Steep Stories

of the Lazy Literatus

Tag: Taiwan

“Taiwan’s Wild Side” – Big Brass Butikis, Round 1

By

On February 25, 2014

In Tea Features

Big Brass Butikis, Round 1: “Taiwan’s Wild Side”

I have a confession to make: I’m in love with Butiki Teas. They are one of five (maybe six?) companies that have my kind of business model. That being: What’s that? Is it weird? SWEET! I’ll buy ALL of it!

Fry

It’s like they took a piece of my brain, examined it, got rid of all the porny parts, and rolled with the rest.

Granted, they do have custom blends and flavored teas, too. But they go side-by-side with their esoteric partners on the beautiful Butiki list o’ wares. Butiki Teas provided me with the first Kenyan Purple Tea I ever tried, as well as the first Purple Pu-erh I gongfu’d the hell out of.

Heck, they even somehow carried a Nilgiri oolong that blew me away. Nilgiri oolongs never blow me away. (Okay, maybe a back-alley old fashioned from the Dunsdale estate, but that doesn’t count. Does it?)

This time, I was treated to two black teas from Yuchih Township, Nantou County, Taiwan. One was an Assam variant; the other was semi-wild-crafted. Oh my…Taiwanese black teas. I am in lust with Taiwanese black teas. Haven’t met one I haven’t liked, yet. And by the smell of these two sample bags, I was in for some sweet, sweet tea-lovin’.

Premium Taiwanese Assam

I love Taiwanese black teas for specifically one reason – the Taiwanese don’t f**k around with the leaves too much. Unlike regular Assams that are cut to the size of needles, these were long and twisty. Brown – sure. Rolled – sure. But still very unmistakably only-somewhat-tampered-with leaves. I’m a huge fan of teas that are completely and utterly whole leaf. (Mainly for the fact that they take more abuse.)

Taiwanese Assam

The smell was another dimension entirely. Like other Taiwanese blacks I’ve tried, there was a requisite sweetness to the aroma and an almost-cocoa quality. It was like whiffing a chocolate-laden breakfast cereal. Er…in leaf form.

The leaves infused to a medium-red liquor with a rustically sweet aroma, almost like a wild stevia plant – only lighter. It was Taiwanese through-and-through in its aromatic presentation. What surprised me was the taste. While it wasn’t initially sweet on leaf-sniffing, the flavor took on loads of cocoa notes. Almost like a Li Shan black – another Taiwanese tea. I was expecting malt, but didn’t get any. This was a strong, if gentle, beast of a brew.

Tawanese Wild Mountain Black

First reason to love this tea? It was bug-bitten! Like an Oriental Beauty or a Gui Fei. Er…when you’ve reached my level of tea fanboydom, you’ll find that endlessly exciting.

Leafhopper

Second, everyone I knew in the tea community was bragging about this stuff. Particularly my Tandem Tea Tasting circle. As luck/coincidence would have it, I had some on-hand but hadn’t dipped into it, yet. Peer pressure got the better of me.

Moving on.

The appearance for this was almost identical to the Assam – long, twisty brown leaves. These differed considerably in aroma, however, imparting a subtle sweetness and a woodsy/malty lean. Still very Taiwanese, but with some characteristics similar a Yunnan Dian Hong. There was also a hint of honey on the back-whiff.

Taiwanese Wild Mountain Black

The Wild Taiwanese brewed up a bit lighter than the Assam – by at least a shade or two. A sweet aroma from the dry leaves was still there, but after being…uh…wetted, they gave off a minty quality to the brew as well. Taste-wise, it was malty, sweet (as I’ve said a thousand times) and spry on the malt. Like a Ruby 18 but a little more…buff.

Paired

Left: Premium Taiwanese Assam. Right: Wild Taiwanese Black

The Winner: Wild Mountain Black. By a mile. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the Taiwanese Assam. But the Wild Mountain Black just did everything right…in my mouth. Like meeting a nice, sweet girl with a wild streak…but “old fashioned” at heart.

Old Fashion

When You Wish Upon a Taiwanese White Tea

By

On January 14, 2014

In Tea Features, Tea Musings

White Tea Week, Day 3: “When You Wish Upon a Taiwanese White Tea

Back in the Fall, I saw a retweet from Greg “Norbu Tea” Glancy that just about put me into cardiac arrest.

