2012 Yellow Mountain Mao Feng

A tea friend and Korean tea drinker recently commented that there is no beating the depth and variety of Chinese green tea. He went on to say that even though he has tried many types of Chinese green tea there was still so many that he has not tried. A recent post by Gingko on her Life In Teacup blog reiterated this fact when she showed a map of all the types of green tea produced just in Hubei Province- over 20!

The tea that one will review today was sourced by a Korean teamaster who goes to Yellow Mountain each year. It was kindly gifted in an order from Good Green Tea a few months back.

The very wild leaves are convincingly all hand produced. They give off a very sweet, strong, juicy and fresh vibrant floral nose.

The first infusion is very light, floral-water taste with very soft sugary floral nose.

The second is pushed harder and gives off very frosty, clean notes with a sugary subtle floral taste. The mouthfeel is light and airy. It leaves a soft oat aftertaste.

The third is very frosty and sugary and presents a very clean pure taste. A soft fuzzy mossy aftertaste is left stimulating the mouth.

The fourth and fifth infusions have even more floral notes which are pushed out of the crisp sugary-lemonade-like tastes that stretches long into the aftertaste. The qi is profoundly relaxing and slows the mind down while sharpening the senses.

The sixth infusion gives us sweet florals and lingering, fresh subtle melon tastes that stretch. The seventh infusion has turned even more watery.

Peace

2010 Orchid Fairy Twig Wuyuan Green Tea

Depending on where you live, it is the time of year when it kind of feels like Spring but the new Spring teas have not yet been picked. It is also the time of year when the green tea from last year is dwindling and what very few greens are left don't manage to taste as fresh as you remember. Being so close to the new tea season, it is hard to rationalize new purchases of 2010 green tea. So it was quite nice receiving a box with this sample and others of last years favorites of Ginkgo at Life In Tea Cup.

This completely hand processed tea is from 800 meters atop Wuyuan mountains in Jiang Xi province. Upon taring open the package, the dry leaves emit a smell that is crisp, fresh, soft, sweet with light tones of cucumber and sugar. The quality of this tea is apparent right from the beautifully hand rolled twisted needle shape of the dry leaf.

The water is brought to a boil then is left to cool. When the water is ready it is added to the prewarmed pot now full of leaves. This first infusion is soft, smooth, and slightly creamy with fresh barely menthol and sugar aftertastes. This tea is light in the mouth but coats it in a light misty satisfying cover.

Slightly warmer water is used for the second infusion where creamy, sugary sweet approaches and then turns into a creamy, sugary, slight evergreen taste. The aftertaste returns as sweetness with a faint outline of something cool and green. The mouth feel fills out nicely.

The third infusion brings deeper, cool evergreens but mainly sugary tastes that hint at a starchy-roasted qualities but retreat into crisp, very sugary aftertastes. The qi is uplifting, light, relaxing, and cool. The soft but full mouthfeel satisfies long after the aftertaste has slowly faded away.

The fourth infusion sees snowy smooth sweetness melding into a relatively rougher body for seconds before presenting light pineapple fruit hints appearing in the aftertaste.

The fifth infusion is prepared. The result is a cool, crisp, not as sweet, burst that turns into a cool sensation in the mouth. The tea develops a relatively stauncher body of pine needles and tree bark. The mouthfeel is becoming just the slightest bit drying and the aftertaste is short but still sugary- almost minty. This infusion has much more noticeable cool qualities to it.

The sixth and seventh are more minty-evergreen in taste which hold on throughout the whole taste profile of these infusions. There is a certain crisp, slightly menthol, coolness still laying under this body.

This tea is taken for a few more infusions. The mouthfeel continues to support these tastes even as things weaken and become somewhat harsher.

Link To Cinnabar's (Gongfu Girl) Tasting Notes

Link To Will's (Sir William of the Leaf) Tasting Notes

Peace

Tea, The Perfect Hangover Remedy Part II: Types of Tea for Hangover Symptoms

It seems every tea drinker has a preference for the type of tea they use to manage a hangover. Most tea drinkers seem to choose either a green tea or puerh tea though.

Green tea has the strongest detoxification properties of any type of tea. It is the colour green- the purest manifestation of the Wood element. Even its raw leaves can be ground to a paste and used topically over burns and bug bites. This is partly because of its detoxification properties and part due to its cooling thermal nature.

The properties of flavour explain how green tea reduces toxicity. Green tea is cool, bitter, and sweet. Cool bitter flavours are especially draining. Green tea is a diuretic, its detoxification mechanism involves removing the toxin through the urine. Although it is a diuretic it also quenches thirst and rehydrates the body and mind. This regenerative property is due to its sweet flavour. Sweet flavours are especially strengthening. These properties of green tea combat hangover symptoms such as headaches, dry mouth, lethargy, and even drunkenness.

