Tea

attended a tea tasting session with first class tea today. i don't usually drink tea as i prefer coffee, but i went anyway out of curiosity to why the english like their tea so much. it was disappointing at first because the teas that we were going to try were all asian teas, including the all too familiar oolong and pu erh. then i thought it was strange to drink asian teas in glasses, as i thought the tea set and the tea drinking ceremony were part and parcel of the tea drinking experience. nonetheless, the session turned out to be quite interesting, as i didn't know the taste of tea could be described as such before:

china jasmine white clouds (dong ding, fujian)
silver tea; the most highly recommended by will, the person who led the session. incidently, it was the most expensive one we had today, as it is retailed at GBP20 per 100g. jasmine-scented, delicate and light.

organic green darjeeling risheehat (india)
so i learnt that green tea is black tea before the latter gets fermented. the best teas are grown without pesticides because the chemicals will affect the taste of the tea. this particular tea was described as fishy/ seaweedy o.O

organic china oolong
oolong means semi-fermented tea, which is the intermediate between green and black. this is done through tossing the tea leaves such that their edges are bruised and start fermenting there. it was described as woody, smoky, intruguing/ confusing. ironically enough, it is thought to aid clarity of thought and the orange oolong (i.e. orange-flavoured(!)) was the best business tea at first class tea.

japan bancha houjicha
this is roasted sheng cha, meaning the tea leaves are unprocessed as far as it is possible. it's scent reminded me of mai xiang cha. some people thought it was seaweedy (again?!).

xiaguan pu erh tuo cha 2006 (yunnan, china)
this tea has to be matured in a brick, hence the date that shows its year of produce, just like wine. some people described it as 'earthy', like 'kicking up autumn leaves in the woods'- such romantic notions, no wonder it created a commodity bubble not too long ago. also, victoria beckham claimed that pu erh was her secret to staying slim.

abali vrikshayurvedic (arunachal pradesh, india)
the least popular tea of the night. people thought it tasted like rubber. some thought it smelled like chocholate. i thought it was drinkable, just a stronger version of the bancha earlier. oh, this tea was pinkish in colour.

sikkim temi
most people like this one. they described it with all the positive adjectives- honey-like, flowery, armchair tea, even 'a hug from the tea'! i think people are fond with it because it tastes very much like the typical 'english tea', which most of the time is black tea. this tea reminds me of BOH tea from cameron highlands.

rose claire, scented white tea
the name explains the tea. 'claire' was after will's fiancee, to whom he just recently got engaged to. his opinion on the tea: creamy, like turkish delight in a glass.


overall, it was an interesting session with tea. oh, i also learnt that people can get tea drunk on too much tea. apparently this is due to hypoglycaemia, as some types of tea like oolong and pu erh have blood glucose lowering effects. does this justify the all the sugar-loaded cookies and cakes that accompanied the tea session today? i think i have had too much tea in one session, and the acid is giving me a gastric...