Talking to tea enthusiasts in the Hague and Paris

 

meeting with Jan

This meetups series has been interesting, about a group of friends talking to people about tea online, related to different countries.  We've met with a founding member of the Russian tea tradition, one Russian developing an interest group and another producing tea out of Laos, tea producers from Wuyishan China, Assam India, Nepal, and the US, a vendor doing development work in Laos, a vendor in Latvia, and a Canadian tea sommelier.  One potential guest had been in the works representing the next level of "tea celebrity" but scheduling isn't working out.

It was interesting bridging that into talking to a couple of more conventional tea enthusiasts, versus those producers or vendors, in the Netherlands and France (following talking to two tea enthusiasts in Amsterdam previously).  One of those has served as such a helpful guide on different tea issues to me that I see him as a mentor of sorts.  The other was a chance social media contact with a couple of ties to our group.  This isn't going to be as novel as some of the rest of the discussion scope but shifting to consider normal tea habits and perspective worked well.  Not "normal" in the sense of common; both guys have explored tea for at least a decade, to the extent that unusual types of tea interest has normalized for them.

Conversation also drifted off the scope of their perspective, and even tea themes, into other life experience, but under the circumstances I'll keep this mostly about tea.

 

Jan Falkenstein, living in the Hague, Netherlands

This is out of order since we talked to Jan second, but at least in the first draft I'll include more detail about Jan than the other guest (contact, friend).  These write-ups are to pass on interesting ideas and to give the people joining a bit of exposure, even though my blog audience is limited (about 100 people read each post; not so many).  Jan works in software development with an interesting background in experimental music (a phD in that; different).  His Instagram page is here, with links to that music here and here.  

His exploration and preference landed where you might imagine, on sheng pu'er.  It's probably not coincidence that the other guest drinks mostly that type, and that Ralph and I also do.  It is an interesting and complex tea type, with a lot going on in individual versions, as a singular experience and related to aging letting every single tea version be different year to year.  Some people tend to only drink 15-20 year old aged versions, seeing that as a relative optimum (or personal preference, framed differently), but it seems like both of them can relate to a range.  

It's strange how I see it as strange for sheng to work as such a universal preference end-point, even though it did so in my own case (I've drank mostly that for about four years).  Oolong is just as "good," and I love black teas too, but regularly rotate through about 20 different versions of sheng (which hasn't been changing much yet this year).  All those versions are kind of different from each other, and won't be the same teas after resting until next year.

We didn't talk about sheng that much.  A little, towards the end, after Huyen and Suzana both left, getting into sourcing issues and aging concerns.  Jan was curious about Indian tea range so that took up a lot of focus.  I won't repeat much of that here since it's all scope I've covered at length in earlier posts, about Darjeeling and Assam being main growing regions, with other production areas as part of the scope, how masala chai variations work out in practice, and related to older plant growth pre-dating the British tea history in India starting in 1830 or so.  Not a lot of that history came up, or to what extent any of us have actually tried "wild-origin" old plant source Indian teas.  I've not tried much, related to that last "wild origin" point; some falap was probably quite local origin, but maybe no other tea I've tried from India was made from wild, forest-grown plants.

The usual theme of introductions and tangents not being ideal for summary here occurs again.  Huyen had some connectivity problems so we never covered Vietnamese teas in the same way Indian range was discussed.  Kind of a shame; to me Vietnamese tea is the most diverse and interesting, and in some cases positive, of all teas from South East Asia.  I've had some relatively fantastic Laos, Thai, and Myanmar versions, so I mean in general, not down to best versions level.

In the late discussion we talked a little about how social media channels are changing, and what tea culture is like in Discord and Reddit (r/puer more than r/tea, but tied more to interesting special cases than actual group shared interest form).  That kind of discussion almost has to be about over-generalizations; on any given day someone is on a slightly different page in any tea group.  Form differences can be interesting.  Discord is like an old mainframe chat room format, and Reddit subs are closer to traditional forum discussions, with Facebook posts and groups mixing in more focus on links and media.  Scandals and conflict end up being the more interesting parts, although those themes can definitely get old.

