Thursday, July 03, 2025

Spiritual-tea

In the beginning, god created the heaven and the earth.
And god said Let there be light and there was light. It was separate from darkness.
Much later, Lu Yu said, let there be tea and there was tea in the Tang kingdom. You shall brew tea with clean and boiling water.
People prepared tea with pure and boiled water. They drank the brew and liked it.
People saw that drinking tea was good. Tea satisfies your taste buds. It clears the mind and relaxes the soul.
Tea in the morning awakens you.
Tea with a meal helps digestion.
Tea with a friend replaces wine.
Tea at night scares bad spirits away.
Spring tea is full of freshness and flowery scents.
Summer tea captures sweet, delicate warmth.
Autumn tea is raw and rough.
Winter tea is mellow and harmonious.
Silver for green tea,
Porcelain for red tea,
Pottery for puerh,
Yixing Zisha for Oolong
These rules are meant to be broken by the free and adventurous.
Awaken the water with fire until it breathes shrimp eyes bubbles.
Control the flow of boiling water that leaves the kettle.
Aim for the leaves. Touch them all. Fast if they are rolled or compressed. Slowly otherwise. With a circular, infinite flow that ends like you end a passionate kiss.
Tea celebrates life and beauty.
Share tea with friends and family.
Express yourself when you make tea.
Each day brings a closer to our grave,
Even the darkest tea can be filled with light.
Live in the moment with tea.
Make the best of the accessories you have.
Choose the tea according to your mood.
Add a plant, whatever inspires you.
Create a harmonious and practical display.
Tea has a second life after the leaf is transformed.
Store your tea with care and patience.
You may be rewarded with liquid gold,
And a taste of paradise.
Trust in the wisdom of ancient tea masters.
Cherish the teapots, cups, kettles, bowls, cha tuo and plates from the past.
You are not their owner, just their custodian.
But do use them to resurrect their spirit.

Let us not love tea with words and speech alone, but with action and truth.
Seek not the most expensive, but the truthful tea. Tea with character.
Seek not the story, but the pure, divine aromas of the brew.
Seek not perfection in tea if you are not giving your best effort. 
Tea is about how much love, experience and skill you give.
Hear the call of the boiling kettle.
Smell the sweet woody fragrances from the jar.
Answer the call. Make tea. 
Be happy.
Note: I brewed my 1950s puerh in these pictures. I hope this post does it justice.

Tuesday, July 01, 2025

Les boissons (et surtout le thé) dans Pot-Bouille d'Emile Zola


Pot-Bouille est un mot peu employé de nos jours, à moins qu'il s'agisse d'argot parisien. Il a la signification de tambouille, de cuisine accommodée et pratique où l'on cuit ce que l'on a sous la main. Zola l'emploi de manière imagée pour décrire les mœurs amoureuses et sexuelles de la bourgeoisie parisienne. Les relations extra-conjugales sont mal vues, mais elles sont courantes car faciles. Dans ce roman qui parle des relations hommes-femmes, il n'est pas étonnant que la boisson romantique et sociale par excellence, le thé, figure en bonne position avec 17 mentions! Mais la palme d'or revient au café (29 mentions) plus deux pour le 'café au lait'. En troisième place, nous avons le vin (13 mentions), le champagne (5 mentions) et le liqueurs (5 mentions). Grog et vinaigre ont 3 mentions. Ces boissons-ci ont 2 mentions: sirop de groseille, eau sucrée, cognac, bock, punch, vermouth. Puis, comme nous sommes à Paris, dans un milieu bourgeois, nous avons une grande variété de boissons avec une seule mention: absinthe, rhum, tilleul, bouillon, madère, verveine, johannisberg, pichon-longueville, roederer, sparling-moselle, kummel (alcool au cumin), chartreuse, cassis, eau-de-vie, bordeaux, crus. En tout, cela fait 59 boissons non alcoolisées et 47 alcools pour un total de 106 boissons. Dans les boissons non alcoolisées, il faut faire une place à part à un breuvage amer et symbolique qui concentre en lui tout le roman: la honte! Je vous renvoie à Nana où j'ai réalisé que Zola distille souvent le sujet principal de ses romans en une boisson symbolique.

Ici, c'est le cas au chapitre XII: "Enfin, on ne se faisait point garder un frère pareil, qui aurait réduit un mari à l'impuissance, même dans les cas de la plus légitime indignation, et jusqu'à le forcer à boire sa honte."

Oolong de Da Yu Ling

Ainsi, la mère de Berthe fait ce reproche à sa fille adultère au chapitre XVI:

"- Devant Dieu! dit-elle, moi, je le jure que je me serais retenue, même si l'empereur m'avait tourmentée!... On y perd trop. (,,,) D'ailleurs, c'est la plus grande des hontes."

Cela n'empêche pas de nombreux personnages de coucher à droite et à gauche, mais ils respectent le onzième commandement (ils ne se font pas prendre) ou bien ils (les hommes) occupent une position sociale assez haute pour que la société ferme les yeux sur leurs agissements.


Mais revenons à notre boisson favorite et analysons les 17 mentions de thé dans cet ouvrage.

Il est la première boisson mentionnée au chapitre II: "Mais il ne fallait pas mettre la maison sur un pied supérieur à notre fortune. C'est votre maladie de recevoir et de rendre des visites, de prendre un jour, de donner du thé et des gâteaux..."

Mme Josserand rétorque à son mari: "Enfermez-moi tout de suite dans une boite. Reprochez-moi de ne pas sortir nue comme la main... Et vos filles, monsieur, qui épouseront-elles si elles ne voient personne."

Commentaire: Le thé est bien plus qu'une boisson. C'est un prétexte pour des relations sociales dont le but est de marier les jeunes filles.


Chapitre III: "Sans doute, son thé modeste ne valait pas leurs concerts à grand orchestre. Mais patience! quand ses deux filles seraient mariées, et qu'elle aurait deux gendres et leurs familles pour emplir son salon, elle aussi ferait chanter les cœurs."

Commentaire: La modestie de ce thé provient donc du faible nombre de convives et du manque de moyens déployés lors de la réception des invités.


Même chapitre: "- Maman, le thé est servi, dit Berthe, qui ouvrait avec Adèle les deux battants de la porte.

(...)

C'était, sur une nappe grise trop étroite, un de ces thés laborieusement servis, une brioche achetée chez un boulanger voisin, flanquée de petits fours et de sandwichs. Aux deux bouts, un luxe de fleurs, des roses superbes et coûteuses, couvraient la médiocrité du beurre et la poussière ancienne des biscuits. On se récria, des jalousies s'allumèrent : décidément, ces Josserand se coulaient pour marier leurs filles. Et les invités, avec des regards obliques vers les bosquets, se gorgèrent de thé aigre, tombèrent avec prudence sur les gâteaux rassis et la brioche mal cuite, ayant peu diné, ne songeant plus qu'à se coucher le ventre plein.

(...) Berthe s'empressait, offrant des sandwichs, portant des tasses de thé, demandant aux hommes s'ils voulaient qu'on les sucrât davantage.

(...) D'ailleurs, Octave dut lui paraitre froid, elle sentit que la coupe ne portait pas, elle se mit à l'épier d'un air d'inquiétude, pendant que Valérie et Mme Juzeur, qui en étaient à leur quatrième tasse de thé, examinaient la peinture avec de légers cris d'admiration.

(...) Justement, Berthe, souriante, se dirigeait vers Octave, une tasse de thé à la main. Elle continuait la campagne, elle obéissait à sa mère.

(...) Elle porta la tasse de thé à Auguste, avec le sourire qu'elle avait commencé pour Octave

(...) Pendant le thé, une des lampes s'était éteinte, répandant une odeur d'huile rance, et l'autre lampe, dont la mèche charbonnait, éclairait la pièce d'une lumière si lugubre, que les Vabre eux-mêmes se levèrent malgré les amabilités dont Mme Josserand les accablait."

