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I embarked on my tea journey when I studied abroad in China in 2008 and traveled around Taiwan that summer. I'm here to share my experiences and offer my own opinion, advice, and comments on tea.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Hundred Year Tree

*NOTE* I actually wrote this a really long time ago, but more interesting things kept popping up that I wanted to talk about instead. I had actually taken some photos of the leaves and tea soup, but I can't find them any more...and I already finished this tea. >.< href="http://www.teahabitat.com/store/">Tea Habitat and The Tea Gallery. All these teas have been challenged my conception of how teas within the same "family" could elicit so many different flavors, aromas, and emotions. It's hard to pick which one to review first, but I think I will start with the one that needed more special attention, but paid off beautifully.


Hundred Year Tree (description; $18/25 grams)
This is definitely the most I've ever paid for tea so far, but the price really is worth it. I've decided to slowly try all of The Tea Gallery's Wuyi offerings, ordering a few every so often until I've sampled them all. That's how amazing their tea is. I first brewed using 5 grams for my 120 ml teapot, which turned out okay. There was nice aroma and flavor profile, but I was kind of disappointed with the lack of a "tea high." I moved through all my samples once before coming back to this one. I decided to amp up the amount to 5.5 grams, and I brewed it with a heavy hand ... and jackpot.

It's useless to write a review of this tea, because what I experienced could not be described with words. I think they did a very nice job of describing the aroma very well in their description...can't really add much to that. Even though I like the Shi Lan more, I think I like the feeling this tea gives me the best. It had a profound calming effect, and I felt a tingling sensation go through my entire body. It was mind-blowing, and I don't mind that in a hyperbolic way, I was literally out of my mind for a few hours afterward.

I'm adding this to the list of "things to reorder" after I make it around all of The Tea Gallery's fine selection. A big thumbs up on this one!

(I realized that I said I would post about The Tea Gallery's Classic Roast vs. Just 4 Tea Classic Roast, but I just needed to post about this exquisite tea.)

*EDIT*
I was mulling over what I had written for this post, and I have a confession to make. I wrote this draft right after my cha qi high on my 2nd time trying this (which is why the review is so gushing), but on the 3rd and 4th go with this tea, the cha qi was absent. Looking back at my notes, reading what I had written, mulling over the tea in my head...I think I probably wouldn't re-order this tea. It's an interesting tea, and the old tree aspect probably gives the tea great depth. I like some of the other Tea Gallery selections better, such as the Shi Lan. I would probably feel differently though, if I could nail that cha qi feeling everytime I brewed this.

4 comments:

Salsero said...

Thanks for the review. I will be very interested in your comments on the two traditional roast TKY

shibumi said...

Are you familiar with qi loading?

Maitre_Tea said...

no, please elaborate...

shibumi said...

"qi loading" or "qi cycles" are based on varieties of qi and how it is obtained.

In regards to tea, an older tea with lots of qi may have less of an effect if drunk constantly. To counteract this, you should balance out the aged tea consumption with younger tea- oolongs, green tea even.

Theories also exist that qi has yin-yang qualities (ie. masculine/feminine, body/mental). In this way, you would also want to balance out these attributes in order to magnify the effects of the qi.

That being said- I personally am no expert in these matters... But I have had more than a handful of times the experience of a tea being "uplifting, calming, and centering" the first time around- only to be disappointed when these feelings are not around during subsequent brewings.

So, while "qi loading" may seem on the fringes, I think there may be some value to it.