Wild puerh in Wenshan plantations

 Obviously, the first tea I brewed surrounded by these plantations was a Wenshan Baozhong.

For my second tea, I wanted something special to mark the occasion of enjoying tea outdoors in the Wenshan Baozhong area.

So, I chose my spring 2017 top wild, old arbor puerh. The rather loosely pressed cake is easy to flake. This helps to preserve the integrity of the beautiful buds that make up most of this cake.

The reason for this choice is that I wanted a tea with a maximum of energy, chaqi. And it should also feel young and fresh to connect with the leaves in front of me.

There's sweetness in the air and there's sweetness in this puerh (despite its young age). That comes from its quality and because the leaves have been well processed. They are not greenish, but rather yellow with red edges. And they are very thick.

There's sometimes a fear that if we drink a tea that is too good, we won't be able to enjoy simpler (and cheaper) teas in the future. This would render all our current stash worthless! And this risk is real! Most of us (readers of this blog) are not drinking tea bags anymore, not without a gun to our head or a piece of pie in the mouth!

But on the other hand, for this tea, this risk is similar to liking caviar (or Opus One) so much that it becomes your daily entrée! It's not going to happen for financial reasons (even if 6 USD for a session with this tea remains very affordable). 

The purpose of a very good tea is not to make you feel bad about teas of lesser quality. It's there to show you what good quality tastes like. It gives you more choice to match a special occasion. It also puts pressure on the brewer, because it's more difficult to blame the tea! It makes you aware of how much pleasure you can experience with tea. I just love the clean fizz feeling I get on my tongue with this tea!

And as I'm drinking the 10th brew or so of this puerh while writing this article, I'm struck with a new flavor in my cup: white chocolate!
Great teas never cease to amaze!

Winter 2017 top Hung Shui Jinxuan from Dong Ding

January 2017 Hung Shui Oolong Dong Pian Oolong from Mingjian

10 years of successful Oolong aging

 Aging tea is a very tricky undertaking, because it takes so long until you know if you have aged it properly or not. The problem starts with the fact that few people know how well aged tea is supposed to look and taste like. Take Oolong, for instance. Most people say that you need to roast your leaves every year or so in order to age it. A tea farmer told me that one way he recycles unsold Oolong is by roasting the leaves very strongly until they are as black as charcoal. He would then place them in a pottery jar and sell this tea as aged Oolong! The wood/charcoal fragrance of such Oolongs can be interesting and enticing, but it's not what real aged Oolong feels like.

During my studies with Teaparker, I had the opportunity to experience aged Oolongs early on. The fragrances were complex and not to be found in young Oolongs. In wine terminology, we'd speak of tertiary notes that come with age, like plum, old wood, incense... But the most fantastic characteristic of well aged Oolong is that they still feel alive and fresh! According to Teaparker, such aged Oolongs are obtained if you keep your roasted (or well dried) Oolong in a porcelain jar without re-roasting it. The aromas of such young roasted Oolongs are quite different from an aged one. Is it really possible to age Oolong without re-roasting it? Teaparker seemed pretty alone in the tea world with this advice. The only way to find out was to try!

10 years ago, in winter 2007, I purchased some Qingxin Oolong from Lishan (2000 meters+) that had been roasted by Master Zhang in Dong Ding. (I chose a high mountain Oolong, because the winner of the Dong Ding Oolong competition in spring 2007 told me that his leaves were harvested in Lishan). In February 2008, I started aging this roasted Oolong from Lishan in a porcelain jar. In January 2010, I removed the plastic foil under the lid, because Teaparker recommended not having any plastic in direct contact with the leaves. In December 2013, I compared the leaves in the jar with those I stored in the original plastic foil and found that those in the jar tasted nicer.

Today, I'm brewing this Lishan Oolong from the jar again and I can finally start smelling the nice scents of aged Oolong in this tea! The fragrances are indeed starting to turn into those familiar refined notes of plum and precious wood. And the taste is still so powerful and sweet!

This tasting of a 10 years old roasted Oolong that I have aged myself in a porcelain jar proves that it works! It's possible to age Oolong with re-roasting it. And not only is it possible, but it gives excellent results!

 "Vertrauen is gut, Kontrolle ist besser": It's good to trust, it's better to control, my German boss liked to say in my previous job...

