We’re hosting a tea tasting event this coming Saturday June 6th at a private home in Pacific Heights. Come on by to taste our newest additions to the menu and see our Yi Xing clay tea pots.
Check out our events page for details; we’ll be in the back garden, so dress warmly.
Cost: $15/ person
See you there!
Sina and Carnie
We’re happily announcing the launch of our tea pot page! Here we’ll have a rotating selection of Yi Xing tea pots for you to choose from. Yi Xing is really the best material to use to brew a great tea, the best material to get to know a tea better with, and the best material to learn to brew a tea well with. That’s why Gong Fu tea ceremony uses clay pots! Time to get your Gong Fu on! Visit our new tea pot page at http://www.redcircletea.com/redcircleteas/teapots/redcircleteas_teapots.html
After Vietnam, we visited some of the highest peaks on Wen Shan in an area called Ping Zhi, up at 800 meters there is an organic Buddhist tea farm. I visited these friends last year briefly and have been waiting to visit again, all year long.
We were happily welcomed with a vegetarian lunch of vegetables, tofu, beans and rice. Everything was amazingly good to eat!
Because this farm is run by Buddhist monks and nuns, and they do not eat meat and respect the earth so much, they refuse to use chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Their fertilizer is made from honey and soybean paste and enzymes. They use a similar formula for a topical “pesticide” and use fly paper to attract and trap bugs. Every aspect of their farming has a holistic approach that is deeply admirable.
After lunch, we started tasting tea and began with this year’s Baochong. It has a softness and sweetness resembling some of the best Baochong Wen Shan has to offer. But we were here for a different tea this time. It’s a tea we tasted last year that was a huge hit at our tea tastings, a red tea. 
This is fascinating tea. It is a Taiwanese Baochong varietal #18 or “Red Jade” that is picked in summer. Now, normally summer teas are not of the highest quality, and have the most risk of being contaminated with pesticides; because in the summer, naturally, there are more bugs. However, since this is an organic farm, there are no pesticides used – ever! And, furthermore this tea has some fantastic and very classical flavor characteristics that make it an incredible tea to enjoy.
This is a red tea meaning that it is picked, withered, processed (rolled) until it is 80% oxidized. It is sprayed with water, covered, and left to rest, partially fermenting the tea and speeding the oxidation process.
This tea has notes of cedar, wood, iron, sweet potato and a sweet fruit quality that pronounces itself under the tongue that is delightful- juicy red raspberry seeds. There is also a cooling sensation at the back of the throat, not unlike a dark roasted Chinese oolong, Monkey Picked TKY.
We’ll have this tea for sale shortly and we look forward to sharing it at our tea tastings too.
Tea pots have three kinds of screens to filter the tea before it is poured out of the spout. There is the flat “Net”, a piece of clay that was laid flush with the inside wall of the tea pot that has 5 or 7 holes to filter the tea. There there is the concave “Ball” that also filters the tea, this is an older and more traditional style, but the oldest style of hole is the “One Hole” – or, it has no net at all. Only older pots and replicas have this. Also interestingly, older pots are lighter in weight because artists had better sand to work with and much more time to work it. It was cured and processed for a longer period of time.
Today there are two major factories that produce tea pots: Factory 1 and Factory 2. They were both begun in the 1960’s. Factory 1 was founded to specifically make tea pots. Factory 2 was a general clay factory, making pots and later, when Factory 1 was overwhelmed, Factory 2 picked up the slack and started making tea pots too. Now both factories produce good pots, but often the design details of Factory 1 pots are preferred by collectors.
A good way to understand the concept of breathability in clay tea pots is to fill them with hot water and smell the side of the pot. The stronger the smell, the larger the pores in the clay. This is a very interesting experiment especially with pots of the same clay. You will notice a slight difference in fragrance. Tea pots from Factory 1 smell like a hot sidewalk or a hot stone. To me, it is the smell of a hot iron on dry cotton. Factory 2 is a more unique fragrance, it smells like hot sand and a bit horse-barn-y (seriously).
To sum up, when looking for a good tea pot you want to use, consider the following: Craftsmanship – does the pot look like it’s well made and balanced; is there enough detail: does the bamboo have segments and leaves? Do flowers have distinct petals, leaves, branches and look lifelike? When you look inside the pot, at the bottom, do you see “sparkles” or pieces of sand? How many? The more, the better.
Start there, look at pots, consider them before you buy, and play with the tea pots you have. When you’re ready to invest, choose a pot that fits your personality, budget and is a good investment piece, a great tea pot can last you your whole life.
Here are several reference points for choosing a clay pot:
Good tea requires all three of these things: good tea, good water and a good tea pot.
In considering tea pots, Yi Xing clay is excellent because of it’s breath-ability and because it holds the fragrance of a fine tea. Under a microscope Yi xing clay resembles human skin; it has pores, and a specific texture. Pots made with clay other than Yi xing will be smooth and not have this texture or they’ll be smooth and their “pores” will be too big.
There are five colors or types of clay: Red, Purple, Yellow (or “Earth”), Green, Black.
Adding quantities of sand to these types of clay slightly change their color to a lighter or darker hue. For example green clay can be any color from split-pea sort of a yellow-green to dark, like a pine-green.
There are different decorative styles of clay pots: Plain, Carved Motifs, and Relief (clay added on top of the basic shape, shaped, possibly carved, or painted.)
There are different shapes of tea pots too.
Firstly: a square shape, with distinct sides and distinct edges to those sides. “Square” style can be a 6, or 8 sided tea pot too. Secondly: Imitating-Nature pots imitate wood, nature, animals or leaves. Thirdly, Replica pots reproduce old styles of altar tea pots, historical styles, or wine vessels, water vessels etc. Fourthly: serving size shape / size matters when choosing how many people to serve. You don’t want to wind up with too much tea or not enough. Fifthly, overall dimension: flat, round, tall.
Short, flat pots have larger openings, taller ones have smaller openings, both are specific to the type of tea. Shorter pots are for Green tea or TKY and the more fragrant teas. They should be made with thinner clay walls, so they do not hold the heat. Round pots are for oolongs, to accommodate how the leaves open when steeping. Tall pots are for puerh and red teas. They are of thicker clay because the tea does not need to move as much when it’s steeping, and it needs to hold it’s heat between brews.
The parts of the pot are the Body, which includes the mouth (opening) spout, handle, and “feet” (bottom of the pot). The parts of the Lid are the button, and the lip of the lid.
What are “Chops”, or signatures on a pot? The stylized square signature or name you see. Before the 1800s or so pots were not signed at all. Then, in the Qing dynasty, the factory might stamp it’s name or add it’s logo to a pot. During early Communist China all pots were stamped “China” and it’s only recently that an artist would add their own chop to a pot.
Chops are found on the very bottom of the pot, in the center, this is the company name, like “China Yi Xing” or “Gi Yuan Yong”. They are also be found under the spout, under the lid – this is the first and middle name of the artist, and under the handle – this is the artist’s last name. Occasionally, chops are found inside the pot at the bottom of the pot.
Then there is the balance seen in a good tea pot. Look “down” at the tea pot, examine the alignment of the spout, button and handle, they should be line up. Then look at placement uniformity of these parts, is the width of the clay that makes the spout uniform, and make a nice “o”? Check the button on the top of the lid. Is it centered? Check to see if the handle is centered to the back of the teapot.
Place the lid on the teapot and spin it lightly. it should spin smoothly. Press on the 4 sides of the lid. Each side should fit evenly on the pot and not ‘wobble’. Examine the “lips” of the lid and pot, do they fit together smoothly?
As for Sound and Movements, when the lid is tapped against the top and middle of the handle, a high sound is a sign of high firing, but not always of good quality. More about sounds below.
Pouring spouts. Spouts should correlate with the design concept and type of pot you have chosen. There are several kinds of spouts: Straight • Straight Duck • 1 Turn • 1 1/2 Turn • 2 Turns • 2 1/2 Turns and if the spout leaks this is called, of course, drooling.
If possible, it is interesting to find out who made the pot. Comparing artist’s designs is a good way to get to know a style, their strengths, etc. However, it is very hard to authenticate teapots as signatures are easily forged and styles are easy to copy.
Other materials: Teapots can be made of stone, Jade, lacquer or porcelain. In terms of brewing a good cup of tea to drink, none compare to Yi Xing, in particular Jade is a very decorative, but an extremely unhelpful material to brew tea in.
Older tea pots were made with better clay partly because there was so much material to choose from. Also, tea pots were better because the clay had been left out before processing and after firing it was lighter because it had less moisture to begin with. Older pots will also have a signature that is not uniform. Chops were not used as frequently, and signatures were hand carved.
Mark wanted to know about Chi or “Qi” in tea. All tea has qi, but some has more qi than others. Qi is described as elevated blood circulation, whether from the caffine or from an internal body force (think chinese medicine) the increase in circulation causes heat in the body. Chinese medicinal traditions tell us that the lungs act as a cooling system for the body. Since our back is right next to our lungs, people usually feel qi in their upper back first. Qi affects individuals differently so occasionally a person might feel warmth or sweatiness in different parts of their body. All tea has qi to different extents, and paying attention to breathing, general blood circulation and the back are great ways to begin to experience qi. Gradually, you will notice nuances in the effects on your body, realizing, with other teas, you experience a strong qi in extremeties like the head or legs or arms. One of the most interesting qi experiences I’ve had was sweating between the toes.
