LIu An Tea - Novelty Brewing

I was looking to refill my Liu An stash and had started to sample this tea whenever I see them in the tea shops.  I looked for the traditional packed ones that are wrapped with bamboo leaves ( it actually looked more like lotus leaves like those used to wrap rice dumplings) and packed in a bamboo basket.  These baskets are normally packed with 500g of Liu An tea.  Many tea drinkers and collectors store them away in its actual unopened packaging and would normally start drinking them after 10 years.  Older ones are even expensive now.

Liu An tea is a very pleasant tea to drink.  At about 10 years old, the tea takes on a herbal and medicinal finish. Many Chinese medical halls used Liu An tea as a herbal soup base adding the herbs used to treat various ailments of their customers.  Many of my tea drinker friends brew up a few sessions of this tea when they are coming down with a cold or flu.  I have tried this tea when I was sick with some success.....but it could be seen as 'drinking lots of liquid' that had help eased my discomfort.

A few tea shops where I had recently sampled Liu An tea cut off a few strips of the bamboo leaves and adding these pieces to the tea brewing process (see pix 3).  The result - there is a additional aroma, slightly sweet smelling.  This could be directly from the bamboo leaves  or it could be from interacting with the Liu An tea.  It is to me, quite pleasant.

However, this style of brewing, in my opinion is a novelty brew.  Adding rose or chrysanthemum flower petals to ripe pu erh tea are also novelty brews.  They are interesting and enjoyable.  However,  a good tea can and should be appreciated on its own.

2011 Haiwan Lao Tong Zhi Ziyun Raw Pu erh Brick

This Is a 2011 Haiwan Lao Tong Zhi Ziyun Brick. This a special production made for a Guangzhou tea dealer. Composed of Yiwu and purple pu erh tea lea leaves, this tea is moderately compressed into a 250g brick and packed in a pretty gift box.

This tea is one of my favourites. Break open the brick and place it in a tea caddy for at least 3 weeks before you start brewing this tea. There is a nice bouquet of complicated aroma and flavours in this tea. For a 7 year old tea, this tea is very smooth and mellow. Initial infusions open with a strong bitter and woody taste and aroma.  Middle infusions open into a floral, dried and fresh fruit aroma. Faint imaginary hint of salt. Later infusions becoming sweet, fruity and herbal. The taste is complicated varying with every infusion. I get woody notes, fresh and dried fruit, berries and even a hint of saltiness. There is no salt in the tea but the aroma seems to carry a 'remembrance of salt'. It is a nice play of flavours in the mouth. Good for 10 infusions.

But I digress. A reader emailed me asking me about buying older pu erh tea in Guangzhou wholesale tea markets. Basically, these tea wholesalers (those I know and are my friends) would try to sell off their yearly new tea to their own customers like tea shop retailers, collectors and tea drinkers all over China. Say 2018 tea - most tea are sold and those unsold are kept in the warehouse which are eventually sold within 2-3 years. Most of these wholesalers I know do not hoard the tea for a higher price. This meant that any older tea are actually unsold tea and to a certain extent..... that no one wants that tea. Many do not have the spare cash or capital to risk such a venture. There may be that odd carton that remain unsold but such tea are usually quickly sold if such boxes are discovered in the warehouses. Buying of older tea is possible as these dealers might know which of their customers are holding the tea and may help the buyer obtain the older tea for the right price. I do not recommend that you buy old tea in the wholesale markets......unless you know the tea dealers and you are very familiar with the tea and prices of that tea.

Looking At Puerh Tea Through My Crystal Ball

I was in Guangzhou in early August and I had an enjoyable time having tea with my tea drinking groups as well as with my tea wholesaler friends during the week there. 

I witnessed a carton of 2008 ChenShengHao 'year of the rat' edition changed hands at slightly more than 10k RMB per cake.  I remarked that this tea was already 10 years old and the buyer would enjoy the taste and aroma of a 10 year old banzhang pu erh.  My wholesaler friend laughed at me.  He told me most of the Banzhang sold by him are unlikely to be brewed and drunk.  Most of these expensive tea are kept and resold, never drunk.  He explained that there were good returns for such tea especially before 2012 production.  One could see very good returns if the buyer stored his/her cartons of tea well over this period.  My wholesaler friend says that prices of new tea are high now and there are many 'investors' of tea in China.  The returns of newer tea are now much lower than if one has invested in tea 10 years ago. 

I was disturbed.  I told a Chinese tea drinker group about this finding when I had tea with them the next day.  This tea drinking group of 6 were mainly tea collectors / drinkers.  They would open a cake, cheap or expensive to drink, without hesitation.  My friends would normally drink their pu erh after more than 10 years of storage.  These friends also believed that the many expensive 'branded' pu erh tea are purchased and stored away and not drank at all.  Examples would be the Dayi tea special edition pu erh cakes.  One collector felt that even old Yixing factory teapots are also now bought and stored away as investment pieces and they are never used for brewing tea.  interestingly, this group of tea drinkers rarely buy new tea now, citing the very high prices as one of the reasons for the non purchase. 

I believed that about 50-60% pu erh production are purchased purely for investment purposes.  Small retailers and tea drinkers/ collectors would make up for the rest of the tea.  

