Contemplations of a Closet Curmudgeon

YouTube's algorithms have caught onto me. Yesterday I watched a specialist in high-end Chinese teas do a comparison taste-test of a loose leaf vs. tea bag tea. Unsurprisingly, he gave the tea bag a thumbs down. Of course, this presenter has a vested interest in getting viewers interested in the fine teas he sells, but are mass market teas really the devil?

The tea bag is a 20th century invention. Evidently a couple of different people came up with similar ideas roughly around the same time period, but it's safe to say that patents and the appearance of small individual bags of tea started before WWI in the US, and had pretty much caught hold as *the* way to brew and drink tea by the 1920s, which is right around the time my grandparents were getting married and starting to have families. 

Grandma McGee drank bagged teas, so Mom did, and I seem to recall that I started my tea drinking with brands like Red Rose, Lipton, sometimes interspersed with grocery store generics, because Mom was a Depression baby and you bought what was cheapest. 

At that point, tea was just tea. I didn't know anything about it, it was just something hot and wet and reddish-brown that we drank. Sometimes we'd stick a couple of bags into an old cider jug and threw in the fridge to steep for iced tea. (The less said about powdered iced tea mixes the better!) I generally drank my tea with one sugar, no milk, and eventually ditched the sugar. Drinking tea at Grandma's kitchen table made me feel pretty grown up. She always had mugs with pretty pictures of birds on them. 

Tea bags are convenient. You can drop one in your mug, add water, and not have to faff around with a strainer or making an entire pot of the stuff when it's just you. And up until 1996, the Food and Drug Administration had official tea tasters checking the quality of imported teas, so what you got in your little paper bag was fairly consistent. Consistency is the linchpin of mass marketing. It's why you can go into any MacDonalds and your burger and fries will be exactly what you expect. Thus too with the fairly generic tea I grew up with. 

So what was in it? It was brown and black crumbs, bitter on the tongue if your bag happened to break and you got a piece of it in your tea. If the label on the box called it anything, it was probably "pekoe," which, according to Wikipedia, I have been pronouncing wrong all my life. It's PECK-oh, not PEEK-oh, some sort of vaguely English style black tea or tea blend, probably from India or Sri Lanka. And the stuff that was in our tea bags is the fannings, the scraps and crumbs left over after the better quality tea leaves have been selected to be sold at a higher price. (Grading is its own science. I don't purport to know about it.)

And yet, those crumbs are part of the convenience. Not only does the tea seller have a market for the cheap stuff as the public demand for tea grows, those broken leaf bits steep FAST. In mere seconds, you can rush out of the break room with a hot mug and get back to work.  

Of course, nowadays, there has been an explosion of flavors and varieties of teas and herbal infusions available to the general public. The average supermarket chain can supply you with anything from old-school Lipton to lines like Twinings, Bigelow and Tazo, all in convenient bags. You can have your "Earl Grey, Hot" or a spicy chai or something comforting and herbal with optimum convenience and several ounces of hot water. And some purveyors of higher quality teas recognize that some people LIKE tea bags and offer them as an option. Vahdam India does, as does Ippodo Kyoto.

This is not a bad thing, and if you are perfectly happy with your daily cuppa, that's great. Bigelow is what we stocked in my company break room (pre-pandemic) and I had no problem with their Earl Grey or English Breakfast in my thermal mug. I have a half box of Choice Organic Teas Darjeeling in the house which is surprisingly good. Yorkshire Gold - which I admit I decided to try simply because of the awesome Sean Bean commercial - makes a delicious cold brewed iced tea. 

Tea bags allow more people to enjoy drinking tea. They can also lead you into discovering other varieties, flavors and ways to enjoy your tea . Whether your journey is having an "old friend" by your side through thick and thin, or tasting and discovering new ones, it's up to you. 

Given the age of the leaf Darjeeling and Assam left in the house, I wanted to replace it. After a little looking around, I discovered the products I wanted were available from Vahdam India. A visit to their web page looked promising:  all the sustainability, world improving and quality ticky boxes checked, plus good reviews. Also I could avail myself of Amazon Prime shipping and get it quickly.

It arrived Friday, later in the day than I wanted to have caffeine, so I decided to have it this morning. 

For 3.5 ounces of tea (50 cups worth), the Darjeeling was $14.99, the Assam $12.99. When you figure a box of 50 Twinings teabags from Safeway can run about $8, that's not terrible.

I have to tell you about the packaging. Each tea came in a dark green cardboard box. Inside each box was a shrink-wrapped, aluminum lined bag of tea, a mylar zip lock bag to decant it into for freshness, a label to put on the mylar bag - with the name of the tea, since of course you bought more than one, and brewing instructions for the best results. Also included are a glossy little pamphlet about the company (again with brewing suggestions), and a 10% off next purchase card. Not to mention Inspirational Tea Quotes printed inside the box. Yes, this is absolutely designed to be appealing, to convince you of quality and to anoint you with the esteem owed to a genuine teaphile, to evoke posh English drawing rooms and the best bone china and milk and one lump or two and do please buy more of our tea!