Green tea is especially good at reducing that warm, feverish hangover feeling and regulating body temperture. The sensation of heat/ fever is the body’s natural way of reacting to a toxic substance as the body mobilizes against the toxic substance (in this case a drink too many). This benefit is due to its cooling thermal nature.

The downside of using green tea as a hangover remedy is that it can irritate an already shaky stomach. To prevent this from happening you should make a lighter, more diluted green tea that isn’t as strong.

Old puerh tea also has detoxification properties but uses a different mechanism than green tea. Puerh tea’s warm thermal nature goes deep within the body and pushes out toxins by diaphoresis, by sweating. Its strong, calming chaqi is also great at soothing a headache and clearing the mind.

Old puerh tea is especially calming for the stomach and promotes digestion. Because puerh tea descends deeply and is warm and comforting, it calms nausea and regulates digestive functioning. In this way puerh tea is especially helpful for hangovers with nausea predominating.

Other aged teas such as Hunan black teas and aged oolong as well as Korean yellows (bal hyo cha) have a powerful effect at harmonizing and comforting the middle. These teas often pour a yellow colour- which connect them to the Earth element, to the digestive system, and to the middle of the body. These teas therefore have a strong regulating function especially for digestion. These teas also have much more sweet flavour than bitter. The predominance of light, sweet flavours suggest that these teas are strengthening. These aged teas and Korean yellow teas have a more mild result of balancing the body and mind after a hard night of drinking.

So whether you are a puerh drinker, a green tea drinker, or whether you are just simply a drinker, chances are there is a type of tea for your hangover.

Here is a link to Part I if you missed it.

Peace

The Tradition of Autumnal/ Winter Green Teas

When the coloured leaves start to fall and the days get noticeably shorter, tea drinkers all to often find themselves reaching for a more dark, full bodied, warm natured tea. In couteries where green tea rules the hillsides and pallets all year round, the seasonal change in tea drinking is more subtle.

These days often we associate green tea with the Spring being that green tea shares energetic similarities with the season and has even come to represent the change of season. The first flushes, the first picks, the pre qing-mings, the ujeons, and the shinchas remind us that spring is finally here. In Japan the first picks of the year, the shinchas, still represent spring but it is often said that green tea is best in the Fall and that Fall is the season for green tea. Japan has a few Autumnal tea traditions that remind the Japanese about the relationship between green tea and Autumn.

Traditionally, the matcha season starts in the fall. Until this time matcha from the previous season was consumed. Although the full leaf precursor to matcha, tencha, is picked and processed in the early spring, it has spent the summer sealed in a container with the teamasters mark on it and buried underground. In the fall the container is retrieved, the seal broken, and the tencha is ground with a stone grinder into this seasons matcha. The ceremony is called Kuchikiri, or opening the mouth. This ceremony is often held in conjunction with the symbolic change in Japanese tea rooms from the smaller furo hearth of the summer season to the larger and warmer ro. This ceremony is called Robiraki and marks a new season of tea in Japan.

Tencha, the precursor to matcha, is not the only Japanese tea that undergoes this tradition of burying during the summer. Some shincha also goes through this procedure. They are called aki shincha (new fall shincha), kuchikiri shincha (opening the mouth shincha), or kuradashi shincha (shincha from the vault). These teas are buried only part way processed and undergo a final drying procedure to bring out their nature after they are unburied in the Fall.

A long time ago, before the age of nitro flushing, vacuum sealing, or foil packs this was the only way to protect the quality of tea leaves through the warm humid Summer which tended to quickly degrade the tea. So nowadays with all the latest packing technology why do they continue to make these autumnal teas in Japan?

Many tea masters claim that Fall tea simply tastes the best. They claim that it has more depth to its flavour and is more round in the mouth. The mellowing through the summer definitely gives these teas more depth as well as curb the excess of sweeter, lighter, qualities. Energetically these teas also change. They loose the strong rising and falling directional nature and become softer and slower in their movement throughout the body. This is the result of the slow changes they absorbed while buried underground. They become slightly warmer in thermal nature due to the heat they have generated throughout the summer and due to the final heat drying stage that occurs after they are unburied. For these reasons autumnal shincha and even matcha is much nicer on the stomach and is much more suitable for consumption during the Fall and Winter seasons.

