Water

Steam

Wet with Puer

An Assemblage of Teaware

Tea and Wine Pairing

This is a brilliant result for us: Over 25 tea specialists from the UK and Europe submitted hundreds of green teas, yet we still took over half the awards in the category. It shows that buying direct from smaller producers means your tea just tastes better.
- Canton Tea Co founder, Jennifer Wood

In celebration of their success, Canton Tea Company has partnered with Steepster.com to offer a special Gold Award Tea Taster Pack that contains 10 gram samples of each of the eight award winners for $19.95 including worldwide shipping. The offer is only available through Sunday July 25th, and it is an excellent opportunity to try some excellent teas.

While you’re there, consider purchasing some of the
Yu Lan Dan Cong Oolong at the same time. It’s fabulous. Read about it here and on Lainie Sips.

Over the rough course of many decades during which her country has seen a great deal of political turmoil and transformation, and during which she must have experienced a somewhat grueling agricultural subsistence lifestyle, she has outlasted even her official documentation. Although she does possess a Soviet-era passport which cites her birth as July 8th 1880, her birth certificate has been lost, resulting in some doubts as to the authenticity of the claim that she is truly the oldest living person today.

The woman, who lives with her 40-year-old grandson in an idyllic vine-covered country house in the mountains, retired from her job as a tea and corn picker in 1965, when she was 85, records say.

“I’ve always been healthy, and I’ve worked all my life — at home and at the farm,” said Khvichava, in a bright dress and headscarf, her withering lips rejuvenated by shiny red lipstick. Sitting in the chair and holding her cane, Khvichava spoke quietly through an interpreter since she never went to school to learn Georgian and speaks only the local language, Mingrelian.

- from an article on Yahoo.

To be fair, nothing I read about her indicated that Ms. Khvichava credited years of close contact with tea plants for her longevity. In at least one article, she suggested that it was due to imbibing vodka. (Additionally, the region she lives in is known for longevity, which undoubtedly plays a part.)

The tea industry in Georgia is an interesting one.  Most of today’s crop yield goes to Lipton and other large scale producers for export.   However, alongside the mass-export tea crops, there is also some small family-run orthodox-method specialty tea output, and the tea that it produces is well worth a taste if you can get your hands on some of it.

More information, from the description of one of Georgia’s wonderful teas, available from Nothing But Tea:

Georgia (ex USSR) has many tea growing villagers who manufacture their own tea by hand in their homes. The whole process is completely natural and performed by hand, in the typical white tea way. They pluck buds and tender tips from the bushes, wither them in a single layer over night. Next morning the leaf is hand rolled to curl it and get the fermentation going, and the tea is spread out to dry in the sun. Our roving teaman persuaded a venerable tea making lady in a village near Ozurgeti (in West Georgia) to part with a little of her tea. This unique tea is exclusive to Nothing But Tea, available nowhere else outside of Georgia and only in limited quantities.

The Georgians themselves drink tea, as do people in neighboring countries.  So some efforts are being made towards localizing sales of tea leaves grown in Georgia. This would, of course, benefit Georgian agriculture, which is still trying to recover from the 2008 conflict with Russia, which also damaged the Georgian wine industry.

For more information on agriculture and tea production in Georgia, read this article on Georgian Daily.

For some added flavor, here’s a photograph of Svetitskhoveli Cathedral (სვეტიცხოვლის საკათედრო ტაძარი), a Georgian Orthodox cathedral in Mtskheta, Georgia, near the capital city of Tbilis. Its name translates into “the Living Pillar Cathedral.”

While I am extremely strict about using only teawares that come from the same culture as the tea I am drinking, I have a soft spot for the misfits, anomalies and enigmas of the world, and also objects that signify an intersection of cultures. The piece of teaware in the accompanying photographs is one of the best examples I’ve ever seen of an odd blend of two different tea cultures and artistic traditions.

The style and form of the object are those of a fairly typical Russian podstakannik. A podstakannik (подстаканник) is a metal tea glass holder, used for drinking black tea in Russia and the Ukraine. Examples generally look a lot like the second image in this post, either with the metal filigree often found in Russian metalwork, or cast with images of Russian myths or history. Many of these items made during the Soviet era have emblematic revolutionary symbols: the hammer and sickle, rockets, or images of revolutionary heroes. But this piece was made in China sometime between the middle of the 19th Century and the very early 20th Century, in a style that is clearly Chinese.

