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.

Outdoors with the... Wulong

Let's make hay while the sun shines.

First on the menu: a 1997 Xianfeng "Jipin Anxi", pictured above and below.

This sample was kindly provided by HC, and is wulong supreme.

Buttery, sweet, and smooth; charming, like old honey, long-lived in the throat.  I know next to nothing about wulong, but found this to be exceptional. 

I wonder where it comes from.  I can see this going down very well throughout the remainder of the summer...

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Just one year younger, the 1998 Fenghuangshan ["Phoenix" mountain] dancong was also provided by HC.

I drink dancong about once every three years, and yet seem to have a pot dedicated to it.  I find this strange, and should consider repurposing the above for other uses.

"Not much here", notes my dear wife.  The soup is quite flat, while lightly roasted, and I suspect that it has tired throughout the years.  Certainly, it lacks the charm and zeal of the Xianfeng.

 

That said, everything tastes fine when one is out in the garden, hiding from the sun, under a willow tree.

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With thanks to GV, we change gear and head into qingxiang [green scent] wulong territory, with a 2010 Alishan.

This Taiwanese tea is rolled, as shown above, in the usual manner and is a "self import", as GV notes on the label.  I've noticed that professors of finance do tend to travel quite a bit.

We last met when he came to visit me at my old college.  Being the totally hardcore teamaestro that he is, he even brought his own pyramid bag, filled with roasted wulong.  You have to admire that.

This is the last, and best, tea of the day.  Honeysuckle in aroma, sweet gingerbread in flavour, long-lasting in the throat, and with the longevity to taste excellent even after a dozen infusions, both my wife and I love it.  The day draws to a close as the water begins to cool.

 

Fantastic wulong.

Tea with Mr. Twodog2

I landed in Beijing, checked into my hotel on Zhichunlu, and then called PM (a.k.a. twodog2), proprietor of white2tea.  Within twenty minutes, I was zooming through the (now entirely enormous) Beijing metro.  I visit Beijing about once per year, and each time that I visit more subway lines have been created.  When I first went to the city, almost a decade ago, there were just two simple lines (one straight line, one circular!), whereas now there are zillions.  Most of the maps available on the internet are comically out-of-date, such is the rate of tunneling.

 

What this means is that you can get almost anywhere within 45 minutes, and you can avoid sitting in the heavy road traffic.  Additionally, there is 100% mobile signal strength throughout the subway, meaning that you can even get some work done.  I chose to spend the time writing haiku, and so was busily scribbling into my diary while standing up, swaying around with the movements of the train, much to the amusement of the locals.

 

Within the hour, I was greeted at Guomao station by the blond maniac himself.  He looks almost exactly like Calvin; the photograph below is a very good likeness.

We headed to a nearby friend's teahouse, which was a very pretty little venue.  Pictured below, another visiting friend of PM's, from Taiwan, was just returned from a tea-producing expedition (I think).  My Mandarin is approximately 1% as good as PM's, who has been immersed in Beijing for several years.

 

PM stepped up to the teatable and began the brewing...

It must be something to do with the variety of people that one finds in teahouses, but this is the third time that I have visited such a place where there is a Zen  monk sitting at the table.  When I arrived, the monk came out of a little door which I assumed led to a small temple or meditation room.  I later found out that I was almost correct, and that the door led to the loo.  Spiritual insights abound in both locations.

It was a long session, and I had not eaten since the early-morning meal on the aeroplane, such was my haste to get to the tea-session!  This means that the subsequent four or so hours of drinking tea left me entirely ravenous, but I figured that this would be a good way to burn off some of my massive fat reserves before the Chinese lunches and dinners kicked in.

We started off with a 2002 Bulangshan, which I think is perhaps the cake pictured above.  Along with a 2005 Nakashan cake, PM had been generous in bringing some very good leaves with him.

Shown above, a 1995 Songpin (correct me if I'm wrong), allegedly from Yiwushan.  This was a Big Tea, and noticeably Yiwu-area, although a debate about precise regions then followed between PM and our Taiwanese colleague.  I think I'm right in calling him "Mr. Zhang".

 

18 years after its production, the 1995 cake tasted heavily of wildflowers - often a surprise to me, when I assume that floral characteristics dissipate with age.  Its constancy was a great pleasure, even after serious brewing.