Japanese White Tea

Japanese. White Tea. Oh. My. G-word.

I saw mention of something like this existing on (of all places) Wikipedia a year prior. Not sure how such a mention got there. I think one of the Wiki article writers planted it there to screw with my mind. Yes, my mind – personally! The article has since been updated/edited, but at the time, I went on a research binge to find out more.

Queries turned up nothing…until Greg’s retweet. Unfortunately, the tweet from the company in question was dated for back in August. I checked the site, and the Japanese white tea was gone. It’d sold out in days after its mention.

In true tea-fanboy fashion, I repeatedly contacted the vendor, and gave my best beggar-eyes. No luck. They were fresh out. Not even test-samples. I made…uh…”ridiculous offers” to even smell a bag that had housed the white tea leaves.

crack

Nothin’.

After a day or two of pouting, I returned to business as usual. Another round of Japanese white wouldn’t be available until May of the next year. I’d just have to live with it. But how?

Oh yeah.

I thought back to the entirety of the year, and to the teas I’d tried. Then I thought back to Greg and Norbu Tea. There was a type of white tea from another Asian isle that was hard to find – two actually! – and I’d sipped ’em both.

Tsou-Vayiyana Nano Alishan High Mountain White Tea

This white tea from Ali Shan (my favorite Taiwanese mountain), was from the Qing Xing cultivar. I tried it completely by happenstance at World Tea Expo at the Tsou-Vayiyana booth Norbu Greg was working at. The taste blew my mind. Alas, I didn’t have more time to concentrate on it, seeing as I was already well beyond tea drunk at the time. However, I did give it a proper treatment at home a few months later.

The dry leaves looked like…well…dry leaves.

Ali Shan

Not much else to say there. The smell, though, was pure wilderness with a slight tickle of lemon on the back-whiff. This may sound sacrilegious, but it reminded me of an American-grown white tea I tried. Same lemon-leafy fragrance finish.

I used roughly 3 grams of leaves, placed ‘em in a 6oz. gaiwan, and used 175F water for the brewing. Then I waited for about three minutes. And…prayed I didn’t screw it up. I didn’t have a lot of this stuff to go around.

Ali Shan again

The liquor came out practically clear with a smidge of yellow. At first, I thought I’d brewed it wrong. Was the temperature wrong? Should I have gone higher? Was the infusion time too short? But then I smelled it. Lemons and flowers wafted from the cup. Score! On taste, it was exactly how I thought it would, based on the aroma. Lemons, citrus, flowers, and…autumn dominated the cup.

I tried a second infusion at five minutes, but that appeared to be too long – given its more leafy kick. That said, when done right, it hit all the right white tea marks. And then some.

There was something missing, though. Oh yes, I needed to compare it another white tea from the same country, but a different region/cultivar because…well…it’s me. I gave Greg my best beggar eyes, and got this.

Zhao Lu

For some reason, the bag made me feel alarmingly inadequate.

Norbu Tea Zhao Lu Bai Cha

This hefty bag o’ leaves stemmed from Nantou county, Taiwan, and were from the Jin Xuan cultivar. The tea plant type was usually used for oolongs and occasionally black teas – rarely white teas. It was also – blessed be – a white tea that Norbu Tea personally carried. I remember missing the last batch by a matter of days.

The leaves for this white tea looked like…well…leaves again. Forest green, plucked whole and dried leaves. No other nuance to the appearance besides that.

Zhao Lu, too

As for aroma, there was more to talk about there. I whiffed straight olive leaf, mint and sage. Very little processing, but a whole lot of natural awesomeness to potentially bestow. I was starting to see a pattern to these Taiwanese whites.

A small confession: Before this official trial run, I actually dipped into it several times. I mean, wouldn’t you if you had that much white tea to play with? I did it delicately, I boiled the heck out of it, I treated it like a green tea, I took it for long walks on the beach, we woke up in Vegas…then everything got blurry. Point being, this tea held up to some pretty unusual punishment on my part. But it was time to give it a more clinical whirl.

madman

The brewing instructions were thankfully lax. Norbu Tea recommended “grandpa style” – leaves put at the bottom of a cup, 160F water, and a ten-to-twelve-minute steep. I went with a 6oz. steeper cup instead, opting for something more – shall we say – proper. It’s nice to know there’s a white tea out there you can totally forget about while you’re taking a shower.

