Cool Yourself Down with a Nice Cup of Tea (part 1)

Serious tea drinkers often face a dilemma when hit with a tea craving in scorching hot weather. To most this is remedied by a nice refreshing glass of iced tea. However, the more serious tea drinkers find the majority of iced tea to be of undesirable quality. But why is iced tea generally viewed as a lower form of the beverage by tea enthusiasts? Until recently we too thought that iced tea was in fact inferior to its steamy counterpart.

Cold brewing seems to be the answer we are looking for. Cold brewing is exactly what it sounds like; you are simply brewing the tea in cold water over a much longer period of time. The most appealing aspect of good iced tea brewed this way is that it is almost devoid of defects. This is because the cold water restricts many undesirable tastes from coming out. Cold brewing cuts down on the consequences of slightly over steeping a tea because you are working with a matter of hours instead of minutes. Steeping time does matter, but it is easier to manage when done in this fashion. It is also a much easier way of preparing iced tea with the resulting taste simple but delicious.

Although cold brewing restricts many of the defects from coming through in the resulting cup, it does not omit the importance of leaf quality in the flavor equation. The first step to good iced tea is a good high quality tea. A lot of time, inferior tea is used to make iced tea, and so of course it tastes inferior. If iced tea is treated with the same respect and care that hot tea receives, it will taste just as good.

A friendly aid in reaching iced tea nirvana is the ingenious yet simplistic Ceylon Pitcher. It serves its purpose and has a simple design and yields good results. It comes equipped with an easy to remove filter, which is just the right size for controlling the extraction of the tea. Essentially, any pitcher of the sort will do, providing it has a good filter and make.

Just remember the point of drinking tea, in our view, is to enjoy the flavor. Why drink iced tea that does not bring the same experience. It can be complex and flavorful when properly brewed. As long as you use the same control when brewing iced tea, as with hot tea, you will enjoy the same caliber of taste. This is just the beginning of the summer and we have a lot more iced tea experimenting to do! We will keep you posted on our thoughts and developments throughout the summer.


-Silas and Joe

Floating Leaves Teahouse

I have heard good things about Floating Leaves tea house since it first opened. A friend of mine was going out to Seattle and I wanted him to pick up some tea from Teahouse Kwan Yin for me. I called Teahouse Kwan Yin, and I was told that it had just been sold to new owners who were going to take over shortly and that they didn’t really have any thing special for tea at the moment. Jim at Teahouse Kwan Yin did have another suggestion though. He told me that a traditional tea house had just opened up in Ballard and that they had stuff like San Lin Hsi, Li Shan, Ali Shan and some nice Baozhongs. This was of course Floating Leaves. So I reported back to my friend the he should go to Floating Leaves and that he needed to bring me back some samples. It turns out that the wedding he was attending in Seattle was catered by Floating Leaves and that the people who he was going to see married had already told him about Floating Leaves.

The samples he brought back were what I expected, fresh oolongs from Taiwan, something that is not often found in the States. After I had gone through those, I called and ordered more. They sent me some free samples along with the ones I ordered.

Since then, their tea list has gotten even better! They now carry Da Yu Ling, a traditional Ali Shan and a prize winning baozhong. They also have some really nice tea ware, including nice gaiwans and yixing tea pots. The atmosphere is inviting and flavor was an on going topic amongst the employees. Shiuwen (the owner and tea buyer) will make sure you are comfortable, answer any questions you have and will even teach you how to brew tea if you are new to the world of tea.

I was very happy to have finally made it to Floating Leaves. It is one of the top tea houses America has to offer at the moment and is a good place to get your high mountain oolongs, providing you aren’t looking for something that is crazy expensive, although I don’t know where you would go to find those more expensive oolongs in this country. I was just happy to find a Da Yu Ling on this side of the world served in a tea house!

Check out their website www.floatingleaves.com

-Silas

Do Pekoe Buds Really Make Black Tea Taste Better?

