Category Archives: Tastings

Shui Mi Xiang from Camellia Sinensis

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This is a tea I haven’t had before. Shuǐ Mì Xiāng (水蜜香) means “Water Honey Aroma”, or perhaps more lyrically, “Honey-water scent” and it’s easy to see why. The dark twisted leaves give forth a dusty sweet aroma that gave away the family of this tea even before I knew what it was: Guandong oolong.

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This is the first tea I’ve had with this name, but I assume it falls into the category of Phoenix oolongs (凤凰茶 or Fèng Huáng Chá). This class of oolong is grown in the Phoenix mountains of Guǎngdōng Province (广东) in south-eastern China and has very specific characteristics. Dark, long, and twisted leaves which carry an unmistakable roast and the subtle aroma of sweet stone fruit are the hallmark of this style. Typically they produce a golden infusion with a honey and apricot flavor. I’ve tasted many different Phoenix oolongs, and there is a variation in flavor intensity, aroma, and body, but otherwise they all share the qualities mentioned above. It’s one of my favorite styles of oolong to share with new tea drinkers as I think it showcases the amazing flavors that can be brought out of the tea leaf with nothing added. I’ve even had someone call me before to ask if the tea they bought was scented!

As with any tea, consistent leaf sizes are desirable and this tea has them. They will allow the tea to infuse at a consistent rate without small or broken leaves confusing things. Many Phoenix oolongs I’ve had are of the Dān Cóng (单丛) harvest. Dān Cóng means something like “single bush”, and (from what I understand) refers to wild or arbor tea trees, that is, tea plants that have been allowed to grow without pruning so they reach three to five meters in height. Arbor tea leaves tend to have more complex flavors than those found in cultivated gardens. Perhaps this is a Dān Cóng and perhaps not, but it is definitely an exceptional tea. I smelled the aroma during a recent trip to Camellia Sinensis and immediately picked some up.

Xiāng (香) can also mean “spice”, which is really interesting because I definitely detect cinnamon notes in the taste and texture. My first few infusions reminded me of cinnamon sticks and the sweetness of cherries. The translucency of the liquor implies a lighter body, but it’s actually quite full in the mouth.

Photo Feb 11, 3 45 21 PMI easily made four good infusions of 4g of the same leaf, with no loss of flavor that I could detect. Another good sign. I don’t think this tea will last very long in my collection with the speed at which I’m drinking it, but if there’s one lesson I’ve learned over the years, it’s that tea is meant to be consumed. If you hoard tea without drinking it yourself, you’re missing the point, and even better is to share!

Taiwan High Mountain Oolong from Teavivre

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High mountain oolong (gāo shān wū lóng chá, 高山乌龙茶) almost always refers to a rolled oolong tea grown in Taiwan at a height of more than 1000 meters. Beyond that, it’s really a pretty vague description. As I read somewhere recently, calling tea by a name like this is something like calling a wine, “red wine from a field near a lake”. Actually quite a lot of tea is marketed without even the general style of production or the mountain name included, an unfortunate circumstance for us tea drinkers! Of course, this lack of information neither labels a tea as likely to taste delicious or common, so it is up to us to learn more.

My best guess about this tea would be that it’s a Qīng Xīn cultivar (青心) from Shānlín Xī (杉林溪) mountain or someplace nearby, but I definitely could be mistaken. The package lists Nántóu County as the location of origin, which is a prime producer of this style of tea on mountains like Shānlín Xī and Dòng Dǐng Shān.

Photo Feb 07, 1 45 30 PMAt my first inspection, the leaves seemed rather broken and small, but after some infusions, I discovered quite a few full leaf sets with long stems. I wonder, actually, if the broken leaves have more to do with the small sample packaging rather than the tea itself. Fair warning: this tea was sent to me by Teavivre as a sample.

When a tea is labeled as “High mountain oolong”, I usually don’t expect that much from it. Way better than any bagged oolong, certainly, but lacking in the nuance and intensity of a tea worthy enough to have been given a name. My experiences infusing this oolong fall within that category. The flavors were varied, but light, and the leaves opened up rather quickly, so the number of good infusions was somewhere around two or three.

Just to be sure, I infused a new packet with exactly 4g of leaf, no tea dust, and a fairly precise timing of around 1.5 minutes. The results had a pleasant energy, and were not without a good flavor, but a somewhat uninspiring aroma and flat mouth-feel.

