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Another name for Champagne oolong is Dongfang Meiren. The real production name is Pengfeng cha (pengfeng, a Taiwan dialect for big tale). By nature it is basically not an oolong, but rather a semi-black. Various tea tree cultivars are employed dependent on the producer. That’s why some selections are smaller leaves and others are slightly larger. Even when a wulong cultivar is used, the leaves are plucked much earlier than would for real oolong production.
There is also a saying about the leaves have to be eaten by some local aphis before plucking to be a genuine Pengfeng cha. Well, that’s really pengfeng.You can read more about semi-black here: https://www.teaguardian.com/what-is-tea/semi-fermented-tea-vs-oolong-1.html#.Ujpv9ihmn5g@Al, Thank you for asking. The potent substance in ginseng, ginsenosides, reacts with the gallic acids in tea in the intestine when the two are ingested together. They become various particles that are not absorbable. This way both the tea and the ginseng are wasted. It is not understood yet whether these particles are harmful or not.
I have never liked or recommended those so-called ginseng oolong products. I actually have always told people to avoid them.@Betty, I love a hot cup of sweet milk before bed from time to time but I have always wanted to avoid white sugar. That led me to study the nature of real raw sugar and found that it is an entirely different thing from white sugar! It has become one of my favourite sweetener since.Some tealeaves can be put away for a number of hours for second runs. Green teas, greener style oolongs, white teas that are actually green, very young types of “raw” puer (ie shengcha) are NOT very good for this. Try to finish these types of teas in a half day.
For other types of teas, do not disturb the tealeaves, and do not open the lid of the infusion vessel after the last round of infusion before putting away. There is no need to put the whole thing into the fridge unless the room temperature is beyond the high 20’s (°C). In any case, always blanch the leaves once again before infusing again.I feel safer with a smaller vessel with a tighter lid, such as a gaiwan or a small porcelain teapot. An infuser mug, which infuser has to be lifted and left in the open while the tea being drunk, is obviously not suitable for doing this.The Yixing teapot is especially good in protecting the leaves between infusions. In the case of matured teas, I am comfortable in using leftover leaves even from yesterday, with the pot left on the infusion table all night, even in summer. Just follow the protocol above and it seems just like a continuation in the last session.These are actually questions asked not only by beginners, but could not be properly answered by many veterans!
That’s one reason why you would see in many other sources saying that various green teas can be infused for less than half a minute. There are many reasons for such parroted myths. I’ll deal with this question for now and come back for the second one when I have a bit more time:Gongfu infusion was considered a bourgeoisie activity and disappeared in Mainland China during cultural revolution, which spanned over two decades in the 60’s and 70’s. It took place quite immediately after the devastating movement, the Great Leap Forward, which triggered wide-spreading starvation and general deprivation of material resources. It happened in the 50’s and killed tens of million.The need for gongfu tea infusion, began in the 80’s when people needed it to taste the tea before buying. It took place in the areas of Anxi and Phoenix, and nearby bigger cities, where oolong teas are consumed and sold. Any places north of that, they used mugs or even lid-less glasses, many still do today. The gaiwan, which is a standard vessel in the two southernly regions prevailed. Because of the nature of oolongs, and the idea of the old time saying of a lot of leaves for filling the gaiwan, so the habit of short infusion time began to form. This was good for the seller, coz with short infusion time, the first couple of rounds of infusion of almost all tea can be pleasing. A small sip of plain water from the gongfu teacup can be as pleasing too. The seller is then able to sell almost anything basing on customer service techniques, rather than the quality of the tea.This habit quickly spread as people were allowed to open their own private companies, or operate independently as a commercial entity. Naturally the showy style of gongfu infusion became a marketing gimmick and spread across the country. Salesladies spend a lot more time on the eyeliner than on learning about the nature of tea. With a market largely of low tea knowledge but eager to show off, this development is understandable.Consequently, when selling oolong tea is not enough, they began selling puer and green teas. Since any tea to them is the same — products to push to the customer so they can earn the quick buck — these self-learned merchants treat all teas the same way. It works for them anyway.The myths of short infusion under the umbrella of “gongfu tea” thus got parroted and prevail through China. In the beginning of this century, tea pilgrims from other countries thus learn from the students of these tea merchants and parroted the same myth in their local markets.Similar disastrous re-appropriation of the tradition happens not only to tea, but many other aspects of human heritage. Cooking style, Confucianism, Buddhism, and even the Chinese language and history itself have all been greatly distorted.If, however, all that you are concerned with is not the form, but the content of whether 30 sec or 4 minutes deliver the best result, try it out. Compare. A good tea stands a good process and delivers its optimum quality.That’s right, those that are really single bush processed are very little in quantity, some as little as one kilo a year. However, a lot of such production trees are quite huge and dense and make 5 kilos. Some people even claim 10, but I doubt that. These batches are not cheap. In the early Communist regime, one was reserved expressly for the notorious Chairman Mao. Now people come in their limo to wait for the processing to complete to take home, paying often a few hundred thousands RMB, directly in cash to the farmer, for the batch. That translates to tens of thousand USD for a couple of kilos of tea.
