Concept Tea (2) - Red (black) Tea Dan Cong (紅單欉)

Seriously! I am drinking a Dan Cong red (black) tea :-D

In early March of this year, many Chinese tea producing regions suffered from snow and frost. Mt. Wudong, home of Phoenix Dan Cong, is one of the regions that suffered the most.

These are some typical scenes of tea trees being frozen and withered leaves after thawing of frost. (Scroll down the page for photos.)
http://www.tianyutea.com/bbs/dispbbs.asp?boardID=12&ID=34329

It's the worst natural disaster in tea plantations of Mt. Wudong since 1943. It's estimated that spring production of Dan Cong was reduced by more than 60% percent. Even worse, most damages happened to the best tea trees - those at 600m (1800 ft.) elevation or higher.

I was both glad and excited when Zhi, a young farmer of Mt. Wudong, told me about his Red (black) Tea Dan Cong. On the morning of March 10th, when he saw acre after acre of frozen leaves, Zhi's heart sank. It was the day when many tea farmers witnessed their tea leaves, even some tea trees, killed by ice and frost, just five days or so before spring harvest. On the day many people lost their entire spring production, Zhi didn't want to give up. He made a quick decision and did something I had never heard of. Actually it's something that even Zhi had never heard of. It was just a thought that came to his mind, and he grabbed the thought. Zhi called up all his friends and assistant works, and they spent the whole day harvesting on the frost-damaged tea leaves. Plant tissues respond to various environmental shocks, including freezing shock, with oxidation. Therefore, when the semi-frozen leaves were harvested, they were already heavily oxidized. Overly oxidized leaves are not suitable to make the delicate Phoenix Dan Cong. But they can still be used to make some tea. While rush-handling all the frost-damaged leaves in one day, Zhi and his companions didn't have time to categorize the leaves by cultivars. They had all the leaves mixed while processing them, and made this Red (black) Tea Dan Cong. Theoretically this tea is no longer "single cultivar", with leaves of various cultivars mixed together. But all the leaves are high quality, high mountain tea leaves which were supposed to be leaf materials for Dan Cong. Therefore I would still prefer to call this tea "Dan Cong".

As soon as Zhi told me about this tea, I decided to get some. I was very curious about how a red tea Dan Cong would taste like. And I was very much impressed by Zhi's creativity and decisiveness. In addition, this tea is much less expensive than regular Dan Cong products, because, after all, it's a product of accident. By making it, the tea farmer and his friends only expected to have some production, instead of nothing, from these frost-damaged leaves. It sounds like a great tea with very reasonable price. Besides, darker oolong and red tea both have relatively long shelf life. So I thought, I would like to get some no matter what. Even if it doesn't turn out as great as expected, I will just take it as souvenir of the historic frost calamity of 2010.

The dry leaves of the tea looks just like normal Dan Cong.

First infusion:

Seventh infusion:

The tea liquor looks bright and silky. The flavor is somewhat like Mi Lan (honey orchid) Dan Cong, and somewhat like Almond Dan Cong. Made with leaves of various cultivars mixed, this tea doesn't have as focused as a flavor profile as most Dan Cong products. The fragrance is not as prominent as high quality Dan Cong products. But the flavor is rich and powerful. The aftertaste has great aroma, and the sweet aftertaste is strong. It looks like that overly oxidation caused the tea to lose some fragrance, but the flavor of the tea was largely saved by Zhi's timely processing. Something else that I like very much about this tea is, the texture of the liquor is very smooth. It's the "rice soup" or "oily" texture as how Chinese oolong drinkers would describe it. Such liquor texture is only found from top level high mountain leaves with great inner characters. I enjoy this tea very much, and meantime, I can't help thinking what a pity it is - if it were not for the frost disaster, this tea could have been even a lot better. And then, I also feel lucky that after all, the leaves were not wasted, and were still made into good tea. Besides, as a product of accident, this tea does have some red tea characters that I had never seen from a Dan Cong tea.

I don't know yet if this tea will be made again next year when the climate is normal and leaves are fine. But anyway, I would like to include this tea in my "Concept Tea" collection, because I think it's really unique. Chinese people often say, "The taste of tea is the taste of life." Sometimes one may have the best qualities but not the best of luck, just like whatever good tea leaves there are, a snow storm can easily ruin them. Sometimes there is no way to argue with the nature or the fate, but it's possible to negotiate our way to get the best results within our limits. We all know it's much easier saying it than living it. Therefore I admire what Zhi has done with this Red Tea Dan Cong. From what I know about him, this young man in his early 20s has great expectations in tea!

Also worth mentioning is that all the tea leaves are from Zhi's plantation in transition for organic cultivation. His plantation has been on an organic transition certificate, and he plans to obtain the organic certificate in a few years when the transition period is finished. Zhi and I also exchanged some conversations about challenges in organic cultivation and possible solutions, which I will include in future blog entries.

I’ve set aside some samples of this tea for fellow bloggers. Please see recent events for blogger free sample information (you will need to scroll down to the bottom of the linked page).


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This spring has not been easy for tea farmers. In southern Fujian, first, in early March, new leaves of Huang Jin Gui (Golden Osmanthus) cultivar were largely killed by the snow and frost. Then in early May, after several excellent sunny days with great Tie Guan Yin harvest, it rained for weeks. When the rain started, a Tie Guan Yin farmer told me, "Our most expensive leaves are still in the tea tree, and we can't harvest on them in the rain!" And yesterday he said to me regretfully, "Many of our best leaves grew old in the tree while it was raining!" But he also told me that we should feel grateful for the great weather from late April to early May, when harvest was smooth and great tea was made. He said, "If we don't get a lot of leaves good for light-oxidized Tie Guan Yin, we will make more medium-oxidized product. If we don't get as much Mao Xie and Ben Shan, let's hope we can still make plenty of Qi Lan." He was a little sad, but not gloomy. "Tea is a gift of the Nature. Sometimes we get more, and sometimes we get less. We have to take whatever it is, and life is going on." To me, what's great about getting into tea business is, I've come to appreciate the tea in my cup more than ever.

