1 day 1 tea, day 21. Wu Yi cultivar

Day 21 of my November challenge, I brew this high roasted WuYi cultivar from Wenshan, spring 2020. The picture is a good reminder that Oolong means dark dragon, because of the snake/dragon like shape of the dry tea leaves.

Many people use a scoop to drop the leaves inside the teapot (often with the help of a thin bamboo stick). I think all the tea students did so on their Tea Sommelier exam last week. However, majorities can also be wrong. With this tea, we have an excellent explanation why it makes more sense to use your hand to put the dry leaves in the teapot: in the gongfu cha tradition, roasted leaves are first crushed in the first handful and put on the bottom of the teapot. And in the second handful, the leaves are kept whole and long, so that keep the crushed leaves at the bottom and won't clog the spout. This crushing of the leaves therefore requires the use of your hand, because this is how you can be best control the crush level of your leaves. Therefore, to use a (clean and dry) hand is a way to respect the original gongfu cha technique, even if you don't crush your leaves. It's also more wabi (less clutter on the table) and it adds the sense of touch to the tea experience.

And since I'm in gongfu cha mode on a cool but sunny day, I decided to fill my teaboat with boiling water so that I could rinse and preheat my tea cups. This also helps to keep the Yixing teapot as hot as possible in order to get the most aromas out of the leaves.  

An great sign of quality is not just the color of the tea, but its shine and lack of turbidity (ie. its transparency). And the color points to a well mastered roast that doesn't turn the leaves into charcoal and the brew black.

The sweet wood scent is permeating the room. Bliss ensues!

I still cherish this old tea caddy that was gifted by a kind reader of this blog. I love how the paper has turned dark yellow with time and how it goes so well with the color of this roasted Oolong. There's sweet nostalgia in brewing this old style of tea and using antique accessories (like the Qing dynasty teaboat or the 2 Qing qinghua plates).

This high roast Baozhong using a WuYi cultivar combines the WuYi process with the sweetness of the Taiwanese terroir. It's very pure and warming on a cool day. And as the news continue to report death and destruction, brewing tea every day is a way to keep hope and peace alive in our hearts. The more the world gets mad, the more I feel satisfied by the time I'm making tea! 

If you want to order great teas for your friends and family or for yourself this Christmas, I recommend placing your orders from my selection soon, before the holiday rush. There's free delivery for orders in excess of 100 USD, free samples and ebooks starting at 60 USD and 2 free tea postcards!