Pu-erh Envy

Pu-erh 'stupa'

This foot high, 2-piece Pu-erh ’stupa’ is the largest size that we have been able to procure from China. But believe me, this 1-kilo tea structure is a tiny tot compared to the 5-foot tall, multi-level stupas we have encountered in Yunnan. The term ’stupa’ here refers to the shape of the tea which resembles the shape of Buddhist Stupas – there is no religions connotation inferred by this that I know of.  In fact, tea shops in Yunnan proudly display their monumental tea stupas for their customers admiration. Used in this manner they symbolize bounty and prosperity. I do not know the history of why these Pu-erhs came to be made and shaped like this, nor when manufacture of these started. Clearly it is tea compression taken to an extreme, perhaps only for the challenge of doing it. If anyone knows the history, please share !

This ’stupa’  is made from clean and good condition raw materials from Bulang. The surface is tight and smooth and the compression has been well executed – the shape is crisp and the ridges of the melon are very nicely formed. The  aroma is  mild, clean and earthy; it has ’good environment’ smell.

Overall, it is an excellent example of these compressed, showpieces. This one is sheng Pu-erh from the 207 harvest.  No, I have not tasted it, and I assume that anyone who purchases this will not tuck into it either.  For most it will be bought as a showpiece, a beautiful something that shows off the craft of compressing and shaping large units of tea. It would be stunning placed on top of a tea cabinet or set off to the side on a generously-sized tea table. No matter where it is, it will create Pu-erh envy in all who see it.

Every tea lover needs a wonderous ‘tea object’ that reminds him or her that the culture of tea goes beyond what one sips in a cup. For me, these  Pu-erh stupas are a daily reminder of the craft and ingenuity that exists in changing raw materials into tea or something related that celebrates tea.

We have less than a dozen of these stupas and have already sold several.  I suggest immediate action for anyone who is serious about owning one.  http://tiny.cc/MdrzE

2009 Anxi Monkey-Picked Tieguanyin ( Wild-Grown )

Wow…. those monkeys have been working overtime again. Thanks boys, for rushing this delicious tea to us; it is perfect for late-afternoon sipping on a warm fall day just before the cool of the evening settles in.  

Kidding aside, those of you who follow this blog know that I love the monkey-picked yarn, but a yarn it is. For more on that, please read my blog posting on November 25, 2008.

Nevertheless, it’s time for the 2009 Anxi Wild-Grown Monkey-Picked Tieguanyin oolong. We decided to up the wow-factor this year and search for a wild-grown version of this tea. Wild-picked teas are teas that are plucked from bushes that are allowed for the most part to grow ‘wild’ without much human intervention.

These tea bushes are not pruned or cultivated as most tea bushes in most tea gardens are, but are instead allowed to grow as nature intended plants grow: wild, rangy and with a shape and habit all their own. Often, a wild garden is the result of the plants being located in an isolated or hard to reach place, in which case the plants are able to grow quite tall. Plucking is relegated to once a year in the late spring.

As tea enthusiasts know, no two Tieguanyin teas will ever be the same from producer to producer. In fact, this is a true statement for all tea,  and fortunately so. Exact duplicity of flavor should be reserved for white bread and processed cheese, not premium, hand-made artisan tea. Too many variables, including human skills and judgement, make duplicity impossible. These are a few of the major variables that come into play for oolong tea:

• terroir ( location, climate and weather)
• tea bush variety or cultivar (or age and condition of the plants when the variety is all the same )
• the specificity of the pluck ( what leaf or configuration of leaf is plucked )
• the amount of withering the fresh leaf undergoes
• the degree of oxidation
• the integrity of the leaf manufacture and how many of the steps of processing utilize hand-skills, such as rolling
• roasting / no roasting
• aging/ new crop tea

We loved this Tieguanyin because it is soft in style yet vividly floral and mouth-filling. It is a semi-ball rolled modern-style oolong oxidized in the range of 25-40%, which is much less than the usual range of 35-65% oxidation for semi-ball rolled traditional teas. The leaves are loosely-rolled balls that are very uniform in size, and the tea has not been roasted.

