Patience and Old Teas

Gingko over at Life in Teacup has been generous enough to share several favorite tea samples with me recently, some of which are a fantastic value.  We’ve also been conversing for a few weeks about trends in oolong and she has good ideas and information regarding a much-appreciated revival of traditional Tieguanyin production methods in Anxi.  I can corroborate her news to some degree as my Muzha teacher has been invited to the mainland a few times to teach classes on traditional roasting.

I take care to be gentle when first sampling a tea.  I’ve given many samples out over the years of various teas that I’ve acquired or worked on.  Proper and careful brewing makes all the difference in the experience of the tea.  A 1997 sample of a premium Biluochun, for example, went to a man that brewed it in a French Press with boiling water.  He declared the tea to be bitter and stale and sent me a can of fancy Dragon Pearls so that I may learn what a “proper” green tea should taste like (to be fair, it wasn’t a bad tea, but jasmine is not the pinnacle of the art of green tea, either).  Another time, I gave a sample of an aged and roasted oolong to a tea friend.  As we sat together several weeks afterwards, I asked him what he thought of the tea I had brought him.  “Seriously?  It was awful,” he said.  Interesting, I thought, that he would have such a strong reaction to that tea.  We had coincidentally been drinking the same one for the past 15 minutes and he seemed to appreciate it quite a bit.  “Use a gaiwan and brew it for under a minute with sub-boiling water” I told him, “it will turn out much better that way.”

“Oh….”

Aged teas are tricky for many reasons, a big one being that there isn’t a lot of it floating around here that can be affordably acquired.  It’s also tricky to immediately judge the tea.  Take an aged oolong that was recently re-roasted and it may taste smoky, burnt and/or awful.  It is true that no tea is supposed to taste burnt, but it’s also true that given time, the fire may subside and reveal a substantial and pleasant tea base underneath (unless the roasting chars the tea and it fails to open).  I agree that this is not the norm, but it happens, and the only way to know is to give it some time.  Aged oolongs also change rather quickly depending on how they’re stored.  For a simple test, find 4 small-sized, air-tight storage vessels:  porcelain; clay; glass and metal.  Place a small amount of tea into each one (maybe enough for 2 or 3 servings), put the lid back on (or not, if you’re feeling like a rebel) and wait a month or two.  Try the teas again and you may find that they taste quite different.  I find clay/stone to be the best for reducing fire quickly.  Porcelain and pewter tend to be better for storage once the tea has stabilized, and glass’ advantage is that it’s easy to find and relatively cheap (best if you plan to drink the tea inside of it fairly soon). 

Plastic?  Some say never, but I disagree.  The tea farmers don’t store all of their old oolongs in fancy vessels for decades.  They usually store their teas in a thick plastic bag (not the dinky zip-type baggies that can impart odors), which can be put inside giant metal drums.  Bags of random teas are often found in the nooks and crannies of their shops and these can turn out to be treasures.  Shiuwen at Floating Leaves once found a sample of a 1960s Baozhong when she was cleaning her house that turned out to be pretty special.  Incidentally, she talked with one of her producers a few weeks ago and asked, on behalf of one her customers, what the best way to store aged oolong is and he responded, simply: “Plastic.”  It is, after-all, quite resistant to air and moisture intrusion.

A few weeks ago, I found a little sample of an old-looking pu’er in a plastic baggie that turned out to be my 1970s brick of deliciousness; I still don’t remember when I packed that baggie, but it was a pleasant surprise.  Drink good tea and enrich your life.

Some Interesting Uses for Old Tea

I was surfing the tea blogs and came upon a post by a Chinese blogger that talks about ten healthy uses for used tea. 

Some of the uses are new to me.  For the list in its entirety, check out “Jerry’s Blue Water Blog.”  It’s not stated what tea should be used, but I’m guessing it’s oolong since the blog writer has written several posts about oolong before.  The blog author works as a scientist or researcher, but it’s not stated as to if the items on his list has undergone any scientific evaluation.

1)  Make tea eggs.  There’s a recipe for these in one of my earlier posts.  Yum.

2)  Make tea pillows.  No thanks.  To the author’s credit, though, he doesn’t talk about a reduction in blood pressure, but mentions that sleeping on tea leaves improves mental clarity.

3)  Mosquito repellent.  Take dried tea leaves and burn them at night to ward off the insects.  I’ve tried this on Dong Ding before and it didn’t work for me.  I believe that smoke does help ward off insects, but unlike Citronella oil, I don’t think the natural oils found in tea are an effective repellant.  Dong Ding has some crazy thirsty mosquitoes.

4)  Plant food/fertilizer.  I haven’t tried this before, but I have heard of people using spent tea leaves as a nutritious mulch for plants. 

