This past weekend I took the opportunity to try some tea that I purchased from Michael Coffey of Tea Geek quite some time ago. This tea is, in essence, very large leaves from the bushes of a pu’er varietal simply dried and tied into bundles. As described on the Tea Geek blog:

[This] limited availability product tries to reproduce, as well as the tea-makers knew, how tea was made in Yunnan before the widespread use of compression.  This would go back to when tea was considered a medicine, not a beverage.  It clearly draws on how herbs are collected and dried–the leaves are tied together by their stems in little bundles that were hung up to dry.

I didn’t really try to anticipate what the tea would be like before I brewed it. I assumed that it was going to have its own unique characteristics, and indeed it did. Rather than following instructions for breaking up leaf from stem and brewing in a bowl, I chose to brew the tea in a tall tea glass so that the leaves could remain intact, and so I could see them as they infused. I used boiling water and brewed the tea for about two minutes for the first infusion.

The dry leaves had very little scent, but as soon as they began to steep I could smell the distinctive scent of very young sheng pu’er. The taste was also easily identified as coming from the same plants that produce pu’er cakes, although clearly having undergone considerably less processing than any other tea. If an experienced tea drinker were handed a cup of this tea’s brewed liquor without any information he would be able to identify its origin as Yunnan, China easily and immediately.

The tea remained vibrantly flavorful through three infusions, but had mostly lost its punch by the fourth. It was a little surprising that it had as much flavor and personality as it had. With such a humble appearance and primitive preparation of the leaves it would have been unsurprising for it to yield a mild and uninspiring brew. But instead it conveyed the core essence of the pure tea plant. Rather than a novelty experience of what tea used to be before people learned how to process it into the many types of fabulous teas we value today, it really showed how much information is in the pure leaf already, even with so little craft transforming plant into beverage.

Read the Tea Geek blog post to find out more detail on this very interesting tea.

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The steps and the accoutrements:

1. I almost always use Crystal Geyser spring water for shu pu’er (and other teas). It’s affordable and works just as well or better with tea as some of the more expensive spring waters I’ve tried.
2. When brewing shu pu’er I always use the Kamjove electric water kettle for heating the water to boiling.



3. I generally brew at the tea table with the small, blue-green Yixing teapot that has been dedicated to brewing only shu pu’er teas. It is quite small and works perfectly.



4. I use boiling water and rinse the leaves with a very short initial infusion that also serves to warm the cups and pitcher (fair cup).
5. The first drinkable infusion is about 1 minute long.
6. I almost always use a glass serving pitcher (fair cup) because I like to be able to see the rich oranges and reds of the pu’er tea liquor, especially when there’s light coming through it.



7. The cups vary more than the teapot, but the cups I use most often with pu’er are the unglazed plain Yixing cups. They’re small, thin and very nice to drink from.



8. The number of subsequent infusions varies depending on what a particular tea is able to yield, but it’s generally at least 5, and each one is usually also about a minute, but sometimes longer if the tea seems to need more infusion time.

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The thing has a number of excellent qualities, including very thick walls and solid construction. It does have a minor chip on the edge of the lip, but it is not prominently visible, especially when the lid is on, and the vessel should not seal since it’s being used for pu’er anyway, so that’s not an issue.

After I bought it and brought it home I scrubbed it out thoroughly and then aired it out in the fortuitous brief period of sun that we had last weekend. It did not have any odors clinging to the inside part of the clay anyway, which was good. I don’t think that it had ever been used for storing anything with a strong, lingering scent.

I broke up one of the Xiaguan shu pu’er cakes into fairly large chunks and now they are occupying this very nice container. The remarkable thing about this excellent storage container is that I found it in a thrift store and paid less than $10 for it!

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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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Several days ago I was looking for some pu’er to drink and wanted to have one I hadn’t tried yet. I remembered the small sample of 1997 wet-stored 8582 pu’er which I’d gotten from Will of Tea Drunk Forum a couple of months ago. That seemed like just the thing, so I sat down to the tea table and brewed some.

This particular pu’er is one of the earthiest, mustiest pu’er teas I’ve ever had. It was a little jarring in the first couple of infusions, but mellowed out into a more pleasant brew in the third through fifth infusions.

After the fifth infusion the tea did not seem like it had fully expressed its full capabilities, so I decided to try an experiment with drying the leaves completely. I laid them out on a strainer where they’d get plenty of air and left them there. Then a couple of days later I put them into a glass tea thermos and took it with me to work, where I infused several infusions of it. The tea was still considerably musty in flavor, but it was a nice pu’er to drink.

I didn’t know anything about the original source of this tea before I tried it the first time, but figured I’d be able to find it from the Menghai Factory code, and I was. On Bearsblog, Jason Fasi wrote about this tea when it first came to him – prior to the vacuum storage that killed any evidence of bugs in the tea itself.

Finding out that the tea had previously shown a lot of evidence of insects leaves me to wonder whether I would have had a different tasting experience with it if I’d been picturing little bug larvae crunching around in the leaf before it got to me. I’ll never know.

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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.

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In order to more fully appreciate the hundreds of teas available, here are 10 that will serve as guiding lights and points of comparison. As there can be distinction even between retailers’ teas, it is recommended that you try the same kind of tea from at least 2 different retailers or sources.

The list includes teas from the main 4 categories of tea: white, green, wulong (or oolong) and black.

1. Silver Needle: this white tea originated in China, although other countries are developing silver needles. Silver needle consists of the downy tips that are light green to silvery color.
2. Bai Mu Dan (sometimes Pai Mu Tan, White Peony): White Peony is the bridge between white and green teas. It includes more mature green leaves, silvery tips, and the stems that connect the two.
3. Dragonwell (or Long Jing, Long Ching): This Chinese green is pan-fired and shaped to give it a “grasshopper wing” shape. Fresh long jing has flavors reminiscent of steamed wild rice.
4. Sencha: A Japanese green. Sencha often resembles emerald green sewing needles. A good sencha, when prepared properly, delivers a creamy or brothy coating in the mouth and brings savory hints of seaweed and sweet spinach notes.
5. Li Shan: A Taiwanese oolong with fragrant floral scents. Li Shan usually consists of 2 leaves and a tender bud on a stem that is lovingly rolled into a compact ball resembling a small paper wad.
6. Tie Guan Yin (also Tie Quan Yin or Ti Kuan Yin): While the ali shan offers fragrant flower reminders, tie guan yin has a stronger roasted element with a rich woody or smoky touch. TGY resembles li shan in its paper-wad shape, but is distinguishable by its roasted smell and its browner colors compared to ali shan’s brighter green leaf.
7. Darjeeling 1st flush: While this Indian tea is usually classified as a black tea, it bears similarities to oolongs. 1st flushes deliver fruit notes of grape and some of the briskness of a black tea.
8. Golden Monkey comes from Southwest China, the suspected origin the tea plant. The name of this tea comes from the dried leaves that range from gold to a lighter brown. Golden monkey steeps to deliver a black tea liquid with malty, sometimes chocolate tastes.
9. Keemun: Keemun teas stand as shining examples of Chinese black teas. Several variations exist, most notably keemun mao feng and keemun hao ya, and they offer a range of aromas that extend from chocolate to peach/plum notes.
10. Puer (also pu’ erh): Puer is unique in its processing. While many teas depend on an oxidization process to develop flavor, puers rely on a bacterial process for fermentation (think wine or cheese). The result includes both sheng (i.e. raw) puer and shu (aged), the latter one known for earthy tastes and a dark, inky brew.

As you begin to taste these teas, don’t forget to make notes on the smells, textures and colors. A journal can help you immensely when you search for your perfect cup.

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

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One of the notable aspects of this tea was its beautiful, rich color. The first time I made it I was not aware of quite how striking the color was because I used a serving pitcher that was made of yixing clay. It was pretty in the white porcelain lined cups, but in a subsequent brewing I used a glass pitcher, and was impressed with its bright reddish orange hue and sparkle. It was a sunny afternoon, and the tea shone nicely with the sun coming through the window and into the liquor.

Like many pu’er teas, this pu’er can stand up to very long steeps, which affects the number of flavorful steeps one can get from it. In each tasting that I did, I found the third steeping to be the most interesting and flavorful, and by the fifth it had dropped off considerably in its intensity.

TeaSource’s description:

The steeped cup has a lovely deep black/red color with a wonderful dark aroma. The liquor is very smooth and thick (almost brothlike), with great depth and richness to the flavor. It also has a slight sweet note, with no harshness or astringency.”

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Normally, I would not brew pu’er tea in a glass teapot, but I wanted to see what this particular tea would look like as it broke apart and brewed. I couldn’t see any coffee-bean like thing in the pre-brewed cake on either side. But I also didn’t know whether or not a coffee bean would completely dissolve while surrounded by aging pu’er tea.

As the tea brewed it didn’t exhibit any unusual characteristics. The coffee bean did not jump out, or rise to the top, or become visible in any other way, so I figured it had absorbed into the tea. It also didn’t jump out at me as a flavor in the taste of the brewed tea, which tasted kind of a like a camel’s breath pu’er or another “forest floor” type pu’er. Those teas sometimes look like coffee, and they can have a flavor sort of like cheap diner coffee, which has a certain charm under the right circumstances. But there wasn’t anything that really struck me as coffee-like in this brew. And after thinking about how many coffee beans it takes to produce one strong cup of coffee, I realized that one lonely coffee bean wouldn’t stand much of a chance against the overpowering volume and flavor of the pu’er tea engulfing it.

I would hazard a guess that if you brewed some of this tea and then brought it to three non-specialized primarily coffee drinkers and three non-specialized primarily tea drinkers and had each of them taste it without telling them what it was, you’d probably get six different answers, scattered between tea and coffee.

The tea is interesting, but more so as a novelty than a tea one would want to drink a lot of. If you’re looking for a more traditional pu’er, try these 2003 Fang Cha Mini Cakes, also available from Teahouse Kuan Yin. They’re quite wonderful in taste and form. The coffee bean fang cha cakes themselves are available in the store, but not on the website. They are worth a try because they’re interesting and they are quite a novel product. I recommend drinking the tea in front of evangelical tea drinkers while they’re in the midst of a coffee abolitionist tirade, and telling them that what you like best about the tea is that it’s almost just like coffee (which it isn’t). Then run, or just hope they don’t have a heavy edition of the Cha Jing to chuck at your head.

While looking for more information about this coffee bean pu’er tea, I found another post about the very same tea on the Coffee Hero blog.

The coffee bean fang cha is made, or at least distributed, by this company, but I can’t read enough Chinese to figure out where the actual product page is for it.

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I picked up a couple pieces of this 2003 Fang Cha Pu-erh at Teahouse Kuan Yin a couple of weeks ago. I don’t believe I’d ever seen pu-erh in tiny squares before. They are about an inch and a half wide.

They brew into a wonderful, sweet pu-erh that lasts for at least six infusions. Each infusion tastes better than the last, releasing more of the flavor and character of the tea.

Part of the appeal of these small pieces was that they are the perfect size for my yixing tea thermos. So all I have to do is toss one in with boiling spring water on the way out the door in the morning and then I have tasty tea all day, each time I add water. I am not one to spend any more time getting ready in the morning than is absolutely necessary, so I like the convenience of this way of tea.

One thing I found interesting was that the character on the front of the little package is 檟, which in Pinyin is “jiǎ,” an old term for the camellia sinensis bush.

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