Asking The Expert: Choosing Pu’er Tea (Michelin guide)

 

Someone commented this on a Quora post I added about a Vietnamese tea shop, some writing I did for Tea Journey magazine a year ago.  It's what the title says, a Michelin guide to pu'er from a pu'er expert.  

I'd expect some inconsistency and error in such a guide, even if written by a relative expert, and I wasn't disappointed.  Most of it was fine, but the exceptions stood out.  And what they didn't say also seemed odd; they referenced shou / shu / ripe pu'er processing, but never called it any of those names.

Since a lot of the content is good background information, and since selection of what to include or not include is a bit arbitrary, I don't want to be too negative about this source.  By highlighting what doesn't work I'll be implying that it's full of errors, and low in quality or accuracy, but it's really not.  It's just not 100% correct.  Since it also lacks clear framing, what range the ideas fall within relative to the rest of pu'er experience scope, to me it's a bit more deeply flawed, even though most of it is ok with that framing added back in.

Let's start with the intro to the author, which places it as likely to be completely reliable:

For newcomers to the tea-drinking culture, how should they select the right pu’er tea? Ann Sit from Fook Ming Tong gave us some valuable insights.

Sit is a tea sommelier and Fook Ming Tong’s general manager. She began learning about Chinese tea as a teenager, and her qualification in tea connoisseurship has been recognised by the government of Mainland China. At the moment, she dedicates her time scouring tea plantations around China to source the best teas for her customers.

Sounds good.  I don't know what Fook Ming Tong is, and that makes a lot of difference, but let's move on from that (after pointing out that the first Google search entry describes it as a Hong Kong tea shop).

What’s the distinguishing characteristic of pu’er? 

Tea leaves are mainly categorised by the degree of fermentation. The production process of pu’er involves procedures such as picking, withering, fixing, kneading, drying. In the end, it’s heaped up and stored before it gets fermented. In comparison to oolong, green tea, shoumei, tieguanyin and other tea varieties, pu’er is fermented the most. Industry professionals call it black tea or post fermented tea.

In fermentation, the stimuli in tea leaves like chlorophyll are decomposed. Pu’er is usually dark brown in colour. It tastes mild and smooth. Thanks to the long fermentation period, there’s also a deep fragrance to the tea.

At first read this is all wrong, but taken in the right way it works better.  Fermentation is a main input to pu'er, but it's not clear that she doesn't really mean oxidation here, or isn't mixing the two terms and inputs.  Pu'er isn't typically oxidized, but any background on pu'er should make it a bit clearer which process is being referenced, since fermentation is often used incorrectly to specify oxidation.

The processing steps are fine.  Kneading should really be shaping, since it's more conventional to call a different leaf bruising step in black tea processing kneading, intended to break open the plant cells to allow air contact with the cell contents, and resulting oxidation.  Pu'er is made using the other steps, then after a pan-frying fixing step it's shaped into that twisted leaf form.  It's probably not so bad to call that shaping step kneading; the different use of terms is minor.

In the next sentence, about tea types, Tie Guan Yin is a type of oolong, and Shou Mei is white tea, so it mixes types and broad categories in an odd way, but that's still fine.  Saying that pu'er is a type of hei cha--black tea, or dark tea, from the Chinese categorization system that calls oxidized teas red instead of black--sort of works, and sort of doesn't.  Some people think it's a version of that, but it's more common in China to use hei cha to designate a range of other types, like Liu Bao, Fu brick teas, and so on.  Again this is sort of splitting hairs; plenty of people use this categorization that she mentions, it's just that others wouldn't see it that way.  In "the West" people argue if sheng pu'er is really hei cha, since it's only fermented after aging input, but they seem to miss some background too, as I see it.  We can just call pu'er pu'er, and leave the broad categories out of it.

The next part skips over that sheng pu'er exists, that not all pu'er is fermented in any way.  It circles back to including that, so it's just an odd initial framing choice, to get that mostly wrong.  Really you need to read those sentences a few times to sort out what she's really saying, and later it gets more confusing when sheng and shou descriptions are mixed together in different places.

How many types of pu’er are there?

Pu’er can be roughly divided into loose tea leaves and tea cake. After fermentation, tea cakes can be made using steam and machinery to flatten. Without shaping, it would be sold as loose leaves.

Some pu’er teas can be fermented longer than others. The dry room method puts leaves in an airy space for natural fermentation. Alternatively, some tea makers would ferment the tea manually by placing it in a room with high temperature and humidity. This step is called piling. The wet room method has the tea in a humidity-controlled space to speed up fermentation.

Loose leaves or tea cake can be further categorised into many more varieties. For example, raw (sheng) or green pu’er have a shorter post-fermenting period and would display a light green colour after brewing. As for tea cakes, there are many shapes available. Tea bricks are pressed into rectangular blocks, while tuo cha carries the form of mushroom caps.

This is all more right than wrong, but the degree of error included is puzzling.  Of course someone can see the distinction of loose and pressed pu'er as primary.  Most people would see the divide between sheng / raw and shou / shu / ripe / pre-fermented tea as more fundamental, but this part is still ok.  

The piling description of pre-fermentation of shu is too far off to accept in this way.  It's piled wet, with water added, not just stored in a humid room.

The reference to a "shorter post-fermenting period" really makes no sense.  You can sell sheng as completely unaged, as soon as you make it, not fermented through ordinary storage at all, so there is no period to reference.  Just referencing post-fermentation is misleading, as if there is some other treatment step.  You just hold onto the tea.  Within one year it's not really all that age / fermentation transitioned, regardless of storage climate, and after 25 to 30 years the process is relatively complete, with other changes happening in between.

Note that the light green reference is the wetted leaf color.  Sure, they're a bit green, where shou pu'er is brownish.  The brewed liquid color would be a pale yellow, and this isn't clear on which it's referencing.  Not much brewed tea liquid is actually green, but that can come up with Japanese green tea versions.

I like this reference to mushroom caps; tuos do look like that.  Usually they're referenced as bird's nest shaped, and I guess that also works.

the bottom is sort of cupped, so from the top it just looks like a ball

In the next section she says that people new to sheng should buy loose tea, which is fine, even though that's not how it usually tends to go in practice.  The she comments this, which doesn't work:

A tea cake costs at least $300. Some are even priced at several thousand dollars.

I wouldn't own a tea cake if it costs $300; that's way outside my budget.  That Xiaguan tuo shown (two different pictures of different versions) would often cost between $10 and $30-some for different versions of different ages, in online outlets.  They're not tea cakes though; those are 100 grams of tea, instead of a standard 357 grams for cakes (which varies).  I've just ran across mention that a famous Hong Kong shop, Yee On Tea, sells one of their aged Xiaguan tuos at the same age range (around 20 years old) for $60; that kind of thing would depend on different factors, like preferred storage input, and initial quality of the material.

I'd say the range of factory cakes, large-scale producer versions, is between $40 and 60, for new, moderate quality versions.  Those aren't ready to drink yet though, because that kind of tea requires aging.  Most Western boutique-oriented vendors sell their cake versions between $80 and $160, with fully aged versions falling into a higher level and broader range.  You can find high quality, limited production, high demand young (new) sheng cakes for $300 and up, but they are very much the exception.

