I am here at the top of Dong Ding 'Mountain' (around 750 meters high). A little village, tea fields and beetle nut palm trees share this little area.

For sale! 600 pins of tea plantation, right in the middle of Dong Ding in Formosa. Anybody interested to grow your own tea (like Depardieu or other stars growing their own wine)?

Tea on Dong Ding mountain is blooming a day before Chinese New Year 2005.

Difference between Tea and Taste Master

Some further thoughts about the differences between wine and tea tasting.

The 'job' of a tea master is much more complex than a wine taster. There are more different skills to master than taste. Bottled wine is finished product that just needs to be served in the right glass at the right temperature. Stored wine will evolve through time, but simple precautions (cool, dry, clean cellar) are enough not to age it properly. Wine bottles have a label identifying where, when, by whom and of what it is made.

Tea, on the other hand, comes in the form of dry leaves in a bag. It is a semi-finished product. You have to go through the process of brewing. To do so, you will have to choose good water, its temperature, the right teaware, the tea quantity, the length between the steeps... There are so many parameters that it's no surprise that two people brewing the same tee will get different results.

Tea storage is also quite tricky. Some teas will loose their freshness quickly, others can be stored 20 to 40 years (but they may need some 'roasting' to eliminate accumulated humidity). Some merchants employ therefore special 'roasting' techniques that can improve the taste of their tea. Such techniques often remain family trade secrets...

And finally, loose tea leaves are always sold by stores with the store's name, not the producer's. You never get the full detail about the exact address of the producer and his tea plantation, the altitude, the season of harvest, the degree of fermentation... All you know is the country and a rough description of the kind of tea (Formosa Dong Ding, for example). Only if you are fortunate enough to drive to a tea plantation yourself will you know for sure where the tea is made and get more information from the producer. Without reliable labels, a tea master therefore also has to learn to 'read the tea leaves' to find clues about all these details.

All these differences add to the complexity, the challenge but also the interest of tea tasting. Tea master Chih Jung Sien, for example, studied tea for 20 years before publishing his first book about tea.

Also here a site that makes an attempt to review teas. Unfortunately, it has not been updated since last April... The comments are straightforward enough, and they invented an original scoring system.

Robert Parker's influence

Planet Bordeaux, a German blog found on die Zeit, has found a good article analyzing the power of Robert Parker, the "Master of Taste", on the wine industry. Steven Shapin, a Harvard scholar, shows how Robert Parker became such an influential, and sometimes controversial, wine taster. Many lessons can and should be learned by the Tea Masters. I know one who is paying much attention!

First, he got famous because he is fiercely independent from the wine makers: ‘I don’t give a shit that your family goes back to pre-Revolution and you’ve got more wealth than I could imagine. If this wine’s no good, I’m gonna say so.’, says Robert.

Second, he tries to be as objective as possible about rating and commenting a wine. That's why he introduced a 50 points rating (from 50 to 100): "a wine gets up to five points for colour, 15 for aroma and bouquet, 20 for flavour and finish, and ten for ‘overall quality level’". He also uses straightforward vocabulary to describe a wine, instead of poetic bullshit.

Third, he does have a good palate, which even his critics admit, and it has helped wine makers all over the world produce more of the kind of wine he likes: "lots of ripe fruit, lots of alcohol, lots of oak, wine that tastes ‘hedonistic’ even when young."

We can see that true Teamasters, like Chih, Jung Sien, are following Robert Parker's path. Independent, we don't sell any tea and don't hesitate to say if a tea is bad. We believe in a more rational approach to understand and describe tea. That's why we like to taste it with neutral gaibei/gaiwan, or use a detailed form (translated in French below) to analyze the tea. And, finally, we hope that we can educate tea lovers to appretiate better teas and thereby giving incentive to producers to put more emphasis on quality than quantity.

Heute sind es 11 Grad in Taipei

Deshalb trinke ich alten Bao Zhong, Tie Guan Yin und Pu-Er. Ich finde diese Tees wärmen mich am besten. Wie die meisten Wohnung, ist auch meine NICHT mit Heizung ausgestattet. Würde sich ja nicht lohnen für die Paar Tage wo die Temperatur auf 10 Grad sinkt.
Brrr... das war's schon Heute! Sonst könnt Ihr hier mehr über die Geheimnisse des Pu-Er erfahren!

Formulaire de dégustation de thé

Composé par le maitre de thé Chih, Jung Sien et traduit par Teamasters:

Nom du goûteur et date:

Nom du thé:
Saison de la récolte:
Lieu de la récolte:
Prix (et vendeur):
Accessoire d'infusion utilisé:
Quantité de thé:
Eau:

A. La vue:
Aspect des feuilles sèches:
Couleur des feuilles sèches:
Couleur du thé:
Clarté du thé:
Aspect des feuilles ouvertes:

B. L'odorat
Les feuilles sèches:
Le couvercle:
Le thé:
Les feuilles de thé chaudes:
Le verre vide:

C. Le goût:
Sucré:
Persistance du moelleux:
Acidité:
Dans la gorge:
Impression de sec:

Autres observations:

Bonne dégustation!

Au même étage que les antiquités, on trouvera aussi les finalistes du deuxième concours de set de thé. En voilà un particulièrement original: les anses ressemblent à des bouches ouvertes et souriantes!

Pour tous ceux qui n'auront l'occasion de se rendre au musée de la céramique d'Ying Ge, Taiwan, voici une curiosité: une grosse théière et 2 tasses ressemblant à du bois. (Dans l'expo dont je vous parlais le 20 janvier).

Teaparker

Tea master Chih, Jung Sien has launched his (chinese) website called Teaparker in reference to Robert Parker, the well-known wine taster.

Maitre Chih, Jung Sien vient de mettre son site sur le thé en ligne. (C'est le gars avec la casquette). Malheureusement, c'est tout en chinois! Faudra donc continuer à lire Tea Masters pour savoir ce qu'enseigne ce Parker du thé!