September 2017 – Perfect Leaves

Tea AND Dragons?! #yesplease

The Tea Dragon Society

By: Kate O’Neil

I loved this book so much it warrants the second-ever gif on my blog. This was my face the entire time I was reading:

I picked up this beauty while I was browsing through the graphic novels on NetGalley and the title immediately caught my attention. How could I not read something about tea? The dragons were just an added bonus. I figured the story would be simple since this is a Middle Grade book (ages ~9-12) but boy was I in for a treat.

There are so many interesting things I’m having a hard time sorting them out in my head to write this review.

Let’s start with the major theme: traditions. The book begins with Greta questioning whether it’s still important for her to learn her mother’s craft. She comes from a line of blacksmiths, but apparently it’s a dying art. Along the way she runs into a dragon, which she later learns is a tea dragon. Like blacksmithing, raising a tea dragon is no longer a cherished skill. Greta, her friends and her mentors all grapple with whether, how and why people should keep traditions alive.

As for the dragons themselves, well, O’Neil certainly put time into creating their stories. Each dragon produces a specific type of tea. When the tea is brewed properly, is has magical properties and contains all of the memories it has with its caretaker. Each tea dragon has its own personality and they’re notoriously difficult to care for. They are quite unlike their full-dragon cousins.

Early in the story, Greta meets Minette, a lost girl. I don’t want to give too much of her backstory away, but I thought it was exceptionally clever of O’Neil to have a tea dragon pair with Minette in her time of need.

Throughout the novel, there’s also an LGBTQIA undertone. It’s not overtly obvious, in fact, unless you’re paying close attention you might miss it. While some novels attempt to push a political agenda down your throat in such a way that destroys the integrity of the story, the LGBTQ* elements were woven in so seamlessly that they just made sense.

The Tea Dragon Society was a well-written, beautifully illustrated, fully immersive experience. I’m actually kind of upset there aren’t more novels out (yet?).

I want to know how Greta and Minette grow. I want to find out more about their families. I want to see what becomes of blacksmithing, tea dragon raising and other old-world crafts. I want to see what happens to Hesekiel and Erik. How do they care for each other? What exactly happened during the battle the tea dragon alluded to?

If you’re reading this, do me a favor: grab a copy of The Tea Dragon Society and make sure all of your friends to the same. It comes out on October 31st but is already available for preorder on Amazon. It’s so wonderfully pure. It may feel like there’s little hope for humanity these days, but The Tea Dragon Society is a ray of sunshine in the darkness.

tea dragon society cover — Oni Press, 2017. 72 pgs

REPOST: Pinterest Would Have Been Better

cover of 30 day whole food challenge — Kindle, 2017. 135 pgs

30 Day Whole Food Challenge: Essential Recipes to Help you Lose Weight Naturally, Stay Healthy, and Feel Good

By: Amanda Rice

I’m starting to think I’m the Simon Cowell of book reviews.

Recently, I’ve started requesting “project books” from publishers. Desiring a reprieve from information overload, I look to project books to give me something to work on while I read. Project books give me the opportunity to start new, healthy habits.

30 Day Whole Food Challenge was the first project book I requested and it was awful. I ignored the fact the the book was based on a fad diet and decided I would try out some recipes to see if anything tasted good. I’ve read my fair share of cookbooks in the past; this “book” was really more like a pamphlet. My copy clocked in at a whopping 108 pages with ample blank space, though the Kindle Edition supposedly has 135 pages.

Cookbooks usually have plenty of pictures, and most cookbooks will give information regarding the specific nutrients in a meal, substitutions and maybe a bit of interesting information regarding the dish. 30 Day Whole Food Challenge did none of those things. It would have been nice to see some pictures of preparation steps or serving ideas.

I’m tempted to call this the anti-cookbook. By now, I’m used to modifying recipes to suit my dietary restrictions. I swap pork for beef or chicken depending on the recipe, and when I don’t feel like eating meat,(I try to limit my meat consumption to once or twice per week, I’m slowly transitioning to vegetarianism) I can usually remove or replace the meat.

With 30 Day Whole Food Challenge, however, most of the recipes required meat, and it became exhausting trying to figure out how to adjust them to my liking. Since this book was about whole food, I expected more vegetable dishes than meat dishes, but at least 2/3 of the book is dedicated to meat.

