Wholemeal Crank

More TGY yesterday, and due to insanely busy work day, only got one tea in. Yikes. Today is better, already some Sayamakaori Shincha, comparison of two yunnanese "Oriental Beauty" style oolongs, and a thermos of TGY ready for the drive home.

I know that one of my best tea experiences was drinking from a tin of pouchong that has sat for a very long time in the back of my cupboard, unopened, at least 2-3 years. But that was an unflavored tea, and it was still in the factory-sealed container. I don't know whether the coconut flavoring is likely to go bad--dried coconut certainly lasts a long time, so I doubt it will go off quickly. I'd think as long as it smells ok, it's worth trying. And if it tastes good, keep brewing it. Today I brewed up some 2010 shincha and some 2009 Tie Guan Yin. The TGY was vacuum sealed until a week or two ago, however.

Yes, drinking some of one of my first puerhs, the 'palace seven sons cake' that I think was from TenRen. It's a nice pu, probably shu/cooked, not as fruity and delicious as the Lao Cha Tou from norbu I was drinking recently, but still helping me through evening paperwork. Interesting to remember that it was the most expensive pu I've bought to date except one, and it is nowhere near the best shu, much less the best, period. Earlier some Bai Yun fall 2009 Oolong from Norbu--a free sample with a previous order, that I had forgotten I had. I ordered some of the Bai Yun with this last order, wondering how it would compare to the Yunnan Sourcing 'Oriental Beauty' style oolong I got last year. It was nice, but not enough attention to the brewing to properly compare it to the YS version. But as it turns out, the last of the YS is here at this office, and I will bring it home with me to compare properly to the Bai Yun.

Yesterday was a green and greener day for me too: shincha start, then green oolong: Zhang Shu Lake oolong, a thermos full for a long drive.

Thick, so you get a nice juicy bite, not a niggly nibble. Yuummmm.

I have just stuffed my latest purchases into my tea cabinet, and I realize I could skip buying anymore tea for, oh, another 5 years or so, except for the ones that have to be drunk more quickly because they won't age well.... Starting the morning with sencha (Okuyutaka from Yuuki-cha again).

So far, a one tea day: a thermos full of Yunnan gold buds from Tea Habitat with osmanthus. I don't get to share my tea at this satellite office, so it lasts a lot longer. It has been so long since I drank Yunnan gold without osmanthus that I've forgotten what it tastes like. They're just so good together.

And in use:

Posted a review of the Tai Ping Hou Kui in the green tea topic, and also drank my first Yunnan Silver Needles from Norbu and wrote about that in the white tea topic.

And of course, a few photos of the Tai Ping Hou Kui:

Early Spring Yunnan Silver Needles by Norbu Tea First try with this tea. As anticipated, it is a less refined and more camphorous tea than the versions I’ve had before from Fujian. It is sweet, mellow, but not bitter. First infusions about 1 gram of tea in a 2 oz gaiwan, water 160 degrees, 30 second infusion. It is a little more floral and less vegetal than the Tai Ping Hou Kui I was just drinking, and nothing like as fruity as the Yin Zhen silver needle from the Cultured Cup that I recently tasted. It is a little milder than the Yunnan Mao Feng I’ve been getting from Norbu, as expected for a white tea made from the same general source material. The floral taste is decreasing after the 3rd infusion, but some mellow sweetness remains. Very nice, not spectacular, but refreshing on a warm afternoon. The leaves are so pretty

Tai Ping Hou Kui by Wing Hop Fung today. This is a weird and wonderful tea. The leaves are gigantic, wide, flat, long. First try with this tea was 30 seconds infusion at 160 degrees, about a gram of tea in 2 ounces of water in a small porcelain gaiwan. It is sweet, spicy, vegetal, floral. So far, the 9th infusion is still very similar, very very nice: the vegetal flavor is weakening, mildly there, but the sweetness and spicy is still present. And this is not a super fancy version of this tea: I only paid $39.99/lb for it. The ends of the leaves are broken, so it’s not fully intact, but given the size of the leaves, a break or two in each does not seem to be making anything bitter. Even after 5 infusions, the sweet/spicy scent is still there in the wet leaves. It reminds me most of the Anji white tea I’ve been getting from WHF, but this one is a fraction of the price. I will definitely keep this one in regular circulation.

Today the tea is starting late: I'm drinking my first Tai Ping Hou Kui, from Wing Hop Fung, a weird and wonderful green tea. More wonderful adventures in tea.

Pretty as it is, I think the most lovely thing about it will be how perfectly it matches the size of my regular little gaiwans. It will be wonderful for gongfu sessions with them. The stand is growing on my every time I look at it--it too has a delicate subtle sparkle and shine--but the roughness of the feet will not be nice on my plastic countertops or laminate top desk. How would you handle that--fabric or bamboo coaster underneath it? Little felt stick-on pads on the feet just would seem so....wrong.

