It Came from Canadia

To quote many of Keanu Reeves' best on-screen moments of dialogue, "Woah".

It would not be accurate to say that Hilary term has been kicking my posterior.  Rather, the effect that term has had on me has been altogether something worse.  Some terms are fun, some terms are bustling, some terms are exciting - this term has been the academic equivalent of experiencing "enhanced interrogation techniques".

I have been ill with a nondescript, irritating, wet-blanket of a condition for a period of approximately two weeks, with no sign of improvement.  The body simply cannot heal itself if you spend your time running around all day, from 6.30 a.m. to 9 p.m., without breaks.  Every.  Single.  Day.

So, at the end of 6th week, I methunk "enough is enough", and decided to have a day off.  Meetings cancelled; lecture cancelled; supervisions cancelled; tutorials cancelled; dinner cancelled.  I just stayed in bed, perspiring quietly to myself for around 24 hours.

It worked wonderfully.

Cetus

The next day, I was feeling as kosher as Christmas.

To celebrate, I busted out an attractive-looking parcel recently received as a generous gift from Jalam Teas.  In Canadia, even the postal stamps are pretty.

I don't know much about Jalam Teas, but I do know that they are run by Jeff Fuchs, and I recall making an unfair joke at the expense of his name in an article some months ago, which now eludes me.  I think that Mr. Fuchs (ahem) is a photographer - the parcel from his company came with a card alluding to that fact, and which was backed with a stylish picture of a Hani minority female.  The whole enterprise is "slick" in appearance, which is to say carefully professional.

Edit: "some months ago" is, it seems last year: "Nothing More to Laos"

Expecting a sample of something expensive, I was amazed to find a xiaobing inside, the price of which is actually extremely reasonable (something like $20 to "members" - but I think that "members" are posted a cake of this as part of a monthly arrangement).

Already, I am feeling good about Jalam - the prospect of decent-looking xiaobing being sold for a reasonable price immediately endears itself to my sense of fair play.

...and look good this xiaobing certainly does.  It has been made from Bangpen leaves (translated as "Bang Pun" in the non-pinyin text), which comes from the Bulangshan region, and where those leaves have been preserved very nicely indeed.  We have large, long leaves on offer, which have been loosely compressed into a tidy little 100g cake.

This cake has the clean, uncompromising bitterness that I have come to appreciate from the greater Bulang zone, and yet it is a summer harvest: these are notoriously "accessible" affairs - the kind of thing that you might give to someone so as not to offend them - and yet the result, here, is very welcome.  It consists of a pollenated, heavy summertime characteristic that works rather well, combined with the good ol' Bulang punishment.

Perhaps this is the stuff teaclubs are made of: shupu and easy-going shengpu, so as not to terrify the median tea-drinker.  However, the result is so nicely made, and so very interesting, that I am rather impressed for the "drink-it-now" capability that such a teaclub must surely provide.

If you're rushed for time, and are in the market for decent, "curated" samples, then Jalam seems (on the strength of this one cake, and its pricing) to be worth a second look.

Ironically, I'm a little too rushed for time to be a member of such a club, as my drinking occurs so randomly.  However, when recovering from rush-induced bugs, I found this Bangpen Xiaobing to be packed with summertime drink-it-now charm.  If you like summer teas, or pollenated teas, this might be worth a random sample.

Beijing raindrop

even you cannot wash away

the traveller's cold

Face / Off

In this battle between two adversaries, the part of John Travolta will be played by the 2014 "Huazhu" from Pu-erh.sk.

I've enjoyed a number of teas from PETROS THE DESTROYER this year.  In summary, each is well-made, each is a good and tasty example of each stopping-point on his travels around Yunnan.  One cake was "budget", the rest were... pretty expensive, actually.  Maocha prices etc.

Along with Nakashan, Huazhu is in the Mengsong region, and is talked about in favourable tones by PETROS THE DESTROYER.  He also notes that "Huazhu Liangzi is 'Banna's highest mountain", which is an interesting fact that I now know and which I will probably forget imminently.

Keeping up appearances, this Huazhu tea looks The Business, as you might agree from contemplation of the photograph above.  Once brewed, it has a long, flowery scent.  In the cup, we have the grape-like sweetness of new tea, with a substantial finish - cooling and bitter. 

Underneath it all, perhaps testifying to its Mengsong origins, is a broad, savoury character that supports all of that transient sweetness.  Of course, as with all of those teas made by PETROS, it is well-made and I do not doubt that these leaves are of excellent nature.

Big, bitter, broad, and smooth: this is strong and decent tea.  PETROS writes that it is "more or less accessible in terms of price".  However, the price of this cake is a seemingly-uncorrelated 96 Euro / 250g, which at US$180 / 357g is not at all accessible.  Objectively, after five infusions, I am left wondering who would pay $180 / 357g, but that's a personal decision.

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If John Travolta is amusing but perhaps over-valued, then we now turn ourselves to the Nicholas Cage in our Face/Off: the 2013 New Amerykah from white2tea.

I enjoyed the 2014 "New Amerykah 2", in which PM stated that he was aiming for "fullness" rather than the "bitterness" of the 2013.  This further reinforced in my mind that I had missed a trick when I failed to try the 2013 before it sold out.

Having pity on me, PM kindly packed up a sample.

The leaves are hand-compressed, and aromatic.  First impressions are highly favourable.  The first infusions is reassuringly bitter, while being fresh and yellow.  It fills the mouth quite obviously, and I can imagine PM's reaction when he first encountered the maocha for this cake.  It really does stand out.  There is a cooling finish, and its body is smooth.

Every time the tea settles into its sweet routine, I add more leaves to bring it back to the fresh richness of the earlier infusions.  I can see why this tea sold out, Gentle Reader, and hope that you managed to land yourself some.

This is a sharp and charismatic cake and, at least in this little face/off, unlike in the film, Nicholas Cage was the clear victor.

Everyone Deserves a Second Chance

I totally dug the 2012 Chawangou "Badashan Dashu" cake. I even drew the following:

It was a fine cake. I wrote of my love the cake before buying any and was subsequently denied the opportunity to own some. Now, looking at the version from the year after, I have that vital second chance. Let's see if the 2013 is up to the standard of the 2012 that I loved so much...

First, we encounter the price. This cake is a very, very reasonable $16/200g xiaobing. Chawangshop is one of the few remaining outposts of tight, low prices for pu'ercha, and I am building in my appreciation for their output year on year.  This year, it seems as if we have Laos cakes on sale - and this is progressive tea salesmanship at its best.

The soup for this tea is a pollinated yellow, with a big, strong scent of grass - just as one would hope for Badashan tea.  Pu'ercha from this area should be bigger and badder and rougher and tougher by definition.  In the mouth, more grass, more sweetness; more throatiness with a long aftersweetness.

This tea comes from a small Bulangshan village.  It is strong, clean, and enduring.  Writing this article reminds me that I have not yet made a purchase.  This is a fault that I quickly fix.

My first introduction to this tea came from The Jakub, who kindly brewed me a cup.  "It tastes like old-fashioned tea" was my conclusion after a sip, and this held after my subsequent session at home with the sample that he then provided.

Be warned that I am a biased source: I very much enjoy Badashan cakes.  This one, though, well - it's good.  Perhaps even as good as that elusive 2012 cake...

Edit: this tea is the "2013 Laoyu Badashan" and not the "2013 Zhanglang Badashan" - thank you to Honza for spotting that before I bought the wrong thing.

I Know What You Did Last Summer

In the case of Peter, of Pu-erh.sk, I suspect he was in Laoman'e.  We recently had a 2010 version arrive from his comfortable outfit, now to be joined by this 2013 autumnal version.  The 2010 was pretty good, I seem to recall.   How the autumnal version from four years later matches up, we can only guess...

This autumnal fellow weighs in at a not inconsiderable 60 euro / 250g (approx. 82 Yankeebux).  However, perhaps expectedly given Peter's previous works, this tea looks rather decent:

Laoman'e is not my favourite location in the known universe from which to acquire tea-leaves, but it can be done well, if selectively.  This particular Laoman'e comes in at the upper end of the spectrum, which is something of an accomplishment given that this is an autumn tea.  As you can see below, the brew is straightforwardly yellow-orange, in the manner of almost every autumnal tea ever created.

