it's been so gloomy, it's hard to take good photos, but today i'm trying da hong pao for the first time. i was shocked at how dark the rinse came out after only 5 seconds! this is a strong tea and i have to be careful not to oversteep, but it tastes very comforting, roasty and complex.
It's still raining. We're still eating hamburgers. I still don't know what to do with myself. Time to make tea!
Today’s choice: Eight Immortals (2009 AND 2011) ba xian [八仙]
Type: Oolong tea, Wuyi rock
Because: Needed to do something before I went crazy. Besides, I wanted to compare the difference between the two years. Supposedly, it's also good for my liver which, god knows, needs all the help it can get!
Directions: Approximately 3 grams for a ~12oz pot, very slightly-less-than-boiling water, let the first one sit about 2 minutes, able to be used 5+ times.
So here's another Wuyi rock oolong tea from Fujian. We realised that we actually had one pack of this tea from 2009 and another from 2011 so we decided to a taste test to see what differences we could pick out between the two.
Using my handy dandy yixing set, I warmed up the cups with some hot water, put a few leaves from 2009 in one and 2011 in the other, steeped them, and began my evil experiment. mwahahahaha.
lololol fuck me I don't even remember which one this was now. Double blind study?
The first thing I noticed was that the two smelled very different. Even the dry leaves. They were both floral and sweet smelling, almost chocolaty, but surprisingly, the older variety was the one that was the most fragrant and robust. That shit cray. However, I also noted that once the tea was infused, the 2009 leaves sank right to the bottom while only about half the ones from 2011 did. Curiouser and curiouser....
The one on <-- that side is 2011 the one over --> there is 2009
Then came the taste test. Despite 2009 smelling more fragrant, it was actually 2011 that had the better, more complex flavour that we love about this tea. The 2009 variety's taste was a bit more muted and slightly more astringent, almost bitter. That wasn't particularly surprising, this oolong is not 100% oxidised and not at all fermented, so of course it will lose some taste and nutrients as it ages. Neither tea quite has those undertones of charcoal like the da hong pao did, either. Despite some similarities in being a Wuyi rock oolong style like da hong pao, ba xian is still very different. Also of note is that the 2009 tea didn't seem to maintain its longevity over multiple infusions quite as well. "Immortal" my ass. I often tend to like the third infusion the best because the flavour calms down and smooths out a bit, bringing out more of a natural sweetness. But this tea seems to have lost its pep in its old age, the poor dear.
The 2011 is still going strong, though!
Still wonder what it was about the 2009 tea that had it smelling so delicious, but it's likely that that was just a better year for harvest. Differences in weather patterns and soil conditions DO make a rather dramatic impact on the tea and I'm not really sure what was going on over in China at the time of the picking and processing, but I'm guessing those factors were not uniform from 2009-2011 and probably back in its prime, the 2009 was the better crop. (Though, to be honest, without tasting the two back to back, it would be rather hard to pick out the subtle differences.)
Live fast, die young.
And, for what it's worth, my flatmate came to the same conclusions I did about this tea, so either both of us are crazy or neither is and y'all could probably make a good betting pool going on about the answer to that conundrum, so get on that and let me know what you find. I'll split the winnings with you.
Tea bushes from the Wuyi mountains get an added benefit in being grown in very mineral-rich soil, which I've heard is good for relieving head and muscle aches, though I haven't really experimented with those properties. Because of this tea's higher oxidation levels, it's also supposed to be good for your digestive system. Rumour has it rock oolongs even aid your liver, bless! I might become immortal after all!
Let's pretend I'm creative with photography.
I remember I once heard something about how this tea got the name "eight immortals" but remembering hearing it is not the same as remembering it, so... sorry. I do know that the Eight Immortals are legendary figures from Chinese mythology associated with prosperity and longevity, so maybe that's why the bush is named thus? Actually, I just looked at the description of this tea on my dealer's the teahouse's website, and it reads: "Drinking this tea is like flying in heaven's garden hence the name Eight Immortals from the famous Chinese myth." ... so, basically, the tea is flowery like the language used to describe it. Fair enough.
(Finished my tea and moved on to rum, so apologies if this post makes even less sense than usual.)
It's been raining a lot here recently. I'm not sure if that's normal for this city or not, but it's not normal for me, goddammit! I don't really buy into that whole 'being cold and wet will make you sick!' nonsense, but regardless of WHY, a lot of people do tend to get ill around this time of year. Therefore, today I will tell you all about a tea that has a very good reputation for boosting the immune system, helping digestion, and a legend of curing an Emperor's mother back to health.
Today’s choice: Big Red Robe (2011) da hong pao [大红袍]
Type: Oolong tea, Wuyi rock
Because: Good for the immune system and for digestion.
