How does social conformity interfere with deeper levels of awareness? (about Buddhism)

This was a question on Quora, which I wrote about in relation to undertaking a Buddhism based project of self-understanding.  "Understanding" is probably the wrong concept, but there isn't a better one to swap in, for reasons that hopefully this writing makes clear.  It was asked in this Quora Space (like a FB group), Human Psychology Facts.

There is a good chance that won't be approved as a displayed answer there, but it doesn't change things either way.  

This really works as a decent starting point and description of what Buddhism is.

How does social conformity (arguably) interfere with deeper levels of awareness?

I’ll answer this from a Buddhist perspective.  It’s a bit much to claim to be an authority on that subject, but I did study it in two university programs, as philosophy and religion, and I was ordained as a Thai Buddhist monk at one point.  Living in Thai Buddhist society for nearly 20 years hasn’t informed a related perspective, but I’ve done that.

One more qualification:  social conformity is an important social function.  The norms, expectations, social roles, shared goals, life direction, etc., functionally define our lives.  If we were to just set that aside, which is relatively impossible, there would be no way to define who or what we are.  It’s possible to borrow from another set of all of those, but there is no “starting from scratch,” and reworking what a person could be.  We are social creatures, with a lot of predispositions, past conditioning, and biological functions to work around.  

The norms define us, which is helpful.  We can pick and chose among them, because every society has a set that’s broader than one person can live out to choose from (or to default to).  This kind of choosing and change requires higher level awareness, which leads back to the question at hand.

Indirectly people get too busy and caught up with social functions and standard life goals to really dig deeper.  If your family demands, work life, somewhat inherited personal interests, and maintenance requirements (resolving illness, exercise, eating a decent diet, etc.) seem to require at least as much attention and effort as you possess there is no exploring further.

More directly it’s a social norm to not question social norms.  Or people can, and do, and it is a social function, but it’s generally framed and accepted as falling within a normal pattern of questioning.  For example, a white, middle or upper class liberal might question “white guilt,” and their privilege, or benefits from landing in a positive societal placement, along with considering the history and economic forces that led them there.  A conservative might question the role of societal outsiders, foreigners and immigrants, and the extent to which they can or should be offered shared participation in their own culture and society.  

Within the context of mental health treatment one might question their own past history, related to the carry-on effects of past negative events, or genetic predispositions.  This is normal, and it does relate to two narrow channels for exploring self-awareness.  One might take a personality type test, and move on to consider what those predispositions mean.

What don’t you question then; what don’t societies regard as a normal line of internal review?  You can question the norms, to an extent, but generally not the sub-structure of reality itself, and the basis for your own worldview.  Immediately some people might see a disconnect in the last two points I’ve made; isn’t it doing just that to undergo mental health therapy?  It’s not, really.  You are looking into cause and effect sequences within your own personal experience, not how the entire framework came to be, and how it functions.

An example would help with this.  We tend to see ethical / moral norms as something either inherited from past cultural forms by way of religious teachings (eg. from Christianity, or Buddhism), or as a practical set of norms that help society function better, that are conditioned into people as a matter of routine practice, because they work.  Most people not killing other people is a good basis for a stable society.  Something like lying becomes more complicated; that’s relatively normal.  So we tend to not really deal with that.  Moreover we tend to not dig up and unpack what morality itself is.  Is it one of these things, a combination of both, or something else?  Can we intentionally adjust it, our own moral judgment process?

Self-image works even better as an example.  Societies offer us social levels (classes), status as an indicator, and personal choices related to self-definition as means of providing others with an image of who we see ourselves as being.  Someone who runs is a runner; fitness matters to them.  Then they can go out and join groups to discuss that with like-minded people, buy gear to demonstrate their commitment, and support that function, and display their social status.  Races are held for this purpose, more so than testing how fast someone can run a certain distance, which anyone can do almost anytime.  

In today’s world sharing results online (Strava; posting runs) enters in.  There’s a saying for them:  if it’s not on Strava it didn’t happen (or just Strava or it didn’t happen).  Why?  Every run re-affirms self-image, more so than it actually informs others of physical training results.