The soup is clean, and there is a solid base - savoury and, at the same time, bitter - along with a good, challenging finish.  Again, this is not typically autumnal.

What is typically autumnal is the warm, rounded character - but this dwells alongside the bitter potency of Laoman'e, like a darker, more aggressive, version of Laobanzhang (or "LAOBZ" as it is known in our house).

While I was not expecting to get excited about (i) autumnal tea and (ii) Laoman'e tea, this is pretty good.  The session lasts well, and memories of a previously-horrid tea-session immediately before this one are immediately washed away.  I wouldn't say that this cake is particularly good value, given its big ol' price, but it is certainly well-made for Laoman'e autumnal tea.

Flower on a Branch

This is a tea with flowers in it. Gentle Reader, do not roll your eyes - at least, not yet.

It may be true that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, but it is almost certain that the road to Purgatory is paved with novelty teas. Crab's feet. Bamboo leaves. Being stuffed into a tangerine skin (!). The gang's all here.

You could fill an entire branch of Whittards with such nonsense - indeed, Whittards base a seemingly successful business case on doing just that.

So, then, let us remain open-minded as we contemplate the potential horrors of the 2013 "Huazhiqiao" from Chawangshop.  I have learned to cut The 'Wang a fair degree of slack, because they are one of the few vendors out there hanging onto the "price them reasonably and they will come" business model.  It is a model that I like very much.  The 'Wang backs up its low prices with some really rather decent tea - they hit the spot between price and rancidity in exactly the right place, for me.

I also totally dig the fact that they have an English "shop" rather than an American "store".

This particular cake is made from springtime Jingmaishan leaves.  "OMG", I can hear you utter, as you reach for breath between spasms, "entry-level Jingmai + flowers".  However, your paroxysms are, this time anyway, somewhat premature.  Lower that pulse, Gentle Reader, calm your elevated blood pressure, and remember that tea-drinkers are like the Fonz.  And what is the Fonz?  If the collected works of Tarantino have taught us anything, it is that the Fonz is cool.

Somehow, against all the odds, like a proton torpedo finding its way into the thermal exhaust port of a rather large moon battlestation, this horrific tea actually turns out to be really good.

The wenxiangbei [aroma cup] is filled with the prototypical lanxiang [orchid scent] much beloved of Jingmaishan fans the world over.  It is a big, sweet scent, suggestive of strong leaves with plenty of contents.  I appreciate the heavy orange appearance of the soup.

In the mouth, the kuwei [good bitterness] takes me by surprise: Jingmaishan tea is seldom so confrontational - perhaps why it is so often considered to be "accessible" (where you can, I trust, sense my displeasure at the use of such an adjective).

Adulterated tea reminds me of adulterated cheese: you wouldn't use your best stilton to make the ubiquitous "stilton and apricot" blend that blights so many shops; likewise, you wouldn't use exalted maocha to make a flowery ladyblend - hence the low price.  However, that which is here, in the cup, seems honest and strong.  Surely, that which is in the cup is all that matters.

The flowers add a pollinated edge which, at the risk of having my testosterone levels brought into question, I find to be quite nice.  I am left wondering how many years of aging, if any, such flowers will survive.

Ultimately, this tea turns out to be a little too brash, as comedy would have it.  There is a brittle, brassy character to the kuwei in the second infusion and onwards that makes me think of tongue-numbing pesticides.  As the brews continue, this brutal and rancid notes prevents the Jingmaishan from reaching me.  What a surprise this little fellow turned out to be.  At just $15/200g, you might like to try this if you have some plumbing that needs unblocking.

Uberthanks to JT for the session.

High Mountain, Flowing Water

I come across the phrase "Gaoshan Liushui" [gow-shan, leo-shway] regularly in my life; as the title of this article suggests, it is usually translated as "High Mountain, Flowing Water" (or stream, or rivulet, according to the poesy of the translator).

