Brewing Da Yu Ling High Mountain Oolong Tea

When I was in Taiwan in May searching for Oolongs, I didn't notice that some of this past season's tea has a slight bitter taste in the back of my tongue. After I brought them back to Seattle, that mild hint of bitterness appeared in some of the new teas. I don't know why they had such a change. Perhaps just like humans, tea can change in new environments, too.

Many customers have tried this spring's Da Yu Ling and they've commented that this Da Yu Ling is sweet and complex, but not bold. They generally like this tea. A regular customer bought a bag of the Da Yu Ling, and after he tried it twice at home, he came to tell me that the tea had some bitterness to it. I was having tea with some friends at the teashop at that time and he didn't want to sit down to try the tea that I was brewing. I asked him to come back again and to bring the regular pot he uses for high mountain teas and with that pot, we could brew the tea together. He gladly accepted the invitation.

My customer showed up with his pot later in the week. He brewed the tea in his pot the way he is accustomed to and I brewed the same tea in a gaiwan. The first three infusions from his pot were overwhelmingly bitter. He tasted mine and told me that the bitterness was there, but it was not offensive. I laughed and said,"no wonder you didn't like this tea. It's too bitter the way you brew it!" He justified by saying," I think this tea is interesting. The flavor changes throughout the infusions and it can last for 7 infusions. This tea is not boring at all. I just don't like the first three brewings." I laughed again and told him that it was not good enough. He was very intrigued by the tea's different taste when brewed in a gaiwan compared to his pot, though. My point was to ask him to give this tea a chance.

Alone in the teashop one afternoon, I found that I was in the mood to drink Da Yu Ling. I took out a yixing pot and put in a lot more tea leaves than usual. I brewed it for about 20 to 25 seconds (I noticed that customer timed his tea 20 to 25 seconds). It was really good! I wish he was there at the time to try the tea. It had full body and was full of flavors. The slight bitterness was there, but it was not offensive at all. I enjoyed that tea until the last drop of many brewings.

My customer came again afterwards. I asked him if he could bring his pot over so that we could brew the same tea in two different pots, and he accepted the second invitation again.

This time, we were pretty scientific about the brewing. We measured the pots and the leaves. My pot is just little bit smaller than his. He used around 10.2 grams of tea and I used 10 grams. He timed the 20 seconds of brewing time and I added two to three more seconds. It turned out again that the tea from my pot was not as bitter as his. He insisted it was still too bitter and I respected what he was tasting. I told him with a sincerity that I liked the tea. I told him that in Taiwan, many people brew tea even stronger than what we did that day, and they would brew it to just the "right edge". Their tea tastes bitter, but it was normally full body and the Hua Gan(sweetness turns back to the throat) and a sweet taste will appear at the mouth. People like interesting changes like this. He told me it was the first time he ever heard of Hua Gan and he couldn't "sense" it. But it was interesting for him to learn new things.

Shui Xian from Taiwan

This is the first time that Floating Leaves is selling the Shui Xian varietal of tea from Taiwan. I didn't have a chance to meet the farmer who made the tea, but I was happy that I got a chance to see where it was grown.

The current farmer actually doesn't own the farm. I will call him Shui Xian farmer because I forgot to ask for his name! What had happened was that Mr. Den, who knows everyone, passed by the farm one day and noticed that the farm looked like it had been unattended for some time. He was curious and went to look for the owner of the tea farm. Den discovered that the owner has passed away.

One day Den visited the Shui Xian farmer and told him about the farm. The Shui Xian farmer told Den that it was such a waste for the tea fields to be unattended, and said that he would like to take care of the farm. Den was excited and told the farmer he would look for the children of the owner. He found them and told them the proposal. They were happy that someone else wanted to grow tea because they were not interested at all.

My friend, Mr. Tsai, told me that the Shui Xian farmer works very hard and he is a believer of organic farming. He doesn't use chemicals to kill weeds and uses organic methods to fertilize the tea trees.

If you are curious about what this Taiwanese Shui Xian tastes like, please visit Brett's (Black Dragon Tea Bar) BLOG ARTICLE, where he has kindly reviewed the tea.

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!

