Spring 2014 Subtropical forest Baozhong

From the Wenshan forest to a spring Chaxi:

Cultivar: Qingxin (ruanzhi) Oolong
Harvested by hand: April 9tht, 2014
Origin: Pinglin, Wenshan
Process: Light to medium oxidized Baozhong, very light roasting

1. View

The leaves have a fresh and dark green color.
The brew has a very good clarity and shows also very light and fresh colors.
The leaves are mature with little oxidation.

 2. Scents

Dry leaves: Fresh wood, young forest scents.
The tea itself starts with a smell of spinach, but the lingering scent is more a mix of lichee and the subtropical forest of Wenshan. 
Cold, the fragrances almost reminded me of a lightly brewed raw puerh!

 3. Taste

Smooth and sweet. Fresh and bright. Refined and light.
The aftertaste is well balanced and sweet.

The 'subtropical forest' Baozhong is one of my earliest selection for the blog and I am glad that it has encountered such success over the years. I used to also select a 'lily flower' Baozhong with slightly less oxidation. But over the years, I favored this kind of more traditional Bazhong. It's a very good standard to understand Wenshan Baozhong:
- it uses the classic qingxin/ruanzhi Oolong cultivar,
- it's a high quality spring harvest,
- the leaves are slightly more oxidized and are well dried.
- because of the above, the flavors of the Wenshan mountain are reflected in each cup.

For this 'subtropical forest' Baozhong, I use this gaiwan, these classic cups, this jar and a small dark green dragon Chabu.

 In a world of constant change, it's nice to know that you can depend on the continuity of certain things!

2001 printemps Concubine Oolong de Yong Lung (Dong Ding)

Cultivar: Qingxin (ruanzhi) Oolong
Récolté à la main au printemps 2001
Origine: Yong Lung, Dong Ding, Taiwan
Process: Semi-oxydé et torréfié. Conservé par le fermier.

Dégustation en gongfucha avec ma Xianpiao en hungni dans une assiette profonde ancienne et 3 petites coupes Dehua.

Avant d'apprendre comment bien préparer le thé, je n'arrivais pas à faire ressortir le caractère propre à chaque thé. Un Oolong d'Alishan me semblait à peine meilleur qu'un Sijichun de basse altitude. J'abandonnais vite l'envie d'essayer des Oolongs chers puisque je n'y trouvais pas de quoi justifier leur prix plus élevé.

Cela changea avec les cours de Teaparker. Muni d'un simple gaiwan, j'arrivais de mieux en mieux à ouvrir les feuilles et retirer tous les arômes du thé. J'avais appris à bien préchauffer cet ustensile, et son couvercle, puis les coupes aussi. Je faisais plus attention à mon eau également: pas trop minéralisée et douce en général.

J'apprenais aussi comment verser mon eau en fonction des feuilles. Les faire tourner s'il s'agit d'Oolong roulé en boule. Y aller délicatement avec le thé vert, mais en force avec du puerh compressé...
La situation avait changé. Chaque thé exprimait son caractère avec de plus en plus de netteté. Cela attisa mon envie d'explorer des thés très divers et aussi d'aller vers de plus en plus de qualité, puisque j'arrivais enfin à bien différencier chaque thé.

Avec les Oolongs de haute montagne, il s'agit de monter toujours plus haut, au-delà de 2000 mètres vers les étoiles!
Avec le thé vert, c'était goûter à du Longjing de Xihu, récolté avant le festival Qingming.
Avec le puerh, c'était de faire l'expérience de vieux arbres sauvages et de puerhs toujours plus anciens.
Avec le Oolong torréfié, le but était de goûter aux premiers prix des concours de Dong Ding.
etc...

Ayant appris à infuser, j'avais envie de sensations extrêmes, d'aller au bout du chemin au lieu de le parcourir doucement. J'étais comme l'enfant d'un an qui apprend à marcher et commence à courir plus vite que ses pieds. (Et je crois que c'est une sensation assez répandue parmi ceux qui commencent dans le thé chinois. Passionné par ce monde nouveau qui s'ouvre à nos papilles, on papillonne d'échantillon en échantillon pour en faire rapidement le tour).

Puis, avec l'expérience, on commence à avoir de vraies préférences. Certains thés ne se lassent pas de nous charmer, infusion après infusion. Pour moi, une des catégories les plus complexe et variée est celle des Oolongs torréfiés. Leur oxydation est le fruit d'un équilibre entre le vert et le rouge, et leur torréfaction un équilibre entre fraicheur et chaleur. Et quand en plus ils sont mordus par ces petits criquets, les Jacobiasca formosana Paoli, alors on tient un thé aux notes mielleuses et raffinées complètement naturelles.

Fascinant aussi, c'est qu'on puisse les conserver de nombreuses années et les affiner progressivement. Les arômes deviennent plus purs et le goût plus épais. Puis, de nouvelles odeurs de post-oxydation apparaissent: du bois ancien, de l'encens, de l'eau-de-vie presque.

Les bons Oolongs anciens nous donnent l'impression qu'ils rajeunissent lors des infusions successives. En effet, leurs odeurs anciennes sont celles que ces feuilles ont acquises en dernier. C'est pourquoi elles sortent en premier. Et au bout de quelques infusions, on retrouve alors les odeurs originelles du thé. Ainsi, on a plusieurs thés en un!

C'est le cas avec ce concubine Oolong de 2001. Les premières infusions sont du domaine du nectar au miel parfumé. Avec une petite théière, on a beau la remplir généreusement, c'est la douceur et la pureté qui dominent. Le thé agit de manière calme, équilibrée.

Mais vers la fin des infusions, le thé se remet à ressembler à un autre concubine Oolong que je connais: celui de 2009, en provenance de Feng Huang, de la zone de Dong Ding également. 'Redevenu jeune', je goûte à l'astringence fruité particulière des Oolongs de Dong Ding.

A 13 ans d'âge, cet Oolong a encore beaucoup de vitalité et de fraicheur en lui. Il a un superbe potentiel pour encore bien se garder pour 20/30 ans au moins. Il n'a pas besoin de nouvelle torréfaction, mais d'être conservé dans une jarre en porcelaine émaillée, bien au sec et au frais.

Les feuilles s'ouvrent complètement. Elles ont une bonne épaisseur et l'on voit bien leur forte oxydation.

Dans 4 jours, mon blog aura 10 ans. Le temps passe si vite! Vous pouvez encore participer à mes petits concours pendant quelques jours.

Learning tea like a walk in the park (of the Lin Mansion)

Chinese tea is hard to understand and appreciate without some guidance. It's like sightseeing a monument without a guide or any reading material. All we can see is the superficial beauty. This is even more true with tea, because it's not just about contemplating it with our eyes. A tea drinker first has to be a tea brewer: we are closely involved in the making process of our beverage.

I experienced this first hand. When I arrived in Taiwan, 17 years ago, I soon found myself making Oolong tea. But I kept feeling disappointed by the result. Expensive high mountain Oolongs didn't taste much better than low elevation teas. They all tasted bitter and kind of bland. It's only after taking some classes with Teaparker that I started to get a real understanding about Chinese tea. My technique improved and the teas started to taste better and, very important, each one started to have its distinctive character and taste. This sparked my interest and led to this blog 10 years and 6 days ago!

Last month, I had the pleasure of teaching some students from the Tea Institute at Penn State about tea after a pleasant walk in the gardens of the Lin Mansion in Banciao (New Taipei City). Teaching is like giving keys or opening a door. It's making it easier for students to walk in the right direction.

Even then, there's still a lot of work for a tea student. Here, in these ancient gardens, we experience very classic Chinese beauty. The beauty of nature played a part in the enjoyment of life in this Mansion.

The wood carvings are exquisite and full of symbols. On the ceiling of the theater building, we find bats like this one. Bat: 蝙蝠,Biānfú, is a symbol for happiness, because the second character has the same pronunciation as happiness in Chinese. The wings are open and it flies upside down in a very lively way. That's because the character for 'upside-down' has the same pronunciation as dào, 到 meaning 'to have arrived'. So, this picture means that 'happiness has arrived'!

The shape of the wings is very similar to real bats. But we can see lots of curved patterns at the end of the wings. They look like symbols of clouds. Close to the body, these curved lines take the shape of 2 ruyi (scepters). 如意, Rúyì, means 'as you wish'. It's a symbol of good wishes and prosperity. 

Beautiful pictures with lots of (good) meaning hidden inside!
Like with tea, we need to learn the many details in order to appreciate all aspects of this beverage.

We move now to a traditional tea house nearby and start our study of Hungshui Oolongs. In order to gain a very precise understanding of this category, I have chosen 3 roasted Oolongs from the same location, Yong Lung in the famous Dong Ding area.

We start with the 2013 winter strong roast. First, I show them how to brew this Oolong and later I let them practice by themselves. We're using a gaiwan for more accurate results. The color of this brew is very clear and bright golden/orange. The taste is characterized by a typical 'Dong Ding' sour note with fresh tannins that carries, prolongs the taste of this tea and ends in sweetness and salivation. The aftertaste includes a deep green freshness and taste of raw fruits.

The complex character of this tea makes it challenging to brew. On the other hand, because this tea has several facets, it also allows the brewer to play and emphasize different tastes. Pouring water very slowly will bring more smooth and balanced taste. Using fewer leaves will help not to overbrew the tea as you learn about it. But once you get more experienced, you may want to try with more leaves and a pour that combines power to open the rolled leaves and good control, calm at the end of the pour, in order to keep the taste well balanced.

Then, inside just one cup, you will find so many beautiful flavors and meaning as in a Chinese painting!

The second tea we studied is this 2003 spring Hung Shui Oolong from Yong Lung (Dong Ding) as well. This is a great way to observe first hand the impact of 10 years of aging on a roasted Oolong. This comparison is very helpful to differentiate old and new and to understand how Hungshui Oolong evolves with time.

The dry leaves are not as tightly rolled anymore. They open up slowly.

The taste is much more mellow. A lot of tannins from the roasting have disappeared. The sour note is much more refined and integrated with the sweet tastes. And new, I mean old, woody fragrances are emerging now.

Every time it's brewed, the tea tastes somewhat differently. The brewer needs to adjust to how the leaves have opened up in the gaiwan and their exhaustion level.

As roasted Oolong tea ages (without being re-roasted again and again), it mellows down and gain both in purity and thickness. But this only happens if the Oolong is from one and the same batch.

Such old tea is difficult to find, because what is sold as old tea in most tea stores is a mix of their unsold teas, which are roasted together again to give them a stronger mouthfeel. At the end, all you can taste is the sweet charcoal roast and there is no underlying freshness anymore. 

As a conclusion to their visit, I prepared one more old tea from Yong Lung: this 2001 spring Concubine Oolong.The leaves are more oxidized and they have been bitten by the same tea jassids as Oriental Beauty.

But for this last tea, I use an Yixing dicaoqing teapot. After the serious gaiwan study, let's enjoy also the harmony and refinement of Yixing ware! This is a rare and special tea that deserves being brewed to the best of its possibilities.

Like classic music played on a cello, this aged tea resonates with its deep and slowly unfolding tastes. We can still find a connection in the structure of the taste with the previous 2 teas. That's the important lesson to learn from this comparison.

The tea shines with purity and clean flavors! The fruitiness points not to a high mountain, but to the rich soils of Dong Ding.

These 3 high quality roasted Oolongs are a great material to learn the taste of traditional Dong Ding Oolong. The leaves themselves are 'tea masters' that teach us what they have in them. What we need to bring is focus and practice. Mixing theory and hands on practice makes learning tea like a walk in the park! 

Thanks for your Taiwan visit!

D-Day: Da Yu Ling!

Mon Oolong de Da Yu Ling a débarqué et est disponible dans ma petite boutique en ligne! Avec lui, j'ai maintenant toute ma sélection d'Oolongs frais de haute montagne de ce printemps. Et comme je l'avais prévu, il est presque déjà l'été! 

Récoltées le 27 mai, ces feuilles de Dayuling sont vraiment tardives et immenses! (En 2013, la récolte fut précoce, le 20 avril.) Cette année, les arbres ont pu bénéficier d'un plus long repos hivernal et d'un printemps frais et humide. Le résultat est tout simplement exceptionnel. Pureté, douceur, fraicheur et puissance, tout y est. Une profonde émotion s'ensuit.

Si j'avais l'honneur, un jour de faire un Chaxi sur les plages de Normandie, c'est ce thé que je choisirais. Pour honorer la mémoire de ces jeunes combattants qui ont donné le meilleur d'eux-même, je prendrais le meilleur de mes Oolongs frais ; puissant et généreux: il sert d'exemple à tous les autres.

4 High mountain Oolong Chaxi at Tatung University's Zhisheng Memorial

On Sunday June 1st, Teaparker and the association Cha Ren Ya Xin have performed 4 High Mountain Cha Xi at this historic site in Taipei: the Zhisheng Memorial in the Tatung University (on Chung Shan North Rd, Sec 3, No 40). It's a house from the Japanese era (1895-1945) that belonged to the founder of Tatung (a local industrial company). It shows how well the local Taiwanese elite adapted to the Japanese rule at that time. This place is such a natural fit for a Chaxi that I started to install mine before everybody else arrived.

 Looking at these pictures, I realize now that I instinctively faced the garden, whereas a Japanese tea ceremony would be oriented more towards inside!

The other 3 students arrive and Teaparker assigns a corner for each of us. Ms. Chang YuFang also chose very green colors as background for her spring Oolong (from Qilai Mountain).

 This looks very elegant and fresh. The red zhuni teapot is at the center, in an ancient qinghua bowl. And the cups look familiar: they are Dehua dragon cups!

Ms. Jian Toufang installs the third Chaxi next to mine. She's using a white curtain fabric as her Chabu!

From a distance, her flower arrangement looks like put in a basket. But the handle we see is actually bended grass! And when I noticed that she didn't have a stand for her kettle, I lent her my white hexagon stand. She would brew a Da Yu Ling Oolong with her zhuni teapot.

The last performer, Ms. Wu LiYing, has her own style. Her favorite color isn't hard to guess: it's black. No matter the tea, young or old, fresh or roasted, Oolong or puerh, her Chabu always looks similar.

However, for this high mountain Chaxi, she has brought this special bonsai pine tree. On the side, we see that the trunk is white where the bark has been peeled off. This not only creates a stark contrast with the other dark colors, but it reminds me of the white trunk of the often huge pine trees on Da Yu Ling. And if her bonsai can remind me of this mountain, then I can almost already feel the powerful taste of this Oolong! Well done!

The main attraction of her Chaxi that day is this golden teapot. Actually, it's technically a silver teapot that has been plated with gold! It was recently made by an old Japanese master according to a Chinese teapot design. Such a piece of teaware is very unique and precious!

During the event, except for the in-house photographer, we were not allowed to take pictures. I was nevertheless able to take these 2 shots with my phone without disturbing anybody. We performed one after another for 4 guests at a time:

The young lady in the white T-shirt tasted both Da Yu Ling from Ms Jian and Ms Wu. She felt that the tea tasted very differently with the zhuni (water from a tetsubin kettle) and the silver teapot (water from a silver kettle). The zhuni brought more unity and harmony to the taste and the scents. With the silver teapot, the temperature of the tea in the cup was higher. And then the tastes and scents were felt more clearly, each layer of flavors was experienced one by one.

With my Shanlinxi high mountain Oolong, I think that the combination of the silver kettle for very pure and hot water with a zhuni teapot for the harmony of flavors enabled me to get a very powerful, sweet and deep result!

For my Chaxi, I used my light celadon singing cups to emphasize the fresh color of the brew. The celadon bowl by Michel François has some bluish tones and symbolizes the blue sky over the mountains. My little bamboo plant with a stone is another symbol of the vegetation growing on Shanlinxi.