The liquor brewed pale yellow – as expected for any tea worth its weight in “white”. A fragrance of lemony herbs emanated from the cup with a subtle sweetness on the end. As for taste, I don’t know where to start. On the one hand, it was as herbaceous as a White Peony, on the other it was melons and muscatel – like a Darjeeling white. Somewhere in the middle, tropical fruit notes happened. Not sure how, but they were there.

As luck would have it, I received the perfect chalice in which to grandpa-style the heck out of this white tea. And it was in the shape of Chewbacca. The results were unsophisticated, tea-geeking bliss.

Chewie

Later that week, I finally went about trying the Ali Shan white and Zao Lu Bai Cha back-to-back. The results were…conflicting. No, not bad. Just…oh hell, it was like judging a mud-wrestling competition – no matter who lost, everybody wins.

The Ali Shan white had a darker liquor and a more robust flavor. Sweetness began on the initial sip before dissolving at the top note, to be replaced by a caramelized almond sensation – wrapped in lemons. The Zhao Lu Bai Cha went down a more subtle and floral road. It retained its sweetness throughout, sure, but remained – how should I put it? – fluttery. Which one was a favorite?

Hard to say.

back-to-back

If you ‘re no stranger to this blog, you know what I did next. I mixed them and blended both of the leaves for a second brew. Just for s**ts and giggles. Fusing both liquors turned up a magical cup of melon-on-lemon action. Brewing the blend by the pint just turned up straight lemons! As opposed to…uh…bi-curious lemons? Where was I going with this?

Oh yeah, I love both of these teas. I love them both together. Taiwanese white tea should be more of a thing than it currently is. Formosa oolongs are great for every other time, but Formosa whites keep me from taking a nap in the late afternoon. And taste damn good, to boot.

With goodness like this, I can cope with waiting another year for a Japanese white tea. For someone so full of lament, I have it pretty good. Yes, I’m bragging – Taiwan pint held high – in ode to granted wishes.

I apologize for nothing

Into the Wild…Arbor

By

On September 19, 2013

In Tea Features, Tea Musings

I’m still in the midst of a bit of an oolong kick. It “mostly” started because I was attempting to whittle down my backlog of unique teas. However, for some reason, the oolong-ing just…stuck. I do have my guesses. They make me feel really good.

Chip

And not just “ZOMG-IMMA-CAFFEINE-MACHINE!!!” good – like, “Zen” good. A coworker even remarked that I had an unusual spring in my step one day. I never have a spring in my step; it’s more of a subsistent shuffle.

My only response to them was, “It’s the oolong.”

“Long what now?” was the almost-inappropriate reply.

One of the culprits for my recent bout of “good-mood-itis” was an offering from a new operation called Tea Setter. A few weeks ago, I watched one of Tea For Me Please’s podcasts. She was interviewing the purveyor of Tea Setter – one Matt Kitchen.

(Sidenote: Great name, dude. Seriously. You must be a foodie girl magnet. The tea biz is just icing on the cake.)

Around the same time, I noticed Matt had commented on one of my blog entries. See, vendors, that’s how ya do it. Engage the communi-“tea”. Ego boosted, I decided to peruse his start-up’s site. Given my current penchant for all things oolong, that was the section I went for. He only carried oolongs and pu-erhs. (Edit: And soon, green tea.) Hardcore.

Then I saw it…like some kinda dark, leafy beacon. Four words gave me an instant tea-boner. Too inappropriate? Who cares! It’s true. Those words: “Wild. Arbor. Oriental. Beauty.”

Alright, a bit of a history lesson.

ludwig

Oriental Beauty (or “Dong Fang Mei Ren”) is a style of oolong originating from Taiwan. The leaves for this type are allowed to have bugs – known as leafhoppers – attempt to pick at the leaves. For protection, the leaves take on a bit of a characteristic change to deter the pests. However, as a result, the flavor profile of the leaves also change…for the awesome!

Oriental Beauty also goes by the more common name of “Bai Hao Oolong”, which was the first way I ran into it. It is probably my favorite type of Taiwanese oolong, with Ali Shan-produced ones rounding a close second. So far, I’ve tried several from Taiwan, and a variant from Fujian province, China.

The one on Tea Setter’s page…was from Yunnan. Wu Liang Shan, to be precise. Instead of a smaller leaf – like with its Taiwanese forbearer – this one utilized a larger tea leaf cultivar (or group of cultivars) known as “Wild Arbor”.

This is a fuzzy term referring to cultivated varieties of tea trees that have “gone feral”.

TreebeardatIsengard

Not quite like that…but close.

In China, it is not uncommon to find tea plantations abandoned for centuries. Of late, these have become a treasure trove. Many of the once-cultivated tea trees have returned to their more natural state, and – thusly – their flavor profile is affected…for the awesome!

Teas made from truly wild (or “ye sheng”) tea trees fetch a pretty high price. Wild Arbor teas go for much less, but – in some cases – taste just as good. Such tea trees often produce exquisite pu-erh-ready leaves. I tried a few in my time. I even notched off a few wild-crafted white and black teas. An oolong, however…

That was something new and weird.. And – as this blog indicates – I’m all about the new and weird.  I even zapped Mr. Matt a message wondering how he came across this variant. He said:

“We offer a small variety of hand selected teas that I have chosen from dozens and dozens and dozens of tastings. And that is how I came across this Oriental Beauty. From a large group of oolongs that my distributor had to sample. I kept getting dark oolong after dark oolong that was just too intense and I know wouldn’t appeal broadly and then I cam across this and it was like a breath of fresh air. Sweet and crisp, a little bite, and the grilled peach notes were subtle to intense depending on what infusion I was on. I actually had to email the distributor to make sure this tea wasn’t artificially flavored.”

I dug into it about a couple of days later.

IMAG1143

The leaves themselves were long, twisty, with the occasional tippy piece in the fray. There wasn’t much of an aroma to speak of, alas. So, I had no idea what I was getting into. For the first infusion, I did what the instructions told me to. I steeped the leaves in a gaiwan for twenty seconds. The second time around, I added…uh…I forget how many seconds. I think it was thirty. Third time: About forty-five. The results were strangely staggering.

First infusion (twenty seconds): The liquor was yellow-gold without much aroma. However, the taste was straight fruit – tart and sweet all at once. Very much like I expect from an Oriental Beauty – variant or no.

IMAG1146

Second infusion (thirty seconds-ish?): Bolder notes of…bergamot? How odd. Definitely a citrus lean. The darker liquor was also a shocker – more mahogany than gold. There was also a mineral note to the end, not surprising from a Chinese oolong.

Third infusion (forty-five seconds): Still strong on the fruit notes, but with the added verve of a roasty appeal. Just a shade darker than the second infusion. Mineral and earth still showed up at about the mid-point yet were quickly pummeled by a feeling of “plum”.

I kept steeping this until I forgot how many infusions I was at. The fruity lean never let up until the very end (whenever that was). Any notes I would’ve had on the successive sips were lost amidst groans of tea drunk delight.

IMAG1149

This was one wild oolong.

But I’d at least buy her dinner first.

Chip off

I Can’t Believe It’s Almost Not Oolong

By

On September 10, 2013

In Tea Features

Norbu Tea has been one of my go-to hookups for weird teas for – well – almost as long as I’ve sipped. Greg Glancy seems to have a palate similar to mine, or at the very least an unrelenting geek-ish lean for teas with stories behind them. I finally had the pleasure to meet the man behind Norbu at World Tea Expo in June. Finding his booth was like hunting down a Wonderland rabbit-hole, but once I did I was glad for it.

Greg in garb.

Greg in garb.

One of the strange, new items I picked up from the Tsou-Vayiyana booth he was co-hosting was something dubbed, “Ali Shan Hong Cha”. It already had my attention for having my favorite Taiwanese tea mountain – Ali Shan – in the title. The leaves were ball-fisted like an oolong but darker in appearance. The aroma it gave off reminded me of unsweetened chocolate and oak barrels.