My readers would know that this news are not 'earth shattering'.  Tea forums and tea blogs have already highlighted this pu erh trend.  As I gazed at my dusty crystal ball, I believed that these 'stored away' tea will appear in the tea markets again only in one scenario - in very bad economic times.  When business environment turns sour, investors may have to liquidate their assets for cash, a force selling situation.  In very good economic times, these tea will also be sold for a profit but this tea simply changed hands to another buyer who will store them away hoping for a higher profit. 

The pu erh tea industry now is highly dependent on speculators and investors to support the higher prices of the pu erh tea markets.  Yes, most of the expensive 'branded' pu erh tea are never drunk.  How is the quality of this tea? Has the tea aged well?  For now, the only important question in the tea markets is "How much is the tea?".

2018 Hong Kong International Tea Fair

I was invited to attend the 2018 Hong Kong International Tea Fair which was held from 15-18 Aug 2018.  This tea fair was also held in conjunction to the Food Fair at the Convention Centre in Wan Chai. 

As usual. the fair was very well organised.  The organisers even had shuttle buses to ferry foreign visitors to and from their hotels at regular intervals.  There were special booths set up to assist with packaging and freight that makes the buying experience very easy especially for 1st time buyers to the fair.  Wifi was free and reliable within the fair grounds.  

The tea fair had a 'tea saloon' where talks and tea sampling sessions was scheduled at hourly intervals through the day.  Vendors and tea experts would share their knowledge and products with visitors.  I enjoyed these events very much.

There was a Hong Kong milk tea competition that is unique to the tea fair and it was a serious affair with contestants young and old competing with each other on who could brew the best cup of tea. It was in good fun with celebrity guest judges having a hard time determining the winner.  Maybe I should be a contestant next year.  

Hong Kong Fukien Teashop High Roast Tie Guan Yin

I do not consider this blog entry to a a revisit of this Tie Guan Yin.  This oolong tea is one of my favourite tea on my tea shelf for many years and I would brew this tea at least once a week.

This TGY is produced and sold by Fukien Tea shop in Hong Kong.  Hand-wrapped in 125g packs, this is the shop's flagship tea.  There are many followers of this tea (me included) and the shop has faithful customers from as far as Japan and South Korea.  Last year, a South Korean TV company made a documentary on the teashop and this tea.  

This tea is a very high roasted oolong.  The Yeo (Yang) family which had run this teashop for more than 3 generations told me that this tea was slowly roasted up to 40 hours.  This tea when brewed produces a dark but sweet finish.  There is a unique caramel sweetness in the finish that is mouthwatering.  This tea is very aromatic and the scent stays in the mouth for a few minutes after a tea session.  

I recommend this tea to the oolong tea drinker.  This tea, in my opinion, is something special.  Inexpensive as well.

H2O And Tea

One nice thing about Singapore is that I can drink water straight from the tap.  I have been to a few countries where I have to buy bottled water for my drinks as the tap water is not safe for consumption

But I am fussy.  I bought a standing filter for my tap water.  I simply fill up about 4-5 litres of water into a container and let gravity do its work.  The water will flow down slowly through a few sets of filters clearing out the chlorine and other stuff.  Water pipes are old in my housing estate and the ceramic filter turns slightly brown after 1-2 months of use and thats when I have to give the ceramic filter a good brushing.  

I used the filtered water for my tea brewing.  It is pretty good.  At least....its a cheap option.

We can also buy bottled water and experiment the taste and aroma when using these bottled water.  In Singapore, I can buy water which is bottled in Europe, Canada, USA and even Himalaya water.  They cost about $1-4 for a large bottle.  

Water makes up a large component in your tea and using such water may give a different taste or aroma in the tea.  There are also some bottled water which I could not discern any difference when I used them for my tea.  

Pix shows a bottle of water from Canada. When I used it on a raw puerh tea session, the tea seem to taste more smooth.  Maybe it is my imagination.  Fun though.  

Rougui Shui Hsien - A Lau Yu Fat Premium Oolong

This is a premium range of oolong tea offered by Hong Kong's Lau Yu Fat Tea shop.  This tea came from the famed Fujian Wuyi mountains where oolong tea grown there are considered the 'quality stuff'.

You will notice that the leaves are plump and dark.  Being an expensive tea and the leaves looking pretty clean, I dispensed with washing the tea and starting drinking from the 1st infusion.  The aroma from the 1st infusion is very impressive.  There is a nice complicated bouquet of flowers (fresh and dried) which gave me a nice mouth watering sensation.  

Such oolong tea or yancha would  surprise a new oolong drinker in the sense that the tea is good only for about 4 infusions before the tea aroma and flavours fade away.  Many oolong tea drinker friends would also add more tea leaves in a brewing session to maximise the 'oomph' in the tea.  Swirling the tea in my mouth while breathing in air through the mouth and exhaling through the nose at the same time would enhance or encapsulate the aroma in my mouth and throat.  This tea is very good.

However, this is a new tea.  The 'newness' is evident in the later infusions where the aftertaste seem to 'cut short'.  This tea would be better if kept for 10 years for further aging.  An expensive proposition.