What Oolong Are You Drinking

[debunix]

Phoenix Village Light Roast Shui Xian from Yunnan Sourcing, a 2014 harvest that has been sitting in my tea trunk a long time. This is not a green oolong by any means; the dry leaves are light brown, not remotely green, and wetted they're still brown. Bu here are delicate floral notes with a deep fruitiness--peachy like a Bai Mu Dan--and a resemblance to a Dan Cong but mellower. Quite nice--not remotely a rival to the fine Dan Congs from Tea Habitat, but I've tried this one a time or two before and not gotten to this pleasant place. I accidentally started this at a lower temp because I forgot to brew it as soon as the kettle was ready.....maybe that was the key.

[debunix]

Yesterday, the Lala Shan Hong Shui from Floating Leaves grandpa style, enjoyed from a Tony Ferguson shino chawan. Watching the beautiful leaves unfurl, while enjoying several infusions of lovely tea, adds to the pleasure of the session. These photos cover 40 minutes and 3 infusions of fruity, plummy, floral, tea, with enough earthy notes to keep it properly grounded. Lovely.

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The fully opened leaves are rich green with red edges, and large and lovely.

[DCrunner]

Woah nice teapot

Enjoying ttc's High-Mountain Charcoal Pit-Fired Oolong Tea, Lot 902. Qing xin from 1200 m in baguashan. Harvested April 2019 and roasted February 2020.

Tightly rolled, it unfurls gradually, with very mellow and nutty early rinses. 3 rinses in, the gao shan flavor attributes become more and more obvious. And this is a very buttery gao shan!

Prepared in peter kuo's teapot

[LeoFox]

Long, 10 steep session with tea master's
2019 Spring Qingxin Oolong Da Yu Ling 92K

The taste reminded me of clean, chicken consomme mixed with some light minty herbs all integrated with subtle tropical fruit sweetness. 2nd and third infusions were thick and oily. Later infusions were buttery and sweet. The aftertaste was very long lasting.

The strong umami was surprising. I wonder if this is a sign of high fertilizer use.

[Bok]

Long, 10 steep session with tea master's
2019 Spring Qingxin Oolong Da Yu Ling 92K

The taste reminded me of clean, chicken consomme mixed with some light minty herbs all integrated with subtle tropical fruit sweetness. 2nd and third infusions were thick and oily. Later infusions were buttery and sweet. The aftertaste was very long lasting.

The strong umami was surprising. I wonder if this is a sign of high fertilizer use.

Possibly. Organic and less fertilised teas do seem light to the uninitiated next to these kind of teas.

[LeoFox]

Long, 10 steep session with tea master's
2019 Spring Qingxin Oolong Da Yu Ling 92K

The taste reminded me of clean, chicken consomme mixed with some light minty herbs all integrated with subtle tropical fruit sweetness. 2nd and third infusions were thick and oily. Later infusions were buttery and sweet. The aftertaste was very long lasting.

The strong umami was surprising. I wonder if this is a sign of high fertilizer use.

Possibly. Organic and less fertilised teas do seem light to the uninitiated next to these kind of teas.

Could also be the magic of the kobiwako.

[Bok]

Could also be the magic of the kobiwako.

Very good point!

[Balthazar]

By no means an expert, but from what I understand: More nitrogen absorbed = more amino acids = more umami taste (generally speaking). Here's a semi-related Hojo article.

[LeoFox]

By no means an expert, but from what I understand: More nitrogen absorbed = more amino acids = more umami taste (generally speaking). Here's a semi-related Hojo article.

It seems that use of fertilizer scales with amino acid content, including theanine. However, over fertilizer use becomes toxic to the teaplant and can over acidify the soil. Timing of fertilizer application also appears to be very important. It ultimately boils down to an optimization game as long as high theanine content is considered a critical quality attribute with no upper limit

Not the best reference, but this is an interesting experiment:

Suitable Level of Nitrogen Fertilizer for Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) Plants in Relation to Growth, Photosynthesis, Nitrogen Uptake and Accumulation of Free Amino Acids.

