to avoid over-brewing (and under-brewing) Chinese green tea (2)

Part (1) is here. 

3. Temperature
I don't believe temperature is a big factor that can cause over-brewing. As previously explained, in a vessel with wide opening and small volume, a tea can rarely be over-brewed, even when very hot water is used.

Interestingly, in my observation, I've noticed temperature is often a big factor that causes under-brewing. In recent years, there seems a trend of recommending rather low temperature for green tea brewing. I believe brewing temperature can definitely be flexible, based on personal preferences and with other brewing parameters (infusion time, leaf/water ratio, etc.) adjusted. But I am a little concerned that more or less, lower brewing temperature is becoming a dogma. Many people are told they "should" use rather low temperature for green tea (and similarly, for white tea), and are worried that higher temperature would ruin a green tea. Traditionally, many Chinese green teas are brewed at nearly boiling temperature (205-212 F) , some high end green teas with a lot of young buds are brewed at a lower temperature of about 180-205 F), and very few high end teas (such as March harvest Bi Luo Chun and En Shi Yu Lu, the latter one similar to Gyokuro of Japan) use even lower temperature of about 170-180 F). Currently, a lot of brewing temperatures recommended by various sources are even lower than the lowest of above-mentioned brewing temperature. When brewing a Chinese green tea at rather low temperature, a potential risk is the tea can be under-brewed, and the drinker would find the tea rather "tasteless". So when a tea drinker finds a Chinese green tea (or a white tea) short of taste, the first thought coming up to my mind would be "try hotter water". It doesn't always solve the problem, but sometimes it does.

(This previous post includes some discussion about brewing temperature for white tea.)

I have been wondering what makes people think very low temperature should be used for green tea. I guess, the influence of Japanese tea drinking might be a factor. Many Japanese green teas require significantly lower brewing temperature than Chinese green tea. When some people extends their tea drinking from Japanese green to Chinese green, they may naturally think similar low temperature should be used. But in fact, most Japanese green and most Chinese green are significantly different and therefore require very different brewing methods. Another possible reason why people think low temperature is suitable for green tea is the thought of "the more tender the tea leaves are, the lower temperature should be used", which might be naturally intuitive, but is often untrue. Besides, some brewing suggestions are probably made for 16 oz. or larger teapots that are more commonly found in an average household. Then lower temperature is used to compensate for the steaming and volume effect as above analyzed.

Some green teas can be enjoyed with lower brewing temperature without being under-brewed. Usually this involves adjustment of other brewing parameters.  

Anhui Long Stem Tea (杆尖)

You know, when you send a nice gift to family or friends, and when they enjoy it very much, you would feel so proud of yourself for finding such a wonderful gift. I like gifting friends with green teas, and would feel so proud for being able to send them great teas before their friends start drinking green tea for that year. A even better scenario is, when they enjoy it very much and can't even figure out what it is. In the past several years, I tried to introduce some rare and unique green teas to America, including Orchid Fairy Twig, White Plum Flower Peak and some others. These teas are not only new to Americans, but rarely seen in China either out of their home region.

A few months ago, I sent this "long stem" tea to a friend, who is a Chinese from the hometown of Xin Yan Mao Jian (信阳毛尖) and a very enthusiastic green tea drinker. Later he told me that he asked quite a few tea friends and didn't figure out what this tea is. And I told him "don't bother", and besides him and me, probably few people, if any, in our friends circle have had this tea before. To be honest, this is the biggest source of happiness in gifting others - you make them happy, you make them woo- and wow, but more importantly, you make them wonder and wonder and wonder what on earth this is :-D

This is the first year that I had this tea, and it's one of my favorite greens of the year. I just made up the English name "Long Stem Tea" to make it easy. The Chinese name has only two characters, but it involves a big chunk of technical history of green tea processing and there is no way to "translate" it.

So this tea has long stems. Obviously, the stem grows faster on this tea. This is an early spring first day harvest, and the stems are already so long. Somehow when this tea was invented, the producer chose to harvest with the stems. Rarely any green tea with such long stem is seen as a high grade tea. Historically Chinese green tea has very strict visual standards. Besides, most of the time stems are seen as tasteless parts that add to the weight of the product. So I guess it must have been a bold decision to harvest with the stem when this tea was first made. And probably there were technical reasons for it.  In spite of everything I've learned about Chinese green tea aesthetics, I like the long stem looking very much!

I almost want to tell everybody who drinks high mountain green tea from Anhui (in fact I've already done it for many times) - could you do me a favor and not use cooler water for it? High mountain tea deserves very hot water (as long as not covered by a lid)!

 

  

 

 

 

This is a typical Anhui tea, and a "relative" of Tai Ping Hou Kui. I sent it to my friend along with Hou Kui and a couple of other "relatives" of Hou Kui. It would be very interesting comparison. Besides, nowadays, Hou Kui has been largely mystified. A comparison of Hou Kui with its "cousin" teas would make us understand it better and appreciate it better. 

spring time tea

Perfect green tea season now!

