An East Berlin early Cold War tea mystery

Someone contacted me about a tea mystery, about tracking down a childhood tea for an acquaintance of theirs, with the details as follows:


He is seeking a tea he remembers from his childhood in Berlin after the war. It is likely to be Russian, or perhaps, Georgian. He does not know the name or type. It is very, very strong, sort of ‘oily’ but not exactly oily, smokey but not Lapsang. The family housekeeper would bring it from the Russian-held part of Berlin.


So the time frame is late 1940's, with that tea from East Berlin. A Russian tea vendor contact told me what is now being sold as "Russian caravan blend" is a made-up designation, just modern marketing spin, but if it had existed 70 years ago that would be a possibility. A blend including some Lapsang Souchong would account for the limited smokiness. Or tea processing style or preparation methods could be other critical factors.

The "oily" designation may be a clue; not many teas come across in that way, and black teas in general tend not to. Maybe it's a black tea but mixed with an herb, which is not unheard of in Russia. I have willow herb at home, also called "Ivan chay," and it has been described that way, and per recently trying it I could see the connection.

I posted this as a request for more input in a few related online groups.  I'll include a combined review of the best input here.  I'd asked in the International Tea Talk Facebook group that I'm an admin for, in the Gong Fu Cha group, in a St. Petersburg FB expat group, on Quora, and in the Trip Advisor travel forum section, and in a couple of other similar groups.

me with a mural in the St. Petersburg metro system

That last group mentioned might seem a little out of place; tea history isn't travel.  Back when I was asking around about tea in Russia before I went there over the last New Years people active in that group / discussion area were most helpful.  They were a little touchy about people not reading the entire FAQ section too (who does that?), but beyond that very nice and informative.  I'm a fan of Russian culture now, after that trip, and that kind sums up how Russians seem in general:  a little gruff, and plain-spoken, but nice and helpful as could be once you get past all that.



I'm a member of that St. Petersburg expat group for the same reason.  St. Petersburg is fantastic, by the way, almost worth it to visit just to see the metro system and the buildings.

Let's go right to what turned up.

Groups and forums input

One person in the St. Petersburg forum mentioned this great article on the old "elephant" brand Russian commercial tea.  It seems pretty unlikely that's what it was but maybe it could've been.  Per that article it seems more likely that product was developed in the 1960's, with the question about a tea experienced in the late 1940's.

Russian "elephant" tea (credit that reference article page)

I'll cite some of that article, since it's fascinating, if not a likely lead:


Initially, there was only Russian Georgian tea in the USSR . This was a real breakthrough in the industrial industry, and the drink was even exported to other countries, where it became popular... In the seventies the tea industry in the USSR fell, the state suffered losses and began to decide what to do about it. 


Many people, who came to the USSR, sadly remember those times when both "the grass was greener and the sky was cleaner", and the products were of the highest quality, in comparison with them, even the imported ones were useless. But many did not even suspect at the time that they drank tea, collected not in the territory of their beloved homeland, but far beyond its borders. It so happened that the Georgian tea had become unusable, so the USSR concluded a contract for the supply of tea with countries such as Sri Lanka, Kenya, Tanzania, India and Vietnam. With our previous importer, China, which could also supply tea, our state quarreled and therefore did not use its services... Initially, this scam went well, but still "domestic" tea replaced the same Indian tea "with an elephant". 

This tea was distinguished not only by its bright and strong taste, but also by packaging, which was specially developed in 1967, and Indian tea "with an elephant" was sold in 1972... Tea "with an elephant" was divided into higher and first grade... The first grade packaging contained only 15% of tea from India, 5% from Ceylon, 25% from Madagascar, and as many as 55% of sheets from Georgia. 


It's a little rough (automatic translation) but all that seems clear enough.  The earliest time-line isn't really stated but if the earliest date mentioned is the initial origin the products were made since the 1960s.

A link mentioned in the Trip Advisor forum responses shows the modern version of the tea for sale (which had been discontinued at one point), with that person's input that the modern version of the tea didn't seem very good to him.

That Quora question turned up some interesting input, not cited for sourcing, but worth considering:


The three main general kinds of black tea available for the Soviets at that time were: Chinese, Georgian and Azerbaijanian. Of those, the Chinese tea would be the least probable, given the state of matters in China at that time (civil war followed by the Japanese invasion).

The Georgian black tea of lesser quality (it’s highly doubtable that the elite kind would be available to the troops) is described as “smelling like tobacco and having a terrible taste.” The Azerbaijanian tea was quite similar.

As for the herbs, the Russians were often adding all kinds of those to the tea, the main limitations being the fantasy of the cook and the availability of the herbs around. Therefore it would be almost impossible to know what exactly was added back then (if it was). The Ivan Chay, aka Fireweed (US), aka Rosebay Willowherb (UK), was not only used as an additive, but also as a cheap surrogate when the real tea was unavailable.


Another comment (hard to keep track of where) claimed Indian tea was also available in Russia at that time.  Indian and Sri Lankan teas were definitely around then, so it might come down to a matter of what really were "main" imports, per that answer input framing.  That overall import source proportion may not determine if teas from those nationalities really would have been sold in East Berlin then.  It would be impossible to remember a taste from 70 years ago in enough detail to trace that back to a foreign tea style back then, never mind linking it to a blend.  The aim here is to see how far review might be able to get.

dog sledding at 5 PM; it had been night for a couple of hours

I just had black tea mixed with herbs (which ones wasn't described) in a visit to a sled dog camp outside of Murmansk, Russia, back during the last week of 2017.  It was a bit hard to place; it's easier for mixes of different things to be non-distinct.  That was actually made in a samovar too, the only time that came up in the Russia trip.

In kind of a typical theme for me I was taking my daughter to use the restroom when they actually talked about that part, that brewing device, and what teas were typical, and what it was we drank then.  My son just became a Thai novice monk monk recently, and after waiting around for two days of training and build-up my daughter absolutely needed to use the restroom at a few moments before he took the vows (with more on how all that worked out here).  I really don't mind at all; they are the priority, and the rest comes and goes as it will.

samovars brewing tea at the dogsled camp

that tea break, just before they brought out crepes

with tea break company like this the other details don't matter so much

To make a longish story short I reported back to the person posing the question that I thought the tea probably would have been one of three things:


1.  an earlier version of a Russian caravan blend, mixing Lapsang Souchong and other tea versions.

2.  a Georgian or Azerbaijanian black tea.

3.  black tea mixed with willow herb (Ivan Chay) or other tisanes.


It probably never would be possible to narrow down which it was.  It would be possible to try modern Georgian tea, and that tisane, willow herb (with both sold through this Moychay site), and to try out mixing the two.  Maybe something would seem really familiar, a likely match.  I reviewed two Georgian black teas from Moychay here and they just seemed like normal black teas, maybe slightly different in character as teas from different regions or teas processed differently tend to.

Review of willow herb

I bought willow herb in the Perlov shop in Moscow (where I also bought the only Russian tea I found on that trip), and this prompted me to try out that tisane, reviewed as follows.

the exterior of that shop is beautiful

friendly Russian guy who translated tea labels for me there

The "tea" tastes nice rich and malty, just in a different sense than in the two other ways I tend to use malt as a description.  The main way I use that description is for Assam, related to that strong near-mineral flavor range.  A second is for sweeter, richer, smoother teas with a version of malt that reminds me more of Ovaltine.  A mid-roasted rolled oolong can also taste malty (like a Dong Ding), which can be really pronounced in a winter harvest tea version, but it's malt in a different sense, a bit closer to how Ovaltine comes across, or a malted milkshake.

When I first smelled this tea a warm, sweet, complex scent was familiar from long ago:  it smelled like animal feed.  That sounds like an insult, but processed malted grains used as animal feed smell nice.  I won't get too far into details but I raised pigs when I was younger, growing up in rural Western Pennsylvania.  There are more stories about how that went but none that help the context make any more sense than it already does.  It was kind of a normal thing to do there.

I don't know what those feeds were made from, although I must have read the bags back then, around 40 years ago.  I don't know how they were processed in order to smell as sweet and rich as they did, or what was blended with what.  I loved the smells related to that farming activity, and truth be told I loved those animals too, perhaps one main reason I spent nearly 20 years as a vegetarian later in life.

The first taste of the tisane was a little like that, just probably much cleaner, more complex, and more pleasant than it sounds.  Tisanes often come across as really one-dimensional compared to actual tea but this had a good bit of aspect complexity going for it.  The flavor was sweet and rich, mostly related to that malted grain taste.  There was other earthy range that gave it more depth, a strange sort of root-spice complexity, not so far off licorice.  It's almost as much an overlapping interpretation versus being a different aspect but it also tastes like bread dough, that one yeast-like flavor that comes up.  The feel was thick, a bit oily, and the tasting experience ended with more trailing aftertaste than usually occurs with tisanes.


Related to this being drank on its own it's fine, a bit richer and more complex than infused herbs tend to be.  I'd probably rather drink a mid-roasted rolled oolong, which seems closest to this in profile, but those are more complex.  It might work really well combined with black tea, since it is smooth and complex but a bit thin related to that broader aspect range.  It lacks all of the edge that standard black teas typically have, the astringency, and also the flavor range that is more typical of what people call malt when reviewing teas, and the other mineral or fruit range that different black teas can express.

As chance has it someone just gave me what looks like a pretty standard plain Kenyan tea (Williamson Tea "Traditional Afternoon" blend), so I tried it mixed with that.  I tasted that black tea alone first:  it's CTC tea-bag black tea, not great, not awful, not surprising in any way.


The blend of the two was a little unusual.  I'm just not accustomed to drinking black tea mixed with much, although I did buy a floral and Ceylon black tea commercial blend in Russia for the office staff here.  That was ok, those inputs matched.  It didn't help that I don't really love CTC black tea, that malty, mineral-tone, rust-like edge those have.  This mix might've been what he had been drinking as a child but it would take some getting used to.  That's especially if someone had already been on the page of drinking better Chinese black teas, deviating to drink a better orthodox Assam or Ceylon when those come up.


I think I liked the tisane better alone since it didn't run counter to my expectations for black tea in the same way.  That malted grain and licorice range sweetness and flavor depth just seems odd paired up with it.  Towards the end it started to make more sense and I'd bet if I had it a few times I'd like it a lot better.

Back to the search

I drifted just a little further towards tracking down willow herb (Ivan chay) and other Georgian tea options in NYC but didn't get far with that.  I asked about options in a NYC tea group and heard nothing back.  I had tried a reasonable Russian caravan blend from Sun's Organic in the NYC Chinatown but it wasn't really close to that initial flavor description.  It seemed highly unlikely that even a tea based on the same mix of tea type inputs (from the same regions) would be similar when made from modern versions.


I asked around a little about Russian markets in NYC but mail order was probably going to be an easier path to follow, unless the person checking wanted to spend a couple hours on Google search and a half a day walking around that related neighborhood.


Of course Google does turn up options fairly quickly, so it wouldn't take much to try finding that one tisane.  After a few clicks an online option turned up locally (there), associated with a local physical store, and some of the same search options I'd checked in this investigation turned up other promising leads.

As mentioned it really could've just been plain, unusual character Georgian or Azerbaijanian black tea, and it may not be possible to find an identically processed tea version today, 70 years later.  If someone had dried teas indoors using heat from a wood fire back then that could have contributed that smoke aspect, and what might well be seen as updated processing improvements might drop that smoke aspect out.  Ordinary black tea shouldn't seem oily, a plain tea or a blend, so maybe that was from an herb, or it could've just been from a processing flaw, or atypical result.  At one point I considered whether it may have even been a Liu Bao instead (a hei cha, not black tea at all), but I've not been discussing that since I rejected it as unlikely.

If anyone reading this thinks "I know what that probably was" it would be interesting to hear more input, probably best communicated through this blog's related Facebook page.

Nantou roasted Taiwanese oolong from the TShop in NYC

I'm finally trying a TShop Nantou roasted Taiwanese oolong, a tea I bought in NYC at the start of the year, only a week into the year (more on them here).  It's odd to get that far behind in trying teas, between tasting samples and all that illness, and continuing to buy other teas.  I bought 150 grams of another light oolong I'm only now getting low on, a Lin Hua Tai Shan Lin Xi version reviewed here (with more shop details here), which I'll taste along with this tea.  I have one more Lin Mao Sen shop oolong version yet to try (from a shop next door to them, with a long back-story about that), and also a black tea from them, both of which I guess I'm aging a little before getting to.

Lin Hua Tai Shan Lin Xi oolong

This is a completely different tea than the Lin Hua Tai tea, darker roasted, and from Nantuo county--where the mountain of Dong Ding is located--instead of that Shan Lin Xi (which per inconsistent transliteration convention in Taiwan goes by other variations of that location name).  Part of the idea is to compare similarities and differences, and also to help pin down quality level.  I keep saying that teas need to be similar for comparison tasting to work--sort of the opposite of this case--but that's also a function of how familiar they are.


It would still work to try two completely different Wuyi Yancha at the same time, for example, unless the style of both was unfamiliar, then that would just be too confusing.  It wouldn't be as informative as if they were quite similar but clarifying some attributes can still work through comparison, for example a difference in body / feel might stand out better than when trying a single tea.  That's more the point here, not to zero in on just how good a tea of this type is--a moderately roasted oolong--through comparison with another like it, but to help clarify background character differences, and maybe even to highlight style differences more through contrast.  Or it could just be a bad idea.

typical tea cultivars used per Taiwan region table (from TeaDB site)

These may be from the same cultivar / plant type, per this Tea DB site reference.  Chin-shin is now typically referred to more often as Qing Xin, which is just a transliteration style update, mentioned here, with more background in the gold standard of all references, a Wikipedia article.


That part about Chin shin / Qing Xin being Ruan Zhi may or may not ring a bell (covered here).  It ties back to an issue with almost all the Thai tea industry getting their tea names mixed up since they call a #17 hybrid Ruan Zhi, which doesn't match, since that's a landrace.  Or maybe it's technically not that, since it's foreign origin is known.  I'd be clearer on the use of those terms if I were a botanist, the main point being it's not one of their hybrids.

more on non-hybrid tea types from Taiwan, with another table on the TRES / TTES types there (source)

Review

The tea is good (I'm skipping the appearance and dry smell parts; that's all what you'd expect).  It has that richness of more roasted but still light oolong.  Judging just how good the tea is will be no easy task, since I've tried different Taiwanese oolongs but trying lots regularly is the right background for doing that.  Just listing flavor aspects will be tricky enough.


Early on it shows light floral aspects, that light malted milk ball / light caramel sweetness, and a general smoothness and richness.  I think it could be a little thicker but the complexity and cleanness is quite good.  It's not a heavily roasted tea by any means but to me it strikes a great balance for that.

The Lin Hua Tai tea is much more floral and fragrant, and a little brighter, in a different range.  Mentioning flower names would be helpful here, it just wouldn't mean much to anyone that doesn't remember lots of floral scents, as I don't.  The aspects drift to a light green wood taste, which integrates well with the floral tone.  Both are just getting started so I'll keep going.

On the next infusion the TShop tea moves into a cocoa aspect a little; it's even richer.  I think it won't show it's full potential until the next round though, with the leaves still unfurling.  The floral aspect doesn't go anywhere but the balance works even better.  There isn't much mineral structure compared to the other tea but some undertones give it fullness.  It's too early to call related to this tea but the roast effect seems great, with the only limitation that it gives up some fullness of feel and flavor intensity, just not flavor range.  Put another way it seems thinner.  Any tea could be different in lots of ways, and the flavors could be more positive and complex, but they're quite good as they are.

The Lin Hua Tai tea is more intense, more floral, and fuller, with a longer aftertaste duration.  It's limitation doesn't relate to complexity or cleanness,  both are fine, but to that more vegetal nature not being a preference of mine.  I mean that in the sense of a light wood tone, nothing like vegetables, and it's definitely not grassy.  I would expect some of the differences to relate to regional characteristics, along with processing differences and the rest.  But then that's back to where lots of exposure would allow for saying more.

Lin Hua Tai Shan Lin Xi left, TShop Natou oolong right

I think if I were tasting either alone the flavor aspect list would be longer.  It's odd I've not experienced that before, or noticed it, that I tend to review teas a bit differently in comparison, or at least might.  Aspects other than flavor stand out a lot more so it's natural to focus more on them.

I was right that the TShop tea had a little more to give; the flavors richness and balance is very nice now.  Let's put that as a list:  light cocoa, floral now in a subdued underlying underlying presentation, light caramel sweetness.  The fullness of flavor really could be described as a few more things; it leans toward spice, includes an aspect like roasted chestnut, and fruit in the range of sweet cooked pumpkin and sun dried tomato (or maybe sweet potato; that's in the same range, and I am talking about a secondary aspect).  For all that the general character is still thinner than the other tea, less aromatic, less full feel, with less aftertaste.  This wasn't their higher end tea and those limitations are probably why.  But the flavor is great, per matching my preferences.

The other Lin Hua Tai tea hasn't changed much.  It's full in flavor and complex enough that I might not be recognizing two or three floral aspects, all mixed into an integrated range.  There are a few characteristic features of good Taiwanese oolongs, some of which aren't easy to describe.  Strong mineral undertone, floral nature, fullness in different ways, those aren't so hard to place.  This has a brightness and roundness to it that's harder to pin down, something there should be a Chinese concept for.  It's aromatic, so related to that, but I mean the range that's expressed in, the specific type of fragrance.  It's perfume-like, as if that helps.  That one aspect probably resembles an herb I'm not familiar with.

The next infusion is more of the same.  I'd expect these teas to produce a couple more similar infusions then begin a decline or transition that would take a long time to lead to them being brewed out.  I might mention that I really like both these teas; I'm not sure that preference take always comes across clearly.  It's hard to imagine anyone not appreciating these aspects ranges, or finding them boring, but preferences do vary, and any experience might get old under the right conditions.

These teas are a good example of why I'm often saying that Thai teas just aren't there related to this quality level.  I may have tried slightly better versions from Taiwan, although at some point that gets to be about type preference as much as quality.  But I've never tried a similar tea from Thailand (or Vietnam, or Myanmar) made in a similar style on this level.  Chinese teas span a broader quality range than I'll ever get around to experiencing, on the highest side, but Taiwanese teas tend to have really pleasant and unique character, and any above average versions are very nice.

Shan Lin Xi left, Nantou oolong right

On physical shops versus online sources, and tea value

TShop, like a studio cafe

I bought these teas from two completely different types of sources, opposites almost, so it's not really fair to compare them in terms of value, related to comparing price per gram.  I will anyway.

First I might mention that different types of vendors play different roles.  A tea cafe or local brick and mortar shop is an important resource, a place to try cups of tea, to enjoy the setting, or to at least try teas along with a person that can give advice about what you might like, or discuss background.  Obviously their overhead is higher than an online-only business, so shops are at a disadvantage related to selling for the lowest rates.  Tasting teas before you buy more in bulk is a different kind of savings, though; it doesn't help getting a great deal on a tea you don't like.

Wholesale oriented shops close to where producers are located, or buying from actual producers, are totally different things.  Of course value can be better, or in some cases selection could also be better, but that's inconsistent, it depends on the sources.  Some online vendors really are selling hard to find higher quality teas, and some are just saying that, and they're all over the map related to mark-up and value.  Onto more about these cases.

