Phoenix Eyebrow

Upton Teas, 1 oz. - $3.70

It's young, it's fresh, it's recent. And it tastes like a whiff of bicycle tires scrunching along on a sandy road next to a field of hay. Mellow and tender. Lilies in the nose.

It's Easter Sunday, and this tea is excellent for avoiding bunnies, thinking about bouillon, nodding to eccentrics, and sighing at the sight of happy if stupid dogs.

It's only rock 'n roll but I like it

Most Lapsang Souchong is crappy tea, smoked until you can't taste the crappy any more. Smoking is like modern skin care products: it not only preserves, but masks that which failed to be preserved.

But Lapsang Souchong doesn't have to be like jam bands - only good if you've been smoking. Good quality Lapsang Souchong is out there, and for anyone into intense and temperamental aromas, this garage band of teas is worth exploring. Though my husband says it's more "like drinking a campfire". If this sounds appealing to you, try for example Upton. They have several excellent Lapsangs - the Imperial is very assertive and bold, clear and has good quality leaves. They have an organic one, a "Black Dragon" which is blended especially for Upton, and also a Taiwan Lapsang Souchong.

Lapsang Souchong originally comes from the snaky, rocky Wuyi mountains in Fujian, China. Follow this link to TeaSpring, if you want to learn to pronounce Lapsang Souchong correctly. Click on the little loudspeaker symbol. I have found the pronunciation exceedingly difficult.

Here, via PursuitofTea, and originally from "All the Tea in China," by Chow & Kramer, is a bit about the history and production of Lapsang Souchong:

"The Fukienese word 'souchong' literally means 'little variety' or subvariety.

Legend claims that the smoking process was discovered by accident. During the Qing Dynasty, an army unit passing through Xingcu (Star Village) camped in a tea factory filled with fresh leaves awaiting processing. When the soldiers left and the workers could get back into the premises, they realized that to arrive at market in time, it was too late to dry the leaves the usual way. So they lit open fires of pine wood to hasten the drying. Not only did the tea reach the market in time, but the smoked pine flavor created a sensation and a new product was born.

The leaves are first withered over fires of pine or cypress wood. After panfrying and rolling, they are pressed into wooden barrels and covered with cloth to ferment until they give off a pleasant fragrance. The leaves are fried again and rolled into taut strips. Then they are placed in bamboo baskets and hung on wooden racks over smoking pine fires to dry and absorb the smoke flavor. When finished they are thick, glossy black strips, and produce a dark red beverage with a unique aroma."

Disinformation

A waitress at Samovar Tea Lounge in San Francisco assured me that with each steeping, the caffeine content in my oolong tea was going to get higher. I am not sure why this was supposed to be a good thing, and I am not sure she did, either, but she must have figured somehow this would lead to a bigger tip. Her claim is patently false, as is the claim that green tea has less caffeine than, say, black or red tea.

Tea is fashionable, and from little high quality tea available in the Western World we have gone to a competitive tea market. People will say all kinds of things to get you to buy their tea. Tea is supposed to make you skinny just like that, lower this and increase that, and basically cure whatever ails you, as I experienced at Vital and reported in a previous post. Looking like a tea expert is good for business. People love hearing scientific-sounding claims, especially if the claims are about losing lots of weight without any difficulty.

Tea is good for you, and there are many claims for health benefits which are being currently researched. It has less caffeine than coffee, and with multiple steepings of the same leaves, you can drink a lot of tea and only get a little caffeine. I think this just about sums up what we currently know about tea's health benefits.

If you don't enjoy tea for the taste and need it to be a medicine for something before you feel like drinking it, and if the benefit of slowing down to enjoy a beverage with a thousand stories, and appreciating that precious moment for itself is not your thing, then probably you're not a tea person. And that's just fine, too.

Formosa Jade Oolong Imperial (Lot TT89)

from Upton Teas. 1 oz. - $13.67

A lot of people degrade themselves in search of the "finer things in life", and never derive any true pleasure from their luxuries because the only pleasure they know is the envy of others.

This is as good as tea gets. This oolong tea from Taiwan is such a fine, rare, nuanced pleasure that it belongs in the class of true luxuries. As with most luxuries, tea's history and present are rife with colonial excesses and cruel exploitation of those with fewer privileges and no voice. And usually we prefer to ignore these things and somehow assume that our right to whatever pleasures we choose to prioritize is so inalienable that it doesn't matter what happened to bring them to us.

But this is a fine, dignified tea that politely asks you some very difficult questions and forces you to think about them. What right do I have to this small luxury while others lack even the basic necessities of life? Did someone suffer cruelty and unfairness so that I could have this pleasure? If not these particular agricultural workers, what about this system of global trade that I am supporting with my purchases, which is based on structural inequality? Do I actually have any serious commitment to change? When was the last time I did something about that, other than feel good about buying fair trade bananas? What kind of a bumbling fool am I that I am broadcasting my indulgences on the internet for whatever small audience I have?