I had a tea gathering with my friend Bin and his wife. Obviously my friends are of the Facebook generation. Bin took photos during our tea drinking and post them on WeChat (which is used more than Facebook by a lot of Chinese). All the photos below were taken by Bin.

I asked Bin to select tea to drink and the order of drinking. It was a challenge because we could just drink so much tea no matter how much more are available. We ended up tasting 5 new green teas, which turned out a good amount. The types of tea and order of drinking were casually determined by Bin on the spot, and they turned out excellent choices.

In our drinking, we used a very small teapot to share the tea, in attempt to save our tummy space for more types of tea. But this is not a typical Chinese way of drinking green tea. If it were not for the purpose of multiple tastings, I would serve people tea in a glass or a tea bowl, or a personal gaiwan for each person, for them to drink directly from the gaiwan. I would use one of these method.

We had Shi Feng Long Jing first. I sort of pushed for it, as a way to show my hospitality :-D Although I believe each tea has its unique strength, in China, treating guests with Long Jing is a way to express that the guests are taken very seriously.

We then had Tai Ping Hou Kui, which is another showy tea that a host would be happy to serve the guests. We didn't have my favorite vessel of brewing Hou Kui on the spot. But we managed to brew the tea nicely.

The third tea was An Ji Bai Cha. It turned out we used more tea leaves than the most desirable level. But luckily for An Ji Bai Cha, it's usually ok. This tea is featured with high nitrogen contents and low carbon contents, compared with many other green teas. Therefore this tea doesn't usually get bitter even when over brewed.

The next tea we had was Orchid Fairy Twig. We brewed it in a yixing teapot that's not very absorptive. And I figured that next time I would rather brew it in a shibo, or glass. This tea has very floral aroma, and it could get lost in a teapot with certain height.

The last tea we had was Lu Shan Yun Wu, this one made by Uncle "si shu" again. This time again, we used more than usual amount of tea leaves. But for Lu Shan Yun Wu, I often intentionally make it stronger, first because the tea wouldn't be harsh on stomach even when brewed strong, and secondly because the tea has very nice liquor texture, which is more prominent when the tea is made strong.

Overall, we had a good time, enjoyed the tea, and exchanged quite a bit gossips :-D I'm glad that we started with Long Jing and ended with Lu Shan Yun Wu. Among all 5, these two both have very long lasting sweet aftertaste, and their flavor is of lower tone compared with the others. In Chinese tea aesthetics for green tea, the lower tone types of aromas (such as the so called "chestnut aroma" of Long Jing) are often valued more than uprising aroma (such as floral aroma). Drinking several teas in a row somewhat helped me understand such traditional aesthetic. Somehow, among the 5 teas, Long Jing and Lu Shan Yun Wu became more impressive than others. They are both very good statement teas. But maybe it would also be a nice idea to put Long Jing later in the sequence. When we had Tai Ping Hou Kui after Long Jing, we felt that the aftertaste of Long Jing was reaching into our Hou Kui tasting, and could be a bit distracting.

Tea always tastes better when you share it with friends!

The last bit of 2013 green tea

I'm sitting in a room full of 2014 new green teas, while drinking this last bit of a 2013 green tea called "wild orchid bud". By the way this is a very unimpressive green tea name, as there are so many "orchid this", "orchid that" tea in China! This is one of my favorites in recent years. Amazingly, this tea still tastes very good. Sometime ago, when I wrote this blog post about shelf life of green tea, I was thinking that among all green teas well made and well stored, some teas simply last longer than others. For example, quite a few Anhui green teas (such as huang shan mao feng and this "wild orchid bud") seem to have much longer shelf life than teas like bi luo chun.

I tasted a few samples of this tea in 2012 and immediately fell in love with it. In recent years, I've decided to introduce at least one or two "new" (I mean new to American market) green teas to America. For example, in 2011, it was Orchid Fairy Twig. In 2012, it was Bai Mei Hua Jian. Up till today, not many people have heard of this latter tea (but the knowledgeable barbel carp tea lexicon has included this tea, impressive!), either in China or else where. But it's not less tasty than many very famous green teas. Last year, my "new" tea to bring up was supposed to be this "wild orchid bud". But unfortunately, a whole shipment with this tea and a few others were lost in transition, and eventually I only got a little bit of this tea as a gift in an order of other teas. But this year, it will come again!

Why would I drink old tea while the new tea is already here? There are a few reasons.

First, I'm very thrifty. Got to finish the old tea, no waste of tea!

Secondly, no matter how good the old tea remains, once you start the new tea, under the comparison, you will immediately switch to new tea and won't want any of the old tea anymore. You all know it.