Commentaire: Ce long passage nous montre comment fonctionne le thé. S'il est aigre, c'est qu'il n'est pas de bonne qualité, car le budget de la famille Josserand ne le permet pas. Il est intéressant de remarquer que le thé est accompagné de nourriture froide sucrée (la brioche et les gâteaux) et salée (les petits fours et les sandwichs). Et il y a même des fleurs, comme dans un Chaxi! Ce thé permet d'inviter plusieurs jeunes hommes célibataires et la tâche des jeunes filles de la maison est d'essayer de leur parler et de leur plaire lorsqu'elles servent le thé. Madame Josserand est le général qui repère les cibles et y dirige sa fille!


Chapitre IV: 

"Mais elle désirait du thé simplement ; et elle le commanda très léger et très chaud."

Commentaire: Octave vient d'essayer d'embrasser Valérie, une voisine dans son immeuble. Elle n'a pas eu envie de lui. Il s'attend à une scène, une longue explication, mais Valérie met fin à cet épisode en demandant un thé à sa domestique. Nous ne savons pas quel genre de thé elle boit, mais, pour une fois, on en apprend sur le style de l'infusion, 'léger'.

Chapitre V

"Les dames passaient dans la salle à manger, où le thé se trouvait servi.(...) 

Mais son sourire reparut, il accepta une tasse de thé que Berthe vint lui offrir, causa une minute avec elle pour couvrir de son caractère sacré le scandale de la fenêtre".

Commentaire: le service du thé a son cérémonial. Ou bien il vient à vous en ouvrant grand les portes aux mots de 'madame est servie', ou bien il faut passer dans une autre pièce pour le goûter.

Chapitre VII

"Il ne se sentait pas très bien en effet, et il se retira, sans vouloir attendre son beau-frère, qui venait de passer dans la salle à manger, où le thé classique était remplacé par du champagne."

Commentaire: Intéressant. A Taiwan, Teaparker déploie des efforts pour remplacer le vin par du thé dans l'accompagnement des plats. Durant le second Empire, le champagne pouvait remplacer le thé comme occasion sociale!

Chapitre XII

"Le mardi soir, après le diner, ils prirent une tasse de thé chez les Josserand, afin d'écarter les soupçons."

Commentaire: Le thé joue un rôle pour mettre femmes et hommes en contact, mais il peut aussi servir de couverture pour se voir en société, montrer qu'on s'ignore, et ainsi écarter les soupçons." 


Chapitre XVIII

"Le thé, ensuite, déroula le même défilé, promena les mêmes tasses et les mêmes sandwichs."

Commentaire: L'aspect répétitif du thé montre que c'est plus un rituel bourgeois qu'un plaisir.

Thursday, June 26, 2025

Hope for the future


2008 raw Banzhang gushu puerh
The recent conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, India and Pakistan, Israel and Iran remind us that we live in a troubled world. These terrible news take a toll on our peace of mind and tea can help to sooth our worries for mankind. Quietly focusing on the each step of the preparation has near meditative power. And when it results in a delicious cup of tea, we feel with all our senses that life is worth living! But today's post goes beyond! There are real reasons to hope for a more peaceful future. You won't hear them on the TV or in most social media posts. So, here we go!
First, let's acknowledge that man is both capable of cooperation for the good and for the bad. Our Paleolithic ancestors would hunt animals in groups to feed the tribe, but they could apply the same group hunting techniques to make war on other tribes. They could also barter, trade between tribes. Others were not necessarily enemies. They could become allies, additions to the family (through mating/marriage...) However, for most of its history, man played a zero sum game. When it comes to food, land, water, natural resources... what belongs to A doesn't belong to B. This made competition and conflict more likely. 
The good news is that the knowledge economy isn't based on physical goods anymore. It's based on knowledge, mostly bits and bytes in computer systems. They can be reproduced almost infinitely at almost no cost. In this new economy, man plays a game with positive outcomes. Unlike land or food, when we share our knowledge, we don't become poorer, but the person who receives it becomes richer!
This changes the dynamics of human interactions! Of course, the prerequisite is that basic needs are already covered. However, for advanced countries, this paradigm shift means that cooperation will make more sense than hostility. 
But the knowledge economy is also partially at work in lots of products that demand a lot of R&D. Because the more these innovative companies can sell worldwide, the more money they can spend on R&D. Smartphones are a good example. The cost of the raw material is low. What costs a lot is the R&D behind the latest chip design and manufacturing. But this cost is fixed and the more people purchase the phone, the cheaper it can become. 
Tea is also, in part, a new economy product. Why? 
Because it's incomplete. Tea requires brewing to fulfill its purpose of becoming a beverage. 
We have 2 cases:
1. The customer doesn't know how to brew the leaves he has purchased. He's therefore likely to make lots of mistakes when brewing the tea (no attention to the water, to the kettle, to the temperature, no preheating, poor choice of tea vessel, tea cups...). A lack of information about the plantation, the process, the character of the tea... might also lead to a lack of understanding on how to get the most out of the leaves.  

2. The tea will taste much better if the seller educates his customer and teaches how to brew using either a gaiwan or a dedicated Yixing teapot (and which is most suitable). He will also help make the experience more meaningful if he gives important information about the character of the mountain, the management style of the farmer, the date of harvest...  Now, thanks to YouTube, I can even make videos to show you how I brew my teas! All this information doesn't make me, the seller poorer, and it helps the customer increase the satisfaction from his tea. 

Note: also remember the principle 'Garbage in, garbage out.'! The more the knowledge matters, the more it's important to find a source one can trust, and to build up your own knowledge to verify it). If the story is too good to be true... 

I hope that you see why I'm confident for the future. Knowledge is key to leading a meaningful and high quality life. And sharing this knowledge makes the world richer while not taking anything away from us! By the way, this summer, I will contact the customer with the highest order each week and offer to interact with my on a video call. This will be an opportunity to help improve your technique, discuss the tea challenges you might have or talk about your tea way in general. I am looking forward providing this free service to the customers who trust in the quality of the teas I have selected for a 20th times this year! 

Friday, June 20, 2025

La pureté de la Beauté Orientale impériale


Beauté Orientale impériale de 2020
 On l'appelle aussi 'Wu Si Cha' (thé aux 5 couleurs) pour la variété des couleurs des feuilles sèches. Cet Oolong à forte oxydation est plus proche d'un thé rouge qu'un Oolong de haute montagne est proche d'un thé vert. Pourquoi?

Cette affirmation est surtout vraie pour les Beautés Orientales 'impériales', de qualité supérieure. Pour obtenir des arômes d'une extrême finesse, on les récolte très jeunes, au stade de bourgeon.


C'est la raison pour laquelle ce thé est alors appelé Bai Hao Oolong (Oolong à poil blanc). Cliquez sur la photo pour voir ce bourgeon de plus près.

C'est le même principe que pour les thés verts: récolter les feuilles les plus jeunes et tendres, quand un fin duvet blanc les recouvre. Les Oolongs de haute montagne, eux, ne sont pas récoltés si jeunes, mais on laisse leurs feuilles grandir et mûrir. C'est un principe de base qui définit la famille des Oolongs. Ces feuilles mûres sont plus difficile à transformer en Oolong que les bourgeons en thé vert.  
Avec la Beauté Orientale impériale, on a des feuilles de taille petite, mais aussi de taille un peu plus grande (c'est ce qui donne la variété de couleur). Le travail de ces feuilles n'est pas aussi aisé que dans le cas d'un thé rouge. Il ne s'agit pas d'oxyder totalement les feuilles, mais de trouver le degré d'oxydation qui fait le mieux ressortir les arômes des feuilles, leur degré de morsure des jassides tout en gardant une certaine fraicheur et finesse provenant de l'oxydation partielle. 
Ces Beautés Orientales de grade impérial, comme celui-ci de 2020, sont toujours issus de très micro récoltes (des lots de 3 à 10 kg), car il ne suffit pas de récolter jeune, mais il faut aussi que ces feuilles soient mordues pour que la Beauté Orientale soit d'excellente qualité. Cela explique la courbe de prix parabolique de ces thés plus rares que les grands Champagnes. D'ailleurs, on les appelle aussi 'Champagne Oolong' en plus de Dong Fang Mei Ren (OB) ou encore Peng Feng Cha (thé des vantards)!

