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.

ring that gong

Am watching Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and remembering the Gong Show.

What used to be so wild and unpredictable seems so tame in comparison with today. I had a professor in school who used to say that people haven't really changed since the time of Chaucer. We think that our technology has advanced us, but ultimately we're organically the same animal that we've been for a long, long time.

Today's Gong Show is exponentially more wild on Youtube.

Where does tea fit into all of this? It just seems to improve what already was. I was always looking for a drink that'd both calm me and enliven me. When I finish a delicious pot of tea and immediately brew another, it's never going to send my heart-rate over the edge like other beverages.

So the world swirls round. Television and now the internet continue to show us the limitless variety of creatures we really are. And I'm brewing yet another infusion of Milky Oolong. All is right with the world.

How do you make 'milky' Oolong?

Have done a bit of research, but found very little of substance. I was asked today about Milky Oolong, which I really like, and immediately answered that the better quality Milky Oolong is not artificially flavoured. But then I got to thinking about it and wondered how they make this tea. I'm going to open it up here, and ask you all if you know how this tea is made. Do you?

One site called enjoyingtea.com explained it this way:

Milk oolong tea, harvest in Taiwan, is also known as Jian Xuan. When brewed this tea produces a milky aroma and a creamy light sweet taste. The milk oolong is naturally processed with no artificial flavoring. The cream milky taste and aroma are produced by processing the tea leaves that endured a sudden change in weather during harvest at special conditions.

That's the most information I've unearthed. And it's not very specific. Another site that I won't mention said that the tea is rolled in milky water. Or watery milk. That makes no sense to me. Sounds like an answer a tea seller might come up with on the spot when he/she has no idea.

So I'm leaving it up to the scores of people who stumble by here. How does one make Milky Oolong milky?

When the heavens opened up...

Tonight there was a huge thunderstorm that swooped into Munich from the West. I'd had a full evening of appointments, and was on my way home on the train.

There I was at the main train station, when the skies opened up. The roof of the Hauptbahnhof sounded like it might cave in the rain was so hard. Thunder, lightning, ynd things going *bump* in the night. What a feeling to be in the midst of all that power.

What was I doing while mother nature was rearing her ugly head? I still had half a thermos of Oolong that I'd made in the early afternoon. Because I'd warmed my thermos before pouring my tea in there, the dark brown liquid was still piping hot. Amazing really. What an invention-the thermos.

When I was a kid, my dad packed a thermos of coffee everyday before he went to work. The inner core of his thermos was made of glass, and one single time I saw him drop it. It shattered on the pavement, he threw it out, and later that afternoon, he returned from the store with the broken thermos's replacement.

Instead of a thermos of coffee, like my dad, there I was watching the heavens come pouring down, while I poured Milky Oolong down my gullet. So smooth, so delicious. Mother nature may do what she likes as long as I still have my tea.

Enough with the flippin' tea reviews already

I'm sure all of you are reading, but there's just nothing to respond to when all I do is review teas. Teas that you'll likely never see or read about again. There you are. Two days of blog that I can't get back.

Sooooo...now I'm back. The real lahjikmajoe:

Drank a lot of tea today. Gallons of the stuff. Quantity not quality is what I say. Ok, maybe not. What I really say is, 'Quantity and quality'. Both of them. More and more often.

Thank you sir. May I 'ave another?

Here's what I've been thinking about lately and what tea I was drinking when I came to the conclusions stated.

Did you see that documentary a few years ago called The Corporation? It treated major multi-national corporations as if they were pathological and unstable mental patients. Based on that premise, it essentially said that your typical run-of-the-mill huge corporation was the equivalent of a depraved hellbent-for-leather sort of 'Nick Nolte on a bender'. Not that that's necessarily a problem. I'm sure Nick Nolte is fun while the party lasts. I was drinking a Milky Oolong while contemplating this part.

The next thing is about Obama. Don't think I'm going to pile on old Obama. He's still doing fine by me. Really. But honestly. The posturing about BP. Are you serious? Does anyone believe the Obama administration can do a damned thing about BP? Short answer: he can't. Full-stop. BP and Shell and Montesanto (sp?) and Nestle and Kraft and Coke and Archer Daniels Midland...they'll do what they like. No matter what Amadieneshad and Kim Jong Il do, they're small potatoes compared to the lords of Big Oil and Bigger (more processed) food. While I was just ranting while writing that last part, I was drinking some Formosa Oolong.

And here's the last piece of mental walkabout for you relatively quiet readers (invitation to flippin' say something in the comments section after this post):

Mustard is far superior to mayonnaise. Any mustard. All mustard is better than the nicest of mayo. I wasn't drinking any tea for that one. I was eating mustard. Mustard slathered all over some more mustard.

A whole blog about tea? Only tea? Really?

Again this weekend, someone was excited to hear I had a blog, asked more about it, and then asked, 'A whole blog about tea? Only tea? Really?'

Well, yeah. Why not. I mean it's not about tea and only tea. Seems sometimes I even have to be reminded to reel it back in a bit and talk about tea again. I always find some connection from what I want to talk about to tea. Eventually.

One of the things that pleases me to no end is that several of the people who come here semi-regularly are avowed non-tea drinkers. I've been joking with one of the people on twitter, who meekly admitted she drank no tea, that I will slowly indoctrinate her. That through my powers of persuasion and suggestion, I would pull her over to the leaf-side.