5)  Foot deodorizer/anti-fungal solution.  I’ve never tried this before, either.

6)  Eliminate bad breath.  The post’s instructions say to frequently place used, wet tea leaves into one’s mouth and to keep it there for a bit.  One could also rinse with a strong brew of used tea with the same effect, so says the author. 

7)  Special hair conditioner.  Washing with a strong brew of used tea leaves (after first using shampoo) can make hair look full, rich, soft and dark. 

8)  As a gentle cleaner for silk and nylon.  The author says that tea is not harsh on delicate fabrics.  I don’t know what properties in tea would make clothes cleaner than just using water, but I don’t find that washing with tea would be harmful, either.  Unless one uses roasted oolong leaves to wash a light-colored silk garment, in which case, the garment will no longer be light-colored. 

9)  As a multi-purpose cleanser for household items like furniture, glass, mirrors, etc. 

10)  As an odor remover, particularly for stinky utensils.  I think this can work.  I’ve randomly washed dishes together with tea bowls and messed around with scrubbing tea leaves on metal utensils and it does seem to have some effect on that stinky, fishy metallic smell that some utensils can get, as well as some effect on strong garlic smells.  Lemon juice or orange peel seem to work better, though.

Interesting list.  I have heard of many more uses, both abstract and reasonable.  Tea is quite a wondrous plant.

Miraculous Tea Cures All!

“It lowers blood pressure, regulates energy and appetite, eliminates bad cholesterol, prevents and/or cures cancer, helps prevent tooth decay….”  The claims about the health benefits of tea often cross into non-approved and unproven uses.  The US FDA took action against many websites that popped up over the past few years claiming that miraculous Wulong tea guarantees weight loss, cures heart disease and lowers cholesterol.

Tea has been said to have a lot of health effects and I believe this is true.  I think that chief among these benefits it that tea’s pleasant nature can bring calm and contentment into our lives (which in turn can bring a whole slew of other positive mental and physical effects).

I hear a lot, for example, about how dried tea leaves can be made into pillows that help eliminate problems with high blood pressure.  I am curious as to what mode of transmission would cause dry, previously-infused tea leaves that are stuffed into a cloth case to release special properties that, when slept upon, would lead to a statistically significant reduction in blood pressure.  If a person with normal blood pressure or even slightly low blood pressure were to, for some reason, sleep on such a pillow, would their BP drop down to an unhealthy or dangerously low level?  Early on in my tea studies, I helped a friend collect used tea leaves to make pillows with.  We dried pounds of it in the California sun and stuffed them into pillow cases that we sewed shut.  I slept on one on-and-off for a few weeks and found it to be very uncomfortable.  I envisioned that it would be cooling and supportive like the buckwheat hull pillows that were all the rage back then, but no, these tea pillows were jagged and the crunchy noises frequently woke me.  After a few weeks, the moisture (humidity? sweat? drool?) that had found its way back into the tea leaves did not create a pleasant aroma of wonderful oolongs, but a stale odor.  The darkness, heat and moisture also created issues with mold.  Tea pillows for sleeping on?  Can’t say I recommend it, but your mileage may vary.

Tea has helped me to reduce my high blood pressure in a different way during stressful times in my career.  However, I cannot say that it was the beverage itself that led directly to the reduction.  The process of having to slow down and relax as I prepared and consumed tea, the “therapy” of being able to share my troubling thoughts with tea friends, and a general change in my dietary habits were key factors.  To say that the tea alone cured my ailment would be misleading. 

Benefits aside, I have read several studies regarding a link between tea consumption and esophageal cancer (source link).  The root problem, however, shouldn’t be the tea itself, but the high temperature of the tea that was consumed by the study subjects.  Repeated overly-hot beverage or overly-hot food consumption has been shown in several studies to highly correlate with gastro-intestinal tract damage.

I also continue to read and hear a lot about tea and caffeine.  #1:  “White tea has the least caffeine and black tea has the most.  Pu’er tea is fermented, so it has no caffeine.”  #2:  “Dumping the first infusion of tea will eliminate the majority of the caffeine in its leaves.”

Both statements are incorrect, and the scientists who study this kind of stuff have proven the wrongness.  White tea is minimally processed and has quite a bit of caffeine.  A green/sheng/raw pu’er cake can also have a lot of caffeine; even an aged one may have quite a bit.  If you take a white tea or a green pu’er cake and brew it in a big pot with boiling water, then proceed to dump the first pot but drink the next 4, you will certainly feel the effects of the caffeine (unless you are a cool mutant who is immune – which does happen).