Bob wanted to know about brewing vessels. His question centered around choosing a brewing vessel for tea and if there is a preferred vessel for certain teas. Since it’s all a matter of taste preference, the field is actually pretty wide open. This is both a reliving question because there is no “wrong” answer or “right” vessel, but at the same time it adds more responsibility to the tea drinker to know why he or she is choosing a certain pot or Gaiwan for a specific tea.
Our tea master answered the question this way: “If your concern is cost, choose a Gaiwan. It does not cost a lot and it can be used to produce very good tea.” He added, “or, if you want to use clay pots, the minimum of even three pots will do. In the first pot, brew any oolong, in the second, any puerh, and brew green and white tea in the third.” He did not mention glass ware or porcelain pots (or even lacquer ware, jade, marble, or wood for that matter) as those brewing devices are to be used when ceremony and presentation are more important than perfecting your brewing technique of a tea.
So when choosing a brewing device, you are choosing how you want your tea to taste.
That said, how do you make that choice? The options are between porous and non-porous materials. Non-porous materials (a porcelain Gaiwan) does not influence the flavor of tea, and highlights the best and worst qualities of a tea. It’s a great way to find out more about the tea you are drinking. Porous materials (a Yi Xing clay pot) lets the tea breathe and holds qualities of the tea in the vessel itself.
Choosing a Gaiwan is fairly straight forward, choosing a clay pot is harder. We’ll get to that in a future post.
Hello Blog Readers! Thanks for reading our blog. We are here visiting our tea teacher in China for the next two days. We understand that sometimes it is hard to find information and answers about tea written in English.
So we want to open up the floor to you. If you have a question for our Chinese tea teacher, please e-mail us at sina at redcircletea dot com or carnie at redcircletea dot com.
It’s a beautiful sunny day on Pinglin, Taipei. It rains about 300 days a year on WenShan Mountain, so it’s sort of a miracle that we chose a day when the sun was shining. Come to think of it, this is my 4th visit to these mountains, and I don’t remember a day it did not rain at least part of the day. How very lucky!
First, we stopped to visit the competition winning tea farmer’s shop.
We were served a medium grade of Baochong just to whet our palate. It was grassy and green, a little too hay like and drying to the tongue to be a competition grade. How was the harvest this year we asked? This year’s harvest was early because there were an extra 15 days in the Taiwanese Farmer’s Lunar Almanac. Picking for spring Baochong began on April 10th, early. It was dry in February, but there was too much rain in March. If it had rained in February it would have been better. There was a lot of rain this year and not at the best of times. So, we were told, this year’s tea is not as strong as last year’s tea and we found that was true in the brew as well.
Next, we tried this year’s version of the tea we purchased last year (3rd place competition winner) and all the top notes were there, but some of the depth we had tasted in last year’s tea was missing. Still, his signature fragrance, perfectly processed leaves and overall clarity of the tea liquid make this an outstanding tea for it’s grade. This will be the tea he submits to the competition to compete for the 3rd prize. The tea must be submitted tomorrow, and they will name the winner on the 20th. We took a bet and purchased the tea before the winner is announced. [Insert pictures of dry leaves and brewed tea.]
The growing and harvesting cycle for Baochong is much different from Hangzhou Shi Feng Dragon Well.
In the spring there is a Baochong harvest. Then, for late spring, there is a harvest that is made into “Oriental Beauty” tea, then, in summer some farmers make red tea. Then, the trees are cut back for fall. They grow a bit more and there is a winter harvest which, if good, can also be submitted for the winter Baochong competition. Finally, the tea shrub is not cut back again, but left to “sleep” then grow more until the spring buds show and the harvest comes again.
There was no snow this year, but a bit of frost that does not seem to have done any damage, and his trees are 10 years old and growing strong.
We’re back from our vacation and on the hunt for tea again. As a follow up to our posts on Dragon Well tea, we wanted to answer a few more questions. We asked: what makes Dragon Well tea, as a plant varietal, unique. Here’s what Ms. Lee said: When Long Jing is picked, the base of the stem turns red. This is a signature of Dragon Well. The leaves are a little wider (“fatter”) and the shrubs themselves are tall and thin and the leaves, unlike oolong leaves, are naturally thinner.
She also mentioned, it’s also important to look at processing of Dragon Well. The buds are very sensitive and good processing means that the tips of the buds are as green as the leaves. Black tips on Dragon Well tea are a sign of poor processing – the wok was too hot and the leaves were slightly burnt.
We also learned that Shi Feng, Lion’s Peak, has a unique kind of white sand that occurs naturally mixed in with it’s yellow soil. This contributes greatly to the slow absorption rate of the mineral content in the soil. This means there are two reasons high elevation Dragon Well tea is better than other Dragon Well tea: first, high grown tea grows slowly, resulting in higher fragrance taste. That’s a great start for this tea, then, on Lion’s Peak, the sand acts as a barrier to slow erosion thus more minerals are retained the soil delivering them to the tea plant completely nourishing it.