Tea Review: Sencha Kura, Shizuoka Japan

   This tea comes in a very nice vacuum-sealed paper package. Once you open it there´s a small "whoosh"- sound as air gets in and the whole packet expands a little. So it´s as fresh as when it was packaged this spring. Text on the package tells us that this is “a high quality first green tea of the year from the famous tea area Shizuoka. The young and tender leaves have a fruity aroma. A very delicate and sweet sencha from Otsuka, the multiple prize winning company for best tea of Japan.”

   I steep it at 70 degrees for a minute. The resulting drink is light yellowish green, with small particles of leaf dust swirling around. Beautiful. I take a sip and close my eyes: grassy summer slopes with the sea visible from the hills, sun shining gently on top of everything, a warm slight breeze keeping the air fresh. I´m taking a nap beneath a giant lemon tree. There are no worries here. Soft but light. Umami. There´s a lot of leaf particles floating in the tea, it´s almost like a green soup, quite thick.

    Sitting here after the first cup I feel acutely present in this moment. Being present is perhaps the only thing a human should strive for in this life. It is painfully difficult, though. Or maybe it´s more like that not being present in the moment is what is actually painful? Or running away from the pain that is present… I lost it. Sorry.

   Steep number 2: only 20 seconds at 70 C. A lot darker mossy green and cloudy liquid. A conifer forest. Dash of citrus, a little spinach, not too much to make it vegetable-y. The taste: now we are definitely in a moist shadowy forest, with moss covered logs and stones. Shiitake mushrooms. Kois swimming in swift small streams. It´s that umami taste of sweetness without being sugary. A remarkable change between steepings. I´m starting to feel really pretty high with all the caffeine, L- theanine, antioxidants and what not.

   A lot of the plants that are native to Japan also grow somewhat well here in Finland. I have a rare dwarf form of the Japanese rhododendron, for example, growing in my yard. Unfortunately the prettiest Japanese tree, the Acer palmatum, or Japanese maple, is too tender to grow here. I´ve killed three of them being stubborn and just trying to plant them against what I know is inevitable. There´s something in Japanese plants that is very special; they look “Japanese” no matter where you grow them…

   Steep no 3. is 40 seconds at 70 C. The tea gets more fruity and lemony. The flavors are mellowing out, comfortable and round. I´m a bit disappointed that the greatness stopped here, maybe a little bit short? But those first two cups were really special, so I won´t complain. I´ve noticed that I can only make a tea review that I´m myself satisfied with when I´m alone and there´s at least an hour to use without of danger of getting interrupted. With a somewhat busy lifestyle of a family- father it´s somewhat challenging to find those quiet niches. But when I do have the change to sit down like this and really concentrate to whatever tea I´m having and writing about, then it feels that this must really be what tea is all about.

Tea review: The peasant and the noble

I wake up 05:20 at least five days a week. No matter how early you go to bed you will be tired at that time in the morning. It has something to do with dream cycles: at five I usually wake-up straight from a dream which feels very startling, every time. So I really need something strong to get me going, and after quitting coffee the only choice I´ve found so far is Assam.

   Assam is the name of the world´s largest tea growing region in northeast India. The black teas from this area are probably one of the easiest even for a complete beginner to recognize, the taste is really distinctive. It is because the plants from which the tea is manufactured, Camellia sinensis var. assamica, are altogether a different variety of the tea plant, distinct from the "original" chinese tea bush. Of course, the Assamese tea also has it´s own methods of manufacture.

   I´ve been drinking a very run-of-the-mill Assam bought from the local supermarket. It´s not a bad tea in any way, a reliable and stout drink that packs enough punch to get you awake and out of the door. Still it does have a tendency to go quite astringent, especially if steeped too long. This is the taste that one would very naturally want to soften with milk, which I think is why tea with milk is associated with the English; Assam was the main provider of the British Empire´s tea. As I have a personal preference of not mixing milk into my tea, I´ve just tried to make do with a little shorter steeping times and/or less leaves, although the latter tends to compromise the fullness of taste which I do want to be there.

   Last week I bought a small packet of premium Assamese tea, Budla Beta S.F.F.T.G.F.O.P 1 (that´s a lot of alphabets!). It cost only marginally more than my supermarket- Assam. So I thought I'd do a side-by-side comparison of the two.

   The dry leaves had some differences but not much: in the cheaper one they were darker, almost black, and their consistency was also finer and smaller, the leaves looked almost scorched. Both showed about the same amount of lighter coloured buds among the leaves. I steeped a teaspoonful of the leaves in pre- heated cups, the water was about 97 degrees Celsius and I steeped both of them for 4 minutes.

   In the picture the right hand side cup is the Budla Beta. It is lighter in colour and more clearly reddish. The cheaper one is a quite dull dark brown. But the taste was where these two differed the most. Both of these had the "trademark" Assam- taste of leather, rum, smoke, madeira wine, oak. This is where the cheaper one stopped: it had the basic tastes down allright, but it was quite noticeably astringent, and there was no real depth or aftertaste to speak off. Budla Beta on the other hand continued where the other one stopped. A world of further nuances came through in a buttery sweet roundness. There was no astringency, just a thick and full, really robust fullness of taste. Your brain expects astringency to follow such a strong taste, but it just never comes. Tasting these two like this side-by-side made the cheapos´ astringency really stands out and I couldn´t even finish the cup.

   I also examined the steeped leaves, and the differences were a lot more pronounced now than when they were dry. Whereas the cheap leaves were a uniform leathery brown of pretty small broken leaf pieces, Budla Beta had more variety of brown and dark purples and greens. The leaves were still broken but the pieces were bigger.

   So the result is clear and simple. Once you taste the good stuff there´s no going back. I can't even think of how low quality those bagged Assams have been that I've happily drunk in the past. Now I'm spoiled for life. Luckily, here the difference in price is really insignificant. It seems you get a lot more quality for less money in Assams than in Chinese green teas, for example. I'm sure to be trying out many other high quality Assams in the near future.

Tea review: Tie Guan Yin Autumn Flush 2012

Ok, for me, this is expensive tea. Almost 300€´s per kilogram. It has been handpicked only a month ago in Anxi, southern Fujian, China. It´s very exciting to think how fresh this tea really is.

I steep it at 85ºC for 2 minutes. I find myself being extra careful while handling these delicate and precious leaves. It´s a nice feeling.

Iron, metal. Rolling hills of knee high grass. It takes me up, I quite literally raise my head up with the fumes. Very light yellow/green drink.There´s myriad nuances in the odour, too fine and fleeting to desribe in words. Like butterflies in dappled sunlight.

First sip:wow. First a vegetable round sweetness that changes to a rapid tingling sourness on the tip of the tongue and frontal palate, just behind the upper front teeth. There is a great ocean somewhere nearby, although the surrounding hills don´t give a direct view of it. I´m a miner mining iron ore with old time pick-axes and shovels.  The tea goes down the throat like liquid gold. There´s this big orchestra with traditional instruments playing the solid undertones, but the virtuoso solo violinist takes the whole into new soaring heights. I didn´t know tea could have this many levels and tones. Remarkable! A fresh breeze like someone opened the window.

I read it´s called "iron tieguanyin" and I really can see why, now. There´s this really special smell and taste, a tingy metal. Iron hitting flint. I feel it´s somehow heretic to say this: it´s almost like the smell of certain plastics.  Very surprising but absolutely perfectly functional.

I find it a bit hard on my conscience to keep on purchasing expensive teas. I feel I really would have some more practical things that I should use that money on. But life is short. That´s one thing I´ve been thinking more and more about, and these teas really give me some comfort and meaning, so why not? I should try to find and settle on a couple of affordable basic teas as my "every day" drinks, though. I can´t drink Tie Guan Yin for breakfast every day.

Second steep. The open leaves have serrated edges and they are really dark green, is that the autumn flush´s trademark? A slightly greener liquid. The scent is more round, with a clear hint of orchids. It´s exactly the same scent as that of a zygopetalum- orchid that I have on my window. The leaves in the pot are dark green and they are opening up, they have a slight maltiness to them. The tea is like a walk in a sub-tropical garden. Humming birds and exotic fruit trees. An umami roundness rolls down the tongue. I feel very happy and peaceful. The long awaited guest has taken his overcoat off and is chatting with me in front of the fireplace, the formality is melting away.

Now I remember this smell: it´s the cow parsley that I slash down along the path as a kid.

Steep number three. The orchid is even stronger here. I´m feeling so blissful that I don´t see the point in describing the taste which is just perfectly harmonious and whole. I don´t know the particulars of Tie Guan Yin´s manufacturing process, or what makes it a wulong, but to me it´s like the perfect green tea.

On meaning

   The human mind is such, that it thrives when it has a meaning and a motive for it´s own existence. That may sound obvious, but from an objective viewpoint there is no absolute meaning. In certain ways everything is futile. I´ve struggled with this a lot in my personal life. I have felt a strong urge to find something, just anything, that would be good and true. If ever I would find a single concrete truth, I could then base my life on that. But meanings are by their very nature subjective. Only a subjective mind would be capable of making up such a concept. So we end up trying to find something we can´t ever find. Our brains are very good at trying to come up with ways to fool ourselves about this. Religion is the usual escape. It makes our brains happy even if it´s not true.

   Tea is a meaning. I use it to bring meaning into my life. Objectively speaking it is a random activity. But maybe a non- perfect mammal will have to, at some point in his or hers life, just do whatever it is that feels good. I can take the framework of tea culture and learn about it, immerse myself in it, and use it to carry me in this mysterious journey called life. To feel good is what our brains want to do. I feel good when I drink a nice cup of tea, even if  4.5 billion years from now when the Sun will become a white dwarf it won´t make the least bit of difference whether I drank tea or not. The paradox with humans is that we are seemingly capable of thinking about the idea of objectivity, yet we live in and are bound to a subjective reality.

The pot

   It was Father´s Day yesterday. I got my first teapot as a present. Up until now I´ve used these simple cup- sized infusers made of wiremesh. They are very handy for a quick cup, but of course I´ve been thinking about getting a proper teapot, if not for other reason than aesthetics.

   My new teapot is nice and compact, a little over two medium- sized cups, made by Zero Japan. It´s some kind of clay with a metal lid. The color is a stylish moss green with a "Crackle Glaze"- finish which looks like broken porcelain under the surface lacquer . Inside there´s the same kind of infuser as I´ve been using before, but this one fits the pot. As  a first steep I did some organic Fujian Shui Xian- wulong. The teapot keeps the liquid in a lot more stable temperature throughout the steep. I might consider adding some kind of insulative "hat" for the pot to make it loose even less heat. Maybe because of this the tea had a lot fuller and stronger taste. It was really quite noticeable. The two cups of Shui Xian we´re really nice with my FD- breakfast.

   One potential problem I noticed is that I will always have two infuse two cups with this teapot if I intend to use the basket infuser, because when only half- full the water doesn´t rise sufficiently high to adequately cover the tea leaves in the basket. Of course, I can just put the leaves straight into the pot and use a sieve when I pour the tea out. This might be a good way in a case, because the leaves would have more space to move and expand. Gotta give it a try today.

   The teapot definitely makes tea better, both the absolute taste of it as well as by giving you a more satisfying experience aesthetically and mentally. I´m already drooling over other teapots as well; I guess it´s addictive when you start hoarding them. A nice and earthy Yixing would be nice, as well as a modern glass pot and a gaiwan....
  

In the beginning

   Tea is like classical music. Or jazz. In that for a complete beginner the whole seems to be of such gigantic proportions that you don´t know where to start. You are not familiar with the inner workings and dynamics of this unknown land and that feeling can be so overwhelming that you never get started in the first place. That, at least, is how I´ve been feeling lately as I´ve been trying to infiltrate this ancient order of mystics, poets and philosophers.

   My reasons for beginning my journey to the Land of Tea was a practical one: having been a big time coffee drinker for my whole adult life I finally came to the realization that coffee didn´t suit me. It got me nervous and made me anxious. I guess it was the caffeine I´m sensitive to. I was very reluctant to give it up, it was such a big part of my life, a habit and maybe even an addiction. I guess the difference between the two is just a thin red line.

   So I began thinking about alternatives and tea was really the only one. For a couple of months I bought and drank bagged teas from the supermarket. They didn´t taste like much, but I used them to fill the empty space that giving up coffee had left. At some point (I guess it was after going through 25 bags of Twinings´ "Prince of Wales") I started thinking that there must be something more to this tea- thing? How could it ever had become a drink with such a huge cultural and social history if it tasted so bland as did these factory-made little paperbags with some powder in them? There had to be something I was not getting here.

   So the next time I went into the supermarket, I selected a bag of loose leaf tea from the shelf, a pure Assam, dark and strong. Once home I steeped it with an small old sieve that I unearthed from the cupboard. I won´t say that I got a full- out rapture out of it, but it really did taste better and fuller than that bagged stuff, it had more character. Somehow it started a little light in some distant corner of my brain. I noticed I was thinking more about tea every day. I started searching the internet for information, and sure enough found lots of it. I bought a couple more bags of loose leaf tea and I was on my way. I was now sure there really was more to tea than I had ever realized. At this point the allegory that I started this post with came very real with me, there was so much I wanted to know and try but wasn´t sure where I should start? Should I try green, white or yellow teas first? If greens, then which ones? I also had no teaware, what sort should I get? Could I get anything out of these nice (and quite expensive) teas without an yixing teapot? Should I buy online or from local shops? I felt overwhelmed.

   But in some rare moment of clarity (maybe after a cup of tea?) I made a pact with myself: for once in my life I would try to take it easy. I was in no hurry other than what I myself imagined, so why not just do what felt comfortable and do things in their own pace? Enjoy the journey, because I guess the journey is the only thing that is ever going to be real and true in life. Drink today what happens to be there to drink, and don´t be too concerned with tomorrow. At that I felt a certain calmness.

   So I figured I should start up this blog now while I´m still standing at the very beginning of this path. Maybe someone may find it useful as even a partial roadmap to the vast world of tea. I also hope that I will be able to cling to the role of the beginner, because I´ve noticed that that´s often the best way to experience life.