I’ve got a lot going on related to sharing experience with tea, maybe too much. I write a blog about it, Tea in the Ancient World, and co-founded a Facebook group, International Tea Talk, and write a Quora Space, Specialty Tea. But this isn’t about me, it’s about what I’m trying to communicate. A short introduction anyway: I’m an American living in Bangkok, married with two amazing kids, working in IT, but educated in both engineering and philosophy, focused on Buddhism.
Having grown up with Lipton everyone would think they know what tea is. It could also be green tea, or matcha, and the British and Indians are clear on loose tea as a form with no tea bag. Tisanes, herb teas, are also familiar, at least that they exist, chamomile and such. So exactly what is that people are missing? It’s not “the health benefits of green tea.” Maybe what oolong really is, or something else?
Both. Oolong really is that watery, vaguely roasty drink familiar in Chinese restaurants, but that’s not a form that does even that sub-type justice. That’s typically a variation of Wuyi Yancha or “rock oolong,” probably a Shui Xian plant type, part of a Fujian (Chinese province) roasted oolong category. But Da Hong Pao is the “better” type more people are familiar with, and few know the full story of what Da Hong Pao even is.
Light rolled oolongs seem like a more natural starting point to me, Tie Guan Yin and such (a plant type and finished version name), or high mountain grown and location-named versions from Taiwan. Some of those are more oxidized, a bit towards black tea, and some are roasted, opening up a range of final aspect experiences. Oriental Beauty is something else from Taiwan, a typically very oxidized version that picks up citrus and cinnamon spice flavors from the input of a bug biting the leaves, from a chemical response by the plant, not directly caused by the leafhoppers. Dan Cong is the other main type of oolong, as I see it, very intense, sophisticated, fruity or floral range oolongs from Chaozhou, Guangdong China.
A friend makes both Wuyi Yancha and Dan Cong. That’s rare; usually if one encounters a “Chinese tea farmer” on Facebook, who speaks English and sells several tea types, they are really a reseller telling stories. She has a legitimate, unique story: she’s from Wuyishan and her husband is from Chaozhou, from tea making families that go generations back, building on hundreds of years of tea making history. To me they are tea royalty, but she is so humble that she won’t accept being called a tea expert. To put that timeline in perspective the English first explored growing tea in India around about 1770 or 80, and made the first real commercial start around 1825 or so, only then learning that Assamica variety tea plants (Camellia Sinensis) that had been there for centuries grew better than the variety Sinensis ones they had smuggled out of China.
Of course good tea is not just oolong. Dian Hong, black tea from Yunnan, named after the old province name, is another personal favorite. I drink the most sheng pu’er now, a type probably closest to green tea but less “fixed” by a kill-green heating step so that it continues to change and ferment over time. That single sentence opens doors into lots of branches of tea themes and interests. One could justifiably say that sheng pu’er is a version of hei cha, so closest to that branch of tea types, or instead reject that category use. Any mention of sheng pu’er brings up shu pu’er, a wet-piled and post-fermented version that approximates the aging and fermentation process sheng goes through over 15–20 years in just a few months. It takes forever to explain or experience how sheng pu’er softens and changes character over just a couple of years, so that the same tea is continuously experienced differently over that two decades.
It takes some doing untangling what tea oxidation and fermentation really are, but reading those linked blog posts makes short work of that, cutting out years of experience through partly incorrect online tea group discussion input. Then there is also white tea, the simplest tea type, which is not simple at all in terms of the range of types, origins, and aging potential concerns.
My basic message can easily be missed by describing these tangents, or even pointing towards the directions they lead in. It’s that tea is a worthy, interesting, and positive experience, a journey that can continue covering new ground indefinitely. It’s as simple, easy, and inexpensive or as complex and involved as you make it. People tend to associate tea and personal connections, and I talk less about that, but it probably has changed my life most in that sense. The beverage experience itself really stands alone, but sharing that experience can add depth.
It might seem like I’m mentioning an exotic, difficult to enter world of foreign-themed food experience, but I don’t see it that way. Drop by a Chinatown and you can pick up a couple of tins of everything I’m discussing for cheap, in the basement of a market store, or scooped from large plastic bins. The middle of the quality range is where the real meat of the experience starts in; I just recommended several starting points in a Reddit post comment that cost around 10 cents per gram. Put 25 cents worth of that tea in a coffee mug, steep for 2 or 3 minutes, then strain it out into a second, and your own journey has started. The second and third steps of that path involve re-steeping the same leaves. After that you will have experienced more about character progression through an infusion cycle than 99% of everyone who thinks they have tried tea, but sort of haven’t yet.
If all this sounds good but you feel that you need a bit more help I’m there for you. Scan what I’ve written in those places, and look me up on my blog-related Facebook page with questions. I don’t sell tea, and my time runs a little tight typically, but spreading the word and helping others — without concern over self-benefit — are both personal habits and interests. But this isn’t at all about me; it’s about you trying real tea for the first time.