Changes

It's interesting to see how our tastes in tea change over time, even in a short interval of time. I remember last summer I was in a phase with Japanese greens, which is something that I haven't had in a long time. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that I bought so much that drinking it became a chore. Well, I recently placed a pre-order for this year's shincha from Yuuki-Cha, so I'm looking forward to that. Only ordered one thing, so hopefully I won't be forced to drink it all up ASAP. As I was thinking about tea to try, when my eyes glanced over my yancha pot, and it just came to me: I haven't had a yancha in almost two months. And it's probably my favorite kind of tea too! So what happened?

Well, I've chanced upon some pretty amazing yancha, that the ones I usually drink don't excite me anymore. Yancha can get pretty pricey, and I brew it in a style that burns through ALOT of leaf (a normal session usually calls me for at least 10 grams for a 100 ml pot). My attention has also been focused on another things, especially pu-erh, which I've been finding more exciting these days.

Even though I was jonesing for some aged pu-erh, I decided to take yancha pot out for a spin. I have some high-fired DHP stashed away to settle down and maybe age a bit. It's mellowed over this past six months and the charcoal taste isn't as strong. It's a decent tea, not great, but not terrible.

Oh well

Secrets

A recent conversation with a tea friend has touched upon this, but I'm sure that this something that everyone thinks about in some way or another. If it doesn't, than maybe I'm being too paranoid so just ignore me.

Secrets, tea secrets. Not so much trade secrets like processing technique or whatever (though I'm sure for farmers this is probably an issue). I'm talking about secrets regarding teas/tea-ware that you like. So why would this be a problem? Well, this is actually more of a problem with pots and pu-erh than it is with other stuff, since the former can be rarer and limited in quality. Especially when there are only one or two cakes left, it can get kind of tense because there's the fear that someone will buy it up. So if I, as a blogger, praise said tea highly...well, some random reader comes along, reads it, and decides to snatch it away from me.

This is more of a problem with random readers than it is with the couple readers that I've corresponded with, who I can trust not to purposely screw me over. Of course, this is capitalism, so it's really every man for itself...but just to keep the odds in my favor, well, maybe I'll be a little less specific about the teas I like.

Anyway, onto the tea of the day...which actually falls into this category of limited availability so until I decide to buy it I won't give it away: but if you're really curious, I might let you know.

This is a late 90s tea, that's seen some slight wet-storage, but luckily that doesn't really seem to affect the tea's quality, though I'm a partial to wet-storage. What's so surprising is that it's still go some bitterness on it, and not the bad kind. It's a good bitterness, one that melts away into a sweet aftertaste. It's like some sort of bitter tea that my parents drank growing up in Taiwan. I'm surprised that it still has that kind of edge on it, since the few teas I've tasted with similar maturity have been mellower. Good strength, excellent tenacity, and thick/luscious mouth feel, this is something that I could see really turning into something after more years or again. Of course, I need some sort of approval from the local tea-heads before actually buying it.

Oh yes, there's also the fear that a vendor will see a good review and jack up the price because of that...though I seriously doubt that vendors are bored enough to base their pricing on the ramblings of a tea neophyte

*EDIT*

and it was the 1997 Hen Li Chang Bu Lang from Essence of Tea. And although I said I would confer with my local tea heads, after tasting it again...even if they said it tasted like Satan's piss I would still buy it, because I like it. Unfortunately, I grabbed the last one; however, he might be restocking it in the next few months. Wary of a price hike in the mean time (which just recently happened with a 2001 Yi Chang Hao Yiwu I was so enamored with) and the fact that it may never be restocked...I quickly snatched it up. Keeping my fingers crossed for an eventual restock, since I really want more of this one.

Storage

Even though it may seem from my absence of posting that I'm not thinking/drinking about tea, the truth is far from that. Tea is becoming a constant subject on my mind, whether I'm awake or asleep. This is truly becoming an obsession that is consuming my life, and I love it.

I have two different spaces for my teapots, one for the teapots that I use most frequently (situated closest to my brewing station) and a second space farther away, where I keep unused pots, which are either too big or just unloved. On that second shelf sits a purion teapot, my first "real" teapot I bough almost two years ago in the quaint ceramic/stoneware town that is Yingge. I used it for a while, until I decided that: 1. it was a bit on the large size and 2. it doesn't season or develop a shine like yixing (at least to the extent of my understanding). So what prompted me to take a sudden re-interest in this particular pot?

Zero over at Something Smuggled In had something to do with it. He's experimenting with yixing storage, and I've had the same questions about storage in purion. I've seen purion jars pop up every once in a while, and I've wondered what this "magical" clay affects tea. I sure as heck didn't want to spring for a purion jar (which can be pretty darned pricey) so I decided to use my purion pot as a temporary storage container. I put some wet-stored loose leaf in there, just enough for a single session, for a few days. After two days the wet-storage all but disappeared, and the tea seemed to have a better flavor/aroma, with little storage taste. It tasted much better than if I had brewed it straight from its usual jar.

Of course, this may have to do with airing out of the tea, so I'm doing the same experiment with my yixing pot and just airing out in the open for a few days.

Moldy Tea, Part II

Well, I didn't die from the moldy tea (at least not yet).

I know this is a point that's been emphasized by others such as MarshalN, but one truly cannot underestimate the importance of airing out/awakening a tea, even if it's not a wet-stored mess. I aired out the broken up moldy cake, and let it chill out for a while in a partially opened paper bag. I tasted it last Saturday, and although you can still taste some of the wetness, it's relatively smooth with slight sharpness. Pretty tasty as a daily drinker kind of tea.

