Oxidation Levels and Flavor Profiles

The process for making oolong involves more steps than other types of tea.  The most important steps for determining the fundamental taste and base of an oolong during its processing are in the oxidation.

Oolong oxidation will produce 4 major categories of flavor/aroma.  From light to heavy oxidation, those categories are:

1)  菜香 (Cai Xiang) - Vegetal, such as Baozhong.
2)  花香 (Hua Xiang) - Floral, such as Alishan high mountain tea.  This category is often further subdivided by the types of floral, such as 蘭貴 (Lan Gui - orchid) or 桂花 (Gui Hua - osmanthus).
3)  果香 (Guo Xiang) - Fruity, such as Dong Ding or Muzha Tieguanyin.  A traditional medium-high oxidized, medium-high roast Muzha TGY may even have notes of ripe fruit, 熟果香 (shu guo xiang).
4)  蜜香 (Mi Xiang) - Honey, such as Oriental Beauty.  A highly-oxidized oolong’s flavor is also said to sometimes resemble 焦糖 (Jiao Tang) or caramel.  I think that tea that has been over-roasted and allowed to rest a while will also infuse tea that is caramel in color and has sweet notes.

Several different leaf varietals are used in the production of Taiwan oolongs, the most prevalent of which is the Qingxin varietal (青心).  Nearly all high mountain oolong is produced with Qingxin leaf.  Dong Ding oolong is also produced with Qingxin, and often with Ruanzhi (軟支, soft stem). 

I greatly prefer medium-oxidation teas to light or high-oxidation ones.  General taste profiles are helpful to me (in addition to other info/experience) when identifying different types of high mountain oolong.  Lishan tends to have a higher-oxidation level than Alishan, for example, and also tends to taste more fruity than floral.  Shanlinxi usually has an oxidation level between Lishan and Alishan and has a uniquely fruity and floral profile. 

Food and Tea…Together

I love Vancouver BC’s Chinese food and its availability of all things Chinese (herbs, snacks, music…).  Vancouver’s Chinese radio station is great as well, especially on Sunday afternoons when they have cool talks on a variety of life and lifestyle topics.

 It’s Fall, time for darker, full-bodied teas like this traditional Dong Ding

A few months ago, the station did a segment on ideas for food and tea pairings, given by a long-time tea drinker who is also a self-trained chef.  I tuned in late and missed a lot of the segment, but he talked a lot about the contrast of flavors.  You don’t want to, he said, pair similar foods with similar teas, just as you wouldn’t eat a sweet dessert after drinking orange juice, which would mute the desserts bounty of flavors.

The guest speaker compared tea pairings to wine pairings, which he has also studied in.  Because of tea’s relatively delicate tastes, he recommends foods that are lighter in flavor.

Some of his recommendations:

-With a sweet dessert, he recommends a smoky and/or bold tea, like a Wuyi Yancha or a Tieguanyin.  Pu’er also works, but doesn’t always highlight the range of a dessert’s flavors.

-For foods that have some tartness, like cheese, he said something like a traditional Phoenix Dancong with strong oxidation and a fruity note would be good.  Per his reasoning, Taiwan’s Oriental Beauty may also be a good choice.

-For a light and dry dessert (e.g. pastries, sponge cake…) he believes that a fresh and “thinner” tea, like a green Longjing or a white Longevity Brow (Shou Mei) would work nicely.

-For an after-dinner digestif, Pu’er is a wonderful choice.  He said something thick and heavy, like an old pu’er or a cooked cake, would work best.

In addition to pairing tea as a beverage with different dishes, there are many blog articles and even a few Chinese cookbooks that have touched upon using tea in cooking.  The trick is to make the tea a star in the dish, not just a supporting character.

Experiment and enjoy the new experiences of paired consumption.

The invisible energy around us

The subtle energy and air of the human body – how does one measure it?  Does it even exist?  If so, how do we make use of it?

I know that this debate continues both within the tea community and beyond.  Qi manipulation is a part of the body of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).  Last year, a Qigong doctor traced my leg pain to a misaligned disc in my back that months of treatment by various doctors and chiropractors could not identify.  One’s ability to sense and manipulate qi depends on many factors, and each person’s baseline ability seems to vary. 

Each individual’s experience with qi also differs.  In several issues of “The Art of Tea” magazine, there were reviews of pu’er tea where several tea masters were asked to independently taste and rate each tea.  Their sensations of each tea’s qi were quite different from each other.  The qi doctor told me that the sensation of qi is generally the same, but each person has a unique interpretation of it.  The ability to reliably identify the feeling of qi from other biological and environmental phenomena requires experience and training.

How does the breath of life affect our tea experiences?  I believe that tea can be a complete sensory experience.  Just as a delicious meal may activate multiple senses and provide complete satisfaction, so too can a beautiful tea.  It will delight us with its aroma and flavor, and make us feel complete with its lingering energy.  But how exactly are we able to differentiate between the tea’s energy and our own?  How do we know that what makes us feel happy and complete is the complete energetic nature of the tea and not our own minds providing a response for us?