So do you think that’s high efficiency or low efficiency?In terms of taste, those nova-riches are making a mistake that we old time traders see immediately — the tealeaves that they got from the farmers are maocha, ie leaves before the final finish processing. Often this step is done by the producers, not the farmers. Without this step, the tea tastes fresh and bright for a few weeks, and never at its peak taste potential.Finish processing for oolongs, esp traditional oolongs, requires a few important steps for quality optimization and storage. Baking of the leaves is involved. Resting of the tea is another. Different varieties and different quality grades require different attention. The true wonders of a tea can then unveil itself upon proper infusion.American ginseng is grown in North America. There is a huge farm in Wisconsin, and I heard somewhere in Canada too, though I know not any specific farm there. If you can’t get it elsewhere, most, if not all, Chinese herbal shops throughout N America carry it. There you would find all the other herbal I talked about; they are basic supplies really, though quality does vary from shop to shop.
Yes there are many different “kinds” of shuixian tea trees, some of which are more unique and are used to make different distinctive tasting kinds of “dan congs”, while others are less distinctive are used to make various grades of generic shuixian and alas, also generic dan congs. In lesser production areas, where the tea trees are plucked more than once or twice a year, the leaves of distinctive tea trees can be processed together to form generic “dan congs” and shuixians too.
@Sara M, I discussed this in this article here:
Neither lemon nor tea before bed is good for a good sleep. It seems to me that your stomach is giving you warning to stop lemon before bed. Exciting the stomach with something so acidic when you try to rest is certainly not a good idea.
There are many things that goes well with honey and calms you for a good sleep. Milk, almond milk (get the almond powder from Taiwan in Price Mart, the best quality in town and the best price), malt (try to find one that is not sweetened like Horlick, that sugar they use is not good), etc are safe and satisfying. Make it quite hot for adding honey.If you think that’s too much nutrition for you, try American ginseng. Be aware that it is quite cool in TCM so avoid it if you feel your stomach is week. In such case use jujube (red dates), nanzao (south date 南棗), or wolfberry (杞子). They are both comforting for a weak stomach and TCM neutral-warm. The shortcoming of these is that they need to be boiled for at least 30 min (shorter for wolfberry) or so for the contents to dissolve. One way to do it is to boil a large quantity in advance and store it in the fridge for a few days’ portion.Eu An Sang, Dong Fang Hong, and Tong Ren Tang make various powdered red date/ginseng/ etc drinks for easy preparation. I trust only Eu An Sang for this type of things.One other thought about this drink is why honey at night? I think this is much more effective in terms of its health effect when drunk in the morning, with tea. Best with green tea, or sharper taste black tea. Black sugar (real raw sugar) is a lot more effective after dinner for calming a restless day and clarifying the heat toxins in the blood that you may have gathered 😉Black sugar goes well with any of the above, plus a lot more.Happy that you asked. You should visit more often to share your thoughts and questions, like you used to have in the teabars. Let me know if I have not given you good enough solutions.
