What Oolong Are You Drinking

[Victoria]

I’ve been so busy trying all the different puerh tea that I purchased years ago that I’ve been neglecting yancha. Today I’m drinking Hong Kong Roast Three Stamps Shuixian from Tealifehk. The pot is a 65 ml red shudei pot from Artistic Nippon by Maekawa Junzo. The clay used was described as about 40 years old, and since I had been reading about the positive effect of red shudei clay on yancha on Tea Forum I purchased the pot and reserved it for yancha,

Would be interesting to compare this ‘scarce Tokoname clay for shudei brick red teapots’ with Junzo’s Kobiwako clay that is pale yellow, so probably has less iron. @Janice have you tried if this shudei clay affects the taste of water? His Kobiwako clay makes water sweeter and less textured. With yancha I gravitate towards less porous denser dark clays like wood fired mayake kyusu and sometimes zini. Can’t explain why though .

[Victoria]

yesterday, Muadeeb and i did a double blind tasting of a few dongfang meirens. someone else had prepared 4g samples of each for us in advance.

A -- 2016 Oriental Beauty #AAA (made in Thailand), TEA SIDE
dry leaf - tartest smell. craisin, plummy.

B -- 2018 Oriental Beauty Grand, Te Company
this was a gift from Victoria. thanks!
dry leaf - malty and fruity.

C -- 2017 Competition Oriental Beauty Tea, Two Leaf Grade, Lot 664, Taiwan Tea Crafts
dry leaf - the tippiest looking of the three. bready aroma.

steep 1 [1 min, 210°F]
A: sweet taste, red winey, robust, earthy, baked bread
B: less perfumey than C, orange note, better black tea flavor, brighter
C: perfumey. maybe a bit soapy

steep 2 [1 min, 210°F]
A: heavy hitter. maybe not as good as 1st steep
B: perfume increased a bit this steep
C: more tartness, great OB spice (cinnamon-like). blooms in the back of the tongue.
......
they were all pretty good OBs, but our overall favorite was tea C followed by tea B and then tea A.

It got cold today so I reached for your Taiwan Tea Crafts 2017, Two Leaf Grade Oriental Beauty. Wow, it is delicious, really excellent. Thank you so much for sharing this with me. It is buttery smooth and warming on a cold day. The aroma and liquor have buttery honey spice notes, with some sweet chestnuts and yams. Consummate elegance, and super smooth.

I think it is a grade above Té Company’s OB Grand, although I didn’t do a side-by-side comparison. That is saying a lot considering how much I really really like Té Company’s OB Grand. I think Taiwan Tea Crafts is more buttery smooth. It is interesting that your preferences fall in line with price points, the most preferred being the most expensive. Looks like sometimes prices do reflect grade and quality.

Reading about Taiwan Tea Craft’s 2017 Competition grade OB, aside from setting a Two Leaf Grade benchmark for that years OB, it was ‘sold at a price set by competition organizers in Hsinchu County, Taiwan’. I'm assuming this means below what could be asked for in the western market? Anyway, aside from being competition grade, its price point is much higher than Té Company’s and almost 5x higher than the Thailand OB.

A. 2016 Oriental Beauty #AAA (made in Thailand) .26usd gram (118usd lb)
B. 2018 Oriental Beauty Grand, Té Company .83usd gram (375usd lb)
C. 2017, Competition Oriental Beauty Tea, Two Leaf Grade, Lot 664, Taiwan Tea Crafts 1.12usd gram (507usd lb)

I steeped both Té Company’s and Taiwan Tea Craft’s OB using cooler water and more time than you did. Went by Elena’s recommendation on the packet 6g/230ml/195F/1-2min. except I steeped longer into 3 minutes. Would be interesting to do a side-by-side using different steeping parameters and the same OB.

This weekend I’m going to an OB tasting with one being sold wholesale at 450usd lb. will be interesting to compare with these.

Taiwan Tea Crafts Oriental Beauty 2 Leaf Competition DSC00130_.jpg (725.63 KiB) Viewed 9162 times

[Janice]

Would be interesting to compare this ‘scarce Tokoname clay for shudei brick red teapots’ with Junzo’s Kobiwako clay that is pale yellow, so probably has less iron. Janice have you tried if this shudei clay affects the taste of water? His Kobiwako clay makes water sweeter and less textured. With yancha I gravitate towards less porous denser dark clays like wood fired mayake kyusu and sometimes zini. Can’t explain why though .

Since the pot was on Artistic Nippon the word “scarce” was implied rather than stated. I think there were just a few styles and they were gone fairly quickly.

I have 2 Kobiwako pots and would enjoy doing a comparison. Do I just pour in some hot water and let it sit for a bit or is there more involved? I can compare them both to water that has been in a glazed pot for the same amount of time.

Edit: My memory failed me on the “scarce” adjective. There’s a large Kyusu available made from this clay. This is the Artistic Nippon description. The small pots disappeared quickly.

“ Made with scarce Tokoname clay for shudei brick orange teapots and cups. This clay was kept in a company in Gifu-pref. for about 40 years until it was brought back to Tokoname. ”

[Victoria]

Would be interesting to compare this ‘scarce Tokoname clay for shudei brick red teapots’ with Junzo’s Kobiwako clay that is pale yellow, so probably has less iron. Janice have you tried if this shudei clay affects the taste of water? His Kobiwako clay makes water sweeter and less textured.