Thirdly, it's ok to wait for a while. Traditionally, it was recommended that the new green tea should rest for 2-4 weeks before usage. It was for several combined reasons, including the flavor development of the tea and the traditional Chinese medicine theories. Whether or not the tea is healthier after a couple of weeks' resting, there isn't any evidence-based conclusion yet. But I do believe it and wouldn't mind waiting for a big longer. In the old days, one wouldn't even think about whether the green tea needs to be rested for 2-4 weeks, because nobody could get it any time sooner anyway. It used to take weeks for a green tea to be transported from its hometown to the province next to it. Nowadays, it takes several days for a tea to be transported from its mountain to another side of the earth, and it is possible to drink a new tea very soon. But it wouldn't be too much pain to wait for a bit longer. So, try to finish your 2013 tea first! ;-)

Discussion on Long Jing (8) - Grading of Long Jing (now and then)

Other discussions on Long Jing can be found here.

The grading of Long Jing discussed here focuses on the national standards created by Chinese government and local standards by Long Jing farmers. Names of grades created by other organizations or individuals are not within the scope of this discussion.

The grading of Long Jing has changed a lot in the past a few decades.

In the old days (before 1995), Xi Hu Long Jing was classified into 13 grades, from Superior 1, Superior 2, Superior 3, Grade 1... to Grade 10. From Grade 1 to Grade 10, each grade was divided into 5 levels. So there were totally 13 grades and 53 levels. It was the official and universal way of grading when everything within the tea industry was state-owned. Each year, standard tea samples of all 53 levels were made available as benchmarks to grade Long Jing products collected from tea farmers and to guide the market of Long Jing. It was a nice and strict system. But 53 levels were just too many to be practical for a growing market of luxury tea in China (Long Jing has been the utmost of the luxury tea in China since Qing Dynasty, after being "advertised" by generations of emperors).

Back then, the highest grade Long Jing (higher than Grade 4, or any pre-Qingming tea) was not available in the market for ordinary people to buy. On the other hand, money was not the key to get the best tea. "Connections" were sometimes more important. There were many years when the whole family of us got pre-Qingming Long Jing along with Long Jing of medium grades from my aunt who worked in the Science and Technology Department of Hangzhou. Somehow their office got Long Jing "samples" every year - which basically meant a few kilos for everybody in the office, yet it was called "samples" :-p With our special connection through my aunt, we were lucky to enjoy nice and fresh tea each year. But the amount was small for each person and the tea was seen as very precious. 

In 1980s, once my father went to Hangzhou, and bought some grade 4 long jing - the highest grade then available in market for ordinary people to buy. Up till these days he still says how much better the grade 4 Long Jing was than many so-called superior-grade Long Jing products in market today. I don't believe it's all because of his wrecked memory and nostalgia. Back then, everything went by the universal standards, and a grade 4 was a solid grade 4. Nowadays, many things could be called superior grade with a big price tag - I think I sound like a senior citizen now :-p

In 1995, the grading of Long Jing was simplified to 7 grades, including Superior 1-3, and Grade 1-4. This simplification was partially to make the grading less complicated, and partially because many farmers stopped autumn harvest of Long Jing. Autumn tea of Long Jing was of lower grades than spring tea (and this is true for most Chinese green teas). With increasing living standards of Long Jing farmers and higher labor costs, the lowest grades of Long Jing tea were discontinued.

Today the aforementioned two systems of Long Jing grading are still in the textbooks of tea institutes and are still used in tea labs of research institutions. But most tea estates and tea companies are privately owned now. Producers and owners can grade their tea in any way they wish. In Long Jing, as well as in many other types of tea, I've seen a lot of grade 2 teas from certain producers that are much better than superior grades of some other producers. So I think nowadays the grading doesn't tell you much about the tea itself, but tells a lot about the standards of a producer/supplier/vendor.

Without a centralized, consistent grading system, nowadays a lot of farmers of long jing, bi luo chun and other green teas use harvest dates to grade their tea - although it's not a perfectly scientific standards, it's probably more objective. For approximate dates of tea harvest, here is a tea calendar. But please keep it in mind that the harvest dates vary from year to year, depending on weather conditions.

blog sale - part 2

Part 1 is here.

If interested, please contact me at gingkoheight @ g m ail . com before August 24, 2013. 

Shipping is $4 flat for US, $7 flat for Canada, shipping to be estimated for other countries.

Shipping could be combined with Life in Teacup orders.

I aim at sending out all packages in two weeks. 


All prices are lower than market prices and not correlated with our web store prices. 


All pictures can be clicked to enlarge.


6. Tian Jian (Heaven Tip) Hei Cha sample set. $5 for each set of 3 samples.

I've planned to write more about hei cha, especially my favorite types, Fu brick and Heaven Tip. But before I could write more, here is a blog post from Walker Tea Review with a discussion that I participated in. There is also great contribution from Bill Waddington and Jason Walker himself.