La récolte de ces thés d'été ne vient que de commencer, mais comme ils nécessitent une légère torréfaction pour leur affinage, ils ne seront disponibles qu'à la rentrée, en septembre. Le mieux est de profiter de vos achats d'Oolongs de haute montagne du printemps 2025 pour ajouter l'OB impériale de 2024 dans votre panier. En effet, cette légère torréfaction est possible sur des feuilles suffisamment oxydées et permet au thé de se bonifier avec le temps.
Dans ces temps mouvementés, buvons du thé afin de garder la tête claire et de nous laisser guider par la beauté... orientale de Taiwan!

Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Snow Oolong, Da Yu Ling of spring 2025

DYL 95K, spring 2025
Snow Oolong is the name of any Oolong that experienced snow on its plantation in winter, before the spring harvest. Snow Oolong is reputed to be superior to regular Oolong, because the snow has a positive on the aroma of the leaves. I see 2 rational explanations for this, but I don't know which one is the most important, because they are somehow contradictory. One reason is that snow and cold help the trees to get in a state of profound winter sleep. This helps them preserve their energy for the spring. In this explanation, the snow and cold are signals to the trees to rest very deeply.
The second reason is that snow is a stress, like strong drainage on the mountain slopes, and that this stress causes the tea trees to react positively by overperforming. Like tea trees fighting the jassids' bite produce fragrant honey aromas, trees who had to overcome the stress of snow would produce more vibrant fragrances and deeper aftertaste. Or, maybe, it's a combination of both? First, the snow rests the trees longer and better, and then it stresses the trees more when the temperatures end up rising considerably within a few weeks in spring?!
This year we had a long cold spring that delayed harvests in Alishan and Shan Lin Xi. However, the harvest dates in FuShou Shan and Da Yu Ling in the Li Shan region, are quite similar to 2024. There, in the Li Shan area, the late winter snow and the normal harvest dates mean that the spring 2025 teas are 'snow Oolongs' that have grown without delay. 
 
I have only seen snow fall once in Taipei city in the 28 years I've lived on the island. And this snow melted away instantly at sea level. Snow is less unusual in Yang Ming Shan, the mountains north of Taipei (elevation 200 m to 1120 m). And in the Lishan region, there's snow on mount He Huan (3420 m) almost every winter. But the lower and more south you go, the less chance there is for snow on the tea plantations. So,  'snow Oolong' is not an automatic occurrence every spring, even in Lishan. And it's no guarantee that the Oolong will be exceptional. This spring's harvest season was quite rainy in Da Yu Ling. Picking the right day and time to harvest was a challenge and explains why quality can vary greatly from one batch to another..

The Da Yu Ling 95K I'm tasting in these pictures is an absolute beauty, though! I'm very pleased to drink it and be able to share it with you! Its fragrances are almost like perfume! Brewed in this gold plated silver teapot, the taste was pure as fresh snow! This blog also makes a good point why tourists don't find the best teas in the tea mountains
This spring 2025 gives us a rare and delicious opportunity to enjoy 'snow Oolongs' from DYL 104K, Fushou Shan and Tsui Feng! Enjoy them while supplies last...(These teas are just as rare as the finest Burgundy wines...)

Tuesday, June 03, 2025

L'histoire de Taiwan à travers le thé

On ne peut pas boire du Oolong de Taiwan sans en connaitre un peu l'histoire. C'est pour cela que je vous propose cette petite vidéo qui rappelle 3 moments clés de l'histoire de Formose au travers du thé:

Thursday, May 29, 2025

2025 Spring Oolong harvests

Chang Shu Hu top (Alishan)

One thing I learned in 20 years of selecting spring teas for my online boutique: every year is different! Two years ago, an early heat in late March 'burned' the Jinxuan Oolong in Alishan. The farmers were unable to make fresh Jinxuan, but the conditions improved in time for the Qingxin Oolong harvests. The year 2021 was so dry that water trucks had to bring water from the North to the Center of the island as the Sun Moon Lake almost completely dried up! 