The majority of the Chinese metalwork referred to as “export silver,” due to the fact that it was made in China to be sold to people outside of China, had Chinese designs and motifs, which were in vogue in Western European countries and the United States at the time. But they were made in the forms of utilitarian objects that were not at all Chinese, like napkin rings, salt cellars and western-style teaware. Chinese export silver teaware is generally in the British style, in sets of three pieces: teapot, creamer and sugar bowl.

But this particular piece of teaware was obviously not made to appeal to the tastes or tea practices of the British or American silver buyers, which comprised the primary markets for Chinese export silver. I assume that during this same period of history there must have been some demand within Russia for the works of these highly skilled Chinese silversmiths, but this is the only evidence I’ve seen of a piece that is so specifically Russian.

The style fits the description of items from the third period of Chinese export silver, from 1850-1885. But its form, as a traditional Russian tea object does not fit into anything I’ve found on this period of Chinese production. It does have manufacturer’s marks in Chinese on the bottom of it, but I think that they just say that the item is made of silver, and do not bear the manufacturer’s hallmark. I noticed when I photographed the marks that the bottom round piece was cut from sheet silver. Upon closer inspection of the main body I can see that the entire piece is made from sheet silver, with the patterns cut out and ornamental relief hammered into it. None of it is cast silver. The craftsmanship of the piece is quite marvelous.

For more general info, here’s an excerpt from an Antiques Roadshow article on Chinese Export silver:

All Chinese silver was made by hand, with its elaborate designs hammered out by master Chinese craftsmen. The silver depicts flowers, birds, landscapes, dragons and human figures, the patterns that collectors seek out most often. Since Europeans would spend weeks or months aboard ship to travel to China, they would often spend months there. That was long enough to choose a pattern that could be custom-made while they holidayed. “Many of the pieces you see for sale today were made to order,” Stuart says. “It was primarily for foreigners. The elaborate designs of most of the export silver weren’t to the Chinese tastes.”

It should be noted that the podstakannik’s original glass had been lost or broken probably decades before I ever saw the piece. I replaced it with a standard-sized juice glass that I bought for about $2.00 in a thrift store. It fits it perfectly.

Appropriately, the tea pictured with it is Keemun, a tea grown in China and favored in Russia.

In preparation I read as much as I could find about use of these stoves, and other people’s frustrations and successes. I recognized that one of the most important factors in using the stove successfully would be getting the charcoal pieces into a steady, reliable burning state before placing them into the burning chamber of the tiny stove. So before I even attempted using the tea stove for the first time I purchased a butane-fueled portable burner to use for lighting the charcoal. I have used a couple of different objects as grates over the flame to keep the charcoal from dropping in, but the most effective is a small enameled steel basket intended for use with foods inside a barbecue grill. Using it directly over the flame has warped it, but it works well. One of the other things I tried was a combination of two grills at right angles to each other, but this was awkward and not fine enough of a grate to prevent enough of the small pieces from dropping into the burner. This method of lighting the charcoal with high flame over a burner works quite well and must be done outside, unless you don’t mind sparse flights of fine sparks and ash inside of your house.

After the coals are sufficiently lit, I use a pair of brass chopsticks to place the smallish pieces into the stove. I’ve found that since the stove itself is small and lightweight it’s easiest to fill it with the burning charcoal outside and then bring it inside of the house for tea. One important thing to remember is that the ceramic kettles that come with these stoves need to be filled with water at least a half hour before placing them onto the stove so that they do not crack.

After the water-filled kettle is settled onto the top of the stove it proceeds to heat up steadily to a full boil. I haven’t timed this exactly, but the volume of the kettle is fairly small, so it doesn’t take very long. As it approaches boiling, steam pours out of the spout and swirls around the lid. The design of the kettle lid makes it possible to pick it up to check the water without getting burned. In my brewing sessions with the stove I keep a pitcher of room temperature spring water close at hand to top up the kettle with fresh water as necessary. It is important not to let the water level get too low or shock the ceramic with water that is too cool when it’s over the burning charcoal, but adding water a little at a time is not a problem.

For more on the technique, read Tea Habitat’s Guide to using a Chao Zhou Stove Set.

It took a bit of work, but I have identified this tea as third flush Jakseol. When I bought it several weeks ago I was limited in the amount of information at hand, since I am not able to read Korean, but I could tell that it was good quality Korean green tea, grown and produced by the O’Sulloc Company on Jeju (Che-ju) Island, which was enough information to tell me it was what I was looking for. I was quite surprised and pleased to find any respectable Korean tea in a local store, even a large Korean grocery like Paldo World.

