Green tea part II

For once I have fresh tea, and I'm actually writing tasting notes again. All of these teas are from teaspring, and are fresh 2011 teas.


Meng Ding Gan Lu is a personal favorite because it's a tea that usually has a strong aroma, and the flavor is fairly deep and sweet. The one from teaspring is no exception. It has a deep sweet flavor that seems to coat the tongue. A slight toastiness gives it a very subtle caramelized sugar flavor. The aroma of the dry leaves as I poured water in suggested a hint of smoke, but that's absent from the brewed tea.

Huo Shan Huang Ya is a yellow that I remember enjoying once, so I decided to give it another try. It's very similar to what I remember. It's a more roasted tea, especially for a tea as close to green tea as this. The roastiness is similar to a beany longjing. For what it is, it's a very enjoyable tea, though a bit one dimensional, and I still can't taste what makes yellow tea different from green tea. **emphasizes that it is enjoyable**

Yang Yan Gou Qing is a tea I've only ever seen on teaspring, and one that I can't pass up on when it comes out fresh. From what I remember, it has consistently been the most full flavored green out of all the teas I had at the time. Though first time I brewed it again, I was afraid that this year was not a good year for this tea because it was lackluster. When I brewed it again, I used more leaf, and was pleasantly surprised that it was just bad brewing initially. This one may actually be similar to green tieguanyin. The texture is very thick, and it tastes slightly buttery. However, The buttery flavor isn't overpowering like in a tieguanyin. It also has a strong vegetal flavor balances it out.

Wuyi Qu Hao is a tea I believe I tried once before because I was intrigued by the idea of a green from Wuyi. I also remember having higher hopes for it (perhaps because yancha come from Wuyi) but it was just an average green tea. My first attempt brewing this years qu hao solidified this idea. It seemed a touch bitter, and was strongly piney, and slightly smokey. Brewing it again at least showed how enjoyable it could be. It's still piney and smokey, but a sweeter green flavor came out too, giving it more balance.

This may be my first tea order where I haven't had one bad tea. I imagine I'll even be eager to brew the dust of these teas.

I also ordered some yancha from teaspring, but I feel it's too early to write serious tasting notes. Both are about two years old, and seem to have been re-roasted recently. It seems like it was re-roasted well, but the recent roast seems to overpower any tea flavor.

Green tea

My taste for tea has finally come back, so maybe I'll blog about it! I recently got a few 2011 greens from teaspring.com and it has me getting back into the tea journey.

I don't exactly know why I'm blogging about this, but I guess it's better than talking to myself about tea. Whenever I get into something, I submerge myself in it trying to better understand it myself. My blog thus far is about my journey with tea, though lately I feel I got too hung up on certain details trying to perfect how I brew tea. I never believed that tea is inherently bad, it just needs to be brewed better, and appreciated for what it is (unless it's stale or abused in some way or another). So, I always focused on brewing, which I never quite got good at. I toyed with water and any and all parameters. It never quite got through to me that simplicity is best. This post is about how I brew green tea now.

I have a post about tea water not too far down the page that gets into unnecessary scientific words, and overall should just be deleted from this blog. If I had my word on tea water, it's to treat it simply, and always bring to a boil before cooling to the temperature needed. I just use filtered tap water, and I have a simple stainless steel kettle with a whistle that I boil water in. Since I almost always cool the water, I just dump boiled water from that into a ceramic kettle to cool it down. I don't use thermometers and I don't go by bubble size, I judge the water temperature by the steam. I leave the lid off until the steam gently wafts from the kettle. I found this to be the easiest and most convenient way to get the water to the right temperature without the use of a thermometer. I don't know what temperature it is, I just know it works. From there, I brew and drink tea in an un-preheated gaiwan with the lid off.

Now that talking out loud is done, I'll leave off here. I'll follow this up with a few tasting notes of the teas I'm currently drinking hopefully tomorrow.

