I know people like to joke that January and February 2018 were long months, but for me September seems to have lasted forever. I’ve been battling myself this month, so I haven’t been as productive as I would have liked. I managed to get a little bit of reading done, just not as much as I’d hoped. I also didn’t request many ARCs, but I found a super old ARC on my bookshelf while I was rearranging it. I got it back in high school, before I even knew what an ARC was. It’s a “Black Widow” spinoff by the author of Beautiful Creatures (Margaret Stohl). I think it’s just an excerpt, so I’ll probably glance through it some day.
Here’s a side by side comparison of my August and September ARC graphs. I switched from Infogram to Canva because I create all my other graphics in Canva anyway. It made sense to put my graphs there.
I gained quite few more ARCs (I suddenly got approved for a bunch of books I forgot I even requested), I also managed to read two. I’ll review both The Library Book (Susan Orlean) and Well-Read Black Girl(Gloria Edim et al. ) in October, a few days prior to their publication dates.
I don’t have anymore 2018 ARCs, so now I can focus on reading old ones. My goal this month is to finish two currently-unfinished books, then I’d like to read something on my ever-growing TBR list. I picked up Han Kang’s “Human Acts” and I’ve had Ian Reid’s “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” forever. Both are short, so I’m hoping to finish them. If I have time, I’d like to read some of the chapbooks that have been sitting on my shelf since God knows when.
I only managed to get two reviews out this month. One book was awesome (This Burns my Heart, Samuel Park) and the other was awful (My Hijab, My Identity, Sadaf Farooqi). I’m still sitting on a huge pile of high-star reviews. Now I have not only a to-be-read list, but also a to-be-reviewed list, haha.
Simon & Schuster, 2011. 322 pagesAmazon Digital Services, 2018. 44 Pages.
I don’t plan on reviewing Maisie Dobbs, but I certainly recommend it. It’s about a female private eye in England in the 1920s. A lot of Goodreads reviewers deem her “too perfect,” but I only see an incredibly intelligent woman who learned quickly and followed her intuition. Dhe’s kind, outgoing, and never forgets where she came from. She is always grateful to those who helped her move up in life. Besides the character herself, the interwoven plots themselves are interesting. There’s the story of how Maisie became a private eye, there’s a story of forbidden love, there are tales of The Great War and there’s case she’s solving, which leads to unexpected ends. I listened to the audiobook, which really helped bring the story to life.
My wish for a purple ARC came true, but I haven’t reviewed it yet so I won’t include it in the BINGO until next month. As a result, my BINGO is the same as last month.
Writing this post actually made me feel a little better about my “failed” month. I’ve been in a low mood lately, and generally overwhelmed with life. Despite this, I still managed to read three books and post two reviews (as well as a tea tasting). I think I’m actually getting better at becoming a functional human being. T_T
As usual, I’m going to direct you to Avalinah’s Bookspace so you can read her post and see who else linked up with the meme. You can also join in if you’d like! If you’ve read anything I’ve mentioned today, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Should I give Sadaf Farooqi another chance?
Tea: Milan Xiang （蜜兰香, Honey Orchid) is a type of fenghuang dancong wulong (single-tree phoenix oolong) from Guangdong Province. Though the Chinese name of the tea typically includes the “honey” character (蜜), sometimes sellers called it use the “rice” character (米) and still others use “secret” (密). As far as I can tell, they’re all the same tea. The Chinese names sound slightly different depending on the character, but it is always romanized to Milan Xiang or Mi Lan Xiang. Milan Xiang is a subspecies of Shui Xian/ Shui Hsien (水仙), which originates from Fujian Province. Over time, the popularity of the tea caused sellers to grow it all over the place, including Guangdong Province.
Price per Gram: 4 RMB/ ~60 cents per gram, bought “on sale” for 2 RMB/~30 cents per gram (based on current conversion rates)
Brewing Method: Normally, I prefer to brew Milan Xiang at 6-8 grams per 100 ml, but I’d had a light lunch when I tasted this, so I decided to brew 5 grams in 100 ml. Brewing it a little weak meant I wouldn’t get as sick from the caffeine. The first steep was for 30 seconds at about 95 degrees Celsius. Each subsequent brew was about 10 seconds longer.
