We didn’t have a real big Christmas here this year – the Teaboy and I were both a bit sick, and besides, there’s never any snow! Luckily, Santa was pretty good this year. He brought me an iron kettle set so I can start working on my charcoal water boiling here at home. Now I just need some coal in my stocking and I’m all set!

 “Hey dad – there’s a hole in your bowl”

“That makes a big pot of tea!”

I’ll be blogging about my charcoal adventures as I go along, so stay tuned for more, and happy holidays!

On our trip to make Black Tea with Master Tsai, we took time out for a well-deserved break in Suei Li, a small farming community just south of Sun Moon Lake. Among other things, the town is famous for its ice cream, which we naturally just had to sample! 

I actually taught English at a vocational High School in Suei Li for a summer – the highlight of the program was me teaching the kids how to brew tea in English, complete with a competition judged by the principal and office staff! So, for me, it was a trip down memory lane. 

The great thing about small Taiwan towns is, you really never know what’s going to drive by! These little farm tractors are very popular, and while they may seem like glorified wagons, they are geared very low and can carry climb amazingly steep hills fully loaded.

We also took time to shop for some tea picking apparel. The sun can be very intense in Taiwan, so it makes sense to cover up as much as possible during the hotter hours of spring and summer.  In addition to tea pickers, street vendors and others spending time in the sun like to wrap up as much as possible. This shop had some rather colorful designs, and the ladies ended up buying hats to take home.

I don’t really have a ‘thing’ for porta-potties – they just seem to show up in stories from time to time, like in my Potty Training post. This was a too good to resist photo opportunity. They built a frame over a run-off canal for convenience, but none of us were brave enough to give it a go!

On the second morning of our Black Tea Workshop, we  went up to some of the Assam tea fields in the Yu Chr area to pick tea.  It’s in a very unassuming area – just a narrow concrete road winding into the hills. There wasn’t even room to turn the car around!

The first thing I noticed as we walked up to the field was the absolute quiet. There weren’t even birds singing that morning, and the air was still and peaceful. I found myself wishing I’d brought my travel teaset along. It wasn’t a particularly hot day, but I was glad we weren’t planning on picking for several hours. It’s amazing how much leaf needs to be picked just to produce 1 jing (600g) of tea. In the hour or so we were there, 7 of us picked a total of about 300g, which, when processed, ends up as 50g of brewable tea.

There’s a different picking technique used for these teas. For a lot of hand-picked oolongs, the pickers will use a razor taped to their thumb to cut the stems. Master Tsai explained that, for these Assam plants, cutting pinches off the stem, causing the branch to die back a little and inhibiting plant growth. To promote the health of the bushes, we simply squeeze the stem between thumb and forefinger, then twist gently to break it off. If it doesn’t snap easily, the leaf is too old to pick and should be left alone.

While ’1 bud 2 leaves’ is the standard rule, it really depends on the quality of that 4th leaf whether it should be included or not. It’s amazing how much depends on the judgement of the pickers, who have to determine the quality of each leaf as they pick it. While a skilled processor can adjust the oxidization, drying, roasting and other factors to a certain degree, the quality of picked leaf is crucial to producing a good end product.

The special thing about these fields is that they are certified organic, so the soil and plants are very clean. This was shown in the amount of bug-eaten leaf we saw, and also in the types & amounts of bugs we found crawling around. We were lucky enough to run across my favorite of all insects, the Praying Mantis. We also were shown how caterpillars will chew a leaf down the center, causing it to roll up, then crawl inside and use it for a cocoon.

Back at the shop, we took a look at the tea that had been drying out overnight. The overall bulk of the drying bin was about 1/4 less than we saw the day before – as the moisture ‘sweats’ out, the leaf softens and compresses, making it easier to roll.

No, not that Route 66! On our trip to make Taiwan Black Tea with Tsai Lao Shr (see Making Black Tea), we stayed at a small bed & breakfast in  Yu Chr Township, near Sun Moon Lake. Since the big earthquake in 1999 (I was here for that!), the area has struggled to recover, but eco-tourism is becoming popular now, so things seem to be improving in the area economically.     

