Comparing two versions of roasted Tie Kuan Yin

my daughter already has plans for this box, for hair clips and jewelry

A friend in Malaysia passed on some teas; I'm reviewing two versions of roasted Tie Kuan Yin from that set.  That's the same friend who passed on insight about what hui gan is, a "returning sweetness" effect in tea, really more related to what the "gan" aspect is, a type of bitterness that also extends to an experience of sweetness afterwards in that form in tea. 

I couldn't identify an online reference to exactly what it is (just different teas, I mean more on that), but it's from Dragon-i, a restaurant chain there and in Hong Kong (with more information and reviews here, but it's about food).

The set is too much, really.  It's ok if I give someone tea without getting anything back but somehow not right if it goes the other way; eventually I'll have to balance the scales, even if I have to go to Malaysia to do it.  Here's what the two teas are:

Teh Oolong TGY

Teh Gui Pin TGY


Of course Teh is tea, and TGY is Tie Kuan Yin (spelled as Guan; maybe I'm wrong to always use the other spelling).  I tried to look up the Gui Pin reference but it didn't pan out.  Since I'm writing this after the tasting session part I know what it is, roughly, it would just be interesting to trace that label and general type description back.  It was just more-roasted lightly oxidized Tie Kuan Yin, I think.

They seem to almost certainly be from around Anxi in Fujian, China; there's no way these teas are from Malaysia, being sold from a Chinese shop.  I've never heard of anything but commercial CTC black tea being produced in Malaysia, although surely there must be an exception or two out there.

Review

barely getting started; Teh Oolong left, Gui Pin version right

Teh Oolong TKY (hereafter referred to as "oolong," but they both are that):  the first sip probably lets me know where this is going to go; this is one of the best roasted Tie Kuan Yin's I've yet to try.  It's clearly very well made tea, complex, clean in flavor profile, with roasted flavor aspect range that's new to me.  I'll say more about it next round and just list a couple first-impression flavors for now:  more-cooked caramel stands out, with fruit beyond that covering both raisin and something more interesting, with an awful lot of depth to the complex range beyond that.  I could say more but I'll leave off until next round, since it will show more of what it's going to be then.


Gui Pin TKY:  this is similar in overall range, just a lot different in character.  Where the other was heavy caramel this is a bit inky in flavor impression (mineral intensive), with the roast coming across just a little more as roast, or as light "char" as I describe that in Wuyi Yancha.  It will also have more depth and a cleaner, better balanced overall range and effect than I may have ever ran across in more-roasted TKY.  These teas will be an education in a potential I've just not got around to covering.

It's no surprise that it exists, or that I've ran across over-roasted light versions that weren't on this quality level in the past.  That's how that would go, unless someone gets sourcing better sorted out.  I wasn't so clear on it at this point in the tasting but the first ended up seeming a lot more interesting and novel to me later.

she liked both but I didn't get much review out of her

Second infusion:

Oolong:  it's interesting the way this is so different than any more-roasted TKY I've tried, that much better.  The warm rich flavors are shifted a little towards cinnamon now, with the other fruit still present but falling into a lighter balance.  That roasted caramel range might be coming across closer to cocoa now.  Part of it I'm just not getting to describing, like a dried fruit range well beyond raisin, but that's the closest familiar version of that general range.  It's towards prune but not that either.  It works well for me because of a match to preference; I like the way more oxidation together with some roast effect works versus just roasting a light version instead, which is what I tend to run across.  That oxidation occurs early in processing, the same step that makes black tea into what it is, or oolong different from green tea, of course with baking / roasting occurring at the end instead.


Gui Pin:  this is a little more familiar, the character of this tea.  It seems to be a lighter roasted TKY version that uses the roasting step to shift character quite a bit, versus the other seeming to be oxidized more (what I just covered).

Related to aspects a light char comes across.  This general type of tea I've tried before; it's a pretty good version though.  Depth picks up a little more than in the first round but the general flavor is still the same.  I really like the first better for being so novel and for combining so much fruit and spice, and overall depth, along with novelty.  This is good tea though.