Directions: Approximately 3 grams for a ~12oz pot, boiling water, let the first one sit about 3 minutes, able to be used 6+ times.
Due to some weird misunderstanding at the local market, courtesy of my god-awful Turkish skills, I accidentally bought an entire fucking kilo of hamburger meat today and spent all the money on it. Oops. :S My flatmate just shakes her head in disgust and resignation looking at our freezer full of meat. But, this means we get to feast! Which, tbh, is one of my favourite things to do. But stuffing my face with greasy juicy meat (another one of my favourite things to do-- whaaaaaaat!) can lead to an uncomfortable bloated feeling, so to combat this-- tea!
The tea I chose today is a mostly oxidised rock oolong tea coming from the Wuyi mountains in Fujian province. This tea is super famous. Like the Gangnam Style of tea. Or something. Legend has it that there was once a Chinese emperor whose mother was dying of some mysterious illness brought about by an excessively rich diet and was cured by drinking this tea. As a gesture of gratitude, the emperor sent big red robes to clothe the blessèd tea bushes in, thus giving it its name, da hong pao, or, in English, Big Red Robe. Some people claim that this tea is good for weight loss, too, but I dunno... when I drink this tea, I start to get REALLY hungry really fast so I end up just gorging even more.
My flatmate doesn't like my pictures but idgaf this ain't National Geographic or some shit.
If memory serves me right, (which, in this slightly drunken state is dubious at best) this tea is actually the product of a couple different tea bushes all blended into one mix. This is also one of the four famous rock oolongs and there are very few (five?) original bushes left today that can produce it- all of which are now heavily guarded! Because of its highly-sought-after quality, the very highest grades can sell for like $30,000 per kilo, which is even more than I spent on my blasted hamburgers today and is therefore redamndiculous.
However, I do like to keep a stash of this around for not only big feast days, but for when I'm starting to feel slightly under the weather. In Chinese medicine, this is a "warming" tea. I have heard that this particular tea stimulates some sort of process in the spleen -home of the lymphocytes- to boost the immune system, too, which is always good. I recommend drinking a bunch of this if you suspect that you might be coming down with a common cold. Or even just when you want to drink really good tea.
The dry leaves smell almost chocolaty and I would recommend this tea to drinkers of dark beers, such as stouts or Guinness, or fans of charcoal-filtered whiskeys such as Jack Daniels.
To prepare this tea, I've used my beloved yixing pot. Before putting the leaves in, I poured boiling water in and on the pot, shook it up, then poured that out, just so the vessel gets heated and the pores in the clay expand. Then I threw in the leaves and filled it with only-very-slightly-less-than-boiling water. I put the lid on it, then poured more hot water over the top of it to keep it warm (and because I'm a fan of making a mess). Let it sit a minute or two, then it was ready for consumption.
In trying to describe the taste of this particular tea my flatmate and I came up with several different useless adjectives: delicious, tasty, flavourful, yummy, amazing, good, awesome, and the ever popular: complex. The conclusion that we came to was that this tea is probably better than our combined vocabulary.
I don't remember why I took this picture.
Rock oolongs are fun because each cup is slightly different than the last. True, all teas will have subtle flavour changes on each infusion, but I feel like rock oolongs make the most of this. It goes from a very bold IN YO FACE, BITCH taste to a sweeter, smoother flavour on each steeping. I'm sure there is a metaphor for life in there somewhere. The first infusion of this tea has a very robust, full-bodied flavour with hints of charcoal in it (not in an 'omg I'm licking the embers of a bloody campfire' way, but more like... a really good barbecue), which is a remnant of its drying process. The first steeping comes with a very bold taste, but it mellows out each time you reuse the leaves, becoming smoother and slightly sweeter each time with the exodus of the caffeine and animo acids.
You can't really tell the colour in these cups, but it is slightly red.
Because this tea is so famous (and so expensive) fake da hong pao are rife in the market. Take caution in where you buy it from. True da hong pao will come only from the Wuyi Mountains (and yes, like wine, the components and quality of the soil make a huge difference in the crop). Maybe you can find a cheap "da hong pao" that's made from cuttings of the real da hong pao bushes, but it's probably not going to be as good as the real thing. AVOID! Because, really, you might as well just buy teabags from your friendly neighborhood Walmart or some shit. For what it's worth, the tea master credited with the tea I'm drinking is Liu Guo Ying and it was harvested between April and May.
The return of my hand!
This is the leaf all opened up because we've made about six batches of tea with these leaves by now. Because this tea is high quality (like me), it will make about six or seven rounds and never go bitter. I swear to god there was more I wanted to say about this tea but I'm going to stop now because it's already long enough and this rum is starting to mess with my already questionable language skills.
