1 day 1 tea: Last day of the November challenge

Day 30: Heavily roasted Oolong from Dong Ding, 1979. (This aged Oolong isn't available in my selection anymore).

My November challenge comes to an end and I've made it: I have posted 30 days in a row! That's as much as in the 5 preceding months combined!! Thanks to this month, the number of posts this year is already guaranteed to increase dramatically compared to previous years. It might even reach 100 posts. Last time it did was in 2016. And back then, I wasn't producing video tea classes!

I hope that this November challenge will provide some insight into my daily brewing practice and maybe give you some inspiration for your own. I think there are interesting lessons to be drawn from this challenge. 

First, it's not a coincidence that the challenge would take place in November. Autumn can feel quite depressing and sad for many people. The days are getting shorter, we get less sunshine, less warmth. This year's news has been particularly sad and oppressing since October 7th. If you don't have a job that requires your attention, it's easy to drift towards dark thoughts. A difficult but doable challenge helps you to focus your mind on a positive project that depends on you to complete. It requires action and leads to daily accomplishments. Indeed, you sleep better if you have completed the task you have given yourself. 

And in the case of making a daily Chaxi, the rewards are almost infinite:

- creative with the setup,

- artistic with the pictures,

- peaceful with the quiet time,

- delicious with the taste of the tea,

- emotional with the way the tea echoes your inner feelings,

- harmonious with the way the tea accessories are well chosen for the tea.

- personal with the memories the tea brings about.

etc...

You might also have noticed that I was able to alternate the teas I brewed and just repeated the Da Yu Ling 104K. I brewed the fresh high mountain Oolongs in the first part of November, when the weather was still hot and progressively turned to darker teas. Choosing the right tea at the right time has a lot to do with catching the mood of the moment. And our mood changes all the time! That's why I didn't plan these teas in advance, but selected them on the spot. 

Thanks again for reading my tea blog! I wish this challenge provided hope, beauty and inspiration for you as well!

Let me also remind you that on top of my regular promotions and free sample and free shipping (above 100 USD) and free ebooks (above 60 USD), I'm giving away Chabu, cups, a jazz CD by Oded Tzur, a white tea cake and Le Livre du thé. The highest 2 orders get one of these gifts every day. The others get an additional surprise tea sample. Everybody who places an order receives a gift until December 22:

1 jour 1 thé: jour 29 Baozhong 2019 torréfaction haute

Jour 29: Wenshan Baozhong de torréfaction haute, printemps 2019

Samedi dernier, un tiers de ma promotion de mon école de commerce (ICN, Institut Commercial de Nancy) s'est retrouvé à Nancy pour fêter les 30 ans depuis notre diplôme. Grâce à Zoom, j'ai pu leur faire un coucou depuis Taiwan et voir comment la plupart avait plus ou moins vieilli et plus ou moins changé. A cette occasion, j'ai aussi pu revoir des photos et des vidéos de l'époque. Que d'excellents souvenirs, car notre vie étudiante fit la part belle aux projets de groupe, au travail en équipe, afin de nous préparer au monde de l'entreprise et du management. Nous arrivions épuisé par 8 mois de prépa HEC intenses et compétitifs. Et soudain, la scolarité prit fin et la formation au marketing, à la finance, à l'entrepreneuriat... débuta! Ces 4 ans allaient changer ma vie...   

Pour commémorer ces 4 années d'études supérieures, j'ai choisi ce Wenshan Baozhong torréfié qui vient de fêter ses 4 ans! J'aime sa douceur mélancolique et ses senteurs chaleureuses qui me font penser à un Cognac! D'ailleurs, j'appris que l'un de mes anciens camarades s'est lancé dans la production de cet alcool en Charente après avoir été dans la marine pendant 20 ans! J'y vois là l'envie de créer des produits de qualité, issus d'un terroir de caractère, et capables de traverser le temps en se bonifiant! 

30 ans après la fin de nos études, qu'avons-nous bâti, exploré, appris et transmis? La plupart d'entre nous avons encore une bonne dizaine d'année devant nous avant de contempler la retraite. Mais comme certains très bons thés et très bons vins, la renommée vient parfois sur le tard. Qui aurait pu prévoir que les puerhs des années 1980/90 atteignent de tels sommets de nos jours? Et ce n'est pas fini! Les puerhs centenaires s'achètent à près de 2000 USD aux enchères! Les milliardaires chinois collectionnent autant les grands crus classés de Bordeaux, les Bourgogne de Romanée-Conti et les vieux puerhs!