For me, this area is kind of like the Shire of Taiwan – rolling hills, farms, restaurants (inns), friendly people, and a totally relaxing vibe that one has to experience to be understand. And, it’s also just north of where I really fell in love with Taiwan; the Mystic Grove!     

The place we stayed is basically a family farm that has been renovated to add rooms for guests.  There were only 3 or 4 rooms, but the area was very quiet and relaxing. Of course, the tea was excellent, as was the company!     

A Teaboy-sized table for two.  

Official Teaboy seal of approval!!!

The rooms themselves  were pretty Spartan by western standards – bare     

pressboard walls and not much else – but it does make for an interesting experience. There were no beds per se, just quilted mats to pile on the floor. Being that I go for a fairly firm mattress at home, it was very comfortable for me.     

The Teaboy and I happened to wake up earlier than expected, and we had about an hour to kill before breakfast, so we took a walk up to the tea fields behind the farm. These belong to a neighbor, and aren’t all that well maintained, but the early morning light made for some wonderful photo opportunities.     

These Assam tea plants are laid out in the ‘traditional’ Nantou style - surrounded by betel nut trees (more on them another time) to maximize crop space. Unfortunately, the shade they provide lowers the quality of tea produced.     

There were also some other funky plants growing around – can’t find a translation of what this thing is (there was quite a debate on the proper Chinese name even!).       

Kind of a thorny watermelon I guess, although I can’t imagine what it looks like on the inside.  

I used to have a name for this thing, but can’t remember it now. Part of the hazard of getting old, I guess! At any rate, they grow lots of these in southern Taiwan. 

So, after a restful evening and home-cooked breakfast, we were ready to go tea picking and see the other sights of Central Nantou. 

Master Tsai offered me space in one of his Nantou tea-making workshops, so of course I jumped at the chance. We rode the high-speed train to Taichung, then by car to Yu Chr, a black tea growing area around the north end of Sun Moon Lake.  The first day consisted of actually producing our own hand-rolled organic Assam tea in the local style, a group dinner, and then a late-night tea session at a local bed & breakfast. The second day we picked tea in the mountains, toured the Sun Moon Lake area (including a visit to the Tea Research Center near the lake), then held an informal competition to taste and discuss our tea before heading back to Taipei. This post focuses on the actual processing of our black tea.

We arrived at the production facility in mid-morning, and immediately began the workshop. The Assam leaf we used had been picked the day before, and had been oxidizing in racks for about 24-26 hours. This allows as much moisture as possible to evaporate out, and gives the leaf a soft, withered texure.

Each participant started with about 500g of unprocessed leaf,  which translates into about 100g of finished tea. After collecting our leaf, we went outside to begin work.

Hand rolling takes between 1 and 2 hours, depending on the skill of the roller, ambient temperature, humidity, etc. We started by dumping our leaf into a bamboo basket, removing our shoes, and sitting right in the basket with the leaf. This makes it easier to work with the leaf and keep it from spilling out onto the concrete.

Teaboy at work

Master Tsai checking the leaf.

Some of our classmates:

 Break Time

 Quality time,  Tea Guy style:

The trick is to roll the leaf in a ball gently at first, bruising the leaves and allowing the enzymes to leak out, coating the outer surfaces. Then, we slowly increase pressure, until we’re putting all our weight into it, and the ball of tea compacts to about 2/3 of the size we started with. Our hands also got very sticky, and turned orange during this step. Later, when dry, my hands felt like I had gloves on.

 Mao Cha

Leaf Inspector

Ready to roast

 They were also processing some of the same leaf for commercial sale, so we had a chance to compare methods. The basket on the left is our hand-rolled tea, while the right side is machine-rolled. The machine rolled tea is much finer and more uniform, but it’s not as aromatic. We’ll compare how they taste at the end of the day! 

