Iranian Hand-Picked and Processed Tea

Every Saturday, I meet with former teachers from Assumption University of Thailand. Usually three of us meet with several different teachers dropping by as they have time. I provide all the tea and our afternoons are spent visiting and drinking tea, beer and sometimes Coke.

Last week, Saeed, an American born and raised in Iran, brought some wild tea he had picked from a mountain near his village in Northeast Iran. He had just recently returned from taking care of some family business. This week, I had Saeed bring back his Iranian tea so we could have an official tasting. This is the results of that tasting.

Saeed told us every year his family picked this wild tea from a mountain nearby and let it dry in the sun for several days. That is all the processing they do to prepare it to drink. The leaves, as one can sea, are new, very delicate and small. The leaves reminded me of the Mengding Gan Lu and other similar teas we saw in Sichuan.

Another view of the leaves. They were pale green and dried naturally without any rolling or frying. Dick, the other retired teacher from Assumption, and I figured the tea would be sweet, fresh and quite mild based on these leaves.

A close-up look at a single group of this very green looking Iranian tea.

Another single tea grouping. Small. Very, very small!

The smell of the tea was distinctive and a lot stronger than what I had expected. The strange spicy smell one finds in the markets of Central Asia.

Saeed makes our tea. He uses the Chinese clay pot I purchased in Tunxi, Huangshan area of Anhui Province a couple of years ago. What he does differently than the Chinese is he leaves the steeping pot of tea over the boiling water for several minutes, Iranian style. This insures a strong even steeping. Saeed knows a heck of a lot more about tea than I will ever know. Iranians drink tea, a lot of tea.

The tea comes out like a Qimen red tea. Very strong looking and beautiful. I was blown away by the apparent lack of fermentation of the leaves and the resulting color. Amazing!

Tasting the tea was even more mind-blowing. The tea was strong, rich and had a strange but wonderful spicy taste right up front. There was very little aftertaste but strong feelings of tea on both sides of the tongue. This tea was made for milk and/or yoghurt - Iranian style.

Here Dick enjoys the taste of the tea. This tea is as different from Chinese tea as is coffee. It is strong with a huge caffeine kick right up front. It will open ones eyes in the morning. The taste was definitely tea but with a strange, "I can't quite place it" taste. The closest I could come was the smells from open air spice markets along the Silk Road in Xinjiang Province of China. A mixture of spices and flowers with strong tones of an Indian black tea. Strange, different and wonderful.

I informed Saeed he must return to Iran at the proper time and bring us all a kilo of this Iranian tea.

Tea Memories

Weekly Commune

The green of spring in the new picked tea

Flushes with joy under the shade of the tree

My friends gather round in gladness gleam

As the tea flows endless like a rippling stream

With mingled memories of happiness, I see

The joys of friendship now sheltering me

This meeting occurs each Saturday at noon

We do not stay silent in this weekly commune

Teas From Our Latest Chinese Adventure

Last month (April) we traveled once again to China and, as always, started and ended our trip at our beloved Emei Mountain.  And, as usual, we were given wonderful green tea from Emei by our many friends in the area.  We have several packages of Zhu Ye Qing green and recently processed Qingming green tea from the mountain as well.

Additionally, I found some unusual tea in Xian, the local Xiyang Mao Jian tea and some Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong Hong Cha from Fujian that the dealer in Xian recommended.  In addition, I had picked up some local Bi Lo Chuan green tea during our stay in LangZhong, Sichuan.  Before we left Chengdu, we also made a visit to the Tea City and got some black tea bricks to take back with us.  For not being a true tea trip, I think we did OK.  Will be tasting these teas as soon as I finish our travel journal for our Travellerspoint travel blog.

