Re: What makes a tea "clean"?
Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2022 10:43 am
Tea is truly a magical plant and a great teacher. I guess in this case we can say that a good tea is like the flower of lotus, surrounded by a swamp yet remaining immaculate.Andrew S wrote: ↑Sat Sep 10, 2022 8:49 pmIt seems to be a highly contextual phrase, as well as being an inherently vague term. There's value in trying to use the expression more precisely, but I also think that it's useful to distinguish between saying that a tea 'is' clean and saying that it 'tastes' or 'feels' clean. The former refers mostly to how it was grown whereas the latter refers mostly to how it presents in terms of flavour, aroma, mouthfeel and 'qi'. And the concept of clean storage seems to be another topic as well.
One of my favourite teas is a liu an which was sold to me as being from the 70s (but might actually be from the 50s or thereabout). It tastes and feels very 'clean' to me. However, I did have to brush off ancient spiderwebs and long-dead spiders from the basket... Despite that, I somehow still think that the storage was 'clean', but I can definitely see why I might be in the minority on this point.LeoFox wrote: ↑Sat Sep 10, 2022 8:30 pmAn example: for me, a tea festering with various insects and fungus at some point during its storage lifetime is extremely unappetizing and unclean no matter how it tastes- or how narcotic its qi feels, yet some would deem this proper and even clean (e.g. 50 year old tea with insects eggs and droppings).
Andrew