Ainsi, mon parcours professionnel m'a à la fois éloigné du monde des affaires en me passionnant pour la culture du thé, mais elle m'a aussi permis d'acquérir une collection de feuilles de camellia sinensis qui rivalise en qualité celle de grande majorité des milliardaires Chinois et Taiwanais! Je pourrais m'amuser à calculer la valeur financière de ma collection si je voulais me sentir riche comme Warren Buffett ou Charles Munger (paix à son âme)! Mais cela n'a pas vraiment de sens, car je compte bien déguster la plupart de ces feuilles avec mes proches et mes amis amateurs de thé!

Car la vraie richesse, comme nous l'avons appris à l'ICN, ce sont les hommes et les femmes, surtout ceux qui sont animés par une passion, des envies, des ambitions, une énergie... la vie, quoi! Et de ce point de vue, je suis vraiment gâté par mon travail, certes souvent solitaire, mais qui me permet d'être en contact avec tant de gens passionnants et passionnés: des artistes, des écrivains, des journalistes, des joueurs de musique, des céramistes, des professeurs à Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, des maitres de yoga, de qi gong, des entrepreneurs, des œnologues, des peintres, des informaticiens... 

Ce Wenshan Baozhong torréfié a obtenu son diplôme d'excellence après 4 ans et est bien parti pour se bonifier les 30 prochaines années! Je le dédie aussi à mon fils et ma fille qui sont tous deux étudiants actuellement. Je leur souhaite autant de bons moments et de belles rencontres que moi durant mes études (c'est ainsi que j'ai rencontré leur mère!)

Et si vous avez besoin de faire un break, de vous ressourcer ou tout simplement envie de déguster de très bonnes feuilles, n'hésitez pas à passer commande sur tea-masters: J'offre des cadeaux supplémentaires jusqu'au 22 décembre.

1 day 1 tea: day 28, OB tradition

Day 28: Oriental Beauty Oolong tradition from Hsin Chu, summer 2023.

I'm brewing this tea with my iron cast tetsubin. (If you wish to know the benefits of this kind of kettle, watch my latest tea class on the subject! It is popular and educative.)

Last week, I tasted the imperial OB, which has finer and more perfume like scents (and costs much more!) But it's also possible to get exquisite, out-of-the-world scents with the OB tradition. For this, you have to be as smooth and as quick as a cat hunting a bird or a mouse.

First, be very gentle smooth and gentle. Preheat the gaiwan slowly. Make sure the lid is preheated as well. Pour the hot water to preheat the cups then. Without a sound. Be completely quite. If the water falls from too high, it will make noise and a splash. This would disturb your concentration and we need to be laser focused on getting the first brew right. You only have one shot to get the first aromas from the leaves right.

Put the leaves in the gaiwan evenly. Wait for the water in the kettle to calm down a bit. You don't want the water to rush out. It should flow slow and smooth on the leaves directly from a short height. Close the lid. Empty the cups filled with hot water. Observe the color of the water getting slightly darker. Now, go! Empty the gaiwan in the cups. The trick is not to wait too long, but to brew the leaves rather lightly for the first brew. And never EVER rinse these leaves!! The most fabulous scents are in this very first brew. So, were you agile like a cat? Did you catch the perfume? If you were too fast, you may have a second chance. 

The next brews are quite sweet and warming with nice fruity fragrances, but they don't have the 'Whaooh' factor of imperial OB or of the first brew. What I like is its balance between the scents and the taste. The traditional roast on this OB adds a refinement and harmony that is lacking in modern OBs that try too much to smell great, but don't have a smooth taste. With this tradition OB, the color and transparency are proof of high quality and purity. (I also help by selecting a single batch of OB instead of a mix of several days' harvests). 

These traditional OB leaves get better with time (especially if they are well preserved in a porcelain jar and in a clean, dry and cool place). They carry the summer heat of Taiwan and bring us warmth when we need it most.

On a cold Advent day, this is a great tea to pair with Christmas cookies! Its sweet taste works better than a tea that is too fragrant and whose 

1 jour 1 thé: jour 27

Jour 27: thé Da Yeh rouge de la côte Est de Taiwan, printemps 2021. 