Ex-vegan

Yay, back to personal blog...

I don't know what it is about veganism, but it seems like it's impossible to retain an indifferent feeling towards it. I was a very strict vegan for nearly a year, and after going to "the dark side" I dislike veganism with the same passion that I defended it with before.

I know there are enough ex-vegan stories out there, but I don't see any problem with another one on a dead tea blog. When you are under the influence of veganism, it's hard to see the whole problem if health starts to decline. As a vegan, I looked back at pictures of myself just before becoming vegetarian in the first place, and wondered why I at least looked healthy back then. I had a sneaking suspicion that if I could just eat meat, I would look healthy again, but that would mean including cholesterol and animal fats back in my diet.

The long story:
I went vegetarian shortly after meeting my girlfriend who was vegetarian at the time. We went to vegetarian friendly places, and I wound up eating vegetarian (I even ordered a vegan option before I knew she was vegetarian). After a while, I noticed that I started feeling better, so I made the decision to go vegetarian. Sometime after realizing I don't eat animals, I felt good about myself for being able to look at animals without thinking they could possibly be food. I felt liberated, and suddenly it became an ethical stance. So, now that I care about the animals, I learn about the dairy industry feeding the veal industry, and everything else, so veganism seems like the ideal. It took a while to give up eggs and cheese, but I do it, and my girlfriend was more than happy to go vegan because she was vegan for 5 years before being alienated into including some animal products into her diet.

It was exciting and liberating giving up all animal products. Sure I missed being able to have more options going out to eat and whatnot, but I was too excited during this period to care. I even went to Sams club with my parents, and was shocked how much they rely on animals for food. I even felt as strongly about honey as I felt about meat simply because it was an animal product.

The gradual downfall begins. Sometime later, my parents tell me that I'm not looking as healthy as I used to. My eyes started to develop bags under them, and I started losing weight. I thought I just wasn't eating enough. Then the school semester starts, and everything starts falling apart, while my stance as a vegan just strengthens. I lose more weight, I start feeling weak, and I start getting tired all the time. I gave blood once during this time, and the weakness after giving blood didn't go away after a week or two, so I went to the doctor for blood tests. I wasn't sure what the doctor would say since there is the understanding among vegans that doctors know nothing about nutrition. He just asked why I was vegan, and went about blood tests without ever saying that I should change my diet. Everything came back normal, but I still felt tired and weak. I ended up deciding that I wasn't eating enough.

Sometime during all of this, I start learning about veganism and health, and constantly read about how it's the healthiest diet ever because it's low fat and has no cholesterol. I even toyed with the idea of going raw vegan, but some research on beyondveg.com quickly steered me away from it. But now that I discovered this site, I keep reading about the downsides of vegetarian diets that get overlooked. At this point, my weight started dipping down to 119 and I my health started getting worse and worse. I was tired all the time, I was incredibly prone to depression which isn't like me, and I just simply looked like a pale and sickly vegan. My face looked drawn out and started turning yellow next to my eyes. With all these problems, I slowly started weeding out vegetarian myths to convince myself that I should change my diet. It was a long process, but was sped up when my body started aching everywhere, and I started getting chest pains. I have had my lungs collapse 3 times in the past, and had lung surgery twice, so this was particularly scary for me. At this point, I had no appetite, and I just drank a lot of yerba mate to soothe the pain. At last I decide to go vegetarian, which helped a lot. I ate eggs in the morning, and included a lot of cheese in everything else. The eggs in particular made me feel the best. Because I felt better eating animal products, I didn't feel it was unethical, but I still couldn't justify eating meat. After less than a week, I felt I plateaued as a vegetarian. The best I felt was in the morning after eggs, and the rest of the day was downhill. It was the hardest thing for me to do, but I went back to eating meat, and my girlfriend did too. We went to the Olive Garden for our first taste of meat in how long, and I remember driving there feeling like I was driving to my execution. I still felt guilty, but ate it anyway.

It was a bit of a process, but I'm no longer ethically opposed to it, and I feel better than ever eating meat. I'm no longer tired all the time, and can even stay awake in class now. I'm no longer prone to depression I gained most of my weight back, and I got back to exercising with enthusiasm. In fact, I feel like I need to exercise to blow off some energy. I stopped taking multivitamins about a week ago, and feel fine, which wasn't possible even as a vegetarian.

My diet now is questionable as far as health goes, but I feel so much better on it than when I was vegan. As a vegan, I tried cooking at home as much as possible, and tried limiting the fake meats and processed foods. It wasn't ideal, but it appeared much healthier than a meat based diet. Now I eat more processed foods (though I still limit them) and I consume a lot of fat, especially saturated fat. I come close to shunning sugar entirely, though I eat a fair amount of fruit, and occasionally put honey in yerba. I guess my point is, if it's that hard to be healthy as a vegan, and that easy to be healthy as an omnivore without even supplementing, I don't see how veganism could be so natural.

The reason I'm writing this is just to possibly help vegans or vegetarians that don't feel healthy after giving up meat and animal products. I know this is an obscure dead tea blog of some nobody, but I want to contribute in whatever small way I can. It is truly difficult to make the realization that animal products or even meat may be required to be healthy. I remember reading the blog "let them eat meat" as a vegan, and writing it off because vegan freak told me that ex-vegans are the devil and can't be trusted. I wish I would have listened back then, if you're not feeling as healthy as a vegan, you're not doing veganism wrong, veganism is just wrong for you.

I'm also writing this because I'm annoyed that I can't leave the subject alone. I feel like I'm recovering from an eating disorder, and I want nothing to do with vegan ethics, but I feel like I can't get away from it. I keep reading vegan sites for amusement, and often read ex-vegan stuff too. I also read "the vegetarian way" which is a constant source of amusement and frustration. I just want to forget about this part of my life, but I can't leave it alone. I already plan to burn my copy of "skinny bitch" but I guess this will be a bit of process. For now, I'll just post this, then decide whether I want sardines or a riblet sandwich.

Gongfu Cha!

So, I decided to move this blog in the direction of *coffee*.

So first *coffee* is a cinnamon flavored *coffee*.

First thing I noticed when trying it is that it's not as roasted as it used to be. This style in particular has been my favorite *coffee* since I first tried it, but it's just different now. It smells kinda like how the more roasted version smelled, but the roast seems to wash away pretty fast when brewed.

Dissapointments aside, it's a good *coffee*. It has a nice creamy texture, with a hint of sweetness. There is a slight spicy flavor to it, but it also seems just as floral as it is spicy. The aftertaste has the typical sweetness with some fruity flavors, but it's also kinda spicy.



*yancha* From Jingteashop. Guess which one.

I might try to start blogging for a little while, but I think I'm going to find ways to make the posts difficult to read.

Revist of a revist of a revist

'07 Dragon Teahouse dahongpao
Old tasting notes.

Ok, I only wrote notes for this tea once, but it feels like I've revisted this tea many times already. It's the only tea I've bought 600 grams of, and drank somewhat regularly for almost 2 years.

The reason I bought so much of it was because I really enjoyed the first 100 grams of it, and the price was right to get 500 grams. I also wanted to age some while having enough to drink while aging. So, it's about a year and a half later, and I have about 50 grams of "aged" tea. I didn't re-roast or anything, just let the "fire taste" mellow.

From the smell of the leaves in the tin, the roasted/charcoal smell is gone. The brewed tea has a slight bitterness, but has enough sweetness to cover the bitterness. It has a fairly thick and oily mouthfeel. The charcoal flavor is gone, and only a toasty flavor is left. It has a strong fruit flavor (the same one I need a new descriptor for). Maybe plum and peach would be slightly better than "fruit." The aftertaste is very similar to milan dancong in flavor and strength.

I have held onto other yancha for a while thinking it would age, but it usually just went stale. So, I'm a bit surprised how this one came out. It actually aged so that the roast mellowed, and the flavor of the leaf came out.

Although, it's hard to say if I enjoyed it more a year ago, or now.

Revisits

Golden Buddha (JinFo) from Red Blossom.

The dry leaves have a chocolatey aroma.
First infusion: At first, it seemed to be dominated by charcoal, but then opened up. It has an acidic touch, and finishes with a fairly strong sweet aftertaste.

Second infusion: Charcoal mellowed, and it sweetened up a bit. Slightly creamy, and a bit fruity (I really need a new descriptor for that taste). Still leaves a strong aftertaste.

Third infusion: Even less charcoal. Other than that, it's about the same as the last.

Fourth infusion: A bit lighter.

I first started writing these notes thinking it would be the first I've written for this tea. While searching old notes to try to figure out how old this tea is, I found notes for this tea. Old tasting notes I found it interesting comparing the notes. My brewing has definitely improved since then, but I don't know if the differences were from better brewing, or aging. The aftertaste was particularly strong this time, but the old notes say it had a light aftertaste. I also didn't notice the "tgy like roast" this time.
In conclusion, I'm ordering more of this tea today.


'93 Sheng
Old notes

Dry leaves still smell a bit spicy, but not nearly like the spice cabinet it used to smell like. It also smells like it has seen a little wet storage. After the rinse, it smells more malty.

First infusion: I wish I had a camera for this one, the color of the liquor is almost exactly the same color as the table it's on. Dark mahogany. Very smooth, bit a bit light in flavor. Malt, and beets (I recently tasted beets for the first time lately, and it's amazingly like aged puerh).

Second infusion: a bit darker and stronger. Spicier, and still a bit malty.

Third infusion: Still getting smoother and maltier. Although, it's not as spicy.
I think I'll stop here.

It's not a bad tea, but it's not really my cup of tea. If you like shu, you might love this tea.

I might post today

I just decided to try writing tasting notes (one again), and ended up stumbling across a lot of old posts that would be very helpful in the future. So, I'm going to try to post them, however rough they might be.

5/22/08
'06 Haiwan laotongzhi

I was curious how my puerh is aging, so I decided to try this one. It was a favorite last year

~1/4 leaves, rinse, 30s, 15s, forgot, forgot, and forgot (I didn't list)

The aroma of the leaves hasn't really changed. Still packs a good amount of campfire smoke, a slight citrus aroma, and a bit of a "green" aroma. Still smells pretty good.

First infusion: Medium mouthfeel. Citrus shows up first, and slowly fades to cigarette smoke. Menthol cigarettes? It has a strong menthol, cooling effect on the tongue. Finishes with a good amount of astringency, no meaningful aftertaste.

Second infusion: Bitter! I obviously lost my tolerance of sheng bitterness. Kinda like green/cirtus flavor, that becomes a menthol/smoky flavor.

Third infusion: I still have hopes that this will age well. I imagine the current menthol flavors will become camphor, and the smoke will make a more "masculine" tasting old pu. I just don't want to drink it again until it's well aged. :/


On the opposite side of the fennce: laotongzhi shu. I recently found that I still have some of this left from Salsero's second best teahouse. It was one of the first few shus I've tried that I actually liked

3 small chunks in a 100ml pot. long rinse, 30s, forgot, forgot, and forgot.

Dry leaf: I finally found the rubber! Everyone talked about it smelling like rubber, but I never noticed it until now.
Wet leaf: very malty, and only a bit of rubber.

First infusion: The liquor is fairly light for a shu. I can just barely see the bottom of the cup. Very smooth, but rubber covers the more pleasant maltiness.

Second infusion: A lot darker, but still light enough to have dark ruby edges. Tastes about the same as the first.