Fresh Experience in Guanziling

The town of 關子嶺 is mostly known as a mountain hot spring resort and, by-the-by to those who have been there, as a place to eat some of their local barrel-roasted chicken afterward, or perhaps to buy some of the local produce, such as the milk-sweet guava sold along the roadside with handmade signs proclaiming its freshness.  Last Sunday, the Tainan-based tea tasting festival 春日茶會 was held for the first time here at a centrally-located public park.  With tea and attendants, ten tables fully decorated with beautiful cloths framing the tea ware like the matted fabric in Japanese scrolls will a painting.  To the sides, ornate metal kettles could be heard to boil softly on white clay stands, and orchids, tree branches, or flowers expressively placed on the table offered balance and poetry to the sublime three-dimensional roundness of the pots and cups.  Wandering from table to table, one passed through the groves of 桂花 now just beginning to flower, sending their unmistakable scent into the air. 

 

The great pleasure of attending such events is not just being able to taste great teas that you probably wouldn't come across otherwise but also being exposed to radically different approaches to brewing and tasting tea.  Like any art, drinking tea can become a victim to its own traditions handed down as fast rules, when the truth of the matter is that drinking is always a creative journey.  Tea brewers, like guides, can pull you out of a uncreative rut and really open your eyes to a new way of appreciating tea. 

In earshot of a man who was playing the 琵琶 in a delicate and erudite manner, I sat down at a table attended by the smallest of women with the softest of voices, and for a while I sat down alone, for no one else had chosen this table when it was time to switch tables. Then a young man seemed to sit down and save another two chairs for his friends but his friends came only to say that they were saving a chair for him at their table, so he scampered away.  I began to feel a little stupid as the other tables commenced drinking, and I sat alone at this one.  At last, however, others sat down.  We were told that we would be drinking 大禹嶺 tea (from the highest and most acclaimed tea growing peak in Taiwan) and that we would be asked to please place our cups closely together in front of the pot because she had no 茶海 (actually her 茶海 is in the picture below but apparently by the time we came around she had stored it away) to decant the tea.  She would have to directly pour the tea from the pot into our cups at the same time. 

Her table was clearly intended for simplicity, at least so she told us, when asked by one drinker, what was her "theme."  A brown cloth covered the entire table, then a smaller lighter colored cloth above that to frame her tea set, which in this case were our eggshell white cups, an 茶盂 for disposing water, a small container to hold the tea (not pictured below), and a bronze plate that had had its sides folded up so it could hold the tea and be held for examination (also not pictured below).  The tea pot itself was strikingly a 陶壺, that is, pottery, not the traditional red or black clay that is best suited to oolong and puerh teas.  Cylindrical with a bulbous throat and a delicate lid lay neatly inset into the top, the pot was the strangest and most suggestively interesting feature of her table.  This sat on a large, elegant slab of pottery that like an ancient tablet with its corners slightly raised up, would prevent any liquid if it spilled from running onto the cloths on the table.  Also on the clay tray was a small, hand whittled tool (also not shown), one end sharp and the other end flattened, and to one side a dry, squiggled branch with small seeded pods that was there clearly for elegance. 

Whatever you might think about the description of this table, in relation to the other tables it was sparsely aesthetic; indeed, as she claimed, simple.  And this is the great difference in perspective between a tea drinker and outside eyes.  To the latter such preparation looks extravagant, in the worst case, pretentious.  But from the perspective of the one brewing the tea, they have tried very hard to achieve the exact opposite, and especially, to put the drinker in a pleasant, settled state of mind wherein they can directly appreciate he tea without distractions.  The art is supposed to put you in the present moment and experience.  Thus the setting of a flowering park.  Thus the man playing exotic melodies on his 琵琶.  But here comes another contradiction.  The tea drinkers who attend these events have spent considerable energy trying to understand the rules behind the art--from what it means to use a metal kettle to brew your tea (as opposed to a clay one) to the chemical processes happening in your mouth to experience such things as 回甘.  Or else they are tea fanatics in some form who will not so much be eased by the simplicity and artfulness of the ceramics and table settings, as be jealous of possessing them themselves.  Therefore such mental and unseen battles are fought at every tea table. 

After cleaning our cups with hot water, and then pouring the first wash of the tea leaves into the cups, she apologized because we would have to wait awhile for the first brew.  Usually, higher elevation teas like 大禹嶺 are prized for their freshness and fragrance, and for that reason, the received wisdom is to brew them many times in short periods to get an unfolding spectrum of tea flavor to arise and pass.  However, such elevation leaves are quite hardy as well.  That first brew was probably closer to five or six minutes (though I wasn't counting!) which at least to me is unheard of.  Pouring it directly into our cups, instead of decanting it, she instead made four passes over the cups, each time pouring just a little bit into each cup until all cups were evenly filled, though barely half-full.  Veritably, I have never drunk tea so strong, stronger than most coffee, with a force I would be at a loss to describe, not willing to settle for the word bitter.  It was the bitter of biting into a raw root, simultaneously powerfully plant fresh as well.  And when swallowing, the important part really, there was no bitterness on the tongue, as we usually associate with bitter flavors.  That first cup was a lesson in what is bitter and what is just strong flavor.  If the Turks started brewing high mountain tea perhaps this is the method they would prefer.  Then, cup emptied, the residual tea evaporated into one of the most floral fragrant tea scents that I had ever known.  That was the first brew and we continued for five more, which came and went quietly.

