You're Missing the Point!

The nice gentleman fills my cup again.

 Machinery at the production facility

Mr. Li runs a maocha production facility.  He grows tea, has teams that harvest the leaves, and then he produces the tea base - maocha - that many tea producers will buy from him in order to roast.  Mr. Li serves me a maocha without the finishing roasts, which tastes overpoweringly bitter and astringent, with a very strong vegetal taste that reminds me of raw Kale.

My Dong Ding teacher urges me to ask Mr. Li what varietal his maocha is made from, what altitude he grows at, and how long he oxidizes the leaves.  I was a bit embarrassed and a bit irked by my teacher, but I didn't immediately realize that he was trying to teach me a lesson.  He does that sometimes; he teaches me things by example instead of just lecturing.  He taught me to temporarily overcome a fear of heights by making me climb the sheer face of a cliff using only a scraggly, old bungee cord. 

  The view after climbing the bungee

"I'm not interested in asking Mr. Li those questions.  Why are you asking me to?  You already know the answers anyway." 

My teacher looked at me and laughed, but not in a condescending way.  "You're always so interested in the details of the tea.  You want to know what varietal it comes from, what the bush's age is, and all of the millions of other details.  Let me ask you, without knowing any of these details, can you tell whether this tea base, this maocha, is good or not just by drinking it?"

"Of course!" I immediately responded.  "My tastes aren't THAT poor, I do know enough to tell if it's good or bad."

And that was precisely my teacher's point.  I told him on the first day that I had met him that I wanted to drink good tea.  I had found my good tea, but I still didn't know all of the details about it.  But what would I need to learn about those details for?  To satisfy some inane curiosity for random tea facts?  Or to augment the deep desire of my own ego to learn things about tea that few others know, and to be recognized as some sort of authority for it?

His point was that in the grander scheme of tea enjoyment, a "perfect" pot, kettle for heating water, water, energy, environment, etc may enhance the brew, but good tea will still be good regardless of how fine or poor the "supporting actors" are.  Knowing the how's and why's of tea doesn't make it taste better at that moment.

It's unfortunate that there is animosity being passed around online, in tea rooms and between tea merchants over who's right or wrong, what the correct timing - down to the second - is for a certain tea, what the altitude should be for a proper Lishan tea, and all of the many other debatable "facts."  Yes, there are ways to make tea taste better or worse, but many of those ways are subjective to the individual experience.  I have my particular preferences that I advocate, but my teacher once said to me that good tea is whatever tea that YOU think is good.  Period. 

In the grander scheme of life, the tea experience is teaching me about acceptance.  While I may say and believe that one tea is better than another, what I really intend is that one tea is just more suitable for me than another.  Each unique tea is simply the best that it is at that particular moment, and I'm just the best Rich I can be right now, and both are acceptable.

Let's not lose sight of the fact that the most important thing for us tea lovers is the tea itself.  In the moment that we enjoy our brews, the minutiae is bypassed, leaving us with just the one thing that we're rightly most passionate about.

Drink good tea and enrich your life.

Tea Drinking during the Tang Dynasty

I visited the Flagstaff Museum of teaware in Hong Kong Park before I left the city.  It's quite a nice place with some fine examples of ancient Chinese teaware.

The theme of several of the galleries was tea drinking and tea culture during different Chinese dynastic periods.  Of particular interest to me was the style of brew during the Tang dynasty, which is the time period that the great tea philosopher and author of the Classic of Tea, Lu Yu, lived.

The wall mural mentioned that powdered tea was the dominant style during the Tang dynasty.  This is not to be confused with the powdered & whipped type of tea of the Song dynasty that the Japanese now call Matcha.  According to the exhibit, the powdered teas of the Tang dynasty could also be mixed with different herbs and seasonings, such as camphor or ginger.

The museum's display listed the following steps that were performed for the Tang-style brew, which I've paraphrased below:

1)  Boil the water until large bubbles (fish-eye sized) form and a whistling sound (like wind blowing through Pine trees) is heard

2)  Add a pinch of salt to season the water

3)  When the water has bubbles like a string of pearls, set aside a ladle of water for later use (this later use is not specified)

4)  Stir the water with bamboo chopsticks as it continues to boil

5)  Add the tea powder; froth will form.  The tea is now ready.

