Antifragile tea

OB tradition, summer 2024

In my first video tea class of the semester, I talked briefly about the concept of antifragility. Nassim Taleb has popularized this idea that sometimes the strongest organisms or organizations can also be very fragile, because a 'black swan' event (something unexpected) can derail them and this can sometimes even be fatal. The best example to explain this idea are dinosaurs. They once were the most powerful and largest animals on the planet, but they disappeared when a meteor hit earth and caused a sudden climate change. Smaller animals and insects were better able to adapt and managed to survive. We also see this in companies when there's a technological change (candle makers, horse carriages, Kodak...) or even governments when they become bankrupt (Louis XVI, Weimar, the Soviet Union...) Fragility is also being dependent on others for essential products. There are two ways to reduce fragility: shoring the production of these products back to your country or building stronger ties (military, diplomatic and/or financial) with the foreign producers to make sure that they won't stop producing and selling to you. So, we can see that this concept of antifragility is at the core of the this year's diplomacy. It's all about reshoring manufacturing, energy and rare earth independence...

In tea, we also encounter the concept of antifragility. First, the tea itself can be good or bad, but also fragile or antifragile. A fragile tea is a tea that can easily become bad. Good tea can become either bad during storage or during brewing. Storage problems are quite common in the tea world. This summer, this topic came up in most of the video chats with several tea customers who had placed a large order on tea-masters.com. Andrew, in the US, had trouble aging his raw puerh well, despite living in a rather humid area (DC). He didn't want to age young puerh anymore, preferring to purchase aged puerh from Taiwan or Asia, even if this meant paying more for this service. Indeed, with almost any tea it's quite a challenge to age it well. Green teas are the most fragile, I'd say, because their quality relies so much on their freshness. Well aged green teas can still taste great, but their aromas will have changed radically and might not be what people expected. 

Fresh high mountain Oolong teas are less fragile than green tea, but they are also subject to change after opening the vacuum sealed bag. 

The least fragile teas for aging are shu puerh and very heavily roasted Oolongs. However, these teas are usually very unidimensional and rarely the favorites of tea drinkers. 

Roasted Oolongs provide a good compromise between antifragility to aging and freshness/quality. Actually, well roasted Oolongs feel rounder, more harmonious and are able to keep their original fresh aromas. And instead of experiencing aging as a downhill process, well preserved roasted Oolongs can improve with time. This is a truly antifragile characteristic: it behaves  against the general trend. 

This is the case with this Oriental Beauty Tradition. Like all my Oriental Beauty Oolongs, it has been carefully roasted in order reduce the moisture in the leaves. This makes them not just more stable, but also opens up the aging potential. That's why I particularly enjoy Oriental Beauty Oolong that is one year old or more. But, while I can get excellent results with 40 years old Dong Ding, the potential of OB is a more limited, because the leaves are close to fully oxidized. The OB from 2000 I have in my collection shows that around 20 years of age, the improvement hits a wall.

Earlier, I mentioned another fragility: being unable to unleash the good aromas of good tea during the brewing. Against this fragility we learn the skill of brewing tea. This is what has motivated to take tea classes for over 20 years and why I want to share my skills with you. Because I witnessed myself how purchasing good tea, a cute teapot and small porcelain cups wasn't enough to obtain a good cup. Of course, a good tea is usually often forgiving of mistakes, but if you really want to make it shine, then you need to pay attention to all the details.

Enjoy the delicate sweetness and fragrances of Oriental Beauty Oolong!