New Winter Baozhong Has Arrived!

Before I had the chance to try any of the new winter Oolongs from Taiwan, I had heard a lot of rumors that this season's teas would not be good.

When the boxes of new Baozhong arrived at the shop three days ago, I have to say that I was a bit nervous.


I did two tastings with the bowl method comparing this season's teas to the spring Baozhong. I like this season's Baozhong better. I found them to have a thicker body. Next, I tried this season's Farmer's Choice, Honorable Mention and 2nd Place Baozhong in a gaiwan. Farmer's Choice is bold and upfront with both floral and some kind of fruit notes. Honorable Mention is soft and smooth. 2nd Place Bazhong has that typical "competition" floral note. All are enjoyable and different from each other.

I will try to give another update on these three Baozhongs after the first official tasting this weekend. I have noticed many times that some of each season's new teas will change a bit after they have arrived and have sat around for about one month.

2009 Winter Baozhong

Our 2009 Winter Baozhong was shipped out from Taiwan yesterday! I am expecting it to arrive in Seattle in about two weeks; mid-December. Please watch out for our tea tasting schedule in our next newsletter and blog posts.

I heard that tea production is very low this year. In Pinglin during a regular season, there are around 1500 batches of tea that enter the Baozhong competition. This season, there were only about 950 batches of tea entering the competition. My tea friend told me that just a couple of days after the competition, most of the competition tea was already bought!

Pinglin Trip, Part Two

Mr. Tsai took me and Konghai to Farmer Chen's place. He was not back yet, so we sat down with his wife to have tea. She prepared at least seven different Baozhongs for me to try. Some tea came from half-jin packages, and she took some other teas out from those huge plastic bags. I didn't notice any marks on any of the bags. I have to say all the farmers and tea business people have incredible memories (perhaps they all drink tea every day?). Before I had a chance to tell her, she told me what those Baozhongs were. It was fun to try so many Baozhongs all at once. After I went through them twice, I was surprised at how light some of the competition winning teas were. My two favorite ones were one that didn't enter any competitions at all and one that was in the competition but didn't win any prize.

Later, Farmer Chen came back with some fresh tea leaves. He saw Konghai and gave him those leaves to play with. He sat down with us to try all the Baozhongs. Then he was distracted by Konghai. I think he likes Konghai a lot and he took a lot of pictures of him. For the whole tea tasting, they didn't make a single comment on what they thought of each tea. I knew that once again, I had to decide on which tea I considered to be the best for me to bring back to sell.

After all the Baozhongs, I asked if they had any aged teas. She came with two. I tasted them and liked the Buddha's Hand one better. When asked about the age, Farmer Chen said," ten, twenty years". I bursted out laughing and said,"there are 10 years of difference between what you just said". He smiled and looked at his wife for confirmation," I don't remember how old it is". I like that, at least it's very honest. I went to the jar where they stored the aged Buddha's Hand and smelled the tea. I saw the lid with the date! I showed them the lid and said," it's 18 years old!" Farmer Chen laughed and said," see? I was right!"

It was always nice to see Mr. and Mrs Chen. They were very easy going. Especially with him, he always had a smile on his face. Too bad I didn't have a chance to see him make tea this time. Most of the tea was already done for the season. I like the dedicated look on his face when he is making tea. There's always next year!

坪林包種比賽茶評分的標準

坪林包種比賽茶評分的標準

這裡是坪林比賽茶較詳細的質料：

外形佔百分之二十 (20%)：在比賽之前農夫都會把茶梗挑去，茶葉外形要整齊、一致，且不要有雜色。

茶湯顏色佔百分之二十 (20%)﹕ 茶湯以蜜綠色﹐ 翠綠色為上等。而且茶湯不可以混淆，要清澈。

香氣佔百分之三十 (30%)﹕要有花香，且要單一香氣﹐ 不要有悶味﹐ 也不要有雜味。單一香氣的原因是不要有混茶，而且很有明顯的品種香。

滋味佔百分之三十 (30%)﹕ 茶的滋味要圓潤、甘甜、有活性。茶喝起來要無異味、無酸性。

New Winter Baozhong

Two boxes of Winter Baozhong came in today. What a nice surprise! I was not expecting them to arrive for another week. And it's good timing, too. My friends, Michael, Klaus, Rich, and Todd were all here.

I decided to taste these four Baozhong in white bowls. This is a wonderful way to compare teas and to judge a tea quality. And what a nice way to try some fresh new tea with good company!