Besides that, there are a lot of rather uncommon ingredients listed in the recipes (guar gum? water kefir?). I don’t live near a health food store, and a lot of these recipes can’t be completed with the stuff someone has in an average kitchen. If have to either shop online or trek to almost the neighboring city to go to Whole Foods, and Whole Foods produce is out of my price range.

Aw man, don’t even get me started on the typos! There were typos all throughout the book, from incorrect cook times to misleading recipe labels. One of the foods on the “allowed” list is also on the “disallowed” list. Which is it? It’s clear Rice typed this book and hit publish without giving it a second glance. To be fair, I received an ARC, but most ARCs have at least been glanced through and edited by the authors before they’re sent for review.

I suppose this book is good for a very specific type of person. If you already know what Whole30 is and don’t have any particular dietary restriction, then you might find this cookbook helpful. There are plenty of recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner but there’s very little information about what the Whole30 diet actually is. This book would make a great addition to another foundation text on the Whole30 diet.

If you’re just starting out on your health-food journey, you might want to skip this one.

Answers to Questions I am v Tired of Hearing

Alright y’all, I hate the end the hiatus with a post that’s semi-negative in tone, but this is the post that was scheduled for today. Well actually, it was going to come out at midnight between Friday and Saturday EST, but I pushed it back to fit all three posts in one day. Am I crazy for attempting three posts? Am I gonna try anyway? Of course.

Some of the people who ask me these questions are genuinely curious, but most usually have a hint of malice or insistence in their tone that implies they are correct in their thinking and that it is I who must be wrong. I don’t really mind when the people are actually curious, but I’m writing this post to avoid the judgement people. I’ve decided to answer these questions once and for all so I can just redirect curious folk here instead of spending my time repeating myself.

Aren’t you hot in all that?

Yes, the sun is out. I’m hot, you’re hot, everybody outside is probably hot right now. I’m likely no more or less hot than you are. Actually, my clothes provide some protection from the sun so I’m hot but I don’t feel like my skin is burning off. Besides, I’m not really wearing that much. In the summer, I usually wear a thin floor-length dress, a breathable scarf, and sport sleeves. Sometimes I’ll wear a light-weight jacket or cardigan instead of sport sleeves to cover my arms. The various areas of my body are only covered by 1-2 layers of fabric, and there’s typically wind circulation through my clothes. Trust me, I’m not going to overheat.

2. So where are you really from?

I hate this question because it implies that I am not and cannot be from the U.S. I’m an American citizen and I always have been. My entire family is American.

3. Even your grandparents and great-grandparents are American?

Yes. My family line goes all the way back to at least the beginning of slavery. There are no records of this, of course, but my point is that we’ve been in the U.S. for so long that past citizenship (even if they do exist) are no longer relevant.

4. How can people tell what your facial expression is?

The same way people can tell what people are feeling when they are talking on the phone: you can hear my expression in my voice. Those who know me well know the faces I make to accompany the various weird phrases in my vocabulary.

5. How do your friends recognize you on the street?

I don’t know, they just do. I have my own sense of style. They know how I dress, they know how I walk, they know how I talk, they know how I use my hands while I’m talking. True story: someone once spotted me in D.C. before I even fully realized who they were.

6. Does your dad force you to wear that?

No. I came to my own decision to wear it.

7. So he doesn’t force you to cover? What about your brother?

No. Nobody forces me to dress the way I do, but people sure do seem preoccupied with trying to get me to undress. For some reason, if women wear to much they’re prudish/extremist but if they wear too little they’re whores/asking for it. Stop policing what other people wear.

8. Why do you cover when your mother and your sisters don’t?

We are different people. We have different likes, friends, and behaviors. We’re just living our lives the best way we see fit.

9. Can you say something in your native language?

“Hello.” Yes, English is my native tongue, and is really the only language I actually feel absolutely confident speaking. To be fair, if I’m in a country where people don’t speak English, I’m more than happy to have a short conversation because I know people just want to practice. When I get this question in the U.S./other English-speaking places, though, it implies that because I look the way I do, I cannot possible be a native English speaker. It implies that I do not belong. It’s actually rather hurtful.