The aroma of the wet leaves is honeysuckle and rose, with a little bit of raspberry sweetness, but it doesn’t seem to linger. The taste reminded me of eating the wakame seaweed out of miso soup or water chestnuts: a thin sweetness on top of the water.

Photo Feb 07, 2 33 58 PMSo: for me, a good daily tea but not something I would much want to show off. On the other hand, much better than many other teas I’ve had with the same name. With tea, it all depends on what you are looking for!

Premium Grade Dragon Well from Teavivre

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I must thank Teavivre for sending me this sample to try. It reminded me how rarely I actually make green tea for myself lately. Partially that has to do with the season (it’s -19C outside right now) but it also has to do with my tea collection. Green teas last so much less time in storage than oolong and puer that most of my drinking at home is within those two venerable categories. The result? I forget how important the proper water temperature is for a classic green like Dragon Well (Long Jing, Lóngjǐng, 龙井, or 龍井 — I love the traditional character for Dragon).IMG_8401

I had to make this tea twice, because in my excitement for the first infusion I made a very poor cup with water that was probably 95C and something like 6g of leaves. It was strong and flat, with only the essence of a grassy green in the background. In fact, it came out much like a generic bagged green tea might taste. After scorching the leaves like that, there was very little I could do to restore the tea’s luster. Sometimes when I realize a mistake like that, I can save the tea and brew it more carefully the next few infusions, but not always. Delicate green teas especially can have all the flavor sucked out and replaced with a taste of scorched grass. Such is the price of experimentation and lack of mindfulness.

Photo Jan 03, 1 07 43 PMLuckily, I had more than one sample! This time I was prepared. Careful brewing with 4g of leaf and a thermometer to test my assumptions. I played around a bit with the temperature to see if I could find the right balance. First, 75C for 45 seconds. Ah! Much improved. The wet leaves have the aroma of dried figs and moss in the rain. The taste was of coriander and rosemary with a bit of osmanthus flower, quite pleasant. The texture is powdery a bit, drying the front of the tongue (I associate this with Lóngjǐng) and full bodied in the mouth. There’s a gentle sweetness in the aroma and the aftertaste.

For a second infusion I tried 60C water for 1 minute. The tea definitely had a lighter body from the decreased temp. I detected much more of the aroma in the taste this time: more grass and figs and less of the rosemary. My third try was 80C for 1 minute and I noticed that it was sweeter this time with some black cherry in the taste and less grass.

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The leaves were moderately broken but with a decent number of beautiful two-leaves-and-a-bud sets to be found. You can always tell a Dragon Well leaf: they are generally medium-to-large leafed full and partial leaf sets, and when they’re dry, they resemble flat blades with a cross-thatched pattern on both sides from a pressing step during processing. A bright green is desirable, which I certainly see here. Lóngjǐng that’s been exposed to too much air, light, or time will have lost its green glow and will appear dull and sometimes a bit brown (look in many grocery stores and you’ll see it).

To be fair, I’ve certainly had Lóngjǐng that I’d rate higher than this — teas with overwhelming sweetness and aroma overflowing with perfect leaf sets — but those are the exception to green tea and can fetch a very high price indeed. For a more accessible tea, this Dragon Well is a really good find. It’s nice to see that it’s from the Xīhú (西湖, West Lake) area of Zhèjiāng province as well, which is the traditional home of Lóngjǐng. Since Dragon Well is so popular, this style of tea is often made in other places, but in my opinion these versions tend to lack the same sweetness and energy of tea from Xīhú.

When I visited the gardens in the hills around the lake region, I was impressed most by the feeling of the place. It was calming and energizing at once. Probably because Lóngjǐng is arguably the most famous orthodox tea from China, there has definitely been some care taken to preserve and cultivate the region. A definite peace surrounded the forests, paths, and springs which was notable given that the populous city of Hángzhōu is very close by. While the historical veracity for such a beloved name is unclear, I did visit the fabled “Dragon Well” itself: a small circular stone pool which has some interesting rippling properties when it is stirred. If you are ever in the South-East of China, I definitely recommend a visit.

Thanks again to Teavivre, and Happy New Year all!