Mr. Zhang then reclaimed his rightful seat at the tea-table.  Being rather English about it, I'm not particularly keen on calling tea-people "Master", but suspect that Mr. Zhang might go by that title in some circles.

 

(The very amusing owner of the tea-shop is shown above, wearing a red scarf and the 1920s spectacles.)

 

Hallelujah - his first tea was a really decent zhengshan xiaozhong from Tongmuguan (if I understood him correctly), and which reminded me of both Essence of Tea's version and Vicony's version from that canonical area for "lapsang".  I must have seemed impressed, because Mr. Zhang kindly packed me up a big bag of it.

We rolled through a Taiwanese qingxiang wulong, shown above, and followed it up with a nongxiang (yancha?) version that PM may already be selling via his web-store.

While PM stepped outside to Talk Business with Mr. Zhang, I got down to the serious business of drinking more wulong and eating snacks, my eleven-hour appetite threatening to cause me to eat my own leg.

 

At around 7 p.m., we said our goodbyes, and went our separate ways, bellies filled with great teas and heads filled with good conversation.  It was an excellent start to a busy week, and a very great pleasure to meet PM.

Ave, Apache, Pu'ercha Plenus

I hope that's the feminine singular nominative.  School was a long time ago...

Plenus or not, the big man rolled up at my place last week-end.  He was heavily laden.  I had bought 15 litres of water in preparation.  We were ready.

Apache, like everyone from Hong Kong (Kenny and GV, I'm looking at you), seems to have a long-standing relationship with The Fat.  And why not?  I've never been to the Fragrant Port, but would make calling in at the famous teahouse an essential part of my visit if ever it occurred.

The Fat does most things well, when it comes to tea, but I cannot say that I have ever tried their wulong before.

Pictured above, this is a miscellaneous "gongfu chawang" of which we know little, excepting the facts that (i) it is roasted, and (ii) it is still quite young.  This makes for a mighty fine wulong experience, and I even did the unthinkable and managed to find my roasted-wulong pot.  That little pot doesn't get much action.

This was, perhaps expectedly, a very good wulong: buttery, green, young - but smoothly roasted, without being heavy-handed.  A fine balance between light and dark, yin and yang, Force and Sith.  The running order for today's session was decided by Apache himself, and this was a great opener.

2003 Menghai Tea Factory "Qiaomu Laoshu" Cake

You may have read recently of Apache's hideous treatment at the hands of a vendor whose name cannot be named, in which we was peddled a fake 2003 Dayi Qiaomu Laoshu.  Keen to restore balance to the Force, Apache brought along a sample of the actual Dayi cake, provided by a friend of his from Guangdong province.

2003 Menghai Qiaomu Laoshu

This version, pictured above, does not suck at all.  In fact, it is quite the opposite.  The leaves, pictured above, are separate, long, and very well-aged.  The Taobaowang price at the time of writing for this little baby is currently 300 English pounds (approx. 450 Amurcan) for a full cake.  It is not at all cheap, but exceedingly cheerful.

Clean, elegant, heavily sweet, and yet laden with kuwei [good bitterness] even after a decade of storage in south China - this is quite remarkable.  Heaven knows how delicious this will be after another ten years; it certainly has the strength to turn into something even more fine.  As it stands, it is woody, enduring, and darned solid.

Dayi special cakes have come under heavy (financial) speculation within the last half-year or so, and the prices are generally going through the roof for anything Dayi that isn't a standard recipe.  You may not have seen this in Western markets, because we tend to see just the basics (7542, 8582, etc.); the better "specials", however, are taking a huge pounding.  The case of the amusingly-priced 2011 Jin Dayi is one that you might have come across, for example.  Apache and I bought that by the tong about a year ago, and the price has since approximately tripled.

Speaking of overpriced speculation...

Hualian ("Waloon" in Cantonese?) is the teashop on Macao that is famous for the "1997 Hualian Qingzhuan" [green brick], allegedly made entirely of laoshu leaves.  This 2004 cake is more down-to-earth, but is supposedly more Banzhang material.

"Banzhangwang", anyone?

The leaves are small and crunched, as one might expect (pictured below).

Interval: we discovered the following nestled inside the leaves of this tea.  We have absolutely no idea what these... pearl-coloured pods might be.  Tea-seeds?  Insect eggs?  You decide.  Either way, we chickened out and decided not to brew them.