White Teas, names and more

White tea is lightly oxidized tea. It's made by directly drying (sun-drying or roast drying) and withering tea leaves, without killing the enzymes in the leaves. Since the enzymes in the leaves are not killed, oxidation happens to a small degree before the leaves are thoroughly dried. This is the case of traditional white tea only. I've had some Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain) white tea, made in colder climate zone, and therefore with almost zero degree of oxidation.

Bai Hao Yin Zhen (白毫銀針 Bai Hao Silver Needle) is probably the most precious white tea. After the tea leaves are harvested, only the leaf buds are used to make the final product, and the extra leaves will be used to make Gong Mei (Tribute Longevity Brow, 貢眉, whose lower grade is Shou Mei / Longevity Brow, or Sow Mee, 壽眉). When making Bai Hao Yin Zhen, all the imperfect buds, even those with tiny bug bites or smallest discoloration, will be removed -  this is the ideal standards and nowadays there are actually Bai Hao Yin Zheng products of various grades.

Compared with other tea categories, white tea category is smaller, with relatively fewer varieties. Besides the most famous Bai Hao Yin Zhen and Bai Mu Dan (White Peony), there are also Shou Mei (the lower grade of this tea is often seen as Sow Mee sold in Chinatown grocery stores as an inexpensive white tea), Gong Mei (貢眉Tribute Longevity Brow) as previously mentioned, and Fujian White Jade Bud (also called Fujian Green Snow Bud, as its leaf color greener than other Fujian traditional white teas). These are all the traditional white teas recorded in the tea books I've seen. Besides, Yunnan, Anhui and other provinces make white tea of various kinds, but large scale production has started only since recent years. Fujian province has started producing a New White Tea (新白茶) since 1968, mainly to supply Hong Kong and overseas markets. It's less expensive than traditional white tea. But sometimes Beijing Wu Yu Tai Teahouse carries a King Grade of this New White Tea, the annual production of which is said to be only about 100 pounds.

About White Tea, also worth mentioning is the Seattle White Peony Homemade by Brett of Black Dragon Tea Bar!

There are several names affiliated to white tea that are quite confusing and therefore worth some scrutinizing.

1. Silver Needle is not necessarily a white tea. For example, Jun Shan Silver Needle (Jun Shan Yin Zhen, 君山銀針), one of the ten most famous Chinese teas (there are various versions of the "top ten", but Jun Shan Yin Zhen seems to show up in most of those versions), is a yellow tea. Besides, Gui Lin Yin Zhen is a green tea from Gui Lin region.

2. If a tea's name include "white tea", it may or may not be a white tea. For example, An Ji White Tea (An Ji Bai Cha, 安吉白茶) is a famous green tea from Anji, Zhejiang province. White Monkey (Bai Mao Hou, 白毛猴) of Fujian province is mostly said to be a Green Tea. But White Monkey is an odd case. Most people say it's a semi-oxidized Green Tea. But theoretically if a tea is semi-oxidized, it's not a Green Tea. White Monkey is also called White Green Tea in Fujian. So I guess you can categorized this tea in whatever way you like. The confusion is understandable though. After all, when people started to invent a tea, nobody would think, "Today we are going to invent a white/green/red/yellow tea." The tea just came out in whatever way it could be.

3. If a tea's name include Bai Hao (or "silver tip", 白毫), it may or may not be a white tea. For example, Yun Hai Bai Hao is a green tea from Yunnan.

4. Recently, I read about the most confusing white tea names ever. It's in 品茶圖鑒 by 陳宗懋 Chen Zongmao et al. (2009). Traditionally, Bai Hao Silver Needle comes from Fuding (tea is roast dried there) and Zhenghe (tea is sun dried there) of Fujian province. White teas from these two regions use slightly different techniques, but the final products are quite similar. In all the other sources I've seen, white tea from these two regions is consistently called either Bai Hao Silver Needle or Silver Needle Bai Hao, which are treated as the same name. But in this book, the authors claim that the white tea from Zhenghe is called Zhenghe Bai Hao Silver Needle, while the white tea from Fuding is called Silver Needle Bai Hao. That's to say, Bai Hao Silver Needle and Silver Needle Bai Hao are two different names. On the one hand, the first author of this book is an Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering. So I think I should take him seriously. On the other hand, I feel the authors didn't give thorough explanation on the two names. I have yet to see if there are other people who share this view.

Besides the name confusion, the discrepancy of various versions of white tea brewing methods is larger than in many other teas. My understanding of white tea is, it was very gently processed, without rolling or squeezing, and its cells are better maintained than cells in other teas. Therefore, it takes higher temperature (newly boiled water) and longer infusion time (5 minutes or longer) for water to infuse into the cells of white tea, especially for Bai Hao Silver Needle, whose leaves are nice and complete. Initially, it actually surprised me to see some sources suggest using lower temperature (180 F or lower). But after all, there are no fixed rules about tea brewing. Higher and lower temperatures may work for different people. I've seen people who were somewhat intimidated by the temperature restriction and thought that using very hot water for white tea was not "right". Therefore I sometimes just can't help urging people to give boiling water at least one chance. It may or may not work for each person, but it does no harm to try it at least once.

In Chinese medical theories, white tea is deemed as one of the teas with strongest cooling power. It's a great beverage when the body is annoyed by cold sores, dry throats or dry eyes. It's also a great relaxing drink when one feels anxious or worried. For people whose "inner heat" is weak (for example, if hands and feet easily feel cold in winter days - I sometimes feel that way), white tea may not be a daily drink, but can still be an occasional enjoyment, especially in days when the air is warm and dry.

Recently, there was breaking news about White Tea. Last year (2009) in Xi'an, intact tea leaves of White Tea was discovered in a newly explored Song Dynasty (about 1000 years ago) tomb! Initial analysis indicates that the leaves are Bai Hao Silver Needle, same tea as what we drink today!

From the following photo (from Tea Time magazine), the tea leaves look pretty much drinkable!

Personal declaration: Please do not put entries of this blog on Unsnobtea. I have no affiliation with Unsnobtea or any of their products.

I am sorry to have put it in this way, but so far I haven't found any contact information of Unsnobtea to talk with them about their using other people's blogs to endorse their own commercial website.

Other forms of discussion and sharing of information are always welcome, given proper communication.

Ban Na Sunset

Oh! What a cheesy name! But that's what I can think of so far to name this tea.

I heard of the idea from a friend - it's a popular way of drinking tea among Yunnan people (which part of Yunnan, he doesn't know though. Yunnan is so large and diverse!).

Step 1, brew Yunnan green as usual. This time I used a Yunnan roast green (the one that was made on January 1, 2010). The original version is using Yunnan sun-dried green though. I don't have any of it, but puerh young sheng is basically the same thing, just it's hard to get a young sheng with beautiful leaves. Next time I will try using the Guan Zi Zai Yi Wu, which has the most beautiful leaves I've seen from a puerh cake.

This is the amount of leaves I used, and later it turned out a bit too much. Or, my mug is too small.

Step 2, enjoy the first 3 infusions as usual. But for this, I refilled the mug every time when the tea liquor was about half of the cup volume. This is partially because I wanted to keep the strength of the tea, partially because I did use too much leaves. Yunnan green is strong!

Step 3, at the end of the 3rd infusion, when there is about 1/4 volume of the liquor left (I assumed 1/4 was better than 1/3 because the more newly added hot water, the better the tea would be infused), add in Yunnan red (black) tea.

Step 4, refill the mug with hot water.

That is it. Then you can re-infuse on and on. This lasted a whole afternoon for me. Eventually the leaves expanded a lot and there is relatively small space for accessible tea liquor. I guess, this is a tea enjoyed by people who drink a lot of tea and don't have much time to take care of their tea brewing. In other words, this is a tea for real workers to gulp, not for Gongfu drinkers to take sip after sip. So for such a purpose, this mug is too small. 

The first infusion after adding red tea was a bit astringent. But I didn't mind at all. Yunnan people would say if a tea is "bitter without biting your mouth and astringent without sticking to your tongue", then it's a good tea. I kind of agree. The astringency instantly became sweet aftertaste. Then later in the many infusions, the tea became smooth and remained flavorful.

Supposedly, Yunnan sun-dried green (such as a young sheng) is even stronger than roast green. So next time when I have a whole day of work, I will start the day with some Yi Wu leaves in a big mug and add in some Yunnan red tea later on. It can be a good companion without much attention required.

P.S. I brewed it again in my travel tea bottle for a road trip. It's a very convenient way to have tea during a trip, and I infused the same leaves over and over during the whole afternoon trip.

Chinese Teas that have won international awards

Most of them are already well-known teas. My purpose of summarizing a list is not just showing what they are. After all, there are so many teas, and non-award-winning teas can be as great as award-winning teas. What makes me want to list them is, I think there are some interesting patterns.

Here is the list. (Lighter-colored texts are my comments.)

(Listed information is from China Cuisine Association.)

1915 San Francisco Panama-Pacific International Exposition

Gold medals: 

1. Keemun (Qi Men) Red (black) Tea; 

2. Tai Ping Hou Kui; 

3. Hui Ming Tea; 

4. Xin Yang Mao Jian; 

5. Jiang Xi Zhu Lan (Pearl Orchid) Green Tea; 

6. Northern Fujian Shui Xian.

Silver medals: 

1. Guang Xi Sounth Mountain Bai Mao (Silver Tip) Tea

2. Jiang Xi Gou Ku Nao Tea

3. Northern Fujian Shui Xian (from another manufacturer)

(These are all good stuff!)

1956 Leipzig Trade Fair

Gold medal: Jun Shan Yin Zhen (Jun Shan Silver Needle)

(Good stuff too!)

1983 Twenty-second Judging of the International Institute for Quality Selections in the Canned Food and Other Food Products Selection, Rome, Italy

Gold medal: Chong Qing Tuo (unlike Xia Guan Tuo, Chong Qing Tuo is a pressed product of green tea)

(Hmmm... It's a good tea, but, among all the teas, how did this one make its way to the conference?)

1984 Twenty-third Judging of the International Institute for Quality Selections in the Canned Food and Other Food Products Selection, Madrid, Spain

Gold medal: Gunpowder Green Tea (Ok, it's a good tea. But still, I can't believe this won "gold medal" in an international conference. This is a good, cheap tea, and I like it. But this tea is not by any means representative of elegant green tea.) 

1985 Twenty-forth Judging of the International Institute for Quality Selections in the Canned Food and Other Food Products Selection, Lisbon, Portugal

Gold medal: 

1. Zhu Ye Qing (Bamboo Leaf Green);

2. Si Chuan Zao Bai Jian Gongfu Red (black) Tea; 

3. Si Chuan E Mei Mao Feng

(It looks like Chinese provinces take turns to attend these conferences. Sichuan does produce very nice teas.)

1985 International Culinary Tourism Association, Paris, France

Gold award: Fuzhou Jasmine Green Tea

1986 Twenty-fifth Judging of the International Institute for Quality Selections in the Canned Food and Other Food Products Selection, Geneva, Switzerland

Gold medal:

1. Zhe Jiang Zhen Mei (Precious Brow) Green Tea;

2. Sichuan CTC Red (black) Tea; (Now CTC black tea stepped on stage! Not that there is anything bad about it. But I have difficulty relate Chinese tea to CTC black tea.)

3. Si Chuan Zao Bai Jian Gongfu Red (black) Tea

1986, International Culinary Tourism Association, Paris, France

Gold award:

1. Fuzhou Jasmine Green Tea Teabag; 

2. Red (black) Teabag; (This was made in Shanghai. Shanghai is not a tea producing region. So it was unknown where the raw materials of these teabags were from. Possibly Zhejiang province.)

3. Zhejiang Zhen Mei (Precious Brow) Green Tea ("manufactured in Shanghai);

4. Gong Xi Green Tea ("manufactured in Shanghai);

5. Phoenix Brow Green Tea ("manufactured in Shanghai);

6. Fujian Tie Guan Yin (packed in tea tin, which sounds to me like the most generic Chinatown type of Tie Guan Yin - I may be wrong though); 

7. Fujian Healthy Slimming Tea; (what??)

8. Zhejiang Gunpowder Green Tea; (now this tea does look prestigious among its peer gold award winners...)

9. Ying De Red (black) Tea Teabag;

10. Some Teabag called some "Youth Beauty Tea" of some brand (what??)

(I am really curious how they gave gold award to a "slimming tea" or "youth tea", based on flavor or based on "outcome"?)

1986, the 9th International Food Awards, Barcelona, Spain
Xia Guan Tuo

1987, Twenty-sixth Judging of the International Institute for Quality Selections in the Canned Food and Other Food Products Selection, Brussels, Belgium
Gold award:
1. Keemun Gongfu Red (black) Tea
2. Zhen Mei (Precious Brow) Green Tea
3. Gift-packaged Chinese Famous Tea, made in Guangdong (the product name doesn't specify what tea it is)


1988,  Twenty-seventh Judging of the International Institute for Quality Selections in the Canned Food and Other Food Products Selection, Athena, Greece
Gold award: Shi Feng Long Jing
Silver award:
1. An Hui Zhen Mei superior grade
2. An Hui Zhen Mei first grade

Here are some patterns that I've seen from above lists:


1. The best award list was in 1915


2. There is almost no international awards specifically for tea. In most events for culinary or beverage awards, tea is put in the "others" category. It almost looks like most of these events don't deal with tea seriously, and some of the awards are like jokes. In Judging of the International Institute for Quality Selections, Tea was put in "Canned Food and Other Food Products" category. Now this category doesn't exist anymore, and tea is in "Diet and health Products" category. Sounds better, at least. Their most recent brochure of this category is even featured with a cover image of a teapot and some herbal blend. Progress, indeed. 


3. When there was no "food industry" in 1915, tea (and probably other food) awards were for the purpose of evaluation, and represent professional honor. Then later on, food became an "industry". Therefore many of the above mentioned awards are run by "the industry" and the incentives for companies to participate is commercial promotion.


4. In the past century, the global "industry" system became more and more complete, while Chinese tea "industry" largely fell behind, which, may not be entirely a bad thing. When Chinese tea industry met the international food industry system, what we saw, along with some good products, were teabags and slimming tea (!) that won "gold awards". Meantime, teas that won domestic awards within China were more likely the "real stuff". And many domestic awards are given to tea varieties (submitted by their home provinces) instead of to companies or brands. But in recent years, there start to be brand-name tea products that win awards. I haven't figured out yet how you can compare a tea variety with a tea brand. 


5. It puzzled me for a while how a country decides what to send to an international award committees. Then I realized that most food samples to the award committees are sent by companies, not governments or non-profit organizations. Very likely only when the companies think an award leads to market influence and better profits, they would participate in such events. And obviously not all companies can afford attending these events. For example, currently, International Institute for Quality Selections charges 1100 euro for each submitted food sample (which is quite reasonable and standard for food industry, I guess). Many tea manufacturers wouldn't be able to afford it, and on the other hand, for many precious, small tea varieties, winning such an award doesn't bring much market benefit. In this sense, I think the World Tea Expo. (an annual event held in Las Vegas) is a very positive and promising event in "tea industry". Its charges on registration, exhibition and tea championship sample submission are significantly lower than those in other food industry events. More importantly, it's completely about tea. Currently it doesn't seem to have very large international influence. But I think, very likely, American tea market will grow very fast, and this event will have increasing influences on American as well as international tea market.


6. In China, before 1990s, tea industry was state-owned. Hence there was the rather odd phenomenon that some teas were submitted to the award committee as tea varieties while some were submitted as products of state-owned tea companies. Now with the economic reform in China, tea production is no longer controlled by state-owned companies. And I have no idea if they are still attending these events. The record I got ends at the year of 1988.

Concept Tea (1) - a special edition Tie Guan Yin

In my eyes, a "Concept Tea" is a tea made to showcase some concepts. It is often rare in the market, and by making it, the manufacturer has a broader goal than market profit. May it be the redemption of a fading tradition, experimental techniques, or even outcome of an accident, the tea expresses some ideas from the Shi Fu (師傅, an experienced, highly skillful tea worker). The tea may prevail the market in the future, or it may remain within appreciation of small groups of tea drinkers. No matter what its fate is in market, I believe, the tea should be valued for the concepts behind it. Tea is a wonderful beverage. It is one of the few food and beverage products whose markets are not dominated by major varieties, major brands, major companies or major manufactures, not in the past thousands of years, and I believe, not in the future either. This is because of the diversity in tea, the many thousand tea varieties, and dozens of ways to make a tea with each cultivar. 

I will start a blog series exploring some Concept Teas, as well as include some of them in our store collection. 

Here is the first one, a traditional style, charcoal roasted semi-Tie Guan Yin

Dry tea leaves:

First infusion:

7th infusion:

I would like to try the mug-brewing version of this tea. But this time, I use my favorite little tea bowl instead.

It's one of the best charcoal roasted teas I had in 2009. The flavor is powerful, with ripe fruit aroma and strong sweet aftertaste. It lasts for many infusions. Besides, it's entirely tolerant of long infusions, and yield consistent flavor in multiple infusions of mug/bowl brewing. If I were not told so, without examining the spent leaves, I probably wouldn't be able to tell the leaves are not all Tie Guan Yin.

