Taiwanese oolongs from a visiting friend

 

I recently had a couple of friends visit our house to have some teas, a theme that doesn't come up very often.  One of them has been exploring teas living in Taiwan, a local Thai guy I met in a shop outing here in Bangkok, Gawin.  Gawin was even hosting ceremonial tea drinking sessions there, into different dimensions of the experience.  

first meeting Gawin in Ju Jen, a Bangkok shop in the Paradise Park mall

He passed on some "wild Tie Guan Yin" and what looks to be more oxidized rolled oolong, also called red oolong.  This is a well-known style among more experienced tea enthusiasts, but to me it doesn't get enough attention and credit among people newer to exploration.  It's a much more natural starting point, and type of tea that anyone can appreciate, than many other types of teas that tend to get talked about more.

This red oolong is identified as produced by the Buo-Ya Pavilion Natural Tea Company (on the packaging), sold by the Buo Ya tea shop in Taitung County.  Taitung Luya might be the branding name.

The wild TGY is identified (written on the sample pack) as from the Guide Tearoom, which is probably the business name for the ceremonial session business.  That also lists two Instagram contacts, TEATIANTIAN and JACK_DAILYTEA.  Those profiles are very aesthetic; I recommend checking them out.

Review:  

wild Tie Guan Yin:  this is not a rolled oolong style tea.  For sure Gavin mentioned that, and processing background, but things don't stick with me a lot of the time.  This could be white tea, since that's often how more simply dried versions are intended for type, but I'd guess they made oolong without doing that shaping step (the leaves show oxidation; they're darkened).  

We tried a tea that Gavin actually made, during his visit, but I'm guessing that this is a commercially produced tea, along the line of a small-batch artisan production theme.  I can ask and edit this to include that.

Of course the color of the brewed liquid is much lighter; red oolong is typically oxidized into a more conventional black tea range.  The flavor of this is nice.  It tastes a bit like Tie Guan Yin, as TGY would.  The tones are a bit warm; this has been oxidized a little more than the light style versions, which is suitable, an improvement.  It'll be interesting hearing about other processing, about a potential roast step.  This may not have been roasted; I'm out of practice for identifying how those two inputs map across to each other.  Or then again it probably was; there's a lot of caramel warmth and sweetness to this.  [later edit:  it was roasted, but not a lot, and not over charcoal].

A base flavor is floral, a common main aspect.  Then the warmth and caramel stand out next after that.  Mineral undertone isn't missing but it's not as pronounced as that can get.  We talked when Gavin visited about how some Taiwanese oolong high intensity of flavor might come from heavy fertilization, pushing into something like a new car smell, and this isn't unusually intense like that, but it has decent intensity, good complexity, and nice depth.  It's good.

red oolong:  tartness stands out most, right away.  I'm ok with black teas being tart, or in this case oolong oxidized to the point of essentially being a black tea, but it's not a favorite aspect range for me.  To me it's not really a flaw but it also isn't favorable.  It would be nice if that would fade quite a bit but it's usually not how that goes.  It's like black tea tasting like cacao, not like sheng exhibiting astringency edge that can fade; it's just part of that tea.

Savory range is interesting, like sun-dried tomato.  Sweetness level is pretty significant, or else those other two aspects wouldn't tie together well at all.  It's complex; there is more to it than these main notes.  Cacao and berry-like fruit might stand out beyond that, or rose-like floral range.  I gave this extra brewing time to get started, to open up, and it will be easier to identify flavors brewed lighter, since it's so intense.  It's also good, it just doesn't match to my personal preference as well as the other, mostly related to the tartness.  I don't see why someone else couldn't love that; it seems to just be an individual preference thing.

TGY 2:  the same as last round; not transitioning yet.  This is a little light; I brewed both quite fast, to see what that changed.  The other proportion is higher, even though it looked like very little tea at the bottom of the gaiwan.

Creaminess is nice in this.  Jin Xuan has a reputation for being creamy but of course other plant types can express that too, especially related style oolongs.  The rest of the flavor matches the last description still, rich, sweet, floral, with nice warm caramel tones, and some mineral undertone, just not a lot.

A hummingbird dropped by; that's nice.  Myra was here earlier, my favorite of the cats, since I'm tasting outside, where we met with Gawin and his friend.  Now also a squirrel and crow, with a songbird in the background; kind of busy out here.

red oolong:  it evolves to balance slightly better, or maybe works out well at such a light infusion strength.  At this high a proportion even a 10 second infusion isn't really light.  Fruit is nice in this.  It's complex; one part reminds me of cranberry, then also dried tamarind.  The flavor seems to cover floral range too, but that's well-integrated with the fruit.  

