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I am sorry that happened to your tea. You must feel very bad about this since it seems to me that you love Longjing quite seriously. I cannot comment on what really happened to your Hangzhou batch; many things could have. As for ours, we simply follow strict procedures in storage and handling as I have explained in this article:
We do have some very special batches stored at below 0°C, but Longjing from 2012 has been stored only as usual at around 5.Before storage, however, proper processing and drying provide the fundamental material basis. Packaging materials and proper sealing are critical as well.Not every batch. Some of the rarer quality ones can be 2~3 kg a year, some 15~20. Cost-wise this is prohibitive. However, these are always from producers who make larger, easier priced batches, such as the April Mist green tea you buy. I have put the products of all those that I buy from through EU MRL tests in certified labs in France and whoever fails once is never bought from again. The EU standards for tea is the strictest in the world.
FYI, MRL stands for Maximum Residual Levels, referring to the content of chemicals that the EU targets as harmful. For tea, there are around 280 that the lab is required to test against. It’s almost identical to their requirements for fruit and vegetable. In another word, EATING my tealeaves is as safe as eating a salad in Europe; maybe better considering the hygiene of some of the kitchens there. Don’t eat pu’er leaves though; very nasty when eaten 😉Chrysanthemum flowers, which is used in herbal drinks and mixed in tea, such as pu’er, are quite often loaded with insecticides and preservatives. I do not recommend using them unless it’s tested outside of China for food safety. It has a pleasant taste and I do think it’s a shame that safer ones are not widely available.
As for the problem in tea, it is not an issue that affects products only of Mainland China, but rather all tea producing countries. Generally premium products are less affected than lower price ones. However, that is not to say all better teas are safe from it. For example, some major harvest of better sencha from Fukuoka was all tested for over dose of pesticides a few years ago. Some high price Longjing of some reputable origins in Hangzhou were found containing lead from environmental pollution.Travel, logistics and communication have now been the most convenient and affordable ever in human history. Many think that buying directly from source is easy. Many importers are competing for time and price. They missed out on the important role of quality control.On the other end, the pressure for profit and meeting market demands is high on the production side. When the world continues to glorify wealth and materialism, and in a country which religions and traditional ethics were totally destroyed, you have to rely on science to find out which producers deliver safe teas and which do not. Testing in properly qualified labs is a cost that is manageable in productions and purchases of a few hundred kilos, let alone medium priced ones. I think the merchants in your country have skipped some procedures.I have answered about infusing with Chaozhou teapot in another discussion, and would like to talk about its clay character here. The way they make these pots is hand-throwing, ie putting a lump of wet clay on a pottery wheel and turn to form. The clay itself is inevitably less dense than the slab-built clay method as employed in Yixing.
The clay itself is innately different. Clay for clay, Yixing zisha is a lot denser and has a unique microscopic double air-pocket structure, while most other clay has a single one. This is one reason that makes zisha of Yixing unique.Last and most importantly, Chaozhou clay teapots are made with quite a bit of additives and coating. I have tested some that have passed safety, but I am afraid not all will.Potters from Yixing had come to Chaozhou to learn their way of making pots and there was a small trend of making hand-thrown pots using watered down Yixing zisha. This was a fad involving only a small number of very junior Yixing potters.I have not heard of this Jian Shui clay either and am a little suspicious about a claim that says moisture resistant in an unglazed pottery. Yixing teapots are not moisture resistant. In sourcing from China, it is better to be suspicious and investigative first.
As for Chaozhou pots, I am not sure they are preferred for Phoenix oolongs for its thinness or whether because both the pot and the tea are from the same vicinity; Chaozhou people has a very strong local culture and self-identity. They are a proud people.As for whether a thinner pot is better for preparing these dancong teas, it is because people there always use water almost at boiling point. If the vessel holds heat too well and if they infuse their tea for longer than 10 seconds, the tea inevitably becomes cooked and the taste adversely altered. That is why most Chaozhou people never really understand the true taste profile of their own tea. Actually, before I began to advocate it, people were still saying 100°C for infusing the tea (and most other oolongs, for that matter).@ sofie, I don’t hold classes at this moment. Seems that you are in HK; there are short workshops and interest groups all over the city for that, other than the ones offer by teashops, you may want to check out those in the Teaware Museum in Hong Kong Park.
@ tea soul, you are right, focus is the word. As for the use of wares, I think it is important to know and control them well. To a certain point, however, it is the knowing and the skills that matter a lot more. Much like in gongfu novels and movies, the tools finally just become an extension of your mind, anything useable will do the job, however I still prefer my nice pots and gaiwans. For entry levels, it would encourage them to try more things and to understand the idea and the materials, be it teaware or tea, if there is less rules and constrains. They will come to a point when they discover that a better tool does make the difference. So openness is the key in the beginning.The real issue is the preference of the crowd. It is a lot harder to sell fine taste than to sell instant glories such as colourful or intensely flavoured dried plants, however low taste quality they are. In a culture where vulgarity, exaggerations and even aggressions are rewarded, and finer sentimentalities much harder to find audience, businesses entities are just going with the tides, however I do not agree with them.
@FC, It sounds like a renaissance of tea! Congratulations for your first success!
The process you described is in principal green tea roasting. As long as the plants are proper and properly grown, your tea is safe (and good) for health. You can visit this page about details of wok roasting production:Notice that the roasting is done in two or more sessions, so as to leave time in between for the inner moisture to surface for more thorough drying for longer keep-sake.When you store your finished product, minimize the air that it is stored inside with.As for caffeine content, the tips are generally higher than grown leaves. However, do not avoid tips because of caffeine. Tips and top leaves are higher in theanine and other salutary contents, while grown leaves are much less effective and higher in other not so desirable contents, such as fluorides. You can read these articles:Tea is a good survival plant so in case you mistakenly over-pruned, it is likely to grow back. In production gardens/plantations, the bushes are trimmed like hedges. In industrial plantations, such as those you’d see in photos with rows and rows of hedges, the trimming are used too.In gardens specialised in premium teas, the trimmings are either put to compose or sold as raw tea materials for mass market tea products.In case you do not need a lot of tea for selling, I do not advise too much fertilization, however organic it is. Fertile soil is conducive not only to the growth of tea plants. While tea strives in leaner land, most other organisms grow wild on fertile soils.Smaller gardens for better quality teas normally apply fertilizers once a year or other year. Never apply those things you mentioned directly over the soil of the roots. Decompose them, dilute them with new soil, and then lay 2 or 3 inches thick of this soil under the bushes. I have no idea of the kind of soil in N CA coast is so I cannot comment on the fertilizers you are using, but they sound right for green tea.I remember driving along that area though. It seemed to be a temperate climate with significant moisture. Remember to watch the growth of the plants and don’t over water them. Slower growth yields better tea.Enjoy the good work and this great gift of Nature and labour.This is a tough question. The real big issue is whether this is just another show or is the central government effective and really dedicated to eradicating extravagance and arrogance in the tens of millions of government officials throughout the totalitarian country. It is these people who have been constructing the intricate web that supports the Communists’ dictatorship and their own personal gains afterall.
I think extravagant products will slow down a bit and many other ways of money gabbling and self-importance will soon come up.As for the price of tea, my personal wish is that the crazy top prices will come down and cool the producers of wasting their crops in making teas of names and grades that are going to be wasted. I want to see normalization. The price structure is complicated enough with the rising costs in labour, fuel and rent. It really doesn’t need the dirty hands of manipulators and self-important big-spenders.