Recently I have been considering whether pekoe buds make black tea taste better. To the best of my knowledge the black teas that are graded the highest have a high content of pekoe buds. Pekoe buds are those golden leaves you see blended amongst the assortment of black leaves in black tea. In early spring when young buds are sprouting, they have white fuzz that grows on the leaf before it is fully matured. When black tea is made this fuzz turns golden in the oxidation process. These spring buds are considered to be the best tasting, highest quality tea and teas that have an abundance of buds fetch higher prices than those with less. This idea seems to be a western creation. The Chinese do not drink such tea. The black tea that is drunk in china does not have these buds and is called red tea because of the color of its brew. Now this may seem crazy, but I get the feeling that the Chinese know way more about tea than any of us.

The best black tea I have ever had was void of pekoe buds, because the cultivar that this tea was made from does not produce pekoe buds. On the other hand, one of the foulest tasting black teas I have ever had was only pekoe buds. These teas were Hong Yu, and Yunnan Gold. Both were extremely fresh and expensive. The reason why the Yunnan gold tasted so bad is because it tasted like blue cheese. In another word, it tasted like ferment. The Hong Yu on the other hand was clean and fresh with a whole list of tasting notes.

My theory is this: Pekoe buds, while being oxidized with the other leaves, over ferment creating, off flavors. The hairs on the pekoe buds are oxidizing and actually fermenting at a much faster rate than the leaf itself. The flavors present in these teas are similar to pu-ehr and not pleasant. If I wanted to taste cheese then I would go to a cheese shop. If you do not taste cheese in Yunnan, there could be many reasons. First off, as the tea ages it gets stale and loses its character, in this case it is actually a good thing. Secondly, the amount of pekoe buds varies from tea to tea. The one I am referring to is all buds. The reason I think that pekoe buds are preferred by westerners is because most teas are not drunk fresh and most black teas get milk added. The golden hairs on the buds go stale very fast, making all tea made with buds difficult to keep fresh. The hairs are small and fluffy and are exposed to oxygen much easier than tea leaves without hairs.

Another interesting observation is the coloration in the tea. There are some buds that are a darker color gold and some that have a dusty yellowish white look. This shows the unevenness of the oxidation process.

I was so thrown back by the flavor of this Yunnan gold that it has me wondering about all the teas made this way. Now that I noticed the flavor of those buds, I can taste it in any Yunnan that has golden buds. The less pekoe buds the less cheese-like flavor I get in the cup. I am scouting out some golden teas to taste, especially from other places besides Yunnan, so that I can do some more thorough research about this. I will post the results as I find them

-Silas

New Cultivar Taiwan No. 18

To most of the tea world, Taiwan is known for it's wonderful Paochongs and Bai Hao Oolongs and for good reasons. Focus on these styles of tea has brought the world some of the best and most interesting teas. While most of the tea produced in Taiwan has been Oolong, The Tea Research and Extension Station located in the hills surrounding Sun Moon Lake has also focused on the development and production of black tea. Producing 11 of the 20 new cultivars since 1969 suited for black tea, a peak was reached with the development of cultivar number 18. Released officially in 1999 this tea is basically unknown outside of Taiwan. Crossing an assam strain from Burma and a local wild tea strain, the Research and Extension station has created one of the most truly unique and quality black teas in the world.

One of the things that makes this tea unique is the fact that it is a cross between an Assam strain and a Taiwan wild strain. The Taiwan wild variety of tea is most similar to the China plant but classified as a separate variety from the two main varieties, Assam and China plants, because it is really a different plant. Number 18 is a strong bush with fairly thick leathery leaves and a purplish shine. It is of much lower yield than the other cultivars created in Taiwan for black tea and has large buds but no pekoe growths. The survival rate is 87.6%, it has strong heat resistance and has a fairly strong resistance to disease, making this cultivar ideal to grow.

Of course, none of this would matter if the taste was not there. This tea is known for its mint and cinnamon qualities and these flavors were certainly present when we cupped it. Not only are those flavors present but we also got rose, molasses, honey and lemon verbena as well. This time when we cupped this tea, we initially did not share tasting notes. Ben C. brought this back from Taiwan and made all of us taste the tea separately and without telling us what it tasted like. Jaime initially got cinnamon and mint, when he and Ben and Hong cupped it. Hong added rose to the notes and then they decided to test the palates of Ben K, Judson and I. Ben, after a long day of espresso shot tasting and barista-ing, still came through with the same tasting notes. That is how powerful and defined this tea is.

