A seminal tea of legend, Tung Ting ‘Cold Summit’, oolong, embodied the historical and contemporary relationship of Taiwan to China. In the mid 1700s, a learned scholar named Lin Feng Chi was vying for the civil exam in the mainland China. His villagers crowd funded his journey to take the exam in Beijing, and he successfully became Magistrate Lin. In return for their kindness, he brought back 12 small bushes to grow in his village. He also brought back processing methods and knowledge on how to make tea. To this day, on the peak of Cold Summit Mountain, there survived one of those original bushes. But now Tung Ting Oolong is the most well known of all varietals and oolong styles in Taiwan and beyond. It has adapted to the Formosa Island of fragrant flowers and sweet fruits, and has become the embodiment of Taiwan style oolong: lightly oxidized, vegetal, fresh, very aromatic, with a…
Know Your Tea – Wuyi Oolongs
Teas from the region of Wuyi is one of the most well known in history, hailing back to 479 AD and probably earlier, recorded as highly regarded in the Tang Dynasty era of ancient China, and throughout the next 1500 years, continued to flourish. Today, these teas are not only a tribute to the Chinese government, commanding some of the highest auction prices in the country- they are also teas of status for the consumer. As a result, knock-offs and inauthentic ‘Wuyi’ teas flood the market. Understanding the characteristics and taste of the teas unique to Wuyi will help you spot the difference between authentic teas and imposters. Wuyi Shan (Mountain) is today a UNESCO World Heritage site, its environment is pristine and its natural resources, like its rivers, water falls, hills and trees, animal and flora collections, are not only intact, but given priority in this region. It is a remarkable departure from many…
Continuing my adventures- in food, possibly beer and sake. At…
Continuing my adventures- in food, possibly beer and sake. At Sapporo today where sake and beer are the replacements for tea. It’s usually so cold here people consume a lot of sake. It was a great comfort to end up in an AirBNB that was a modern traditional Japanese house where we can make tea. Out came my travel tea kit complete with fine porcelain cups, Baochong oolong, and an outrageous cheese mousse tart completes the day. My stomach has been stretched to the max.
This year I decided on some top notch Four Seasons, a more or…
This year I decided on some top notch Four Seasons, a more or less entry level accessible intro to Taiwanese oolong, with all the aromas of a tropical island, spiciness, and dry fruit peel finish. It is a great year for tea drinkers and woeful one for the farmers. The price did not increase much though there is no quantity, the Taiwanese are fair. The teas are determined by elevation and so, they don’t inflate prices such as the way they do in China. So I encourage everyone to try Taiwanese Oolongs this year, at least even at an inexpensive Four Seasons. I always maintain- if you did the math on tea bags, you might cry. 1.5gm of tea dust at $45 per lb or $120 p/lb for those ‘silken’ teabags made with plastic and filled with- who knows what. You might as well support real artisans from places of origin! And I, for my part, can continue to travel, personally inspect and get to know, the artisans and their teas and never buy mass produced, possibly tainted, middlemen handled, mediocre tea at expensive quality vs. price ratios!
Simply called Honey Oolong, this is 80-90% oxidized, very high…
Simply called Honey Oolong, this is 80-90% oxidized, very high mountain stock from the other side at He Huan Shan, near Dayuling. Basically, using a late summer tea that won’t be used for premium oolong and made into Red Tea/Hong Cha. I won’t have any new crop to taste until then, but the High Mountain fragrance ripening into Red Tea is outstanding.
80% of the population depends on tea for a livelihood in one way…
80% of the population depends on tea for a livelihood in one way or another here in Anxi, the birthplace of Tieguanyin, world renown oolong. To be sure fads come and go every year and a Tieguanyin is not always the most fashionable tea every year. Since the mountain range is so huge, all this raw material has to go someplace. They can get sold to Wuyi to be made into Dahongpao, or Phoenix Mountain to make ‘Phoenix tea’, or even green teas. For most people, they are not going to taste the terroir difference. For Americans, forget terroir- there’s just green tea or black tea in a teabag. Actually, the best example ever- once I was in a restaurant in SOHO, NYC, billing itself as a tea house restaurant. On the menu was: Hot Tea. That’s it. The wine list was a book and coffees were a dozen choices, but this ‘tea house’ had only one option for tea. Phew, glad it was hot. Now, why did I just spend my whole life getting terroir specific tea from the indigenous varietals picked on the perfect day made by the best artisans in the villages, again?