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.