June 1997Japanese Journal of Crop Science 66(2):279-287


From the abstract:

The physiological responses of pot-grown tea plants to various levels of nitrogen fertilizer were investigated to determine the suitable level of nitrogen for tea plants. Defining an arbitrary unit of nitrogen application as 1 N plot (200 mgN pot -1 year -1, corresponding to 10 kgN 10a -1 year -1), experimental plots from 0 to 27 N were prepared using ammonium sulphate. The plants exhibited symptoms of nitrogen deficiency below 3 N plots. High photosynthetic activity and favorable growth were observed from 6 to 12 N plots. Tip-burn of mature leaves and inhibition of photosynthesis were first detected at the level of 15 N plot. At the level of more than 18 N plots, the falling of mature leaves, depression of root respiration and death of some plants occurred. Based on these results, the critical level for growth and yield was determined to be 6 N plot. Nitrogen uptake increased with the increase in the amount of nitrogen applied, while the capacity of uptake gradually saturated. The recovery rate of applied nitrogen declined linearly with the increase in nitrogen dressing. The concentration of free amino acids in the first flush shoots increased in an unlimited manner with the increase in nitrogen dressing. However, the absolute amounts in the new shoots were greatest in 9 to 15 N plots due to the inhibition of new shoot growth in heavily manured plots. Thus, with respect to the accumulation of free amino acids, the critical level for leaf quality is estimated to be around 12 N plot. The thioneine content in the first flush shoots increased up to 9 N plot. Thereafter, a high content of arginine was detected, implying disorder in the nitrogen metabolism. These results demonstrate that the critical level of nitrogen for leaf quality is very close to the toxic level and is twofold greater than that for growth and yield.

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... mino_Acids


Also attached below is a passage from this paper

Effect of Nitrogen Fertilizer Application at Different Stages on the Quality of Green Tea
Soil Science and Plant Nutrition Volume 41, 1995 - Issue 4

[LeoFox]

Almost makes me want to buy a fluorometric l-theanine assay kit. If i ever become a vendor, i may want to do this, as well as a ecgc assay for quality control purposes

[Bok]

@LeoFox yeah Japan has the most lax regulations on use of any the above mentioned, plus some other stuff. One reason most Japanese tea can not be imported into Taiwan, it doesn't pass the regulations. Same goes for a lot of pharmaceutical items.

[pedant]

LeoFox yeah Japan has the most lax regulations on use of any the above mentioned, plus some other stuff. One reason most Japanese tea can not be imported into Taiwan, it doesn't pass the regulations. Same goes for a lot of pharmaceutical items.

i've seen you say that before bok, and it's always surprised me. my impression of japan (which admittedly is based on nothing concrete) makes me think that they'd be the strictest in asia in terms of food and farming regulation.

if anyone knows some specifics or feels like looking into it, i'd be curious to see a compare & contrast.

[Bok]

@pedant I’ve heard it from people in the tea industry as well as from regular people when it comes to medicine and other health and safety regulations. Industry lobbies have quite a lot of power and influence in Japan.

Also what is allowed in marketing for medical treatments is a lot less strict than Taiwan which I just recently found out when working for a new project.

I know it seems like a contradiction to so many other things that come out of Japan, but Japan is a extreme in many ways

Not to mention that smoking is still allowed in many places, sometimes only separated by smoker and non-smoker tables in restaurants which does not make any sense at all...

[LeoFox]

Had a session with HY chen light roast dong ding from leafy green.

First 4 infusions were interesting with toffee sweetness and dried fruit flavors getting deeper with each infusion. It gave me the impression of slowly entering and delving deeper into a large house. The roast and the leaf flavors are well integrated: there is no conflicting taste profile between leaf and roast, as i sometimes get with roasted taiwan oolong. Stamina is a bit low, possibly due to not being vacuum sealed by the vendor. Brew was boring after 4th infusion, but was amazing until then. Used 9 grams in 150 mL

Left an interesting and very long lasting roasted medicinal/herbal aftertaste that is vaguely like baked rosemary. Possibly the longan wood charcoal?

[Victoria]

Had a session with HY chen light roast dong ding from leafy green.

First 4 infusions were interesting with toffee sweetness and dried fruit flavors getting deeper with each infusion. It gave me the impression of slowly entering and delving deeper into a large house. The roast and the leaf flavors are well integrated: there is no conflicting taste profile between leaf and roast, as i sometimes get with roasted taiwan oolong. Stamina is a bit low, possibly due to not being vacuum sealed by the vendor. Brew was boring after 4th infusion, but was amazing until then. Used 9 grams in 150 mL

Left an interesting and very long lasting roasted medicinal/herbal aftertaste that is vaguely like baked rosemary. Possibly the longan wood charcoal?

You think your light roast DD is from this past spring 2020? Typically I’ll do three good steeps, the fourth letting it sit for 8+ minutes, and then the fifth letting it steep overnight on the table. I have enjoyed Chen’s 2019 light/medium/and heavy roast, almost running out though, so looking forward to reordering once the winter roast is ready. Would be interesting to try side-by-side various DD roasted with different types of wood. I’ll see if I can find out what type of wood he is using.