wet leaves and drier leaves

in Hamburg looking through the windows at Messmer Momentum's Darjeeling boxes  

Why are most Monsoon tea flush Darjeelings not normally sold outside of their region? Aren't all flushes worth drinking. I've had something called Autumn Flush from at least one company, and it was tasty enough. Certainly not bad. Anything but bad.

Then while I was talking to Michael J. Coffey and Geoff Norman, we got to talking about wet leaves versus drier leaves. Michael was talking about about Taiwanese tea rather than Indian tea, but he made an interesting point.

Apparently, the wetter the leaf is when it's been picked, the lesser quality the resulting tea will be. Now, I'm not a grower. Clearly. Sitting here in my flat in Germany, anything I say about growing tea is based upon very limited information. I read and I listen to tea people more knowledgeable than I, but I'm passing this onto you the way I heard it. My retelling is hopefully accurate.

I found the next thing Michael said to be the most intriguing. Here's what it was:

'There’s a tension between the farmers and the pluckers.  Pluckers want to work early in the morning, because the dew is still on the leaves and they’re plumper. They’ll be paid more for the same amount of work. Farmers know that higher quality tea results from plucking late in the morning.
 Some farmers will make a compromise, and they’ll do both an early and late morning plucking. Afterwards, they’ll sell the two different batches separately; the late morning one being of lesser quality.'

Michael Coffey said that this was true of Taiwan in general, so this doesn't directly relate to Darjeeling tea. The reason I even mentioned my favourite tea growing region of India, is I've often wondered how the rainy season affects the tea grown at that time.

There you have it. Wet leaves = ok, but not necessarily the best. Waiting until later in the morning to pick the leaves makes the resulting tea even better. Well, that's great because I was hoping to sleep in anyway.

Abwarten und Tee trinken

Did something a bit abnormal yesterday. Not that this'll surprise many of you. I make a habit of the less-than-normal. It's my usp (unique selling proposition)...if I have one.

Here's the thing: I have a teablog. You're looking at it. I write about tea and tea-related topics. That's rather straightforward, isn't it? I tend to think so.

In the past, the only blog I had was a teablog, and I often found myself talking about subjects that at first glance were distantly (if at all) related to tea. It's still part of the enjoyment I have here. To come up with a topic far, far away from tea, and to somehow find a connection.

But now I have a NonTeablog (lahikmajoe's general and rather abnormal blog). It's great fun. I write about a variety of things and it's a portfolio for when someone wants to see examples of my writing. I've made a concerted effort to not let the quality of my teablog deteriorate just because I'm writing over there, as well as other places. For the most part, I think I've been successful.

Although it must be said: the topics that earlier were creatively linked to tea normally find themselves on the NonTeablog. It's sadly a more natural fit.

What was the abnormal thing I did yesterday? Well, a topic that most likely belongs on a teablog was somehow more appropriate over there. You don't believe me? Take a look for yourself:

wait and drink tea

So I decided to pull it over here. Even the title is screaming out to be shared on a teablog. And I know just the one. This one...the very one you're reading. Here's how I described the German idiom that is 'Abwarten und Tee trinken':

'Literally it means ‘wait and drink tea‘. Yet as with most idioms, the literal definition is only part of the story. Wait and drink tea is used specifically when adding pressure to negotiations won’t help. When the best thing to do is to do nothing at all. So, you have to wait…and while waiting, why not brew some tea? It’ll at least make the wait a bit more pleasant.'

Not  a bad phrase, is it?

So what am I drinking right now while I wait? When I was at Laifufu Teesalon last weekend, I got this wonderful Taiwanese green tea called Bi Luo Chun (2011). Want to see the leaves? Here they are:

Bi Luo Chun green

How was it? How did it taste? A bit grassy...like a Japanese Sencha. But not too much. Very light, vegetal flavour that was terribly pleasing. Not all green tea will taste as good the second time around, but this Bi Luo Chun was as good if not better.

I know Ya Ya at Tea Trade got some of the same tea, and I'm curious what he has to say about it. The story of this specific tea's picking and processing was really quite intriguing, but I think Ya Ya understood it better. I'll leave it to him to explain it (only if he wants, of course).

Here I am savouring the second infusion of this delicious tea directly from Taiwan. I'm waiting and tea drinking. As is my wont.

some very exhausted green tea leaves

tea gratitude

Gong Fu in motion

Had a fantastic weekend, and it had everything (and nothing) to do with tea. Treated myself to a tea session at Laifufu Teesalon on Saturday, and it put me in just the right frame of mind to savour the rest of that day and the next.

 Si Ji Chun Oolong leaves

Drank a delicious Si Ji Chun Oolong from Nanton, Taiwan.  The tea was relatively highly oxidised and since I normally go for Oolongs that're lightly oxidised, this was also a nice break from the ordinary (Here, to the left, were the leaves beforehand).

I was thrilled, as always, with Laifufu, which I found out means 'Das Glück soll kommen' (luck/happiness is coming).

Like I say, this was the way I eased into a few both relaxing and productive days. Which if I'm forthright, is exactly why I love drinking tea. One of the many reasons.

I can get so much done while drinking tea, and it somehow calms me without interfering with my making progress.

Also I'm really enjoying the tea community and my little corner of it. I suppose I could assume it was understood how grateful I am to have found all of you tea bloggers and tea obsessives, as a result of this blog and The Association of Tea Bloggers and Tea Trade and Steepster and and and...

But Springtime is busting out all over, and I've decided now is as good a time as any to go all wobbly. I adore you folk, and my life has definitely benefitted from our acquaintance(s). Thanks for everything and here's to much more of the same.

the very exhausted leaves after the fact

my last tea

I made a mockery of my blog this weekend. I don't mind admitting it. Got caught up in the swell of emotion and ridicule that was The Rapture of 2011. I really couldn't help myself. Ok, I could've. But I didn't want to.

But what if I really only had time for one more tea? I'm not taking the above-mentioned Rapture even remotely seriously, but I am using the event as an opportunity to play with this hypothetical. One more tea? Really.

Not my best tea. I couldn't even begin to decide what that would be. But the last tea. How would I usher myself on the way out of mortality?

So here's my Alishan Zhu Lu Oolong and the precious tiny rolled leaves. I wrote about it here in the dead of winter. It's the kind of tea that just gets better and better.







I write mostly about black tea here. And I like to encourage people curious about tea to take a deeper dive. To come a bit farther in and not be daunted by the obsessiveness of some of us tea people. But there's a reason so many tea bloggers and tea experts get so excited about High Mountain Oolong from Taiwan. I assure you that if I could only have one more tea, this wouldn't be a bad choice. If nothing else, I could drag the time out by infusing it again and again and again.




And here are the leaves after multiple infusions (I didn't count). I wish they'd actually gone through with the invention of smell-o-vision, and you could actually smell these leaves? They're delicious.