Tasting Notes: TeaGschwendner China Lung Ching 2009

TeaGschwendner is one of my favorite sources for Indian teas, particularly first- and second-flush Darjeelings. They have a large variety of flavored teas (which I shall not be reviewing on this site), as well as a number of unflavored greens and oolongs, though these are less likely to be found in local TeaGschwendner shops.

Though I bought the tea not too long ago, it was still the 2009 vintage, and so it's not at its very best (typically, one would want to buy a green tea as close to its picking as possible, which would mean anywhere between April and June; drinking a green a year after its picking is obviously going to dull the taste a bit and make it sparkle less).

The TeaGschwendner China Long Jing can be translated as "Dragon Well," hence the graphic I chose for today's post. I originally bought it for my lovely sister-in-law as a gift, along with several other teas, but she returned the Long Jing to me because she disliked it. Puzzlement! I had made Laura some Long Jing teas, and I knew she liked it. So what was the problem?

Donning my Charlie Chan robes (I would have used Sherlock Holmes, but since Charlie was "Chinese," I thought he would be funnier), I asked Sister-in-Law Number One what she was doing wrong. She was ignoring the directions on the packaging, and steeping at too high a temperature, and probably for too long. I write this as a teachable moment for all my readers: DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT STEEP CHINESE GREEN TEAS AT BOILING, unless you steep for only a matter of seconds (in the range of 5 to 10 seconds per steep). This results in a harsh, ugly concoction that will make you return someone's very thoughtful gift to them, which they will then enjoy immensely without you.

When properly steeped, the TeaGschwendner Long Jing is predictably lovely: a tawny-gold color with a lot of fragrance. There is a slight bitter tang to the flavor, but the bright, high notes and long finish are quite pleasant. This tea survived two steepings nicely, and perhaps more that I'll savor later.

How to describe? There are elusive berry notes in the center of my palate, but the high is a bright, acerbic cheerfulness that I enjoy immensely. There is a hint of something dark in the low palate that offsets the high notes, to give a beautifully balanced cup.

I wish I had been able to get this tea when it was freshly picked, because I'm certain it would have been quite extraordinary. Unfortunately, the TeaGschwendner people have their tea shipped from China to Germany, and from there to the U.S., where it's shelved until it's sold, which means it was a bit beyond its prime by the time I got to drink it. I look forward to tasting the 2010 variety, which I hope will live up to my expectations.

Thank you, TeaGschwendner, for being so consistent and careful with your tea offerings. I've learned so much from living near one of your very few shops, and I am grateful for your considerable addition to the U.S. tea culture.

Tasting Notes: Bily Jerab Jingmai 2009 Sheng Pu-erh

Little by little and more by more, I'm learning about pu-erh, albeit at a glacial pace.

But learning tea is like that: slow, with much to learn, especially when crammed into the corners of a busy schedule. Modern life-- particularly suburban life, entrepreneurial life, and life with small children-- doesn't allow for much slow-and-easy meditation. As I write, my seven-year-old boy is playing with my intermittently but earsplittingly shrieking baby, which does not really help me get "centered," as the pop-psy people would say. Indeed, sometimes it feels miraculous if I can string two sentences together or follow any thought through to its completion. At least, until they go to bed, when I'm too tired to think anyway.

So I shall write these notes briefly, if only because it's certain I'll be interrupted before I can finish my post, if I write with amount of painstaking care I usually take.

Today I am drinking some pu-erh from my friends at Bily Jerab, whose complex circumflexes I shall have to forego when typing. They can be reached at info@bily-jerab.cz, and they're delightful as a vibrant part of the Czech tea culture, which you can read more about here.

The folks at BJ had sent me a package with a variety of young, sheng pu-erhs. I was rather hesitant at first, because I'd been reading how young pu can be extraordinarily harsh and difficult to drink. But I've found, with a light touch, that a very delicate and complex tea tasting can result in a time well spent.

Now, young pu-erhs have a lot more in common, in my tender experience, than they differ. I believe the process of aging a green pu-erh is that which really drives the different pu into their wide variations. But I find the freshly green pu-erhs are quite similar to my palate, and quite enjoyable.

This particular Jingmai 2009 has a very light start, with a pale golden liquor and an aroma and flavor of fresh hay, and very little bitterness.

The second steeping opens up with a bit more bitterness, which I don't really mind in this case. Light and airy, mildly astringent, with an almost metallic aftertaste that I find much more enjoyable than the wording suggests. A deeper amber color accompanies the aroma, which rides closely to the flavor experienced in the mouth (which is not by any means always the case).

The third steeping is a rich tawny color, with a very light, dry flavor, which makes me think of some white wines that are strong on "dry" and light on "fruity." For this tea, the trick is pulling out enough of the flavor without ratcheting up the bitterness. It's something of a tightrope, and it's difficult to hit it right at it's sweet spot with every steeping. As the tea sits in the fairness pitcher awhile, it mellows and sweetens.

As I wait for the fourth steeping, I'll stop a moment and think about these young, green pu-erhs. Unlike my expectations, they can be quite mellow, but that means keeping the steepings short, and not going overboard in the amount of leaf in the pot. A lighter cup might be interpreted as a weak cup in a black tea, but with pu-erh, the sharp brightness of the tea allows a fairly balanced cup. I use a purple-clay Yixing pot for my green pu-erhs, which provides a very happy experience. It's atypical for me to be able to sit down and have a proper tea, unbroken by interruptions, but when I can get one, it's something I look forward to. (I've been interrupted countless times during the writing of this post, so please pardon its fractious disorganization.)

The fourth steeping. At first blush, the tawny and transparent liquor has a herblike airiness, which reminds me of dry Illinois prairie in Summer. Which, coincidentally, I am surrounded by in my far-Western suburb of Chicago. There's a brassiness to the flavor in the very high notes, which is in contrast to the rich middle and the dry low notes.

As a quick note: The young, green pu-erhs I've been tasting via Bily Jerab do not have the richness and complexity of an aged pu-ehrs. In this case, the tea keeps the same flavor with only slight development as the tea goes, although it starts to lose its strength and power around the sixth or so steeping. At a certain point, I'll be steeping the tea for 20 or 30 minutes to get the last of the flavor from the leaves, before I compost them.

Well, I'm forced to stop my review, because a certain little princess is demanding all the attention she can muster. Please pardon the abbreviated form and the lack of deep rumination. I'd like to offer more, but a baby begging to be picked up just doesn't seem to care about the readership of The 39 Steeps. Well, she'll go to college someday, I suppose, so I'll be able to complete a thought then.

Until that time, thank you all for reading!


UPDATE:
Later steepings revealed a carmel-corn aroma and taste that was knockout delicious. Even though the mouthfeel at this point was becoming quite thin, the awakening of the new flavor was worth the wait. Beautiful end to a series of steeps.

Review: American Tea Room, Puttabong SFTGFOP1Q Darjeeling Muscatel, 2nd Flush 2009

As longtime readers of my reviews know (that is, if they care to remember), I find the Puttabong Estate teas of Darjeeling to be among the greatest in the world. Highgrown, mountain tea plants survive the rough winter and have a shorter growing season than those grown at a lower elevations, causing more intense flavor in the leaves, which is part of why the Himalayan-grown teas of Darjeeling are among the most prized in the world.

THE LEAVES
Smallish twists of pure black, highly fragrant. When they've been steeped, they take on a reddish-brown hue, fairly dark, indicating a highish level of oxidation, consistent with the way second-flush teas are processed. The aroma of the spent leaves is quite faint, easily overpowered by the other kitchen aromas of this morning's breakfast.

THE CUP
At three minutes' steeping time, about 90C, the liquor is quite a dark reddish-brown, crystal clear to the bottom of the cup. The very first moment, when the tea struck my palate, it was rather strikingly bitter (not a quality I look for in a tea, but not one I despise, either), but it quickly resolved into a very smooth cup, very complex.

When I speak of second-flush Darjeelings, "complex" is the characteristic I most highly prize. Layers of flavor reveal themselves on my palate at every sip. First, that bitter note (which may have been caused by my allowing the steeping to take place slightly longer than 3 minutes; life with an infant makes tea steeping times sometimes fall short of a laboratory's strict methologies); followed by an astringency that dried the tongue, reminiscent of a woody fruitiness, like blackberries or other dark berries; and then I notice this is followed by something akin to an aromatic evergreen resin, then other flavors I can't identify but enjoy.

For the second steeping, which I performed at 2:30, 85C, but it was underwhelmingly weak. I would advise a longer steeping. NOTE ON SECOND AND SUBSEQUENT STEEPINGS: I have sought long and hard for some kind of consensus among wise tea masters of whom I have acquaintance, and none of them agree about how to make a second steeping of a black tea like this Darjeeling. So you kind of have to guess and experiment with a tea until you find something that works for your palate.

