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The process of compressing the tealeaves, involving heat, moisture, pressure, and thus breaking of the cellular structure and losing of leaf juices, significantly alters the taste of the final product. It is therefore a lot more common for selections which original tastes are sharper, or more astringent, or more grassy, to receive such treatment. Pu’er is naturally a right candidate. Oolongs that are subjected to such treatment are not as better quality products.
The Toucha Square you mentioned is a single person serving size. I sell what I believe in 😉
Remember, use really boiling hot water, blanch it, and each square for 250 ml water (about the size of a good size mug) and stop the steeping after 3 to 4 minutes. It is still a relatively new tea as a pu’er. Have a good time
The phrase “small leaf” variety is often very misleading. It says nothing more than the size of the leaves at the time of the picking. A number of cultivars used for making either black tea or pu’er tea are “small leaf”, yet they are of the assamica variety or a cross of it. The fact is, there are also many cultivars of the assamica variety which leaf sizes differ dramatically. As in the sinensis variety.<div><div></div><div>Today, a lot of the Yunnan “Golden” (see review in Tea Guardian), esp those almost purely of Golden shoot leaves, are produced from crosses, some even purely from sinensis cultivars, so that the leaves size can be a lot more even and the downy hair much more visually pleasing.</div><div></div><div></div><div>Many of the shu cha pu’er, particularly those that are used in exports, are blended. i.e. there could be more than one type of cultivars used. The production style of the sources of the materials before the blending can differ quite dramatically as well. </div></div>
Alexis,
Tannins are a subclass of phytochemicals under the class of polyphenols. Polyphenols and tannins are found in almost all plants.Depending on chemical definition of the subclass, tannins exist in tea. Examples are gallic acids and various flavones. Some scientists define certain catechins as tannins and some do not agree.To me, the terminology does not really matter.It is scary to think that one would be drinking something that contains the chemicals that would tan the leather of one’s shoes, but it really is a matter of clarification of concepts. Same as you would not wear a charcoal ring for the wedding or burn diamonds for your barbecue; both are carbon.Generally tannins are astringent in taste. They are a major reason for the astringency in almost all fruits, particularly the skins, as well as veggies and, tea. Tannin is present in almost all plant products that we consume, in various amounts.In order to avoid confusion, we always group the tannins in tea with the other major polyphenols, such as flavonoids and catechins, and understand them as polyphenols, which they are.If the tannic acid you talk about refers to the chemical that they use to tan leather, it is extracted from the tree barks of certain species (depending on the manufacturer) and mixed in a formula of various other chemicals. Tea, or your fruits and veggies, are not involved in this 😉Unless there is not much value in that teapot, it may worth a bit of efforts to clean it up to make it usable again.
The best way to really clean it is to scrape whatever debris there is inside with a soft edge, such as a small wooden spoon, and then wash it with water and a cloth. Yes, absolutely no detergent.However, this is not enough. Since molds are like grass. Their roots maybe deep inside the clay material and perhaps their spores too. These things may continue to be there to become part of your tea.You will have to go through the Yixing pot cleaning process once again, starting from boiling the teapot fully submerged in water. Read this link:This will be destructive if yours is a finer quality Yixing pot that you have been seasoning for sometime — you’ll have to start all over again.Accidents happen 🙁There is a dramatic lack of respect for quality and tradition in both the worlds of tea trading and tea consumption like they have had for wine. This self-respect and culture were instrumental for the evolvement of the trade-consumer structure we see in wine today. Western powers in the tea trade are trying to obscure facts and quality so as to continue to maximize their margins in using poor grades and maintaining their control of low cost labour. On the other side of the world there is obscenely insane in-fights within tea production regions, all trying to either be the big brother, or to take advantage of the present state of confusion. Those who are not in this fight are either too busy to survive or too lazy/short-sighted to change the status quo.
Even if there were a strong influence to systematically manage labeling, I think it would be dramatically different from that of wine. The nature of the products themselves and the respective market behaviour are totally different.I have begun my traveling in China since teenage when tea was not as common a daily drink in that country as it is now. You may wonder why I said this since most people think tea has been there forever. The decades of destruction and turmoils that Chairman Mao and his Communist Party had brought to China had once made tea unaffordable by many in the country. So was most common sense about tea. Most traditions of China were once overthrown in the Mainland. Some have slowly come back, most are “re-constructed”. So have been many memories of history.
