The Casual Tea Drinker

 

Over the past few months over emails, calls or small meet ups, I had asked my 'non serious tea drinking' friends what tea they were buying and drinking.  You will see a few of these answers below.  They are in no particular order. 

- earl grey, oolong, matcha tea ice-cream, lemon tea, bubble tea and Lipton tea.   

Matcha tea ice cream?  Yes, counted. I had 2 responses to matcha ice cream.  Anyway, as a reader, you would not be really surprised with these answers.   General tea drinking people would had drank such a selection at home, office or at an eatery.  I myself, do drink the above mentioned tea.  I would order the iced lemon tea concoction in small noodle shops in Hong Kong, matcha desserts in Kyoto and I enjoy chewing the tapioca balls from a bubble tea beverage.  

My casual tea drinking friends did not name pu erh, liu bao, long qing or other popular Chinese tea.  It would seem that the more serious Chinese tea drinkers are few and rare in between. One of my neighbours who works part time in a supermarket, noticed more coffee being sold this past year.  She even noticed more capsule coffee machines were being sold as well. I suppose working from home routines had seen a rise in sales of such coffee machines.  Yes, you need to be awake when working at home and a cuppa might be an answer to keep the eyelids open.  

For the 'serious' Chinese tea drinkers, working from home provides an opportunity to drink more tea and have 1-2 more sessions of tea in a day.  An oolong in the morning and even a pu erh in the afternoon. 

Do you buy more Chinese tea when you are working from home?  I suppose so.  You need to refill your stash, try something new or even buy a tea on impulse.  It is easy to buy.  Use a phone or laptop and you can complete a sale within a minute.  My family are very good at buying stuff on the internet (most of the purchases are non essentials)....from food, clothing and accessories, vitamin supplements, books and electronic stuff.  My kids told me that they earmarked the items they want and they would patiently wait for a sale or promotion to go on before they make a purchase, saving them 20% or more.  In China, 'singles day sale' is an important event where many buyers can get good discounts on their purchases. 'Black Friday' is an example of good sales in western countries.  I can imagine some shops doing very well during such sales promotions and have very quiet sales on normal days. 

I am looking very much to resume my tea travels and find out how the tea markets and tea dealers have managed their businesses during this past 2 years.     

Small Jingdezhen Porcelain Tea Sets

 

I had assumed that these Chinese porcelain tea sets were more for decoration or display and not for brewing tea.  I was wrong when I saw these small sets in action during my tea adventures abroad.

These tea sets you see from the pictures are made in the late 80s in Jingdezhen province in China. Jingdezhen porcelain is much appreciated by porcelain collectors round the world and today, this area continues to make high grade porcelain products. 

These tea sets are small.  They comprise of a tea tray, a teapot and 4 cups.  The size of the tea pot is about 80ml with 20ml sized cups.  I have collected quite a bit of these sets and I was fortunate that most of these sets were in their unopened, unused factory cardboard boxes.  I have the red 'Wan Shou Wu Jiang' (aka longevity), rice porcelain, black 'million flower' as well as a gold phoenix and dragon set.  Many of these sets were primarily made for export and in my opinion, it is more difficult now to find them in pristine condition.  I kept them as these sets marked a moment in time for Chinese tea history.  Maybe I was hopelessly dreaming I could be a zillionaire when I sell them in my sunset years.  

Brewing tea in these small sets requires me to be more deliberate in a tea session.  I find myself slowing down to prevent spills or even accidents.  Drinking tea from small teacups is a 'refreshing' style. I could get 2 small sips or a small mouthful of tea per cup.  It takes a meticulous effort to appreciate the aroma and taste from each cup.  If you had observed me having a tea session, it will appear I was like a kid playing with a tea set but I do enjoy the slow deliberate style in brewing and drinking tea from such tea sets.  It is for me, a few quiet minutes of bliss.   

2018 Wuyistar Da Hong Pao

 

I had recently opened a 2018 tin of Wuyistar Da Hong Pao. This black tinned edition is packed with 125g of oolong. I like tinned oolong that are double lidded as it does keep the oolong dry and somewhat airtight. This would help prevent the oolong losing its aroma or going flat in the taste.

I had tried Wuyistar's tinned version of Shui Hsien oolong and I am pleased with the the tea. Wuyistar has quite a good following of oolong tea drinkers and they offer a wide range of oolong to cater to their customers.

This tea goes for around $30-36 depending on where this tea is sold in your region. Such tea are getting expensive that 1 kg of this tea would cost $280 (if $35 per 125g tin calculation is used). Perhaps this is one of the reasons why smaller teapots are used to brew such oolongs.

This oolong roast levels are high. There is a nice fragrant aroma that stays in your mouth after a cup of this tea.  There was a flowery finish in the aftertaste.  This Da Hong Pao does, after brewing 6 infusions, weaken in hurry. A very decent tea.  I personally prefer Wuyistar's canned offering of Lao Chong Shui Hsien as it offers a more punchy and vibrant taste and aroma. Do let me know your thoughts on the Wuyistar oolong cans.