I find that most people, when reading reviews of this sort, find them to be unhelpful when trying to recreate the exact taste experience of the writer. If you sat next to me while we drank the exact same cup of tea, you'd say, "Evergreen resin? What in the world are you talking about?" Well, perhaps it's best to paint in broader strokes, to convey the general, overarching experience, rather than try to notate personal taste memories that will not carry over to anyone else.

This Puttabong is enjoyable precisely because, as I allow a sip to sit in my mouth for a few minutes, various flavors slowly reveal themselves, ranging from the bitter, to the sweet, to the woodsy, floral, and fruity, and to things I can't identify but are uniquely characteristic of this estate's tea. It's the sheer range of characters that reveal themselves in this tea, one after another, that is so entrancing. It's by no means a tea that can be experienced at once, but rather one that is drunk as though it's a book, being revealed page by page.

The sweetly bright huigan, which is practically the only Chinese tea word I know (and so, yes, I overuse it; I'll work on that in future), is that retronasal experience when the tea is experienced through the back of the throat, entering up into the nasal passages. Did you know, the human tongue can only perceive five basic flavors-- sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami-- but the nose can perceive literally thousands of variations of aromas. This means that much of our delight in tea is caused by all those scents floating around within them. The retronasal experience of huigan is primarily caused by those smells, divorced from any of the five tastes perceived on the tongue.

There's a reason I spent almost 20 years of my life drinking primarily Darjeeling teas, and this is why: a second-flush Darjeeling can be an engaging, complex, delightful experience. My only problem with it was the strike of bitterness at the beginning of the drinking experience, but following more religiously the #1 Rule of Darjeelings: NEVER OVERSTEEP, would have served me better.

Green Tea Review Series 6: Aura Teas, Jian Meng Green Tea 2009

Very generously, my friends at Aura Teas sent me a variety of teas from their private stash of samples, which they are not (at least at this time) offering to the public. Amazing to have such an opportunity! Today I am tasting something called Jian Meng green tea.

I'm sitting in a Panera for work purposes, and enjoying the free Wi-Fi. My hosts are very kindly offering me all the free hot water I can drink, and they've been exclaiming over the wonderful aromas of the teas I've been steeping here today. The JINGtea Tea-iere is a novelty that, once they understood the purpose of it, has been surprisingly excited about seeing. Who knows? Perhaps Panera home office will get a call about offering high-quality teas to their customers, rather than the stuff they currently offer.

I've never heard of this tea, nor can I find references to it online, except that the term, Jian Meng, is apparently been used as to describe a Chinese pu-erh brick. Other than that: nada. So let's dive in.

The leaves are a pale green, fairly small leaf, and this sample has no small amount of broken leaf, but no stemminess. Beautifully fragrant leaves-- have I mentioned how much I love the highly fragrant greens? The aroma coming from the wet leaves is seriously intoxicating. I'm happy I'm sitting in an out-of-the-way corner at Panera, so fellow customers won't think I'm dangerously bizarre for sniffing my JINGtea Tea-iere, in which I steeped the leaves for three minutes with steaming, filtered water. Perhaps it's all the muscatel Darjeeling speaking, which I've been drinking lately, but there's a grape quality to the aroma: a fruity-floral, rather than vegetal, thing going on.

The liquor is a tawny gold, almost an orange, and it is highly fragrant, as well (which is not always the case). The Jian Meng is quite light on the tongue, with a bright quality that nevertheless doesn't have a particularly long-lasting aftertaste. I can taste a flavor rather like chestnuts, a touch of citrus fruit; and that umami that all the kids go on about nowadays, which makes me think of mushrooms, and well-seared steaks, and rich French onion soup. (Which is rather an odd thing to think about when drinking a lightly crisp, bracing green tea, but there you have it.)

Initially, though, there is a sharp bite to each sip (at least, while the tea is quite hot), accompanied by a lovely, drying mouthfeel that I find arresting. The dry mouthfeel continues on, even after the initial sharp flavor of the tea too-quickly dissipates.

In my experience, the Jian Meng's enjoyment seems mostly bound up in its beautiful aroma and it's substantial mouthfeel. The flavor, unfortunately, seems to die off too quickly after sipping, but for the umami, which I mostly experience almost by inference.

It's admittedly a bit odd, discussing a tea that is not in wide circulation and which I am unlikely to experience again, because I can make no recommendations to buy or not for an unavailable item. Nevertheless, how enjoyable to break open something I've never heard of and which is its own unique delight, with its own character and personality. What a pleasure!

As a side note: When I can find more information about this vintage tea from Aura Teas, I will add it here as an addendum.

(The above image is also an item of uncertain provenance: Maybe Jackson Pollack's "Number 1, 1950.")

Review Series Green Tea 5: Maeda-en Kuki-Cha Twig Tea with Matcha 2009

"Great with sweets."

Japan is a small island. Therefore, the tea farmers have to be very smart agronomers, making the most of the tight spaces they have to grow their crops. Kuki-cha is a crucial part of the system of making the absolute most of the resources they have. After the tender leaves are plucked every Spring, the Japanese choose to then pluck the green shoots and very frugally make that into a tea of its own: kuki-cha.

In this case, Maeda-en blends the shoots with a touch of matcha powder, which is made from the light-sheltered gyokuro leaves and ground into a fine tea dust. Matcha is typically used in the Japanese tea ceremony, but here is added to lend a bit of mellowness to the flavor and brightness to the color.

And brightness! The leaves are by far the lightest green in my tea drawer. When steeped, the liquor is an opaquely rich, saturated, radioactive green color that could easily have been accidentally created by Homer Simpson at the nuclear power plant. When I poured off the tea, I could easily see the sharp difference between the 1/2-inch, pale shoots and the darker leaf matter, which appeared much like cooked spinach.

When I first made the tea (80C, 1min), I found it to be a bit... well, weird and bitter. Sencha, I understand. Matcha, not so much, though I've tasted it at Japanese tea ceremony a couple of times. The tea was vegetal and a bit bitter. I went back to the Web site and read that this pairs well with sweets-- much in line with how the Japanese tea ceremony is designed, with dainty sweets accompanying the rather bitter tea, allowing for greater enjoyment.

So I pulled out our Toll House chocolate chip (on the theory that chocolate and matcha pair nicely together) and made the tea again (85C, 1min), and did have better results. The buttery quality of the tea was lovely and quite sweet (once the bitterness was taken care of), and I was able to enjoy the lightly vegetal quality-- a bit like asparagus.

Typically, I enjoy teas without accompaniment: just me and the naked leaves. In this case, the tea actually seems deliberately designed to be drunk alongside the sweets, much as British teas are cultivated to best survive the cultural habit of adding milk and sugar and drinking alongside scones and cream. Drunk on those terms, honoring the cultural heritage that brought about this tea, it's quite delicate and enjoyable. Drunk, though, in the raw (the tea, I mean: you can enjoy it in whatever state of dress or undress you choose), this makes much less sense and is not nearly as enjoyable.

Review: Tea Forté, Formosa Oolong '09

I didn't sleep last night, and I spent a big chunk of today outside, in the cold, at Goebbert's Pumpkin Farm, along with my baby girl and my little boy. Goebbert's is a farm that has gone the clever route of agritourism, in which they celebrate harvest with, among other things, the world's only Pumpkin-Eating Dinosaur, a haunted house, mazes, a couple giraffes (in north-central Illinois, no less), a pumpkin cannon, apple cider donuts, a cornstalk maze, and even pig races. (Hammy Faye Bacon won by a hair, incidentally.) The baby was warm because she was bundled emphatically, with all my bundling might; and my seven-year-old boy was racing around. So I'm the only one of the three of us who is cold and tired, and feeling just a bit old.

ANYWAY, to warm up and attempt to get through the long, dark afternoon of the soul, I am drinking Formosa Oolong by Tea Forté. It is in a clever nylon pyramid-shaped teabag, and I think the leaves within it are in pretty good shape.

THE LEAVES
Hidden within a tea bag, I can tell very little about their appearance. The steeped leaves have a pleasant enough, sweetly roasted aroma. I don't really think the nylon bag affected the aroma. The tea bags reside inside a pyramid-shaped card-stock paper wrapper, and they have a cute metallic string with a little leaf on the end. Stylish looking and neat. Typically, none of the teas I enjoy are distributed in tea bags, so I don't have much to compare this to.