This year, we had a very cold winter that lasted longer than usual in the spring. Fewer Dong Pian (= winter petal) Oolong were made during this cold winter. It even snowed on tea plantations in the Lishan area this winter. Snow helps the tea, because the trees require more energy to wake up from their winter sleep. Tea leaves behave quite human like. They give their best performance when they are subjected to some (reasonable) stress! Tea trees growing on slopes produce more concentrated aromas than leaves growing on flat surfaces (all other things equal). The slope means that water is drained faster and trees need to grow deeper roots to find water, thereby absorbing more nutrients. But too much stress can be fatal (as we saw with the example of Jinxuan).

So, this year's cold delayed the harvests and added a challenge for the farmers: the optimal harvesting period became shorter. Once it became warm, it was very warm. So, lots of plantations had to be processed almost at the same time.
Harvest in San Hsia (BiLuoChun)

This is a real challenge with a dwindling work force in the agricultural sector. How is it even possible? 20 years ago, I would see lots of old ladies slowly harvest tea in all the tea regions of Taiwan. They were used to this work from their youth on and continued to harvest until their 70s or 80s! But this low productivity generation is now retiring. They are replaced by young foreign labor from Vietnam or Thailand, both male and female, or by mechanical harvesting methods. Both the young labor and the machines work faster and can therefore pick the leaves from all the plantations in a shorter time.

The production side of tea has also adapted to a shrinking labor force. First, the preference for lighter oxidation has reduced the need for shaking and bruising the leaves. Fans have helped with the withering of tea. And the invention of a pressing machine (in cube shape) has also cut the manpower needed for rolling the leaves. A farmer has even added a solar and rain sensor in his courtyard during withering. If the sun is too strong, a sun blocking fabric deploys of the courtyard where the leaves are withering. And should the sensor feel it's raining, another plastic fabric deploys to prevent the rain from falling on the leaves.

These human and technological improvements were all first met disapprovingly by the purists and conservative forces in the industry. Indeed, if you look at a dry tea leaf today and compare it to one from 20 years ago, you may be able to see the evolution. But it was slow enough that most didn't see it or got used to it. And it had the benefit of bringing stable tea prices in a world where lots of agriculture products have seen their prices increase dramatically in the last 5 years. (If you wonder why your Taiwan teas purchased in Paris or NYC have increased, it's due to local rents and labor costs! You can save by purchasing directly from my boutique!)


My selection has also evolved a lot in these last 20 years. It's a mix of stability and change. With some farmers, regular visits have led to friendship as I could see the young generation slowly take over. The advantage is that they know my taste and see me as a long term partner. This means that I get some advantages. My BiLuoChun farmer, for instance, will let me know first when his first batch of the year is made. This helps me to select one of the best Taiwanese green tea, because freshness is the #1 factor for green tea quality. It took me 15 years until I got this favor from him! My farmer in Wenshan let's me try among a vast amount of Baozhongs until I find what I like! He's around 60 and his father was already a famous tea master. The variety of Baozhong is amazing. It may have lost some appeal since high mountain Oolongs have appeared, but if you want to explore the variations of cultivars, then every year I try to propose something new in this regard. 

Sticking with reliable and old tea partners has benefits, but life would be boring if one didn't try new sources and explored new farmers. Sometimes it leads to nothing, because the quality is inferior or just the same as  what I already have. But sometimes, often by chance, I meet a friendly guy working in his field or worshipping at a local Daoist temple during rain and end up tasting his excellent tea. That's how I meet the producer of my charcoal roasted Dong Ding Oolongs
Qilin pond in the Dong Ding region

This year also became special because I decided to make drone videos of all the tea plantations I visited! Taiwan farmers are improving productivity with technology. As a tea blogger, I also have to upgrade my services if I want to retain my readers' attention! The quality of the 4K videos is worth every penny, in my opinion. I love the spinning rocket shots when the drone flies over my head. Drinking good tea feels very much like flying over the tea plantation...