Jan has an online store for selling tea; we talked about how that came up, and testing issues based on his experience with that.  A lot of people may be familiar with relatively strict and comprehensive testing requirements for European tea outlets.  It adds workload for vendors there, and expense.  He mentioned how most teas passed all that, in part because he tried to buy versions from more natural origin sources.  That part could use some unpacking; it's still mass-produced "factory" tea, and of course not all vendor or producer claims are accurate (or maybe more aren't than are by count), but I'm on general themes here, not sales-pitch scope.  

He said that a conventional Xiaguan failed for a pesticide level rate, and we talked about how relative risk for those levels might go.  Jan mentioned that the regulatory agencies would shift levels over time, to adjust for cut-offs not always being practical in relation to naturally occurring levels of some toxins.  Best to take all that as interesting input than a guide to how testing goes in Europe, of course; it's surely complicated.

We talked just a little about his experimental music prior to Suzana and Huyen joining; you can check that out here and here.  To me it sounds like something that might work well as 2001:  A Space Odyssey background.  Some is a bit melodic but Jan mentioned that most isn't because it's experimental, about exploring how different kinds of sounds could be experienced, not what you put on when you hang out.

I asked an old college friend about tea interest and options in the Hague once (where he lives); odd that had came up.  He's a university professor there so he asked his students, and they mentioned a favorite place (the Het Klaverblad shop in Leiden).  Jan mentioned Theemaas as another good local option, but said that he didn't like visiting a shop that sold both coffee and tea for those smelling like coffee.  It makes sense.

photo credit their web page (of course)

A bit of follow-up discussion about varying takes on tea themes was interesting.  The Dutch shops I'm seeing reference to don't seem so different than the T2 or the now-closed Teavana chains, maybe including a little more emphasis on plain teas, but not narrowed to what is familiar to specialty tea enthusiasts.  Moychay, that Russian outlet I've reviewed a lot of tea from, now based in Amsterdam, is regarded as selling great value and high quality narrow-source specialty tea, or sometimes that is criticized, and both of those ideas are rejected, but in any case it's more towards that end of the range.  

Jan mentioned how a main source works out in Germany, Teekampagne:

It looks fine, but a little odd for not mentioning an actual plantation source, it's just "second flush Darjeeling."  Contrast that with a Camellia Sinensis vendor page selection: 

Of course these are different kinds of offerings; a low-cost blend of inputs versus a much higher cost narrow type.  The blended second flush shown costs $13.71 for 250 grams while the cheaper of the two first flush versions shown costs $16.54 for 50 grams.  I would imagine that the German mixed input tea is better than Twinings range, but it's closer to that in style.  

It's not the kind of version that's available here in Thailand, in stores, or even online.  A broad range of blends of Wuyi Yancha oolong is available through many Chinatown shops here; that's more the page we are on.  At the lower quality end those can cost a lot less than $13.71 for 250 grams, but quality might be somewhat comparable for a mid-range offering priced around that.  The main difference might be that more people in Germany or the Netherlands are drinking those loose teas, but I would imagine that tea-bag tea still has a firm hold in both countries.

I don't want to go too far with discussion details like that in relation to the other visit, covering less personal details for that guest preferring to not be referenced by name, but I would like to tie together some perspective that came up.

Talking to a tea contact in Paris

Earlier we had met with a tea contact in Paris, who we can call David (not his real name). His personal story was interesting, about getting into tea through chance contacts, then that bridging into sheng preference faster than many experience, maybe around 15 years ago now.  David had lived in NYC and checking out Chinatown led to earlier forms of tea interest, and a chance personal contact led to the sheng range.  Both had experienced plenty of other tea range with considerable focus on sheng.

