Raising my cup to David Bowie with this comforting Laoshan black that came in the mail just an hour after I heard that he had left us.

Big Bowie fan. BIG, as in, if it weren't for Bowie I might have never listened to anything that wasn't very angry political anti-authority hard-core punk. Bowie kept me, even in my street punk years, from falling too far down any one specific rabbit hole. I needed a warren and Bowie was part of that system of tunnels I could lose myself in. I always stopped on Hollywood Boulevard( I lived in an abandoned building off Hollywood and Argyle) to look at a huge poster of him that always hung in shop window. Bowie in an embroidered Elizabethan dress laid out upon a divan, long hair flowing. How could I like him and still like the Dead Kennedy's? I don't know, but I did and that ability to appreciate fully more than one thing at a time was helpful for me in those years when total immersion into the punk culture could have eaten me alive and spit back out absolute nothingness. Vonnegut helped too. Burrow hole number three.
Ok, but this is not really about Bowie or me so I move on.
So, I'm sad, (oops, back to me apparently) and I do what I do when I am sad, I drink tea and hit the thrift shops at 9am, before the other riff-raff bargain hunters beat me to it.
I find the usual stuff, new items to put on my tea table, a cheap blue and white teapot shaped like a fish that can never, ever be used, and is in fact, exceedingly hideous I am just now noticing glancing at it sitting next to my keyboard. $3.99 I paid for this? Well, I did get the senior discount. That was another first today, they gave me a senior discount at the thrift shop. This fucking world, man, it breaks your heart in so many little ways in the course of just a couple of hours.
Coming home with my little stash of goodies I found in the mail-box a little package from Verdant Tea with Laoshan Black in it.

I had forgotten I ordered it, but have been waiting for a gaiwan from them, so this was a nice surprise.
I've been neglecting black teas lately and in my rather black mood, the timing was and still is right. Last nights wonderful experience with Soleil's black tea, 'Van Dyke' got me primed.

I like this tea a lot. Tiny little tea leaves, sprightly and springy to the touch after wet, the brew in the cup is like a mixture of a soft black gongfu and an Oriental Beauty, which you know is my favorite tea ever.

I spent 30 minutes sitting in my yard drinking multiple steeps of this. Four grams in a 120ml gaiwan, water temp just under 200. Worked for me!

I am still sad but that's part of the deal, right? I get the good stuff, like tea and family, warm socks right out of the dryer and In-and-Out Burgers and I have to deal with the crap as well, the No-More-Bowie in the world kind-

of crap, the skin lesions, the back-ache, the aging in less than graceful ways.
And that's cool. I can dig that. Just happy to be here, sharing tea. With you.

Van Dyke. Artistry in tea with Fujian Noir, Hops and Juniper Berries.

Something new thrills me. I want blends but I don't want blends. I want purity, real art, not art that stuns visually and whose foundations are a mish-mash of unknowables. Simplicity mixed with vision, that's what I want. In tea. Hell, in everything. In my own art, in the art I acquire, in the art I see on the street, in my favorite art which is what I call 'unintentional art' and now I find after drinking Soleil Tea's Van Dyke, that I want it in my tea as well. I am specifically talking about blends here. Let me be precise. For in my mind every single-source, pure-bud, or traditional tea I have is pure art. The better quality tea is better art, of course, but it's all a mind-blowing art-form that can create memory triggers, make me think new thoughts,wonder about different parts of the world, feel pleasure or even more valuable, a little discomfort and so on. In short, tea does what all good art should do. Challenges me in the Now to WAKE UP!
Ok, so there's that.
What does the above photograph tell me about this tea? As far as I know nothing, but it was chosen with intention, I assume, to be the cover sticker of the sample of Van Dyke I just drank 6 steeps of.
Why does the sign say 'coffee' in the photo? Who is Van Dyke again? Surely, not referring to Dick or the dude who played on 'Coach'? Perhaps Willard Van Dyke? Hmmm...