I'm often saying "wow, these teas are strong!" right around this point drinking sheng pu'er, and I can feel these two already, finishing a third and fourth small cup.  I just ate a heavy late breakfast too, oatmeal with goji berry and extra banana, and two fried eggs.  I'll push these a little further, and will probably keep this review short, not describing the transitions deep into a count, or even to a mid-point.  I'm late to call the kids, who finally arrive back for a Christmas break visit in one week, and that's a priority over everything else.

TGY #3:  this longer infusion was still probably 20 seconds or just under, not so long.  

A bird is talking to the squirrels, and that crow is going on, adding extra sounds beyond the caw, unless that's a conversation he's having.  It would be nice to know what they go on about.  Two other birds seem to have a nest in a different area; you can tell when they are warning someone off.

Warmth and depth really pick up in this.  It's still going to describe as warm caramel in summary, but it's stronger, and not the same.  

red oolong:  even a slight bump in infusion strength made that tartness shift from somewhat more balanced back to dominant.  I'll keep trying it light.  This is pleasant, the way those different parts come together, it's just a shame that I don't love tartness in oxidized tea range as much as most other possible flavors.

Fourth round, transitions:  the TGY is staying consistent.  That's nice, given how pleasant and complex it had been, with such nice depth.  

The red oolong might be evolving a little, trading out some of that tartness for the beginnings of a cinnamon note.  That's an improvement.  

I might also mention that it's normal for red oolong to be produced in a black tea range, as I said, but this is pretty far up the oxidation level scale.  It is really just a black tea at this point, perhaps borrowing from some oolong processing or other input range (the tea plant type, the rolled shape, and so on).  To me that's essentially a good thing, since somewhat hybrid forms can create something novel and pleasant in a new way, but I guess that part is a judgement call.

I really don't have additional conclusions this time; the teas were good, it was nice of Gawin to share those.  Of course I drank more rounds of them, and they stayed just as pleasant.

Pig butchering scams

 

There are already plenty of Youtube video posts about this topic, which is an easier way to digest summary information, but I wanted to cover a few interesting points here anyway.

The general theme is an online scam, relating to someone using social media contact to get someone to trust them enough to make crypto-currency trading transactions as an investment, which turn out to be fake.  Sounds pretty improbable, doesn't it?  It is, but the build-up is the crux of it, how they approach it.  I received this Line message not so long ago; this works as a good example:

A common intro is a wrong-number sort of message, like this.  You wouldn't necessarily talk to someone sending a message to the wrong Line account, but you might message them to tell them they've got the wrong number.  Often the picture will be that of an attractive woman, which may increase the chances that someone might want to be helpful, to explain the "mistake," or to talk further beyond that.  That one was a bit moderate (in emphasizing attractiveness); this might be a better example:

Then whatever the starting point is doesn't matter, because the scam would relate to making small-talk next.  This particular intro opens up asking questions about travel themes, and sharing travel preferences, a good lead-in for social discussion, even with a "wrong number."  They would probably tentatively offer to pay for guide services; there would different ways to bait the hook.

Later it would switch to advice about crypto trading, which becomes kind of a stretch.  They use a script to help people running the scam bridge the gap in between topics, cutting and pasting a number of discussion messages that lead to that.  It's not supposed to make complete sense.  This is an interesting Youtube channel summary of how it all works; I'll draw more details here from this, about who is doing this, and from where.

I've talked to one person online before attempting this scam, curious about why an online stranger was talking to me (maybe from a social media contact; I don't remember that starting point).  The transition was pretty clumsy in that example; I would imagine that approach and the message steps get a bit better dialed in over time.  Another source covers a reason why you shouldn't talk to these people, to intentionally waste their time out of curiosity or malice, more or less what I was doing.  

Per that Youtube reference, and at least one other I've watched on this theme, these scams are typically conducted by Chinese criminals, set up and ran by enlisting workers in isolated residence spaces, some of whom are pretty much captives there, victims of human trafficking.  In that sense two crimes are really occurring, the scam, and a forced-labor theme supporting it, hosted out of places like Myanmar, or Poi Pet, Cambodia.  The scam employees / captives might be expected to generate a certain amount of return, and might be punished for low conversion rates, for example beaten, so it might be a mistake to try to tie up their time in order to cause others to not get scammed.

Jumping the track a bit for a tangent, I've been to one of those places, to Poi Pet, two years ago.