What to look out for when buying loose leaves?

The most important element is that the leaves remain intact. There shouldn’t be too many broken leaf fragments, branches and petioles. You need to also give it a sniff. The leaves should smell fragrant instead of dull or sour. If you spot green mould, it means the leaves have gone bad and should not be bought. It would be ideal to taste the tea on the spot. The brewed tea has a rich and bright red colour. However dark the tea is, it should be clear enough for you to see the bottom of the cup.

If you spot any color of mold you shouldn't buy a tea.  Again this works ok for shou or aged sheng but for younger sheng the color range isn't right.  I just reviewed a Xiaguan tuocha from 2006 that's in a decent place for aging input, not fully through the process, but quite pleasant, and it's not "red" yet:

It's pretty far off the initial pale gold infusion color, but will seem closer to red in another decade, at 29 years old.  It might seem more desirable then, so maybe saying that at an optimum aged sheng should be darker works, but this isn't clarifying things for people who can't place those specifics.  Let's consider a 20 year old version stored in Malaysia that I reviewed a couple of years ago:

It's more fermented, redder, related to being stored in a humid place, but then the other 19 year old Xiaguan also was (stored in a different humid place, Bangkok instead of Malaysia).  Well-pressed tuochas seem to ferment a little slower, as hard-pressed iron cakes also do.  Oddly younger teas stored in the right way can darken (ferment quite a bit) even faster, as these 6 and 9 year old Dayi / Taetea 7542 sheng pu'er versions did:

Just brewing a tea light or strong will affect coloration quite a bit, so I don't mean to make too much of this tangent.  And loose stored sheng might well transition faster, making 20 year old versions more fermented and darker colored, as those two considerably younger cake versions--aged for less than a decade--just shown were.

Rating her content and input

Most of it is fine.  I don't think it works well as a general guide as it could, since so much is left out, and what it all means is only clear when you already know what it's saying.  The description of what shou pu'er is (a ripe or pre-fermented type) doesn't work at all here; it could hardly be less clearly explained.  The premise of it talking about higher quality range pu'er should be made clearer, which really doesn't work well for shou, since even better quality, higher demand versions aren't all that expensive, so it's a different theme.

Shou tends so much less expensive that finding any cake that costs significantly over $60 to 80 is a rarity, unless it has been extensively aged, which doesn't really help much with shou.  Of course there are plenty of outliers out there that cost over $100, but the average of what's on the market would be under 100, maybe even counting many aged versions.

The implication that she is mostly covering high quality tea range shifts things quite a bit.  I can go and buy good factory shou cakes for $40 to 50 in lots of places, but she's talking about other range, what is better yet.  Those same cakes would be kind of expensive in 15 to 20 years, so people see value in significant aging, even though it makes less and less difference past 3 or 4 years of early transition, for shou.  

Let's go back to the initial framing, the intro, and see what is implied:

Pu’er tea is arguably one of the most popular Chinese teas. Its pervasiveness across all social groups is reflected in the price difference of various options in the market.

Pu’er can be seen at any dim sum restaurant for ten dollars a pot, but the same tea can also be sighted in the form of a cake at auctions, with connoisseurs splashing hundreds of thousands dollars for it.

That last part seems high; spending thousands on a cake should be enough.  A desirable version from the 1930s might go for an outrageous price.

What does it tell us that the most basic range is ten dollars a pot?  That could be about right, for low-medium quality pu'er, sold at a medium cost scale restaurant.  

To discuss the quality range you are talking about you really need to specify what tea is selling for by cake, or as a price per gram, and from what kind of outlets.  That level of detail isn't brought up in this, beyond the vague claim that tea cakes might sell for $300 or more, in general, which again doesn't really work.  For higher demand, 20 or more year old cakes that's about right, or even some new material cakes from the more sought after origin areas, but for most of the market range that's way too high.  She was focused more on generalities related to pu'er, and the experience, not cost and buying issues, but to invoke the cost theme at all it's necessary to place whatever range you are describing.

Maybe this fails the most related to the implied purpose:  covering "Choosing Pu'er Tea."  The main advice this gives is to buy loose tea versions (called maocha, which is also a reference to semi-processed teas of other types), which sort of works, and also sort of doesn't.  Without it being clearer on the distinction between shou and sheng it couldn't possibly succeed.  You need to outline why brand new--unaged and unfermented--sheng might be a viable selection, and why plenty of other range is only consumed as well aged tea, back to the boutique versus factory tea theme.  It would help to treat the cost issue a bit, versus just saying that it all might be expensive.  Xiaguan tuochas selling for between $10 and 30 are not so costly; standard cakes priced between $80 and $120 are less affordable, even though the per-gram higher end range of both isn't so different, which brings up the sampling theme, that vendors often sell smaller quantities for people to try.

Maybe I should re-write a better version.  I've written sheng and shou basics posts before, (on exploring sheng pu'er, sheng pu'er aging exploration, but it's been years, so I could run back through that, with an eye towards how to source tea during the exploration phase.

I ran across this looking for another photo; the visits are a favorite memory of those tastings

Tea culture in Sweden

I was talking to an online contact about her own tea preference, a Spanish woman now living in Sweden.  A familiar idea came up, that coffee is typically preferred to tea there.  This is how things go in many countries, with tea enthusiasts in any of them dealing with not so many others sharing their preference.

It made for a potentially interesting starting point for exploring tea culture in a random place, where "specialty tea" awareness is in Sweden.  And for a potentially awkward process looking up people to ask about that, with mixed answers about their own preferences and local tea culture.

It seemed that one nice approach would be to describe the perspective of a number of "tea enthusiasts" there, both on what they like and how they see the local tea culture.  The answers should vary a lot by person, given that context, but the range should describe where it all stands, more so than any one interest-group's input would.  It all kind of worked.

It was a bit of a slog trying to turn up interviewees, and to get them to answer such limited questions, versus just talking about it all.  Here's how that went.

Northern Teaist

A conventional Western tea blog author writes based in Sweden.  I'll stick with the convention of adding no personal details, one way that some blog authors go, more or less how they all would normally have seen privacy concerns in the past.

What teas do I like?

Although my stash contains tea of all types from almost every tea producing area in the world, if I was to try to rank them then top of the heap would be sheng pu-erh, closely followed by white teas, then shou pu-erh. I'm also partial to an occasional Oolong, and I have a penchant for experimental teas, where a cultivar gets the treatment normally reserved for another class of tea, such as processing Yunnan Da Ye leaf like an Oolong.


Where do I see tea culture and awareness in Sweden now?

Fragmented. Even though tea shops offering decent quality tea exist and seem to be prospering, it seems as though the people who buy from them don't see themselves as part of a distinct culture.

Even when you consider the kind of speciality or boutique teas those shops don't deal in, the ones almost exclusively available from on-line retailers, it feels as though that scene is composed of a small number of individual enthusiasts with a limited knowledge of who else is out there, what they are drinking, and where they are getting hold of their tea.


Not to ruin the ending but that's pretty much where the rest of the input is going to lead too.  Maybe hearing that will be comforting to tea drinkers who are isolated in places with limited tea culture, and maybe other interesting details will justify reading the rest.