I have 2 Kobiwako pots and would enjoy doing a comparison. Do I just pour in some hot water and let it sit for a bit or is there more involved? I can compare them both to water that has been in a glazed pot for the same amount of time.

I would pour off boiling water in each unglazed clay pot, your glazed pot, plus a glass cup or pot to compare the range. Let the water cool for an hour or so, an taste with eyes closed to really feel texture, viscosity, and flavor. For me the most surprising thing was how much texture the filtered tap water had.

[Victoria]

Enjoying Royal Courtesan from Té Company, a jassid bitten Qingxin cultivar (also used for DongDing etc) 40% oxidation, medium roast from Nantou. Notes of sweet evergreen, muscatel, and artichoke. I really enjoy whenever I get evergreen notes in oolong, it is a treat, but to then have muscatel and artichoke notes as well is very special. This bug bitten Qingxin (green heart) varietal was developed after the 1999 earthquake in Nantou, when gardens had been left unattended leaving the jassid insects to feast on tea leaves. It isn’t as sweet as Oriental Beauty (Dongfang Meiren, Bai Hao), it’s slightly earthier and more grounded like in a forest.

Emu Taisuke Shiraiwa Te Co Royal Courtesan 3_1.jpg (454.99 KiB) Viewed 9047 times

[lUKAV28]

I am currently drinking 2019 Songboling Jin Xuan Gui Fei oolong from thetea.pl. Raw, unroasted version. Although I prefer the roasted version of the same tea more, this one is really tasty too. I caught a lot of flowery/honey notes but even greener notes. The session was also special to me because I tried my new guava Yixing modern zhuni pot for the first time. I love the shape of this pot - probably my favorite among Yixing pots. And its performance.

[debunix]

Love your tea-pet guarding your session

[faj]

Love your tea-pet guarding your session

This is one tea pet I would not pour hot water on, though.

There is a saying in French : "Chat échaudé craint l'eau froide", which means "A scalded cat fears cold water". Maybe it comes from the unfortunate experiments of a tea drinker with his "tea pet".

[pedant]

High Mountain Rou Gui from Old Ways Tea with Yoshiki MURATA kyusu

Yoshiki MURATA OWT High Mountain RouGui.jpg (260.49 KiB) Viewed 8909 times

i'm trying some samples from @OldWaysTea. so far i've tried the gaoshan and gold medal RGs, and i like them.

[Bok]

i'm trying some samples from OldWaysTea. so far i've tried the gaoshan and gold medal RGs, and i like them.

Festive chaxi

Interesting choice for a teapot to brew Yancha with. Something Japanese in reduction firing?

[Ethan Kurland]

Before Pedant answers Bok, I want to post my guess on that pot & say it is a beautiful, unusual Korean pot. (Wouldn't bet on that though).

Home enjoying Father's Love, the smoothest very flavorful roasted Lishan leaves I can imagine. A month without it was not necessary to appreciate it; however, the break from it might make it taste a bit better. This use of top quality organic leaves for careful traditional roasting & aging has moved beyond a history that I like to know to one that I believe I taste. (If I have fooled myself, I am a happy fool.)

I visited Teadoff before leaving Thailand & found we are both doing the same thing. Much more often we are drinking our favorite teas. We are not spending as much time trying new teas, nor drinking tea we know we like but not as much as favorites. That is for our physical pleasure, He gave me some mediocre teas that he realized he does not want to bother to drink. I was out of tea for my last few days abroad; so, this was most welcome. Nonetheless, drinking the best now is as good as a session gets. Cheers

[pedant]

thanks

it's not a cloth specifically for tea, just one of our nicer looking kitchen towels.

the pot is a little 80mL yohen kyusu by yoshiki. mostly reduction-fired. the interior is entirely reduced. i got it from ISOBE Asako. i feel it's a well made pot, and i've been using it more and more lately. i appreciate that the lid hole is large enough that it never gets clogged with condensation -- water doesn't get forced out of the spout when you set the lid on. i wish all lids were like that. more pics and info here

[Victoria]

Back east in Annapolis without an electric kettle, so going old school route boiling water in a Pyrex glass pot over the stove. Oolong is so much easier to make than many other teas, just boil and pour . @Tillerman shipped a batch of his winter 2019 Laoshi roasted DongDing so it was here when I arrived. Of course, I brought way more tea than I’ll use in the next three weeks, even knowing he was shipping directly here. Using more leaf 13.6g/230ml/off boil in preheated Hokujo kyusu seems to work well, although Trader Joe’s New Zeland water is too smooth so I’ll try another water next time.

[Ethan Kurland]

Trader Joe’s New Zeland water is too smooth so I’ll try another water next time.

Whole Foods store brand (99 cents per gallon) works well for me here in Eastern USA.

Water coming all the way from New Zealand gets bounced around too much on the long trip to the USA, breaking minerals down to nano-size which is too small to bind with all the flavors of tea

[Bok]

Water coming all the way from New Zealand gets bounced around too much on the long trip to the USA, breaking minerals down to nano-size which is too small to bind with all the flavors of tea

Excellent.