How to enjoy a tea

Things are starting to calm down, and here is finally a weekend which is not about the writing of my thesis. This time I would like to share a couple of thoughts about the way I enjoy a tea. 

The first important question is when.

I used to drink tea at the evenings after the work, however it had a really bad influence on my sleep and digestion. Moreover, it is not so easy to focus on something after a hectic and tiring day. So, I switched to the mornings. I wake up earlier, have a proper breakfast then sit down with a good tea. I think this is the best time to enjoy the energies of certain teas. Some of them wakes me up after the first couple of infusions, whereas others have a calming or tranquilising effect after which I would like to crawl back to the bed :).

But in general, after a morning session I am fully awake and ready to go to work. It is much better than pumping caffeine to my brain at the evenings. 

How much

In my usual setup I use 5-6 g of tea for ca 90 ml of water. This works well for young shengs and wu yi yancha. For black teas, i use 6-7 g of leaves for 140ml of water. For old teas the ratio is higher: 5g for 50 ml.  I almost always weight the tea I am going to drink, especially if I would like compare different teas. Some people eyeball the amount of leaves, but frankly, it requires years of experience to be able to say that weight of a compressed chunk of tea, in my opinion. 

In what

Yixing pots seems to be very popular these days and I also like them, but it is so difficult to pick the right pot for a certain tea. To avoid this I go with gaivan for everything what is fragrant or "green". In this category belong green tea, young sheng (<10 years), Anxi oolong and Wu Yi yancha with lower oxidation/roasting. For things such as aged sheng/oolong, shu, black tea and stronger yancha I have zisha pots. I  almost always use pitcher which helps to cool down the tea a bit and also give a chance to observe the colour and the fragrance of the liquor.  The tea from the pitcher goes to a sniffing cup or directly to small white sipping cups.

Steeping time

There is usually a rinse at the beginning which is discarded. The first steep is a bit longer with 10s, while the following infusions are just water in - water out. At the point when the tea starts to loose its depth, the infusions are becoming longer; 10s, 20s, 30s, 45s up to the point when there is no flavor or the tea starts to be harsh. With the teas which are infused in yixing pots, the last infusions are left for longer time (overnight, overday)

How long

I like to take my time, especially with strong teas it can take 1-2 hours until I finish. It is also necessary  to give space for the aftertaste which can appear minutes after swallowing. I don't like my tea to hot and I prefer to wait until the soup cools down quite a bit, especially with the early infusions. If I drink my tea to fast my taste buds gets saturated and it becomes difficult to pick up the tastes. Moreover, a gongfu is mostly about relaxation, so no reason to hurry. 

Activities during

I must confess that in most of the cases I am browsing on the web during the sessions. I like to answer emails at the mornings or just read the news or tea blogs. If I am at home I enjoy the tea with my family so we are just simply chatting. 

After 

Some teas can fairly mess up my stomach, usually there is no problem during the session, the signs starts to appear after. To prevent this, I found that if I drink pure water after the session I can prevent the problems. Probably it just dilutes the gastric fluid. After an hour of so, I have to eat something more solid. 

So this is the general setup, and I am aware that different people enjoy tea in different ways, so feel free to share. 

All the best

Norbert

1970s Pingling aged oolong

I sampled a couple of aged shengs so I am a bit familiar with this group of teas and as more I drink it more I like it. On the other hand, the area of aged oolongs is unknown for me and for some reasons I was avoiding it. However there are a couple of reviews out there which encouraged me to include a sample of this aged oolong into my last order from EoT. 

The fragrance from the sample bag is very particular, I never experienced something like this with other teas. It is heavy spicy reminding things like mayonnaise and mustard mixing with the typical wu yi frangrance. The leaves are in good shape, relatively long and unfragmented, but fragile and delicate on touch.

I pack 5 grans into my new 60ml zisha. 

The first rinse changes the scent of the leaves quite a bit revealing a fragrance very similar to aged shengs with the creamy sweetness of oolongs. The spicy character is still there but with lower intensity. The taste is also unique but also reminds an aged sheng at some points; a mixture of woody-nutty-spicy and sweet, very interesting. It is strong but without edges.  The taste becomes prominent after the swallowing and stays for long time. After the first couple of infusions I am very excited. The taste is developing nicely and reaches the peak around the 4^th steep. 

The qi is particular. I don’t know if it is uplifting or calming but it is strong and slightly euphoric. I watched a few episodes of the two and a half men during the later infusions and I was laughing on every sketch like I am high. The last infusions are simpler and I would describe it like a mixture of aged puerh with the roasted sweet taste of yancha. I have done around 4-5 very long steeps at the end which still delivered pleasant soups.

 

It was a very nice experience to drink this tea and I was thrilled after the firs session. As I was drinking it I remembered the “wow” moments which I had when I first time tried high grade da hong pao or aged sheng.

The next day I drunk some young sheng which was good but somehow boring this time, showing me the difference in complexity of a young and old tea. 

And the conclusion is that I have to dig more deeply into the world of aged oolongs.  

Grandpa in the hotel

I am on a regular network meeting and workshop in Prague for the whole week, so no gong fu this week only grandpa style. The quality of the tap water is very good BTW.

Some nice yixing hongcha in the cup. Just enough to survive.