What if someone wanted to turn all of this around, and truly unpack what they’re built up of, what a shared cultural worldview is, and what their own self-image and perspective relates to?  This would already be a violation of a social norm.  People don’t do that.  You can question why you are so reliant on Strava to communicate training run results to others, but even that is a bit much.  You can’t explore all of the social norms within your own society, without any good reason for doing this.  Even if you study psychology, anthropology, or sociology, for example, they’re not going to lead you in this direction.  You can explore what they want you to explore, what is normal.

I ran into the same limitations in studying philosophy.  There are very clear norms related to what you can and cannot question.  One professor expressed this clearly:  we study rational knowledge, not inherited wisdom.  The form of human nature is only relevant to philosophy within a very limited scope.  Oddly they realize that people aren’t rational; this much is fairly obvious.  But they still work within that general range as a basic premise.  The idea seems to be that although an ordinary human perspective, or a given philosopher’s perspective, is not based mainly on reason (as logical thought) we can still accept that reason can unpack and shed light on some aspects of worldview building and more conventional “reasoning.”  Reason is still seen as a valid tool for building up frameworks of ideas, even though eventually it’s going to contradict forms and patterns developed through organic worldview development.

The idea of a model is interesting to consider.  A model is a simplified construct that represents a more complex system, of any sort.  This is clear in a model of a car or airplane.  In my first area of study, industrial engineering, simulation modeling makes for an interesting and useful example.  We can use statistical constructs to pattern how individuals drive a car, and describe why traffic patterns result in wave forms, bunches of cars getting stuck together.  I’ve already mentioned a key model that comes up in philosophical study, or two competing versions of one:  Kant’s ethical framework theories try to demonstrate how moral guidelines and choices are regulated mainly by reason, and other “consequentialist” models describe how broad patterns of behavior are more favorable for individuals and broader society.  

You simplify one part of reality, by building up a limited set of ideas that represent a broader form.  Another idea repeats here:  doesn’t this relate to an exploration of self-awareness?  Sure, but in a very limited sense.  One might expect that we could work through and unpack a lot of category range, layers, and levels of human internal experience (worldview) to model how a lot of human nature works out.  This is what Kant tried to do.  Why didn’t it work?  Because people aren’t really rational, so assuming that on some fundamental level they really are builds way too broad a contradiction into your modeling.  Lots of model components and conclusions will become wonky, because the initial starting points don’t work.

What if someone is a practicing Buddhist; doesn’t this set of practices and ideas give people the tools to deconstruct their own worldview, to understand it, and to some extent reconstruct it?  The last two parts don’t work, and it’s too complicated to explain why not here.  But yes, you can functionally take apart and examine the assumptions that go into your own worldview and perspective, and your own society, and re-adopt a less cluttered perspective that functions better.  I feel that I have done this.  It’s a pretty broad claim, so you should take that with a grain of salt.

So many questions and tangents start from this point.  What is the new form of what is re-adopted, since just dropping societal norms would create huge gaps, unless there were new forms to adopt instead?  Just how practical is this?  Isn’t it a concern that someone would become less functional, if they choose to define themselves as an outsider within their own society?

Deeper yet, what is fundamental to human nature when these layers are stripped away (conventional self-image, conventional practice of morality, etc.)?

I could answer some of these questions, but the answers probably wouldn’t be as helpful and meaningful as helping others go through the internal review themselves.  It would be as if I tried to describe Thai society and perspective to an American, or Japanese landscape and architecture aesthetics.  You can experience these things relatively directly, by visiting Japan and looking around, or meeting a Thai, and talking to them about how they see themselves and their society.  I suppose the first works better than the second, and the description of Thai culture would be as helpful trying to reconstruct all of that from implied context in discussion.

Undertaking this sort of internal exploration, the Buddhist path I’ve described, is very problematic.  If someone tried to join a foreign based sub-culture or school of religion to attempt this they would bump into taking on a new set of worldview assumptions, instead of unpacking their own.  It’s not even as if what I’ve described is exactly how Buddhism is taken within religious traditions.  It’s not, at all.  This seems to clearly be the intention of all of it, clearly expressed in fundamental core teachings.  But then other parts stand out more within religious practice.  To an extent even within a monastic tradition, although this again extends into range that’s too complicated to explain in a short or medium length passage.