What I appreciated most about this woman brewing the tea was her deflective way of responding to our observations.  Why did she choose to brew the tea in a 陶壺, I asked?  When she deflected this pointed question by saying how she really just wanted to experiment with the tea at longer durations and found that this pot worked, someone else observed that pottery would brew at lower temperatures than the traditional "purple" clay pots, and she deflected this as well, saying "oh really?". This "oh really", sincere and appreciative, was used often.  When told that if her tea tool, most likely from the 七里香 bush, was "taken care of," it would darken and become fragrant, she used it.  When told that the 回甘 was finally much stronger in the third brew she used it.  It was as if to say, "maybe, maybe not," both affirming and uncommitted.  Which, over all, I thought was a good stance.

For more photos...

Chiayi's First "Tea Bar"

A tea seller that I've known for several years now has just recently started a new tea enterprise.  He has started lots of different ventures since I've known him, from the website he had me translate in the hopes of capturing foreign markets; to the Ali Mountain "green tea" that he ground into a powder to cold-infuse bottles of water; and to the black tea he was making from oolong, which could be mixed with black sugar and milk. 

The last time I came to see him and his wife, he excitedly showed me a magazine of a shop up in Taipei that brewed high quality tea right in front of their customers using traditional clay tea pots, and then siphoned it into bottles for customers.  It looked labotorial and beautiful with lots of glass beakers and funnels; it was a true blend between the traditional approach and the modern coffee shop.  I liked the idea as well, so last night when I saw that he had finally opened his "tea bar" I stopped by to take a closer look of the set-up.

The science:

They brew about 15 grams (a bit more than a 1/2 oz) in about 800cc of water for 4 minutes.  They prepare a beaker with crushed ice and strainer that sits inset in the beaker.  After pouring the hot water onto the ice and whipping it, they funnel it all into a 800cc bottle that they mechanically fasten a lid to from a tool hanging from above.  When I asked if they sold any of the teas hot, they mentioned that they all were immediately iced because it otherwise would continue to ferment.  I liked watching the whole procedure and didn't mind waiting 4 minutes.  Like the article that the boss had showed me before of the bar in Taipei, they had acheived a nice laboratory, industrial look, which suggested a new, modern context for tea.

The critique:

The tastes were good but not great, and we ended up drinking only half of the tea, which made me feel wasteful.  Too bad they weren't selling in more drinkable sizes, let's say 470cc (12 oz, a "grande"); to throw away the tea if you can't drink it sends the message that it wasn't good, even if that's not what your tastebuds told you.  I'd rather be left wanting more.  The tea also needs to compete not only with coffee but also with all the other cold brew tea stands out there--both are products with very strong flavors (usually spiked with sweetness, or strong in other ways like coffee).  With no added sweetness, the tea brewed in this new way needs to be really good to stand out.  A new recipe might be 470cc of 10 grams for 5 minutes, making a stronger-flavored tea.  I might even suggest putting it into a paper coffee cup and serving it hot.  I'm not particularly afraid of it fermenting after the brew, especially with such a fine strainer for the tea.   

I think its a fun venture and I'll most likely be back to see if their business thrives in the new year.  Perhaps this model, or some variation of it, would be a viable business model back in the states. 

Roasting tea in Ruili

Although my house is a wreck (so many things in boxes intended for America, Baihe, or the trash) and all our schedules have been thrown by the holiday season, I have found some sanity in the carefulness of brewing tea. Now it is impossible, for the reasons I have just mentioned to do a full, deliberate tea brewing at home--what with a baby who can now with one swipe clear most of whats on the coffee table onto the floor--so it is no wonder that my most recent experience with tea took place away from home in the mountains of the Alishan region in a small tea farming town called Ruili, where I went to find a particular homestead after getting their name card at an event the weekend before. Luckily when I arrived not only was the family there but also they were in the midst of a day-long roasting and taste-testing of their oolong, which was to be entered into a national competition.

   

Many farms participate in national competitions, sending tea selections in quantities of 22 kilos. One of those kilos is a gift gratis to the organization that runs the testing, while another kilo is used for the actual taste testing. The remaining 20 kilos, if they make the cut, will receive a special grading and will be given a fixed price. A tea master will taste hundreds of teas every day, while at each pass the number of teas dwindle until there is just a handful left. The single top tea from an entry pool of over a thousand will received the highest honor and will be able to be sold at a premium price.

