Tasting techniques.

You've hit on a very interesting point. Probably none of us, except Nigel, could convincingly pose as an agronomist, but I do know that this isn't as simple as it seems. Sure, tea plants subjected to environmental stresses, e.g. poor nutrition, will yield less leaf, but for high quality, there are cases where we demand that the trees or shrubs be tortured:

- Yan cha, which doesn't get much sunlight and, in the case of the really old trees, probably has depleted soil, too;

- Darjeeling, where it's cold and dim lots of the time, and even the plants that are genetically identical to Assam shrubs yield far better tasting (though less plentiful) leaf;

- Frost tea from Nilgiri, obviously;

- Oriental Beauty attacked by leafhoppers.

I don't doubt there are other examples.

/Lew

Gyokuro, where they are kept in shade to produce the light-green color and inhibit the production of chlorophyl.

I have been growing bonsai for many years now, and that is about as much torture as you can bring upon a poor defenseless plant... and you are correct. Nature is all about struggle and survival, they don't get endless supplies of fertilizer and care and watering, and I do believe that it is a positive thing for tea. I'm growing my own tea trees from seeds and have been experimenting with each one. One in rocky soil, one in regular soil, one being fertilized, one not, and one bonsai. I'm hoping to eventually see (and possibly taste) the effects first-hand in a few years.

Not that care will not produce more leaf and even more quality leaf, but I prefer the real thing. Wild, fairly au natural, and then produced with care and minimal processing. I don't mind if taste and quality vary year to year, to me that is the fun of it. Of the puerh I have bought, I tend to go toward the wild tree/old tree stuff (real or not who knows) but it does have a different quality than the other puerh I have bought and I like it.

Similar to my love for Canadian Ice Wine. The grapes are left on the vine to be exposed to frosting. It concentrates the flavor and then turned into an amazing wine. I'll take that over some hotsy-totsy thin skin grape coddled and fawned over until it hits my glass. I like that natural and "real" aspect.

- Dominic

[MarshalN]

Mouth-feel sounds ok to us, but rather confusing for the rest of the world. How about "Texture of Taste in the Mouth"? Hmm. perhaps even more confusing...

True, but not wholly true. If we were to base our preference of purchase on the above criteria set, we would be going off-course. One has to understand how the above criteria came about, the broad spectrum of Yunnan leaves from different locations, the differences in processing, and then see how correct are the above assumptions.

Danny

Michael,

Is the 2004 you're referring to happen to be the mini-beeng from The Tea Gallery in NY? I ask because I've been drinking this and agree wholeheartedly with your adjectives.

Steven

Lew, I'll put up my hand as a tea agronomist amongst other things.

The subject of tea quality and stress is, as you suspect, not straightforward. Neither is it with people some of whom thrive on it while it destroys others - and react in different ways to any particular type of stress. I left the safety of corporate Unilever after 27 years because that sort of stress (lack of control over my own decisions) gave me psoriasis. The stress of running my own, often financially precarious, business has never affected me - in fact it is often exhilerating. My initial Teacraft business partner couldn't handle the financial insecurity and quit after a few years. Different plants do well in different soils.

My observations with tea are that quality and stress is not a straight line correlation. It's certain that too much of a good thing - nitrogen, warmth, abundant water, will stimulate fast vigorous growth that lacks quality - Rains teas in Assam and Darjeeling is a good example - soft cups but high yields. Slow growth - due to cool weather or drying winds combined with rocky soil tends to give a peak of quality - the low yielding Uva quality season in Sri Lanka for instance. Just to take one single variable - nitrogen fertilizer - one certainly show a diminishing cup quality with increasing nitrogen BUT the line will not start at zero. The response is quadratic. Reduce nitrogen below a certain point and cup quality will again diminish.

I suspect the effect of rocky soils is the same - a degree of depletion slows growth and improves quality - but deplete too far and it will reduce quality.