I think that's likely, as he definitely uses those types of glazes, but he didn't say explicitly which glazes were used for this group of cups.

A new teacup from Michael Coffee: as usual with a nice ceramic piece, it's quite a technical challenge to capture the sparkle of the metallic glaze....

That was not the right mister linked in my last post: mine is from Emsa. (click on the photo for larger image at flickr)

I have one that I adore, after hating my Misto: the Misto clogged so easily and quickly and the pump action just never felt like it went very far. I think this may be the same one, but I have to go home and check to be sure. My current sprayer is now about 4 years old, and I do not remember giving it a soap or alcohol cleanout ever, but I might have forgotten the trauma (I do remember several failed attempts to resuscitate the Misto before I gave up). I think it reaches a high enough pressure that it just blasts the nozzle clean each time. And I use it sparingly, a few times a year, so it mostly sits, and yet doesn't clog. What do I use it for? Primarily I use it for pizzas and foccaccias, where I want a light coating of oil, sometimes on top of the toppings, so the spray doen't disturb them, and sometimes underneath, where the spray again won't tear at a lightly proofed dough.

Today has been a bit backwards: started with a thermos of oolong (finishing the very last packet of the 2009 Norbu Diamond Tie Guan Yin, and looking forward to the 2010, already securely tucked away in the tea cabinet), and now just had dinner with a session of Sayamakaori shincha from Yuuki-Cha. I'm so used to sencha to start the day, but it's just as good in the middle. Yum.

Tuesday I pretty much finished off a sample of a new oolong from Norbu that I got with my last order. I wrote about it in the oolong topic. There was also a short session with some loose mao cha from Wulian (more from Norbu) that I didn't 'finish' because my kettle ran out of water before the leaves ran out of flavor. Yesterday, after several gongfu tasting sessions, I wanted a mellower afternoon tea, browsed through the shus, and came up with the Norbu 2009 Lao Cha Tou puerh brick, broke some off, and it was a lovely reminder of how nice shu can be: delicately sweet and fruity, hints of cherries, plums, grapes, a bit of caramel. It has always been nice, but this is the best infusion yet. And a good reminder that shengs are not the only wonderful puerhs. Today, a change of pace, starting the day with Shincha (Sayamakaori from Yuuki-Cha), and now trying to decide on what to have next. It's time to prepare the afternoon thermos for clinic & sharing, and we had a birthday breakfast at work today, so again need something mellow, feeling a need for a simple pouchong from TenRen.

Tuesday I mostly drank a new-to-me tea from Norbu: 2009 Old Plantation Qing Xin oolong. It was so good that after a bulk thermos brewing of the sample (a free sample included in my last order), I had to do a gongfu session straight away to confirm how nice it was. The leaves are dark, tightly rolled, some stems, toasty dark tart scent. 1.5 grams of tea into 60mL gaiwan, water 180 degrees, rinse x 15 seconds, then 20 second steep: first impression is spicy, interesting, but oops, before I can form a proper opinion, I am thirsty and it is gooood, gulp, gone. 2nd infusion is a little spicy, a little sweet, a lot toasty-roasty, but there is a smoothness here even in the 2nd infusion that often takes 4 or 5 infusions to achieve in a more assertive Wuyi rock tea or even my old supermarket brand Ti Kuan Yin. And there’s no sense that a bitterness or astringency is just around the corner if I am careless with times or temps. I was interrupted and have lost count of the infusions, but I am pretty sure the current one is 9 or 10. The flavor is more dilute now, but there is still some sweetness and a little something else that is very Ti-Kuan-Yin-like. And the flavor was smooth but still quite definite out to the 7th or 8th infusion—that smooth 2nd infusion carried over without turning to water at the 3rd or 4th. After the infusions, the leaves are unrolled, but still very crumply and twisted, with a dark brown color and a charcoal scent: with some determination they can be coaxed and pressed and flattened into medium sized, quite intact leaves. It's a lovely nice tea, like a refined version of the SeaDyke that I drank forever and a day. But after these two brewings, one for thermos and one gongfu, it's almost gone. So I ordered some more.

Still drinking my teas hot.....had one or two acceptable brewings of cold Ti Guan Yins but really prefer it hot. so yesterday, shincha start, yunnan mao feng, Zhang Shu Lake oolong, 2007 Menghai Silver Dayi puerh. Sencha to puerh, nice complete cycle.

Correction: The first tea is Shi Tou Xin Zhai, not Xin Jai. Greg let me know of the misspelling that is present on the packaging (oops).