What's special about this Tie Guan Yin? It's special mainly in two ways:

1. It's made with both Tie Guan Yin leaves and Mao Xie (Hairy Crab) leaves to promote a great flavor profile

2. It's charcoal roasted by skillful workers with 40 years of experience.

It took me some time to decide what to call this tea. I am very reluctant to call it blended Tie Guan Yin, even though it's made with Tie Guan Yin and Mao Xie blended. The reason is that in current Tie Guan Yin world, a "blended tea" is almost always a negative title. The modern blended tea has betrayed the tradition of Pin Pei (拼配, Mix and Match) since long time ago. In modern days, some people mix Mao Xie and other Se Zhong oolong (which are all generally significantly cheaper than Tie Guan Yin) into Tie Guan Yin to maximize profits. In this behavior, Se Zhong cultivars are deemed as "inferior" or "cheap" cultivars, and the manufacturer wouldn't let consumers know about the blending. 

In the real tradition of Tie Guan Yin Mix and Match, the purpose of blending is to achieve the best combination of tea flavor, so different teas are not just "mixed", but their flavors should "match" each other. Besides, although one can always use the best Tie Guan Yin leaves to make the most expensive tea, sometimes, mixing high quality Tie Guan Yin and high quality Mao Xie (which is a lot cheaper) can generate great flavor at much lower costs. 

This tea is the only one I know of that was made with such traditional Mix and Match method. To me, it's important to include it in our collection, because it's a Concept Tea - I call it so because it's not commonly seen, and I hope there is more of this kind in the future. I think, the concepts behind this tea are:

1. There are many ways to make a great tea. An outstanding tea product comes from top quality leaves, top tea workers and perfect processing. A manufacturer doesn't have to stick only to the most expensive and trendy varieties. 

2. A great tea doesn't have to be expensive. The charcoal roast taste of this tea is one of the best, but it's not an expensive tea. In my opinion, the charcoal roast work on this tea is even better than that of our popular Tie Guan Yin Traditional Charcoal Roast (which is reviewed at Steepster and Teaviews). But due to lower costs of Mao Xie leaves of even top quality, the manufacturer has given us very friendly price of this tea. Therefore this tea is even less expensive than our current popular Tie Guan Yin Traditional Charcoal Roast.

I’ve set aside some samples of this tea for fellow bloggers. Please see recent events for blogger free sample information (you will need to scroll down to the bottom of the linked page).

My favorite piece of tea ware - A tea blog carnival

(See a full index of contents of this blog carnival at Gongfu Girl!)

Which is my favorite piece of tea ware? This is hard to select. But in this season, it's only fair to honor my glass mug. It's one of my favorite vessels for green tea, and is being used the most frequently in early spring!

In Chinese green tea drinking, watching "tea dance", the floating green leaves, is a big part. Therefore, glasses are very often used in green tea brewing. My ideal type of glasses are of medium thickness, plain and clear. Later on, I found I liked glass mugs even more. The thickness of glass is just right, and the handle makes it very convenient.

My first glass mug was bought in a Price Chopper (a grocery store), made in Turkey, $1 for three of them, the cheapest drinking ware I had ever seen! But I bought only one. Before I realized how much I loved it, it disappeared from the store and was never sold again! Then, I got my second glass mug on the street, right on the curb, in a "free" box of yard sale stuff. It was dusted, but after being cleaned, it looked just like new. When I treat friends with green tea, I use the glass mugs most of the time. Before I got more of them, I would also use some liquor glasses. But in my eyes, no other glasses look or feel as "right" as those mugs. I must have said too many times how much I loved those mugs and how hard to get more of them. One day, a girlfriend gave me a big cardboard box, with SIX new glass mugs! She got them on the street too, in another "free" box of yard sale stuff! The moment she saw them, she recognized they are "Gingko's glass mugs"! Oh my dear friends! Now for my green tea party, I have a glass mug for EVERYBODY!

The glass mug makes green tea brewing very easy! I've posted Long Jing brewing with a glass mug here.

And I always brew my favorite green tea, Huang Shan Mao Feng in such a mug. The tea leaves would all "stand up" below water surface and on the glass bottom, like little trees! Brewing most green  teas in a mug is as easy as "throw leaves (probably 2.5-3g) in mug - wait for 2 minutes (or when leaves sink) - drink!" And you can refill the mug whenever you fill like to, based on your taste on the strength of tea.

The yellow tea (a Meng Ding Xue Ya in the photo) looks like spring rain in the mug.

Silver needle always looks gorgeous in a glass mug.

Even black tea pretty much stay put in a mug.

It also works well for a CTC black tea in a tea infuser.

Even for oolong, which I mostly brew with Gongfu style, a glass mug sometimes works fine. Here is my project of experimenting mug brewing of oolong tea.

And next week, I will introduce a "fusion" style tea brewing with a mug. I call it Ban Nan Sunset. (- though I know it's a cheesy name!)

I still don't know which store carries these mugs. But if you would like one, look around the street corners and yard sale piles!

2010 Shincha News (7) - Da Fo Long Jing Price Index

2010 Shincha News (6) is here.

News is from Xin Chang International Tea Expo. Xin Chang, the Geographic Patent production region of Da Fo Long Jing, launched its Price Index Bulletin. This is something ever new to Chinese green tea! I am both amazed and delighted by it.

The direct outcome is, prices of tea become ever most transparent to farmers, dealers, retailers and, of course, tea drinkers. There will be more confidence and less guessing in tea trades. Although the Price Index is for Da Fo Long Jing only, many tea professionals believe this will serve as an important reference index to other tea varieties. Da Fo Long Jing is one of the top ten famous teas of Zhejiang province. Zhejiang is the largest green tea province in China. And green tea has more market coverage in China than other teas. Therefore, the Price Index can be influential in various tea markets in China.

The Price Index is based on Da Fo Long Jing daily trades carried out by the 21 largest providers in Xin Chang County, computed with statistical formulas. The Price Index is computed daily, weekly, monthly, and then an annual Index will be computed based on records in May. For example, the bulletin in the photo shows wholesale prices of #43 cultivar Da Fo Long Jing of different grades on April 21, 2010.