(Prepping the gaiwan with hot water)

So now after a great first session with this art of a tea, my husband, (yes, my husband drank this tea! It must have been the promise of 'hops' that did it!) and I go to our separate screens to find out the answers to these questions. THAT is what the function of art should be. I don't even care what the answers are, they can be unflinchingly dull, but the trip to finding out is where I am most alive. So yay for that!

(Waking up the dry leaves in the hot gaiwan, a little shake to get them ready!)

As for the tea, it was very good. A blend with three ingredients only, no oils, no flavorings. My readers know how I battled about that in my own head, not wanting to cheat myself out of experiences yet finding the oily aftertastes of flavorings, even good quality ones, very noticeable anytime I tried blends, experiences which led me to be the newbie-purist you see before you now.

(Gorgeous after steep one)

So Van Dyke is a nice quality black tea with good looking long light-rolled leaves with wonderful aroma, and pieces of hops and juniper berries. Our experience with it was not in line with what it says on the webpage description, but it was better.
The scent out of the bag was great, reminded this ex-gin drinker why I loved Juniper berries and gave me hopes that I could rekindle that relationship without using booze. The hops looked like small green fairy wings, so the presentation was a lot of fun, and the smell was the best part of that.
I used four grams only in a 120 ml gaiwan. The water temp started out at 204f. The smell of the leaves, still dry, getting steamed a bit in the pre-heated gaiwan was a smile-bringer to both Larry and myself. Smelling the leaves scent on the bottom of the gaiwan lid and in the cup were beyond delicious. We drank the rinse, it was lovely.

(All gone!)

The next six steeps were accomplished more or less in a row with no breaks and steeps of up to one minute maximum. The colors of all the steeps were lovely variances on the shade of amber. There was no astringency in this experience at all. Perhaps next time I try this tea I will kick the grams up to six or seven to see why it is Soleil mentions astringency, but neither of us got a hint of it. I am still amazed I found a tea my husband was interested in having a full session with me, he is always up to trying anything I push at his adorable punim, but to sit and say 'yes' and 'sure' and 'ok!' when offered continuing steeps was a first.
Van Dyke is something new, something special, at least for this newb, goodness knows I have never had anything like it, and I will start to once again clear the hurtles I might have been putting up in my mind against blends based solely on this terrifically positive session. Deep back-breaking bows of gratitude to Soleil Tea for 'taking me there'. It's always good to go!

Liu Bao 2006 Lao Cha Po, and aged black tea like no other.

('In line with traditional Liu Bao, the large brown leaves of this tea have been compressed into bamboo baskets to be aged. Strong aromas of forest undergrowth gracefully fuse with a soft liquor which includes spicy nuances (fennel) and sweet (maple water). A most refreshing tea!' says the website, and I agree.)

This Liu Bao is only one of two I have ever had, a nice sample was sent to me by Camellia-Sinensis a few months back. Aaron Peacener, a well-known tea-head really pressed me into trying Liu Bao style tea, and of course having had only two so far I am in no place to make statements about it. I can say there was one I wasn't moved by, and then there was this one. Lao Cha Po 2006. An amazing black tea experience. From the moment I opened the small sample, many months ago now, (a sample so small it made me feel I was holding a very rare treasure indeed,) until today when my order of two large 50 gram bags arrived, I have been thinking about this tea. My experience with the sample, which I have made last a month by brewing very small amounts has been very positive. The mouth-feel, the vibe, the scent, everything about this tea makes me feel grounded, part of the earth, a bit humbled by my lack of knowledge of its origins and desirous for more. More Liu Bao and more knowledge about Liu Bao. So! This then, is where I am with Liu Bao. I don't know anything, but I am going to learn and now that I have a stash of my own, a cache, if you will, I will allow myself to indulge and wallow a bit in deeper experiences and try more variations on my brewing parameters and explore it as much as I can experientially which always leads me to some good old-fashioned 'book-learnin'! What little I do know can be summed up here...
It is aged in baskets like this one...

