question on gift of tea

cha bing ha scritto:

Lets see... In japanese calendar years, we are currently in the year Heisei 19 (Heisei era began on 1989). Last era was Showa, which began on 1926 and ended in 1989. So, if that 55 means the 55th year of the Showa era, then it would come to be 1981. That still sounds pretty old, but then again, sounds more reasonable than 1955. Well, thats as good as I can figure it out as for the year. Does the 6 actually have a minus before it? If it does then I cannot think of that as a date. If it doesnt and that is just a typo, then I stick to the "May 6th of 1981" theory. I shall ask my japanese teacher about this next time to make sure. If I don't post again about it this week is because he told me my calculations are right. Hope this was useful for you Cha Bing!

Thanks for your input. Using the information you gave me, I went back and realized that a different gift I had received from the same person had a similar date, only with more information. It said, very literally, (in kanji) "Showa 55 year 7 month 29 day". This was a Dong Ding oolong from Taiwan. I looked again at the other one and it was "55.6.-3", so I had the date slightly wrong. Bottom line is that these indeed look to be from 1981. I opened up the Dong Ding and, while I don't have much experience drinking older oolongs, the leaves looked to be old. The canister was sealed and inside was a thin plastic bag with the tea in it--the bag looked a bit old, and it had a small piece of yellowed clear tape on top that looked to have deteriorated glue. I brewed five or so grams in my little yixing pot after rinsing the leaves twice. The brew is pretty dark and there is definitely an older taste that I recognize from the one other aged oolong I've ever drank. The difference was that this one was much smoother and had a hint of a very nice aftertaste in the first few brewings. There wasn't a strong flavor in any case, although the brew remained dark. The wet leaves were pretty small and uniformly reddish looking. They were not strongly crinkled like I've seen in some of the highly roasted oolongs I've had, and there were no black leaves. Overall, a very interesting experience. I look forward to trying more and eventually making my way to the Tie Guan Yin. If anyone has thoughts they'd like to share on storage or tasting of aged oolong, I'd be happy to hear them.

Also, I've looked around online and realized that "aged oolongs" may be roasted every few years. This is obviously not the case with the oolong that I have, since it looks to have been stored in its sealed canister for the last 25+ years. Any idea what the consequences of this would be?

I am glad that you were able to confirm the dates thing, it might be useful for some more people, definitively was good for myself to check it out. I am also glad your tea seems fine although the pakage was altered. I once had lost a tin of sencha (you might start suspecting, its my favorite type) for many months, including during moving from a house to another, what implyed that the tin was left on a not very dry storage for some time. When I found it I noticed it was a little humid (very subtly) but the flavour felt even more "humid" (not mossy, but, not as fresh as I would have liked). What I did, I got a humidity remiving bag from some food products and stored it in a closed space along with my weird sencha (not mixed or touching, just together). Left it for a couple weeks and tried the tea. It was definitively better tasting. Perhaps you would like to try this with your old friend?

I guess that roasting it would be even better that the bag thing I tried. Most good-stuffs we appreciate in tea are the water soluble components of it, but the aroma attributing ones have to be volatile components. Roasting it will probably get some of that out, and perhaps a little bit of the water soluble components as well as some must have been diffused towards the surface due to the humidity it was exposed to. In any case, I think that it is an idea that will do more good (by far) than bad. You have a great chance to try it, hope you do and post your experience. I might try it as well in my little electric oven and see what happens. I would recommend a temperature of less than 100°C, as it seems that (according to quick research) most plants release their oils at around normal water boiling point. Good luck!

Actually, having been drinking loads of aged oolongs since I went to Taiwan, I would say that aged oolongs that have NOT been reroasted are usually better than the ones that have gone through periodic reroasting. The reason is that the taste of the tea changes quite dramatically when reroasting happens. If well stored, as these oolongs seem to be, the teas not reroasted are most likely to be free of bitterness, quite aromatic, with a bit of a fruity flavour that a reroasted tea wouldn't have (or at least not as much). Reroasting would often destroy the fruitiness. My personal preference after drinking dozens of these things is that teas that haven't been reroasted are better.

Which brings me to my question: Cha Bing, do you know where your friend got this tea? I would very much like to get my hands on some if they're priced relatively reasonably.

MarshalN

SenchaSamurai wrote: