my Nana could feel us down here thinking of her

Shanghai tea house in Hamburg

While planning my trip to the US, I considered bringing enough tea from home. I have enough, and really don't need any new tea. But such is the quandary of a tea obsessive. I don't need any, but...I desperately want to try new tea. Although I write about tea shops in Germany and around Europe, I have several American tea sources I like. I use these trips while visiting family to take advantage of the places I like the most.

Here I was going through Upton Tea's website ordering one from Java and another tea from India...(a black one I'd never even heard of) and I'm sure I'll get around to talking about here. At some point, I intend to incorporate all the tea I'm drinking on my trip, but as you know I like to write about non tea-related things here, as well.

While I was wrapping up my order, Upton Tea suggested a sample of a tea that they were nearly out of. As I read about it, I thought, 'Oh, my. This is eerily appropriate for the purpose of my visit.' My maternal grandmother passed away recently, and the family is scattered all over. We arranged to meet this weekend. Despite what sounds like it could be a sad and depressing situation, we really had a good time celebrating her life rather then mourning anything.

'What does any of this have to do with tea?' you're wondering. I'm glad you asked. So the tea I read about was called China Pre-Chingming Golden Pekoe. But that'd mean nothing without what I'm going to tell you next. Here's the direct link to the description of the tea that was provided.

As it says:

The festival of Chingming (Qingming) is a 2500 year-old tradition in which people visit the burial sites of their ancestors to pay respect. It is significant in Chinese tea culture because it serves as a demarcation between a distinct pre-Chingming plucking period and the subsequent plucking period occurring after the festival date (usually around April 5). Pre-Chingming teas are prized for their delicacy and subtle, fresh nuances.

So, it's a tea for the ancestors. Honouring one's ancestors specifically. How ideal is this? Like I was almost led to it just in time for my trip. Then I read more about the holiday Ching Ming, which actually takes place every year on 5 April (Here's more about that in Ching Ming). We're weren't willing to wait till next year for 5 April to come rolling round again. We had ancestor-honouring to take care of.

I mentioned my Aunt Elise when I wrote getting into tea in Tucson, and I knew she and her daughter (my cousin Alyssa) enjoyed drinking tea and would appreciate the symbolism of doing so in my grandmother's honour. My mother really likes tea, so it was a foregone conclusion that she'd be game for just such an endeavour.

If there was ever a perfect scenario for throwing out the first infusion, this was it. I'd read years ago that many Taiwanese, as well as Mainland Chinese I assume, discard the first infusion as some sort of symbol to the ancestors. Something like you're giving tea to the spirit of those that came before you. Yet, I had no intention of doing it. I don't like throwing tea away.

But the funny/spooky thing that happened? I unwittingly spilled the first infusion. All of it. If that's how the ancestors want to get their first infusion from us, that's the least we could do for them. Then the actual next infusion was poured and enjoyed by me and these ladies (my mom and aunt) who've meant so much in my life.

The tea was a tad bitter the fist few sips, but that settled down quite nicely. A nice caramel taste in the cup, I definitely drank this in my grandmother's honour. She might not have understood what on earth we were doing with a Gaiwan and those little cups, but I'm hopeful my Nana could feel us down here thinking of her.

tea out of egg cups

Don't know many tea drinkers where I live. I'm sure they're out there, but for the most part my tea community is online. There are some really nice tea places in Munich, and one of my goals in the new year is to spend some time visiting the different options and reviewing them here.

Yet I have made some friendships online that've transitioned into the real world. Wrote about meeting a few of you at the 1st annual Tea Trade gathering, which was quite a joy. I mentioned to Xavier then that we're often in Southern France for New Year's, and there was talk about maybe meeting each other there. Or here I should say, because Nice is where we are.

I'm sure there'll be plenty more about tea in the days to come, but in the meantime, we had a very nice Gong Fu session with some simple Dung-ti Oolong. I packed a Gaiwan for this very purpose, but knew I'd have to improvise when it came to tea cups.

The flat we're staying in had the perfect-sized egg cups, so that's what we drank out of. Unconventional as they might've been, it worked perfectly. 

little Gaiwan's workload

* (the red dragon attempting to take my tea) *

How do you welcome a new teapot into your life? It's a ridiculous question, but I was thinking about the interview I might have with a piece of tea paraphernalia before taking it back to a very good home. Mine.

Many tea fanatics have excessive gear. Pots as well as cups and saucers and the list is rather endless...In order to call myself a tea obsessive, I'm not even sure what stuff I'm missing . I know my cupboard is light when it comes to this subject.