* What does this mean to tea farmers?
- Tea farmers will know what the fair market price is. Small farmers can refer to the Price Index when they sell their tea. They may not get the best price, but they won't get lost and sell their tea for too low price to a dealer.

* What does this mean to tea dealers?
- Tea dealers will have a better idea about what is the best price they can get. When they buy large amounts from large providers, the price should be quite consistent with the Index. When they buy smaller amount, the price will be higher, but with the Index serving as a reference.

* What does this mean to retailers?
- Retailers will pay more than dealers. But they will be looking at the Index and decide how much more they are willing to pay. In addition, a current trend is more and more retailers deal with tea farmers directly, and the Index provides useful price information.

* What does this mean to consumers?
- Consumers know the product price has to include operational costs of the retailer and the dealer. But with the Price Index, consumers will know much better how much the retailer markup is. There should be some profits earned by the retailer. But if the markup is too high, then the consumers will know the retailer either stretch for too much profit or doesn't have the best supply source. And they will look for other retailers that provide more reasonable price.

* What does this mean to international retailers and consumers?
- Theoretically it helps when international buyers know about domestic market prices. For some products (such as electronics, and, maybe, puerh), this is not hard, thanks to the modern information technology. But for many tea products, when the domestic market is highly disordered, and even domestic buyers are  not sure of the "real" price, it will be even harder for international buyers to know the market. Inevitably, international buyers will have to pay markups due to shipping and other operational costs. But it helps a lot knowing what percentage of their payment comes from the cost of tea and how much everything else costs them.

The system is brand new and we have yet to see how well it works and how precise the Price Index is. But I believe this is a good start, and the application of Price Index may extend to other regions and for other teas. Most Chinese tea products are completely manufactured in hands of tea farmers. That means, all the rest of the tea trade chain, dealers, distributers and retailers, mainly provide service of trading, distributing, packaging and selling, without any value-added processing to the tea itself. Therefore the Price Index reflect key information on the cost of the tea. (- with some tea blends and flavored teas as exceptions, but tea blends are generally rare in Chinese teas, and most naturally flavoring of tea, such as Jasmine flavoring, is done by farmers or local factories.)

One Price Index can't provide a consumer everything she needs in tea shopping. Many retailers strive to offer excellent customer service, user friendly shopping system and nice service environment. All of these will be rewarded by the market. The Price Index can't possibly cover products with extremely small amount (which may not be the case in Da Fo Long Jing but possibly for some other teas). The Price Index will not likely help markets of "the most famous teas" such as Xi Hu Long Jing and Bi Luo Chun (basically they are so hot and almost nobody can predict or control their prices). But still, I believe the Price Index can be a powerful tool for both consumers and tea professionals, because in today's market, very often tea is more mysterious than what most people would love it to be, and the price index promotes the transparency of tea market.

In recent years, some tea drinkers, including me, almost miss the era of state-owned tea companies, when there was consistent standards on grading of almost every tea, when the best tea professionals in the country worked for state-owned companies, when the price was consistent across board and proportional to quality. But it's only fair to say there were also a lot of problems at that time, and top quality teas are more accessible nowadays. In all these years of market chaos, tea business is actually thriving. But now for the "tea industry" to further thrive, probably it's time to use some market tools like the Price Index to keep the trade in order.

Meng Ding Snow Bud (Xue Ya) (蒙頂雪芽）

Let me say first that I do love this tea very much. I will describe all the great features of this tea first, and then tell a little about my mixed feelings about this tea.

Mount Meng is one of the most famous tea mountain in China with probably the longest culture history. In ancient time, people believed "brewing Meng Ding (top of Mt. Meng) tea with water from the center of Yangzi River" is the highest level of tea enjoyment. The harvest standard of Snow Bud on top of Mt. Meng is, when there are only 5% of the tea bushes start budding. It takes about 80,000 tea leaf buds to make roughly 500g of the final tea product. A skillful tea harvest worker may well spend half a day to get just enough tea leaf buds to make 100g final tea product.

Dry tea leaves - they should actually be called tea buds!

I've just realized that I had been anal about NOT using a scale. Although I use a scale to weigh tea all the time for other people, I never knew the exact amount of tea I used in each cup! So today I thought I would just use a scale, at least once :-D It turned out I used 2.5g leaves. It's about just right amount for me. So I think up to 3g tea in a mug will be ok. More than 3g will make the mug too crowded with tea leaves.

I used the middle-throw method (中投法）as described in the post about Long Jing.

I am obsessive about the view of tea leaves in water!

I think I said just a few days ago that Huang Shan Mao Feng has the most beautiful leaves. But these guys are actually as good, or even prettier!

The leaves dance in water, up and down, up and down...

Then finally most of them sink to the bottom. I love the way how they stand up straight all the time.

The taste: light vegetal, with sweet aftertaste. It feels clean and moist in mouth, and the tea radiates some cool feeling even in hot water.

This is first yellow tea we've ever carried. Yellow tea was developed from green tea technique. After the tea is heated (in this case, pan-fried) to have the enzymes killed), the tea is allowed further oxidation with optimal temperature and humidity. Therefore, oxidation in yellow tea is different from oxidation in black tea or oolong. In yellow tea, the oxidation is not catalyzed by the tea's own enzymes, but triggered by outside environment factors such as temperature and humidity.

Here comes my mixed feelings.

Oxidation of this tea is very light. If we compare this tea and another Meng Ding Snow Bud I had last year, the differences are big, although both teas are great. The other tea has larger buds, and deeper oxidation, and therefore more typical sweet taste of a yellow tea.

Currently in China, Green Tea still dominates. A direct outcome is, many other teas are green-tea-ized. The most popular Tie Guan Yin is made to be very green. And many yellow tea products is made very green.

