Finding the Tea Qi - Introduction

I started reading up on tea the way I find out a lot of interesting things. Something came up in a book I was writing, and I started reading up on it.

What, exactly, would tea with Brother Fu be like? It wouldn't be Liptons in a tea bag. How would he drink it? This lead me to googling "Classic Chinese tea brewing methods" and one hell of a rabbit hole.

I swiftly concluded that I knew nothing at all. I watched a lot of videos on Youtube, read essays, articles, reviews, product websites, reddit, and eventually said that a man who lives but a short drive from Mem Tea's retail store really has no excuse to not pick up his own lidded cup (more commonly known as a gaiwan) and some quality loose leaf tea.

The rabbit hole deepened. I was eventually put onto Yunnan Supply, a Chinese outfit supplying a range of teas and teaware at a range of prices. Affirming that I knew nothing, I opted for a sampler.

And... if it wasn't clear how my brain works already, I opted to fling myself bodily into the rabbit hole.

This introduciton is already running long, so I will abbreviate and say that six varieties of tea are recognized by Chinese tea connosours, with numerous sub-catagories. One of those is Pu'erh, named for the town it comes from in the provice of Yunnan. What I called "Harmony Village Tea" in Sky Pride. So I decided that would be what I focused on.

Oh, but what kind of Pu'erh? Because the variety comes in "Ripe" or Shou and "Raw" also known as Sheng. Ripe Pu'erh is given an accelerated wet fermentation, which gives it an earthier and smoother flavor. And that's fine, but we are going down the rabbit hole here.

See, Raw Pu'erh is not very good to drink when it is just picked and roasted. In fact, it is aged. For years, minimum, and decades is not unusual. Expensive? Oh god yes. The really good stuff, anecdotaly, doesn't even reach the market. It gets snapped up by wealthy afficionados and the politically connected.

I can't help but think of the Tribute Tea, sent to the Emperor. History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes, etc.

So what is someone who is not a Politburo member or a plutocrat to do? Buy younger tea, and age it yourself. And the younger stuff is very affordable. Fine, that's easy peasy, this stuff is probably the single most popular type of tea in China, you can get the stuff by the shipping container.

But that is insufficiently rabbit-holey. You see, Pu'erh comes from a particular region of Yunnan, specific mountains, in fact. And each mountain has a charicteristic flavor, like the terrior in wine. And tea comes from tea trees. The cheap commercial teas come from trees that are kept no bigger than bushes for easy harvesting. But tea trees can live several hundred years, becoming big, towering things. These ancient trees still exist, some pre-dating the last dynasty, all of them predating the People's Republic. They have their own distinctive flavors.

Or so I am told. I wouldn't know myself. But I aim to learn.

I bought a sampler of eight raw Pu'erh teas from Yunnan Supply. None very old, "Semi-aged" is the term. Each comes from a different mountain, some from ancient trees, some from more ordinary ones. I got a special tea cup and gaiwan that will be used just for raw Pu'erh going forward. I got a little scale, so I can measure out consistent amounts of tea leaves.

And then I went on vacation, and took all the tea supplies with me. So, starting Monday, January 19, I will start documenting my tea journey through the sampler, learning as I go. I am glad you are coming with me.

At the end of the run, I hope to have found that thing people keep talking about but can't define- Tea qi. And I won't be looking alone. Let me introduce you to my new tea buddy, the Little Tea Venerable.