THE PROCESS
I used just-under-boiling water (around 195 or so), in a covered, glass cup, for about 3 minutes. The Web site suggests 2-4 minutes, so I'm right in the zone.

THE CUP
A transparent, brown liquor with a roasty aroma. The flavor does not really work for me. I noticed an odd flavor note that makes me think of a paper bag. Now, I know that the nylon bag has nothing to do with this (not being made of paper, of course), but nevertheless there's something there I can't quite account for. Very light mouthfeel.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
I don't really want to belabor this review with the history of oolong, or the significance of Formosa tea-making practice, nor the proper place of teabags in the enjoyment of my favorite beverage. The thing is, I don't enjoy this tea, and I find I haven't finished the cup. I wonder if the paper packaging failed to protect these unfortunate tea leaves from off-flavors it might have picked up in transit or in storage. I'd be interested to taste this again, if I knew it was freshly packaged and stored in airtight foil. I don't think my leaves gave me the same experience that was had by the distributor when they first received their shipment from the tea farms in Formosa.

REVIEW: Li Shan Oolong 2009, JING Tea

Li Shan Oolong, 2009
JING Tea

"Oh, this is going to be good."

The aroma of the first steeping greeted me with an intensity that I'd forgotten. I've had Li Shan oolong only once before (a Fang Tea offering), and it had knocked my socks off. When that first whiff of this intensely fragrant leaf hit me as I poured out, I was reminded that I like Li Shan, and I look forward to tasting what this has in store for me.

Li Shan is a high-grown (over 2000 meters) mountain tea, and the region was recently in the news because a horrible hurricane swept the area, and the mountain tea gardens were unable to hold the topsoil, which washed down and caused havoc in the communities below. The Taiwan legislature has a bill in the works that (if passed) will make it illegal to grow Li Shan oolong at these high elevations, for fear that global warming will cause more hurricanes and thus more havoc. You can read more about this here.


1st Steeping: 25s
For the first steeping, I chose 25 seconds of just-boiling, filtered water that has been soaking with Japanese charcoal, and tea made in my new glass teapot, courtesy of the very kind folks at JING Tea. What a beautifully fragrant tea, with a creamy, milky aroma. The lemon-yellow liquor is perfectly clear, with a tiny amount of broken leaf that has snuck through the filter into the fairness cup. Perhaps it's the power of suggestion by the creamy aroma, but the mouthfeel of the tea is thick, quite substantial. Creamy, in fact. The balled leaves opened into springy, summer-grass green leaves that are only partially unfurled. This promises a number of lovely steepings. The damp leaves are deeply aromatic, and they seem only lightly oxidized, with reddish-brown only at the very, very edge of the leaf. I'm fairly partial to lightly oxidized oolongs, and this is quite typical of the type of tea I've discovered I really love.

I admit, there is a faint bitterness in the cup, only a frisson, and I believe it adds to the attractiveness of the offering by Jing. I don't usually look for bitterness in a cup of tea, but it's one of the five tastes, and we shouldn't try to avoid it in every circumstance, but rather embrace it as part of the sensory experience. In this case, it adds an edge to the otherwise very smooth cup.

2nd Steeping: 20s
Again, the lemon-yellow cup, clear and lovely. As the wenxianbei [sipping cup] cools, the aroma moves from these creamy, thick aromas to a more autumn-garden kind of aroma: earthy but light. Still, a very hint of bitterness, though less than on the first steeping. It's possible I oversteeped slightly, and so I realized I had a word problem on my hands. So I asked for some advice on my tea math.

Word Problem: Stevie wants to steep his Li Shan oolong for 20 seconds. His new teapot pours out at 7 seconds. He does not want to oversteep. Should he (a) start pouring at 20s, knowing that the latter part of the brew will have oversteeped by 7 seconds? Does he (b) start pouring at 13 seconds, knowing that the last drop will be steeped at exactly 20s? Or (c) does Stevie start pouring at 16.5 seconds [if he is able to be this accurate], knowing that the tea will, on average, be 20s?

Solution: As of the third steeping, I am going to go with (c), on the assumption that the average of 20s (or whatever length of time I'm steeping) is better than under- or oversteeping. I'm open to suggestions if this is not other people's tea practice.

3rd Steeping, 20s
I find it's difficult for me to describe this tea. Li Shan oolong is memorable among a thousand flavors: rich, earthy, fragrant, sharp, bright, subtle, redolent of cooking herbs and buttery bread. There's an undercurrent, oddly, of unusual animal aromas I associate with a day at the zoo: exotic, pungent, musky. In other words, my description makes no sense whatsoever, and it gives you no idea of what I'm actually experiencing.

So I'll try this another way: The difficult-to-describe aroma and flavor have coated my mouth and throat, they're rising up into my nose from the back of my throat, and the aftertaste is lingering a surprisingly long time. I like it a lot, though I can't say I would need to drink it every day of my life.

A NOTE ON REVIEW WRITING
Michael J. Coffey wrote recently that it is a crime against tea (to horribly paraphrase him and invite correction) to drink while writing, or write while drinking. He maintains that converting the experience from the nondiscursive flav0r-aroma-texture-energy moment, into a carefully edited piece of language blunts the pure enjoyment of the moment, and it inhibits sense memory. I can't disagree. But that being said, I write to help me remember over the long run, what I had experienced at one point, and to help me make purchasing, drinking, and serving decisions. And hopefully to encourage others to open themselves up to exquisite tea experiences they might not have thought to try otherwise.

ADDITIONAL READING:
Again, thanks to JING Tea for very generously allowed me to taste their Li Shan oolong (also called Ali Shan), a high-mountain tea from Taiwan. I wrote rather extensively about LiSan oolong here, and invite you to read about my very first foray into this intensely beautiful type of tea. I will excerpt here from an excerpt there, which I took from Winnie Yu's blog:

Li Shan Oolongs are the most intensely fragrant, smooth buttery oolong there is, topping Taiwan oolongs growing everywhere else. Particularly, there is a pronounced taste of gan that lingers for an entire day, with less and less astringency the higher the elevation, no matter how strong a cup of tea you make. Incredibly sweet with a taste of fruit that's been cooked at high heat, Li Shan tea no doubt is so highly sought after, many unscrupulous merchants would try to dupe the unsuspecting consumer. It is highly unlikely to buy any Li shan tea less than $200 USD p/lb. at a retail level, and at that price, one is guaranteed that it came from the second-flush or 'second spring', or lower elevations at 1700 meters. Da Yu Ling oolongs are well over $300 p/lb., and difficult to acquire even if one would pay for it, for all of the crops are usually spoken for.

Review Series Green Tea 2: TeaHub Pre-Ming West Lake Long Jing 2009

The folks at Tea Hub are smart. When discussing the provenance of their tea, they are very, very serious about ensuring that, say, their Long Jing (Dragon Well) tea really comes from the West Lake region in China. For buyers like me, this is invaluable as I learn about the Great Teas of the world.

Provenance is what the game is all about. Many famous Chinese teas are fairly costly, because there are only so many acres available upon which to grow a region's characteristic tea. Thus, limited source leads to cost increases in the tea when it comes to market. So unscrupulous dealers will try to sell quite similar counterfeits from other, less-famous regions, as the real thing. (As an example, imagine a Peruvian wine dealer trying to pass off their bubbly wine as "Champagne," even though it does not come from that region of France. It's misleading and harmful to the industry, and it sets the experts' teeth on edge when they see it.)

The Tea Hub's Web site (and their Twitter feed, @TeaHub, which is a place to speak directly with the knowledgeable staffers who know their tea) is a great source of information, and I urge you to wander through and learn something, as I did. This, I learned from their article, "Majority of Long Jing and Bi Lo Chun Are from Si Chuan."

Recent news from ChengDu Business Paper said that 80% Long Jing (from Zhe Jiang), Bi Luo Chun (from Jiang Su) on the market are actually from Si Chuan. According to the news, unethical business people purchase Si Chuan teas at low prices and sell them as Long Jing or Bi Luo Chun at 3 to 4 times the paid prices.

An expert told the reporter that appearance of real Long Jing and Si Chuan tea, Zhu Ye Qing, are quite similar. It is very hard for regular people to tell the differences. Experts from Tea Research Institute also said that Long Jing demanded high prices while its production was low. Therefore, some business people produce Si Chuan Long Jing to make high profits.

Good grief: 80% of the stuff was reportedly fake, back in 2004, when the article was written. For someone like me, who is only discovering Long Jing in the first place, this is just so frustrating. How can one discover what is the real deal, and what is faked?