Poi Pet looks a bit like Thailand, but rougher

development isn't consistent, but they had built out casinos and housing

Poi Pet felt a little off; there were literally shut-down casinos there, part of boom and bust phase of them attempting to become the next Macau, and that not working out.  Surely the reasons for that were complex.  Development seemed inconsistent; there were plenty of large-scale apartment and office buildings here and there, but then also those closed casinos, and roads in between developed areas that weren't finished, at some stage in between dirt and pavement.  Apparently that business failure and connection to Chinese interests, and limitations of local law enforcement / openness to corruption, all combined to make this a viable new criminal industry there.

One video reference on this theme, not that one I've cited, here instead about a Dubai-based operation, showed how they can work around using an attractive woman's photo, when it's really more often some Chinese guy being held captive.  Instead of pulling down online photos, which would make it possible to reverse-search the images, a more sophisticated operation can employ someone to play that role, to be the photo model, and even to be able to video chat with scam victims.

That's not a job that anyone would seek out, but they could enlist such help the same way they could turn up the other workers:  make false promises about a much more valid work position, and then set it all up as a difficult situation to get back out of once someone gets started.

It's still unbelievable that this could work at this time, isn't it, decades into people running all sorts of online scams?  Even if you somehow thought that you were talking to an attractive woman, who had become something of an online friend, would you really get started on investing in crypto-currency, which typically is a scam no matter the starting point?  Hopefully not.  

But they build up to that sort of thing, using complicated deception.  The videos describe how they have people start by investing very little money, $100, and then witness how easy it is to do the trading to apparently earn returns.  It just turns out that those are fake, based on using an app created for this deception, that mirrors the look and feel of real trading apps.  If you would see the person you are talking to on a video call, supposedly, and then see how you could rapidly generate profits on a small investment (seemingly), then it might make more sense to go further.  Not for someone sensible, but one part of this is the victim believing what they already want to believe, partly tied to the attractive image part.

Back to the message starting points, the messages that I never responded to, those were identified ordinary, attractive women, just planning a trip, per the shared context.  Supposedly organic discussion would lead to the topic of crypto trading, following a script, with plenty of allowance for variation for responses, all making it seem more believable.  The context built in some cover for rough English use and slight inconsistency; from the looks of it those women would be supposedly visiting from China.

This kind of thing might work out well using a dating site or online penpals themed site to initiate it, right?  I explored an example of the latter at one point, "Interpals," but lost interest relatively quickly, in part because of drawing more contact from scammers than genuine users.  I did make one online friend there, an older Chinese guy in Malaysia, and we talked about local culture issues and changes in modern society over a number of years.  Some other contacts were at least real people, but it all went nowhere.

Someone commented on a discussion once that they could tell if a woman was a scammer online, because any female talking to them would have to be that.  Unfortunately that's kind of how you could tell who was who on that penpals sort of site.  If a random woman starts a conversation, that looks like a model in her profile photo, with very little personal background in it, that's a scam.

I'm an admin for a large Facebook tea group and Facebook is being populated by these sorts of profiles now; they're joining groups to look more legitimate.  They're easy to spot for a similar reason; the photos are almost all attractive women, and the limited details don't add up, even within the two or three background items shown for group approval.  Most go to a university like Harvard, often work for Facebook, and come from places like California City, which is a real place, but drawing on minimal knowledge of the US that would be LA instead.  Somehow more sophisticated fake profiles draw on use of obsolete or inactive and older real profiles.  That way a lot of it can actually be real, and consistent, it just wouldn't show years of recent activity, which is also the case for many real Facebook users.

There's not much conclusion here.  It goes without saying that you shouldn't send money or get started on investments based on advice from a random online contact.  These scams will keep changing form too; they'll figure out a next way to extract money from a stranger based on limited conversation under a set of false premises.  Later on chat-bots will be doing this, not human-trafficking captives.  Eventually they'll even be able to video chat.

Is specialty tea interest now pay to win?

 

This will take some unpacking.  Of course every hobby interest involves expense, and contributing more towards that enables having a broader range of experiences.

Let's back up a little.  Familiar to many, "pay to win" is a reference to online games being free to play, but then being set up so that you can buy the extra characters or functions enabling success at the games.  Set up one way it just short-cuts a lot of extra "grinding," earning those characters and functions through play, and extended further only people paying the game developers can win.  

My son extended this reference not so long ago, when we were viewing the aurora borealis (northern lights) in Western PA.  Faint versions of those look like a wispy luminous cloud, with no color, while photos look green or pink.  My sister's relatively new IPhone version took fantastic photos, that looked completely different, vibrant and layered in textures; northern lights experience became "pay to win," without spending $1000 on a better, more modern phone your pictures and impression was hazy.

