Grandpa Style Tea

Some of you might encounter some issues with having enough time and space for brewing Gongfu style tea, especially when you are brewing at your office.

Well, the good news is that you don't have to brew tea Gongfu style all of the time. Some Oolongs taste delicious when brewed with the Grandpa style. You just need a big enough cup, into which you toss some leaves and pour in hot water. You will have a very yummy cup of tea in no time.

In fact, there are a couple of Oolongs that I prefer to drink using the Grandpa style, such as Oriental Beauty and HongShui Oolong. I like Muzha Tieguanyin and Charcoal Roasted Dong Ding with either tea brewing style. I have heard that Wuyi Cliff is excellent with the Grandpa style. If you prefer lightly oxidized Oolong, Baozhong can be a great tea for it, too.

Tea can be this simple and delicious! Enjoy!

*Photos taken by Douglas King.

Floating Leaves Tea First Online Tea Class

photo provided by Dan Cordell. 

I'm excited to announce that Floating Leaves Tea will be offering its first online tea class. My internet customers will have first priority to sign up for this class and will get a special rate as well!

Date: Sunday March 16th at 10am (Seattle Time)

Subject: Taiwanese Baozhong and High Mountain Oolongs. We will be tasting and learning about these two types of delicious, lightly oxidized teas from Taiwan. I will cover the differences between these two styles of Oolong, the tea nature of these Oolongs and what to look for when tasting these teas.

Teas to be tasted:
-Baozhong Farmer's Choice
-Alishan
-Lishan
-ShanLinXi
-A Roasted Lishan, and
-A lower elevation, rolled style Oolong

Materials you need to for this class:
-A gaiwan, a tasting cup(s) and a pitcher/bowl to pour out any excess tea that doesn't fit into your cup
-Alternatively, you can have the whole Gongfu Cha setup laid out
-Convenient access to boiling water
-Google Plus account (I will be using Google Plus Hangout for this tea class)

Fee:  $30 including the tea lesson, samples of the teas we will be tasting that day and the cost of shipping the teas to you. I am offering a $10 special rate for my online customers.

Duration of the class: Please prepare to spend one and half hour to 2 hours for this class.

To sign up, please contact me at tea@floatingleaves.com and I will confirm availability and arrange payment with you.

I am looking forward to drinking some tea with you - over the internet!

2013 Winter High Mountain Oolongs

I sometimes ask myself if I will ever get tired of tea. The answer so far has been no. There are so many different kinds of tea out there! And even if one claims he/she drinks only certain types of tea, one will still not get bored with the variety that can be found within one type of tea. From season to season, the same type of tea we drink will taste different.

It's amazing what weather can do to tea. I had a great tea session comparing my 2013 Spring Lishan to the new 2013 Winter Lishan.

Brewed leaves: left-2013 Spring Lishan; right-2013 Winter Lishan

Tea broth: left-2013 Spring Lishan; right- 2013 Winter Lishan

Due to the warmer weather this winter, this season's Lishan doesn't seem to have as an intense taste as the Spring Lishan. However, both Lishans have that wonderfully delicious, smooth, buttery texture. What stands out more in this season's High Mountain Oolong is its aftertaste. It's simply delightful and surprising. Its aftertaste is beautiful and strong!

I don't know if you remember that the 2013 Spring High Mountain Oolong could be tricky to brew. Just a touch too many leaves could make the pot of tea too strong. I found that this Winter tea is more forgiving. Even if I brew it longer, the tea still tastes very yummy. 

The same type of tea and yet so different. I love discovering new qualities from each season's tea, especially those yummy surprises that keep dancing in my mouth. They make me excited and happy!

2013 Winter Baozhong

Our Winter Baozhong has arrived! The tea has already opened up, so I was able to compare it to our Spring Baozhong, which is also from Farmer Chen.

The Gaiwan on the bottom is Winter 2013 Farmer's Choice Baozhong

Before the tea arrived, I had heard that this winter has been warmer than usual during the tea harvest. I was a bit worried. After I tasted the winter crop of tea, my impression is that both seasons' tea is equally good, which makes me very happy. 

I tasted both seasons' Baozhong Farmer's Choice side by side. Both teas have very solid tea broths. I think the spring Baozhong was just a bit heavier, but it's really hard to notice the difference. Our spring Baozhong has an orange-like aftertaste and the winter one has a brighter, citrus aftertaste. 

Left is the brewed leaves from Winter season. Right is from Spring Season. 

Left is tea broth from Winter Baozhong, right is tea broth from Spring season.

I am satisfied with this winter Baozhong crop. It's solid and smooth with a clean citrus aftertaste. Try it and I think you will be happy with this tea, too. 

In my next post, I will write about the differences of our High Mountain Oolongs between the Spring and Winter seasons. 

Meanwhile, enjoy a good cup of tea and have a great year in 2014!

Oolong Refresh/Roast Part II

Here are the rest of the tea roasting results from our Oolong Roast classes.

I had a bag of Alishan that had been open for too long. The tea base was good, but a little bit stale. I thought it would be fun to touch it up and see if I could get some of its original flavor to return. I found this to be the most challenging refresh roast. I refreshed this tea at 40C for one hour and the result was just exactly what I wanted! I tried it one more time using exactly the same method, but the tea didn't change much. Then I tried to refresh this Alishan with 40C for 30 minutes and then increased the heat to 50C for another 30 minutes. The tea tasted good, but a little roasted. Super sensitive tea!

Next, we tasted a Muzha Tieguanyin Maocha. I got this Maocha from Farmer Zhang last year. The tea base was very good and I had a great time roasting this one! I wanted to turn this Maocha into a very roasted Tieguanyin. I started with 40C for an hour. I increased the heat by 10 degrees every hour. I finished the roasting at 80C. The tea became a very roasted tea. How fun!

Some of you have sent your roasting results to me. Thank you!