A Celebration

On Emei’s peak on a clear night

I see the rising of the super moon

As I sit and watch the awesome sight

The quiet dusk brings a soft Chinese tune

If this spring weather brings not the rain

I wonder how the green tea can thrive

Watching the moon and thinking of tea again

I celebrate just being here and alive

Putuoshan Focha (Buddha Green Tea)

I am always on the look out for tea whenever we travel to China. Since this trip to visit all the sacred mountains in China was going to be our last for quite some time, I wanted to be sure and take advantage of it to buy some interesting tea. We were visiting one of the four sacred Buddhist mountains (Putuoshan) when we got this tea.

I talked Sunee into buying a small can of the local (and very famous) Putuoshan Focha (普陀佛茶) or Buddha tea. It was super expensive but I wanted desperately to try it. We bought the tea at a local tourist place that was part of the package tour of Putuoshan so everything was expensive. I did not even see any tea on the island during our tour. So here it is over a month after arriving back home to Bangkok and I am just getting around to drinking it. Guess I was not so desperate after all.

The leaves are a bit curled and light green and gold with fuzzy hairs on most of the golden buds. They reminded me a little of Mengding Gan Lu but not as tightly wound.

I used my most expensive tea pot. (Hey, my pots are not really that expensive because I was told early on that tea pots made cheaply from the same clay that is artistically designed produces the same level of tea.)

I allowed the water to cool a bit from my boiling pot before pouring into the waiting small amount of tea leaves. I was only going to taste it so my desperation speech to Sunee would become truth.

This tea is as good as advertised or as good as the ads that I had read from some of the big suppliers on tea on the internet had promised . I liked it, very much.

To be perfectly honest, we sneaked a bit of this tea to try in our hotel in Ningbo after finishing the tour of Putuoshan. Neither of us were impressed. We simply put some in a tea cup, poured the boiling water on top and waited for it to turn color. As I recall, it seemed to be very grassy tasting. I got no grassy taste in this, the official tasting. It was sweet and refreshing and like the Longjing tea I had while we were in China, it reminded me of the sparkling water we used to get from the artisian well not far from where I grew up in Oklahoma. Refreshing, sparkling and sweet. I knew I should have bought more of it!

DuJun Mao Jian Tea

Since I did the Henan Xinyang Mao Jian, I figured to break out a little of the Dujun Mao Jian (都均毛尖) that three of my students bought for me in their home town of Guiyang in Guizhou Province where this tea originates. It is a bit different looking than the Xinyang Mao Jian with more silver, yellow and lighter green leaves. Weight wise they seem to be about the same.

Here you can see the silver very clearly and the green does not appear to be as dark as that of the other Mao Jians.

In this close up, one can see why this is called Mao Jian or Hairy Tips. If you look close enough you can see the tiny down-looking hair on many of the lighter leaves. There is a lot of tea in a pound of Mao Jian tea.

I followed pretty much what I did with the Xinyang Mao Jian, letting the boiled water cool for about two or three minutes before I steeped the tea. This Mao Jian does not seem to be as delicate and contrary as that of the Xinyang tea. No matter how much I used or how long it steeped (of course I did not let it steep too long), I tasted no bitterness at all. The liquor is not as sweet and interesting tasting as that of Xinyang Mao Jian but it is very, very good. The color is a bit more yellow and just as light. I still have a lot of this tea in the freezer and have taken some out to drink regularly. It is considered to be one of the top ten classic teas of China. This tea is in most of the top ten lists but in some, if it is not listed it probably would be number eleven. Xinyang Mao Jian is listed in all the top ten teas I have seen.

Here is a nice view of the little cup of Duhun Mao Jian resting peaceably on my tea tray along with the other things brought from China. This tea is supposed to be one of the three treasures of Guizhou. The other two are the Maotai (powerful alcoholic rocket fuel) liquor and Dafang lacquered ware.

My three treasures from Guizhou were Katherine, Craig and Grace. All were from Guiyang and they were some of the finest English students I have ever had. Craig, in particular, was a scholar beyond belief while Grace was the most sophisticated speaker of English in all of China. Katherine was just a sweetheart with excellent English skills and a quiet personality. We visited all three in their home town two years ago and had a fabulous time.

