Tea Commercial & Book

First, this was just too cute not to share:



Second, Project Gutenberg has a book on tea that you might find worthwhile. It gives some background on the Asian (or at least Japanese) tea culture. It's not a long book, but it is an interesting read, and you can't beat free!

The Book of Tea, by Okakura Kakuzo (or Kakuzo Okakura, depending on where you look)

Available as:

Plain text

PDF (at AOL)
(Requires a PDF reader. If you don't have one, try Foxit Reader. I find it much better than Adobe's.)

HTML (at Kells Craft)

Wulong two-fer

I started to feel like I was reviewing too many of the higher grade teas, so today I'm going to do a high grade and a surprise I found at an Asian grocer.



Joy Luck - High-Mountain Oolong

I was suspicious of this one at first, but decided to give it a try. I found this at the Fubonn shopping center, at the Fubonn supermarket that is just across from Serenity Art. They have a whole aisle of pre-packaged teas, some look better than others. They even have a few things I've seen sold on some of my favorite sites.

This one is by a brand called "Joy Luck" (which I cannot, unfortunately, find anywhere on the internet), and is just labeled "High Mountain Oolong". It comes in a large dark brownish-red box with a line drawing of a dragon in the mountains, gold lettering and gold edges, and a yellow/gold string handle on the top. Inside is a large (approx 12"x 4") cardboard canister with tin ends. It's coated with plastic on the inside, and the top is difficult to get off. It's definitely airtight as it sucks in the tin ends, causing them to pop, every time you open the canister. Inside is a 10.5 oz vacuum sealed pack of high-mountain goodness. All this for a measly $15!

I was still a little apprehensive after getting it, but it turned out to be surprisingly good. It isn't exactly an exceptional high-mountain oolong, but it is what I consider the base of a good high-mountain oolong. It has an aroma and taste that is slightly honey-like and somewhere in between the floral jade oolongs and a toasty amber oolong. Something like a lightly toasted honeysuckle. It's light, sweet, with a good mouth feel. It lacks a lot of the nuances and complexities of the better teas, but for a basic everyday tea, this is definitely a winner.

So if you've got a good local Asian supermarket, you might check it out. This may not be the best, but it does a great job for everyday drinking, like, say, when you're working. This would also be a relatively low-risk way to try a Taiwan(?) high-mountain wulong if you want to get an idea of what they're like without shelling out more for less. It may also be a good one to give those friends that you want to impress, but know that a more expensive tea would be wasted on them ;)

Next up..

Organic BaoZhong from Mr Wang Yiu-Li (Spring harvest, 2007)
From Hou De.



Click each pic for hi-res


This came as a sample from Hou De with another order I made. I was considering it, but wasn't sure I was ready to pay the asking price for it. It turned out to be one that I like very very much, and have already placed an order for more.
This is actually somewhat typical of pouchongs. To me it's like a jade wulong that is better defined than any of the actual jade wulongs. This one has a better balance of all aspects than what I've had before. The aroma is nice and sweet, mildly floral with nutty nuances and an almost woody character that is more of a texture than a defining character. The taste does not disappoint. It's sweet, but with a nicely rounded point and a woody texture. You can definitely taste the "green", but it's very smooth and melts quickly into a very nice mouth feel. The "green" is almost a bit sour, but it is more sweet and floral than anything, and has a nice warmth to it. It finishes off with a cleansing effect that I can't quite qualify as an astringency, it just dries the mouth a little. This lasts for some time, and actually started to make my tongue tingle after several minutes! This is not a quality that I've encountered before, but it is very pleasant.

Overall this is a great tea with a lot of character. Hou De does not have very much of it, so I would grab some soon!

Bad caddy, bad!

I had gotten one of these tea caddies from EnjoyingTea some time ago. It seemed perfect - double lid, airtight, nice and large, decorative; what a mistake. I filled it nearly all the way with some Xing Yang Mao Jian from Serenity Art, and not only did the tea go stale, it almost entirely replaced the aroma with an overwhelming metallic smell and taste. Drinking the tea was a bit like sucking on a coin. Luckily the tea didn't cost me much.

It looks nice but if you're ever thinking about getting one to keep tea in, STAY AWAY!!

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid...

So I decided I wanted my very own gaiwan. I went online and found the cheapest one I could find, which was a small white one with bamboo painted on the outside from taooftea.com for $15. I got it in the mail yesterday, then later the same day I went to Serenity Art to get some of the silver tip pu-erh he gave me as a sample the last time I was in there.

What's the first thing I see when I walk in the door? You guessed it: the very same gaiwan I got in the mail just hours previously, but for $2.99.

In fact they had a whole big lot of different gaiwans, all for $2.99.

So, feeling cheated, I grabbed another one that's a little different and will brew a little different. When I got home I looked online and found the same one going for $24 on up to $35. Astounded, I've decided I'm not buying anymore teaware online.

For the record, they also have a lot of other teaware there that I've seen sold online for ten times as much. I've seen sites sell the little yixing tasting cups for $11.50 for 3, while Serenity Art sells even fancier ones for $0.85 each! At that price, we even bought some as art supplies. So the moral of the story is that if you have a local Asian market in town, particularly one that sells tea and teaware, check there before you buy teaware online. And take your time looking around, I had been in this store numerous times, and for some reason never saw these gaiwans.

Oh well, lesson learned. At least he gave me about $10-$15 of one of the best jade oolongs (it was a Tie Guan Yin) I have ever had. That kinda makes up for it, even though I'm sucker enough to go buy some more today...