The Four Baozhongs are: First Place Winning Baozhong, Second Place Winning Baozhong, Honorable Mention Winning Baozhong, and Farmer's Choice Baozhong. Rich helped to put those teas in four different bowls so that we wouldn't know which tea is which. I like to compare tea this way so that my tasting won't be affected by pricing, prize winning or which place the tea is from.


After hot water was poured into the bowls, we all picked up a porcelain spoon, dipped it into the tea liquid, and started to smell the spoon. Wow, some of tea is so floral! I started to tell them about the criteria for the bouquet and the color that judges are looking for. Todd immediately decided which Baozhong won a prize. And he was right on!

The first run of tasting, I didn't want to decide the sequence of the teas, but I knew what I liked. The first tea is very floral and the tea color is just the right color, jade green. The second tea was voted by Michael, Todd, and Klaus as the best Baozhong out of the four. They all agreed on that tea has floral note and body. I personally like the third one the best. I like Baozhong with just a light floral note and a nice mouth feel. The fourth one came very close to the third Baozhong. People were all very happy with the quality. Todd was especially happy because he just ran out of good Baozhong.

By the end of the tasting, I thought the teas were exactly what I was expecting from these Baozhong. The one with a nice bright green color and a big floral fragrance won first place. Second place is a very balanced tea. Honorable Mention and Farmer's Choice represent Farmer Chen's tea making style, with a bit more oxidation than the prize winners. Some people like Baozhong tea with a big floral note and others prefer it with a bigger body. I am happy that I can offer both styles.

Pinglin Baozhong Tea Competition 坪林包種茶比賽

I have seen the Baozhong tea competition three times so far. The first time, our friend Mr. Tsai took us to visit Farmer Chen back in 2005. My ex-husband Rob and I showed up at Farmer Chen's tea shop as he was just about to leave to submit two batches of Baozhong for a competition. Mr. Tsai did a quick introduction and Farmer Chen told us to get into his car and submit the tea with him.

Tea Submitting 交茶
The place where farmers have to submit their tea is in a high school. Before we entered the place, Chen turned and said to Rob:" Why don't you submit a bag of Baozhong as well?" Rob took the bag and we walked into the hall. The man that sat behind the submission's table raised his head and looked at Rob. You should have seen his expression when he saw an unknown foreigner carrying a bag of Baozhong tea. Farmer Chen went forward smiling and said to the man at the table " This is my tea. He is a friend from Seattle. Maybe he will bring me good luck and this tea will win the grand prize!" Everybody laughed.

The man at the table gave Farmer Chen some paper. Later on, Farmer Chen told us that the paper has numbers for the tea that he submitted. Everyone who submits the tea receives a number. When the competition results are posted, people check their numbers to see if they won anything. For the competition to be fair, the town hall which hosts the competition will come up with different numbers for the tea. They don't want to judges to know which farmers have what numbers.

In the room, there were three big wood tables. Each table has four or so women surrounding it. They threw whatever tea they received on the table, measured it and packaged it in individual foil bags. Each foil bag has 150 grams of tea and there are 42 bags for one batch (一點). After they bagged the tea, 40 bags of tea will go into a white paper box with a number on the box. One bag is for tea judging and one bag is for the town hall for "building relationships" (公關茶). Each competition, they receive over 1000 batches of tea. They have to keep good records on which tea belongs to which farmer.

Tea Judging 評茶
The actual tea judging place is in a building that belongs to the Pinglin government. There is no decoration in that room at all. I saw two judges in two of the competitions and four judges at one of them. I was not allowed to talk to them at all. The Pinglin competition normally lasts four to five days. There are usually over 1000 batches of tea to be tested. This Winter, there were 1059 batches of tea.

For the first three days, judges are pretty much eliminating teas and choosing Honorable Mention Baozhong. There are two men that help to measure tea and time the tea's brewing. For the competition, they use three grams of Baozhong and brew for 5 minutes in the standard tea judging cups. After the brewed tea is poured into the white porcelain cups, judges will go over to the table, look at the dry leaves, smell the brewed tea leaves, and then taste the tea. After that entire table of tea is judged, a secretary will go over with the judges and write down the grades for each tea.

Judging Criteria 評審標準
What are they looking for in a competition: 20% of the appearance on the dry leaves (外型); 20% on the color (顏色); 30% on the fragrance (香氣); 30% on the mouth fell (口感).

