Tea and food pairing

This is a subject that hasn't even been mentioned in this blog.  I eat food with tea all the time, most typically with breakfast every day, but they are never intentionally paired, in that one limited sense.

To some extent I must take that into account if I'm having a tea with lunch, but essentially the tea is whatever I feel like having, and maybe one that doesn't conflict with the food.  But not necessarily a version that complements or matches the food; I just don't think along those lines.

It's perhaps most common for tea enthusiasts to claim that they never eat any food at all with better versions of tea, not even a neutral form of cracker, or maybe only something like that.  Then again that depends on the tea preference too.  People into English Breakfast Blends probably would be more inclined to have snacks with them than Chinese sheng pu'er or oolong drinkers.


I was recently talking to a new online contact about this theme, Joshua Linvers.  He is a tea enthusiast who works related to food and tea pairing (and with wine), associated with the Q Haute Cuisine restaurant.  There's more on that direction and theme on his own website, with this article on pairing tea and food a good starting point.

I'll start with his input on some general pairing themes.

Joshua's comments on tea and food pairing

The aspects of young sheng that I enjoy are when they come off as particularly fruity once the bitterness fades. Fruity such as apricot, papaya, or perhaps dried mango. From that starting point I would have to consider what else is going on -- is it also related to tobacco, or walnut, or is it root-like and autumnal?

A Xi Gui Pu'Erh paired dish we made at the restaurant was Venison jerky with cured duck, pickled figs, walnut chutney, a whiskey gastrique, and crostinis. [That origin isn't familiar, but a Hojo post covers what it's about].  

With a young puerh from Lincang we made a course which was pork and shiitake mushroom broth with walnut gnocchi, dried apricots, and pancetta.


Ultimately I think the way I like to do pairings is try to adjust for 'shortcomings' or things about the tea or food that might be a bit alienating for some people.

For example, if someone doesn't like bitterness you can do a pairing with strong saltiness or strong sweetness to make it seem less intense. If a tea has a bitter apricot flavor and you make a bitter apricot pie, you're going to screw it all up and end up tasting nothing from either of them. If you choose a complimentary flavor to apricot --- say nuts for example. If you're eating a pecan pie, or a bowl of salty pecans, the tea wont taste as bitter, and the apricot flavor is really going to resonate because you're putting two complimentary flavors together.

If you would consider pairing fruit with meat, I think people have some standard opinions of what works -- pineapple and pork for example, cranberries and turkey, applesauce with beef bolognese, etc.

It stands to reason that if you're someone who likes the match of pineapple and pork that having a tea which reminds you of pineapple is a good start for a pork based pairing.


Interesting!  One part reminds me of a tangent that's so unrelated I probably shouldn't mention it, about my niece and I both screwing up a Mongolian grill meal by adding too much spice to it (where you choose ingredients and they cook it for you).  I told her there wasn't much of a way to remove the heat (although you can add a little sugar and cook it a bit, if you have that "do-over" form available), but adding salt could at least make the spice level make more sense.  She agreed, and we both ate our meals slightly better balanced, but still too spicy.


The mention of teas tasting like fruit is unusual, but it's a bit complicated why that is, how patterns in flavors work out.  Floral aspects or other range more dominant in some types, and mouthfeel (astringency) and aftertaste aspects often tend to be emphasized more than flavor.  I do like fruity teas the best in general myself, but lots of other range comes up as much or more.

The basic premise and theme seems to work, that at some level pairing would have to be about setting up complementary patterns.  More on wine will extend to why that doesn't necessarily typically relate mostly to flavor, although that is one range that could be emphasized in an approach to pairing.


I'll add a few of those pairing menus Joshua had mentioned here for reference.

There's a problem in reviewing specific pairings:  teas aren't as consistent as they might potentially be by general type.  There is often a singular "type-typical" style, but any given tea can be a great version and still not be exactly like that.

With a lot of general range a continuum of variation enters in, eg. oolongs can be roasted or oxidized to different levels, even when there is a narrow conventional-type window to shoot for.  Sheng pu'er varies a lot across a few different dimensions, and aging (storage) factors can change teas a lot, in addition to varying starting points.