It was one of the first teas I tore into when I returned home.

Without exaggeration, it was unlike any black tea I’d ever tried. When I brewed it Western-style, the first characteristics that emerged were malt and (the aforementioned) unsweetened chocolate. With further infusions, the sweetness kept creeping up until it was indistinguishable from a black tea from that region. A bit of oolong minerality showed up by the third steep. Yes, this lasted three strong, Western-style steeps.

I also found that the longer I steeped it for, the sweeter it grew. Even more so than a Ruby 18. There were quite a few times when I infused this sucker before taking a shower, came out fifteen minutes later, headed off to work, and it was still good. Nary a tannic overtone.

Western-style

Something was amiss about this so-called “Hong Cha”.

Greg informed me via Twitter that he and the growers had agreed to redub the tea “Ali Shan Red Oolong”, and asked for my thoughts on it. I put my teasnob cap on (more of a metaphoric fez, really), and asked if it was fully oxidized…or only mostly oxidized.

Max

He informed me that it was the latter – 90% oxidized, just shy of being a “Hong Cha” of its prior title. This prompted me to experiment with it some more. I had yet to wrongfu the heck out of it.

One particularly low-key and experimental day, I decided to do it “gongfu-ish”-style to see what would happen. I dusted off my ol’ gaiwan, took about a teaspoon of the ball-fisted leaves, boiled some water (then let it sit for a minute), and played with multiple infusions.

IMAG1130

Done this way, the oolong-ish characteristics really showed through. Not in a typical Ali Shan-ish sorta way, though. Far from it. A first infusion gave a medium-to-full-bodied brew like a brandy oolong, while further infusions darkened, felt roastier on the mouthfeel, and developed an alternating palate of wood, leather and…well…more dark chocolate.

If I were a choosing man, though, I would say I preferred the Western approach. It was just dark enough to handle the longer steep times, and more of the flavor was imparted per cup. That…and it handled lazy brewing perfectly.

My kinda tea.

Lazy Teapot

Teapot Image Mooched from Yanko Design

Russian Orthodox White Tea?

By

On January 21, 2013

In Tea Musings

Roughly six months back, I got it in my head that I had to hunt down some Taiwanese white tea. At first, I wasn’t sure it existed, but I vaguely remembered seeing mentions of it on Upton Tea’s website. Being a sucker for white teas – especially those from odd growing regions – I felt it was time to acquire some. To the Upton site, I went, and…found nothing. Well, not completely true. I found the listing for a Taiwanese white tea, but the item was no longer available.

This led me on a rampant Google search. The first option to come up was Norbu Tea, one of my favorite go-to sites for weird, awesome teas. Like Upton, they had a listing, but the item (at the time) wasn’t available. Strike two.

It took me the better part of a day (give or take real life) to find any other mention of “Taiwan” and “white tea” in the same entry. I had no idea it was such an exclusive item. Taiwan was mainly known for oolongs, so I suppose it wasn’t that much of a surprise. Just disconcerting.

In my Google perusal, I got sidetracked searching for odd white teas in general. I came across a site I’d never seen before. It was the homepage for a secluded Russian Orthodox monastery located on Vashon Island. Don’t know where that is? Apparently, it’s right next door to Seattle. That’s okay, fair reader, I hadn’t heard of it, either.

212309813_321aba4ff5

Monasteries that sell odd wares were not a new concept to me. I’ve imbibed my fair share of Trappist beers as proof. What was unique was that this particular group blended and roasted their own coffee. They even gained some notoriety due to a feud with Starbucks. The coffee giant sued them for using the trademarked term, “Christmas Blend”.

Really, Starbucks? Suing a Christian monastery for creating a Christmas Blend? For shame.

jesus_facepalm51

Considering the blend is still on the Vashon Monks page, I guess they won that little tiff. But that’s not what attracted my attention. Listed in the right tab was “White Tea”. My natural assumption was that they somehow/someway grew their own tea!

I zapped them an e-mail inquiring about it. And never got a reply. Upon a revisit to their site, I understood why. They didn’t grow their own tea, they merely sold it; this one was…a Taiwanese white tea!!! My idiocy brought my tea quest full circle. The product they were offering was a light-roasted white. And for two ounces, it was a pricey sonuvacup.