But yet I’ve claimed to have sorted out this general goal (deeper self-awareness), to have explored or derived practical approaches towards it, and to some extent to have experienced those.  I’m definitely not “enlightened,” so maybe what I mean by this isn’t clear.  Again it’s a limitation in what I can express; I can’t distill 30+ years worth of internal self review into a clear and simple approach and results summary.  It’s much easier to model and discuss a lot of other range, than these sorts of themes.  

If someone could explain “what is Buddhism?” in a reasonable space they would have already.  I’ve written about this, in the form of two completed book drafts, but looking back (on those unpublished summary attempts) I’ve covered the initial steps more than the outcome, how I went about it, instead of what the result was.  Maybe I’ll write a third book, that I may or may not ever publish.  I’m not finished with the process; there are still steps remaining for me to take, in the review and adjustment process I’ve described.  I suppose that’s probably going to be true up until I’ve ended this life.  That’s really why I keep writing, to document it as I go, instead of waiting until some end or final transition, that’s not likely to ever occur.

It sounds like madness, doesn’t it?  Like I’m just out there.  I can accept that.

It has been helpful that I’ve lived in two different societies, in the US up until the age of 38, I think it was, and now 19 more years living mostly in Thailand.  It has been helpful to live part-time back in the US, to keep re-adjusting to living within that culture, to see what that adjustment process is like, and how perspectives are different.  

As a foreigner where I live complete conformity is not only not expected, in one sense it’s not really practical.  I suppose that could be a chapter in that next book, instead of a theme that’s well-developed within 3 or 4 sentences here.

One might end this by questioning the extent to which I seem to have met and known others who have walked this sort of path.  Not just using Buddhism as a tool for self-exploration, and unpacking and working more directly with assumed worldview, but taking on any approach that results in a similar end.  Or within Buddhism; that works too.  

Buddhist teachers that are known and respected, that write and communicate the best material about these themes, are the only examples that come to mind.  Thich Nhat Hanh works as a good example.  I’m no Thich Nhat Hanh, to be clear; I’m not placing myself on his level, even though that’s clearly implied here.  

In ordinary life people seem to work with different degrees of self-awareness.  But it’s not as if you can see it in their countenance, or derive it from ordinary discussion.  My grandmother had made an unusual degree of peace with her own human nature, and was very wise.  It comes across in forms like this.  Others recognize it too.

This ran long; it’s been great talking.  If it sounds like I’m talking nonsense that actually helps make this initial point, doesn’t it?  Even if someone put lots of effort into understanding and revising their own worldview, and felt like they had limited success with that, they would come across as crazy if they tried to talk to others about that.

Thai #12 Jin Xuan oolong, and Dong Ding style oolong

 

I'm reviewing two more Thai oolong from 101 Plantation, a main producer here.  They're #12, Jin Xuan, probably the main plant type and oolong type produced in Thailand, and a Dong Ding style version.  That's a reference to a Taiwanese region, really to preparation style there, to the rolled oolong being a little more oxidized and then significantly roasted.

I'll come right out with it:  these were great.  The Oriental Beauty oolong from them I reviewed recently was really exceptional, one of the best Thai oolongs I've yet to try, and these weren't too far off that.  I suppose they're also among the best Thai oolongs I've tried, but good OB is really something special (or Dong Fang Mei Ren, if you prefer that name).

Anyone ordering that Oriental Beauty should probably consider these too.  Even if only one of these styles is a personal favorite they're both great examples of these type ranges.  It's a harder question to answer how these match up against good Taiwanese oolongs.  They're pretty far up the scale, but some Taiwanese oolongs are really high in quality, and pleasant in expressed aspects.  If you pay two or three times as much as these cost you can find as good or better teas from there, but you could also pay that much and try something that's not as good.  An example at the end might clarify how far the range goes, and what the other extreme looks like.

Let's hear their descriptions (101's), and move on to the review notes.

101 Tea Premium Jin Xuan Oolong Tea No. 12 Loose Leaf (10g x 25 Packs, Box Set)  (THB 400.00 Price, $11.86)

Indulge in the smooth, naturally creamy flavor of our Premium Jin Xuan Oolong Tea No. 12 Loose Leaf, carefully cultivated at our renowned tea plantation. Celebrated for its delightful milk-like aroma and gentle, mellow taste, each cup delivers an exceptional tea-drinking experience. Packaged conveniently in individual 10g packs, ideal for brewing one perfect teapot, this box set is excellent for sharing at gatherings, family tea time, or as a thoughtful gift for tea. lovers.

