Cheng Shouzhen, Zhen Ji

The original 1915 Cheng's globular shape from the Flagstuff House museum of Tea Ware, Hong Kong.
What amazes me is the size of this beauty... it can hold at least 600 ml of water. The glow is quite something.

Cohiba Siglo VI & Bronze prize aged Dong Ding

This little treasure has been hiding in my baby onggi jar since this April. Finally, the right moment came and I shared it with my friend Michael Turek and Italo. With 2 other teas: 80's cooked tuocha, and a 1600+ yrs Chairman Mao.

My friends were new to tea tasting, and they both thought the DD is a bit on the mellow and quite side. Nice clear brew, aged character stimuated both sides of my tongue and made me salivate. Need to have a quite mind for this tea, perhaps? But my wife preferred this over the 80's tuo.

I wonder if I did not push it enough when both my friends prefered the other comparing to the DD? Or is it just that they were looking for instant gratification because of the promising aroma?

Most often when we do group tasting, we are more likely to jump to the gun... or impatience? There is a big difference in drinking tea to purify the mind vs drinking tea as a social event. Later one makes you feel that the clock is always ticking, and moving on to the next is a constant concern?

So I brought the pot back home, and slowly brew it with one of my favorite Cohiba Siglo VI 2003 companying it. The cedar, coffee, leathery aroma with hint of grassy tobaccoy paired well with subtle floral of this Dong Ding. The sweetness of the tea, balanced out the tarry nutty smoke. Then the creamy texture of the aged tobacco added dimension to the clean candy water at the end. What a bliss, and this combination made me feel complete and satisfied. Thanks again for ABx for his generosity.

Oolong tea brewing. Now and then....

Over the years, I have been documenting on some brewing methods for Oolong tea. Looking back and comparing the progress is one of the most self educational & learning experiences. From the very beginning, I only concentrated on the surface and 'packaging': eg. looks, brewing steps, aroma, feeling of front of mouth and the first couple of minutes of 'expectations'. All these do not excite me any more, but the lingering effects and experience afterwards is more what I am searching for at this point.

A couple of readers asked what is a good oolong and how do I brew it.... All I can answer is that it is a loaded question. Perhaps an endless quest? Awakening of "Self and Surrounding", or a lifetime experience to search for Ethereal... a great character/bouquets of maturing process like a 30 yrs+ fine Bordeaux, Burgundy or even Habanos. And the refinement of brewing a tea without thinking too much of it... just like breathing?

The only fact that I am confident of concluding based on my experience is, if you can use 16g of tea on a 80ml pot and you can very much enjoy it, it is a good tea and a good brewing method.... at least to my latest enlightenment, and of course, this will only change in time.

Most often these days, when drinking with Masters, or beginners, I always observe in a very intense way.... Not intruding nor asking, but just looking and enjoying the results. Often enough, I will learn something new, and could tell why and what made someone do what they are doing at their own stage. Can you translate what I am doing in this silent animation?



Beginners often use less tea to water ratio, and Master usually do the opposite. A seasoned tea drinker once told me, the reason to do this is often someone has not yet found something good enough or confident enough. When you use a load of not-so-refined tea, the best you get is a cup of not-so-refined brew. A high quality tea, when you pack it to the top, you will always get a top cup. That's why you have tea bag, and the normal way to brew it? A bag to a big cup, you can make any tea bag taste passable.

Old posts of brewing methods for Oolong tea:

2006 Light Anxi Tieguanyin brewing

2006 Traditional Chaozhou/Hong Kong Oolong Kung-Fu brewing method

2007 Traditional Anxi high fired 16 years old Tieguanyin brewing

2008 Detail brewing method on old bush Wuyi Shui Xian



I am still enjoying this pot over it's third night, paring with a 2002 Trinidad Fundadore. Creamy, concentrated espresso and orchid. A nice balance and kicks all in all.

Autumn

My mom wrote to me this morning:
"Kyoto is one of my favourite cities in the world, there stood the only traditional Tang Dynasty architecture left in the world, and yet ours, in China, were all destroyed. sad.sad sad.....!!