 I'm glad this experiment turned out so well and confirmed what I've been learning. We can learn a few more things from these pictures. Look at the dry leaves. That's how they are supposed to look after 10 years. There are still hints of green in the color. Also, 10 years isn't old enough for the rolled Oolong to unfurl significantly. (The older, the looser the leaves will appear).

We can also look at the open leaves and observe that the leaves are opening up nicely after the brewing. It's a sign that the roasting wasn't too powerful and retained the freshness of the leaves.

To experience older aged Oolongs that were not re-roasted, check these ones (except the older 1979, which must have been re-roasted along the way).

Les plantations du Wenshan en novembre

Voilà 10 jours environ que nous avons arrêté l'air conditionné à Taipei! Si le printemps 2017 a été long à venir, l'été a pris son temps avant de tirer sa révérence. Nous sommes donc dans la saison d'automne/hiver (il n'y a pas de grande différence entre les deux). Et, comme vous le voyez, les monts du Wenshan au sud-est de Taipei restent entièrement verts! Seuls de très rares arbres perdent leurs feuilles.

Ces quelques semaines où il fait encore plus de 20 degrés sont idéales pour aller explorer ces magnifiques paysages. Hier, j'eus l'occasion de disposer mon Chaxi avec une vue imprenable sur ces théiers de qingxin Oolong cultivés de manière organique.

Dans un tel cadre, du Wenshan Baozhong s'impose! Je choisis donc celui-ci issu d'une nouvelle plantation. Il est du printemps 2016 et on peut voir que la couleur de ses feuilles sèches est devenue plus foncée avec le temps.

Cette petite maturation convient bien à la saison automnale. La couleur de l'infusion est restée vive dans les coupes céladon de Michel François.

Je retrouve dans l'infusion les odeurs qui m'entourent. C'est à la fois un parfum de fleurs blanches locales très odorantes et de forêt subtropicale. Le goût est doux, presque mielleux  avec une pointe un peu acidulée qui se prolonge agréablement. Je ne bois pas, je communie avec le paysage!

Et quand un fermier passe par là et vois mon Chaxi, je ne peux m'empêcher de partager mon bonheur avec lui!

J'ai bien fait, car il revint un peu plus tard avec sa carte de visite, une orange et une invitation à aller dans sa ferme pour goûter du thé! C'est de cette manière tranquille et humaine que j'ai fait mes meilleures rencontres avec des producteurs de thé. En effet, c'est dans leur plantation qu'ils sont le plus naturel, pas dans une foire commerciale. 

Et puis comme cela, devant mon chaxi, le producteur peut voir que ma démarche, ma recherche de thé est avant tout passionnée. Et comme l'aspect commercial vient en second plan, il comprend que la qualité compte bien plus que le prix pour moi. 

Certains lecteurs sont peut-être dubitatifs. C'est normal. Je ne peux pas convaincre tout le monde de ma sincérité et de ma passion. (Ecrire ce blog depuis 2004 est insuffisant depuis que je me suis mis à vendre du thé, après une carrière de cadre supérieur dans une multinationale.) Si je vends du thé, c'est donc que je le fais pour l'argent, cqfd! Certes, j'ai la plus belle vie au monde et n'ai pas envie d'en changer, mais je conduis toujours ma Toyota Premio immatriculée en décembre 2000! Bref, si à Taiwan certains marchands de thé  roulent en Bentley ou en Porsche, ce n'est pas mon cas!

Ma fortune n'est pas financière, mais probablement bien plus précieuse et enviable. Ma passion est mon travail et je gagne assez pour en vivre. Je suis indépendant et agit librement. Je n'achète pas de pub sur Google ou Facebook, mais compte sur des choses démodées comme mon travail de sélection, ma formation continuelle, ma créativité, le bouche à oreille, le partage de mes connaissances... Et j'ai l'intime conviction que les thés que je bois ont meilleurs goût que ceux des 500 hommes les plus riches de la planète!

Le thé demande un travail de longue haleine. Les plantations mettent 2-3 ans avant de commencer à produire, les Oolongs torréfiés mettent 10-20 ans pour se transformer, l'apprentissage dure tout une vie... A la manière des théiers, la floraison vient en hiver!