The tea rankings for Oolong look something like this:

特等將 - the top honor - only one tea selected

頭等將 - second highest grade - only the top 4% make this cut (only 30 teas)

頭等將二 - third highest grade - only about 50 teas make this cut
頭等將三 - ...

There are more grading levels but why worry about them (besides, I can't say this list is too accurate!). The teas in the top four percent can be sold for about 230 US dollars per kilo while the one entry that wins top slot is sold for multiple times that rate. Most tea roasters will say that there's a lot of luck involved, not only that you get a good crop of tea, but also that the judge specifically enjoys your tea. That said, everything about the brewing method contrives to make the process as precise as possible, trying as it were to counteract so much uncertainty.

Following is a video of Mr. Lin and his father as they compare two oolongs they are roasting side by side in different machines with their entry from last year, a tea that took the 頭等將 grade.  As you can tell every slight aspect of the tea soup's color, initial scent, and taste is important.  The brewing method is rigid: three grams of tea in 150ml of boiling water brewed for six minutes in a competition "cup" made of porcelain.  Six minutes after the tea has been poured, when the leaves have cooled off, they also smell the leaves as well.  Everything counts.  The most of what I noticed under discussion (half was in Taiwanese) concerned the tea soup's, it's clarity and color.  One looked greener and one looked more yellow they told me, but I could not for the life of me discern such slight differences.  When they asked me which one I liked the best, I chose (unwittingly) the tea they had submitted from the previous year! 

Around their rather large living room, that opened up onto a rather plain and concrete porch (surrounded though by flowers, and looking out over the gray and misty mountains) they had huge recognition placques from previous entries.  15 or 20 were hung showing that they had earned the 頭等將 status, and only one, placed prominently over the cheif brewing table, showed 特等將, which means one year at least they grew the golden egg! 

I asked them how this competition tea was different than what I ended up buying--their common oolong.  As far as I could tell, for the competition they sorted the tea to get the rolled leaves more uniform, and also plucked extraneous stems which apparently confuse the taste during roasting and then brewing, but I don't imagine that it's grown in a seperate field or under different conditions.  I was also surprised that there was no initial "wash" for the tea leaves during the taste-testing.  When you use a tea pot in the Chinese tradition of brewing, for those who don't know, one always washes the tea and dispenses with the water almost immediate.  People usually emphasis the fact that it washes dirt or impurities from the leaves or that it wakes up the tea leaves and heats the tea ware to make the initial brew more pure.
So I might be under a false assumption that you can apply the "tea-tasting method" to any tea, that is brew 3 grams in a competition "cup" made of porcelain with 150ml of boiling water, but I've had a lot of fun doing that with all of my teas--what a delight!  The usual method that I use, which requires you to brew the tea for breifer periods 6-7 times is like a fine dissection of the taste, a pagent of the teas flavor that evolves and is lived and is relished.  Using the 6 minute method, however, really gives you a full taste of the tea.  I've even used it for some tea packs of oolong someone gave me that I've otherwise been brewing red rose style in an open mug.  Much better to drink directly from the competition cup after brewing it--rather more like drinking espresso out of a demitase.  A quite different tea experience!

Recovered from the Annals of Warren Wilson College

A Natural Tea Seminar
Location, Warren Wilson Campus

What great fortune has occurred when three such men of rarity should in this world meet and fall to that civil occupation of drinking tea! Behold their subtlety and their ease! Behold the strange beauty of language they employ to equal their subject’s qualities! Behold as they mark every twist and turn of the tea’s taste—chasing it to that other side of eternity where perception and beauty escape even our simplest thoughts! And Oh what thousand-fold blessing it is that their experiences have been recorded in the annals of history, their exact methods, procedures, and correspondence described thus:

Brewing Parameters:

Amount - 0.25 ounces of Nanqiao shan Pu-erh (Factory: Mengyang Guoyan, 2006)

Water – filtered tap water, Swannanoa, Hun’s house, 106 Cabin Hill.

Amount – 120m

Water Temp – Boiled then cooled for 2 breathes

Method - Gongfu

Brewing Vessel - Yixing Teapot 150ml

After passing around several cakes, we decided upon a cake that we all agreed smelled of a certain mustiness that yet contained in its darkness the scent of flowers. “Sauntering Breeze” did honors as tea server, while "La Tea Doe" provided us with refreshments. And I, "Felt-Leaf," humbly took it upon myself to observe and record everything that took place.

The first infusion (twelve seconds):

We lifted our sniff cups and this is what arose. La said, “sweet honey incense;” S.B. said, “fermenting honey;” and I added, “very hot plastic spatula.” “Yes,” we said. “It is all of these things.”

