Tea is no different. The same kind of accumulated experience that makes Grandma’s cooking seem effortless is becoming increasingly rare in Taiwan’s tea industry. Those with that kind of experience in Taiwan are few and far between. That, and tea is a really poor way to make money, so fewer and fewer people find it economically feasible. One of the few ways to make it profitable is to do it at large scale.

Fewer and fewer small plots are able to make tea production profitable. As far as agricultural land goes, Taiwan has another issue. When an elder passes, the land is usually divided among sons to tend and use as their own. With the plots divided up, there’s less space to plant and process tea when it comes to inheriting tea gardens. This is particularly a problem in Lugu (and Dongding) where space is already really limited by the topography of the area as is. When tea gardens are split, the margins are too low, and many families have already torn out their tea bushes and turned to other more profitable seasonal crops instead.

As hobby drinkers, it’s a sad story to think about, but for these farmers, what else can be done? There are mouths to feed. The industry of oolong has already undergone profound changes in the past 50 years, and industrialization has made large-scale operations one of the only remaining viable ways to make enough profit for the venture to be worth it.

One of the costs of these changes is that teas have become less unique. Tea makers who work with large-scale farms do what they can to move through massive batches of tea at a time. They follow general guidelines that work with the majority of the tea, but time is crunched. Some batches may turn out okay, while others are rushed, as tea can’t be left to pile up outside and become too backed up.

The result is similar to what happens in baking. It’s akin to the difference between generic white bread from the store and a baker producing small batches of sourdough. The store stuff is standardized and tastes the same anywhere you buy it, but the individual bakeries will produce their own house taste, and no one shop will be quite the same.

Oolong making is just like making bread, or Grandma’s cooking. The deeper I’ve gotten into tea, the more I’ve come to appreciate just how much of the craft depends on experience rather than recipes or strict procedures. It takes a lifetime of practice to get it down, and you get much more diversity in taste. It may not always come out the same, but it’s always good. Grandma may not always buy the live fish, or the “in season” veggies, but she knows how to use what she’s got to whip something delicious up. Oolong tea is no different. You have to see what material you’ve got and make adjustments based on those needs. And there are some seasons where you just aren’t going to get the right stuff, no matter what.

I’m always hungry to learn about tea given the chance. Once again, I stopped by an elder’s place to learn a bit more about reading into how to tell the signs of problematic tea. The process is always like eating grandma’s cooking: A delicious and nutritious meal. And I’ve gotten better just a bit better at picking out different “signals” of what is going on in the tea making. Sort of like getting better at tasting what ingredients Grandma used, or whether things were over/under cooked. This elder has spent decades in the tea industry, and has an incredible eye for good tea, as well as identifying problems in a tea. He has the time put in to pretty immediately spot what’s up in a tea, and today he was willing to pull out some teas to guide me through what was going on underneath. He asked what I wanted to learn today, and I said I was curious to learn the influence of the tumbling process on teas (Dalang 大浪/ Langqing 浪菁).

He shuffled through some teas, and we used some big bowls to help the teas expand more fully. He handed me some tweezers, and after a few minutes, we dug in. As we dug in, we discussed different parts of where the teas went right and wrong. And finally ended on a fourth tea that was the “perfect package.”

Bowl 1: Tender Material + Excessively Aggressive Tumbling

The leaf was picked too tender and could not withstand the intensity of the tumbling. The resulting damage caused the signs of water accumulation to appear: bruising, and brownish discoloration that mimicked oxidation but reflected injury rather than appropriate oxidation. The liquor took on a shade darker hue as well. The main lesson was that tumbling intensity must match leaf maturity.

Bowl 2: Overwithered and Overtumbled

The material was picked at an appropriate maturity, but excessive withering and tumbling left the tea looking (and tasting) lifeless. The leaves failed to fully open and seemed limp and exhausted in the bowl, illustrating the concept of “dead”, tea that has lost its ability to “return to life” properly due to processing error.

Bowl 3: Well-Made Tea from Material That Was Too Tender

The processing was largely successful, producing dark green leaves with attractive, uniform crimson red edges and decent fragrance. The teas open back to life and sit comfortably together in the bowl. Its only issue was that the tea when picked was carrying a higher water content (from recent weather) and the shaqing didn’t adjust to account for this. As a result, some of the leaf was still crumpled and wrinkly on some leaves.

However, because the material was still too tender, the tea lacked depth, persistence, body, and aftertaste, showing that good processing cannot fully compensate for immature raw material. Well-made tea, but the “fruit” just wasn’t ripe enough.

Bowl 4: Mature Material, Properly Processed

This tea combined mature leaf material with appropriate withering, strong but suitable tumbling, and successful fermentation. The leaves opened naturally and settled comfortably in the bowl. The tea itself was sweet, full-bodied, and intensely fragrant with a long-lasting aftertaste. It demonstrated the quality possible when both the material and the processing are correct. The funniest (and best) part was that it is by far the cheapest to produce of all four examples above.

As fascinating as these processing details are, a drinker’s priorities are ultimately different…

In the end, without being guided through the process, there are many details that are easy to miss, or worse misdiagnose. Still, these simple glimpses into processing I’ve been digging into the last month or two are enriching in their own right. The variables that play into processing get complicated very quickly and takes lots of repeated exposure to start to get a handle on things.

As a drinker, however, it matters little. It nourishes an understanding of oolong processing, but really all we need to do is make sure our tea tastes good. There are so many factors to consider in how any given tea turned out that overthinking what went wrong and trying to overanalyze processing deficiencies is probably a waste of time without a mentor there to help analyze. Plus, trying to gather too much from pictures without playing with the tea leaves a bit yourself and taste them leaves you with only a partial picture.

The average drinker lacks those decades of experience, and so learning to taste the tea is really your only job. But here are some easier to identify tips if you’re ever curious to look at your tea in a bowl:

• Make sure the tea isn’t too bud-heavy for oolong. Most teas these days are fairly tender, but there are degrees of tenderness. Ripe fruit tastes the sweetest after all.

• The oxidation should show up as a ruby red. To the naked eye it’s easy to mistake for almost black. It should be a fairly clean, uniform edge.

• Browning or splotchy oxidation is no good.

• Leaves should be able to fully unfurl (though roast complicates this and other visual indicators, especially the heavier the roast is, so you’ll have to rely more on taste). As for taste…the real stuff blows the rest out of the water.

• The fragrance is pure and pungent. The broth is sweet, full, and leaves behind plenty of impression after swallowing. It will stick around. The tea doesn’t get rough, even in late steeps.

Tasting tea isn’t difficult, but having tasted well-made stuff really makes the job easier. It leaves such an impression that it becomes easier to compare to other things.

…Grandma’s cooking vs. ordering takeout. Once you’ve tasted the real thing, the difference becomes hard to ignore.

One final note related to the themes of relying on experience rather than recipe: eyeball your teas more often when going for enjoyment. Start with a small thin layer at the bottom. Usually that’s good enough but adjust as you go. Don’t grab the timer. Like learning to cook by adjusting, do the same with your tea and timing. Eventually you’ll get a better feel for things, and the process comes more naturally. There’s a time and place for procedures —like evaluating tea— but when you’re on your own with a session, just enjoy the process and keep things light and natural. See how it works for you, and someday you’ll make it look just as carefree and easy as Grandma’s cooking.

I’ve been busy traveling all around the island the last week and a half, spending a good chunk of my time outside of Taipei. When given the chance to cut away from the business I’ve been attending to, I’ve been spending time talking to (and drinking with) pu’er folk. The mentalities of the tea investors are interesting to discuss, and very different from my own. I’ve enjoyed peeking a bit into how the other half lives.

Those looking for even more on this storage and investment topic should really start here. You’ll find some overlap, so this in someways is just a continuation of essentially the same topic. Never hurts to have a bit more information!

It should come as no surprise to pu’er drinkers that Dayi is king for investment. Dayi products have a huge market, so prices are less arbitrary, making it ideal to trade. The rules are clear and the tea’s quality is consistent. Investors also know that to sell Dayi tea successfully in Taiwan, the tea must be both clean and pristine. Each investor has their own different standard operating procedures for how they store their teas before sale.

Many insist on removing all tea from jian/tong bamboo, as it attracts insects. Whatever they do, they must reduce damage to wrappers, stains, or any other detractions to the tea’s appearance. Teas are kept in tongs (ideally paper) and cardboard boxes that have first been checked for off odors. Finding the right boxes matters, though these days the tea is shipped in them already, and those original boxes generally suffice. As for the individual cakes: any tea oils on wrappers, tears, bug bites, or otherwise will indicate a subpar product and fetch a lower price.

Dayi teas, of course, are prioritized above all other factories. Of course, these guys may have some stock of other factories on hand. It can’t hurt to have some on hand for those interested, and to diversify the portfolio a bit, but their main income source is undoubtedly Dayi sales.

There’s a heavy preference for post-reform Dayi as an investment tool. Pre-reform is hard to guarantee clean storage, and batch variations and consistency are a lot more to keep track of and justify to your customer. Much 90s tea was previously stored in HK storage, which isn’t as popular in Taiwan. That, and the prices tend to be a harder pill to swallow, and less likely to have stable returns. Bad investment material.

Post-reform isn’t without its hiccups. 2005-2008 are full of bloated crappy teas and some inconsistency with batches, especially in 2005. Not to mention many serious’ drinkers concerns with significant drops in quality or changes with processing styles. Still, one investor I spoke with prefers 2006-2009 and post 2017 vintages for teas that to him have more consistent quality and consistent “packaging.” These make for the most consistent investment vehicles in his arsenal.

To keep the tea smelling fragrant, and wrappers clean, investors need to maintain mild storage conditions for their tea. It is better that teas present unaged and original than be “ruined” by aggressive temperature or humidity. A few people I spoke to on my trip mentioned that there preference is for lower humidity in their storage. Usually somewhere between 40 and 50% RH is ideal. Going higher on occasion is fine, but it seems like the median preference just around 50% RH.

There are practices to keep teas safe from too much humidity or condensation, especially when it rains. For one, teas are rarely kept directly on the ground. If they are, they are generally bagged several times during dry times and kept fairly sealed. The rest are elevated. With the assistance of racks, space is given between different boxes of tea to help with airflow rather than stacking a room full of boxes floor to ceiling.

One collector’s storage setup I was given a tour of had 5 different dehumidifiers running around a few different rooms, with a few others out of rotation for repair. Additionally, his second floor had AC running basically 24/7 to help with humidity. This is the cost of keeping tea “clean” and doing business.

The circle of those reselling factory tea is fairly tight. These guys all generally know each other, and if you spend time around the scene, you’ve probably encountered some of them, too. Their market prices line up in the same ballpark, but investors are pretty fierce about trying to get the edge and inch their prices below that of their competition. It seems that in this case, there is a significant advantage to living in a less metropolitan area.

Those familiar with some of the Taiwanese-sourced factory pu’er in the West may not think too much about where the original operations are located. Generally, it’s a safe bet they are not in Taipei, nor near the center of any larger metropolitan area. They do not always operate out of a traditional brick and mortar, either. This may give off the impression that they are just passionate hobbyists/collectors, but those who have spent any time in Taiwan know that selling things out of a home or family-owned space has huge cost savings compared to paying rent in the city for a store. Stretching margins and finding the right teas to resell helps keep the cash flowing.

Also of note, investors do not seem to think very highly of Taiwanese boutique teas. First off, because it’s a terrible investment tool. Taiwanese private labels (自我品牌, generally called boutique in the West) just aren’t worth investing in seriously. For one, the prices are determined by the private individual selling it. There isn’t really a large standardized market like Dayi has, or any way to tie boutique tea’s value to anything concrete. The initial prices are based on branding, claimed material, a good story, and ideally some hype from the label’s fans.

If you’ve ever watched the secondary market, many of these boutique teas sell for incredibly cheap. Those familiar with XZH should know the ridiculous price disparity between what its official price is listed at when sold directly from XZH, versus what it is picked up for on the secondary market. Awkward for the brand, and exactly the reason that these investors don’t bother with it. To investors, it’s too volatile of a “vibes” market. The other private labels are all viewed essentially the same.

While Dayi has ups and downs, its teas’ value is the most widely standardized and accepted by the industry and drinkers alike. Investors don’t see tea in the same way, so this is not meant to insult anyone’s preference for, or opinions on any given boutique’s products. The investor’s frame is that tea needs to be profitable. Dayi strikes the balance. The quality is consistent enough, and it stands the test of time. It will taste fine in 20 years. Other teas are a riskier gamble. Many boutiques opt for “drink now” teas that end up very fragrant, but not suitable for the long haul.

This, unsurprisingly, also influences what some drink. One gentleman I spoke to regards Bulang area to be the most premium tea that can be had. By nature of that, he of course loves Lao Banzhang teas as well. During a visit, he pulled out some Dayi Bulang cakes, excitedly mentioning that this stuff is a bit different than the general Dayi line.

Another anecdotal observation I have made while visiting with tea businessmen is the type of teas they drink, and for what intention.

“You see, when Dayi puts Bulang on a label, you know its genuine. Dayi is such a big operation, and these days you can do DNA testing! Would Dayi risk their entire reputation so recklessly by putting that on a wrapper and selling random material under a ruse? Bulang, and especially Banzhang teas are like the Dayuling of pu’er. This is the stuff that carries the best cha qi, this is what I drink when I want to experience the best of pu’er, and the pinnacle of menghai taste.”

I have observed what seems to be a particular preference for regions that are famed for their strength. Subtle or more nuanced teas are not the stuff that excites them. These businessmen seem to enjoy the same Bulang cakes that the investor market prioritizes. Private labels in Taiwan tend to focus on Yiwu as the region of choice. These guys aren’t interested in investing in these teas but also don’t seem very interested in drinking them for enjoyment, either.

The easiest way to make decent money in this game is for investors to sit on larger quantities of less expensive products to sell as they steadily gain value. So long as they are making a margin, they will sell teas they got in bulk regardless of whether the market ebbs or flows. Over time, certain batches or special productions grab the market’s attention, and this is when they can pounce on the opportunity to sell those teas that were not as cheap to bring in but have finally attained rich returns.