I honestly have no idea. All I can offer is a humble sense of gratitude for the work of the growers and artisans who made this tea. I hope they and their families are well and they received fair compensation and ample appreciation for creating what comes close to being a work of art.

Big Red Robe "Wuyi Cliff Tea"

at Teance. 1 oz. - $13.00

Yes, big red robe and also pencils and snakes. This is a tea painted by Max Ernst. It is grown on the Wuyi mountains at the northern border of Fujian province. The cultivation environment is arduous and devastatingly beautiful. Wuyi oolong is famous for its "dragonfly's head, frog's limbs, and three colors".

It is very interesting that the first thing I thought of when I was tasting this tea were snakes - slithering, fat, bold, happy snakes. When I came home and looked on the Internets, I was told this: Wuyi claims to be the "Snake Kingdom of the World". (...) Ancient Min worshipped snakes. And some temples are dedicated to serpent worship even today. (...) there are king cobras, bamboo vipers, and 33-foot pythons. I'm not lying about this. That really was my first mental picture. And I did not know anything about Wuyi. I am sure it was just a coincidence.

What you see in the cup is a gorgeous dried apricot color, clear liquid. The steeped leaves, as described, have three colors - dark green, brown, and a quite bold rusty red. It smells of pencils and lettuce and a Sun Maid box someone ate all the raisins out of.

When you take your first taste, close your eyes. See if the snake shows himself. Look closely at what kind of a snake he is and what he does next. He does not mean any harm, on the contrary. The taste is woody, earthy and rocky. The pencils are there, writing something very assertive and caustic in your mouth. A confident coconut peel (the brown part, not the white part) scent rises back into the nose. The second steeping calms things down somewhat and reveals more nutty, foresty depth. Towards the third infusion, there is arugula and oak leaf lettuce and surprisingly, oranges. Actually, why should that be a surprise? It's just the kind of thing Max Ernst would do. The fourth and fifth infusion reveal more sweetness, perhaps a little honey.

This tea is not for the faint of heart, nor for ophidiophobes. It is a tea for adventurers and those who can appreciate the absurd in life and art.

This Matcha walked into a bar

from L'Artisan du Chocolat. £2.50

I am tasting the Green Tbar sent by my friend Seánan and marveling. I was quite suspicious when she described it - green tea in white chocolate? What nonsense.

But I must say that... I must say. It IS overpoweringly sweet, in the way that white chocolate is. L'Artisan insist that they "conche and refine cocoa butter, raw cane sugar, British milk powder and matcha for hours". The result is quite smooth, and improbably full of matcha flavour. The aftertaste that lingers is definitely that of tea. It is in fact quite bitter and astringent, the typical result of steeping green tea much too long. In this case I like it as a counterpoint to the sweetness. The color is very pretty. I can taste the milk powder, and wish they tried milk instead of milk powder to see what happens.

The Green Tbar left me rather conflicted. It combines the worst quality in green tea (over-steeped bitterness) with the worst quality in chocolate (aggressive sweetness) and somehow comes out okay. Go figure.

L'Artisan du Chocolate are proud of being the first British chocolatier to make fine chocolate on an artisan scale. So proud, in fact, that they gave themselves a French name.

Spring Sprouting Jade

from Upton Teas. 1 oz. - $11.80

This is a party tea! Upton says it was produced specially for them on a small farm in Hubei province. It is available in a limited quantity, and as you can see, this is not the cheapest tea.

But it's so fun and bright and interesting, I recommend trying it.

I'd say go easy on the water temperature and time for the first two-three infusions. 30-40 sec is enough, and 180 degrees plenty - though this is a departure from Upton's recommendation of three minutes. To each his or her own bitter green tea, I guess.

The leaves are dark green, thinly cut, pine needle-like. Steeped, they smell of citrus, strawberries, hazelnut and somewhere in the background, spring birch. The tea is a pale yellow-green and a little cloudy.

The first taste is solid and nutty, with dandelion and pinenut coming back to the nose. With further infusion, the taste opens up and the party starts - there are colorful bouquets, pineapple cakes, a fun, social atmosphere. It is definitely spring.

Towards the fourth and fifth infusion, a creamier note comes along. The throng of the party is over, now it is relaxed and pleasant. Pine nut cakes are left and before walking out to the garden to sit and breathe for a bit, one grabs a last ground cherry with nutty crust still stuck to it.

This is the funnest green tea I have ever had. I plan to order some more right away.