My impression of food and wine pairing, in comparison

It's not something that I've covered here at length but I did work in the restaurant industry for awhile, as a server.  I did some informal training in wine background, and drank different wines for a few years, as I mentioned in this post about preference change patterns in comparison with tea.  But I was a better snowboarder than waiter.

I owned that mountain

Pairing flavors that would complement each other did come up, in the wine and food, and as much emphasis on getting the character, the feel and weight, balanced for specific dishes.  At some points discussion of a wine being acidic enough to complement a certain dish would be mentioned, but at a guess the ph of wine isn't varying all that much, and that was really about feel aspects (astringency, weight) and dryness versus sweetness matching.  Since that was just a guess I'll look up a Wine Spectator reference to see if that's mostly right or completely wrong:


PH is the measure of the degree of relative acidity versus the relative alkalinity of any liquid, on a scale of 0 to 14, with 7 being neutral. Winemakers use pH as a way to measure ripeness in relation to acidity. Low pH wines will taste tart and crisp, while higher pH wines are more susceptible to bacterial growth. Most wine pH's fall around 3 or 4; about 3.0 to 3.4 is desirable for white wines, while about 3.3 to 3.6 is best for reds...

While these numbers might mean something to chemists and wine geeks, it's important to remember that the way a bottled wine tastes is about the relationship of things like pH and TA to other factors like alcohol, tannin, extract and sweetness. There's no chemical formula to make great wine—not yet, anyway.


So maybe it does make a lot of difference.  Joshua would know more about that, but this really does have to focus mostly on tea, and only associate back to wine related to pairing themes, not character  or aspect inputs.

Customers usually kept it basic; they seemed to buy wines they were familiar with and liked, and must have expected them to work well enough with what they were ordering.  Some had no idea what they liked and then I would usually recommend really approachable wines.

It did seem to make sense to match a general type of wine with the food (color, and sub-type within that broad range, and character beyond that), especially related to an experienced lightness or heaviness of both.  I worked in a traditional Italian restaurant once and Chianti really did stand up well to a heavy, strong flavored, tomato-based food range (although of course there were cream sauces and pestos).  Most of those wine versions were probably a little rough.

White wines would be nice with lighter foods, and Cabernet or heavier reds with beef and other grilled meat; I never really made it past those kinds of basics.  Working in a wild game restaurant heavier flavored reds came up a lot.


I was usually only drinking wine with a snack, at most, with wine experience as the main theme.  I cooked a lot back then but I wasn't a foodie, in that one sense, and I'm still not.  As my wife says I have a "crocodile's tongue."  I can sort of tell how good the food is but I'm really happy to eat a grilled cheese sandwich with sauteed mushrooms for dinner, or even just fruit, or breakfast cereal.

Wine pairing input from a wine-maker friend

To me this still really isn't doing justice to comparison to wine and food pairing (not that it has to).  To fill in that gap I asked a friend who has long since worked as a wine maker, working for some well-known producers.  From that friend, Dan Senkow:


Not going into specifics on wine, that would be confusing to many. The first and most important rule is drink what you like. If the quote un quote best pairing for a dish is something one doesn’t like then it is not going to work. 

Second there is no such thing as an expert for all people. Everybody is the expert for what they like. No one is the arbitrator of taste. It is true some people may know more about the way a wine is produced from a technical standpoint. However, they do not know more about how it makes the individual feel.

In simple terms one may either use an element in the wine to compare or contrast. So, this may be done with flavors, textures, weights, or a mixture of the above. Example a heavy lobster bisque with a light crisp wine or a rich opulent creamy one. 

Remember it is the marriage of food and wine, they both have to make each other better or they shall split apart. The wine and the food must have a place to fit in. If the dish is a complete package all on its own, the wine has to fight for a spot to fit in. We know how that works in relationships.Together greater than the parts they must be.

Dan's sense of humor stood out more than the bottomless wine knowledge; some part of everything was funny

Lots of that seemed really insightful to me, especially the the examples about the two broad strategies for pairing, and how it helps for gaps to exist in the food profile to complement.  The last part about relationships can be a touchy subject, being married to a Thai.