101 Tea Premium Dong Ding Oolong Tea Loose Leaf (200g)  THB 350.00, 10.38 United States Dollar)

Experience the essence of our Premium Dong Ding Oolong, carefully cultivated in our tea plantation in Chiang Rai. Named after the "Frozen Peak," this exceptional tea features tightly rolled leaves that unfurl to reveal a light, refreshing cup with a distinct and captivating fragrance.

Those listings are marketing content, so they have to say that the teas are good, but in this case they're even better than they are describing.  I've not read those listings until after writing the review notes, so I don't make it a point to connect the two in what follows.

That last tea, the Dong Ding version, costing $10 for 200 grams is crazy.  It's really good tea.  You might need to spend four times that much to buy an equivalent version in Taiwan, or elsewhere.

These are 10 gram samples or portions, which is why the 100 ml gaiwan is completely full.  I thought it might be a little less, and that the leaves expanded a lot, but that high proportion accounts for the intensity and the teas brewing so many positive rounds (related to shortening infusion times, sort of).  For sheng pu'er that's too much to brew at once, and 8 grams is better, so that you can still control intensity using shorter infusion times, but for mild character rolled oolongs it's fine.  That's a lot for brewing Western style; these would work out to brew two larger than average portion rounds, at 5 grams each.

Review:

#12 Jin Xuan:  a little light, because it's still opening up, but this is definitely the right range.  It's bright, floral, and sweet.  It's the oolong type people describe as a natural form of milk oolong, that tastes the most like milk, and it sort of does, and also sort of doesn't.  There's a creaminess to it; that part works.  Some of the light and sweet flavor might resemble milk a little, but not much.  It's probably a little closer to the flavor of cream, which is close enough.  It's good.  I'll add more list next time, but never have much luck breaking down flower types range.

Dong Ding (the same style as that region of Taiwan, but obviously not from there):  that's good.  The other was good, within that type and style range, but this is really something, from the first sip.  A secondary cognac or liqueur like effect almost stands out first, even though that's deriving from how the other aspects come together (I think; who really knows?).  

The tones are much warmer.  And hard to describe.  Some could see this as tasting like rich spice tones, and to me that works pretty well.  Or like warm, sweet leather; that I can still see.  Some of the heavy, complex, warm tones from Scotch whiskey or tobacco could be represented, but of course that's an indirect interpretation; it would only carry over part of those complex and intense flavors (to the extent you taste tobacco, which you do, when you smoke it).  Maybe even peat.

It's pleasant.  The flavors are clean; none of the negative associations about potential off earthy flavor range or mustiness would apply, if one would intuitively associate those.  It takes very little of that to throw off this very positive effect; a little sourness alone would do it.  It's odd that it can be this good in a light initial round.

#12 / Jin Xuan infusion 2:  I didn't mention that it would have been natural to use a rinse step last round, very typical, and I didn't.  I did infuse the tea for a longer time to help the balls open, approaching 30 seconds.  For this round I infused these for about 15 seconds, which isn't long, since they are still opening, but intensity was fine last round, so I didn't want to overdo it.

This is again bright, fresh, sweet, floral, and intense enough.  There isn't a hint of a negative aspect.  People might not like the style of tea, this aspects set, but there's none of the cardboard flavor that can enter in with some Thai rolled oolong.  Warmth picks up ever so slightly; this will probably gain depth in that way, trading out the brighter and fresher notes over the following rounds.  It's floral, but I'm not great with remembering floral range scents.  Not exactly orchid, not that bright and sweet, but it is bright and sweet.  The more you think about butter or cream the more it seems to taste like that.

Dong Ding:  the heavy mineral flavors really emphasize the roasted quality this round.  They did for the last round too, but now this really leans into the peat from Scotch whiskey sort of theme.  Floral range in this is much richer and warmer, but again I'm not great at placing that.  Towards lavender, but not exactly that.  Other range is more like spice, some sort of complex incense spice, maybe something like sandalwood.  It's funny how all of this range is something I'm not great at describing.  