Appearance & Smell of the Leaf: After heating the teaware, I placed the leaves in the gaiwan and gave it a shake. The leaves smelled like ground coffee. There was a slight hint of dried Chinese bayberry. As for the appearance, they were a long and twisted with dark chocolate brown color. There were broken bits as well, but those broken leaves most likely came from me shoving the bag of tea into my suitcase unprotected when I returned to my apartment.
Laoximen Milan Xiang’s dry leaves
First Steep: The aroma transformed from dried coffee grounds to wet ones, and it took on a heavy fruity note. There was also a bit of sourness I find characteristic of Milan Xiang. You could probably compare it to artificial sour apple flavoring, but this fragrance was a bit less sweet. It you were to take sour apple and remove the sweetness, you would have the aroma of Milan Xiang. Although it may sound gross to some, I also detected a bit of a pickle juice smell. The sour apple note was stronger, but the pickle juice sourness was there.
The tea liquor was an pink-orange color that wasn’t too dark. When I tasted the tea, I realized it was more floral that fruity. It was much weaker than I’m used to but still satisfying. There as a little bit of bitterness, but I imagine that came from the broken leaves.
Second Steep: The color of the tea was much more distinctly orange and the character started to come out. The roast came to life, giving a stronger coffee flavor. Aerating the tea brought a sweet flavor into the mix. I couldn’t for the life of me identify the floral note. I liked it so much that I wished this Milan Xiang could be a daily drinker, but it was too expensive and I had too little on hand. The huigan (aftertaste) kept rushing forward while I spoke into my phone to take audio notes. It was very intense. Milan Xiang had a medium mouth feel.
Third Steep: After the third steep, the leaves had started to open. They had lightened significantly from a deep, soil brown to a color similar to red clay. I also found some stems in the tea, which I was not too happy about. I picked them out and continued brewing. For some reason, the mouthfeel grew thicker rather than thinner. The third steep was almost syrupy in character and just as sweet. The roasted flavor became weaker and the floral/fruity notes became stronger. Basically, the overall flavor profile of the tea stayed the same but the balance shifted. When I played around with the tea in my mouth, it tasted rather soapy (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing). I could see how someone new to tea would enjoy this one.
The conclusion: The hole-in-the-wall tea always seems to be the best. I loved this tea so much, and I always love the tea from this seller. The issue is that I can’t buy it often because it’s simply out of my budget. He has a pretty successful business though, and some fairly loyal customers. Clearly they also like his tea and his company. I ended my session after four brews, then I stored the leaves in the refrigerator so I could drink them later.
Price per Gram: 30 to 34 cents ($15 – $17 per 50 gram packet).
Brewing Method: After my last brewing disaster, I decided to find new brewing instructions for the tea. I found something that said to use 2 – 5 grams of tea for 225 ml gaiwans. My gaiwans are typically about 100 ml, so I did some quick math and decided on 3 grams of tea and 95 degree water. I later found the brewing instructions on the seller’s website. They’re similar to the method I used, but they call for a slightly higher leaf-to-water ratio (5 – 8 grams for 120 – 150 ml, depending on preferred strength) and shorter brewing times.
Appearance & Smell of the Leaf: The dry leaves were long and twisted, but not super thin. There were browns, dark moss-green leaves and spring greens. They were relatively unbroken when I received them.
I learned that Yulan Xian translates to “magnolia fragrance.” I have no idea what magnolias smell like (to be honest, my repertoire of flowers is super limited). The leaves smelled like artificial grape flavoring and dried apricot. I liked it a lot, and could definitely smell that it was a phoenix oolong.
First Steep: I started with a quick rinse. The liquor was light and left me skeptical. I tasted the rinse, just because I wanted to, and I was struck by how thin it was. After the rinse, I brewed the tea for about 1 minute. The wet leaf smelled like cranberry wensleydale cheese and was a lot brighter than the dry leaf. It smelled like my hair product (Kinky Curly Knot Today, which contains things like marshmallow root, slippery elm, mango fruit extract and some fragrance). The tea liquor was a super pale yellow.
