Simple Pleasures

I haven't had any tea today, so this afternoon I was itching for something hot and wet (that's what she said), and decided that I didn't want any sheng pu'er, or the two bricks of shu that I have. I have two tuochas of sheng that I haven't cracked open yet, and Lord knows what I'm waiting for, but I'll get around to opening them once I make a dent in Xiaguan Bao Yan. So pu'er was definitely ruled out, and I selected Teavana's lung ching in my unglazed yixing cup.

I keep expecting the taste of the tea to change. And it did. Whether it was the yixing absorbing some of the flavors or the tea getting old and stale, I didn't find the harsh vegetal taste that I'd noted before. The tea was by no means great, and I still feel I paid $10 too much for it, but it was drinkable. Certainly a nice change of pace from the pu'er.

Tonight when my tea-tooth was flaring up with a serious case of Immediaticus satisfactionus requiredum, I reached for my tin of Twining's Darjeeling Broken Orange Pekoe, and thought to myself, "When it comes down to it, I wouldn't mind drinking this everyday." With this tea I really think the yixing cup took off. With the cup swollen from broken tea leaves of a mottled green, black, and rust red, I was unable to get a bitter tea even though I didn't pay attention to steeping times. And though the tea wasn't fresh or complex, it was simple and satisfying.

Currently I've got clean water in my yixing teapot to get rid of the lingering clay smell and taste. It's tapered off since I first got it and began using it, but it's very noticeable in the later infusions, marring the delicate tastes of the sheng pu'er.

Tomorrow I'll try uploading some more of my tasting notes for sheng pu'ers since I've had time to sit and taste them, and since my bags of sheng are airing out, I think tomorrow will be a Chawang 2006 Yunnan Silver day.

Lung ching gongfu cha

When I say gongfu, I'm not referring to the actual Chinese tea ceremony, but I'm referring to the specific brewing style that they employ in their ritual, which is using a lot of tea leaves with short steeping times. If I used an actual gong fu tea ceremony for brewing my tea, I would have to get up at 6AM in order to leave the house at 8. An English type of brewing would be to use 1 teaspoon of tea per 6-8 ounce cup and to steep for about 3 minutes if it's a black/red tea. Gongfu brewing style is to use about 3-5 grams of tea per 100 ml and to steep for about 5 seconds, and then add an additional 5 seconds steeping time for each infusion after the first.
So, I filled my little mug infuser up halfway with lung ching, covered the leaves with water, and then steeped for 5 seconds. While I wasn't expecting the increased complexity of the tea, it was a nice benefit. I also wasn't expecting the tea to take on an extremely vegetal taste. I just think I got bad tea; it smells fairly green while dry, but it also has a sweet, honey type smell that reminds me of hay. I think all of this translates into a grassy taste in the cup. Which translates into me not buying anymore of this swill. I'll be trying keemun with the gongfu brewing next.

Lung Ching nastiness

Last night I went to Target to get some dogfood and drinks.  I saw a large 10 liter tank of springwater while I was ther and figured, "What the heck? Tea's supposed to taste better with this stuff, and it's on sale for $2.5o. I'll get it."  

So I heated the kettle filled with spring water and using about a single layer of tea leaves on the bottom of the mug infuser, an English style of brewing tea, I steeped the lung ching from teavana for 2 minutes. BLEAH! It increased the flavor alright, but it made the grassiness of the tea enhanced, while the nutty taste portion of the tea was subdued in the background.  It reminded me too much of sencha, a Japanese tea, which is very vegetal, but sometimes has an oily, seaweed, or even fishy taste.  There's absolutely nothing wrong about these tastes, but drinking a piping hot mug of warm seaweed is even more effective than ipecac.

I really wish I hadn't bought so much tea from teavana.  My last resort for this tea is to brew it using a gongfu style. More on that later.

Teavana

Lara took me to Southpark in Charlotte and I got to go to Teavana. I've seen the store before but never gone in, so I was happy to see the cans full of loose leaf tea and people milling around not really buying anything. The sales lady was also happy to see me. "Have you ever been to Teavana before?" she asked. "No," I replied, and promptly tried to see through her since she was blocking my view of the teas that I wanted. She first tried to sell me something that smelled like Kool-aid, but came down after her sales pitch when I asked for Keemun and Lungching which was labelled as "dragonwell." I bought two ounces of the Keemun which she prompted me to buy 1/4 lb because it was being discontinued (after tasting a cup I can see why. Hopefully I'll get the brew time right), and 1/4 lb of lungching. And after I bought this much tea, she said, "you know, you should really brew these teas in a yixing tea pot. Why, I've brewed some of my black teas at home and blah blah blah." Beats me if the saleslady works on comission, but who knew tea could be pushed and hustled so readily?
I had a cup of the Imperial Keemun with water close to boiling and a steeping time of 3 minutes. It has a fairly smoky start to it, and a savory, leathery finish. It wasn't until the second infusion that I began to notice an actual familiar Keemun character: the floweriness that's not sweet, nor pungent, nor rustic, but similar to the scent of an orchid. It makes me think that it's actually a blend of Lapsang Souchong and Keemun, albeit somewhat of a poor blend since the different flavors of the Keemun are muted. Unfortunately, my overall impression, as of right now, is that the tea wasn't stored properly or it's old: even though it's a flowery orange pekoe grade, the tea is kind of bland.

There is one thing the lady got right though: I probably would be better off brewing tea in a yixing teapot. But I'm not exactly sure where their teapots are made, and depending on how good the lungching is, I might not be willing to buy from them again.