It comes across as a full and complex flavor set, with good depth.  That warm peat or spice tone really carries over to aftertaste after you drink it, which is generally a good sign for oolong.  If this roast input was just a little heavier it would be too much, but they've nailed it for a relatively optimum input.  I didn't love the red oolong example as much from them, but the Oriental Beauty and these are fantastic representations of completely different oolong styles.  Even that tea was fine (the red oolong); the character just didn't suit me as well.

These are better than I remember trying in the past.  I would buy Thai oolongs from different places, and some of those would have been 101 Plantation teas, but I usually wouldn't know.  I've tried tea I knew to be from them in the past, but probably a good bit more that I only guessed was.

#12 third infusion:  I may not write notes beyond this round, even though these will definitely be fine for 8 or 9 infusions, or possibly more.  I brewed that Oriental Beauty yesterday, for something like 10, and drank a few more infusions of it this morning.  I'll often make extra rounds to give to plants, and those were holding up so well that the plants and I shared the extra rounds this morning.

my daughter's plant drinks tea with me daily

The Jin Xuan is evolving nicely, picking up more complexity.  It might be even better in a couple of more rounds; it might be telling an incomplete story to only write about 3 or 4 infusions.  That depth and different flavor might relate to something like root spice, like sassafras / root beer.  Brighter floral tones lighten, giving way to those warmer and deeper tones.  

Often a touch of vegetal range is included in this kind of tea, so I might be mentioning green wood, or some kind of vegetable, kale or okra or whatever.  This doesn't include that.  If you really think about vegetal range you might make out something like summer forest scent, but it's not pronounced.

Dong Ding:  that charcoal / roasted edge keeps intensifying; that's interesting.  Maybe at this level it would seem a bit much, for many.  It might be interesting to mix these and see where the flavors land in the middle.  But in general that just gets you muddle flavors, because the distinct set in both becomes too broad to make out, even if you see warm and bright tones as balancing better.

It's worth considering if this represents what people call the traditional style of Tie Guan Yin, if the input of higher levels of oxidation and roast balance in that same way.  Of course it's a different plant type, so right away that's different.  They made this out of something, but probably not Tie Guan Yin, most likely the same Jin Xuan (#12), or else #17 (what I think of as Bai Lu, but gets called Ruan Zhi more).  I think the oxidation level would be slightly higher if it was made in that style, or at least the form I think of it as, and maybe roast input backed off just a little.

The mineral tone reminds me of ink more than char this round.  Literally like ink smells; it tastes like that.  For some that would be fantastic, for others off-putting.  I like it.

There's a trick people do with sheng pu'er when the aftertaste input builds up a lot, drinking cool water between rounds to clear your palate.  The water tastes very sweet, an after-effect from the hui gan, or bitterness that changes to sweetness (more or less; hui gan is a complex concept and effect).  This causes something like that, when you drink water after it, not as sweet, but a noteworthy interesting flavor.  It can't be the same thing, since that's from flavors tied to bitterness, but in an indirect way it's related.

#12 fourth infusion:  this is the best this has been, with the limitation that it's not as bright, fresh, and sweet as the early rounds, which would be many people's favorite part.  Complexity and depth are really developed.  Jin Xuan can be pleasant, but Thai versions don't tend to be this good.  

It's great that they sent these extra samples for review, when I only bought the Oriental Beauty, since I really should go back and buy more of these.  I often give oolong to a couple of monks we know, and they would love these.  Thais give monks things--food on alms round, or basic household goods, or even tea--to gain merit, but for me it's about concern over them not being able to shop for tea.  Sure, they're not focused on having pleasant experiences, given that context, but they can still drink nice tea.

The different ranges of mineral base, floral tones (now warmer), and root spice are so integrated that you really don't experience it like that, as different sets of different flavors.  

It wouldn't be completely wrong for someone to interpret one part of the flavor as resembling roasted corn; that's not so far off.  Not sweet corn that's boiled in water or steamed, I mean the flavor that comes from wrapping an un-husked ear in foil and cooking it on a fire.  If you've not tried that it's a good goal to pursue.  You should soak the ear in water first, to get as much water in it as you can, to help steam the corn and offset the charring effect.