'The open woven basket allows the tea to age with much air exchange. The tea is also caked up in layers which peal off each other as the basket is opened. This big basket aging is the secret of much desired Luo Bao tea originates in Guangxi, China. Liu Boa offers a unique flavor that rivals the best Pu-erh teas. This aged tea is great now and will continue to improve over the years.'

My source, as you can see from the photos is Canadian company Camellia-Sinensis, where I delight in shopping online. Great products, both tea and tea ware, affordable, classy and every time I get a box from them its like getting a box from Tiffany's, the care, precision of the packing, not to mention a lovely Tiffany-blue tissue-paper makes me feel like an honored client!
Since I like this one so well and the price is so low at $15 for 50 grams, I am super curious as to what this one would be like, at a whopping $110 for 50 grams! Love to try it and tell you about it, but with that price tag I will stick to this!

Tea pairings? No way! The tea stands alone in this purists heart! Right?

What is this my mother brought over on NY's day? Oh, Biscotti? Ah, no thanks, as you can see I am drinking tea and besides, isn't that a thing you dip in coffee? Oh yeah? Well, that's what you think, Mrs. Lady-Mom, I am not quick to judge things I haven't even tried! Fine! I'm drinking a high-end super-organic hard-to-find rare high-mountain bug-bitten honey-oolong that needs no accompaniment, but I'll have a bite of that thingie, whatever, just keep it away from my Gongfu Cha tea-table which has known no crumb and never shall!
Oh. Damn.

Ok, time to revise my tea-world-view a wee bit. Or perhaps more than a wee bit, it might be a wee LOT.
This you gotta try. And this is only the first one, I have others yet to pair with hundreds of different teas from China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Korea and so many more! There is a box of crisps just waiting for me to find a tea match for them. Some seem to have rosemary and dates, some have fruits, all look amazing, but for now it's enough my head has been turned, and in thanks I ask you, dear readers to do yourselves a solid and check this company out as well. You know those intense shou puerhs are eating your belly lining if you don't have some good food in it! And this is the sort of tea-snack that will be not only tolerated touching the holy bamboo of the Gongfu Cha tray, it will be a welcomed and much appreciated guest!

Flowery Oolong from Hatvala Tea in Vietnam!

Hatvala is a rather wonderful company who produces tea in Vietnam and has a tea-house I'd like to visit someday in ho Chi Minh City. This is a wonderful green Oolong of amazing sweetness and very easy to brew. I love it and am enjoying it slowly as I only have a little! This is one I am going to be needing more of, and soon. My first Vietnamese Oolong and Hatvala was nice enough to send me four others I will be sampling and writing about soon. I brewed four grams of this in a 120 ml gaiwan with water ranging from 203f down to 195f. All three steeps, four if you include the delicious rinse, were soft and smooth and really delicious.

'Flowery Oolong is produced using a premium bush varietal (Thanh Tam or “Qingxin”) that has been specially developed for Oolong tea production in Taiwan. The tea is grown on a 40 hectare estate at altitudes between 1000 and 1200 metres on the fertile, rolling plateau of Moc Chau in Vietnam's Son La province. Oolongs sit between Green and Black teas and offer the most variety and complexity depending on the degree to which leaves are allowed to oxidize and how the processed tea is rolled. Flowery Oolong is a green Oolong resulting from a relatively light oxidation. The tea is produced from early April to late October each year.
After picking, the young tea leaves are sun dried and are then shaken in traditional bamboo drums before withering and drum baking. The tea is rolled up to ten times to achieve the final characteristic small bead shape. Flowery oolong provides an exquisitely fragrant, floral tea that is full bodied with a smooth, creamy texture. It is a slightly sweet tea and is sure to delight any Oolong lover.' 

Duck Shit Tea. I shit thee not. And not only that, this is the 'King Of Duck Shit Tea' and guess what it tastes like?