That blog is worth a look; it's really well done.  His intro / philosophy adds background to that:


This blog is about the practical and the metaphysical aspects  of tea. The how, the what, and the why.

It’s about the search for a better cup of tea, refining techniques, using better equipment.

It’s also about that elusive “something else“, the thing that is “there but not there” every time you drink tea, like your shadow on a sunny day...


Very Zen, like a practical New Age inspired version of Mattcha's mission statement.

David Qi, a Facebook tea contact 

David is one of those international type people, with ties to here and there.  I think maybe even the kind with language skills, so the other kind of international type than I am.

What teas do I like?

Definitely rock oloongs, Da Hong Pao and such, and also high mountain Taiwanese oolongs.  And also good sheng puers, and shu, but for that I need a certain mood.


Nice!   Add in Dan Cong, a bit of white, and some dabbling in secondary regions and that's enough for lifetime of tea drinking.  Or maybe already enough.


Where do I see tea culture and awareness in Sweden now?


Most Swedish tea drinkers have a sense that tea bags are not the real thing, but think that the caramel mango flavoured whole leaf which they bought in the specialty tea/coffee shop is.  The tea culture in Sweden is very elementary, and the gongfu people do not have a real market. The specialty tea shops mostly sell flavoured whole leaf, and maybe they will have a few cans of real tea in the corner, but mostly mid range and nothing fresh or exciting. 

I can only speak for the west coast and Gothenburg, where I am of course, but the situation might be different in Stockholm. Romania is basically the same, but Budapest has a living tea community and many great tea shops.


See, international.  His other comment on personal approach would ring a bell with some:


Since I’m working in healthcare and studying medicine, tea helped me to see the broader perspective of what health means, not only body but also mind. I love to set up a tea and meditation tent at gatherings or just with friends.


It sounds quite balanced, a well-grounded but open perspective.  I'd love to check that out.

Xenia Blanco, owner of the Japanese Tea Hub 

She's the one I was first talking to.  Again she's foreign (Spanish), and so far none of these people are Swedish, so I'll need to move on to actually mentioning a Swedish take on Swedish tea culture before this closes.

Her FB profile description is "Japanese Tea Evangelist. Matcha Advocate."  And vendor; that sets context a bit too.  She studied Japanese tea types and production under the Global Japanese Tea Association, formerly part of the Obubu Tea Farms.

what she looks like, photo credit her FB page

Her post "Everything you really need to know about Japanese tea" is probably a starting point on what she's into, but it's just background, about the types and processing.  This article covers more on different regions.

The background page / "philosophy" in the same blog is a bit general too, about making Japanese teas available outside Japan.

Japanese Tea Hub Instagram photos

All that covers what she likes in tea, the first question, except that her favorite tea type is gyokuro.  This covers the part about tea culture in Sweden:


Regarding tea  culture in Sweden, while I have noticed some shops sell some supposedly Japanese teas, they actually carry matcha from China, for instance, or teas that are generic & in bulk. And when asked, they don't know the names of the farmers, cultivars, regions and so on.  I usually source from small farmers as much as I can to help the shrinking tea industry in Japan. 

Swedish tea culture remains largely non-specialised & the use of lower quality teabags is widespread. Also, there are smaller more specialised vendors like myself, well hidden & scattered around the country. 

I run tea & food pairing sessions on IG daily. The reason for this is to promote tea through food since it will be much easier for people to accept Japanese tea if they can do more with it than just drinking it. This is how I intend to make Japanese teas more popular in Sweden. 

Catrin Ruding

She is both Swedish and a tea enthusiast, with a formal training background in tea, which is normal in some places and very uncommon in others.

Her take on the local tea culture issue:


Coffee is still far more popular in Sweden than tea. But on the other hand more and more people turn to tea, they are often fascinated by all the aromas and flavors, for health reasons or they simply want an alternative. Also the “new Swedes” that enrich our country in many different ways, are often very much more into tea than coffee. When I was a kid we were given tea when we were/had been sick.

Catrin is also a vendor; even the founder of a local branch of Tea Masters (which seems to not be related to either the one main training agency or the international competition group using that same name, and of course not tied to the blog and shop based in Taiwan).  Her website covers their general scope and mission statement:


We support customers in choosing the most suitable teas, building a tea menu for a brunch or afternoon tea service, train staff, certify tea sommeliers, create private label teas & herbal infusions, organize tea cupping events and more. We supply high quality, sustainable teas through a transparent supply chain from the plantations to your cup. The company behind Tea Masters was founded in 2007 by Catrin Rudling and we choose the name to honor how much there is to learn about tea and to acknowledge and remember to learn something new about tea everyday from both the old masters and present ones. 


Sounds good.

Kenneth Rimdahl

A Swedish friend (or contact, if you are conservative about that designation) owns a local chain of tea shops in Thailand, in Chiang Mai and in Bangkok, Monsoon Teas.

He hasn't been living in Sweden for awhile, so he really didn't have a lot to say about current tea culture back there.  It's more developed now than back when he did live there, he said.

meeting Kenneth--in the center--at a friend's place (Sasha's, on the right)

He recommended a local Stockholm shop that has good teas, In the Mood for Tea, and their website content does look good.  One might wonder, why not ask them about tea culture then?

Vendors kind of always are aware of culture related to their customer base, and that perspective can be a bit biased.  Of course they all say that high quality tea interest is somewhat developed and growing faster all the time.   Their website even agrees with me on that:


In a time when we are awash with advertising and everyone uses words such as quality, expertise, ecology and crafts for marketing purposes, we have let the teas speak for themselves since the store opened. We are happy and grateful for the ever-growing crowd that finds and listens to them.


To some extent this section entry is more about getting a mention of Kenneth in, since he is nice, and I've reviewed a number of his teas.  They're interesting, covering standard Thai oolongs, and "wild" sourced versions of different types.  Kenneth is into promoting "forest-friendly" teas, which he talks about in this Tedx talk.  Monsoon also sells better flavored versions than I've ever ran across elsewhere, using natural essential oils versus chemicals (like this tropical fruit flavored version).

I think, anyway; this is no ad promo or environmental impact endorsement, they just seem good.  I really don't even drink flavored teas much, beyond an Earl Grey or jasmine black here or there.  There's nothing wrong with flavored teas or herb blends, it's just not what I'm into.

from the Monsoon Tea mission description

Reddit's input

I asked in a Sweden themed Reddit sub-forum about tea there and they more or less told me to get lost.  At least as an American I can appreciate that directness, if not the tone.  The most upvoted comment, and the consensus take:


Sweden (like the rest of the Nordic countries) is a coffee country, unfortunately, so there isn't really a tea culture.


That said, further discussion led to the finding that some shops sell a limited range of teas, at local "Coffee/Tea/Chocolate" stores:


Usually they stock all forms of black, and green tea, as well as red tea (Rooibos), but you can also find white tea. All of these come in various flavors; such as fruit, flowery, mixed spices, herbs etc. Earl Grey is of course also popular, but you can also find Lady Grey, or local blends such as Söder Tea (Södermalm is an Island in Stockholm) which is a black tea typically flavored with tropical fruits and rose.

The only thing I have not been able to find (yet) is a high quality Ceylon tea. 


Sounds familiar, a bit like the old Teavana range, or David's Teas, T2 (the current incarnation of it), Adagio, etc.

a shop image referenced in that discussion

Conclusions

With all those exceptions turning up specialty tea interest must be cropping up here and there, just slow to take broad hold.  Language issues would skew what I find towards English, but beyond that it may be no coincidence that most of the tea enthusiasts I found there are foreigners.

Catrin even mentioned that, in relation to "New Swedes" preferring tea.  Is it just me or does that sound a little odd, that terminology?  Maybe Kenneth is a Swedish "New Thai," as I am, but we are just called farangs here, foreigners.

Scattered better tea interest is something of an exception here too, or really in any country where tea traditions don't have older roots.  It's a little odd that Thailand has been a tea producing country for well over a century (some of the tea plants are that old), with very old connections to Chinese culture, and most of that faded so much that bubble tea and matcha can seem like starting point introductions to the subject. Most of the people drinking those here have never actually soaked loose tea leaves in hot water.

It goes without saying that this is only part of the story about tea culture in Sweden.  I have surely missed more than I've ran across.  But it has been interesting filling in a partial snapshot of how tea culture ramps up in a mostly coffee-drinking country.

eating dinner at a Bangkok IKEA, my main contact with Sweden

beyond the furniture and the rest they have nice kids' play areas

KL shop sourced loose shu pu'er

A friend in Malaysia passed on a set of teas awhile ago and I finally got around to mentioning another here.  I reviewed pretty good Tie Guan Yin versions here, a lightly oxidized and more roasted version, and what I take to be the most traditional style, one balancing moderate oxidation level with some roasting.  I'd meant to clear through trying the rest but was busy with sample sets or versions that I bought since then, over a year ago.

I'll be moving away from mentioning tea versions that aren't really novel in some way.  This is on the borderline; it's definitely not a typical shu style, at least in the sense of flavor profile, and it's a good version, but all the same to me shu varies less than many other types.  Mentioning it almost relates to having made notes, and it's a good chance to thank that friend again (thanks!). 

no detail in the labeling

I think this was from a gift shop type outlet.  The tea is quite decent given that.

Review:

First infusion:  a bit of char comes across; this tastes a good bit like a Liu Bao.  Even that slate-mineral range matches.  It seems like those will clear up and more smooth sweetness will emerge after the initial round.  Beyond that it's good, on the clean side.  Dark wood tones fill in, and a bit of peat, but it's clean in effect, not murky or muddled.

Second infusion:  flavors do evolve to clean up a bit, but otherwise not change.  Dark wood stands out more, along the lines of aged wood.  Not so much old furniture, an effect that crosses over from how old books smell, into a perfume-like range related to traces of aromatic polish.  Roasted chestnut warmth and richness picks up.  This seems a perfect tea to start the new year with (the Chinese version); an especially Chinese tea from a Chinese-Malaysian friend.  It's not completely typical of a lot of shu range I've tried, which works well the better the tea character turns out.  So far so good, but I think it will keep opening up and improving.

Third infusion:  this style is a little unusual, that dominant roasted chestnut aspect.  It's not as if that never comes up but other range seems to usually stand out more.  The supporting aspects are good, level of sweetness, clean nature, moderately thick feel, and some aftertaste.  As with shu in general the subtlety and depth only goes so far but the range really works.


Fourth infusion:  I'll give this a bit longer soak to mix things up, moving past the 15 seconds or so I've been using.  It should just intensify aspect results and thicken the feel.   There's no limit to how strong an infusion would work for this tea; it could brew for minutes and it would just be inky and intense, but still pleasant. 

It doesn't seem different; this might be losing a little intensity already.  It's unusual for being what looks like a true loose leaf shu, which seemed to let it open up right away early on, not to take a couple of rounds to start.  The leaves weren't even twisted or compressed in any way.  Beyond pressed versions needing rounds to expand back out even loose versions often seem to get a bit twisted or pressed during the fermenting process.

That roasted chestnut range seems to be adding a bit of fall leaf character; cool that I was just thinking about craving that recently, from trying a really strange tea years back that reminded me of sweeping up leaves in the driveway.


Fifth infusion:  this tea is wrapping up.  I brewed this for a couple of minutes and the infusion strength didn't increase.  Wood-tone picked up due to the infusion time difference; that kind of thing is normal.  Usually it's astringency that increases, or roast effect in versions when that applies, but in this case an underlying wood tone did instead.  It's still pleasant, just thinner, in spite of the long soak.

The tea isn't overly intense or complex but I like it; what is present works well.  I'll stretch it for one more long infusion but basically its story has been told; it should just fade a little.

On the positive side the flavor range was quite nice, and pleasant for covering that much roasted chestnut and fall-leaf flavor.  For limitations shu can be thicker and creamier than this was, and some is relatively intense, and brews a number of rounds consistently.  I think this faded faster for me using slightly less of it and for it being more like loose leaves than shu somehow typically tends to be.  I don't know what that means about how it started or processing steps, or if it's seen as positive or negative for any reason.

It's good tea, just a bit basic.  Anyone could like it, but I suppose people leaning towards aged sheng preference wouldn't.  Or maybe it would cross over well, for some, since it comes across as a bit simple but lacks any of really earthy range some shu possess (peat, etc.). 

In looking at the dry leaf photo as I edit this I'm reminded of how it seems likely this wasn't as fermented as many versions are.  Maybe this version would really develop over the next decade or so, if a less complete initial fermentation left compounds behind that could still transition.  I'll never know; I'll drink the rest of this or share it for someone else to try.  I need to clear out some extra samples I've kept around to keep the space tea is taking up reasonable.

Chinese New Year

No mention here of Chinese New Year yet, right?  Happy New Year!  I was in Chinatown that week for an outing but I didn't write about that, and avoided going closer to the eve or first day of the year.  It would be crowded, and my wife is paranoid about the corona virus.  I think only 5 cases have turned up here; risk seems pretty low at this point.

That outing related to checking out some bubble tea and odd pour-over tea set-ups in a mall shop.  I don't have much to say about that; it is what it is, not the kind of thing I typically talk about here.  It probably was and is generally better than typical bubble tea versions.  This second was a Thai tea, the orange flavored kind:

By the time you add cream, ice cream, and sweetened condensed milk to a version, as in that second, the base could be coffee instead and it wouldn't turn out so differently.  It would be good with coffee, or fine with different types of tea.  I think it would've been better infused by soaking it versus "poured over," but then again it probably hardly matters.  It's experiential; it was an experience to see it.

All that led me to think a lot about where specialty tea fits in related to commercial RTD / bottled teas and other types, bubble tea, Thai tea, and whatever else is in that range.  So few people even know it exists in comparison.  It has traditional roots, which could make it seem more valid, but in economic terms or related to being a social trend it's not on the same level as even flavored teas, never mind tea bags.  I like "better," interesting teas, they meaning something to me.  On that personal, subjective level there's that.

Kokang Myanmar dragonball sheng vs. cake review

I just wrote about pu'er-like teas from South East Asia in general, here, and this is another example, from the Kokang producer in Myanmar.