Dong Ding:  that liqueur or cognac like aspect range switches to be more perfume-like, with the heavy lavender oriented floral tones picking up.  I brewed this for a substantial time too, nearly 20 seconds, so that's not from making a lighter infusion, which does change the flavor profile a little (or can).  It's interesting that the roasted char input kept building up in level and then just dropped off that much in one round.  It still tastes plenty roasted, but not like last round.  This spans a lot more warm mineral base with heavy floral tones standing out.  I think it is actually pretty close to lavender, a warm, rich, and particularly strong smelling floral scent.

Two or three more rounds would see these transition further, for sure.  But I have an informal policy against writing 2000 word blog posts; it's too much for me to write, and for people to read.  You get the idea; these teas are shifting across rounds, so far in only pleasant ways.  They'll brew 6 to 8 exceptional rounds, and then how fast the pleasant character starts to shift from there depends on the tea.

One part of why that Oriental Beauty kept making pleasant infusions relates to there not being off flavors entering in.  Almost any tea will keep infusing to produce flavor, long after the main positive rounds, but off tastes come up (wood, other vegetal range, or harsh astringency, which is something else).  That OB was less positive after about 12 or 13 rounds, which is a long time and a lot of tea.  These may become less positive after "only" 10 instead, but still brewing 8 or 9 good rounds is plenty.

Of course I'm mixing themes, because I always tend to max out brewing proportion.  I'll have to check how much these are, the weight, but I would guess about 8 grams.  It's a lot, but that's my normal amount, for brewing in a 100 ml gaiwan.  [editing note:  10; that's why these were so packed so full.  I thought that was just how they unfurled, since 10 is a lot to brew at one time].

Conclusions:

Just great teas!  How great just depends; there is better range out there.  I feel like I'm not really filling in how that works out.  

Let's consider a curated, really exceptional Taiwanese rolled oolong version for comparison, with a style and aspect description and cost.  I'm not seeing one that matches one of these two styles well, but it won't matter, we can just consider a Qing Xin (plant type) based version, and what I consider to be one of the best curator sources online, Trident Bookseller and Cafe:

Long Feng Xia (龍鳳峽)  (selling for $15 per ounce, or 28 grams, so 250 grams being about 9 times as much quantity this sample pack amount would cost around $135, instead of $12 as this Jin Xuan version did, over ten times as much).

Their description:

Grown at 6,200 feet in cold and foggy conditions, the Long Feng Xia (龍鳳峽) is a very high grade and complex Taiwanese Oolong that comes from a subsection of the Shan Lin Xi growing area. There is a very crisp and floral flavor in the initial steepings, with an aftertaste of tart and sweet green apples. Later steepings are fuller with a pronounced vegetal character suggestive of bean sprouts, layered with floral and bready flavors. Not overly bold, the Long Feng Xia is a subtle and ethereal tea which emphasizes feeling, body, and persisting aftertaste. It rewards careful brewing and attention to detail.

Origin - Xeitou, Nantou, Taiwan

Harvests - Spring 2026

Elevation - 6,200 ft

Varietal - Qing Xin (青心烏龍)

Tea Maker - Mr. Chen

Tastes Like - Tulips, Fresh Baked Bread, Green Apple

Could all of these teas be a good value, given the broad difference in cost, with this described character sounding unusually positive?  Probably.  They're just two different kinds of teas, and different origins and quality levels.  I bet that it is much better, but "better" is kind of relative.  These Thai oolongs are already good, just more basic.

Trident sells award winning versions, or versions made by the best small artisan producers out there.  Maybe there is still range between the two, that's better than this 101 tea but not as costly, but hopefully this highlights how there is such a broad range of what is made and sold.

I picked that version as an example because it's in their mid-range, with one Taiwanese rolled oolong version costing less ($15 per gram) and a few more ($20 per gram).  This might seem to imply, to some, that I'm criticizing people for needing to buy and experience the best of the best teas, that maybe their expectations have become a problem, or ego and status are getting involved.  That can be part of it, but that's not my point here.  

