One highlight among the vast sea of exhibitors on the Expo floor was the Taiwan Pavilion, where Thomas Shu and his wife Josephine Pan [of ABC Tea] hosted tastings and demonstrations. They were aided by their compatriots in the Taiwanese tea industry and at one of the tastings I attended, by Bill Waddington of Tea Source, who waxed poetically about the special Taiwanese varietal developed in Taiwan in the ’80s named Ruby18. A few lucky visitors to the booth were also given the rare opportunity to hear Thomas Shu sing Hakka songs during the course of his presentations, one of which was about Baozhong (Pouchong).

The photo below shows Sunny Tang brewing oolong at the Taiwan Pavilion during this year’s Expo.

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The third and final part of my interview with Nigel Melican is now posted on Cha Dao. Excerpted:

Cinnabar: The attempts at growing one place’s regionally-specific tea in a different location seem strange to me, because if you’re taking a type of tea varietal and growing it somewhere else, with a totally different climate and different soil conditions, it’s not going to taste the same. It seems like the more reasonable approach, rather than trying to reproduce a traditional kind of tea in a new place, would be to figure out what works best under the new conditions, and represent the tea as a new type, but perhaps that’s not as marketable.

Nigel Melican: If you look at consumers, they often go for what they know. Someone who knows a Sencha will always, given an unknown tea or the old-fashioned one that they know and love, they’ll choose the one they know and love. But you’re right, that’s what they ought to do, and it’s what I push people in Africa to do, to take the plants that they were growing for CTC tea, and do wonderful things with it.

The fellow in the photo above is certainly a handsome little frog, but you wouldn’t want him darting among the young leaves of your tea plants. He is a Phantasmal Poison Frog (Epipedobates tricolor), one of the poisonest of the poison arrow frogs.

The photograph is from Wikimedia Commons. The reason that this post is accompanied by a photo of a frog will be evident if you read the last part of the interview.

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The second part of my interview with Nigel Melican is now available for you to read on Cha Dao. Excerpted:

Cinnabar: I guess there are really two focuses of organic farming. I wasn’t even thinking about how it affects the end product, because it seems like that’s not the same conversation. The impact on the land is quantifiable and obvious, but the land doesn’t know the difference between a molecule of nitrogen, whether it’s certified organic or not, right?

Nigel Melican: No the land won’t, but — and this is why there’s the argument — people say that organic meat tastes better than inorganic meat, and often it does, because the guy who grows organic takes better care of his animals, is a better animal husband, and that shows up, and it’s the same with plants.

C: And that’s clearly the case with tea. If you’re using practices that end up contaminating the end product with dangerous toxic chemicals, the end product is going to taste bad, so that’s not going to fly.

NM: Ultimately you’re right, but if you had — God forbid — tea contaminated with mercury you wouldn’t taste it, and similarly, many of the ways that you fertilize don’t have an effect on taste. Where you do have an effect with organic on tea is that you’re putting on less nitrogen. Nitrogen leads to fast growth, and fast growth tends to be more about kilograms than it is about quality … so slow growth, as in the spring flush. Everyone says, go for the spring flush. That’s because it’s growing slowly, and the quality is definitely better. So organic should come out with slower growth.

C: But in reality, the quality of a lot of product that’s labeled as organic tea is terrible.

NM: Yes.

The image above, of mercury on cinnabar is from a photograph by Parent Géry on Wikimedia Commons.

Note: Cinnabar is a compound of mercury, and I have a strong affinity for the toxic element in its liquid metal form as well. But I wouldn’t want my tea to be tainted with it!

Note two: For an additional connection of tea and mercury, milliners during the Victorian period often suffered from mercury poisoning due to the use of mercury in the process of transforming fur into felt for hats, thus we have Lewis Carroll’s “Mad Hatter” and his uproarious tea party. In addition to insanity, mercury poisoning produces hard looking red skin, which I would expect to result in those afflicted looking a little like they were made out of cinnabar.

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A couple of weeks prior to the World Tea Expo in Las Vegas last year Corax, of the consistently excellent tea blog Cha Dao, asked me to engage in a bit of information gathering during my time there, which would ultimately become a guest post. He also solicited Nigel Melican of Teacraft Ltd, who agreed to sit down with me for an interview on the topics of fair-trade practices, organic farming and sustainability with regard to the tea industry.

If you are not already familiar with Nigel Melican, he is one of the most knowledgeable tea professionals in the world today, particularly with respect to the science of tea production. But his thirty-plus years in the tea industry (and a few more in the world itself) have also given him a breadth of understanding of the socio-politics of worldwide agriculture, which was essential to our topics of inquiry.

The source discussion resulted in quite a lengthy transcription, so the piece will be published in three separate sections. The first is now available for you to read:

Sustainable, Organic, Fair-Trade: A Conversation with Nigel Melican [i]

With the intention of inspiring you to read the rest, here is a small excerpt of our conversation:

Cinnabar: There’s a lot of controversy about fair-trade practices in tea production in India. There’s been a lot of backlash saying that workers aren’t actually getting any benefit from it. Even though the plantations get certified, there’s no follow-up after that to make sure that the benefits are actually going back into the community.

