Formocha and Yulong Xueshan raw puerh

I went to Formocha today! And it was everything I hoped it would be, maybe even better. Amanda(the store owner), was first unsure about what we and my friend were doing there, but as she got to know us a little she opened up and she let us taste some awesome teas. I went with the tea friend I talked about earlier in the previous post.

The first tea we tastes was a very lightly roasted Dong ding( or Tung Ting). It was pretty green, but the aroma was just amazing. It had some sweet caramel/creamy aroma's, but not so much of the flowery or even vegetal many of the green Taiwan oolongs have. She made it, and it lived up to the aroma. Super smooth, nice sweetness, very good developing character from the 3 different pours. Awesome stuff.

When we were done with the tea I felt it was time too get out the puerh cake I bought of a secondhand trading website. It was super cheap, so I had no problem taking the gamble, and if I have to believe her it surely paid of. She said that the region where the material from this cakes come from is really good. It is likely from out plantation trees. So not actual forest tea, but neither from new plantations. She told us that at some point in history tea became out of fashion and many plantation were abandoned and were left to grow wild. When tea trade picked up again, these trees were harvested again and were found to produce wonderful maocha(link). On the cake was a date from 2008. My first guess was that this was the production date. It wasn't, according to Amanda. It was the licence date. She said it's most likely 2 or 3 years old. So 2012 probably. Also she said if I left it aging for another 3 to 4 years it will be quite a pricey cake. I don't care about it's worth as I'm intending on keeping it, so the taste is more important. More on that later.

After this it was time to go for my friend, but I wanted too stay of course. I felt I was just getting started. We talked some more and she was commenting all the time about how young we were, it was pretty funny. Anyway, I felt you got a sense I was serious about this tea thing, so she grabbed out her most priced possession. A purple leafed young raw puerh. It is a new cultivar and commercial production started in 2013. She added a small amount of leaves to the pot, way less then I am used too. But this is a whole other tea that I am used too. The aroma was basically not there. The taste, also was lacking. The mouth feel though. Oh damn. For that amount of leaves, it was full, tong-coating and sweet. It also gave me the nicest feeling I've ever gotten from tea. I was fully awake, focused, warm, calm, a little break of sweat, but in a comfortable way. I just felt amazing. The leaves were indescribably beautifully. They were purple, blue and green. A very deep colour. We talked some more about the tea world in the Netherlands, and also about some beer related subject(I'm a brewer). Next time I come, she will trade me some tea for beer ;). But wow, what a tea. I didn't buy any in the end, because of my budget. Maybe I should have though.

Next up was a yancha from Wuyi called Jun Zi Lan. This was very nice stuff. I have some at home, but the problem I have with them is they a all drying in the mouth. It weird, and not very nice. The taste is good though. But this was was very smooth. It had a very strong character and displayed the typical mineral yancha taste. We also started to talk about ITC and tea-pairing. It's getting popular now, but both of us saw no point in doing this. I drink tea on it's own. It is usually delicate and complex. both also the making of the tea is essential to how it comes out, and if you're making it in a gongfu way, eating is not so convenient.

An hour or two past with nobody entering. But now someone Amanda knew came in. He came to pick up some beautiful teacups she brought from her trip to Asia. She asked me to pick out another tea. I went for the oriental beauty. She poured out the tea in the cups of that guy that had entered and also in two smaller white porcelain cups. She gave them to us and asked us to taste. I found it hard to notice much, but the smaller cups was a little less thick in body and had a tad bit less aroma. It was very faint and could just have been me guessing. The guy knew the test already and said it was not so clear with these two cups. She then took out 2 extremely thin walled cheap glass cups. In these cups the difference was rather clear. The tea was much more flat. Amanda wanted to teach me that thick walled hold the aroma better, because it stays warmer. Nice to know, because I have mostly quite thick teacups.

