Tea with the Black Dragon

It's amazing... THREE tea sessions in a row! This is the last of the tea from Box #5 from Old Ways tea, Yu Qilin. The qilin (or kirin) is somewhat of a chimera of Chinese mythological animals. It's part deer/ox/horse/giraffe/dragon and has been equated to be the "Chinese unicorn", but its mythology is a bit more complex than the European unicorn. There are a LOT of depictions of the qilin, and each one of them is a slightly different take. I'm not sure how this particular tea became associated with the qilin, but it's definitely a unique taste among other rock oolongs. Tea Information Type: Wuyi Oolong Vendor: Old Ways Tea Recommendations: n/a Cost per gram: Part of the Tea club Description from Company: This tea is from a friend I met at a university, who is from Wuyishan. Yu Filin is a fairly rare culture said to originate from the Zhengyan area. This tea is known for spice & incense characteristics. She has an info page on Yu Qilin, if you'

It's not often that I get to do TWO tea sessions in a row, much less from the same tea club! I'm trying the second tea from Box #5 from Old Ways tea, this time, Jiu Jiu Shui Xian. I love the shui xian cultivar, and I'm always curious on the different methods of roasting & preparation of it. It was made by her uncle, who had made a huang meu gui that was typical of what I expect of a rock oolong, and a good daily drinker.  So I am very hopeful of this particular tea, having a good roaster is like having a good mechanic that you can count on to produce good results. Tea Information Type: Wuyi Oolong Vendor: Old Ways Tea Recommendations: n/a Cost per gram: Part of the Tea club Description from Company: I got this Shui Xian from my uncle, the source of the Huang Mei Gui A from December 2020. It is is from his garden in Lan Shang, which he has managed for a number of users now, using no pesticide or herbicide; lots of sticky traps and manual weeding.  

I absolutely love getting tea boxes in the mail. There's an element of surprise and delight in seeing what's sent.  This tea is from Old Ways Tea's subscription box. The box arrives every two months, and what's nice about this box is that it includes tea that she normally doesn't carry in her store. She goes out of the way to include teas from family, friends, and family friends from Wuyi to include in the box. I'm particularly fond of this subscription box, because she sources all her teas from her home region, which predominately includes oolongs, which are a favorite. The tea box included: Tai Ping Hou Kiu (50g). Yu Qilin (40g), and Shui Xian (48g).  Tea Information Type: Chinese Green Vendor: Old Ways Tea Recommendations: She recommends " grandpa style " brewing --> 3 grams in a cup of water 90C (194F). Let steep for 2 minutes. Drink 2/3, then refill. If you want thicker soup, use boiling water. Cost per gram: N/A since this is part of a

Tea is like wine. A particular type of tea changes year-to-year, even if grown by the same farmer on the same plantation & roasted by the same person. Environmental factors (such as rain fall) and terroir play a factor, not to mention how the roaster might have felt that day. Then there's the aging factor. Over time (especially with roasted & fermented teas), the flavor profile starts to shift. Sufficed to say, tea is never the same from session to session even if all of your brewing variables are the same.  If one thing is constant, tea always changes. This is a 2006 harvested Da Hong Pao (DHP) that I purchased 2 years ago. It's a very fine specimen of DHP that I've had the pleasure of drinking. I've carefully stored it in the time I've owned it, and it's just gotten better with age.  It's with great sadness that I've now come to the absolute last of this particular tea. I've tried to drink smaller amounts in smaller teaware, but I can't

Back in March 2020, our offices closed down because of COVID-19. I was on vacation on the time and was unable to get back into the office to get my personal belongings, including a teaset and the teas I had brought to drink at my desk. This past week, we were finally allowed to return and retrieve our personal belongings.  The tea set was a cheap travel set I bought off Amazon, so I didn't much care for that. However. I was concerned about my teas. Many had been simply put in plastic bags, or air-permeable containers because I had ever intention of drinking them at work. They simply weren't properly stored for long-term. Sufficed to say, 90% of the teas I was able to retrieve were lost. Unless they were vacuum-sealed, they were all pretty much stale. So, unfortunately, the stale tea used for mulch/compost for some of the plants in our patio. It was a tad bit heartbreaking to "throw" away tea, but at least it was useful. 

I picked up about 10grams of this particular tea from West China Tea Company. This is a sub-cultivar  of the more popular Honey Orchid dancong oolong.  (Read the description below) I like to get anywhere from 10-30grams of a tea to see if I want to order more. Ideally, 25 grams allows me about 3 tea sessions with a tea....enough for me to listen to a tea to see how to brew it well. Sometimes, getting 30 grams isn't possible, for whatever reason. Ten grams is enough for two tea sessions.