La période de l'Avent a officiellement débuté. Un chant traditionnel allemand dit que "les cloches ne sonnent jamais avec autant de douceur sucrée que durant la période de Noël"! Si l'on peut associer un son à du sucre, alors il doit aussi être possible d'associer le goût d'un thé sans sucre à de la douceur. Or, ce sont les thés rouges, entièrement oxydés, qui ont les saveurs les moins vives et les plus chaleureuses. Ces thés permettent aussi de bonnes associations avec les petits gateaux de Noël et autres desserts sucrés.
Ce thé rouge Taiwanais est l'un de mes préférés. Il vient d'un producteur pionnier dans cette famille de thé à Taiwan. De plus, il s'inspira du procédé de cultuure des Beautés Orientales et bannit les pesticides afin de favoriser les morsures de Jacobiaso Formosano Paoli et des saveurs mielleuses. Cela explique son goût particulièrement doux. Et comme ce fermier torréfie bien son thé, il continue de s'affiner et de gagner en profondeur. 

Cette nappe de table à thé (Chabu) aux couleurs de Noël n'est pas sur mon site, mais si vous voulez le commander, envoyez-moi un e-mail!.

1 day 1 tea: day 26, puerh gushu from Yiwu, 2003

Day 26: Wild Yiwu qizi bing cha, spring 2003.

This tea had to be in my November review challenge! Why? Because it's the first puerh I have collected, 20 years ago. If you have followed my blog for a while, you will already have seen this puerh brewed. It has also sentimental value, because I purchased a tong as a gift to mark his birth year. In the meantime, he has reached 20. He's too busy with his studies to drink tea, so I continue to watch over his tong, and drink from my stash!

The color is quite similar to the puerh I had on day 24, because they are about the same age, but it feels a little bit more energetic, probably because the leaves have been pressed into a cake. This time, I'm using a tiny Yixing zisha teapot to show that puerh can also be enjoyed in very small quantities.

The fact that I'm still drinking this tea with pleasure 20 years after first tasting shows that the tea lessons I received were not in vain. They helped me better understand what would improve with time and what not. Buying for drinking now or buying for the long term are quite different. In the second case, one has to be much more careful and knowledgeable.

1 day 1 tea: Day 25

Day 25 of my November Challenge. Tonight, I chose the day with the most meaning on this 49th day since October 7th. In the Chinese tradition, 49 days (7 weeks of 7 days) marks the conclusion of a cycle of mourning (there's another at 100 days and another after 1 year). The goal of my November is to celebrate life, beauty and tea with my daily Chaxi. I started to feel depressed with all the news of death, torture, bombings coming from Israel and Gaza. I had to do something, even if it's just to keep my sanity. The best I can do is to make tea, so that's why I embarked on this marathon. One rule in tea is not to speak about politics. It's divisive and there are more suitable forums or occasions. Tea is a time of truce and I'm glad that this post would coincide with the fragile truce we're in.

But if a tea should not be political, it should be personal in order to have a deeper meaning. My grandparents' hometown, Landau in Germany, is also the hometown of Anne Frank's grandfather, Michael Frank. Landau had a large and vibrant Jewish community and it's now gone following the November pogroms of 1938 and the Holocaust. My 3 months stay in an Israeli kibbutz in 1994 only increased my personal connection to Israel. 

1932 was the last year of peace for Jews in Landau and Germany, before the rise of Hitler to power in 1933. By coincidence or fate, I was recently able to collect a few Oolong leaves sealed in jar with a Japanese newspaper from 1932! At that time, Japan was a colonist power in Taiwan. Now it's a peaceful neighbor of Taiwan. Things can change for the better!

The tea has a deep, pure taste. If high mountain Oolong resonate in you like a violin, this one feels like cello! The aromas are very old wood with a sweet undertone. It coats the palate and feels very smooth. The dim light of one candle adds to the bittersweet melancholy. The painting of mei hua, plum flowers, is the symbol of resistance and ability to blossom under dire circumstances (like winter, old age or tragic events). 

I pray that the light shall guide us towards peace. 

Let there be life, hope and good tea! 

Un jour un thé, Jour 24: Puerh cru gushu en vrac de 20 ans

Jour 24: Puerh cru gushu en vrac du début des années 2000

Ces feuilles de puerh cru en vrac ont un profil aromatique différent de celui de mes galettes. Le fait que toutes les feuilles soient en contact avec l'air au lieu d'être compressées permet une accélération des transformations et donne plus rapidement des arômes vieillis au thé. Et comme ces feuilles sont d'excellente qualité, composées surtout de bourgeons et de petites feuilles, elles sont très concentrées et cela permet d'en utiliser peu. 