Emei Mountain Yin Zhen Yellow Tea (last drop)

Today I am working on preparing the pictures of my wife's silk scrolls that she is making out of all the watercolor painting she did while in China. So far she has finished 46 and is working on about two or three a day. While getting the pictures ready for publication, I thought I would use up the last of my Mount Emei Yin Zhen yellow tea. I bought this in early 2009 and only have a small amount left. It was very expensive and I bought it along with the Jun Shan Yin Zhen to see if there was any difference. The Jun Shan tea was probably fake but the Mount Emei tea is not as I have seen it for sale in reputable dealers in Chengdu. The tea is probably about a year old and has been stored in the freezer so let's see what we have.

As you can see the leaves still have a nice color to them thanks probably to the freezing. They remind me a lot of the Emei Sparrow Tongue that is so expensive and popular in the region.

This is a good close up view to show the light green, golden color of the individual buds and leaves. Still pretty good shape for being around a year old.

The first steeping and that is really all I could get out of this tea. It was a little sweet, a little this and a little that. It had lost a lot of its marvel but it was refreshing. I do not think it was ever a top grade tea since I bought it at the local department store. Hey, it was drinkable and quenched my thirst a little.

Here you can see the cup of Yin Zhen between my two pee boys and the glass tea decanter with the rest of the tea liquor. I had to get rid of it so drinking it and blogging about it was very pleasurable. When we go back to visit China (probably in October), I plan to get some more yellow tea as well as others. I just got a copy of The Harney & Sons Guide To Tea and plan on trying all the tea they talk about in it that I have not yet tried. The Tea Travelers are not yet done with China.

Xin Yang Mao Jian

Last year in July, we decided to travel to northern China and look specifically for classic Chinese courtyard buildings. Beijing, of course, has the most famous and the most renovated. Shaanxi, however, has several times more than anywhere else in China. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Shaanxi was pretty much the financial center with Pingyao being the most famous. In fact, if one travels in eastern China, one can see the evidence of this success as many of the Shaanxi business people moved to other locations and became equally successful. So why am I writing about this trip in a tea blog?

Our trip began in Yuncheng, Shaanxi and then we traveled to Henan Province so my wife could visit the famous Shao Lin Temple not far from Luoyang. Since Henan is home to one of the top ten teas in classic Chinse tea history, I figured to find some so I could say I bought it in Henan. Thus, for my first tea tasting in Thailand, I dug out the Xin Yang Mao Jian we bought in Luoyang. Chinese Tea Travelers we are!

Here is the sample of Mao Jian bought in Luoyang. I do not recall the exact price for this, but it was not cheap. I do remember my wife not wanting to buy it because it was too expensive. We bought a half pound from the tea merchant's freezer. It has the characteristics of what I have read about Mao Jians - dark green and tightly dried with points at each end.

Before actually preparing this tea, I did some search (again) on the internet to find out if it had some interesting features for which I should be aware. At the Half Dipper tea site (my favorite tea site), I read the article on Xin Yang Mao Jian that saved me a lot of pain. Basically, this tea is very delicate and the water temperature has to be just right for the better Mao Jian from Henan. So I followed his advice for the first steep and used cooled boiling water. Was I rewarded?

This tea matched the Half Dippers comments about an expensive tea. It was refreshing, delicate and kind of reminded me a bit of lemons. I immediately shared it with my wife and she was delighted. Only problem was I did not empty the tea out of the teapot (my only expensive teapot) and when I went for more after about six or seven minutes of continued steeping, the tea was flat out bitter. Wew, it was as bitter as any tea I had ever tasted.

More experiments proved that the tea we had bought in Luoyang was probably the real deal. Too hot of water and it becomes common. Steep too long or use too many leaves and it gets really bitter. Do it right and one has truly one of the best teas in China. Amazing stuff this Xin Yang Mao Jian.