Now, the importance of airing out tea isn't just limited to moldy teas, however. I bought some samples a while ago, and one of the samples was a 2001 Changtai Yi Chang Hao Yiwu. When I first tasted the tea, the tea tasted okay but a certain musty scent led to a negative impression of the tea. I wanted to get a second opinion from resident pu-erh expert BearsBearsBears before dismissing the tea completely. I left the sample bag open for a while (two weeks I believe), slightly curious to see if the mustiness was something that could be "aired out."

It tasted very differently than I remembered

Granted, it could have been a difference in water (we actually used my pot for that tea), but even so...the mustiness was gone. It's difficult for me to assign words to the flavors/aroma that I taste, but it was good. It's mellowing out, but there's still some of that sharpness which you would expect from something this young. The tea body was good, and there was a nice aftertaste. It was also at a good level of maturity for its age. Definitely something I will order cakes of, assuming other samples don't impress me as much.

Unexpected

Whenever I came across it on the tea forums I thought, "Nonsense! This will never happen to me! I live in the desert for goodness sake!"

This morning, when wrapping some cakes in tissue paper (I'm keeping the actual wrappers separate in case they rip) I discovered some mold on a recently acquired 1995 Grand Yellow Label! Blueish-white in color, it was scattered across the inner side. I quickly checked through the rest of my cakes and was assured. I'm thinking the mold might have been the result of the cake's already wetter-storage, combined with my fairly wet storage conditions. I've brushed off all the visible mold and I've set the cake aside in a "quarantine" area to be monitored for the next few weeks, even months. I wonder at what point would it be safe to put it back into storage/consume it

Photos for those who may have comments. I've brushed off most of the visible mold, but some of it may be seen if you open the photos in a new window.

I tell myself that mold is not that big of a deal...and cakes from the 50s to 90s were probably stored very badly/casually, in far more humid conditions than my own.

*Breathing* Yes...it's no big deal...


*Shudders*


*EDIT*

I think what I might do at this point, or at least in a few days after some observation, is break up the cake and somehow that will alleviate the mold problem. Than treat it like cheap wet-stored loose leaf. I'm kind of afraid that although the surface mold may be gone, it still might be hiding out on the inner parts of the cake.

NYC Show-Off

The long-awaited recap of my Boston/NYC trip:

I had the pleasure of visiting The Gallery in the comfort of Michael and Winnie's cozy home. It was like walking into my ideal tea room, surrounded by containers full of tea and tea ware galore. Michael, Winnie, and Dae were all gracious hosts, and although I felt out of place in terms of tea experience, I felt very welcomed. Michael was feeling a bit under the weather, so he was mostly in the background. I had gotten the impression from what few photos I've seen of him on their store's website and Dae's Journal that he was a very serious/stoic person. I was surprised with how taken he was with the knock-off iPhone my mother got me in China.I tried three teas, their bi-annual Oriental Beauty, the Golden Buddha, and a Dong Ding. All were excellent, but what captured my attention most was the Oriental Beauty. It was unlike any other Oriental Beauty I have had before. What swill Oriental Beauty have I been drinking all my life! Whereas many Oriental Beauty I've had before are generally simple and straightforward, this one was supremely complex.

It was like opening up an antique wooden drawer filled with Indian spices. Thick in the mouth feel, it lingered in my mouth for what seemed like an eternity. I had prepared to completely write off Oriental Beauty, but this was definitely a game changer. I'm not ready/qualified to say that it was the best; however, it was definitely very good.


I also bought an 80s 125 ml Zi Ni pot for juvenile/adolescent sheng. The "secondary" seal on the bottom was a bit amusing...it recommends this pot for puerh. Makes the process of dedicating this pot much easier. I also bought their smallest gaiwan, an acquisition that has been delayed for too long.


I didn't visit any other tea shops in NYC, but I did visit some vintage/antique Japanese shops, Seasons International in SOHO and Things Japanese in the Upper East Side. Although they both carried mainly Japanese tea ware, there were plenty of vintage cups to satisfy a student of Chinese tea drinking. They both had an interesting selection of tetsubin, which I sadly had neither the space nor budget for.


I bought a few vintage Japanese plates for my gaiwan brewing set-up, and I also bought a 30s Japanese sake cup which I plan on using for puerh. I like rounder cups for pu-erh, and I think that an old(er) tea deserves an old cup. However, the most surprising discovery was an early 20th century gaiwan, hidden in the corner behind all the cups. It was even on sale, which made it even more irresistible. I don't really have a need for more gaiwan, but I was mostly interested in seeing how tea tastes differently in a vintage vs. contemporary piece.

It was nice to visit my friends back East, and it was even nicer to have the opportunity to score so much nice tea ware. It's unfortunate though, that because of these purchases my tea budget is shot to hell for the next month or so. Luckily I'm in a good place tea-wise. I have all my tea bases covered, I have enough pots for the teas I drink regularly, and I have a pretty nice tea set-up now. I'm playing around with a few samples from Sampan, and I'll be ordering some samples from Nada, to fill out my pu-erh collection for some slightly older stuff.

An Unintended Hiatus

I hate writing for the sake of keeping up appearances, but since I have misplaced my camera (probably at my friend's place in NYC), I can't show-off all the awesome tea pieces I got, as well as describing my journey to The Tea Gallery. Hopefully my friend will get back to me after her Valentine's Day trip, or I find my camera somewhere here. If not, I'm running my own tea storage teas, which may have some interesting results. Until next time, Happy Chinese New Years!

*NOTE*

Epic fail...my camera was in the backpack that I had checked countless times before. Only this time did I actually reach all the way down. Show-Off post will be coming shortly...