I can't evaluate which strategies Joshua's restaurant was using, since I just don't have that background or degree of imagination.  But it all works well together as a starting point for thinking the subject through.


Maybe all this could've hung together a little better but the different threads did seem interesting, some of which overlapped between the two scopes.  I can cite a bit more from Joshua's blog post on tea and food pairing that might help with that, with linking it all together:


Tea in a pairing behaves differently than wine, if for no other reason than sheer amount of ‘sensations’ wine can be bountiful in, be that acidity, tannin, and alcohol or the flavor sensations of sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, umami, and spicy (although spicy not so much)...

With pairing tea, you are often forced to take a different approach because you can’t go head to head with a lot of foods and expect the tea to come out on top or even equal. It plays the gentler, more passive role in the marriage...

With tea you need to take another approach — you either use the tea to cleanse the tongue afterwards and highlight nuances in the food that you’ve observed and hope that the pairing might bring in focus; or you use the tea as a set-up to put the food in a better light...


He adds a lot more context there, and a number of pairing examples.  That post includes a tasting exercise, how to use a few basic food inputs tested against a tea to work out how the coupling can be positive, or take different forms.


To be clear on context all of this still just isn't for me.  Eventually I might try it, but I could live without ever going there.  For as broad and complex as tea experience is for me it works to only take up a limited range as it connects with the last theme I was on, evolving scope organically.  If I ever take up more of a food interest beyond eating the three meals a day that might make more sense.

A Buddhist take on the designation of tea master / artist

An online friend posted an interesting question recently:  What does it mean to be a Tea Artist?

This was first published in TChing, here and here.

My own response is the general theme of this post.

This mentions but never really does explain the claim to represent Buddhism, and if you read that related response detail carefully I'm not saying that at all.  The claim is that my interpretation of use of personal labels and roles has been influenced by Buddhist ideas and practices.  It doesn't relate to having been an ordained monk, to completing two degrees related to Buddhism, or to living in a Buddhist family in a Buddhist country, even though those have been some of my own personal contact points with Buddhism.  Since it's not essential to the rest it's as well to not really develop that part further.

with a cat I think of as my first daughter; a kitten in this picture but now 12

Some framing discussed with that friend addresses issues that underlie fixed role or status designations, related to tea:


I really do think the people who embrace ritual tea interest or competitive tasting aren't getting anything wrong.  It's just a different way to take it all.  Once you take up titles or labels that changes things a little, but even then that could be fine, getting ranked, certified, or acknowledged.

That relates to a Tea Masters Cup group that people join and compete in, an educational interest group that--per my understanding--hosts competitions related to ceremonial form practices and tasting identification.  The last would seem to represent overlap with wine sommelier scope, more or less.


I never really do unpack use of "artist" as a designation versus the more common "tea master" in what I added to that discussion.  Along with those "tea expert" and "tea enthusiast" form a sort of continuum.  My own input relates to underlying context, so not directly about that theme anyway, how those varying terms map out.

Tea production is something else; this response is mostly about the consumption side.


My response to the initial question, what does it mean to be a tea artist?


As someone influenced by Buddhism I tend to use labels and extra concepts sparingly. They can help clarify meaning but they can also limit it. If a few people are tea artists then everyone else has a shallower expression or experience of tea compared to them.  To me the opposite is more true instead, that any of us brewing and drinking tea are sharing common experience. If you put yourself above others for any reason you typically do an injustice to them, and also to yourself. Extreme humility is a very functional position, and an especially valid personal choice.


If you drop the label you only need to keep in mind what is positive that potentially gets lost, and then choose to retain that if it's worth keeping. Unique experience of tea or expression through tea experience can be positive, but linking that to achievement or personal status I would typically see as negative.  Maybe within a competitive interest group that's different.