Recently I discussed with a friend who has dealt with yellow tea for many years. In his opinion, it's not possible to make Meng Ding Snow Bud into typical yellow tea with deeper oxidation, because the buds are so young and tender. On the other hand, the other Meng Ding Snow Bud I had last year (which I loved very much), in his opinion, is more typical yellow tea, but should be called Meng Ding Yellow Bud (Huang Ya) instead of Snow Bud, because the buds are larger than the standards of Snow Bud. So here is the trade-off, you may choose the precious Snow Bud, but it can't have the typical oxidation level of a yellow tea. On the other hand, the bonus is, if we forget about the yellow tea, and compare this tea with a green tea, the price of this tea is much more friendly than a first-harvest green tea with comparable youth and tenderness.

I hesitate to call this tea yellow tea, because, as you can see, from leaves to liquor, it's all green! I hesitate to call it green tea either, because it does intend to be a yellow tea, and it does have some nice sweet aftertaste of yellow tea. I guess it's not my own dilemma and it's shared by many tea people.

Discussion on Long Jing (1)

Historic Site of Long Jing (or so called "Dragonwell") - Courtesy of 家在龙井村 at http://wangxl123.blog.sohu.com/

 In Long Jing (just as in many other teas), there are a lot of confusions, ambiguity, misunderstandings, odd terms, conflicting views... yet it is one of the favorite tea beverages, adored by many people, from emperors to ordinary citizens, across China and world wide. I hope, through discussions, we can have clearer view of Long Jing. If that can't be achieved, then just for the fun of talking about it :-D

I started this discussion on Steepster a few weeks ago, and found myself writing long and dry information on and on :-p But I will try to write more. Here is what I've already posted on Steepster:

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I have been pondering on this for a while, and would like to start a discussion about it. Not sure if it should be in the general discussion, I will put it under "companies and promotions" (since inevitably I will have to mention a few of my favorite products, which are sold in our store). However, the purpose of this thread is not promotion. Nor do I mean to give people one-directional advice. I will talk about my understanding of Long Jing tastes, and would love to hear what people think. Long Jing (like many other teas), is like an unfathomable pond. It may take forever to thoroughly understand it, but it's always fun to explore it.

I will focus my discussion on factors affecting Long Jing flavor, and how can one choose a Long Jing product based on these factors. I will go over these factors in this sequence: climate (brief), cultivar, harvest date, geographic site of plantation and processing.

Factors affecting tea flavors:

The flavor of most tea products are determined by several key factors, including cultivar from where the tea is harvested, geographic region where the tea is grown, climate of the production year, harvest time and how well the tea is processed. For Long Jing, all these factors are important, but some contributes more to the final quality of the tea.

1. Climate factor

For Long Jing (and many other green teas), the drinkers’ focus is almost entirely on the early spring tea of the current year. Therefore climate of the production year is entirely out of control of tea drinkers.

2. Harvest date

Compared with other tea genres such as black (red) tea and oolong, harvest date of Long Jing is extremely important, because during the harvest season (late March to early May), the new leaves and buds change every day. Each year, prices of Long Jing products are directly related to their harvest dates, and generally the earlier the harvest, the more expensive the tea is (if other cultivation conditions are same). In the harvest season, the day of Qing Ming (which is April 4^th or April 5^th on international calendar) is a landmark. The pre-Qingming tea is made with the youngest and freshest leaves. Gu Yu (also called Grain Rain, around April 20^th on international calendar) is another landmark. Tea before Gu Yu is also very fresh, but not as precious as pre-Qingming tea. Therefore, early spring harvest of Long Jing can be divided in three sections.

1.     Pre-Qingming, which is from late March to the day of Qing Ming.

2.     Pre-Guyu, which is from the day of Qing Ming to the day of Gu Yu.

3.     After Rain (post-Guyu), which is after April 20.

Pre-Qingming Long Jing is the most precious. However, tea tasting is always subjective, and some people do prefer pre-Guyu tea to pre-Qingming tea. Pre-Qingming Long Jing has more subtle, sweet flavor (often described by Chinese tea professionals as “chestnut-y”, while pre-Guyu tea has stronger toasty flavor which may be favored by people who have heavier taste on tea.

Pre-Qingming Long Jing also has the best leaf shape, each piece of tea has one bud and one or two small leaves. In Chinese green tea drinking, watching the leaves dancing in water is an important part. This also contributes to people’s enthusiasm at pre-Qingming Long Jing.

3.   Cultivar

Long Jing, sometimes is taken as a tea processing method, sometimes as a place (Long Jing Village), and sometimes as the name of tea cultivars named Long Jing (including a few similar cultivars). Traditionally it was simple – Ling Jing was just understood as tea from Long Jing cultivar cultivated in Long Jing village and surrounding areas. In modern agriculture, the Long Jing cultivar is propagated into different regions of the province, even to other provinces. And traditional Long Jing production region (such as Long Jing Village) started to grow non-Long Jing cultivars (most of which are early ripe cultivars, because the tea can be sold for a very high price in late February to Mid-March, before the real Long Jing is harvested).

(I once discussed in my blog about Wu Niu Zao, a non-Long Jing cultivar that is commonly used to make Long Jing style tea, even in the hometown of Long Jing.

http://gingkobay.blogspot.com/2010/02/2010-shincha-news-da-fo-long-jing.html)

The names of Chinese tea are very confusing. Some teas are named after their cultivars (such as Da Hong Pao and Tie Guan Yin), but many are named in other ways. I personally wish the name Long Jing restrictively used on tea made from Long Jing cultivars only. But there is no strict official definition yet for the term Long Jing. Therefore, I believe it’s always important to know what tea cultivar your Long Jing is from. After all, the genetics of a tea determines many of its most important inner characters. Cultivar is a more important determining factor of the tea quality than all the other factors discussed here. For example, if you like Gala apple, you may find Gala apples shipped from different states share much more similarity to each other than the similarity between Gala apple and Macintosh apple from the same ranch. 