As attractive as the bright green tin is, even the company name was a challenge to puzzle out since it only appears in English in the highly stylized logo. But after I identified where the tea came, from I knew I could trust its quality.

The only English on the package says “not fermented green tea,” which didn’t tell me anything useful. Much later, after some comparisons with other tea packages, and some guessing what English to enter into the translator to identify the characters, I was able to translate enough of the package information to tell when in the season it was picked and what kind it was, which was harder than it sounds. I was using Google Translate, which is useful, but I couldn’t type in the Korean characters, and while the translations from English show the Romanizations it wouldn’t translate them the other direction.

The two large characters in the middle left of the package front, under the Sulloc-Cha logo and company name, are Jak-seol (Jakseol), which is a type of Korean green tea, often referred to as “Sparrow’s Tongue” due to its appearance. 중제 means third picking, or third flush, sometimes written Jung-jak (중작), and in the case of this package, the Romanization is “Jeung Je.” (The second character is “third;” the first is jung, or jeung, which translates as “during,” which shows how ineffective literal translation is, in this case.) The third pick of Jakseol is in the later part of June, so this is last year’s tea.

That was a lot of wrangling with language to come up with little actual information, but what is more important is that this is very delicious tea. I’ve made it at home, prepared in a Korean black stoneware tea set. I have also been drinking it fairly often in a Korean celadon cup/infuser set at work, which is quite pleasant.

I need to find the proper Korean name for those sets. They’re not at all like a Chinese gaiwan, although I’ve seen people call them that, and they’re not just a cup or mug. They’re very efficient devices for brewing and drinking Korean green teas. for the first infusion I pour boiling water into the empty mug part and then insert the infuser with the tea in it after the water is around 160-170 degrees (fahrenheit).

Filmmakers Phoebe Brown and Charlene Fisk of Unblinking Eye Films became supporters of the project and are now in the planning and funding stages of a film about it, featuring Christie and one of the young women beneficiaries, now making her way from the Buddhist orphanage where she grew up to university, thanks to the support of the project.

The goals of The Learning Tea are quite ambitious, but appear to be within the grasp of its founder. In addition to supporting the project through purchasing the teas directly, interested persons can support the film project through Kickstarter. An excerpt of the film’s description:

In the summer of 2009 Katrell went to India looking for tea. What she found in Darjeeling is the darker side of the region: a hub for trafficking girls into forced labor and child prostitution. Non-Governmental Organizations in the area estimate that between 7-10,000 girls are tracked annually to Indian brothels from Nepal which borders Darjeeling. Girls—some as young as 6 and 7— are frequently forced into prostitution. Not wanting to be consumer profiteer, Katrell came up with a plan: The Learning Tea.

Through the sale of Darjeeling tea from a Fair Trade tea plantation Katrell hopes to create a sustainable system that supports jobs in the community and funds higher education for girls. The question is—can this simple plan work?

Unblinking Eye Films–producer Phoebe Brown– will document Katrell’s return to India and introduce you to the young woman Katrell is sponsoring from orphanage to university. These girls—many of Nepalese origin—age out of a Buddhist run orphanage at 16 and face the grim realities for young women lacking opportunity and education: a life of forced prostitution, hard labor or servitude–too often under brutal conditions. The sexual enslavement of women is one of the most pressing issues of our time and the world’s eyes need to be opened to the possibility and importance of change.

While no definitive list of tribute teas exists, here are ten of the most commonly recognized:

1. Long Jing (dragonwell)
2. Bi Luo Chun
3. Huangshan Mao Feng
4. Liu An Gua Pian
5. Xinyang Maojian
6. Duyun Maojian
7. Lushan Yunwu
8. Junshan Yinzhen
9. Tie Guan Yin
10. Pu’er

Each of these teas tells stories of its own, including colorful legends of its origins, and exploits of how it became acclaimed as a tribute tea. Suffice it for now to notice the dominance of green teas on the list (1-7) over yellow (number 8), wulong (number 9), and black (i.e. Pu’er).

Armed with this information, you are better prepared to delve into the best China has to offer in teas. After all, if these were treasures dedicated to the king, shouldn’t they spend a little time enriching your palate?

Further research of your own is still advised before acquiring these teas for yourself. For example, Xinyang Maojian originates from Henan province. Similar maojian teas from other provinces attempt to imitate the style and flavor. Accept substitutes at your own risk, but just as when choosing wine, be mindful that life is considerably brief to spend time drinking poor tea. Follow the lead of kings and seek tribute teas.

Guest post provided by Jason Walker of Walker Tea Review.  Jason’s site hosts online tea tastings and video tea reviews.