Tea Hub followed up with a companion article this year, "Reading Long Jing Tea Leaves," which addresses the same situation. An excerpt:

Below are photos of the most common faked Long Jing on the market. The one on the left is Wu Niu Zao from Wen Zhou, Zhe Jiang, and the one on the right is Zhu Ye Qing from Si Chuan.

Both Wu Niu Zao and Zhu Ye Qing are early-harvest teas. Because that early-harvest Long Jing demand much higher prices and only have limited productions, some illegal business people chose to fake Long Jing with Wu Niu Zao and Zhu Ye Qing in pursue of maximum profits. Real Long Jing teas have beautiful straight, flat leaves with none or very few hairs. Faked Long Jing, on the other hand, have fluffier leaves, some even covered with hairs. Leaves of faked Long Jing from Zhu Ye Qing are smaller than real ones. Leaves of faked Long Jing from Wu Niu Zao are bigger than real ones.

There are other sources of information about this same phenomenon, as well; I think I will write an article about, "The Great Tea Counterfeit Heist: The Seamy Underbelly of the Dirty Tea World," sometime. In the meanwhile:

THE TEA HUB: West Lake Long Jing

Tea Hub's description of their West Lake Long Jing scans with the information above.

Pre-Ming West Lake Long Jing/ Dragon Well (明前西湖龙井) 2009 Spring Tea!

Another great West Lake Long Jing (also called Dragon Well or Lung Ching) from Tea Research Institute in HangZhou, the only authority in tea quality test in China.

This delicate pre-Ming Long Jing was grown at Tea Research Institute's Long Jing tea garden in the protected West Lake Long Jing Origin area, and hand fired by experienced masters. This year's extremely cold weather caused delay in harvest. Our Long Jing is the few early harvest. This tea carries Chinese Green Food Certificate.

THE LEAF
Exactly as described. Sadly, when I originally started writing this article, I did not have camera on hand to document the leaves, but they were a brilliant green, sharp and flat because of the method of frying the leaves, and delicious. And when I say, "delicious," I meant that I tasted the leaves, and it's like wonderful tea candy. Seriously, they could market it as a snack-- except for the fact that you get a mouthful of rather gummy tea leaf residue once the crunch has worn off. When wet, the leaves took on a beautiful citrus-grape and seashore aroma. It's the aroma that is so intoxicating with this type of tea, really.

THE CUP
The liquor: pale greenish, clean. It's highly fragrant, and this Long Jing is as good as any I've ever had. It's refreshing, like the aroma of freshest grass clippings, like citrus, like lemon...

I found a sweet, sweet aftertaste, which rises up through the throat. This is why I drink tea.

I can quaff this down in large quantities, because it is so easy and pleasing to drink (same with cranberry juice: can just chug it forever, seemingly) without coming up for air.

The package says it is pre-Ming, and it's been dated quite carefully. Happily, because of the certification, I can have some certainty that this is the real deal, and not faked. As I attempt to develop my palate enough to be able to tell the real thing from the fake, it helps when I can perhaps trust the dealer to be providing something legitimate.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
I can't wait until next Spring to be able to buy the 2010 Long Jing. This tea is best purchased right around the time of picking, so when it's drunk, it'll be at its best. When I took the tasting notes on this tea, it was only a couple weeks after it had been harvested. (Sad, how long it took me to finish the rest of the article! I'm trying to catch up, really I am.) You would not really want to buy or taste a Longjing in midwinter, for example, because by then the leaves would have lost their "oomph." Green tea, in particular, is a seasonal, vintage product, and it's best enjoyed on those terms.

(This review has been cross-posted at TeaViews.com)

Review Series Darjeeling 1: Risheehat Clonal Flowery SFTGFOP1, Second Flush '09

I'm dealing with quite a backlog of partially written reviews, which have been piling up for a while. I'm creating a number of interlocking series of reviews, and this kicks off Review Series Darjeeling.

My great tea friend, Benoy Thapa, is the face of Thunderbolt Tea. He blogs occasionally at the Darjeeling Tea Blog, and his very useful Twitter feed is @DarjeelingTea. Thunderbolt Tea also has a Facebook page, which is another pretty useful way to keep up with him. Quick tea fact: Did you know that the word, Darjeeling, is a reference to the thunderstorms that keep the tea so well watered?

Now, why am I shilling so shamelessly for Benoy? Mainly, as a lover of Darjeeling tea, I appreciate learning about what's happening in Darjeeling, and how the weather is affecting the crops and so on. Plus, it's lovely to think of whether the clouds are hiding the mountains, and which festival is going on, and the like. For me, it's been a great help in gaining a better understanding of the local conditions in which my beloved Darjeeling teas are grown.

Earlier this summer, Benoy sent me simply the most extravagant shipping I've ever seen, with the tea encased in no less than five packages: a paper sack, within a mylar or some such shiny metallic plastic bag, packed with four other teas, all within another mylar bag, within a cardboard box, all sewn into a burlap package covered in sealing wax, with almost every square inch of the package covered in writing for customs officials. Shipping things from overseas to the United States is no mean feat, because the laws governing herbs are so strict. I very much appreciate the great effort Benoy took to ensure this great tea arrived here intact.

Today I'm drinking a Summer '09 Risheehat Estate Clonal Flowery. Now, for those of you who haven't really dug deeply into the world of Darjeeling teas, you have to learn that great teas are like great wines: They are vintages that can differ greatly from region to region, and farm to farm, and season to season. The first flush is the Spring plucking of the leaves, and they typically have rather a lighter touch than the second flush or autumnal flush pluckings. The second flush, which is plucked in summer, is typically more complex and robust than the first flush. The teas from a great estate like Risheehat can be so exciting, because they are unique in the world's tea, with a character distinctly special.

THE LEAVES
I've found that most high-quality Darjeeling tea leaves have a fairly similar appearance when they are dry: tight, fairly small twists of black leaf, with a bit of golden tippiness and no sign of branches. Once they have been steeped, they take on more varied character. for the Risheehat clonal flowery, we see a bit of reddish-brown, broken leaf, well oxidized, though with bits that have a greenish cast.

THE CUP
This tea had a pretty dark-brown liquor, with the characteristic Darjeeling aroma, very classic; with a lovely, bright floral scent of summer berries. Now that autumn is here in Illinois, with the gray clouds streaming by, it's like drinking a bit of summer in a cup, with bright colors and sharp flavor. The tea has such a sharply defined taste, which is a bit difficult to describe. There's sort of an astringent chocolate, like bitter dark chocolate, overlaid with a fruity high note of berries and brown honey. It's sweet-- requires no sugar or milk at all-- and has a huigan [sweet aftertaste] that moves into more a light cocoa flavor I sense hints of almond nuttiness. (I always think of Ratatouille, in which Remy's brother, upon hearing Remy spout some such nonsense, said, "Oh, I sense nuttiness, all right.")

When drinking this tea, please do not neglect to make a second steeping. I have heard much discussion about how to conduct a second steeping: Some people say only steep a few seconds (10 or 15) on the belief that the leaves, already opened, are ready to release their flavor quickly; others suggest doubling or tripling the length of the steeping, so that you draw the most out of the leaf. I just steeped the same amount as the first time 'round (3 minutes, Third Boil (98C), and poured off. Same dark-brown color. This time the flavor is a bit brighter, absent some of the darker notes that were evident in the first steeping. Slightly more astringent, which means it's a bit dry in the mouth, like a white wine. Not quite the body of the first round, but pleasant enough.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
Quickly, go to the Thunderbolt Tea Web site, and buy up some of these wonderful teas before Benoy runs out of them. Many of the first-flush teas are gone, but there are still quite a few great second-flushes available for purchase. Thunderbolt has an amazing selection of high-grown, single-estate teas, and the Web site has good information about each distinct vintage, to give you an idea of what you're buying. And the Autumnal Flush is not far off, I believe!

Review Series Pu-erh 5: "Epsilon" by Yunnan Sourcing

I am excited about the newest sample, ε, which is the final one in the tasting event hosted by Hobbes at The Half Dipper blog. He has identified this as 2009 Yunzhihuan/Ruicaoxiang "Banzhan Chunqing."

This pu is pretty heavily compressed, and it took some doing to separate out the leaves in the beeng. I thought the aroma was quite subdued coming from the package. After the leaves are first steeped, they remain quite quiet about it, and don't have a heavy or terribly exotic aroma. It's pleasant enough, with that tobacco aroma dominating, and a lightly floral texture to it.

Rinse: 10s

First steeping: 13s
The epsilon pu-erh is quite assertive, right off the bat. A bit of bitterness balanced nicely with a sweet quality that makes it very drinkable. Lovely yellow-gold color, light and pure.