When I tasted the tea, I was unimpressed. I didn’t find the tea pleasant at all. It tasted like what I imagine furniture polish must taste like, with a strong baking soda after taste. I could taste notes similar to what I detect in certain tieguanyin (iron goddess) teas. It was very “green” in flavor, but not green enough to be classified a green tea.
Second Steep: I meant to add just 15 seconds to the brew, but I wound up adding 30 seconds. This time, the tea liquor was a little furry and was more the color of pale urine. It had more yellow in it than the previous brew. The flavor had not changed all that much. It was very light and I actually started to suspect my water. The flavor of the water came through more than the flavor of the tea.
I felt bad because I received these samples for free and I really wanted to like them but they weren’t doing anything for me. I figure that perhaps I just don’t like dancong’s that much. Maybe I can’t enjoy the complex flavors. Later brews were more pleasant than the first two brews, and stronger brews were definitely better.
Yulan Xiang was so thin it felt like water, despite the fuzziness. There was also a bit of astringency but not so much that the tea wasn’t refreshing. I guess you could compare the feeling of drinking Yulan Xiang to drinking fresh spring water. I’m drawn to oolongs because of their variety, and I’d love to be able to enjoy something more delicate than my typical cliff tea. One of these day’s I’ll get it, I’m sure. 🙂
Actually, I still had about 3.5 grams of Yulan Xiang left, so I brewed it just before writing this post. The larger amount of leaf definitely solved the thinness problem, and the liquor was darker, but my other observations remained pretty much the same. The second time around, however, I found myself better able to enjoy the tea. Perhaps it really is just a matter of getting your taste buds accustomed to the flavor.
Despite feeling tepid towards the tea itself, I loved the look of the wet leaves. They totally transformed and were unrecognizable from the shriveled dark leaves I started with. The wet leaves are bright green with some orange-red and brown-red leaves mixed in. They glisten in the relatively clear tea liquor. If anything, this tea is fun to take photos of.
Here’s the first tea I tried from Wudong Teas. My impression was not as positive as this one. Would I recommend Yulan Xiang? If you like dancong then yes, this is probably really good. If you’re on the fence about it, perhaps you should stick to more popular and readily available varietals. While some teas can be over hyped, there’s usually a reason one or two teas become more popular than the rest.
N stepped out for a second, I picked up a copy of the Qur’an from his bookshelf, N came back and took this photo. He’s a photography wizard.
On Halloweekend, I took a trip to Shanghai.
Shanghai is 3 – 6 hours away by train and I had to work around my Friday afternoon and Monday morning classes, but I was willing to make the effort because some of my closest friends from uni live there. Besides, I’m a sucker for poetry (especially Halloween-themed poetry readings).
On that Saturday, just after meeting several groups of friends and a few hours before the event, I sat with N to drink tea. I’ve already told you some of my tea story, but let me introduce you to N.
One of his parents is Central European and the other is Japanese (I specified because this detail is important). He’s rooted in both cultures and speaks both of his parents’ mother tongues, but he’s also a self-described “citizen of the world.” I can imagine some of your rolling your eyes. Our school’s motto was “make the world your major” because half of the graduates come from outside of China and are required to spend at least 2.5 years at the Shanghai campus and at least half a year at one of the other campuses. By now he’s traveled to more countries than I can count, and speaks almost as many languages to varying degrees of fluency.
During our third year in uni, he studied at NYU’s Abu Dhabi campus and joined a tea club. It was there that his appreciation for tea blossomed. He learned to discuss the flavors and fragrances of the tea he tried, and learned to generally tell teas apart. During our fourth year, he returned to the Shanghai campus and joined the tea club M and I started (I’m not sure if I introduced M before, perhaps you’ll “meet” her someday).
Now that we’ve both graduated, we don’t have as many people to discuss tea with. M and the person who headed NYU AD’s tea club are back in the US, D is in the Huangshan area and I’m in Jiangxi Province. Meeting N to talk tea was high on my Shanghai to-do list.
N had already laid out his tea table by the time I arrived. We tried some new tea he’d recently purchased from Laoximen Tea City, and I let him try some of my Teasenz samples. We even compared the tea I brought with some of his. His Phoenix Oolong beat mine, but my Da Hong Pao was much more complex than his. His Phoenix came with a sample, which nearly made us puke in the process of trying. We had no idea tea could be so bad.I’m a glutton for punishment though, because the experience didn’t stop be from trying other tea samples.