Really, we don’t.  The feeling of qi and unseen energies are subjective and cannot yet be accurately measured by scientific equipment.  Several years ago, for example, my sister had a Feng Shui/Qigong consultant walk through her house.  The master came upon a piece of “antiqued” furniture and said that the energy from it was off the charts; it was holding unstable energy in it that had been absorbed through generations of ownership.  The consultant said that the energy of living organisms is absorbed into all of the things around us, such as furniture (and presumably teaware).   My sister revealed to her that the new piece was antiqued, not an antique, and was made to look old for decorative reasons.  The Feng Shui consultant, whose dowsing rod had been twirling like a weathervane in the middle of a storm, put her instrument back into her satchel of doo-dads and walked into another room as if nothing had happened.  That experience proved to be a load of hot air rather than a demonstration of qi energy.

I believe that qi exists and I believe that there is energy all around and within us.  It can contribute to our unique experience and enjoyment of many things, including our tea sessions. 

Slow Brew for a New Experience

A flame, a stand and a tea pot. 

Room temperature water and tea goes into the pot; heat the pot over a slow flame.

Works well with a full-bodied oolong tea or a complex pu’er that’s already been infused a few times.

New dimensions of flavor and taste.  This method forces you to really slow down to enjoy a nice cup of tea.

Drink good tea and enrich your life.

 

A Cheap Spot Roasting Solution

A good, well-oxidized oolong can last for years.  Some teas are OK just being put into a jar and kept over time, but most will benefit from regular re-roasting.  I usually spot roast by putting tea in a sheet of paper that I circle over a flame.  A quick touch-up makes a stale tea more enjoyable, but doing more than 10 minutes of spot roasting by hand gets tedious.  There are specialized spot roasting sets, but they’re not cheap. 

Teaguyver (that’s me, at least for today) pieced together a suitable & cheap spot roaster.

I took the lid and base from a yixing gaiwan.  The base went on top of the heating stand for a chocolate fondue set that I had (>$10).  Light the candle, stir it around from time to time, and you’re good to go.

I spot roasted a 2009 Dong Ding that had gone stale in my jar.  20 minutes made a HUGE difference - 30+ would’ve been even better.  The stale flavor of a tea is very noticeable, but staleness doesn’t taste the same between different teas.  For this Dong Ding, it’s a raw, vegetal taste, like past-date celery. 

(the moisture on the lid after just 2 minutes)

The point is to remove moisture and extraneous tastes.  There’s quite a bit of moisture that accumulates in the tea; I put a lid on top of the heating tea to show the escaping moisture.  It came out for a good 7 minutes. 

Some notes:

-I don’t think spot-roasting works as well with a lid.  It is important to trap some heat, but air circulation is important as well. Sticking some chopsticks/skewers between the lid and the base will help retain heat and provide better air circulation.

-An enclosed shape, like an old teapot, would be a good spot-roasting vessel.

-Spot roasting should be done shortly before drinking the tea.

-The process will not turn a “bad” tea into a “good” one.  It will help a good oolong that no longer tastes very good turn into something more pleasant. 

-Spot roasting will not return a tea to its original condition.  The taste will be improved, but different.

I love oolongs.

Competition Oolong can taste funny as it ages

It can taste magical when it's fresh, with so many layers of flavor and aromas that a thesaurus may be needed to adequately describe its characteristics.  They can also be very expensive.  Depending on the tea, the top-prize oolongs can go for more than $1000 USD/pound – that’s if you even get the chance to buy them. 

Depending on the tea and the competition, there may be quite a number of winners – grand prize, first prizes, second places, 3rd places, honorable mentions….  If you’ve ever chanced to buy a competition oolong and have kept it around – especially the less-oxidized one – you may have noticed that its taste changes a lot as it ages.

I pulled out a 2nd-place Muzha TGY sample that I found while unpacking the other day and brewed it.  I remember how it tasted nearly 3 years ago – full bodied, fruity, truly alive.  I checked the tasting notes from my trip and it was something that I would have bought if there was any supply to buy.  I tasted the sample and it was expectedly stale.  Its roast had faded, but there was more clarity for me to taste the tea base.  It tasted off, unpleasant and unfulfilling. 

Why would such a well-roasted tea deteriorate so much?  It happens a lot with competition teas and I think that the original processing and oxidation of the tea is to blame.  This tea, and many like them, was not adequately oxidized before it was baked.  As the fire and roast fades, one can more easily compare the tea base to the tea’s roast, and there is a big gap.  Could such a problem be “fixed” so many years after?  Kinda yes, mostly no.  To re-roast the tea’s base, one must be able to heat the core of the tea and force out the extraneous flavors using increasing levels of heat; heating and rest must be alternated.  Finally, one must seal in the flavor with a correct finishing roast.  However, finished teas have already been touched by high heat and it’s difficult to produce a great result through re-roasting.  The best that one can hope for is to transform the tea into a more consistent taste, but it is very hard to make it excellent.  Oxidation happens before the tea is finished and first touched by fire, so it is not easy to alter the taste from the original oxidation process.  Can it be done?  Master roasters have given me mixed answers, but I have yet to have any of them successfully bring such a tea back to life for me.

Like a green or high mountain tea, the competition oolongs are meant to wow you when they’re fresh.  There may be value in holding on to the tea for a long while, but if we go by taste, they tend to taste best shortly after production.  I know that back in the old days, many competition teas were stored and aged (you can still buy some decades-old prize-winning oolongs; they’re not cheap) but changes to tea processing, oxidation levels and consumer tastes have altered the storability of these teas.  A quick spot roast right before drinking will make it more palatable.  I have several different spot roasting sets on order – stay tuned for results from my next round of experiments.