10. Any question relating to Islam:

I actually don’t mind these questions unless people are obviously pushing an anti-Islam agenda. A lot of the time people ask me things I don’t have ready answers to, or they ask me things I need to fact-check before I feel confident speaking. If you’re willing to give me time to do a bit of research and get back to you, then I’ll be happy to answer questions about Islam, especially as it pertains to the way I practice it. I’m no scholar. I’m not even literate in Arabic (I can make sounds and pick out words but I generally have no idea what I’m reading without a translation) so I can’t quite do the in-depth research I’d like to do. I’m working on it, but like anything worth attaining knowledge takes time.

I wish I could come up with some pithy conclusion, but I don’t quite know how one rounds out a Q&A post. I might revisit this post later if I notice more trends in the questions I receive.

Chinese Pronunciation Guide

I’ve already written a couple of posts for people who’d like to learn Mandarin so I’ll link those below. This post is just a basic guide to help people better pronounce the names of the teas I write about.

The pronunciation system in Mandarin is called pinyin. The word pinyin is actually an amalgamation of the words for “spell” and “sound.” To help Mandarin learners better visualize the sounds combinations, educators have created a pinyin chart.

Image of a pinyin chart — A typical pinyin chart

The Pinyin Chart is organized based on where in the mouth the sound is produced. For example, ‘b’,’p’,’m’ and ‘f’ all rely on movement of the lips while ‘d’,’t’,’n’,’l’ are all produced by cupping the tongue against the roof of the mouth (the hard palate).

Drawn image of a labeled human mouth — The areas of the mouth we use to produce vowels and consonants. Source: duolingo

Looking at the chart itself is not very helpful, but once you’ve learned the basic rules of pronunciation, it helps to look at the chart and practice the different sounds combinations. Some of the phonemes are very rare. There are a couple on the chart that I’ve never used before. For people who are learning to type Mandarin, pinyin is helpful because these letter combinations will bring up the characters you want to type. For instance, typing “da” will bring up 大 (big). This chart does not take tones into account (there are four main tones in Mandarin) but this post is not intended to be a crash course in Mandarin; I’m writing it to help people with an interest in tea speak knowledgeable about what they’re drinking.

Yabla Chinese, one of my favorite online Chinese dictionaries, has a free resource that allows people to listen to the pinyin chart.

Yabla Audio Pinyin Chart

Mandarin speakers don’t move their lips very much. Instead, most of the sound comes from moving the tongue and changing the space within their mouths. A few of the sounds do not exist in English, and one must be careful when pronouncing them. The ‘q’ sound is similar to “ch” in English, but instead of laying the tongue flat against the roof of the mouth, one should curve the tongue and make a little space behind the teeth. ‘J’, ‘q’ and ‘x’ all use similar tongue placement. ‘Zh’, ‘ch’ and ‘sh’ all for a flattening of the tongue and mouth. ‘Z’, ‘c’ and ‘s’ are produced by flattening the tongue and mouth while creating a little space with the tongue behind the teeth.

One way to make sure you are pronouncing the words correctly is to abandon everything you know about English or your native language. Though there may be some similarities, it’s better to start from scratch and really listen to the vowel and consonant sounds. The Yabla pinyin chart should help. I’ve embedded a video below that demonstrates the pronunciation of a few tricky syllables.

I don’t really have a magic formula for learning a new language system. All I can say it practice makes perfect. 😀

Who Provides Medical Services for Super Villains?

Medisin cover — Action Lab – Danger Zone, 2017. 76 Pages

Medisin Volume 1: First Do No Harm

By: Jeff Dyer, Mike McKeon, and David Brame

I know the title sounds like I’m going to talking about health care for the Trump administration (couldn’t resist) but this question is actually the premise of a new series of graphic novels. A team of doctors — all of whom have questionable backgrounds — have banded together to take care of the world’s super villains. All of the doctors are aware they are treating villains, and all of them have their own justifications for doing so. Though the doctors promise to give the villains their best care, there’s no guarantee that the villains will treat the doctors with the same level of nicety. To top it all off, the head of all the super villains has placed some sort of virus or parasite in the doctors’ bodies to keep them in line. Basically, they cannot defect even if they wanted to. There is only one doctor with the special “privilege” of being parasite-free. He can leave anytime he wants, but he needs to stay for reasons the reader will discover.

While the characterization in Medisin is lackluster, the cast of characters is itself interesting. There’s a pregnant villain who is protective of her growing fetus, a sex-addicted doctor, a doctor and mother from China, a teenage boy, a doctor who lost his license, a pedophillic villain, a pedophillic doctor (unrelated), a goblin, and a hyper-aware computer system, among others. Because this is still the beginning of the series, I think there are many more villains to meet, but all of the doctors are introduced in the first volume.

