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!

Baozhong Farmer

Ever since I started to visit Pinglin for Baozhong tea, I've continued to have a special love for that place. I simply love the landscape there. It's so green and full of life, which makes me feel energized when I'm there. Usually when I talk about loving a place, a lot of my good memories include the people there that I know.

I was introduced to Baozhong Farmer Chen and his wife back in 2005. They graciously received and shared tea with us, as well as taking us to visit his tea farm. I still remember that day so well. At the time, I had not been back to Taiwan in a long time, so it was great to be in a place where I felt familiar with the food, customs, weather and the people. It was also a different trip that time. I went back with a new interest: tea.

That day was a usual humid and warm (28C) day for Taiwan. I greedily took in the air and was so excited to be in the hot climate. As we got out of his van, Farmer Chen led us to a winding dirt road that slowly crept up the hill. After 5 minutes of walking, he suddenly stopped and said, " Ah! I love this weather! It makes me sweat!"

After knowing him for over five years now, Farmer Chen strikes me as a very straight forward person. He is confident about what he knows and he won't pretend to know things that he doesn't. Once I asked him about his views on other teas. He told me he didn't know much about them, since he only makes Baozhong tea ( In recent years, he starts to make some Black tea and Oriental Beauty). His father was also a Baozhong farmer, so he learned the skills of tea making through his father and eventually took over the family business.

One time I was asking him about his aged teas and he brought out the aged Buddha Hand that I liked a lot (I am glad that some of you liked that tea a lot, too!) I asked him how old that Buddha Hand was and Farmer Chen told me "about 10 to 20 years." I burst out laughing so hard and said, " Mr. Chen, do you realize what you just said spans 10 years?" He looked at me with a smile and looked at his wife to see if she had an answer. He said, " To be honest, how can I keep track of those things?" We continued to drink tea and later I stood up to look around. I opened the container where they stored the aged Buddha Hand and found a note on the lid stating how old the tea was, with a date of their last roast as well. I said, "Mr. Chen! The tea is 18 years old" and showed him the lid. He smiled and said, "You see, I was right. 10 to 20 years old!"



Farmer Chen and his wife work on the farm together. Mr. Chen processes all of his teas himself and Mrs Chen helps. They own a retail shop on the main street in Pinglin so she spends a lot of time there, too. They have a son and he is in Taipei so that he can have "a better life" than farming. Tea making is very hard work. I asked Chen once if his son is interested in growing tea and he said no. I asked what is going to happen when he no longer can farm. He said he doesn't know. "Can you adopt me?" I asked. He answered with a smile, "Do you know how hard this is, Miss Tai?" "I can try. I am a very tough person." "I don't think you can do it." Mr. Chen replied (In the past, I have asked some farmers to adopt me so that I can learn more about tea, but I've always been rejected. How frustrating!)

We have carried Farmer's Choice Baozhong from Mr. Chen for five years. Each year, we have tried to find a Baozhong that has a heavier body than the competition style Baozhong, which is known for its strong floral notes. After I tried teas with Mr. and Mrs Chen last year and made my purchase decisions, I told Farmer Chen, "Mr. Chen, you are the farmer. You should be the one to choose 'Farmer's Choice Baozhong' for us." He stood up and came back with some tea leaves in his hand. I tasted a sip of that tea and looked at him with my eyes wide open, "Are you serious? This is not even Qingxin Oolong!" (Yes, I sounded snobby. What an impolite way to act towards a respected tea farmer!) He said, "Miss Tai, I am a farmer. I work on the fields all day. I don't have time to drink tea Gongfu style, so something with a big flavor is what I would drink as a farmer."

It is always a delight to spend some time with the Chen family. I am looking forward to many more years of my tea relationship with them.

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.