First Pick Korean Wild Green from Franchia

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This Christmas I received a surprising present: a package of the Korean First Pick Wild Green tea that I mentioned in my earlier post about Franchia, the tea house in New York City. Definitely a great opportunity to expand my knowledge of Korean greens. Today I had my first try.

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According to their website:

Our Korean Wild Green Tea comes from the rocky slopes of Mt. Jilee and is 100% natural. Because it’s not cultivated, the root of our Wild Green Tea draws richer nutrients and minerals from almost 60 feet deep. The region’s colder climate (even in summer) and drastic temperature difference between day and night produces tea leaves stronger in “chi” or “energy.” Moreover, what differentiates Franchia Wild Green Tea from other green teas is our completely natural production process from growing in the wild to being harvested by hand to our unique processing method.

The site shows that the unique processing method is an immediate wok-firing, followed by hand-shaping (to bring out the oils and enzymes in the leaf), resting and drying, another wok-firing in an iron wok, more resting and drying, and finally a gentle roasting step in a steel pot. That last step is definitely unique, as when making tea in China a final roast (which tends to bring out the leaf’s aromas) is generally only applied to oolong tea. I’m not certain if these steps are common for Korean tea or just this factory, but there is definitely a notable effect.

Photo Dec 31, 12 06 32 PMGoing with my instinct and advice from my friends, I used 90 degree Celsius water in a gaiwan for about a minute. This is hotter than I’ve used for similar tea in the past, but I wanted to see what would happen. If the result from such a brew was bitter and pungent, I would know my mistake, but the dry leaves seemed a bit dull; they must be nearly a year old, so I thought I might be able to fire some life into them with hot water. (It turns out that the Franchia site includes instructions that recommend 50 degree water for one minute, but I didn’t see that at the time.)

The liquor was light blond with the aroma of green bark after a spring rain. So much for my impression of the dull leaves! When they got wet, they took on a bright green glow. I think that the matte leaf appearance must just be a characteristic of Korean tea, perhaps due to the final roasting process.

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As I mentioned in previous posts, I’m only familiar with one Korean green: the Nok Cha from Dobra Tea. That tea is milky smooth and rich with a bit of saltiness. The taste of this Wild Green reminded me more of Japanese Gyokuro than Nok Cha, and yet not as smooth or creamy as either. I want to say it was oceanic, but for me that usually means hints of seaweed and salt water and I detected neither in this brew. It had the tasty quality of bean sprouts, snap peas, or kale: a sort of woody sweetness that pervades the mouth and coats the tongue. Like a bowl of Matcha or the best Li Shan, it slowly seeps into the body and mind for a good minute after drinking. A soothing experience to be sure.

Photo Dec 31, 12 11 25 PMI look forward to trying and experimenting more with this tea. From my first leaves I managed to get about 4 great infusions with about the same time and temperature. That’s a good record to start with, for a green tea. Well done, Franchia.

The Tea House in Sarasota

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While visiting family for Christmas outside of Sarasota, Florida, I naturally brought my own tea along. Even so, at one point I really needed to get out of the house. I searched the Internet for tea in the area, not really expecting to find much; maybe there was a coffee shop with a good loose tea selection somewhere around. Much to my surprise, I found a listing for a place called “The Tea House” that looked promising, on Foursquare of all places.

Confused that I didn’t see a matching entry on Yelp or anywhere else on the Internet, I called the number listed and spoke to a very nice woman who assured me that they did exist (and had for two months) and were indeed open. The few photos I saw on the listing showed some classy large Chinese tea tins, which made me hopeful, and supposedly they had some vegan snacks too, which made it definitely worth an expedition.

Photo Dec 27, 4 35 15 PMI’m very happy I went! The owners, Jill and Tony, have created a wonderful oasis of tea in a old house in what appears to be a cool little corner of the city (there’s a handful of other independent shops around the area). They even have a cushioned platform seating area complete with a slew of moroccan lamps. It’s the kind of place I feel instantly comfortable just walking inside. Soft lighting, candles, and pleasant music drifting around the worn wooden furniture. Their menu is really filled with options, and although more than half of them didn’t appeal to me (tea snob that I am), I had definitely seen three bing of Puer when I came in that I was dying to know more about. Also, just seeing Puer displayed at all is, in my opinion, a really really good sign when visiting a teahouse in the West since there’s plenty of places that don’t even know what it is. There were also small cloth bags filled with mini tuo cha (small bowl puer) and some matcha whisks. Clearly there was more going on than I could discern from the items on the menu (The Tea House has opted to list all their teas with English names only, which all-in-all is probably a better way to lower the bar to entry into tea knowledge).