Medisin has so many fascinating possibilities that I’m quite sad the writing is so poor. The writing is truly, truly awful. Every character seems to have a story and it doesn’t feel like the artists understand the first rule of comics: show, don’t tell. The characters randomly go off into these page-long monologues explaining the values of the corporation or delve into self-righteous soliloquies that fit awkwardly into the flow of the story. I get that the reader does need to know this information, but it definitely could have been done better.

I was also upset with Medisin’s coloring. I won’t fault the artists for their color palette, but the coloring overall was rather dull. I’m not sure if that was because I was reading a protective PDF, but reading Medisin hurt my eyes. For some reason, the artists chose to color the computer’s dialogue in white in green. All of her (his?) speech bubbles are green with white writing, making them almost impossible to read.

I’m not sure how the book is formatted on the Kindle, but reading Medisin on my phone was such a challenge. I recommend reading Medisin on a larger screen.

Medisin actually kind of reminded me of a particular episode of Grey’s Anatomy (spoiler alert). Grey and Shepard were tasked with treating a patient on death row. He was scheduled to be executed about a week from when he was admitted into the hospital. Both doctors were horrified by what the criminal had done and that he was to be executed soon, but Shepard refused to treat the criminal fairly while Grey wanted to give him a fighting chance. In the end, the criminal confesses to manipulating Grey’s emotions, but it’s unclear whether he’s trying to convince himself of this (meaning he’s a good person on the inside) or Grey (meaning she wasted her time believing in him).

This philosophical thread seems to be the basis of Medisin. The relationships between characters and the doctors reasons for helping villains are sufficiently compelling to keep me interested in the story. If the artists strengthen their writing and make a few color changes, Medisin might potentially become iconic.

I can’t find it on Thriftbooks, but Medisin is available on Amazon. I got this copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, and I’m glad I had the opportunity.

30-Day Minimalist Challenge, Part 3

This is the last post in the 30-Day Minimalist Challenge Series.

Part 1

Part 2

21. Journal for 20 minutes

I’m never been much of a diary person, and writing about my emotions felt forced. Instead, I took some time to sketch the plot for a novel. Random story ideas frequently pop into my head, but I rarely sit down and write them down. Perhaps I should take more time to flesh out the ideas.

22. Create a bedtime routine

Right now, it doesn’t seem like I’m at the point in my life where I should create bedtime routines. I’ve tried so many “power morning” and “relaxing night” routines but none of them have stuck. Part of the problem is that I don’t have an addictive personality type; it’s very hard for me to form habits, regardless of whether they’re good or bad. I have to actively force myself to make a change in my behavior for months before the habit sticks. I’ve had the same issue with blogging. I usually sit down and draft three or four posts in one sitting because it’s easier for me to do that than to sit down and write every day.

Eventually I would like to have healthy morning and evening routines, even if they’re small habits, but I think I’ll focus on that a little later in life.

23. Identify your stress triggers

Jeez this wasn’t a fun time. Thinking about stress makes me stressed, it’s one of the things that I’m working on. I won’t post all of my stress triggers because that would be reckless. I will, however, talk about some of them. Being in a situation where I am a student at an institution is a huge trigger for me. I was so stressed for so long that the stress turned into trauma, and now I have full-blown panic attacks whenever I even consider the idea of going back to school. I’d like to continue my education, just not necessarily in a school setting.

Another trigger is tardiness. It’s such a strange one but it’s huge for me. I pride myself on being punctual, so tardiness (even being a late responder to emails or late completing a task I promised I’d do) sends me into a debate over whether I should just give up going to the event/responding to the email/completing the task at all. It’s an incredibly unhealthy thought process but for some reason, being late freaks me out.

24. Practice gratitude

I know a whole lot of positivity gurus swear by gratitude but I’ll be honest: being thankful didn’t change my life. On some level, I always have an underlying level of gratefulness for the position I’ve been born into, but that gratefulness always leads to guilt when I find myself dissatisfied with something. I throw in a random alhamdulillah throughout my day and I truly mean it, yet it seems wrong to complain about the privilege I have, about the roof over my head, the safe neighborhood I live in, and the food in my stomach. Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I had a more simple life, one where I live off the land with my family. Perhaps I’m not doing the gratitude thing correctly.