One really interesting point was about how conventional French experiences of tea goes.  It was a common theme there before it even became popular in Britain (per my understanding; not something we discussed at all).  We talked about modern tea culture themes instead.  He mentioned that he had a circle of friends based around tea interest there but over time the tea focus diminished, and they just became a circle of friends, with strictly tea themed gatherings less common.  That's interesting to consider, isn't it, how tea interest might serve a role in social circle development and then shift off that subject?  Back when my local friend Sasha held tea gatherings the tea was a critical part of the form but it was always more about who joined and other discussion range. 

meeting with Sasha (next to far left) and Pop (beside me)

I didn't take notes on what we discussed, or plan to communicate about it here.  David had travelled a lot in Europe, and elsewhere, and I'd expected to get into a lot on that but it was also a lot about personal scope, about what Paris is like, and how visitors see it differently than locals, and about French food, and so on.  He mentioned how a conventional impression of French food in other countries tends to be about a formal or somewhat atypical scope, and how everyday foods are positive and pleasant in a different way, but not as closely linked to a French food image.  I don't remember that an extensive list of dishes covered the divide, but the general point seems clear enough, about how basic but carefully selected and prepared foods could be everyday fare and then those that require extensive training to prepare are something else.  His description of a local market experience there was especially interesting, about a traditional shopping experience, getting to know local product range vendors.

Both cases, taken together, lead to consideration of what it means to be a tea enthusiast, and what local tea culture is really like.  David mentioned how good loose tea doesn't turn up in cafes and restaurants that much, a common enough theme everywhere.  Tea awareness in Paris has a long history, and more people are probably "in on it" than elsewhere, but it never integrated to anywhere near the uptake level as in China.  Or probably Vietnam, per my understanding.  Then bubble tea and ready-to-drink consumption muddies the waters a bit, related to US and Thai culture; people are drinking tea, just not specialty tea, loose tea versions that they brew themselves.

The people we talk to aren't at the conventional level for tea interest, so we will keep talking about the far end of the curve for developed preference.  That still works, related to getting an image of a general level, and cafe options, and so on.  It's interesting how patterns of exploration and self-definition work out related to tea in practice.  For being really active in one or more online groups a perspective or approach there, or a range of those, can serve as a norm, but very developed tea preference can work out quite differently.  Jan had been quite into tea for many years before he ever realized there are so many tea groups online, and that other friend never did embrace those forms of social contact or discussion that much.  Somehow I had started talking to David in relation to asking about shops in Moscow online he must have been somewhat involved with a tea group or site.

Talking to Bronislav Vinogrodskiy, the father of the modern Russian tea tradition

 

photo credit Suzana

So much interesting scope to uncover in this, even though I won't get to most of what we talked to Bronislav about, for the usual reasons, mostly that discussion covered a lot of scope.  Let's start back with who he is, and justify that claim related to him founding a national tea tradition.  I won't cite it here but in talking to a number of Russian contacts about tea themes that cultural transition role credit is always consistent.

For context, Russians have drank tea for a long time.  I'll surely get the history and cultural context slightly wrong, which I covered further here, but my take is that consumption of herb teas (tisanes) is a longstanding tradition in Eastern Europe, and an old connection with China had developed tea interest.  Then a sort of difference of political views and reduction of trade volume with China led to Russians drinking more Sri Lankan tea.  So it was on a base of tea interest that a modern tea enthusiast movement developed, similar to but different in form in relation the US range of experience.  

Bronislav's personal context related to studying Chinese language and culture, and doing a lot of research, translation, and commentary based on Chinese philosophy and religion texts.  He's written many books on a diverse range of subjects along those lines, with special emphasis on Taoism and the I Ching, a very old practice of Chinese divination (fortune telling).  He also mentioned studying other broad schools of ideas in that discussion, which is part of what I won't describe in detail here; a partial summary is enough.  I'll speculate about that divination theme more at the end here, but to be clear I've not discussed that subject at length with him.  

So what he brought to Russia was awareness of a higher quality range of teas, and a tea club practice, which has taken firm root there, and extended into the presence of many such organizations and facilities.  It's not exactly like a Western cafe, and doesn't really fit well into any Western paradigm.  I suppose the main parallels would be drawn from Chinese culture and settings, which I'm really not familiar with.  In this talk he mentioned a bit more about that development step, the sharing between cultures.  Just not the details of the forms it took along the way, eg. moving from a social group or academic interest scope, onto being based in non-dedicated locations, then as new facilities forms, and so on.  

a Russian tea club (a Moychay hosted version, but there are others)

He explained that he saw helping develop an interest in tea, and practices related to drinking tea, as a sort of experiment in introducing an aspect of one culture to another, or sharing forms.  This leads directly to those religious / philosophical underpinnings, which also connect.  It brings to mind the tea ceremonial aspects that are slightly familiar in "the West" now, just perhaps expressed in a range of different forms.  The older Taoist-oriented Chinese form isn't as rigidly defined and orchestrated as the Japanese tea ceremony, which is more about adherence to physical forms and meditative approach than the tea itself (per my take, at least).