Second steeping: 12s
Sweet tobacco, a hint of smokiness. Very crisp flavor, bright and clean. There's a greenness to this, but not much of what I would think of as the huigan, the aftertaste-- the tea remains quite constant in flavor from the moment it hits my tongue, with little variation in the ensuing seconds.

Third steeping: 13s
I'm aware in my mind of Michael J. Coffey's advice not to write about what you're tasting, because it diminishes one's ability to remember the flavors later. Well, I do what I can: I try to taste first, just experience the nondiscursive element; and then later to give voice to it, if I can. This tea has a touch of bitterness, still (and enough that my seven-year-old boy found it a bit too much for him). However, nicely complex, with a sort of leatheriness, perhaps, in the flavor, and a quite sweet burn a few moments after the tea is up.

Fourth steeping: 15s
Astringent and drying, with a full, robust mouthfeel that coats the tongue. The bitterness is still present, but not dominant; and it fades into a nicely sweet tobacco flavor. I wouldn't really think of this as a sweet pu-erh, but it's complex and fun to drink.

Fifth steeping: 17s
Getting a mite twitchy, I must say, after the fifth steeping (on top of the several pots of Darjeeling earlier today). My little boy says, "It has a good texture. It's a little, tiny, tiny, tiny bit bitter." He's seven years old, by the way. He's right: good texture, and the slightest bit bitter. Maybe he needs less pu-erh, because he hasn't stopped talking (about his comic book, The Battle Begins, which he is writing) in the last 10 minutes.

Sixth steeping
I am continuing this steeping onward, as I have with others. If I feel the need to add anything, I shall do so as an addendum later. I'm very much enjoying this particular pu-erh, with its lovely tobacco smell and pretty bright complexity.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
This series of tea tastings has been, for me, a great introduction into the world of pu-erh. Along the way, I've made a couple new tea friends, which has been very gratifying. Honestly, for the last couple years I've been very hesitant to try the genre of pu-erh, because of all the pretty terrible press it's received, what with all the faked beengs being sold at ridiculous prices, and the near certainty that I would ruin my palate by learning about pu-erh the wrong way: by drinking lousy tea, made the wrong way, setting up incorrect assumptions. For me, this tasting is invaluable, because it allows me to check my tastebuds against those of other tea drinkers, and to try to understand what they're experiencing as well, in a context in which I'm allowed to simply enjoy myself without guarding myself against being scammed or something by a dishonest pu-erh salesman. Additionally, I got to share this with my family and allow them to have fun learning right along with me. Brilliant fun.

Thank you, Hobbes of The Half Dipper, and Yunnan Sourcing, for opening the door for me to the world of pu-erh.


The above photos: antique green bowl by The Haeger Potteries; Yixing pot by Art Zisha, Zhuxinnan Products, via Bret at Tea Goober; antique tea trays (which perfectly match the orange-gold of the pu-erh, and which nicely complement the green bowl) via my Great-Aunt Lydia Behm; and Tiger Drill hero image by my seven-year-old son. That's his hand in the picture at top. And buster, you haven't seen anything if you haven't gotten a look at his newest creation, "Explosive Cowboy Man."

Review Series Pu-erh 4: "Delta" by Yunnan Sourcing

Today I am tasting Δ (Delta), the fourth of five in Hobbes's pu-erh tasting series. As with the rest of the series, I am imitating the video I found on the Wrong Fu Cha Web site, in which a bowl is filled with hot water, and the teapot is brewed inside it, helping maintain high temperature throughout the steeping process. I don't do this because I am definitively saying this is the best way to do gongfu, but rather because I found the video to be engaging and fun-looking, so off I went. The results have been enjoyable, and I hope for the best. I'm writing this instead of sleeping, using tea to get me through a very long night of work. Sometimes, it's better to power through than to sleep. I hope this is one of those times.

And my standard disclaimer: I am not a pu-erh aficionado, and so if you're here expecting an expert's eye overlooking the leaf, wringing from it the secrets of its making, you're in the wrong place. However, if you're new to this type of tea, as I am, perhaps this will convince you to search out some pu-erh of your own and give it a whirl.

THE SHORT VERSION
I drank this tea over the course of two days, with something like a dozen or so short steeps, ranging from about 10s to up to several minutes. The tea provided me with plenty of energy to get through a particularly difficult set of deadlines I faced. The pu-erh itself had a pleasant tobacco shop aroma, with a flavor that changed over time: starting a touch bitter, moving into a sweetly burnt-caramel sensation, and with quite a bit of complexity. If you have not tried pu-erh, or the Chinese way of making deconstructing a pot of tea by breaking it down into many short steeps, I would encourage you to try. For coffee drinkers, I would think pu-erh would provide you with something you could get your tastebuds around, so to speak: lots of solidity and "oomph," and with quite a bit of buoyancy in mood.

Hic Sunt Dracones

THE LONG VERSION
What follows are my detailed tasting notes, which you don't need to read unless you have quite the attention span. I am learning as I go, and this helps me track my experience for future buying decisions (and for general knowledge). Beyond Here Be Dragons and Unduly Long Descriptions of Brown Leaf Juice.

Rinse: 10s
Quick rinse of my new zisha pot, which I picked up during Bret's sale on his Web site, Tea Goober. Bret, thank you for the lovely pot. After the rinse, the leaves take on a rich, darkly tobacco scent, which promises much loveliness.

Steeping 1: 10s
A touch bitter the first cup, so probably a 5s steeping would have served me better for this first steeping. HOWEVER, the second cup of the first steeping (even at this early stage) starts to show me the waking complexity of this cup. Michael Coffey would rebuke me for trying to put this into words, but I want to convey how interesting this pu is to me: it's got a brilliant flavor, but there are so many layers of flavor that reward me when I close my eyes to sip.

The aroma reminds me of the Iwan Ries tobacco my Grandpa Allison used to smoke in his home in Effingham, Illinois. When I'd visit, his immaculate house always carried this sweet-tobacco scent, which I associate with his pipe collection. He never smoked around me (on account of the asthma I suffered under as a kid), but the sweetness of this leaf became one of my Favorite Things. I'd sniff around his pipes and the pouches of leaf he would have on his pipe stand, the wood of which was redolent of tobacco in and of itself. Please don't ask me which specific Iwan Ries tobacco he would smoke, because my memory doesn't carry so far. Strange, how drinking Chinese tea can make me miss my Grandfather.

While I was writing the above, I was struck by the huigan, which is the Chinese term for the sweet aftertaste that rises up in the throat, retronasally. In this case, it's light and compelling, very enjoyable.

Steeping 2: 12s
In spite of my desire to pop that tea out quickly, I just couldn't move enough. All the descriptions of gongfu cha on the Web sites fail to mention how hot everything is, and how fragile. Tea pot burning fingers! Do not drop tea pot, which you just bought. Pour out gently, even while fingers are uncomfortably hot. Suddenly, 5 seconds becomes 12. Chinese people must have fingers made of titanium, to be able to withstand all this hot water. The aroma rising from my wenxianbei (aroma cup) is like caramel, or burnt sugar, and sweet cotton candy. Which are all kind of the same thing, I realize. There's a rich mouthfeel that accompanies that bitterness-- which, naturally, would have been avoided with a slightly shorter steep. So sue me. Happily, I don't mind a touch of bitterness in my tea, though I know it's not truly optimal. As before, the second cup (and subsequent) are not nearly as bitter as at first, so either I'm acclimating to the bitterness, or there's some process in the fairness cup that is mellowing the flavor. My enjoyment rests primarily in the aftertaste, which is complex and lovely, and keeps opening up as the seconds tick.

Steeping 3: 12s
I just cannot pour fast enough, and 12 seconds seems to be about the amount of time it takes me to get the hot kettle back to the stove and then be able to pour off the tea. I do not have a tableside electric kettle, nor a charcoal brazier of the type favored by Imen Shan at Tea Habitat. Nevertheless, I soldier on.
Here, the tea is taking on a much richer aspect in both mouthfeel and distinctiveness of flavor. I wish someone were here to taste this with me, but it's midnight, and I'm trying to energize to work through until morning. There's tobacco, and a tingly mouthfeel I associate with some type of menthol. The orange liquor has remained quite constant. There's a drying aspect to the mouthfeel that has me wishing for a tall glass of ice water.

Steeping 4: 10s
Ah, I'm in the zone, getting in a shorter steep, at last. I begin to understand the wisdom of this type of steeping method. By keeping the pot submerged in quite hot water, it allows the leaves to stay at a nicely warm temperature, no matter how long (within reason) I take between steeps. It probably wouldn't matter as much if I were in of a larger party, were the tea flowed more quickly. But by myself, I think it helps.
At this point, there is a richer sweetness developing, which I find surprising. I've gotten used to the flavor, but now as the bitterness recedes, these other flavors appear. Seriously, lovely, and the best steeping yet. Tobacco is less pronounced, and other complexities rise up.

