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Bama Yao Shen Yan Cha

August 13, 2011 – 1:14 pm

Updates recently have been quite sporadic since I’m on a grand trip right now.

So recently I went to Bama in the Guangxi Autonomous Region of China. Guangxi is famous for beautiful mountain landscapes, caves, lush forests and winding rivers that have served as inspiration for artists for centuries. There is nothing like a cloud ramming into a Guangxi mountain as you can see from my amateur photography.

I also got some tea (of course) from Bama. The people of Bama County are very proud of three things; first is their elderly, there are about 60 centenarians in Bama and they attribute their longevity to the other two things. Second is their beautiful clean environment, untouched by industrialized China. Thirdly is their agricultural produce, and the lovely food packaging in tourist shops really show that.

Now on with what the tea there is like. While I was there I drank a lot of smoked tea but this particular tea here is Bama Yao Ye Sheng Yan Cha (Bama Yao Wild Mountain Tea). Supposedly picked by Yao people, not on a tea plantation, but in the mountains where tea grow wild. My Chinese is pretty bad so don’t quote me, however I’m pretty sure about how it tastes.  The leaves are very green, raw looking almost and very gnarly.

The taste of the plain leaves is bitter and raw, with a mangoey tang. No really, it’s pretty mangoey, coincidently I also bought a whole box of Bama mangoes! Guess what it taste like? You guessed right, green tea!

With an aftertaste and scent of sweet mangoes.

I’m not a scientist but I get the impression the dirt in Bama must taste like mangoes or something, because their mangoes are also superb. The leaves afterwards look like plain wet leaves, so again very green, very fresh looking. Aside from the mango taste and smell, there isn’t anything particularly good or abnormal about the taste, you could mistaken it for mango scented green tea. It does have a numbing affect similar to Chrysanthemum tea if you love that feeling.

So if you love mangoes, Bama Yao Wild Mountain Tea is your cup of tea. They cost about 45 Renmenbi (Chinese money), which is about $6 for 120 grams. However, I’m not actually sure about the availability of this tea outside of Bama. I’ve done a little wittle googling and I can’t find this particular label though you can order wild Guangxi tea online.

Next post will be about my beloved tea vessel of choice.

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Lapsang Souchong Star

July 30, 2011 – 7:12 am

 

There’s a funny story behing Lapsang Souchong type tea as well. Back in the Qing Dynasty the tea growing Wuyi Mountains in Fujian province were occupied by Manchuan forces in the mid 1600′s. Luckily some farmers were tipped of by other villagers running and fleeing for their lives. Eager not to lose the year’s harvest to plundering soldiers the farmers hid their fresh picked tea leaves in caves in the mountains. Once the soldiers passed by they went back to retrieve their tea.

Not surprisingly, but sadly all the same, they found a lot of their tea has gone bad and the few that remained had to be quickly fired. In their haste they fired the surviving leaves above pinewood fires and quickly rolled the leaves. The final result was considered a failure to the farmers. These leaves were quite unlike Chinese tea. They were black, charred and smelled of smoke, but they brought it down to the Guangzhou markets anyways where it was found by Dutch Traders who went crazy over the stuff. They offered to pay twice the amount of money for the new style of tea than they usually spent on traditional black tea.

Now most people describe the smell like Middle Eastern Tobacco, fine cigars or single malt Whiskey. I have no clue what those things actually smell like, so my experience tells me it smells like Yves Saint Laurent Opium. That’s a perfume, not a fancy french narcotic. It’s very smokey, exotic, comforting, and a little sexy.

Taste wise it’s also very smokey and not as heavy in the bitter department as other black teas. After the second brew of this particular one from David’s Tea it gets a little watery.

Tip: Lapsang can be used to add fragrance to other teas like Earl Grey. If you want a more powerful scent and brew try Lapsang from Taiwan.

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David’s Tie Kwan Yin

July 22, 2011 – 2:17 am

Hey everyone, went to China so because of how hectic things have been lately I will only be updating once every two weeks. I’m going to Yunnan province soon and hoping to try some Pu-erh in its own home province. Pu-erh is specifically by official standards fermented tea from the Yunnan province in China and has a very distinctive taste. Like wine, it better with age.

But meanwhile read this post about a Chinese classic. Tie Kwan Yin. I missed placed the photos for this.

Tie Kwan Yin actually has a legend attached to it. Once upon a time, there was a poor farmer, but deeply religious. One day he found an abandoned temple with a iron statue of the Goddess of Mercy, Guan Yin (Kwan Yin is a more archaic translation). He didn’t have money for repairs but swept the temple and burnt some incense form his home. The Goddess impressed by his devotion sent him a dream telling him to look in the cave behind the temple. There he found a single tea sprout. He took the sprout and began growing it on his farm, soon he and all his neighbours were prospering from the offspring of this plant and Tie Guan Yin (Iron Goddess of Mercy or Iron Bodhavista) was born.