A part of me wanted to wait for an opportune time to visit the monastery and buy it then. Several months would pass before I revisited that little inkling. Instead of planning a trip, I decided (once I was gainfully employed again) to simply purchase it. Two days later, I received it.

My first impulse was to tear open the bag and bask in the scents and sights. The leaves were dark brown with speckles of green, and the aroma was straight fruit with a roasty tinge on the back-whiff. I didn’t brew it up until a couple of days later.

IMAG0564

Given a typical Western-ish white tea treatment, the liquor brewed up fairly dark. The taste was roasted nuts on the forefront followed by smoky grapes. Pretty good but not great. Something told me that my approach needed changin’.

The next day, I treated it to a gongfu prep – like I would with any roasted oolong. Four-ish steeps at around forty seconds each. That sounded fair. The results were friggin’ magic. Same smoky-grapiness as before, only more pronounced. The roastiness was more understated and complimentary. No vegetal aftertaste came through, either. I never knew of a white tea that required a gongfu approach for perfection. Then again, I hadn’t heard of a Taiwanese roasted white tea.

A unique, orthodox tea from a unique Orthodox importer.

DSCF0055

For more information on this white tea, go HERE.

Throwing in the Towel after a Tea Fight

By

On November 27, 2012

In Tea Musings

A couple of weeks back there, I attended a different sort of tea meet-up. The Portland Tea Enthusiasts’ Alliance and The Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants joined forces for a movie night. The movie in question? Tea Fight (or “Dou Cha”) – a Taiwanese/Japanese co-production centering almost entirely around tea, and the people who drank it. One of the Jasmine Pearlites described it as “tea porn”.

Sold.

The Jasmine Pearl were serving up hojicha and Mayucha sencha, while PDX Tea Dave brandished some Taiwanese oolongs. Fitting given the origin(s) of the movie. I was looking forward to it on a scholastic level; I’d never seen a movie that focused completely on tea. Well, except for a rather cool, teacentric episode of Sherlock. The writer part of me wanted to see how it was done so I could compare it to my own tea-fiction-y efforts. Another thought that ran through my head: When/where did Portland get so many hot tea chicks?! (It was ruining my concentration.)

Ahem…

The movie opened with an anime sequence – yes, an anime sequence! – explaining the backdrop. In the distant past, there were two rival tea clans – the Female Golden Tea Clan and the Male Golden Tea Clan. The Female clan brewed tea that instilled a sense of calm and peace, whereas the Male clan’s brew instilled passion and aggression. Due to a misunderstanding involving a Japanese tea merchant (surnamed Yagi), the Male Golden Tea Clan exterminated the Female.

In the ensuing kerfuffle, a little boy combined both the Male and Female liquors, drank them, and turned into a dragon. Realizing the wrong they’d done, the Male Golden Tea Clan scoured the remains of the Female clan’s village for any surviving tea bushes. There were none – save one. A single plant rescued by the Japanese merchant, Yagi.

And that’s just the first ten minutes of the movie.

The rest of it deals with the descendants of the two tea clans and the father/daughter heirs to the Yagi family. I won’t give anymore away than to say that the movie plays out like Karate Kid meets Romeo & Juliet by way of Sideways. The story is told in broad strokes – as it should be – and particular emphasis is placed on tea brewing. Albeit exaggerated.

From a tea geek’s perspective, I found some of the brewing techniques fascinating. The Male Golden Tea Clan pressed their tea into beengcha cakes, scraped leaves off, stone-ground them to a fine powder, and then whisked. The Female Golden Tea Clan…uh…did tea-fu. (No, seriously, it looked like they splashed water in the air, and went all Crouching Tiger with it. Quit epic.)

The Yagi family stone-ground their own matcha!!! I want my own stone-grinder! If I had one, I could finally realize my dream of making green rooibos matcha. And, wow, I’m getting way off topic.