Steeping 5: 10s
Sigh. I need to get to work, as midnight has arrived. While I waited for the water to heat this last time, I read through accounts of sea serpents (click the map picture above), with lots of amusing and fascinating images of sea monsters, as drawn by cartographers and artists a couple centuries past.
And what does that have to do with tea? Well, tea has water in it. And tea came by ships. And... well, nothing, really. Anyway, the pu-erh: The tobacco flavor has taken on a sharper aspect now, with a smokier character, yet with notes of fruit, like apple or melon, floating on top of the heavier aroma. Very lovely.

I'll continue this journal as I go, in between bouts of work, which I expect to be doing throughout the night. I hope the Qi, or the caffeine+theanine, will help me stay alert and focused.

Steeping 6: 15s
Still going strong, with a beautiful aroma that drifts from the fairness pitcher as I work. A slightly sour honey flavor, with a kind of hay overtone is evident. Really nice.

Steepings 7 through 12 (or so): various lengths
I really rather do like this pu-erh, so I kept it going on into the next day. Perhaps at its 12th steeping or so, I moved on. The tea provided me with the energy to get through the deadlines I needed to finish, and then some. The pu's flavor and aroma remained pretty steady, without much variation after about the 7th steeping.

Review: An Ji Bai Cha '09, Grand Tea

It's amazing what you find when you just start searching for crazy things on Google. I typed in, "wolf drinking tea," and lo and behold, this image is what I discovered. Thank you, Migy Illustration, for the great image. Please go to their Web site for much illustration goodness.



Grand Tea: An Ji Bai Cha

Today I find myself wolfing down Grand Tea's An Ji Bai Cha like it's going out of style. Of course, if wolves drank tea and dressed as snappily as the ones in the illustration, they might not have quite the public relations nightmare they've developed.

THE BACKGROUND
An Ji Bai Cha has quite a unique story: it's a long-lost tea that was recreated only a few years ago by tea sleuths putting together hints found in various ancient texts. I wrote about it in detail here, and I hope you'll go there to read about where this enjoyable tea comes from.

THE LEAVES
When I open the package from Grand Tea, provided to me via the folks at TeaViews.com, I am confronted with a singingly fresh, bright, grassy fragrance that instantly takes me outside. The leaves look much like a longjing tea: two fresh green leaves and a bud, carefully formed by carefully orchestrated movements, whereby the tea processors place the green leaves into large woks coated with a small amount of tea oil, and they pan fry them using special hand movements (usually 10) that fold and refold the leaves into flat spears.

My notes, and I quote: "SOOOO GOOD."

THE PREPARATION
In a Japanese teapot, I used 1 tsp/cup at 70C, for 4 minutes.

THE LIQUOR
As is typical with an An Ji Bai Cha, it is a pale gold with a very slight greenish cast. Beautifully sweet with slight hint of bitterness to the tongue (maybe less time steeping would work better). This tea has much the same effect on me that good cranberry juice has: I can drink it endlessly, insatiably, and never feel like I've had enough. I would get to the bottom of the cup, surprised that I was done already, and ready for more.

Comparing three Arya Estate '09 Darjeelings

It's moments like this that remind me why I drink tea. I've come a long way from avoiding stale teabag tea, to being able to experience (at once) three of the premiere teas of Darjeeling. It's hard to express how lovely is the aroma I'm experiencing. It's like springtime; it's like a mountain of spices.

I have before me three cups of Arya Estate Darjeeling, provided very kindly by Thunderbolt Tea, via TeaViews.com, where I am a contributor. The three teas are:

Arya SFTGFOP1 China '09
Arya FTGFOP1 Clonal '09
Arya SFTGFOP1 Sample '09

What surprises me is how different the tea leaves appear, but how alike the liquors themselves are. The aroma rising from the three cups is intoxicating.


Arya SFTGFOP1 China '09
Slightly bitter, complex, astringent, leads to sweet aftertaste. High notes of cherry or berry fruit;

• Dry leaves: Twisted green-black leaves. In terms of oxidation, the middle.
• Wet leaves: Quite large leaves , nice tobacco aroma.

Arya FTGFOP1 Clonal '09
Richer taste than the first and third; deeper flavor. because of more oxidation? Cherries. Spun sugar.

• Dry leaves: Orthodox preparation, darkest oxidation; mostly black, a little green.
  
• Wet leaves: darkest oxidation of the three; a rich red-green. A bit difficult to discern the aroma, in comparison with the other two.
  

Arya SFTGFOP1 Sample '09
Brightest, most astringent sample. Brilliant example of a high-end Darjeeling.

• Dry leaves: Leaves appear as oxidized as the China '09. However, the smallest in size of leaf.
  
• Wet leaves: Lightest oxidation, almost entirely green; beautiful garden-fresh scent, like my Grandpa Allison's rose garden.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
As I compared the three Darjeelings, I was struck by how difficult the tea taster's job must be. My palate, though much more sophisticated than it was a few years ago, was simply overjoyed by what it was drinking, but trying to explain the subtle differences among three teas of the same estate, grown at the same time, sitting next to one another was challenging. I had hoped that this review would be really in-depth, an exploration of the movement among the leaves of these plants. Instead, I discovered that being a tea taster would be a job for a more highly skilled drinker than I. When I read that tea shop owners will cup 60 or 100 different, nearly identical teas in a day, and then be able to make value judgments among them, I start to understand what that would entail.

For my interest, questions I am left with: What are the differences between the clonal and the Chinese varietals? How do these differences affect the final cupping? Are there characteristics I would expect to find that would help me when making purchasing decisions?

I know, not much useful information here for a tea connoisseur, except for me saying that a tea cupper's job is a challenging one, and I can only imagine how much practice and training it would take to become one.

Review: Grand Tea, Huo Shan Huang Ya ('09 Spring)

Huo Shan Huang Yua is a yellow tea that at one time had been given to Chinese Emperors (Ming and Qing dynasties) in tribute. From Mount Huo, located in Anhui Province (home of the famous Qimen, or Keemun, tea, which tradionally forms the base for English Breakfast), this yellow tea is in appearance much like a white-- the leaves and buds have been left in the form they had when they were plucked from the bush-- but are oxidized a bit more by being allowed to yellow a bit before being heated to stop the fermentation process, thus placing them between white and green teas.

The Grand Tea Web site reads,

This rare high grade Huo Shan Huang Ya was made from leaves of high mountain tea trees. This wonderful tea has a sweet mellow taste, and long lasting refreshing aroma.

During the process of making yellow tea, the tea loses the vegetal, "grassy" aftertaste which is often associated with green tea. Many tea drinkers who don't like the taste of green tea often prefer the yellow teas, as the health benefits are the same, but the taste is subtler and sweeter.

Yellow tea is brewed in much the same way as white tea. This means that the water should not be hotter than about 180 degrees F, or 80 degrees C. Use one tablespoon of loose tea leaf (about two grams) for five ounces (150 ml) of water, and steep for a minute or two.

Mount Huo Yellow Sprout
霍山黄芽

THE LEAVES
Very aromatic: a dusty, tickles-the-nose kind of scent, with the aroma of a row-crop farm in summer. It reminds me of tall corn in the fields, horses, the State Fair, and the sweet hay that animals eat. These are two-leaves-and-a-bud, quite small leaves. This indicates they were plucked quite early in the Spring season. The buds are quite tiny, and these are a light olive color. After steeping, the leaves take on an even richer, mulchy aroma, again strongly reminiscent of a State Fair, with a rich, summertime smell.

THE CUP
Pale peach-gold color, and quite aromatic, but with a sharper tone than the leaves alone. The flavor is entirely consistent with the aroma. First sip, when the tea is at its hottest, it is sweet, smooth, and mulchy-- not earthy or vegetal-- and so strongly evokes standing in the hot sunshine at the State Fair, with these complex aromas coming from the horses and cows and sheep and hay and seed... The tea is evocative with a lively characteristic, but in no way overwhelming. The second cup of the tea remained largely the same, even as the tea cooled a bit. This means the oxidation within the pot after steeping had concluded did not perceptibly change this yellow tea. The tea is mildly astringent, with a huigan [sweet aftertaste] that rises from the back of the throat.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
I'm not the kind of person who is drawn to white teas, because they are too subtle for my barbaric palate. But this yellow tea (a category I have not delved into deeply) has body and character enough to keep my attention. And I am very drawn to the summery flavor and aroma that so much makes me think of being outside among the cornstalks as harvest approaches.

Thank you, Grand Tea and TeaViews.com, for the opportunity to sample this Huo Shan Huang Ya.

>> UPDATE
Interestingly, the folks at TeaHub (Twitter: @TeaHub) commented thus:

TeaHub @39Steeps Interesting that you compared Huo Shan Huang Ya to white tea. Among all yellow teas, it perhaps the most similar to green tea.

This would probably account for my attraction to this tea: while it is in a class that hovers between white and green, if it were closer to a white, I would probably declare it too faint for my tastes. I'm relatively unfamiliar with yellow teas, and I'm very glad for TeaHub's input, helping me better understand this class of tea.

And @TeaHub followed with a link to their video of how this yellow tea is made:

In case anyone is interested, we have a short video on Huo Shan Huang Ya on our site at http://tinyurl.com/lcn8wq

(Warning: The video is narrated in Chinese.) Thanks, TeaHub, for the instant input on a post I only published a few minutes ago!

REVIEW: Thunderbolt Tea, Giddapahar China Wiry Tippy, 2009

Today I'm drinking Thunderbolt Tea's Darjeeling Giddapahar tea estate Darjeeling. It is the 2009 vintage, China varietal, and it is labeled, "Wiry Tippy."

Before you even read my review of this great tea, I urge you to read MattCha's blog, where he actually went to the Giddapahar Estate and met with Mr. Lochan himself. Great pictures and information about what the conditions are like where this tea is harvested and manufactured.

Matt points us to the Lochan Web site, which reads as follows:

Literally meaning the Eagles Craig, Giddapahar is situated on a jagged, rock-faced mountain just a short drive from Kurseong, a thriving little hill station situated at 4864 feet above sea level. The best way to get to Giddapahar tea gardens is to get to Kurseong on the toy train that runs regularly from the New Jalpaiguri station in the plains.

The tea from Giddapahar Estate is delicate owing to the lower temperatures and being covered by mist for much of the year forcing the bushes to grow slowly producing a fine bouquet with great aromatic quality and delicate floral nose.

THE LEAVES
These are lovely, olive green to dark green in color, with quite a lot of stem along with the rather full leaves. Steeped, they have a lovely aroma, which reminds me of pleasantly decomposed undergrowth in a forest, or perhaps the richness of a grape arbor in autumn.

THE CUP
A very nicely amber-gold, flawlessly transparent.

As Lochan described it, this tea is very delicate. And I agree: It's crisp, very clean, and not overwhelmingly aromatic. Really, to my mouth, this is a flawless cup of Darjeeling. The perfect balance of astringency and sweetness, without even a trace of bitterness. The flavor develops in my mouth as I drink, and the sensation moves from the tip of my tongue back into my throat and nose. I'd describe it as herbaceous, rather than floral-- like aromatic kitchen herbs, tarragon, or chervil, or bee balm. Sweet, light, and complex. I'm tempted to say it is slightly fruity, because of the depth of flavor, but that would mislead you to think it's overly sweet or tart, which it ceretainly is not. The Giddapahar Darjeeling is really quite sophisticated and delicate. I have read some characterize this as being nutty in flavor (with chestnut predominant), and I'm willing to take that description. It definitely has this richness to the flavor, in spite of its delicacy, and a mouthfeel at once slightly dry and yet smooth and creamy.

This is a tea I really have grown to love, and I'm very grateful for the opportunity (Thank you, Thunderbolt Tea and TeaViews) to have been able to sample it. Remind me to put in my order for next year's 2010 first flush when it becomes available.


NOTE ON DARJEELING STRIKES
At this writing (July 2009), Darjeeling region has been rocked by strikes by the tea farmers, because the Gorkha ethnic group want their own state within the nation of India, which they believe would help the farmers' living conditions. The Independent has the following article, by Andrew Buncombe,which I quote here:

At the Happy Valley estate, where large painted signs boast of providing organic tea to Harrods, it was unnaturally quiet. Usually at this time of year – midway through the second flush, or crop – these steep hillsides of densely planted bushes would be filled with women plucking the leaves and dropping them into woven baskets on their backs.

Instead, they sit inside their small, sheet-metal shacks, idling away the damp afternoon.

Across the Darjeeling hills, life has come to a standstill. An indefinite strike, or "bandh", called last week by activists demanding a separate state, has closed down schools, roads, businesses, hotels and – crucially – the tea estates. As a result, the day labourers who earn just 53 rupees (66p) a day picking tea to be sold to well-heeled customers in London's Knightsbridge, are currently getting nothing.

Buncombe goes on to describe how Gorkhas (a people group found in Nepal and northern India) are demanding a separate state, largely because, since independence, the West Bengal state government has ignored their needs.

Indeed, tourism in Darjeeling region has declined because of infrastructure decline. The article concludes, thus:

One evening last week, on the veranda outside the Planters' Club – another relic of the colonial era, where the pelts of leopards shot long ago still hang from the wall – members sat looking out across the valley.

There was no tea to be had, as the strike had shut down the restaurant and bar. The members recalled how Darjeeling was once famed for its sanatorium, and how the roads were washed so regularly that British "ladies" could walk in their gowns along the town's famous Mall without fear of dirtying their clothes. These days, the town's basic hospital struggles to manage, and many of the roads are filthy. "Darjeeling has been in decline since the 1960s. The area has been badly neglected," said Amargit Dhir, a retired estate manager. "There is no other option but to revolt. This is the start of revolution."

I sincerely hope this is resolved quickly, to the benefit of all the people involved. Darjeeling tea is not merely a commodity tea, which are designed to be mixed with teas from another region for teabag use. Each year's Darjeeling harvest is its own unique vintage, and each estate has its own terroir that cannot be reproduced elsewhere. If the strikes cause this or next year's Darjeeling harvest to be lost, those unique, vintage teas are lost forever and cannot be replaced.

Wonderful picture of the Darjeeling Toy Train provided by Old Mount Hermon Students' Association.

REVIEW: Thunderbolt Tea, Jungpana FTGFOP1 China 2009

This is the P-47 Thunderbolt. Apropos of the tea I'm reviewing, the handwriting on the side reads, "No guts, no glory!"

As always, I like the description provided by Thunderbolt Tea's Web site for the Jungpana Estate FTGFOP1 China '09:

Dry Leaves:
A mouth watering retreat for tea connoisseurs who are seeking for real First Flush orthodox Darjeeling character. The dry leaves comprise of 90% greenish tinge. It has a high floral aroma that is intoxicating to the mind. A quality tea with nutty (almonds) and floral (reminiscent of rhododendrons) infused leaves that are totally green in appearance and are of even size.

Infused Leaves:
The infused leaves have an overall greenish tinge reminiscent of First Flush tea - a trade mark. It has a astonishing buttery hints which also additionally turns to be sweet smelling, nutty and honey toned.

Cup:
The cup is very light with excellent floral notes and nutty character. It has some astringency and that is why we call it the orthodox Darjeeling character. It leaves you with a sweet and buttery after taste.

Honestly, I do not know what rhododendrons smell like. But I do know that I'm enjoying this tea immensely.

THE LEAVES

These leaves are a lovely greenish tint, shaped as a typical high-end Darjeeling: smallish leaf size, fairly tightly twisted, and with no tea dust or twig that I could see in my sample. Beautiful aroma, floral, exciting. I know I will like this tea (especially after having a hiatus from Darjeeling in the past week or so, as I was drinking mostly Chinese oolongs).

THE PREPARATION

In Great-great Grandma's Japanese porcelain teapot, a very simple and typical presentation: tea brought just up to a medium boil (what Chinese might think of as 2nd boil), and then poured over 1 slightly generous teaspoon of leaf per cup, allowed to steep for a full three minutes. (I would normally go for 2 minutes or so on a first-flush Darjeeling, but I rather want to plumb a bit more deeply into what this tea is saying today).

THE CUP

A rather pale amber (not yell0w) cup, with a lovely shine and a beautiful transparency. When the tea is drunk very hot, it is difficult to place any flavors, but he typical Darjeeling-style, orthodox, dry mouthfeel is still welcome. BUT once the tea cools just a bit, the complexity begins to make an appearance.

The tea tastes a bit buttery, with such a dry white wine-type mouthfeel. The high notes, in the mouth, don't really remind me overmuch of fruit or flowers, because the astringency seems to militate against that; instead, it's an herbal quality one associates with thyme, or oregano, or sage-- dry, sharp, complex. And then I find the nutty flavor, as mentioned in the Web site, which hides in the complex but not overly sweet aftertaste and is revealed in the throat.