I didn't make anything of it in the tasting notes but the brewed tea of the first version is a lot darker.  I'm interpreting that as due to it being oxidized more.

Third infusion:

Oolong:  the roast effect picks up a little but the complexity is still the main thing that stands out, so much going on and balancing so well.  The same flavor list as last time applies, just with part diminished a little and swapped out for a more general trace of char joining in.  The feel is full but that part could be thicker.  The aftertaste effect is more pronounced; that really lingers.  Mineral tones carry on longer than the rest of the range, a dark version of mineral, paired with some of the fruit that is as close to prune as anything.  For being as earthy as the tea is it's still sweet, intense, bright, and clean.  It's that balance that more roasted or oxidized oolongs struggle to reach, beyond just getting factors like level of roast to contribute as much as possible without tasting like char.


Gui Pin:  floral tone picks up.  It's odd I've went so far into a TKY pair review without saying that, since floral range is most pronounced in the type, in general.  The other version was too far into fruit and spice to notice it and the char had been too strong in this.  Now it's not; it has faded somewhat and this is mostly floral.  If I go back and taste the other version and focus on the level of floral it's there, just not as pronounced as the rest.  This picks up a bit of old book or furniture taste to go with that; the char dropping back gave it plenty of space to evolve.  In the right level that type of aspect can be nice and it works in this.  For personal preference I like the range of the other tea better, maybe in part for it seeming less like what I've experienced before.  I've tried plenty of teas from other places that overlapped a little with it, leading to the guess that it seemed to be oxidation along with roast as a cause, but none with really similar overall character.

That late interpretation of floral tone reminds me of the last review, how it barely came up in talking about three different sheng, even though floral tones typically tend to stand out in those.  One in particular was from Jing Mai, and to me that's characteristic of that region, just less so and in a different form than in Yiwu, where it can be really intense.  Part of that might have related to that one tea being over two years old.  Tea character changes a good bit over that time-frame, with brighter and more intense aspects diminishing, along with bitterness and initial astringency.  Much later warmer, earthier aspects like dried fruit, spice, or tobacco might emerge (although that seemed like spice to me already).  Another part is that milder or non-distinct floral tone might just seem like a general sweetness; someone might call it honey-like instead, or associate it with the other mineral or earthy range, just as non-distinct sweetness.

The last possible interpretation is a bit touchier:  I was rushed and distracted during that tasting.  Usually on the Saturday tasting sessions my wife is off with my son at his Chinese lesson and this time she came back during it.  Even a level of noise will throw off how much detail is picked up in tasting, and make interpretation harder, but someone urging you to "wrap it up" is even worse.  We had that temple outing to get to (with photos in the last post), and plans for an errand after that.  These reviews aren't supposed to be a last word on what the teas are like, just an informed impression, but that impression is clearer when conditions are more ideal.  At least I didn't have a cold; that's worse.

Fourth infusion:

Oolong:  the tea is still brewing with plenty of flavor, using only around a 20 or so second infusion time, maybe just over that.  Others might like it stronger, and it would still work well brewed twice that long, but I'd see this infusion strength as conventional, and to my preference as roughly optimum.  The flavor and other aspects haven't transitioned enough to say more about that.


Gui Pin:  this tea is probably the best it's been at that point, while the other might just be leveling off and fading a little now.  Both these teas have more story to tell, about this many more infusions or more to go, about how they would evolve over that.  Per one take how well a tea retains it's character and how much pleasant tea it brews relates to the overall quality of the tea.  That seems partly right, but that also relates to different styles of tea, instead of just quality.  To me how pleasant and enjoyable all of the infusions come across is the main thing.

Teh Oolong (left) leaves are definitely darker

Later rounds / Conclusions

I did keep coming back to these teas, drinking a couple extra rounds a few times.  They really just seemed to keep thinning from there, without anything really interesting coming up due to extending infusion times, and without aspects "going off" in any ways, transitioning negatively.  