After a while, he started showing me some of his Japanese tea and teaware.
I have a passing familiarity with Matcha and with some of the processing differences between Japanese and Chinese green teas. Japanese tea tends to be fresher and it undergoes less processing, but I really couldn’t talk at length about it.
N pulled out some Fukamushi Cha (深蒸茶/Shen Zheng Cha in Chinese, I can’t type in Japanese) which translates roughly to “deep steamed tea.” After being harvested, the tea is steamed a couple times then dried and preserved in vacuum-sealed packaging. The tea oxidizes so quickly that it needs to be stored in the refrigerator after the package has been opened and should be finished within a year or so of the harvest date. I imagine the tea lasts longer if it’s kept in a cold, dark, dry, airless environment, but it’s pretty difficult to satisfy all of those criteria. I was mind-blown at the prospect of refrigerating tea in the first place (who does that??).
Once N had explained the basics to me, it was time to taste the tea. He poured out about 4 grams onto the scale. The leaves were a deep, magnificent green with a few flecks of lighter green here and there.
Fukamushi’s dry leaves
Fukamushi tea needs to be brewed for about a minute and a half with 70-80 degree water. He slid the leaves into his Japanese teapot (kyusu) and we chatted for a bit while we waited for the water to cool down. We mused over the fact that were were blending Chinese and Japanese teaware while drinking a Japanese tea in China and speaking English.
Finally, after we very scientifically tested the temperature of the water by passing our hands over the steam, N poured filled the teapot and let it brew. He then introduced me to the Japanese style of brewing tea, which omits the fairness pitcher step. Instead, the server pours tea in a sweeping motion over all the cups so that each cup is filled with tea from the beginning, middle and end of the pour. Since the teapot was larger than the capacity of our two cups, though, we poured the excess into a fairness pitcher to prevent the tea from over-brewing.
I took a sip and was astonished by the flavor. The Fukamushi tea was salty, but not so much so that it was unpleasant. It tasted a little bit like seaweed and was quite smooth. There was something satisfying about the flavor. It tasted a bit like fresh miso soup. I guess that’s the “umami” flavor I often hear people mention when they discuss Japanese tea. The flavor lasted for at least 7 brews. After that I stopped counting.
The tea liquor color was somewhere between mustard yellow and green. It was much brighter than I’d seen any green tea liquor before and was almost syrupy thick.
Fukamushi tea liquor
For a while, I ignored the taste and relished the feeling of the tea in my mouth. I know I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again: I love thick teas. I like when my mouth feels full of not only the flavor, but also the substance. N told me that the pot one brews the tea in while affect the mouth feel. Those that have larger strainer holes will filter less leaf debris and create a thicker tea. Those with smaller holes will filter more and produce a thinner tea. Ideally, one’s teapot should be somewhere in the middle. You don’t want too many leaves because they get in the way of the tea liquor, but you don’t want so few that your tea feels empty.
All in all, I was so impressed with the tea I ordered some for myself (Taobao is a wonderful place). N sent me the link to his seller, so I’m going to try the tea on my own and see if the quality is consistent. Even though I don’t really plan on getting too deep into Japanese tea (I still have so much to learn about Chinese tea!), I can definitely see myself adding it to my list of regulars.
A year and a half ago I would have told you that I’m not a fan green tea, but M opened my mind to it, living in Jiangxi sealed my preference for it as a casual daily tea, and N has literally broadened my horizons. I suppose that’s what friends are for. ❤
You may have noticed that I’ve been posting every day this week. To those of you who receive each new post notification as an email, I apologize for the spam. I don’t plan on becoming a daily blog. Rather, I’m just catching up and proving to the world that I am, in fact, alive. I disappeared for health reasons, but *hopefully* I’m all better now.
Let me preface this tea tasting post by saying that Taobao (a Chinese shopping website) is extremely dangerous, especially on 11/11. Single’s Day (11/11) is more or less equivalent to the US’s Black Friday. Online sellers will dramatically reduce the price of their products and offer massive discounts for bulk orders. I was raised by an extremely frugal mother so I don’t fall prey to sales, however, there were things I was planning to buy anyway, so I waited until Single’s Day to purchase them.