If I'm remembering right I bought this Lin Hua Tai tea for around the same price as the TShop tea, meaning I bought 150 grams of one tea for perhaps just a little more than 50 grams of a comparable quality version.  The TShop version might not be quite as nice in terms of grade, although the style suited my preference more, and the demand and typical price for that style range might be higher if enough others see that the same way.

Lin Hua Tai in Taipei; a different kind of tea shop

Again that's a totally unfair comparison, rating a wholesale-oriented shop in Taipei against a retail cafe theme shop in New York City, half a world away  TShop isn't even tucked away in a side alley in Chinatown, but rather a bit North of there, where I'd expect rental to be much higher.  I'd recommend visiting the TShop as a cafe experience, even though I'm not comfortable with spending $20 on a pot of tea too frequently, and as I recall their more interesting versions were more like $25-30.  But then different people have different expectations, and budgets.

It was odd visiting the TShop and hearing loose tea prices, and not really being able to explain why I'd just traveled from the far side of the world but couldn't conceive of spending $70 on 50 grams of tea (and I didn't; this version was $20 or 30, not one of their higher end offerings).  I can't really explain my expectations related to buying tea or my finances, although at some point I probably will get around to saying more about that here.  Part of the reluctance that day was because I was going to be in Taipei in a couple of days, probably a good place to be looking for Taiwanese oolongs, which is mostly what they carried.

And I did visit Taipei, outlined in this post, which is as much about travel there as details about what I found.  I'd highly recommend visiting Lin Hua Tai there, and also talk about some other interesting options in that write-up.

There's only one more loose end to cover; in that first post mentioning the TShop I said an online contact recommended the shop, but I didn't say who it was.  She is one of my favorite tea bloggers, Natasha, the creator of the Snooty Tea Blog and video series, here, or with lots more on Youtube.  She stopped writing and making videos about tea, on to other things now.  The life-cycle of blogging is another interesting theme to me, why people take it up and leave it behind, but even though she's not still posting them her videos are great.

Reviewing a shou pu'er from Sun's Organic Garden (NYC shop)

shou tuocha; that's how they tend to look

It's been awhile since I've had shou pu'er.  I liked the type initially, and drank quite a bit some years ago related to buying 7572 Menghai Dayi cakes on sale, reviewing different years' versions in this blog.  Somehow I just got away from it.  Whenever I see random cakes or tuocha--like this one--I always wonder how it might be (not so much with the single serving versions, those pellets; I've not had the most luck with those).

Sun's Organic Garden in NYC, on that recent visit mentioned in this travel-blog theme post, seemed the ideal place to give some a try.  This source of version wasn't described in detail but it was identified as aged, 5 or 6 years as I recall, plenty of time for off flavors that can associate with a more newely fermented shou to fade away.  As a moderate amount of tea the cost wasn't much, so not much risk related to that part.  I might also mention this was the last of this particular tea to be sold, so visiting the shop just to buy it wouldn't work.

The tea is shou, a rich, full, smooth version of one. Someone not familiar with the general type might be taken a back by the earthiness but it's what I'd hoped it would be, complex and clean as those go, but still in that really earthy range.

crazy person on the NYC subway

It tastes sort of like one would expect peat to taste, or forest floor, related mixes of organic compounds that no one would actually taste.  It's about as close to the range of lightly roasted coffee as teas tend to get, although not so close it that tastes a lot like coffee.


There's a bit of leather too, in the range of old baseball glove, maybe even closest to catcher's mitt versus baseman's glove or outfield.  Is it obvious when I'm joking?  The scent of the tea does conjure images of that sports equipment we played with as a child, including an old beat up and stretched out football.

A second infusion isn't so different.  It might be cleaning up a little, but the first wasn't really musty or earthy in a bad or off sense; it was nice.  A faint trace of petroleum picks up. To most that would sound terrible, perhaps bringing forth an image and scent of changing the oil in a car, but fresh, raw crude oil is something else.  It has a beautiful, rich, sweet complex smell, not one that entices you to taste it, but much cleaner and more interesting than motor oil, new or used.  How would I know that? Being from Pennsylvania both my parents and grandparents had an oil well on their property, not high production operations but they produced, and I'd help go and drain off the waste water that pumped up along with the oil, one of many country-life chores.

Tar might also work as a description;  that is also related to fresh crude.  I mean that in a good sense,  as a trace of earthy mineral sweetness, like sweet, fragrant roofing tar, not the overwhelming blast of industrial smelling pavement construction.

That sweetness is nice.  That almost seems a contradiction,  doesn't it, saying it tastes like sweet peat, leather, and oil.  But it kind of does.


The complexity is also interesting.  Soft and full mineral tones below those forward facing aspects are harder to describe.  One mineral tone is a bit sweet, hard to pin down, something unfamiliar (I never will get back to that, so I'm not introducing the idea here for that purpose, just saying that describing one part escapes me).  Of course dark wood is also layered in there, very dark wood.  Or maybe it's two types, a dark mahogany giving it depth and a brighter redwood mapping onto lighter tones moving towards spice range, just not quite getting to there.

For all that description it just sounds like a nice version of shou to me, a typical profile, if the version is nice.  Another nice part about shou that's approachable and complex is that it brews a good bit of tea, it keeps on going.  I would expect it to hold up well, just not to transition flavors so much.  The third infusion bears that out.


Such a tea is also easy to brew.  It would be possible to use fast infusions Gongfu style to really stretch out taste experience, and potentially get the most out of it, or it works to brew it in a modified Western style and let it steep longer to be more intense.  It's just fine inky black and thick, or if preference isn't that relatively thinner versions would still offer a lot of flavor.  Or the reverse of those brewing approaches could work; brewing it stronger by Gongfu style and lighter by a Western technique (although that somehow seems less natural).  That would vary results a little but the range would probably be similar.


The next infusion lightens a little, even for lengthening brew time.  It moves a little towards spice, really in the range of redwood or cedar, to the extent those woods resemble spices.  A touch of petroleum remains,  which to me is nice.  Someone else might see that as a mild camphor component but to me it's not that, just somewhat related.  These flavors have moved into a brighter, lighter range to the extent someone might also start identifying fruit, or at least cooked sweet potato.  It's just not even close to the overall Chinese black tea range where that is more typical, still an earthier, different aspect range tea.


All in all it is just what I was hoping it would be.  Pleasant surprises can also be good but it's nice when a tea works out that way.

Reviewing a very smoky lapsang souchong (from NYC!)

In a recent post on shopping for tea in New York City I mentioned gambling on a lapsang souchong (smoked black tea) in a visit to the New Kam Man Chinese grocery store there (on Canal Street in the Manhattan Chinatown).