 The color of the leaf is dark green tinged with highlights of gold. During  several repeated short steepings the color of the infusion will vary as the flavor is slowly drawn out.  Initially the liquor will be light and clear, and then it will darken with each infusion. After the leaves have given up all of its flavor it will return to a pale, clear brew. Both color and flavor rise and fall in appropriate anticipation and expectation.

More New 2009 Tea

 

Nepal Hand-Rolled Tips

New shipments of tea are arriving here daily and in rapid fire. These new additions are late spring /early summer green and teas that have been shipped by sea from China and Taiwan, and second flush Darjeeling and Nepal teas that have been shipped via air-cargo.

We are in the process of  unpacking all of them, and it is a lot of work to make sure all is well with the tea and to get all of the peripheral information recorded. For example, we must literally unpack all of the tea to make sure it is all there. Then, we must taste it all to insure that each tea is indeed the tea that we ordered. Then tea information must be written and added to our website and blog in a timely fashion. The jars we sell the tea from must be labeled and the individual labels that we use for customer purchases must be made, too. The tea must be inventoried in the appropriate place in our warehouse and last but n0t least, of course, the tea must be put into jars so that customers may purchase it.

Despite all of this work, we love the excitement of having new tea arrive. We always spend a few minutes as we unpack each one  to admire it’s unique texture, color and shape before we taste it.

Several of these new teas are of particular note. First up are two hand-rolled black teas that we ordered directly from the producers in Nepal as soon as we tasted their samples. These teas are from the Everest Tea Estate and the Shangri-La tea factory. Both are gorgeous and worthy of a place in the finest tea collections.

We chose these hand-rolled teas first, because they are delicious, and secondly, because they are spectacular examples of the tea makers craft. Nepal is one of the last places on earth that is still makes hand-rolled black teas, and we would like to support that effort and see it continue. Click here for more details: http://tiny.cc/aZd6P

2009 Competition Grade Tai Ping Hou Kui

Tai Ping Hou Kui has never looked so lovely or tasted so fresh. In fact, this tea is so fresh you will swear that the leaf is still attached to the bush. If you look carefully at this picture you can see the little cross-hair marks embedded in the leaf from the weave of the paper that is used to line the top of the tea-firing baskets during manufacture. This paper absorbs moisture so that the leaf does not have to spend as much time over the charcoal fire as it otherwise would.

Tai Ping has some of the largest leaves of any green tea and this batch is certainly the most magnificent that we have ever had. This particular batch of competition-grade Tai Ping is a splendid example of the results that specific leaf plucking yields . The vivid green color and vegetal in flavor reveal that the tea was plucked in the early spring.  Click here for more details: http://tiny.cc/kLvfB

Bai Hao Oriental Beauty

Bai Hao Oriental Beauty is Taiwan’s most beloved tea. Oddly, Bai Hao is not as well known in the USA as the semi-ball rolled teas such as Tung Ting and the High Mountain gao shan oolongs. Or even Baozhong. This is a pity because Bai Hao is very labor intensive to produce and can only be made for a short period of time in June. Taiwanese tea lovers favor this tea for its mellow and seductive apricot and melon flavors and its light, elegant style. The leaf for quality Bai Hao is an odd-looking mix of dark, medium and light colored leaves.

But that is as it should be and the best Bai Hao is not a blend. Bai Hao is given a long outdoor and indoor wither, which contributes to the customary appearance of this tea. Japanese tea drinkers adore Bai Hao and when they visit the island searching for tea to bring home, they willingly pay very high prices for the best tea. Accordingly, we made sure that our Bai Hao tea maker saved some of his great tea for our customers, too. Click here for details:  http://tiny.cc/7CQnv

 

Tea Trekker Tea-Shirts

 Our beautiful new dusty-sage green tea-shirts are here and ready for wearing. Declare your love for the leaf and wear one with pride! Our shirts are a nice weight of 50/50 cotton/polyster blend to prevent shrinking ( we all know that we do not gain weight, but that our clothing shrinks).  A contingent of tea professionals recently all wore our tea-shirts on an educational tea trip to Taiwan – we loved that !

These thirts are printed for us by a non-profit company, Valley Tees. This unique business is run by The Association For Community Living, a Springfield, MA based program for people with developmental disabilities. Over the decades the ACL has made great strides in providing individuals with developmental disabilities the opportunity to reach their fullest potential, lead a productive, happy life and be valued members of their communities.