I won’t let myself astray in this topic however. The practice of soaking tealeaves in the mug throughout the day is indeed very common. That was how it was in my earliest experience with tea: tea brewed throughout the day in the thermo.Artifacts from as way back as the 18th century reflect the practice of keeping a large pot of tea warm as an important household set up in different parts of China.In fact, I do agree to certain degree that some teas are good when made in a large pot and soaked in there for a long time. However, I think as our knowledge of our world develops we continue to change our behaviour as human beings. For example, we normally do not drink ashes of temple incense for cure of disease as people did in the past. Or many other common practices that would be considered today as totally out of place or even insane.Leaves soaked for an extended amount of time in warm water would release a lot more than what we know as salutary substance in tea. I shall write more about them later, but what I can say now is that they deliver some uncertainty about the total goodness of tea as a healthy and delicious drink. Try to minimize the “soaking” to less than one hour. Drain the teapot, or mug, or whatever as frequently as you feel the tea is strong enough. Change the tealeaves in the mug at least two times in your 8 hour work day.The situation you described is really weird, isn’t it? I think there is a big void in the tea market. Unfairly big. Unreasonably big. That was why I hang my suit as a creative communication consultant and picked up the trade of tea. That was why I have created Tea Guardian.
Having said that, however, there are numerous men and women so dedicated in the development of this trade that one really cannot understand why real tea is still so under-rated in the drinks department.One of Tea Guardian’s main vision is to present notable tea varieties from all major regions of the world. We will present productions from India. At the moment, we have presented some varieties from Nepal, Laos and Japan, in addition to the more noticeable collection from China. I believe soon you will read about something from places not even mentioned here.
However, I have to stress that the main volume of tea production this world see today is still NOT notable. By contrast, countries in the Far East, because of a much stronger culture for quality tea, are producing premium varieties far greater in number than anywhere else in the world, though only a tiny proportion in term of world volume.I am always open for producers to send in samples, and indeed, there is already quite a lineup here. Finding a good one to review has always been exciting for us.Here is how to send in samples if you are a producer:In most of the reports that I have read, the scientists have used the substances, such as EGCG, caffeine etc in pure extract forms to mix in water to feed the test mice or rats, such that they can prove it is that substance that is working. The dosages are small, a couple of mg for each kg of the body weight, which is one way how doctors or scientists prescribe dosage for patients.
No one can say for sure what works in the small mammals in experimental settings can work for human as yet. However, to give you an idea, for an average person who weighs say, 75 kg (ie 165 lb) to correspond with what an experiment that used, say, 3 mg/kg, the dosage for a day is 225 mg.If that substance is EGCG, most acceptable quality green, white, or oolong whole leaf tea can easily deliver that in one or two cups, depending on the size, strength and quality of your infusion. There is no findings that over dosage of EGCG is toxic, so the more the merrier.If the substance in consideration is caffeine, restrain your intake to 300 mg a day on the safe side. Overdosage has proven to be not contributive to neuron protection. Read more about caffeine calculation in related Tea Guardian chapters, eg:If the substance you are interested in is theanine, a couple of hundred mg will require higher quality tealeaves and drinking 4 to 5 150 ml cups at medium strength a day, according to the strength of the Korean experiment and the content findings in the Taiwan study, both of which are referenced in the TG article.I have to stress here again that tea is a total package that comes with a lot of substances, the three that mentioned are only what scientists have taken popular notice of, their synergic effect, and that with all the other substances in tea, and that in various proportions in different varieties of tea, has never been seriously studied. It is also interesting to note that some reports I have read but not referenced in the article, which are cohort studies and observations of cohort studies, reflects a stunning alignment with all other studies about the health effect of tea:The positive effects are not as consistent or proven in populations in the West, but dramatically positive in populations in the East, esp in Japan, Taiwan, China and Singapore. I think besides genetics and life and diet styles, one strong reason is the prevalent poor quality of tea being drunk in the West. I hope I am not offending anyone here, but that is a description of the market condition that people like yourself, who are aware of the dramatic difference, should be saving yourselves from, if not also helping the others around you.Indeed, Fenghuang Dancong (Phoenix oolongs) is the type of oolongs that I like the most. To me, they are the tea with the most complex tastes and great effects in helping my own health. There are also such a great varieties within this subcategory of tea for taste differences and suitability in different occasions. Each can be different in infusion requirements to bring out the best. To me, that is endlessly interesting and enjoyable.
According to my own findings, Fenghuang Dancong is probably the oldest kind of oolongs in production. They are very different from Wuyi oolongs in terms of tastes. This is due to differences in growing environment, cultivar evolution, and nuances in the processing craftsmanship, which collective form the two distinctly different subcategories of oolong teas.Bouquet styles Fenghuang Dancong are generally a lot more like real flowers and the classic styles smells fruity sweet. There are also in betweens. Wuyi oolongs generally are much lower in the floral aroma, and for deeper baked ones, heavier impressions of charcoal and strength.Having said that, however, any one variety selection of both of these two subcategories has its own character, like any good tea should.
