What Oolong Are You Drinking

[debunix]

09 Zhong Ping Village Zhi Lan Xiang Dan Cong from Tea Habitat. This is the tail end of a batch that has been sitting in a nearly airtight container in the desk in my office for quite a while. I'm infusing it in a fully glazed tiny Petr Novak pot and enjoying it from a Greenwood/Great Wheel snowflake glaze cup from Shawn McGuire.

IMG_0639.jpg (297.37 KiB) Viewed 6478 times

The pot is cute, the cup sparkles, but it is the lovely tea that shines, delicately fruity beneath a rich floral sweetness. So fine.

[Ethan Kurland]

debunix,

How could you forget to mention who made the tea boat (or should it be called a tea tray)?

When you wrote "snowflake" I pictured big snowflakes on the side of the cup, then the photograph shows the tiny white dots that sparkle. Looks pretty. Thanks for the post.

[Victoria]

Had an interesting evening last night, power was cut off after a transformer blew up a few blocks away, causing a house to catch on fire, and then another transfer blew up. So on top of stay-at-home for several weeks now, and scary economic downturn, now no power. Felt eerie with the ochre setting sun, but then as the night progressed I started to enjoy the silent darkness and warm candlelight, especially while sipping on an Alishan a friend roasted. Knowing Salvador roasted this oolong with his own hands, made a solitary moment more personal and less disconnected. To then share his Alishan with Akira Satake’s guinomi, and Shimizu Ken’s kyusu, added an aesthetic layer that transported the shadow and light of these uncertain times.

Candelight Alishan Salvador Akira Satake Shimizu Ken_DSC0881_r.jpg (421.87 KiB) Viewed 6418 times

[teabooksart]

Reflecting on last winters Taiwan oolong production being less complex, due to low rainfall, I'm feeling I have easily adjusted. As I sip on HY Chen’s '19 winter medium roast DongDing am finding I can still have good sessions just by increasing leaf gram/time steeped. While it is slightly less aromatic, and a little thinner than previous years, it is still very very good. Also, letting the liquor cool slightly in the cup really brings out the flavor. A sweet-spicy aroma is floating around as I sit close to the warmed leaves in the open Hokujo kyusu, and as liquor rests in Akira Satake’s guinomi.

That sounds so delicious!

[debunix]

(Tray above is also Mirka Randova's, like the larger one at home.

[Victoria]

Enjoying Tieguanyin ‘Iron Goddess‘ from Té Company in NYC. Aromatics are off the charts, musky, malty, and deep. Liquor parallels aromatics, and is super-rich. Elena described it well, “like an old man smoking cigars on side street hickory benches. It is the peat whiskey of teas.” The empty cup aroma is thick. Maybe the best TGY I’ve had yet.

Steeped in Yamada Sou mayake 160ml kyusu.

Te Company Iron Godess TGY - Yamada Sou mayake_DSC0772_r.jpg (351.77 KiB) Viewed 6324 times

[Bok]

Steeped in Yamada Sou mayake 160ml kyusu.

Beautiful kyusu!

[Noonie]

Mi Lan Xiang, Phoenix Oolong, from Camellia Sinensis in Montreal. 5g/100ml. 20s/15s/30s then added 15s or so to subsequent brews. First time trying this particular Dan Cong tea. I finally got brewing parameters that work for my palette - no bitterness, sweet and complex flavors. Yummy.

[Bok]

Having an extreme of the other kind… normally people chase and brag about the highest elevation tea they are having from Taiwan – today I had the lowest elevation tea farmed, from the edge of Taiwan in Kenting, otherwise known as rund-down seaside village where young people and tourists go to party.

The plantation is just next to the seaside and to add some special feature, the plants have been grown from seeds, not from cutting. This affects the taste of the tea, the plant has to work harder to get nutrition and they have deeper roots. Something along those lines if I understood the theory right.

This tea has been rolled especially tight and according to the person giving it to me, the leaves have some white hairs, which explains the abnormal dull green colour. Looks almost dusty and reminded a friend of mine of the notorious Gunpowder tea found in Chinatowns across the globe.

Luckily the tea tastes nothing like it. A higher roast produces a faint reminiscence of classic Dongding flavour, yet with some unusual other notes. I can not quite pinpoint it, but it is a bit salty, like what you’d find in Japanese teas. Overall very pleasant and without the grassiness and throat itchiness that normally define low elevation teas in Taiwan.

Quite happy to try this very unusual tea. Not often these days, that I find completely new flavours in Taiwanese teas.

[Ethan Kurland]

That's interesting Bok. You were rewarded for keeping an open mind.

Not only am I not so optimistic that tea from low elevation will be good but also have had bad luck with tea that is rolled extremely tight. You found an exception. Well done Bok!

Not being able to travel Taiwan now, my adventure is the variation of preparation & other practices. I won't bore readers with what I have done only with my conclusions/reminders:

1. I continue to believe that black tea & roasted, aged oolong benefit from breathing in ceramic caddies. I also caution that all of the packets should be emptied into caddies when a packet is opened. Tea put in caddies should be for several days' of drinking-----that is days, not weeks' of drinking. The rest of the tea should remain in the packet which should be held tightly closed with bands or clips.

2. I am reminded by differences in results that we are subjective. We enjoy sessions as much or little as we do because of mood, what we ate recently, etc.; however, various factors effect our judgment. So we may think we are doing quick infusions, when we are might be steeping longer than usual, or we might be using more leaves, etc. It pays to check ourselves sometimes by timing steeping and/or weighing leaves, etc. We may think we have mastered preparation to consistently prepare a tea perfectly when that is not the case.

When being careful my best teas show why they are better. For example, all of my aged roasted teas are excellent, but there is definitely more joy as one goes up in quality (& the differences in price make sense).

Cheers

[Balthazar]

1. I continue to believe that black tea & roasted, aged oolong benefit from breathing in ceramic caddies. I also caution that all of the packets should be emptied into caddies when a packet is opened. Tea put in caddies should be for several days' of drinking-----that is days, not weeks' of drinking. The rest of the tea should remain in the packet which should be held tightly closed with bands or clips.

But wouldn't this vary, depending on the drinkers local climate? The time for acclimatization/waking up and the succeeding degradation will not be the same in say Southeast Asia as it will be in Northern Europe.

To take an anecdotal example: For Chen HY's Dong Ding I'll usually empty the contents of a 50 gram bag into a canister and let it rest for 2-4 weeks (around 2 in the summer and 3-4 in the other seasons, with some adjustments based on roast level) before it's properly "awoken". That's enough for 5-6 sessions for me, and with only around a single oolong session per week this will last me around two months. I've not noticed any degradation whatsoever between the first and last session of a single bag, but then again the climate here is fairly dry and temperatures are low. I also don't store my oolong in ceramic caddies.

That's just my experience, though. But I do think the ratio between canister size and amount of oolong tea is important, and rarely fill the canister to more than 20% of its capacity.

With black teas I've done much less experimentation, as I tend to only buy affordable daily (office) drinkers and will burn through 100 grams in the matter of days/weeks.

[Bok]

@Balthazar In Taiwan, it takes 2-3 days to awake the tea

But I’d think that dryer climate and open teas should normally be worse than more humid?

[Balthazar]

Balthazar In Taiwan, it takes 2-3 days to awake the tea

But I’d think that dryer climate and open teas should normally be worse than more humid?

Yeah, 2-3 days echos my experience from when I was living in Hong Kong.. Those were the days, didn't need to plan my tea consumption weeks in advance

"Worse" in what way by the way? In my (admittedly limited, as I only lived in HK for a year, having spent the rest of my life in mostly dry areas) experience, drier climates slow the degradation a lot. So green teas, oolongs and black teas stay fresh for longer after the bag has been opened, than they would in tropical climates. Which kind of makes sense, if you think about the fact that these teas are stored for the long-term in dry conditions. (Puer and some heicha, of course, are a very different story.)

[Ethan Kurland]

Sure, what I wrote would not apply to all teas. Most of the time air in my little place is rather dry.
u
Why I wrote: with aged roasted oolong I found that after some time (how much I am not sure but I think after a week or so) in a caddy, tart taste diminished & more importantly was sort of just a tart flavor not so connected to a "fruity" tart flavor & weaker than when the tea was not so long in the caddy;

with black tea too much time in a caddy made it less rounded & not as smooth.

.

[Tillerman]

normally people chase and brag about the highest elevation tea they are having from Taiwan

The plantation is just next to the seaside and to add some special feature, the plants have been grown from seeds, not from cutting. This affects the taste of the tea, the plant has to work harder to get nutrition and they have deeper roots. Something along those lines if I understood the theory right.

@Bok, I certainly agree with your comment on elevation; there is a reason for which elevation affects the price of a tea and it isn't always the quality.

As to your next suggestion, I must disagree; the taste of a tea does not vary whether the plant was produced from seed or from cuttings. It certainly is true that seed grown tea and asexually propagated tea have different root structures. Seed grown tea develops a tap root whereas that grown from cuttings has a fibrous root only. That is not to say that there aren't times when one would prefer a seed grown plant; planting in a more arid area, for example. However, comparisons between the plants when grown side by side in the same garden reveal no differences in taste. This is in keeping with what has been found in other areas of domesticated plants, e.g. vines. The old claim about "working harder to get nutrition..." is just that; an old claim.