I choose? The Band, which reigns supreme in terms of play count in my music library. So many layers...lately I've been most acutely appreciating Robbie Robertson's metamorphosis as songwriter--from the heavily Dylan-influenced Music from Big Pink, coming into his own as a slightly academic channeler of America's past on The Band, to Stage Fright, when the pretense of the first two albums' fictional characters gets all too real as he becomes the tragic chronicler of his bandmates' descent into the substance abuse and self-destruction. It's tough to watch (listen) as Richard Manuel's angelic voice shows more and more the effects of alcoholism, especially as he sings Robertson's ironic songs that detail the price of fame, trading his soul for musical ability and hollering "oh, you don't know the shape I'm in." And that's not even mentioning the parallel paths Danko and Helm were on, or Garth Hudson as the impassive sentinel, silently watching it all go down.

If only green tea were as multi-layered as The Band. That's not to say it isn't immensely enjoyable--limiting my consumption certainly makes me very excited for the new harvest every year--but I try not to expect too many facets out of those emerald spears. Xu Fu Long Ya falls into the "legume" category of Chinese greens--snow peas and beans are what fill my nostrils (not literally, of course, then it'd be pretty hard to breathe) when I crack the bag. The flavor does match the aroma pretty closely--the first infusion is my favorite for this year's tea--it's got all that legume flavor and just a hint of tart bitterness that quickly washes sweet. Since I don't keep a stock of Chinese greens year-round, my brewing skills are pretty feeble. By the time I figure a tea out, my 25g are all used up! This year's Long Ya seems to require longer infusions to maintain its characteristic flavor--otherwise things turn generically green. It does manage to produce more than five decent infusions even with a longer steep time, though, so it's just a matter of treating it properly. I know at least one tea correspondent to whom I've recommended this tea (hope you enjoy it B), but I'm always quick to recommend Teaspring for their selection (Long Ya and a number of others are teas I haven't seen anywhere else). Other faves I have to anticipate--Yang Yan Gou Qing's velvety mouthfeel, the modest legumey delights of Zhu Ye Qing, as well as Dong Ting Bi Luo Chun and Wu Niu Zao from Jing Tea Shop. It ain't easy being green.

Sugar in the gourd

2010-05-16T17:38:00.001-07:00

What an exciting couple of months it's been. Up until a couple of weeks ago I'd been slaving away at finishing the recording project I started in November. Toward the end things got quite busy--long hours recording, mixing and writing some notes about the lyrics for my facebook music page. In so many ways the process has been amazing--it's the first multiple-song project I've actually finished since 2005, it's been a great opportunity to catch up on the material I've written since 2006 in attempts to get more current, and it went well enough that I'm planning to do a bit more recording and release a full-length, professionally-produced CD later this summer. Between music, work, Mandarin class, running and enjoying the occasional gorgeous spring Seattle day in Discovery Park, I've had precious little time for gong fu tea. In some ways it's been great--I made it through April with nary a tea purchase to be had, which is always easier on the pocketbook. On a more personal level, it felt good to relax my tea obsession, which at times over the past three years has eclipsed my supposed 'passion' for music and become a sort of crutch, diverting my interest and energy while some health issues prevented me from being able to sing (long, long story). Diving deep into this project reminded me where my most intense fulfillment comes from--when bringing the recordings to fruition I honestly could barely have cared less about tea and the sessions I took were more out of necessity than true attention (can't work with drowsiness or a headache!). So, I'm glad to have achieved more balance in my interests--I celebrated the end of my project goals by polishing off the 50g of 1970's Guang Yun Gong pu-erh that I special-ordered from Jing Tea Shop in October. It was certainly aged to full maturity, but not as complex as the 60's Guang Yun Gong I've had from both Hou De and Nada Cha/Essence of Tea. The sessions were always very pleasant, relaxing and good drinking and brewing experience--after all, you can't really make claims or assumptions about the age-ability of young pu-erh if you haven't experienced mature aged pu-erh, right? I'm always happy to expand my minuscule portfolio of aged pu-erh experience with another tea, especially when I can get ahold of 9-10 sessions worth to understand the tea better.

In addition to the aforementioned activities, I also briefly vacationed in Barbados. Not a lot of tea drinkers in Barbados, although the lingering British colonial presence (now often in the form of lily-white or lobster-red tourists) undoubtedly means that there's some leaf on the island. My recent traveling MO has been to bring along my gourd and some yerba mate--it involves far fewer accoutrements than gong fu and allows me to enjoy a beverage that I rarely drink these days. I once spent a summer painting houses in Walla Walla, jacked up on mate listening to Captain Beefheart, Love and John Fahey, so mate's earthy sweet flavor and potent caffeine buzz always takes me back. I'd love to hear a Chinese or Taiwanese tea aficionado describe the qi of yerba mate--it's certainly not subtle when you drink out of a 2/3 full gourd.

Now I'm looking forward to the spring offerings--Dancong, Bi Luo Chun on the way from Jing Tea Shop, a few Chinese greens including a favorite--Xu Fu Long Ya--from Teaspring, and eventually a wee bit of Taiwanese gaoshan, Essence of Tea cakes, and some fresh yan cha...and that's just the fresh stuff! Hopefully I'll be back soon with some ideas I've had slowly brewing--it's been longer between posts than I'd prefer, but I'd rather post infrequently when I actually have something to say than just to keep up appearances. What have you been drinking lately?

A storage experiment

2010-03-18T17:17:00.000-07:00

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I had a fun little time yesterday breaking up a couple cakes for storage in some recently-purchased yixing containers. Though I've heard from a number of online retailers that you can store pu-erh in yixing jars, it wasn't until recently that I heard a couple of really intriguing accounts about the specific effects that just a few months' storage in clay jars can have on pu-erh: the tea will become rounder, smoother, and a lot mellower in flavor, I'm told. Now that I think about it and have had another look, I have to give Bret at Tea Goober credit for mentioning this a long time ago--sometimes I have to hear things from a few sources before the skeptic in me can be persuaded, though. Plus, I hadn't actually had someone explain to me until recently the exact effects of yixing jar storage.

The yixing jars come from Golden Teahouse. It's been a while since I've ordered from them, but they had the best prices I could find on smallish yixing canisters. As it turns out, they're actually pretty small. I didn't measure precisely, but they're probably only 300 ml at the most. It's not too big of a deal, though--it just means I don't have to invest as much tea to fill up the container! Also interestingly, although I ordered 2 of the same product, the jars have slightly different clay colors: one is more on the purple side and the other is redder.

To fill the jars I used the Zhong Cha Big Leaf 90's bing and the 90's unwrapped brick from my Skip4Tea purchase. The main reason I got all excited for this experiment is because the supposed effects of yixing storage are exactly what I want for these two teas--I don't consider either of them mature yet, and they both have enough harshness that they aren't especially pleasant to drink. If the jars can accelerate the aging in the short term and take the edge off the bitterness (and hopefully the smokiness, especially in the case of the brick), then these teas could become pretty good everyday pu-erhs without waiting several years. Since I'm not overly enamored with them, it won't break my heart if the experiment doesn't produce life-changing results. The really fun part is that I've still got plenty of each original cake left over, so comparison will be easy. I think 3 months is a reasonable time frame, so we'll check back then. Anybody out there have any experience with yixing pu-erh storage in the short term, or more interestingly, the long term?

If this works out well, I've got a few teas I'm more excited about that could use a little aging acceleration--it would be nice to have a few more teas in the rotation so I'm not drinking up the expensive stuff quite as fast! For now, the thing I'm most excited about isn't tea but--you guessed it--music. Maurice Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé has been bouncing around my brain, speakers and headphones the past week. I'm attending a performance at the Seattle Symphony tomorrow night and I don't think there's another piece of classical music I'd be more excited to hear live (ok, maybe Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, but Daphnis et Chloé is longer, and it's got a full choir for goodness' sake!). Ravel is often overshadowed by Debussy when it comes to the impressionist music movement of the early 1900's, but for my money it doesn't get any better than Ravel's ballet--that swelling crescendo and the whole Lent section has got to be 4 of the most gorgeous minutes in music history, as far as I'm concerned (my neck is tingling just thinking about it). It's a shame how many people could sing John Williams' Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Jurassic Park themes from memory but have never heard one of the pieces from which he has continuously borrowed so heavily in all its glory. *Ahem,* Tea! (Maybe I need to start another blog...)

As for the blossoms, it's hard to believe how early spring came this year in Seattle; probably about a month earlier. Reminds me of the almost laughably melodramatic "The Birds" from Peter Hammill's solo debut Fool's Mate. There was much better work to come...despite the fact this early spring brought blossoms too early for Chinese greens, the weather has at least remained nice enough that the blossoms have lingered awhile without being hailed off of their trees.

Big Fun with Three Liu An Teas

2010-02-27T18:12:00.000-08:00

I've been on a real late 60's/early 70's Miles Davis kick lately--the spacey Big Fun was a perfect companion to the head trip I received from tasting three different Liu An teas this afternoon.

Liu An is a tea about which I have a lot of questions. You don't see it very often online, and I've seen it variously lumped in with green tea, pu-erh tea and black (hei) tea (i.e. Liu Bao). I've heard it's pan-fired like green tea, but I've also heard it's cooked like Liu Bao or shu pu-erh. Since it's nowhere near as popular as pu-erh, there's very little consolidated information to be had. In cases like this, it's usually best to learn what you can with your mouth (and other senses, of course).

I got ahold of 3 Liu An samples--none is purported to be less that 10 years old. Starting on the left we have a 1999 Liu An from Yunnan Sourcing, a 1995 Sun Yi Shun Liu An from Hou De (this tea has been sold out for a very long time; I received a sample in a recent tea swap), and a 1980's Sun Yi Shun Liu An from Essence of Tea.

What really prompted this comparison (besides the fact that I haven't really reviewed any teas on here for a while) is that I recently received the '99 sample and, after trying it once or twice thought, "this is pretty good, it seems nearly as aged-tasting as the '80's tea from Essence of Tea." The only way to really know for sure is to try them all.

Of the three teas, the '99 example is the exception in most ways--the leaf profile appears larger than the other two, it's not really compressed (though that's probably just from being broken up for sampling), and the flavor and aroma are distinct from the other two teas. After a quick rinse I smelled the leaves--a rather crayon-y wet clay smell--I decided to give another rinse! A bit more of a tea smell this time, but still that strange earthy clay note, which I don't remember from the other times I've tried this tea. A few rather long steeps later (I only used 3g since I was doing a handful of teas) and I've got the impressions I need--tartness, a receding hint of grass cut too soon after the rain, a wee bit of bitterness, and a touch of musty storage taste. Not bad, and certainly a hell of a lot tastier than the youngest Liu An (2004) I've tried, which I would consider totally undrinkable. After about the second sip I was already feeling the qi all over my face, washing back and forth across my eyes. Two more teas to go, yikes!

The '95 example's appearance evidences a bit more humidity in the storage--a frosty coating on the leaves, and a pleasant (to me!) musty aroma. The aged Liu An teas I've tried remind me of very specific basements from my life--I think the strength of this sense/memory connection is part of what makes me return to these teas almost compulsively. The flavor of the '95 is pretty different--actually more bitterness, with more of a storage taste and with a thicker mouthfeel and much darker, richer liquor. This tea tastes like it needs more time in the same way that a 15 year-old pu-erh does when the bitterness is one of the only youthful characteristics left. Enjoyable--when I use up the last 5 grams I think I'll be giving shorter steeps which should bring out more sweetness and a very pleasant all-around session. This tea tastes a lot more aged than the '99, but actually not a ton younger than the '80's tea, aside from the bitterness.

I've had several sessions with the '80's Liu An from Nada Cha/Essence of Tea, and I've enjoyed every one of them. If not for that tea, my Liu An impressions would have ended with the 2004 tea I tried. The storage taste is reminiscent of the '95 tea but different, perhaps because of more age or perhaps because of the particulars of where they were stored. The bitterness is actually present still if the brew sits, but it's less assertive than the younger tea. Body is great, and the tea gets sweeter in the ensuing brews--almost as good as an aged pu-erh, but definitely different. Eventually it gives up the same kind of sweet stewed taste that comes from long steeps of aged sheng pu-erh. I wonder how much of the similarity between the '95 and the '80's teas comes from the fact that they're both Sun Yi Shun Liu An, whereas the younger tea is not.

A gander at the wet leaves does little to alleviate questions about the processing of Liu An--the '99 looks like a mix of "cooked" and raw leaves, the '95 looks quite uncooked, and the '80's looks either mixed, storage-darkened or (likely) both. Interesting--after dumping out the '95 leaves I was just certain that the '99's processing meant it could never turn out like the two older teas, but then the '80's tea looks cooked and tastes more like the '95. At $26.10/450g basket, the '99 isn't a very expensive gamble so I think I'll be seeing what happens with at least one basket. I'd be interested to know the original price of the '95 Hou De tea for the purposes of value hypotheses. The '80's tea is expensive, but less so than its sheng pu-erh contemporaries, and I think a better value than some. To return to the original impetus for this comparison, I have to conclude that the '99 tea really isn't close to being in the same league aging-wise as the '80's tea, or even the '95 tea. A candidate for aging, perhaps, but not a fully mature tea.

By the time I finished with the '80's tea my head was swimming so much I decided to sit down for a few minutes and just relax--I haven't been so qi drunk in quite a while. Luckily a bit of food settled things down. Drinking aged tea can feel so different! If you've tried aged sheng but not Liu An I recommend sampling the '80's tea for a similar but distinct experience. Time to try and find some other Liu An teas to try.

Hot or not?

2010-02-24T16:43:00.000-08:00

Today was a great day--two tea packages arrived, one from Hou De and one from Jing Tea Shop. Packages from China are always nerve wracking, and I usually spend several days expectantly looking out the window for the postman before the package is actually delivered. This one didn't arrive as quickly as some, but today my wait was mercifully cut short.

There are a few items worth mentioning between the two boxes, but I'll start with this little miscreant. After my last delightful Jing Tea Shop purchase, not only did I shrug off the vestiges of my "too cool for more teapots" attitude, it seems my mental disorder was only exacerbated. I asked SEb at Jing if he could find me a decent duanni pot, and this is what he came up with, along with a nice little story:

Yesterday, I went to visit a good friend who is a Yixing national craft master and I found that he has made a xiao pin of one of his latest series of 3 teapots for which he was recognized, they even printed stamps with them. It is a 100ml, made of good duan ni, pours really well and has very nice details. It will be good for black tea, especially cooked pu erh.