** Something to note here is, this discussion was from more than a year ago, and my tea views have been changing through new experience and conversations with other tea people. When I reviewed this blog discussion, two big changes I've noticed about myself is, (1) thanks to a few great tea people, liu bao is no longer "tasteless" to me; (2) I'm currently reshaping my view about whether I believe puerh belongs to hei cha category - previously I thought no, and now I'm leaning toward yes. These are topics irrelevant to Tian Jian, and I will discuss them more in future blog posts.

There are 3 samples included. Each sample is 15g.

Heave Tip tea, especially newer ones, could be more or less smoky. It's different from the smokiness of some sheng puerh or other teas. But people who like traditional smoky style Lapsang Souchong may find it easier to enjoy Heaven Tip.

With time being, the tea would get milder and less smoky. This could be seen either as an improvement or as degeneration, depending on drinkers' preferences. Some people drink this tea in gongfu style. Traditionally this tea is brewed in a way very similar to so-called "western style" with a big teapot and mixed with milk. Although many varieties of hei cha are good for boiling in water, this tea is usually brewed in hot water instead of being boiled in water.

Of the 3 samples, (3) is the most smoky and (2) is the least smoky. (1) is closer to the "benchmark" taste for most seasoned drinkers of Heaven Tip. 

(1) Bai Sha Xi (this is one of the most famous brands, especially for Fu brick and Heaven Tip) 2012.

(2) Yi Ju Chang (this is a smaller brand) 2008.

(3) Yi Ju Chang wild tea farmer style, 2009. "Farmer style" is in contrast to "factory made". Hei cha involves complex fermentation process. So generally factory processed tea is regarded as of more reliable quality. Farmer style could be of various quality levels, usually either better than factory style or nearly a failure. Well made farmer style has prettier tea leaves than factory style. As for taste, it will largely depend on personal preference.

End of item #6.





7. Yunnan black tea samples. $2 each sample of 10g. Each 2012 version has 5 samples available. Each 2013 version has 10 samples available.
** Note that these teas are NOT suitable for people who give black tea only one infusion. One infusion would embody probably only 1/7 value of the tea, or less. Even mediocre Yunnan black tea deserves 3 infusions or more. For these teas, I would recommend at least 5 infusions and ideally more infusions (leaf/water ratio, infusion time and number of infusions correlated with each other), and hottest boiling water, as always.

There are 4 types of samples. All are equally priced.
(1) 2013 Fengqing Gold Bud
(2) 2012 Fengqing Gold Bud
(3) 2013 Fengqing "pine needle" black tea (not really pine needle, but pine needle shaped tea leaves)
(4) 2012 Fengqing "pine needle" black tea

(2) and (1) are of the same type from different years. So are (3) and (4).

All these teas are from one of my favorite tea producers, Da Dian (a few of their puerh products are available in Life in Teacup now, and some of the 2013 black tea might be put in the web store depending on the amount available).

Mr. Wu (the owner of Da Dian, and usually I just call him Da Dian) likes to give people surprises. He produced the 2012 versions of black teas, sold them, and didn't say anything special until this year. Then this year, when 2013 version came out, he made the announcement that his black teas generally taste better after resting for several month to a couple of years (but notice that he didn't say "the older, the better"), due to his choice of processing method that sacrifice some immediate aroma but benefits future aroma builds-up. I personally think he is very right on this. That's why I'm putting all these 4 teas together and I would be interested in learning what other people think of them.

So far I like the gold bud better. But it seems most of my tea friends like the "pine needle" better. It's worth mentioning that the "pine needles" were made from tea bushes planted in 1940s, very closed to the start time of Yunnan black (as introduced in this blog post).

Here are Da Dian's photos for these teas. 2012 versions look quite similar to 2013 versions.
Gold bud:

"pine needle":

End of item #7.



8. shu puerh sample set. 10 sample sets available.
8a. $8 for each set of 3 samples, or
8b. $4 for sample (2) and (3) only.

15g per sample.

The samples include:

(1) 2009 Chang Tai Wei Rong Hao Wuliang Mountain ancient tree shu. (Original cake is 357g.)
I think this tea would be recorded on history of shu puerh. I'm not sure if I'm the first one who've introduced this tea to western drinkers. If so, I'm honored.

(2)  2007 Chang Tai Wuliang Mountain shu brick. Directed by Taiwan Jing Mei Tang. (Original brick is 250g.)
This is a decent shu with a very good price. For this sample set, since I've included (1), I felt I should include this (2) as well, because these two teas have exactly the same Chinese name, from the same factory, yet they are not even remotely similar to each other. Generally speaking, (1) is of much higher level. Chang Tai is a very confusing producer, yet they made some very good tea. So I think it's less confusing if I could just put these confusing teas side by side.

(3) 2006 Jing Mei Tang small brick. (Original brick is 100g.) Directed by Huang Chuanfang of Jing Mei Tang.
This is a very nice shu with a good price. Since I've included (2) in this sample set, I felt I should include this (3) as well, because there is a lot of confusion about the name Jing Mei Tang. Most fans of Jing Mei Tang are actually fans of its "creator", Huang Chuanfang (HCF). But one thing to note here is, Jing Mei Tang is NOT the same as Taiwan Jing Mei Tang. The latter one is also a nice organization with Wu-shing Books (publisher of The Art of Tea) behind it. But HCF is not involved in Taiwan Jing Mei Tang. Instead, HCF current owns Kunming Jing Mei Tang, which is a different organization from the "old" Jing Mei Tang before 2007. But HCF's most famous products are from the "old" Jing Mei Tang era. This little brick is an example. It's not made of any fancy leaf materials and embodies the great technique of shu making.

Overall the Jing Mei Tang stories may sound very confusing. So I think it's less confusing if I could just put this 2007 Taiwan Jing Mei Tang and 2006 HCF Jing Mei Tang bricks side by side. 

End of item #8.



9. 2013 Huang Shan Mao Feng. $3 per 10g sample.

This is not a first day harvest, but a first week harvest. It's from the semi-wild Huang Shan Mao Feng producer. It's from about 700m elevation, which is already considered very high elevation for green teas. Generally speaking, this tea is not at the level of the 1400m Huang Shan Mao Feng we have each year. But this is not a comparison of producer quality. The other tea is a first day harvest and from higher elevation, so naturally of higher quality.

End of item #9.



10. Anhui green tea sample set. $10 per set of 3 samples. Each sample is 8g. There are 4 sample sets available.
The samples include:
(1) Tian Hua Gu Jian. It's somewhat similar to White Plum Peak green tea.
(2) Er Zu Zen Tea (Zen Patriarch's tea).
(3) Yu Xi Cui Lan (Mountain West Green Orchid). It's somewhat similar to Tong Cheng Small Orchid.

End of item #10.



11. Southern Fujian Sezhong oolong sample set. $16 per set of 4 samples. Each sample is 10g. Two additional free samples come with the set. There are a total of 10 sample sets available.

All 4 sample are from Mr. Liu, a Xiamen based teacher who also produces tea. He specializes in southern Fujian oolong from historical tea plantations (several of them were abandoned for reasons discussed in another blog post, and resurrected by Mr. Liu) with eco-friendly cultivation. The (2), (3) and (4) samples here are all from previously abandoned historical tea plantations resurrected by Mr. Liu.

These teas are not intentionally aged, but released when the producer thought they were well rested. 

All these teas are from Southern Fujian. They are more or less similar to Wuyi (Northern Fujian) teas but not exactly the same.

The sample sets include:
(1) 2010 Southern Fujian sezhong oolong. Cultivar unknown. The tea was collected from a traditional tea area where pesticide was reserved for Tie Guan Yin. Since sezhong isn't sold as expensive as Tie Guan Yin, it doesn't "deserve" the pesticide. That's why Mr. Liu selected high quality sezhong from this area.

(2) 2010 Shui Xian. Hundred-year-old bushes.

(3) 2011 Yong Chun Fo Shou (Buddha hands). Hundred-year-old bushes. Wuyi Fo Shou was introduced from Southern Fujian, but of slightly different style both in terms of cultivar and in processing. But Wuyi Fo Shou and Yong Chun Fo Shou share a lot of similarities.

(4) 2011 Tianma Mountain Mao Xie (hairy crab). Fifty-year-old bushes. Mao Xie is considered a very inexpensive varietal of Fujian oolong. Therefore, nowadays high quality Mao Xie is rarely seen. This tea is from Tianma Mountain of 1000m elevation. This is one of the few high-grade Mao Xie I've seen in years. This tea is made because the producer doesn't rely on tea production for a living and doesn't have to consider "cost and benefit" from making this tea.

Going free with the above sample sets are two more southern Fujian sezhong oolong from my favorite Tie Guan Yin producer. One is traditional light roast style Huang Jin Gui (golden osthanthus) and traditional roasted Mao Xie (hairy crab). These two teas are produced in plantations of nearly 900m elevation. Huang Jin Gui is from 2012, and Mao Xie is from 2009. The producer has discontinued these two teas because the plantations are too far away from major roads, inconvenient to harvest, and complicated to process in the traditional way. With increasing labor costs in recent years and low market price of sezhong oolong, it's not cost-effective to make these teas. The producer aims at going back to these teas after a few years when they are more financially stable. I got these teas at quite low price that doesn't match their quality at all. I wouldn't feel comfortable to either sell them for higher prices or lower prices. So they will go free with the sample set.


End of item #11



12. CNNP 2002 loose shu sample Y671. $2.5 for each sample of 10g. This tea tastes very clean and decent. But not super interesting.

End of item #12





Free stuff:

* Guevara shu. 10g. 10 samples are available.

