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Hmm… I still owe you that article about tea taste that I promised so long ago. Great way to remind me.
Back to the issue of fertilizer and green tea taste:I just did a tasting yesterday on a few lesser grade Huangshan Maofeng, trying to find a few possible ones for export demands. Some of them smell so exceedingly pleasing, fragrantly warm and flavourful, with that umami promise. While I was tasting them, all the usual disappointment on tasting lower grade green teas came by. Lack of depth and length; a thinner than expected body and much shorter tastes. Not that they are bad tea, I was just setting my expectation too high because of the smell.A good tea needs to be both balanced as well as possessing length and depth; and with distinctive character. Any singular aspect without the support of others is not enough to give the drinker enough satisfaction. So is the umami aspect.“Savouriness”, or “umami”, or in some translated Chinese text “soupiness”
in some green teas is a result of the higher concentration of amino acids. I have to note here that this is not necessarily a measurement for all green teas, and definitely not for most oolongs or black tea. It is one for Longjing, as you are doing.As you have pointed out, concentration of amino acids in the leaves before plucking for green tea production is done by many ways, including adding of fertilizers. Most farmers are well aware of the fact that over fertilizing the soil is not going to do them any good. However, that point of just right is a difficult one. Many overdo it, as does this producer of mass market Huangshan Maofeng I tasted. I figure they would have lots of weed and pest problem every summer.In the horticulture for high grade Longjing, fertilizers, chemical or organic, are used very sparingly and particularly not before Spring harvests. They want these highest priced leaves to grow very slowly so they can accrue ample concentration of all other things in the leaves for the kind of body that a seasoned drinker would expect from a good Longjing. Not just umami. They don’t want undergrowth and pest problems in the field either.I am very impressed by your understanding of what to look for in a good Longjing for your relatively young tea age. Bravo.Let me know if I have not answered your question.Agree. The concept of different values in things is inconsistent in different societies. People easily pay $30 to 300 for a bottle of wine that they finish in one meal and think $10 of leaves good enough for a whole week too expensive.
That’s right. Practice beforehand is important, such that you are not making mistakes that normally you wouldn’t make when not under pressure. I know these people would be your friends, but it is natural to feel a bit nervous when you are trying to perform something in front of a few people, however good you are at that thing.
If you do not have a few gaiwans uniform in size and materials, it is particularly easy to result in tastes not quite the way that you think it would. Try to adjust leaf amount to adjust for it.For people who are not yet used to tea, go on the lighter side in terms of infusion strength.The taste profile of most tea can hold acceptably when infused to the full time but with reduced leaves. That is a generalization, however.For people new to the world of tea, offer them an array of tastes that are quite different, but not bankrupting yourselves. Generally, one from each of the category is an easy solution.I look forward to seeing your own report about this!@M, Sure, I think a photo or two would definitely illuminate the article. You know, in Europe, they used to call this highly decorative and sometimes even narrative initial letter in ancient hand-copied literature “illumination”. It lights (light was a much rarer thing before) up the page for a person to read it. 😉
I asked pancakes, didn’t I? Though I surely want everybody to write their own tea reviews!@MEversbergII, I am glad you like the tea. Even though this is a basic quality for us, I myself have worked quite some efforts to make it taste the best it could. It has also improved quite a lot since we started maturing it.
Small tips here for everyone: the price will rise for this batch when we introduce the next newer one early next year.BTW, very nice writing.I was expecting some other readers who are scientists would respond to this particular posting, but maybe they have not visited the site again yet. Anyway, I have not referred back to the papers I have now but its seems to me that your 50mg/gram figure is awfully dramatic. Could it be 50ug? That is the kind of statin content of shu puer I have in my memory, perhaps a bit lower than that. This kind of dosage is terribly different from that of the pharmaceutical or supplement products. I want too to hear from others what they have to say. I want to write an article on that.
The many “new” style “tea” bars in malls and shopping streets throughout the Greater China area that cater for youngsters with large paper cups of cold “tea” drinks prepare their products with tea concentrates that may or may not contain some tea extracts. They all would add some form of sweeteners and all sorts of funny ingredients as gimmicks. So this bottled version is certainly making a supermarket version of such “tea” bars. The aeration is done in the water, not in the cap which contains the concentrate. When you add an ingredient with some force into aerated water it gives bubbles, so giving you the illusion of the aeration is from the cap.
They would soon have funny things in the water for gimmicks: jelly, fruit bits, etc 😉It seems to me that you have actually seen some people doing that and has influenced you. It’s an old fashion “make-do” style used by certain people who wanted to make a statement that they were not lower class people (who usually wouldn’t care for lifting the saucer altogether), nor were they gently (who would seem to others as being too feminine or too feeble). However, it was seen by the educated as being, um, red-neck.
Today in China, it is not a popular way of handling the tool. I have seen more people leaving the lid and the saucer on the table than that :-To me, it is not a safe way.
in some green teas is a result of the higher concentration of amino acids. I have to note here that this is not necessarily a measurement for all green teas, and definitely not for most oolongs or black tea. It is one for Longjing, as you are doing.