I need to add a new favorite: 2009 Winter Black Ruby from Norbu. I got a free sample of this with my last order from Norbu, and tonight, when my tongue was overdone with tasting several puerhs together, I tried just a pinch of it as a change of pace. I prepared it with probably about half a gram of tea to 2 oz boiling water (it was late, and I didn’t want to be up all night), and after about 2 minutes steep the liquor was deep orange red, and delicious. Fruity, sweet, no astringency at all (not that I expected any, really, given the dilution I started with), and a second infusion was equally delightful. Not sure about the wine-like aspect Greg mentions in his notes, but this was a quick & dirty sipping, so I’ll have to try it again, more carefully, and take better notes to see if I can identify that. I will certainly get a little more of this tea for a change of pace, and I suspect it will make a nice alternative to my golden Yunnans for take-a-thermos-to-work days.

Another sheng puerh tasting, this one of some loose Mao Cha, from Norbu. 2010 Shi Tou Xin Jai Mao Cha, Nan Nuo Shan, Xishuangbanna, Yunnan 2009 Lao Ban Zhang Mao Cha from Xishuangbanna, Yunnan* 2009 Wulian Shan Mao Cha from Dali Prefecture, Yunnan I have been enjoying the Lao Ban Zhang Mao Cha for several months, since I first tried it as part of a tasting here, so with my last order from Norbu, I tried a couple other Mao Cha, to see how they compared. This is my first brewing of other two young shengs. As expected, these are wonderful teas, with more capacity for infusions than I have space in my bladder, even with the very small gaiwans, so sometime after 10 or 12 infusions, I stopped drinking the full infusions, and did a series of longer steeps, discarding the liquor, and then did a final infusion, which I estimate to be about the 20th for each, so I could finish the tasting, get the photos of the spent leaves, and go to bed! Overall? I love all of these. The Shi Tou Xin Jai is the most approachable in the early infusion, and is one I'll take to work to share in some one on one meetings with other tea lovers--it's less likely to bite back if I get a bit distracted. But at the however-many-it-finally was infusion, when all were pretty dilute and mostly had just a gentle sweetness left, I found a little more depth or complexity in the LBZ in than the other two. So....if you're anxious about bitter, start with the Shi Tou. If you're already a connoisseur of young sheng, and want the maximum complexity, go for the LBZ. And if you're undecided, get the Wulian, or better yet, enjoy all of them. *Actually, turns out the LBZ is sold out. Greg tells me that the Lao Ban Pen Mao Cha on the site is very close, and maybe better. I have a hard time believing anything could be better, but as good, maybe.... Tasting setup Used 1.0 grams of tea in small 40 mL gaiwans Infusions 205°F/96°C-212°F/100°C 2 rinses at about 10 seconds each, before first 10 second infusions 2010 Shi Tou Xin Jai Mao Cha, Nan Nuo Shan, Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Dry Leaves: long dark twists of intact leaves with some stems, sweet woody anise scent Liquor, 1st infusion: light tan liquor, sweet anise flavor predominates Liquor, 2nd infusion: the anise sweetness continues to make this one mellower than the other two Someplace about the 8th or 9th infusion: still the mellowest of them, even after the dregs in the cup sat a bit and bitterness started to come into play; how is it that the youngest is the least harsh? Liquor, many?-th infusion: sweet, dilute, still that lovely hint of anise Wet Leaves: olive green leaves with reddish accents, woody earthy spicy scent 2009 Lao Ban Zhang Mao Cha from Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Dry Leaves: long dark twists of intact leaves with some stems, scents of mushrooms, soy sauce, darker than the Shi Tou Xin Jai Liquor, 1st infusion: light tan liquor, sweet and vegetal Liquor, 2nd infusion: spicy, sweet, with that smooth earthy depths, and hint of bitterness Someplace about the 8th or 9th infusion: sweet, earthy, lovely as usual, but the astringency of the aftertaste is definitely present and noticeably more than the Shi Tou or the Wulian Liquor, many?-th infusion: sweet, dilute, earthy Wet Leaves: olive green leaves of uniform color, sweet, spicy, asparagus scents 2009 Wulian Shan Mao Cha from Dali Prefecture, Yunnan Dry Leaves: long dark twists of intact leaves with some stems, scent sweet and vegetal and like clean earth Liquor, 1st infusion: light tan liquor, sweet, vegetal, bit of astringency Liquor, 2nd infusion: spicy, herbaceous, sweet with astringency and some bitterness Someplace about the 8th or 9th infusion: sweet, earthy, again, a little spicy/herbaceous accent that in addition to and distinct from the astringency that forms part of the aftertaste of the LBZ Liquor, many?-th infusion: sweet, dilute, mellow Wet Leaves: olive leaves with reddish accents, sweet spicy vegetal scent Photos: Left 2010 Shi Tou Xin Jai Mao Cha, Nan Nuo Shan, Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Middle or Top 2009 Lao Ban Zhang Mao Cha from Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Right 2009 Wulian Shan Mao Cha from Dali Prefecture, Yunnan