New Kam Man shop in the Manhattan Chinatown

A bit of background first:  lapsang souchong has been getting a remake for some time from unsmoked versions becoming popular.  Around three to four years ago I first tried an unsmoked and supposedly higher grade version.  I liked that tea, but had mixed feelings about the lack of smoke since it somehow did seem on the neutral character side.  A great black tea doesn't need smoke flavor, but that is part of the point of the type, traditionally.  I more recently tried one that was a truly great black tea (from Cindy Chen--my favorite Wuyishan tea farmer and producer) and it would've been an outrage to smoke that, to cover up the great balance or obscure the nice citrus element that came through.

packaged commercial teas, lots of them

More background, the type history:  supposedly lapsang souchong is the first type of black tea produced (although who knows about that, since oxidizing tea isn't really that complicated a process, per my understanding).  The story goes that locals abandoned some tea leaves in the middle of processing--due to an emergency, maybe ran off by opposing soldiers, I think it was--then later somehow contact with smoke or drying the tea using smoke came up.  This is why they invented Wikipedia, isn't it, to get one clear version within easy access, even if it may or may not be right in the case of fables.  Or this is a nice video series on the subject of Chinese tea history that a friend shared; I should watch that.



Lets go back to that moment that I decided which teas to gamble on, and why it was a gamble in the first place.

just looks like a black tea, only a little broken

Large jar storage issues

So I'm standing in the basement of the New Kam Man Chinese grocery store, impressed by a vast array of tea and teaware, boxed teas, tin teas, large jars, lots to take in.  At the time I was jet-lagged, shaking off braving a blizzard, all not really directly relevant.  Then it hits me:  I don't usually drink boxed teas, and large jars aren't a great way to store tea.  I've actually had mixed results with commercial teas, which aren't necessarily all bad, but without much to go on that really would be a gamble (in retrospect I might've snagged a little longjing to see how it went though).  I was more curious about those large jars since I don't buy tea that way very often, even though I've seen that in different places, including in the Bangkok Chinatown.


It's obvious why that's a bad idea for storage, isn't it?  Every time that jar is opened fresh air full of oxygen and moisture is mixed into the empty air space, more of both to degrade that tea.  The tea might've been in there for a couple of years, put through lots of cycles of that.  Lots of the green teas looked a bit brown as a result.  Aged green tea isn't as horrible as hearsay would let on; it looses the freshness that is typically part of the appeal, but to some extent the flavors just change rather than transitioning straight to horrible.  I visited a shop Chinatown shop here once where they were drinking 40 year old Longjing, as black as this tea, although I didn't try it.  But some other teas would age better, or I should say, deal with non-optimum storage better.

jar tea in a different shop; the green is looking a little brown

I'm not the best person to say which teas change in which ways--I just learn about teas as I go, and I'm not a novice but closer to that than an expert--but I'll take a really complete guess anyway.  Let's format that as my guesses as to which teas hold up to storage best, in order.


1.  Pu'er (either type, sheng or shou):  kind of a given, since both are said to improve with age.  Sheng is supposed to change more, to some people to require aging to improve and lose some characteristics that young sheng possess that aren't as interesting as aged (fermented) sheng.  Of course that's too simple.  Some people love brand-new sheng, which is more like green tea, fresh, if potentially a little edgy.  It's not as if every new sheng starts from the same set of characteristics though.  The opposite is just as true, or maybe more so; versions vary in lots of ways.  Shou is described as changing less, requiring a couple of years to settle and lose newly-fermented tastes that aren't favorable, but lots of people prefer older shou too.


I wrote a post on fermenting pu'er that goes into parts of this, but really I just dabble a little in pu'er, so my own experience isn't a reference in that.  The interesting main point:  fermentation is caused by micro-organisms, bacteria and fungus.  It's as well to not dwell on that being too unusual; some micro-organisms are our friends, and yogurt is normal enough.  This means some degree of air contact is absolutely necessary for fermentation, along with humidity, since those organisms are going to need both for their own life processes.  Too much or too little of either and the tea is ruined, potentially, which is what that post is about, a debate over the best conditions.


2.  Rolled oolong:  to some extent this applies to twisted style oolongs too, but to some greater extent intentionally aging rolled oolongs is seen as an improvement.  Some of the same qualifications apply as with pu'er; it's not a given that any aging helps any oolong, with personal preference dictating which outcomes are better.  Maybe loosely corresponding to the shou issue--in outcome, at least--darker roasted twisted Wuyi Yancha teas are said to improve after a year or two of aging to let the "char" effect settle, even though there is no close parallel as to what's going on between those two teas and aging processes.  Unlike with pu'er ideal air contact is typically described as none.  The teas aren't fermenting, they're sort of resting, although I've not ran across a description of what changes in them.  Some compounds must become other related compounds over time, but I'd not know how, or which.

the kids playing violin with a Central Park performer

3.  White tea:  this is a judgement call, putting white tea next, but it is also intentionally aged, sometimes, so why not.  More often it's not intentionally aged, and how it changes and which white teas should be aged, and how, is more than I'll go into here.  Even if you leave a well-sealed pack of silver needle sit off to the side for a year it will change a good bit, or at least that has occurred in my personal experience.  Conditions must play a role, and living in Bangkok the naturally high heat is probably either good for aging or terrible for it depending on what one means by "good" and preference.  Green teas loose their freshness fast stored in the 90 F / 30 C range; that probably wouldn't be seen as good.  It's interesting that some white teas are even pressed into cakes, as with pu'er, in a form that's supposed to better support aging, but I won't get into more about that here.


This seems a good place to mention that I also bought a white tea, a peony / Bai Mu Dan style, because it seemed it would hold up ok.  It had degraded, to some extent, it was darkened a bit, although I guess it might be possible to see the aging / changes as neutral.  The freshness and sweetness gave way to a lot more earthiness and mineral tone.  I liked trying it, and it was quite drinkable, just surely different than where it had started.  Based on the traditional saying for aging whites "three years medicine, seven years treasure" maybe it just needed a couple more years, but I think it was getting too roughed up a little by periodic air contact to really blossom into something special.  Also who knows what these teas started out as; mediocre tea isn't going to turn into great tea by sitting around, or at least so the common understanding goes.

Times Square!  (also not about tea)

4.  Black tea:  per descriptions of which teas need to be consumed fastest and which can stick around black tea is durable.  It's not typically described as benefiting from aging but then aging is an odd concept, and some of people would describe special cases where they think it would.  Oddly I don't have much to add about that; to me it just seems to hold up well.


