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I keep Oriental Beauty in original packs clipped after opening in a dry cool cabinet with my other roasted, oxidized, aged teas. Just had OB Grand from Té Company out of New York, was purchased in early 2019 and tastes very good. Since it’s 70% oxidized and has a medium roast it will last a several years as long as moisture isn’t introduced.

Yesterday, I revisited two other roasted oolong from Té Company; Iron Goddess and Royal Courtesan. What a treat, I forgot how special these are. Royal Courtesan is a lightly bug bitten DongDing that has notes of muscat, artichoke, and rose, exactly as described by Ellena. Iron Goddess (Tieguanyin) has evolved since the last time I had it two years ago - old man cigar filled room aspects was replaced by rich notes of bourbon, chocolate, and evergreen. Really something!

Started the day with O-Cha’s Tsuen Uji Gyokuro Yume no Ukihashi steeped in Jozan III shigaraki kyusu. It is very fresh and grassy even after being stored in refrigerator for a couple of years. I prefer the elegance of his lightly steamed Tsuyu Hikari Sencha from Shizuoka, more balanced very special select grade sencha that many of us find better than many high end gyokuro.


Steeping Iron Goddess in Taisuke Shiraiwa kyusu. A versatile dense red clay that works well with many oolong and sencha.

DailyTX wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 26, 2022 2:23 pm

[...] what’s your thought on Oriental Beauty tea storage Andrew S? Most information I found online is to store like oolong, sealed and store it in a refrigerator.

The short answer is that I don't know, not having stored any myself. However, I will try storing some soon I think, now that I've tried some that I like.

But I would think that it'd be best sealed in a packet (no vacuum) and left somewhere safe at room temperature, like pretty much any tea that isn't heicha; I don't see why a fridge is necessary or desirable (if anything, wouldn't that slow the ageing down and create the risk of condensation forming on the leaves?).

After seeing your post, I did a quick search and found something by a Taiwanese company that seems to make fridges (with 'sonic waves') designed to age various things (https://www.ksonfoodtech.com/en/a3-2248 ... g-Tea.html), but that seems to talk about 'ageing' for just a few days with said sonic waves, and it all seems rather strange to me...

I'll just keep some packets lying around when I get around to it, like what I've already done with some yancha to good effect.

Andrew

@Victoria: that's a nice little gathering of pots...

I've only gone through a few of my home-stored yanchas so far; they seem happy (I just need to keep buying more and more each year, so that I'll have more aged ones in the future; any excuse...).

Compared to ageing puer, ageing wulong seems pretty simple. Maybe that's why no-one talks about it.

Andrew

@Victoria lovely pots. At first, I thought the pot nearest to the front was a zhuni pot, upon a closer look, is it Tokoname?

@Andrew S
I believe there are two schools of thought for Oriental Beauty. First one believes OB best consume as soon as the tea is made, especially for those competition grades. It’s similar to lightly oxidized oolong; hence the refrigeration will help preserve the fragrance of the tea more. Second one believes aging OB the same way as highly oxidized TieGuanYin. Keep us posted with your result on aging OB.

DailyTX wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 26, 2022 6:05 pm

Victoria lovely pots. At first, I thought the pot nearest to the front was a zhuni pot, upon a closer look, is it Tokoname?

@DailyTX, Taisuke Shiraiwa studied under Yohei KonishI in Tokoname but is now back in his hometown of Hokkaido in northern Japan. He has a big wood fired kiln in Hokodate City and uses local clay and sand, but also probably has clay reserves from Tokoname. The clay in this kyusu is very similar to Tokoname shudei.

Victoria wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 26, 2022 6:19 pm

DailyTX wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 26, 2022 6:05 pm

Victoria lovely pots. At first, I thought the pot nearest to the front was a zhuni pot, upon a closer look, is it Tokoname?

DailyTX, Taisuke Shiraiwa studied under Yohei KonishI in Tokoname but is now back in his hometown of Hokkaido in northern Japan. He has a big wood fired kiln in Hokodate City and uses local clay and sand, but also probably has clay reserves from Tokoname. The clay in this kyusu is very similar to Tokoname shudei.

Nice!

Started today with an excellent session of Aoi sencha from Tsuen via O-cha. Mid day, some Bird pick Milk Oolong. Now starting the evening with some Jing Tea Shop Wuyi Shui Jin Gui. All rich, mellow, lovely teas.

As someone who often just drinks mouldy old tea, there's something rather 'wholesome' about peering into your teapot and seeing leaves like this at the end of a session.

Even so, there's also something enjoyable about returning to an old tea every so often to balance myself out, so today also involved a little bit of aged yancha.

It's probably better to say that 'you can take the mould away from the tea-drinker, but you can't take the tea-drinker away from the mould' than the opposite formulation of that phrase...

Andrew

That’s remarkably green for a roasted yancha. Looks very like very nice stuff.

This morning it was warm enough to go outside for a little bit of my morning tea: Orchid Dew from Mauna Kea Tea, enjoyed from a Tony Ferguson, yunomi.

Happy new year!

Drinking some OB on wedding anniversary

LeoFox wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 30, 2022 6:12 pm

Happy new year!

Drinking some OB on wedding anniversary

Congratulations and happy new year!

Beautiful moment with tea

Thank you! Hope 2023 will be a good year for all!

Starting the new year big…