For this tea tasting, I chose a Shihmen Tie Guan Yin. Why? Because it's May 1st, it's warm & beautiful outside, and I associate Taiwanese teas with spring. Also, I absolutely love trying new teas that are unusual, rare, or some other characteristic that makes it "different" from other teas, and this one fits the bill very well.  When I was looking through the 2020 harvest of tea from Taiwan Sourcing, this description caught my eye.  This region, Shihmen, is now a fading legend of tea.... First thing you will notice from this tea is the pungent Jackfruit aroma from the boiled water, then after that you will be soaked into its only-found-in-Shihmen taste and body feeling no where else can offer. (See below for full description) I realize that many tea vendors might hype up their descriptions for selling, but I was definitely very curious about this tea.   One of the owners, "Old Dog" called it a "unicorn tea", and had to be somewhat convinced to

Grandpa Style tea brewing is where you brew tea in a cup or glass or bowl, and adding hot water as needed. It's probably one of the oldest & simplest ways to make tea. The Chinese people have been experimenting with different ways to make tea. (Check out this article on  bowl tea .) Many regions & provinces make tea in different ways.  In 2019, there were ~1.4 billion people in China. There's no way that everyone makes tea in the same exact way. Many people in the West are just familiar with making tea in the "gong fu cha" style, but there is no single or "right" way to make tea. Making or steeping tea in Chinese is simple called,   pào chá 泡>茶 The only "right" way to make tea is to make tea that taste good, regardless of how you do it.

This particular tea is one I purchased from West China Tea Company. I love charcoal roasted teas, especially traditional style Tie Guan Yins. I love the taste of the roast, the smoke, the underlying notes of potentially chocolate, carmel/toffee, mild sweetness, etc. Each charcoal roasted teas are different from each other, depending on what flavors the roaster decides is needed.

This tea is from the West China Tea Company tea subscription box  that I got this month. I try to get taste as many teas from my subscription boxes as possible. Sometimes, I can only do it on the weekends! But this one intrigued me, so I put it high on my list.  ...

Red Blossom Tea (RBT)  in San Francisco started offering up tea samples (or they did, and I never noticed until now). I've been to RBT previous times and I've always enjoyed their tea. However, they are a little bit on the expensive side, so I tend to only buy what I know and like. With their samples, it was a little bit more affordable to try their teas.  I bought a few based on their descriptions.  For this session, I tried their Heritage Beidou  from their Red Label collection. Each sample is ~3 grams.

Have you ever gotten a teapot because it was absolutely gorgeous, but you didn't know much about the Yixing clay from which it was made? I saw this Ox Yixing pot on the Yinchen Studio's Instagram and fell in love. It was just before the start of the Lunar New Year of the Ox, so I had to get it. It is made with jiang po ni clay.

I've seen ginseng oolongs on various tea forums as people post asking questions about them, but this is the first time I've actually had a chance to try this particular tea. It's something that I wouldn't purchase for myself, but it was part of my Teaphile tea subscription and I am happy for a chance to now try this tea out. So, here are my notes for this particular tea session.

Clay teapots are usually dedicated to a single type of tea (e.g roasted Wuyi oolongs, fruity TGY, Taiwanese gaoshans etc). However, trying to figure out what tea is sometimes tricky.  I learned this particular trick in one of my tea groups and have used it with success. I love it because it appears to my inner scientist and helps me determine if a teapot works with a particular tea. FOR SCIENCE!

It's always interesting to compare a tea from two different harvests seasons AND to compare your own tea tastings. I only started keeping a tea tasting journal within the past few years, and my note taking style as changed, as has my tasting of tea. #teafiends As I've learned more about tea, my journal has evolved to catalog slightly different things or to emphasis certain aspects of a tea. This also demonstrates my evolving tastes and what I deem important. Here's a tea tasting of a Wild Tree Purple Varietal Black Tea of Dehong from Yunnan Sourcing --- the Spring 2012 and Spring 2020 harvests.

In 2020, I set myself up with a few tea subscriptions from a couple of my favorite tea vendors. #teafiends  Why? I love trying new teas, but I find that I tend to pick teas similar to what I prefer. If someone else picks it, then I might discover new teas that I will like. For example, I tend not to pick puerhs or white teas, but I am very much willing to try them. So far, I've discovered a couple of puerhs I might like to add to my Tea Stash (TM).  I also really wanted to support my tea vendors especially with the hard times many are having due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I had resisted before 2020, just because I wanted to pick & choose for myself the teas I wanted (and there was an issue of cost as well), but I'm glad I took the chance.

 I have a fondness for teapets. I picked up these set from Yunnan Sourcing.com several years ago. They are about the right size to individually sit on a tea tray without taking too much room. (I've had tea pets that were HUGE and not at all suited to being on a smaller tea tray.) I thought you'd enjoy them as well.

In various tea forums, I see questions about caffeine in tea, caffeine consumption, etc. Some people seem to drink a lot and not be affected; some people are very sensitive to the tiniest amount of caffeine. Everyone is different and one person's tea consumption is going to be different from everyone elses. Is it a matter of genetics or culture? Turns out...a bit of both!

Some people often wonder what to do with the spent leaves of a tea, once they are done with a tea session. Personally, I try to use as much of a tea as possible as the making tea is a very time consuming process that requires a lot of effort, especially if you're buying from farmers versus corporations that make tea.

I have been a writer all of my life, and I have kept journals over a number of years -- work notes, travel journals, personal diaries, etc. Personally, I find journals useful to track history, to learn things, or to rediscover things I had forgotten.

It's a new year, and 2020 was a very interesting time , as they say. I had all of these intentions to really blog about my path on the tea journey in 2020, starting with my trip to Japan. My intent to publicly blog did not manifest, but I did continue on the path of Cha Dao during 2020 as it really helped me to focus and be more mindful of the present, while dealing with the stress of the pandemic and our shelter-in-place situation.  I'm going to try and capture much of this journey over this blog through more tea tastings, personal anecdotes, and the ilk.  I hope you enjoy my continual and never ending journey.