Then we took sips and the taste provided quite another dimension to our senses. I said, “A very tight flavor”—here I could not find words, and then I could—“slightly bitter like a steamed lotus root.” My friends concurred, La reminiscing, “a light-green taste, a little bit of sharp bitterness—just a little sweet to keep you interested,” while S.B. attempted summation in the true spirit of science saying only, “Slightly dry. Sweet at the end. Light-bodied.”

So much to be said in one brewing of one tea! What more can be said? Yet the rise and fall of the taste in a Pu-erh tea is like the rise and fall of tides of all the world’s oceans, containing in it all of God’s creations. As it was once said, “Eternity is in love with the productions of time.” Likewise, I say now, Tea is in love with its productions in the mind of man.

The second brewing is finished, fifteen seconds by S.B.’s count:

La began by saying, “The aroma has a stronger green smell, with a sweet smell, like” (here, he was confident and smiled) “like General Tsao’s Imitation Chicken.” No argument there. I added that I still thought it reminiscent of that strange warm plastic spatula smell as when it has rested too long on the skillet, but this brew was less intense.

While the scent remained intangible to our normal vocabulary, the taste we agreed was very distinct. La began again, “Blank dryness—‘free-of-taste’ dryness—filled in with bitterness.” “An all-coating bitter effect upon the tongue,” I said, “and still light and dry.” “Dry…drier—bittersweet,” said S.B.

It seems, upon memory, that we were descending into the depths of taste, unguided by any hand. Led only by our instinct and will, into that darkness of tea, without thoughts and concerns that we might not return, that in this bitterness there could be Lethian forgetfulness… Yet surely all that sinks below arises once again.

Third brew, 19 seconds:

Very adamant, “Honey molasses!” La then told me that he outright rejects the reality of it smelling like a very hot plastic spatula. I suspect—but I cannot prove—that La is simply being contrary, led astray by the amount of tannin in his tea. I respectfully maintained that it did, indeed, to me, “smell like hot plastic.” S.B., eyes closed, smiled from over his cup as it came to him. “Very hot spatula,” he said, “stirring honey.”

The taste: “A throbbing dryness; it will make your teeth ache with bitter,” F-L. “A mirage of wetness to start; a bitter dryness to finish,” said La. S.B. said, with a confused look on his face, after smacking his lips, “like…dry.”

The fourth brew was 21 seconds.

Was it the wastes of the day—the wastes of the tea talking? Were we men then—or like the flies drunk on an early spring day with the delight of resurrection in the sunshine? The smell: I said, “maybe like wet hair.” La contended: “dry enough to reach my nose!”

In the taste, the bitter lifted, I thought, “awake in its intentions—sweet and wet.” La concurred though troubled, “wet with an oceanic swell, but I still can’t shake the dryness.” S.B.: “smooth sailing ambrosia.”

The fifth brew was 30 seconds.

Yet again, change. While the aroma to S.B. and myself reminded us of shiitakes, to La he objected to say that it smelled, “the same ol’,” but also, “smells wet.”

Then there was nothing but poetry left in us. Or perhaps, all the poetry had left us. As the tea had washed itself of life, so had, in our expression, come and gone the soul of just formulation. I could simply write in my pages, “A residual innocence left from the complete dispersal of the bitterness; the sweet and wet of the earlier brew is all that’s left.” And then to say something so charming I could not deny, La went on to say, “like bathing my tongue in shallow, sun-baked water.” S.B. murmured, “faint and warm…sugarcane.”

Yunnan Junming Rulpinhao 38888

Well, out of the few passions that regularly send me to my blog (frustration, homesickness, and new discoveries being the only others that I can think of), the euphoria following a good session of drinking tea is perhaps the most consistent, which is the state I am in right now, a delicious coaxing puerh state, purchased for near twenty dollars in Malaysia.

In our conversations, Hun and I have talked about the need to categorize our puerh teas somehow. It is easy to forget a tea once you've put it on the shelf and it gets buried with a half dozen others. Besides, the pleasure of puerh tea is that it ages, and a history of a tea's flavor would be interesting as well as useful. Hun said that he had begun to insert a slip of paper next to each tea brick after revisiting it, and, on the slip of paper, he would write all the information that he knew about its manufacturing and year of cultivation. He also took the time to include brewing as well as tasting notes.

Taking his lead, tonight was my smashing of the champaign bottle and taking the first step of diligence in journaling, for the sake of my future edification, the brewing, tasting, and manufacturing notes of the first of my puerhs. Hun and I like to think of this process as scientific, due to the seriousness of precision, but, in truth, it is as an account as subjective as an oil, landscape painting, which, again, is not the most subjective thing either. Three painters will differ in tonations here and there, a winging bird that one of them captured, while the other was indifferent scratching his butt, and the other taking extra care to ennumerate the trees that flank one hillside, and so on. But hardly will anyone disagree that the three products are anything but the same vision. To re-describe, the difficulty of transcribing onto a page, with an inadequate langauge, what occurs on the tongue drives one to borrow both from science and art. One tries to borrow from the former objectivity, control, and a special attention to nuance. From the other, one hopes to lie upon beauty's wing, a plea to the muse that the indescribable may, this time, be described.