Pinglin Trip, Part One

After my Dong Ding trip, my head was still thinking about Farmer Lin. I couldn't stop thinking about what he said to me, "When you drink a tea, can you tell if it is a good tea?" I was confused with what exactly I was looking for in the tea learning.

My friend, Mr. Tsai, met me and Konghai outside of the subway in Hsin Dien. Today he was going to take us to Pinglin. Before we went to see Farmer Chen, he told me that we were going to meet his friend, Mr. Den, and Den was going to take us to see the farmer who made our Shui Xian Oolong. We met Den at the Shui Xian farmer's farm. My heart got lighter because there was so much greenness in that area. Den was taking pictures when we arrived. He told us that the farmer was not at home at this moment. We would go to his house later to see if he was back. That was so Taiwanese-style. Friends or neighbors just show up at your door without an appointment. I sometimes miss that way of living.

Den told me that those tea plants in front of me were Shui Xian varietals and the farmer used organic farming methods to take care of the plants. They had really large size leaves compared to the more popular Taiwanese varietals.

Den told us we should go to another farmer's place to say hi (I didn't think he made any appointments with that farmer either). We showed up in front of a typical three-story apartment-type building. The farmer, his wife, three young babies, and the farmer's parents lived there together. When we showed up, they were all very friendly. Den told him that we would like to try some of his teas. He immediately put water on the stove. In no time, his mother came out with a huge plate of really juicy looking watermelon.

After the first pot of Jin Xuan varietal Baozhong, he asked me what I liked to drink. I told him if he had any Baozhong with a nice round mouth feel and yet heavy body. He left and came back with some different looking leaves. He told me that it was made from Da Yeh(Big Leaf) varietal. The tea liquid did have a heavier feel to it. Sometimes when I said I wanted something heavier, people would think I wanted it to be brewed heavier, too. I asked the farmer if Baozhong was like this 15 years ago. He smiled and said:"Oh no, tea at that time was even heavier than this." I asked him why he stopped making tea like that. He smiled again and told me that nobody wanted tea like that. I said, "that's not true. I am interested in that." In my brain, I was asking myself if tea at that time really tasted better. We said thank you and went on to see Farmer Chen.

Dong Ding Trip, Day II

I woke up early today and decided to look around on my own. It was still misty and not too hot. The tea farms around the house looked pretty well taken care of. I thought those must be Lin's farms. When I looked closer, I found there were many different varietals of tea plants. I went through each farm and looked very closely at the shapes of the tea leaves. I didn't know that farmers in Dong Ding chose to grow many different varietals.

I ran back to Farmer Lin's house. His wife saw me and asked me to sit down and have breakfast. I told her that I was not hungry and asked him why there were many different tea plants, and asked him if he could show me how to identify each one of them. He said, "Why do you want to know the varietals? The point is to taste a tea and tell if the tea is good or not. Our ancestors brought us soft stem Oolong. It's the best." Later my mother and Konghai got up so we had breakfast together. Mrs Lin knows her husband well. She asked me if I needed to take anything for Konghai and she could help me. I knew she was going to show me the tea plants. I asked her if she could help me on the stroller.

I told Mrs. Lin that I will learn as much as I can and I am grateful that her husband spent so much time with us and showed us around. She showed me some tea plants, picked different leaves for me and told me what they were. On the way back to her house, I was thinking why I needed to tell the differences of tea leaves. I was thinking about his words: "When you drink a tea, can you tell if it is good?"

I asked them that I wanted to try a couple of teas that I had yesterday to confirm which one I liked the most. In the end, I was debating on two of the teas. Mrs Lin could tell. She told me," I think you should buy..." Mr. Lin said" You can't tell her which one she should buy. She has to learn how to experience a tea. She has to choose for herself." I didn't feel bad at all with what he said. He is right. I am the one who decides which tea tastes the best to me. After sampling the teas, he told me that he wanted to show me the neighborhood.



I was very happy to walk around. Farmer Lin took me to his own farm. He told me that there were not many farms left and that people were lazy. They went to do different things and tried to make money faster. We went to a hill and saw tea brushes here and there. He told me that those were wild teas and they made delicious tea. Many of the leaves were already bitten by bugs. We picked some leaves and they already had a very sweet aroma. Later we went by a farm that grows soft stem Oolong. We picked some leaves, too and I compared the fragrance between the soft stem and wild leaves. Both of them smelled very good, but the wild leaves had stronger aroma.