In short, the movie was cheesy in all the right ways. It was the first media-ish piece I’d seen that captured the true grand scale that tea’s multi-millennial history encompasses. And it took me over a week to watch it. I’ll explain…

I actually had to leave the PDX Tea/Jasmine Pearl event early for…beer. Yes, beer subverted tea. A friend of mine made a homebrewed oatmeal IPA and was unveiling it for swigging. Couldn’t be passed up. However, I was able to at least take in over half of Tea Fight before leaving.

And I was humbled.

For the better part of November – as some of you know – I’d undertaken a NaNoWriMo project. For those not familiar, that’s where a writer tries to concoct 50K-word novel in a month. That’s right, a month. My initial goal was to cheat and repurpose old blogs into a book; I called it “CheatoWriMo”. Unfortunately, nine days into the project, I had an inconvenient epiphany – dictating that I start from scratch. The new idea was pure tea porn.

At first, I was engaged in the project, but the narrative was heading in a direction that I didn’t quite like. The entire affair was starting to make me feel uncomfortable, and I wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe it was the fact that it hit too close to home, or maybe it was just bad writing. I dunno. Then I saw Tea Fight…and I was ready to throw in the towel.

While it wasn’t a perfect movie by any stretch, it did what I was trying to do and did it better. What I had put to paper so far didn’t convey what I wanted it to. And Tea Fight did. Toward the tail end of the week, I announced that I was scrapping my little tea tale. I couldn’t even stand to look at the manuscript.

In the interim, fellow Tea Trader and NaNoWriMo participant – Courtney the Purrfect Cup – had reached the 50K mark. I was proud of her. She  and another compatriot – authoress Katrina Avila Munichiello – plus others in the NaNo group  urged me not abandon the project, but instead give it room to breathe. An answer would come, they stressed.

Yesterday, I finally finished watching Tea Fight, and came to a realization. I totally missed the point of the movie. Yes, there actually was a message it was trying to convey, and it was oddly relevant to my mid-writer’s crisis. One of the deus ex machina characters in the movie was the ancient tea scholar, Lu Yu. He appeared occasionally to motivate the characters forward. I won’t give away the movie’s ending, but the overall moral was (paraphrased slightly): “Your true fight is the one with yourself. Tea is innocent.”

All this time, the story made me uncomfortable because I was drawing upon more of myself than from stories prior. Actual life experiences were being used as a basis for the plot. I was blaming the material, but – in reality – it was me. The story wasn’t crap; I was crap for trying to quit. Only time would tell if it was a train wreck.

At the time of this writing, I was undertaking another challenge. The Canton Tea Co.’s Tea Club had sent me some Ali Shan and Li Shan (i.e. Taiwanese oolongs), and they were asking participants to choose a victor. This proved a difficult comparison, but in the end, Ali Shan won me over by a hair. However, the best results came from mixing the two. Unity superseded the tea fight. Right now, I’m swigging the mixture by the pot…

And listening to M.C. Hammer’s “2 Legit 2 Quit”.

To read what I have so far on said “tea porn”, go HERE.

A Taste of Taiwan and a Teattle Trip

By

On April 26, 2012

In Tea Musings

Let’s talk about networking…or rather how much I hate doing it.

Around this time last year, I was among the many underemployed folks out there. My mother – a former career counselor – always stressed that making contacts helps in the process. I knew she was right; she’s almost always right. That didn’t stop me from stubbornly clinging to my hermitism.

I ended up finding more gainful employment (if you can call it that) in June of that year. Networking really had nothing to do with it, but had I stuck it out a little longer…who knows? One area where it seems to be crucial, however, is with my “other” job. Yeah, that whole tea thing.

Not to toot my own horn (man, that sounds wrong), but I had online tea networking down to an art. Juggling three social networks, three blogs, and a cat aren’t easy feats. And for some reason, my opinion seemed to matter to some people. What was odd, though, was how I fell out of the loop from January to – well – now.

No fault of the tea community, mind you, more a matter of stuff going on in my own head – introversion and depression at their most crippling. For a while, I was starting to believe I was “tea’d out”. I even thought of curbing the whole review thing entirely. It took real-life networking contacts to make me see the error of my ways.