I might add a little about the one part, what could come along with the label or designation that might be positive. People use tea expert--or artist, master, enthusiast; whatever it is--to describe a range of competencies. Some people are into ceremonial forms, others into experiencing and being able to differentiate types and quality levels of tea. Just being able to brew tea effectively gets a lot of focus, and I suppose to some limited extent the most positive outcomes also require that, careful progress through a learning curve.

this organization relates to tea practice competition (maybe not related to ITMA / Tea Masters training)

To me it's useful to stay open to appreciating teas across a range of quality levels (a theme that only overlaps a little).  Emphasis on only exploring and appreciating the highest, most unique, most rare and sought after forms of some teas could work out even better when coupled with broader interest.  To be clear, as an ordinary tea drinker, with some background and experience, I sometimes drink good versions of teas but nothing too rare, unusual, or costly.  Working from a limited budget makes that choice for me.

I can be more specific about what I mean by type diversity. I think Earl Grey and masala chai are valid, interesting, and pleasant forms of tea, even though I focus more on plain, single-input, higher quality teas. But then I'm a generalist myself, related to tea preference, and of course it's just as valid and reasonable to focus on one type (eg. aged sheng pu'er, or Dan Cong oolong), and to explore higher quality level scope as a main range of interest.


To summarize, it seems that "tea artist" would of necessity mean a broad range of things to different people. Again, tea production is a completely different theme that I've not included in this answer, but of course it could be included.  Making great tea would require even more knowledge and skill than brewing it.

I don't reject this or other role or status designations as valid, or potentially quite useful, I just don't include use of such terms in how I approach tea.

a Vietnamese friend embraces the aesthetic side of tea, and formal brewing, but all that only overlaps

Tea preference transition compared to wine

I was talking to an old friend about tea experience, and started in on comparing the natural preference transition cycle to what tends to occur with wine, typical exploration and changes in what people like.  I think I've typed all this out here before, but I'll run through it all again anyway, since that was probably years ago, and my perspective would have shifted.

The idea is this:  I tend to recommend certain kinds of teas to people as a good place to start beyond Lipton and flavored blends, and see some kinds as more of an acquired taste, as a much less natural place to start.  Standard patterns of exploring types would be normal.  The same happens with wine.  I was a restaurant server working with that friend then, in one of the two main ski resort areas in the US (the Vail Valley), so wine experience is familiar to both of us.

A lot of times it helps to write something to a specific person, because it sets a clearer context than just writing to an abstract, general audience.  This is formally written for that general audience but it will help writing what I would tell him.  It was what I was going to write to him, but I'll tell everyone else here too.

not so reassuring for subject expertise; red wine with the wrong glasses in a Utah park camping area

a friend who shared wine knowledge in the past; just the salt of the earth, a great guy

A natural wine preference curve (based on my own, really)

It's natural to start in on wine from really inexpensive versions, for more than one reason.  One part is the cost, but also some versions are "designed" and marketed for people who more or less don't drink wine.  "Box wine," or wine that literally comes in boxes (in a thick bag inside that box, with a nozzle device), are very inexpensive, sweet, and often oak-chip flavored, perfect as an introduction, close enough to soda or a fruity mixed drink.  That's what I mean.

evaluated very positively, by this article reference where the photo is from

This will run through a natural pattern in what someone might explore next, and entire "typical" cycle, although personal experience would always vary.  Different experience or preference "paths" would make sense.  This example will circle back to how one example route applies to tea experience.

Then moderate quality merlot is a reasonable next step (as red wine goes; it's going to help to narrow this to one broad type and color, so I will).  Those tend to be fruity, drinkable, not challenging in any way (not astringent or "structured"), and quite sweet.  They're not an ideal pairing with most foods, per how that theme is often said to go, but definitely easy to drink, maybe even for people who don't like wine.

Then next maybe Red Zinfandel would work; they're a little stronger flavored, often including some sort of berry or spice aspect, maybe even a trace of black pepper.  "Zin" isn't challenging, but then that applies across the next couple of steps too.  It's probably challenging enough that the merlot would've worked better first, but really that does depend on general food preference.  In rare cases someone might be able to just start straight in with dry, hoppy pilsner beer or peat-intensive single-malt Scotch, skipping the intermediate steps that would often tend to make the most sense related to liking those.


Next maybe syrah / shiraz would be appealing (Australians use that second name instead).  That typical range is not hard to appreciate but someone might move off liking an intense, sweet red wine and desire something different, if not actually a wine that is more subtle.  From there they could go more subtle and get into Pinot Noir.  It goes without saying, all this works only to the degree that expressing these types of broad generalities does; for sure they are partly accurate, but they also drag in almost as much error as accurate generalization, in order to make a point.