I also like to be informative. There were so many questions I had when I first started drinking tea. The places I found the answers are more varied than you might think. Sometimes I'm having a conversation with someone about a completely unrelated topic, and I mention my tea problem. I don't say it like that. I say, 'I'm really into tea.' Or 'Tea's really big right now.' That's actually not quite true. Tea's always been big. We just haven't all noticed. The number of people drinking tea around the world dwarfs those swilling the java.

I also don't think it has to be an either/or sort of thing. A coffee now and then is actually a nice change of scenery.

To answer Sir Will's recent question: it was in fact a real Milky Oolong, and it's delicious. I went back the next day and tried to get more, but the line was even longer then. I decided I could order it if I didn't find it anywhere else. Will write about it in more detail soon. There's a tea review to look forward to.

Am still toying with running a list of tasting terms down the sidebar here, and modifying it as I go. Things like malty in relation to Assam and floral when it comes to good Darjeelings.

I guess I could ask now if anyone has a resource they've used to learn the accepted terms? I started a list several weeks ago, and felt it sorely lacking. Sorely.

Teashopping in Stuttgart

I'm not kidding myself. I'm very well aware that few, if any, of you are ever going to visit these German tea shops that I report on. Maybe I want to tell you about them because I love the sensory overload I get when I walk into one. When I know I'm travelling somewhere, one of the first things I do is scout out the tea shops. Along with searching in the online maps for exactly where the hotel is, I locate the different tea shops and salons. I purposely pack much less tea than I'll need for the number of days. That way I'm sure I'll need more tea and be forced to try something new. It doesn't take much convincing for me to storm into a tea shop and soon walk out with far more tea than I'll need for the trip. Today it was a Milky Oolong (don't have a more specific name unfortunately) and black Java Santosa.

So the tea shop I happily visited was the Stuttgarter Teeladen Robert Lang. It was a beautiful little establishment. The picture shows you the signs that say they've been in business since 1985. They're clearly doing something right. It's not a large shop, but they're doing well with the limited space. I felt really sorry for the woman behind the counter. If every day is so stressful and busy, I'm surprised there aren't more people working there. Maybe it's because yesterday was a holiday and the crowds of restless tea customers were stocking up for the weekend. She handled it well. She didn't rush me in the least. Had I been the only customer, and had I not had a line of thirsty tea freaks rustling behind me, I'd have asked her many more questions about the tea they offer.



Unfortunately, there were no brochures. I didn't have a price list, which I normally like to look at when I'm in line. I got the feeling that the prices were up to her whim and whether she liked you. Could almost imagine her saying to me, 'I like the cut of your jib. Today the tea is free.' Didn't happen. But a boy can dream, right?

The Milky Oolong was a milky Oolong. Nothing special. I do like almost every Oolong I've ever tried. One Oolong I had months ago was a bit bland, but that's periodically to be expected when one tries such a variety of tea.

The Java Santosa is a different story. This might not be an excellent tea, but it's certainly very good. The shopkeeper said it was dark 'like Assam' but not nearly as bitter. I agree. Had not yet tried any black teas from Indonesia. The blurb on the tea said that there are no bad teas grown in Indonesia. Sounds like advertising, but based upon this tea, I'd have to agree. It's certainly not boring and also not unpleasing.

It has enough kick that I'm buzzing along right now, when I should really be going to bed. You lot probably already know about Java Santosa. You don't need my review.

If there is anyone who knows this tea well, please say something in the comments.

Enjoy your weekend!


the next day

I had an hour for lunch yesterday, wasn't hungry and wanted to explore a bit of the city I was briefly in. Didn't see much of interest for the first three quarters of an hour, but I was wandering and enjoying myself. Told myself I needed to start heading back, and decided I would walk a parallel street to the one I came down. I was a bit out of the way, but I could see an entire row of architecture and shops. As soon as I rounded the corner, I knew I'd made a great decision. Here's what I saw:



They sell yarn and tea. All in the same little shop. Now for some countries, this sort of entrepeneurism or creative blending of related products is almost to be expected, but not here. Here in Germany, most things are done in a prescribed way. Not all people are like that, but I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to do something just a bit differently and the person across from me, whether at the post office or in a private conversation, would practically react in horror at my suggestion. There are ways of doing things. And you have a yarn shop and a tea shop. But you don't sell yarn where you sell tea. What if the tea got on the yarn. Or some yarn got in your tea? Unacceptable. Inconceivable.

Well, it's been done. In Germany no less. Every little old lady's nirvana in one little 60 cubic metre establishment. To be clear, they don't serve tea in the shop. At least not while I was there. Maybe she'll make you a cup if you ask. And it's not actually a German shop. The Inhaberin is actually a French woman called Madame Roche, and she's very helpful and informative on both subjects. The woman in front of me had a list of questions that were dealt with with aplomb. She wanted to give me the same service and go into great detail about the tea I wanted, but I was late by now (the yarn discussion ate my remaining fifteen minutes).

If you're ever in Stuttgart, you have to see this place. It's at Sophien Straße 24 and not far from the Stadtmitte Underground station. If you're nice, Mme. Roche might let you call her Isabelle.