Grandpa's drink - Roasted TGY

Grey day, with very little sunlight to work with, so pardon the picture quality. Yet, the perfect time to warm up with some good roasted coffee-like tea!

From previous sessions, I remembered this tea to be powerful, complex and very pineapple-like that mellows with age. One can also register acidic notes on the insides of his cheeks. The red Bromelia plant - the pineapple's 'cousin' seems like a reasonable choice for this cha xi, made in honour of the man who first introduced me to the Fujian culture of tea drinking and the ubiquitous love for finely roasted Tie Guan Yin (TGY).

Certain foods and drinks stir my memories of people who entered my life and to whom I am grateful. As I type, I draw this parallel between the characteristics of Fujian TGY and people getting on years. How appropriate - ageing like fine teas!

Tea diaries - Tie Guan Yin TGY storage (I)

My inspiration for writing flows from good teas and out of a bottle. Winter was a tough 5 months and from the looks of of this near empty bottle, it must have been a wordy period on this blog, in part thanks to vodka!

With the ongoing seasonal change, I am feeling more energised and enthusiastic about my tea studies. The subject of my study today lies in my Russian blue-white tulip jar : a batch of light TGY Oolong from China.

Petite Russian tea jar

My task to find out what kind of chemistry has taken place inside this jar over the past year. First impression after sniffing the contents of the tea from its original pouch was a dry and light sweet but weak scent. The jar presented me with a dampness and hints of soya bean. This dampness is due to having had insufficient tea to begin with which allowed tea inside the jar to absorb moisture form the air that is present in the unfilled parts of the jar. My guess is that a completely filled jar would have yielded dryer, more refined and sweeter scents. Tea from the original bag seems darker whereas the tea from the jar comes across as more oxidised with its yellow green appearance.

Left: Tea from the bag

Sniff, sniff, sniff, let the brewing begin. For this experiment, I am using porcelain teaware to minimise the influence of teaware material. Porcelain is neutral.

Two bulky competition mug sets dominate my cha xi. They are scientific tools used for judging. During my early years of serious tea studies I use them a lot when trying to make objective comparisons between two teas.

Right: Tea from petite jar - 1 year storage

If you are already an expert in tea tasting, brewing three or more teas at once using these porcelain tasting sets is most definitely a piece of cake.

Personally, I keep to testing on average two teas at a time so as not to spread my attention out too thinly and diffusing unnecessary pressure if I had to cross compare more than three samples at once. For each tea, I would take mental/ visual notes of the dry leaves' appearance and scent. Then comes the colours of the infusions, the smells and tastes.

With so much going on at once, comparing teas for first-timers could pose as an overwhelming and potentially stressful situation. My 2 p is to keep enough samples for a repeat of your tea experiments in at least three tea sessions. This way, you become more confident about your findings. If you are in an adventurous mood, you could even add one additional sample to your tea test, each time you repeat your experiments to gather more knowledge and work your way up  through the ranks of tea experts and masters ;-)

Tea tasting: fitness tests for your senses

Left: flowery scent at first but short-lived. Right: smells of soya bean followed by a flowery and longer-lasting fragrance

~3 g of tea with a 10 minute infusion (Adjust as you see fit, but keep conditions identical)

2nd infusion: colour and scent differences grow harder to detect

Left: tea from pouch is greener, right: tea from jar displaying signs of further oxidation.

Playing Sherlock, closely examining spent leaves: this batch of TGY is made from a blend of leaves

Cross comparing TGY to a batch of Shan Lin Xi Oolong tea made from a single type soft-stemmed leaf. A stark contrast that plays an important role in the reasoning behind why some teas can taste purer than the others.

To be continued

On roasted teas

Lousy weather and cold feet prompted me to prepare some Tie Guan Yin from Anxi in China - another alternative is Muzha in Taiwan which also has rather decent quality in my opinion. Roasted teas may be an acquired taste for some because of its inherent qualities: smoky, heavy taste. My preference is for light green teas and minimally roasted oolongs, but find I them ineffective in keeping me warm. My body is craving for something stronger.

When brewing this tea, I packed three times more than the usual amount of tea leaves I would use for green oolongs because they do not unfurl as much due to the heavy roasting process. The tea smelled very smoky and heavy in my pre-heated hongni pot. To reduce the intensity, my preference is to give the pot a good shake and then remove the lid to allow excessive roasted scents to escape before heating my pot again and infusing the tea with hot water.

To test this tea, I decided to prolong the brewing time. The infusion was a deep amber colour and smelled like dark chocolate with hints of roasted mixed nuts and tasted very complex. The aftertaste however left me with a sour note on the root of my tongue and probably has to do with the extended infusion period I used.

In the subsequent brews, I did away with long infusion times and the resulting taste was the same but missing the sour note. To fully convince myself that this was indeed the result of a shorter brewing time, I did not drain all the tea from the pot and instead chose to leave some behind to monitor what happens if I once again soak this tea. Puzzling enough, the last few concentrated drops from the bottom of this pot were not as deeply coloured as I would have expected. More crucially,  the aftertaste was very enriched and not at all acidic. I am now enjoying the soothing circulatory effects of this tea in my stomach and am certain that its quality is decent.

Still, the mystery behind this tea's performance is unresolved.

Iron Goddess Tea (Tie Guan Yin, TGY)

Asian designs inspire me a lot nowadays. So with a good camera in hand, I would always take some pictures of things, people, sights that I come across which I think will go very nicely with my tea-inspired blog. Here are some of them which I have put together in a collection under TGY, a premium variety of Chinese oolong tea that originated in the 19th century in Anxi in Fujian province.

In case you were wondering, "Guan Yin" also is the name of a goddess mostly associated with chinese myths and legends.

The infused leaves of this tea are big. In their dried form, the leaves are more closely knitted. Being a more avid green tea drinker, I opt for a lightly roasted variety. The brew is light in colour and has a shade of light green with a tinge of yellow. Apologies for the lack of photos on this one as I had enjoyed this tea in a gaiwan with the leaves in my cup.  Filtering the tea is not necessary as the open leaves are rather big and the lid keeps them from falling out.

The tea smells and tastes of fresh green leaves with a twist of maturity, accentuated by hints of soya bean and notes of coconut flesh.