A couple of loose threads remain, right, beyond questioning those intermediate steps?  How did one person manage to make that much change?  How did it "scale up" from beginnings in the 80s / 90s to being more mainstream today; just how fast did it develop?  This summary covers a lot less than it points towards.  Bronislav has published a number of texts (in Russian though), and holds regular speaking or workshop events, and has lots of content on Youtube.  It seems likely that if Google can provide a rough translation for that video content, in subtitle form, it would make for the easiest access into some of the rest.

Let's back up to another starting point instead, to the introduction he gave us about his surroundings and his place in Russian tea culture, and about other interests.

Moychay's Amsterdam store; a Russian take on Chinese tea culture is extending to Europe now

Introduction and Tour

Bronislav gave us a tour of his workspace and personal space in Moscow, a great introduction to some different themes.  He has a very impressive jade collection; a lot of diverse pieces, that represent forms within Chinese culture that I'm not familiar with, in addition to some that did ring a bell.  His paintings are nice, some abstract, some interpretations of reality.  A collection of Chinese reference texts and a short summary of his own published works was especially impressive.  Then the context that really made it relatable is how grounded and pleasant he comes across, as very genuine.  

It would be easy to take yourself a bit too seriously given that context of chasing an extensive set of related themes like that, and past successes.  He's developing ideas and works that dig deep into a foreign culture, across academic and artistic scope, related to a set of developed life practices.  Maybe seeing that context as "grounded" seems out of place, in relation to the other points I just made, but to me it connected back to an ordinary if slightly unconventional experience of reality.

He played some flute and guitar, introducing music as a theme that's important to him.  To some extent we can all connect to that, just for most not extending to creating music.  Bronislav explained how it serves as a meditation form for him.

This connection between tea themes and other Chinese culture was especially interesting.  I've formally studied Chinese philosophy and religion related to Buddhism and Taoism, but the subjects don't directly overlap with Western categories.  It's all a practical guide to living, based on cultural forms and extended to perspective and practices that aren't similar to a more analytical Western tradition.  

To help place that, to me logic and reason have their limits, and parts of life experience we can only model and treat indirectly, or just go with.  I gravitated more towards Buddhism, which places introspection and atypical self-development at the center, versus Chinese thinking emphasizing culture-based forms more, or integration with complex systems found in nature.  It doesn't conflict as much as it might sound.  Confucian teachings emphasize learned practices but Taoism is about adherence to natural patterns.  It's one of two separate inputs to create Zen Buddhism, which first evolved as Chan Buddhism in China.  According to a Chinese philosophy professor Chinese people can freely alternate between those three main forms of ideology across phases of their lives (Confucian thought, Taoism, and Buddhism), taking up whichever one suits them best related to their current perspective.

From there, to me, the next step towards the I Ching and divination requires a bit of unpacking.  From the oversimplified Western perspective (as much as there is just one, which isn't how that really works), we can simply "throw out" I Ching based fortune telling, along with astrology, and still embrace the functional input.  I'll explain that further, but astrology I'll set aside here.  I've experienced that in two completely distinct forms in the past, and it seems to work better than it should.  Maybe that's only because observing generalities is functional, whether or not specific predictions are ever accurate.

Bronislav and I discussed more long-term patterns in cultural development in that first talk awhile back.  I don't want to go too far into summarizing his position or views, because very short discussions didn't give me significant understanding of those.  But obviously long-term cultural transition patterns do occur, and to the extent we can consider these, and draw on other observations about them, a different perspective on societal and cultural changes could open up for us.  It's a similar theme that astrology and I Ching predictions could "work" even if they "don't work."  Observing underlying patterns could be very helpful, even if picking out the next pattern to be most relevant isn't going to be accurately dictated by star positions or throwing dice.  Where astrology talks about perspective patterns (personality forms and choices in relations to circumstances), the I Ching discusses event patterns and perspective context more, about cycles of personal transition, how to react in steady states and times of transition.