I first came across it in a framed piece of calligraphy made by my father-in-law, a military type who (in that uniquely Chinese manner) combines a military and governmental career with being really rather good at classical calligraphy.  The piece adorned the wall of her flat when we first met, and has travelled with us ever since.

I later encountered it when Stephane of Teamasters (fear the Masters of Tea!) very kindly sent me a CD of classical Chinese music, played on a wide, stringed zither-like instrument called a guzheng.  In fact, we have a huge version of such an instrument in the house right now.  The CD introduced me to the classical guzheng piece of the same name, "Gaoshan Liushui" - it is beautiful indeed, and I recommend Googling or Youtube'ing it.

There are several versions of a similar story underlying the name.  A certain "Boya" (circa 240 BC) was a guqin player in the Zhou Dynasty, and found in Zhong Ziqi, a simple man, often portrayed as a woodcutter, who could appreciate his music.  As told in the Liezi (known as Lieh Tsu to most English schoolchildren), a guqin player should play only if he can find someone able to appreciate his music.  In Zhong Ziqi, the appreciation came from the most humble type of man, hinting at the Daoist notion that virtue can (and perhaps solely does) exist in the uncluttered mind, and the simple state.

How that relates to this 2013 tea from Chawangshop, I am not sure.  The phrase often means, in common parlence, something like "high and rarified things often have no-one to appreciate them", which is a subtle distortion of Lieh Tsu's actual message, but a usual one nonetheless.

Selecting such a name is dangerous: you are saying that this cake is rarified and fine, perhaps possessing the highest state of virtue, and that its appreciation is not guaranteed, except by those humble and perceptive souls who are receptive of its qualities.  This is a very hard act to follow, and, in a cake that is just $28/200g, we suspect that they may have "over-egged the pudding" in choosing a name of such grandeur.

The actual cake, would you believe it?, is more down-to-earth.  It is fresh, zesty, and sweet - perhaps a touch watery in the mouth at the beginning.  It builds to a decent finish in the throat, and has a good balance between kuwei [good bitterness], texture, and basic pu'ercha characteristics.  In later infusions, the texture thickens nicely.

My notes have "there are few cakes that can delivery such characteristics at such an affordable price, and, for the first time in a long while, I am considering whether or not to buy a tong of these xiaobing".  I later dwelled on the decision and concluded "it is certainly good value, and would make a good addition to a new collection - but possibly not our collection".

Perhaps it did live up to its name, in a way, after all.  With thanks to JT for the session.

When One is Naka'd

...good shengpu is required.

With thanks to Peter of Pu-erh.sk, today's session considers an autumnal version of the cake that I think was probably the best of all of Peter's cakes, last year: the 2013 Nakashan (from springtime).  That cake was, typically, sold out before I even tried the sample, but it was a fleeting, robust beauty while the session lasted.

Nakashan is in the Mengsongshan region, an area in which good cakes are being made and, consequently, in which prices of tea are rising.  I don't actually have a problem with prices rising; I felt a little guilty to be buying excellent tea at rock-bottom prices in Maliandao back in the day.  There was something uncomfortably "colonial" about turning up in a foreign country and paying "developing nation" prices for something that was very high quality.  While my wallet doesn't appreciate the rise in prices, my conscience is happier, which I consider to be a net win.

I use the entire 15g of the sample, recalling my difficulties with autumnal cakes, in which coaxing character out of them can be rather difficult.  This tea performs much better than you might otherwise expect for an autumnal tea - it is thick, heavy, and orange (thanks, perhaps, to the surfeit of leaves) and yet has a constrained power.  I am rewarded with a dark, sweet base along with plenty of kuwei [good bitterness].  Were I to try drinking 15g of springtime tea, the result would be much more punishing, but here it is almost necessary, for my tastes.

This tastes rather like a natural version of the rich blackness that some other producers (notably Xiaguan) attempt to recreate using novel processing methods.  It is a "big", constant tea, that remains heavy and sweet throughout its many infusions - again, because it tolerates using a large quantity of leaves.  It seems to last forever, but is perhaps not as arresting as the springtime version that I remember so well.  At 70 euro / 350g, I would say that it is a bit on the costly side for what we receive, but that is a personal judgement.  Overall, it is a solid autumnal tea that can deliver a decent session.