As you know from my Chocolate Bar Pu’er post, I’m searching for a ripe pu’er that pleases my pallet. In the meantime, I like to bathe my tongue in cliff tea and raw pu’er. I typically drink young raw pu’er because it’s sweet and gentle yet complex, but if I see an aged raw pu’er I usually give it a try (if you’re confused about this whole ripe vs. raw vs. aged thing, don’t worry, a pu’er tea guide is on it’s way).
While I was scrolling through tea sellers on Taobao, I happened to notice a pu’er on sale for 34 RMB (the original price was 50 RMB). That’s roughly 5 US Dollars. Every instinct in my body told me not to buy it, but curiosity got the best of me. I added it to my cart, ordered my stuff and waited.
When the tea arrived, I was surprised and dismayed by how small the cake was. The cake was thin and weighed about 100 grams. Pu’er cakes usually don’t come in sizes smaller than 250 grams. At only $5 it wasn’t a bad deal, I just expected more. The seller did give me a sample of another tea though.
Since the sample and the cake were from presumably the same tea plantation, I decided to try them side-by-side. There was virtually no identifying information on the sample (sketchy, I know). It simply said “2013 ancient tree.” The pu’er cake, however, was a 2015 ancient tree raw pu’er from Bingdao. The cake is still aged tea, but it’s much younger than the sample.
I used my newly-acquired tea table as my setup. I don’t have two gaiwans that are the same size in my current appartment, so I used roughly the same amount of tea and water in each one. The blue and white gaiwan is larger so it wasn’t completely full, but that doesn’t really affect the tea. The first thing I noticed about the dry leaves of the pu’er cake was how beautiful they were. There were light green, dark green, and white furry leaves. I thought that was a good sign but I couldn’t tell much because the cake was so tightly compressed I had a heard time getting leaves without shattering them. The 2013 pu’er leaves were similarly colored, but they were long and unbroken.
I’m wearing gloves to spare you from looking at my ugly fingernails.
As per usual, I warmed the gaiwans using 90 degree water, then placed the leaves inside. Both sets of dry leaves smelled of tobacco and mysterious wood with hints of jasmine. The pale yellow-brown tea liquor also smelled strongly of tobacco, and had a small amount of hair in it. I live for tea fur; it thickens the overall mouth feel of the tea and adds another dimension to the experience.
The color of the wet leaves was unsurprising. They looked like cooked collard greens. Though I expected the change, the color was absolutely beautiful. If I could find paint pigment in that color, it’s probably one of the only colors I’d use.
The similarities between the two ceased when I finally tasted the tea. The 2013 tea had a comfortable medium mouth feel, but it tasted like fresh tobacco (I’m imagining that’s what tobacco tastes like, anyway). I gagged as soon as I took a sip. The 2015 tea, by contrast, was much more mellow. There was no bitter aftertaste, but the mouth feel was also much thinner.
On the second brew, the 2013 tea liquor was much darker. It seemed that the exposed surface area of the 2013 leaves led to a stronger brew. The second brew is when I decided the 2013 tea tasted like cooked sausages. I was confused. The tea felt so good in my mouth that I wanted to keep it there for ever, but it tasted so bad I wanted to spit it out. I eventually stopped brewing the 2013 tea after three rounds, and I emptied the fairness pitcher so I wouldn’t have to smell it.
The 2013 tea leaves may have tasted awful, but they look so good.
I focused my attention on the 2015 tea, which danced new choreography on my tongue with each subsequent brew, yet it remained somewhat shy. The flavor was mild, but I slowly began to taste other things. I couldn’t quite parse out what those flavors were though. When I sniffed the 2015 leaves after I was done tasting them, they smelled like orchids, which I found fitting because this was the first time I was using my orchid tea table. Life is funny that way, I guess.
This tea tasting reminded me of what I already knew: be very wary of Taobao seller samples.