The most natural take on what I'm saying is a bit too reductive, that it only works to consider forms of patterns.  How else could a few hundred words on a complex cultural tradition go?  To some extent the value really is in the details instead.  I'm tempted to describe more about that personal experience with predictive astrology, about two specific predictions about my own life that "came true," and two others that are still open, that may or may not.  This whole post lends itself to pointing towards saying more later, introducing themes that it doesn't develop, so that can leave off in the same form.

One interesting theme was how Russian culture embraced parts of Chinese tradition so quickly.  Even without Bron's input a range of answers come to mind.  One is that it didn't; for sure the average Russian doesn't drink Chinese tea now.  On the opposite extreme it was a time of national and cultural change (the 90s, right after the end of the Soviet Union), so that people were quite open to change and new perspectives.  Such themes would probably be especially attractive when they overlapped with existing forms of Russian culture, but built on and developed those.  Or even when they didn't; according to our guide in Murmansk--one of overall favorite contacts in visiting Russia--interest in traditional religion was renewed at that time as well, in orthodox Christian belief.

an Eastern Orthodox Christian church in Murmansk

Roman, our favorite guide there (with lots of travel photos in this post)

These discussions about tea, Russian and Chinese cultures, Chinese philosophy and modern culture transitions (both not really covered in this session), jade, and Bronislav's personal history were only an introduction.  In a sense I suppose that could've been interpreted as unsatisfying, but to me it was very interesting, and much appreciated.  It would be really interesting to hear more from other references from him, and his Youtube videos have been set up to auto-translate into an English language form.  

For the discussion time being a bit short we focused on introduction.  It would've been nice to also hear Bronislav's take on societal changes in relation to this pandemic.  Of course it's just bad luck and virus mutation causing it, but the past year and a half have been an unusual time of change.  Surely his perspective on how broad societal shifts work out is very interesting, especially in relation to how people tend to react to such circumstances.  Ancient Chinese philosophy and the psychology of dealing with personal stresses are two different things, but the overlap must be interesting, and probably quite informative.  His online content must have delved into that a good bit already; if I hear more in looking into it I'll check back in here about that.  For online references he posts on Instagram and has an independent web page, which outlines more on seminar events and such, and a Facebook page referencing some of the rest.

looking up related pictures brought up some nice memories

from this past weekend; not really intended as a political statement

Tea processing and demand shifts in China

 

photo credit Suzana, as usual

that one cup has an interesting story, here

This is really about input from another meetup, but since the points I found most interesting relate to tea processing and demand shifts in China the focus is on that.  Cindy Chen, the Wuyi Origin producer--also ran by her husband and family--talked about these issues mostly related to Wuyishan (Wuyi Yancha "rock oolong") and Chaozhou (Dan Cong) production, but really more related to Wuyi Yancha.  Earlier discussion on other themes was interesting too, and I'll add a little about infusing tea in oil and alcohol at the end, another main point.  To back up a bit related to this meetup context, we invited a number of people we've talked to in small previous group discussions to join together, which included one session with Cindy.  Eight people attended altogether; not bad.

Cindy started telling us about their business, about volumes produced, general background, how specialized orders work out, tied to general processing themes, and about changes in tea awareness and demand in China over the last decade.  Truly fascinating stuff!  Some of it was familiar but the part about a shift in demand and awareness was not.

we saw just a little tea sorting going on

She mentioned some production issues related to different teas, about how Wuyishan growing areas are laid out, and how micro-climate, especially in terms of sun exposure, changes final tea character a lot.  I wrote an interview post about those factors--Making Rock Oolong--based on her input awhile back, which overlaps, and shared some pictures of a harvest season since then.  

