TeaZen!

As part of my morning tea routine, I drink a bowl of matcha because it's a super-fast high-octane start to my day. It's kind of a tricky tea to make. You need to get the water at just the right temperature, not too hot and not too cool, with just the right amount of powdered tea. I don't always get the parameters right, but when I do--ahhh! It's a warm rich mellow tasting tea that I slurp down while the water boils and I make my next tea.

I have been buying my matcha from Hibiki-an. It costs me about $45 for four little boxes, each of which lasts a two or three weeks. But recently I let myself run out. Shopping in the local Korean market I found this tea and decided to try it. (It's kind of funny actually, because the reason I was in the Korean market was to buy some kim chee for the Zen meditation retreat we were organizing. The retreat was WAY better than the tea. You can click here for some photos.)

I cannot recommend this brand of powdered green tea!

Drinking Old Puer

OK. So I am the worst blogger ever! I think about writing and don't write.

I've been drinking a lot of old puer the last couple of weeks. First, I decided to brew up part of the sample of a 1980s / 1990s Tong Xing sent to me by Yat at Grand Tea. I did not expect to like this tea as much as I did. Such a warm and mellow taste. Not very complex, but very very deep. I will probably buy a beeng, but am waiting for the spring Dragon Well to arrive before I place my order.

Next, I drank some of the Traditional Characters that I purchased from Sunsing Tea. Mind you, I did not buy a whole beeng, but rather 37.5 grams. This is a justly famous tea, extremely rich and complex, lasting well over twenty steeps. Six or so months ago I investigated buying a beeng, but the best Sunsing could do for was unwrapped beengs for $2K. Not for me!

A couple of days later, I decided to break into the 35.7 gram sample 1958 GYG that I also purchased from Sunsing. I'm pretty sure that I did not get the best of this tea--too much haste, I think. It reminds me of the Tong Xing in terms of mellowness, but perhaps there was an edginess--a Chinese medicine taste. I have more of it. I'll try it again soon.

Today I am drinking some of the 1980s Red Iron Beeng I bought from Grand Tea. I think this tea is also called "Simplified Character." I'm kind of disappointed. The flavor seems very very muted. It's a soft tea, with a lingering mouth feel, but somehow not very flavorful. I'm sure I'm using enough tea. Perhaps I need to use better water? I paid a lot for this tea (but WAY WAY less than it currently costs). I probably would not buy it today.

Part of my Stash

Here's the cool little bag Sunsing shipped my order in last year. I've been using it to hold all my puer samples.











This is what the bag holds. You can tell who I'm ordering tea from! I'm chagrined to say that I haven't even tasted a lot of this stuff. Truth is, I don't much care for young sheng, so there it sits. But there are some older samples I should try, such as the 1980s Tong Xing from Grand Tea.

1986 Yiwu Raw Loose Tea

I woke up this morning feeling tired and anxious, so I wanted to drink tea that would soothe me. I woke my body up with a couple of bowls of matcha, then turned to this tea I bought last year from Sunsing. As I understand it, wealthy puer afficionados will drink loose-leaf sheng on a daily basis because it has many of the wonderful characteristics of high-class aged sheng at a fraction of the cost. I paid $550HKD (about $70US) for 150 grams. By way of contrast, I paid $34US for two 400g beengs of yesterday's tea, so this is considerably more expensive. It's also considerably better! I placed between 4-5g in a glass gaiwan, rinsed once, and started with a series of eight flash infusions. Ah! This tea has a wonderfully warm earth-wood aroma and a full sweet aftertaste that I think is characteristic of the yiwu leaf. I wonder how much of the deep pleasure of the first mouthful was because this tea contrasts so profoundly with the matcha, which I brewed a little strong and hence carried some bitterness. Hmmm. I recall reading a blog by somebody (Hobbes?) about whipping up a batch matcha in some left over puer. That suddenly seems like great idea.
I let the tea rest for an hour or so, then began brewing again. As you can see from the picture, which shows the 9th & 11th brews, the tea begins to lose patience quite abruptly. It loses some of it fullness, too, but the clear sweetness remains well through subsequent brews. I can't say for sure how long it lasts, because I've stopped drinking it for the time being.




This a great tea for newbies (including me). I brewed some up last summer for one of my sister-in-laws, Roberta, who does not care for tea & thus was humoring me. I had my back turned when she took her first sip, but Margaret tells me that her face totally lit up. Here by the way is a photo of the brewing set up I used in our motel room in Joplin, MO.
But I don't think this is a great tea, largely because it doesn't change much from steep to steep. Still, I'm glad I have it. And I see that it's still listed on the Sunsing website for $550HKD. That's something of a bargain!

2005 Golden Bud Beengcha

When I bought this tea from Yunnan Sourcing last spring, I was disappointed. The liquor was thin and sour--not the worst shu I had ever tasted, but far from the best. I pried off a layer of the beeng. broke it into smaller pieces & put it into a ceramic pot to age.


Today I gave the tea another try. I'm feeling pretty happy. It's still a little thin and sour, but has acquired a richer, smoother taste, almost creamy, with a clean lingering mouth feel. Its greatest appeal remains visual : lots and lots of golden buds in a tight beeng yielding an orange-brown liquor. I love the fragrance, too, with its tantalizing hint of spice. Maybe given more time to age, this will show up in the taste.

I brewed this informally, rinsing a piece of tea twice in a glass gaiwan with boiling tap water, & steeping it repeatedly for 10 or 15s. It has a lot of patience; I'm still getting a tasty brew after 12 steeps.

Imen's impression of this tea was more favorable than mine. She attributes the sour taste to using too much leaf. She also agrees that it needs time to age.

I like shu brewed English-style, so next time I try this tea I'll give it a long steep in a pot. It might benefit from better water, too, though I find my favorite shus taste good regardless of the water.

I don't think this will ever be a favorite tea.