One wonders, sometimes, if Kyoto does resembles what our own city once looked like back in Tang Dynasty?? A great era... ruled by Empress Wu......a city filled with artists, scholars, poets, dancers ...beautiful and elegant people....in tasteful and stylish fashion... good food...good wine...great music and lyrics..... lucky lucky Tang! Poor Hongkongnese!"

Well, here is my first blog response to my dearest mother:
"I do inherit the proud Chinoiserie from you, and sadly 'most' but not all the Tang architectures were destroyed in our beloved 'Middle Empire'. One could still reconnect the tasteful, romantic style of Tang dynasty culture through a cup of tea. Specially under the Autumn foliage, in Kyoto, Korea, China, Hong Kong or New York, it does not matter.

I hope my practice in the art of tea have prepared me to whisk you up a good Tang Style tea medallion, next time we see each other." xoxo

Happy Autumn to all. My favorite tea season.

photo courtesy of http://patrickphoto-tw.blogspot.com/

Dayi 250g Cooked brick April 1994

One of the lost puerh tucked away inside a tin box. No big fan of Dayi, almost like drinking a Mondavi's house Merlot, meanwhile you know they also make Opus. But sometimes I just want to enjoy something simple or less poetic, when deadlines and challenging design solutions start to pile up.



Perhaps the reason I picked this up was the blooms covering the brick. As you can see, it also blossomed on my '94 Monte 4.
The surface of the cake still looks oily with nice shine, and that's the way I like my aging to be.


Cloudy afternoon, around 85% humidity, and temp in low 70s. 6 grams with 150 ml pot. Boiling water flash rinsed twice, and rest for 2 mins.
1st brew 5s. Clear, dark amber, aroma of 70% coco dark chocolate with dried wood. No chew even though the soup look dense and oily. Very nondescript and mild. Deep water throatiness all the way to chest level.

2nd brew, push 20s. Cold semi-sweet chocolate right out of the fridge, the sweetness is not detectable, but you know it's there!? Clean, light and refreshing. Hint of balanced bitterness paring with woody maple. No qi at all but good quenchless.

3rd brew, pushed even harder, since I am only using 6g with 150ml water. Rich maple syrup front and finishing with coco aftertaste.... is this a puerh?
Comfortable and familiar effects, besides the cold chocolate part. Overall easy and single dimensional. A good during lunch dim-sum tea.

reference: cigarfan.wordpress.com

A view of Aging Cigar by Min Ron Nee. Part 3 of 3

At this point, hope you are enjoying or at least learning something new from these posts about the similarity of aging tea and cigar. I do want to point out that all of these experiences are very much personal, and there is no right or wrong in doing what you think is good... just the result and consequence of anyone's choice. For me, I prefer to take the action of practicing them, rather than blind googling or listening to vendors or "masters' online. That's the reason I started this blog to begin with.

There are some interesting things about learning both 'hobbies', just looking at these jars shown above and the concept behind it and then comparing to Tea Jar that we use for storing puerh, Strong Coincidence?

Speaking of Coincidences, I have been fortunate enough to meet up with like-minded aficionados by random accident. I was filled with joy and excitement this morning when I received a mail from Mr. Nino who had the pleasure to meet with Min Ron Nee twice!! So I break out this Double Coronas Partagas and kick back on a Thursday afternoon..... Enjoy!

A view of Aging Cigar by Min Ron Nee. Part 2 of 3

If one of the World's most respected cigar collectors wrote about the link between aging Habanos and Puerh, there are much wisdom to learn from....

First, on the previous post where the author mentioned in interesting note (blue):
Do cigars need to breath while aging? Applying the same idea to aging puerh, I found those in which I open storage with good ventilation for the new - 2 yrs old bings. The darken color (fever) marks were obvious. After the first couple of years, the tea oil shine on the surface dried up and became matte. Moreover, the floral notes were flattened and its character/aftertaste were less complex than those I refined storage. So if I want to drink young puerh in 5 years and prefer a bit more 'aged' character, I might want to open storage it. But if I am going for the mandarin's style... I would not give up any of my 'granny powder' for any shortcuts.