I've also included a photo. Though not beautiful, I hope it is helpful. I call what you see, "my command center;" it is here that I drink tea, write, work on my Chinese, eat, and push the little red buttons that send bombs hurtling to my classroom. One last note, the shorthand "js" means "Joe seconds," which means the amount of seconds of each brew that I counted in my head (scientific?--yes!). Without further ado:

Yunnan Kunming Rulpinhao 38888
Purchased in Malaysia July 2008, puerh from 2007. Seller said that it would be pleasing to the taste of beginner puerh drinkers so long as it was served in quick brews. Also a good tea let age.

10/20/08 Taiwan
2nd break of the cake: The cake, like before, is quite hard, and it is necessary to use a pick to loosen the brick and create fissures. Using my small teapot, and there is one good-sized chunk of tea in there, so anyway it looks like a third pot of dried leaves but it is hard to tell. I flushed it once with hot water to clean the leaves and immediately drained it.

1st brew (14js) - First sense is a shy sweetness, followed by puerh tea's milky flavor with an accompanying slime that coats the mouth; a bitterness hovers like the taste of coffee through milk, but does not get the chance to intrude. I would also add that though the combination of coffee milk may be an adequate analogy to this taste, it is not so blunt and rude as that particular mix actually is, but rather maintains a lightness that is hard to match.
2nd brew (17js) - Sparkling and alive this time, a physical feeling actually spreading right to above my eyes (and brain?), a stronger intensity of the bitterness--not more bitter--but definitely sharper, almost sour, a sour milk or a sour stout beer. Color near that of the teapot but, of course, very bright. (Personal note: the smell reminds me of a friend's--Josh's, for those who know--old house.)
3rd brew (15js) - Absolutely tangy, attacking specifically the top back part of the tongue. Flavor more vegetable, I would say, than anything else.
4th brew (19js) - Noticing a dryness in the aftertaste, especially on my lips.
5th brew (half a minute) - Quite different here. Was really pleasant to swig back. The flavor finally found expression and freedom from the tang, milk, and bitterness as they subside into supporting roles. Really pleasant.
6th brew (half a minute) - Yep, change noted above has fully taken place. As Lateef would say, "the clouds broke," and it's smooth sailing from here on out.
7th-11th brews (indefinite) - Over a coal and/or vegetable flavor. Same as the sixth brew.

Well, there's the last brew still waiting for me at my command center (I just poured the hot water in and left it--at this point it doesn't matter). However, please note that it is the eleventh brew. Try doing that to your earl grey and see if there is anything left. Bye-bye.

National Identi-tea or The First Whiff

First photo is a homebrew of some oo-long (Ali Shan). Note the particularly large leaf. The second photo is the puerh shop in Malaysia.

July 31st, Imagine Children's School Office; a particularly bright and sunny day

Today I decided to explore the Taiwan rails leading out of Chiayi city. I was tired of futzing about my apartment, and, since I was rained in the last couple of days, and because the sky surrounding the mountains since the rain left have been so clear, I decided it was time to see the countryside. First, I walked down to the school and picked up some books to prepare before classes begin. Then I rode my bike into the center of town, packing in my satchel some fine dried Italian sausage that I finally decided was time to eat (purchased all the way back in London Borough market some five or six weeks ago, it made it’s way through the various and rough climates of Ladakh, Delhi, and Malaysia all without cultivating any rogue strands of mold as far as I can tell) some morning pastry stuff that is purple and that tastes like purple, some water, and a mandarin language phrase book that I take with me everywhere. My plan was to go to Ali Shan today. Shan, in mandarin, means mountain; it is one of the few words I knew before coming here. When I was in Taiwan two years ago, it was on the occasion of attending an academic program at a Taiwanese Buddhist monastery in Khaosiung in the southern part of the island. The campus of the monastery there is called Fo Guang Shan, which means, in English, Buddha Light Mountain.

(Actually, the program that I participated in two years ago was occurring again all this last month and in their last week, in their cultural tour, they actually stopped by in Chiayi City last Friday to visit the main producing plant of Ten In faux meat products just outside of the city. I got in touch with the venerable who co-ordinates the program and took a taxi to meet them for lunch at the plant, which I knew would be extravagant. Yifa, the venerable, was always making the point to the American, Canadian, and British students participating that vegetarian and fake meat foods could be just as good if not better than meat foods. She takes each group of skeptical western, steak-loving students to all the best vegetarian buffet restaurants in Taiwan. Some of these restaurants I consider taking the ninety minute train to Khaosiung just on the hope of finding again. As I expected, half-way through the meal the students were saying, “oh I can’t eat another bite,” and, “more?—really?” And the enthusiastic factory workers were still bringing platter after platter of bizarre Taiwan food, complete with ice sculptures, dry-ice burning away into steam for affect, watermelon rind cut to resemble bird-of-paradise flower, and so on. The meal was incredible. All the while, we were served in a large factory room at large round tables, in junky chairs, that were completely tied up and dress up in pink ribbons and brocade for the special occasion.)

