10 Years Ago Today

On May 8, 2006, during my second trip to Taiwan, my friend Shiuwen treated my buddy Darald and me to an unforgettable tea tour. We met up with her bright and early in Taipei and had a hearty breakfast of steamed vegetable buns, fried youtiao and fresh soymilk. After our meal, and after we took care of a few errands (including sending my mom a Mother's Day card), we proceeded via metro to Xindian station, which is where we got the bus up to Pinglin.

It was a very hot day in Taipei and the air was barely moving but once we got off the bus in Pinglin we were soothed by a lower temperature and a gentle breeze. The air in Pinglin is sweet and the surrounding hills are lush and green. Our first stop in town was Shiuwen's friend Farmer Chen's tea shop where we drank some unforgettable Wenshan Baozhong tea. After tea we had a satisfying lunch of tea oil noodles (a local specialty), fried tofu, and soup with lotus flowers.

After lunch, we headed up to Farmer Chen's tea farm by car. Once at the farm I was excited to learn that we would be able to pick tea leaves. Darald and I were shown the basic technique, given a hat and basket, and put to work. In one hour I had plucked less than one tenth of the tea the locals had harvested. I watched as their hands moved quickly and skillfully over the tea bushes while my hands brought to mind those of an intoxicated sloth. I was still given a pat on the back and told that I didn't do too bad for my first try. It was a wonderful experience that left me with even greater respect and appreciation for the professionals.

After tea picking time we spread our leaves on rattan trays to wither...

...then we walked over to the neighbor's farm to see Dong Fang Mei Ren (東方美人) oolong tea in various stages of production.

As we walked around the misty, green farms, Chen and Shiuwen pointed out the different cultivars of tea bushes we passed. Qing Xin (青心) was the most common, but Jin Xuan (金萱), Fo Shou (佛手) and even Wuyi Mountain Shui Xian (水仙) tea bushes were planted in this area.

(This one is Fo Shou.)

We drank some more fresh tea and then traveled back to town. Shiuwen, Darald and I visited a large facility for de-stemming and sorting hundreds of pounds of Wenshan Baozhong tea. It was fascinating.

We stopped into another tea shop where I purchased some baked Baozhong for Teacup (the store I was managing at the time), and two clay teapots (for myself). I also took a small shot of Baozhong wine offered to me by some locals. It was strong stuff.

In the evening we said goodbye to Pinglin and hopped aboard a bus headed back to Taipei. The ride was somewhat eventful because an air conditioning unit was leaking water all over one vinyl seat. About halfway to Taipei the bus was full except for that seat. An old lady came in with two plastic bags. She looked all around for a seat and was dismayed by her only option being soggy. I was close by so I sprung up to offer my seat. She tried to protest but I insisted and she sat down while I stood. Then she gave me a present. It was a special local food. Some type of gummy rice pocket with a bright, artificial-red, raw-onion-tasting filling. I thanked her and ate a little bit. I gave the old lady a smile and a big thumbs up... but I really didn't like it, so I put it in my pocket to deal with later.

The evening in Taipei was not too hot and we all had a great dinner at a Buddhist buffet. Then we headed over to Shiuwen's friend Lao Ji Zi's shop for even more great tea.

(That's our own fresh picked Baozhong leaves on the tray.)

Although we were already quite tea drunk we made room for some more amazing tea. I had an Alishan High Mountian Oolong that was so incredible. It was the type of tea that makes a tea-person empty out their wallet and say, "How much will this get me?"

We also cupped up the Baozhong leaves that we picked that afternoon. By this point they had only been withered slightly and jostled about in our bags during the commute back to town. They had a subtle sweet floral aroma and clean clear broth with notes of lilac and dew. A very refreshing way to end the night.

(Those are our jade green leaves in the large bowl.)

All in all it was a wonderful day in Northern Taiwan. I can never thank Shiuwen enough!

Spring Garden Gallery

Here's a little peek at what's been going on around our yard these last few days!

I scored this massive pile of bricks from my neighbor. 

So much of my time has been devoted to the ancient art of "brick schlepping!"

 

Building a yellow brick road,

reinforcing this raised bed,

and thinking about putting a brick patio right here.

(That log back by the fence is my shiitake mushroom log. I'll let you know if it ever fruits.)