25. Leave today unplanned

I learned from the first time I completed this task. I wrote a to-do list like I always do, then I allowed myself to follow my whims. I didn’t guilt myself for straying from the list. Doing this felt much better than going without a list altogether.

26. Go bare-faced

I only wear makeup like twice a year. I don’t even own foundation or concealer. I don’t know how to use highlighter. I guess I could have tried to come up with a replacement challenge for this one but meh.

27. Clean out your junk drawer

Don’t have one of these either. 🙂 I don’t believe in junk drawers.

28. Let go of a goal

I let go of my goal to learn CSS. I’m still interested in becoming proficient in web languages, but it’ll have to be something I do later I guess. Right now, C# has my attention. I want to learn how to use Unity more efficiently.

29. Turn off notifications

With pleasure! I turned off my WeChat, Email, Instagram and Facebook Messenger notifications. They’re the only apps that I use regularly. Without the notifications, my day was much quieter. Turning off the notifications also resulted in my forgetting conversations while I get into my work flow. I can’t say I’m upset.

30. Evaluate your last 5 purchases

My last five purchases were all food and books. That pretty much sums up my life, lol.

If you’ve tried or plan on trying this challenge, let me know! 🙂

The Phoenix Failed to Take Flight

Tea is such a weird thing. Even just one type of tea has several subcategories and varieties. Besides pu’er, I think oolong is the most varied type of tea. Oolong tea has three subcategories: phoenix, cliff/rock, and tieguanyin/Iron Goddess. Of the three I prefer cliff teas, and I have equal preference for phoenix oolongs and Iron Goddess teas, though I really only like traditional-style Iron Goddess (the new-age stuff just doesn’t taste as good to me).

One of the teas Teasenz sent me was a phoenix oolong (凤凰单枞/fenghuang dancong). These days, most sellers in the west refer to all phoenix oolongs as simply “phoenix” or “dancong” which is frustrating because while “dancong” literally means something to the effect of “single tree/fir,” these days dancongs have just as much variety as other types of tea. There’s 蜜兰香/Milan Xiang (Honey Orchid) and 鸭屎香/Yashi Xiang (Duck Sh*t, it doesn’t taste like that I promise). There are probably others I haven’t heard of, but I’m not a huge dancong drinker so I have a lot of exploration left to do.

The tea I got from Teasenz was also labeled “Dan Cong.” I looked on the website to try to figure out which dancong it was, but I didn’t find any information. Teasenz does offer a dancong sampler with five different dancongs though, so I might try that out some day.

In Greek mythology, phoenixes are flying bird-like creatures that die in a plume of flames and are born again from the ashes of their predecessor. The volatile compounds of phoenix oolongs react with oxygen to create vivid and rapidly changing flavors and aromas. Taking in air by slurping the tea gives rise to a new flavor profile.

To brew Teasenz’s Dan Cong, I used 4 grams of tea and 100 degree water. I’m hoping to get a variable temperature electric kettle in the future, so I can control one more aspect of tea tasting. Dan Cong’s leaves were black, thin and slightly twisted. There were splashes of green mixed into the sea of black. The dry leaves smelled strongly of ripe nectarines with the slight pungency of mild cheddar cheese. I wouldn’t say the pungent odor was cheesy per se, but cheese is the closes approximation I can come up with. When I wet the leaf, they turned bright green and I smelled wilting roses.

Image of Dan Cong Dry leaves — Dan Cong Dry Leaves

Image of Dan Cong Liquor — Dan Cong Tea Liquor

The first brew of Dan Cong was a very clear yellow-white. It looked a bit like white wine and had a medium-thin mouth feel. For some reason, this Dan Cong tasted a bit like traditional Tieguanyin mixed with wet grass. Dan Cong’s aftertaste was surprisingly woody, though now that I think about it perhaps saw dust is a more accurate descriptor. The tea tasted like I was chewing on a mouthful of sunflower seeds with the shells on.

In the end though, I was disappointed by how one-note the tea was. Usually dancongs are vibrant and interesting. They usually smell and taste like fruits and flowers, and change just as you start to think you’re getting to know the tea. Even when I slurped this Dan Cong, the flavor remained the same. I did enjoy the lightness of the tea though. It was quite sweet, which is to be expected of dancong oolongs, but this one was extra sweet. Besides the sweetness, however, Teasenz’s Dan Cong was rather bland.