The short version is that not only do plant types and ages matter, and rainfall and other local climate issues, and local soil conditions, but sun exposure also does.  The same plants growing on a small valley floor and on ledges, or at the edge of that valley, would produce different character tea.  An example:  initial intensity varies, and the more forward oriented aroma notes, with those ranges more pronounced with greater sun exposure, with tea with more depth and subtlety resulting from partly shaded conditions.

Josh was trying to place this in relation to Japanese green teas, but we never really made a clear connection in discussion.  For those, per my understanding, partial shading prior to harvest greatly increases chlorophyll production, increasing flavor intensity across one range, and to some extent increasing bitterness.  But Wuyi Yancha oolongs are not bitter, at all, given how processing changes compounds that probably would come across that way if you chewed a fresh leaf.  It seems to contradict, to say that sun exposure increases oolong intensity, but restricting sun exposure increases Japanese green tea intensity, but it all must map out in a more complicated form than that.

Onto the awareness changes part.  It's my impression that Cindy was talking about awareness and demand shifts (increases) among a very limited subset of Chinese tea drinkers and consumers, her own customer base.  They are becoming more knowledgeable, and making more specific demands.  I think that the "average Chinese person" doesn't see tea so differently than they did 20 years ago, beyond more young people drinking coffee and bubble tea now.  

I'm basing that on visiting China three times (which is very limited input), and knowing three Chinese families, living here in Bangkok, as more in-depth feedback.  All three were close friends of my kids, and all three we joined for dinner parties, sports outings, attending local Thai holiday events, and to restaurants and the local zoo.  Those kinds of contact give you more time to talk about daily life.  All three drank tea but essentially knew nothing about the subject. They drank whatever local types were in a grocery store or local market, and couldn't describe those types in much detail.  The same was true of a Japanese friend, again the father of my daughter's best friend; he may or may not have been familiar with the concept of "sencha," and drank whatever he happened to buy at a grocery store.

two of those friends; they are missed, back in China now

looking like this isn't about cultural immersion, in the normal sense

Cindy's customers are at the other end of the scale; they know tea.  According to her it has went beyond just ordering much better versions for gifts and such, or liking those for daily consumption, some are onto special ordering very specific versions.  I'll get back to that gift idea, which ties to a broader transition theme.  In some very limited cases Cindy's family do produce "single bush / tree" tea versions, but that makes a lot less sense for Wuyishan oolongs, which tend to be from relatively small plants, that never grow to a size that supports that.  We've discussed how that works in relation to Dan Cong before but I'll stick to what was covered yesterday.  

Over time a limited set of her customers have learned how varying growing conditions inputs can change tea, and can specify which exact type they want.  Not just in relation to oxidation and roast level, but related to ordering specific versions from limited range growing areas, eg. from a certain growing field location.  On the broader scale a lot of customers are appreciating better tea too, without taking those kinds of next steps. They can seek out the types and higher quality levels from producers like Cindy, replacing earlier preference for well-known and mass-marketed volume production blended teas.  

my favorite picture of Cindy, showing one growing area

Cindy said that the status of giving main commercial brand teas as a gift has at least partly been replaced by giving better quality tea. That seems a positive step.  For those unfamiliar with truly high end Wuyishan oolongs, or Dan Cong, it won't work to describe what Cindy sells.  It's so good that I recommend that people exploring such oolongs don't start there, that they experience more moderate quality versions first, to identify the range, and experience some flaws, then move onto what the true potential is.  It doesn't work as well exploring in the other direction, and there's learning involved with drinking medium quality or even flawed teas.

All of this reminds me of some interesting input from a Chinese-Malaysian friend about tea service in a business context, more a formal entertainment theme than related to gifts.  It might seem like I'm jumping the track a bit, changing countries, shifting from personal preference and gift-giving to a third tea drinking context, but Cindy did actually bring up that tea can also play an important role in business interactions.  I'll cite part of what that friend said, a lawyer in Kuala Lumpur, William.  

The tl;dr version is that in business it's normal for higher executives to make an elaborate show of preparing tea for guests; it's expected.

In this message, I would like to share something about the various settings Chinese in mainland China drink teas.