The front yard is looking pretty good, though it could stand some more weeding. Chives, kiwi, rosemary, mint, wintergreen, salal and many other plants are doing well here. Our little pear tree (in the middle, surrounded by fava beans) is a year old now and will be flowering soon!

Speaking of flowering fruit trees, our apple tree and 

our two cherry trees are currently producing tons of lovely buds.

Here's a pic of my daughter in one of her favorite places.
Hanging out (literally) under a cherry tree.


Also in the front yard we just planted carrots, beets and potatoes.


I currently have three tea plants. This one appears to be happy and healthy

and it has quite a few pretty new buds.


My other two tea plants look like this!
Any advice on how I can make them happy again would be greatly appreciated.

Hope you enjoyed my Spring garden gallery. Feel free to leave links to your own in the comments. I'd love to see your garden!

South Seattle Tea Estate - 2012 Harvest Report

As the manager of the South Seattle Tea Estate, I am saddened to inform you that 5-year-old "Leafer," our oldest tea plant, died over the winter. The 3 remaining plants looked scrubby and beaten at the start of spring. For this reason I decided not to make spring 2012 tea.

Summer has been good to our 3 tea plants and they are now, for the most part, looking healthy and producing new leaves.

On July 15, 2012, I decided to make an experimental summer oolong. The harvest took place at 9:00 am. Due to a dearth of tender leaf and bud sets I decided to pluck more mature, lower leaves. In all, I selected 28 leaves for a total of 15 grams. The leaves were arranged in a single layer in a glass baking dish for withering.

After about an hour and a half of withering in the shade the sun broke through the clouds. At this point I moved the dish to the roof of my car for some full-sun withering. The day became quite warm with a nice gentle breeze.

2:00 pm - The leaves were a little bit limp but some bits were too crispy for my liking. Also, some leaves appeared to be getting a "sun burn" so I decided to bring it inside.

3:15 pm - I spent 3 minutes shaking and kneading the leaves.

8:00 pm - I spent another 3 minutes kneading, twisting, shaking and bruising the leaves. I felt like the leaves were getting too dry and brittle so I mounded them up together and covered them with an upside down bowl.

The following morning (today) at 6:30 am - I checked the tea. It had a sweet tobacco-like aroma and a mottled brown and green coloring like camouflage. After ~3 minutes more rolling and kneading. I mounded up and recovered the limp leaves with the same bowl.

9:00 am - I did even more kneading and rolling and then took this photo after which the leaves were then left uncovered.

11:00 am - I baked the leaves for 30 minutes at 250° F in a cast-iron pan. The leaves were mainly in a single layer. I gave them a gentle stir about halfway through baking. The next picture is of my finished tea. It weighed about 5 grams.

I fired up the kettle and placed half of my total harvest into a small gaiwan. My first steep was boiling water for 3 minutes. The color was a lovely golden yellow and the liquor had a sweet smell with notes of raw pumpkin, cooked yam and unlit cigars.

I was trying to make a darker tea, but I was still pleased with the outcome of this experiment. The tea lacked for mouth-feel but it surprised me with complexity. The raw pumpkin aroma stuck with it through 3 infusions but the taste kept changing. It was always brighter and fruitier than I was expecting. I even picked up some guava and nectarine notes as well as a syrupy sweetness.

I'm glad I have enough leaf left over for one more session. I plan to bring it to Phoenix Tea this weekend to share with other tea lovers.

Old School Tea Additives

Did you know that many European and American tea drinkers in the 1700's and 1800's were drinking dyed teas? I recently learned this peculiar factoid while doing a bit of tea research and I came across the following quote:

"There is now no doubt that all these faced teas are dyed with Prussian blue and gypsum, or plumbago, to suit the taste of the foreign 'barbarians.' The process may be seen any day, by those who give themselves the trouble to seek after it. Black teas are coated with gypsum to give weight and a sticky nature to the leaf, plumbago and lampblack to cover the white of the gypsum, and ferruginous earth to deepen the red of the liquor. The Chinese never use these dyed teas themselves." - Robert Fortune

Yuck! Can you imagine? I wonder how long this ghastly practice continued? I started to poke around the Internet for some more information and stumbled across a scary chapter on tea adulteration in an 1873 journal called: Cyclopædia of India and of eastern and southern Asia, commercial and scientific products of the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms, useful arts and manufactures, edited by Edward Balfour. This publication, along with Baron Ernst Von Bibra's fascinating 1855 work: Plant Intoxicants: A Classic Text on the use of Mind-Altering Plants, have revealed to me a vast conspiracy of old school tea icky-ness! Not only were Western tea drinkers once subjected to different, unnecessary, and sometimes dangerous, crap in their tea... but at times dishonest tea merchants were even known to "restore" and resell previously steeped tea leaves.