These teas are probably not identical, besides the shape, but I expect the difference in brewing from the shape difference to be the main story.  They're both from the same producer, both from the same general area.  The cake tea (which I already reviewed) was from last year, and these dragonballs may be too, but I missed reference to that.

I checked the prior review to see if I was describing this cake-pressed version in the same way, and it mentions a hint of dried fruit (interpretation) that I didn't seem to include here, with the tea mainly floral for flavor range in both.  And quite sweet, with moderate, well-balanced bitterness; all that is relatively common.  The idea was to see if the shape really made any difference, in addition to comparing the two versions for style that might not relate to that.

This shape presentation gets mixed reviews in online discussion.  Some people like dragonballs--which aren't always called that--for the convenience of starting with a pre-measured amount.  Others can't stand them, probably related to being accustomed to using their own carefully controlled brewing process, which getting tea pressed into a ball saturated throws off, since beyond dictating the amount could need to be infused for a few rounds before the tea in the middle even starts brewing.  It's possible to tear them in two, or in parts, after a rinse and an infusion or two, and I usually don't wait however many infusions it would take for one to unfold on its own.

I'll focus on how this difference actually changes brewed tea character.  That will probably require using longer infusion times for the ball, initially, because it will need to unfold, while the other loose version will infuse to a good level in 10 seconds or less, at proportions I prefer.  To me this cake version amount relates to a standard proportion, not enough to crowd the gaiwan when infused, but not a lower proportion that will require extending brewing times.  As to how many grams that is I could guess but I've just been eye-balling sheng for years, not weighing it, so it would only be a guess.

a moderate length rinse didn't get far with the dragonball

Review:

a faster start than I expected for it opening up

I went with a 10 second infusion the first time, not short, but standard enough.  This dragonball probably won't be far along yet.  I tried to tear it in two but it was too early, and only split off some leaves.  That's not ideal because those leaves are probably more broken now, and brewing as loose tea while half the rest hasn't been exposed to hot water.

The loose version really is pleasant.  There's a way above average sweetness present that works well with the moderate bitterness.  Mostly floral tones dominate the flavor profile, which works.  Mineral is also notable, but as an underlying aspect.  Feel already has some fullness to it with aftertaste even more pronounced.  The way that heavy sweetness, moderate bitterness, and flint-mineral combine and balance makes this more appealing than the set of individual aspects would be otherwise.  It'll probably be even better in a year since it has intensity to spare and that floral range won't fade quickly, and swapping out some bitterness for warmer tones would probably work well.  Or it's quite good now; I'm not implying that it isn't.

The dragonball version almost has to be from a quite different leaf source.  All of those descriptions still work, sort of, but the aspects are present in a different form, with none of it matching directly.  Mineral range takes on an almost medicinal quality, sweetness isn't as pronounced, or the floral range, or bitterness, for that matter, and a hint of smoke seems to be included.  Natural smoke flavor, this seems, like the earthy/mineral trace that seems different in form than smoked teas tend to come across.  If it was really smoked that could be pine smoke.  A bit of pine flavor seems present, as strong as the floral aspect in the first, but here mixed with a different expression of floral range.

It is possible to pull this ball apart, not by splitting or tearing it, but just carefully pulling leave bunches apart.  There's a small core that's not infused yet but after the next round this will about as saturated as the loose tea already is now.  The leaves will have been infusing unevenly, across the rinse and first three rounds, but after that differences might level off quite a bit.  I'll go ahead and give both around a 10 second infusion time again.

the ball is coming apart already (right), with some assistance

Second infusion:

dragonball version slightly cloudy, but that was mostly cleared next round

The dragonball tea is brewing slightly darker, with just a trace of cloudiness in the liquid (not necessarily a good sign, but nothing to be too concerned with; the effect will show up in the experienced aspects).  It would've been possible to let this open on its own, to not untangle it, so that the process would have taken one or two infusions longer.  I see opening faster as a best case, of sorts, but that might be a judgement call.

The cake pressed version is about the same, maybe evolving a bit more warmth and complexity.  There's definitely bitterness present; someone trying to avoid that in sheng wouldn't care for this tea.  To me it balances well, with the form and level quite pleasant.  The overall effect is clean, bright, and intense; it's good.  Again the bitterness, pronounced sweetness, light mineral (now slightly warmer), and floral tone balance really well.  Most of that judgement is subjective, of course, that I like the mix based on my own preference.

Smoke picks up in the dragonball version.  It's heavier in bitterness, with stronger and different mineral tone.  The floral is almost not noticeable as a background aspect, with a green wood filling in more vegetal scope instead.  This tea also kind of works but lighter brewing would do it justice, and it has probably just finished an initial wetting process that will enable it showing its true character better next round.  Which can be a short one; the cake version is plenty intense enough for a 5 second infusion to work and this will be better lighter, it seems.

Third infusion:

The cake version isn't different, but it works well slightly lighter.  I don't remember that this character evolved all that much over the rounds in the first review; maybe it won't.  That's not such a bad thing, if it starts out positive.  The flavor range might still be warming slightly, with the more intense sweetness and floral tone drawing back just a little.

The dragonball version is slightly clearer; cloudiness is hard to notice in this infusion.  It's definitely darker.  One might wonder why.  It could be a year older tea version, not a 2018 but from the year prior.  Or the leaves could have oxidized a little.  Tea character can change a little during the processing steps, from what I've heard, but both of these were probably re-wetted (steamed) from a loose / maocha form to be made into these shapes.  It could have taken longer to dry, or the heating process (pan frying) didn't remove quite as much moisture from the leaves initially, enabling them to dry slower.  It could've just been a lot more humid out, which would make a change, with young sheng appearing this dark atypical but definitely not unheard of.

I just ran through all of this with Anna related to a Kinnari Tea sheng cake she passed on (compared to a second maocha version here).  She confirmed that her impression matched my guess about the oxidation level in that (with the rest about moisture levels I just expressed a bit beyond what I really should be saying anything about, since I have exactly zero experience with processing tea):


the batch they took for that pressing was autumn tea. especially the stems were probably not cooked quite enough during shaqing, a common occurrence especially in autumn when the stems are thicker, so they turn red (oxidize) early on during maturation. it's a point that is often criticized by chinese buyers of lao tea, and one of the points we try to address during trainings: how to manage the moisture content in the leaves during shaqing so that the leaves can be cooked enough before becoming too dry.



So this could potentially also relate to this tea being an autumn version, although that's not indicated as likely by this input, just possible.  In discussing it further Anna and I both agreed that a bit of oxidation present in sheng isn't necessarily a flaw, that a tea can be just as pleasant but slightly different in form with that, but that it probably does cost it a little in terms of aging potential.  But even that would be more clear after letting the tea sit in storage for at least a dozen years, and probably clearer yet after 15.

Anna mentioned that other Laos teas are on the way, but I still have three versions I've not reviewed yet from her; I should get on that [editing note:  the reviewed I already mentioned occurred the next day and was posted already, these are posted out of tasting order].  Two of the other tea versions she described are really novel (I'll get to explaining how), but it sounds like the best of the sheng they picked up in Laos might be the others.  Best is all relative, of course; I really liked both that I tried already. 