This is the tea discussed here. For shu beginners, I would always recommend some least expensive tea of decent quality. Most of such shu are from large factories, as mentioned in a previous discussion. But this tea is an exception. Generally for beginners' shu, I often recommend recent year 7572, 7262 and a couple of other Dayi shu. But then very often new tea drinkers would still go ahead and get some unknown source shu that's even cheaper but rather bad representative of shu. Or some new tea drinkers would go ahead and get some expensive shu and then wonder what the point is. So instead of recommending teas that may not be available to new tea drinkers, I thought it's more convenient to put some recommended shu in their hands.

I think this tea is roughly of 7572 level. It won't be a fancy experience for seasoned shu drinkers, but overall of decent quality.


* Di Cao Qing small cups. Limited to 1 cup per person.

These are the smallest size yixing teacups very commonly seen. But they are made of much better clay than most of the teacups of this size in the market. These cups are "public relation" cups from the producer. They didn't cost me much. But marking them at few dollars each would undervalue them. So I would rather give them for free. They could serve as "specimen" for decent quality Di Cao Qing.

This one is also made by Xu Peng, whose Di Cao Qing teapots and other teapots are available at Life in Teacup. The clay used in the teacup is pretty much the same as that used for the teapots (color tone could be different due to variation of kilns and the shape and thickness of each vessel that respond slightly differently to kiln conditions; texture is generally the same).


* Taiwan oolong tea pumpkin seeds. 200g pack. It's made of melon seeds flavored with oolong tea, salt and some food flavoring. I got it as a gift but I'm not good at eating pumpkin seeds. Skills are required to eat these seeds. This is available to US addressees only due to its weight. It looks somewhat similar to this one, but the one showed below is a green tea pumpkin seeds product.

* Cut cubes of Fu brick samples. But please read this post and see the warnings before considering it.



End.

a recommended way of brewing Lu Shan Yun Wu (and most Chinese greens)

This is a Lu Shan Yun Wu from a different location than the last one. The leaves of this one look even wilder. The first day harvest leaves are usually of varied sizes, because at that time, there were leaves of various sizes, and the harvest workers would pick all leaves above certain sizes. In the harvest of later days (which still count as "first flush" if we use "international" tea terms), the size would become more uniform, because most leaves came out after the first harvest and grew for the same amount of time. The taste, in my opinion, is even better than the last one.

While drinking this tea, I thought of an article written by Wei, who is the single best source of Lu Shan Yun Wu that I know of, and is an iconic figure in Chinese green tea world.


The article is about the recommended way of brewing Lu Shan Yun Wu. My method is slightly different from his but largely in agreement with his. Either his method or my method, is just "one" way, not "the" way. But in my opinion, Wei's brewing method is the "mainstream" method of Chinese green tea brewing. I didn't invented my brewing method either. Pretty much, I'm just a copy cat of the green tea drinkers before me.

People who have talked about Chinese green tea brewing with me, probably know that I'm a big advocate of brewing green tea with boiling water. It's not that I care so much about how other people brew tea to begin with. I think, what agitates me is, in America, many new tea drinkers are told by other seasoned tea drinkers that green tea "should" be brewed with cooler water, and some new tea drinkers were even sneered at when they used nearly boiling water to brew a green tea. (And there is similar phenomenon in white tea that's mentioned in this post.)

For brewing of Lu Shan Yun Wu and many other high mountain green teas, my favorite vessel is a small bowl with a wide opening. Usually I would have the water fully boiled, rinse the bowl with a little bit of the newly boiled water, throw in the tea leaves and pour in the boiling water. Then I would drink directly from the bowl whenever I feel it's ready, and add in more hot water when needed. That's basically my simple "brewing method" if it could be called a "method". There are some variations of brewing method mentioned previously. And some green teas, such as Long Jing and Bi Luo Chun do require slightly lower water temperature (water of 80C and above won't hurt them though), partially because they are made of tender young leaves, but largely because they are not high mountain green teas (high mountain green teas such as Lu Shan Yun Wu and Huang Shan Mao Feng are made of tender young leaves too but do very well with boiling water).

Some people may think boiling water is "cruel" for a high grade green tea. But in fact, high quality green teas won't be harmed by boiling water. Actually, Wei's brewing method is more "violent" than mine. Instead of using a bowl with wide opening, he prefers a tall porcelain cup which would preserve heat and aroma well. He uses boiling water, and keeps the porcelain cup lidded half of the time (I generally leave the lid off even when using a vessel with a lid). He brews his first-day harvest Lu Shan Yun Wu all year long with this method. The full version of his tea brewing article can be found here (google translate would help, but the pictures alone illustrate his idea pretty well).

Why would some people think boiling water could "ruin" good green teas then? Here are what I could think of:

First of all, the boiling water we talk about is never 100C, but of a lower temperature. Nobody could get 100C water into the tea bowl. When the water is boiled, the temperature would drop from 100C. Even when it's put in the brewing vessel the fastest, the actual temperature in the tea bowl would drop to 95C or even lower. In the bowl, the temperature keeps dropping all the time. So brewing tea with boiling water is by far not the same as boiling tea leaves in water.