We love the quality of our tea-shirts and believe that you will as well. The front of the tea-shirt has a small image of tea trekker on the front, upper left ( where a pocket would be if the shirt had a pocket) and the phrase: ” I’m a tea trekker.”  

Visit our website for more images and to place an order: http://www.teatrekker.com/t-shirt.htm

He Became She and then Came Tea

 

Many tea enthusiasts have discovered the delightful taste of China’s most famous oolong tea – Tieguanyin. This semi-ball rolled style tea is made in 27 tea villages located in the vicinity of Anxi in southern Fujian Province, and is manufactured in both modern and traditional oxidation styles. Some of it is roasted, perfect for aging, and some is not, perfect for drinking now. This region has steep mountains and deeply-cut valleys and terraced tea gardens as far as the eye can see. It is serious oolong tea country.

But how many of you know that this tea is named for a Chinese god – Kuan Yin – and a god with a very interesting past, to boot ?

Last year I was fortunate to be able to sit in on a class on Buddhist Thought at Smith College led by the Buddhist scholar, Peter Gregory. The topic at hand for the semister was thus: why was the male Indian Buddhist bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara transformed ( ‘domesticated’ ) by Chinese Buddhists into the female deity Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy ?

In an attempt to come to an understanding of ‘how’ and ‘why’ this gender re-imagining occured, we studied Buddhist canonical sources and imagery to discover how these texts and depictions interacted with Chinese ‘beliefs’ and popular notions of gender, family, filial piety, and cosmic resonance. 

For within the  rich mass of thought and governance that has shaped China’s culture, social order and philosophical and religious views must lie the reason behind why this deity entered China as a young man, then changed into a gender-less guardian of the human race, then a devote Chinese princess ( Miaoshan ) and lastly, a compassionate Mother. 

Additionally, adding to the mystery and ’strangeness’ of the concept of a male deity transforming into a female deity in China is the long history of gender issues in Confuscian China and the dominance of males in traditional Buddhist heirarchy, dogma and practice.

But, this is not Hollywood. As is often the case with issues of religion, there is no one concrete answer to this question. Many thoughts come together on this topic. Some scholars make a believable case for the idea that devout Chinese women needed a powerful god ( not just a lesser god or local, village gods ) that they could appeal to for assistance and compassion in times of need, and that this played a significant role in the transformation.

Having a female god on the ’bodhisattva level’ added validity and solace to women in Chinese society at that time, and created an inclusive community that allowed women from all communities to feel connected.  While the cult of Kuan Yin continues today with both male and female followers, it is middle-aged women who most visably worship Kuan Yin and make the annual pilgrimages t0 pay respect and offer incense.

So, for those of you looking for a toothsome topic ( and a great exercise to get the little grey cells moving ) to delve into over the fall and winter months, I highly recommend a trip to your local library for some literature on this topic. In class we read three books: Kuan-Yin: the Chinese Transformation of Avalokiteśvara  by Chun-Fang Yu;  Personal Salvation and Filial Piety by Wilt L. Idema, and The Legend of Miaoshan by Glen Dudbridge, plus many papers and articles exerpted from scholarly journals.

 But, back to Tieguanyin, the tea. Legend has it that the Qing emperor Kangxi ( r. 1661-1722 ) prayed to the goddess Kuan Yin for the return of his health during a bout with smallpox. She answered his prayers and later appeard to him in a dream. In the dream she brought him to a place where the farmers were very poor but where a few tea bushes grew on a mountainside. To repay her kindness, she asked him to help the people of this region cultivate these tea bushes and prosper from it in her name.  

Kuan Yin then showed the emperor that the leaves of these tea bushes bore a marked impression. He plucked one from the bush, after which the leaf bore the impressions of both of their thumbs. These two tiny marks have always distinguished the leaves of true Tieguanyin bush varietals. Emperor Kangxi proclaimed Tieguanyin famous for all eternity in China, and from that time the Tieguanyin tea industry has thrived. The Qing emperor Qianlong ( r. 1736-1795 ) selected Tieguanyin to be one of his Tribute teas. *

* from The Story of Tea, Ten Speed Press, 2007

To view our selection of Tieguanyin oolong tea, click here: http://tiny.cc/t7LhL.   New Tieguanyin will be arriving soon.