Sadly there are still a lot of potentially dangerous additives being used in foods and beverages all around the world and as long as people can find buyers for all that junk it's likely to continue.

Thank goodness things are now much better as far as premium tea is concerned. I have no doubt that the leaves I enjoy daily are safe and pure. I believe we're currently in an age where tea people of all nationalities are working together to build a healthy and prosperous international tea culture.

My Latest Batch of Homemade Tea

Last Saturday morning, four tea friends joined me for a cupping workshop class at Teacup. The final tea of that session was my latest batch of entirely homemade and home-grown tea. Please read my prior post if you'd like details regarding its production.

As with my previous batches of homemade tea I was not too sure just what I had created... so I was kind of "flying blind" when I chose my brewing parameters. I decided to use a rounded teaspoon of leaf in a medium sized gaiwan with 190° F water steeped 3 minutes. This yielded 3 decent infusions.

The resulting liquor had a lovely amber color and an unusual aroma.

My fellow tasters and I came up with the following thoughts and opinions about this interesting infusion:

Michael - Squash!
Everybody - Yeah. Big time squash-like taste and smell. Tastes like a garden too.
Me - Sweet, roasty smell like baked winter squash. Slight fishiness and skunky aftertaste? Reminds me a lot of bancha.
Xenia - Not fishy. Doesn't really taste like tea. Not too bad. I've had much worse local tea.
Nicole - It has a little white tea flavor in the finish.

So there you have it. I certainly succeeded in my mission to create a totally unique tea. I think I'll call this strange stuff... "South Seattle Tea Estate's Autumn 2010 Squash Garden Bancha."

Autumn 2010 Harvest Report

The South Seattle Tea Estate's second harvest of 2010 took place on September 30 at 2:00 PM. The afternoon was 69° F and sunny after a cool morning. No tender leaf-and-bud-sets were available so the harvest consisted mainly of very large mature leaves. That was just fine with me because I was determined to make a very different tea than my previous attempts.

In total, I plucked 35 grams of raw leaf from my two tea trees. These leaves were withered outdoors on a pizza pan in mostly full sun until sunset (Exhibit A). They spent the next 2 days inside withering on my kitchen table.

Exhibit A

On October 3rd, I put the slightly limper leaves into a brown paper bag and put them into my backpack to accompany me to the NW Tea Festival. When I got home the leaves had a tiny bit of oxidation appearing around the edges. At 6:00 PM on October 3rd I shook the leaves fiercely inside a glass bowl for 15 minutes (Exhibit B).

Exhibit B

The following morning (today!), the leaves definitely appear darker, redder and limper. They now have a subtle floral scent along with a unique "corn and rosemary aroma" that I always seem to detect in my homegrown tea.

At 8:15, 9:50 and 10:15 AM I rolled the leaves tightly in a cloth napkin (Exhibit C). After each roll I opened the napkin and allowed the limp leaves to rest (Exhibit D).

Exhibit C

Exhibit D

At noon, the leaves were baked (on the same pizza pan from Exhibit A) for 5 minutes at 350° F.

I was hoping to still have slightly limp leaves with some moisture remaining so that I could do another round of twisting and baking, but because the oven was so hot and the leaves were spread thinly and evenly, they emerged from my electric oven bone-dry and crispy!

The huge crispy, twisted leaves were gorgeous, but I doubted they would be able to infuse very well (assuming I could even stuff these giants into a teapot), So at this point I decided that this tea was not meant to look pretty.

I rolled them back up in the cloth napkin and proceeded to give them an "industrial strength twist" (Exhibit E). There was no turning back as the tea leaves snapped, crackled and popped inside the twisting cloth.

