I thought I was going to go to Maliandao, but jetlag and errands held me up. Since I basically didn’t sleep the night before, and since Paris time is 7 hours behind Beijing time… I woke up pretty late, too late to go after I ran my errands. Oh well, tomorrow.
I opened up another bag of tea today, one of the Dahongpaos I got with the Lapsang Souchong. This is the expensive one (I just grabbed one of the bags without looking).
By the way, I realize my photos have been pretty utilitarian — not much in the way of embellishment, decorations, nice settings, little kids, that kind of thing. Hope you folks don’t mind. I figured this way we’re only focusing on the tea and is more uniform, making for better comparisons and documentation, which is the point of this blog anyway.
This is how the tea looks in liquid form
The colour is fairly uniform throughout. The tea… is quite delicate, for lack of a better word. It’s not a strong, heavy kind of Wuyi, but rather the soft, supple kind. I didn’t buy it so much for the taste, which I am only ok with, but rather the mouthfeel and, most importantly, the cha qi. The mouthfeel is smooth, soft, much like the flavours of the tea. It’s very “round”. I found a very strong cha qi with this tea, at least in my reaction of it. I felt it again today.
I think this tea might be good for aging a bit and then trying again. It might just get better.
The leaves are still quite wrinkled after about 10 infusions, which, according to somebody I talked to, means that this is hand-rolled. He said the machine rolled stuff unfurls quickly, whereas the hand rolled stuff stay rolled. I don’t know if that’s true. I put the lighter there to give it some scale. No, I don’t smoke. This is for lighting the water boiler.
Maliandao tomorrow. I probably shouldn’t buy anything though…. I just bought two cakes online today….
3 responses so far ↓
exstns // November 17, 2006 at 1:33 pm |
There is no need for fancy decorations and extra fancy stuff added on to this blog. This is the reason why I come back here every day. It’s subject is tea and that is what its concentrating on, so thanks for that.
Phyllo // November 17, 2006 at 3:36 pm |
^ I agree with the above comment. I tend to spend too much time with my photos, but that is because of the photography hobbyist in me. Your pics are more than good to learn and experience your tea explorations. Thanks.
HobbesOxon // November 18, 2006 at 6:52 am |
It’s great the way it is, I agree.
I don’t know if it’s the low camera angle, but I’m always struck by the sheer number of leaves in the photos. I often think “Hmm, Marshal’s using a LOT of leaves”! I compare this to the amount I use and haven’t come to a firm conclusion on whether it’s the camera angle or not!
I wonder, if you get five minutes with you next brew in a gaiwan, would you mind photographing the dry leaf quantity before putting it into the gaiwan, and perhaps a photo of the leaf in the gaiwan itself before adding water? It would be very useful for me.
Looking at the amount of leaf I use, if I increase it the brew is just going to be far too bitter for 10-15s infusions, and so I’m more or less convinced, from that angle, that I’m using a decent amount of leaf – but it would be great to compare with you, if you get the opportunity for taking the photos.
Many thanks,
Hobbes