While We're Drinking Wulong

I'm not often in "wulong mode", but this week, I is.

Of all the wulong in all the world, Dayuling is probably my favourite.  I understand that its claims of being "the highest wulong in Taiwan" are dubious at best, as is the provenance of most of the little green balls that invariably get repackaged in company-branded packets.  I understand that I am not supposed to love its plutonium-style freshness.  I understand that it is woefully, woefully overpriced.  And yet, there I am, loving it all the same.

The above photograph already has UN inspectors knocking at my front door.  To say that this tea emits ionising radiation is to understate the sheer ferocity of these little green balls.

And yet, when were balls ever so lovely?  This is a monstrously expensive, monstrously enjoyable tea.

I believe, and I may be wrong here, that I have loved every example of Dayuling that I have encountered.  I remember it starting out with Teamasters sending me a frighteningly-priced sample, which renormalised all other wulong for me.  My scale changed, tangibly, after drinking that tea.  I then went on to Houde and (I may be misremembering here) Essence of Tea examples, and recall thinking that there really were the canine's reproductive apparatus.  That's a good thing, by the way, for people unfamiliar with English English.

Perhaps my words will not do it justice, then, rather like me trying to describe my feelings when I look at my favourite painting.  

(I refer to April Love by Arthur Hughes, hanging in the Tate - there are no photographs that adequately capture the sensation that it delivers to the eyes, when viewed in person.)

It is floral, it is honeysuckle-like, it is buttery, it has the spice of gingerbread, and yet it is, like every other Dayuling, unique.  It is like describing April Love as being a painting of a girl in a blue dress.  The facts of the description are true, but the spirit is absent.

In the mouth, it expands like a sponge in water.  Big.  Big!  And sweet.  And enduring.  And it has me forgetting the rules of sentence construction, but that's OK.

I feel as if this article is probably of little help, but it is what it is.  Perhaps you might benefit from trying this tea to form your own opinion.  Like seeing April Love in person, however, I cannot guarantee that it will mean as much to you as it does to me.  We shall see.

Garden Drinking?

It seems that it was a long time ago since I last enjoyed wulong.  The images in this article...

have been cluttering up my Blogger's post queue...

for over a year...

and where the above image suggests that I was drinking something from Teamasters (where I hope Stephane is still doing his thing)...

and yet where I have absolutely no memory of the tea session.  It looked lovely, though, and seemingly took place during one of the few final days of summer in 2013, according to the time-stamps of the photographs.  I hope that I enjoyed the tea!

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On discovering the blockage in my Blogger, I resolved (i) to clear it and (ii) to drink some more wulong.

I quickly headed for a generous sample bag provided by TeaVivre, an outfit that sends me samples from time to time, and where I have been surprised by the quality of one particularly humble pu'ercha cake to the extent that I actually ordered some for my own collection (as in, I parted with some actual money).  Their usual business appears to be the selling of wulongcha.

I tend to give wulong salesmen a wide berth; the tea is hard to trace (and is certainly harder than pu'ercha), and this obfuscation of its sources makes it costly.  The price can happily be ramped up, because it's impossible to check what you're drinking - there is no wrapper, for starters.  If I were feeling uncharitable, I would say that wulong is a more accessible tea than pu'ercha (certainly, I give it to my relatives, for example), and so as a "gift tea", it likewise tends to get marked up far beyond its value.   Perhaps, most of all, I feel as if I do not truly get wulong - I know a few things to look out for, but I don't know that I can tell grade AAAA from grade AAAAA, as it were.

At $50/100g, this is not a tea that you would acquire on a whim.  My diary seems to have, "The little green balls smell fantastically sweet - I can imagine oriental stomachs clenching in pain."

This is a decent wulong, but perhaps, to my ignorant palate, rather straightforward.  There is buttery, floral sweetness in the usual manner, but, after the second infusion (when the little green balls have unfurled), there is a long, honeysuckle sugariness.  I am transported to memories of late spring in our garden, by the scent alone.  "The pollenated warmth of this tea is enjoyable", I wrote, but the price is a problem for me.