In the evening, I asked him if he had any aged tea. He told me yes and was thinking about whether or not he wanted to sell me any. He eventually sold me a bag without letting me taste it.

My mother doesn't really drink tea, but she told me that she could tell they had good tea. She asked me which one she should buy. I told her my opinions. She went to them and wanted to buy the one I said. Mr. Lin told her not to buy that tea. He said," Your level of tea learning is not as high. You wouldn't fully appreciate the quality of that tea. Your daughter can tell. That's why I sold her that tea. You should choose this one." He went to pull out a bag of tea and sold my mother a tea that he thought she would be able to appreciate.

After I left Dong Ding, I was felt pretty sad. One thing to make me sad was Dong Ding is not producing much tea anymore. People make tea elsewhere and call it Dong Ding. Another thing was that I felt Mr. Lin was living in the past. Even though he didn't teach me direct tea knowledge , he taught me tea spirit. I was thankful that I got to know him. Like what he said, it is an affinity to get to know a person and to get to share tea.

I am back to Seattle!

I had a great trip to Taiwan and I am back to share the tea that I found.

For the unique varietals, I found a Buddha's Hand, a Taiwan Wuyi, and a Shei Shan. All of these teas have enough body, a nice mouth feel, and distinctive taste. For Baozhong, I purchased Farmer's Choice and Honorable Mention from Farmer Chen. There will be no first place this year, but you will get a chance to taste it at our Baozhong tea tastings.

There is also a selection of Dong Ding and Tieguanyin teas; some of them are very low in quantity. Both of these teas have full mouth feel.

For the high mountain teas, I chose a Shanlinxi, one Lishan, one Dayuling, and one Hehuanshan. This spring, the high mountain tea is gentler and has a softer body than previous winter teas. For the Alishan lovers, I'm sorry, but I couldn't t find one that was good enough to bring it back for you to drink. There is also an aged Buddha's Hand produced in 1991 and possibly an aged Tieguanyin.

In a couple of days, I will post some of these new teas on the website and offer you some tasting notes. Please keep an eye out for our upcoming newsletters for a series of tea tastings.

See you all very soon for new and age teas.

2009 Spring Taiwan Wuyi

The new Spring 2009 Taiwan Wuyi Oolong arrived yesterday. As some of you already know, I prefer a simple comparison style when reviewing teas, so here are my notes comparing the previous season's Taiwan Wuyi and this season's:

This Spring's Taiwan Wuyi is not as roasted compared to last season's. However, it has a nicer mouth feel and it feels cleaner. I haven't been able to consistently get the flavor to come out 100%, but aside from that, I consider this is a well balanced tea. It has more aftertaste, too. And this tea will stand up to a long soaking.

I talked to Mr. Tsai last night, one of my tea producers, to see why he finished this Taiwan Wuyi the way it it. He told me that after he tried the raw tea, he really enjoyed the way it tasted and felt, so he wanted to keep it as original as possible. I told him that some people might prefer this tea a bit more roasted. He said that he kept a bag of Mao Cha for me to try. After I try it, I can decide if I want to have the tea more roasted than this.

I will give you some reports after I meet him and see what we are going to do with this tea. Come in and try this tea before I leave for Taiwan this coming Wednesday and let me know what you think!

Don't forget that since I'm leaving this Wednesday to buy the new season's tea, all of the Winter 08 Oolongs are on sale = 30% off. Yes, that's THIRTY percent off until they've all sold out. Orders that come in while I'm away will be processed upon my return.

Spring Tea Harvest

I just talked to a tea friend in Taiwan. He told me that he tried some high mountain teas and they are all pretty good! My friend said that the early-harvest teas may only be average due to the lack of rain earlier this year, but after that dry period, the rain kicked in and there have been many sunny days since.

I am so excited to hear this. I will be in Taiwan from May 14th to May 27th to taste this season's teas! Both the tea shop and the online shop will be closed, so stock up your tea and wait for me to come back.

By the way, all of last season's teas are discounted. Everything from the winter season is on sale now.

I will do my best to give you tea news when I am in Taiwan. Let's see what kind of special teas I can pick up, too!