Back to this review.  The dragonball version expresses a different, stronger form of bitterness.  The other tea's bitterness is pronounced but lighter (not the level, the type), maybe a little "cleaner," although really no description probably does the distinction justice.  Bitterness in this version is like biting a dandelion flower or stem; heavy, but also specific in form.  It could just be an intensity issue and I'm adding bad judgement to isolating causation.  I still like this tea but it's not as light, sweet, floral, and clean, and swapping out floral tone for green wood isn't positive.  I don't like it as much.  These would also seem to have pretty good aging potential because intensity is definitely there, and bitterness level could reduce a good bit and still balance.

Fourth infusion:

The cake version is consistent.  The same aspects shift slightly in balance, giving the effect of not drinking exactly the same tea, which is nice, but it's not so different.  Which is good; it's quite pleasant.  Later editing note:  towards later rounds in the first review I interpreted the flavor as moving from only floral to slightly into dried fruit range.  It's easy to do a less complete review when trying two teas, especially when one is re-reviewed and used as a benchmark, versus that description being a primary goal.


The dragonball version cleans up a little and shifts some in flavor.  The earlier aspects set is still present (bitterness, which overlaps with an unusual pronounced mineral tone, green wood, light supporting floral), developing a little towards tobacco.  There's still a faint hint of smoke present; that works well with the tobacco range.  The aspect range seemed to "clean up."  The other tea is light in profile but intense in comparison; this is a little burlier.  Some people probably would prefer this version for that difference.  Put another way it comes across as less refined but it hits a little harder.  I can't imagine that this is an autumn tea, but then what do I know.

Fifth infusion:

the brewed liquid color evened up

I'll have to let this tasting go after this, off to a water slide outing today.  That would be more exciting if I was 5 or 10 years old myself but I do love seeing the kids go through all that.

Flavor range is shifting for the cake version; it's picking up some aromatic wood range now, along with warming in tone over the last couple of rounds.  It's still pleasant, just not improved.  The feel still has a nice thickness and it carries over to plenty of aftertaste.

It's odd how the smoke strengthened in this dragonball version, gradually over a few infusions.  It seems possible that's just a natural flavor aspect, since if it was from smoke contact it should have also stood out initially, maybe even more then.  The smoke along with tobacco earthiness (related to what was green wood earlier on) works well enough together.  Floral is not noticeable at this point, but then it also wasn't so prominent in the cake version at this round.

I'm curious how these will unfold for one more round so I'll rush it, but both will probably be what I expect, just woodier.  I'll let the infusion run well over 10 seconds, so not rush it in that sense, just make the tasting part quick.

Sixth infusion:

Brewed tea color evened up, with the cake version darkening over these rounds; I'm not sure what that means.

Wood really is picking up in the first version.  You can still pick up floral but it's in the background now.  For tasting like aromatic wood this still comes across as really bright and clean, and well balanced.  It's those subtle context forms that make it so pleasant; it's sophisticated and light but intense, not heavy but full and slightly wet, not overly bitter but the form and level of bitterness works really well.

The other is more intense related to flavor, that set of green wood, tobacco, and mild smoke that has more effect on the overall impression than the light level might indicate it would.  The feel has a touch of dryness to it, but decent fullness.  Aftertaste is pleasant but less sweet than for the other tea, more green wood and that hint of dryness and smoke lingers.  For someone on that page it would still work really well but for me the other cake version just works better.

Conclusions:

The teas are both nice.  They share some similarities but are quite different.  I really thought the form difference would affect how they brewed more than it did.  The first couple of rounds unfolded differently but after that more differences seemed to stem from the tea itself, not so much from the shape.

It probably doesn't make sense to say a lot about value since I heard pricing related to these at a sales expo centered around wholesale pricing distribution, but for someone buying the tea at that range it would be a very good value (probably for both versions).  To me these teas are in that medium level quality range that tends to be priced way above the earlier $40 or so cake norm now, from the recent past, more typically selling for $70 and up.  Demand for versions from a local area factor into that, and I have no idea how that works out related to Myanmar teas in general.  As far as character related to a judgement about them being pleasant and of good quality level these are nice, with the cake version probably slightly nicer.  Or that could just be a judgement call based on personal preference, even though that's not how I see it.

about people visiting from Germany and India; I should write a post about that

Grandpa style brewing

I recently went on a road-trip vacation (to the beach, Pattaya), the only time I tend to brew teas grandpa-style, reminding me to write about that subject.  This is one name for a very simple method of brewing, mixing leaves with hot water in something like a tea bottle or tumbler, then drinking the tea from that without straining it first.  I suppose an even more basic version could use a pint beer glass or mason jar, with teeth serving as a straining device.

Forbidden City (credit; I'm not finding ones I took there)

The brewing method name is from the Tea Addict's Journal blog, a reference to that blogger's grandfather, but it's a common practice in China, per my understanding.  If you walk around the Forbidden City in Beijing many of the tourists have tea bottles with them, many only with wet leaves inside, awaiting the next refill and infusion.


The advantages and drawbacks are just what one would expect.  Uncontrolled brewing time eliminates the potential to optimize results, and not every tea is well suited for such an approach.  Since teas need time to cool to drink, assuming relatively hot water is used--175-212 F / 70-100 C, the standard range--longer infusion times are required, even beyond how long it takes to drink the tea.  The advantages are ease of preparation and mobility.  Once you get past adjusting process and preference your tea travels well, only requiring more hot water to brew another infusion, and with a thermos that can travel too.



Some tea types work better than others for such an approach, but for any it would be typical to back off the proportion a little or accept drinking some strong tea initially, which would weaken in later infusions.  On another road trip in Thailand involving more driving earlier in the year I tried a lot of types of teas prepared this way, and I'll add how those worked out here.

she just started "are we there yet?"

lightly oxidized oolong (Tie Kuan Yin, Jin Xuan, etc., with those being plant types that can also imply a typical preparation style):  to me this category is the natural fit for the approach, although I'd guess green tea is at least as commonly brewed this way in China just given its popularity.  These teas work well brewed very lightly or quite strong, to me, and hold up to lots of infusions.  Also potentially relevant, moderate quality level versions of the tea can be nice, so there is less tension between non-optimized brewing of a really good tea and still sourcing something good enough to be enjoyable, with related cost factoring in as well.  I just tried a TKY sample brewed this way on a trip that seemed a bit too good to be prepared like that; it will be interesting to Gongfu brew the rest and see how the outcomes vary.


green tea:  not ideal, it seems to me, since these can be a bit astringent, but that also relates to one's take on astringency.  In Vietnam it's common for green tea to be served with boiling point water in a teapot, the idea being that astringency is a good thing, or at least not a serious concern.  I remember panicking a bit the first time I experienced this since not long after five minutes I knew the tea would be ruined, per my expectations, but gulping down a boiling hot cup of tea wouldn't work to help stop the second cup from infusing more.  The same concern relates to brewing temperature; if only boiling point water is available that might not work well, to some, although I guess mixing different temperature water sources might cover that.  Vietnamese green teas are so nice, a bit mineral-intensive and very fresh in character, even for many modest quality level versions, so it really does seem a shame to brew those with boiling water or for long infusion times.  They really do prefer very astringent tea, it seems, so differing expectations is a part of that.


black tea:  ground up CTC Assamica variety teas are definitely not well-suited for this approach--familiar commercial Assam and Ceylon teas--but softer, sweeter var. Sinensis black teas can work out really well, or orthodox Chinese black teas based on Assamica plant types, like Dian Hong.  They typically don't brew quite as many infusions as lighter oolongs, but they can work well brewed stronger or weaker.  To me some types really work much better brewed to a certain strength, like Jin Jun Mei, or better unsmoked Lapsang Souchongs, or really any of the best black teas you would rather get just right.  But that still leaves room for others that can work out across a range of strengths, like this Jin Xuan based black tea from Thailand, or this Chin Shin based black tea from Taiwan.

in Seoul, kind of a different subject

white tea:  these can work really well.  You might not want to use this style on your favorite white tea versions, or something really delicate that benefits from careful brewing, but decent ordinary-grade versions of such teas are available, teas that could still be nice across a range of preparation styles.  It seems to me the idea of drinking these teas at different strengths already maps onto the two different lines of thought in white tea brewing timing (with more on that here), either shorter for a wispier, subtle version or longer for a version in the same strength range as other tea types, but somehow still subtle.


I've been drinking the last of a Ceylon Peony / Bai Mu Dan recently that shows this well, right in between tasting a bit like mineral water and indescribably full-flavored in catchy way.  I can drink glasses of it and just marvel at the subtle balance it strikes.  I wouldn't brew that tea grandpa style, although it would work, because it's too nice at just the one infusion strength I prefer.


other types, Dan Cong, Darjeeling:  it might seem like these two--which come in ranges of styles, especially Darjeeling--are too delicate, too potentially edgy / astringent, many with too much potential to squander, and too touchy about brewing to even be considered for this approach, but once you get proportion down and shift expectations about optimizing teas things seem to change.  Finding versions good enough to work well that aren't at higher quality levels that absolutely justify precise brewing can be a trick.  In that other travel post I'd tried a hojicha; the brewing approach worked well, but I just don't love hojicha.  Shou pu’er really would work, I’ve just not tried it.


Sometimes it also relates to how much of a tea I have; if only a sample, enough to brew once or twice, I'm more likely to use Gongfu style brewing (or Western, depending on the type), but if I had a couple hundred grams of even a really interesting tea I might be more likely to experiment.  Since I typically only use grandpa style brewing when I travel by car it doesn't come up so much.


It seems like I've not really clarified how this works, that it's far too simple to actually work as well as Western brewing.  What brewing device would be best, or what tea proportion, and how can teas stand up to multiple long infusions?  All of that is part of the paradigm shift, moving away from narrowly isolating brewing factors, seeing which corners can be cut.  Of course scaling back the proportion a little might help.  Related to devices, specialized tea tumblers are out there, but inexpensive plastic tea bottles are the original gear version, something that seals and strains; that's it.  Experimenting with the rest is part of the fun, just less pleasant when experiments aren't successful.


Another natural question:  if someone had access to a tea tumbler that can stop brewing after three or four minutes, why wouldn't they limit that infusion time?  If they would never Western-style brew a tea for six or seven minutes then why drink a tea after ten minutes of brewing--or more--when it had time to cool enough?  In China, the answer might be "tradition;" because their grandfather prepared it that way.  Really someone would need to experiment with the preparation style, using different teas and parameters, to answer that question for themselves, to see if it made sense for them.

a tea and ice cream pit stop

A tea friend just mentioned risk related to using really long brewing times, relating to contaminants or whatever it is supposedly only coming out after extended infusion times, and if someone believed that then they probably shouldn't go with this brewing style.  I had heard this claim before but never followed up in researching it, which probably wouldn't be easy to do.  In the form that friend expressed it there seemed to be a lack of clarity between concern over brewing a tea for a long time, for example leaving tea in contact with hot water for a very long time, and using leaves that had been around awhile, or even drinking a tea that had been sitting.  I'm quite certain the last two are of no concern, although it's a long story why I think that, and I'm just not concerned enough about any potential risk for extended brewing times to completely avoid it.


It would be possible to cheat the long-brewing assumption implied in the style, to add cold water 3 1/2 minutes in to suspend that process.  Maybe interpreting the style in such a different way isn't somehow invalid per any loose convention, even if some Chinese tourists might wonder what that's all about.  Of course even trying it out is optional.  There are surely many people in China that would never make tea this way, or visit the Forbidden City, or use the crowded subways, and it's fine for people to stick to Gongfu-style brewing or a Western approach instead.

Sharing tea, getting started on loose tea

I recently gave a friend a number of samples, and not so long before that introduced my family to loose tea on a visit home.  The results were kind of what you'd expect, but since I had two examples of introducing people completely new to tea to a lot of different types I wanted to talk through how that went.  And I get bored with just writing reviews, although I do love the tasting and research parts.

Visiting home (Pennsylvania):

SNOW!!  And wild turkeys, who should be freezing to death.

Just in time for a polar vortex and the coldest weather you could ever find outside of the Arctic, I visited home in America in February.  Perfect for hot tea, really.  It wasn't about bringing tea for them to try but of course I did.


Recommending "real" (loose) tea to someone always starts with something like "what do you like?"  If the answer is black tea as tea bags and some Celestial Seasoning blend--not bad for what it is, but not the same thing--then you start from scratch.  When you are also drinking the tea it's much different; you just grab some and go.

roughing it!

I brought some standard favorites for me to drink, and to share, black teas from different countries, different oolongs (different levels of oxidation, from different countries), different green teas, etc.  While I was there I could finally "get in on" mail-order shopping in America, without paying to ship the teas back to close to their starting point in Asia.  A tea contact was just then offering specials due to closing an on-line shop (Tea Journeyman store), so I added a white, Ceylon, and Indonesian black tea.


I'd just been to Vietnam not long before then and green teas are nice there, and pretty consistent.  I'd just ordered some really nice black and darker oolong from a source in Vietnam after that trip (Hatvala), so between those and others we were drinking teas I liked.


I expected black teas to seem familiar, since they are related to what goes in tea bags.  To me lightly oxidized oolongs also seem a really approachable form of tea.

excited about tea or cold?  both!

I was surprised it was all so well received.  My nephew seemed to love the teas the most but everyone tried them and for the most part liked all the teas.  Later my Mom said she didn't care for one, the Ceylon, likely due to that edge of astringency, but she liked all the rest.


Since I was there brewing technique was a bit less of an issue; I could keep making it.  I can still over-steep my own teas from time to time but in general the process is relatively automatic, and I'm informal enough about it I'm not setting timers all the time.  Adjusting water temperature for green tea brewing is another issue but I also don't mind getting that roughly right.