As I don’t have anything like a guidebook to tell me the interesting things to do in this area, I’ve relied only what other people have told me, and so far Ali Shan is the only place I really know about. The poster at the train station clearly noted the times that it left the station, the next one being in thirty minutes at one something o’clock. But it also clearly described the trains coming back from Ali Shan, and the latest one described was at one something, too, so I thought I would not be able to make the three hour mountainous ride there and back simultaneously today, so I settled for a random stop Douliou (actually on the way to Ali Shan) to try my blind luck. I was hoping Douliou would be a quaint no-where place at the foot of the mountains where I could walk around and sit under the shade of some tree, listen to the insects hissing and crackling and enjoy my packed lunch. Unfortunately, after the thirty minute train ride or so, I was dropped off at a metropolitan square something like the one I had just left and so exasperated and slightly trapped I went looking for the next best thing: if I could not have wilderness and mountain landscapes, then I could at least have tea.

Tea shops are everywhere in Taiwan—but they are more aptly named, tea stands, and they sell chilled milk tea, bubble tea, jelly teas, and various other tea gimmicks that are sometimes quite good, but what I was looking for was a real tea shop, like the one I had been to in Malaysia, where I could sit with the owner and drink tea for thirty or sixty minutes before pretending to buy something. It was my luck that I did find such a shop. The man said he was a teacher who taught Chinese, and I told him I taught English and some how it came out that we both liked tea too and so soon he was doing the inevitable, serving me tea. These friendships you have to be careful with because they occasionally involve money and after enjoying yourself, and feeling completely wealthy, you have no qualms about buying this or that, but, nor, on the other hand, is the proprietor so strict with the prices and so knocks off decimal points or numbers, by howeversomuch he is feeling generous. We talked about family, we drank tea, we laughed at my pronunciation of Chinese and at his failed attempts to communicate something, but we got on all right. He had a very limited vocabulary but it was surprising when he spoke because it was with a perfect accent—except when he said black. Black with the students at our school, I already have noticed, is a particularly dreadful word to say. It comes out like they’re chewing marbles. But we made it through the different names for tea, and I innocently enough asked him if he liked Puerh tea (see blog, “Drinking Golden Dust”) but thankfully I didn’t say it. It took him a couple times to understand me. “Puerh?” he said. “Ah puerh,” he said. He shook his head and his hands in front of him at the same time. “I don’t like puerh,” he said. “Puerh is from China.” Ah, I thought, of course. The distinction that some Taiwanese make between themselves and China is sometimes very strict. There is a further contention with the appellation of “Taiwanese,” disputed by the various peoples who are not ethnically Chinese, or who are the Hakka who came and populated the area before Chiang Keishek and his government. This man even noted that my guidebook unfortunately was “Chinese” which is true enough but it’s nothing I felt like I could or should apologize for.

But as puerh is “China’s tea,” oo-long is Taiwan’s. Taiwan, or earlier named by the Portuguese, That Beautiful Island, is composed in the interior by mountains, which since I don’t know when have been devoted to growing some of the finest and freshest tasting oo-long teas. Oo-long tea derives its potency by its freshness and is usually categorized as having a flowery taste, which is usually in contrast to the chlorophyll taste of green tea. So, although I didn’t make it to Ali Shan, I at least could drink the tea grown and produced there in Douliou. Like wines, depending on the mountain and the method of manufacturing, they are of a better quality or lesser quality. For example, the leaves of most oo-long are rolled tightly into small balls that unfurl when you brew them. Sometimes these leaves are machine rolled, but the better ones are hand rolled.
We also drank a tea from Lee Mountain. He kept pointing to the Ali Shan tea and saying, “good,” and then pointing to the Lee Shan tea and saying, “great!” I got the idea and indeed his scaling was accurate. Ali Shan oo-long was indeed very good. It had a fullness of flavor and freshness that was all a breath of life to me. The qualities of oo-long are of health and radiance; its effects are cosmetic in the sense that what was at default is now perfected and what was ailing has now been brought back into the whole. Just like flower or vegetable essence, the first scent of a good oo-long immediately soothes and clears your many distractions and worries fall away like rain. Like the phrase, “stop and smell the roses,” the smell of the oo-long instead stops you. And then of course you can taste it.

Recently more carried away with puerh tea, I had forgotten the certain manner and distinction of brewing oo-long. For both teas, you can brew in water just boiling and both teas have enough measure and potency to them that they can last 6 or 8 brews easily. But here the similarities seize including in terms of the items in which you use to brew them.

