Seven Days of Seven Cups, Day 2 – “Bai Ji Guan or White Rooster Crest”
Bai Ji Guan—translated as “White Rooster Crest”— earns its name from the color and shape of its leaves.
Image owned by Seven Cups
They’re rather yellow and crest-like. According to legend, an old rooster died near a place called Hui Yan Rock. The locals buried the bird under a tea bush, and the following year, the bush’s leaves grew in yellow. It’s as likely a story as any coming out of China.
Seven Days of Seven Cups, Day 1 – “Seasoning a Boob-Shaped Yixing Teapot”
In December of last year, I shattered my boob-shaped yixing teapot.
Yes, it was boob-shaped once. Not . . . accurately boob-shaped, but definitely figuratively. It had a whole story behind it and everything. (The story in question can be found HERE.) At the time, I was reaching for a gaiwan, and the li’l guy fell from the top shelf of my bookcase. The base completely ‘sploded, likely because I hadn’t seasoned the pot properly.
Well over a year ago, I tried a green tea from a Russian tea garden that just . . . blew my mind.
Russian green tea
The garden—according to the vendor, What-Cha—was called “the Host tea estate”. I corresponded with the company owner for some time, and he informed me that he could find no information on the garden. This wasn’t much of a surprise.
Begin Doke Diary transmission.
I’ve already written about the Doke tea estate in Bihar, India on several occasions. Everyone who reads this blog already knows my leanings toward it. That being, it’s my absolute favorite Indian tea garden. Yes, in all of India.
Photo by Rachiv Lochan.
But out of the countless tea profiles, taster notes, and lapses in narrative judgment, there is one thing I haven’t done. I haven’t had the opportunity to try all four of Doke’s teas from one season, in one year, in one day. That is, until Lochan Tea supplied me with such an opportunity.
I seem to be on a weird streak lately, talking about growing regions that shouldn’t exist. First, it was puerh variants in the hills of Thailand, then it was Kickstarter projects in India, and last week, it was mystery gardens in Russia. (I’m not done there, yet, by the way.) This week, we’re heading back to India, and a little-known state called Meghalaya.
A few months ago – as some of you have undoubtedly seen – I received samples from What-Cha. Many of them were from Russian tea estates in Krasnodar krai, specifically the Dagomys region near Sochi City. Yeah, the place where the Winter Olympics were held two years ago. I’ve written about Russian teas rather extensively in the last couple of years, but I had yet to do a profile on one specific garden.
What-Cha’s owner, Alistair Rea, sort of nudged me to sample a couple of black teas from the so-called “Solohaul Tea Estate”. As with any tea company or garden, there was very little information available online. And unless I somehow managed to become fluent in Russian (and the Cyrillic alphabet), that wasn’t about to change anytime, soon.
Alistair, however – in his usual, resourceful way – did find an article about the garden, complete with lovely pictures . . . one of which I mooched.
Image owned by Tea-Terra.
I don’t get out much these days. For tea or anything else.
Not sure if it’s by accident or by design, but in the last couple of months, I’ve preferred to take tea at home. Perhaps it’s the allure of the natural light hitting my personal tea tray, or the sheer ease of never having to leave my pajamas. Or, maybe still, it’s the given fact that most of my tea friends are in other parts of the country – nay, the world!
There is one drawback, though.
In case anyone missed it, there was no update last week. Reason being, I was at a wedding in Southern California. (No, not mine.) That left very little time to write anything, and on said trip, I only had one minor tea adventure.
It involved a batch of 2014 Second Flush Castleton Moonlight and a hotel Cuisinart coffee machine.
Hilarity and messes ensued.
The trip also meant that I was out of the proverbial tea world loop. No news reached my ears until the Sunday I got back. And . . . geez . . . what a news day it was.
A little over a year ago I made the acquaintance of Raj Vable of Young Mountain Tea.
We met up for lattes at Tea Bar PDX (where the above picture was taken), and he passed some samples on to me. Including an interesting Nilgiri black tea that I took a liking to. But that wasn’t the only reason for his visit. He was also starting up a rather ambitious Kickstarter campaign, and he wanted some help spreading the word.
Kamairicha literally means “pan-fired tea” in Japanese.
I first tried it a year ago, and I dug it. I even wrote a poem about it. The less spoken about that, the better. Moving on . . .
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