Given all that about types and aging I bought a black tea (lapsang souchong) and that white tea.  A pu'er or rolled oolong would've made more sense but I was about to go to Taiwan in a few days and would stock up on oolong there, and I'd just bought pu'er (two versions) in Sun's Organic Tea garden.  I'll definitely let you know how that goes with those in later posts.

Follow-up:  transportation issues and tasting

I'll come right out with it:  this tea smoked my luggage, not a good sign.  After not very long I noticed it was giving off smoke fumes and wrapped the package in a number of plastic bags, and separated it from all other teas I'd bought.  Me smelling like smoke is no big deal; converting all the teas I'd bought to smoked teas--even through their packaging--would definitely not be an improvement.  I was concerned that meant it was chemically smoked, since it seemed unlikely that stored tea could retain smoke so strong it blasted straight through plastic packaging.  But then ordinary types of plastic bags are a lot more porous than one would think.  One take-away:  don't store your tea in zip-lock baggies.


The tasting notes here aren't going to go far, I'm afraid.  It tasted like smoke.  A lot like smoke.  If you took the cinders from a campfire and brewed them they'd be just like this tea.  It wasn't bad, given all that.

the basic set-up my grandfather used (photo credit)

I'm not sure that I could detect a difference between a chemical smoke flavoring and real smoke, but of course I feel as though I might be able to.  I tried lots of crazy smoked foods my grandfather made when I was a child, so I was familiar then with outrageous levels of real smoke on foods.  He smoked things like cheese, fish, and venison bologna, things that it made sense to smoke.  It was just the over-smoking that wasn't conventional, going way past adding a subtle earthiness to cheese straight on to blackening it.


My grandfather passed on a rule of thumb for which types of wood to use:  if a tree bore an edible fruit it would be fine for use for smoking.  Hickory and cherry are good (which supply nuts and fruit).  Maple is ok, kind of an exception given the sap is used to make a food, syrup.  He made that too, by the way, and my own Dad still does.  That's a fascinating process but this is already running long; lets just say you "tap" the tree to steal some sap and boil that awhile, and voila, maple syrup.  Pine smoke, supposedly used for lapsang souchong, is a funny exception, but then I guess you could eat pine nuts, for some trees.

I miss those two, just great people

So it seems like real smoke to me.  I hoped to say more about the character; is it sour and sharp as one would expect from pine, or warm and rich as one would expect from maple or hickory?  In the middle.  Or maybe I'm just not a great judge of smoke.  I tried to see what I could pick up from the tea but the smoke was too strong.  I probably could've brewed smoked copy paper and I couldn't detect a lot of the difference, although then again there probably was some tea taste layered way, way under that.  The smoke was too strong for it to be a good lapsang souchong but it was still drinkable, still ok.  I just wouldn't want to drink much of it.

I reviewed a smokey lapsang souchong from a local Bangkok cafe that was probably nearly as smokey, but that came across more in the finish.  In retrospect that might've been more likely to be a chemical, or chemically enhanced, since it's unnatural for a taste to get stronger well after you drink the tea.

This tea might be better blended in some way.  I've tried using lapsang souchong in making masala chai before and that works out, a nice layer added in with spicing.  Of course this one would have to be "cut" with a normal tea or that wouldn't work, unless someone tried to take it to a daredevil level of flavoring.  At that point you  might as well add dried roasted peppers and just go crazy with it, and probably more layers like dried orange peel to give it depth and soften the blow.  We'll see, but I probably won't do all that.  Even for masala chai I like the way the different taste elements merge into a harmony, and I don't think that would translate if you cranked up the volume to 11 for all of them.

I'm not saying it was a gamble gone bad but it wasn't exactly a clear success story.  I even tried the lapsang souchong a second time and really had trouble with the strong smoke aspect again, so I'll either drink it mixed or give it away.  I mentioned in a forum discussion I could use it for a meat rub, not entirely joking.  I think it might be nice as part of a base for a turkey noodle soup, giving it that campfire effect such soup had when we would take that out hunting when I was a child.  A child, out killing animals for food, good times, but that was life in the country, and it still is.  I spent nearly two decades as a vegetarian in part as a result of that but now I see the bigger picture, and it is a positive, ethical alternative to factory farming.  But I digress.

The tea cost so little it was still worth it (in the $5 for 50 grams range, maybe), and in retrospect I really should've picked up a pu'er and rolled oolong too, and spared the extra $10 or so to try two more types.  The peony was just so-so too, but experiencing more-aged white tea was interesting enough, and it was more drinkable.

It might seem like I'm more critical of that store and that experience than I really intend.  If that store was here in Bangkok with the same selection and same pricing I'd keep sorting out what worked and what didn't from there, and be happy to have the option to do so.  It's nice having better tea options, in the kind of shop where a kind owner sits and talks tea with you along with doing free tasting before you buy; all that is ideal really.  But trying random and unusual medium or even lower quality versions of tea can be really interesting too, not always only informative when it works out well.

Tea shopping in New York City

Sounds cool, doesn't it, venturing out into the snowy cold of a New York City winter evening, stopping by cozy shops packed full of jars and tins, with herbal remedies mixed with teas from different origins.  Or maybe instead visiting a Chinese market basement crammed with all sorts of teaware and tea, or stopping by a trendy cafe-themed shop in a hipper part of Manhattan.  I did all that, barely over a week ago now.  I got turned around in the subway, getting off at a different stop than I expected, smelled weed while walking the streets, walked by homeless guys sharing bottles, and even had a kind offer for a warm break and a massage from a cheerful and pretty Asian woman (which I turned down).  I always disliked NYC on previous visits but this time I started to get it.

I'll stick more to shops, to what I ran across, which is by no means a good guide to what tea is available in New York City.  I read background on other interesting places but had very little time to work with, so I visited wherever I happened to make it to.  Finding options there wouldn't be difficult, but finding the type of place you really want to visit with the tea you'd love to try is another story.

the munchkins at ground zero, the World Trade Center memorial

Google turns up pages summarizing options, like this list of the ten best NYC tea shops or cafes (their take, at at least), or Foursquare's version, or a list of nine places here, or eight more here.  Of course all of those overlap, with some unique suggestions in each.  Asking a local enthusiast should be good strategy, and I did that, or checking things like Tea Chat threads, although that one is a bit dated.  On to the shops I did make it to then.

Shops I visited

Ten Ren:  a Taiwanese tea chain shop, the first place I visited (which I also saw in Taipei the next week, a different story).  They tended to sell teas labeled as general types like "black tea;" a bit off-putting.  I didn't stick around or buy tea, although of course that doesn't really imply that the tea wasn't good.