 The machine they use for larger volume processing is basically a large drum over a bowl-shaped plate that has curved ridges in it. The lid of the drum has a hydraulic press, which can be used to apply pressure to the leaf. As the machine rotates over the plate, the ridges bruise and roll the leaf, just as we did by hand. The operator can control the pressure on the leaf to roll it into the proper consistency before drying. With the large capacity of the barrel, they can process an impressive amount of tea quickly (actually black tea is one of the simplest teas to produce, as the leaf doesn’t need to be compacted the way oolongs are).

The second step was to let the leaf dry out a bit and oxidize a little more and ‘rest’ before being dried. We set our bamboo trays in the humidity-controlled drying racks, and then took a lunch break.

  Organic home cookin’ !

Since the tea needed a couple of hours of ‘rest’ before we could continue, we took a short walk up the hill behind the factory. 

We were given an introduction to some of the local plant life, as well as some ‘wild’ tea plants growing randomly near the trail. After our walk, we went back for some tea (duh!) and then continued with our tea processing.

The next step was to run the leaf through a separater machine. It basically sifts the tea, loosening the clumps so that it will dry evenly when we put it into the oven. Then we load the tea into the conveyor belt on the drying machine. The tea passes back and forth in the dryer 6 times, and when it drops out at the bottom, it’s pretty much finished. We then spread the leaf out on the bamboo racks and gave it some time to cool off before bagging it up.

 Into the oven

Helping out

 Tea’s ready!

Smell’s great! 

The best part, of course, is/has been showing off our ‘own’ tea when friends are over. It really enhances the entire brewing experience to have actually rolled the leaf personally and to really see what goes into it.

We’re still in our Xindian mountain community, just down the road from the old place. This house is 3 stories, but is built below the road, so that we  actually enter the house on the 3rd floor, which is where the tea room is.

The first order of business was to install my trademark tatami platform on the covered balcony. I built this one about 2′ (60cm) high so that I’d have plenty of storage space underneath, and also so that guests can see comfortably out the windows as they enjoy their tea.

Here are some photos of the construction process. They don’t use regular 2x4s’ here - they use a hardwood of smaller dimensions (I’ve been told it’s a type of mahogany), but it holds up pretty well. I anchored the main beams either to the wall (with concrete anchors) or the steel roof supports (with large-caliber self-tapping metal screws), so it’s very solid.  

I doubled up on the legs for extra support, then added braces to stabilize everything. I am using 1″ plywood sheets for the deck, so I created 3 main sections to support most of weight, with removable cross pieces in each section. This way, I can easily take up the deck to access the storage underneath.

Here’s what my temporary tea set up looked like - due to ‘material procurement difficulties’, there was a 3-4 week break in construction, and of course I had to drink tea somewhere during that time! It’s also a good example of how you can quickly arrange a nice ‘nook’ for tea in just about any setting.

This is the largest tearoom I’ve made (#8 in the past 10 years – we move a lot!), and since it was square, I got all new matching tatamis for it. Having my mats all one size makes it easy to change configurations, and gives the room a more balanced look as well. It also allowed me to use two of the old mats along the side wall, which is a design technique I may have pioneered! The entryway you see above is actually where the sliding glass windows should go – the balcony was originally outside the house, but was roofed over by a previous tenant. I took out the windows, and will frame in the doorway with bamboo (someday).

I got this seed from Aliang – I had the Chinese name to translate, but have lost it so I’ll need to ask him about it again. He just soaks it in water, and after a few weeks it sends out roots and starts to grow. The plant doesn’t get very big out of soil, but it adds a nice ‘organic’ touch to the tea room. 

The other advantage the larger square room has is that it allows me to be more creative with my arrangements. I can adjust my tea board placement to give my guests different viewing angles depending on the situation, so that no two tea sessions are ever the same!

For the main room of the teahouse, I wanted to have a table-and-chair arrangement for those who aren’t comfortable sitting on tatamis for long periods, and also to have a place to serve snacks (rule #1: no food on the tatamis!!). I used my low table there while I was working out a plan to do something more interesting.