In Korea, although they don't have a formal ceremony, they do drink green tea differently in the fall. In the South they sometimes roast their green tea in the Fall before consumption to give it more fire and warmth thereby harmonizing it with the seasonal change. Last year one drank a Korean tea that was picked in the spring and was left to ferment throughout the Summer before being finished with a traditional firing over an iron caldron in the Fall before being packaged. These interesting teas are quite rare in Korea.

This year one has been enjoying a seasonal shincha kindly gifted from Chado Tea House. This Autumnal/Winter shincha is apty named Hikozo (secret, jar, warehouse), secretly stored tea. It was first picked early in the Spring then stored in an abandon train tunnel that is used for wine and tea storage until being finished with a final drying in the fall. It is warmer in nature with a deep, rich, woody, meaty taste compared to the cooler, greener, lighter, fresher notes and feeling of spring shincha. It feels about as right as green tea can feel on this cold wintery day.

Peace

Edit:

One wanted to also mention the role 'earth' plays in the energetic change that takes place with autumnal green teas but forgot to add this idea to the main body of the post.

It is important to note that autumnal/winter green tea is traditionally stored in earthenware pots when it is buried or stored. These pots contain the energies of Earth and Fire within them. Long storage in these containers imparts the energy of the storage vessel- the energy of Earth and Fire. Earth energy is stable, harmonious, and, of course, earthy. The energy of fire is warming. This is yet another subtle influence on autumnal green teas. If the tea is buried in the earth or at least stored underground, the Earth energy that surrounds it will also influence its subtle nature.

Double Peace

Just West of West Lake: 2010 Qian Dao Hu "Long Jing Style" Green Tea

A hefty bag of this tea was gifted by Pedro at Daotea. Over the last few weeks one has sat down with this tea on numerous occasions partly because its that time of year, partly because a green tea this fine ought to be consumed within weeks of it being opened before it looses to much of its essence, partly because it was the only tea not boxed up during ones recent move, partly because it is just good tea.

It was produced using the same production technique used for long jing by the hands of Mr. Weng Xingzou. He has small property near scenic Qian Dao Hu, Chun'an County, Zhejiang Province. His property is 893m above sea level and on it are semi-wild bushes of tea. This tea comes from the first day of the 2010 harvest season, picked on April 18th and 19th, a day after the last snowfall of the year covered the nearby peeks on April 17th.

The inside of the big zip-locked bag is coated in white hairs and fuzz that have came off the hair covered leaves. Most still remain on the small flattened buds. These small buds smell of light, sweet, mellow notes. When they enter the warmed teapot they emit a soft roasted smell.

Cool water and shortish infusion coax out pine nut and cream corn flavours. These tastes seem to come in separate waves not as a mix. The taste is frosty and creamy- light. The mouthfeel is mossy and very full right from the first sip. This tea is yummy.

The second infusion is prepared and consumed. It pours out of the pot a very light, transparent, white-green-yellow. The second infusion shares the flavour profile of the first but its mouthfeel is more involved. It is thick and mossy but turns slippery with time. There is a orchid aftertaste that takes time to ascend in the aftertaste. One savours this aftertaste as it trails off a bit.

In the third infusion a very slight bitterness is barely detected within the wonderful mouthfeel that has begun reaching toward the throat. This creamy soft tea has qi that is ultra relaxing and by the third infusion one feels almost drowsy under its effect.

The fourth is creamy, slightly sweet, and a touch more bitter.

In the fifth infusion a slight floral quality emerges once again. The chaqi now sharpens ones mind- a movement from relaxation to gentle concentration.

In the following infusions creamy corn notes are still apparent but become progressively watered down. Floral notes fade into sweet water.

Pedro from Dao Tea informs one that tea from this same property picked in the weeks that followed will be on sale at Dao Tea within the next few weeks.

Thanks for the generous gift.

Peace

2010 Oohashiri Shizuoka Shincha

Japan's shincha crop this year has been riddled with problems stemming from frost and the coldest March ever. This tea was shipped later than expected- pretty much the norm this year.

This tea generously came from Chado Tea House and was the first handpicked five centimetres of tea from this garden in the Shizuoka region. Only 25kg of these young tea leaves came from the 1200 square meter tea plantation.

Water comes to a boil and then sits a bit while one unwraps the tea and cuts open the bag.

The dry leaf smells sharp and sweet with an underlying mellow freshness. A light scoop of these leaves makes their way into the pot. The cooled water follows.

The first infusion reveals mellow cantaloupe notes in a creamy broth. The lips numb with a feeling in the mouth that covers it. The sweetness is slight and manifests mainly on the breath.

The second infusion has more of that round cantaloupe tone that fills the mouth. Being the second infusion, this one feels a touch fuller in the mouth with a slight chalkiness.