Wine blends trade off a narrower set of aspects found in single-type wines, and can be very balanced and well structured, so maybe Bordeaux blends would work well next, that set of five grape inputs, from there or places like California.  I kind of "left off" at Californian Rhone-style blends myself a long time ago (according to this reference maybe I was ahead of my time, since that was forever ago).

Skipping ahead, cabernet seems like a later-preference range. Those are more astringent, heavier on tannins, often coming across as slightly less sweet, but really it's more about the balance varying.  French reds can be something else altogether; even good versions can taste like there's a rusty nail inside the bottle.  People adjust to liking different things in wines as they explore, and move away from needing a lot of sweetness and soft feel, and actually crave complex structures and takes-exposure-to-like flavor aspect range.  Tea is like that too.

Early preference for teas

I typically tell people that light rolled oolongs, like Chinese Tie Guan Yin or Taiwanese oolongs, or soft, sweet, complex black teas, like Dian Hong, are good places to start.  They are approachable, pleasant, good in inexpensive versions (usually--not always), and easy to brew (of just harder to screw up, really).  Even a Wuyi Yancha, Wuyishan-area "rock oolong," can be harder to appreciate, and harder to brew, even though most versions of those really don't take that much getting used to.

Dian Hong; relatively large leaf Yunnan black tea

a light rolled oolong.  I only have old pictures of those, nothing very clear.

This "hard to brew" theme can relate to a split between Western brewing (using a teaspoon per cup in a pot, or making it the same way in a French press or infuser device) and Gongfu style brewing.  I'll have to leave that part out, since that level of tangent would derail this theme, but this intro-themed post goes into that.

a gaiwan, or lidded cup, my favorite brewing device

The parallel with the early wine preference curve scope, box wine, and even to some extent the drinkable merlot, would only equate to lower-medium quality versions of these first two tea types.  Then again, there definitely could be such a thing as a very high quality version of merlot.  The grape itself doesn't necessarily limit it to a certain style range, it just favors one, and demand themes also parallel that.  The same is true of "basic" teas, especially lighter style Tie Guan Yin; some can be great.  Adding a bit of oxidation and roast adds potential to develop a lot more depth and balance, a sub-theme that comes up again here in related to a slightly different but related scope.


Next branching into other oolong types seems to make sense, to me.  Wuyi Yancha and Dan Cong come to mind; both are quite pleasant across a broad range of styles and aspects.  Above average Dan Cong is pricey, so maybe if budget is an early determining factor skipping that might work better.  Taiwanese oolongs span an interesting range too.  Oriental Beauty--bug-bitten, more-oxidized oolong--seems a rare kind of tea that could appeal to a lot of people who aren't into tea at all, or to people fairly far through a preference development curve.  Those can express a lot of fruit flavor, maybe in citrus or muscatel range, along with grape or cinnamon spice.  They can be intense in flavor but reasonably well balanced at the same time.

an aged Oriental Beauty; leaves always tend to darken over time

More-oxidized rolled oolongs, which people might equate with a Dong Ding style (Taiwan region) could also work for a broad range of people.  Those can be complex, within a limited scope, novel, good value across different quality levels, and somewhat easy to brew.  Hatvala (a Vietnamese vendor) sells a Red Buffalo version that is essentially this.  More oxidized oolongs, sometimes referred to as "red oolong," based on black tea being called red in China, aren't exactly the same as better Dong Ding, which tend to carefully balance oxidation and roast inputs.  Better quality tea usually relies on very high quality tea to start, not necessarily depending mostly on oxidation level closer to black tea to change the theme to a warmer, earthier, still quite sweet agreeable character.

a "red oolong," a tea type that's often just as close to black tea as conventional oolong

Where are we on the mapping back to wine?  I think Syrah / Shiraz might still be similar to this Oriental Beauty / more oxidized rolled oolong range.  Levels of sublety and positive balance can vary, but the range still seems a bit basic (even if there often is something refined about OB that's hard to pin down, the way the aspects balance together).  Syrah can be subtle and balanced, but Pinot Noir moves on from there, or at least has the potential to.  Those can be very refined, not as sweet in some cases, expressing more light structure and earthy undertones in others.  That was especially true in Northwestern US versions, based on what I tried long ago, probably when the global wine industry wasn't nearly as developed as it is now.