After this we chatted some more on tea ware. She showed some awesome vintage tea ware from a book that inspired the maker of those cups the guy was picking up. She also showed some tea ware from a dutch potter: Kees Hoogendam. Very cool wabi-sabi inspired Japanese tea ware. I will be heading over to this guy pretty soon. Now it was time to pick out teas to take home. I bought sample sizes because I have to much tea at home. I choose the Tung Ting and the yancha we tasted and also a dancong that smelled of lychee and all kinds of other fruit. Nice stuff. She also gave me one serving of a really nice greener dancong of which she had too little to sell as it was very rare.

Finally something on Amanda and Formocha. She is an amazing lady. I learned so much in the few hours I was at Formocha. She is very direct, but ones she trusts you she opens up. I will surely be coming back as the teas are amazing quality for very reasonable prices. I am looking forward to spring as she will have high quality, super fresh Long Jing. Luckily I will go to Amsterdam again at the end of this month. I might pick up some more tea.

Tea trip and exams

Exams are over! Time for tea again. Not that I've been avoiding tea the last two weeks though. I've drank quite some tea trying to stay awake during studying. I also did something I maybe shouldn't have. I went on a small tea trip. The reason for doing so was while scrolling on a dutch secondhand website. I came across some really nice clay teapots, supposedly yixing. I really liked their shape and colour. But these kind of things are hard to judge from pictures. The person selling the pots lived in Amsterdam, so easy to reach and there were two nice teashops I still needed to visit. So an appointment was made and I went.

Visiting the teapot seller was really nice. She got to know good oolong in Taiwan and brought some pots back. We had some tea in the pots in question to test them out, but it was also just nice sitting down with someone to have tea. I mostly drink on my own. Which is nice but drinking together is very different. Anyway I bought them. Here are some pics.

 

 These are her pictures. My skill are not so good and my lighting is even worse. So these will do. The upper brown pot I will use for yancha and other darker fruity oolong/blacks like oriental beauty. it's around 100 ml when brewed with. I like the size. It pours nice, but does drip a bit. But I use a fairness cup anyway. The lower pot I haven't decided on what to use it for. I did a little test with sheng puehr on which I will write soon. This pot is really small. Maybe a little too small, but for me alone it's ok. It brews up 60 ml.

After buying these two I went on to meet a friend at Tea's Delight. A new teashop dedicated to high quality loose leaf tea. The website looks good and promising. The don't offer a large selection, but nice enough. I liked the store when I went through the door. Simple decorating and really light. When you walk in you are greeted by the tea making table with some tea's on display. Upstairs were teaware and a low table to drink tea at and downstairs the teas and some couches. You can drink tea there or take it with with either brewed or ,of course the packaged leaves. They had their selection on a board. When I asked if I could inspect and smell the leaves, I was told they don't do that. Which I found remarkable. The prices aren't what you'd call low, so some inspection might be nice in my opinion. They had some leaves in glass pots, but the smell was not really there, because they were in there for quite some time. You can drink the tea, but as this also comes at quite a price, getting to drink many tea would take some time sitting down. They do make it gong fu though, which is good to see in the Netherlands. 

Enough about the shortcomings. My friend ordered up Yichu Wild. A tea which they say is from original wild tea trees from Taiwan. It was really good stuff. This I took home. It wasn't cheap: €11 for 20 grams only. On this tea later more. I took a supposedly 15 year old loose sheng. It was nice, but not outstanding. It tasted and looked like shu. Which I don't find bad tea, but I wasn't expecting it. I have never had sheng of that age, so I'm not a good judge of properly aged sheng, but if it's like this I would be a little disappointed. She made it in a yixing pot, but it came out very light. She made it with maybe 2 grams on 200 ml and brewed it a few minutes. I get why they do it in a shop, but it doesn't make a good strong cup of puerh. We had a second steep and left after some conversation with the storekeeper.

I was very excited to move one to the next shop: Formocha. I've read many good things, so I was keen to check it out. But as we approached the store it looked rather closed. And it was. Tea holiday of which I later saw the result. Some really nice teacups and in their opinion good tea. I will be heading over soon as I need to travel in that direction for work.