The subsequent cups from the pot are likewise quite dry in mouthfeel, but now with an added rather soapy texture in the mouth. The nutty flavor is slowly growing; and the dry, oregano-like mouthfeel is quite developed. WHEN I SAY OREGANO, I realize I am being a bit misleading. I am not saying this tea tastes like oregano, exactly; but, rather, that it is reminiscent of the feeling you get when tasting a sprig of fresh oregano from the garden: arresting, not sweet, sharp, dry, and evocative.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

When Benoy Thapa at Thunderbolt Tea writes that this Jungpana is for connoisseurs, I agree. This Jungpana first flush is perfect for tea aficianados who may not be as interested in overly sweet, floral, or fruity teas, but rather desire something complex and a bit harder to put a finger on. It's a great drink, and a welcome diversion from the more floral oolongs I've been drinking lately.

Benoy, great tea. And especially great, because the tea is so fresh!

REVIEW: Thunderbolt Tea, 2009 Arya SFTGFOP1

When I drink a Darjeeling that is produced like Thunderbolt Tea's 2009 Arya Estate SFTGFOP1, I'm very aware that this tea has been anxiously awaited all year by people all over the globe, because the Spring flush in Darjeeling, India is unique. These teas comprise perhaps 2% of the entire India tea crop, and are typically handcrafted, specially produced teas.

These are not intended to taste the same from year to year, season to season, as "commodity" teas are. Yes, it is quite a skill to blend, say, a Tetley tea to taste exactly the same with every one of the millions upon millions of cups drunk every year. Instead, this tea is special. Each estate, each season, even each invoice-- the batches the teas are sold in, when they appear in the Darjeeling market-- is unique. It's amazing, and even sometimes a little sad, because you realize this exquisite thing you're drinking, once drunk, will be gone forever, and will never be exactly reproduced. There are characteristics that most great Darjeelings follow-- an ascerbic, very bright tone; a floral quality, a crystal-clear cup.

Now, that being said, I've had Arya estate Darjeelings before. Second flush, to be exact. Exquisite. The Arya estate has just about the highest standards for tea production, and they do make an attempt to follow organic farming.

This year was a bit difficult for the Darjeeling farmers, because there was a drought. When we in the Midwest of the U.S. have a drought, it's awful for the farmers, and can cause a serious drop of income for the region, and it might drive up the costs of, say, soybeans or corn. But the commoditized corn is produced elsewhere, and it will taste about the same. (I do not speak of specialized sweet corn, which can be quite special indeed.) But if the Darjeeling first-flush harvest flush were to fail, that's it. There is nothing that can replace it.

Anyway, in Darjeeling this year, there was serious concern that 2009 might not really have a first flush, because the drought was so rough. But at last, the rains came through, and there was a complete, if somewhat constricted, harvest. This means stocks are a bit low already, and many of these teas will already be purchased and gone by the time anyone reads this review.


ARYA ESTATE, DARJEELING
SFTGFOP1

Appearance of the cup: Rich, crystal, amber-gold

THE LEAVES
Olive green leaves, cut appearance. Very light aroma-- slightly floral, not very pungent.

THE CUP

• Delightful, dry mouthfeel, bright berrylike flavor, with a full dark note
• Honey sweetness, which remains in the lingering aftertaste
• Light and airy, very pleasant
• The aroma is rather faint.

The tea packs a kick on second cup, which as I've said before, is the "sweet spot" in any pot. The brightness is such a serious part of this tea! Smooth, even though there is this sharp quality. I am noting a brightly berry-like flavor in the high notes.

THE SECOND INFUSION
Still a lovely golden-amber color, though not as deep. The tea has lost a bit of its oomph, though, which is mostly manifesting in less of that sharp brightness. There is a more mellow, melon-like fruit note, and there is a buttery nut flavor-- a bit like the ghee I sometimes use to cook, though more like a faint echo of the flavor, without any heaviness. Very light, very transparent flavor. The tea is by far the best when drunk fairly hot, as it seems to lose something as it cools.



Web site:

ARYA SFTGFOP1 - 100% ORGANIC DARJEELING TEA (2009)

Dry Leaves:
Arya SFTGFOP1 is amongst the first invoices from Arya Tea Estate. As is every Darjeeling First Flush tea, the dry leaves bear a greenish appearance with some amount of silver tips. Has a sweet, buttery and honey fragrance which is in turn nutty and flowery in nature.

Infused Leaves:
The infused leaves are green which appears fresh and raw. Has a sweet - resembling honey - a hint of fresh grassy and minty characteristics.

Cup:
Most of Darjeeling First Flush teas have a weak cup that appears quite translucent in nature, but highly aromatic. This does not differ from the above statement. The cup is light and bright with some amount of astringency (this characteristic strengthens with longer steeping time, which is the case with all First Flush teas). It is highly flowery and nutty in its characteristics which is buttery and almondy. Has a sweet aftertaste.

REVIEW: Thunderbolt Tea, 2009 North Tukbar Estate Darjeeling, First Flush

North Tukbar Estate tea from Thunderbolt (Thank you, Benoy).

What most people in the U.S. do not realize is that, like watermelon and pumpkins, teas also are seasonal. And taking advantage of the seasons is like eating a fresh ear of corn right off the cob, which was picked yesterday, as compared to popping open a can off the shelf, which has been sitting there for who knows how long.

A subtle Darjeeling first flush is picked in the Spring. Now, when this tea is plucked and shipped quickly, it can be vibrant, intense, delicate, and bright. But on the other hand, a first flush that sits around for a while (if not properly fired, or if it gets around moisture), it may become... indifferent. Not worth drinking.

So I'm happy that this season, I've been drinking '09 Spring Darjeelings in the Spring of '09.

Thunderbolt Tea has quite an assortment of '09 Darjeelings available, and they're seasonal. Benoy travels Darjeeling, tasting hundreds of teas to find the ones he believes to be the best value. He chose the '09 North Tukvar first-flush Darjeeling as a great buy. And at under $10 for 100g, let's see if he's right.

THE TEA
The Thunderbolt Tea Web site says:

NORTH TUKVAR SFTGFOP1 - FIRST FLUSH TEA (2009)

Dry Leaves:
Well twisted dry leaves with fair amount of buds. The leaves are rather tiny with a blend of green and black leaves. It is highly floral and fruity.

Infused Leaves:
The infused leaves or wet leaves are rather tiny resembling the china leaf grade rather than the tagged "SFTGFOP1". It is sweet smelling with buttery notes.

Cup:
The cup seems a little darker or has some body because of the leaf size. The cup is bright with lovely fruity and floral notes and has a taste that is sweet and fruity. Has astringency as others do. Its a good First Flush Darjeeling Tea which is made affordable for all.

THE PREPARATION
A heaping teaspoon per 8 oz. cup of water. Culligan reverse-osmosis water brought to a boil then allowed to cool to perhaps 90C. I've tried this at a couple different steeping lengths, from 1.5 to 3 minutes.

THE LEAVES
The appearance of the leaf is as described above. When steeped, they do not have a very attractive aroma-- like spent tobacco, though a bit spicy, like a Yunnan.

THE CUP
This is a gold-amber color cup, with no hint of green to it. The cup does not have an enormous "nose" to it, though. The flavor: traditional, bright, Darjeeling sharpness. In the mouth, there is a slightly dry feeling at the back of the tongue. The mouthfeel is somewhat lacking, and I can't detect much texture or body. The flavor is on the fruity side, rather than the floral side, but with a bright astringency that balances the heavier fruit notes. Very consistent taste profile, which remains much the same throughout the tasting-- it doesn't evolve very much or reveal new flavor notes as it goes into the aftertaste. Nicely sweet, not bitter at all. There's a nice berries-and-tobacco aftertaste, which I find particularly enjoyable.

SOME STEEPING ADVICE
To get the most out of this tea, I would go a bit on the strong side, because the tea itself is quite light. Because this is a delicate first-flush Darjeeling, you don't necessarily want to steep this a full 3 minutes (1.5 to 2 min). So to get a satisfying strength, I steeped about 1.5 teaspoons per cup, though going up to 2 tsp per cup would also work. Obviously, this makes the tea's cost-per-unit go up quite a bit, but it's still by far the most affordable '09 first-flush Darjeeling among Thunderbolt's offerings.


If you wish to visit Tukvar Estate, DarjeelingTaxis.com says this:

Tukvar Tea estate is about 7km from Darjeeling town. Here you will see the colourful tea –workers who still pluck the leaves by hand in the traditional way against the spectacular backdrop of the tea plantations & the mountains. You will also be able to see the manufacturing process (subject to opening hours) and sample some of the garden’s produce.