If you’re willing to try this Dan Cong, you can find it on their website.

You Call That a Thriller?!

image of the girl on the rain — Riverhead Books, 2015. 325 pgs.

The Girl on the Train

By: Paula Hawkins

The TBR (to-be-read) shelf is a magical and dangerous part of every bookworm’s life. It has the mysterious ability to continuously grow and accommodate new purchases, threatening to eat all of a bookworm’s money. At the same time, the TBR shelf is kind of like a cactus; we water it occasionally then forget about it. This summer, I finally decided to read some of the books on the shelf, but if you’ve been reading my reviews you know I haven’t read much I’ve liked.

I guess the problem with the TBR shelf is that some of the purchases are so old the books seem like they belong to another lifetime. We buy the books at different stages in our reading journey, then move on.

I really thought I’d like The Girl on the Train because I enjoyed watching Gone Girl. I haven’t read the book, but in general I like to read and watch thrillers. The Girl on the Train is classified as a thriller, but there’s nothing thrilling about it. It was slow-moving, and I couldn’t get into the story.

All of the characters were just…too much. Anna was too jealous and vindictive, Rachel was too pathetic and self destructive, Megan was too stupid, selfish and vapid, Tom was also too selfish, Kamal was too weak-willed, Scott was too controlling. I understand that Rachel was a recovering alcoholic who suffered a probably traumatic break up, but I have a hard time understanding and believing the link between her past trauma and her getting involved in the criminal investigation.

There weren’t a whole lot of surprises in The Girl on the Train. Just like Rachel, I listed the handful of possible outcomes after only reading about 1/3 of the book and it turns out my guesses were correct. Towards the end, there was one moment when I wasn’t sure how Anna was going to react to what was going on between Tom and Rachel (that’s not a spoiler, I promise. In the middle of the book Anna suspects something, but if you keep reading you’ll find out the truth and it’s kind of interesting), but that little bit of intrigue was not enough to save the book.

The Girl on the Train was straight up boring.

The premise was promising (“a commuter sees something through the train window that changes her life forever”) but the thing she sees is not the catalyst for the main action of the novel. Perhaps it was that disconnect that kept me at a distance. Sure, the thing Rachel sees through the window is what pushes her to get involved with the police (therefore involving her in the main action), but seeing as Megan and Scott (who she dubbed “Jess and Jason” before she realized who they were) were random strangers living their lives, what she saw had nothing to do with her. It was none of her business in the first place.

As I read, I kept feeling like something more was going to happen. After a point I realized there would be no shocking plot twists. By then I’d read probably 2/3 of the book and I didn’t have another physical book with me so I decided to finish it anyway. I’d already DNF’ed The Prophet and the Messiah and The Computer, and I was trying to stay on track with my Goodreads Reading Challenge so I powered through the remaining 100 or so pages.

It turns out I didn’t need to worry about the reading goal because I found a bunch of graphic novels to read and review. I’m really glad I turned to graphic novels to take a breather from my TBR, because some of the graphic novels were pretty good reads, and all of them took less than an hour to leaf through. The reviews for those books will be coming up soon enough.

I’m not sure what rating to give The Girl on the Train. It gets 3 stars for writing, 1 for plot, 2 for characterization and 4 for setting. That comes to an average of about 2.5 stars, so I’ll round down to two. I seriously cannot recommend this book. It’s just that bad.

If you want to read the book and see for yourself how bad the book is, or if you just want to prove me wrong, you can pick the book up on Amazon, Thriftbooks, and probably your local library.

The Tea Cupboard: Mystery Dian Hong

I’ve been drinking tea since before I went to kindergarten, so I can’t remember the first tea I ever tried, but I do remember the tea that converted me to a full-time loose leaf tea drinker: unsmoked Lapsang Souchong (正山小种, zhengshan xiaozhong). Looking back, the tea itself wasn’t that spectacular but I was cold and curious, and it was the perfect thing for the moment. That was almost 4 years ago.

Image of dry mystery dian hong leaves — Dry Mystery Dian Hong leaves. Note the thick leaves and the fuzz on the sides of the gaiwan.

Fast forward to last year when I tasted the Dian Hong (滇红) that changed my life. I’d been experimenting with herbal teas and other tea blends up until that point, but I hadn’t really looked into pure Chinese teas. Though I frequently discussed tea with my mentors at the Tianshan Tea Market and the Laoximen Tea Market, I stuck to my tried-and-true unsmoked Lapsang, Jasmine blends, and flower teas.