But I do have a growing collection, and typically I go for function rather than form. When I was first experimenting with Gong Fu brewing, I didn't even have a glass teapot, so I was using a large measuring beaker. Thought I'd written more extensively about that here, but maybe in a moment of wisdom, I destroyed the evidence.

Wrote about one of my favourite pieces of tea gear in shrinking my teapots. Still like the photo of that teapot from the dead of winter.

But without further ado, here's my relatively new little Gaiwan:



What would I ask the little guy if I wanted to let him know that a teapot's existence might be a bit overwhelming? Don't want to freak him out before he even gets accustomed to his new digs. But in the interest of full disclosure, it's probably best that I'm up front about the workload around here. At least for such a little Gaiwan.

Why wouldn't he be thrilled at the opportunity? What else is his purpose as a piece of tea paraphernalia? You know, that's the path to just taking your tea gear for granted.

accesible Gong Fu

When I think about who I write this blog for, other than for myself, I imagine people who're curious about tea and want to know more. There are certainly some rather knowledgeable people who come here, but there are so many beautiful and knowledgeable blogs about tea. I want to try and help demystify tea drinking a bit, and so I purposely write with the tea newcomer in mind.

Because I'm passionate about it in my daily life, I get a lot of earnest questions. I'm sure some of the more direct inquiries never get made. Along the lines of, 'Wow, this guy's a bit obsessive, isn't he?' But instead, people ask me a variety of questions both general and specific. And I figure such curiosity is the perfect sort of thing to write about here.

So my friend Gaby was over the other evening, and I offered her a glass of wine or some sort of sparkly fruit beverage. She knew I'd be drinking tea, so she insisted that sharing tea with me would be just perfect. I have a new Gaiwan that she hadn't seen, so I decided to go the way of Oolong. It wasn't immediately clear if I'd made the right choice.

Recently, I read something Alex Zorach said about not doing Gong Fu in a traditional way. Essentially his idea was, and I hope I'm paraphrasing it correctly, that he did a sort of a modified Gong Fu that might look a bit strange to a purist. Those are really my words, but the point was that he brewed in a way that worked best for him.

I think it's applicable if my above-mentioned goal was to make tea drinking a bit more approachable. As I poured the first infusion of the Milky Oolong for Gaby, she looked at the curious little snifter cup. 'Where did you learn about all of this?' It's a funny question. I've watched plenty of videos, been to tea ceremonies, peppered tea shop owners with a myriad of questions.

She didn't particularly like the smell of the first infusions of the Milky Oolong, so I didn't make such a big deal of sniffing every infusion. She did like the taste. She said it smelled like a flower you can get at the Viktualienmarkt, which is an open-air market in downtown Munich. Maybe it was called the Joshua flower, but she wasn't sure.

The nice thing was that she was so curious and so eager to try each new infusion. Although she preferred the taste of the tea to the smell, she continued to use the snifter cup. She liked the tea as it got weaker and lighter. As we continued through cup after cup, I tasted less 'milky' and more Oolong, but it wasn't the most complex tea.

What's my point here? Do I really think I can proselytise and convince everyone I know to not only drink tea, but go the way of Gong Fu brewing? No way. But it was a pleasure to see how accessible it was for a tea newcomer. It was nearly a foregone conclusion that I'd have a good time with all of this, but I was very pleased that Gaby did.

a tea stumble through Georgetown

Had several hours in Washington DC, and after making a quick search of tea rooms I found a few places that looked interesting in Georgetown. Actually, it seems like there are quite a few options for afternoon tea in nice hotels in the city, but by that time I'd already be back on my way to the airport. I think I did pretty well under the circumstances. For example, I've written here about Bubble Tea but had never had it. Well, once I realised that this little tea/snack shop featured some authentic Bubble Tea, if there is such a thing, I had to try it. Here I am on the left pre-Bubble Tea.




The place is called Snap (1062 Thomas Jefferson Street Northwest, Washington D.C. (202) 965-7627) and it's right around the corner from the historic C & O Canal in Georgetown.




Let me first say that I didn't have high hopes for this beverage. I'd even say that I prepared myself to be thoroughly disgusted. The young woman behind the counter was very friendly and eager to explain what the whole phenomenon was about. She said that one of the biggest problems with serving it is that it's made in such a wide variety of ways that people come in with very specific expectations of how it should taste.