A friend of mine also ordered tea online, and when we tasted the sample we both immediately spit the tea out and stopped drinking it. In my experience, Taobao samples are either terrible (so they can’t get rid of it unless they give it away) or expensive (they want to get you hooked on the tea so you buy the more expensive leaves). I guess you could consider the better, more expensive tea a win, but that’s not usually what I’m looking for when I get something on Taobao. I want something passable, something I can use as a daily tea so I can save my nice tea for guests and special treats. Even though I know tasting samples usually turns out terrible, I also know that I’ll still try the next sample that comes my way. After all, what’s life without a little danger?
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 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.
Dan Cong Dry LeavesDan 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
I’ve been talking about using the gongfu brewing method for the past couple of weeks, but it occurred to me that I haven’t really gone into the details yet. I tried to give some necessary information in the first post, but I decided it would be better to simply give my gongfu explanation to its own post.
I personally believe that gongfu brewing is the ultimate mindfulness exercise. For those who don’t know, mindfulness is the action or process of being present in the moment and becoming aware of something. Mindfulness can extend to the realm of emotions by helping people acknowledge and accept the way they feel, but it can also include acknowledging external phenomena.
In Mandarin, “gongfu” (功夫) simply means “skill” or “art.” In the U.S. (and in other western countries?) we usually say “kung fu.” There’s a reason Kung Fu is called a martial art.
When it comes to tea, I interpret gongfu to refer to the art of brewing. I use the full gongfu process to take notes and write posts about tea, but when I’m just drinking tea for myself, I use a simplified brewing process. The following are the steps of the gongfu brewing process, with the steps I use in the simplified process in italics. I explain each step below the main list. If you’re more of a visual learner, scroll down and watch the brewing video below.
Weigh out the tea leaves and observe their appearance
Heat the utensils
Observe the aroma of the dry leaves
Rinse the tea ware with the tea
Observe the aroma of the tea liquor
Observe the aroma of the wet leaf
Serve the tea
Observe the color of the tea liquor
Observe the flavor of the tea
Step One: Weighing out the tea leaves and observing their appearance
I bought a pocket-sized kitchen scale specifically for weighing tea, though just about anything that’ll weigh leaves will work. You need something that can weigh in increments of grams (or ounces if you prefer, but I find grams easier to deal with since Chinese tea literature tends to use the metric system).
The amount of tea you need depends on the size of your gaiwan, the type of tea, and your personal preference. I use 5-6 grams for red tea, 5-8 grams for oolong, 1-2 grams for ripe pu’er, 5 grams for ripe pu’er, and 5 grams for white tea. Green tea typically is not brewed using the gongfu method. I’ll explain more in a future post, but basically you allow green tea to steep in a manner similar to western brewing.
Once I have weighed out the leaves, I place them on a small saucer (usually the one that comes with my gaiwan) and inspect them. I note the shape and color of the leaves, and check for broken pieces. Too many broken leaves means the tea is at best poorly processed and at worst poor quality. Broken leaves typically lead to bitter brews. There are many shapes and colors to look for, depending on the type of tea. I’ll give more information on that when I write posts about each individual type of tea.
Step Two: Heat the utensils
Usually, I start boiling the water before I weigh the tea. Since I’m using the stove, the water is just reaching optimal temperature by the time I write my notes on the appearance of the tea leaves.
After the water reaches the correct temperature (more on that later, in the individual tea posts), I pour some into the gaiwan then pour the gaiwan water into the fairness pitcher and swirl it around. Once I’ve heated the fairness pitcher, I pour the water into however many cups I need, then empty the pitcher and all of the cups. Warming the utensils prevents the temperature of the tea from dropping too quickly once it has been brewed. Temperature changes affect the taste of the tea. Sometimes I use a clay teapot instead of a gaiwan, but only if I’m in a tea house or if I’m brewing for company.
Basic gongfu tea cups. They are also called “three sip cups” because they are small. Image Source: Wanling Tea HouseA typical gaiwan. They come in all colors and sizes.One type of fairness pitcher, or gongdao bei (公道杯). Image Source: Yunnan Sourcing
Step Three: Observe the aroma of the tea leaves
Besides keeping the temperature of the tea steady, heating the utensils also serves another purpose: it makes it easier to detect the aroma of the leaves.