For some others this would be the chance to really get on it, break out more gear, introduce Gong Fu Cha (Chinese for tea technique, essentially, but it sounds much more impressive than that), and try out lots of teas most would never cross paths with.  But I took it the other way, as a chance to normalize drinking decent tea, interesting teas but to me ordinary teas.  Plus I was really jet-lagged (the time shift is 12 hours, opposite side of the planet), so I needed lots of tea, ideally with minimal messing around.  Given that starting point my family could also soon make the tea in the same way, and continue to after I left.

visiting with a very special person

Seems there should be lessons learned, right, what to do differently, what worked and what didn't.  Not so much.  Everyone liked the teas, but if anything it all seemed more normal to them than I'd have expected, not so different than tea bags, even though it is.


I'm sure there is plenty of work to be done ramping up their brewing technique, and tea gear stock, and working through sourcing issues, but all of that depends on them wanting to keep drinking loose teas.

Giving teas to a Bangkok expat friend

One of my expat friends here mentioned considering getting into teas related to reading some claims about health benefits (see, that marketing spin does work).  One irony is that we've talked a good bit about tea (people have trouble completely dodging the subject with me), and he doesn't really care for it.  And he's British--supposed to like tea.  But of course not even all Chinese people like tea, even with some really nice options all around them; those are just stereotypes.

Really the main thing one could do in sharing an introduction to tea is provide some approachable types that span a range to see what they like.  Next after that packaging should keep the tea in decent shape for a minimal time to drink it, and ideally some basic labeling would say what it was.  I sort of covered the first point, the others not so much, just different bits in whatever I had on hand.

Conveying brewing basics are a tricky thing; it seems kind of simple once you practice for a few months, aside from optimizing it, or delving into better and better gear, but starting from scratch is a different thing.  So I did the obvious thing:  sent a couple links.

I did send my friend a description of the different teas, after thinking through that I really should have labeled them better (in cases when packaging didn't).  Hopefully he could figure out if he liked black tea or oolong (for example), and go from there about more specifics later.


Here are the descriptions I sent, not exactly tea blog review level of detail, just saying what the teas were:


black, fine chopped pieces of tea:  black tea from Cambodia.  I'm not so sure why it's a little smokey but I like that, but not everyone would.  It's a decent black tea, to me, but still mid-grade, I guess even lower-mid-grade.  It could still make sense to prepare this tea with milk and sugar (although I wouldn't), or without sugar if you like, but a little would change flavor without any significant impact to healthiness of the tea.

brown, chopped tea, some stem:  hojicha, roasted Japanese green tea.  This tea is supposed to be low in caffeine and easy on the stomach.  To me it tastes like sesame, or even towards genmaicha, the Japanese tea mixed with toasted rice.

green tea (only one looks like a green tea):  green tea from Korea, a bit extra vegetal (teas can be sweet, or grassy; this one wasn't great, just an ordinary tea I ran across in a traditional market).

osmanthus oolong:  tea rolled into balls with strong floral scent (infused flower tea), from Thailand.

Vietnamese darker oolong, balled tea:  the other tea prepared rolled into balls, one of my favorite teas really, so my favorite of all I've given you.  To me it has a nice natural cinnamon taste.

dahongpao (Chinese dark oolong, prepared as chopped leaves):  darker tea, in the original labeled package.  This is my favorite type of tea but a medium grade version of the type, decent but not great (but in this case I mean decent tea; the Korean green is sort of not so good in comparison, to me, surely not a good example of one).

lapsang souchong (smoked Chinese black tea):  this version is so lightly smoked you really can't tell, but it is a nice grade of tea, probably the best I've passed on in terms of grade.  I love versions with stronger smoke flavor but some can be a little sour, so it varies by individual tea even more than most types.

taiping houkui:  green tea from China, very broad leafed tea (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_houkui).  It's a very mild green tea, and a forgiving one, so it won't matter so much what temperature you use or how long you brew it (but better at normal range, using cooler water than boiling, not too long of steeping time).


Icing teas:  you can drink any teas you like as iced tea, but for me it only makes sense for certain types, and although I keep making it for my wife's mother I would still drink hot tea on the hottest day.  Green teas and lighter oolongs would be nice iced (or darjeeling, but I didn't include any), and darker oolongs I wouldn't drink that way, or for me maybe not the lapsang souchong too.  But it's really up to someone's taste.  To me iced tea sort of needs a little sugar, when I do get around to drinking it, but again it depends on preference.

Thais drink black tea with condensed milk iced, but given that you want to avoid sugar that wouldn't make sense, and it's a strange thing to do per standard tea enthusiast take.

His feedback:  he liked them, but some seemed a bit bitter to him, so he passed on that someone new to teas should start with a sweeter and lighter versions.  Fair enough.  Of course brewing technique could relate, so adjusting that would be one part of it, something I kept emphasizing.  

Oddly the dahongpao was his favorite (also essentially my favorite type in general, or really Wuyi Yanchas in general since the other types are also nice).  There's something telling about his preference; even though a light, smooth oolong might be a good place to start someone new to tea might like something else better.  I get dahongpao but to someone new to tea it could easily taste like brewed cardboard or rocks, or maybe even to someone that just doesn't like the type.  Or maybe I'd like cardboard brewed with rocks.

My general take is that people can easily adapt to normal versions of loose teas, by which I mean mid-grade (decent) loose teas, and begin to appreciate them for what they are right away.

Tea grades and introduction to tea

Perhaps I didn't really do that experience justice for any of them, since it's not that hard or really that expensive to pick up something like relatively higher grade Tie Kuan Yin (quite sweet and floral, not astringent at all, nothing to "get used to" about it).  It's also not that hard to break out a gaiwan to brew it the other way, gongfu style, it just doesn't work well for larger groups of people trying teas.  Related to that brewing approach, a different ratio of tea to water and shorter brewing time usually does result in better tea (usually; it's possible results could vary by tea type, and the difference could be relatively minor for many in comparison to Western brewing).

I guess I'm not so much an advocate of people drinking tea for optimum results as I am of getting started and continuing on, drinking better teas than they've ever had, and continuing to drink better tea by improving the different inputs as they like.


For me right now that's more about exploring new tea types than pursuing higher grades or teaware options, although I do cross paths with quite decent teas now and again.  I can see why others focus more on brewing aspects:  teaware, or use of timers, or ways to control water temperature, experimenting with different types of water--these things matter.  I guess I'm more or less careful about process issues depending on what tea I drink, or under what circumstances.


I expect for myself that at some point I'll focus more on optimizing the experience of trying better versions of tea types I've had lots of times, rather than focusing on trying lots of different teas.  My palate has adjusted to picking out flavor elements better but I've got a ways to go related to that and other aspects of tea experience.  Of course for me it's also about research to some limited extent.


When I run across other's "introduction to tea" stories sometimes they imply a different approach might work better for some.  For them the tea experience really just clicks when they try that one very special tea, so maybe drinking a half-dozen relatively ordinary versions of tea could somehow not enable that.  I say "ordinary" but of course that's a bit relative; the average person would never try most of the teas I've been talking about sharing; they wouldn't know the types exist.


I remember the first time I tried a good version of Tie Kuan Yin, or the first time I tried a good Darjeeling tea, and those experiences wouldn't have been the same with just-decent teas. I try to think back to one trigger when tea really made sense to me but for me it came in steps, about different types of exposure that led to wanting to continue on to other experiences, not about drinking one tea.  Time will tell if I've successfully shared that experience or not.