Chung Chou shop, Chinese herbs and tea shop

Chung Chou City shop, in Chinatown, Manhattan (website and Yelp page).  This is the kind of shop you might drift into walking around, as I did, a Chinese medicine shop with some jars of tea in one section.  It's also the kind of place you might be inclined to walk right back out of, but curiosity had me testing out a couple of plain looking black teas, not a huge risk for teas costing around $60 a pound.  I tried one; it was about as good as the price indicated, decent for inexpensive tea, perhaps a bit awful for someone accustomed to better.  Of course it's still the next level up from almost any tea sold in tea bags, so better than 99% of all teas Brits or Americans drink, and a good value for what it is.

Manhattan Chinatown, with the WTC in the background

Sun's Organic Garden (on Facebook):  the first store that showed up on those list references, and also in the Tea Chat discussion.  Per a Trip Advisor rating it's #474 of 576 Coffee & Tea in New York City, but I'm pretty sure it should be at the front end of that list, even with some pros and cons.  The owner carried one each of about 50 or 60 tea types I've tried (or was that 100, hard to keep track), and a good number I've not tried.  A couple of the teas included enough detail on the label I could tell exactly what they were, from which producer, and those were pretty decent teas, but most were just a general reference to a type.

If the owner's judgement in teas is good--who I won't be referring to by name, since I don't know it--then the lack of information is no problem; if not then shopping there might not be worthwhile.  Some of the pricing seemed just a little low--which she explained related to them not being organic--but most was right on what a fair price would probably be, for a decent but not exceptionally high quality level of the types.

I'd really have to try the teas to be better informed related to final outcome, but based on trying one of four so far that's promising (which I'll review following).  That tea was pretty good, a Kenyan black tea, basic but nice.  The owner probably wouldn't want her shop judged by one of the least expensive and atypical teas in it, since there was a general focus on Chinese and Taiwanese teas, with Japanese and Indian offerings, and a mix of others.  I also bought a Russian black tea (which I've not tried yet--interesting, but no baseline to work with), and gambled on a couple of pu'ers, a five year old sheng, sold as broken up, and a tuocha of cooked / shou pu'er.  The shop carried a lot of herbs too, with the owner offering some limited advice for use.  It was nice eavesdropping and hearing her cut off explanations and suggestions where drawing on medical input instead would make sense, not overselling based on guesswork and ancient Chinese wisdom, which would be an easy habit to drift into.

On the whole I liked it; to me it was well worth a look.  I got a good vibe off the owner, who seemed a little unconventional in a way that I could relate to, even though she was really too busy to talk just then.  Teas were stored well enough, in small jars, so not completely isolating air contact, but not those crazy-sized large jars in some shops that would be sure to ruin the teas.  She wasn't open to offering smells of the teas, or ok with people opening the jars, which really does make perfect sense.  It was busy when I visited, around 5 PM, and it would be better to stop by earlier in the afternoon to get more time to chat.  I'd probably be taking some herbal treatments for mind-fog, bad memory, and early onset of arthritis if I had stopped earlier, but as things stand I'll just tough those out.

New Kan Man Chinese grocery shop

New Kam Man Chinese market tea shop (website):  on first glance a tea lover might think that they'd died and went to tea heaven, with a large basement shop space crowded with teaware, vast rows of boxed teas, and lots of jars.  Looking closer it's lots of what someone who has moved past commercial teas no longer drinks:  boxed loose teas, some tea bag teas, and large-jar stored inexpensive loose teas.  It was still worth a look, and another gamble.  This time I bought a spare gaiwan ($8, not bad, in a print I like), and a lapsang souchong and peony, which looked a bit rough but might have taken aging well.

new gaiwan test run

I've tried the peony; it's drinkable, but it didn't age so well, so not exactly interesting.  The lapsang souchong stunk up my luggage, quickly separated from all other teas, even after being wrapped in 4 or 5 plastic bags to limit the smoke fumes coming off it.  I'm putting off trying it but it'll probably go in the bin.  If the taste isn't too toxic it might work as a meat rub, but I'm doubting it's actually from pine smoke, just as likely chemical.  If I'd not just bought black tea before then and two pu'er in the last shop it would've seemed natural to try those out, or if I liked jasmine pearl teas those might hold up ok to storage.


And really, who would be familiar with commercial boxed loose teas to know what's ok in those?  It's better to move past them onto more interesting teas and better sourcing, but it's a normal rookie tea drinker mistake to get stuck in that mode.  It took me a couple of years to learn to look at teas in grocery stores but generally never buy them.  I still buy an unusual looking commercial tea I expect I'm probably not going to like from time to time and I'm usually not pleasantly surprised, and then I'm challenged by what to do with it.  Mediocre tea is ok for making blends, and a little smoke in tea works better for making masala chai than it sounds it would.

T Shop, more a small version of a cafe really

T Shop (website)  an online friend in NYC--or is that contact?  I don't really know her but she's definitely cool, so it's a shame to not drop a name here--recommended this place, the last I tried to find that day, so I pressed on through a minor blizzard to make it to this last stop.  It's always funny when you ask people for directions and they point the wrong way, as someone did in a local shop a few blocks away.  It was that kind of outing at that point, really intense, snowing hard, but really I was just crossing a short enough distance headed straight North.  Then when I finally made it there it was really a cafe, although they did sell the teas loose, with only two-word descriptions to go by.  I kept looking at those few words as if they'd somehow say more to me.

Tea pricing was on the opposite side of the ruined large-jar teas I'd been browsing, some upwards of a dollar a gram.  Most was from Taiwan, and I was going to Taiwan in two more days, so paying over $50 for 50 grams of tea just before dropping in on that country would seem absurd.  I was kind of stumped.

I bought a Nantou high-mountain oolong, likely not a tea type that would be a favorite, typical relatively lightly oxidized and roasted oolong, but it didn't cost an arm and a leg.  It was $20 for 50 grams; normal, perhaps a bit high to some, or perhaps on the inexpensive side for where I was standing.  I suppose this is a good place to mention that I'm a bit spoiled by vendors sending me free tea samples (thanks for that!), and shopping for tea on-site in different countries, and by internet options, and by buying tea directly from producers.  Not everyone spends every day talking about tea to people in different countries online so I guess most wouldn't have a queue of teas they want to buy from sources in Asian countries in the back of their mind.  There's something about a tea being right in front of you, about smelling it or even trying it first, but I tend to avoid the upscale cafes that sell unique teas for high market value here in Bangkok, even if that's the only price range that really unique teas are ever typically sold at.