Minus the worrying eggs, the actual tea was... pretty good.  It was lighter than the previous 2003 Qiaomu Laoshu, and quite obviously so.  There was good sweetness, and a decent body, but it was all rather underwhelming and quite straightforward.

The soup, shown above, looks good, however.  For completeness, an image of the wrapper is shown below, where "Shengtai Yesheng" means "Natural Wild".  The former term is sometimes translated as "ecological", referring to the manner in which the trees are (allegedly) maintained.

Banzhangwang

The cake that we drank next I choose to omit from today's proceedings.  This is merely because we gave it short shrift, and I went on to enjoy it the next day.  So delicious was this unnamed tea, in fact, that I will write about it in another article.

So, instead, let us move on to the next cake after that: the 2003 Menghai "Chawang Qingbing":

Menghai Tea Factory 2002 "Chawang Qingbing"

This final cake is a heavy hitter.  It is The Real Thing, where you should pronounce the capital letters.

With my pot given over to That Mysterious Tea omitted previously, we parked this 2002 Menghai "Chawang Qingbing" in Apache's appropriately-labeled gaiwan.  It is one of those rather huge Dayi affairs that seems entirely suited to brewing this tea.

I rather like gaiwan brewing for the speed with which one can evacuate the water from the leaves.  Perhaps I should use one more often, but I do so love my little zisha pot, "Zidu", who brews 95% of my tea.

By the time Apache and I got into this tea, we had been going some three hours or so, and were rapidly reaching tea saturation.  Such a thing appears to be possible!  This 2002 Menghai reset the clocks: it was immensely solid, with a base of cement.  Density, infinite density!  Sweetness, strength, unfathomably long-lasting... a tea to drink again.

In fact, Apache did it the very great honour of taking it home to drink the next day, which is wise indeed.

"Top tier for the year in which it was produced", concluded Apache.  I could only agree.  You would have to search far indeed to find a better cake from 2002.

And then, it was all over.  I always enjoy these epic sessions with Apache, and learn a great deal each time.  My appreciation for the rarer Menghai "specials" has reached new heights... as has the price of these cakes, thanks to Chinese speculators.  Therefore, we must "make hay while the sun shines".

Such lovely hay it is, too.

Wulong and the Willow

Against all the odds, the sun has been shining on England for a day or so.  Wasting no time, the good doctor and I sprinted out into the garden for some husband-and-wife teatime.

Separating the two halves of our garden is an old willow tree, which sways dramatically in the wind and gives the whole garden a soothing feeling of gentle motion, much like a seaview.  The rustling sound from the leaves is much the same.

The garden plays a background role in my tea drinking, as my teatable in the house looks out on it.  Perhaps you've come across it before: you may remember a haiku on Chinese characters growing in our flowerbeds.  Many times do I stop to listen to that ever-present rustling.  Sometimes, it reminds me of gentle sunshine, sometimes it is the tree losing its leaves in winter.  Sometimes, it reminds me of my wife and her mother.

Always, the willow tree is there, drinking tea with me from a distance.

With the arrival of good weather, Lei and I managed to drink tea on the arrangement that Chinese Mama had created under our willow tree, during her last visit (pictured above and below). 

The logs were rescued from a nearby chap who had felled one of his larger trees; rather than see them combust, Lei thought that they would make excellent companions for the garden.  As always, she was right...

To celebrate our journey into the garden, we needed some tea to suit the mood.  Given that the aroma is dominated by a wall-full of honeysuckle, it would be hard to drink something other than fresh wulong, which has an aroma almost identical to the honeysuckle.

With thanks to Tom, a teachum from near to my hometown in East Anglia, we started on a "high mountain" wulong, which may have been produced by someone named Xu.  It could have come from Postcard Teas, the lovely little London shop that I have mentioned before.

It is a fresh wulong in the "exceedingly green" genre, which was both very friendly and most enjoyable.  "Wulong is the perfect tea for the garden", quoth the raven-haired lady.

With time on our side, we headed into roasted wulong territory, thanks to Superhans, our teachum from an American orchestra of international repute.  When not making sweet music, Superhans clearly enjoys a good tea, pictured below.

This is a lively recent picking, it seems, with a very decent roast that complements, rather than overpowers, the character of the leaves.

The hours set along with the sun, and before we knew it, our wulong adventure was to come to an end, with the return of our (much beloved) family time.

With special thanks to Tom and Hans.