Originally when we cupped this tea, from a different batch/producer/farm that was sent from Taiwan, we were not that impressed. It is fairly generic with much more subtle notes and some off flavors. When Ben C. asked the Taiwan Research and Extension Station about this, they said that this was because of the inferior processing of the batch we had received. This just goes to show how important processing is in bringing out the flavor of the cultivar and the end result of the tea.

This is another in the line of many great steps towards the development of quality tea in Taiwan. The Taiwan Research and Extension station plans to further the development of both black tea and wild tea cultivars in the future. It takes them about 21 years to develop a cultivar to the point where it can be used in commercial production and from what I can see, this is time well spent. In the past, the black tea that Taiwan has produced was low quality and exported, and since 1999 one of the goals has been to promote it locally. Promotion for high quality exports of Taiwan no. 18 or Hong Yu (Red Jade) are also on the way.

Quick Water Comparative

Shui Jin Gui

Check this out: This is the same tea, brewed the same way (method, time, water temp ect...), but with different waters. The water on the left is New York tap water and the one on the right is my filtered tap. Not only did the teas look completely different but they behaved totally different, tasted different and the waters even looked different when they were boiling. The difference is noticeable even in the rinse. I am still working on figuring out what it is exactly that makes them so different, but I know that the New York water has something in it that is blocking out the bitters of the tea. It is certainly a water with a higher mineral content,
but what that mineral or minerals are is still to be determined. My filtered tap has a very low mineral content and they both have their pros and cons. The New York water really curbs the bitterness of the tea allowing you to bring out the flavors of certain teas without the bitterness. The filtered tap makes it easier to cup for defects, because it just lets everything out. The one thing I don't like about my water is that it can be very fussy if you want to drink something like a Phoenix Mountain oolong. The New York water seems to make even poor quality teas taste alright.

This puts an interesting spin on cupping. If two people on opposite sides of the country or even different towns for that matter cup the same tea with the same methods, and come up with different tasting notes it could easily be because of the water. I was talking to a friend the other day and he was telling me about how when he steeped a sencha while he was up in Vermont, the tea just didn't get results even close to when he brews it at home. This is because the water in the part of Vermont he was visiting is very hard. So hard in fact that when he boiled a pot of water, as the water evaporated, a white ring built up on the side of the pot from all the minerals in the water. I had a similar experience with teas I brought back from California the last time I went.

Now to the fun part. Here are the cupping notes I got from the two waters:

Shui Jin Gui (New York water): Sugared dates, canned pineapple with some dirtier base notes

Shui Jin Gui (filtered tap water): Prunes, Nectarines with that same dirtier base and a bit more bitterness. It should be noted that this water was super fussy. If you don't brew it just right it gets super bitter super quick.

I also cupped this tea with the barismo crew and used some really awful tap water that produced more of a lychee taste and some awful chemically notes like fluorine or chlorine or whatever it is that was in the water.

-Silas

The Real English Breakfast

I recently came across and interesting article in 'Tea and Coffee Trade Journal' that made me chuckle. The article was about a certain kind of British Tea, but not the typical English Breakfast.

For all you English breakfast enthusiasts out there who define English Breakfast tea by certain origin and taste standards (some people say Keemun is the only true English Breakfast) check this out: Britain now grows it’s very own tea. Not that I am a fan of the “standard” English Breakfast, but at least now the Tregothnan estate in Cornwall can say they have the only true English Breakfast tea. Apparently the climate is similar to Darjeeling, and there are 30 different cultivars grown and processed there. They plan to produce a ton of tea per year until 2010 and develop a business focused on quality and sustainability.

Interestingly enough, the tea is grown and thrives by organic standards and the area is naturally free of the insects that normally cause tea farmers to use pesticides in other parts of the world. Though free from insects, the rabbits, deer and pheasants seem to love the young tea buds as much as humans. Pheasants in particular can pick a whole bush bare. Those must be some energetic little pheasants!