Photo Dec 27, 4 35 37 PMThe menu listed only a couple of Puers, without a lot of identifying information, but it turns out that asking questions was the right direction to go. I discovered that, although the Puer I saw on display was not available for drinking in-house, they had recently acquired a case of various bing (cakes or 饼茶) and zhuan (bricks or 砖茶) from Yunnan that hadn’t yet made their way onto the menu. I opted to try a 2007 (or maybe 2009; my notes are not the best) Shou bing (熟饼茶) that came highly recommended by Jill. It had a rich, thick body and a hint of fruitiness that made me think oddly of oranges, although that could just have been the knowledge that I was drinking Puer in Florida. I examined the leaves ahead of time and they looked medium-sized and consistent. I really need to improve my reading of Chinese, so unfortunately I wasn’t able to discern any more information from the label.

Photo Dec 27, 4 10 14 PMWe were given plenty of leaf and extra hot water (in the cutest elephant pot I’ve ever seen) to easily sit for an hour or more. Jill apologized for the lack of a sharing pitcher (we ended up using another teapot) and explained that they had been ordered but not yet arrived. I have a feeling that I was one of a very small number of customers that would want one anyway. After we had enough infusions and had started to feel at home, my wife and I ordered a pot of a 2012 Sheng (生茶) whose leaves looked quite beautiful. Again, I didn’t get a ton of information about the cake, but I can at least write about the taste. It was surprisingly mellow for a young Sheng, without much of the cedar aroma that I usually associate with such tea. Instead there was a dry woodiness that made me think more of a green tea or perhaps a mao cha than an aged Sheng. It was good, certainly, but I suppose it probably needs a few more years on the shelf.

Photo Dec 27, 6 22 16 PM“The Tea House”, by the Sarasota Tea Company (it turns out they do have a Facebook page) is definitely somewhere I’ll visit again when I’m in the area. From what I heard while there, some local tea aficionados are already regular customers and have started private tastings of some of the mini tuo cha they sell. I think Jill and Tony’s already large selection will continue to grow and evolve as the good folks of Sarasota and Bradenton learn more about the mystery of the leaf. The US needs more good tea houses, so I hope if you’re in that corner of Florida, you’ll stop in and sample a cup yourself.

1995 Tieguanyin From Maokong

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The leaves of this tea are dark brown, and clearly roasted as I’d expect from an aged oolong. As usual I can’t honestly verify that this tea is actually from 1995, but I know that when I was in the shop purchasing it, we tasted a selection of the owner’s aged Tieguanyin ranging from 1992 to 1998 and decided we liked this one the best. Buying directly from a tea master like this is about as good a guarantee as you can get unless you’ve aged it yourself.

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The infusion is a beautiful dark amber, already giving a sign of its quality. An overly-roasted aged oolong can be murky, but this is clear and glowing. The taste is roasty and rich. It has a full mouth-feel like a good Da Hong Pao and, for me at least, a comforting sensation. I suppose I can be comforted by many teas, but I would definitely call this ‘comforting’ as opposed to ‘energizing’ or ‘calming’. Drinking it is like sitting by a winter hearth, basking the gentle scent of woodsmoke.

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The level of roast is what sets this tea apart for me. Roasting oolongs, particularly for aging, is not an easy task. A little too much and the tea tastes sharp and baked. Too little and the tea may be too bland or worse, too green for aging. This Tieguanyin doesn’t taste of charcoal or burning. There’s even a light touch of sweetness, as though someone added a tiny spoonful of sugar to my cup.

I bought this tea in Maokong, Taiwan at the Chang Nai-miao Memorial Hall (張迺妙紀念館) while looking for teahouses. My friends and I stumbled across this wonderful place quite by accident.

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Maokong (貓空) is a popular but rural and somewhat remote part of Taipei, sitting atop a mountain. They’re famous for their teahouses and the tea they grow tea there. We took a gondola to get up to the area which is a popular tourist attraction in itself. Not only was the line quite long, but we had to get a ticket and wait an hour to even get in line in the first place. The gondola ride was beautiful, going past temples and between some low mountains (~400 meters).

