Tea with the Black Dragon

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!