Tout comme vendredi dernier, j'utilise une théière Yixing zisha ancienne de la fin de la dynastie Qing. Ses particularités sont sa forme inspirée par la nature et les troncs d'arbres ainsi que sa décoration peinte  avec du falangcai coloré. Relativement grande, je la remplis à peine de moitié. Cette Yixing au toucher doux comme de la peau de bébé affine et harmonise les puissants arômes mentholés et camphrés du puerh. La chaleur se diffuse dans tout le corps! De plus, ce genre de puerh cru m'a souvent sauvé la vie lors de repas de fête un peu trop copieux. Il semble aider la digestion tout en réveillant notre esprit mis en veilleuse par le vin et l'estomac. Cette année, j'en prévois pour Noël!

Et puisque je parle des fêtes de fin d'année, hier j'ai eu l'idée de vous faire un cadeau de Noël pour vous remercier de votre intérêt et de votre confiance concernant ma sélection en ligne. C'est pourquoi, je vais jouer au père Noël jusqu'au 22 décembre. Chaque jour, la plus grosse commande recevra soit un de ces Chabus,

soit 'Le livre du thé' d'Okakura, soit ce CD d'Oded Tzur,  

soit cette galette de thé blanc. Pour la seconde plus grosse commande du jour, j'offirai une de ces coupes ou un échantillon gratuit supplémentaire. Et pour les autres, il y aura un échantillon de thé en plus pour que tout le monde reçoive une surprise que je choisirai pour vous en fonction de vos achats passés et présents. Ainsi, tout le monde aura un cadeau! Hohoho!

Cette promotion spéciale s'arrêtera le 22 décembre, car je prendrai l'avion pour rentrer en Alsace le 23 décembre! Je passerai deux semaines en France avant de retrourner à Taiwan. Si un cours ou une dégustation de thé vous intéresse dans la région de Haguenau (67), envoyez-moi un message!

Note: ce dimanche, mon cours de thé traitera des tetsubins.

1 day 1 tea: Day 23, DYL104K for Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all my tea friends in the US! For this special day, I'm brewing my Da Yu Ling 104K high mountain Oolong, spring 2021 for the second time this month! Today, I'm using my silver teapot and silver teapot in order to push the purity of this exceptional tea to its limits!

It's a sunny day again, which is a great fit for this tea, and the sunshine is cool, not hot, which is also in line with the high mountain climate. At 2500 meters elevation, the weather remains cool even on a bright sunny day. 

The dry leaves still exude their powerful, but fine freshness. Lavender scents and light flower fragrances carry a fresh sweetness.

There's another reason for brewing a high mountain Oolong on Thanksgiving: tea pairing. Indeed, a fine and powerful high mountain Oolong from Lishan, Fushou Shan or Da Yu Ling can do wonders with poultry (chicken, goose, duck or turkey)! This Chaxi serves as a kind of rehearsal or trial for the dinner.
 

Today, the Da Yu Ling 104K feels too refined to pair with my meal. I'm enjoying it greatly on its own, but I'm afraid it wouldn't suit this tea to be brewed more strongly. So, for the meal, I'll brew a 2017 Tsui Feng high mountain Oolong I recently found while going through my tea samples. A slightly aged high mountain Oolong is rounder and gains depth, so that it can better be brewed with a stronger concentration and be paired with the duck I'm baking in the oven.

Below, you can see a duck leg, some potatoes and carrots and the 2017 Tsui Feng Oolong. (The FuShou shan would also work well.) The sweet flowery aromas of the high mountain Oolong mingled nicely with the delicate and tender duck meat, slowly baked..

Thanksgiving is also the time of the year when I thank all the readers of this blog for their interest in my tea stories, education and tea selection. We are coming nearer to 1000 subscribers for my YouTube channel (subscribe if you want to watch a weekly tea class). On Instagram, you are over 2000! And 2700 on FaceBook! These are not large numbers, especially for someone who's been blogging since 2004! That's because, like for tea, my preference is quality over quantity. And it's really a pleasure to deal with tea friends who have a genuine and deep interest in tea and who have an open mind! Thank you! Merci beaucoup! Vielen herzlichen Dank!

This year, I want to do more than thank you just with words. I want to express my deepest gratitude with a month long festival of gifts, until December 22! (It can't be longer, because on December 23 I'm going to France to spend Christmas and New Year with my family!)

So, I will be giving away a Chabu or this excellent jazz CD by Oded Tzur or a this book in French (Le livre du thé) every day to the person with the highest order amount. And I will also be giving away tea accessories (mostly cups) and tea samples. Every order will receive an extra gift until December 22! The higher your order, the more valuable will be your gift, of course. And I'll take into account what you are ordering (and what you ordered in the past) to choose the right gift for you. Like this, it will be a Xmas surprise for you and I get to play Santa Claus! 

Happy Thanksgiving and have a merry Christmas Advent season! My November challenge continues tomorrow....