When China Tea Travelers travel they not only look for tea but for tea stuff as well. Here we negotiate for some really fine tea cups. All nice but what I was looking for was the Luoyang Jun pottery made famous during the Ming Dynasty with its three colors. Believe those on the left are the Jun style pottery. Not cheap but we did get a few as well as some of the other ones. Fun to be Tea Travelers indeed.

After our tea shopping trip, we stopped at a nice small restaurant and had some of the local dishes. This one is the most famous vegetarian dish. We broke out our Mao Jian tea and enjoyed it with our meal.

This is not a famous pork dish from Luoyang as we have eaten this all over Sichuan. This dish, however, was especially good with our nice Xin Yang Mao Jian.

I will have more on our trip to Shaanxi and Henan at my Emei blog later on.

2010. Finally A New Beginning

In China, blogger.com got busted just before Tiananmen Square anniversary and it never got unbusted. What can one do?

I tried to set up another tea blog on wordpress but my heart was not in it as I was at the end of a semester and getting ready for our summer vacation. We were heading north to look at Chinese courtyard houses to get an idea of our planned Chinese house in Hua Hin, south of Bangkok.

In September, just after returning from our exciting trip to the north (I also snuck in a trip to Huangshan tea country as well), I experienced a right eye collapse. Actually, I was not sure what it was but it was not right. Internet research convinced me it was a detached retina but Chinese doctors said it was not. I believed because I wanted to believe. Went ahead and did the semester.

We returned to Bangkok in January 2010 and found out the eye definitely had a detached retina. I was in deep trouble because the longer they are detached the harder they are to fixed. To make it short, I underwent three operations from January to March. The last one worked and we returned to China to finish out my contract. History is history and this is a tea blog so enough.

Here is the plan for the next few months. I will be tasting most of the tea I picked up between June and our permanent return to Bangkok. With each tea, I will tell you the story of where and how we got it along with pictures and explanations.

I am back in business! Welcome aboard once more.

Green Tea from Ebian near Black Bamboo Valley

Tian Cha from Dali in Yunnan Province

Bian Xing Cha from the Jiaoda Market

Green Tea Semi-Marathon Tea Tasting

We scheduled a tea tasting to give the Gap Guys one last opportunity to share their ability to taste and develop the "qi of cha". Unfortunately, Tom was sick with an ear infection and John was being stalked by several of the young students he had met at the University. Made for a short but enjoyable tea tasting.

In addition, we had to attend the closing ceremonies for the ongoing English Culture Week. One of our students was going to take part in the opening of the singing contest as a guest singer. Seven finalist meant the opening duets needed an extra. She was the only member of the Foreign Affairs Department to take part in the singing contest. The winner of last semester's contest, our own Giselle, opted out as she was preparing for the finals of the Sichuan-wide speech contest. Other talented members also decided not to participate. We also found out later that Mr. Yao had been the official translator for one of the VPs who closed the week.

Anyway, here is the report from our last tea tasting with the Gap Guys.

We set up our Chinese Tea Service set on my desk which gave us a bit more room to enjoy the tasting. The plan was to do as many greens as we could. Things never turn out as one expects.

John insisted on taking a picture of one half of my now fully stocked tea cabinet. Do you think that my wife and I are serious about tea? She also has a corner full of tea that we plan to send back to Thailand when her family comes to visit us in September. Most of that is Yunnan Dian Cong, Golden Tips and lots of Puerh Beeng Cha.

The three tea stalwarts pose for the beginning of what we hoped would be a green tea tasting marathon.

The first tea was the Ying Bin Cha or welcome tea. I have been looking all over the internet to get information about this tea. "Welcome Tea" is what the wholesaler in Kunming called it. I think it is simply the traditional tea that Yi people in Yunnan Province and elsewhere offer their guests when they first arrive. It is part of the traditional "three tea" ceremony in the Yi culture. First the welcome tea, then the "let's talk and have a good time" tea and, finally, the "sorry to see you go." Hey, it sounds good to me. There really is a three-tea ceremony of the Yi. I am just not sure what kind of tea they use. The information I wrote down in Kunming just stated that it was a traditional welcome tea.