I almost always go for traditional, unadorned pot shapes, and it's been quite a while since I've had a bamboo pot in the collection. At first look, I really wasn't sure what to make of it--the leaf details, spout and handle are familiar from other bamboo pots, but the body shape is totally out there--the large body section resembles a separate pot that is tilted backward (in the picture below you can kind of see that the weird outside shape is totally evidenced on the inner surface as well).

Now that the pot is in-hand, I'm still not sure what I think about the aesthetics. The clay is nice and tender, though, and rather high-fired as well, so I don't doubt it'll make some tasty tea. I'm also excited to see how the bright yellow clay seasons--in just a month's time my two newer pots have shown dramatic changes from seasoning, and this one's probably even more porous. I've shown pictures of the pot to a number of tea-drinking and non-tea-drinking friends and opinions have been split on the imperfect shape--probably the best reaction was from my girlfriend. I don't remember the exact phrasing, but the word "poop" was a key descriptor.

So, I'd like to propose a simple survey on the aesthetics of this pot--hot or not?

Domestic Partnerships

2010-02-12T10:04:00.000-08:00

I've been living in sin for over two years....with Wuyi yan cha. A quick glance at my yixing ware will make it abundantly clear--there's no other tea I drink as often or as much of. When I first set out to try and "understand" yan cha/yen cha, one of the first things I learned was that you've really got to pack the pot to make a good one. We're talking a 1/2 to 2/3 full pot, or about a gram for every 10 ml of water, at least for my tastes. Straight off, yan cha became a daily morning tea for me--you can't put that much tea in pot and expect it not to be really strong, and the afternoon tends to be the time I prefer lighter teas for stimulating relaxation, rather than an ass-kicking reveille.

One of my favorite parts about spending so much time with a tea genre is that you start to learn things that you never would have if you were only drinking it every three or four days. For instance, steeped-out yan cha has a pretty distinct flavor. Packing the pot helps delay this, of course, but if you're going all the way with a tea session it's going to happen eventually. At first, I'd lose my interest in a tea as soon as the insipid flavor would start to creep in. After a year or so, though, I figured out that there's usually several more good steeps left in a tea after it tastes insipid for even a minute-long steep; you just have to increase your steeping time by much larger increments, which can be hard to get used to, since packing the pot necessitates extremely short infusions at the beginning. Additionally, if you let the tea cool off a bit in the cup, the insipid flavor quiets down and the tea's flavor notes subtly make themselves known. Whereas before I probably would have tossed a pot's leaves after a couple insipid steeps (maybe thinking they're "not meant to be drank"), I'd now say I actually enjoy the later, lighter steeps as a tasty part of the tea session's evolution and an opportunity to catch a range of flavors that actually isn't present in the beginning.

The other thing that's changed for me is the utilization of broken leaves. I'd originally attempt to cherry-pick only the hugest, most complete leaves when filling a pot, avoiding broken or smaller leaves in attempts to save the flavor. After a while I realized that the pots made from big whole leaves tended to come out lighter and more one-dimensional, evolving and finishing quickly. By including a range of leaf "conditions" into the pot, you get a pot of tea whose flavor 1) shows up immediately, because of the broken leaves, and 2) stays more balanced and even throughout the tea session--the small pieces give out their flavor faster, and they're adding "late session" notes to the whole leaves' "early session" notes after only a couple of infusions. Think of it as a form of single-tea blending. I've read a couple of methods online for how to "load" a yancha pot, crushing leaves at the bottom, adding broken pieces, then topping with whole leaves. While I personally wouldn't get quite that meticulous (I don't usually feel a need to crush the leaves myself), these methods certainly get at the principle of making a balanced pot of tea. I have a canister that I dump my "unusable" yan cha fragments into, to be later used for teapot-raising. I dipped into the canister recently to season my new pin zi ni pot and realized that quite a lot of the leaves in the mix were plenty large enough to be used in a pot of tea (by my present standards) but a couple of years ago they were just too small! These days it's mostly powder that goes into the can, unless there's just not enough left to make a decent pot of tea. If I like a tea enough, I'll even find myself brewing only the broken pieces at the bottom of the bag, though this often gets tricky with steeping times and gauging how much is appropriate for a pot.

Finally, and probably most predictably, my definition of what a "good" yan cha is has changed quite a bit. At first I endeavored to understand the trademark characteristics of the more well-known teas (Da Hong Pao, Tie Luo Han, Shui Jin Gui, etc.). After a couple years, though, I don't really feel confident in my ability to pick cultivars out of a blind tasting--I think processing and specifically roast level account the most for flavor differences, so now I mostly drink just for enjoyment. And roast level has become an important criterion--I was originally excited by "light roast" or "qing xiang" yan cha--they taste very different from both traditional yan cha and other oolong types. After drinking quite a few, though, I feel like light roast can limit the range of characteristics available to a yan cha (put more bluntly, light roast teas can eventually be boring). Today, my ideal yan cha is one that is ideally stored to rest for 1-5 years before the fire and tea taste are in harmony. More commonly available on the market (aside from explicitly "light roast" teas) are teas that are roasted just enough to achieve that sort of balance for near-immediate consumption. The problem is, if you don't consume the tea immediately, the resting in a canister or bag isn't good for it--what initially tasted complex and balanced can go flat in just a couple of months. Not a very happy tradeoff, methinks. I have stashed a few of these teas away to see what will happen with a good 10 years of storage, but my expectations aren't very high.

I liken this type of roasting to shu vs. aged sheng pu-erh. Shu offers an "instant gratification" solution to the demand for aged sheng, which takes time and patience. However, it's just not the same--to do something right, it sometimes takes a requisite amount of time, and if you cheat, the results aren't the same. Now shu pu-erh is an established tea type with plenty of fans, and maybe so also will "medium" roast yan cha. I drink these teas daily (non-stellar yan cha is way better than no yan cha), but none of them are as satisfying as a more traditionally-processed yan-cha--something dark, with a time-subdued roast and flowers or fruit in the finish--not up-front--and a thickness that only comes with traditional processing. Not necessarily something that takes 20 years to be drinkable, but a tea that includes rest as one of its processing steps. It's becoming more difficult to find examples of these teas online, and even if you find one it's not guaranteed to be great. I've long promised myself not to become one of those curmudgeons who's always talking about how "tea was better before," but when you see something you love start to become scarce, it can be hard not to feel a little bitter. I've actually almost run out of yan cha for the first time in a while, so it's on my mind--I've got a couple teas on the way that veer on the more traditional side, so I've got my fingers crossed for a few satisfying sessions.

So, that's my ever-changing live-in relationship with Wuyi yan cha. The tea blogs have been a bit quiet lately---anyone out there want to share the fruits of any epiphanies about a tea with which you've spent a long time in close quarters? Oh, and happy Chinese New Year!

Good--New Acquisitions.

2010-01-26T12:24:00.000-08:00

It had been about 4 months (not very long, but it seems like a long time) since I'd purchased any teaware. Sometimes impulses take over, though, and something has to be done.

These two pots came from Jing Tea Shop, one of my standby vendors. I love this seller because they've always had solid quality, but since I've started purchasing from them they've continued to get better--their Dancongs were really great this spring, they always have a good yen cha selection (now with lots more info for each tea), they often offer aged pu-erh, and they just recently added a "Xiao Pin" section to their yixing shop. Alright! Having spent some time dabbling in the expensive and baffling world of vintage and antique yixing, I actually now feel more confident purchasing recently-made yixing ware. The primary selling point for antique yixing is often clay quality. The most obvious example is zhuni, which is probably best bought as antique, in my opinion. With other clays, though, I've found that I can't detect as much difference between recent and old examples to make it worth the 3x or more price increase. What I've found is that volume capacity, lid fit, pour, and general performance are more important to me than age or a modicum of clay quality improvement. Even if a pot is Qing dynasty and gorgeous zhuni, if it's 200 ml and has a leaky lid, it'll drive me crazy and end up sitting on the shelf.

The first pot is an 80ml 1980's pin zi ni shui ping. What strikes me about this pot is the crispness of the edges. In hand it feels so sharp and precise. It operates flawlessly; quick pour, dripping only when vertical, and the lid hole doesn't get filled with water too easily. I also really like that the lid is completely flat; it'll be interesting to watch how it seasons differently from the other pots I have. Both pots have interesting chops--this one has a bunch of extra characters in addition to the central stamp, a style I haven't really seen before.

The second is a 2006 Ben Shan lu ni shui ping. It's actually the first really traditional-style shui ping I've owned, which is fun. The clay on this one is really cool--a deep forest green which, because of the "yao bian" intentional over-firing, has taken on a bit of a red tint on the outside and a much redder color on the inside. The color looks different depending on the type of light that's hitting the pot (you can see the difference even in the three pictures here); it looks really cool in sunlight, but unfortunately the clouds rolled in by the time these pictures were taken. This one is not quite as ideal operationally; though the lid fits very well, there's a bit of a drip when pouring. I don't mind screens in a yixing spout (especially for fragmented teas like pu-erh and yen cha), but I'm not entirely sold on the efficacy of a bubble/golf ball style; I think it might slow down the pour a bit and could contribute to leakage. If the biggest problem with a pot is a little stream running down the outside of the spout, I don't really mind too much, since I often just stick the pot into the fair cup to empty it. Another interesting chop--this one is dated. Since this one is dated 2006, it's pretty believable (who would forge a date on a 4 year-old pot?), but I wonder just how reliable this type of thing will be in 20 years...it seems like the forge-ability of the original artist's chop is still the issue.

Aside from the re-awakening of my pure collector's spirit, I've been looking for a back-up yen cha pot (aside: The pot that titles this blog, despite now being beautifully seasoned, has had a couple of injuries and now has a hairline crack in the lid. I'm heartbroken at the prospect that someday soon it might be unusable, but it's made me a lot of good tea) and a smaller pot for sheng pu-erh, so I've had fun over the past 2 days testing out teas in these pots. I don't usually detect a huge difference between clays, but these two pots have surprised me. Both produce a rounder mouthfeel than more dense clays, and the lu ni seems to soften and round the most. The high notes in the flavor are better-preserved by the pin zi ni, and the walls retain heat a bit better. I think either could make good yen cha or pu-erh, but the pin zi ni pot's faster pour will be more conducive to making yen cha. I'm going to spend some time seasoning the lu ni pot to see how its effects on flavor turn out, but I think it might have a future as a good aged sheng pot. Either way, I'm excited to have some well-working tender clay yixing pots back in my collection; up until now my most porous pots have been hong ni, which is only porous compared to zhu ni!

Western Culture

2010-01-22T14:21:00.000-08:00

I'll start at the middle: for the sole purpose of wordplay, I'd been planning title this entry after Henry Cow's final studio effort, Western Culture. The first of their studio records to not feature their characteristic sock cover art, the album's composition credits are split solely between organist/saxophonist Tim Hodgkinson and bassoonist Lindsay Cooper. Side A is populated with Hodgkinson's angular, mathematically dissonant works--the structure is imminently logical, but your average pair of ears will find little to recognize harmonically, melodically, or even structurally. Hodgkinson writes like he understands music on a completely intellectual level--intervals and combinations of notes on paper, every choice a deliberate logical decision. Cooper's side B, no less complex, exudes a totally different different energy. Whereas Hodgkinson understands composition, Cooper clearly feels composition in a way that no amount of learning or study can approach. Every choice in her pieces exudes class; dissonance and atonality make their appearances, but it's always organic--the ideas evolve naturally, there's an indescribable flair to the music, and we even get an occasional glimpse of--ahem--fun. Lindsay Cooper obviously grasps composition on an intuitive level in a way Tim Hodgkinson clearly doesn't.

I decided to title this post "Western Culture" because of a recent addition I made to my tea paraphernalia--a triple beam scale. I've put off getting a scale for quite a while--I feel like I've caved in to the influence of Western tea culture, which is always prodding us to add science into our tea preparation--time our tea with electronic timers, measure each serving with an electronic scale, and use precise water temperature for every tea we brew. For me, drinking tea is in many ways a rejection of these kinds of modern "necessities"--how can I relax and approach a tea on its own terms if I'm constantly fretting over parameters of mass, temperature and time? But, I do have to admit that scales can come in very handy--if I've got a 10g sample I want to split in half, if I've got a tea that cost me $3/gram and I don't want to waste any by eyeballing portions, if I'm trying to figure out how many pots' worth of a tea I have left, or if I'm portioning out pot-sized amounts like I did recently to send out samples to several people. Luckily, I managed to compromise--this scale isn't electronic, and it's got a dingy vintage vibe. I've got a friend who picks through thrift shops and it took him less than two weeks to find it after I told him I was in the market for one--$20, a nice break from $50-$60 for a newer Ohaus-style scale. One of the cool (but kind of irrelevant) things about triple beam scales is that they measure mass rather than weight, which is relative to gravity. Pretty much all electronic scales measure weight, which can actually slightly vary depending on where you are on the earth (some places actually have more or less gravity); but since triple beam scales balance a specific mass (1g, 10g, .10g) against whatever you're measuring, they're accurate regardless of gravity. Thank god! If I ever find myself preparing tea on the moon, my Welch triple beam scale will produce accurate results when all electronic scales would fail!

So, yet again, why all the talk about obscure music when this is supposed to be a tea blog? The short, unfriendly answer is "It's my blog and I can write about whatever I want to." The longer answer: After considering the scientific vs. the intuitive (gong fu, if you will) in tea preparation, I realized the title "Western Culture" is much more apt than I originally intended; the concept is mirrored in the compositions on Henry Cow's Western Culture. How much of the joy of tea appreciation is lost when we get caught up in scientific accuracy and precision in the brewing process? Conversely, can we really expect to remove all science from tea preparation and expect every pot to turn out phenomenally? I'm sure we all strike a balance between both ends of the spectrum, which is why Western Culture works so well as an album--of course, having Fred Frith on guitar and Chris Cutler on drums doesn't hurt. I'd be interested to hear how much science you use when it comes to tea preparation.

Skip4Tea

2010-01-09T20:19:00.000-08:00

I've been hinting at this since early December, so here it finally is. I took the plunge and ordered a few pieces from Malaysian vendor, Skip4Tea. Now, I certainly don't believe that I'm the first person to find, know about, or even order from Skip4Tea (if you feel like wading through the inefficient morass that is TeaChat, there's a few posts on there), but I suspect a lot of people have checked it out and opted against ordering because a) The website doesn't contain a whole lot of English, and what's there ain't exactly articulate or in-depth, and b) Pretty much none of the teas are offered in sample form. But, it's been a while since I've branched out and tried a new vendor and part of me was hoping for a lucky draw: some reasonably mature-tasting sheng pu-erh at a reasonable price. Here's what I bought.