IMG_1874When we arrived at the top we were starting to get hungry, but we also wanted to find a pleasant teahouse. Well, in Maokong, there are a lot, but most of them seemed to be just restaurants. We hiked for an hour or two around the mountain until we stopped in to a small family cafe. We were served a delicious selection of veggies and some OK oolong. Of course, we weren’t going to get amazing oolong with a meal!

While eating we tried to communicate with the proprietors (including one very helpful dwarf gentleman), but without much luck. As is often the case in these situations, it seemed that they knew of someone who could help. One of the family members rushed out of the door on some mission. Minutes later, she returned, alongside a woman who spoke excellent English. With the new woman’s help we were able to explain that we were in Taiwan exploring the tea culture. Much to our surprise the woman asked us to join her next door where she worked in a tea museum! It turns out that she was the wife of the owner of the hall and a relative of the owners of the restaurant. We snagged a personal tour of the hall and a lot of tea processing information, as well as a wonderful gongfu service with the current master.

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The woman’s husband was Chang Weiyi (張位宜), a descendent of a famous tea master for whom the memorial museum was made. He had also studied teapot making in Yixing and the hall sold some of his works. One of my all-time favorite teapots is one that I purchased there. With his wife’s translation, he brewed us several Tieguanyin as mentioned above. This 1995 was so divine that we decided to split some to bring home.

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The stoneware jar it came in reads 木柵鐵觀音, which is Muzha Tieguanyin, and the year. I still feel that this experience was one of the best parts of the whole trip and I’m very happy to still have this tea to remember it by.

Korean Wild Green Tea 2nd Picked

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While attending a Broadway show in New York City this weekend, I had the opportunity to visit a lovely little Korean teahouse and vegan restaurant named Franchia. I confess that I learned about the food first and was drawn in by the tea only after I decided to go. So many restaurants these days will put “teahouse” in their name, meaning that yes, like every other restaurant, they serve something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. Sorry, I get carried away. Actually most places willing to call themselves a teahouse do indeed have tasty tea, but Franchia definitely impressed me with their unique offerings.

franchia_menuI’m familiar with Nok Cha (녹차, or “Green tea”), the delicate tea lovingly produced in Korean gardens, by way of the versions (apparently Jiri Mountain “Jungjak”) procured by Dobra Tea. That hardly qualifies me as experienced, though. I’ve rarely had the opportunity to try any other varieties, but more and more I have read about the delicious things coming out of Korea and now I’ve grown quite curious. It’s been on my to-do list for a few years now to gain at least a little more familiarity with tea from this country.

Well, I was fortunate to stumble across this gem in New York. I highly recommend them for both their food and their camellia sinensis! They offer three harvests of their “Wild Green Tea”. The menu gives water temperatures for each tea, which is already a good sign. Being as it is the middle of winter, I wasn’t sure which one to pick, but I opted for the middle ground and chose the 2nd harvest.

franchia_cupJust as I had come to expect from my previous experiences, the ceramic strainer (I love Korean tea cups) was filled with beautiful whole leaf sets that produced a creamy, but very light-bodied broth. The aroma was a combination of roasted hazelnuts and toasted seaweed that I tend to associate with fine Japanese Gyokuro and Kabusecha. Intoxicating. The taste was delicate and sweet. I found I was able to get just about 3 infusions from the leaves before they began to lose their luster. This also meshes with my previous experiences of Korean greens. Still, there were hints of flowers and a little roastiness that I would like to know better, perhaps with longer infusions. If I hadn’t had to get to a show, I would have sat and tried all three harvests!

franchia_outsideIn my haste to leave, I didn’t even notice that they sell their tea. I will definitely have to return during my next trip South. Perhaps if any one else out there in tea-land has a chance to visit Franchia, they can add their reviews to mine. In the mean time, I will definitely need to check out some Korean offerings from others on the ‘net.

2006 Fengqing Sheng Tuocha Puer

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Twice now I’ve had the wonderful experience of tasting this Sheng puer, another sample sent from TeaVivre. Both times I’ve been very pleased with the result. This tea held a special interest for me since I’ve visited tea factories in Fengqing before, but never one that produced Puer. The city is known mainly for its Hong Cha (black tea).