Really people were supposed to be there to buy a $10 or 20 pot of tea, it seemed, to enjoy the space and the unusual quality level of the tea (presumably), and discuss tea a bit, however that would go.  All that probably would have been nice.  As it was that blizzard had my name on it; I was supposed to fight it to get back to a hotel and check in with my family, which I did.  It was only then that NYC finally clicked for me; things just felt right on that walk.  I walked past people that looked trendy and interesting, but still low-key and casual, of course dressed warmly, and past novel shops and bars.  This wasn't my world but it had a nice feel to it.

not quite as polished as Singapore or Taipei's subways

I don't love cities, even though I'm often in different ones (in DC just prior--that felt different), but the diversity there is interesting.  Even people seeming a bit somber seemed genuine--or even crazy, late at night down in the subways.  Thais smile when they're happy, or just to be polite, or when they're slightly upset, but those neutral scowls were the real thing, along with the less common smiles.  Seeing a homeless guy wearing make-up like the Joker's was a good example of that extra level of local color.  I'd have taken his picture if there wasn't a remote chance he might have killed us.



So that was what I experienced.  I'll add a review of that Kenyan tea at the end here, to shed some light on how random tea purchasing might go.  The Chang Chou nameless black tea wasn't so far off, just not as good, and I've not yet tried the rest.  First I'll mention a few places that I didn't make it to for completeness, without as much to say about those.

Shops I didn't visit, but would have

Te Company (website):  someone mentioned in a Facebook comment that this was the right place to buy Taiwanese oolong, not so much a selling point given the context (visiting there two days later, on the way back home), but it sounded great.  Check out this edited tea description, for a tea selling for nearly the same as the oolong I'd mentioned buying, just slightly less:


Royal Courtesan oolong is a relatively recent varietal. It was the silver lining of the devastating earthquake of 1999 in Nantou county. After the earthquake, many tea gardens were abandoned temporarily... Unattended, these tea gardens were attacked by Jacobiasca formosana, the same tiny tea plant insect that provided muscat sweetness for Oriental Beauty. When the farmers returned to their gardens they were disappointed with the harvest, though curious enough to still use that year's harvest to make Frozen Summit. The result turned out extraordinary.


Oxidation level at 40%, a taste description as "rose, artichokes, caramelized sugar, muscat grape;"  sounds great.  Next time.


Tea Drunk (website):  this place also appeared in those best-of lists, some of them, and might be familiar from one of the best known tea bloggers managing there previously (Nicole of Tea for Me Please).  It seems as well to leave off guessing about tea offerings quality or value, but I'm sure it's worth checking out, although at an online glance maybe not as worthwhile to a value-oriented consumer.  I can appreciate a range of different quality and price level types of teas but my own tea budget is limited; I've got kids, and we spend too much on travel.

Bellocq shop interior (credit their site)

Bellocq Tea Atelier (website):  I didn't clarify that, but I was talking about tea shops in Manhattan in those other cases, where I was visiting, and this is in Brooklyn instead.  I didn't go so far into reading up on this place but even at a glance the decor theme stands out, I guess something like rustic industrial.  It reminds me of a place here in Bangkok (Luka cafe), and of a place I mentioned in an article on tea culture in Mexico (part one is here on TChing; part two isn't up yet).  The selection looks good, and a lot of the teas seem back under $20 per 2 oz / 50 grams, versus double or triple that place I'd just mentioned prior (but then tea grade / quality variation is a real thing; I'm not saying it's not).


I probably missed a lot more than that, but these stood out.

Sun Organic "Kenyan black tea" review

I was almost put off by the low cost pricing of a few interesting looking teas but after thinking it through there would be little to lose. The tea isn't organic, the owner's explanation of the moderate pricing, but another few 50 gram lots teas produced with chemical assistance won't tip the balance of my general health by much.  On to review.

The tea is nice, of course in the conventional black tea range, not far from Assam or Ceylon.  It's not CTC ground-up tea, it's real orthodox tea. The next issue would be which Assam or Ceylon it's similar to, which I'll only clarify by describing the tea, a bit non-specific.

The astringency is fine, with a little edge and dryness but not too much bite. I brewed the tea in a large gaiwan I just bought, Gongfu-style modified towards western brewing, instead of more typically going in the other hybrid-style direction. Tapering off temperature or brewed strength would moderate astringency further, or switching back to more conventional Western proportion and timing, but it's fine as it is.

There's a nice fruitiness to the tea, a citrus on the top end and a raisin / date tone under that, with a middle range a bit towards dark cherry. Those tastes and that astringency dryness work well together.  Of course it's a bit earthy as well, or maybe that background effect is better described as light mineral, in addition to the one flavor typically described as malt.  Malt really seems to relate to a range of flavors, or maybe two connected ranges, with a version as in mineral intensive black tea, not like the malted milk ball malt in soft Chinese black teas.

If anything that dryness is a bit much, otherwise it would all balance very well. I'm not paranoid about it but that dryness in the explicit non-organic context could start one wondering, but I think it's just the tea, a natural astringency.  I also tried the tea with sugar and half and half (after tasting it plain) and of course that astringency dropped out.  The fruit worked really well with the black maltiness, almost easier to pick out  But the effect also moved towards those milk teas people drink, towards more neutral, just a relatively genuine version, with freshly made decent black tea.

It seemed no accident that the general effect was so positive, as balanced as it was, and that the flavors were that clean, even if taken alone the characteristics weren't so unique.  I didn't buy anything that was really supposed to be a great tea at that shop but I'd expect the others will also be quite nice, and perhaps also novel.  Shou pu'er in particular varies from complex, earthy, unique and interesting to earthy more in the range of peat / dirt, or even fishy, so it'll be interesting to see how that goes.

sporting a travel beard for that gritty, urban look

I didn't mind so much missing so many options; coming from Asia it's hard to adapt to the pricing that comes with teas being even rarer on the other side of the world, where that rarity and shipping costs and higher overheads can really add to the cost.

I didn't have more than the same type of short visit to work with in Taiwan, on a short stop-over on the way home, but that is closer to the source.  It was my first visit to that major tea producing country, and the next story to tell.

Editing addition:

I've heard of another place I missed since that I keep looking up for suggestions in groups, which I'll add here to simplify that review process later.  LC Trading, more or less on the West side of the Manhattan Chinatown near Soho, sounds interesting in online discussion.  It's located on 123 Elizabeth Street, here.  For other references there are pictures at what looks to be an automatically generated Facebook page here, and a video of a tasting session here.