Beginning in the Tang dynasty, certain types of pressed and baked tea cakes were made that would become even more popular during the Song dynasty.  These types of cakes weren't as fermented as puerh, nor was the fermentation or aging processes prized qualities of these baked cakes.  As far as I know, fermented bricks or cakes of teas also existed that were more similar to puerh, but these types of teas were more prized for their ability to be stored and transported rather than their taste.  The tea cakes of the Tang dynasty were broken up and infused with hot water, or crushed into a powder and mixed with boiling water as in the above instructions.

Remembering your first GOOD tea

What is the first "good" tea that you can remember drinking?

  preparing for tea in Hong Kong

Mine was Longjing. Sure, I started off drinking oolong teas, but the first one I considered to be really special and good was a Dragon's Well tea. It was, and still is, a famous green tea of China and that status probably played the tea up a bit in my mind.

But thinking back, the tea that I had probably wasn't that good, but it was good to me then. So what is good tea? A lot of people spend a lot of time and money searching for what they consider to be good tea. If you can remember the first tea that you deemed to be extra tasty, chances are that it may longer be as good to you if you had it again today.

af

They glanced at each other and The Younger chuckled as he quickly poured out the 3rd infusion of the pricey Tieguanyin sample that I had brought him.

"Let me ask you, how do you know if what you're drinking tastes good and is good tea?"

The Younger is straightforward and not as "gentle" in his wording as The Elder, but I appreciate his humor and his articulation when talking about tea. They've been trading teas for decades, and that day, he had just returned from roasting nearly 10,000 jin of tea; about 14,000 pounds.

"Good tea to me must be roasted and have a strong base that has been well oxidized. It must be complex and have multiple layers of flavor, but pleasant and smooth to the tongue and throat. It need not have a recurring sweetness, but it should be bold enough to withstand multiple infusions in my pot. It should be a forgiving tea also."

The Elder switches spots with The Younger, pours me another cup and asks me, without looking, "So by your standards, even my best puerh teas would not be to your liking."

It was my turn to chuckle. "You have good teas for good prices, and by the standard that they are judged your best puerhs are excellent. But they're not for me."

"Perhaps we should brew you a good puerh. Maybe you've never had a good one, that's why you don't like it." The Younger scans the shelves behind him looking for a suitable cake of some sort.  He finds a small bag of what looks like an old sample of something quite tasty and puts it into a gaiwan.

"No need. I have had many very old and expensive puerhs. They are good teas with roundness and smoothness, but I still prefer a good oolong above all others." I looked at The Younger and asked him, "If you were to choose between a beautiful young maiden and a beautiful older maiden, which would you choose?

We all laughed and he put his gaiwan full of old puerh on the table behind him and continued to brew the Tieguanyin that I had brought.

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Good tea is subjective and it will change. And even with no change, I've written before that it's fleeting. One of the best teas I've had recently is a 1983 Dong Ding produced by the legendary Mr. Kang.  It brought tears to my eyes as I drank it alone at a quiet teahouse in Asia, dually appreciating the teas complete beauty, but also lamenting that such a tea can never be produced again.

Savor each glimpse, each drop of life's treasures, as every worthy moment has its own sublime beauty.

                           

The same teas, every...single...day...

"Do you ever get tired of drinking the same kind of tea every day?" I asked my oolong teacher.  "You only drink one or two varietals, and it's usually your own tea.  It's been more than 40 years, don't you wanna have a bubble tea sometimes?"

                 

The last part was supposed to be funny and elicit laughter from him.  He smiles at me a lot, as if he's trying to read my brain like mystics read tea leaves.

"My tea makes me feel comfortable.  I can drink it all day for my entire life and I will not feel sick.  It is like medicine to me.  Don't you think it makes you feel good?"

"Yes, that's true."  My teacher touched upon a subject that I had wanted to discuss with him anyway.  "I don't like lightly-oxidized or lightly-roasted teas precisely because they hurt my stomach after many pots.  That is one major reason why I like roasted teas so much.  Puerh is ok too, but I don't prefer it."

My teacher knows how I feel about puerh, so there is no need to explain to him again.  He nods, reclines in his chair and clasps his hands behind his head.  Sometimes he will begin to sing a song that sounds like a lullaby.

"Yes, I know what you like."  He nods at me again and closes his eyes for a few moments.

We sat there for the rest of the afternoon, drinking his precious teas as we waited for the batch of oolongs that we were roasting to finish.  Unfortunately, I ended up over-roasting the tea a bit.  It will need several months of rest in order for the fire to dissipate.  My teacher is forgiving, just like my best teas.  He says that we can learn more from our mistakes than from our triumphs.

"Everyone makes mistakes.  We accept them, learn from them, and try not to do it again.  And if we do make the same mistake again, we will learn the lessons again and again until we truly understand them." 

"It's just like life," I added.  "As long as we have the opportunity to wake up again tomorrow, we have another chance to improve ourselves and correct our mistakes.  Right?"

My teacher pours out another infusion of dark brew from his pot.  He fills my cup and grunts in agreement. 

Drink good tea and enrich your life.

Where will my good teas reside?

There are many ways to store tea.  I've seen it stored in plastic sandwich bags, clay jars, Ikea jars, earthenware containers, porcelain urns, metal or tin cans, plastic-like coated foil bags, aluminum foil, silk cloths, bamboo containers, paper boxes....

I've tried several of the above storage methods and although I haven't aged any teas for more than 5 years, I have found that different teas tend to like different environments.  The old rule-of-thumb is to avoid heat, moisture, excessive temperature fluctuations, air and light.  I think this rule can apply to most teas, but some teas, like old puerhs, may do well with some air.  In Taiwan, many of the tea masters store their old vintage teas in clay or earthenware jars that allow the teas to breathe.  Some masters will fire the teas every few years to remove moisture, and some think the teas do fine without more fire.

I've also had very good teas that have been stored for decades in what look like thick, decaying plastic bags.  Still taste good to me.

One mistake that I did make was to store some of my more fired and more recent oolong in a zisha clay jar. The jar was too big with too much room for air, and the properties of the clay allowed the tea to breathe too much.  The result was that after about two months, the tea lost substantial flavor and aroma.  I consulted some teaware suppliers in Taiwan about this dilemma and they agreed that the type of jar that I was using is more suitable for fermented, puerh type teas, and not for oolongs.  Smaller earthenware jars, porcelain jars, or special tin cans would be more appropriate.

I managed to get my hands on some cans that are specially made to store small quantities of good teas.  The cans are not made of any type of metal that gives off its own smell, and it has no coating that will off-gas.  Some tea friends recommended that I get some roasted tea twigs to place inside of the containers for several days in order to absorb any potential odors (supposedly, roasted twigs are very good for this purpose) before I put in my good oolongs. And once they go in, they shouldn't be disturbed too much.

It is inevitable that a tea's taste will change over time, but I want to try to keep the changes as true to nature as possible, with minimal loss or change of flavor due to poor storage conditions.

The essential Dao of Tea

I arrived in Hong Kong after spending a month in Taiwan learning about tea from the producers, master roasters, reputable shopkeepers, tea professors and the such.  I went there with a sound foundation of tea knowledge, and I left with the new belief that good tea is not complicated.  Maybe Mr. Lin has the best puerh around, but if you don't like it, then "best" doesn't really mean much to you, does it?

                  Dong Ding Mountain

I was humbled by one of my teachers, who asked me when I first met him, "What are you going to do with all of the tea knowledge that you're seeking and why?"  After I gave my answer, he chuckled and said that unless I intended to be a farmer or a shopkeeper in Taipei, I shouldn't waste my youth, energy or time on learning more about tea than I already knew.  He said that I should find shopkeepers of good reputation that carried good products, and it would be infinitely more time-efficient for me to maintain a good relationship with these people and buy from them.

My intention, though, wasn't to try to find cheap sources of good tea, but to understand what makes tea good in the first place.  After spending a length of time with this teacher, I touched upon the zen-like principle that good tea just is, and then it's fleeting.  If you can remember your favorite cup of brew that you've ever had, you may have a bittersweet moment in which you recall its beauty, but also know that you will never have another cup exactly like the one you tasted.  If you can find the exact same tea, it may still be good, but in a different way.

I oftentimes think of one of Bruce Lee's memorable quotes when I try to settle disputes in my mind of what is "good" or "better." He said:

For in the landscape of Spring there is neither better nor worse? The flowering branches grow naturally, some long, some short

     A fine brew of oolong tea

I started this blog with the intention of disseminating the knowledge I have about tea as well as sharing my tea stories.  As a tribute to my teachers, I continue to write with the hope that learning - both as a personal journey to find a good brew and an exploration into the cultivation of oneself - will continue and progress, and that as long as there is passion for the brew, the efforts of the good people that work to make it will continue.

Drink good tea and enrich your life.