2014 Longjing from Tea-adventure

I'll be doing many reviews of tea-adventure's as I got lots of stuff from them to test the tea out. So far I like most of it. The Wuyi yancha's are really nice and the white tea cakes/bricks are too. So today I tried the 2014 spring longjing. They say it is the highest grade, but I have some reservations on this as the highest grade spring stuff fetches prices of well over a 100 euro/100 grams.

 

This, luckily for my wallet, is not of that price range. However, this is of  high quality nevertheless. The leaves are really pale green, but with some yellow one in between suggesting it is indeed not of the highest grade. The bag contains some of the fluffy tea hair balls, which is always nice, but not necessarily a character of quality. The buds are really short, so the harvest was early in the season, which is said to be good. The aroma is good. Not roasty at all, and really fresh bean like fragrances.

Brewing longjing I always had trouble with. I had guidance from a guy from Vancouver, Canada who told me his technique. He starts with cool water en short infusions and gradually works his way to hot water and long infusions. This has been my technique ever since. So my notes are the following

2 teascoops or 1/4 gaiwan, 100 ml, no rinse:
1st | 75C | 10 sec | Very light sweet floral notes. Only a little of the characteristic bean flavours. Could have been stronger. I didn't rinse as I don't like wasting tea. This does mean the first infusion sometimes needs to be extended
2nd | 75C | 10 sec | It's beany alright. In a nice way of course. It also has a clear aroma of those Japanese rice crackers with a peanut. It was funny, but unmistakable. Really good stuff. Sweet, not astringent. It tastes fresh, with some hay/grass like aroma.
3rd | 80C | 10 sec | similar to 2nd pour. Less strong though, increase in time would do the trick. However there are some astringent flavours coming through now.
4th | 85C | 20 sec | It's getting lighter now. Less of the bean character but still nutty, grassy and some sweetness. should have brewed longer.
5th | 85C | ~60 sec | Almost finished. Spent tea flavours are coming through. When it cooled down it still tasted really nice. Could have gone for a 6th, but it was time for breakfast.

The spent leaves look good. Very consistent 1 bud, 2 leaves. Small leaves, but leaves they are. Colour is consistent. It didn't last long, but that's quite normal for a tea like this. overall I really like this tea. It's been quite a while since I had some high grade Chinese green. I gave up on them, because it was hard to find fresh and not too expensive stuff. Japanese green is easier in this sense.

Good stuff, for a good price. Me like.

2011 White Moonlight Menghai Cake

So I got some nice new stuff in the mail. It was a back order from Tea-adventure. In there were some greens, some samples and this cake. It's a rather interesting cake. I would call it beautiful. the array of colours is very nice and the leaves are really intact. The aroma is really nice, having some similarities to sheng, but also white tea.

I have two other white tea cakes now, because the first tea cake I ever bought was really good. The second was less good, tasting mostly of stale white tea. What is interesting about white tea cakes is that cakes are usually associated with puehr, which has the trait of improving with age. Now white tea is said to be best when young by some people, however, of course, not everyone agrees. The first time I came across aged white is at Thee Aan Zee, a tea shop near The Hague. The guy who owns the place is rather fond of the stuff. I can't recall what I liked best, old or young, when tasting some at his shop. As for the opposers: some puerh drinkers say that the buds are not good for aging and in turn that white tea, which usually has many buds, doesn't age well. Also the production of the basis tea for puerh, maocha, has been processed to maintain some form of enzymes so that it will continue to change in time. White tea is only dried so they might contain some enzymes, but this I am not sure about and couldn't find an answer for after a quick google search.

To now focus on this cake, it's made of White Moonlight. Which is an interesting tea. The story is that this tea is picked under a full moon and then dried indoors. This is different from "normal" white tea which is sun dried. The drying, thus, takes much shorter than with White Moonlight. This is the reason it's not greenish but more blackish. Another difference is the origin. White tea originates from Fujian, China, and is made of the smaller leaf variety. White Moonlight is made in Yunnan, China, and is made from the same larger leaf variety where puerh is also made of.