Lao Cha Tou

 

Lau Cha Tou? What is that? Lao cha tou is actually ripe pu erh tea. During the manufacturing process of fermenting ripe pu erh tea. Some of the tea leaves clumped together and looked like tiny nuggets or pebbles. Tea manufacturers would collect these nuggets from their many ripe tea productions and pressed them into bricks when there is sufficient quantity of these lao cha tou. 

I had just opened a 2007 Haiwan Lao Cha Tou. This tea came compressed in a 500g brick. The Taetea (Dayi) version, for your information, comes in a 250g brick.   Notice the tiny clumps of tea in the brick. 

There are not much reviews or write up on this tea.  Why is that?  As I had stated, lao cha tou is produced and made for sale once the tea producer had enough of such tea to put up for sale. This would imply that the producer would need to collect the tea clumps from many ripe tea productions. Haiwan and Dayi, in my opinion, are 'big time' producers of ripe tea on a yearly basis and more often than not, most lau cha tou sold are invariably from these 2 sources. 

Pu erh purists hardly review such tea. You can conclude that this tea would have subtle variations in taste and aroma in the tea. Not surprising as lau cha tou is a collection of various ripe tea.  These subtle differences can be discerned from different production years or from different bricks from the same production to differences within each brew. It is this inconsistency that tea purists avoid doing a serious review of the tea. 

I like this tea for this very reason.  It is a tiny surprise in every cup. This 2007 brick is already 14 years old.  The tea is smooth and mellow. There is sweetness, toasty and herbal notes in every cup. There are differences but the taste and aroma but on the whole, the tea does average out to a very pleasant tea session. 

I am tempted to buy more lau cha tou when I see them for sale again......I really miss travelling for tea. 

2004 6 Famous Mountain Silver Bud Tuo

 

I had blogged about a 2004 6 Famous Mountain tea cake last month. This was a mellow and aged tea with lightest hint of smoke.  

Today's blog post is a tuo, also a 6 Famous Mountain production.  This is a 2004 vintage and is 100g in weight.  This raw pu erh tuo is composed of silver buds.  'Silver buds' is a term used by the pu erh industry to describe the use of very young pu erh leaves in the production of pu erh tea.   It would also suggest that the harvesting of these silver buds would be slightly more labour intensive, which in turn would explain for the slightly higher prices of 'silver bud' pu erh tea.

I am no expert in silver bud pu erh tea. This tuo's taste and aroma has a unique dried sweet berry taste and aroma with  light notes of freshly baked pastries.  Long and sweet aftertaste.  Quite addictive in that I finished the entire tuo in about a month. 

An Interesting tea. 

Drainage Hole

 

I bought another tea tray.  Actually, Chinese tea drinkers would tell you you only need one tray.    This new acquisition  is visually quite unique. You see a stone tray to place your teapot and quite a wide space to position a few teacups and even a fairness cup. You will also notice, on the side of the tray where the teapot is, a knob like thing that is sticking out from the tray.  This is the drainage hole.

This drainage hole is where all the tea waste water will 'exit' when waste water is poured onto the tea tray.  I was supplied with quite a long plastic hose where I need to attached one end of the hose to the drainage hole and having the other end of the hose directed to a container or pail at the bottom leg of the table.  Users even use cable-tie to secure the hose to a leg of a table.  

You will often see such set up In a tea shop where Chinese tea is brewed all day long and the amount of tea waste water may be quite substantial. 

If you are brewing tea at home, you may not need to have a 'hose to pail' set up.  Reasons being that if you are brewing tea yourself, the amount of waste water may be minimal and you are better off using a tea waste bowl instead.  There are some teashops I had visited that do not use such set up either. They used a tea waste bowl, and are more deliberate in their tea brewing (more careful with less spills). They employ a tea towel to wipe off any water that is spilled onto the tea tray.   

I noticed there are now, very pretty tea waste bowls and they can even make nice conversation pieces when you are brewing tea with friends. 

I am interested to know to see my readers' tea brewing set up.  Do send pix to me and I will have a page to show off your setups.  

Tea For The Special Occasion

 

Do you keep aside some tea for a special occasion? It could be a tea you especially like and this tea is now too expensive, hard to get or simply no longer available.

Many people celebrate milestones in their lives; like a birthday, graduation or buying a new house.....by eating or drinking something special.  It is common to see people popping a bottle of bubbly or having a party to celebrate such occasions.  

I keep some tea I liked for such occasions.  I would make a brew of these tea.  I do not consider these tea to be top grade or expensive tea  but I had purchased them some years ago and drinking these tea make me happy.  You will notice its not much tea.....I will simply replace them with some other tea when I have finished with this batch of special occasion tea. For me tea is meant to be appreciated and drank and not kept as a butterfly collection.