When I buy Long Jing, I stick to Long Jing #43 and Long Jing Jiu Keng Group cultivar, two popular Long Jing cultivars of relatively large annual production. Between the two cultivars, many people believe Jiu Keng Group cultivar tastes much better, but some people believe both are great and each has its own characters. In terms of leaf shape, Long Jing #43’s leaves look slightly prettier, and this partially contributes to its popularity. Besides, Long Jing #43 grow buds and leaves about one to two weeks earlier than Jiu Keng Group cultivar, and the latter one sometimes does not have pre-Qingming harvest.

It’s up to each tea drinker to find out which Long Jing cultivar she likes the best. But I would definitely find out the cultivar of a Long Jing product before purchase, and I believe cultivar overrules harvest date and production region.

Gongfu vs. mug brewing (3) Oriental Beauty (Bai Hao Oolong)

Introduction and index of these experiment series of Gongfu vs. mug brewing is here.

I've taken some mug brewing tasting notes at Steepster.

So far I've done mug brewing for 2 Oriental Beauty products I have. Here are the dry tea leaves, with Superior (higher) Grade on the top.

I think, this tea is perfect for mug brewing! The mug is great for the optimal brewing leaf:water ratio of this tea. And tea leaves of Oriental Beauty seem very forgiving and cope with of long infusions very well. Besides, there is no problem for all the leaves to sink to the bottom, which makes drinking from a mug easy and convenient. 

The two Oriental Beauty products have slightly different styles. The Superior Grade product (by the way  it's my favorite Oriental Beauty so far, and was reviewed by Eric in Tea Finely Brewed) has slightly larger leaves, and the flavor leans more toward sweet, floral and honey, while the other one feels warmer with deeper spicy, cinnamon aroma. Both of them performed really well in mug brewing. Unlike some of my other mug brewing experience, I feel these products are not short changed by mug brewing at all. I guess the reason is, Gongfu brewing is mostly for large amount of leaves and shorter infusion time, which is not essential for Oriental Beauty. When Gongfu-brewing Oriental Beauty, I would use more leaves than in mug-brewing, but still not as many leaves as when I brew most other oolongs. In most oolong Gongfu-brewing, my teapot or gaiwan ends up loosely filled with leaves. But I prefer using less tea for Oriental Beauty. Still, Gongfu-brewing will yield more infusions. But even in mug-brewing, both of these two products can easily give more than 3-4 infusions. 

If I arbitrarily assign a grade A for this tea in gongfu brewing, then I will give mug brewing an A as well.

Will I mug brew it again? - Sure I will. Recently more and more often, I take a glass mug with loose tea and a small thermal pot to meetings. I enjoy the tea, and enjoy having people curiously stare my tea, or even curiously ask for a sip! I mostly use a mug for Chinese green tea, but realizing the convenience of carrying a mug everywhere, I am now even more motivated to discover more teas with mug-brewing potential.

Will I recommend mug brewing of this tea to other people? - Definitely! Besides, I would recommend Oriental Beauty to all the black tea lovers. In my eyes, Oriental Beauty has many favorable characteristics of black tea. Actually I am often feel a little puzzled this is not called a "black tea". Oriental Beauty is basically a oolong, made with oolong processing method. But on the other hand, with >60-80% oxidation, it almost can be called a black tea!

2010 Shincha News (6)

2010 Shincha News (5) is here.

The busiest season for most Chinese green teas has passed.

Huang Shan Mao Feng harvest ended around April 20. In some regions, production was reduced by early April rain. But the rain only made tea leaves grow more slowly and better! Huang Shan Mao Feng grows bud later than many other green teas, and didn't suffer from the early March snow weather. The cold weather did postpone the tea harvest, which is not entirely bad. Many people say, the post-Qingming (harvested after April 5) tea quality of this year is comparable to pre-Qingming tea of the past years. And the small amount of pre-Qingming tea is just wonderful! In the remote mountains, many Huang Shan Mao Feng farmers don't enjoy as many economic opportunities as their colleagues in Long Jing and Tie Guan Yin production regions. Due to reduced production of Long Jing and other famous teas, this year, Yellow Mountain tea villages attracted more tea buyers and for many farmers, it's a season of happiness and good fortune.

Xi Hu Long Jing harvest is close to an end. But there is still tea harvested after Gu Yu (Around April 20 of each year). For tea farmers, post-Guyu harvest doesn't bring in as much income as early harvest, but a thorough harvest is essential for the health of Long Jing tea bush. The post-Guyu (Yu Hou, or After Rain) Long Jing is of much lower price. It's not at the same quality level as early harvest, but still has rich flavor and is a good economic choice. For American buyers, due to the high cost of shipping, it may not be always worth it to buy post-Guyu Long Jing. We will see if we can get some and make it as an economic option of our Long Jing collection. Because of the great tea processing tradition in Hangzhou, post-Guyu authentic Xi Hu Long Jing is still very well made and so much better than many other unauthentic Long Jing of even earlier harvests.

Snowflakes on Green Lake (Bi Tan Piao Xue), a jasmine green tea made with youngest spring tea leaves, is being made now. I am enthusiastically looking forward to it. The combo of elegant jasmine flower and tender tea leaves is just great for this season. For lovers of jasmine green tea, I would recommend this tea as the highest level of jasmine green tea.

For oolong lovers, the season of excitement is coming. Tie Guan Yin will come in mid May, as well as many other varieties. Before May, there will be some Tie Guan Yin products hitting Chinese market. But most of them are from warmer areas of lower elevation. The best high mountain tea still needs more time to grow. Due to the high shipping cost, we will wait till May to get our first group of 2010 spring Tie Guan Yin and other oolongs.

Meantime, you don't have to wait for spring oolong harvest. Autumn products of 2009 are very good and they have their seasonal features. Besides, after a year of rest, 2009 charcoal roasted Tie Guan Yin tastes even better now!

So little time, so many teas to drink! Do you know that more than 80% of the Chinese tea products we enjoy today were developed in only the past 200 years? And we constantly enjoy teas that were tributes restrictive to the emperor family of Qing dynasty. Aren't we lucky people!