Of course, right now is a great time to buy Dayi for regular drinkers. Investors aren’t seeing as much of their cheap bulk teas picked up in large orders as Dayi prices dip. There are other avenues to making money when the general market sags like this. Businessmen who travel frequently to China can also depend on the Neveau riche Chinese tea collectors to purchase orders of even rarer cakes. In these cases, some investors will look for smaller sales with higher margins on a bit rarer high-end stuff. Certain vintages of some teas such as the Jin Dayis, Peacock series, Xuanyuan Hao, etc. tend to maintain higher prices consistently even when the market dips.

There is another interesting point that I feel is worth noting; and for this one, I will have to tread lightly. If you’ve spent any time on the island, you’ll know that every region you visit will tell you that what they’ve got going on is the bees’ knees…Taipeiers are smug and proud of their “town,” and any other city or township you go to is no different.

For example, if you visit any tea growing area, they’ll tell you that their tea actually has the best growing conditions on the island, or the best soil, or the best yearly climate. Whatever it is. Every town will tell you they have the best snacks, or weather, or local dishes, or night sights, or most correct Taiwanese pronunciation, or hot debate as to which city’s tea shop was the first to invent bubble tea…the debates are fun and never ending.

The point I am attempting make here is that each locale’s residents hold biases towards their own stomping grounds, and while it makes for healthy and fun competition and local identity, it is always worth taking with a grain of salt. Naturally, this bleeds into tea, too.

South of Taipei, tea collectors definitely feel that their locale is the ideal spot for storing tea in Taiwan. Taichung residents love their climate for tea. They’ll tell you that it’s the best you can get on the island. Kaohsiung and Tainan both say the same. I’ve don’t know what would happen if you put a collector from each city in a room, but I feel very confident that, at the very least, they would find common ground in telling you that Taipei is a terrible place to store tea. Remember that investors want their tea to be pure dry stored (純乾倉), so in this case, they are right that Taipei can be a bit of a nightmare when it comes to humidity. Any blemishes that they can see, and they will tell you the tea would then be categorized instead as natural storage (自然倉). There is a lot of this type of tea to be found in Tapei. To be fair, there’s plenty of it in other cities, too. In Taipei’s defense, it really depends on the conditions in your home and what part of town you are in.

Where I stay with family, for example, would probably be a dreadful spot for storing tea. We live up in the mountains in New Taipei City pretty far out of town. The house is also quite old. There often isn’t a huge difference between inside and outside humidity or temperature. The humidity is a splendid 80% pretty much year-round. It can stay even higher if it rains. Your towel doesn’t dry. Ever. When you finish showering, you’re just in a sticky sauna. When you bring in your clothes from sun-drying, they stay slightly damp until you put them on and wear them out the door.

AC is generally not run at home except when sleeping, and windows are kept open to increase airflow during the day. The home is also on the first floor, which is a big deal since the building has no elevators, but isn’t ideal for avoiding humidity. Probably not ideal conditions for tea storage.

The answer for Taipei, for those who can do it, is to store your tea a few stories up. Being a few floors up gets you away from ground level, so the humidity starts to drop off a bit. In some of the high rises, you can get high enough up to get humidity fairly low even without dehumidifying. Something like this is the ideal place to keep your tea if you can help it in the North and want pure dry storage. Not ideal for an investor, sure. Considering the amount of rain the north sees, as well as the natural moisture trap that Taipei area’s basin shape creates, you do need to make sure that you are considering your tea storage before you start hoarding large quantities of tea to invest. But good luck finding a space that ticks off all of those boxes and still has enough space to store significant amounts of tea.

The other problem is that the North is expensive. If you are looking to sell tea as an investment, you will probably just struggle to compete with the prices folks in more rural areas can offer while still managing your overhead in the city.

There are so many factors to consider for those storing pu’er in Taiwan - for hobbyists and investors alike. The island has huge variations in climate, and vastly different considerations for storing tea than drinkers deal with in the West. It’s always funny to hear people say things like “Taiwan storage is too dry” or “Taiwanese storage is the best.” To my ears, that’s like hearing someone say “I like Chinese food.” What kind? The statement means very little alone but is often stated by those with very little grasp of the complexities of the topic at hand.

More broadly, this also applies to any place teas are stored. I’ve certainly seen claims like: “Taiwanese storage tastes like x,” or that “Malaysian storage has x characteristics.” Think of the sample size for teas you’ve had from these areas, especially if you are only purchasing from Western-facing vendors. Dozens of teashops, friends’ personal storage, and investors’ staches later, I couldn’t begin to tell you what Taiwan storage tastes like and imagine that other regions are just as nuanced. When serious investors call their tea pure dry storage, there is a fairly narrow profile that you can pretty confidently count on, but even that isn’t always so simple. It doesn’t stop others from slapping the label on their own storage in hopes of attracting a few sales before people get wise.

Taiwan has somewhere near 200 years of history in tea. But people on the island have only been drinking tea for around 50 years, following Taiwan’s economic rise. People with enough cash to spend wanted stuff to spend it on, and tea became one of the trendy consumables.

Prior to this, there were a handful of houses that controlled most of the tea on the island. Tea was produced in smaller volume, and most of it was not consumed domestically. During different periods of the first 150ish years of tea history, tea was prepared for different export markets. Farmers would have to supply based on the specifications of these large operations, or their material would not be selected.

And at this time, mature material with sufficient fermentation was standard. Farmers had to oblige. In fact, they would rather let their leaves grow past picking prime and just not harvest than pick early, as the material would not be accepted. Leaf material was picked when the bushes had pushed out enough new growth and were ready to stop producing new shoots. The picking consisted of a pair of two symmetrical opposing leaves, with a dormant bud (開面對口芽). This is technically the origin of the “one heart, two leaf” picking. The “heart” in this case being the dormant bud. This picking allows for the most fragrant material to be made, and the more mature material can withstand more punishment (in sun drying, shaking, and tumbling) and when oxidized properly can produce intoxicatingly fragrant, and rich tea.

Taiwan is a great place to grow tea, but the climate makes for a nightmare when it comes to processing. Rainy seasons, typhoons, and many areas prone to mist and fog during long stretches of the day means that encountering optimal weather for proper oolong requires a good bit of luck. If your bushes reached optimal picking maturity during a rainy stretch, there wasn’t really a way to harvest.

To combat this, tea farmers had to diversify. Putting all your eggs in one basket is a great way to quickly go bankrupt. Farms would stagger harvests by planting different cultivars so that the different plants would reach maturity at different parts of the season. If rain were to ruin one crop, a farmer would then wait for the next one to grow and try their luck again. Such is the life of a tea farmer.

In with the new

Zip forward to the past 50 years, and people are spending money on tea domestically all of a sudden. People with little experience with tea, really. And with cash flowing, there is money to be made. Many new hands got involved in the process and started popping up shops and farms to meet this new domestic demand. Somewhere in the 80s, Dongding became quite trendy, and shortly after high mountain oolongs took off.

These days, as tea reaches a reasonable maturity, it will be picked. There is no longer any need to wait for “optimal” picking, nor is there the same level of time and energy put into processing. New consumers and new producers all don’t really care, and the stuff sells either way. Why risk botching a batch? And if somehow you do run into trouble, the government has subsidies to help out farmers (and conveniently secure votes for upcoming elections!), so there’s really no reason not to over-plant, over-pick, and produce at as high a volume as possible.

And so, styles have changed, and with them, consumers’ expectations and understanding of tea. The economy has continued to grow. Farm labor has become even more expensive. Time is precious, and margins can be thin. There is little incentive to hold on to old ideals when profit is at stake and there are mouths to feed. Yet, some still insist on preserving some semblance of what tea used to, or can still be.

Two holdouts against modern trends

A quaint operation in the city - The buyer/gatekeeper

The first example is an older established shop in the city. This operation has roots in the tea industry before it boomed into the market it is today. They insist on material being picked and processed their way. They have connections to many old friends around the island. Farmers who are willing to work with this operation know that if the material fits the requirements, their tea will be purchased. The shop blends and roasts the tea themselves. They visit with long-time connections and sample maocha carefully before placing their orders. If things did not turn out how they want, they pass.

Of course, it would be great if all shops operated this way, but this approach isn’t very practical for most operations. In this case, this company has the luxury of already having many long-established connections behind it to demand that farmers provide tea grown to their expectations. Really waht this means is they have enough transactions logged through the years to show their will to stand by their standards, but also their willingness to purchase as much material as possible when it fits the bill.

Annually, they turn to different farms to make teas. This is quite different than those who chose to establish and nurture the same connections season by season. But since their requirements for material are so strict, they have to diversify who they buy tea from. The island’s weather and climate make tea farming unpredictable. Farmers may have to pick early to avoid a ruined harvest, at which point their material will be passed over. Farmers often refuse to listen to the specifications of the shop, too. They get antsy. They try to wrap up processing early. It takes all the right pieces falling into place.

This operation is lucky to have established customers, too. They are old-fashioned, hardly ever open, and the technology of their business basically stopped updating circa 1980. Once this place the few remaining of its kind shutter, so too will a sliver of history.

The farmer - Nostalgia with a modern twist

Another example comes from outside of town. This is a family that makes their own teas from start to finish. They don’t own the farm but have been working with the same plots for somewhere near 40 years. Once material is picked, they see it through to the finish, including charcoal roasting.

This operation started up because the owner likes tea. Modern tea wasn’t scratching the itch, so the owner switched industries to start making tea the way he liked. A cool story, but there’s enough tea farmer stories on the internet. Far more interesting is how they navigate the modern tea market.

Like the previous shop, they’ve slowly built a strong customer base — a far cry from many of the “hipster” operations that now use social media to sell an underdog story, cute pictures of a farm, or posts about how great this year’s harvest is.

That said, they face different constraints than the previous operation, since this operation sees the tea through from start to finish. No matter what, they are going to harvest the tea and will have to sell it — or take a loss. The pressure is on. Their primary work is tea, so every season something needs to be made if possible.

Like many operations today, they hire Vietnamese seasonal labor to help pick their tea. This might be one of the hardest parts of the operation. Getting enough workers organized on the right day is a task in itself. To help with staggering the harvest, they have different areas planted with different cultivars. This helps keep harvests to manageable quantities of material and makes it more likely to get enough pickers for each batch.

For those unfamiliar, harvest laborers are paid based on weight. If unsupervised, pickers start to get carried away with how far down the stem they pluck. Picking a few extra leaves down —up to 4 or 5— helps add extra weight to the bag. Of course, this material isn’t wanted. This tea operation spends many hours after initial picking and processing removing older leaf and stem that the pickers included in their harvest.

Their tea is not picked to the same strict specifications as the previous shop, but they do have conditions of their own. They will not pick tea without three days free of rain. Despite the misty mountain weather, they insist on sun withering. They pile the leaves longer than most operations. Their withering and oxidation take much more time to complete.

They also charcoal roast their material. Charcoal is unwieldy and unpredictable. It can easily get too hot and burn the material, meaning it must be tended to closely. If the tea burns, so does their profit on the batch. They essentially have to rest the burnt batch a few years and tend to the roast if they even decide to sell it. Charcoal roasting takes time. This is what many of their customers have come to expect, and they aren’t about to intentionally disappoint the base they have grown.

Light roasts usually take them 50 hours of total roast time. Medium, around 100 hours. Heavy roast, 150 hours or more. And this can’t be done all at once. Material must rest and rehumidify before being roasted again, or the tea may not come out well. Basically, a spring tea that is to be heavy roasted won’t be ready until fall.

While this operation may lack the privileges of their city counterpart, they have managed to keep afloat. They have enough customers interested in their teas that they have cornered a section of the market. Their teas may not all meet the strict standards of Taiwan’s ideal oolong — but they strike a compromise somewhere in between.

And so even in a sea of same-y gaoshan oolongs, there are those who try their hand at something a little different. There are still those trying to find their niche and tackle the challenges of modern tea growing in their own ways.

“Shanlinxi,” he replied.

I have never been one to care too much for terroir but mentioned that I wouldn’t have known or guessed in the first place. He grinned and remarked that it doesn’t matter anyway. We started talking about “Shantou qi” (山頭氣) — or terroir characteristics — and he gave a nice little metaphor to sum up his thoughts on terroir.

Raw tea from any given place is like rice, and a tea maker is like a chef making fried rice. It’s the chef’s job to be keen enough to pick the right rice to cook their dish. It shouldn’t be too soggy, or too hard. It should be stir-fried in a way that uses the rice to enhance the experience of the final dish. Customers aren’t going to pay the big bucks for a plain bowl of rice. They’re going to pay for the place that can prepare the best plate of fried rice. You should be picking your tea in the same way. Find the right chef. Chasing mountains is akin to chasing bowls of white rice. Obviously, there are great examples of outstanding quality rice out there, but I think it’s safe to say that very few people are eating and enjoying white rice alone all too often.

When a tea maker knows what they are doing with raw teas, beautiful things can happen. Oolong tea in general is quite fragrant, but there are teas that are made and refined in such a way by their maker that the tea’s fragrance almost sings. Instead of nosing a cup or teaware to seek out its aroma, the aromas just assail your nostrils. It’s a pure, ringing, resonating fragrance that grabs your focus. And yet, it’s a difficult thing to cross paths with, as making it is a fight against nature. Tea passes many hands in its cultivation and production, and these days there are fewer chefs with the knowledge and grit to source and amplify the raw material in their final product.

The place where a tea grows will influence material, but by the time the tea has been formed into a complete product, it becomes a note of the dish rather than the highlight. The right picking and withering on a tea that has seen the right conditions to grow into high-quality base material can take a tea to the next level.

Using mature leaf material is optimal for creating a beautiful Taiwanese oolong, but it isn’t very common to see these days. In fact, you’ll be lucky to even come across it in most of the market. I trust most drinkers are familiar with the “one bud, two leaf” picking that has become more common. Taiwanese teas were picked this way previously, but the phrase had a different meaning, one that indicated material had reached a fully mature (but still obviously tender enough to pick) state. Afterall, ripe fruit tastes the sweetest!