Autumnal Stability

Week-ends are a thing of beauty: each seems to feel like a little holiday, lately.  What better way to open the two-day break than with a new Yiwu from Pu-erh.sk?  With thanks to Peter for the sample, we explore a "guhua" tea from the general Yiwushan area.

Little seems to be known about this tea; it is generic Yiwu in name, but looks rather attractive.  I could not find the tea for sale at Peter's web-site, even though it is mentioned in some marketing text at the top of the page, but I see that the 2012 Autumnal Yiwu (which I rather enjoyed) sells for 48 euro per 250g.

This cake, it must be said, is not quite up to the level of the tea that I had before.  This is a "workhorse" - a stable, reliable, unchanging Yiwu cake that ploughs a furrow of dark sweetness without bothering the more poetical adjectives that we might otherwise be tempted to consider.  Perhaps it is best in its initial scent - the wenxiangbei is buttery, sweet, and very heavy.  By comparison, the tea is merely "decent".  This is not a bad thing, of course, and I had a most enjoyable session, but there are (very) many Yiwushan cakes that have qualities similar to those on offer today.

Perhaps surprisingly, this cake eventually wheedles its way into my affections, by remaining unchanging and strong for some fifteen or so infusions.  This is a virtue in an autumnal tea, which are not known for their strength and constancy.  It reminds me that I am looking forward to trying the new 2014 season from Pu-erh.sk, which, as regular readers may reasonably conclude, has become one of my favourite suppliers over the past year or so.

Simian Delights

I love it when I get to my office and there's a parcel waiting.  Who's this one from?

It's from TeaVivre, the folks from Xiamen with the pretty tea-packets...

Opening the packets reveals a bonanza of sample-bags...

While it transpires that there are actually six different teas in this pile, it is perhaps a sign of the times that I reach past the pu'ercha, for this first selection, and instead go straight for the hongcha.  When it's cold outside, when it's been raining so much that the river has flooded, when it's daylight only for a small interval around noon, then you know that you need the warmth and comfort of solid hongcha.  At least, that's how it works for your correspondent.

"Jinsihuo" [jin-ser-hwo] literally means "gold-fur monkey".  It isn't a type of tea that I have encountered before, although the mighty Babelcarp appears to have learned the phrase "Jinsiluo", referring to "gold-fur snail" (or "gold-thread snail") from the same area of Fuding in Fujian.  A quick glance at the photograph below will suggest why the "snail" name came to stick, perhaps because it is a hongcha version of Biluochun.  However, this tea is all about monkeys and not snails, and I respect that.

Many hongcha are simple.  Some are complex.  Some are porcelain elegances - I'm thinking of the canonical varieties sold by Essence of Tea, for example.  It must be said that my favourite kind of hongcha is strong, potent, and uncompromising.  I begin to wonder if the curly, fragile wisps of Jinsihuo can slice the Dijon.

Fears of underpowered leaves are quickly dismissed in the first infusion.  Due to the small size of the leaves, they rapidly give off their character, rather than the evolution that one might expect over several infusions from pu'ercha.  These little fellows manage to pack a significant punch into that first infusion, which lasts well.  It is a fine mixture of an excellent, traditionally-malted base, along with a tenacious sweetness, refusing to relinquish its hold on the tongue.

The colour, as shown above, is likewise solid - it has the golden meniscus that provides good contrast, and where its body is fat, chunky, and very pleasant.  This is a solid little hongcha, and I'm rather enjoying the session.  Perhaps next we should look at the price... $67 / 500g may seem, at first blush, quite a lot for hongcha, which is usually rock-bottom in price.  However, this tea comes with a chemical screening test from a reliable lab; if we accept that this tea is in fact similar to that which was used in the lab test, $67 for peace of mind is probably worthwhile.  With hongcha, in particular, sharp practice including the use of nasty agrochemicals is standard practice.

Thanks very much to TeaVivre for the session, which was a warming treat on a grim English day.