Some people use very large amount tea leaves when using cooler water. And if the same amount of leaves are used for hotter water brewing, indeed the tea would get too dark and may get bitter. If the right amount of leaves are used, then little care is needed. The first picture in this blog post actually could serve as an illustration of "too much tea". Usually that amount is too much. But this tea is an exceptional tea and an exception of amount is ok. For most green teas, I would recommend half amount of tea leaves in such a tea bowl.

If the brewing vessel is very large and/or the vessel is covered all the time, there might be some "steaming" effect that causes the tea to get bitter or off-taste. This was discussed previously.

If the tea passes its shelf life and gets intrinsically bitter,  then cooler water, or even cold water may help the tea perform better and avoid the bitter taste to be infused out.

Generally, I think, the same tea brewed by very hot water and brewed by cooler water could taste dramatically differently. So it's worth trying it out if you haven't tried brewing a green tea with very hot water.

Lu Shan Cloud Mist (廬山雲霧) made by the uncle "si shu"

Among all the Chinese green teas, probably Long Jing is the most famous and most wanted  - indeed the tea is great but there is also great advertising effect created by Qing dynasty emperors...Besides, the tea is produced near economic center of all eras (Hangzhou), which makes it easy for the tea to get popular.

Lu Shan Cloud Mist (Lu Shan Yun Wu) is another famous green tea, yet it's much harder to obtain than Long Jing. Although sometimes people say it's hard to get authentic Long Jing, I think it's only true if you add "for a reasonable price" at the end of the sentence. There are quite a few elite brands that sell high quality authentic Long Jing, such as Tribute Brand (贡牌), Wu Yu Tai (吴裕泰 whose Tie Guan Yin I wrote about here), Tian Fu （天福）, and quite a few more. Tribute Brand, in my opinion, is the best, since I know they get their top notch tea (not sure if all their tea) from Long Jing Village in the past years. Tian Fu is also known as Ten Fu in North America. But Ten Fu in China is a much upper scale store than most (or all) Ten Fu stores in North America. In China, almost all Ten Fu's green teas and oolongs over $800 per pound are of very good qualities - but of course it's a different story who would like to spend that $800... I wouldn't... but for those who have the money, why not.

Of the above mentioned, Tribute Brand specialized in Long Jing. None of Wu Yu Tai, Ten Fu or other elite tea vendors of their level regularly offer high quality Lu Shan Cloud. It's not offered in most tea stores out of its home province, Jiang Xi. That's why I would say it's much, much harder to get good Lu Shan Cloud than getting good Long Jing. And therefore I'm both thrilled and grateful to get Lu Shan Cloud in recent years from Wei, who is an iconic tea person to me.

I'm very reluctant to say which green tea is my favorite, because it's almost impossible to pick one. But I have to say, once I started getting Wei's Lu Shan Yun Wu, I feel I don't want to ever miss it in any future year.

Even within China, I would guess majority of green tea lovers have never had really high quality Lu Shan Yun Wu, because the production is small and there isn't a "brand name" of it run by a large company yet (which is not necessarily a bad thing!). Many people never had a chance to have Lu Shan Yun Wu. Some people only had mediocre ones and couldn't understand why this tea has such a great fame. For many people, including me, Wei's Lu Shan Yun Wu has become the first ever experience to know the true beauty of Lu Shan Yun Wu. Wei is a professional tea researcher but only an amateur tea dealer. His goal is to let more and more people know the beauty of Lu Shan Yun Wu. With this goal in mind, he only carries the best quality, and the amount is usually very small, with a few to several kilograms from each site (and Wei traveled by foot to these mountainous sites to get the tea). Amazingly, tea of each site has some unique characters, although all these sites are within Lu Shan.

This tea showed here is from Zhuo Ma Ling, a historical famous site of Lu Shan Yun Wu. I don't know the origin of this name, but guess it could be translated into "horse-stopping ridge", which indicates how steep the cliffs are. This tea is made by somebody we call "si shu". Year after year, within the small group of Lu Shan Yun Wu drinkers, si shu of Zhuo Ma Ling has become a popular name. Si shu（四叔）, literally means "the fourth uncle". In the countryside, everybody is related to everybody else. Si shu is an uncle of Wei's, and now he has become a famous "uncle" among tea drinkers. If Zhuo Ma Ling si shu is mentioned, I would immediately think of the tea that has some unique floral notes and very smooth liquor.

The dry tea leaves don't look extraordinary at all. They are obviously first harvest leaves from early spring, very fresh and vibrant. But in Chinese tea aesthetics, these dry leaves can't be called pretty. Once I discussed this tea with my favorite Tie Guan Yin producer, who barely knows anything about Lu Shan Yun Wu but has very good general sense about tea. He said, the dry leaves could definitely be improved and must be improved if the producer wants the tea to be as high-end as Long Jing or Bi Luo Chun in the market. But he also commented that it's paradoxical that non-commercialized teas don't look perfectly good but have their best natures retained; but once a tea aims to become a high-end tea, you don't know what eventually would be lost from it.