It's fine if one person has a $200 a year tea budget and someone else $2000; that's how personal finances and preferences for different food themes work out.  Sixty cents a day worth of spending on tea won't go too far, but there's nothing wrong with these Thai oolongs, even if they're the best teas you ever tend to drink.  Personally I'm fine with basic teas.  I wouldn't want to drink versions that cost 50 cents to $1 a gram all the time, because that seems wasteful to me, given how good a lot of 15 to 25 cents per gram tea is.  

This Dong Ding version was closer to 5 cents a gram; just amazing, an incredible value, for an exceptional tea.  Of course that is in a "foreign" cost of living market, in Thailand, it's just not foreign to me, since I'm living in Bangkok now.  Working for a Thai salary, which changes things.  Anyone buying this tea from elsewhere would add a lot of shipping cost to that, to get it, and maybe some customs tax.  I pay that when I buy tea from China; it's just how things go.

Again many thanks and congratulations to the 101 Plantation for providing this tea, and for making such good versions.  It's nice to see Thai tea that's this good.

it's my son's birthday!  he's not so into photos.

taking a river ferry to the temple

Visiting Bangkok Chinatown tea storage; reviewing Thai black tea

Kittichai!  He and his wife are so nice!

I've visited my favorite Bangkok Chinatown tea shop, Jip Eu, twice in the past few weeks.  I mean that I've been to their storage location, since their main shop is closed for repairs to the building.  A part of the roof cover out front broke and fell down, and it has required a lot of design change and extensive re-work to fix that, so who knows when it will be complete.  

Part of posting is about mentioning the location link, here.  It's about a block from their normal shop, but it would be hard to find without that map location.

The first visit there was during the vegetarian festival, a couple of weeks ago now (I've been busy with other posts).  Keoni, my son, and I had went to Yaowarat the week before to see that, then the next weekend to that shop for a visit.  I visited the next time to meet with a long-time tea contact who was in town, but I didn't get around to asking for permission to mention him, so I won't, but his name would be familiar to many.  It's nice meeting people you only knew online before; it's very rare when that doesn't go well.

Touring that location was interesting.  A lot of what you see is just cardboard boxes, since the tea is kept within those, but it's interesting hearing Kittichai, the owner, describe what broad and deep rows of boxes were.  It's more tea volume than I expected, literal tons of it.  Some was long term storage of sheng and shou pu'er, but apparently they keep moving enough oolong and other teas that it makes sense for them to have an awful lot of it around at any given time.

they had used this in place of cardboard boxes in the past, a bamboo frame

Tulin sheng pu'er tuochas; they carry Xiaguan of different ages as well

I don't think I've ever tried Liu Bao there, but they have some

Between those two visits I ended up trying a good bit of interesting tea.  On the first visit I had asked about Thai teas, since they usually mostly sell Chinese teas of different types, and Kittichai shared some black tea he said that he doesn't sell.  I review that in a separate section of this post.  It's good; I think he doesn't like it because it's a bit tart, which is a flavor aspect that I also don't care for.  But it's such a good quality version that it still works, even with that included.

We tried a Xin Ban Zhang, from the newer village near the older one, Lao Ban Zhang, which I reviewed here.  It's been a week or two, so I don't remember much of the rest.  For most visitors maybe it wouldn't seem as good a place to visit as the shop, since there is much less space for hanging out and tasting, and they typically only taste teas they have some of open anyway, but for people who know what they want you can still visit there and buy teas.

those Xin Ban Zhang leaves (left), and a Viet Sun version, reviewed here

Review:

To be clear they don't sell this tea (a Thai version of black tea), or at least that's what Kittichai said.  It makes for an interesting consideration, what Thai black tea might be like, and why some versions might not be preferrable to some people.  Of course this doesn't represent other styles; I mentioned trying a favorite Wawee Tea origin black tea in a meetup this past week, and that's nothing like this.

First infusion:  it's good tea, but the character includes significant tartness.  For me that's not a favorite flavor inclusion for black tea.  That could be why the shop owner, Kittichai, doesn't like this tea enough to pursue selling it.  Or it could be something else.  But the general character is quite positive.

Berry or cherry is a main flavor component beyond that, or complex range, if it's really both.  Some cacao is there.  Feel is fine, nice and full, sweetness is good, and it extends to an aftertaste experience.  Tartness is more or less the make or break, as I see it; if you like that included then this tea is quite good, and if not maybe not so much.  Because so much of the rest is so positive I still like it.  I doubt the tartness will drop out, but the proportion of different flavors expressed can shift.