2004 Yong Pin Hao -Xiang Ming

This is another long forgotten sample coming from one of my first purchases from Yunnan sourcing. I think I tried it only once or twice but it left mi unimpressed. However, as I mentioned in one of my previous posts the way how I look and experience a tea is changed in the last two years. I remember this tea as mild and therefore not interesting however this attitude comes from the period when I was thinking that a good puerh with ability to age, has to be necessarily bitter. But as I realised later this is just a myth created by me for myself to simplify the evaluations of some samples. 

This sample was sitting in the drawer for more than one year here in Milan. The flat where I am living can be pretty hot and humid during the summer months since its position is right under the roof. The temperature usually rises to 30-35°C for a couple of hours during the day while the humidity is ranging from 60-80%. Luckily I leave my flat at the morning and return at the evening so I don’t have to “age” in these conditions. On the other hand this environment gives a very nice boost to my shengs what is already noticeable after 1year.

After a relaxing afternoon in the park I have a taste for something semi-aged if not aged. 

 

8g, 90ml gaiwan, 10s rinse, 3s, 3s, 3s, 3s, 10s, 10s, 20s, 30s, 50s, 2min

As I open the small bag an aged character salutes me. My first impression is that I picked up some shu sample instead of the 2004 YPH. The first rinse seems to fix this and reveals a nice fusion of young and aged characters, the smell is sweet with lower notes: tobacco, walnuts.

I used a fair amount of leaves and the result was pleasant. The texture is thick and active in the throat and the nutty character is really nice. There is a slightly bitter finish which leaves a mild huigan (but nothing remarkable) however no sign of astringency. The durability is good with 10 infusions.

This tea changed during the last one year and the developing aged character is promising. However the liquor has a suspiciously brown-reddish colour. 

 

the colour is nice but unusual for an 8 year old, mainly Kunming stored sheng

The later steeps became a bit rough but nothing disturbing, it reminds me the bitter-sweet taste of that thin layer on the walnuts.

I was pleasantly surprised by this sheng but I don't know where to put the aged character. The description says that it was stored two years in a more humid environment of the Yi Wu mountains. It is true that the (loose) sample was sitting in my room during the hot and humid summer but this tea spent most of his life in the very dry climate of Kunming. I am confused.

In any case, it is better than its younger brother, the 2005 YPH stone pressed yiwu, but the price is also higher. 58USD for an 8 years old cake with promising (?) aged notes, is not that much, however I already have my eye on other cakes from the same period.

For now, I put this tea at the end of my imaginary wishlist, and since I still have around 7g, I will try it again sometime in the future.

 the setup is the same like always

2011 YS - Feng Yun

I am pleased by the 2011 production of Yunnan sourcing and I am more and more a fan of Scott´s cakes. Especially the blends were really impressive and after the rather tasty Cha Qi and Shang chun I was pleased when Scott sent me a free sample of the last blend coming from 2011. 

The first session was not that impressive so I took my time this morning to enjoy this tea with more focus. Though the descriptions says that this is the lightest among the blends both the fragrance and taste are quite strong. The aroma is heavy and penetrating in a good way. The liquor has good thickness with a light cooling effect. there is a nice load of ku wei and astringency but it is acceptable for a such young sheng. At some points the taste reminded me the 2011 Jing gu mini cake which has a typical character reminding me the taste of crude corn and thus giving a chunky-meaty tone to the soup. The durability is very good. I did many short steps but I had to give up at the point when there was still some stamina in the tea. The only thing what I miss in this blend is the sweetness. There is some but it is nowhere near the heavy sweetness of Shang chun. 

Anyway, the 20USD is a fair price for this 400g cake. 

cloud and fog

2011 Yixing hongcha

The last Sunday was a bit unusual. Unlike the most of the weekends I woke up early for a sport event called stramilano. We subscribed for a 10km running with two colleagues with whom we go run 2-3 times per week. Physical activity is good! Is good for both the body and mind and I am convinced that humans are meant to do physical work at first place. No wonder that siting all days in an office or in a lab can bring health problems if it is not compensated with some sport (at least in my case). 

But this is a blog dedicated to tea, so lets focus on that.

A free sample of a red tea coming from the birth place of zisha pots, Yixing, was the one which introduced me into the world of hongcha. Since that, I have tried a couple of them and here comes the one which I am drinking recently.

I bought this package in DTH a couple of months ago. The leaves are small and curly. As I open the bag the fragrance is silent but tasty, however, as soon as it hits the hot pot the smell became strong; chocolate, cocoa and cereals, my zisha pot nicely brings out these lower notes. 

This tea requires high load of tea but the result is good. Every time I drink it I am amazed by the sweet (dark) chocolate notes which dominates on every level; it is present in the fragrance of the dry and wet leaves as well in the scent of the liquor and in its taste.

The character is smooth overall, I miss a bit the wildness which I happened to find in some Yixing red teas. There is not too much of that acidic finish which is also characteristic for these kind of teas, but since I am not a big fan of that it doesn't bother me. 

 

After the first steeps the body loses some thickness and the infusions can become mono dimensional (or one could call it boring) if the steeping times are not kept sufficiently long.

The qi is energetic, if I drink this tea too fast the caffeine rush can be overpowering (especially with the high amount of tea) but it's probably just me. 

My zisha pot (zini clay, 150ml) likes this tea quite a bit, it seams to enhance its smooth an creamy character. 

In overall, it is not the best tea I've drunk but is highly enjoyable once upon the time, especially for the price, and it may work well as a nice introduction into hongcha.

Ps: despite the slow beginning caused by the "traffic jam" we did the 10km in 54minutes.