I think that's very interesting comment and to some degree, very true.

Wei often says, Lu Shan Yun Wu is a very "manly" tea (hmm, I'm not sure if I agree with the sexism statement but I got his point). I think its flavor strength and depth of liquor texture are way above vast majority of other green teas. In this sense, I would agree it's more "masculine" than many other teas. The tea is manually fried on top of wood fire. You would always see a lot of "blisters" on the rims of tea leaves, similar to the blisters on Huang Shan Mao Feng, but a lot more and a lot bigger blisters (proportional to the leaf size). While frying the tea, a good worker would fry it thoroughly without creating too many burnt spots on the tea leaves. But it's impossible to have none. There will always be some dark burnt spots on tea leaves, and there are usually a lot more dark burnt spots than those found on the manually processed versions of other tea types. For example, in the photo on the left, we could see a dark spot on the leaf at lower right corner. Overall, Lu Shan Yun Wu is made heavy-handedly. That's the style of Lu Shan Yun Wu, and uncle si shu is one who carries out this style perfectly.

Uncle si shu is the best tea worker in his village, and throughout his life, he is one of the best known tea workers in Lu Shan region. He is also a Buddhist, a gongfu (martial gongfu, not gongfu tea) and a locally well-known chiropractor who helped a lot of people with his skills. He is known for a lot of great things. But he is never called a "tea master", "martial artist" or "medical master" - these fancy words are not in the vocabulary of countrymen.

Yixing Jade Bamboo (宜興翠竹)

Yixing bamboo in yixing eggplant :-D

My first time ever having this tea. Such moments are always exciting!

This tea is produced in Yixing, the hometown of yixing tea ware. The tea is named after its shape - the dry leaves look like tiny bamboo leaves. This tea has a more famous cousin - Tai Lake Jade Bamboo, which is supposed to be very similar to this tea, but is produced in Wuxi, another region of Jiangsu province. Wuxi and Yixing are not far from each other and they are about 40 miles apart. Wuxi has very good soil/mud resource, which is used to make the famous Wuxi small figurines.

I had never had Tai Lak Jade Bamboo either. So I didn't know what to expect from this tea. The dry tea leaves look quite similar to those of Bamboo Leaf Green.

It's said that more than half of all green teas of Jiangsu province is produced in Yixing region. This is both surprising and not so surprising. I was a little surprised because Jingsu has quite a few famous green teas and Yixing green tea is not as famous as them. Meantime, it's not really that surprising, because Yixing was a famous green tea producing region throughout history. It was praised for its green teas long before it was praised for its teapots. Yixing has become a famous town of tea ware, not only because of its unique clay resources, but also because of its tea culture background.

Since this is a low-profile tea, I didn't expect it to be super good. But it surprised me with its floral, sweet taste. Good producing location, good manual processing, high grade leaves, and freshness, the tea has got it all. In traditional green tea culture, the leaf shape and outlook of brewed tea are very important. This tea has got them too. Brewed in a tea bowl, the little leaf buds all "stand up" and look like a green flower.

In the past a few years, I've got this same question for several times - "Is yixing tea ware not suitable for green tea because of its porousness?" Actually, yixing teapots are great for green tea. They were invented for green tea (at that time, other types of tea were either not invented yet or not in the mainstream culture yet). People have been using them for green tea for centuries, and are still using them for green tea today too.

Then, why would some people say yixing is not suitable for green tea? Here are my thoughts:
1. I think it's not 100% correct, but has its reasons.

2. Yixing teapot could be great for green tea. Yixing pitchers (like the above-showed eggplant) could be great for green tea too.

3. Some yixing clays are more absorptive than others. So indeed some clays might be less suitable for green tea than other clays. But it's all relative. A good yixing teapot won't be so terrible to ruin a green tea no matter what. Some more absorptive clays, after being used for a while, would become better seasoned. If one drinks green tea all day long (like in 18th century when there was barely any other tea in most part of China and most people didn't have as many yixing teapots as modern day shopaholics :-p) then it doesn't take long to have a yixing teapot well seasoned.

4. This myth of "yixing teapots not suitable for green tea" may somehow reflect the dwindling yixing teapots quality in modern time. Generally speaking, even when we talk about authentic yixing clay, there are a lot more low quality yixing teapots in modern day market than in the past. Historically, Yixing was famous not only for its clay tea ware, but also for larger clay wares such as plant pots. Typically the clay used for plant pots is of lower quality than the clay used for teapots, and the lower quality clay cannot go through very high kiln temperature without being broken. But in today's market, many yixing teapots are made by the clay that would have been only qualified for plant pots in the old days. And there are a lot of clays of borderline quality, better than the plant pots clay, but not good enough to sustain high kiln temperature. With compromised kiln temperature, the teapots would end up of lower density, and more porous than it's supposed to be. Such teapots would undermine taste of any high quality tea, and especially green tea.