ZhongCha "Big Leaf" 90's 357g bing ($88), so-named because of the large leaf that's embedded along with the nei fei on the top of the bing. This is the only bing I ordered, and I'd also describe it as the most humidly-stored of the purchase. A look at Skip4Tea's photos will give you an idea; there's a bit of a colorful dusting on the leaves--nothing to be too afraid of though. The first time I tasted this tea I used a low leaf/water ratio just to have a taste and only rinsed the leaves once and was surprised by a bit of fruitiness in the flavor profile that I've not tasted in any other pu-erhs before...Malaysian storage? The second time I gave a more traditional portion two rinses and brewed as I regularly would, and the flavor profile was a bit more standard. Humid storage taste in the first few brews (less so than, for example, Nada's HK-stored Grand Yellow Label, which sadly has the ability to turn my stomach a bit), a diminished hint of smoke, and pretty strong flavor. Decent aging progression, I'd say (though an exact date wasn't given), but I wouldn't classify this as mature by any means. With these pu-erhs labeled simply "90's" I tend to assume an implied "Late," since most sellers would be happy to persuade you into believing a tea's age is older rather than younger. For a late-90's tea, I'm satisfied with the aging progress and after tasting it a few more times I'd say there's a chance I'd buy more, since the price isn't obscene. I need to also note that I'm not especially familiar with Zhong Cha as a discrete brand (as opposed to Zhong Cha as a government labeling system imposed on the major factories after the Cultural Revolution), and since this tea is 90's I'm not sure if it's Zhong Cha brand or another factory's tea wrapped in the usual Zhong Cha wrapper, nor is my Chinese anywhere close to being able to make any sense out of the wrapper. I'll bet someone out there can easily educate me with regards to the differences between Zhong Cha factory and Zhong Cha labelling--I'd be much obliged.

ZhongCha "Aged Tree" 80's Square 300g Brick ($137). This was the most expensive item in the purchase, as well as the oldest and most disappointing. This tea looks and tastes remarkably like Nada's 80's loose "big leaf" pu-erh (albeit a little more complex and flavorful); giant, brittle leaves, really sweet liquor. In the Nada description for that tea he notes it's made from yellowed leaves that are picked out of the blend for the main cake production; this is only the second tea I've tried with these characteristics, but I'd hazard a guess that it's the same thing, since the leaves don't look or feel like your standard pu-erh, and they don't expand much at all when brewed (a sketchy factor in my book). Really, though, this tea tastes pretty mature--sweet, smooth, no smoke or bitterness, it's just not really what I've come to look for in aged pu-erh. I think I'll actually enjoy it as I gradually pick away at the brick for casual sessions, but I wouldn't buy another one (especially when the Nada loose pu-erh is so much cheaper, even if it's not quite as good). As it happens, I couldn't buy one if I wanted to--the last one sold out sometime recently. No biggie.

Xiaguan "No Wrap" 94 100g Tuo $33. Not sure how to verify that this tuo is Xiaguan or from 1994, since there's no wrapper, but it turned out to be a decent performer. The harshness and smoke have mellowed a lot--they're both there in traces, but not enough to detract from this tea's maturity, which is fair. Humid storage for this one as well, but not near as much evidence in the flavor (or to the eye) as the Zhong Cha bing. Compared with the NadaCha budget model 90's tuo (sorry to keep comparing to NadaCha teas, especially if you haven't had them--last one, I swear), I'd say this one wins out in complexity and fortitude, although it's less mellow. I'm not a huge 100g tuo cha fan, but this tea is ok. There are still 49 left (as of this writing), so I could see myself getting a couple more for cheap thrills if there's nothing else pressing my interest. Not a bad value considering the price and agedness, but there's something about small tuo cha that doesn't push my thrill button very often.

Unwrapped Raw 90's 250g Brick ($63) Finally we have this standard rectangular brick. No wrapper, but no pretenses about factories or age other than "90's," to which the thick, dark liquor and mellowed leaf color would seem to attest. This tea is smoky, but surprisingly the smoke is almost totally unoffensive. Although I wouldn't rate this kind of smokiness highly in a "mature" aged pu-erh, it doesn't bother me a whole lot here because the tea has a ways to go any way you look at it, and because there's quite a bit I like about the rest of the package. So, the liquor is dark, the flavor is really quite full, and the tea goes on for countless infusions. The smoke gradually decreases as infusions continue, to the point where it's merely second fiddle to the solid tea taste. Despite its flaws, this tea might be my favorite. Though I feel the same about tight brick compression as I do about tuo cha and iron bing compression, something about this tea seems right for aging potential. It's nice to see a tea that seems really strong in spite of its aging, especially one whose primary flaw is only a smoky flavor.

Unrelated to the teas themselves, Skip4Tea has pretty good customer service--they responded quickly to my inquiries in understandable English and packed the tea well. What I don't understand, though, is their order fulfillment--I ordered at the very beginning of December and the tea didn't ship until the 16th. Why, I don't know. Aside from not being able to sample the teas, shipping is the other main issue with Skip4Tea--you only have one option and it's not cheap. These 4 teas cost about $50 to ship. Granted, it took less than a week to arrive when it finally did ship, but I think most of us would happily trade a couple of weeks for $20-$30 in shipping fees. I'll also note that Skip4Tea offers a whole lot of more recent pu-erh vintages, and if you peruse the site you'll probably find that the prices look really quite reasonable by western standards. If you're interested in less aged pu-erh than I've been talking about here, the prices only get lower.

To sum up, the brick and the bing are my top teas right now. If I were to order more, it would be these teas, or maybe some yixing; they have a few pots that aren't half bad looking, but it's a slippery slope when there's little to no description and the site is only a middleman for other sellers. Tough to verify authenticity on something so expensive. For this quality and vintage of pu-erh, I'd say Skip4Tea is about as good a source as any, but it's a whole hell of a lot riskier than the other vendors we're all used to. Admittedly the adventure of trying a risky place was part of my motivation with this experiment (and to try and maybe provide a bit of helpful info)--because of its particular flaws, Skip4Tea isn't going to supplant my favorite tea vendors or probably even return to to the top of my purchase list within the next few months, but overall I'm satisfied with the experience and met my other main goal, which was not getting completely swindled! If anyone's interested in trying these teas for fun, shoot me an email and I'll be happy to send out some samples; you have to try them all though!

Some quick reviews

2009-12-10T17:09:00.000-08:00

Today I spent the afternoon enjoying the second half of a 12g 60's Guang Yun Gong sample I purchased from Nada Cha a while back. It's been a great time; tasty tea, excellent feeling, and it's lasting for so many infusions. Is it the caffeine, flavor and qi that make me feel so at ease and happy, or is it the simple act of sitting down and focusing on a leisure activity for a couple of hours without looking at any screens or worrying about getting anything done?

After my last gabby post I had a couple people ask me which aged pu-erhs I'd recommend, so here are a couple very brief reviews of aged sheng I've recently been drinking that can be purchased as affordable samples.

The good:

80's Xia Guan Tuo from Nada Cha. This tea has become one of my standbys. It's mostly mature with little astringency, smoke or bitterness, though the character is still quite strong and bold. Not a tea for when I want to completely relax, but a drinking experience free from any serious flaws at a price that seems to match the value of the tea.

80's 8582 from Hou De. Available in 20g samples (3 pots' worth, for me). Really soft and clean tasting, with delightful sweetness and nice healthy leaves. Reminds me of the 80's dry-stored 7542 I tried from Hou De way back when samples were available and I didn't know anything about pu-erh! Price is not bad for the quality--if cakes were available, I'd probably be saving my dimes. If my younger 8582 cakes come out anything like this within the next 20 years, I'll be a happy guy.

90's Zhong Cha Yellow label from Hou De. Another clean-tasting (seems to be the ideal Hou De M.O., for pretty much every type of tea they carry), fairly mature tea with light and sweet liquor. Didn't take detailed notes for this one but I was pretty happy with it.

The bad:

90's Zhong Cha Hun Yin from Hou De. If this isn't cooked pu-erh, then I don't know what it is, because it doesn't taste or look like any aged sheng I've ever had. Not even the wet-stored ones; I'm no expert, but this REALLY tasted like shu pu-erh to me, and not one of the better ones I've tried.

80's Zhong Cha 7542 from Hou De. This tea tasted like it was from 1999; uninvited party guests included bitterness and astringency, although the flavor was pretty clean and it wasn't really smoky. There was some of that dusky aged flavor around the edges, but the whole experience left me wondering how a tea could be so old and taste so young. Storage too dry? Who knows, but I'm done with this one.

The completely unrelated:

2009 Fo Shou from Hou De. No, it's not pu-erh, it's high-fired Taiwanese oolong. This was one of my first post-tea-moratorium purchases of December. This tea is really high-fired; the leaves never fully open and they're a bit crunchy even at the end of a session, but somehow the roasting was just completely perfect. There's none of that acrid, burnt taste that accompanies poorly high-fired teas, and it's really tasty right now. Be forewarned, the roast dominates the flavor--it's got that inimitable Taiwanese roasty taste (if you've ever been inside a room where Taiwan oolong is being roasted, you definitely know what I'm saying), but the leaves' flavor asserts itself with a mellow sweetness and a trace of fruitiness. The body is full, no astringency, and the leaves can literally be infused 20+ times with continuing pleasant results. The tea taste/roasting taste balance is nowhere near as sophisticated as the Muzha Tieguanyin Hou De just sold out of, but the price is way better. This is a simple but very well-made tea. I liked it well enough to grab a half pound; check back with me in 2029 and we'll see how the quantity I've squirreled away tastes.

A Few Flashes From the Archives of Oblivion

2009-11-28T17:25:00.000-08:00

This tea volcano has lain dormant a bit too long; regrettably, I've slipped back into another patch of busy times, and squawking about tea is one of the first things I have to excise in order to make more time for the more profane activities in my life. Luckily, drinking tea is one of the last things I'm ready to forgo (right up there with eating, sleeping, and listening to Roy Harper). At least, this time some of my schedule is taken up by interesting adventures--recording music and learning some Mandarin, which may or may not be in preparation for an eventual return to graduate school for the purposes of studying Chinese religion. Either way, I'm excited about applying what I learn to my tea drinking and potential travel to Asia. Since I don't have a lot of time to blog lately, this post will be a bit of a recap and a preview.

No-New-Tea November

I'll get the shock and awe out of the way early: I haven't bought any tea for the entire month of November. That's right, I'm not even joking. I don't know about you, but part of my monthly ritual is snagging at least a few new teas to make things interesting and keep up with the seasons. For me to not spend any money on tea for an entire month is a decision that could be accurately described as deranged, but I'm actually coping fairly well. What the hell was I thinking?

From a practical standpoint, I saved some good money this month--it's been nice to get ahead on my finances, take a break from some leisure expenses and add a bit more to savings. It was also a goal I decided I'd like to see myself accomplish just to test my dependence on tea. Finally, to be honest, I had one too many days where no tea sounded particularly enticing and none of the pots I drank produced exciting results. If I'm not feeling enthusiastic about some of the better teas I own, why should I be apathetically sucking down my supply and buying teas that didn't sound that great? After all, it's not exactly been the season for the best fresh teas. Instead, I've dug out a few saved bags from my storage cooler (it's weird, don't ask) and made a conscious effort to blow through the mass of pu-erh samples I've accumulated over time. The teas I've been drinking never became favorites--Jing Tea Shop's 2008 Bai Ji Guan, that weird Winter "Huang Jing" Dancong and the 90's Jing Zhu Dancong from Hou De, and a few Taiwanese oolongs I had lying around from this spring. I figure, if I'm not enthusiastic about the tea I'm drinking, I may as well drink teas I wasn't enthusiastic about in the first place. The results have actually been pretty fun. Trying my saved teas added a little more variety into the rotation and reminded me what I liked and didn't like about the teas. Some of the sessions were actually quite enjoyable, even if they didn't make me crave the tea every day. I took the opportunity to casually brew the teas with a low leaf-to-water ratio, sipping a few longer-steeped cups, which I've come to appreciate as an acceptable and even ideal way to drink less amazing teas--there's no escalated expectations or time commitment that come with gong fu, some teas actually taste better this way, and it's possible to not pay too much attention and just sit and enjoy a cup of hot tea, which is probably how we all got into this in the first place. I think I may have forgotten just a little bit about the pleasure of absentmindedly drinking a cup of tea and not scrutinizing it under the microscope. Finally, restraining myself from purchasing tea gave me pause to consider my buying habits. One thing I've gradually learned in the past five years (probably more so in the last year) or so of heavy tea drinking is patience. In the past month of observing the online vendors, there were very few teas that piqued my interest. A while ago, I probably would have still bought several teas that didn't sound completely great for the purpose of having something new to drink. These teas usually end up being the ones that clutter my shelves because I never went crazy over them. After experiencing a few years' worth of harvests, if a certain tea genre's harvest doesn't wow me, it's a little easier to not freak out and just hold on until something better comes along. Similarly, if a nice but maybe not ideal yixing pot appears, it's become a bit easier to hold off--something perfect will eventually come along.

Of course, I've still been drinking teas that excite me more, but in less proportion. Naturally, there are a few teas I'm itching to order at the beginning of December--now the trouble is managing my expectations. All in all, the month has been a success, and I've been feeding my ears with plenty of unusual music--AMM, Fred Frith's recent acoustic guitar solos album, the Stooges (somehow I've neglected them so far), and a solid Buck Owens release (just don't ask me to quit buying tea AND music for a whole month) so I've come out alive. These days I've been starting my day with something strong like Wuyi oolong or a long-brewed sheng pu-erh, then drinking somewhat lighter teas in the late morning and relaxing with some aged pu-erh in the afternoon every couple of days or so.

In Defense of Aged Pu-erh (As If It Really Needs Defending)

Which leads me to the next subject--pu-erh. I think Maitre Tea brought up the general subject a while back and I got to thinking about a few points. Firstly, MAN, there's a lot of pressure in the online tea world to drink and care about pu-erh! Reading some of these blogs, you'd think it's the only tea out there, or at least the only tea that matters. I feel for any Chinese tea lover out there who just doesn't care for it, because you're often shit-out-of-luck if you don't want to talk about pu-erh. Much as I enjoy pu-erh, I still wouldn't trade in my Wuyi oolongs, good roasted Taiwanese oolong, nice Dan Cong or fresh Chinese greens, even if it meant I got the best pu-erhs in return. It'd be boring. I guess what I'm thinking is that pu-erh often dominates the tea blogs, while in reality people are actually drinking a wider variety of teas--I wouldn't mind reading about once in a while. I suppose you can't control what you're pumped about, though, so I can't begrudge you for writing about your most powerful current obsessions.