Here I am checking out the "welcome tea." The liquor appeared to be a green tea with nothing to distinguish it from a Yunnan blended green tea. I tried but I found very little to like about it other than as a remarkable green tea.

John received his "welcome tea" with the same dexterity as before. We all open this tea tasting with a hearty "WELCOME ONE AND ALL."

John gets the same reaction as I did with this tea. A weak and mild tea. John, however, in his unusual ability to taste the essence of tea, suggests that it is not really from the tea plant but a herbal tea. He does not think it tasted anything like a tea.

Dave takes this unusual picture that really shows off the beauty of one of the tea cups I bought in Yunnan. We discuss the possibility that John brings up.

All of us then check out the dried leaves once more to see if it is a herbal tea. Here is a picture of the dried leaves. We all concluded that this was, indeed, a herbal tea and not a real tea.

Dave shows his disdain for this herbal tea. He says it is uninspiring while I added that I would never again welcome any guest to my home with this tea.

While taking pictures, John also takes another good taste and agrees with our assessment.

Finishing the herbal "welcome tea."

A stalker calls John and takes him out of the tea tasting "game" for several precious moments. It is obvious that we have lost him as a viable taster of fine teas. This continues through the late afternoon until we are forced to shut things down and attend the singing contest.

We next do the Zhu Ye Qing green tea that Dave had brought from Mengding Mountain near Ya'an. He had gone there with Robert and had found a plantation that offered Zhu Ye Qing. They had tried the best and it was marvelous. The tea that Dave had given me was not the top quality but was probably number two. Our goal was to compare it to a top quality Zhu Ye Qing from Emei Mountain.

Here John, get off the phone and try this fine quality green tea from the number one tea green mountain in all of China - Mengding Mountain..

John forced the stalker to hang up so he could try this Mengding Zhu Ye Qing green tea. He liked it as he sits back and enjoys its "qi." A full-bodied "qi" he quips.

Dave agreed that this was a good green tea with a lot of "qi."

The Mengding Zhu Ye Qing has the familiar yellow green liquor found Zhu Ye Qings from Emei Mountain. Beautiful color!

Next up is a top quality Zhu Ye Qing from Her Majesty - Emei Mountain. This tea as given to me by the University for my work getting ready for the CCTV Speech Contest last month. People do not go to the trouble of putting cheap tea in expensive little bags like this. This stuff was expensive!

John is given the honor of trying the first cup of Emei's finest. He was not disappointed. This tea could very well be the world's finest green tea.


Dave frantically takes notes on what we think of this Zhu Ye Qing. He, too, has an inner feeling that we are enjoying the world's finest green tea, or at least the finest green tea that the likes of middle class working stiffs like us could afford.

Emei Mountain Zhu Ye Qing in all its golden green beauty. Simply the best.

To get John away from his stalker machine (cell phone), Dave and I insist that he take over the Tea Meister's slot. Here I explain the fine art of tea processing.

With confidence way beyond his years, John proves to be a novice expert at tea processing. as he pours all of us some fine green tea we picked up in Chuxiong - Bai Zhu Shan Lu Cha or White Bamboo Mountain green tea.

The stalkers do not leave John alone and we are only able to do this one last green before it is time to head out to the final installment of English Culture Week.

Before we head out, we take some much needed sustenance in the form of cookies. These are now a tradition at our tea tasting parties.

In addition, Sunee brings us some dumplings that she has unfrozen and prepared for us. They are inexpensive, convenient and very TOM DELICIOUS!

Hey do they look like this:

Notice the comment below from someone probably from Russia. I saved the recipe for these Russian dumplings and they are, indeed, very similar.

We closed out this tea tasting early because of the constant stalking of John and the start of the singing contest. Soon the Gap Guys will be back in England. Hope they carry on the tradition of tea tasting.

An Invitation To An Evening of Tea Tasting