Steve Jobs! I'm all aquiver. Not. And I don't care about endorsements by Oprah. What does it taste like?

Good aroma when sniffing out of the bag, rich, black and fruity. For a black tea, the leaf color was greener than I had expected. You can see the difference in color between the dried and steeped leaves in the photo below. (Looks nothing like the almost coffee colored Darjeeling I bought from that nice lady at Gulf Wars 2019, which wasn't a bad Darjeeling at the time I bought it.) 

The 3-5 minute suggested steep might be the result of treating tea as a delivery system for milk and sugar - and I haven't had either in a cup of tea since a 1985 horseback tour of Connemara Ireland when we were downing it by the thermosful to keep warm. Boiling water, steep the crap out of it, and then correct for it with milk and sugar because you made ink. 

Not surprisingly, I also found suggestions for brewing a first flush Darjeeling  that recommended lower temperatures. I compromised by steeping at 190F for 2 minutes, using a silicone infuser. At about the 1 minute mark, I opened the infuser and dumped the leaves because the color in the cup wasn't changing. Allowing the leaves to unfurl properly helped, so I just poured through a strainer into a second cup. In future, I'll just brew in the kyusu. 

 Flavor was delicate with fruity, almost citrusy notes. That said, I don't think the longer, hotter steep would hurt this tea. I did a second steep at 212F for three minutes and the aroma backed off a bit. I think 190F with a 3 minute steep might be a good compromise with this one. EDIT: 1/18/21, steeped a fresh pot, 1 well heaped teaspoon/8oz. water for 3 minutes at 200F and it was fine: flavor and scent were good, no bitterness. 

Verdict: a very nice tea, suitable for a lazy Saturday morning. Vahdam also sells Darjeeling harvested at different times of year as well as blended teas made with black Darjeeling, so I might try another in the future. 

 Let's face it, I did need a couple more decent sized tea tins, the hohin that I was just looking at was offered at a price drop - and with the lockdown I certainly haven't been spending my money on all that much. It's just shopping karma that items from three different sellers all turned up on the same day. The silver can has phoenixes embossed on it. Both it and the sumo can also have internal lids to preserve freshness. The smaller one is holding an Anxi oolong, the sumo is big enough for 100g of sencha.  

I admit, the hohin is smaller than I expected, even though I know I looked at the measurements. It WILL hold 100ml fluid, so it's just big enough to brew just about anything I have but the hojicha, which has really big leaves. 

I decided to christen it with the Sakura Tea from Kyoto Obobu Farms, literally dried cherry blossoms and some sugar. It looked very pretty in the pot as the flowers unfurled, but ultimately after a 30 second steep at 175F, it was just hot sugar water. If there was any other flavor or scent, I didn't pick it up. 

No worries, there's still hojicha leaf from yesterday's brew. I already brewed some up this morning and I can probably get another cup or two out of the same leaves. 

For tea novices who might actually be reading this, you absolutely can re-brew with leaves you've used before. Depending on the tea, you can get several steeps. If you're using tea bags or an infuser, simply take it out after a steep and set it aside on a clean surface or plate. You may have noticed that teapots for Chinese and Japanese teas are relatively small - you should only be using enough water to brew the tea and drink it, draining the pot. I generally pour using a filter with the kyusu, tap any leaves back into the top of the pot, then I poke a chopstick down the spout, spread the wet leaves in the shallow bottom, and leave the lid off the pot. This is fine for tea you're planning to continue with during the day. If you're not going to get to it right away, dump the leaves out to dry on paper towels. Yes, it's going to oxidize and lose flavor if you don't get around to using it, but I made a pot of hojicha for breakfast yesterday, steeped it again in the afternoon, and again this morning, just increasing steep times by a few seconds each time. 

Try it, trust your taste buds. If it tastes good, you can feel virtuous about not letting good tea go to waste. If it tastes like it's lost that lovin' feeling, it's time to pour it out and move on. 

Time to go start up the kettle.  

5g/100ml @ 200F, 20 seconds, +20 seconds each additional steep.

The name "bitter melon" had me a little concerned, but this turned out to be delicious. Jade said it could be brewed with or without the pieces of melon, but I left it in and took the plunge. This thing may be bitter as a raw fruit - it's from the same family as gourds, cucumbers and other melons - but after roasting with the tea, there was no bitterness. I got a rich, almost velvety walnut aroma and flavor in each steep. 

Lu Yu, writing in the 8th century, decried the addition of fruit to tea as making it no better than "the swill of the gutter," but he'd be wrong about this. It's quite good and definitely what I needed after an afternoon of watching domestic terrorists rioting at the Capitol on the news. 

Masaru-chan is smiling. He knows how to quell demons. A useful quality to have on a rough day.

Yunnan Sourcing has it, only $7.50/50g. https://yunnansourcing.us/collections/oolong-tea/products/bittermelon-stuffed-with-roasted-tie-guan-yin-oolong-tea-1

After swilling two big bowls of the Ippodo hojicha this morning (held up for two additional steeps without fuss), this might not have been the best choice, but here we are, another roasted tea.

5g/100ml @ 195-200F (I brewed at 190 to be safe) for 20 seconds, +20 seconds successive steeps.

The hojicha is a much bolder tea, this TGY is far more delicate. Light astringency and roasted scent and flavor with a bit of sweetness on the finish. Pleasant enough, and I'll use up what Jade gave me, but I don't know if it's something I'd necessarily buy more of. Then again, I've only had the first steep as I write this and a longer one may improve it. 

Yep, second steep is better. Jade says roasted TGY is the more traditional version, with the greener floral ones being a more recent development. It's harder to find a good roasted TGY. Still, it's a perfectly nice tea. 

Also, despite the fact that I already Have A Pottery Problem and no room to display things, I made the mistake of surfing places like Etsy and EBay "just to look" - and late yesterday got a "Still interested?" email from EBay announcing a new, lower price on a Japanese shiboridashi style teapot I had admired. I will post photos when it arrives. 

 5g/100ml, 200F for 20 seconds, +10 seconds additional steeps. 

Jade described this as "somewhat" of a typical Yunnan black tea. 

Lovely rich tea aroma on opening the packet, with sweetish caramel notes. In the cup it was dark tea color, like you'd expect. Not at all bitter, slightly floral with a hint of natural sweetness. Stayed robust through three cups. (If I drink more, I may not sleep tonight.) 

2020 is out of stock at Yunnan Sourcing. https://yunnansourcing.us/products/wu-liang-hong-mao-feng-yunnan-black-tea?_pos=1&_sid=d988fdff3&_ss=r&variant=34277333205037

It made me realize we Westerners have been drinking black tea ALL WRONG, dumping boiling water on not enough leaves, stewing them in the pot until they're cooked and bitter, and then drowning them in milk and sugar to overcorrect. Though personally, I've never liked milk tea and I stopped sweetening it some time in my 20s because I figured I didn't need the sugar. Still, I would brew it too hot and steep it to near ink - and drink it that way. Per Jade's instructions, I'm using a much higher ratio of leaf to water and steeping at lower temperatures for shorter periods. It really makes a difference in the flavor profile. (I may try my Assam or Darjeeling at 190 F and a shorter steep next time I reach for them.)

The second of the two puer samples Jade sent, also from West China Tea in Yunnan. 

5g/100ml @ 200F (package recommmended 205, but my kettle goes from 200 to full boil and I figured slightly cooler was the direction to err in. First steep 3-6 seconds. 

Jade's notes say "Gushu means harvested from older trees versus cultivated tea trees. This is a mild puerh w/typical puerh notes."

This one had a smoky aroma and flavor, not unlike Lapsang Souchang, but subtler. Flavor is earthy, but not heavy, mineral aftertaste. Another nice sippin' tea with the mean temperature of the living room around 65 F during the day. 

https://westchinatea.com/10g-2018-gu-shu-duoyi-village-sheng-puer/

These two puers have definitely made me much more willing to try this style of tea in the future, though I still like the oolongs a lot.

In other news, I tried this one in the gaiwan today and managed a one handed pour without burning my fingers or slopping it all over the counter. I must not allow myself to get tempted by tea wares. I already have a ridiculous number of chawan and not enough space to store them. The little $4 Daiso kyusu and the gaiwan are flavor neutral brewing pots, my unglazed tokoname tanuki pot can be my dedicated sencha pot. I HAVE ENOUGH TEAWARE. STOP THE MADNESS. STEP AWAY FROM EBAY.

As I look at the list, I have three Anxi oolongs from Fujian, a Yunnan black tea called Wu Liang Hong Mao, plus three more of the Obobu sencha samples left in the box. 

Because of the pandemic, most Japanese companies are not shipping their products to the United States. Between that and shipping costs, I've been looking at internet sources already in the US, and was wanting to get some fresh sencha and houjicha. So when I discovered that Ippodo of Kyoto had a New York based location, I placed an order for a 100g bag of each. Between that and the three 25g packets of oolong from Yunnan Sourcing, I should be able to hold the fort through the winter and then some. It's just too soon for a tea shop crawl while Covid rampages. 

In other news, I found some old Assam and Lapsang in tins that I think I bought at Llasa Karnak* in Berkeley - they have to be several years old. While tea stored dry and air tight is still drinkable, it's not necessarily fresh. I brewed up the Assam this morning and it was not bad but not at it's best. I might just cold brew the rest and drink it as iced tea. Haven't tried the LS. *Knowing now what I didn't know then, their teas may not be as fresh as they could be. Having some hippie chick with a 2 gallon glass jar and a scoop put your herbs and teas into little paper bags is as Berkeley AF, but who knows how long that stuff has been sitting there? This also reminds me to check the box in the back of the truck for leftover teas and see if they need to be tossed. Once the pandemic is over and the House of Cheerful Monkeys threatens to host a tea tasting, then I can put some fresh(er) tea in tins for the occasion. 

 Ya Shi King of Duck Shit is what it said on the packet Jade sent me. Ya Shi Xiang Dan Cong is a rare oolong varietal grown in the Phoenix Mountains outside Chaozhou, Guangdong Province. (I looked it up.) The soil in the area has a yellowish brown color that's unique to the area and villagers spread the untrue rumor that it was due to duck shit, to discourage outsiders from stealing their tea bushes. 

5g/100ml water @ 190-205 F, 20-30 seconds, +10-15 seconds per steep. 

Jade says it's one of her favorites and I can taste why. Delicate yellow in the cup with floral, lemony notes, it got better on the second and third steeps. A lovely sipping tea. 

 https://yunnansourcing.us/search?q=+Ya+Shi+Xiang+Dan+Cong

 Next in the array of rock oolongs Jade sent me: Purple Rose rock oolong. 5g/100ml water, 200 F water temp, 15 seconds first steep, 30 seconds second steep, +10 seconds third and fourth steeps. Jade gave me just enough for one brewing session so I did it in the glazed (flavor neutral) kyusu.

Nice, delicate floral scent and flavor, got slightly sweeter on the second steep and pretty much held its flavor nicely through to the fourth steep. 

The internet says that rock oolongs are one of several signature teas (camelia sinensis) grown in the Wuyi mountains in Fujian Province. (Da Hong Pao and Lapsang Souchong also come from there.) The name is associated with the mineral "terroir" that imparts flavor to the tea. 

With the exception of Friday's sencha, so far all the samples have been oolongs or Da Hong Pao varieties - black teas. 

I should mention that my "at work" tea before lockdown was generally bags of Bigelow English Breakfast or Earl Grey - that's what we had in our break room - steeped very strong into a big stainless steel mug and sipped on throughout the morning. At home, it's mostly been some loose Assam and Darjeeling I bought from a vendor at Gulf Wars. This morning, I had a big mug of the Assam about two hours before the Purple Rose oolong. 

My brain sees golden brown tea at the bottom of the bowl, braces for impact, I take a sip and it's, "Wait, what?" These Chinese teas are really subtle in comparison. 

Have I mentioned they all come from the SAME plant? (Assam is a variant indigenous to parts of India, but still same genus and species.)

 After three days of oolongs, I was feeling like a sencha and Jade provided several samples from Kyoto Obobu Tea Farm. (Bookmarking it because their tea samplers are pretty reasonable.)

As a kid who spent twenty plus years around horses and has often said, "That looks good enough to eat," I've always felt that good sencha (and matcha) taste like freshly turned dirt and new mown grass - in the best possible way. This sencha is called "Earth" - and it tastes like it. The English label on the 5g sample packet says "Feel the power of the Earth with this full-bodied spring tea harvested from 30 year old tea trees." 

No notes from Jade, but I brewed at 160 degrees* with a 30 second steep, then increased each steep by 15 seconds. This has a strong earthy note mixed with spinach. It was a little more bitter on the second steep and the green-yellow color deepened as well. The umami is downright hearty. Pondering a third cup in a bit. 

*Sencha brews well between 160-175F. Having a kettle with variable temperature settings is nice and I love mine (it's a Cuisinart one), but you can splash a little cold water into just-boiled or pour and let cool for a couple minutes before steeping your tea. Higher temperatures will increase bitterness. 

Tea research continues and I am enjoying the Mei Leaf channel on Youtube. Don is knowledgeable without being snooty: he often says to experiment with brewing to find the flavor profile you like best and the video on how you can do gongfu cha with two bowls and a tea strainer takes a lot of the holy-crap-I-must-buy-all-the-tea-utensils bewilderment by the scruff of the neck. (Though I'm sure he'd be happy to sell you all the tea things at his website. Even in UK pounds, the teaware prices seem reasonable enough.) He also gets geeky and scientific with things like side-by-side visual and taste comparisons of teas stored for eight months under varying conditions, or what teas go with what clay pot varieties. The emphasis is mostly on Chinese teas, but he does touch upon Japanese varieties as well, so if this interests you at all check out Mei-Leaf on Youtube. 

Yeah, I want another cup. Let's go warm that kettle up.

3rd steep, 160F, 60 seconds, color is slightly greener, bitterness has backed off and it tastes greener.