Setting 1:

This setting is deemed to be the most elaborate form, favoured by the chairman, the chief executive officer 'CEO' of a corporation, for having a large room for workplace. The office is usually divided into two section, one part is for work, the other is designed into a room that resembles a teahouse. There is a desk, the height of and shaped like a dinner table, a seat is placed at one side, whilst two more seats are positioned on the opposite side of the desk. A thorough accessories, complete with a hot water kettle, tools and equipment for gongfu tea preparation is placed on the table.

The chairman or the CEO would be the host, serving tea via gongfu style, when meeting another colleague, discussing company matters or seeing a guest to talk over business partnership. It is through such reception with another entrepreneur or industrialist that business deals are entered into. Besides opting for a game of golf or to meet in a restaurant over a six course meals with tea or red wine, both outings are well-liked in Malaysia, as well, inviting another captain of industry for tea into this section of the office of a highest-ranking person in the company is also a very popular form of arrangement, allowing a formal dialogue be serenely engaged between both the host and his guest in the most private manner.

A man who holds directorship in his guest's company would also entertain his guest in similar environment if he himself is also the head or owner of his own company located elsewhere, away from his guest's home or workplace and has similar detailed set up for tea drinking, too, making conversation and even giving of advice and imparting his knowledge to his guest if his visitor is his junior or a newly appointed figurehead. The tea brewing could be put together, simply for the exchange of ideas or brainstorming for business planning and development between an 'uncle' and his 'nephew'.

not even close to the same theme, a corporate presentation I attended in China

This clearly ties into an elaborate gift-giving culture common in China.  There are three other cases (settings) that he described, extending to lower level managers hosting much less elaborate versions of the same process, onto tea house or cafe forms and expectations.  Suffice it to say that the elaborate nature of the forms and device use is only scaled down, but expectations about very particular types of experience remain in place, just in more casual forms.  The most informal form he describes is what goes by the name "grandpa style" brewing in Western enthusiast circles, coined by an influential tea blogger:

In China, the ongoing and trouble-free tea infused in a flask or teapot at home would be '龍井茶' or 'Loong Jeng Cha', also known as 'Dragon Well tea', a renowned roasted green tea from '杭州' or 'Hong Jau' or 'Hangzhou', using a huge wok for '殺青' or 'Saat Cheng', a process literally means 'to kill-green' those tea leaves with bare hands. It is observed that Loong Jeng tea has been a leading tea variety and a household name in China, prepared and served in many a Chinese home. I had personally witnessed Chinese strolling all over the streets in Guangzhou, China, carrying glass canisters of all shapes and sizes made for seasoning paste and sauce, being recycled into drink container, all filled with teas.

Of course we know that green tea type as "Longjing."

Rest assured that my friend is immersed in a form of sub-culture that's much more Chinese in origin than Malaysian, with plenty of direct contact within China.  He communicates that in every such message about those cultural issues.  We last discussed traditional Chinese medicine approaches to healing bone fractures, related to a US friend breaking her ankle recently.  He passed on a version of the Guan Yin origin legend in this post about reviewing two traditional Tie Guan Yin versions (which he gave me, along with a good bit of Liu Bao; he's both generous and informative).

Back to Cindy's input, I'm missing some ideas that connect these themes, about processing steps, and other broad demand shift details.  She mentioned that the main shift seemed to occur beginning about 10 years ago, when better tea uptake really took off, which has gradually increased ever since.  Kind of off subject, she said that the latest spike in demand seems to relate to white tea instead, with prices in Fuding-produced white teas shooting up about 30% this year.  For growing up so embedded in the tea industry and culture she would tend to hear about other areas and types, beyond producing both Wuyi Yancha and Dan Cong herself (her husband and his family is from Chaozhou).

This post is already running long, and heavy on tangents, but I wanted to share a description of Cindy I ran across awhile back, from Jeff Fuchs' Tea and Mountain Journals.  It will help fill in the part I can't do justice to, about how Cindy is, which I very much appreciate every time I interact with her:

Cindy is made of tea it seems. Rampant energy, talking of nothing else, she knows tea from the soil to the very skin of the leaf and through the various stages it is a subject that is part of her. Her entire family for generations has produced Rock teas (called ‘yen cha’ locally), named for the fact that the teas generally grow in small terraced plots amidst stone and shadows where the teas must struggle to find a root-hold in the soils...