The problem is that this picking takes an extra week or so to form. If there is rain or drought, or other climate issues, or no sun days when the tea plants might reach that picking maturity, a batch will all of a sudden become much more of a hassle to make. So, farmers are quite hesitant (or in reality just flat out refuse) to wait the extra time and take the gamble. And so, it takes a very involved chef that either has extremely good relationships or oversight over the entire process to even see this achieved in the modern Taiwanese tea industry.

Because there are so many hiccups in getting tea from picked, to rolled and dried into maocha, to “refined” by a maker (which many simply refuse to do anymore), exceptional teas are hard to come by just by sheer odds.

When you find the right tea maker that can find the right materials and enhance them to a moving final product, the rest follows. Pick the chef and enjoy the ride — whether it’s Lishan, Alishan, Pinglin, or Mingjian or whatever little place.

For the same reason that chefs have a few different sources for produce and materials for their restaurants, a keen tea maker or shop may not always use the same farms every year. So long as the material is up to snuff, they’ll take it. Sometimes, that may not happen, and they must unfortunately turn to other connections to find suitable teas. As a customer, if you find a trusted tea maker, then you don’t need to worry about it. You know the chef picks good rice, and you know they have the culinary chops to back it up.

Pick the chef, not the rice.

On one final note, to me, I find loose similarities in the themes of change of tea production to how old school eateries and family run shops operated in Taiwan. Recent historical fiction novel Taiwan Travelogue《台灣漫遊錄》has gained popularity among Chinese and English readers alike. The novel takes the reader on a nostalgia trip through chapters each dedicated to individual traditional Taiwanese dishes found around the island during the Japanese Colonial Era.

Some of these traditional dishes are uncommon to find today, or their recipes have changed dramatically. This novel is a love letter to some of those cultural gems that may have faded or evolved through shifts in time and modernization. The same things certainly happened to tea. To end on a somewhat melancholy note, some of the traditional practices used to make oolong may fade away almost completely within a generation. Having the opportunity to experience and appreciate them and keep a small piece of history locked away in memory is a privilege and joy.

Health-conscious consumers and foodies seem to want everything on their plate to come from a small family-run boutique farm where the sun smiles and birds chirp. It’s a chicken-and-egg situation: did marketing condition consumers to think this way, or did healthy lifestyle trends catch the eye of companies who began catering to them? Probably both. Being detached from the reality of farm products and their challenges is what made the “Happy Cows Come from California” campaign so successful in the early 2000s for California dairy. Wisconsin cattle ranchers still twitch when they hear it.

Any agricultural product you can think of has its story to compete for your attention and purchase. There are organic foods, pesticide free, non-GMO labels, and so on.

Tea is no different. Tea producers and farmers are a business. They are profit driven, even if they give the appearance of something artisan. Farms have varying degrees of dedication when it comes to sustainability or any other number of things. Sometimes corners get cut, or certain production or farming methods aren’t feasible or viable. Producers use marketing to attract customers based on health or lifestyle fads to try and help with pricing. Whatever methods are employed, at the end of the day, the farmer needs to get paid.

Tea quickly becomes warped into an idealistic product that pairs well with certain lifestyles and preys on “market illiteracy” with similar success to other food and beverage marketing campaigns. What do you care about most? Gushu? Natural farming? Hand-picked/made? Traditional styles? Charcoal Roast? Elevation? Cultivar? Ethical business practices? Packaging and wrappers? Rarity and Scarcity? Customer service?

These selling points illustrate consumer detachment from agricultural reality. Even those drinking tea simply for the love of tea can become susceptible to exoticizing certain selling points. Tea is an agricultural product. Looking at it as such helps demystify and approach the stuff more practically. Tea grows in the ground, gets harvested, and we drink it. Production factors determine how much is available and what it costs — whether you’re buying from a merchant or directly from the source.

Our job as consumers is to understand how to buy good-tasting tea while, ideally, avoiding marketing tricks.

I think many online Western drinkers think themselves part of the enlightened group of consumers. They’ve dodged the marketing tricks. They’ve had lots of teas, and with a little time within communities, maybe they’ve watched lies and deceit of many vendors be taken down by trusted community members! They buy from trusted sources that have proven themselves in the marketplace. They’ve read the right blogs and talk to the right people.

Well…

Do it blind. And do it for yourself. When you pick up a few products from whichever vendors, blind them up. Order up a few different products and put them through some sort of standard brewing procedure. Avoid any information entirely in the process. Don’t look at the leaves. Just drink.

There’s nothing to prove to anyone else. Did your $1/g tea really blow your $0.20/g tea out of the water, or was it a bit less obvious than you anticipated? Could you really taste all of those marketing points? If you couldn’t, is it because you’re missing something, or are they actually not present in your cup? Are you sure that price and quality are fairly correlated?

Do it here and there and just see what you notice. If you’re like me, you’ll find yourself humbled often enough.

My favorite part about shopping in Taiwan is the fact that the only thing I can do is trust my taste, and use my knowledge gained from drinking around other shops to decide whether to sit down. Some shops post prices next to prepackaged teas, which tells you something about how they operate; but if you can’t taste first, best to move on. The places I tend to frequent are pretty quiet about their tea. They’re friendly enough, but they just let you drink the tea. They serve what I ask for, or at least what they think represents what I’m asking for, and wait and see.

Through the interaction, I try to navigate towards a tea that meets what I’m looking for. That process starts before even sitting down. In many shops, prices aren’t just posted next to teas, so I usually don’t know the price until after I start drinking.

There are some shops you can tell are trying to sell you an experience rather than dried leaves. In the end, you just have to decide whether the tea in front of you is worth lightening your purse for. I prefer not knowing the price until inquiring after tasting. If I like it, I buy it. If there was nothing to like, I made the choice to sit down, so I generally leave with something. Either way, they get paid, I get the tea.

This is especially true for isolated drinkers. Without clear reference points, it’s easier to rely on feeling than evaluation. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make it harder to develop a deeper sense of quality.

As you taste more broadly, your perspective starts to shift. After tasting a wider range of teas, some tea becomes more or less appealing. You notice differences in storage, processing, origin, and material. You get a rough sense of regional character. At that point, a lot of tea you may have experienced falls into a wide middle ground — enjoyable, but not especially distinctive. Nothing wrong with it, just that it doesn’t leave a strong impression.

Tea quality isn’t evenly distributed across all levels, of course. It’s closer to a pyramid. Most teas sit in that middle range (with a wide base of commercial teas at the bottom), while only a small portion stands out with clarity, structure, and memorability. Those teas are rare for a reason. They depend on material, craft, conditions, and timing coming together in a way that isn’t easy to repeat. Probably 9 out of 10 teas we drink (honestly, probably higher) sit in this middle - somewhere from average to pretty good.

A single, well-timed session with truly distinctive tea can be more useful than many sessions with average ones. Especially in encounters with people who aren’t trying to sell you anything or push a narrative. These experiences force a new frame of reference on you and stay with you. They show you things you didn’t know tea could do. These teas form the cornerstone of real judgment. The standards you built before are challenged, and many teas you once pointed to as exemplars may suddenly appear mundane or flawed.

All that said, good tea still rightly finds its place as a humble, gratifying experience. It’s part of daily life. It doesn’t need to be optimized or overthought. Brew it however you like. Use whatever teaware you have. Let it be simple.

“Drink what you like” still holds true, but it carries more weight once it’s grounded in experience. The majority of teas you will encounter are fairly plebian; but you’ve built enough of a palate and standards that help you find decent quality that can be enjoyed every day. The point isn’t to simply chase expensive tea or drink only the highest quality or rarest teas you think you can find. It’s to make sure that, at some point, you’ve accumulated reference points from all level of quality and style to know what’s possible. After that, your preferences are actually your own.

Not when I made it.

It's easy to enjoy tea someone else prepares. Making it yourself is harder. I know these teas are good. But when I first tried to recreate what I'd experienced, I failed.

After returning to the US, I've started to consistently recreate those experiences. Over the past six months, I've spent many sessions trying to make my tea taste as good as the best teas I had last summer. Six months of brewing produced both frustrating and rewarding sessions. Failures created the desire to improve.

Here, I will share some findings that you have probably heard elsewhere, yet are things crystallized as truths in our tea brewing only through commitment and practice. Sharing is only to encourage others to engage in curiosity that hopefully leads to an improvement in their own tea experiences.

Step one is remembering. I think that drinking tea with other seasoned tea folk is a huge step in seeing what is possible in preparing a tea. I’m glad that I kept notes on some of these occasions. Reflections I wrote then help me with my approach now. They also inform what details I failed to consider at the time, and what I should try to appreciate next. With a few months left before returning to Taiwan, I've started noting what I want to learn next.

My goal was to recreate highly concentrated teas that, even when brewed strongly, produce strong aftertaste, mouth activity, and rich smooth liquor. Here are my main takeaways from six months of experimentation:

1. Make sure the tea is good first.

Experienced drinkers can skip this step. If you haven’t optimized your brewing for your teas (like me), start here: Learn to identify good tea.

Use side-by-sides, competition cups, or bowl brewing. Best to do this blind, if you can. If you have high-quality teas, use 3 grams in a bowl or similar method to see how it compares to lesser teas. If you can’t tell the difference, two things are possible:

1. The tea isn’t as good as you thought

2. You need more practice identifying good tea characteristics. Repeat the comparison. Blind repetitions helped me significantly.

Removing brewing skill from the equation helps you focus on the tea itself. It eliminates questions like “did I over-brew this?” or “did I use too much or too little leaf?” Simple cuppings work well for this.

2. Experiment and learn.

You have a tea you know is good quality. Use your available tools and see what works best. Ignore unhelpful advice (including mine, if it doesn’t seem to work). If you've tried advice honestly, stick with what works best.

If Alex over at Taiwan Tea Odyssey’s post on the kettle rabbit hole tells you anything, it’s that switching things up might surprise you. Experiments may reinforce what you already know, but you might discover something useful. Learn from experienced brewers, but don’t be afraid to make sure adjustments suit your taste and practices.

For years, I’ve used a tetsubin to brew most teas. Recently, I’ve been working with roasted oolongs again after a break. I was getting poor results and needed to adjust. I tested water first. I tried tap, bottled spring waters, and a local spring source. None worked well with the tetsubin. Then, I tried a clay kettle. It worked much better. So that’s what I use for roasted oolongs now.

Take your time and note what works and what doesn't. You'll develop what works for you. Brewing tea is like cultivation or craft. Don't lose sight of your goal. Ignore vendor brewing guides and internet advice if it doesn’t seem right. Discard methods that don't help you reach your goal.

Though I usually brew alone, tea is ideally a social drink. I relied on a few drinking companions to keep me on track. Thanks to Ms. Hanji and her mother for making sure my experimentation produced drinkable tea for others too. Repeated experimentation helped me discover brewing I'm happy with.

3. Reflections

After months of trying to recreate the teas I drank in Taiwan, a few patterns gradually revealed themselves. None of them were particularly mysterious, but they only became clear through repetition. Rather than outlining a strict brewing guide, I would prefer to share a few of the observations that proved most helpful in improving my own brewing.

The first realization was that heat matters and should be respected to produce a great brew. Small pots lose temperature quickly, affecting the release of the tea’s content. Larger vessels hold heat longer and extract more quickly. The same tea can behave very differently depending on the pot. Learning to adjust the leaf accordingly became more important than any precise timings. I lean towards heavier ratios in smaller pots to adjust.

I stopped worrying about rigid brewing formulas. Timing, pouring style, rinsing or not rinsing…these things matter, but not as much as paying attention to how the tea responds. A tea will tell you quickly if it wants more time, more leaf, or a gentler approach.

Another lesson concerned strength. Many of the teas that impressed me most in Taiwan were brewed more heavily than I had considered reasonable before. Yet when the tea itself was good, strong brewing rarely produced unpleasant infusions. Instead, teas made this way highlighted what I, as a drinker, care most about: body, activity and movement in the mouth, and stronger sensation in the throat (houyun or 喉韻). Achieving this consistently meant using more leaf than I once felt comfortable with.

Roasted and aged teas in particular reward this approach. Their character seems to concentrate when brewed more heavily, and they respond well to a stronger infusion. With enough material in the pot, they produce dense liquor that unfolds slowly across the palate and throat rather than disappearing immediately after the swallow.

One small habit I picked up was allowing for a longer “rinse” steep. This steep is more appropriately a “warming steep” (or Wenrun pao 溫潤泡), and is not discarded unless a tea is very low quality. Letting the tea soak a bit longer at in this opening steep helps the leaves open and prepares them for the infusions that follow. Once the tea has opened up in this way, the subsequent steeps can be shorter without sacrificing richness, and easily adjusted depending on how the tea responds.

I often enjoy returning to the "rinse" at the end of the session once it has cooled. By that point, the leaves have given everything they have. Revisiting that first cup, now cooled, offers a final glimpse of the tea's full character and often reveals small details hidden by fragrances that distract more easily when the tea is warm. More of the layers beneath the roast can be seen clearly when drunk this way.

None of these observations are revolutionary. But after months of trying to reproduce the teas I remembered, they gradually formed the foundation of a brewing style that feels closer to what I experienced in Taiwan.

In short, find good tea, decide on what you are chasing, then push forward with curiosity rather than fear. In the end, you will never perfectly recreate a memory’s session. Different environments and tools will produce different results. Your goal is simply a compass. When you find what you are looking for in a session, you gain more than just a rewarding session; you add techniques and tools to help improve your craft. Repetition and imitation give way to your own confident expression of a tea’s best qualities.

August 2025

This time, I wanted to explore some teas I visit less often, and have lost touch with. I had the Deng Shihai Fulu Yuancha while in LA this August, and was completely taken off guard by it. I wasn’t told what it was, and didn’t recognize it. Even after being told what it was, I was still surprised. It has been probably two years at least since last I had it out of my own storage.

I decided to blind it up against a few things of similar age, and see what I’d find. It can’t hurt to take away labels, and see if I can sniff it out now that its current qualities sit in more recent memory.