Cornwall, in southwestern England, is known for its attractive botanical gardens and until 1999, The Tregothnan estate was one of these. According to the article, Jonathan Jones, now the head gardener at Tregothnan suggested the idea of growing and processing tea to be sold on the English market. After researching tea plants already growing on Britain, he set off to study tea growing in China, India, Japan, Sri Lanka, and Korea as well as some other tea growing regions around the world. On may 3rd 2005 after the tea plants had matured enough to be picked for a commercial crop the first tea was picked and processed. After the processing was finished it was shipped to London to be sold there as what is most certainly the freshest tea ever sold in England.

According to Jones (as stated in the article mentioned above), Tregothnan is going to start producing micro-lots to study which cultivars and processing techniques produce the best quality tea. Tregothnan has recently cleared some new area on steep hill sides to bring their total area of tea bushes to 30 acres.

The Tregothnan single estate tea goes for 28 British pounds for 50 grams of tea. That is about 50$ for 50 grams. That actually comes out to around the same price as the Da Yu Ling. They also offer tours around the estate for those interested in seeing the true English Breakfast growing and being processed.

Water Quality

Just as important as the quality of the tea itself is the quality of the water you use to brew a certain tea. Brewed tea is 98% water, so it makes sense that the water you use will affect the taste of the tea immensely. At this point without the disposal of a lab and scientists capable of testing water for chemical composition, I cannot tell you which minerals add or take away flavor.

Which minerals give favorable or unfavorable tastes to the tea is still a mystery to me. I know from my own basic research that the quality of the water affects everything involved with the taste of brewed tea.

For example, a tea I had brewed with water in California tasted light years better than the same tea brewed with my inferior Boston area water. Not only that, but the brew time and color of the liquor are totally different.

One thing that seems to help out a lot is using very soft water. When I say soft, I mean 20-40 parts per million mineral content. Most bottled water has a much higher mineral content. It is clear when you brew tea with water that has 200 parts per million mineral content, that there are some good and some possbily negative minerals in water. If you really pay attention and taste the water itself you can taste the sweetness, and the minerality.

I mean, how can you expect to get the same type of extraction when you have 180 more parts per million already in the water? In nutrition you learn that certain vitamins and minerals stop each other from being absorbed into the human body. Could this be true with tea? Could the vitamin and mineral content of a particular tea effect the way that tea brews with certain water?

I have found San Francisco Bay Area water and New York City water tend to work well when brewing tea. I have also found Voss and Penta bottled waters to work well. Any bottled water with a high mineral content seems to make the tea taste bitter. At home I have a filter and softening tap that brings the mineral content of my tap water down to about 20-40 parts per million. This water still does not work as well as the water I had last time I went to the Bay Area.

A couple of weeks ago, I tasted tea with Mark over at MEM Tea Imports. We brewed 3 of the same teas with 2 different waters and the color of the brewed tea was drastically different. The taste was also incredibly different. Not only did one of the waters produce a fuller, sweeter taste, but it was also more complex in flavor.

There is still a lot to be learned and experimented with involving water, but just tasting the difference between tap and different bottled waters is mind blowing.

-Silas

Tea Growing Regions af China

First off, all the tea in China is grown in the southern half of China. Not only southern China the birthplace of tea (Yunnan to be more specific), but of course the climate is ideal. Northern China is simply too cold. Mainly due to European explorers tea has spread all over the world, but in my opinion still retains the most integrity when grown and processed in China or Taiwan.
Note: China seems to consider Taiwan a growing region of China, but because it is a separate country and has its own and unique ways of processing tea, I will not include it.

The divided growing regions of China are as follows: Southwest, North of the Yangtze (Gansu, Shanxi, Henan and Shandong), South of the Yangtze (Hubei, Anhui, Jiangsu, Hunan, Jiangxi and Zhejiang) and South China (Guangxi, Guangdong, Fujian, and Hainan). The total area covered by these regions is 38 degrees east to west and 19 degrees north to south.