I was lucky to find a large slab of Formosa Pine through a farmer I know in Taoyuan County. It is 9′ (2.8m) long, 4″ (10cm) thick, and averages 18″ (50cm) wide. It had some deep grooves cut into it, so working it into shape took quite a bit of time. I used an angle grinder to dig out the grooves and smooth the sides, then borrowed a belt sander for the top, but it still took several weeks of part-time work to finish.  

One of the things I learned on this project is that woodstain really isn’t part of my skill set! Be that as it may, I’m very happy with the results, and am enjoying my new table immensely. The original piece of wood was much longer, so when Mr. Gao cut it down to fit my living room, I also had him cut the excess piece to make the legs, which are just two slabs joined together at right angles. I’ve still got some smaller projects to do before we’re ready for a ‘grand opening’, but at least now things are far enough along that we can have people over. For seating, I made benches from some of my old tatamis, so I have both the look and feel of tatamis, plus the comfort of a chair.

Here’s what my hydroponics project currently looks like (it began sprouting about 2 months ago). It will be interesting to see how large it can get. And of course, the best part of the whole arrangement, is the view from the tatami room looking out the window:

We are also going to carry ChaTei brand teas, and the prices & descriptions for those will be added soon. ChaTei is the flagship line of Master Aliang’s Hsi Tang Tea Company. They are all hand-selected personally by Aliang to meet his high standards, and  include:

          Alishan and Shan Lin Hsi Oolongs

          4 Seasons Oolong

          Jade Oolong

          Jin Xuen (Silk or Milk Oolong)

          Wen Shan Baojong

          Oriental Beauty (Dong Fang Mei Ren)

          Mucha Tie Kuan Yin (Aliang’s signature tea)

I’m very excited about these new additions to the website, and I’d like to thank all of you who have supported the Teaguy since it’s inception. Your comments and patronage have been a great inspiration to me, and I look forward to expanding and developing this site. I look forward to helping you with your tea needs in the coming year!!!

Ran across these photos the other day, and realized I hadn’t posted this up from last June! The Mucha Farmer’s Association sponsored an event to showcase the area’s agricultural goods, so of course Aliang and I were there representing Tie Kuan Yin (Iron Goddess) and Bao Jong teas.

Our event was just inside the entrance to the zoo, where were last year (click HERE for that report). They had a local drum troupe perform, and a few dances, along with snack foods from famous local shops. We basically talked tea and passed out samples, as we weren’t officially supposed to be selling anything there, but it was fun to hang out at any rate!

 Chinese peanut brittle 

Tea nougats – yum!                                                                  

Aliang in his natural environment

Mrs. Aliang

They were taking turns giving rides in a kind of Taiwan-style rickshaw, and many of the local politicians and officials (like this one) were on hand to press the flesh and kiss a few babies! Being the only foreigner participating in the event, I naturally was dragged into a lot of photos, but it wasn’t that bad. I’ll do anything to get people to drink more tea!

The biggest surprise for me was the poster Aliang had made for the backdrop – it was from a lecture he gave at the Wenshan Public Assembly Hall a few weeks previously. I suppose I don’t mind being famous, but you’d think they would at least have had the decency to airbrush a bit more hair on for me!!

We were there for about half a day. I don’t get paid anything for helping out, which is OK because I get to practice my pouring techniques, and of course ‘all the tea you can drink’ isn’t a bad deal either (the public restrooms are just behind our booth). Here’s a couple of shots of my ‘advanced gaiwan’ technique - a bit tricky to get used to, but handy when the gaiwan itself is a little too hot to handle. The trick is to set the lid, then scoop

the entire set (saucer, cup and lid) off the table with one hand. When done smoothly, it’s really cool, but I need to find a saucer with a higher base so I can get my fingers under it.

I also experimented a bit with different grips and pouring styles on the ‘Hsi Sz’ (beautiful girl) pot – we have quite a few of this particular style, which we use for a lot of our Oolongs at the shop, and I find the balance to be slightly tricky for some reason. By the end of the day, however, I pretty much had it under control.

*By the way, don’t let the fact I spend hours handling my equipment fool you into thinking I’m some kind of ‘tea nerd’ – I’m actually a pretty cool dude!     

I was quite excited about getting to watch my first real tea competition, but the reality of it was, it was kind of like watching paint dry. The judges are in an enclosed area, with the numbered samples laid out in front of them (the samples are randomly assigned numbers, so contestants and judges have no idea which tea is whose). They meassure out the samples and steep the tea for judging. The standard sampling is 3g of tea in 150cc of water, steeped for 6 minutes.

WARNING: SHAMELESS PRODUCT PLUG APPROACHING!!!!!!!

If you’re interested in getting the competition mug/bowl set (or ceramic testing spoon) send me an email – I’m going to have them available for sale very soon. (That wasn’t too bad, was it? Now back to the competition).

The judges walk up and down the line, checking out the teas (dry leaf, aroma, color, taste, wet leaf). They will then place the mugs in position indicating their standing – closer to the edge of the table means a poor sample, next to the bowl means still considering, and towards the middle of the table means a superior sample. The judges go back and forth, discussing amongst themselves and eliminating/regrouping as they go.  Then they bring out the next batch and start over (for a total of about 300 samples, they spend most of the day sipping tea and spitting it back out again).

For awarding prizes, they have 4 basic levels. Any teas that pass a level are winners. If a tea is considered below grade, it is disqualified in the initial round. Standards are set for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place teas, determined before the contest based on the crop quality and growing conditions of the season. So, for example, if last year’s crop was not very good (maybe too hot, or too wet, etc.), the quality of the 2008 1st place teas might not be as good as the 2009 2nd (or 3rd) place teas from this year (assuming this year’s growing conditions were much better, which they were, by the way). If they didn’t do it this way, they could potentially end up with every tea in a good year being 1st place, or in a bad year being 3rd place.

The importance of placing teas relative to the yearly crop is also related to pricing. The association sets the retail prices for the winning teas based on yearly conditions, which helps prevent price gouging. The association bags & seals the winning teas before returning them to the vendors. If someone feels they’ve overpaid for a tea, they can check the serial number with the Association and determine the placing/pricing of their tea.

So, while they may end up with 10-20 samples in the 1st place category, the real prize is the ‘tou deng’ (top tea) and ‘te deng’ (special tea) awards, which go to the best of the best teas (there is only 1 ‘te deng’ award, which is the best 1st-place tea, and is therefore sold for a much higher price).

Aliang ended up with 3-4 3rd place samples (out of 12 submitted). I was going to do a special report on them as a follow-up to this one, but when I got back to the shop that evening to buy a few cans for myself, he was already sold out – a regular customer of his had come in while he was unloading his Landrover, and bought all of it. Damn! (I’ve now left standing orders with him to always save me 1200g (2 jing) of any competition teas  he produces.

While the Taiwan tea crops in general were quite good this spring (we had a wet winter), Aliang only had 12 samples to submit for this year’s competition. For each submission, we have to provide 22kg of tea, and the entry fee for each one isn’t cheap. If any of our teas ‘place’, the 22kg will be bagged up and certified by the Farmer’s Association, and we can then sell it at higher prices (the prices are also set by the Association, and depend on the general quality of the harvest for each year – this prevents the winners from overcharging on the tea or inciting bidding wars).

Our job at this point was pretty straight forward: measure out 22kg of tea into the plastic bags provided by the Association, label them, and put them into the Landrover so that Aliang could drop them off in the morning. If you are wondering why Aliang has a Landrover, by the way, you can read Mystic Grove or Landrover Camping Trip and it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out! 

We also had to remix a couple of  our samples to boost the quality. It seems pretty simple, but it actually takes a bit of time to get it right. You have to make sure the tea is well-blended so that the sample taken by the judges is representative. You also have to keep your hands clean and dry so you don’t add any ‘soapy’ or ‘sweaty’ smells to the tea (which means – you guessed it dear reader –  that I couldn’t even pick my nose ONCE during the whole process!).

Fortunately I was able to control my more ‘primal urges’ and we successfully completed our bag-up and made it home before sunrise. Another job well done!