The third infusion is longer than the first few and pushes out much of the same. It's flavour gravitates to more of the typical lime green tea taste than the mellow melon flavours. It is less creamy and mellow too and more chalky. It finishes sweet.

The fourth infusion moves from chalky to sweet then to a slightly acidic citrus flavour. There is also those lime flavours that reach in.

This tea is even taken to fifth and sixth infusions where the tea is mainly just creamy, chalky, and smooth with still some mouthfeel worth exploring. The lack of flavour indicates the end of this session.

While cleaning the leaves from the pot one feels focused and relaxed.

Peace

2009 Asamushi Sencha- Ashikubo Gold Lightly Steamed Traditional Sencha

This tea, another sample from Chado Tea House, is a type that one has never tried before- a Fatsu-Mushi (traditional lightly steamed) Sencha. Apparently, the lightly steamed method of production was the only way Sencha was produced until the longer steamed method was discovered in the 1970s. This sample is from just outside Shizuoka in Ashikubo.

One tares open a small sample pack and spills some of the unbroken dry leaf into the bambo scoop. It smells very fresh, light, lime- there are creamy notes tucked away in the freshness.

These leaves wait in the pot for the water to cool. When it is just right the first infusion is prepared. The taste is light, creamy, and smooth with slight buttery-vanilla notes. Velvet mouthfeel slides over the tongue. A sweet taste emerges in the end. Wonderful mouthfeel.

The second infusion is prepared and again is a mouth-filling experience. The sweet creamy start the takes a turn to slight creamy vegital which fades to slightly bitter rubbery sweetness that stays on the breath as the rubbery notes are shed until the aftertaste is just chalky and sweet.

The third infusion is prepared just as careful as the first. The rubbery notes now intertwine more with a buttery sweetness. The aftertaste is earthy and tastes like wood.

The following infusions mouthfeel is pretty much all that remains. The other creamy-rubber notes are mostly faded away but one sits honestly with a few more pots. Gazing out on the bright sun cast upon the wilting cherry blossoms outside, soon the wind will leave only bright green shoots to ponder.

Peace

2009 Sumibi Meijin (Imperial Silver) Sencha

This tea was one of the samples kindly sent by Chado Tea House. Their web page claims that special care has been taken by the producers of this tea and that this tea has won a gold medal Monde selection in the years 2007 & 2008 (thought those medals were reserved for beer and wine?).

One hasn't partaken in sencha in quite a while...

The foil packet is snipped open, releasing the deep, fruity, fresh scent of the sublime dry leaves into the air. These dry leaves have a depth to them that almost remind one of a very young sheng puerh that one had a while back. Delicious.

From the clipped corner of the foil pack one pours some of these green thanes into a warmed pot. And when the boiling water has cooled enough in the cooling pot the water goes into the teapot- embracing the leaf.

The tea is rich, smooth, full in the mouth, sweet with no vegital grassiness- just a smooth, mellow, almost bridging on roasted taste. These first sips are not at all dry in the mouth but full and fresh.

The second infusion is more of that nice smoothness but more full in the mouth. It starts slightly tart on the lips and in the mouth and finishes sweet, buttery, and deep.

The full mouthfeel has staying power along with a subtle yet deep sweet aftertaste.

This green tea is superbly mellow even in the third infusion. The flavour of this tea dives deep for a sencha a far cry from those light, grassy senchas that we all know quite well.

The qi of this tea is very light and travels without being noticed. It does however have a deep but very subtle affect on the mind. One has been drinking this tea in the early evenings without having any issues falling asleep.

This sencha remains mellow but is noticeably grittier in the fourth infusion. In the fifth, this tea noticeably fades but retains it mellow flavour and feel and due to its depth can be enjoyed a bit longer that lighter sencha.

Thanks for this experience with your tea Fumi and Peter.

Peace

2009 Makaibari Green Delight Organic, 2nd flush, Darjeeling Green Tea

This sample is the last of three from Makaibari (Thanks again to Mr. Lochan for sending the samples). Another creative experiment from Makaibari, this one is a green tea and its leaves look quite interesting. They emit lighter, fresher, less bogged down scent that has less deep tones than the Imperial and less muscatel tones than the Standard. Light, airy but still very Makaibari.

These leaves are guided into a pot, warm water is poured onto these leaves, pause.

The liquid that streams out into the serving pot is not the healthy brownish delight that one would expect from Darjeeling nor is it a vibrant green as the name suggests. It is what it is. It is a cloudy yellow.

It streams from pot, to cup, to mouth. From it comes juicy light pear with sneaky caramel undertones that finish into a pondy-vegital faint raisin spice that drys the tongue and lingers on the breath.