All teas in this style are brewed over a table that in some measure has a drain so that the water that is inevitably splashed or spilled is taken into account (in my apartment I can get by simply with a bowl with a large lip to place the brewing pot and strainer in). Instead of the miniature brown clay teapot used for puerhs, oo-long is brewed in a gaiwan, a container the size and shape of a hotel issue western tea-cup without a handle, which proves a difficulty.

The gaiwan has a lid that sits on top that helps contain the heat. One places the tightly rolled oo-long tea into the gaiwan (only to 1/5 the measure of the container, otherwise, when they come unrolled, like popped popcorn, the tea will overflow the container) and blanches it quickly with boiling water. This is very literally and judiciously splashed over the teacups. I had forgotten how long you may steep the tea. The old puerhs I have been drinking seem like they brew instantly and anything too long turns dangerous. But this tea just gets good when it’s left in there for a good 30 seconds. The leaves are potent but they are more rubbery and take a little longer to release their flavor. It is difficult to pour using the gaiwan. There is no handle and so with thumb and middle finger one holds the 100 degree Celsius container on its outermost and coolest extremity which is the rim, and with one’s index finger one pulls back the lid so that one may drain the tea and keep back the tea (much like how one holds the lid of a pot to drain the water left from boiling potatoes). This procedure is difficult, especially for one beginning to brew tea. The urge to dash the gaiwan to the floor is kept in check by the knowledge of the delicacy of the china you are using, so even when you feel the tips of your fingers burning you must still return the gaiwan carefully and slowly to its saucer. This process is further complicated and the finger tips are further scorched because sometimes the lid is held back too far and tea leaves begin to slide out along with excess water that further burns your fingers or else the lid is held too tightly and the tea drains away painfully slowly. Even more—unlike puerh where a little water left over in the pot is a good idea (it gentle brews while you prepare for the next round and makes the flavor even stronger)—any water left over in the fresher teas is not so good. It brews further while it sits and can become quite bitter and unpleasant.

Once you’ve poured your tea from the gaiwan (hopefully with seeming ease) you pick up the first cup, the sniffer which is tall and thin. Sometimes at this point the normal shaped teacup is placed on top upside down of the sniffer so that it looks like a mushroom. Then one takes the two cups, holding top and bottom securely together, and flips it upside down. One lifts the tall cup from the normal cup and, if the two are a set, the tea is now perfectly in the normal cup. Why do you do this? Well, the tall cup, the “sniffer,” is designed with its extended amount of surface area so the drinker may immediately place the rim to his or her nose to catch that first, intimate whiff, indicative of the caliber and personality of the tea. The whiff of oo-long tea is perhaps the most pleasant and important part of the journey. Of course, the taste is there, thick with tannin, and the color of the tea is often crystal clear and either a shocking green or yellow, but it is really the first contact with the tea, the whiff, that seems to be the very spirit of oo-long. At this tea shop, the proprietor merely lined three of these tall cups up between us (even though there were only two of us) and every time he brewed more tea, instead of having to wait, he simply refilled these shots and every time you needed more tea you simply took one of these and poured it into your own, the first time doing so, of course, also taking that first whiff of oo-long.

The quality of puerh that is so revered is its ability to age and grow better with time. How could teas that lose their freshness after a season compete? But now, on this side of the water, surrounded by this land and tea, I wonder if it is not the ephemeral quality of tea that is still more rare and sweet? When I return to America I will still have puerh that will continue to age and perfect. But it will be impossible to obtain the freshness of oo-long so far away.

Drinking Golden Dust

July Tenth, Starbucks, Queensbay Mall, Penang, Malaysia

I’ve deduced that I’m “over” my Delhi belly because here I am in Starsbucks and have just finished drinking hot chocolate and eating a coconut-flaked, green tea treat and I’m not squirting, to put it crudely. It was raining all this morning , making a racket in my room, and so, as it is with rain, I slept with it until noon. I’m staying on the 12th floor of an apartment complex with Hun’s family—his parents live on the 12th floor, his brother’s family on the 10th--and so I heard the rain against the aluminum awning or perhaps an a/c unit.

For those few people who have not wandered through Malaysia, it is actually quite an interesting place. I don’t know too much about it, so I’ll butcher this. Basically, it’s a Muslim country but very diverse. Beside the native population of ethnic Malaysians, there are a good number of Chinese and Indian citizens who have a long culture here. Malaysia was one of the British territories and gained independence in 1957 and from then on has been doing alright by the looks of it. Probably as a result of these cultures, and that the country is situated around water (Penang where I'm staying is an island), food is very important here. As they say here, “some people eat to live, but we live to eat!”

