Review of two Shui Xian (Wuyi Yancha) from my favorite tea source

lots of  competition details, just in Chinese

Cindy Chen shared some tea samples including two Shui Xian, so I wanted to update how those were.  I wrote a review post about a sample earlier in the year, with some background on the type, so this is really about trying different versions of her teas.  I don't have a website contact for her, but she can be reached on Facebook, just like everyone else.


First, I wanted to mention some news related to that, from awhile back now but not too long ago.  In a competition involving most of the local tea growers, so many that it was a bit of an honor to make the top 50, the initial cut-off, they won first place for Rou Gui and second place for Shui Xian.  Which is unbelievable.

Cindy!  And people judging teas, one set of many

I'd love to research more about how such competitions work, since there was some process whereby lots of people helped judge the hundreds of samples in a tournament style fashion, which would then be narrowed down to a separate judging process for the final places.


But since I've been getting drawn into too many tangents lately I'll just add this picture and move on to talking about some teas.

Shui Xian (2012)

a beautiful tea

Good tea!  The main weakness is that I've been spoiled by Wuyi Yancha that really match my preference lately, some great quality teas, including some from others from Cindy and a better than average local source, so it would be a challenge to just get to that level.

The smell is earthy, a bit sweet, woody, even with a bit of peat.  It's complex enough that someone with a good sense of smell and imagination could just keep going on about the trace aroma elements.

the normal color range; nothing thin about such a tea

The tea brewed to be very nice,  perhaps just a little less complex than the scent hinted at.  Rich earthy flavors stood out, dark wood, a bit of leather, sweetness, subtle so hard to specify if more tied to molasses or brown sugar, which of course are related.  The flavors were rich and smooth and clear.


I missed that strong aromatic component from that last comparison tasting session between a very good Rou Gui (from Cindy) and a Bei Dou (specific Da Hong Pao type, from Jip Eu, that Chinatown shop here).  But then from what I've read those two teas were supposed to exhibit pronounced versions of that aspect.


The level of roast came across as darker medium, not much in the way of char effect but with a profile shifted towards rich earthier flavors.  One might speculate that the char taste element could have been stronger three years ago but how it would transition over that time is not something I can judge just yet.

like tasting tea with monkeys loose in the house

So the tea is good, with the main weakness being comparison.  With nice clean, earthy flavors and consistent brewing across infusions it is a very nice tea.  I'd mentioned before about how tasting the same tea in two different environments, one noisier and one quieter, resulted in a more detailed review in the case when I could focus better, and for this tasting session two little people were absolutely tearing the house apart.


I'd probably have added a few more details about the tea given a half hour of peace and quiet to sort through it, but I'm not sure my general impression would change; definitely an above average tea, perhaps not quite a match for some of the best examples.

Shui Xian (2013)

this is the Shui Xian you were looking for; really, it is

This is the kind of tea Wuyi Yancha lovers hope to run across.   Even the smell gives it away, rich and earthy, sweet, but also with a bit of chocolate and malt.  There are the typical earthy elements, like other Wuyi Yancha, but not quite as far to aromatics and cinnamon as Rou Gui.


Earthy tones blend together in one continuous, nice flavor profile, heaviest on dark woods, and sweet, with a bit of cocoa.  A pleasant and complex aromatic component combines rich mineral elements, volcanic rock, floral tones, and fresh ink.







Descriptive enough, but the experience couldn't come across, unless it's already a familiar one.  Of course it's a soft tea, no astringency in the same sense as many, but with a nice full feel.  Cindy once mentioned that after a few years of experience drinking these teas your mouth could tell you which are really good, and my mouth agrees in regards to this tea.



The flavor stays consistent and very positive across infusions.  In lower quality examples of such teas the sweeter and more aromatic components will fade faster, leaving earthy elements stand out, but this profile stays quite similar after brewing a lot of tea, just thinning a little after many infusions.

Monsoon Teas Lana Green (Thai green tea)

Odd I'd go right back to Thai tea reviews after picking up so many from Indonesia, but I'll mention another more local tea I just tried first.  It'll help me get back into the swing of drinking green tea since it's been awhile.