Nothern Lights in PA, borrowed from a family member's FB post

the low-res version

Right away people long into tea will see where this is going, and conclude that tea has always been like this, that the basic experience is open to people who aren't spending a lot, and then other levels were always reserved for others.  That works.  In commenting on a Reddit thread about sheng pu'er sources I summarized how I was framing these ideas:

Farmerleaf is fine, based on comment input here, but the last cake I bought from them, a few years ago, was in the $80 to 90 range, so quality needs to be quite high for that to be a good value. it was ok, that cake, but I also stopped ordering from them then, because of that price range.

I've been buying sheng from Viet Sun most recently, and their pricing just climbed to that range too. It's a normal pattern; vendors build up demand, keep sourcing slightly better material products, then max out on pricing at the industry standard level, around $100 per standard cake now [357 gram size], with more interesting sounding versions at $120. Yunnan Sourcing did the same.

Tea Mania is a good source for finding an exception; their Lucky Bee Yiwu line costs less (not gushu material, which is as well, if that requires spending over 50 cents a gram on sheng). Rishi is worth a look, and they'll never get mentioned in a place like this. they've been collecting SE Asian sheng for awhile, and sell cakes for much less than that near $100 range. Style and quality can be inconsistent outside Yunnan, but that's true in Yunnan too, and plenty of tea moves from places like Myanmar, Vietnam, and Laos to become Yunnan sheng.

Factory tea is the other less expensive option, but that's a lot of gambling, since quality will vary, and typical style range often requires more aging to be approachable. Chawang Shop had been a good source for that, and for good value in-house range, and King Tea Mall might be a good example of a market-style outlet now.

That was downvoted, of course; sheng pu'er drinkers are supposed to be open to paying to explore teas.  Now subscription models provide another main channel for this; you are either in or out of the in-group if you opt to try the same teas monthly, for $40 or so monthly, or whatever that is now, surely varying.

Lots of tea experience, shared through social media group participation, is framed as discussing a lot of what one vendor sells.  Discord servers about tea are mainly about that, per my experience.  You ante up to buy a good bit of that vendor's range or else you wouldn't have much to discuss.

To some extent this was always the case.  A decade ago people discussed tea experiences on Steepster and Tea Chat, and you either tried the teas people were talking about or else you weren't a part of that particular discussion.  Comments on text based blogs were similar.  So it was all always pay to win?

The amounts have increased.  Some of that is inflation; everything costs more than a decade ago.  It can be hard to map cost to type and quality level, to see if it evens out.  A decade ago people drank factory sheng, which would tend to cost $25 to 40 then (per 357 gram cake), but then "white label" gushu, more exclusive, higher quality, different style versions were already well on towards $1 a gram.  If anything those aren't matching inflation for increase in cost; that has leveled off, or stayed the same.

There is a common range of $100-120 better-quality, more naturally grown products (supposedly) available now, often specified as from a narrow area origin source, or at times they're just blends.  It's not the same tea that the factory versions were, so you can't say that pricing inflation marked up the same product range by 2 1/2 times.  Main changes relate to quality expectations, and type preference, and to the new forms of these groups.  

more on this shift in a TeaDB summary post (also mentioning quality and style have changed)

There aren't many other new online group forms; one tea app seems to have pushed through to create something of a community, based around experiencing teas the app owners sell, and other functions, but that's an anomaly.  Facebook groups have went dead, for the most part.  Discussion of Tik Tok promoting tea interest and information narrows down to Jesse's Teahouse, which is for people new to tea, who would probably seek out better value later.  

Youtube never became the information source or social collection point it could have.  A few hundred channels must relate to tea there, but the Tea DB blog and Mei Leaf vendor site are examples of how much of an exception well-followed groups are.  Farmerleaf produces good information content; that and a Discord server support them cultivating a group following, along with the tea being good.

To be clear Reddit subs (groups) aren't supporting this social grouping by purchasing pattern theme well.  There is r/tea and r/puer, and one gongfu oriented alternative is more or less just getting started, and a tea pictures group.

It might seem that I'm implying that this is a bad thing, that I'd want to return to the good old days when drinking $30-40 factory tea cakes was a norm, or just trying Dan Cong / Wuyi Yancha oolong range was, versus bragging online about getting into more rare versions.  But you can still do that (adjusting some for inflation).  The main downside, related to that factory sheng category, is that most of those teas are better after 20 years of aging transition, and newer styles drink better when younger.  It might also seem that I'm promoting the ongoing experience of lack, FOMO, by reviewing teas that vendors send, or what I buy, which is more limited.  It could seem like I'm advocating trying ever-higher quality levels, or every rare type or origin area of tea out there.  I don't see it that way, but it's a natural interpretation.  