To smell the tea, pour your leaves into the heated gaiwan (after you’ve poured the water out!), cover it, and give it a little shake. Carefully lift the lid and sniff the aroma that comes off of the lid. You can also sniff the bowl of the gaiwan directly, but exercise caution when doing this because the gaiwan is hot.
While it is certainly possible to simply stick your nose in the tea and sniff, the heat of a gaiwan “awakens” the volatile compounds in the tea that give off its flavor and aroma. Use your imagination when describing the smell of the tea, whether you’re making notes for yourself or talking to others. If you’ve read the tea reviews I’ve posted so far, you know I use descriptors such as, “it smells like setting berries on fire.” I’ve tasted teas that smell like warehouses, fireplaces, and milk coffee. Anything that has a scent can be used to describe tea. It’s a purely subjective observation.
Step Four:Rinse the tea ware with the tea
This step is the true beginning of the actual brewing process. To brew tea using a gaiwan, fill the gaiwan with water (the tea leaves should already be in it), cover it, wait a few seconds, then pour the brew into the fairness pitcher, using the lid as a preliminary strainer. Once you are finished pouring, you can either remove the gaiwan lid and put it off to the side or simply slide it so there is a gap between the bowl and the lid. You do not want to leave the gaiwan closed; leaving it closed essentially cooks the tea. It’s not uncommon for some leaves to slip out of the gaiwan, which is why some people put strainers over their fairness pitchers for cleaner pours.
Rinsing the tea ware is essentially repeating the process in step two (heating the utensils), this time pouring water over the tea leaves in the gaiwan and using that first brew instead of pure water. This process reheats the tea ware and makes it easier to detect the aroma of the tea liquor.
Step Five: Observe the aroma of the tea liquor
Some gongfu tea setups include aroma cups, which are smaller but taller than tea cups. After rinsing the tea ware with the tea, flip the aroma cup upside down into the tea cup. When you lift the aroma cup slightly and bring your nose to it, you should be able to smell the tea. I don’t own aroma cups. Instead, I just sniff the fairness pitcher. You can also try smelling the tea cup, but because they are so shallow, the scent escapes quickly. As with smelling the leaves, let your imagination run wild.
Step Six: Observe the aroma of the wet leaf
CAUTION: STEAM CAN BURN YOU. To smell the wet leaf, bring your nose to either the lid of the gaiwan or the bowl and take a whiff. Because steam will still be rising off of these objects, be very careful.
Step Seven: Serve the tea
This is the fun part, brew the tea as you did in step four, this time waiting a few seconds longer before pouring it into the fairness pitcher. Pour the tea from the fairness pitcher into the tea cups. Tradition suggests you should pour the tea from left to right, but this matters less in informal settings.
Step Eight: Observe the color of the tea liquor
This step is somewhat self-explanatory: use your eyes to determine the color of the brew!
Step Nine: Observe the flavor of the tea
Even though the cups are called three sip cups, you can take as many or as few sips as you like. I like using three sips when I first try a tea because I can assess different things on each sip. The first sip is for gauging the texture of the tea. Is it thick and syrupy or thin like water? I use the second sip to thing about the flavor. Does the flavor make me feel warm inside, or do I get chills? Does it taste more like grass or like roses? The third sip is for the after taste. If I hadn’t been slurping the tea on the first two sips, I definitely slurp on the third. Slurping aerates the tea which changes the flavor slightly, especially if you’re drinking a phoenix oolong. After the last sip, I close my mouth and “chew” on the flavor. At this stage, the after taste starts dancing in my mouth. Is the after taste bitter or salty? Is the tea drying? Do I detect something surprising?
I’ve had trouble converting some of my friends to loose leaf tea. They insist that tea is bitter, but they’ve only tasted cheap tea bag teas. There’s a huge flavor difference between bagged teas and loose leaf teas. If you must buy bagged tea, try to get one with a fuller leaf. Tea is varied and complex. I often taste more flavors than I have words to describe. That’s partly why I decided to start posting tea reviews online, to try to put words to what I taste. I welcome additional opinions on all of the tea things I post.
One of my friends once described a tea as tasting like “tires covered in honey.” I can’t remember what tea it was, but I vaguely remember agreeing with her once I worked out in my mind what tires might taste like.