On a similar tack, I want to say a couple words in defense of aged pu-erh. One of the most enjoyable periods in my tea life was when I started learning about sheng pu-erh and tried about 30 different samples, keeping track and deciding what I liked and disliked. I really learned a lot and came to understand at least the basics about what young sheng tastes like. Since then, my habits have changed and I rarely drink young sheng for pleasure. I've read quite a few posts or comments recently to the effect of "Aged sheng is just fancy and expensive for no reason. It's not worth the money, so I'll drink and collect young sheng instead." As someone who drinks mid-aged pu-erh on a regular basis, I can't help but get riled by this. Though it's tempting to respond with a brief "Sour grapes" reply, I don't think that would substantively address a few more of the things going on here. First off, you and I wouldn't even know about pu-erh at all if it weren't for the aged teas. It took the last 20 years for their popularity to build in Taiwan and Southeast Asia to the point where the tea was even known over here. To write off aged pu-erh when (for all intents and purposes) it is created by its producers for the purposes of aging seems to be a pretty bad case of looking a gift horse in the mouth.

For me, aged sheng just provides a more enjoyable drinking experience. No bitterness, no acrid smokiness, no cottonmouth astringency, and such delightful body and brewing durability. A leisurely pot of pu-erh on an afternoon after a long day of work is perfect--the qi is calming just as much as the caffeine is gently stimulating, and the whole experience is more relaxation-oriented. Although I do appreciate exploring the flavors and potential in the leaves, young sheng just doesn't provide as elegant or enjoyable an experience for me; the caffeine usually makes me jittery, sometimes my throat feels unpleasantly rough, and there's a lot more effort involved in getting the brew right so you don't produce an undrinkable cup.

Sure, aged pu-erh is more expensive, but not all of it is prohibitively expensive. Compare the price-per-gram of your favorite high-end Yan Cha, Dan Cong, High Mt. Taiwanese oolong, or Tieguanyin to that of a $200 357g bing of aged pu-erh, for example, and you'll find they're not too far off (many times the oolongs are more expensive!)--you just have to buy more when you buy a whole bing. Of course, it doesn't help that a lot of pu-erh is dirt cheap when it's brand new (a $14 bing is about $.04/gram), but for me the effort and expense put into properly aging a tea is worth the change in the tea's characteristics and the experience I get from drinking it.

Additionally, I'm not so sure the "I'll just buy young pu-erh and age it myself" argument is airtight. I've tried at least five Asian-stored pu-erhs from the 80's that tasted like they needed further aging to get rid of their astringency and smoke. If those teas spent almost 30 years in ideal storage conditions without fully maturing, can you be sure your inexperienced, experimental US storage is going to do the trick? I'm not that confident! Are you willing to wait 30 years before you enjoy some aged pu-erh? Even if you're in your 20's, 30 years is a long time to wait just for the satisfaction of saving some money. How many more years can you keep buying fresh pu-erh and expect to drink it when it's aged? I'd rather spend some extra money on some aged tea that I know tastes good now (rather than buy more cheap young sheng) so I can drink it while I wait and see how a modest amount of young sheng matures--if it even does at all.

I don't mean to harsh your mellow if you're a fan (even an exclusive fan) of young sheng pu-erh--I think it's pretty awesome that some Westerners have developed a taste for a tea that is traditionally consumed after aging--more power to you if you enjoy the green stuff! I'm not here to say that you should only drink aged pu-erh and you're a fool if you think you enjoy young pu-erh. I just happen to have discovered through experience that I enjoy young sheng just occasionally and get a lot more out of drinking the more aged stuff, despite its "outrageous" price tag. I just want to urge you not to write off aged pu-erh simply because it's more expensive--especially if you haven't taken the time to understand what it's like. It's pretty easy to get a large sampling of inexpensive young sheng, but it's a bit more difficult to do the same with aged pu-erh. Luckily, Hou De, Nada Cha and occasionally Jing Tea Shop offer some affordable samples (Hou De has some good ones somewhat recently posted in their "Tea Sampler" section). Try some aged pu-erh before you declare that it's for the birds; you might change your mind. If you try pu-erhs between 10 and 30 years old, you might also enjoy learning a bit about what happens to pu-erh as it ages. At the very least, your opinion will have experience to back it up and you'll be able to better articulate why it is you think aged pu-erh isn't worth it. Lastly, if you're thinking (even in the back of your mind) that you're buying your tea for the purposes of aging and your ultimate goal is to drink aged pu-erh, I urge you to be realistic--if all you're buying is tongs of fresh pu-erh, you might be in for a long wait; you might be better off dividing your spending between young pu-erh and something you can drink while you wait. Of course, there ARE plenty of people out there who enjoy both aged and unaged sheng pu-erh...Anyway, sorry I got mad. Let's never fight again.

I'm now realizing that I should have divided this into multiple posts, this is getting ridiculous. I probably won't have a whole lot of blog time coming up though, so I'll try and keep it brief in the home stretch.

The Dregs (No, Not the Fannings)

I recently started going to an artesian well in Lynnwood, WA for tea-making water. It's not much of a secret--easy to find and there's plenty of information online about it, so if you live in the Seattle area and are interested in the closest thing to spring water for your tea, I'd recommend it. I mainly started doing this to see if my tetsubin would start re-building its mineral patina. So far, it seems like it's working. I've been snapping a photo after every 5-gallon water container I go through, and things are starting to get a lot whiter inside the tetsubin. I'll post a photo progression eventually when the difference is really appreciable. It's been a fun process to monitor the thing change.

Last, I finally acquired a reasonably-priced cha chuan, or tea boat. Not a wooden tea tray, or a simple bowl or plate, or a bowl with a cover with holes, but a bowl with a teapot stand. For me, it's a preferred accessory for gong fu; it's not bulky, can be emptied easily, and the pot doesn't have to be dripping with water every time you pick it up. Other than a few shitty (leaky) "yixing zisha" options and a couple overly-expensive examples, my months-long internet scouring came up empty. Luckily, I've got a potter friend and she was able to make a really nice artisan tea boat for me that didn't break the bank, and it works great. I'm working on convincing her to make more and offer them for sale online--I figure there have got to be a few more people like me out there who could get a lot of use out of one. I'll post some pictures of what she made for me and hopefully sometime soon I can convince her to make some more!

Well, I'll retreat into my clearly insane tea cave--I've got a few upcoming adventures that may be blogworthy, time permitting, like a recap of 50g of 1970's Guang Yun Gong pu-erh I purchased a few months back, and a yet-to-be-named exciting international purchase that may just make a bigger fool out of me. I hope your tea is tasting good.

Ineffability

2009-10-02T21:31:00.000-07:00

Here I am, sipping pu-erh, listening to L'Apprendista by Stormy Six. Italian beat-turned-avant-garde rockers, soon to be a member of the Rock In Opposition movement alongside the leg-endary Henry Cow. Lots of contrapuntal saxophone, acoustic guitar, vibes, and rounded Italian vocals--kind of like Gentle Giant, but a bit less twiddly. It's a nice complement to the little pu-erh head cloud I'm floating in at the moment.

Why all the jabbering about obscure music that nobody cares about? Lately I keep thinking more and more that, for me, tea drinking is a personal experience to the point of being incommunicable--and I think that's just what I like about it. Just like throwing an album on and letting it bounce around inside your head, drinking tea is ultimately ineffable experience. I could (and sometimes do, for communication's sake) sit here and grasp at fruits, flowers, and plants that a tea tasted like, but it'd only be a doomed attempt to describe feelings and sensations that exist only in short moments, and uniquely at that.

Take this aged Wuyi Yen Cha from Wisteria Tea House in Taipei, another kind gift from a fellow tea drinker. These blistered, careworn leaves begot a dark brown liquor with just a hint of redness--neither quite like a young Wuyi tea nor quite like an aged Taiwan oolong, but reminiscent of both. The mouthfeel was so much smoother and rounder than most Yen Cha I've been drinking lately, and the flavor so much mellower and more pungent. I could call it fruity, since that's the word most people use to describe the peculiar taste of aged oolong, but truthfully from me it would be a misrepresentation. To me, the tea tastes like aged Wuyi oolong, and it's hard to get more specific than that! If I wanted to taste fruit, I'd eat fruit--this is tea, and it tastes great (thanks again for the sample)! Isn't that what keeps us all coming back for more? These teas offer flavors and sensations that can't be found anywhere else? It calls to mind a rapturous mystical ode to the Way found in my favorite chapter of Zhuangzi:

Joy, anger, grief, delight, worry, regret, fickleness, inflexibility, modesty, willfulness, candor, insolence—music from empty holes, mushrooms springing up in dampness, day and night replacing each other before us, and no one knows where they sprout from. Let it be! Let it be! [It is enough that] morning and evening we have them, and they are the means by which we live. (32-33, Watson transl.)

The confluence of sensation in a good pot of tea is truly ineffable, and the best cups leave me completely unwilling to attempt to cage the experience with words or do anything but sit dumbfounded and hope the next steeping is just as strong. Let it be! And yet here we all are, writing and reading about tea...every good mystic yearns to share the feeling, I guess. Here's to that unrepeatable cup of tea.

Some aged Taiwanese oolong

2009-09-28T17:56:00.000-07:00

I've been drinking a lot of pu-erh lately, in the afternoons. For the past couple of years I've avoided drinking tea after about 3 pm, but recently I've been enjoying a pot as late as 6. With pu-erh, it's not so bad--for me, a cup of old pu-erh is more calming than caffeinating, though I'm sure I'd have some trouble getting to sleep within a couple hours of drinking some. Anyway, my selection of old pu-erh is limited and I've been returning to the same teas (some of them expensive) a bit too often. Luckily, I've lately had a couple of other teas that produce a similar experience. One of them has been a small sample of aged Taiwanese oolong that I recently received as a gift. Now, there have been plenty of times in the past that I've ragged on aged oolongs--I've tried over 10 examples (excluding Wuyi Yen Cha that have sat around for a few years) and maybe 2 have been teas that I would ever buy (or drink) again. Not that all of the aged oolongs I've had were shitty teas (well, a couple were), but most of them didn't differ enough from their un-aged counterparts to justify the 30% or more price difference.

Some of the last summer tomatoes; the cute little green bowl was made by a friend--more of her work to come!

This tea makes me second-guess my attitudes toward aged oolong. Labeled as 50's/60's, it's easily one of the oldest (if not the oldest) teas I've ever tasted, provided the age is accurate. Who really cares, though--it's about drinking experience and flavor, right? Despite my giddy anticipation, this tea was a winner in both respects. Every once in a great while I'll stumble on one of those cunning seductress teas--at first, the flavor just isn't there. "Looks like the storage took its toll on this one," I'll brashly quip, hoisting my trousers up with both thumbs for effect. After a few sips, though, it starts building, and after a handful of infusions the complexity can only be described as delightful--the tea tastes different, depending on the size of the sip, the temperature, the amount of air taken through the mouth and/or nose before and after swallowing, and the gan dances on with every breath. The flavor alternates between darkly floral and woody fruit, with only a hint of the humidity present in the 70's oolong from NadaCha and none of the whatever-it-is that makes the 90's baozhong from Hou De sort of unbearable after a couple cups. I'm not much on super-accurate flavor description (sorry, but most of the time identification of specific flowers, fruits or other plants would be specious coming out of my mouth, not to mention pretentious), but to me this tea is definitely of the same genre as those other two. That is, aged baozhong. I wish they still produced more baozhong this way--to me it's a lot more interesting than those green, green flowers-in-a-cup teas that seem to be winning all the competitions lately. I'm sure some of the deliciousness comes from the aging, too.

As far as the rest of the drinking experience is concerned, it's cake. One thing I do like about well-aged oolongs is that they're usually easy to brew, and you can usually keep coaxing flavor out of them with long steeps. The mouthfeel is great and slippery, especially for a roasted tea. Finally, the qi of this tea is great--mellowing, with a relaxing sort of cloudy buzzing feeling around the head and eyes--usually I only find this sort of qi in pu-erhs. I'm no expert on qi, nor am I especially sensitive to it, but if a tea gives me a pleasant feeling other than a straight-up caffeine buzz, I'm always appreciative. The cashed leaves are in pretty great shape, considering the tea is potentially twice as old as I am. It is so fascinating to me to hold and experience only lightly processed organic matter from such a long time ago, and the chance to compare the look, feel, and flavor of the leaves to recent teas is engrossing as well. This tea was a distinct privilege to try.

As for aged oolongs as a genre, I remain respectfully aloof. I've tasted proof that, done properly, aged oolong can present a drinking experience unique from both unaged oolong and aged pu-erh, but I've tasted much more proof that few people seem to know how to do it properly. If the amount of practically usable information (in English) about aging pu-erh is frustratingly incomplete, anecdotal, and old-wives'-tale-y, then the secrets of successful oolong aging are downright arcane. I won't be exhaustively picking over my available tea sources for aged teas, but I'll probably continue nosing about for teas I'd be willing to drink regularly, if all the elements line up correctly. Personally, I don't have any big plans to age any Taiwanese oolongs (I've got 4oz of Dong Ding jarred away), though I'm probably going to experiment with aging some Wuyi teas, just for fun. I've been enjoying reading everyone's posts about the Yunnan Sourcing tasting event--though it's a bit like reading reviews of a movie you didn't see, it's always fun to hear multiple opinions about the same teas, and hear how differently some people regarded each tea.

Teaware for Sale

2009-09-10T13:07:00.000-07:00

I've purchased quite a bit of teaware since becoming a tea enthusiast, and unfortunately I'll sometimes come to the realization that I don't use certain pieces enough to justify keeping them--I don't need a cupboard full of unused pots and cups, especially when there are a lot of people out there looking to improve their tea equipment. So, I'll be conducting a sort of ongoing garage sale of sorts through this blog. Here's some general information, then I'll list what's for sale.

All prices are less than what I originally paid, usually by a significant amount. I'm not trying to make a profit or even recoup my original investment, but I think it's fair to expect a price that matches the pot's value. If you'd like to make an offer that's different from the posted price, I'll be happy to discuss it via email (just use the link in my profile).
Payment will be through PayPal (please email me first) and buyer will pay for shipping (for US buyers, for one item, it'll be approximately $10.).
Since it's helpful to try teaware out before completely committing, I'm happy to accept returns on teaware within 2 weeks of receipt. Buyer pays for return shipping (insurance recommended!)
Since I'm offering several items, I'll try and keep descriptions short. If you'd like more pictures or more information, please email and I'll supply you with as much as I can!
All of the pieces originally came from vendors with excellent reputations for product quality and authenticity. I'm not an expert on these matters, so I'll have to take the original vendor's word for some things. Original vendors will be listed for each piece so you can check out their current selection and do any other relevant research.

1980's Aged Pin Zi Ni Ying Hua (108ml): $180 SOLD

Another nice teapot from Jing Tea Shop that I just haven't used enough to justify keeping. This older pot is made from really nice aged clay; exceptional burnishing on the outside, soft on the inside, and open-fired (there are some firing deposits attractively scattered across the pots surface). The weight's slightly lighter than most (according to Jing because the clay was well-fermented) and the firing is fairly high for pin zi ni. What strikes me most about this pot is how well-done the details are, with the vine motif emerging from the side of the spout, handle and pot like an organic, natural part of the piece. The filter is standard 7-hole and the pour is medium-speed and mostly drip free. Clay of this quality, in my opinion, can work well with almost any type of tea and should soften the mouth feel without removing too much from aroma or high notes. Because of the pot's somewhat taller shape and smaller opening, I think it will work best with teas like yan cha, dancong, loosely-rolled aged oolong, or loose or well-broken up pu-erh. When it comes to pellet-rolled oolong, the pot's shape is rounded but may not completely accommodate the unfurling leaves, depending on how much tea you put in for brewing. Definitely some of the best-quality pin zi ni I've owned.

Pin Zi Ni Xi Shi (110ml): $40 SOLD

This contemporary production pin zi ni is one of the classic Yixing shapes, rounded xi shi. Originally purchased from Stéphane at Teamasters. Though the pot is a nearly brand-new production and quite modestly-priced, the quality is good--the medium-fired clay is porous, clean and pretty well-burnished on the outside and the lid fit is flawless. The pot's filter is the bubble/golf ball style screen, which makes getting the last couple drops of water out of the pot a little difficult but makes clogging of the spout pretty much impossible. The pour is pretty swift and almost completely drip free, though for some reason it seems ever so slightly angled to one side. One thing I love about the xi shi shape and this pot's size especially is that it works with virtually every type and shape of tea; the rounded shape accommodates even large pellet-rolled oolong leaves, and the opening is large enough to make removing the leaves and putting in unbroken pu-erh chunks equally easy. Though the details are maybe not quite as refined as some Yixing pots, for the price this pot is extremely functional, makes great tea, and would make an excellent first Yixing pot or addition to a growing collection.

1990's Pin Zi Ni Si Fang Gu (95 ml): SOLD

1990's Aged Qing Shui Ni "Long Dan" (~75 ml): SOLD

2007 Ben Shan Lu Ni Shui Ping (95ml): SOLD

90's Hei Ni Shi Piao (140ml): SOLD

90's Pin Zi Ni "Xi Shi" (80ml): SOLD

1970's Hong Ni "Li Xing" (105ml): SOLD

2000's Duan Ni "Ping Gai Bian Gu" (90ml): SOLD

Early ROC-Period Chin Shui Ni "Lian Zi" (120ml): (SOLD)

Cultural Revolution-Period Zini Shui Ping (135ml): (SOLD)

1960's or Earlier Sanded Pear-shape Zhuni (175ml): SOLD

1980's Hong Ni Shi Piao (250cc): (SOLD)

Test tubin'

2009-09-06T13:37:00.000-07:00

Probably my most exciting tea purchase this summer was an old tetsubin (Japanese cast iron kettle) purchased with the help of the boys at Life of Tea. Funny thing is, nobody I know seems to know the word and everyone I've told about the kettle looks blankly back at me and says "Test tubing?" I haven't really made any efforts to discover the age of the tetsubin, but from what I've heard about tetsubins it's almost guaranteed to be older than the 1950's, with a potential age of well into the 1800's. After looking inside the kettle, the mineral buildup and rusting would seem to indicate that it's at least been around the block for a few pots of tea!

This kettle's not actually very big--around half a liter, I'd guess, but it's large enough for me to pour several infusions into my average yixing and still have enough water left to mix with a fresh supply. This way I don't bring one pot of water to boil too many times, and boiling the fresh water takes place while I'm drinking tea!

The great part about Life of Tea is that, within reason, you can say "I'm looking for a tetsubin. It doesn't matter what it looks like, who made it, or how big it is, I just want the water to taste good," and sooner or later you'll be presented with a range of pictured options with prices and short descriptions. Naturally, their selection isn't unlimited, but they generally do plenty of legwork to earn their commission. The only drawbacks I can think of is that the item descriptions can be fairly terse (which might leave pickier teaware junkies with more questions like--what's the exact capacity? how good is the lid fit and pour?) and that the website's general price ranges may need to be updated.

Back to the kettle, it's so far made a remarkable difference in the taste of my water. Immediately upon first use, I could taste the difference in the plain heated water--more mineral taste, perhaps even a blatant iron flavor, but it doesn't interfere with the tea flavor at all. That is, if I use it with the right teas. So far I've gotten the best results with pu-erh and oolongs with at least moderate roasting. A couple light dancong oolongs and a light roast Dong-Ding I tried with the tetsubin water seemed muffled, like the water dampened the bouquet a bit too much. With pu-erh and yen cha, though, the water bolsters the flavor and mouthfeel with a pleasant broadness. Luckily, I've still got a stainless kettle and a clay kettle that both work fine with lighter teas. The tetsubin's benefits come at the moderate cost of maintenance and the need for a hotplate or charcoal stove--obviously I don't have a charcoal stove, so I had to purchase a hotplate especially for this kettle. Maintenance consists of making sure the kettle dries after each use, or else it'll rust!

This last point is the primary inspiration for this posting. The above photo was taken a couple of weeks after I received and began using my tetsubin. You can see some slight rusting and also notice that a large proportion of the area is lighter-colored with whitish mineral buildup. I took this photo when I first started thinking that maybe the mineral deposits were starting to diminish. I'm glad I took the photo--now it's just about a month later, and there is barely any white left inside the kettle (see below)--it's now mostly on the upper insides, which don't get as much water exposure. Life of Tea's blurb explains that mineral deposits come from using the kettle with spring water and that continued use of spring water promotes mineral "growth." I didn't really realize that the buildup would go away so quickly--especially because I've been using the kettle for much the past month with actual spring water I've collected myself.* Perhaps the tetsubin's former owner's spring water contained different minerals--fortunately, the flavor of water the tetsubin imparts hasn't really been affected at all, though the change in appearance has been rapid. I've heard a few times something to the effect of "If you want your tetsubin to keep making good tasting water, you have to use mountain spring water!" It makes me pretty happy to report that Brita filtered tap water tastes pretty darn good out of the tetsubin as well--when somebody tells you that some aspect of tea preparation can only be done one way, it's almost never true!

To that end, my tea obsession led me to covet and purchase an old tetsubin and for me, it's been a worthwhile purchase and has made a noticeable difference to my tea. I do stop far short, though, of declaring that your tea's not really good unless the water comes from an antique tetsubin; the difference is only to a degree, and it's also a matter of personal taste. To be honest, though, the tetsubin has made more of a difference to my teas' flavor than have any of my yixing teapots, and I've owned and used a lot of different yixing pots. Sounds like there's more to my tea obsession than pure flavor--more of an all-around tea hedonism, perhaps.

*Sadly, the full "spring water" story won't get its due this year. In short, I went on a nice family vacation this summer to a place in high desert central Oregon with an incredible-tasting and very accessible spring. Needless to say, I spent the whole week imbibing delicious teas with delicious water in leisurely opulence before returning home with as much spring water as I could carry. I had originally planned a post with pictures of the spring, the tetsubin and the surrounding mountains, but I got too caught up with living the moments that I did a poor job of recording them!

1980's Xiaguan 8653 Traditional Characters

2009-09-04T13:57:00.000-07:00

I'm back here for comparatively regular posting, with this aged Xiaguan pu-erh from NadaCha. Nada fulfills what seems to be a sadly unique niche in the online western tea vendor community--he sells aged pu-erh (along with authentic antique teaware and personally-sourced and produced pu-erh and other teas) at reasonable prices. If only there were more like-minded vendors, we'd probably all know a lot more about aged pu-erh.

Today is the fifth time I've had a chance to experience this tea, and I'm thankful I've had so many experiences with it, because they've all been great learning opportunities. At the original time of this tea's listing on the NadaCha website, it was far and away the most expensive tea offered at a whopping £355. Since then, it's been soundly trumped by a couple of £750 early 80's Menghai cakes, but that's another story. The point is, this cake presents a chance to try an aged classic blend from a popular factory. The price also gives us a glimpse of what the aged pu-erh market is looking like these days--to me, $600 for one cake of pu-erh skirts the upper limit of what I could ever imagine being a reasonable purchase, and $1300 is just too much. I'm more than happy, though, to part with a smaller amount of cash to understand just what it is about these aged brand name teas that has facilitated such a pricey market.

Extremely tightly-compressed leaves (check out the cloth print in the picture) have clearly aged to a darker brown, and the large portion of buds has turned mostly orange. After a quick rinse and a generous first steep, the ironbound chunk of leaves gives off a pleasant and complex aroma--honeyed wood, to be boring and general, and to be more specific, sharp mustard and a basement in Richland, WA that I haven't visited in well over 15 years. Smell, of all the senses, wins hands-down for having the strongest ties with memory. After comparing a number of young, mid-aged, and aged pu-erhs with each other, I'll tremblingly submit that the "mustard" aroma I've mentioned in several notes just may be the combination of a tea's diminishing smokiness and its increasing aged flavor. Taste of the liquor mimics the aroma's complexity, though I confess I'm not experienced enough with Xiaguan teas to identify the "unmistakable Xiaguan taste."

It takes a good four infusions before the chunks start to loosen up, which I admit annoys me. By the fifth (pictured), the inner leaves have opened up, but the outer leaves are several infusions ahead. I'm also suspicious that the ridiculous compression accounts for my least favorite aspects of the drinking experience: For my most recent sample, after just a couple of infusions, this tea is dry, dry, dry. I'm also suspicious that this is because the leaves on the inside of the cake haven't aged as much because they've received much less exposure to air and humidity, thanks to their compression. Therefore it seems reasonable that the product description describes a tea free from astringency--a sample from the thinner, looser edge of the cake probably isn't astringent at all. The other aspect I'm not as pumped about is the rather prominent smoky flavor that is surprisingly still present in the leaves. It took me a few sessions to put my finger on it, especially because I had already convinced myself that no tea this old could possibly still taste smoky, but it's there.

It might well be that I really have convinced myself--for me, a tea this old and this expensive really should taste more mature. With aged pu-erh, it's not as easily possible as it is with brand new pu-erh to buy cakes and cakes, willy-nilly--if I'm going to pay for a whole cake of old pu-erh, which is never a cost to scoff at (even if it's a good value), I want it to taste old, even if it's flawed. This cake is complex with a great hui gan in the aftertaste, and its considerable aging progress is undeniable, but it also tastes like it still needs more aging before it's really a pleasure to drink as an old cake. For this price, a "project" cake isn't worth it to me, even if it's a good one. Mostly, this is because I'm still unsure as to the quality of climate where I live in terms of pu-erh aging effectiveness. Since this cake appears to have aged slowly even in Taiwan, there's a small possibility it could never become truly "aged" in the traditional way in my climate. Hypothetical bummer. If I collected tea in Taiwan, this tea's price might make more sense to me--I could hold on to it for a few more years and have a fantastic cake. But part of me still wants to say, "Come on, how long should it really take for a pu-erh to reach reasonable maturity?" Xiaguan knows 100% more than I do about actually creating pu-erh tea, but to me this level of compression seems unhelpful. Who knows, though, it could be the cake's past storage as well. Safe to say it's time for me to bow my head and quit pretending like I know anything about the "why" of pu-erh production and aging. All I've got a handle on is my senses, and they've decided that, as an old pu-erh drinking experience, this cake is not as good of a value as a number of other teas offered on the site, like the blended bricks, the Xiaguan tuocha, and the loose Wang Zi pu-erhs. Alternately, if you're looking for a "project" tea that's going to need a few more years, the Grand Yellow Label cake, the 8582, and the early 2000's cakes generally offer lower prices.

Anyone else try this tea? I'd be interested in reading someone else's opinion, especially since it took me so many sessions to really form mine. Thanks to Nada, as always, for offering these teas--even if you don't fall in love with a tea, it's always a valuable experience to try them.

Tea A/C

2009-07-28T09:37:00.000-07:00

You know you're a tea lover when it's 90º in your upstairs apartment and you're still drinking tea! Seattle is about as hot as it ever gets right now, and it's amazing what 20º more will do to keeping your tea hot for much longer. I often find myself tapping my fingers waiting for it to cool down enough to be drinkable, but this little trick helps a lot. Setting the cup next to an open window allows the incoming breeze to cool off the tea much more quickly. It's still blowing hot air, but it's better than sitting inside my pressure-cooked house. The alternative is sitting outside, which I'll have to try soon. It's just a matter of extension cords for the hotplate. If not for the caffeine, I'd be chugging tea at 9 pm, when it's actually very nice and comfy outside.

I've been very lax about posting for a while; lots to do, and I've also been earning some extra dough for a couple of tea-related purchases. More on those soon, hopefully. I hope everybody's enjoying tasty spring teas despite the heat.

Si Ting Zhuni Yixing (Hey tea guy!)

2009-05-17T21:02:00.000-07:00

As I was going for a run earlier today and crossed the main street of the neighborhood's "downtown" area, some guy inside a shop yelled out the open door "Hey tea guy!" I flashed him the "rock on" sign and kept running. It doesn't get much better than that.

The results are in, and the people want yixing (thankfully, since the longjing hasn't arrived yet). Since Tuo Cha Tea mentioned the titular pot for this blog, I'll start there. Fill your teapot up with tea/come and take a ride with me!

This pot has got to be my #1 favorite, if I had to pick one, aesthetically as well as functionally. I acquired it from Hou De last August, started using it for Yen Cha and other roasted oolongs ever since. Here are some quick stats--Age: "60's or early." Clay: Zhuni. Capacity: 85 ml. I'm not planning to talk about prices with these pot profiles; I don't think it's really necessary, as you can compare prices of other pots on the websites where the pot came from; plus it's about finding the perfect pot, not how much the perfect pot costs. I have no idea how to guess or verify the age of a pot, but since this APPEARS to be genuine zhuni, it would have to be several decades old. I've also got no way of verifying the clay type either, but compared to modern zhuni pots I've had, the surface texture is definitely naturally glossier, more complex-looking, and there's evidence of shrinkage both on the surface of the clay and around the hand working lines (visible in many of these pics). In the end, whether or not it's some sort of "true" zhuni isn't really that important to me; the piece satisfies me on so many levels that it's a joy to be able to use it every day. Comparing the below pic to the others you can see how different the clay looks in different types of light; this seems accentuated with zhuni pots, but it's definitely true of most yixing I've seen (thankfully the day I took all of these pics provided good light and my camera actually held up its end of the bargain).

Why do I like this pot so much? Let me count the ways... The size is perfect for solo drinking; the entire pot fits into the celadon tea cup I usually use, and the small size means I can pack it with Yen Cha without using too much leaf or getting too buzzed. Despite the single hole, the pot rarely ever seems to clog, which is more than I can say for many pots I've had. The clay is extremely dense, retaining heat for a ridiculous amount of time and giving a very high-pitch ring if tapped. The pour is perfectly dripless, really fast and creates a graceful arc. The handle is tiny but fits my hand very well. The above picture shows that the shui pin line appears pretty solid and also that the inside of the pot is becoming well-seasoned from all the dark oolong it's been fed. Most of my non-zhuni pots are more recent additions, so I'm interested to see how the seasoning process works on more porous pots, but so far that visibly stained part of the lid has seasoned the fastest. I'm not sure why, but that's the part that always seems to build up the fastest. You can't really see in any of the other pictures, but the inside of the lid is starting to get a nice patina, and on the pictures where the inside of the pot is visible you can see the inside of the pot is beginning to darken as well. If you click on the large picture you can see that the inner burnishing has an interesting "combed" looking texture.

Another reason that this pot functions extremely well is because the hole in the knob is pretty large. With many pots that I have with smaller holes, the hole tends to become blocked with steam water. This, of course, prevents the hole from allowing the tea water to displace the air up inside the lid's dome when the lid is placed on the full pot, so if you put the lid on when the hole is blocked, it shoves a lid-sized amount of tea out of the pot. This pot almost never does that, so I don't have to spend much time blowing the water out of the hole. You can also see in the above pic that some patina is developing on the crook of the spout. Anywhere that tea water can come to rest on a pot seems to build patina faster.

A couple more things before I put this one to bed. Interestingly, there isn't a bottom seal on this pot, just the one right below the handle. A Taiwanese friend expressed surprise that I use this pot for Yen Cha (instead of...High Mt. Oolong, I guess). I'm a little suspicious of any claims that zhuni only works with certain teas. Before I bought a few more pots, I used to use this one for a lot of different teas (Dancong, aged and un-aged sheng pu-erh), and it always performed well, giving a clear representation of the tea without any foreign flavors. The shape might be a little confining for pellet oolong, and now that it's more seasoned the roasting element might not be great for green oolong, but I think the clay type has potential to be used with any tea type. I also compared the same tea in this pot and a few other pots (including a Duan ni pot, which is supposed to be ideal for roasted tea) and I actually liked it better out of this pot. You can laugh at me all you want; I'll be enjoying some delicious Yen Cha. Don't let anyone convince you of something without confirming it with your own senses! This pot has been so good to me; at the time I hadn't owned many high-quality or collectible yixing pots, so I didn't know how great of a find it was, aesthetically and functionally. Since, I've had plenty of pots educate me on the possible deficiencies in yixing potmaking to the point where I'd probably pay much more for this pot if I had to buy it again; it's that worth it. I recently did a very bad thing (after taking these pics; no leaves on the trees in these) and dropped the lid. The bottom rim suffered an extremely minute chip. It bothered me more than I wanted it to and I cursed myself for damaging such a vibrant piece of irreplaceable functional art for over a week, but I eventually got over it. I hope to be able to use this pot in good condition for years to come, so I'd better be more careful.
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Post-script! I've heard a lot of bloggers badmouth "internet pots" and claim that "you just can't get a good pot on the internet," and I just have to vehemently disagree. I've bought pots in person and online, and the online pots have been much much better. Thing is, you have to have a trustworthy vendor. Of course, the 4000Friends $7 eBay pots are going to be terrible, but you could guess that easily. There are a few really great vendors online who sell authentic and high-quality pots and do a great job representing them. Yes, Guang and Irene at Hou De do sometimes have to charge a bit to make margin on their pots, but they really know their stuff and if they say a pot has a perfect pour with no drips, they're not lying. Of all the vendors I've bought pots from, Hou De offers the most consistently brilliant pots, sacrificing very little in the way of ideal characteristics. That's one reason I wanted to write about some of my yixing; to identify which vendors are great sources and why. I also want to share my experiences and especially my mistakes so hopefully others can avoid them or have a better idea of what to look for when buying a pot online or in person. If anyone out there has pictures or blog posts about their yixing, please do share! I always love seeing other pots, especially well-loved ones.

Aged Jing Zhu Dancong from Hou De

2009-05-14T15:03:00.000-07:00

Please forgive my absence from regular posting! I've got a number of projects going on and don't always have tons of time to share my tea experiences and grumblings. Strangely, it seems like the rest of the tea blog world is in a similar state lately. The only problem is, whenever I gear up to post something, I always end up rambling more than I expect and it takes over an hour. Hopefully my extremely modestly-sized readership will forgive me! Here are some "concise" notes regarding an aged Dancong from Hou De Asian Art.

Hou De is one of my very favorite online vendors for a few reasons. Guang and Irene are about the nicest couple of customer-servers you can hope to come across (although, now that I think of it, the online tea vendor community is full of really attentive and friendly customer service). They'll always have a special place in my heart for introducing me to the true variety and potential quality of sheng pu-erh that is out there, and also to high quality yixing tea pots. They are a mom-and-pop operation, so you can expect to pay a little more (especially with yixing and aged pu-erh), but they've also got good taste and an understanding of multiple tea genres. That means they're not only a good go-to for Taiwanese oolongs, but also for pu-erh and yen cha. On the whole, I haven't been blown away by their Dancong oolongs, especially compared with those sold by Jing Tea Shop, but every once in a while I'll try something if it looks interesting.

Interesting is the first word that comes to mind for this 90's "Jing Zhu" (translated by Hou De as "Golden Pearl") oolong. It's aged well over 10 years, and processed with help from Anxi oolong producers--pellet-rolled in Anxi style, rather than stripe-rolled like tradtional Dancong. Supposedly the Feng Huang producers thought help from Anxi's tea masters might help them reach a similar level of success. Clearly the idea didn't pan out--when was the last time you saw a Dancong like this? Likewise, Feng Huang remains the darkhorse of Chinese oolongs; lesser-known, and underappreciated for the often bland quality that makes it outside of China. I held off buying this tea for quite a while, since I wasn't as impressed with the other Dancongs on Hou De, but with such a great story and good description, I eventually took the plunge.

A couple things to note before talking about flavor: The pearls are actually quite small. Hou De's picture makes it easy to think that they might be the size of Tieguanyin leaves, but in fact they're more like regular Milan Dancong leaves rolled into pellets. Secondly, the pellets have a really attractive sheen, which I don't think came through as well on the Hou De pictures. I'm glad I took the leaves outside to photograph, because I hadn't noticed during earlier sessions.

I brewed this tea like I usually do with aged oolongs, and similarly to how I brew yen cha: about a quarter of the pot full (more than if it were a new rolled oolong), a 15-20 second first infusion, dropping down to flash infusions for the next several gos. I find that if you don't use enough leaves for aged oolong, the flavor is thin and wears out very quickly, but a few extra leaves fix the problem easily. This Dancong is one fruity mother. The wet leaves smell just like raisins to me, and the cha hai's aroma reflects this in a somewhat more muted way. The flavor is really similar, but with a slightly woody edge. There's an active bitterness that comes up front when I sip, then disappears with a wave of fruity flavor, remaining only as a tart note. Not bad, but the tea doesn't develop a whole lot across the brews, and the astringency gets pretty heavy, man. It's also worth noting that the leaves spring open much more readily than good traditional Dancong--because of the rolling, aging, or both? I don't know, go ask Mr. Owl.

I didn't have a chance to try them side by side, but this tea reminds me a whole lot of my memories of the other 90's Aged Dancong sold by Hou De, which is more traditional-looking. Fruity, strong, astringent, and not very dynamic. It took me at least 6 months to get through 2 oz of that tea, so I can't see myself pounding through this one too fast without reminding myself to drink it. Thing is, both of these teas remind me of unaged traditional (Milan-ish) Dancong too much to justify spending $24.50 for 2 oz, when I can just get 100g of Jing Tea Shop's Milan for $32 and have a comparable if not superior experience. What's really going on is this: I have yet to taste an aged oolong that made me say "Wow, oolong should really be aged!" Off the top of my head I've tried 2 Dancong, a Baozhong, a couple Taiwanese Tieguanyins, a few Dong-Dings, and a couple Yen Cha, and none of them tasted significantly different enough from their un-aged counterparts to justify storing them for over 10 years or especially for paying considerably more for them. The only exception I can think of is setting aside Yen Cha for a year or two to let the roasting quality diminish, but this seems different from long-term aging bent on some sort of transformation. I think the rising popularity of pu-erh has played a large part in the promotion of aged oolong--"If aged pu-erh is good, aged oolong must be good too!"--but so far I'm not convinced. I'm always open to having my mind changed/blown by a fantastic aged oolong, but each one I try that underwhelms me is unfortunately another reason to buy them only occasionally.

I'll be back, maybe not too soon, but I've got a few potential things coming up: 5 different snazzy Dragonwell samples (holy shit!), a few oolongs and pu-erhs, and a bunch of pictures I took of some yixing. I've been meaning to post profiles of some of my teapots in order to muse about clay types, pot shapes, functionality aspects, and the experience of buying teapots online (plus I love seeing other people's teapots in their blogs). If any of these ideas sound interesting, drop a comment and I'll try to cook something up faster than otherwise. I hope you're enjoying some fresh 2009 tea; it's that time!

Zero

Spring Chinese Greens

2009-04-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why, but Chinese green tea seems to get very short shrift in the burgeoning online tea blogging community. I suppose it could be because it's not quite as connoisseur-oriented as pu-erh or oolong, but I feel like it's a bit unjustly neglected.

A Chinese green tea called Bi Luo Chun was the first tea that truly amazed me, after drinking tons of tea bags and a whole lot of loose Moroccan Mint, Gunpowder and Strawberry Sencha (yeah, I know). After discovering the potential quality of Chinese greens, I went wild and pursued them to the fullest extent I could, moving from one online retailer to another until coming to understand which ones were really offering top-quality tea and which were selling two-years-ago's leftovers. My interest peaked in 2007 in a rather interesting way, right after I had just discovered Teaspring, the first really great green tea source I had found. My plan was to stock up on green tea in May, right when it was all fresh, and not have to buy any for the rest of the year! What I didn't predict was that my interests might shift and I might not be interested in, say, 300g of different Long Jings by the time several months had passed. By mid-winter I was getting much more interested in oolongs and pu-erhs, and drinking my massive supply of Chinese greens was becoming a duty rather than a pleasure. Spring 2008 was an improvement, but I still bought too much--you can really only drink so much tea in a day, and most of the time I find myself drinking oolong or pu-erh if I'm only going to have one tea session.

So, this spring I'm implementing a new plan that will help me enjoy Chinese greens without over-stocking and feeling obligated to drink them. The most I'm getting is 25g of each tea, I drink green tea about once a day, often in a small 90ml gaiwan, and I drink one type of tea until it's gone. This way I don't have too much tea to get through, and I can enjoy the tea when it's freshest--even if it stays sealed, Chinese green tea seems to have that fresh, springy edge that only lasts for a couple months and disappears later. By making Chinese green tea a seasonal delicacy (as maybe it should be due to its nature), I'll be able to look forward to it every spring while drinking other teas that last the year round a bit better.

So far, so good! I started last week with this Zhu Ye Qing, or Green Bamboo Shoot, from Teaspring. Though I've outgrown some tea vendors after learning a bit more about tea, Teaspring is still one of my solid go-to vendors, especially for green tea. When it comes to oolong and pu-erh, they're a little so-so, though you can sometimes get a good deal on a decent tea. Not all of their green tea is amazing, but prices are reasonable, they've got a couple of simply awesome teas that nobody else has, and they offer plenty of info, clearly marked harvest dates, and they ship fairly quickly and very cheaply directly from China. Usually I hyperlink to the product page, but I can't seem to find Zhu Ye Qing on their page--they might be out of stock, hmm. This tea was really tasty--it definitely fit on the vegetal, legume side of the green tea spectrum (as opposed to nutty like Liu An Gua Pian or rich like Dong Ting Bi Luo Chun). Vibrant green spears plump up to fat pointy buds as they absorb water, and the liquor yields an edgy, sweet, and snap pea-like flavor that peaks around 2 or 3 infusions, then remains pleasant if more astringent for several more. Green tea may not evolve as much as oolong or pu-erh, but I'll be damned if it isn't really fun to drink. Lately I've managed to hit the sweet spot between not enough flavor and just a tad overbrewed--a wee bitterness that disappears after swallowing brings out a really pointed flavor that I like the best. Since I'm used to brewing Yen Cha and other oolongs, it's hard not to use too many leaves, though. It's tough to tell from the photo, but the infused leaves are an even brighter green than the dry ones--one of the delights of really fresh green tea.

This week's tea was Meng Ding Gan Lu. This was (I think) the first tea harvested in 2008, and one of the first this year. This one resembles Bi Luo Chun more, with twisted, downy buds, which are incredibly tiny--even when they unfurl. The flavor is still very fresh and vegetal, with a darker, nuttier aspect, but not quite as vibrant or interesting as the Zhu Ye Qing from last week. Luckily I only have a bit left and it's on to a couple of my real favorites. Hopefully I'll have enough time to blog about them soon!

2008 Jing Gu Factory Run Ling 8545 Pu-erh

2009-04-07T22:27:00.000-07:00

Finally! Spring has arrived and the clouds have retreated for a few days. This means I've got a chance to take a few photos of the lovely spring blossoms, and it also makes for better tea photos!

To punctuate the crisp and vibrant change in season, a generous sample of 2008 sheng from Seven Cups. I've been eying their sheng pu-erh selection for a while--there are some interesting-looking cakes from some factories I've never heard of, which is intriguing. It's tough to get hopes up too high, though, considering the recent pu-erh boom and proliferation of mediocre pu-erh producers that have sprung up. According to the Seven Cups blog, though, Jing Gu Factory used to represent a standard of quality, and has recently been reopened. Let's see if the claim "the tea is great and the prices are really reasonable" holds up.

The cake is 2008's Jing Gu Run Ling 8545. Don't know what "Run Ling" means, but it sounds like this is a recipe that dates to 1985, so long as Jing Gu is adhering to the standard blend recipe notation. The leaves look really promising--some nice large, complete leaves are visible, and there are plenty of buds. No smokiness whatsoever comes off the dry (or wet) leaves, which is fine by me. I'm not opposed to smokiness in a young pu-erh, but would probably prefer that it wasn't there--it can take 10 years or more of Chinese or Taiwanese storage before the smoke disappears, and I can't imagine USA storage is going to beat that, plus it's more pleasant to drink a young pu-erh that doesn't taste like smoke.

Luckily, I had enough leaves to brew this pu-erh twice. The first session was intriguing but ultimately disappointing--a first steep revealed a dewy, light green and slightly bitter liquor with medium mouthfeel and some fresh-tasting sweetness. In a lot of ways, it at first reminded me of Xi-Zhi Hao's 2007 Autumn Nu Er Cha in its light, airy sweetness, if not nearly as complex. A couple more steeps brought on some more hay-like elements into the mix, but soon I felt like the tea was running out of gas. Adding more time only thinned out the liquor and brought on mouth-coating astringency. Though it's really nice to see that more factories are taking care with their processing and taking the smoke out of the equation, I expect a little more oomph out of a young sheng pu-erh if it's going to hold my interest. Today I brewed the tea again--this time, as Hobbes would say, I "showed it a strong hand," loading the pot with more leaves and giving slightly longer infusion times early on (10+ seconds, rather than roughly flash infusions). This definitely improved the experience--flavors were more vibrant, giving off a really dripping sweet freshness and a bitterness that easily sweetens without much of a wait. Unfurled leaves confirm that some care went into blending and processing this mao cha. For me, this is a tea of high notes that doesn't really pack the lower punch that makes a really balanced pu-erh, but I could see myself drinking it again. After the second session, it changed from a tea I was glad to have tried but wasn't interested in purchasing to one I may pick up a cake of to see how it progresses in a couple years.

Compared to the 2007 Xi-Zhi Hao 8582 I was drinking earlier today, it seems quite polite and reserved, and less complex as well. I don't yet have any firm knowledge about which tea makes a better candidate for aging--I like to think that perhaps both styles have their own merits, though these "drinkable now" pu-erhs seem to be a pretty recent development. Time will tell, of course. At$26.70 per cake, it's a much better price point than the aforementioned Nu Er Cha, so it might be worthwhile for the purposes of experimentation to see what happens to it.

2007 Light Roast Tie Luo Han from Seven Cups

2009-03-30T18:23:00.000-07:00

I recently purchased several "light roast" Wuyi yen cha from Seven Cups that I received along with the two Bai Ji Guan samples. Lightly roasted yen cha are rarer than medium and "traditional" roasted teas, and since Seven Cups features several light roast teas, I figured I had some learning to do with my first purchase. My previous experiences with such oolongs have been very good--generally the flavor leans a little more to subtlety but a little away from complexity, as the roasting doesn't compete quite as much with the tea's inherent flavor characteristics.

Tie Luo Han is one of the Si Da Ming Cong (4 famous yen cha cultivars) and the name is usually translated as "Iron Warrior Monk." Seven Cups translates it as "Iron Arhat." "Arhat" is usually used to describe leading disciples of a buddha (though the term also applies to the buddha as well)--when the buddha reaches enlightenment and attains nirvana, so too do the arhats through his teaching. Some scholars will Christocentrically explain that arhats are "the saints of buddhism," though this analogy (like most of its kind) is probably more misleading than it is helpful, though it is apt on a thin surface level. I've always liked to think of this tea as the male version of the famous Tie Guan Yin, which is an even less apt analogy for every reason except the similarity between the names. Back to the matter at hand, this Tie Luo Han turned out to be a real gem.

The dry leaves are thick, long and complete, which is what I love to see with yen cha--it means whoever sold it to me took really good care of it. The leaves' gray/green coloration only comes through slightly in the pictures (surprise, surprise; I think it's time to embrace my camera's many flaws and play off my grainy tea photos as a "lo fi" artistic statement). Since the tea's obviously pretty green, I use less leaf than I would with a roastier yen cha, filling the pot roughly half full. I also infuse for about 15 seconds to start with (rather than flash-infusing) to get the best flavor.

Mmm-boy, this one is a winner. The honey-colored liquor yields a delicious assortment of dried fruit flavors reminiscent of raisins and dates, as well as a dark cooked apple-like feeling (thanks to Authoritea for encouraging me to buy this tea sooner). The wet leaves echo this experience but add a savory grain-like aroma to the mix. In the fair cup, the aroma is achingly honeyed with a wee bit of spice; I think the very successful light roasting for this tea really brought out a different character. Usually Tie Luo Han gets heavy traditional roasting, which can have its merits, but with this much underlying tea flavor, it's nice not to have the competition of a strong roast obscuring the tea show. With the second and third infusions, the liquor becomes dense and buttery, which is the aspect of these light roasted oolongs that keeps me coming back over and over again. The tea goes about 7 or 8 infusions before thinning to the point of simplicity, though I'd probably find at least a little enjoyment out of 10+ infusions. The mouthfeel was pretty pleasant for most of the session, with an acceptable astringency peaking around the third go.

The wet leaves behave interestingly--some remain tightly twisted, some pop open completely, and some remain in limbo between both extremes. It's also easy to see that the oxidation doesn't seem to be too heavy, just sort of creeping into the edges of the bruised leaves. I don't feel like I'm any closer to understanding what the archetypal Tie Luo Han tastes like (I most certainly could not pick a Tie Luo Han blind out of a line-up, or probably even say what makes three different Tie Luo Han teas similar to each other), but I can say that I found this specific one extremely pleasant to drink. Despite the fact that it's light-roast and 2 years old, it's still holding up better than the 2007 Bai Ji Guan I tasted from Seven Cups--and it's on sale! I may have to get some more.

NadaCha's 90's Sheng Tuo Cha

2009-03-28T18:18:00.000-07:00

Here I sit, slap happy, drinking pu-erh underneath the acnalbasac noom. I've had this tuo cha for over a month, prying off a chunk whenever I feel the urge for a relaxing and mellow aged pu-erh session. At £12 or about $18 for a 100g tuo, it also means I have the liberty of enjoying the session without feeling like I have to make a special event out of it, like I usually do with more expensive aged pu-erhs I try. This has to be the best internet deal I've yet seen for aged sheng pu-erh.

The tuo is standard size--not one of those gargantuan 250g babies. It's also unwrapped, which I'm sure affects the price in a serious way. Nada says the size probably contributed to the tea's very aged nature--as the above picture shows, the leaves are quite visibly frosted (there were a couple human hairs pressed in my tuo!), the liquor is dark red with an attractive mist that lingers on the top, and there's no astringency and very little in the way of bitterness. Also notable is the size of some of the leaves--some are around an inch long, which is pretty large for a tuo cha.

When brewing this tea I like to break off a nice shell-shaped piece from the outer edge--I'm not overly picky about having the leaves seperate in the pot--the water can do the rest of that work, and I'd rather have the leaves in tact. After giving the tea a nice rinse for that purpose, the leaves come alive with aroma. Though they've been wet-stored, they don't smell quite as wet to me as a couple of Nada's other teas. More, I smell the light, sweet woody aroma that informs me this tea is aged sheng, not shu (sort of; I'll get to that later). It's certainly true that this tea's storage seems to have reduced the leaves' potency a bit--the first few infusions have a shy but pleasant sweetness, with the tea taste lingering in the background. What complexity there is must be sought out; this isn't the sort of flavor explosion found in Nada's more famous cakes like his 7542s and 8582s. Later, as the leaves open up, the flavor grows a bit stronger, bringing the notes of woodiness and mushrooms to full power, and the more humid storage aspects start to taper off. My fair cup smells extremely mellow and sweet, with little of that mustardy acridity (not necessarily a bad thing) from the other pu-erhs I've been trying lately. The storage aspects of the tea seem to linger most in my mouth after drinking, with an interesting cooling sensation arising in my mouth and throat. Nothing wrong with that, since I often drink aged pu-erh for relaxation.

The main reason I'm returning to this tea with a blog entry is because of a recent discussion about it on the Half-Dipper. A few of the participants conjectured that the tuo might be a blend of sheng and shu leaves. My experience with these blends is limited to two examples--an 80's and a 90's brick, both from NadaCha. After drinking I surprised myself by actually being able to easily differentiate between both types of leaves amongst the spent leaves of the pot. Here, though, I had a much tougher time--the only really dark colors visible in this pic seem to be stems, and it's tough to find any leaves with the type of texture that indicates they're shu. This, combined with the lighter nature of this tea's aroma and liquor, make me think that maybe it's not shu after all--plus, Nada has been pretty accurate about labeling the cakes he sells that are blends. Maybe I'll find some more convincing evidence one way or another in future sessions, but for now I'm just enjoying some guilt-free aged pu-erh whenever the mood strikes. Thanks, Nada!

Bai Ji Guan Trifecta

2009-03-23T17:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, so that's not what trifecta means, but it sounds cool, so sometimes I use it to describe three of something. Bai Ji Guan means white cockscomb, which is that thing on a rooster's head, and it's one of the Si Da Ming Cong, or the four famous Yen Cha cultivars (the others being Da Hong Pao, Shui Jin Gui, and Tie Luo Han). There are a few things that are almost always said when describing Bai Ji Guan, so I'll get them out of the way in attempts to avoid dwelling on the same old same old. The first is that the tea gets its name from a legend about a rooster that died protecting its chicks, or some such story, or that the tea is so named because its leaves actually resemble a rooster's crest. Tea naming legends don't really interest me very much, though the physical appearance of Bai Ji Guan's leaves is quite striking in comparison with other teas--they are generally a much paler yellow, are rather small and almost seem a little more translucent. The second thing that people always seem to mention when describing Bai Ji Guan is that it's the rarest of the Si Da Ming Cong. Seven Cups offers more information than most regarding why this is (the cultivar's touchiness to growing and climate conditions and the sensitive and limited harvest window), but most vendors are content to leave it at "rare." From personal experience, Bai Ji Guan is quite rare insofar as its availability to the West is concerned; few online sellers even offer a Bai Ji Guan, and if they do it's usually quite expensive. It's also pretty difficult to find more than the cursory information I've already mentioned and few bloggers have posted experiences about the tea.

Why the Bai Ji Guan obsession? Hou De used to sell a Bai Ji Guan from 2004; I encountered it near the beginning of my blossoming passion for yen cha (a little less than a year ago) and was blown away by its flavor--different from every other yen cha I've tried, with a vibrant fruity/floral acidity that floated lightly over the tea's obviously skillful roasting job. Well, Hou De eventually sold out of the tea and, though I've got a bit tucked away, I've been on a search for more of the same ever since. The catch is, though, I have yet to encounter another Bai Ji Guan that is even processed in the same manner, let alone as high-quality. In some ways, my Bai Ji Guan quest is the ultimate microcosm of my intentions with this blog--my quest to find more Bai Ji Guan has also been a quest to understand what exactly the characteristics of authentic Bai Ji Guan are, and how and where I can get more of the one that caught my taste buds. Unfortunately my attempts to prolong the magic have thus far been thwarted--of four other Bai Ji Guans I've tried, none have even come close to the style of Hou De's. I have, however, learned quite a bit about what seem to be the tea's hallmark characteristics. Here I'd like to humbly share what little I've learned from my attempts, in case you've heard of Bai Ji Guan but haven't wanted to shell out the big bucks to try it. Tasting notes for three examples follow.

The well-informed and generous staff at Seven Cups were kind enough to include samples of both their 2007 Bai Ji Guan and their 2008 Bai Ji Guan with a recent order. Before I launch into my notes and impressions, I'll say that the difference between Hou De's Bai Ji Guan and every single other one I've tried (including one from Teaspring) has been roasting--all the others have been comparatively extremely lightly roasted, which imparts a totally different flavor and aroma. As I inspected the greenish brown leaves of Seven Cups' 2007 tea, I immediately knew I wasn't going to find my elusive tea, but I eagerly anticipated a chance to try another piece of the puzzle. Please forgive the quality of the pictures--clouds make for dull natural light, so the colors aren't quite as vibrant as they appear to the naked eye, but flashes are so harsh. The leaves are complete but small (especially for yen cha). A common denominator I've noticed with all examples I've tried is that the dry leaves are two-toned--one dark and one lighter and yellowish. As you can see in both pictures, they're a delight to behold and I could personally spend hours inspecting the delightful intricacies of each leaf.

After a few experiences, I've learned to brew Bai Ji Guan differently from other yen cha. Usually I'll stuff the pot over half full with leaves and flash infuse the teas for the first four infusions, increasing by 10-15 seconds on each later infusion. This tea's lighter roasting changes the rules, though, and that much leaf just makes the tea too strong in an unpleasant way (unlike the strength of a heavier-roasted yen cha, which I find pleasant, if quite powerful). So, as I try to understand this tea's needs I've had better results with about a one third-full pot and a slightly longer first infusion (15 or so seconds), dropping down to 5ish for the next few, then climbing back up as taste determines. I wish I could go in-depth with this 2007 tea, but unfortunately the results were pretty disappointing. Brewed with my trusty yen cha setup (zhuni pot and celadon pitcher and cup), the aroma and flavor were familiar and immediately recognizable as kindred to the other light-roast Bai Ji Guans I've tried. It's got a totally unique oolong flavor, and there's really little to know noticeable relationship to your average yen cha. You might as well be drinking alien tea, but please don't ask me what alien tea tastes like (I am not at liberty to either confirm or disconfirm the existence of alien tea). There's a savory vegetal aroma that immediately emanates from the leaves, offering a light honeysuckle sweetness that is immediately accessible. In some ways this tea is reminiscent of green tea in aroma and flavor, but with an oolong's body, complexity and longevity. Sadly, my experience with Seven Cups' 2007 example didn't go so hot--the first infusion confirmed my expectations for the tea and gave me enough information to say "Yep, it's Bai Ji Guan," but the flavor seemed shy. Though this isn't uncommon in first infusions, the tea never really increased in potency as the session wore on--insipidity came on pretty quickly (around the 4th or 5th go) and a several minute infusion even failed to produce much flavor. I'm wholeheartedly open to the prospect that my preparation of the tea could be the cause for these results, but I've prepared similar examples (including Seven Cups 2008 tea) in the same fashion with completely different (and successful results). Depending on storage conditions, 2 years could be just a little too long for this lightly-roasted tea, and I respectfully submit that this tea might be past its "sell by" date, especially considering the fact that $38/25g raises customer expectations considerably. Despite the tea's diminished power, it's still fun to take a look at the cashed leaves--I've noticed that the leaves often display widely varying color and oxidation, ranging from dark green leaves to pale, almost yellow ones, and the oxidation is always beautiful and easy to spot. If only the tea were a bit fresher.

Happily, Seven Cups' 2008 Bai Ji Guan fared much better compared to the previous year's harvest. According to the web site, the tea received a slightly higher roasting to prevent any grassy taste from the weather conditions on the day of harvest. Though the leaves are pretty similar in appearance, you can tell the difference in comparison of both photos (as well as in the liquor, which is a few shades darker). Even more so, the aroma and flavor betray the roasting. The same sweet, flowery and honeyed notes are there, but are complemented by the bewitching darker, woodier roasting element that only caramelized the floral aspects of the lighter-roasted version. In the flavor, the roast takes on a really pleasant chocolate-like sweetness. Though I drink a lot of yen cha, I don't tend to liken their darker aspects to chocolate, but here the description seems pretty direct. Like other fresh Bai Ji Guans I've tried, this one goes on and on, taking shorter infusions at the beginning with gentle results and yeilding up thinning but minutely evolving flavor with longer later infusions. Despite the longer infusions, the tea's astringency is neither unpleasant nor powerful, which is a plus. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to photograph the spent leaves; though the first tea's flavor was weak, its caffeine apparently wasn't! By the time I finished both teas, I was levelled by caffeine and fled desperately in search of food and plain water. Needless to say, I was much more impressed with this example than the first, and I liked it enough to flirt with the idea of purchasing some, though I'll have to think it through a bit more, considering the price is similar to the 2007 tea.

Finally, we have Jing Tea Shop's 2008 Bai Ji Guan. Though this tea comes from 2008, its roasting seems to be lighter than Seven Cups'. Since I shelled out $78 for 100g of this tea, it is the Bai Ji Guan with which I've had the most experience. Unfortunately this included burning up a few pots' worth of tea with bad brewing parameters and mistakes. Expensive education! Thankfully, though, this experience allowed me a little more confidence in preparing my one-shot samples from Seven Cups. Though this tea didn't recapture my elusive Hou De lark, it is quite a pleasant tea to drink. Thick, syrupy liquor with plenty of flowery honey and an almost tingly mouthfeel. As pictured, the liquor resembles that of the first tea, though a bit darker because of the cup's depth (as Captain Beyond lurks above, awaiting play at the Stepping Stone's vinyl night). Like some others I've tried, it does seem to march on indefinitely above 10 infusions, which is certainly a plus. Usually I get worn out before the tea does! Astringency is again present, but in appropriate quantity and quality. The flavor of this tea is unique and pleasant, but as far as gong fu brewing goes, it's not especially dynamic, that is to say it doesn't make a whole lot of evolution flavor and aroma-wise throughout a session. So, at its premium price, I'm not sure I'll be rushing out to buy 100 more grams anytime soon, if I even go through my tea very quickly. Thankfully, Jing Tea Shop also offers 25g samples at a reasonably increased fraction of the 100g cost (reasonably priced samples of every tea is one of my favorite things about Jing Tea Shop, which is one of my go-to vendors for Chinese oolongs, greens, and sometimes pu-erh).

Overall, tasting these teas has been a very educational if not wholly satisfying pursuit. Though Bai Ji Guan is unique in flavor, I'm not sure the price is justified for my tastes. Today I actually dug out the remainder of the sample I purchased from Teaspring--if it compares favorably to Jing's (which in my memory it does) I might say that you should try Teaspring's instead of Jing's if you're curious, since it is considerably less expensive. Stay tuned for that update, if you're interested. I now feel like I've got a decent handle on what light-roast Bai Ji Guan is supposed to taste like. If (as according to Seven Cups) the tea is actually traditionally lightly-roasted, I suppose I can appreciate the tea's traditional processing, but I still yearn for the experience I've had with Hou De's 2004 Bai Ji Guan (I'll review a bit of my final stash in the future). The hunt continues.

1999 Menghai 7352 from Jing Tea Shop

2009-03-20T14:07:00.000-07:00

I...might've glid before...

More sheng pu-erh! This is a sample of Menghai's 7352 recipe purchased from Jing Tea Shop. It dates from 1999 and, according to its brief description, it's 'dry stored,' which could mean any number of things. Perhaps more informatively, it's been dry stored in Guangdong province, China, which we can assume means something different from 'it's been dry stored in Phoenix, Arizona,' probably in a good way. There's so much debate online about the proper storage of aging pu-erh, especially from a humidity perspective, that this tea is even more interesting to try from an academic perspective. Most of the aged pu-erh I've had the opportunity to try has been supplied via Taiwan, which comes with certain biases regarding ideal flavor, storage, which cakes achieve popularity amongst the booming afficionado market etc., so it's especially informative to receive a more diverse example. Considering the cupboard I've got full of pu-erh cakes, I'm already invested in this debate, so it's with bated breath that I try and learn just how dry and cool a storage environment can be without destroying a cake's chances of aging. I consider this cake a key piece of information in the spectrum of different storage styles and conditions.

The leaves of the sample are already well-separated, which doesn't really bother me (as long as they're not powdered), though I probably prefer larger chunks. They're still looking pretty young, but not excessively so--they're darkening and looking just a bit frosted. Rinsed in the pot, the aroma has that dusty sweetness that I have come to lovingly associate with the few delicious dry-stored aged pu-erhs I've had the privilege to enjoy. The leaf aroma also betrays a healthy remnant of smokiness. I'm happy that it appears to be diminishing, leading me to wonder how many more years until it's gone completely.

This tea is in a transitory phase between the young, raw characteristics I'm very familiar with, and the aged maturity that is less readily available in quantity. Somebody in one of the Art of Tea magazines said that teas of this maturity aren't fun to drink, but I have to disagree--if the aging characteristics were only very slight, I might concur, but here it's really straddling the line, which I find quite pleasant. I have to admit that I have found myself a bit bummed that some of my favorite characteristics found in young sheng have been nowhere to be found in some of the aged pu-erhs I've tried, and it's nice to taste that light, airy quality that makes the tea very active in the mouth. The first couple of infusions are healthily bitter, but the bitterness recedes and partially sweetens in the aftertaste. The liquor's color surely shows the aging progress, and that mist on top of the cup is always fun to take in. The smoke is quite subdued in the flavor, and what's more prominent is a mushroomy, sweet wood flavor that sweetens more with air and as the tea cools. Astringency is still potent, though pleasant--could be my proclivity for yen cha, but I don't mind a bit of saliva when I'm drinking tea (as long as it's my own). The aroma in my tea pitcher is definitely less engaging than the last tea I tasted, leaning toward the smoky and sharp side, kind of an emphasis on that mustardy smell I mentioned in the last notes. Interestingly enough, the final, long and mellowing infusions are where this tea's aged qualities become most pronounced and a thicker musty sweetness becomes the dominant flavor. I don't know anything about this blend (it seems not to be one of the very top blends from Menghai) but this tea drinking experience is on a really promising track.

If the aging of this tea continues the way it has, I could see it being really dynamite in another 10 years--no more smoke, no astringency, and no bitterness, and it would be just like that delicious 80's 7542 ching bing that Hou De used to have samples of. From a personal perspective, since this tea has very definite aging progress and very definite room to complete its maturity, I should be able to monitor its progress (or lack thereof) fairly accurately as I try to determine firsthand whether or not pu-erh can actually be aged in the Pacific Northwest's climate, or if I should stop buying young pu-erh. Let the hand-wringing continue.

1993 Menghai 7542

2009-03-19T11:28:00.000-07:00

I've found myself in a pu-erh mood this week for a number of reasons--I got a selection of samples from NadaCha, I finally found a good pu-erh pot through Life of Tea, Hobbes has been posting about pu-erhs that I've tried, and it just sounds good. All signs point to a pu-erh review.

In some senses, the very idea of me reviewing an aged pu-erh is a bit absurd, considering how few examples I've experienced and even how little experience I have with contemporary productions of the same famous blended cakes. With me, it's always a learning process, though, and this is more of a personal journal than a critical forum. I can say with great enthusiasm that Nada's generous mission has multiplied my aged pu-erh drinking experience several-fold. If only there were just a few more vendors online attempting to sell quality and aged pu-erh at reasonable prices, the online pu-erh community might have a little more actual experience to go from, rather than blindly and hopefully accepting the oft-perpetuated 'facts' about this most mysterious and complex of teas. Enough meta-commentary, let's get to the tea.

Nada's shop notes for this tea are brief but tantalizing nonetheless. Since you don't have to know a whole lot about pu-erh to have heard about the famous 7542, I was very excited to add to my smidge of experience with this tea (a beautifully dry-stored sample of an 80's cake from Hou De, all of which is now sold out). The well-separated and treated leaves of my sample don't reveal a whole lot when dry; a bit of a frosting on the leaves does indicate they've received plenty of humidity. Nada is certainly not afraid of wetter-stored teas, which certainly broadens the list of options. For the most part, I'm lousy at pointing out specific other things that a tea tastes like, so I'll try and focus on some other descriptive aspects to convey my experience with this tea.

This tea's aroma is worth the price alone. When I say aroma, I mean a combination of 3 things: The tea's liquor in the cup, the hot/wet leaves in the pot, and the fair cup after pouring. Some teas put off completely different aromas in all three, and this is one of them. The cup aroma seemed to most closely resemble the flavor, starting off bold with an almost acrid edge (maybe not the best word choice, because I still found it pleasant). This was the most "basementy" showing the aroma gave me. The leaves were delightful to smell for about 4 infusions, alternating between a strong storage smell and a woody, chocolatey, rainy aroma until mellowing into a rather plain pu-erh aroma. The fair cup was another story again. I don't really enjoy aroma cups quite as much--a lot of trouble to use and clean, and I can never really get the aroma as well as I can burying my face inside the fair cup. If I hit it at the right time (not immediately after pouring, but before the pitcher's heat had evaporated nearly all of the tea residue), the fair cup aroma alternated between dark and light smells with some incredible results. On maybe the 7th infusion (I don't really count, sorry!) I impressed myself by taking a whiff and saying "Mustard! That's what that smells like!" But really the aroma tread a wide path across many varying sensations.

Flavor-wise, this tea certainly satisfied me. Though not as complex as the aroma, the flavor began with a gently pressing and very slight bitterness (maybe I oversteeped by a few seconds) that eased off after a couple steeps. Nada seems to have a flair for choosing more affordable teas that were clearly stored with plenty of humidity yet aren't overpowered by that characteristic. Though I've been most blown-away by the dry-stored aged teas I've tasted, I can see where Nada is coming from in many ways. I found the tea's flavor changed markedly depending on how much air I took while slurping, which is another good sign for complexity. Dark and light alternation probably best sums up my overall experience.

One last thing I noticed was a light astringency. Strange, though, because it was different from your average unaged sheng astringency--primarily in the mouth, and only lingering temporarily. Something that would go away with a few more decades of aging, or par for the course with aged pu-erh? Hmm. Maybe someone out there with more experience could enlighten me.

This tea was very fun to drink; I could see myself demolishing an entire bing in just a few months trying to understand all of its complexity. As it stands, I've got a small sample to keep tantalizing me as to its potential.

Jing Tea Shop's Xing Ren Dancong Oolong - Winter 2007

2009-03-04T08:42:00.000-08:00

I'd have liked to kick this blog off with something exceedingly special, but instead it's just what I spent my morning drinking--what could be better? This is the 2007 winter harvest of Jing Tea Shop's Xing Ren Dancong oolong.

Most of the Dancong that can be found online and in the flesh here in the US are generally of underwhelming quality (not to mention boring in their lack of diversity)--usually they seem to be of the medium-roast, "Milan" variety, though they'll often be called simply "Dancong." With crap quality being the norm, it's no wonder Dancong as an oolong genre is not well-known in the West, let alone in other places. I have to admit I first fell in love with Jing's Dancongs because of the pictures. Just look at those huge, multicolored leaves--it's like a much more interesting-looking Baozhong! With only a tiny bit of research, it turns out that Dancong seems to be one of the most diverse oolong categories out there--the number of cultivars is about as huge as with Wuyi Yen Cha, and the flavor variety is even larger! This particular Dancong (whoops, didn't take any leaf pics this time) is on the lighter oxidation side, with only a light roasting. The unfurled leaves are generally pretty yellowish-green, with maybe a few brown oxidation blotches.

Robbie Basho's "The Falconer's Arm" seems to be the perfect music this morning. Cascading, ecstatic 12-string guitar really adds to a thoughtful mood. I brewed this one in a teapot I purchased at Jing--I'll put up a teapot profile later, but it's called "Yu Ru Hu" and it's made of modern Zhuni. It was my first pot purchase at Jing, and I'd say it was a pretty worthy investment; at the very least it's brewing delicious Dancong whenever I want it! The lovely tea mat was made for my by my aunt. Celadon cup and pitcher came from Hou De; they're solid and retain heat very well. Though I haven't gone as celadon-crazy as Bret from Tea Goober, I've certainly bought a few. It's rare to find hand-made pottery of this quality for such a nice price, and the size and functionality of the pieces I've purchased have been really ideal for my everyday needs, which is the most important part for me.

Anyway, if you haven't tried one of these lighter-oxidation and roasting Dancongs, it's definitely worth at least a sample; they're unique as far as I can tell. The first couple infusions give off a room-filling fruity/floral aroma. Compared to Jing's Ba Xian, which was my other favorite, this one has a slightly savory edge to supplement the tropical amalgam of fruit and flowers--maybe that's why this Dancong's name means "almond seed." I'm not sure if it reminds me of almonds in the least, but the added "foody" dimension makes this one the winner of Jing's greener Dancongs, as far as I'm concerned. One other interesting facet of these teas is the leaf aroma. Sniffing the pot at the beginning is a dizzying, intoxicating experience that combines notes of the tea's flavors with an unrelated, juicy smell that persists even after the tea leaves have cashed out on flavor. As the infusions wear on, the leaf aroma gradually loses its complexity until it's just this fruity base.

The other thing I'll note is that this tea actually has a nice, thick syrupy body (check out its light golden color in the pic above), though the astringency seems to come on after the third infusion or so. This confuses me a bit--I usually associate astringency with heavy firing--like with a Dong-Ding or Yen Cha, but this tea is only lightly roasted...I guess there are some other factors at work, though, since green tea racks up some pretty righteous astringency after several infusions too. Maybe it's because the tea is almost a year old? Despite the astringency, this tea will soldier on through 10+ infusions really easily--I always feel good about teas that can last forever. Combined with the price (under $30 for 100g) it's a pretty good value as well, compared with some of the jaw-droppingly expensive premium Dancongs available out there. This winter's harvest is still pretty fresh--this tea is listed as AA grade, while the Ba Xian and Yu Lan are AAA. I'm not sure what exactly separates the grades--leaf uniformity? Leaf size? Regardless, this one's my favorite from a flavor perspective. As usual with Jing, the tea made it all the way from China without experiencing much damage--lots of whole, big leaves. Makes me wonder why a lot of the Yen Cha I get from the US has to be so beat up and fragmented. I bought a bit too much of these Dancongs (100g each of this and the Ba Xian) for my rate of consumption, but I've promised myself not to buy this season's until I've finished off the older stuff, which is still holding up quite nicely. It's tough!

Zero