The funny thing is, once you know the difference, it's easy to tell. And there is no way someone could hide the false and reverse what's been done to the tea. Any thoughts?


My rose, talc cosmetic nub that started it all....

A view of Aging Cigar by Min Ron Nee. Part 1 of 3

Just finished a Monte 2 from 2002. An the mysterious 'Granny face powder' showed herself in the third stage.... the same character of a Nannuo. As Salsero pointed out on teachat regarding the same encounter: "...Bill had a very strong impression from his childhood of the aroma of Granny Face Powder which he remembers as a flour-like Coty powder that could fill a room it was so light. For a while he thought he detected some of that aroma, but it was only one of so many fleeting smells and tastes that we were pretty bowled over by the tea and after losing track of the number of infusions (all quite short) we were too tea drunk to continue...."

I would like to share a dialog with cigar enthusiasts and pureh aficionados based on some personal experiences and facts, regarding these two subjects on aging Cigar and tea and how they changes the profile in the coming posts.

source and credit to Mr. Min Ron's An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Post-Revolution Havana Cigars

TEA UTENSILS 02

Last Group for the tea utensils posts is these tea scoops.
(Clockwise from Top)
1. Early Rep. Zitan wood scoop with jade inlay 5-7g
2. Silver spoon 1890s 2-4g
3. Cow horn scoop 8-12g
4. Bamboo scoop 6-8 g
5. Modern Rosewood scoop 6-9 g

Very simple but useful tools these are, I realized there is such a history behind them besides going further to Chinese, Japanese or Western tea culture. These Chinese scoops' shapes, widths, and sizes were all pre-calculated.

What do I mean by that? For example, while scooping loose wiry oolong one supposed to roll the tea onto the scoop, rather than digging into the delicate leaves, this rolling action will position the long leaves for easy entry to a yixing pot. Also, a full scoop equals to one tea session in general, around 6-8 grams for 120 ml brewing vessel. Depending of the sizes of the pot, we can then use different sized scoop.

Something so simple, yet following the basic design principle of form follows function.

TEA UTENSILS 01

How many is too many? Organizing and rotating tea utensils is often a headache for me... not because I am trying to show them off, but the fact that only 10% of the utensils are being used. Some even get used only once or twice. So what are these? Here, I am trying to put a glossary together for the record:

Group A: Yixing brushes.
1. Boar bristle brush for polishing larger yixing.
2. Hay brush for cleaning inside of wet yixing after use.
3. Boar chest-hair hard brush with ox bone handle, for brushing off uneven patina on yixing surface.
4. Soft 'feeding' brush to even out patina on yixing.
5. Fan brush from my watercolor class, to even out water spot while brewing.
6. Soft polishing cloth for cleaning yixing after brewing, and while the surface is still hot.



Group B: Tea strainers.
1. Korean Calabash Gourd Strainer.
2. Blanc de Chine Strainer set.
3. English silver nickel tiny Strainers.
4. Cheapest stainless steel Strainers ($5 for 25) with glass pitcher
5. QingBai Cha Hai

More to come.... Would it be fun to have quizzes next? hmm... a sneak peek:


Group C: Modern Kung Fu kits.


Group D: Whatnots.
1. Bamboo roasting basket
2. Taiwanese refreshing/roasting pot
3. Puerh knife
4. Wild guess 1
5. Brazier chopsticks
6. Puerh Sword
7. Whatnot jar
8. Wild guess
9. Yixing tea tray

Anyone interested in guessing what 4 and 8 are? Of course there will be a small reward. Enjoy


Thanks for everyone anticipations... Close guesses, unfortunately, no one get it right : (
Here are the answers:

4. Wild guess 1 - Teapot lid holder. Material like Pearl on the top suppose to avoid reaction with yixing (as the maker told me), more like caviar spoon.
8. Wild guess 2 - Tetsubin holder. While using Brazier to heat Tetsubin, this traditional chopper tools adjust and hold the kettle in place. You can see the notches at the end for gripping the rim of a brazier, which RTEA pointed out.


image reference for Scotttea comment.