Even though it was delivered in a sample pack, the leaves were noticeably from a Tuocha, one of the traditional shapes of Puer cakes. I’ve tried to translate Tuocha (沱茶) many times, but it doesn’t really have a literal translation. It apparently only has meaning when referring to this particular bowl-shape of tea. From what I understand of Puer aging, it’s important for all the leaves in a pressed tea to remain near to the air, so you’ll notice that in all cakes intended for drinking there are no sections thicker than about 3  to 4cm. I say, “intended for drinking”, because there are many decorative cakes out there which are made to look nice and are not really for consumption (the “ingot” and “melon” shapes, for example). This allows all the leaves to continue to benefit from the fermentation processes that make Puer what it is. If a section is too thick, the leaves inside would either dry up and cease to age or possibly retain too much water and start to rot. If I’m right, in a Tuocha, the bowl shape allows for a fairly sturdy and compact construction, like a ball, but without overly increasing the thickness.

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The aroma of the orange infusions was deeper than I expected, bringing to mind oak more than the cedar scent that I often find with young and middle-aged Sheng (I consider any Sheng Puer less than 5 years old to be “young”, and more than 10 years to be “old”). This was the first sign that I was getting a tasty cup.

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Starting with about a 10-second infusion, the flavor was very smooth and round with more of that oak character. It had a dryness to it that pervaded the mouth, but it was a pleasant dryness, akin to the feeling of a Bordeaux wine. The taste reminded me actually of another one of my favorite Sheng cakes, coincidentally from the same year: the 2006 Lao Shu Bing Cha from Dobra Tea (alas, no longer available in that year).

Infusion after infusion produced quite lovely aromas and taste. I wasn’t counting, but I believe that I made around 15 infusions of 5 grams of the leaf before it devolved into a yellow broth. Occasionally I detected a strong punch of astringency when I infused the leaves for a bit too long, but that’s true of nearly any Sheng Puer, and is a good reminder to pay attention to the timing of my tea.

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When the tea was spent, I found that the leaves were very small and fairly broken. In other styles of tea, this can be a sign of a lower quality, but Puer is a special case. Firstly, there was a consistency in the leaf sizes. Puer manufacturers occasionally will cover the outside of their cakes with nice large leaves and fill the inside with tiny pieces to make the tea more marketable. This tea was honest with its leaf size, an excellent sign that allows the tea brewer to judge how best to infuse based on sight alone. Secondly, Puer is “graded” by leaf size, and unlike their non-fermented cousins, smaller leaves don’t necessarily mean less pleasant tea. I have a feeling that the pressing process itself has a lot to do with this phenomenon, as the leaves are much less likely to “bleed” away their flavors while in the air or in the pot.

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I may order some of this tea for myself for a later date. That’s one of the great benefits of Puer: being able to save it for a rainy day, and it will only get better as it waits.

Teavivre 2013 Qing Xiang Dong Ding

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…or, How it’s hard to judge an Oolong before the fourth infusion.

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This was a sample sent to me from the lovely folks at Teavivre. Dong Ding (sometimes Tung Ting or “Frozen Summit”) is a very beautiful tea mountain in Nantou county near the west coast of Taiwan. They produce a lot of rolled oolongs in the Taiwan/Fujian style. “Qing Xiang” (清香) means “Fragrant” or “Aromatic”.

The dry leaves lived up to their name with a very pleasant sweet aroma. As expected for a Dong Ding, the leaves are rolled into balls, but somewhat unexpectedly they are many different sizes. Some are quite a lot larger than my usual Dong Ding (indicating a lot of stems, which doesn’t mean anything in itself), while some balls were more like fine gunpowder green tea in size. The variation in leaf size had me on my guard, as such inconsistency can make infusing a tea difficult. The color was a mix of bright green mixed with gunpowder gray, like an evergreen forest in the spring.

For the first infusion, I began with an experimental 1 minute at 95C. The resulting liquor was a flaxen yellow color that told me that at least I hadn’t over-steeped it. The mouthfeel immediately had a tiny bit of sharpness, making me think that there was some contingent of broken leaves in there. The taste was bright with a fairly fresh Dong Ding aroma. I’d guess this is a spring harvest, although the sample had no harvest date listed. The aroma and taste reminded me of spinach or kiwi fruit. At this point I was already judging the tea as average and wondering how many worthwhile infusions I could make.