The Winners 得獎人數
Grand Winner (特等獎): There is only one batch of tea for this prize
The Top Tens (頭等一到十): The top winners are ranked from 1 to 10. You can see their rank on the boxes that competition Baozhong is packaged and sold in.
1st Place Winners (頭等獎): There are around 50 batches of tea that received 1st place prize, so don't think that you might be buying the only first place tea.
Second Place Winners (二等獎): There are about seventy batches of tea for this prize.
Third Place Winners (三等獎): There are around 180 teas for this category.
Honorable Mention (優良獎): There are many winners in this category.

Tea competitions are ways to promote a specific tea. You can choose to believe in the judges' tastes or not. I personally believe that there are certain qualities and characteristics in good teas, but I don't believe that they can necessarily choose the best Baozhong. They might be choosing the best ones according to their criteria, which could be different fro your tastes.

Baozhong Farmer - Mr. Chen

I finally had a chance to talk to the Baozhong Farmer, Mr. Chen. He told me that he has been making tea for 40 years. He owns tea farms in the Pinglin area, just south of Taipei. He and his wife mostly make tea, and in the busy tea making season, they will hire tea pickers. Farmer Chen handles the entire tea making process himself.

He thanked me for liking his Baozhong tea.

I asked him what he thinks about the tea competition. He told me that it's not all that fair. However, since the tea judges decide what is a good tea, he only can do his best. I asked him about Taiwanese Oolong getting greener and greener. He said it's the trend. He still wants his Baozhong a bit more oxidized than the current trend. I asked him why he doesn't like really lightly-oxidized Oolong and he said it's because the tea has less taste (滋味) and mouth feel. He thinks a true Oolong tea should have a nice mouth feel. If a Baozhong becomes much greener, we can all change and just make a Green Tea.

I noticed that in recent years, Farmer Chen almost never wins first place. I think it's because he still wants to make Baozhong with a bigger taste. I asked him if I can learn how to make tea from him. He laughed and said it's a really tough job. I told him that I can do it, but he still repeated that it's a very tough job.

I asked him about this winter Baozhong. He said that in the beginning, the temperature was not cool enough. I asked him what's the problem with higher temperature and he said that the tea won't taste like "winter tea".

He told me that since the weather is warmer, the "stirring green" (浪青) process has to be fast because the tea oxidizes faster ( Please see the note for "stirring green). So there should be a shorter period of time between each "stirring green" interval. He told me that he prefers that the temperature be below 20c. He said that for a few days this season, the temperature dropped, so even yesterday, he was making tea. It takes him about 24 hours to finish one batch of tea.

I asked him if he can still make more oxidized Baozhong. He said that if people ask him to make it, he will do it. I was so excited to hear it. He told me he likes tea that way, too. Fragrance in a tea is important, but how a tea feels in the mouth should be important as well, if not more so.

Farmer Chen hasn't seen me for a couple of seasons, so I told him that I will for sure visit him whenever I am in Taiwan and remind him again that I want to learn how to make tea from him.

"Stiring Green": After tea leaves are oxidized to the right degree outdoors, farmers will take those tea leaves indoors. Leaves will stay in tea baskets indoors without the farmers touching or shaking them. The purpose of this is to let the water content evaporate from the edges of tea leaves and the water content in the leaves will distribute evenly. At the right moment, farmers will decide to stir tea leaves. We call this process "stiring green". The first goal of "stiring green" is to let the water in the tea leaves "evaporate" evenly. The second purpose of this process is to let leaves rub each other so that oxidation of tea leaves will continue.

2008 Winter Baozhong

My friend, Mr. Tsai, called and told me that he went to Farmer Chen's place and picked up 2008 Winter Competition Baozhong. I was very excited to know that the new competition Baozhong was on its way to Seattle.

I asked him how the Baozhong tea tasted this season. Mr. Tsai told me that some of the Baozhong tea might lack fragrance because the weather didn't cool down enough and there were too many rainy days. However, he told me not to worry. He chose the good quality Baozhong from Farmer Chen.

Farmer Chen was busy making tea last month. I think it's time to give him a call, since I want to know what he has done differently to the Baozhong processing when the weather hasn't cooperated.

The new Baozhong will be here in about two weeks. We will have a review on the tea. In the next couple of posts, we will also talk about competition Baozhong and Farmer Chen.