Boiling Puerh

After drinking 2 days straight on the 90s Tibetan puerh, I think it was pretty exhausted.... will I just discard it? Why not try something the Tibetan will do - Boiling it. Only without adding yak butter and salt.

Boiling puerh is a traditional way of drinking tea in the mountain of XiShuangBanna. Village Elders usually drink the boil soup after a day of work, companying a nice green tobacco.

The boiled soup tasted like classic black Assam tea. Warm and welcoming.

Early 90s Xiaguan FT Tibetan Flame Mushroom

Is there a season for drinking aged cooked puerh? Most of my experiences with shu aged (7-15yrs) during dead-winter season, is flat and boring.... really nothing to write home about.

Organizing some cigar boxes in the storage (which I use for aging shu puerh), I bumped into a lost mushroom. I did a post back in 2008 Feb., this puerh did not impress nor inspire at that time. But when I opened it up this morning, in a 80% hum./80F storage, it was like an invitation to a fine Chinese Banquet.

The continue down pour and hot muggy weather, it seems to have given a new life to this dried up, loveless mushroom. Fragrance of sweet cedar wood, dried wild morels, and a hint of tobacco caught my fancy. The shape of mushroom puerh always look exotic and intriguing, so inspired by it, I have to find some vessel which is similar in texture and tones.


A neglected set of Japanese tea cups seem to beg for a summer breeze.

Brewing:
8g/150ml pot. Crab eyes boil. 3 Flash Rinses. Set 1 min rest after 3rd rinse.
10s to 3rd brew / 30s on 4th / 10s on 5th / 1 min onward.

Color:
Clear shine, ruby red, burnt chestnut and oily.

Smell:
Red Jujube and dried dates, sweet woody, after rain forest.

Taste:
Dry sweet mushroom, dates, chinese herbal medicine, cedar wood, pale rose.

Base:
Sweet, clean, coating top of throat, oily refreshing (like Olio Nuovo), deep and tingling.

Effect:
Calming, numbing to back of mouth and throat, gentle cha qi, sweet spots at top of throat, refreshing and moisturizing the tongue. Still a bit flat after the 5th. to my taste.


Besides drinking it hot in my chawan, I also lined the 'new' small cups out for a cool tasting. From 1st brew to the 6th. Most of the time, when tasting aged puerh (shu & sheng), do try drinking it cool. It's a preferred way for older pu-headed mandarins.

So next time, if you have a disappointing aged shu in your storage, try picking a right season or after heavy rain to give it another chance.

Wang Mingyi Zen Brick 2007

Looking back to my tasting notes, I found that I have more than 4 different styles developed over the years (my first style). I don't know which one I prefer or my audiences prefer, perhaps it depends on the tea? The latest style was "borrow" after the modern bible of puerh tea by Mr. Tang. I like the to-the-point and in-short information format, listing all the most important elements during a tea judging process in China.

I wish to start a regular tea tasting report on more popular tea here (hopefully once a week?), so that I could build a good tasting archive, and a 'reference base' to share with other Tea Passagers.

Hmmm... what tea should I start to dedicate to the idea? A more unusual one I think, thanks to Brian for his kind gifts: A Wang Mingyi Zen Brick from zenandtea.com.



6.5g in 120 ml pot. Crab eyes boiling.
30s rinse. 1 min rest.
30s steep. 2 min rest to 2nd brew.
3 min steep and push on 3rd brew.
Overnight brew on 4th.

It's an interesting puerh. More like a red puerh than raw pu. The high oxidation process completely changed the natural flavor of a lincang. Frankly, it is something I have to get used to.... very much like another cake I had in the same process:


Personal notes:
I think this process might be too rough on the mao cha, exhausting the essence of its natural characters thru high oxidation, making it flat, aired-out and one dimension. Hope that this is not the trend for puerh to come, the result was a easier to drink raw puerh. Down side is it changes the profile of the tea. Maybe aging could have a different outcome, adding back the complexity?.... but then what's the point?

Coney Island

Went to Coney Island with my wife for some hot dogs, a sudden urge coming from the blues. Perhaps the murky sky and tropical humidity play a role on my impulse? The first thing that captured by my iphone was the rapid changes of the sky. (later on, it was reported tornados touchdown in Brooklyn and 5 people were struck by lighting). A photographic moment I like to remember, as inspired by my good photographer friend Jason Fulford's work.


Sunday Afternoon, a struggle to decide which one to cut on a nice rainy afternoon.... Cigar advocates will fight to the death between these two sticks. Which one would you pick paring with a Floral drinks like a Nannuo? Big Lew's tea was finally selected to pair with the Monte 2.



Besides the Tornados touchdown, too many chili dogs, and the golf ball size rain. It was a mellow and relaxing evening to savor.

2001 Yiwu Chang Tai. Yi Chang Hao

I have been aging this Yiwu open air style for 7 years in the storage/basement. Plied some out in a rainy Summer afternoon to taste. I was hoping to be rewarded, just by looking at the "fevered" color of the bing.

The brew color was considered dark for a raw 2001, but the taste was far more mellow than the other (refined storage) bings. Seems like the aroma and dry floral of a yiwu had escaped into thin air.

Nannuo 2006 Pre-Ming 明月号

Doing a tasting for Teachat



A private commissioned in 2006 pure Nannuo Mt. old tea tree.

Please Drink Chinese Oolong Tea

A "Five Style" Yixing sets for oolong.


#1 has not been use, and #4-5 are the most popular. Can you tell the shine/patina different?
Companying the images, my second tea cast. Please enjoy my 2009 Anxi Xiping TGY.

Anxi Tie Guan Yin Oolong Tea from TIMOTHY HSU on Vimeo.

Pre-Ming Long Jing 2009

A double brewing method for a delicate tea.


My First Non-Edit Teacast:



Ladies and Gents, please be gentle. Any Comment will be greatly appreciated.

Continue....

Testing a New Yixing

I've been testing a new tea pot for a couple of months now. Paring tea to tea pot is nothing more than a personal preference, a very subjective view indeed. Sometimes you like the up front notes of floral and high tones in a light Oolong, but sometimes you prefer the long lasting soft lingering aftertaste. Using a different yixing can bring out either the first or latter result.

It really depends on the mood and the weather. This is one of the newest pot I have ever owned, new in a sense that the time it took to my door steps from out of the kiln was less than 2 weeks. (as I was told by the vendor) A mere $45 dollar "test" pot if you will, my first internet vendor purchase of a yixing.... am I worried? of course!

When I first got this, I immediately reported back to the base (teachat). Under tremendous pressure from the chat room.... I then post the first set of images within 15 mins. I thought I was over the peer pressure thang back in high school.


The new pot has a sticky feel to it, a humid and moist skin quality overall. Also a very new clay/fire odor from the inside. After brush cleaned under the tap inside out, it was put into boil for 2 hrs. then cooled, rinsed and rubbed. Another 1 hr of boiling with spend tea, then another couple of hrs final boiling in water. Traditional Hong Kong vendor will put a block of raw cane sugar in the final boiling to "season" the pot. I only tried it once and it resulted a nice shine coating but this method is not my pot of tea.

The most noticeable character on this pot is the clay quality, for this price range I did not hope for anything choicest. Acquiring pots rule of thumbs to me are: 1. Craftsmanship, 2. Artistic details/concept, 3. Clay quality, and 4. Collector's value. I dont expect to get a master craftsmanship or collector value out of this one, but I do expect a good level of clay quality since this is one of the main selling points from the vendor's site.

Without disappointment, this clay delivered. I am torn between it being a Cooked Puerh or a High Fire Anxi, the clay takes away the "pondy" aroma from a cooked and softens the fire/charcoal taste from a high fired. I also tried it with a very nice Nannou raw aged for a few years, but it took away the delicate floral fragrance and made it more subdued, but calming.


One thing I learned out of this experience was, the more you age this pot, the more shine and oily it becomes, more over, the weight of the pot also gets lighter? Just like a good cigar, in this case a Maduro wrapper. You can see the similar texture and the shine from the both surface.

The more you age a cigar, the lighter it becomes, and the taste is smoother and married. Just like a glass of wine, a good aged tea and a good old yixing....