Photo Nov 26, 11 38 54 AMFor the second infusion, I tried to mellow the taste by using less time, only 30 seconds. This time I tasted more kiwi, less spinach; it was sweeter and the sharpness was somewhat hidden as though behind clouds. The texture was still uneven, though, and remained very fresh and spring-like with only a light aroma.

For a third infusion, I upped the time slightly and the water I was using began to cool in its kettle. I tried 45 seconds at 90C. This yielded a taste that was still quite bright with a bit of roughness around the edges. However, my thoughts about the number of infusions began to change as this one had plenty of color, flavor, and the original aroma remaining.

Photo Nov 26, 11 42 33 AMFeeling very curious now, I tried a fourth infusion for 1.5 minutes with the now 85C water. Delightful! A hint of saltiness crept into the flavor, which changed everything. There was still the bright spring quality, but it became subdued and gentle. The aroma was delicate but unmistakably that of the wonderful sweetness you will find in an oolong withering room. Somehow a bit of cream entered the texture, mellowing the sharpness of the previous infusions. The effect was still there but now it manifested as a dryness on the front of the tongue in the aftertaste, not marring the mouthfeel. My mind wandered away to a green mountainside in Lugu, looking across the lake at the tea fields of Dong Ding.

Could this continue? Fifth infusion, 2 minutes, 80C. Still mellow! I think the first infusions were needed to bleed off some of the freshness of this tea. I think perhaps a first rinse would be a good idea in the future. I finally felt like this tea was giving in the way that was intended. A medium body, nothing dramatic, with a delicate green aroma and a round mouthfeel.

A sixth infusion, then. I heated the water again to see what that would yield and steeped for 2.5 minutes at about 98C. Impressively, the flavor was mellow and perhaps even more rich than the last two infusions. The color and aroma remained about the same. The taste didn’t last as long as it did before, vanishing after only a few moments in the mouth, but they were a very pleasant few moments.

Photo Nov 26, 12 29 45 PMI now suspect there could be four more infusions still within these leaves, but I’ve had enough tea for one sitting. This tea definitely surprised me. My first impressions were quite turned around by the fourth infusion. It’s really a reminder that, particularly with a rolled oolong, there can be layers of flavor that lie hidden away behind the initial taste.

A hot rinse of the leaves at the start or possibly beginning with a cooler temperature water might have made for a different beginning entirely for this tasting. Tea is a living creation, and while I love to find a Dong Ding that really wows on the first sip, I very much enjoy a tea that makes me taste and experiment to find its beauty. I’m glad to have had this chance!

The little gold sample pack

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Don’t write off the sample pack! This beautiful little golden pouch contains one of the most smooth examples of a black tea I’ve ever tasted. Mellow, round, and with some sweetness to the taste that reminds me of Qi Men hong cha or Bailin Gongfu.

This tea is a little bit of a mystery. Supposedly it is a Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong from the Wuyi Shan area, but I can’t be sure. The label reads (I think): 野生红茶, which is “Wild Red Tea”, but that could just be a generic description. Often the labels on sample packets are mass-produced for a tea manufacturer and aren’t indicative of what lies inside. Remember that “Red” tea in China is what we call “Black” tea in the West. The “Wild” part doesn’t say much. It could refer to tea harvested from old-growth tea trees or tea grown from seed rather than cuttings, but the taste is so clean that I wonder about that. Usually such teas have a roughness to their character. Also, in my experience it’s rare to find wild leaves used for hong cha (black tea). Oolong, puer, and white tea use wild leaves much more often, and this certainly isn’t Mao Cha.

If I had to guess and I was sure that the tea originated from the Wuyi area, I’d say that this is some hong cha unique to that region (Fujian / Guandong) that doesn’t have a very prestigious name outside its own province. Such gems exist all over tea growing countries. Whatever tea it is, though, I’m very happy to have had a chance to taste it!

I didn’t end up with a great many infusions (only 3) from the dark black twisted leaves, but they were a perfect gift on a long day spent under the looming specter of jet lag. I will thank the gods of tea for proving once again the mystery of this beautiful plant.

Update: It is indeed Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong, from the wonderful Stone Leaf Teahouse.