I have never forgotten the Dian Hong I tasted that day. Because it was served to me by someone else, I don’t know where it came from, when it was produced, or who sold it.

It seems that I have once again found a mind-blowing Dian Hong, and once again I have almost no idea where it came from.

Just before a school holiday in the autumn of 2016, one of my classmates told me he was taking a trip to Yunnan Province (云南省). He knew I loved tea, and also knew Yunnan is a major tea producing area. He left he asked me if I’d like anything. I told him to pick up some Dian Hong if he saw any, but to otherwise not worry about it. I didn’t want him to go around searching for tea during his vacation.

When he came back he presented me with 50 grams of beautiful Dian Hong. I offered to pay him back and he waved me away saying it didn’t cost that much (some people may consider this rude, but that’s just the level of honesty we have with each other. Besides, he was probably being modest). This Dian Hong instantly reminded me of the rainbow of flavors I tasted just months before. It seems I had found my new favorite red tea.

I like the tea so much I stored it with my other prized teas, never to be seen again until this summer, when I decided to compare it to the Teasenz varieties of Dian Hong.

image of jin jun mei dry leaves — Dry leaves of Jin Jun Mei (Beautiful Golden Eyebrow). Note that the mix of black and gold leaves are very thinly twisted. Image Source: Teapedia

Based on the color and shape on the leaf, the Dian Hong my friend gave me appears to be a Dian Hong Gongfu Cha (滇红功夫茶) which is a sort of middle grade Dian Hong. At some point I mislabeled the tea as a general Zhengshan because Dian Hong is similar to Beautiful Golden Eyebrow (金俊眉， Jin Jun Mei). Jin Jun Mei’s leaves are thinner though, and the taste of a Dian Hong is absolutely unmistakable. Dian Hong’s leaves also tend to leave behind a little bit of fur on my utensils. The fur looks something like Chinese meat floss.

Dian Hong Gongfu is actually only about a step below Yunnan Pure Gold, and commonly goes by the English name Yunnan Gold (confusing, I know). To me, it feels like a mix between a lower-grade pure black leaf Dian Hong and the superior grade pure golden leaf Dian Hong. The combination results in a balanced brew with both the vibrancy of Yunnan Pure Gold and the comfort heat of cheap Dian Hong. While I appreciate the delicacy of high-grade Dian Hong, low-grade Dian Hong sits better on my tongue, and is definitely my drink of choice.

When brewing this tea, I use 5 grams of tea and ~95 degree water. The dry leaves smelled like maple syrup and cream soda. I brew the first infusion about 30 seconds, then increase the time by about 5 or 10 seconds for subsequent brews. This tea’s wet leaves smelled like Earl Grey with hints of coffee with cream. I read somewhere that there’s this weird 40-60-40-50-60 second brewing scheme for red tea. To be honest, that variation seems totally unnecessary but who knows, perhaps it truly does make better tea. I might try it some day, but for now I have a system that works.

The first brew of Dian Hong Gongfu was extremely frothy and was a bright red-orange. It felt and tasted like molasses but still retained that characteristic flavor note that black tea has; I can’t describe it. There’s an underlying zest that fully oxidized tea carries. The aftertaste was crazy intense and continued to morph as I chewed on the flavor. As usual, this Dian Hong is slightly salty but isn’t bitter.

The way the tea settles on the tongue is astonishingly satisfying.

image of dian hong tea liquor — Dian Hong tea liquor

Each infusion of Dian Hong Gongfu becomes progressively redder than the previous brew. It seems that the redder the tea gets, the saltier it gets. I still have not figured out whether the saltiness comes from my water (it’s possible the saltiness comes from the minerals in the water reacting with the tea) or from the tea itself. I’m willing to overlook the saltiness with Dian Hong though, because it is my tea equivalent of chicken noodle soup.

I wish I could tell you where to buy this tea. The best I can do is recommend you get your Dian Hong from sellers who source their tea in Yunnan. I’d be pretty wary of Dian Hong produced in other regions.

If you’re looking for more Dian Hong reviews, you can read my review of Teasenz’s Yunnan Gold.

As you can tell, I’m quite fond of Dian Hong. Please forgive me if I keep writing rambling posts about it. ;P