This Monsoon Lana green tea was an interesting version of a green tea.  There's a bit about Monsoon on a website here (mostly contact information), and more in a Facebook page here, but since it's more a physical shop than an online store not so much for product details in either place.  Of course they probably would sell you whatever teas they have without you actually going to Chiang Mai, I'd expect.  I might also mention that they provided this sample to me for no cost, which is much appreciated.

I'm probably skipping some cool back-story, since per discussion with the owner the black tea versions were from relatively native plant types.  I did a review post of one such nice Monsoon black tea here, and more write up about regional cultivars here, including some background on those "semi-wild" local var. Assamica plant types, so it's all there, except the tie-in to what this tea is.  But really, what's in a name, or DNA / RNA; it's all about what's in the cup.

To be honest green tea is not really my favorite general type.  I like darker roasted oolongs best, then black teas next, maybe more unusual types like Oriental Beauty or Bai Mu Dan / White Peony after that (both of which aren't so unusual to some people, but you might know what I mean, and if not you aren't missing much).  But I get around to drinking a lot of different kinds of teas, from lots of different places, and interesting versions like this one are easier to appreciate.

The tea appearance was unusual; a bit dark as some green teas go, with large, twisted leaves, mostly whole, some broken a bit.  The smell was unique too; a warm, earthy, sweet smell, with lots of fruit, mineral and earth elements combining, with raisin or berry as the most interesting sweeter components, and a primary scent along the lines of toasted sesame.  Dried seaweed products can smell a lot like that, not as much like seaweed as you'd expect.  I had a really interesting and somewhat related dried river plant snack from Laos once, but I digress.


The initial infusion taste didn't match the smell so closely, with more pronounced mineral elements coming out, and a bit of grassiness, even earthiness, with that part related to the sesame.  The tea didn't seem exactly like a Vietnamese green tea but some of these aspects reminded me of those, flavor components that match the way some types of rocks smell, maybe slate or limestone.  These were combined together with earthier aspects and a limited degree of sweetness, in a way such that it all mixed together.

The general effect wasn't bad, just a bit muddled, and not as pleasant as the smell had promised.  The tea feel wasn't hindered by too much astringency as some green teas can be, but brewing with slightly cooler water may have offset the potential for that.  I couldn't help but consider how someone that really loved green tea would react to this one, versus how much I liked it.  The tea was fine, just not a favorite style, and the interesting combination of aspects wasn't completely winning me over, although the tea was nice.


It improved in later infusions.  To clarify, I was brewing it Western-style, but using a higher proportion of tea to water versus how package or general instructions for Western-style brewing usually go, with slightly shorter infusion times.  This really relates to a brewing methodology I prefer for some types, not some general standard approach, not intended as an improvement of that which would apply broadly to others.  Some tea types would brew three infusions at good strength using such parameters, like a black tea; others types would tend to go further, brew more times and more tea, as lighter oolongs tend to.  This tea really hung in there; a good sign for tea quality.


The flavor mix seemed to clean up a bit in subsequent infusions and move from pronounced mineral flavors to softer earthier tones, with more of the initially promised sweeter fruit flavors coming out.  The vegetal, grassy background remained, maybe diminishing a bit along the way as well.

The complexity, the number of different flavor components, made separating these as a list of individual flavors a bit tricky.  Some tea reviewers have no problems with that; they can easily list out 8 or 9 different flavor components, regardless of whether these are standard tastes one would recognize from foods (eg. spinach) or if they are not related to that at all (eg. flower types, rocks, types of wood, toasted peat moss, etc.).  In my own case it helps to drink a tea more than once to sort it out; obvious distinctions stand out right away, but finer ones are easier to pick up with a bit more exposure.  I tried this twice and it all was a bit clearer the second go.

So in the end after the first infusion more elements of berry or raisin came through, just very faint, along with a vegetal profile normal for green teas, just not to the extent that it clearly tasted grassy (ok, maybe a little; one subtle background taste element was pretty much "cut-lawn" too, grassy in a literal sense), and not so much like spinach or peppers, etc.  I liked the tea but never moved completely past the "do I like this?" reaction, if that makes sense, given the tea isn't a general style that I prefer.  Green teas in general don't usually exhibit the rich, full feel that other types can, and the finish can be a bit limited, but it's really more about a flavor profile, for me.  Those particular aspects didn't stand out as flaws in this case, it wasn't "thin," but also not as strengths.