Exhibit E

I immediately dumped the now broken leaves into a dry, heavy-bottomed, steel pan over medium heat and toasted them for three minutes while constantly shaking and stirring them. After which I dumped the hot leaves on to a plate to cool down quickly.

Today's 13 grams of finished tea (Exhibit F) is a kaleidoscopic mix of broken leaf bits and stems. It is definitely not as pretty as my previous homemade teas but I believe that I made the right choice by crushing the leaves.

Exhibit F

Any Seattle tea friends want to try this tea with me? I will serve it for the very first time ever to participants in my October 9th tea class (see yesterday's post for details). Only then will I know for sure what I have created and be able to give it a proper name.

My Spring 2010 Tea

One week ago I made 6.5 grams of finished tea from my two backyard tea plants. If you want to read about how it was made click here.

Here's a picture of it:

I thought I was making an oolong tea. Though it is semi-oxidized, I think it is more like a white peony tea. In fact, in many ways, I think I made almost the same tea I made last year... only this time I don't think I baked it long enough because it still had a limp feeling and smelled a bit musty by the time I brewed it. Interestingly, I baked this tea twice as long as I did last year. Maybe this year's tea had a higher water content to begin with? Or maybe (and perhaps more likely) it was the bowl I baked it in this year, which was thicker and deeper than last year's baking dish. It is a good thing I've been taking such good notes. Now maybe if I just start to pay attention to what I'm doing, I can learn from my past mistakes and start to make better tea in the future.

On Saturday morning (5/1/10), my friends David, Gwen, James, Andrew and Chris joined me at Teacup to taste my home grown tea. I chose Vortex to do the honor of brewing my creation. I used all the leaf and started with a 3 minute 190° steep. It was way too weak... but the tasters were complimentary of the brew saying it had potential and a pleasant "tingle" in the mouth.

The second steep was boiling water for 5 minutes. Much better... but still too light. David noted that this infusion had a nice flavor reminiscent of decent quality Assam Indian white tea. He also commented about my tea possessing a certain unique flavor that he has tasted in all of the Washington State teas he has previously sampled.

A photo of the second infusion:

The third steep (10 minutes with boiling water) and the fourth steep (15 minutes with boiling water) were well liked by all tasters. Chris likened the aroma to a brewery he once knew and Andrew spoke of its interesting herbaceous flavors (perhaps from the giant rosemary plant that grows right next to the main tea plant). The fifth infusion (also 15 minutes with boiling water) was pleasant but once again yielded a very weak flavor. After five infusions we called it quits.

In closing, I'd say that this spring's tea was pretty good and that I learned a little bit more about making tea. Hopefully, I'll get another chance to practice in the summer.

It was a very rewarding exprerience to make my own tea completely from scratch!

The beautiful spent leaves:

Spring 2010 Harvest Report

The South Seattle Tea Estate's first harvest of 2010 took place on April 26, 2010 at 8:00 AM. The weather was 55° F, overcast and a little bit windy. The actual harvest lasted about 15 minutes and yielded 93 individual leaf-and-bud sets weighing in at 19 grams.

The young, tender leaf-and-bud sets just before harvest.

The total 19 gram harvest.

First the leaves were withered indoors (at around 68° F) in the green stoneware bowl pictured above for 5.5 hours. Then a plate was put over the bowl, to act as a lid, as I shook the leaves very vigorously for 3 minutes. At this point the leaves were uncovered and allowed to oxidize in the bowl for about 16 hours. During this oxidation time, I occasionally mixed the leaves gently and sniffed their developing sweet aroma.

After 5.5 hours of withering and 6 hours of oxidation:

At 5:15 AM on April 27, 2010, I preheated my electric oven to 250° F and baked the bowl of leaves for 22 minutes (mixing once during the bake). After the bake, I transferred the leaves to a cool bowl, then, once the leaves had cooled down, I weighed them. The total yield of finished tea was 6.5 grams. Finally I put my newborn oolong tea into a little glass jar to wait until its debut later this week.

6.5 grams of finished tea:

I am looking for a few tea friends to join me at Teacup on Saturday May 1st at 9:30 AM for a free tasting of my home-grown tea. All are welcome. Please contact me if you'll be able to come.

Weeds and Buds

On April 1st, my daughter and I went outside to tour the South Seattle Tea Estate (which is located in our backyard). Last May, the tea estate contained only one tea plant, but thanks to my good friend David W. the number of tea plants has doubled!

An aerial shot of the tea estate taken from the back deck.
(The two tea plants are hiding behind the rosemary.)


A close-up of my two tea plants surrounded by weeds.

I'm not sure what caused it, but during the winter, some of the lower leaves had developed a sort of rot or fungus so I had to pick off a bunch of bad leaves.

Yuck!

It was very satisfying to pull out a few of the dandelions that had taken over the garden during the winter.

Die You Vile Weed!

I was very encouraged to see some lovely new leaf and bud sets starting to develop as well as many healthy-looking leaves.

Yum!

Double Yum!

Triple Yum!

In a few weeks I will harvest some of these pretty leaf and bud sets and attempt to make an oolong tea! Stay tuned for a more detailed post about that caper (because I may even host a casual tasting of my finished tea). In the meantime feel free to click here if you would like to read a review of the "Seattle White Peony" tea that I made last spring.

10 things I learned at Lishan

1. Lishan (梨山) (pear mountain), in Taiwan's Taichung* county (台中縣), is not easy to reach. Highway 8 is closed for repairs between Ching Shan (青山) just east of Guguan (谷關) and Deji (德基) just west of Lishan. Only a couple of daily buses are available from Yilan (宜蘭) or one from Taichung (台中) and they take many hours because the roads are narrow and broken. Check out my friend Josh's blog post for a couple photos of the highway.

at the intersection of highways 7 and 8 near Lishan

2. Once you make it up to Lishan it is kind of hard to get around. There are no regular cabs or buses around Lishan, but I was able to walk and hitchhike to a few nearby tea farms. I wanted to go to He Huan Shan (合歡山) but I decided to stay within 5 kilometers of town. I'll have to come back someday with my own car or scooter.

3. There is not a lot of tea being grown within 5 kilometers of Lishan town. I went to Fushoushan farm (福壽山農場) and did find a handful of other tea farms during my alpine hikes but for the most part I'd say Lishan is surrounded by fruit, fruit, fruit, cabbages, and fruit. I probably found only one tea garden for every twenty orchards!

4. With an elevation of around 1900 to 2200 meters, Lishan and the surrounding area can get really cold. I was lucky to have brought enough layers but I was shivering in the morning as I hiked along the frosty trails. The afternoon sun was glorious but it faded quickly.

icy!

5. Mid-January is not a great time to hunt for high mountain tea up in Lishan. According to my new friends at the Ming Gang Tea Garden (明岡茶園), Lishan has only three production seasons per year, which they described as: Spring Tea (春茶) around May, Second Season Tea (二季茶) around August, and Winter Tea (冬茶) around October or November. By mid-December most of the good tea has already been bought up.

healthy Lishan tea bushes on January 19, 2010

6. Lishan tea is expensive. I learned this from all of the working class people I hung out with up on the mountain. When I told them that I loved Lishan's high mountain tea and that it is what had inspired me to visit their part of the world, most would reply "the tea up here is too expensive... one jin (600 grams) usually costs between 3000 and 6000 NT$!" Maybe I'd have had better luck if I'd been there during actual tea production but my mid-January explorations only served to confirm their rants.

7. The folks at the town's visitor center are so kind and welcoming and they will even hook you up with some amazing tea to sip while you chat.

one cup of love poured from a steel thermos
into this cute little mug

me and my visitor-center homies

8. Besides tea and fruit, Lishan has a lot of other cool stuff to see. Such as...

... a scenic pagoda ...

... a talented painting tire man ...

... and a lovely temple ...

9. Lishan's fruit lives up to the hype! I had a few big, plump, juicy asian pears and a gooey, sweet tomato-passionfruit from the fruit vendors around Lishan and Fushoushan farm.

roadside fruit vendors

10. Lishan is absolutely gorgeous. I'm so glad I made it up to this beautiful alpine area. I greatly enjoyed my windy, sunny hikes among the pear orchards and seeing the many dramatic (sometimes snowy) peaks that surrounded this welcoming little town. I look forward to going back (but I may wait until the highway is fixed).

*I usually use the Pinyin system to spell Chinese words, but for this post I used the Taiwanese spellings when they differed.