Ethan Kurland wrote: ↑Sun Mar 21, 2021 3:30 pm
With this change in my habits I find myself not talking about specific flavors, not even recognizing them often; yet, enjoying tea sessions as much or more than I did before. Nonetheless, whatever bitterness I encountered when I was more on top of specifics, never seemed leathery to me. Yet, I bet many people understand what you mean.
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On the consumer side of aged oolong, one that is excellent is likely not to improve once he has it. Your tea, which sounds delightful, had 20 years to get there & probably cannot improve. However, I think you are wise to consider keeping a lot of aged oolong versus puer. Aged oolong is less trouble than pu.
The leather is really more the taste of leather, not the texture. Once i'm familiar with a tea, I stop paying much attention to consciously recognizing various elements, but it's in my nature to analyze at the start and to mentally compare to how it may have tasted before and think about what may have generated the change (my mood? the weather? the water/preparation?). I appreciate your much too kind words for my attempts to discuss a category of tea (aged oolongs) that, as I have written in this thread previously, I am still very much learning about.
faj wrote: ↑Sun Mar 21, 2021 4:20 pm
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I have written before that although I understand noticing aromatic similarities may be fun (or unavoidable), I think being able to truly enjoy a tea does not require referencing other sensory experiences, just as enjoying an apple pie does not require being reminded of an oolong tea. To me, focusing on "notes" is kind of like focusing on how your date reminds you of previous partners. It may show your analytical prowess, but does not necessarily make for the best evening...
I surely wish my tea journey brings me closer to enjoying fewer teas, but teas that are a good enough fit or me that I am able to enjoy them every day without becoming bored or irritated with their flaws.
I think one of the reasons why I enjoy recognizing/commenting on "notes" in tea (and other things) is because I usually don't have just the one type preference, and I can find enjoyment (indeed often find more enjoyment) in that which is flawed somewhat rather than something that is perfect, especially in the world of things that qualify as art in some sense, and I think culinary things qualify. Considering the balance of the positives and the negatives can sometimes be as enjoyable for me as something less troublesome. I do the same thing with absinthe, my other favorite beverage.
I think part of it maybe could be related back to appreciating what a musician is doing, technically or creatively, as a separate thing from the actual music or melody/rhythm being created - e.g. I adore Sun Ra's electronic organ playing on the title track of his avant-garde jazz classic Atlantis, but as "music" per se it's less amazing than as a feat one is admiring. In the same way, separate from the holistic experience of enjoying the tea, there is also the part that stands somewhat removed from the experience, observing as opposed to experiencing.
Regarding logic, I think it is probably logical to go even further and conclude that there is nothing that is actually required in order to truly enjoy tea, except for the tea itself and a means of consuming it - defining "true enjoyment" often ends in defining the nature of a thing according to our own reality, and to the exclusion of others who don't share it.
I would note that I don't appreciate girlfriends/wives or friends/family in the same way as I appreciate tea, or "art" in general. Art is, in the end, a thing - a thing that bears the mark and stamp of a person or people, and which can at times communicate some "message" to the participant from the creator(s), but ultimately it is still a thing or an experience, both of which seem insulting to apply to other people. Other people are, in some ways, their own separate universe and to reduce them to the level of an experience to be had is nearly as insulting as saying, "This is Name" when it is just a name and can barely contain much of your essential "Name-ness" in those letters, no matter how much we may associate them with our inner selves (or our attempted efforts to do so with others).
LeoFox wrote: ↑Sun Mar 21, 2021 4:31 pm
To understand a thing in itself with no reference to other things may be impossible for us as humans.
Now we reach the territory of the structuralists
Indeed. But then, we have to ask ourselves, from whence came the things we first used as a reference? And what was our reference for understanding the reference? Genetics? Collective unconscious? Vendor marketing?
To be serious, though, I had a long-term relationship with a woman who is color-blind. She sees "red" as "grey". But - what's "grey"? Well, according to her, it was just the color she perceived when other people said, "that's grey" and then when people called something "red" it was the same thing. But how do we know what that actually looks like? How do I know when I see "red" you do, too? Kind of goes back to Ethan's comments on my tasting notes - he hasn't encountered cinnamon, but he thinks he knows what I might mean by that. And as faj noted, cinnamon doesn't "own" those aromatic notes (if it did, how could unadulterated tea ever smell like it anyway?).