There were many different flavours I could've chosen, but I went for a simple green tea. It's iced and served with a healthy portion of milk. Again, this isn't how I'd normally drink green tea, but I wanted the requisite experience in all of its glory. At the bottom of the glass, or in this case plastic to-go cup, are a layer of tapioca balls. Another variation offers little balls or pearls made of jelly. Many think the name comes from these pearls/balls, but it was explained to me that the bubble in the name actually comes from the froth that results when the drink is violently shaken.

Those of you who came for a teablog have likely already changed the channel. I don't blame you. But here's the thing: it wasn't bad. I wouldn't go for it everyday, but I can see why prepubescent South Korean girls go nuts about this stuff. In the future, they are welcome to have mine.

So a few streets over, there was a real tea room. It was immediately clear that this was the sort of place made for tea lovers. All the best things that come time to mind when I say Chinese Tea Room are involved here. The place is called Chin Ching Cha, and they know what they're doing.






The high ceilings and unbelievable selection of tea gear made me want to stay here much longer than my schedule allowed. There were as many Gaiwan and Yixing teapots as you see on many websites. There were some conventional looking packages of tea, but there were also beautiful tea tins with exquisite loose-leaf tea. I was the proverbial kid in a candy shop.






The only thing I'd complain about is that the prices for actually sitting down and drinking tea were rather steep. After perusing the website, I notice that having a meal there (with tea included) might be more economical. The menu I was offered explicitly said that the prices were for individual servings only, so sharing a pot was not an option. When I questioned the prices and the rigid serving arrangement, I was told that it was a tea house not a restaurant. I'm still trying to decipher what that meant exactly.

If you read this blog even periodically, you know I'm rarely negative, and aside from the prices here is no exception. The room was indeed beautiful. Were I living in the area, I might make an excuse to come here sometimes. An important client. A special occasion. Please don't take my word for it. Go see it yourself.

sniffing tea leaves...over and over again

If you were accustomed to brewing simple black tea in a pot, what would you think if you started reading about Gong Fu brewing of Oolong tea?

You plug Oolong into a search engine, and find videos of people pouring tea out of little Gaiwan pots and inviting the others at the table to sniff the leaves. It's almost as if you've wandered in off the street into a freaky tea leaf smelling cult.

I've met tea drinkers who want nothing to do with all of this. On more than one occasion, I've explained my fascination with Oolong to someone who already likes drinking tea, but they stare back at me with incredulity. Multiple steepings of the same lea leaves? Really? Can you not afford fresh tea?

No, I assure you-the tea changes as you brew it repeated times. The taste develops. It really does.

But let's say you're still on the fence about this one. You don't know about buying a lot of tea gear for something you're not even sure you're going to like. Some of those sites about Oolong you found talked about the Gaiwan, while others mentioned a Yixing teapot. What is all of this stuff? Is it really necessary?

The complicated answer is that yes, the tea tastes different brewed in a specialist's clay pot. But actually the simple answer is no. I often write this blog with the tea newcomer in mind, and I'd like to describe how I started brewing Oolong before I bought any new paraphernalia.

The first thing to remember is more tea/less water for short steeping times.

For this discussion, I'm going to use Hampstead Tea's Oolong from the Makaibari Tea Garden. I've intended to review this tea for a while, so here's my chance. How much tea exactly? I'm making a small container of tea, so I'd suggest one or two handfuls of tea leaves. Like here.



The initial infusion rarely offer much in terms of flavour. It's custom in some tea ceremonies to even throw the first steeping out. But even if it's just to see if there is much taste, I always sample the first go round at least. For our purposes, I'm using a measuring jug. Remember, we're approaching this with common household materials. Here's what the leaves look like in the glass:





Now this will probably be completely counterintuitive considering you normally brew tea for much longer, but only 20 or 30 seconds for each steeping. Really. Oolong is rarely bitter (it's one thing people really like about it), but if you let so much tea in so little water brew for much longer, it can get strong. That's what happened in the first infusion above because I was taking the photo, but by the second it came out perfectly. A very dark brown cup colour, and a deliciously light, even smoky, taste.




You won't simply dump the leaves into your cup/mug along with your delicious tea. This slotted ladel was almost certainly not intended for this purpose, but all that really matters is that you find something to strain the liquid and separate the leaves. Say what you like, this works for me in a pinch. The third time round is a bit less smoky and there's even a bit of a lemon taste.






So what do you think? If you've heard/read about multiple tea infusions, have you given it a try? Might this description help you jump in and do a bit of your own experimenting?

If you've been doing this forever, how did you come to it? Did you acquire the proper utensils before you ever attempted this? What was your experience early on? Did I leave anything important out that you think is really necessary? Please let me/us know. I'll be over here sniffing my tea leaves.