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Qingcha is an ambiguous term and is used more by certain people who rely on the book to know tea rather than going to the fields. It happens around certain groups in Taiwan and southern Fujian and hardly goes outside of these. It can mean clear tea in Chinese, referring to a tea that is not flavoured or scented. Or it can mean pure tea, implying not much other things, referring to a state of material frugality, abstinence, or deprivation.
Teal tea is a gimmicky translation of the term qingcha. The character for “qing” in qingcha when it refers to oolong can be translated as turquoise blue, or blue in general. Tell a Chinese tea producer you want blue tea and he will be absolutely confused.Hopefully that is not happening in these two years. The projects I have on hand is really taking me up 200%!
@ Lai-Kwan, I want to say again that I am happy that there is someone like you who are so dedicated.@ happyman, I think I will do tea classes again, some for hobbyists and some for the seriously engaged, but that’s after I am done with the few projects I have in hand. Will let everyone know about when in this forum.Again, I want to say learning from tea girls in China is NOT a way to learn tea NOR gongfu style. Most don’t really know what they are doing or selling. Gongfu style is unlike Japanese tea ceremony, which is a ritual with certain pattern. It is a way to interprete a tea. It changes with the choice of tea. Therefore, to know gongfu style is to know Tea.At least we are now a lot more protected from spams! (touch wood) We now have a few mechanisms, including the flagging button and membership approval, to ward off those people who jammed our forum with hundreds of rows of gibberish and bad links. And you don’t need to do that captcha thing when you do a post, although I miss that little game sometimes.
Bart, I am so happy for you that you have taken the initiative to venture into doing something that is so purely empirical-based. As far as I know, there is not a lot of publicly available and at the same usable literature on the art of tea-blending. Older literature also based on the limited tea varieties available back in the old days. A lot of commercial operations are using additives and non-teas in their blends so there is virtually no rules. That is not to say I endorse that, though.
If you are into it, I encourage you to first get more acquainted first with all the non-blended tea varieties in the world and keep a good log of them. This will be your ingredient book.Have fun!Wow! Someone whose user name is the same as my initials “LK”! Is nana mint a particular kind of mint? I remember the one I have seen the same taste and look as the mint I have always known.
If you use 85°C, the best way to do it is to do a standard infusion, ie at least 3 minutes in a thicker material vessel, rather than the gongfu style.
I agree with Manila that the bitter undertone is part of the taste profile of all Phoenix oolongs of the Shuixian family, ie all the dancongs. An old friend, a reputable wine master in Switzerland, who fell in love in my Phoenix oolongs said that the bitterness is the ‘backbone’ that holds up all the other taste characters. To me, it is not bitterness that is the common thread of the finest Phoenix oolongs, it is the special high mountain “peaty” and after-rain refreshing accents. They are a lot more obvious only when the tea is infused the gongfu way.There are many factors affecting the price of a Yixing pot. In a normal market, it is the materials and processing, the crafting expertise, the fame of the craftsperson, and the profit margins within the supply chain.
That said, however, the proportions in these factors have been quite distort in most cases. Lies, or exaggerations, are the strongest common thread in the distortion. The worst offenders are often found to be the retailers and second wholesalers. Common quality and ordinary artisans are labelled as great ones. Second wholesalers also encourage artisans to imitate the styles and signature seals of high ranking craftspersons to produce pots which pots are otherwise tens or hundreds of times lower in price.Another way to cheat the customer is to photograph a genuine one and deliver an imitation. It is most often happening in the internet market.What I think is the worst thing in the market, however, is the use of common clay to imitate Yixing clay. The use of various chemicals to colorize and change the surface finishing is commonplace. The products are good for decoration but not good for use. They are likely to be harmful to health. They are what some readers and customers show me what they have as Yixing pots. They are made in small villages and suburbs all over China. Initially it was a small shady industry for tourist gift shops and street vendors. Now the products are everywhere.I have not yet answered you how to distinguish a genuine Yixing pot, because that is a very, very big subject. Let me answer it in subsequent articles in the main site.One thing I need to stress is that a good genuine Yixing pot is a great tool and a great collection piece. The price does appreciate even after use (actually more after good use). The supply of good Yixing clay is lowering and the demand is rising.Phoenix oolong is definitely NOT the easiest tea to infuse! (I think it is actually one of the most difficult).
Thank you for following my instruction. I think I have not made a good video for the demo and stressed too much on the basics rather the finesse needed to attend to this delicate tea.The key to the whole process is actually controlling heat dissipation while heat loss.A few things that are key:Speed with which the water kettle turns around the rim of the gaiwanDistance between the gaiwan and the kettleSpeed of water flowThickness of the gaiwanDon’t give up trying. The reward is too amazing for not experiencing.One way to go around it is to use slightly less tealeaves and lower temperature. You wan’t get the whole taste and aroma profile, but it will at least be pleasantly close.