If many online sources are to be believed, dumping the first brew will eliminate 80%+ of the caffeine; that is simply not true (unless, as the studies show, the tea is brewed for over 5 minutes).  Nigel Melican is a respected tea consultant and a defender of tea facts.  He does a great job disseminating scientific sources to show that some of the conventional wisdom surrounding tea is quite wrong.  This Cha Dao blog article from 2008 is well written and helps dispel some of the myths that continue to circulate.  Read through the comments to see just how much debate was generated (and it continues on/off on Twitter!).  Certainly it can reasonably be said that more research is necessary, but at this time, I can find no credible study of tea using scientific methods that has determined that white tea consistently has the lowest level of caffeine, or that a normal 30-60 second infusion will eliminate the majority of caffeine in the leaves.

I once believed, for years, that white tea had no caffeine and I brewed it for my grandma weekly.  Every time I did so, I’d think she was bonkers the next morning when she swore that the tea kept her awake for at least a part of the night.  Nonsense, it’s white tea, it has no caffeine!  Alas, I was very wrong.  There is no shame in being corrected, but there is when one continues to advocate nonsense (my poor granny!). 

At the end of the day, whether we have our facts right or wrong, it’s really what’s in the cup that should matter most.  If it tastes good, drink it and enrich your life.  But maybe not before bedtime.  And you might want to let it cool down a bit, too. 

Truly Great Minds…

Read this blog!  The writer, though…eh, fairly hit or miss :P

Joking aside, after my last post on moldy tea, several folks wrote comments with more info/ideas on the tea.  They were spot on about several points after reading just the little info that I had written and by looking at my pics.  Impressive!

I brewed the tea last week and enjoyed it with a few tea friends.  We used a small yixing pot that has been used only for dark teas (pu’er, Liu An…that type) for several years.

With old teas, I nearly always drink the rinse-brew also.  With this particularly moldy one (and with a mold of unknown type or origin), we decided to rinse with boiling water, steep for about 20 seconds, toss the infusion, then brew.  Immediately after pouring out the first drinkable infusion, we noticed that the color was very light, which is not typical of an old pu’er (especially for a supposed label cake).

The color of the brew was quite light, appearing more like a green pu’er cake’s brew or a light-moderately oxidized Dong Ding brewed in a gaiwan.  There was also very little familiar fragrance.  I’ve observed that old pu’ers tend to have an aroma that falls into one of 3 categories:  camphor/woodsy; plum/apricot, and ginseng/herbal.  Wait, there’s one more – crap (but like someone said, don’t knock the poo poo pu’er, it doesn’t always suck). 

This brew smelled grassy.  The taste was light and fleeting – it didn’t have the smooth and refined mouth-feel that I was expecting (ie. “silk water”) nor did it feel substantive.  The taste reminded me a bit of the mixed, unidentifiable taste one would have by pouring hot water into an old, empty teapot that had been used to brew a certain type of tea for years.  The pot retains traces of flavor and fragrance, but the brew itself would feel and taste confused and mixed.  The energy of this tea also felt unstable.  The taste and mouth-feel were more harsh than I was expecting.  There was also an odd taste to the tea that reminded me of old teas that have been damaged by wet-storage.  I’ve mentioned before that I’m not against wet-storing, in fact, I sometimes like the flavor and scent profile of wet-stored teas.  However, the non-ideal storage conditions of this old tea have caused the flavors and aromas to feel as if they’ve been sealed away.  I think that proper storage in a small, good-quality clay jar might help this tea release characteristics that are closer to its true flavor.  There’s potential, but probably not for a mind-blowingly awesome brew.

I contacted my friend last weekend to figure out what tea he had given me.  He was surprised that we could taste so many different kinds of flavors.  He said I was right to guess that the tea was between 40-50 years old (he says it’s closer to 50) – which puts it out of range to compete in age with the fancy blue and red label pu’ers from the 40s and 50s (which corresponds to a comment that the tea just didn’t look quite as old as the famous label cakes).  Another very astute reader pointed out that this tea, with its Golden Flowers, looked like Fu Zhuan tea – and she is absolutely right.  The great article that she found on the Hojo Tea Site talks a lot more about Fu Tea.  It is grown and processed differently than Pu’er and has different flavor and scent characteristics.  Fu tea is also made in the Hunan area, whereas most Pu’er is made further south.  My friend said that although yellow mold does grow on a variety of tea, it is especially prized for the development of Fu Zhuan tea.  In fact, he said that this tea that he had given me needs to develop even more Gold Flower mold if it’s to improve in taste.  Interesting indeed, and quite a pleasure to try something different and special.

Now back to oolongs.  Drink good tea and enrich your life.

It’s Old. And Moldy. Would YOU Drink It?

You bet I would!

I received a present from a tea friend recently.  He was given a big piece of an old, color-labeled pu’er tea.  The tea is old enough that it’s started to decompose, the leaves and stems blending into itself like organic matter that’s being composted (no worms or their byproducts!).  The tea has taken on a grayish hue as it continues to age.  What is most unique about this tea is not its age, though, but the “Golden Flowers” that have grown on it.

I wouldn’t give up the chance to try something new.  New, in this case, is a tea that is very old with yellow mold.  My friend would not tell me what year this tea is, or what kind of label tea it is.  He wanted me to try the tea first and give him my feedback.

Mold is not a bad thing.  It exists everywhere, whether or not we can see it.  It exists in our homes and on many of the items we wear and use.  Mold is oftentimes our friend, aiding in the creation of delicious treats (cheese, salami, etc.) as well as helpful medicines.  The rule of thumb that I’ve heard is that unless it’s black, mold is pretty harmless.  This is, I believe, only partly true, as not all black molds are particularly harmful, either (and even those that are toxic may only affect certain persons with allergies or compromised immune systems).  But what to do when one finds it on tea, and what does it mean?

My friend says that with old pu’er tea, golden flower mold is a sign of age and is a good thing.  Why this is, neither of us knows, and whether or not the golden flowers affect the taste of the tea (or grow on the tea due to some exceptional conditions of storage and/or special compounds found within the tea) I don’t know, either.  All I know is that this gift from my friend is of a rare tea.  He said it’s delicious and he’s never been wrong about delicious teas.  I have eaten all manner of moldy things and have extensively toured properties that have had toxic black mold as well, and I’m still alive.  I’ve seen white mold grow on stored teas and I’ve seen pictures of black mold on teas, but this is the first time that I’ve seen yellow mold in person.

I went online using the search term 金花菌 (golden flower germ/bacteria/fungus) and found a Taiwanese pu’er lover’s site:

Art-Q’s Site 

He has magnified pictures of a pu’er brick tea with golden flowers that resemble the ones on my tea.  The real name of the golden flower mold is, per the site, 冠突散囊菌 or Eurotium Cristatum. 

I’ve already decided that I will be drinking this tea, although I will try not to snort too much of the loose mold spores into my nose.  Tasting notes to come.

Where does Taiwan’s Vietnamese Tea go?

The amount of Vietnamese oolong-style tea that is exported to Taiwan is growing every year, as is Vietnam’s overall tea production.  Da Lat in central Vietnam is similar in elevation to Shan Lin Xi.  Weather, soil, growing conditions, etc are different, but several Taiwan producers and wholesalers who have visited central Vietnam’s tea mountains remark on how similar the topography of the two are.

It is also from talking to these producers and wholesalers, as well as other retailers outside of Asia, that I believe that Taiwan’s Vietnamese oolong is either being packaged – in whole or in part (as a blend) – as Taiwan tea.  The demand for Taiwan’s teas, specifically such teas as high mountain oolongs and Dong Ding oolong, exceed the amount of tea produced in those regions.  I’ve mentioned several times in this blog that lower-grade Dong Ding tea, for example, is often produced in neighboring areas such as Zhushan.  The elevation is lower, the soil is different and the temperature is not as cool as in the core Dong Ding production areas. 

Where is the rising demand coming from?  Interest in premium-grade teas has grown in the west, but we only account for a part of the increased demand.  Mainland China is a huge market for premium products.  I have met Chinese buyers that bring stacks of money to buy tea by the hundreds of jin.  One such buyer told me in the Spring of 09 that the resale price of good Muzha Tieguanyin is much more than in the US (I can’t remember what price he quoted, but I recall that it was over 30% more than the going rate here).

According to one Vietnamese tea exporter, over 10,000 tons (not sure if they refer to short tons or metric tons) of Vietnamese tea was exported to Taiwan per year in the mid 2000s (source link).  A Taiwan jin is 600 grams, so 10,000 tons of tea is equivalent to over 15 million jin of tea!  To put it in perspective, my Dong Ding teacher produced several tons of tea/year during his peak production years, when he was one of the biggest producers of Dong Ding tea.  10,000 tons of tea is a lot of tea to import.  I have never seen tea labeled as Vietnamese tea in any grocery store, teahouse or tea store in Taiwan, but that imported tea is going somewhere.  It’s no secret to the wholesalers and distributors that the tea is blended with domestic sources.

So what’s the big deal?  Vietnamese tea can be quite tasty and the price is lower.  It is dishonest, though, to blend and sell a cheaper foreign tea that is represented as a premium product.  There is a special pride in how much skill and quality goes into Taiwan’s premium teas, which I believe exhibit an unrivaled level of quality and expertise.  Where exactly is the blended tea going?  I don’t know, but it has likely made its way all over the world.  Good retailers that know their product and producers will greatly limit one’s exposure to dishonest products.