It was a nice theme having so many people not necessarily brand new to tea, but new, discussing it on Steepster and Tea Chat, or later on Facebook groups.  A mixed-author, general information source like TChing showed how this exploration was mainstream then, as Cha Dao did before that (both of which are essentially dead now).  Many people's tea interest seemed to mature to them just drinking what they like, not discussing or learning so much.

I think part of the reason I dislike this general trend, interest form and exposure separating into more or less complete by expense level, is because it's such a dominant trend in consumption-based modern societies.  Everything we do separates out by what you spend, as much as by any other filter (exposure, expertise, etc.).

I also run, and people with that interest separate into the groups of people who do or don't own a lot of gear, and pay for extra types of group inclusions.  Races can cost well over $100 to run in, but someone might spend thousands by the time they gear up and travel, or at least $1000.  Owning 2 or 3 pair of running shoes isn't remotely enough for normal-form participation buy-in, never mind what is most functional.  To actually be competitive one might hire a coach, and take up extensive "supplementation" strategies.  Stopping short of PED use one might still buy all sorts of electrolyte gels, protein products, sports drinks, and whatever else.

three different categories of running shoes you need to buy, it seems

People could still dabble in tea and not spend all that much, or compete through spending, and someone could go out and buy one decent pair of shoes and run.

To be completely clear and open I've been influenced quite a bit by Buddhism.  That's a story for another time, with more about that on the way, but the short version is that we can emphasize simple experiences and basic social connections, and reduce rather than expand frameworks for defining ourselves, and limit emphasis on consumption, and other status markers.  This reduction of emphasis on consumption and status can work better; instead of living with even more of an experience of lack you actually get rid of the framework that grounds that, and experience more contentment and fulfillment.

I think a lot of those older tea enthusiasts, discussing interest in Tea Chat and FB groups, have simply moved on to the next interests (and then the ones after that).  But maybe some landed on this conclusion, that keeping it simpler could work better, not competing with others related to what they routinely consume.  

On the opposing side discussion about tea works well centered around common experiences, versus abstract background knowledge, so people drinking the same teas is functional.  Of course there is still a completely different opposing side, about not needing that commonality or social positioning.

The other side of this

Thinking it through further, most of this is about issues related to sheng pu'er, which has been changing form related to what is available, and to keeping up with what people discuss on Discord servers.  Or on Instagram, or wherever.  That's not what most people probably experience.

I looked up the Steepster posts on what people spend on tea in a year (which oddly still get posted annually, even though Steepster discussions are good and dead now), and it has been staying the same.  People posting there average $600 to 1000 per year, over the last half dozen years, even though inflation has spiked the cost of most things over the past 2 or 3 years.  They must be holding it at that level, seeing that as reasonable, and making adjustments to keep it in check, or maybe belt-tightening reduces the annual adjusted spending a little.

That's still $50 to $80+ per month on tea; a good bit.  Of course people discussing trying the latest new thing, buying $100+ sheng cakes regularly, or participating in more than one monthly subscription, are probably spending well beyond that.

I don't really blame vendors for using "fear of missing out" as a marketing tactic, encouraging this kind of group-think, setting up social media channels where it evolves naturally, and promoting the latest thing as something you really need to try, or you are left out.  It's just marketing; of course they are continually trying to sell you something.  People choose to respond to it or else they don't.

It's hard to generalize if an average in the Steepster-report on annual spending is a suitable norm, something like $70 a month for tea.  $2.50 a day?  If you are living on a $10 an hour salary (in the US) that's a good bit, or if pressures from demands keep your free spending limited, but for many that's trivial enough.

It's the "winning" concept that's problematic; it implies a social aspect of self-identification and also competition.  You can figure out how to buy a kilogram of tea for less than $100, or maybe a bit over if it's better tea, and shipping enters in, but it's not impressive to anyone to bring up drinking the same tea over and over in online discussion.  I bought a kg of tea for the first time earlier this year (1 1/2, really), but ended up using most of it for gifts, since flavorful, interesting, approachable black tea makes for a great gift.

I suppose you do have to spend an average amount to compete with others in terms of your own routine exposure to better tea, but just drinking decent versions of it is something else.  I've written plenty on how to do that for relatively low expense here; maybe I'll get around to making up another post covering it again, in a more concise form.