Another infusion invites a dryness into these pondy-vegital depths. The juicy pear is still there as is the semblances of earthy raisin.

When more and more water is passed through these leaves, the mouthfeel rounds out and feels complete and full. The pear tones become more bland and less juicy becoming more enmeshed with dryness and subtle muscatel.

In the end the pear flavour thins into vegital sweetness under a blanket of consummate dryness.

The qi that is left behind is the kicky, darting hong cha variety, perhaps only a touch lighter than that of a black tea.

This tea's torn leaves, yellowish colour, and light kicking/darting chaqi suggest that this tea underwent more oxidization than most green tea during production. This is more of a 'black' green tea, similar to some other Southeastern Asian green teas.

It is enjoyable enough, interesting enough, Makaibari enough.

It is what it is.

Peace

2007 Yame Sencha

It's dark. With the sun completely set on this ridiculously humid day, the deep rumbling cackle of thunder in the distance signals time for tea.

A green tea will do quite well to match the sudden coolness felt in the air. A coolness that is more than welcome as the clothes that cling to ones body bag for relief.

This tea, a sencha from Yame (link here for the deets on Yame), was a gift from a friend who recently traveled to Fukuoka, Japan. One has tangled with this tea before, but now the time seems right to embrace it once more.

When opening the sealed container this tea's spirit fills the room as the dense humidity traps the smell of this tea's light shredded thine leaves. It's odor is a pleasant smell of citrus-sweet green tea, enveloped in the typical vegial/grassy scent found in most of this variety. The fragrant flower arrangement on the table and the smell of an inevitable storm only add to the goings on in ones nose, in ones mind.



The early infusions bring sweet smooth floral peachiness and light pear undertones that play lightly under grainy, grassy sweetness. Capturing this timid flavour is a trick in and of itself as previous sessions revealed in my handwritten notes describe a liver, metallic taste in place of the subtle fruitiness experienced in this instant. An instant that accompanies the rain as it buckles down in heavy sheets, lightening lighting up the room.



The fruity highlights of this tea seems to come and go as fast as the flashes of light outside. They only come out of hiding in the first two sessions before materializing into notes on my paper. The profile of the needle-thin leaves of this sencha weren't meant for a long session.



As the rain goes as quickly as it had came, one sips a sweet, grassy, grainy, bright green liquid. Its slippery mouthfeel leaves a sweetness at the back of the throat and a smile on ones face. As the resulting stillness of a departed storm takes hold, one gives thanks for this moment with tea.

Peace

2007 Pre-Qingming West Lake Dragon Well (Long Jin)

This tea is a legend in green tea.

Heavy water pools in a nearby well. When it rains the heavy waters of this well visibly twist, tangle, couture, and snake about as the fresh water is forced into the well. To the townspeople this sight resembles the movement of a mythical dragon. This well, the dragon well, spills forth irrigating the nearby tea field that surrounds parts of the poetic 'West Lake' in Hangzhou, China. The leaves on these bushes are all picked by hand when they are just small shoots (see Video). They are then hand processed using soft hand motions that give them their characteristically flat look.

Nowadays, there is much more than just Long Jin's mild sweet taste that is talked about...

The quality of the leaf and the abundance of fakes are much talked about issues when it comes to this tea. There is at least as many stories about fakes, or mixed grades as there is about the wonderful taste of an authentic cup of this tea. If you wish to avoid buying fakes just go to a reputable store and make sure that the box of tea you buy has more security features as you can possibly imagine. Included on this box is an individualized code that you can check on the government website, quality seals, a scratch code, as well as all the production information. The most important thing you can check is the characteristics of the leaf itself- high quality Long Jin is a pale green and the leaves are small. These qualities can be seen in this box coupled with the scent of sweet light brush.

The liquor too is pale. There is almost a complete lack of astringency at first as the sweetness of this tea is felt on the tip of the tongue giving it a slippery-smooth mouthfeel. Astringency is an after effect that is slight but coats the full tongue seconds after one swallows. This tea reminds one of eating a good high-mountain banana, not because it tastes like it (or maybe it does), but because more of its feeling in the mouth.

It abstains from the categories 'vegital' and 'grassy' that epitomize the green tea type. An individual tea- smooth, creamy, sweet. This leaf shows off its excellent stamina as liquor color, smell, and taste remain stable (maybe improve) through multiple infusions. A certain, almost unnoticeable, cinnamony sass is given off as this tea enters its 5th or 6th infusion.

There is a reason this tea has such a long reputation of being the best in the world.

Peace