Teas come in a broad range of quality levels and these seemed pretty good.  "Good" is always relative; I think someone well-connected with good sources, willing to spend a bit on better versions, could still find better.  For Americans buying what turns up in typical online sources they're probably well above average.  Related to what turns up in Bangkok shops you tend to just not see good versions in these styles, even with a really broad range of "good" applied.  The bright green versions come in range of quality levels, and some few versions that are roasted some, but decent more-oxidized TKY  oolongs don't as much. 

The same challenge applies across lots of tea types.  It's easy to find really mediocre versions of many, online or else in shops, depending, but as you go up the scale of quality level that gets much harder.  Spending your way to better versions, finding options selling for more, is a promising approach but it offers no guarantee.  I'm familiar with a couple of well-known vendors who just add a more flowery description and sell roughly the same lower-medium quality and cost teas for twice as much.  I hope these teas didn't cost too much but they probably weren't a steal.

There are more to get to.  I'll mention how that goes, probably limiting it to covering the most interesting versions.

A origin story about the Iron Goddess of Mercy

That Malaysian-Chinese friend passed on a story about Guan Yin, familiar from being associated and the tea type, with the plant type and finished tea both named after a statue of the goddess or bhodisattva.  His version of the story is similar to one found in this Wikipedia reference (the Legend of Miaoshan version), but it's also quite different.  It came up due to sharing pictures of my children's visit to a local temple where there was such a statue:

I had thought both statue images there might be Guan Yin, but maybe not:

We were there to offer food (alms) to local monks, as part of observing both our kid's birthdays (two visits about a week apart), as shown:

In Thailand it's a cultural observance that monks never seem cheerful, as part of being even tempered and free from conventional emotional experience.  Of course they're still just people, so it's a mannerism as much as truly symbolic.  That monk is one of my favorites because he is cheerful instead (even though I don't know him; I just see him around, and my daughter and I "wai" to him, the Thai hand gesture next in the series of photos of that alms offering).

what the Thai "wai" looks like

Ordinarily I cite quoted text in bold lettering here but since this story from my friend is longer I'll skip that part in the following.  He really does write as if he's creating literature in every sentence, in all the messages.  It makes for great reading, and he makes a great online pen-pal, for sharing ideas even more than for sharing tea.  I considered editing this down but it's all too good a read to take out any part.  No need to frame it, or comment further after citing it; his version is clear and quite complete.

The statue depicts a princess, the youngest of the three daughters of an emperor of China. She was nearly killed upon birth by her own father, for wanting a son to someday continue rule the land, but the empress managed to stop the slaying.

During the reign of the emperor, due to his arrogance claiming himself to be the most powerful man on earth, he dismissed the might and the presence of the heavenly beings. To show his displeasure, he banned all Buddhism teaching, commanded the wholesale destruction of all Buddhist temples and scriptures. He ordered the round-up of all Buddhist monks, all of them defenseless, to be publicly reprimanded, some were even beaten, in public squares, for the sole purpose to invoke fear for and submission to him alone, amongst the villagers.

As fate would have it, an unburnt page of the sacred writings from the fiery flames was carried by the light breeze on a windless day and it landed in the chamber of the princess. She picked up the charred piece and perused it contemplatively. Her interest piqued ever since with many unanswered queries, apparently oblivious to the mayhem his father have caused throughout the kingdom, the many invasion of nearby states, unmannerly amassing more land and wealth.

One day, during the princess's visit to the town, a divine being gifted her a copy of the Buddhist scripture. She read it surreptitiously in the palace but no less attentively, unbeknownst to her that she would someday be pivotal to bringing peace and solace to the whole world with the knowledge gained.

A dignitary from a neighbouring state was granted an audience with the emperor and the princess had a premonition that he was about to impale his father with a sword hidden amongst the treasures to be presented to the emperor. The princess dashed to shield her father and successfully foiled the assassination attempt but she was stabbed on the forehead by the tip of the blade, precisely the very spot between her eyes. Therefore, the appearance of the red dot seen on the sculpture, below her hairline. All efforts were made to revive her but failed, nonetheless. During the period of time the princess was comatose, she met a mighty and powerful figure. The utterly great and supreme Buddha. Buddha called on the princess to use her empathy and innate compassionate nature to help the people in misery by disseminating the teaching of Buddhism.

However, whilst in the realm of the mortals, the royal physician had declared that the princess could not be saved. Her body was set alight on the funeral pyre, thereby hampering her return to the corporeal existence.

The divine being, the one the princess had met in town, told the royal household that the princess could be brought back to life only if flowers were to bloom in the pond of the palace. Lots of flowers were then placed gently on the surface of the pond, with chrysanthemums, peonies, but all harshly sunk to the bottom of the pond. A warrior, not long ago volunteered to be the protector for the princess filled with extreme remorse and guilt for failing to keep the princess safe, jumped into the pond, his only way to show contrition by ending his own life and very nearly drowned. His act of loyalty was blessed with the blooming of lotus flowers, the 'flower that bloomed in a pond', one of the giant blossoms bore the princess.

And ta-da, the princess was brought to life.

Therefore, the statuette always sits criss-cross applesauce on top of a lotus flower.

[that's one of my daughter's favorite expressions!]

she can do the seated meditation version  too

The adviser to the emperor, a very devious person that was instrumental in bringing chaos all over the country, eventually committed an act of betrayal. An attack by armed insurgents he led, was launched against the emperor and within the palace. Alas, the emperor committed suicide.

The warrior, the protector for the princess, having royal blood himself, succeeded his uncle, as the new emperor.

The princess's undying love for her late father was undeniable. She 'journeyed' to hell to save his father, hoping to bring him back to the world. Due to her immense filial piety towards her father, the God of the underworld granted her request, permitted the emperor to be reincarnated as human. However, the emperor declined as he had fully repented and wished to reborn as cow or horse to serve the human race. He was allowed to be reborn as cow.

It is most probably for that reason, many Buddhists do not consume beef.

Whilst saving her father, the princess cut off her left arm to feed the hungry ghosts that obstructed her gateway back to earth. The new king had a statue of the princess sitting on the lotus flower commissioned, to commemorate her miraculous and safe return. A temple was also built adjacent to the palace, allowing the princess to further her teaching of Buddhism to the villagers. Well, the new king was actually in love with the princess all the whilst, wishing her to always stay close by his side and believing that the new temple would do the trick.

However, the princess was destined for great things, to promulgate calm and peace for all mankind through compassion, kindness and mercy. And in fact, no reward could win over her special calling, required of her beyond the confines of the temple and the palace.

The mason had finally produced a statuette but with a missing arm, mimicking the princess's current state, much to the chagrin of the new king. Upon seeing the anger the new king had displayed, the villagers had each brought a sculpted arm for the mason, all to be affixed on the figurine to pay homage to the princess for her bravery and devotion to her parent.

Consequently, in modern times, there are many versions of the figurine of the deity, one with many arms and hands attached, in particular.

The princess eventually achieved enlightenment. She left the temple built for her, travelled all across the world in a lotus flower as a disciple of Buddha. She acquired the name '觀音' or 'Goon Yum', the heavenly title bestowed by Buddha, also famously known as the 'Goddess of Mercy'. '觀' or 'Goon' means 'to observe', whilst '音' or 'Yum' means 'sound'. Goddess of Mercy, a godly being that listens to the plight of the people in need of her help and relief.

The name '觀音' or 'Goon Yum' was also used as name for a tea. The tea '鐵觀音' or 'Theet Goon Yum', also known as 'Tie Kuan Yin' to many others, means the 'Iron Goddess of Mercy'. It was rumoured that '乾隆王' or 'Khin Loong Wong', also called 'Emperor Qian Loong', was so captivated by the tea, its sturdiness that resembled the characteristic of an iron, with the taste that all but paralleled to the beauty of the Goddess of Mercy.

It takes good skill to carve the face of the statuette of the goddess to look compassionate and kind. The Cantonese would usually present the amulets of this goddess, usually made of jade, to family members, to be worn as necklace to ward off evil spirits or for mere protection, especially those making a long trip or having it placed in a crib of a newborn. It is not uncommon to hear accounts that a person wearing the jewelled ornament survived major accidents with minor or came through the ordeals unscathed, but left with the broken green talisman, having it 'absorbed' all negative impacts, both physically and spiritually.