Soil pH is possible the most obvious illustration of the effect. Tea thrives at pH 5.0 but growth declines with increasing soil pH until plants actually die at pH 7.0 Similarly, growth declines at reducing pH and plants actually die at pH 3.0 Between 3 and 7 there is a perfect quadratic response peaking at 5.0 I supect that the best pH for cup quality is around pH 4 - below optimum for yield (pH 5) but well above the plunge into the death zone.

The moral being that for optimum tea quality you must not spoil the bushes with unlimited treats - deal with them firmly but not too hard - lots think that effective child raising follows similar rules.

Nigel at Teacraft

Lewis Per> You've hit on a very interesting point. Probably none of us, except

I too slurp. Probably in different ways and for different reasons ... for greens to aerate and bring out different pflavours (sp left inedited), with reds partly to allow me to taste the tea hotter and less brewed (I drink most teas in-cup)

... just thought of something which I might incorporate into my -style- from now on : drink reds left handed and greens right handed ...

Also, slurping irritates almost everyone. It can be likened to an upper class belch. Generally, my -style- could thus be classed : Jar; Loud; Thick ... I liked the sound of Jim's 'keep it big' ... and now Ambidextrous - I always drank Dextrous

Mydnight wrote:

Hmm, I thought it meant

'Here! And be quick about it!'

Oh, this is completely unknown to me. And I like (but can drink little / inoften) Nilgiri teas with their slight greenness and dryness alike to Darjeelings. Can you point me somewhere to find out more, Lew?

Lewis Per> - Frost tea from Nilgiri, obviously;

(Nigel wrote ...)

Hence the phrase 'Nothing but tea' Nigel?

Im T

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Michael,

Yes, it is. Indeed. My string of meaningless, unhelpful adjectives was meant humorously, but I am very fond of the tea. Michael

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Yeah Danny, are you referring to the

Cha Ye Da Ci Dian, by (I think) Chen Zong Mao? That is the book that Livio put me on to and I finally picked it up last year. It's in chinese only, excepting some odd words up in English, but you'd need modern chinese characters for it to be any use to you. If it's this one, its big and costs about 380 yuan.

Immo T

According to

Bingo!

That's the one.

Not many bookstores carry it, so grab it while you can...

:")

Danny

In that case it's not exactly 'handy' , Hee, but I'm pleased I finally got a copy (presently stored away and not to hand, but I'll be able to look at it next week) -

it's not just tea, but an encyclopaedia of all things tea - like agricultural equipment! Tho' it's huge and the several pages on chinese tea are most interesting -

if you have difficulty finding it (um ie in China I mean) I could point you to where I bought it (near Qianmen, Beijing) and possible other stockists - if you're after tracking down an import copy (expensive I would presume) let me know and I'll have a look for any ISBN etc stuff on it.

Cheers,

MIT

samarkand wrote:

Look at D025 on this page for publishing Info:

The author Chen Zong Mao works at Agricultural Tea Ministry or something like that. You can find him on the Internet.

Jim

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:

Sorry... still can't shake off my excitement over the upcoming OSU and Michigan game..... ahem!

Thanks guys. Let me check out my local bookstores first and see if I can find a copy of this book (I live in Malaysia.). I do have a chinese friend who are planning to attend a tea related event in Kuala Lumpur next week. Let me see if he can help me out with this.

With higher grades of tea I often like to focus on the sensation that it leaves in my body. I find some teas extremely relaxing, whereas others are the complete opposite. Some are cooling and refreshing, others are warming and "grounding".

A Da Hong Pao I recently acquired seems to clear my lungs and I feel like I can breath easier - not disimilar to Vicks! Has anyone had a similar experience with any teas? Is that a similar sensation to the Qi that Mike mentioned regarding certain pu-erhs?

Adrian

Hee,

The tea and coffee expo at the KL International Convention Centre (?) will have a book fare on related subjects as well. I'm sure your friend will have no problem finding it!

:")

Danny