You’d be surprised how quickly you can lose familiarity when you don’t brew a tea frequently, or have spent a few months drinking through so many other different teas. Little check-ins like this are fun, and sometimes shake up expectations.

This line-up threw me a curveball. I expected the four teas to have obvious hints, but I found myself stumped—and I like that. It showed I wasn't very familiar with these teas at all. Similarities blurred together, making it confusing to puzzle out my guesses. But it helped me focus on what stood out most for each tea.

Rustic ZC. The intensity of the aromatics and bite of the tea was engaging. A bit less rich up front compared to the other teas, but not too bad. Some decent activity in the mouth, and pleasant aftertaste. As a profile, it is something I’d probably touch less frequently in its current state.

LFPT is the most approachable and agreeable of the bunch. Smooth up front, and deeper taste than #1. The aromatics are mature enough and pleasant. Sweeter, too.

FLYC is a more youthful profile. It has a more floral aroma structure. It was plenty sweet, and somewhat refreshing. The central flaw was a bit of a drop-off in the second half of the session.

801-8582 presented the most single-track of the set. It carries pleasant aromatics, and a satisfying enough finish. There’s plenty of substance in each steep. Consistency was a plus. Fruity and tolerable, but a bit boring in presentation.

I did not expect my memory to fail so badly. Familiarity helps a lot in these instances. Many of these teas aren’t things I’ve approached in months. The Rustic ZC was an obvious profile to sniff out. I was surprised at being uncertain between LFPT and 801-8582. Though guessing is less the point of the exercise, it was still fun to find myself without that confidence.

Fast-forward to February 2026

My memory from August had cast LFPT in a very favorable light even when punching against the other teas. I spoke with James after doing these blinds (and forgot to finish and publish this post), so seeing his recent comparison made me want to revisit these teas for a few reasons.

1. When I first returned from Taiwan this summer, I was brewing like a maniac. Since August, I’ve made many adjustments to my brewing—some of which I’ve discussed in other posts.

2. My approach to evaluating teas has changed significantly. I’ve spent much more time comparing teas I own. The added scrutiny has been valuable. I’ve become more aware of the qualities that, in aggregate, make for good tea—whether or not I have to love it.

3. It never hurts to try things a few times over.

4. I realized that I completely forgot to post this blind previously…

This time, the teas weren’t blind, but I haven’t been thinking much about pu’er lately. The last time I had each of these was in that August blind. Since then, I’ve only had a handful of pu’er sessions. I’m not deeply moved by either tea, though I’m pleased enough to own a little of both. Neither is something I’d buy more of at this point.

This seemed like a perfect opportunity to apply my recent learnings and gain more education. So this time, into bowls they went—to avoid drinking too much tea at once, and because I’m lazy. I can only request Ms. Hanji scramble my competition sets so many times in a short period before depleting my slowly-built goodwill.

Here are the results. 3 grams, 5 minutes before ladling my first cup. I ladled a second cup a few minutes later, then refilled and let it soak longer. Refilling the bowl a few times reveals durability and highlights how much content a tea has to offer.

LFPT: Better sweetness and smoother texture at first. Becomes noticeably rougher as soaking time continues. More coarse astringency, unresolving bitterness, and weaker aftertaste. Less salivation and mouth activity.

Rustic: Stronger aftertaste and mouth activity. Better throat feel. Stronger cooling. Cleaner, clearer profile overall. Steeps longer and holds its profile better.

It appears from this side-by-side that the rustic ZC is the better of the two, at least out of my two cakes. Still, I think the LFPT makes a more approachable tea if a drinker wanted to find a cheaper and approachable daily staple. This is especially true considering that at the time I purchased these, Rustic ZC was about 2.5x more expensive than my LFPT purchase. LFPT is sweeter, and has a bit more weight to its texture in a way that is simple and pleasant.

The use and necessity of tea roasting in Taiwan has changed significantly as gaoshan teas have become a market favorite. These teas aim to preserve the natural flavors and fragrances found in the leaf. With modern packaging—vacuum-sealed bags and oxygen absorbers—these flavors can be preserved for long periods. However, once opened in Taiwan’s humid climate, the tea will re-humidify and lose quality quickly if not consumed.

I have heard some vendors who specialize in gaoshan claim that roasting is no longer necessary for a tea with no flaws. To them, it’s a method of mending errors rather than refining the tea. Technology has provided more efficient ways of preserving tea, and so the original tastes of the leaf is easily kept pristine for the end consumer to taste.

In the past, packaging and storage was simple. People used urns, jars, and other loosely sealed containers to store tea. Since these weren’t airtight, humidity would reach the leaves and cause them to deteriorate or spoil quickly. Exported teas faced the same issue. Roasting’s most practical function was to extend shelf life during storage or transport.

Simply put, roasting creates a protective “shell” around the leaf that shields it from humidity. The leaf becomes less absorbent and loses more water content. When tea shops would receive their maocha, they would roast the material to further reduce its water content, stabilize the quality of the tea, and adjust the taste to their consumer base.

Some tea enthusiasts now view this step as outdated and unnecessary. With vacuum-sealed packaging and oxygen absorbers, roasting for storage is obsolete. They see it as only useful for repairing bad tea (like stale sencha) or salvaging lower-quality products.

There may be some truth to this—at least for certain teas. Modern gaoshan teas use lightly oxidized, young, budding material that doesn’t handle more heavy-handed roasting well. Heating this maocha would diminish the fresh fragrances it’s known for while potentially increasing bitterness and astringency. This has nothing to do with elevation, but rather the oxidation level and picking maturity of the leaves. From this perspective, roasting can indeed be viewed as a “repair” method.

On the other hand, teas with appropriate oxidation levels and —if you’re lucky enough to find them these days— mature material are often greatly improved by roasting. Roasting doesn't just reduce water content to extend shelf life; it concentrates the tea's fragrance and flavors. In these cases, roasting should be viewed as refinement rather than repair.

Because of the storage and preservation practices mentioned above, most aged teas you'll encounter were roasted at some point. How recently depends on several factors. Teas stored in containers with some airflow were commonly re-roasted every year or two to remove humidity and prevent mold. Some moldy aged oolongs exist—and they can be enjoyable if you find the profile palatable. However, careless roasting or re-roasting easily produces a burnt flavor.

Aging - Laocha (Aged Tea) vs. Laohuocha (Aged Fired Tea)

The debate over re-roasting aged teas surfaces occasionally in online spaces. Some support the old practice of re-roasting teas and storing them in urns. If you’re aging oolongs, I side with the gaoshan approach (with a twist). Re-roasting oolongs is outdated and unnecessary. In this case, it’s repair rather than refinement. Teas that are re-roasted while they age tend to do so in order to fix off flavors that have developed while they sit. If you enjoy roasted flavors, these teas will work fine for you. Many examples of heavily roasted or re-roasted teas result in something easy enough to drink, but will not produce an “aged taste” There’s a distinct difference between laocha and laohuocha.

Which profile appeals to you is a matter of preference. I generally prefer dry-stored teas that have avoided being re-roasted. Whatever the original roast level was, the important thing is that the tea has enough time for aged character to develop. The teas I like to look for present more wood-like incense or dried fruit aromas, and sometimes wine or spirit-like fragrances.

Many factors influence how an oolong ages and tastes, making it difficult to form a solid understanding. Picking style and leaf maturity, initial oxidation level, and roast level all probably affect how an oolong ages and how long the process takes. Lightly roasted and oxidized teas—like Gaoshan and similar styles—will likely change rapidly over shorter periods. More oxidized and heavily roasted teas likely change more slowly. Exposure to air and humidity also shapes the flavors and speed of change.

Too much airflow is probably a bad thing, but so is too little. I picked up a few boxes of 1980s Japanese export Tieguanyin. One had an intact vacuum seal and tasted essentially fresh. Another box with a broken seal had already developed some aged characteristics—the seal failed at some point over the years.

Ask around and you’ll hear many opinions about what shapes aged teas. Time is the only factor everyone agrees on. My favorite perspective comes from a gentleman who runs one of my most frequented stops. When asked why certain teas age differently, he said, “I don’t know. Each tea just turns out different. You never know what you’re going to get.”

There’s a Taiwanese saying: you can try to fatten your pig before slaughter, but sometimes your dog gets fat instead. You can do your best to achieve the result you want, but you never know what will happen. The metaphor fits aging oolongs perfectly.

The most basic points that buyers and sellers often focus on are age statements, terroir, uniqueness, and rarity. Scarcity narratives, provenance, and price influence what buyers seek out—especially since they can’t try the tea first. This is a geographical and structural issue, and no fault falls on the Western consumer. But it does shape what details become important.

As James pointed out in his video, in Asia you’re handling the tea yourself and trying it in a shop. This has its own pitfalls, but the primary difference is that you’re trying the tea before buying it. Some shops have prepackaged teas and may not offer tastings, but generally you can try things before buying. Whatever information a vendor tells you is something you contrast with the cup in front of you before you’ve spent money on it. Even unblinded, you can decide for yourself whether the claims match the quality in the cup—with no financial sacrifice yet paid.

This isn’t suggesting that cope plays into all tea purchases. But there is a feeling of responsibility and ownership over tea purchases, especially expensive ones. It’s foolish to suggest this doesn’t come into play when people receive an expensive tea with impressive rapport and begin drinking it. When your social group hypes a certain tea, there’s even more social incentive to like it—even before you’ve tasted it.

Of course, Asia isn’t free from this either. When you buy from famous sources like Wisteria, you expect the tea to be good because it comes with an impressive resume. It’s made by a renowned tea maker whose track record is nothing to scoff at. In cases like this, the premium price tag is an easy pill to swallow. In many cases, price is tightly married to our perception of quality. The $1/g tea should taste better than the $0.50/g tea, right? Its double the price!

This is why some of my best lessons in 2025 came from aged oolongs. This is a difficult category of tea to discuss with others out West. Understandably so—access is extremely limited. Still, it is worth reflection, as it stands as my calendar year’s most valuable experience in learning to separate certain information from my evaluation of tea and perception of quality.

From my outings searching for aged oolongs (a topic for another time, and probably better told by someone else), I developed tricks for seeking out which ones are worth trying. Of course, none of this was done in a vacuum—I’ve had plenty of help and conversation with others while drinking tea in shops, talking with friends, and out on the hunt. The important bit is that these tricks came from handling and drinking the tea rather than reading descriptions.

In most shops I visited, price isn’t usually known up front. Generally, once a tea was picked, conversations veered off into whatever topics formed after walking in—casual shooting the breeze after exchanging pleasantries. You taste the tea without knowing anything at all, other than what you’ve used your discretion to select for tasting. You drink, and decide whether you like it or not. At some point, you ask the price and it’s delivered. You then decide if you like the tea enough to justify the price.

And here’s where the unique quality of aged oolong kicks in. There is absolutely no relationship between price and quality. Of the teas I’ve seen or picked up, prices have ranged from $5.00/g to $0.05/g— and all places in between. Prices for this type of tea are influenced (and determined) by factors other than quality.

You’re basically blind to all the information you’d rely on in the West to make a purchasing decision. You can’t verify how old it is, you don’t know where it’s from, you don’t know who made it, which mountain or region its from, what elevation, or what farming practices went into making that tea. So you’re liberated from those data points when drinking and when making your purchasing decision. They don’t matter at all. And this makes the search even more interesting.

The largest perception swing I’ve made in 2025 was a shift to a revised understanding of the relationship between price and quality. There are just too many factors that, through much time spent reading and talking and tasting, I’ve come to understand influence price.

That said, this doesn’t mean your cheap tea will be better than your expensive tea. The majority of cheap tea is probably crap, especially if it’s cheap and supposedly from a famed region with relatively fixed price points. What I mean is that your Dayuling necessarily must be more expensive due to the cost of production and scarcity. Laobanzhang gushu will command high prices based on similar reasons. Whether the tea is good is a different matter.

And yet, at the same time, I am still happy to pay the premium for teas I know I probably can’t find anywhere else. When you find that gem, the price doesn’t get any easier to swallow, but it becomes a necessary and understandable hurdle.

That about sums up the main bits of tea pondering I’ve done this past year. Happy drinking, and cheers to a happy new year.

I’ve been trying to figure out how evaluating a tea can guide my brewing approach. Cupping seems ideal for seeing a tea’s true content—its qualities and defects are all on display with nowhere to hide.

For brewing techniques specifically, I think a bowl might offer better hints, but I could be wrong. I decided to save that exploration for another day.

Instead, I’d look at three teas at different price points and see which ones have the most desirable qualities when blinded. I’ll revisit them in a bowl later.

Purpose and Setup

I want to see what the qualities of three different teas are. They are at three distinct price points, each roughly doubling in price compared to the last. Price is complicated. Many factors beyond quality influence it. That is a nuanced conversation full of caveats — best saved for another time. Going in, I suspect the prices should match quality, at least for these teas. As is best practice in this case, I’ll be drinking blind. I’ll be going off of sensory information alone, or at least as best I can.

I will also guess the teas at the end, as usual. We’ll see what’s what after I have rated and revealed. Rating a tea can be fairly nuanced. For this exercise I will base ratings off of strengths and flaws in the tea rather than preference — be that texture, taste (sweet or bitter, etc.), fragrance (intensity), or discomfort. The one that checks the most positive boxes wins, I suppose.

Methodology

Three dong dings were included in this session: a $0.67/g tea, a $0.30/g tea, and a $0.12/g tea.

Same old SOP: 3 grams, 6 minutes, decant, wait at least 6 to start drinking. Special thanks to Ms. Hanji for scrambling the teas for me. I placed masking tape with names on the bottom of the evaluation cups, and made my guesses before checking the bottoms.

Tasting

Tea 1: Rich aroma. Warm and buttery. Rich in mouth. Smooth. Clings to the tongue well. Clear fragrance. Abundant aroma lingers. The fragrance remains even when completely cool. Maintains a very clear, clean taste all the way through. Pretty sure I know which tea this is, but want to use its “characteristics” as a tool to compare to the other two to help rate them. If I’m wrong, it will be back to the drawing board…

Rating: 1st place

Guess: $0.67/g tea ✅

Tea 2: Spice and fruit notes while warm. Roasted taste. Slightly drying at first, but it resolves. Not too bitter. Taste remains clean after cooling completely. When smelling the cooled liquor, this holds fragrance better than tea 3. Both this and tea 1 remain very fragrant in their cups at room temp. Hard to describe, but it feels clean and comfortable in the mouth once fully cooled. I think this quality should be easy for anyone to see for themselves if they try this.

Rating: 2nd place

Guess: $0.30/g tea ✅

Tea 3: Fragrance is mostly roast. Toasty and bitter but smooth. Good aftertaste while warm. Coats the mouth, then turns a bit dry. Lingers and penetrates. Roast-forward taste. Some bitterness and slight drying. Bitterness persists. Not much fragrance on the cooled liquor in my cup. Pretty dry with little taste left at room temperature. Muddy and drying. Very obvious when compared to the others sip-to-sip. That said, the aftertaste is very persistent, though the difficult textures remain unresolved.

Rating: 3rd place

Guess: $0.12/g tea ✅

Takeaways

I’m really glad I decided to do this today. Drinking from hot to cold helped with gathering information about the fragrances and flavors of each tea, but waiting for the tea to completely cool down was the most critical and most revealing step of this exercise. This is where flaws to a tea become unmistakable.

Even though I guessed all three teas correctly, and though I suppose I’m proud of that, what gives a more rewarding feeling of accomplishment is the knowledge reinforcement I gained from this exercise.

The $0.67/g tea was immediately apparent to me, which is hard because of how familiar I am with this tea. Because of this, it served as a benchmark while drinking the other two throughout the remainder of the session. The other two teas are newer acquisitions. I’ve had each only once since opening them within the last month or so.

Temperature’s role in revealing quality

While the teas were hot, sniffing the spoon was very useful for getting a grasp of the spectrum of fragrances in the tea. While pleasant, this step served as less important than later steps. It did show the dimensions of fragrances available in the tea. Honestly, I felt puzzled and unsure at times as the teas cooled down, noticing shifts in fragrance and mouthfeel between teas 2 and 3 that had me much less confident that I knew which was which. Mouthfeels and textures changed as the teas cooled.

Waiting and slowly taking in information proved wise. The most useful information to inform my decisions happened once I started looking at the teas at room temperature. This is where details became incredibly obvious.

Tea 1 ($0.67/g tea) and tea 2 ($0.30/g) did two things that set them apart from the third once at room temperature:

1. They each held a clear fragrance much better when smelling the room temp teas in their cups. The fragrance was bright and obvious. 3 still smelled ok, but was muted in comparison.

2. They tasted clean and smooth. Room temp tea is not any tea drinker’s preferred way of tasting, but I now feel I have a deeper understanding of its merit to an evaluator. The cheapest tea’s taste was muddled. It had a nice fragrance buried deep down, but I really had to sniff (embarrassingly loud) to find all of it. Drinking the liquor of the lowest quality tea, flaws became obvious. It was bitter, and its undesirable aspects did not resolve well. Teas 1 and 2 were clean, bright, fragrant, and smooth.

Wet leaf observation

There was one last point I was unable to notice until I went to clean my teaware. Since I was blind, I could not smell the cups during my session, as I didn’t want to see the leaves. When I went to discard the leaves, I did some sniffing of the lids and leaves, all of which were at room temp, of course. The fragrance of lid 3 (cheapest tea) was also the most subdued of the three. Still smelled good, though.

Then I went to remove the wet leaf from the cups and did one final sniff. Teas 1 and 2’s wet leaves smelled quite fragrant and clean still. Tea 1’s leaf was the most aromatic. Tea 2’s wet leaf aroma was also still quite strong. Both were pleasant to sniff, no dull or strange aromas.

And then there was tea 3. Smelling the wet leaf, it was very dull, and carried the scent of cigarette ash.

Final thoughts

I’m glad I included this cheaper tea in the mix for this session. I think that the desirable qualities in the other teas wouldn’t have been so obvious had I not included a tea whose quality did not compete, regardless of its price. This has helped me solidify some basic qualities to look for when evaluating new teas in the future.

While quality did line up with price in this instance, I think the difference between 1 and 2 was more difficult to detect. For me, the main takeaway of this exercise was not that cheap = bad. I think that the less obvious quality gap between 1 and 2 is just as interesting to examine in the future. I do think this should be an exercise more drinkers should take up as they continue to grow their tea learning.

Next time I will put all 3 in bowls just to see what other things I notice as they soak.

They’ve all been stored in the same location. With this relatively consistent storage and similar tea styles, I’ve been curious to see how they express their age and look at their differences. Since they lacked names, they were labeled with “batch” identifiers based on the order in which I purchased them on any given day.

Batch 01

Rich sweetness, moderately active, pleasant and clean. A fragrant, slightly woody tea. Batch 01 offers the most balance. It is rich, full, and smooth. Very mellow and approachable, without any immediate downsides nor anything particularly flashy. There is some slight tartness that is only detectable after it cools. Very solid and easy tea, that seems a bit more aggressively smoothed than the others, though not displaying any wet ginseng or geosmin notes.

Batch 02

Fruity and slightly tart. Sweet, which is typical for these teas. It shows some activity and is engaging in early steeps, that pinch of puckering helps with salivation. The flavor profile differs quite a bit from batch 01. I suspect the lighter roast has steered this tea toward a vibrant fruitier character with some vanilla rather than the mellow sweet slightly woody richness found in batch 01. The mouthfeel of this batch is less smooth than 01 but delivers a stronger aftertaste.

Batch “Bai”

The most heavily roasted of the group. The roast is evident both in the dry leaf and the brewed tea. This batch has the least distinctive character in terms of transformation. Its profile is dominated by settled roast notes, though some aged character does shine through. This is my top choice for brewing in a mug — Smooth, sweet, and easy-drinking. It performs adequately at higher ratios but benefits the least from that brewing method. This batch presented the roughest of the 3 brewed in evaluation style. I think that can be a bit misleading. This batch has the least amount of “noise” to its taste and fragrance. If you change noise to complexity, suddenly this could read like a bad thing. Pure and simple are good characteristics, too.

All three teas perform well for their modest cost. In my current rotation of drinking, I mostly prefer aged oolong to mediocre pu’er. Aged oolongs are comfortable. They don’t need to be spectacular, though some gems do exist. Generally, they’ve become my favorite tea to drink. Aged oolongs can be finnicky, though some are still worth trying at high ratio. When in doubt, a mug almost never fails. This may be the most appealing aspect to me. Aged oolongs are often a reminder that sometimes simple is best.

Of course, exceptional pu’er reminds you who’s boss, but otherwise, I’m content sipping on these teas. They continue to yield sweet infusions for as long as you care to sit with them. That’s more than I can say for a lot of tuition teas I’ve collected over the years.

I started using bowl and competition brewing. To my surprise, Ms. Hanji is amused by both of those types of brewing. She finds the teaware “cute,” and in the case of bowl brewing, maybe it feels more hands-on and engaging. Usually, I brew tea and she drinks cups I bring her way.

With bowl/comp style, she gets to spoon out her own share and play with the tea. She is more willing to become the tea brewer. The parameters are simple, and she can easily engage with the actual brewing process. I think this could be my “in” to get her slightly more interested in tea (with reasonable expectations, of course).

I have started to incorporate this style in my own drinking and themed blinds, too. Part of me wonders why I never see evaluation-style brewing methods conducted when people organize blinds/group buys together or during in-person comparisons. I’m not trying to argue this is the ultimate style of brewing. Still, considering how rarely people, especially in the West, seem to drink together, having consistent parameters would perhaps help people discuss teas on a slightly more even playing field. Tea presents differently under different water, steep times, ratios, vessels…the list goes on.

Comp/bowl brewing has been a useful routine for documentation purposes when opening a new or unfamiliar tea. There’s something liberating about knowing that how a tea presents under strict parameters can’t have been botched by my own crude efforts to brew it correctly. I try to keep up with this routine consistently. There are a few reasons for this:

1. Getting reps in allows me to familiarize myself with how teas present in this style and stay familiar with it.

2. I’ve found it can give good hints as to how I should approach brewing a tea, with the added bonus of hinting at what brewing parameters would be suitable for future sessions — all achieved without spending too much leaf.

3. For documentation, it really helps keep things consistent. Tea, under different brewing parameters, can be pushed and present with very different hues. With constant parameters, visual comparisons are slightly safer to draw.

4. It takes almost no tea to do.

The two tools I use are a bowl (something 150-200ml, ideally the size of a single-serving rice bowl) and a Comp Cup Set. Each comes with its own perks. In both cases, I grab 3 grams of the tea, use 150ml of boiling water, and brew for at least 5 minutes before tasting. I personally always preheat the teaware, especially as the weather gets colder.

The Basics:

The standard for a “strict” version of this is a 1:50 ratio. Ball-rolled teas get six minutes, strip teas get five. For a comp cup, it is 3g in 150ml of water. If using a comp cup, once you have strained the tea, you are supposed to wait at least 6 minutes before tasting.

The cooler the better, in my opinion. Cooled tea can’t rely on heat to help amplify certain elements of the tea. Astringency and bitterness show up in the mouth more straightforwardly, as does sweetness. The structure of the tea is just a bit more obvious once cool. Try it yourself and see if you think I’m full of it.

I’ve seen some people less familiar with the style but eager to learn do some weird stuff, so to help keep things clear, here’s some simple advice:

• If you do bowl brewing, dunk the spoon in gently a few times to make sure the liquid is an even strength

• Technically you can drink straight from the bowl. There’s no rules here. I ladel it out, and like using the spoon for smelling

• In true competition brewing, the tea ware is not preheated. The tea goes in completely dry, and is steeped with boiling water. I tend to preheat my bowl just because. If you let things sit, its not that big of a deal.

• Some people think that the bowl will be inferior to using a comp set because there is no lid, so things will present softer. I haven’t really found this to be the case. Let things sit long enough and you’ll get a general idea anyway. Some people get way too wrapped around the little details.

Bowl Brewing

In the case of a bowl, after 5 or so minutes I begin to taste. Sometimes I sneak the spoon in there earlier on just to see what’s what, but generally I try to leave the leaf undisturbed for a bit. It might sound obvious, but it’s important to remember that the tea will be its weakest at this point. This is somewhat opposite to gongfu brewing, where teas generally begin strong and end weak. Here, you work in the opposite direction. I find that with bowl brewing, temperature drops pretty quickly, and teas tend to stay relatively pleasant no matter how long they sit. That said, if a tea has flaws, they will still present in the bowl. You can stretch things even lower than 1:50. When I am away from home or don’t have a scale, I usually just use a pinch and let things soak until basically room temp.

This style probably suits harsher teas like younger pu’ers. Although I tend to do this more with oolongs, I am of the mind that any tea can be brewed like this. The point is that you are reducing variables and grabbing the larger picture of a tea. Bowl brewing requires the least amount of hassle, which is another big plus. This has become my favorite way to start a new tea before deciding what to do with it.

The main perks I like about using a bowl are:

1. A bowl lets you watch how the leaves open. For oolongs, at least, this can give you information about processing. If less roasted than murder roast, it also gives hints at processing and errors. There’s no need to be a master of understanding processing; in the end, the taste should reveal all. If the leaves look wonky, it is something to take note of either way.

2. Visual information: See how the leaves lay together. Observe how they open. How quickly is color diffusing? Do they sit together comfortably, fitting over each other in comfortable layers? Are they scragglier and more scattered? Do the leaves appear soft and glossy? Do they appear stiffer and rougher? Perhaps more broken or machine-picked? Is the tea stemmy, or have stems been removed?

   1. A quick note on visuals: With time and coaching, they can be useful ways to look under the hood at a casual understanding of processing and some other information. How a tea looks should not influence your opinion of quality in most cases, unless something appears very clearly wrong. There is a danger in reading into leaves too far without a very strong foundational understanding of processing. Very few people have this skillset.

3. Using the spoon to push leaf shows the clarity of the soup well. You can use the spoon to continuously smell the liquor as the tea continues to steep longer. If there are traces of steamed/smoky/grassy flavors, you’ll know. You can also see breakage from rolling/cooking the leaves and all that good stuff. The spoon can also be used to pull the leaves out of the water for a sniff or different visual presentation.

4. It can sit for a long time and keep steeping. You can add more water. The second bowl will really tell you about how much “stuff” is under the hood. Take your time and let things steep as long as needed, especially if using less leaf than 1:50. This style is a bit less rigid than the comp brewing, and in some ways, you can find out different things about the tea. It can be informative in how long a tea holds on to its structure and bones, provide lots of visual information, and still tell you if a tea turns into something rather unpleasant.

The bowl is probably the most common way I approach drinking a new tea and documenting it. It is just the least fussy and most interactive way to study a tea, but for blinding a tea, it is less ideal. For those tea learners that are heavily influenced by appearance, trying some other methods first is probably ideal.

Competition Set

Competition Set

Then there is the competition set. The most annoying thing about a competition set is that you’ll have more teaware taking up space. Moreover, when you finish up, there’s just more things to clean. I’m guilty of having a few sets. It’s more clutter, but still cheaper than accumulating tuition pots. It can also be used as a brewer and may be a good vessel to use at work. It’s less delicate and precarious than a gaiwan and far less valuable than a teapot.

The nice thing about the comp cup is that it holds heat better than the bowl. That, plus the fact that the lids can be kept on, means you can use them to compare teas in a blind a little more easily than you can with bowl brewing. If you are familiar with a tea, sometimes the leaf alone is a huge giveaway. In other cases, if you’re heavily influenced by aesthetics (or think pretty leaves = better tea) then this method is even more crucial. If you can, throw in the leaves and have someone mix around the comp cups for you. I usually add a little tape to the bottom but use whatever little trick you need to identify which is which when you’re done.

If everyone had a set handy, I could imagine a world where, like when I was a child connecting Game Boys after school to trade Pokémon, people could set up teas they like against each other and test where they excel, whether their quality justifies price, and so forth.

