Tibetan Tea (Brick tea)

The green one is kinda funny - now that I actually has time to read all the labels, it is called Qing Zhuan Cha - zhuan being "brick" as opposed to bing - cake) and Qing Cha, as I understand is best translated as "pressed oolong", and not "green", which is Liu Cha. It also has an ancient caracter on teh wrapper that looks to me like ancient caracher Yi (change) a pictorial of a chameleon (same as Yi in Yi Ching). From teh text on the rapper it appears that its a tea from "Ancient Character Tea" series. The company logo is Chuan (river) - (the three vertical lines one)

It looks dark-green-brownish, and it tastes and behaves more like a blacker oolong. Also the tea is full of quite large and quite thick stems like "Con palo" Yerba mate. First time I brewed the leaves from teh bottom part of the brick and somehow it had a funny taste to it. Second time I took the leaves from the bulk of the brick and actually liked it a lot. And for its price under $10/kilo its pretty good. The first steep was very strong and the second one quite weaker. This is probably because its quite oxidized and broken mediun size leaf. The brewing instructions are basic Tibetan recipie and very brief (break off a piece and boil). I am dying to try it :Po-Cha style - shaken with cream, butter and salt that I have not done since my field days in Mongolia.

Sasha.

the most popular kind of "brick tea" (fang cha, tuo cha) is called pu'er and it comes from the yunnan province in the south. it takes some getting used to because it's taste can be rather dirty depending on which type you try.

i have some excellent pu'er tea that I got from a friend of mine. the older the tea gets, the more valuable and smooth the taste can become depending on storage. I haven't broken into it yet; I am waiting for a special occasion. My friend said it's from the early 1980s. Vintage! heh.

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

Hi Mydnight,

Our friend Sasha knows Puer fairly well. I suspect these bricks are something else. I have seen powdered red tea compressed into elaborate bricks, scored on the back as folklore has it that it used to be used for money.

What kind of puer is it that you are squirreling away?

Mike Petro snipped-for-privacy@pu-erh.net

heh. squirreling indeed! I have bought way too many different types of tea for me to possibly be able to drink it all. My friends say I need to open a shop or something.

I am not entirely sure of the specific names of the types of pu'er I have. I know that I got 2 bricks of some fairly cheap grade 5 year-old shu-pu that actually has a smooth and pleasant taste, another that is 8 years old, two bricks of sheng-pu that is 12 years old, and one block of sheng-pu (tuo) that's from the early 1980's. The 5 year old doesn't have any wrapper...ack, i'm just going to have to take pictures for you guys to look at and help me identify.

What I'm most happy about is the old tuo cha that I have. There is no pin-yin on the wrapper, but the center of the wrapper has a logo of some mountains. I'll just have to take pictures.

What sort of pu'er stuff do you guys have?

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

Look at

Where at in the south are you? Drop me an email so we can talk offline. I am in the south too. My address is in my tagline.

Mike Petro snipped-for-privacy@pu-erh.net

I have been browsing your website...and wow...

I bow down to your knowledge! How excellent the site is.

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

Mike -

The black brick may be what you call "powdered tea" although it is not powder (1-2mm size particles) The green one (and they use Qing (green) but not Liu (green) on the wrapper) is something else altogether. Some sources say that Qing is ised for pressed oolong. It is a fairly large leaf tea with a substantial quantity of stems. The pressure they used must have been gargantuan, because this tea cuts as a soft rock and leave a smooth cut by examining which one cannot see any traces that would suggest that this was not a monolithic mass.The color is brownish-green with the whitish-yellow round cuts of stems all over. If I was gicen the photo of this as a geologist I would think this is some kind of a volcanic rock.

Because of this evidence of extremely high pressure I suggest that the juices from tealeaf must have been sqweezed at least somewhat and be exposed to some anaerobic influence, but definitely not puerh style fermentation because of the density of the material.

Sasha.

I have a Tibetan friend who has settled here. I go to his place sometimes and talk about his place Tibet and his freedom movement and His Holiness The Dalai Lama.

Yesterday was just refreshing. Topic of tea was ignited and I talked about the Darjeeling Teas I received. They had relatives in Darjeeling and were talking about them. They told me to taste a tea which I was not aware of. They told me that their relatives had sent them tea from Darjeeling and they prepared the tea in a pecular tibetan way. They took me to a room full laid out with thangkas and carpets and there was a big long dried bamboo with three golden rings on the top, middle and bottom. I was suprised to know that that was the utensil or medium through which they make what is called "Tibetan Butter Tea". I thought the butter thing was just a name, but it was actually used. They put the ingredients which I was unaware of and with a big log stick started to stir inside the bamboo. To my great suprise, I was given a cup and found out the tea tasted salty and not sweet with the flavour of butter lingering. It was butter bilk tea. It really tasted good. They told me that the tea would get its best results with Darjeelings. And I was proud that I had bought two kgs of the same.

Hope you enjoyed the narration.

Teeman, Tea for health, Tea for life.

Teeman, I was just watching a documentary where people were drinking butter tea, and it looked really interesting. I'll have to scout around for a recipe of some sort.

I don't suppose anyone has one offhand? I'm also planning on making chai one of these days.

Ian

Hi Ian, I am getting kinda hooked to this forum. Its really nice for a newbie to get some wonderful experiences of tea. I too am not aware of the ingredients used with the tea, but I think without the right instruments as I saw in my friend's place, it is not possible to make the traditional tea. I will ask my friend whether it can be made in some other method also.

Great going tea and tea talk.

Teeman, Tea for Health, Tea for Life

Yes, tibetan tea not only has to give a kick of caffeine, but a kick of fat too, because the cold and the hard work requires serious caloric intake. Hence the butter. I read a guy's blog about how he visited the monks in Tibet and they drank the stuff like water.

I thought there was a topic on this not too long ago on here Ian. Go to Google groups and search this forum for Tibetan or for butter tea or some such...or check on the web, search for "butter tea recipe" I know I found one somewhere but have not tried it yet.

Melinda

Thanks, Melinda. I'll see what I can find.

Ian