What makes Tie Kwan Yin different from other oxidized oolongs is the process, which is no less than 18 steps long and include quite a few “and repeat.” This process is known to yield a slightly fruity bitter tea. If you don’t like bitterness in your tea, don’t try it. Depending on how long you steep it, sometimes the taste can be so strong the air will taste like sugar. It’s also known for being resilient, a good quality Tie Guan Yin can go for 10 steeps or even 20. Cantonese styled restaurants always have it in stock. I grew up on this stuff.

Now on the the actual David’s Tea Tie Kwan Yin is a rather satisfactory Tie Kwan Yin. But just satisfactory. It’s bitter enough, complex enough, tinge of sweetness and hint of sour, what you would find in a restaurant. Except for a heftier price. $17 for 100g.

Okay, really, you can get just as good Tie Kwan Yin at Lau Sun Mou’s for $72 a pound, mostly because they have no marketing BS whatsoever and the owner doesn’t speak English. But if you get Tie Kwan Yin at around the $50-$80 a pound range in any Chinese store it’s essentially the same taste. But really Lau Sun Mou is where my family personally go for their everyday tea supply, they won’t a lot of black and non-Chinese teas though.

Next Week: Lapsang Souchong, the tea with a smokey aroma.

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David’s Darjeeling Blend

July 7, 2011 – 5:41 pm

David's Tea Darjeeling

There is only type of black tea I have been actually consume straight without complaining. Darjeeling. Grown in the high mountains of the Darjeeling region of India, the history of this tea involves years of experimentation and espionage. After years and years of failure by the British to grow smuggled tea seeds from China on Indian soil Dr. Arthur Campbell, the superintendent of the local sanatorium, manage to grow a Chinese tea plant in India. The secret was the mountain climate.

This tea, David’s Darjeeling Blend was definitely more fragrant than David’s Organic Breakfast (I need to stop ripping on that), it’s taste is fuller in terms of complexity, it is more bitter, fruity and a wisp of smokiness to it. It has that ‘muscatel’ taste to it. However, this is another one of David’s blends. On the website I like how they say ‘the season’s best’ and not mention what season this was actually picked. I’m untrained in this dimension of drinking tea, but I know this must not have come from the early season 1st flush which is generally the best. The taste itself isn’t that much better per say than a Twinning’s tea bag, however being a full leaf tea you can actually steep it for more than one cup and it will retain it’s flavour and won’t have that icky taste at the bottom of the cup.

All in all, it’s not a tea I can complain about. It costs more than the Breakfast tea but it’s definitely better. At $8.00 for 50g, I would say it’s a good buy for someone who wants to try Darjeeling but doesn’t want to go all out on first flush Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe top grade stuff.

Another interesting note about Darjeeling, though historically classified as a black, most Darjeeling are actually just dark oolongs. The distinction between black and green tea was not widely known at the time of Darjeeling’s conception.

Next Week: A Chinese classic, Tie Kwan Yin, or Iron Goddess of Mercy.

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David’s Bai Hao Yinzhen

July 1, 2011 – 10:02 pm

I’m going to China soon, so in celebration I’m reviewing this tea from David’s Connoisseur pack. Bai Hao Yinzhen, a white tea, a tea of the Emperors.

David's White Tea Bao Hao Yinzhen

For those of you who don’t know what the hell Bai Hao Yinzhen is, you’ll notice the leaves are quite interesting. They’re fuzzy. This comes from a specific type of tea bush with hairs that grows in the Chinese Fujian province. These leaves aren’t exactly leaves but buds of leaves. White tea is considered ritzy shit in China, why?

This stuff is known to be oozed on by Emperors during the Tang Dynasty and hailed as a rarity only the rich Imperials could afford. The price of white tea these days…are not that steep, if you want stuff hand plucked by virgins (which totally exist) then you might be looking at and arm and leg. However these days because of new methodologies and technology you can find white tea in many shops quite easily. This specific tea, Bai Hai Yinzhen or Silver Needle as it is known in English, is the most traditionally produced white tea.

Now what does this thing actually taste like? Well lets start with the smell. It smells like chocolate raspberries. I’m not joking. Chocolate raspberry. It’s like opening a Cadbury fruit bar. There is no flavouring or scent on the buds, this is just how white tea rolls. The taste is also fruity and sweet. I really enjoyed it. It lasts for several steeps as well. And for you health nuts out there, the list of health benefits supposedly attach to this is bigger than green tea’s. It’s $20 per 50 grams but it just might be worth that money in how much tea it makes.

Also if you like teas with nutty aftertaste, chew this dry. Also don’t fret if they don’t seem to fully open, these are very immature leaves so they just don’t ‘open’ in the normal sense.

While I’m in China I won’t have access to Twitter or Facebook so much obliged if you subscribe to the RSS or come back once a week for me :D

Next Week: Trying to finish off the David’s pack, Darjeeling Blend.

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