I think someone that loves green teas would love it, especially if that potential for a slightly rough astringency aspect is something they didn't love, because this was a soft tea compared to others with that flavor range (much as a tea this unique has a common flavor range; I mean in general).  Being on the unique side tends to help, for me.

a silly tea lover

In Vietnam, per my understanding, people tend to love the astringency that is natural to their green teas (usually prepared in a dark-green "fish-hook" leaf style), so much so that they brew with hot water without limiting infusion times, letting it go from a little structured and edgy all the way to bitter.  But then preference is a funny thing.


Comparing it to wine, it's as if one person likes the full feel and effect of astringency in a Cab-Merlot blend, and someone else likes a lot more edge, exhibited differently in an earthy and rough-edged French Cabernet compared to that in a brighter and sweeter but slightly sharp Chianti.  This tea might be more like a Northwestern American Pinot; it had some interesting things going on but all that wasn't really about astringency, there was just a little to give it some feel.  Of course good versions of that type of wine are awesome, quite a compliment it seems, but I'm having trouble thinking of a plainer example that still works for the astringency parallel.  The tea was nice, though; it will be interesting to see how a couple of Indonesian green teas compare.

Tea in Indonesia; one vacation's worth of experiences

Time to shift to travel-blog mode; I just spent a long week in Indonesia.  Tea was a part of it.  I visited a plantation there, and bought 8 or 9 versions of teas over the week.  Only one type and two products, white teas, versions of silver needle, seemed to be sold as higher end "specialty tea," but I've not tried any of it, so we'll see how it shakes out.  This post is about what I saw and did, so I'll check back in with the more standard reviews.

Nusa Dua beach in Bali; nice enough

Indonesia:  background

Mt. Bromo, Java, doing what volcanoes do

girl scout / unofficial translator in Yogjakarta

Indonesia is awesome.  We saw ancient temples, beaches, and volcanoes, two active ones.  All that spanned two islands, Java and Bali.  It was interesting to change environment and cultures so much within one country like that.  For example, Islam is the main religion in Java, but Hinduism is in Bali.  Bali is really developed for tourism but Java is so quiet and at the opposite extreme that cheerful little kids say hello just to practice their English.



I really won't do justice to all that we experienced but I should mention that the people were great, one of the best parts.  Taxi drivers and tour salesman looking for business in Kuta were an exception--that could get old--but in general it was wonderful that nearly everyone was so genuine and kind.  I live in Thailand (Bangkok), so I'm used to a very friendly culture here, but the people seemed just a little warmer and more sincere.  I've ran across really helpful people throughout Asia, even where cultural stereotyping runs in the opposite direction, so to me people are generally decent everywhere, it's more about how most come across.

It made for an odd contrast hearing news about people being suspicious of Muslims in general (and of course that related terrorism is a real thing), when I was talking to people on an hourly basis that were so consistently some of the nicest people I've ever met.


One person commented online that they might seem one way on the surface and be too repressed to show their real internal conflict over societal pressures.  I'll just add my opinion on that:  no, they're all good, a lot less conflicted and wound up than the American stereotypical persona goes.  Americans are fine too, by the way, you've just got to get used to a wide range of how they express themselves, and the odd idea mixed in, but being one it seems normal to me, most of it.

maybe this guy should do another kind of work

One guy we met wasn't very nice.  One Hindu temple on Bali ran a light version of a tour-guide scam, where they required a "guide" go with you to describe restrictions.  We visited a lot of temples there; only that one did that (Pura Besakih; their main temple complex, so odd it worked out like that).  He was the only person that wasn't pleasant or helpful; odd he was working in the role of guide then.


As they say, the exception proves the rule.  Traveling for a week in any country and running across only one person that's not nice is not bad.  Taxi pricing varied a lot, which people might take different ways, but that's just routine for SE Asian travel, and easy to work around.

Tampak Siring Holy Spring Water Temple, Bali

In general the feel of the places we went was also great, incredible sights and natural phenomena, temples with an amazing vibe, each so different from the last.  That wasn't as pronounced in the more urban or crowded places but even those were nice.


But I'm getting way off the subject of tea.

they really do this, carry things around that way

Online research

In the past I've done extensive online research prior to some trips, to try and pin down where I'd run across tea, shops and such.  This time I didn't.  But I still wanted to mention how one might go about that, and what worked or didn't work in this case, from the limited research I did do.

Steepster shop listings, Adagio Tea Map:  only "tea people / enthusiasts" would be familiar with these website references, which would list out lots of options for countries like the US or UK.  For Asian countries they're not really helpful.  One might still check, but they're not likely to add much.



Google / Google Maps:  lots more to go on through Google, and with Maps the great part is letting you know how close places are to where you are standing.  The problem:  not everything gets listed, because small companies aren't necessarily caught up on internet marketing, or at least aren't in English, so only a search in the native language might find them.  The plantation I visited outside Malang, Java did turn up on Maps; the franchise-chain shop in a high-end mall in Kuta, Bali did not.  Or I think it is actually a dot on this map, but the normal extra clicks identifying if they carry more than bubble-tea didn't work out, and Google had their hours completely wrong.


Online networking:  interesting, and potentially helpful, if one has the time for such things.  This approach did turn up the only tea shop that sold me tea, talking about what I was looking for in a Facebook group related to Indonesia.  I tried the same on an expat forum group related to Indonesia, in this discussion, and some comments seemed promising, but nothing worked out there.  If you can ask a tea blogger living in a foreign country what to look for there that can short-cut a lot of all that, but it didn't work to find one in this case.

Ijen volcano, East Java.  miners gather sulfur, but those are tourists (it was a national holiday that day)

Visiting a tea plantation in Java (Wonosari, outside Malang)

My first visit to a tea plantation!  Oddly it's the second time I've visited where tea was being grown, and that first time I talked to the farmer and bought tea, and walked around coffee and tea plants.  That was in Laos, in the Bolaven plateau, but that was more a small farm than a plantation.  The country I live in now, Thailand, produces tea, and I may have seen it in passing in the Chiang Rai area on earlier visits, but I wasn't really into tea back then, there last maybe six years ago.

Bromo again; cool!

The write-up about the plantation is going to seem a bit thin, because the visit was short due to not sleeping the night before, related to visiting a volcano starting at 1 AM.  Mt. Bromo was about to erupt (more on that here).  It was putting out lots of smoke and ash, and recent earthquakes had caused the national park to close the mountain, so we saw it from the next mountain over, Penanjakan.

That was probably from a safe distance, but then it seems that about once a decade a volcano does something really unpredictable in Indonesia and people die that had really seemed safe, so I'm happy to have not been one of them.  A guide told us there are currently 19 active volcanoes on Java, and in researching earthquake activity there were more than 500 in the Indonesian region in the past year, so it's just what they live with.  

A recent earthquake summary as of now:

35 earthquakes in the past 7 days

80 earthquakes in the past month

594 earthquakes in the past year

from November; nothing to worry about, most are underwater, and somehow tsunami's are still rare

Tea!

The Wonosari plantation is just a bit under an hour's drive north of Malang.  It's really not that far away, but traffic is a bit much in that area, especially for it being so rural.  Upon entering we saw rows of well-tended plants, surrounded by some type of local tree (not sure what the point of that was), along with people harvesting some of the tea.  

I really should be able to fill in details about the role of those trees, or harvest timing or processing, or how they make the teas, and so on, but can't.  We essentially didn't sleep the night before, and it was around lunch time, so picking up some tea and moving on seemed enough.  If my wife were a lot more into tea, or at least drank it, I'd have probably drank a liter of tea and went on with a tour, but she doesn't and I didn't.

Wonosari plantation:  idyllic

I bought a black, green, and white (silver needle type), but it was a busy week and I didn't set aside an extra half hour to do a tasting.  The more relaxed and quiet I am the more I seem to pick up from a tea, so ran-ragged on a busy vacation schedule my impression might have been limited anyway.  

They also produced and sold a few types of tea-bag tea there, which I didn't buy.  If I run across more details prior to writing about the tea I'll add it in another post.  I might mention it was set up like a very informal resort and residence area, nothing like the horrors one keeps hearing about Indian tea plantations lately--and looked like the kind of place I'd want to live in.  That general travel reference site I mentioned--the plantation itself doesn't have a website--said:

Facilities: swimming pool, cottages, jogging tracks area, camping grounds, and many other.

an easy choice

It might sound like I stopped drinking tea for a week on the trip but it wasn't like that, although I did cut back.  Once in awhile I would make tea I'd brought with me at the hotel, I was just a bit busy to do that daily.  They served tea with breakfasts at the hotels, just nothing really interesting.  

At the Prambanan temple near Yogjakarta we waited out a short rain shower at an entry room where they served a surprisingly good jasmine black tea, probably with potential to be even nicer with more careful brewing, but that was an exception.  Indonesians drink and produce and tea (#6 on this list by production amount, ahead of both Vietnam and Japan per this reference), but coffee is more prevalent.

Tea shop in Kuta, Bali (Rollas, in Beachwalk mall)

Rollas tea and coffee shop, chain-store

The other place I bought tea was in Rollas tea shop in Kuta, Bali, with main company website here.  Kuta is a resort area that's sort of an urban hell as Bali resort areas go, like Waikiki, Honolulu, but with a bit less charm.  Plenty of build-up, right?  

I couldn't find any mention of anyone growing tea in Bali; they do coffee, and this tea supposedly comes from Eastern Java, possibly from the same plantation I visited (Wonosari).  I recall reading a reference that said otherwise, but I'll get back with more research on that.

  

open-air, familiar from Hawaii

I've not tried that tea either, yet, so what else to say.  A coffee lover could find 1000 versions of coffee in Bali but at best one would find tea from the next island over, the one we'd just come from.  Of course there are always exceptions, just not easy to turn those up there.

Any normal tea-lover would have just bought some tea and also stopped for a cup, given the nice cafe atmosphere.  That mall, Beachwalk, reminded me of one in Honolulu, Ala Moana.  I was busy though, torn between swimming and Christmas shopping, and mall environments are a little too familiar from living in Bangkok, so I didn't do that.

Commercial tea

tea in a Malang grocery store

Grocery store tea, written up in a blog post, WTH?  After I try what I bought I'll have more opinion if this is the rare exception where that sourcing really does work, or if this is more low-grade tea-leaf abomination.  I bought a commercial tea in Cambodia nearly three years ago that was quite reasonable, and cost next to nothing, but I've had more bad experiences with that sort of tea than good ones since.  

It's a gamble.  Being an optimist I'm hopeful.  This also relates to how one appreciates novelty in teas, or teas across a range of types and quality levels.  If someone spends thousands of dollars a year on the best teas sourced from the best producers around the world chances are slim that a grocery store tea from anywhere is going to cut it.  If someone is so open they can actually appreciate tea-bag teas of different types then this would probably work out, maybe just not for every example I bought.  I tend to save the tea-bag teas for emergencies.  I brewed one tea bag in a hotel there, with the results being what you'd expect.

surfing Lego Santa, Bali

For reference about the pricing of teas in this earlier picture currently one US dollar exchanges for about 13,800 rupiah, so that tea is nearly free. 

Value for those teas I bought is good, but of course that relates to not just cost but actually liking the tea, so maybe too early to say that.  The three teas I bought small amounts of cost around $2, as I recall.  For all of it.  If I knew anyone that really loved teas as I do where I live I'd have splurged for the extra $2 and included them in the gamble, but I'm sort of on my own with the tea thing here.  

cool statue, wearing a sarong

Overview:

The trip wasn't about tea, but then I suppose that was already clear enough.  Looking through those pictures there are 100 others that stand out as a good representation of great aspects of Indonesia.  As amazing as the temples, volcanoes, and beaches were the people were just as great.  

As far as recommendations for visiting, it might have been better to start in Bali, and not spend much time in Kuta (the urban resort area), then go to Java after.  I wasn't concerned or even curious about what a Muslim-based culture would be like since we've been to Malaysia a couple times, and the answer may not be what you'd expect:  just like anywhere else.  Women tend to wear head covers (hijab; more on what that is here), beer isn't sold in as many places; otherwise no different, aside from how places naturally vary.

One nice girl we sat by on the train in Eastern Java decided for herself not to wear a hijab two years prior, even though she is Muslim.  No need to extrapolate much from that, except to say that pre-conceptions about their culture and religious observations may not hold up.

As for doing more with tea there, it depends on what you are into.  We could have skipped all those other sights and headed straight for plantations, but it would seem odd to miss so many once-in-a-lifetime sights to focus in on tea.  But then I live in Thailand now, so it's kind of local, and I can just go back.