As a result of the British imperialism, English is a common accessory on television, radio, and basically every counter involving cash exchanges. If you're living here to learn another language, you won't. You don't ever need anything else but English. However, English isn't the preferred language and it is by far not the easiest way to express yourself here day to day . For that, people seem to use a mixture of the languages available. Hun's family, for example, speaks fairly interchangeably, English, Hokkien, and Cantonese. Malay itself has inherited and bastardized English words, making it nearly comprehensible at times in certain contexts. The signs for example in a grocery store exhibiting both Malay and English translations for products show the similarity. “Sos” is “sauce” “telefone” is “telephone” “kek” is “cake” “mesin” is “machine;” the list goes on. Walking around the market and downtown here, is like taking a stroll down a chapter of George Orwell's 1984 with the Malay language's eerie resemblance to new speak.

Tea Shop:
Yesterday, we went over bridge to the mainland to a fairly interesting tea shop . Even though most Puerh (black, compressed and aged, tea) is grown and made in Yunnan, China, the climate suitable for aging Puerh is found in Southeast Asian areas like Malaysia and not in Yunnan. For this reason, and others, Puerh is found in its greatest, rarest, and oldest forms here. As the interest in Puerh has spiked in recent years, connoisseurs in Taiwan and mainland China have turned their eyes and taste buds to places like Malaysia.

Once Puerh is an exceptional tea among teas. Out of the various teas and producing methods, Puerh tea, grown and prepared specifically in the Yunnan region, has the lovely and unique quality of maturing and aging, much like wine. Unlike oolong, green, and white teas that lose their freshness in a season after packaging, in the compressed and packaged puerh tea a bacteria persists and continues to ferment the leaves, creating a smoother, a clearer, and over all more potent tea as time goes on. As a result, Puerh can also make a investment. At the tea shop that we went to, the owner kept giving examples of how he had sold a certain block of tea for 30,000 RM (10,000 USD) and which was immediately turned over to be should for 125,000 RM. So, very quickly, certain rare and desirable teas can become very expensive.

Luckily, this man was more interesting in brewing and serving us tea than trying to sell it to us. Even before I could start looking at the different cakes upon the back wall, he had sat us down to start brewing us tea. It is customary, even in the tea shops in the malls, for a brewer to always be on duty to entice costumers with their tea. The whole shop smelled like that delicate flavor when you unfurl the light-weight paper that conceals the tea brick. It was different here in the case that he owned the store and was brewing his tea and that he had an assistant and she too was serving tea and that the four or five other people besides us who wandered through did not buy tea either but only seemed interested in drinking the tea that the owner brewed. He used a teak serving tray that was slightly excessive and several washed out tea pourers sat on it useless and used. Another eight or so very tiny tea pots sat on the counter having at one point, perhaps all that day, served their purpose. By his side was a large water dispenser with which he occasionally refilled his glass kettle that he sat on a blue flame to keep continually boiling.

At twenty, he told us he came down with severe liver problems from drinking alcohol from since he was fifteen. As part of his medication, the doctor suggested Puerh tea, which wasn’t at all a “thing” back then . This was in the eighties and so he began buying lots of old Puerh tea. He told us growths had been growing all over his face and neck but went away when he began drinking tea. He told us that his piss, as dark has the tea he was serving us (like coffee), turned soon to the color of the water that we could see boiling in his crystal clear kettle.

As a consequence, he seems now happy and eager to drink tea with costumers all day. He showed us a two 3 kg cakes that he recently purchased (about as large as lazy suzannes). Since he was only able to acquire two bricks, he told us that he promptly broke into both cakes diminishing greatly their desirability and therefore value because he didn't want to be tempted to sell them. He has many old and rare cakes in his collection that he will not sell (as we found out), but which he would also share with anyone who wanted to drink them (as we found out). Even so, one cake he bought for 1,000 RM, he sold again, a quarter it’s original size, for 5,000 RM.

Brewing Methods:
If you are familiar with the Chinese method of brewing tea (old man style), you know that it involves a little teapot that in itself fills a little more or a little less than one western restaurant-issue tea cup. The corresponding teacups, consequently, are tiny, too, giving the drinker a sniff and a swig at the very most. The great pleasure of this type of tea is the various rounds that are brewed, each varying in taste, and each participating to create a dramatic and sequential experience. The chemicals in the tea relax one, as do the chemicals in wine, but unlike alcohol, the tea's euphoria does not seem to impair one's judgment, rather making it clearer and more alert. The "caffeine high" of excessive coffee is not experienced here.

However, as we found out, the more expensive and rare teas (the teas we were drinker were all older than myself, one from the eighties, another from 1971, and a third approximately a hundred years old) are served with even smaller teapots and even smaller tea cups. The teapot, without handle or spout, would be able to sit under a turned-over western teacup easily. And the tea cups themselves would need to be filled twenty times for the volume of one western teacup. As a result of their smallness, both the cups and pot lose heat quickly and so are dashed with hot water between each tasting. And, because the old teas are more potent, one can drink them for up to 20 brews.