She's like that, energetic, and a very pure and humble soul.  She shares this experience and information from a place of shared interest, not as a vendor promoting products, and not as an expert passing down wisdom from on high.  Jeff covers that context too:

On this morning Cindy uses a simple white ceramic gaiwan, or flared cup vessel, for ease of examining colour and rapid fire infusions. Rapid fire they are, but with Cindy every serving is something fresh and perfect, though she in all of her modesty claims that she is “only someone who knows tea a little”.

She was born into knowing and experiencing more than a little of tea.  Her young daughters could teach me about tea right now, a lot more than we could cover together in a lengthy span of time.  It's probably as well to move on to touch on a second sub-theme.

learning about roasting oolong as a toddler, with an unrelated boo-boo

Infusing tea with oil and alcohol

Josh--that Canadian tea somellier--and Suzana discussed this more than the rest of us, for Josh attempting repeated trials along this line, and Suzana experimenting with it just a little.  You can infuse tea in oil; who knew?  The tea cocktail theme, and infusing tea in alcohol, is familiar enough, even though I've never actually tried it out myself, since I really don't drink.  This is a nice summary interview article on the alcohol infusion / tea cocktail theme by Tony Gebely.

The main idea is that you can actually infuse tea leaves in oil, and get slightly different results than using water.  Of course that would relate well to cooking, but they seemed to be discussing it more as a way to just check how it works out.  Knocking back a small gongfu cup of tea infused cooking oil would seem a little strange though, and drinking a dozen probably wouldn't digest well, no matter what you ate with that.  They really did go into detail about which aspect notes came out the most related to using different oils, teas, and approaches, but I suppose I was tuning in and out of that for not planning to try it.  I'll just stick to using hot water.  

Josh mentions where he sees this approach going, which is a novel vision:

In my mind how I see my process working is that the taster will begin a session with an infused oil made from the tea leaf their session will be based on. They move it around to coat their mouth and swallow it. Then I make the tea, and using an atomizer to mist the alcohol essence onto or in the vicinity of the tea or taster I can combine the every soluable aspect of the tea in one sitting.

Infusing tea with alcohol seems more promising to me, if someone already drinks alcohol, I'm just not so sure about using it to scent the air.  It could add a lot of potential flavor range to cocktails, and I suppose the caffeine could be a positive input, like drinking Red Bull and vodka, which came up after my drinking days.  Earl Grey is described as suitable for that use, in Tony's article, and gin is described as a popular alcohol input.

Huyen mentioned trying tea infused alcohol in a separate message discussion after that meeting.  She was having some technical problems with sound coming through; not including it in the session may have related to that.  I don't have much to add about that but a picture she shared tells part of the story.  She claims that wine is used as in input in at least one of these, which would explain why the "gunpowder" version is amber, instead of the yellow-gold one would expect from a green tea infusion.  Then again the liquor used in these isn't specified, on the bottle labels.  Sugar and alcohol content are specified. 

photo credit Huyen; that tea infused alcohol she discussed

It's not as if we only talked about tea themes in China and the oil and alcohol infusion issue.  This session ran long, and Narendra provided thoughts and discussion related to other tangents, especially as they related to Nepal teas, which he produces.  An interesting sub-theme came up about how family production and sales seem common in China, with tea production based on a plantation / large-scale model in places like India instead, and in Thailand and Indonesia.  Tea just seems better integrated in Chinese culture, beyond forms like masala chai being prevalent in India.

Only Alexander Zhiryakov also joined, beyond my set of friends and the others I've mentioned, but he was balancing attention with some other demand. We never drifted onto Russian oriented tea issues, or Laos Tea, or the Tea ID testing program theme we talked about in that other session.

Alexander is really pulling off a pandemic look

I haven't mentioned that Ralph was married in the last week; congratulations to both of them!

I'm not sure where this meetup form will naturally evolve next, but this was a cool step, expanding range to include more participants and broader discussion scope.

Huyen wasn't in the other photos.  Teams mixes framing formats when people use phones.