Second infusion:  tartness stays just as strong, but other intensity ramps way up.  One flavor is like roselle, a tart version of a tisane that's popular in Thai.  It's a little like cranberry, but it's a flower, not fruit.  Cacao is still included, but it also doesn't increase, so it drops back in what you notice.  The rest of the fruit is hard to separate out, but it does seem to include berry, maybe blackberry.  This tea is pretty good.  It seems a little unorthodox, maybe even heretical, but it might work to mix this with the kind of tea that includes lots of warmth and depth but not so much forward / brighter flavor like this.  This already tastes a bit like a flavored tea or tea and tisane blend.

Drifting further off topic in that direction, it would also work as one basis for a Christmas blend.  Those tend to be black teas with a bit of citrus, cherry, and cacao, or something along that line.  This covers half of all of that without adding anything.  I experimented with making Christmas blends much earlier on in tea exploration, but it's the kind of thing people tend to move away from.  

And living in the tropics de-emphasizes Christmas, from not experiencing cold weather, and not being somewhere that it's a more central theme.  Thais put up a tree here or there, and decorate malls, and that's about it, and in Hawaii people celebrate it on their own, instead of decorating public spaces and holding related events.  It's a part of mainland culture, to them, and the ties to local culture, Polynesian themes, and to Asia are stronger there.

Third infusion:  I brewed this round much faster, to see what changes, and flavor intensity is still good, but a bit thinner.  It might need a couple of more rounds to shift to a different character, since these infusions are pretty fast, since I used the more or less standard 8 grams or so for this.

Fourth infusion:  this is improving; depth keeps picking up, and tartness fades.  This is a pretty solid tea version.  I could see how it wouldn't match everyone's preference, but it's still good.  Aftertaste expression is strong, and feel includes decent fullness.  There isn't harsh astringency structure; that part is fine, just a moderate level that supports the rest.  This tea may be even better brewed Western style, using just 2 or 3 grams and letting it brew out for 5 minutes or so in 250 ml or more.  But it was a nice effect in later rounds that the tartness faded, and it would probably be strong in an infusion made that way.

Of course this tea would brew a lot more rounds; I tried it again yesterday and brewed about 10.  It's better in the last half of the rounds than the first, to me, because the tartness drops out.

Another tangent:

There's not much to add about that tea or that shop in conclusion; that already covered it.  But a strange thing has come up related to this blog's viewership stats:

They will hit 700,000 this month (this is from the 30th).  Of course that's mostly AI bots; in the history of this blog daily viewer stats were more like 10,000 per day, or less.  They were higher before Facebook changed their algorithm to show more ads and promoted content, however many years ago that was, but they were consistently 6000 to 8000 even without posting that much.

So what does that mean?  Apparently I'm training AI systems on tea background, and probably also on writing form.  In a way that still is communication with a broad audience, it's just indirect, and almost entirely uncredited.  

It is what it is; I set out to communicate about tea, and it was never about me getting credit, or profiting.  I've made next to nothing from tea blogging, or actually exactly nothing, since any limited income came from editing content for others, and such.  A few vendors have mentioned setting up an affiliate link marketing scheme, where I would get revenue for tea sold through links here, but I've declined to be a part of that.  It wouldn't add up anyway, and then I would be creating paid marketing content, which is no good, not really the idea for here.  

Vendors do send tea for review sometimes; that's much appreciated, and it represents real value.  Thanks much, if this applies to any given reader!

I always mention when that's the case, when a tea was provided free for review, and whether that was in the form of extra samples sent with an order, or a set of samples sent for review, or actual conventional size amounts sent for review.  I try to review teas in the same way here, I guess "objectively," as much as that makes sense, but it's for the best to be clear on context anyway.  

I also try to make it clear when I'm writing about a vendor I consider a personal contact.  The Jip Eu owners feel like family to me, and it's as well let people know that their experiences would be different than mine, because they wouldn't be based on that personal connection.  They won't give you 50 grams of free tea that they don't sell.  It's still a good place to shop, once you work around Bangkok Chinatown shops being a little inconsistent, in general.  Some teas are great, and a great value, and others that are not as favorable can come up.