At the end of the day, tasting tea is fun. The above method may seem like a lot of work, but once you get the hang of it the steps go quickly, and you will find yourself opening your senses to the colors, smells, and tastes of the world. If you’re a coffee drinker, perhaps you can use a similar observation method for your brews, or even compare a light coffee to a strong tea. The possibilities are endless. Hopefully you’ll stay with me on this tea journey.
I do most of my shopping on amazon, so I’ve selected a few items that may help you get started. I haven’t picked any tea from amazon; I have yet to find one that’s actually worth recommending.
By now I’m guessing you all know that I read and taste test things a couple of weeks before I get around to publishing the article. Having tasted 4 of the 5 Teasenz tea samples I have on hand, I can say with certainty that this brand is a keeper. The leaves are of remarkable quality, and the prices are so low even an unemployed student can afford them.
For the sake of being concise, I’ve decided to make separate posts with pronunciations and gongfu information, because including all of that into each post is a little messy.
This week, I’m focusing on Yunnan Gold, a tea that will probably be forever seared into my memory. Yunnan Gold (云南金芽, yunnan jinya ) is a type of Dian Hong (滇红) tea. I first discovered Dian Hong about a year ago at my school’s cultural fair. After just one sip, my mouth exploded with the different flavors and colors of the tea, and I knew I would be interested in trying more.
When I received Teasenz samples, I was overjoyed to find not one, but two different types of Dian Hong. Until then, I’d only tried medium-grade Dian Hong, which has a mix of gold and brown leaves. Yunnan (Pure) Gold is the highest quality Dian Hong there is, named for the strikingly golden fur on the leaves. Despite traveling across the Pacific Ocean to reach my doorstep, Teasenz’s leaves kept their shape, color, and aroma. I teared up when I opened the package because the leaves were just that beautiful.
Because Yunnan Gold is a red tea, I chose to use 5 grams in a 100 ml gaiwan with water boiled to 100 degrees Celsius.
The dry leaves of Yunnan Gold smelled like artificial strawberry and grape flavorings (which I consider to
Dry Yunnan Gold Leaves
be a positive smell), with a lot of warmth and depth. I detected notes of mahogany furniture in the mix. When I added the water, they smelled like I had set berries on fire. The tea liquor was a vibrant yellow-orange/ amber, clouded by the tea’s fur. For some reason, the liquor smelled like a chlorinated pool. I’m guessing that has something to do with my water because several teas have had that smell. At any rate, Yunnan Gold’s tea liquor was much brighter than regular Dian Hong’s tea liquor.
When I took my first sip, I was somewhat disappointed by how thin it felt in my mouth. I expected the fur to give Yunnan Gold a thick, syrupy feeling but that was not the case.
Regardless, Yunnan Gold was super smooth; it slid over my tongue and felt like I was being wrapped in a plush blanket. Yunnan Gold’s flavor was much more delicate than other Dian Hongs I’ve tasted, and it was almost more floral than fruity.
The second brew was more orange than the first. It fell more on the red side of the color spectrum than the previous brew. As I continued drinking, I started to taste a metallic flavor dancing around the tea. At the same time, I discovered hints of mango chutney. The more I brewed the tea, the more the flavor began to resemble an unsmoked Lapsang Souchong. There was no bitterness in Yunnan Gold, but I did taste some of
Yunnan Gold (left) and low quality Dian Hong (right) Tea Liquor
the saltiness that is common among red teas. Each infusion lead to a slightly more red liquor; I found the transformation interesting to watch.
Yunnan Gold’s aftertaste is like perfume. It reminded me of Marc Jacob’s Daisy Eau So Fresh. That happens to be my favorite perfume, so I was more than pleased.
If you’re looking to try this fantastic tea, head on over to the Teasenz website.
This week, I’m focusing on Yunnan Gold, a tea that will probably be forever seared into my memory. Yunnan Gold (云南金芽, yunnan jinya ) is a type of Dian Hong (滇红) tea. I first discovered Dian Hong about a year ago at my school’s cultural fair. After just one sip, my mouth exploded with the different flavors and colors of the tea, and I knew I would be interested in trying more.
Perfect Leaves 
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