This range might still map back to where Dan Cong oolongs land; higher quality versions of those are really positive and distinct.  Or better Wuyi Yancha; it's funny how you can keep drinking lower medium quality Da Hong Pao for a long time, only to later discover that you had never really experienced what the category range is all about.  Maybe to stick with the parallel structure here a tea experience might move onto more subtle range at this kind of point; you might first "get" white teas.  A lot of silver needle seems to just be flavorless, and it's hard for me to relate to appreciating feel and only feel.  Bai Mu Dan, a version with buds and fine leaf content, works better for me, for being more complex.


Maybe around this comparable stage better Darjeeling or Nepal white teas would come up; that works well as a parallel.  Oddly those are two relatively completely different things, even though they aren't so far away from each other as growing regions.  Darjeeling spans a range, with more progressive plantations continuing to experiment and see what works (notably a favorite related set, Gopaldhara and Rohini, are like that).  Nepal white teas have a characteristic style with a lot of pronounced underlying mineral and citrus pop.  It's possible to appreciate them mostly for flavor but it helps a lot to be able to relate to a more refined and subtle tea character, related to a lot of other oolong scope at least.

white tea comparison, versions from Nepal and Laos

a Nepal white (which do vary in appearance)

It's hard to draw a close parallel to tea with better blended wines.  I can think of what is probably the most obvious connection, but the parallel structure between the two beverage scopes has to fail in a sense to use this example:  that of sheng pu'er.  Sheng is not approachable, in general; it takes exposure to appreciate, for the most part.  I guess this draws us onto the parallel with Cabernet in one sense then, an interesting and less approachable red wine version that most typically takes some getting used to.  Of course I generalize; a child could probably drink Silver Oak and appreciate it, and that brand / version isn't exactly inexpensive.

Anything in the lower half of all sheng quality is probably hard for anyone to appreciate, unless they get started into that range and just stay there.  Cheap or bad sheng is often described as tasting like kerosene or chewing tobacco, the dip / snuff kind, not the larger and more whole leaf version.  It's rough.  Even good sheng can have pronounced bitterness in younger versions, and an unusual form of astringency, both of which work better after some exposure.

Laos loose sheng (maocha) from old plant sources

how sheng often looks, pressed as a cake or bing

sheng or shu (all pu'er) can come in different shapes, like this tuocha (a 2009 Xiaguan, not quite ready yet)

So the idea here is that although a Bordeaux wine blend is typically very easy to relate to the way in which that mixing can achieve very balanced and positive results is going to map over.  The general style and target audience theme is just different.

An inexpensive, lower quality wine blend would be compensating for flaws in inputs instead; getting the most out of relatively bad wine.  To me that's closer to what goes on with English Breakfast Blend black teas (no offense intended, if that's your thing, but I'll need to speak plainly here to say anything).  Inexpensive versions of Assam can be a bit rough, intense in flavor (malty) but also rough in feel, and lacking depth.  Inexpensive Ceylon versions can be lighter and more subtle but can lack intensity, or have other gaps or flaws.  Mixing the two can make a better mixed version, in some cases.  Let's move on to the other range though, about how all this maps out on the higher end, and in relation to a completely different tea type.

I don't really need to even say that some Bordeaux blends, in France and in California, are not just covering up for flaws in the wines, right?  They are shooting for an end product that is novel and exceptional, unusually well balanced, based on using wines that may not stand alone as well but that are definitely not flawed.  Assume that all that is clear to you already, even if it's not.