The Southwest district is comprised of Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou and the southern most part of Tibet. This region has a subtropical monsoon climate which is perfect weather for tea to thrive in. Yunnan is considered the birthplace of tea. Yunnan, the most famous province in the southwest district is made up chiefly red clay. The oldest living tea tree is an incredible 1700 years old and the oldest cultivated tree is 800 years old. Yunnan produces mainly black tea but also produces some white, green and oolong. Nearly all pu-erh is also made in Yunnan. Guizhou is famous for growing Yunwu, a rare and style of green tea that is hard to be found in the US. Sichuan produces mostly green as well as black and yellow tea. Tibet grows very little tea that is most often made into low grade pu-erh or black tea. The soil in these provinces is mainly yellow or brown.

The North of the Yangtze district refers to the territory north of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and includes Henan, Shanxi, Gansu and Shangdong. This region also includes the northern sections of Anhui, Jiangsu and Hubei although many of the famous gardens in these provinces are not part of this region. This region produces mainly green tea and is not famous for quality. Tea in this region may suffer drought due to uneven rainfall. This means that there are micro climates that are great for growing tea and some that are not. The soil is chiefly yellow and yellow-brown. Liu An Guapian, Xinyang and Maojian are grown in the more favorable micro-climates here.

The South of the Yangtze district refers to the territory south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and includes Zhejiang, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Hubei. This region is the bread and butter so to speak of tea production in China. There are some incredibly famous gardens and micro regions here and the annual production totals about 2/3s of the entire crop of China. 4 seasons are clearly defined. This region produces mainly green, black and scented tea. This region is home to 5 of the 10 famous teas of China. The soil type is mainly red with some yellow and yellow-brown soil. 60-80% of the precipitation is concentrated in the summer and spring.

The South China district includes Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian and Hainan an island off the south coast of China. The soil type is classified as old clay and red clay in other parts. This soil is very nutritious. This region gets a lot of annual rainfall and the period of growth for the tea trees is 10 months out of the year. Black/red, green and oolong tea are grown here. The most noteworthy of these types of tea is oolong. Anxi and Wuyi Shan, two of the most famous growing areas for oolongs are found here. Just north in Guangdong, Phoenix Mountain is found.

This is just some basic information I threw together to give a basic idea of what the growing regions of China are like. Honestly, I don’t know a whole lot more than this until I go and see for myself.

-Silas

Read Your Tea Leaves

I love to learn about tea. Not just reading about it, but listening to the story that the tea tells. A good deal of information can be learned from studying your tea leaves.

Everything from what mistakes were made in the processing to what cultivar was used can be deduced just from looking at the leaves.

For example, looking at a green tea and seeing bits of brown in the leaves would indicate improper manufacturing techniques. For the most part this is done by looking at the leaves after they have been infused and have fully opened up therefore simply giving reason to the good and bad flavors of the tea. Consistency in size shape and color is very important as well as looking for defects such as brown holes in the leaves.

Now, just because a tea looks nice to the eye does not mean that it tastes good, but learning what to look for can determine what good tasting tea looks like. Now, I am no expert. I am still learning how to read tea leaves, but I do know certain parallels between looks and taste. Remember, most of the flavor is written in the leaves. Certain things like post processed aging are hard to tell simply by the looks of the leaves, but all you have to do is use your other senses and you will be able to tell that that tea has been aging. Learn how to use your senses and you will be able to read the story your tea tells.

Part 1: White Tea

Now according to almost everything I have read prior to about a week ago, white tea is simply just picked and dried. Now this is true, but what they don’t tell you which I learned from reading the leaves of certain white teas, is that white tea and specifically white peony is sometimes heavily and often times unevenly oxidized. I double checked this idea and sure enough, white tea is processed with the intention of being oxidized over a period of a few days.

In fact, according to Hong who is reading a tea processing book in Chinese (oh man I sooooooo wish I could read Chinese characters!) white teas are supposed to be oxidized as much as baozhong oolong tea. All you have to do is look at the leaves and notice that half of them are almost black in color. The book, "China the Homeland of Tea," says that all white tea is semi-fermented and honestly most whites really taste like it. There is a certain wafting sweet yet very off flavor that accompanies these teas. I have a hunch that this might be a quality brought on my improper processing or a flavor that is gained post-processing.