The main difference between the bowl and the comp cup is that for the cup, there is an “end” to the steeping. Leaf and liquor are separated. I like this method for documenting the color of the tea liquor. Once the tea is done steeping, I pour it out, dump the leaves into another bowl, and fill that bowl back up with boiling water. While waiting (at least six minutes) for things to cool:

1. For many teas, you can get an idea of oxidation or roast levels from the color of the soup. Sometimes dry leaf gives hints (this can depend), but the liquor is nice extra info.

2. Look at the clarity of the soup. Some debris is normal. If the tea is cloudy or has a heavy amount of fannings, you may have insight into shaqing issues, rolling issues, roasting issues, etc.

3. I check out the wet leaves while waiting for the liquid to cool, if not doing a blind. This is just a chance to notice how they look, feel, if the tea is a blend, if the tea has lots of stems/no stems…and gives time for photos if you log that sort of thing.

When not brewing/comparing two teas or more, there are times I like to really push a tea to see what’s under the hood. Sometimes I brew for ten minutes or more and let the tea cool down completely to room temp. The good and the bad become pretty clear this way.

If this style of brewing is unfamiliar, it may take a bit of an adjustment period. I don’t think there’s anything too puzzling about it, though. Once comfortable with the style, there’s a lot to pick up on. Doing this with familiar and unfamiliar teas alike is a good practice opportunity. Putting teas you consider to be “exemplars” up against this method can create useful benchmarks for how good teas present in this context.

Good teas’ best traits reveal themselves clearly. Even if tea isn’t at its most pleasant, the fragrance, sweetness, aftertaste, and lingering mouth/throat feel still cut through with clarity. In the case of good oolong, it should still really be quite good this way, even if you might think the method is “suboptimal.” Their fragrance and broth seem almost to physically cling better to everything. It rings out before you even try to go in to smell the spoon. Weak teas make themselves equally apparent, as their surface-level desirable qualities fail to make up for the flaws that are extracted. Hollowness can’t be hidden in the way it sometimes can when using normal brewing tricks.

When you drink the tea, you will know if it is calm and easy or stimulating and sharp. Depending on the profile of the tea, you may decide to try brewing at higher ratios or keeping it a casual brew. Teas that are a bit stimulating or uncomfortable on the stomach when evaluation-brewed are probably not suitable for high ratios or large quantities. They can work with very low ratios and a single steep, or a very low-ratio mug brew.

Trust your gut. There’s no secret ingredient. Look. Smell. Taste. Figure out what you’re working with, then start to play.

Of course, just as often, they are equally likely to end up tuition experiences where you learn…something in exchange for your visit, and walk away empty-handed. Or worse, you depart with a little souvenir — a tea you’ll probably never drink again. Learning when not to sit down is an important skill. Sometimes, curiosity still snags you.

But part of the fun in exploring is learning to sense the difference. Sometimes, you can sniff it out early on, just from how a conversation develops in the first few minutes. Building that instinct, through experience, is half the adventure.

After a long day of wandering from random shop to random shop with a friend, we decided to visit a small shop that had been on our radar but was a bit of a walk — but first, I gave them a call. Shop hours are often…flexible, so a quick phone check can save you a lot of wasted mileage and the disappointment of rolling up to a shuttered metal door.

Almost immediately upon arriving, an easy, pleasant conversation was struck with the couple running the place. We sat down to drink two aged Baozhongs. They were nice — lighter roasted and intensely fragrant, more upfront than my usual preference. They didn’t taste too aged, but were servable. The time spent drinking was held together by good conversation. That alone made it worthwhile to pick up a little bit of one of the batches, at least to me.

Luckily, we decided to stick around, even though we weren’t overly enthusiastic about what we’d had so far. The rest of the day had been a bust, we were thirsty, and this little shop felt far more inviting than other places we’d visited.

Then came the third tea — this one finally had more of “the stuff.” Though still a lighter roast, it was clearly more mature. It carried a bit more aged taste beneath its pungent florals and tart fruity aroma — a bit deeper and more developed. The brew was bold and bitter, pushed to the edge of what gentler brewers might deem over-steeped. But it held its structure faithfully, with some of the traits you hope to find in an aged oolong.

As he tended to his generously stuffed pot, our host mentioned that he was originally from Yilan. He explained that all the old teas in his shop came from his own farm and were produced from start to finish by him back in the early 80s. What hadn’t sold, he kept. And he took care of what he kept.

This couple, like others I’d encountered, were adamant about not re-roasting their teas. They believed it would interfere with the way the teas age. They shared their methods for storing their teas over the years — a few simple procedures for how to care for their “leftover” batches and avoid spoilage.

They sold other random hongs, oolongs, and assorted jasmine greens to keep the lights on, of course. But what we were drinking that evening was something quite different. The tea carried the same traits as the prior two: a light roast and fragrance-forward profile, and yet, it had been transformed just a bit more than the two previous teas. Enough to catch our attention. The price wasn’t the cheapest, though at least it wasn’t sky high. The tea was good. Not the best deal on the block, nor unreasonable. It was easy enough to decide to take some home as a way to remember the night’s conversations and experiences.

The owner was pleased that we were pleased with the tea. He compared it to being a chef that meets a diner that appreciates the nuance of a dish they had toiled to create. Might sound too romantic or poetic. Cynics might say it is just a way for this owner to flatter a guest. But in the moment, it seemed sincere.

There are days where not everything comes down to crunching the numbers to maximize value per gram. Not every tea will hit the sweet spot of value. These were not the cheapest, nor the most expensive aged oolongs I’d seen by far. They carried a story. Not some faked story of how the tea was made — in fact outside of a few questions or comments here and there, most of the conversation that night had nothing to do with tea at all. This tea’s “story” was one that I had been part of — a nightcap to end a day of strikeouts. Teas like this are souvenirs. The good kind. The kind you’re happy you took home, and the ones that make the “tuition” teas you’ve collected go down a bit smoother.

Keeping on with the spirit of aged oolongs, and wanting to add more data points to the data base, I have provided some more aged oolongs for your research. Each tea was labeled simply by type. You have received two pineapple cakes as well. The only test in the set was which of the two cakes you prefer. There is a correct answer.

As for the teas, I attributed each tea to a different mahjong tile because I spent a lot of downtime in airports and on long flights playing mobile mahjong games — and watched an embarrassing amount of late-night mahjong tournament television this summer. When you finish drinking, I’ll link you this takeaway and we can talk more.

The fun for me is that I get to guess what you’ll each like the most. I have also included some details about each tea that may provide a sliver of background to how the teas present in the cup. This will be mostly conjecture — based on what I notice drinking them, and on my own small experience exploring this type of teas. Please add a grain (or pound) of salt to all information below.

Another detail that I ask you kindly disregard is the age of these teas. There’s no way to verify that info. While I don’t think that these teas’ owners meant to embellish, it is completely possible — and either way doesn’t really matter. Tasting is what drove my decision to buy. Included as well will be details about storage and aging philosophy that I heard while visiting wherever I was at the time. This is not meant to be gospel — there are very diverse and sometimes conflicting opinions about aged teas out there — I include this only as information for consideration for those also exploring similar teas. I will include my own photos and notes for each tea to compare to the TeaDB results.

Each was done at 1:15 for the sake of the writeup, though for some, I prefer a bit heavier dose. I do tend to push things a bit, too. Working on that…

🀀East Wind Tile - Aged Baozhong c. 1982

This tea is very aromatic and fills the mouth and nose with its bouquet. Fruity and tart. I suspect that James will quite like this one. Despite its fragrance-forward profile, it takes pushing very well. The texture is medium-thick, and pushing doesn’t destroy the structure it takes in the mouth and throat. It can get more bitter, and a bit metallic in taste if reckless, but rewards more in its finish. This tea starts with some nice deeper notes in early steeps, and eventually starts returning to its roots as a greener profile.

This tea carries a lot of aroma in its aftertaste, too. I find the throat feel to be rewarding, this is a “refreshing” aged tea. It runs in a slightly different direction than many of the other teas I have picked up, and is probably the lightest roast/oxidation tea in this set, and that may explain some of the divergence. The base material of this tea also seems very good compared to a lot of other teas I’d encountered, though I can’t say what degree of impact that has to the end results.

The couple that I picked this up from were adamant about keeping their teas extremely dry. They didn’t mess around, and employed several layers of protection from humidity to keep these teas safe. They belonged to the “never reroast” camp, stating that it would simply deteriorate the quality of the tea, and ruin progress in its aging. The owner, being the producer, said that this tea was from 1982. Specific year mentioned, so I included it. Grain of salt!

🀁 South Wind Tile - Aged "Oolong”

This tea has some roast to it as well. With some water, I noticed that it could present an ashy taste and grainy texture. I hope that is not the case in Seattle. I find this to be a rich tea with a fruity aged taste. It opens up very smooth. This tea does well with a bit more leaf in the pot. It tends to fall of a bit quickly, especially the texture. A heavier hand when measuring it out helps keep it going a bit longer. A nice aged taste that occupies the mouth. It offers an engaging fruity tartness that helps the fragrances stick and compliments the roast well. My bet is that James picks this as his favorite. I am partial to these kinds as well.

This couple’s opinions fall into the “never re-roast” camp. I didn’t see how they stored this one, though. They did insist that it should not be vacuum sealed, as it would not continue to age that way. Vacuum seal would have helped save some space though…This tea was reported as somewhere around ~30-40 years old.

🀂 West Wind Tile - Aged TGY

This tea is rich, smooth, and lubricating. The roast is not overwhelming, but its effect dominates the profile of this tea. The tea has a coating salivation nice sweetness. There is some “barrel-aged” style aroma to this tea. Great in the throat, warming and expansive. As the tea slowly resolves, it produces throat cooling and a deep lingering aroma. I am impressed by the finish of this tea. I especially like this tea at higher ratios. It can drop off a bit quickly, but a bit more leaf keeps it going.

From the way this brews out, and the wet leaf, this tea this is a roasty tea. Very possibly seen some re-roasting, albeit not too recently I wouldn’t think. The leaf is more carbonized than the others — not roasted to death, but it would make sense to be a heavier roast if this was produced before more modern style trends started up. Still, it opens up well enough during the session. No odd glossy black colors or anything. A bit sooty, but believe this is a great tea to mug.

I am going to put my chips down and bet that this is Denny’s favorite. I haven’t had the pleasure of drinking tea with him yet, but I recall him enjoying the “roastier” teas in the prior set.

Similar to some of its colleagues, this tea has performance issues in the tail-end. I really like to push this tea, and I believe that it benefits the most from a very heavy dose compared to the others. It really keeps the tea interesting further into tail-steeps that way. This makes it a great candidate for mugging, too. It is absolutely heavenly that way. This tea was reported at 50 years of age. Could it be? Don’t know, doesn’t matter much!

🀃 North Wind Tile - Modern “Traditional” Dong Ding

This doesn’t really fit with the rest of the set, but I wanted to send it along, so I did. This tea is rich, carries deep matured aromas, and is very active. It responds well to higher ratios (I have noticed some people brew Taiwanese Oolongs somewhat lighter than other teas they drink) and some time to steep. The roast here really compliments the base material well. It is expansive in the mouth, and reaches the chest. This tea captures the palate and throat with a rich coat of ripe fruit, and sufficient roast character. Through the tail-end, it does not retreat into a green backbone. This tea was processed well and “fermented” more appropriately than many modern Dongding attempts.

I hope that you both appreciate this one. I know James isn’t too much of a modern TW oolong drinker, but I’m hoping this one impresses. Teas like this are what make me love Taiwanese oolong. There’s still teas like this out there!

🀄 Red Dragon Tile - Aged “Oolong”

I’m glad I opened this bag to send some your way and try it myself. It turns out, this tea was given to me in paper bag — I had assumed the inside was lined with foil and had been sealed shut, but I was mistaken! Despite the high humidity and temperatures of the mountains in southern Taipei, I don’t think anything weird happened to this tea.

The tea is smooth and sweet. Some minerality pokes through, and the general profile leans towards a woody, inside-of-a closet-fragrance. A bit of the roast pokes through in each steep in the aftertaste. It has more longevity than some in the set, and I think does very well casually brewed in a mug, too. I suspect that this began with some decent roast, then sat for a long time to age. This thing could truly steep forever. Later steeps return to some more familiar Oolong tastes. Some of its virtues may be easily overlooked, but we will see what you guys think of it. The more I drink, the more I appreciate its restrained and balanced nature.

The gentleman I acquired this tea from was a little less meticulous about storing his teas compared with others places I visited. We chatted a bit about aging teas, I mentioned that my hometown is very dry. I asked what he thought about how that might affect aging tea. He believed it should be fine, but that teas may become a bit more singular tasting. His thought was that some level of humidity was possibly good for aging, but that in Taiwan, it should definitely be kept “dry”.

Also interesting to note, he mentioned that while teas should not be re-roasted during aging, he did suggest considering a light reroast before consuming. The “roast” he was suggesting is probably akin to what Westerners may hear as “waking up” a tea. He said that a quick bake, by throwing the tea into a rice cooker on “warm”, at pretty low temperature, was a good idea. I haven’t taken his advice, yet. This tea was reported as having 40 years or so of age on it.

🀅 Green Fa Tile - Aged Baozhong

I forgot to record the age after purchasing and can’t remember at all — but I do recall the woman who served this to me this time visiting saying it was emphasized as “very old” compared to other things we had been drinking…and those were supposedly already old. For my own records, I did my best to jot down what teas I purchased at what price, and what their reported age was. Life gets busy, and I forgot a few details here and there. I’ll do better next time.

Some cherry wood and a strange floral quality dominate the aroma. It feels full in the mouth, and brews very sweet. The finish leaves behind mouth cooling and nice sweetness. This tea reaches the throat well, with a bit of minerality in the finish. I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something green still very very far underneath but it peaks through in a curious way, sorta difficult to describe.

The wet leaf has no rough feeling, not much carbonization when kneading it between my fingers. Very springy. This was reported as never reroasted. I am inclined to believe it. The clues of a moderate roast at least are evident in the wet leaf, but I detect no hints of roast left in the cup.

A different style than the rest of the set, maybe closest to the red dragon tile (🀄) oolong in profile. Similar to that tea, this tea won’t quit. It can brew forever as a soft sweet tea. At the same time, all of these teas seem to brew for a long time, if you don’t mind the late steeps just being pretty mellow.

I look forward to your thoughts on the teas. Should be fun to compare next to the other oolongs James may have around.

Her favorite teas are hojicha, hong oolong, some hongs, and gaoshan if it is made softly and has no bitterness. She has enjoyed most of the aged oolongs I’ve pushed her way, even when brewed stronger.

Pu’er is a different story. She generally refuses to drink if she knows that’s what’s in my cup. Lying is a terrible trait, I know, but I have told her some of the pu’er I offer her is aged oolong, just to get her to try it. Every once in a blue moon she’ll actually like one. Maybe one day I’ll make a list of the unexpected things that she likes.

That said, in general, her response to most pu’er is that it smells and/or tastes like rotting leaf. Technically, I guess she’s right. But on the rare occasion that she offers other comments, they are quite unique, thought provoking, and accurate. Her insights are so interesting to me, despite the fact that she is so disinterested/reluctant to say anything about tea. It motivates me to continue nagging her enough to try and take a sip of whatever I’ve brewed. She will make a really impressive sage-like grumpy tea granny one day. I mean it. The kind that will say “this is good” or “this is bad” and offer nothing more. And both you and the universe know that they are objectively correct.

Considering that her main note for most of my teas is “rotting leaf,” you might begin to suspect that most of my teas must be pretty bad. And you’d be right. Still, this note is applied to almost anything you could think of under the sun: 90s MTF, Early 2000s MTF, BYH, YQH, Young BYH (less than 5 years old), Semi-aged Boutique, Semi aged Factory offerings, Mid 2000s CYH….so on and so forth. I’m always trying to find ways to get her to try new things, or surprise both of us by getting her to like something she’d never have tried otherwise.

So when her cousin was back from Taiwan and mentioned over lunch that he disliked Dong Ding, I saw an opening. I thought I had just the tea to change his mind. I thought maybe this one could even win over Ms. Hanji. Its oolong, after all! I could win over the whole family, all at once receive the praise I deserve as the guy obsessed with tea that always has a pleasant surprise up his sleeve!

Its important to know your audience. He said that the Dong Ding I offered sounded interesting, and was willing to try. Before we started the session, I hesitated a bit and tried to see if he’d want a few other teas as well. He still seemed most interested in the Dong Ding. And so, that’s what we drank.

I am aware that I brew for myself with a relatively heavy hand, and that some tea drinkers may not appreciate that if they aren’t used to it. I figured I’d try and keep my steeps light, and that things would probably go well. I still used the same amount of leaf I normally do, since I figured if I wildly changed the ratio I may be less comfortable brewing it. Best to stick to what you know.

When we all sat down at the table, things took a turn. My careful, calculated plan proved moot. As I was heating my kettle, he pulled up some sports streams on his phone. The “session” was spent with him trying to find some match or another and get his phone to prop up on my desk against various items since he didn’t have a stand. Very little was said about the tea, but it was abundantly clear he was neither interested nor impressed. From the first steep, my fate was sealed. “It’s not very sweet,” he said, busily messing with his phone to try and unfreeze the stream he was watching. I sarcastically remarked, “If you want sweet, there’s apple juice downstairs.” …Not off to a good start, and perhaps he had a point.

The whole ordeal put me in a bad mood for the afternoon. Honestly though, while reflecting on things once I decided to vent in text form, I realized that this whole ordeal is my fault. When you think about what tea average drinker is drinking — or even beer, or wine — whatever popular beverage that the masses enjoy, my choice was a mistake. This is not some sweaty nerd, or eclectic shut-in as we encounter in the online sphere. If I’m being honest, I was still selfishly brewing the tea a bit hard. Not a very good host, for sure.

I should have put myself in the shoes of a tea drinker more accustomed to most regularly accessible teas on the Taiwanese market. The tea I served has some bitterness, has a roasty character, and isn’t immediately, approachably sweet. Sure, it has good throat-feel, warming, returning sweetness, and afterta— Yawn…Stop right there. Most people aren’t drinking for those things, nor is it appropriate to try and engage them unless they have asked specifically about some attribute.

In hindsight, I should have known better. The very day I bought this Dong Ding, the same thing played out in the shop itself. Déjà vu…Back when I bought this Dong Ding, another woman had stopped in the shop to restock on some mixiang oolong. This lady goes through the stuff at lightening pace —drinking daily, and a sucker for gifting away a lot of samples to friends. She works in New York, so she was keen to take the opportunity to restock while back in Taipei. The owner didn’t have what she previously purchased anymore, but pulled some new stuff out to brew. Since I had already been sitting there chatting for a bit, I was included into the tasting. Good tea. Sweet, thick, lots of honey. That’s the kind of tea you could serve to anyone and get nods. Not my thing…so I didn’t bite. Not to mention, quite pricey. I was already prepared to burn a whole in my pocket for the tea I’d quietly committed to already before she arrived.

The lady requested her tea, and I followed suit to ask for my tea as well. After hearing me ask for a tea, the lady became very curious about what it I was buying, and why I, like her, was picking up so much. The owner offered her a taste while packing mine up — reloading a gaiwan to give her a few cups to try. Her response was, “But this is so smoky! What’d you buy this for? I don’t get it…” The shop owner was kind enough to speak on my behalf and said, “He gets it, that’s all that really matters.”

The point of this story isn’t to suggest I’m some master taster. I’m definitely not. At least I can say I know my tastes enough to find teas I like. It boils down to the fact that this interaction alone should have been a clue to me that someone used to sweet and aromatic mixiangs, gaoshans, hongs — heck, even some that are more serious — may not like this style of tea.

Fast-forwarding back to my tea session that day with our cousin character, the mistake was entirely my own. And what’s worse, is that I’ve probably ended up doing more harm than good. This cousin character has probably only been reinforced in his conclusion that Dong Ding is not his thing. I’ve served him pu’er years ago, and something similar happened. I didn’t learn from my mistake then, either.

Two main lessons crystallized eventually while mulling over the whole ordeal. First, its important to think about how you’re brewing a tea for yourself and for others. I lack experience in this area, and it has driven me to experiment a lot with this tea. I’ve been brewing it daily, and each day bringing cups to Ms. Hanji for tasting, much to her dismay. On several occasions during this marathon, she genuinely thought the same tea was a different tea day to day based on how its brewed. What’s better, is that I even discovered a few new adjustments that have allowed me to brew a tea that I enjoy, and that she enjoys, too. Tea, at its core, is a social beverage. Reading the situation and determining a better tea or method of brewing for the situation would have been better. But I wasn’t interested in creating that experience, and so I failed.

And for when you are hosting someone that really isn’t interested in the type of teas you drink? Have some random Gaoshan around, or a Red Oolong or something…Win their hearts and minds. When shop owners say “good tea is whatever you think is good,” they’re right. Especially for the average walk-in customer. Imagine a sweet or fruity cocktail drinker trying a Belgian Tripel or barrel aged stout for the first time. Are those really the beers you’d want to start them on if you’re a beer drinker? Sorry I don’t really drink so this was the best example I could think of. I don’t dare try to make a wine comparison and risk the wrath of those grape enthusiasts telling me how I’ve butchered the metaphor.

New tools in the belt. A new day. A small step of progress made.

At the very least, even mediocre semi-aged tea provides more texture, depth, and aftertaste than many modern Taiwanese oolongs do. Modern Oolong has moved a certain direction, in order to meet consumer expectations. So what does that mean if finding a properly oxidized Oolong is something of interest? Readjusting your expectations of oolongs may help find more interesting tea.

As small an influence the Western market is, Western-facing vendors are still curating offerings based on our expectations, and this puts distance between us and more mature oolongs. Some vendors boast offering “traditional” styles of tea, but still generally try to adhere to the current list of attributes the majority of consumers desire in a tea. Every shop says they have some “traditionally processed” tea. But stories and appearances don’t always hold water when teas are more thoroughly examined.

That, or drinkers just accept that what they’ve been sold is traditional, deem that style of tea altogether too green, then move towards other teas. If we want to see vendors on our side of the world attempt to find these teas, then shifting how we think about certain aspects may help.

When buying Taiwanese Oolong, there are many characteristics that consumers look to as guidelines for in a “quality” tea. Buyer perceptions of these qualities may ultimately get in the way of the goal of finding a traditionally made oolong. Vendors regularly list these qualities in a tea’s description, as they are items that customers expect from a “trusted source.” Ultimately, many are pitfalls that may push us further away from finding oolongs that are not made in the modern green style.

Common Oolong Attributes valued by consumers:

• Famed Mountain (Dong Ding, Alishan, etc.)

• Elevation

• Tender Young Picking

• Hand Picking

• Spring Picking

At times, these attributes in aggregate have the potential to be counterproductive to seeking out a properly “semi-fermented” Taiwanese oolong. Below is a short explanation of how each can be a pitfall. Important to note, is that none of these attributes are inherently problematic, either.

Famed Region

Dong Ding mountain (check out TeaDB’s write up for more history of the mountain’s rise in the 80s) is famous for creating the style of oolongs that now carry its name. Now, most any roasted and more-than-lightly-oxidized teas tend to be called a Dong ding. Obviously, the majority of Dong Ding oolongs are not made from material directly picked on the mountain.

Tea from these well-known mountainous regions may not always have desirable environmental conditions for processing more mature profiles of Oolong. If valleys or ravines are too narrow, finding space to process the tea leaves can be difficult. It may require the tea to move elsewhere. The climate of mountainous regions can present challenges to making a more oxidized oolong. That will be addressed in the next section. Depending on how remote a tea region is, getting workers to them in the first place can be time-consuming, expensive, difficult, or risky. Sure, dong ding style teas came from Dong Ding proper, but to find a more oxidized roasted oolong, there may be other regions to consider, too.

Another small consideration is that Lugu holds arguably the fiercest tea competitions on the island. For many farms, this adds immense pressure to pick and process their teas accordingly.

Elevation

High mountain elevation has become a sought after trait in Taiwanese oolongs. Generally, the higher the elevation, the more expensive teas tend to be. It has become a clear indicator of “quality”.

For most of Taiwan’s oolong producing history, the highest peaks tea was being produced on were in Dong Ding. These peaks, at their highest, punched in at just around 1,000m. The yield per unit-area of Dong Ding mountain is relatively low. It is easy enough to infer that the majority of “Oolong” was not produced at these altitudes, or necessarily this exact region. Many older oolongs were called just that: Oolong. They did not yet carry the name of the famed “Dong Ding” mountain, or style. That wouldn’t become important until after Dong Ding’s rise to fame in the 80s.

There’s no question that higher elevation increases the quality of many agricultural products. Tea is no exception. Elevation is desirable for high concentrations flavor and aroma compounds. Cooler temperatures and lower oxygen slow down tea bush’s growth. This causes a higher accumulation of aromatic compounds, amino acids, polyphenols. With more fog and more shade, teas have less exposure to sunlight. Less photosynthesis lowers the production of catechins, and other polyphenols that tend to extract as bitter taste when you brew them.

These concentrated levels of amino acids and other compounds add to the sweetness and umami of the tea, as well as the smooth texture associated with Gaoshan oolongs. High mountain teas undoubtedly produce intense aromas and sweetness. This makes them an extremely accessible and popular choice for newer or casual drinkers. Unfortunately, these compounds tend to extract quickly. With lower oxidation levels, the other compounds that exist in the leaf are not transformed through oxidation, and end up in the cup sooner or later. While levels of bitter-compounds are usually lower, they are certainly still in the plant. High elevations promote amino acids and sweet aromatics. But they don’t always favor the compounds that heavier oxidation can make shine.

Lastly, come the processing challenges that higher elevation slopes present. It is fairly expensive to process teas on site if large farms are located in more remote or high elevation regions. The cost of an environmentally controlled factory, which would also have to account for limited horizontal area to wither/process tea, can be prohibitive. This is not a feasible investment for many farmers, and as a result, many must outsource their processing. Imagine trying to process teas up near the higher elevations of Dayuling.

With high yields, especially in spring, processing can get backed up at the nearby factories, causing quality control issues for oolongs produced there. Not to mention, the high costs of managing tea farms and hiring labor to harvest all of the material, tend to it, transport it, and make it. This inflates the cost of these teas, whether they are high quality and expertly crafted, or not.

All of these things - limited space, limited sunlight, temperature swings, remoteness, and the tea created by such a climate mean that higher oxidized oolongs are more challenging to produce these areas.

Tender Young Picking

Pretty leaf and soft buds is often seen as an indicator of quality. Young leaf picking is common (and even seen as marketable) for Taiwanese oolongs now, often picking before tea bushes can push out matured leaf with dormant buds. The trend of today is tender, elegant, young material. It rolls well, it looks nice, and for some styles of tea it can be a decent picking. Of all the supposed markers of quality, perhaps none have had as significant a role in “shaping” modern Taiwanese tea as the shift towards tender picking.

Young leaf has high levels of catechins, pectin, amino acids, and high levels of polyphenols, especially in the buds. Younger leaves have thinner “skin” layers, higher water content, as well as fewer, or less developed pores. As such, withering becomes tricky as they are sensitive to sun withering and tend to lose water more slowly as they sit inside.

Young picking is unable to handle the same level of sun withering as mature leaf. To avoid sunburn, they are brought inside more quickly, leading to less initial withering. During indoor withering, they are more difficult to remove the desired level of water content from. Finally, they are too tender to withstand the needed level of tumbling mature leaf needs to achieve high levels of oxidation. The less uniform the leaf maturity, the less consistent withering will be in the finished maocha. Often, these factors will culminate in a more bitter and unbalanced brew.

On the other hand, mature leaves tell a very different story. Matured leaves, with a dormant bud, offer better material for moderate/heavier oxidation. The leaves have higher levels of bitter polyphenols, but these are the compounds that, with sufficient oxidation, produce the rich aromas and textures of a fully developed oolong. Mature leaves can resist sun withering, can be withered to a sufficiently low water content, and can stand up to frequent shaking and rigorous tumbling. This allows for a more ideal material to then oxidize further during piling.

Hand-picked Leaves

Hand pick leaves have the advantage of using the picker’s discretion to select the most desirable material according to the producer’s request. In a vacuum, this is the ideal way to have a consistent harvest of the most desirable leaf material for your end product. Naturally, hand picking comes with its own hurdles.

Picking tea is hard work. It is time consuming. It also doesn’t pay incredibly well. It is seasonal work. And usually done by foreign labor (mainly SE Asia) In many places, there is a shortage of pickers to tackle crop yields, especially in spring. With a shortage of workers, picking takes longer. In order to get all of your “ready” material harvested, picking may need start earlier, and/or take longer than expected.

With less workers, picking must start early. Morning can be challenging though. The sunny middle of the day of the day yields leaves with lower water content, create a better chance for sufficient withering. Good luck explaining to your pickers that they need to wait until the hottest, brightest part of the day to begin their work.

Waiting for the optimal mid-day times to harvest also runs the risk of picking ending too late, which means sun withering will be insufficient or possibly skipped. This can be worked around, but in general, not good.

Workers that are hired to remote mountainous regions to harvest have to be fed and boarded as well. Not to mention that depending on the nature of the slopes, the work can be somewhat dangerous or more time-consuming. This ends up adding to the cost of the tea in the end, too. If you hire your workers, and it happens to rain that afternoon, what do you do? They’ll have to come back again at your next harvesting opportunity, but the farmer will be out more money, and the tea plants are still growing. Or, you just bite the bullet and harvest anyway…

The machine harvester could care less. It can do the work multiple times faster than hand-picking, and a machine doesn’t mind what time of day it is used. Less hands can harvest more tea this way. The resulting could be less aesthetically pleasing, but it does not mean the quality has been ruined. This can help both cut costs, meaning cheaper tea for the consumer, but also ensure that leaves are harvested during the optimal part of the day.

In fact, you can clearly see this in Japan. Japanese sencha has shown some of the key advantages of machine picking in both cutting cost, and harvesting/growing techniques used in their fields. The vast majority of sencha is machine processed, and I don’t see Japanese tea drinkers complaining, especially when they look at the price. In the right scenarios, machine picking means less time from picking to processing, which can increase the quality of the tea just by making sure all parts of its processing can be done under ideal conditions.

This isn’t to say that hand-picked teas are bad, of course. There are obviously climates where using certain harvesters would be impossible or impractical. There are use cases for both. For bushes to be easier to harvest by machine, they will require appropriate pruning/cutting, and flatter land is usually more ideal. As technology continues to improve, more hurdles may be overcome.

Spring Picking

Tea season is on. Spring is great for its high yield, and quality tea leaves packed full of concentrated aromatic compounds, amino acids, and complex carbs from the nutrition stored over winter. Spring is an amazing time for so many different types of tea. Spring is undoubtedly a decent season to produce material suitable for greener gaoshan teas, baozhong teas, and teas with lower/no oxidation in general.

Spring is not the only season to chase in the case of medium oxidized oolong. In the mountains, temperature changes at night make for challenges in processing the leaves. If attempting to wither to a sufficient level, warmer temperature is ideal. Mountainous regions have unpredictable weather, and afternoon rain is common. A harvest will not be able to sun wither if a farmer gets unlucky. Temperature swings from day to night at higher elevations can complicate the process, too.

Then, there is summer and early fall. Temperatures are hot, humidity is lower, and there’s plenty of sun. The leaves get plenty of time for photosynthesis, which allows the tea to accumulate high levels of polyphenols. Many of these compounds are quite harsh, and would make for a terrible green tea. They are ideal, however, if you plan to oxidize them more completely, and should not be as bitter this way.

Warmer evenings and nights means there’s a much better shot at favorable “fermentation” conditions. Warm nights — especially in lower elevations where temperature swings are lower — helps move along oxidation during piling once tumbling is finished.

It seems like these seasons are mostly discarded as “subpar” to the average drinker, outside of a few select styles of tea. Perhaps it is time to reconsider some of the benefits they may offer. For one, summer/fall tea tend can be much cheaper. Depending on the type of tea you’re looking for, perhaps it is worth trying out some teas from these seasons to see how much difference you might find.

Here are some bowl-brewed teas labeled as “Traditional” Dong Dings and took some photos this time, just to see what stands out.

Each of these attributes has its place in crafting certain teas, and by no means excludes a tea completely for being a candidate for a traditional oolong. There are other attributes that are often misunderstood that perhaps can be visited some other time. They may be things for drinkers to consider next time they look at what’s in their cup. None of these attributes are bad, either, however they are often misunderstood.

Originally, I was going to brew a session of each, but I didn’t want my weekend’s tea opportunities to be consumed by that much young pu’er…So, I chickened out and wised-up to bowl brewing. I blinded them, too, though it mattered much less in a bowl where the leaves are sitting there right in plain view…

The 2016/2017 7542s were pretty similar in presentation. 17 was slightly “greener” but both were pretty sweet. Decent aftertaste, even as things grew bitter through the session. Good enough texture. The 2016 held a slightly nicer profile even in later ladles of tea. The 2016 8582 was disappointing. Neither sweet, nor enduring. Just hollow and bland.

The Purple Dayi was the clear winner of the set, and didn’t really hide itself well. The profile was distinct from its three colleagues as well. It had the most tongue activity. A meaty density. Bitter, with strong sweetness in the aftertaste. Nice enough salivation (though 7542s were ok here too). Carried some smoke, but not that harsh. Did not become overwhelming after sipping through an entire session.

No revelations were gained through this process, but I have reinforced some ideas that have been swimming around in my head.

1. There is no reason to pick up young Dayi. There’s enough out there and its easy enough to pick up once its ready. I’d rather not waste space trying to do it myself.

2. Wait for each tea to prove itself with time. When young, speculation can drive up prices…Especially with how much is made, the dust should settle as time goes on. Dayi is difficult because part of the price is brand alone. But you’ll get something consistent and not completely broken.

3. I don't want to age teas, and there’s easier teas to age, even if accidentally.

4. I wasn’t sure how “modern” the purple Dayi would perform. This was my first time breaking it open to drink it. Of the 4, it feels the most familiar when thinking of older teas. Of the four in the tasting, it certainly has the nicest quality in leaf. The leaves also remained pretty tight - difficult to unroll compared with the other mainline cakes. Finally, in taste it certainly smokes the others. If I were to age one, this would be my bet. But what the hell do I know about where teas will go. And I certainly won’t be making any claims as to whether it will hold a candle to the other Purple Dayis. It probably won’t in my storage. Nicely stored 2001 Purple Dayi is where I’d probably spend my money if I felt sacrificing my cash to the hype-god.

My conclusions haven’t broken any new ground. In fact, they probably line up closely with what has been said by more experienced drinkers ad nauseam. Sometimes, we don’t listen. Especially early on in our time learning about tea. I’m glad that I’ve always been cautious about picking up too much pu’er. I still plenty of tuition, of course. That’s the only way to play. But I’m glad I can revisit those teas for a quick dose of education. If you pay your tuition, at least make sure you go to class.

My goal as I keep cracking deeper into my pu’er teas is to try and read the leaves with a few more goals in mind, and with the guidance of more experience drinkers. Its always nice to know if patterns you recognize are fabricated, or whether you may have actually noticed something worth paying attention to.

Competition tea culture does not hold much significance in the “tea dialogue” of most Western tea circles. Generally, most of what we drink isn’t wrapped up in competition culture directly — though some sites do offer competition teas. For Western drinkers competitions seem largely unimportant to the journey many will take. Drinkers may encounter them at some point, and will eventually learn that they “don’t matter,” or have little influence over the quality of a tea. Many great teas hold no competition titles. That is generally where the conversation starts and ends.

It is important, though, to recognize how competitions shape what is made, and what sells. Competitions are a very easy way to get farmers both recognition, and a good chunk of money for a season, and potentially beyond if they get it right. Since prices are fixed at different prize levels, landing certain grades could be the difference between stacks of cash, and running at a loss for a season, depending on production costs.

As Alex at Taiwan Tea Odyssey has pointed out in his articles, competitions evaluation and final results often rest in the hands of just a few select judges. The primary issue at hand is that Taiwan lacks a system for training impartial and rigorously “tested” tea judges. On top of this, the island lacks a publicly trusted impartial judging institution.

The solution to find “credible” judges to oversee the plethora of seasonal competitions all over the island is to rely on Taiwan Provincial Tea Research and Extension Station (TRES) officials. These are officials/bureaucrats from local stations and are not super tasters. They, like most drinkers, have their tastes and preferences — and these play into competition grading, and winning teas.

In the judging system of Taiwan, rank dictates authority. This means that lead officials hold much power in how teas will be graded and ranked. The highest-ranking official evaluates the tea first, and the two trailing judges follow suit, essentially a “follow-the-leader” game. The system is anything but democratic, and resulted in farmers and merchants focusing almost entirely on the preferences of the lead judge. If their preferences are obvious, and their taste consistent, it is easy enough for farmers to craft teas that will fit that profile and consistently win prize titles year after year. If their tastes are harder to pin down or inconsistent, farmers will result to other tricks of the trade to attempt landing a prize. This phenomenon helps explain some of the influence over how Taiwanese Oolongs were shaped into what we expect them to be like today.

In the 80s, the most fierce competitions were central Taiwan’s oolong producing townships. TRES officials, who’s closest station office was in Puxin, found traveling to these further townships unideal. They employed judges from the Yuchi Branch (魚池紅茶試驗支所) to help judge these competitions. The Yuchi branch had been around since as early as Japanese occupation, as the Yuchi Black Tea Experimental Branch. These judges thought about things through a black tea frame — one which adhered to foreign (Western) black tea grading. Black tea grading favored tippy, white haired leaves, nice aesthetic dry leaf, and astringent tastes. These preferences bled into competitions.

Prize-winning teas could fetch serious chicken dinners, so farmers rapidly adapted their teas to suit the judge’s preferences. No more than a few years later, oolongs in the area had already started their transformation: Lightly oxidized, beautiful tightly rolled pellets were taking home “Special Prize” grades consistently…which loops nicely back into the theme of The Gaoshan Dilemma.

When farmers were unable to pin down preferences of judges, they employed questionable tactics. Farmers were known to enter the same tea in multiple competitions, hoping to win a prize in one or the other. Lower quality teas from less renown areas might be entered in hopes for even a lower-level excellent “merit” award (優良). As competitions grew more fierce, even further tactics were tried. Sometimes teas would be “cut” — ex. blending some Dongding grown material together with high elevation oolongs to cut costs. Often autumn tea would be submitted into winter competitions. Autumn tea’s market fetches half the price of a winter tea, and the seasonal lines are blurred as it is. If judges were unable to consistently detect the subtleties of “Winter Aroma” locals would smile on as their teas passed elimination rounds…an easy way to catch some profit on cheaper materials that would otherwise sell for less.

Tea competitions in Taiwan have existed since the Japanese occupation period. Their function and impact varied depending on what was happening at the time. In the late 70s to early 80s, commercialized tea culture and “tea art” favored marketing and economic gain over cultivation and tasting skills. The consequences (or results) of this era’s influence can be seen on every Oolong seller’s website, and probably what you find in your cup.

Notes

• Alongside the big names, judges in the Lugu Dongding competitions can be found from the Yuchi branch during the 80s, as well as how competitions changed the industry in Lugu

• Info on other judges from this branch that contributed to Oolong competitions can be read about scattered here and there online.

• For even more information on how these modern competitions look, check out these articles from Taiwan Tea Odyssey: Making of a Champion and A visit with a Muzha farmer

That’s exactly what I did. I picked up a few new cakes of LFPT from the same source in Taiwan 6 years later. My original cakes were purchased in 2018. I picked up a cake a year later to try this exact same experiment in 2019— though one year is hardly enough time to see any significant changes. Now I’ve got 6 years of difference to try.

I’ve sent a sample of my earliest purchase (2018) to James at TeaDB who can compare his, to mine, to a different 2025 purchase that he has acquired a sample of. I didn’t do my comparison blind, though hopefully he does. Maybe he’ll find a more significant difference than I did, so take my account as a biased one.

Some Western collectors get obsessed about storage. It seems pretty common for many collectors to try and replicate that “Malaysian” storage, of such legend here in the West…and basically nowhere else (barring Malaysia, of course). Understandable if you live in super cold parts of North America but plenty of this continent (and its indoor air conditioning) are well within the range of temperatures you might see in parts of Asia. This is at least true for parts of the year. Humidity, of course, is a different story.

I keep it hydrated, roughly 70%RH all year round. My tea room gets very warm in the summer. When I make tea in the morning with sun beaming into the room, temperatures typically gets to 30C. The tea, being humidified and insulated, always lags behind a few degrees. Dry heat doesn’t bother me, especially when returning from Taiwan, and the AC is pretty weak in that room. Good for the tea, and tolerated by me. The tea gets warm when the weather is warm, and cool when the weather is cool. Sits around 25-28C in the summer months ( Late May - Late Sept), 21-24C in Spring and Autumn, and 15-18 through the coldest Winter nights. Cold months are probably where things are slowed down considerably.

No added heat, just sealed and insulated in a broken fridge. I wanted to see how far the divergence would be after a few more years of NA storage, so six years later I purchased more…and then put off doing a comparison for a year.

To me, they’re close enough. The 2024 purchased cake smells mustier, but in the cup is about the same presentation. It may be slightly deeper, and its fragrance a bit woodier — maturity up front has made changes certainly, but it is the same tea I recognize from my own storage. A bit of activity early on, pretty sweet, die out about the same time, both still slightly rough. Decent enough aftertaste. Does it lag behind a bit? Sure. Even so, it has changed plenty in the time I’ve had it. In a few more years, I assume this while be comfortable enough to pop out regularly and drink anytime I’d like something familiar that doesn’t demand focus.