It's going to help to set aged sheng aside for this.  That's a little odd, because for many with advanced preferences in sheng that's what they drink.  Even at the very beginner level a common understanding is that all sheng is better when older, regardless of type or age.  I disagree.  To me some sheng is best very new (young), and it's much more common for some very exceptional types to hit a sort of peak for character within a few years of being produced, and then other versions with other character really need that transition.  I can circle back to sheng aging cycle later, and how transitions go, and just assume that I'm talking about relatively young (new) sheng here, without being clear on any of that.

a 2007 sheng photo from this year

There are two main ways in which sheng is produced and presented, as single-origin teas, most often sourced from a very narrow area (eg. one local farm, or arbor, a set of somewhat natural-growing tea trees), or as a mix of inputs, a blend.  Just like that we're back on theme.

The narrower source area has the benefits you would expect:  positive, interesting aspects stand out as distinct.  It has the drawback you would expect too:  any limitations or flaws in that tea really stand out (missing a character / aspect range, like sweetness, or mouthfeel, inclusion of a negative flavor element, etc.).  Using a range of inputs allows producers to compensate for any of those limitations, and balance them out, and get the most out of lower or medium quality tea material.  I suppose it's possible that the mapping to a very high end blend could occur but in general a lower or medium range is represented, and that paradigm related to the best Bordeaux production, and going for a great result using very good source material, more or less drops out.

I suppose for being less common exceptions might be no less valid, cases where the result is making something truly exceptional.  This seems to relate to production and marketing for White 2 Tea, for example; that producer seems to try to make much better than average tea by mixing inputs.  Or at least that's the story.  Since another part of that strategy relates to keeping inputs and product descriptions vague (unknown, really) it's hard to be clear on that.  Still, maybe it's that the exception proves the rule.  Since I've never tried any of their teas all of this is just passing on hearsay anyway, to be clear.  Maybe they aren't so great, in general, and it's all smoke and mirrors, until you get to generally unidentified versions based on single-source inputs, which could sell for a lot more in their product range than the blends.

Two other examples will clarify what is typical (back to upper-medium level quality blends as a theme).  Dayi / Taetea 7542 (a numbered-type example) is often held up as a benchmark version.  That large producer would sell teas from within a broad area that is identified, maybe like the US wine example version of Napa Valley, but essentially large scale producers mix inputs to get the result they want to achieve.  Or at least they make a tea that will sell, that seems somewhat similar to past years' versions. 

Yunnan Sourcing, another main Western vendor, sells a few different lines of blends, and their "Impression" series is presented as an attempt at making a better alternative to 7542.  I've only tried two years of their Impression versions, 2017 and 2018, and only own the 2018, but based on that limited sampling I would say that they've succeeded (although the style is a little different).  The tea is cheap, and pretty good.  It's not as distinctive and narrow in aspect range as some narrow source versions but it works.  The targeted blending result works out.

the 2018 Yunnan Sourcing Impression label; pretty cool design

I never got there myself, with wine, but this is more or less onto what natural end-points in tea preference might be.  Constant exploration might work, but I'd think people might naturally settle in on one or more ranges for preference.  Maybe just one, for primary preference, and then they might also mix it up.  Sheng is one of the main end-points, for sure, probably more represented by aged sheng than younger version preference.

Oolong range is another likely natural end-point, settling on something like Wuyi Yancha or Taiwanese oolong scope as a favorite, with plenty of range to explore within both.  Or Dan Cong, but to me those seem to cover a slightly narrower range; there is just less scope to focus on.  And they cost more, and finding very high quality examples is as difficult as with any tea type.  That's always how it goes, across all types, but I mean that there are divides between lower quality, medium, higher, and very high that somehow seem all the more distinct for that particular tea type, and versions of the last two levels can be hard to turn up.  Other types seem to work out as more of continuum, so that the middle and higher ranges can be quite distinct.  Across quality scope many tea versions still seem to share a lot of common ground, just adding some effect, better balance, a bit more thickness in feel or aftertaste, or different flavor range.


Now that I think of it, how would I know if I'm there with tea, closer to an end-point for preference, or what would be typical?  I "only" started into tea interest 8 or 9 years ago, and really only shifted to put a lot of focus on exploration around 7 years ago.  Even for trying a lot of versions a decade of input is just getting started.  My attention span for hobbies and food interests is on the short side so I almost never put that decade in, regardless of the subject.  But maybe I'll stick with this theme for awhile.