The first thing to notice is the color and consistency in color. Inconsistency in color means inconsistency in flavor. If one leaf is oxidized to a certain level and another leaf is oxidized to a different level, right there are two different flavors in the same tea. Another thing to look for is the evenness of oxidation through out the leaf. If one part of the leaf is one color and the other half is another color, this means unevenness in taste.

One thing you will often notice in white peony for example is that there are often 4 or 5 different colored leaves in one batch. You will notice tan colored leaves, light green, black, brown and white. The white is from the downy buds which have that white down when they are growing and are the reason for the name white tea.

As for the other colors, those are just colors given by the processing. Now you may be thinking that this could mean complexity. Well, one of the most evenly colored and shaped teas I have ever had was also one of the most complex. You don’t have to worry about inconsistency so much with silver needle. The most important question is what the best flavored and ideal color of leaf is.

Another thing to look for is consistency in size and shape. If it is a full leaf tea, but you find some broken leaves, this could mean a variety of things. First off, it steeps unevenly. Secondly, it usually brings unwanted oxidation and destroys the method in which ideal oxidation is achieved. Any broken bits of leaves that are not full are absolutely defects.

I cupped some white peony recently!

This one is actually a fairly good grade. There were lots of buds and only some second leaves. Keep in mind that this is actually better quality than most white peony in the United States. In the first cup (top left), it is all the dark oxidized leaves. The Bottom left is all buds. The other three are all not separated. These are all from the same tea and all tasted differently.

This is to show the incredible inconsistency in this tea. Here are the cupping notes:
1. (top left) Spicy, with a rancid honey taste and not very vegetal. This one I really didn't like!
2. (bottom left) The most mellow. Mild melon taste and a little buttery.
3. (top right) bean sprout and ferment sweetness
4. (middle) Similar but less sweet
5. (bottom right) Similar to the other 2 a tad more funky and off than the other 2. Hopefully you can see from the picture how inconsistent this tea is.

My thoughts about white tea have changed over the last couple of months. I realize now how delicate these teas are and hard they are to process correctly.

White teas are also incredibly hard to keep fresh, simply because they don't. Last spring I bought some white peony and by the end of the week it was starting to show its age. With that said, I know there are some excellent white teas to be found out there. I have had some good ones, but I will keep searching until I find the most even one and the lightest oxidation as possible.

Smell of the Flavor, Taste of the Aroma?

Ben C. gave me a pamphlet of information about the teas that Taiwan produces a while ago, containing one of my favorite tea related quotes. “Smell of the Flavor and the Taste of the Aroma” it reads, heading a blurb about tasting tea. Well, I would personally like to thank that crappy translator, because it brings up an interesting subject.

To me, tea is all about taste. Now when I say this, I really don’t distinguish between taste and aroma. Your sense of taste is far too connected with your sense of smell to separate the two. Tea is a sensory experience and if a tea has a wonderful aroma that is part of the tasting experience that that tea gives you. You don’t have to think of tasting tea as some big ordeal, just try to pay attention to the tea and learn to identify flavors. As with everything else, tasting takes practice. Not only do you need to develop you’re taste buds, but you also need to learn your flavors. Tasting is a consciousness that is dependent on sensory awareness. Tasting tea is not only about familiarizing yourself with different flavors in tea and the differences between them, but also about familiarizing yourself with tastes from other things. How could I say that a tea has an orchid-like aroma if I have never smelled a fragrant orchid? On the other hand, I cut brush on farm land one year that smelled exactly like an aroma I commonly smell in Darjeeling tea. There is knowledge to be gained that can be applied to tea from everything you taste. That is why tea is often compared to coffee and wine. Every time I sit down to eat or drink something, I pay attention to what I taste and try to learn about where those flavors are coming from and how much depth they provide. As I often say to people when talking about flavors in tea, I don’t just taste tea; I taste everything, even air.

~Silas