Somehow this, to get back on the aging thing, suggests to me that this cake might age well, instead of just getting stale, like a green tea would. And I think it shows in this cake. While not being really old, it doesn't seem to have lost either strength nor flavour. It tastes only slightly of white tea. There is some hay like flavour. For the most part it tastes more of a Yunnan gold. Malty and dark fruit. It's quite mellow though. It doesn't have the kick Yunnan gold has. I have a loose White moonlight as well, which also is way more astringent. While not having a kick, it does posses strength and longevity. It handle long hauls of many minutes really well. I like this stuff. It's not mind shattering, but I like to drink and doesn't have sharp edges or so. Two Dog Tea I think has the same idea as I have about aging this thing. It will never taste anywhere close to a sheng puerh, but it will turn into something. I guess it's turning more and more into black tea seems logical as it may still be oxidizing. I haven't had young versions that I know of. The loose one I have is from Simon Levelt. So god knows how old that is. It does have the same black flavours, so it might have some age as well.

Anywoo, let's see what this turns into as it matures.

Switching to English and 2010 Mangfei Sheng Pu-ehr

Ok. I will be switching this blog to English. This is the second post only, so if I'm switching, I'd better do it now. The reason I'm switching to English is because if I decide to continue writing and if people start reading it, more people will be able too. Also there aren't many tea people in the Netherlands. Or at least not many that I know of. But if there are I'd like to get know some.

Anyhow, Let's talk tea. I'm really new to the whole pu-ehr thing, but through trying some and reading a lot about them, my curiosity was awakened. The reading mostly consisted of reading MarshlN's blog. I started from the beginning of the blog. He started in 2006 and it's really interesting to follow his journey in exploring the world of pu-ehr. He's in a position that I am definitely not in and probably will never be in. As he speaks Chinese and is around China allot, he can learn things in a way I can't, obviously. But by reading his blog from the start I can get to know pu-ehr. Now all I have to do is start drinking more pu-ehr to try to get some practical experience. Of course, from reading his posts I get rather thirsty.

Speaking of which, I'm drinking a Mangfei Sheng pu-ehr from Tea-adventure. I like it. At least more than the tuocha from them. That was the first raw pu-ehr I've ever had and man was it bitter. I think it was the most bitter tea I've ever drunk. The leaves were very broken and I overfilled the gaiwan. So that was part of the problem of it being bitter. This Mangfei cake though is much better. It's from the same year: 2010. Which is, from what I read, quite young. This means that there is much of the original bitterness left. And yes, it was bitter. but to a degree that I found enjoyable. 

The dry leaves smelled quite floral, but there is some earthiness coming through. It doesn't have any of the weird fishiness or plain dirt aroma that shou or raw pu-erh sometimes have. The first infusion was also quite floral, with some nice spiciness. And a firm bitterness. Not very astringent though. The infusion after that were getting less floral but there was this interesting minty, cooling effect. It also tasted similar to the last infusion of Chinese green tea. This I didn't like so much, but all the others flavors and the mouth feel, was pretty nice. Very different from what I'm used too. Also something surprising was the feeling of being really focused and getting rather sweaty. There was a nice warming sensation. This was most strong with the first 5 infusions. 

After about 8 infusions it was time for dinner. After which I returned to drinking this tea. I'm now reaching around 15 infusions and it seems that the tea isn't giving up yet. The funny thing is, that the bitterness is giving way to sweetness. It's not the sweetness of candy. I can't describe it very well. maybe a little malty sweetness. There isn't much flavor left. there is mostly sweet liquid. Funny stuff.

Tea: 2010 Mangfei Sheng pu-ehr from Tea-adventure.Pot and amount: 100 ml gaiwan with 1.5 Chinese tea scoop (circa 6 grams)

Temperature and times: 100° C, Quick wash, 5/5/5/10/10/20/30 sec. After this I can't remember how long the water was in there. I think I got to 15 infusions. 

Surroundings: low tea table at home from mid day through the evening.
Music: Tom Waits - Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards

Eerste post met Japanse groene oolong

Het is heet vandaag. Maar ook dan is het heerlijk om thee te drinken. Ik drink nu een heerlijke lichte oolong uit Japan. Niet het meeste bekende land voor zijn oolong. Ze drinken het zelf waarschijnlijk niet eens. In Japan drinkt men voornamelijk sencha. Ik kan het ze niet kwalijk nemen, want sencha is ook ontzettend lekker. Daarover komt later meer, want ik ook drink buitensporige hoeveelheden ervan! =]

Het is donker in mijn kamer dus moest de flits gebruiken. Lelijk!

Maar goed, dit is mijn eerste thee blog post. Überhaupt mijn eerste blog post overigens. Ik ben al een jaar of 4 a 5 een thee liefhebber. Dat begon met zakjes van de supermarkt. Dat werd saai na verloop van tijd. Ik ben toen voornamelijk kruidenthee zelf gaan samenstellen. Mijn zoektocht was toen begonnen naar steeds betere thee. Ik las veel op internet en kwam steeds allerlei verschillende vormen van zwarte en groene thee tegen. In die tijd had ik geen idee dat dat bestond. Al snel kwam ik bij Simon lévelt uit. Omdat toen mij interesse uitsluitend bij kruidenthee lag ging ik er naartoe met de vraag: “Welke van al die soorten groene en zwarte thee zijn lekker om te combineren met kruiden?”. Waarop de verkoper tegen mij zei: “Waarom wil je het mengen, het is veel lekkerder op zichzelf.”. Dat was een keerpunt in mijn nog korte thee geschiedenis. Nu vind ik op de darjeeling van Ambootia na, hun thee niet zo lekker meer, ironisch genoeg.


Ik was thee aan het drinken. <zet de waterkoker aan>. En dus niet zomaar een thee, nee het is een oolong uit Japan. Het is de Kuchinashi Oolong uit Miyazaki van Yuuki-cha. Ik ben onderhand al bij zet 5 of 6 en hij is nog steeds bloemig en met aroma's van zacht rijp fruit. Ik zet de oolong op de gongfu cha manier, met behulp van een gaiwan. Het verschil tussen die manier en de westerse manier is dat je in plaats van een, heel misschien twee zetten, wel tot tien zetten kan doorgaan zonder smaak te verliezen. Dit kan doordat je minder water(100 ml per zet) en meer thee(ongeveer 4 gram). De thee wordt niet perse zwakker maar voornamelijk elke keer net wat anders. Je zettijden zijn trouwens ook heel kort: 1ste zet: 4 seconden, 2de zet: 6 seconden, 3de zet 4 seconden en vervolgens steeds opbouwen en aanpassen op de smaak van het vorige kopje. Normaal zet je oolong met kokend water, maar deze thee mag lager. Rond de 90 graden is prima. Dit is de tweede keer dat ik hem drink en de eerste keer had ik te heet water en te weinig thee, waardoor de thee te licht en te wrang werd. Met hoe ik het nu zet met 90 graden water en anderhalve Chinese theelepel is de thee echt tot leven gekomen.


Ik ben onderhand wel aan de laatste loodjes van de thee gekomen, een daarmee sluit ik mijn eerste thee blog post dan ook af. Hoe ik precies mijn posts ga vormgeven ga ik nog over nadenken(Ik vind hyperlinks bijvoorbeeld fijn, ik dan niet alles hoef uit te leggen ;). Deze post was een impulsieve actie, maar ik wou graag mijn passie delen. Er zijn niet zoveel theeliefhebber in Nederland namelijk.


Thee: Organic Miyazaki Oolong Tea Kuchinashi van Yuuki-cha
Pot en hoeveelheid: 100 ml gaiwan met 1.5 Chinese theelepel
Watertemperatuur en zettijden: 90° C, 4/6/4/8 sec. Na zet 4 niet meer bijgehouden en op intuïtie gezet.
Omgeving: Thuis aan de lage theetafel. Het is heet, vochtig en laat in de avond
Muziek: Sleep – Dopesmoker en Fennesz – Endless Summer