If you folks haven’t made David Galli – oh, he, of PDXTea.org fame – a contact, you really should. This is a guy who doesn’t have networking down to an art; he actually has it down to a friggin’ science. And I’m forever in his debt for somehow keeping me in the IRL tea loop. Examples:

In late January, I received an e-mail from Chuck – the co-owner of The Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants – to my “company” account informing me of new teas they got in. A whole flight of Taiwanese offerings awaited my palate perusal. It was Mr. Galli who had passed word to Chuck on how to contact me.

We made a jaunt out to the JP shop the following week and sampled some wonderful Formosan flavors. Particular standouts for me were an aged charcoal-roasted Dong Ding (review pending on It’s All About the Leaf), a GABA green tea (yes, such a thing exists!), and a Ruby black. Chuck also kindly passed along some heicha my way, something that’d been on my “List” for awhile. Before I left the shop, I had quite the bounty.

I also made a follow-up jaunt the next week when a much-touted organic Formosa green was in stock. To put it shortly, I picked up an ounce instantly. That and it’s become my go-to green tea on a work day – mainly for its ability to stand up to boiling water. And none of this would’ve been close to possible if I didn’t have an expert networker in my social arsenal.

Less than a month after that, I had a thought to finally make my way to Seattle. A fellow tea blogger had opened a new shop in Burien – a Seattle suburb town – and they were one of the few places that carried Korean teas. By luck or fate, I had landed a Thursday off, allowing me ample opportunity to make a day trip of it. A co-pilot seemed necessary as well, and I invited PDXTea Dave along. He proceeded to take the trip to another level.

Dave was kind enough to do the driving for the trek, and I covered the gas. We arrived in Burien less than three hours later. The Phoenix Teahouse was just as advertised on their Facebook page – a cozy shop right in the heart of downtown. Cinnabar Gong Fu was on hand to tea us to death. I must say, I was expecting her to be a lot more serious. It turned out she was just as silly as the rest of us. We blew through three exquisite Korean green teas – all with a “-jak” suffix, which I still have no translation for – and all possessed an exquisitely sweet and nutty profile with a wonderfully wildernessy finish.

My favorite of the bunch, however, wasn’t a green tea at all. Somehow, someway, Phoenix had acquired a Korean black (or red) tea dubbed “Dan-Cha“. I have no idea who Dan is, but his tea is wonderful. I ended up grabbing an ounce of it to go. (A full write-up just on that tea is forthcoming.)

Before we knew it, four hours had breezed by. Dave and I, in the midst of our sipping, even got a glimpse of some of Burien’s local color. The quaint town makes Northern Exposure look like a documentary. Cinnabar handled the traffic like a laid-back pro.

We ended up finally leaving as they were closing. That’s right. We closed down a tea bar. We’re hardcore like that. Before leaving, I made it a point to try some strongly-brewed Ceylon from a samovar they had in the shop. (You heard right, they have a f**king samovar!) Did I like it? Oh my, yes. Problem? I had to use the restroom immediately after. A career zavarka drinker, I will never be.

Originally, I intended The Phoenix Teahouse to be our only stop, but David had made more arrangements. The super-networker had connected with Michael J. Coffey – Seattle’s resident tea tome – and we added a second tearoom, The Floating Leaves, to our trek.

The Floating Leaves was an archival-looking tearoom on the fringes of downtown Seattle run by Shiuwen Tai. The first thing that caught my eye about the space was the grand table in the right-hand corner of the shop on entry. Shiuwen sat at one end – like a presiding tea judge – with various drinkers seated around it – sipping away with merriment.

As we got acquainted with the owner, I came to another realization. She was silly as well. What was it about tea that induced silliness?! First Cinnabar, now Shiuwen. Was no one in “Teattle” serious about their beverage occupation? No, I’m not complaining. Far from it.

After parting ways from the Leaves – and leaving with yet more oolong than I knew what to do with – we ended up making one last stop at a gigantic burrito place. I practically had to roll out of the joint when we were done. And that was only after ingesting the SMALL one.

Dave and I finally made it back to Portland about 11PM that night. Only a mere three hours past our originally-intended 8PM ETA. Was there nary a regret? Nay.

And that’s why it pays to have a real networker in your circle of friends – tea or otherwise. They remind you of other avenues of exploration that may not have occurred to you. I have a bevy of beverages as evidence.

Page 2 of 2

Previous

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén