I've not been exploring Bangkok Chinatown tea shops much, for a long time. One set of shop owners are so familiar and pleasant to visit with that I kept going to the same shop over and over, really appreciating seeing them, with lots of varying teas already on offer there. That's to Jip Eu, my favorite local shop, located near the Hua Lampong railway station.
Their building is under repair, so they're closed, so I visited another local shop to buy tea for a gift within the last month (K. Mui Kee Tea, nearby there). I wrote about trying a very pleasant Dan Cong from them here.
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the owners of that other shop, Jip Eu |
I just went back to buy more tea for gifts, and visited with the owner and two other guests there. This is about that. That shop owner had always seemed pleasant before, and it was a nice chance to visit more.
I don't want to say or imply too much here about the theme of that shop, or general value for what's there, or what else they carry. But I can cover how trying those teas went, and that paints some of that picture. You could assume that some of what I'm saying applies more broadly, that these represent their selection, or what I'm saying about value would hold true for others, but I'm not implying that.
Inconsistency is one of the interesting parts of visiting Chinatown shops. A version might be great, or value might be exceptional, then for the next tea it can all shift. It's not that the shop owners can't judge teas well; my take is that working through very diverse forms of sourcing the outcomes naturally vary. But who knows about likely causes.
Wild origin black tea: this is what I already gave away for a gift, and what I was there to buy again. I had only smelled the dry leaf before, but you can get some sense of teas that way. We actually tried the tea there (not first; this isn't in order). It is good.
Maybe the flavor list is a little unique, not matching some standard type expectation, but the flavors were positive, and they balanced well, as the rest of the character did. I suppose one might interpret something like limited intensity across some flavor range or light body feel as flaws, but to me it was a solid, pleasant, good quality tea. I would expect that by shifting brewing approach you could adjust for whatever didn't seem as positive, to you.
I can't really cite a clear flavor list, based on trying that tea yesterday, not focusing on that. I think it included some dried fruit, and warm tones were what you would expect for black tea, maybe along the line of cacao. I didn't notice citrus or roasted yam or sweet potato, but that's not to say that I wouldn't if I didn't try it again, and focus in more.
Cost was 500 baht ($15) for 100 grams. That's pretty good for good quality, novel, distinctive tea like that. It's not rock bottom pricing, as can occur in Chinatown shops, but you shouldn't be looking for that in a tea version of a type that's all but completely unique. If the idea is to find a steal on a main type, like standard rolled Tie Guan Yin, that can work. Really Thai teas should sell for less, and Chinatown shops tend to sell Chinese teas instead (of course).
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a Longjing varietal tasting (covered here) |
Longing: this is a good test case for evaluating any Chinatown shop, isn't it? If you don't already know why it's not important, but this is a pretty standard type. It's more or less my favorite green tea. Flavor tends to be nutty, or to resemble toasted rice, with some floral range, and not too much vegetal or grassy flavor (conventionally). A range of flavor not too far off cashew can tend to pop, integrated with floral range in a unique way. The effect can be a little like new car smell, but in a very positive sense. I get it that comparison makes limited sense.
This version was pretty good, pretty far up the scale. By that I also mean not at the top of the scale, but to me that's fine, if pricing matches. It was selling for 1000 baht per 100 grams ($30), which to me seems fine for a pretty good version. Often the best examples can be more like 50 cents a gram, or at least the normal best that you tend to find.
This is the kind of tea that would divide people with that developed preference. Some would naturally really want to experience that most intense, most type-typical flavor set, and intensity. But then they would already know buying that quality level for 30 cents a gram isn't how that tends to go. To me pretty good versions bring across most of the same appeal.
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two other Dan Cong versions, more oxidized and roasted (left) and lighter (right) |
Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong: another good test case / standard type. Theirs was pretty good. I didn't catch a selling price, so I won't be able to evaluate if it's good for the price-implied quality level. If it cost 500 to 600 baht per 100 ($15-18) grams it would be a good deal; if it cost 1000 you might be able to find as good a version for slightly less somewhere else.
That's the most standard type of Dan Cong, another oolong range type. It's the name of a flower, honey orchid, so it's supposed to taste similar to other versions, and that flower, and I think this did. It often also tastes a little like ripe peach. I don't remember if this did or didn't, but I think I came in late in the steeping sequence, so maybe the most intense range had already passed. Really high quality versions tend to express great character deep into a long round of steeps, but for normal priced versions (25 cents a gram or so, or less) the positive intensity fading over a limited number of rounds is fine.
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that might've been between these in style, not so oxidized and roasted or as light |
Dian Hong, a version with a lot of buds: this is my own personal favorite black tea type, Yunnan black. I tend to like fine leaf versions best, or even from good sized leaves, but buds heavy versions would be in higher demand, and considered more positive, to many. It tasted like these should taste, and the feel / body seemed fine. It was heavy on honey and some cacao flavor range, with good complexity and depth beyond that.
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it looked like this, a China Life Dian Hong reviewed in 2016 (the Mei Leaf predecessor) |
If this had been a personal favorite style it would've really stood out among the other teas. I do like it, but for whatever reason I like the leaf based variations more. They might give up a bit in terms of forward flavor, traded out for more experience of depth, and the conventional flavor range shifts, not so much tied to honey and cacao but more into roasted sweet potato or yam. For people who love Jin Jun Mei this wasn't so far from that taste range; they would also like it.
Since I'm guessing an appropriate value, even for not knowing cost, I could keep on with that. This is pretty good quality tea, in a desirable, in-demand style, so a little higher cost range would seem normal. But black teas tend to be priced lower than Dan Cong oolong, so pretty much everything I sad about the Mi Lan Xiang version also applies directly here. This probably does cost a little more than the wild origin version ($15 / 500 baht per 100 grams), and that would be fair, related to buds heavy content being distinctive and adding appeal (demand). To me 1000 baht ($30) per 100 grams would seem a little high, even though in online Western outlets that would still be about right. Thai Chinatown shops tend to sell at a good value, although that's not always true, and you could still get a "bad deal" on teas in places.
Da Hong Pao (Wuyi Yancha): a version we tried was fine. Flavors and other character was in the right range, and it brewed multiple rounds consistently and positively. We talked about in-house charcoal roasting, related to trying it. There's a lot that brought to mind, and it was odd sharing how that theme is interesting, and represents distinctive vendor capability, and also serves as a red flag. I'll add a short version of that here, and not say as much about this tea version.
Per my very limited understanding it's not unusual for Taiwanese oolong vendors to buy essentially unroasted, unfinished tea versions and then roast them to a desired level. It requires a high degree of skill to do that well. Producers roast teas under controlled and specific conditions, multiple times, matching the roast input to the existing tea potential. It's not like just heating them up a standard amount for a standard time, and then they're good.
That's atypical though, again per my understanding. Most Western vendors would just buy oolongs as finished teas, already roasted. They would have been processed to match the other processing inputs, the original material character and oxidation level input. So why else would a vendor need to add roast input? For two main reasons, and maybe for others as well.
One is to periodically re-roast teas stored over a long time period to restore flavor balance, and compensate for some limited moisture input from storage. This is a bit touchy, because in modern times, again per my understanding, vendors just seal the teas better to begin with, stored at an appropriate moisture content level, and an older concern about accumulated moisture contact drops out.
A last reason is to cover up flaws in teas. Vendors might mix a few material inputs that more or less don't completely match with each other (although in the best case they would balance each other perfectly), and cover up inconsistencies in character by roasting it all quite a bit. Bridging this category and the last, if a tea went completely dead from improper storage roasting might add flavor, even though it's not ideal to let a tea lose most of its original taste.
So one might look on claims that in-house roasting is a positive and important input with some suspicion. Depending on how it's done, and why, it could be that. That Da Hong Pao was pretty good, so that's a good sign. Pretty good is all relative, and let's skip expanding on that for now, and the value part. I'm also skipping that Da Hong Pao is usually a branding term for either mixed input teas or something random, maybe just Shui Xian, since the most original forms are usually sold as Qi Dan or Bei Dou instead (related plant types).
Another shou pu'er we tried a little of seemed ordinary, but fine. I'll skip all the extrapolation here, about really placing quality, or guessing about price; we just tried one round of it.
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K. Mui Kee Tea; they sell those tea stuffed dried tangerines, a cool thing to try |
Other concerns; is this a typical Chinatown shop experience?
It's kind of not. If shop owners want to try teas with you then they will, maybe even tasting all sorts of things, without really worrying about what you buy in the end. More often they wouldn't. A shop might be set up around that theme, as Sen Xing Fa is (a tourist oriented shop not too far away). These older style, owner ran local shops tend to sell tea at a better value than tourist oriented shops with more staff.
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a meetup at Sen Xing Fa; not so many shops would be open to hosting that kind of thing |
Or shops might visit and make tea for locals they already know, the case of me visiting Kittichai at Jip Eu. That's like visiting an uncle, to me. I buy tea every time, just because it's fair to, and I'm usually there for that, but they'll often brew teas they don't even sell, just to share the experience.
I think this shop owner is unusually nice. I always had that sense before, even though I may have never tried much brewed tea there. His reputation is really positive in the local tea community.
So I seem to be saying that the owner is nice, tasting there is no problem, the teas are good, and they are also a good value. That visit definitely implied all of that. But I would expect some degree of inconsistency to come up, for some versions to be better than others, and for value to vary. That's normal for Chinatown shops. You hedge your bet in having that experience (of inconsistency) when the owner really gets tea, as he seems to, but Chinese tea is a really broad subject. Even for vendors in the business for decades they tend to know some types better than others, and to have better developed sourcing for some range.
To me this isn't really a significant negative part of exploring teas through Chinatown shops. Value might not be great all the time, or tea quality, but the normal range is pretty favorable, for better shops. The worst experiences teach you, and the cost for that instruction tends to be relatively low.
Meeting those other guests was very pleasant. They weren't so far along the tea exploration path, but they had significant prior exposure, and a fantastic attitude about it all. They were really nice.
Tea enthusiasts tend to end up in a strange place related to it seeming normal that people have already tried a half dozen version of dozens of types, and have memorized a couple of books worth of background. Of course I don't judge people based on how they might do sitting down to write a book about tea off the top of their head.
In a sense I envy people newer to the interest. They have so much exploration range to get to, so many instances of trying something new and interesting for the first time. If you start out trying basic quality tea versions you can gradually drink better and better tea, for years, without it even costing that much. Just exploring broadly, or horizontally across types (if you like that spatial analogy), you can keep trying pretty good teas indefinitely. Chinese teas do tend to be unusually diverse, and favorable, with a unique high end related to potential quality level, but it can work in relation to other origins as well.
I can make that more specific. You could spend 15 to 30 cents a gram on a lot of pretty good teas, and drink different types and characters of versions for years, before it seemed in order to push on to higher quality level, to spend more, in order to really have a more complete experience. Or you could start "at the top," either way would work. I just don't think it would work well to explore a lot of the best quality teas out there, and then get around to trying much more basic versions after that.
All of these teas we tried are in the middle, and favorable in character related to that, well above average for quality level and pleasantness. I could never drink teas better than them, for the rest of my life, and I'd be fine with that. But people naturally approach all of that in different ways, and it's natural for a perspective on quality levels and what one values to change over time.
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The Three Horse Chinatown shop. I bought some tea there not long ago, but haven't tried any, there or of what I bought (again for a gift; I tend to give away a good bit of tea). I'd have to recommend going to these other style shops instead, where you can meet an owner and try some tea with them. Or in Sen Xing Fa it's more just different staff, but they're set up for tasting as part of a routine sales process.
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