Nigel Melican: Yes, it’s looking bad. There are certain companies who, if someone in the company really believes in it then they’ll follow it up and make sure that happens. But it can either slip between marketing and, I suppose, human resources, although very few tea companies have the sort of human resources department on the producers’ side, and there must be some direct exploitation as well. Generally I think they go into it for the right reasons, but it doesn’t always deliver in the way that it’s supposed to.

The photo at the top of this post is of a group of Chinese workers and foreign traders during the Qing Dynasty.

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The export tea industry in Taiwan was established by the Japanese during their occupation of the country, which lasted from 1895 through the end of World War II, and included systematic attempts at assimilating the Taiwanese people into Japanese culture. Black tea production began in earnest after the Japanese brought the larger-leaf Assamica plants into the region from Burma in the 1920s. These plants were cultivated with the local Taiwanese wild plants to produce the bushes which now produce Hong Yue.

Naturally we wouldn’t even be discussing a black tea from Taiwan if the Taiwanese had not maintained and improved the local tea industry and trade following retrocession of the island to the Republic of China in the mid-forties. Within the relatively short span of time since the end of Japanese colonialism, Taiwan has built up a stellar reputation among tea drinkers, primarily for its oolong teas, such as the various types of Bao Zhong and high-mountain oolongs. While not as well known, Taiwan’s black teas deserve wider recognition for their unique character as well.

From the description on Rishi’s site:

“The five year old Hong Yue black tea farm in Nantou is too small for organic certification but the tea is still cultivated without any pesticides or harmful chemicals. Special yellow flowers are planted between the rows of tea bushes to help nurture the young tea bushes in place of fertilizers. Their roots aerate the soil and create an environment where beneficial bacteria thrive. They are mulched into the soil when the tea trees are older and stronger.”

For more details, including photographs and more about the nitrogen-fixing yellow flowering plant that is planted alongside the Hong Yue bushes, read the post on Rishi’s blog.

I brewed this tea using Gongfu methods, in a Taiwanese clay dragon teapot, with a high leaf-to-water ratio and 30-second steeps. The tea has a luxuriant red/orange color and yields a delicious, flavorful liquor through multiple steeps. As one would expect from a leaf with Assamica in its pedigree, Hong Yue produces a strong brew, with intense depth of character. I’ve read descriptions that compare it to brandy, which is understandable given its wine-like tones. It has a deep, slightly bitter woody quality, somewhat akin to the character imbued in a wine casked in oak rather than stainless steel. Even before the first sip, I recommend inhaling deeply to experience the rich complex aroma, which includes a slight note of peppermint.

Note, there is a limited amount of this tea available from Rishi, and I’ve been told it is almost sold out already.

For more on the history of the Taiwanese tea industry, read The Art of Tea on Cultural Taiwan, which is published by the Republic of China government.

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If you’ve tasted any Bai Hao oolong and are capable of calling to mind its flavor, you’ll know what the essential character of this tea is like. As its name suggests, the scent of plum blossom is a dominant element of this tea’s flavor profile. If you’ve never tried any Bai Hao style oolongs (also known regrettably as “Oriental Beauty,” a name attributed to Queen Elizabeth II, in her enthusiasm over this tea), I recommend that you do. They’re quite deserving of their worldwide repute, and this Plum Blossom Reserve in particular is a very good example of a Taiwanese oolong produced in the style of a Bai Hao. Teas Etc.’s description:

“Obvious fruit tones, crisp bright notes and a smooth finish make this a rare yet classic favorite.

This exceptional dark Bai Hao (Oriental Beauty) style oolong comes to us from MiaoLi County in Taiwan, long renowned for producing some of the finest of this superb varietal.

The high elevation, environmental conditions and synergy of the tea bush and the green leaf hopper impart a unique fruit tones, the likes of which we have not cupped since 2002-2003.

This summer harvest is oxidized at approximately 50% and was produced by an award winning tea master.”

Teas Etc.’s recommendation for brewing suggests using water between 180-185°F and I would encourage you to follow this advice. If you use water that is too hot, the tea will be a little bitter and will not emit as many of the deep floral fruity notes that make it so enjoyable. I wouldn’t get too caught up in thermometers and worry, though. If you’re brewing it Gongfu style just pour the water from the kettle into your sharing pitcher and leave it for a minute or two before pouring it into your teapot or gaiwan to begin steeping the tea leaves.

One of the most notable things about the Plum Blossom Reserve was how the deep aroma and flavor lingered for a long time after I had finished drinking it, slowly fading with time.

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A while ago I reviewed a Formosa Shanlinxi high mountain oolong from auraTeas. Not terribly long after that I received a sample of Rishi Tea’s Shan Lin Xi Gao Shan Cha Oolong, and I was quite interested in finding out how different the teas would be from each other. They are both from the Shan Lin Xi region of Nantou, Taiwan, and I would expect they would have been processed using nearly identical methods, perhaps even by tea farmers who know each other. So I thought they would be almost indistinguishable.

But I was mistaken. Unlike the oolong from auraTeas, which exhibited such a strong note of lemon grass, the oolong from Rishi had, as described in the company’s description, notes of evergreen. I was also aware of a flavor similar to thyme, which I can not remember ever associating with a tea before.

Part of Rishi’s description reads:

Shan-Lin-Xi is an independent and secluded area in Nantou. There is almost only one way in and out of the tea gardens. The tea from this garden has a flavor that is totally different from other areas in Taiwan. Because of the closed geography, the environmental humidity is very high and the weather changes so often. It’s so difficult to make good tea there during the rainy spring season so good Shan-Lin-Xi tea is sold at very high prices.

This tea is known as “Gao Shan Cha” or high mountain tea. It has a character that is best suited to gong fu brewing using a guywan. The tealeaves are tender and have a rich content of amino acids and aromatic essential oils. It is best to use water below boiling, about 190 degrees f to preserve the aroma.

It was an interesting opportunity to taste two teas that were this similar. Both teas are of high quality and are quite enjoyable to drink, but I am surprised at how different they are from each other. I think part of this may be attributed to the fact that Rishi’s Shan Lin Xi is more highly oxidized than auraTeas’ is, but it could also be due to the Qing Xin varietal that produces the leaves for Rishi’s oolong. Both, of course, are very green, lightly oxidized, high-mountain oolongs, much more similar in character to each other than to aged or darker Taiwanese oolong teas. From Rishi’s description:

This special batch is more fermented than usual giving it an alluring mouth feel. Its flavor and aroma is clear and pure with accents of fresh evergreen and wild flowers. It can be brewed many times and has a long lasting flavor and aroma that lingers on the palate and lsts for many infusions.

Note: Rishi Tea’s preparation instructions recommend a porcelain gaiwan, which I have also used for this tea. It was indeed a better brewing vessel than the glass gaiwan shown.

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As the water began heating in the Kamjove kettle, I sat down at the tea table, pulled out a dark yixing-style, white porcelain-lined gaiwan and similarly-lined aroma cup, tasting cup and sharing pitcher. The light in my living room was strangely intense for this time of year, and it was unseasonably warm, in between the frequent bouts of wind and Autumn rains. The rosewood of the tea table glowed in the harsh light, and the surface became at times almost blinding once it was wet with water and tea. As I prepared and drank the wonderful tea, the swirly-winged bat who has become the favorite of my tea mascots sat on the edge of the draining surface of the table, with glints of tea sparkling off of his black eyes in the sunlight.

On this day, as other places in the world displayed fanciful decorations of brightly colored paper cutwork skeletons, sugar skulls and other memento mori, the dark, rich tea seemed particularly appropriate, not nationally, or culturally, but in its deep Autumnal character, and in the sense of history and the passing of time that seeps into the experience when one drinks a thirty-year-old tea.

The 1979 oolong is a fabulous one, with a deep complexity that I believe can only be produced through decades of aging. I have been discovering fairly recently that the more I drink aged Taiwanese Oolongs, the more I enjoy them and I think this change has been largely a matter of training my palate. I have drunk many more cups of lightly-oxidized, very floral oolongs than more traditional darkly roasted oolongs, which are of a very different character and flavor profile. I can understand how this can sometimes be a divisive preference among tea drinkers, young and old, Chinese and Taiwanese, revealing what kind of tea drinker the person is. I don’t have a decided preference in this respect myself, at least not any more. I seek different teas for different seasons, or times of day, or occasions, seeing no need to declare a preference for one over the other, at least not among these two, very highly praised families of oolongs.

Because I am a person who writes, one of the elements of almost any experience for me is the consideration of how later that experience might be reconstructed and conveyed in words. This often leads me to start pondering the utter impossibility of communicating the taste of a particular tea with language, and this one was particularly challenging. Anyone familiar with really nice aged Taiwanese oolongs would probably already have a pretty good idea of what this tea was like in a general sense, but for anyone else I’d rather communicate the tea drinking experience by handing over a cup of it across the tea table. I eventually settled on the idea that the tea had qualities reminiscent of roasted chestnut and ume (Japanese plum), but devoid of any elements of sweetness or fruitiness. Really that description doesn’t mean much, unless it serves to arouse curiosity in the reader. I also realized that for me it was just as appropriate, if not more so, to describe the nature and flavor of this tea as being akin to a deep, rich, soft burgundy shade of silk velvet from the ’20s. As you can tell from the photograph, it was not anything to do with actual color which led to this association, since the tea liquor is very orange. It was more that this was the quality of what the tea felt like, what I envisioned while drinking it.

Ultimately, it has to be accepted that any attempt at describing the physical experience of drinking any cup of tea will fall short of the visceral, physical experience of actually doing it. I can weave any number of evocative words around the flavor and the scent, and perhaps engender a yearning in the reader for a similar experience, with that tea, or with another like it. Or perhaps the best and more valuable goal is to attempt to kindle a broader desire, by describing my own sensory adventures with different teas, so that others will be inspired to find and create their own special relationships with their own teas.

You can find out more about Hancha Tea on their Facebook page.

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