Finally. Sheesh. I could have written this article a week ago but had to wait for the tea-pet to arrive for obvious reasons. Do you people have any idea how much time and effort goes into creating these visuals for you? I had to have this particular duck, a duck, might I add from my childhood that I had to go to ebay to find. 
Had to be this duck, no other duck would do. Only the best vintage Hagen-Renaker for you, my dear readers!
So this tea is very,very good and does not taste a bit like offal from any creature of course! It is lightly oxidized and the leaves are mostly green in color. The brewed tea is very aromatic with lots of flower and honey notes. One of the coolest things about this tea, and I have had three separate sessions with it, and found all sessions to have this same truth, is that the mouth-feel is complex with both floral and astringent notes at the same time! It is, as the vendor suggests, delicate and soothing but has a lot of personality to it as well.
It's a fine thing to be able to experience this tea and I highly suggest your get your ducks-ass over to Yunnan Sourcing or my house and get yourself some of this 'shit'!

Storms and dark daytime skies bring me back to my Tencha. Like Matcha but soooo much better.

What is Tencha, you may ask? Well, don't ask me, for I can tell you 'in a nutshell' but Tencha, especially the really good, hard to find stuff, needs to be described with more honor. Here, check this out...

"Tencha is the name for tea leaves used for Matcha, before the leaves are ground into fine powder. The Tencha flavor, brewed by same way with Gyokuro, is quite unique, pure, noble, and elegant. The tea color is pale green, the taste is deep and mellow, and the subtle noble aroma lingers in the mouth for a while. It is different both from Gyokuro and Matcha.
Tea leaves for Tencha are grown in the same way as Gyokuro, but processed differently than Gyokuro. Tea leaves for Tencha and Gyokuro are grown in the shade for 20 or 30 days before harvest, so that both contain much Theanine, which is the source of its smooth and mellow taste. Harvested fresh tea leaves are first steamed. Then in the case of Gyokuro, the steamed tea leaves are dried and kneaded by crumpling. In contrast to Gyokuro, the steamed tea leaves for Tencha are dried but not kneaded. Then to make Matcha, Tencha is ground into fine powder. 
Tencha is not kneaded, in contrast to Gyokuro or Sencha. The cell walls of the tea leaves are broken down by the kneading process, so that all elements of Gyokuro and Sencha can easily be infused into water. Only the elements of pure elegant flavor are infused. And unlike Gyokuro or Sencha, it is not easy to extract the flavor from Tencha during the brewing process. Only high grade or highest grade Tencha can brew flavorfully in water. 
The special growing and processing of Tencha creates its unique and pure elegant flavor."

And my Tencha is the good stuff. I only buy it once a year and I wait til the skies darken and its time to bring out my ancient Takaname Kyusu and Yazumashi to help me do it right.

This tea looks like dried chopped parsley really, and is lighter than you can imagine!

Even with the finest of strainers my tea liquid is still full of tiny particles, all delicious to drink.

The above in quotations was from the site where I find my Tencha and they go on to say...

"When tea manufacturers purchase or bid on Tencha from the farmer, or when they process or blend Tencha, they must evaluate each case of tea leaves to check the Aracha process, the finishing process, blending conditions, and so on. To grind Tencha into the fine powder of Matcha requires enormous time and great care. For example, it takes an hour to grind 40g or 70g (1.41oz or 1.47oz) Matcha. In addition, Matcha does not keep fresh as long as Tencha. Once the tea is ground into Matcha, it begins to oxidize and loose its fresh flavor. So, tea manufacturers have traditionally evaluated and bid on Tencha tea leaves, not Matcha. Of course, the manufacturer evaluates the quality of the Matcha at the end of the process, before it is sent to the customer. Even at tea competitions attended by tea manufacturers, tea is evaluated in Tencha tea leaf form, not Matcha powder.

Because of this, only tea manufacturers have known the flavor of Tencha. It has remained secret for many years. The flavor, which is different from Gyokuro and Matcha, is uniquely very pure and elegant, though drinking Tencha is not allowed by the rules of Tea Ceremony. The tea color is pale green, the taste is deep and mellow, and the subtle noble aroma lingers in the mouth for a while. 

We would like tea connoisseurs from around the world to discover and enjoy the unique and pure elegant flavor of Tencha."

And Yes, I have indeed enjoyed the 'unique and TRULY elegant flavor' of this tea for three years running now.

(Happy to share so drop me a note when you are in the Ventura area and come on by! I will be carefully doling it out to myself slowly in order to save you a nice large mug!)

Tea-Village in Thailand and the best 'Oriental Beauty' variety thus far!

If I thought my readership was big enough to 'make a run' on Tea-Village's online store and make haste with the rest of their Bai Hao Oolong, I might not write this up. However, I know most of my readers are newbies like me, and the others are my patient teachers, experts even in the tea-world, and I assume no one is too much like me. For if it were me reading this post, I would do, as I have done, and haul-ass to the website and buy a bunch of it! I did this exact thing after reading 'Steep Stories' blog post on a certain Da Hong Pao only last month, in which he loved a DHP so much that I went directly to the website and bought a lot of it, or rather, as much as I could afford.
But on with my review/rant on this Oriental Beauty from Thailand.

First rinse

I love OB's. I have loved every one I've had thus far, some a lot less than others, which might indicate I didn't, in fact, 'love' them, but truly, I haven't had one yet I didn't enjoy most heartily.
My expectations for this one haven't been high, as I don't know anything about teas from Thailand and I think of OB's as a Taiwanese tea. First I have to say the scent when opening the bag was very, very promising. I opened it last night before bed, not to steep, but at least to smell, and I almost steeped it up right then and there, at 11pm, the smell was that enticing. If it weren't for an aching shoulder from carrying around the new rescue dog, (who at 19 pounds is breaking my back with her need to be carried with her own long list of injuries,)I would have done it too, but the Tylenol PM beckoned and I made haste to bed instead of staying up all night drinking tea with an aching body that needed rest. So, good for me. I overcame desire.
Up at 7am and right to the kettle though!
I took my first look at the leaves as I weighted out four grams for my 120 ml gaiwan and was really happy with the visuals. This is a gorgeous tea, full of colors which matches that fabulous aroma perfectly. So at this point I am getting really excited.

Still, I have had oolongs aplenty whose scent and visuals did not equal the tasting experiences so I am not totally freaking out, but I am indeed getting hopeful I might have just found my next favorite Bai Hao.

I steeped 8 steeps at 195f and from the rinse to the last steep I loved every sip of it.
Man, I am raving about this, aren't I? I like this tea so much I am not posting this until I buy 50 grams for myself, that way I don't have to worry!

Next up, Tea-Village's Oolong #12. I now have very high hopes for further offerings from this company. Deep bow of gratitude from me on this insanely blustery, fitfully stormy day in Los Angeles where I am almost quiet literally stuck in the house due to boulders blocking tunnels and flooding in the streets! What a wonderful day!

Coming next week! Things not tea-related that will make your tea experiences more pleasant! My top five list for 2015.

This list will include some unusual but highly helpful tools not often considered help-mates or accessories to drinking tea in a mindful fashion and include;

Silent dog tags, to keep that jangling from jarring our meditative tea sessions! 

Squatty Potty because you know how often we tea-heads have to pee!

Artisan Sugars and more!

Check back in soon for the entire list and where to find these top items that have helped me to achieve some even more sublime tea experiences!

The useless pot that suddenly wasn't. Or was it?

Once there was this Yixing pot. It was the first pot I bought. I bought it from an individual on Etsy, who had it for many years unused, as a gift from someone who went to China and brought it back for her.
When it arrived I was horrified that I had paid $100, (this included four matching cups and shipping!) for this teeny, tiny pot, albeit with awesome fish on top who have eyes that rattle about which is a bonus. But still! So small!
And nothing tasted good in it to boot. I had my first half-dozen teas in hand by then, basics like Oriental Beauty, Tie Guan Yin, Dong Ding, a few puerhs, and so forth and the pot made everything taste gross. ( Please note the links to the tea companies with the above teas mentioned are exactly the ones I first started with, so go check them out!) I quickly bought a small gaiwan to explore these teas in their full flavor while awaiting decent Yixing pots. I followed my new online tea-friends advice in regard to cleaning and prepping the pot and by the time I was done, I had come to realize the pot was a novelty, a pretty thing of no real worth in helping me learn to experience Gongfu cha and I realized that not only was this pot not tiny, it was of ridiculous proportions, it was huge at 480ml!
Within a few weeks I became the owner of a couple of truly worthy pots to explore tea in, a basic 140ml Zi Sha from Teavivre.com which has since been dedicated to puerhs and is just what it should be, a (still) rather too-large vessel I rarely use but a utilitarian and honest creature nonetheless with a terrific pour and a wondrous little dragon egg that holds 110ml. I knew at that point the 'big' fish pot was just one of those newbie errors. I was advised to use it for decorative purposes so that's what this pot has been doing. Sitting and (quietly sulking perhaps, if it has a soul, I do not sense one in this pot as I do with my Jian Shui pots for instance!) collecting dust.
Just now, for no other reason than I was dusting and picked it up and I grabbed literally a handful, well, maybe a child's fistful of loose 1980's puerh and just tossed it into the enormous cauldron that is my googly-eyed fish pot and filled it up and made this enormous mug of intensely black puerh, which my husband literally gagged at when sipping, and I am delighting in. Is the tea good? Is it really as old as it proposes itself to be? I have no idea and fantasize that James from teaDB would walk in, taste it and tell me if I am a fool or right on the mark, but alas, that ain't gonna happen. Did I just pair a tea with a previously disregarded useless pot or am I ruining some rather pricey puerh by throwing it in helter-skelter into a Yixing pot that sucketh flavor and imparts weird chemical notes to all my attempted brews in the past?
It's more tea than I can safely drink without my stomach exploding and half of it has gone cold in my large Hagi cup as I write this, but the pot sits,  wonderful smelling puerh leaves clinging to its inner belly for me to fill again at my leisure, and I think I just might.
Perhaps I have made a match. But perhaps I should not put this high-end one-of-a-kind( again, I might be fooling myself about the authenticity and value of this) puerh into this pot but should try this pot with other really full-bodied puerhs that I have not been so fond of? I have more than a few of shous that I loathed when first getting into Chinese tea, which is when this pot arrived and maybe now that my palate knows teas don't have to be sweet and easy to be worthy of my time and consideration and can have bitter notes and still be good experiences in sipping, perhaps it is now I should give those teas I stuffed into the very back of my puerh drawer another go, using this huge googly-eyed fishy pot.
These puerhs I deemed horrid in those first few weeks of drinking anything other than Earl Gray, tisanes and sencha's, bancha's, genmaichas etc. are not crap teas from a crap vendor, they are from a good source we all know and trust, so I know it is not the tea, it is, or rather was, me, as usual!
(Oh dear, I just brewed it up again and it almost fills my enormous 'dog lover' mug. What the hell am I doing? This is good puerh (I think) and I put it not even into a Japanese Hagi mug this time, which would be bad enough but into this coffee mug? Even if it does say, 'Made in China' on the bottom, this is an outrage even to my newbie senses! If I live after drinking all this, please do not think me a goddess, no, but if I die, than thou mayest say I gave my life in pursuit of puerh, and not in a Gongfu cha fashion nor in dainty-lady style, but in a typically outrageous choice of over-indulgence, senselessness and impulsiveness, for there I will find my truth in the after-life. Barring that, I am going to be in the bathroom for a long-ass time tonight and of this there can be no doubt.