Author Archives: The Essence of Tea (David)

We've been in Yunnan for the past 6 weeks or so, finding and selecting the maocha for our 2012 Spring Puerh pressings. As is becoming the norm, it's been a strange season for fresh puerh. There's been another drought in Yunnan, meaning less leaves and higher prices. The pricing has been a bit crazy this year. The season began with prices around 30% higher than last year in most places. Many producers held out, waiting for the spring rains to arrive and the prices to fall. Unfortunately the gamble didn't pay off for many - there too many producers holding out for the cheaper teas that the prices continued to rise after the rain arrived as people scrambled to get enough leaves to make the quantity of tea they wanted, even though the quality of the later leaves wasn't so good. We managed to escape most of this. I'd wanted all our tea to be from before the Qing Ming festival, so we'd secured all our Maocha in the early season anyway and could comfortably relax.

Apart from the record prices, we were particularly shocked this year by the number of teas we'd tasted that had some chemicals involved. Sadly perhaps it's not a great surprise that the growing demand for old tree teas combined with soaring prices and increased contact with the wider world has lead many villagers in the tea mountains to begin spraying weedkiller, pesticides and chemical fertilisers in the hope of increasing their harvests. Often chemical additions to teas will leave the mouth, particularly the tip of the tongue, feeling numb and can often leave a tight, clenching feeling in the throat. It's really a pity when you taste these teas, because apart from a tea being ruined by this, it also destroys your ability to taste other teas properly for the next hour or two. Unfortunately it seemed the more famous the region was and the higher the prices of the maocha are, the more likely it is that the villagers have been tempted to add to their crop.

The good news though is that the quality of the tea, at least in some places, is very good. We've pressed limited quantities of tea from Guafengzhai and Bangwei and larger quantities from Manmu village (Bulang region), Baotang (Mengsong region) and QiShengGu (on the Lincang/Simao border). I have good hopes for this year's tea. It's being pressed at the moment and will begin arrive back in the UK in about 2 weeks with the remainder arriving within a month. As usual, I'll email the details to those who've asked to be included in the preorders process, then list the cakes on the website once they all arrive in stock. If you'd like to preorder this year's puerh cakes, please send us an email at info@essenceoftea.co.uk.

While our tea is being pressed at the factory, we decided to take a few days to visit Master Zhou and Chen Ju Fang in Yixing. Master Zhou's WuXing Shan Fang studio has some of the best clay we've come across in modern Yixing pots. Although the waiting list for Master Zhou's pots is a couple of years long and the price is in the range of several thousand US dollars, his wife, Chen Ju Fang also makes lovely pots, in a shorter time frame and at a more affordable price. They also have several apprentices who make some more simple styles of pots, still from good clay and are a good choice everyday use.

We hope to cooperate more with them over the coming years. Seeing the quality of clays of many of the pots being made in Yixing these days and especially those available to tea lovers outside China, I feel very fortunate to be able to work with them in making pots of this quality available to the West.

Click on the photos below to view higher resolution gallery.

This post was posted in News

We have the pleasure to announce several talks on tea by Malaysian tea master Lim Ping Xiang in June. We've been trying to arrange for Master Lim to visit the UK for some time now and have recently finalised the dates of his visit and booked his flights.

Master Lim is widely regarded in Malaysia as being the grandfather of the modern tea movement there, introducing and promoting the appreciation of puerh tea, Wuyi yancha and Liu Bao teas to many. He has over 40 years of experience with fine Chinese teas, beginning his journey as a tea merchant in Kuala Lumpur before giving up his commercial interests in tea to become solely a teacher of tea. His down-to-earth manner and willingness to share make him a wealth of information for those interested in tea.

Some interviews with Master Lim can be found in The Leaf, The Art of Tea magazine and Puerh Teapot magazine.

Master Lim will give two talks in London, to be held in Postcard Teas (22nd & 23rd June 2012), then two talks the following week in Cornwall (venue and dates to be confirmed). He plans to discuss the appreciation of fine teas, including Wuyi Yancha, Puerh tea and Gongfu brewing. The talks in Postcard Teas will be limited to 20 people per day and tickets will be on sale in Postcard teas and via our website. All proceeds from the ticket sales will go towards the venue costs and towards Master Lim's travel costs.

For those in the UK, this is a wonderful chance to learn from and ask questions in a small group setting to one of the world's foremost experts in Chinese teas.

Dates:

22nd & 23rd June - Postcard Teas. 9 Dering Street London W1S 1AG

29th & 30th June - Cornwall - Venue and exact dates to be confirmed. Tickets will be available once details are confirmed

Booking - Tea Talks Booking

We have just arrived in Yunnan, having spent the past few days in Wuyishan visiting Master Huang and his family. This visit turned out to be quite special - before we have only gone in May, during the Spring harvest, but my brother's wedding this May forced us to make the trip a bit earlier. Going earlier resulted in two major differences - the first was that it was very cold. I was a bit unprepared for how cold it would be & only took my coat off to shower and get into bed. The second, and more important difference, was that Master Huang wasn't busy. During harvest time he's very hands-on, overseeing much of the tea processing, but this time he was relaxed and could spend most of the days with us, drinking tea, taking us around the park, teaching us the differences between different varietals, different ages of bushes and different locations within the park, all of which have a huge effect on the finished tea. We felt very fortunate to be able to spend so much time with him.

We learned a lot in a short time. In the next few weeks I'll attempt to type up some of the things he shared with us and publish them here on our blog.

I've spent the past couple of weeks in Taiwan, searching for some aged puerh. So much has changed in the past year. I knew that the prices had been rising pretty fast, but I wasn't quite prepared for the situation I found in many places. It's all going to China, at a faster and faster rate. People I'd previously bought tea from didn't want to sell any more and were asking if I could sell them back any of the tea that I'd previously bought. I visited several shops & wholesalers and found the same situation. The prices they could sell their tea to mainland Chinese customers for was so much higher than they could sell for in Taiwan. Tea from the 70's or before, they were pretty much just hanging on to since the price is rising so quickly. It all seems a bit crazy, but there's a gold rush on for these teas right now.

That being said, I did manage to find a few things - some very well stored late 90's Menghai tea factory cakes, some mid-90's CNNP '8582', some older Liu An and maybe an 80's Menghai 7532. I also bought some more of our 70's Zhi Ye loose leaf puerh. These are on the way back to the UK at the moment and should appear on the website in the next week or two.

This last few months has been a time of some soul searching for Kathy & I with regards to our life, our tea business and our hopes for the future. Our tea house in Falmouth has been both immensely rewarding and incredibly time consuming for us. On a business side, it has been just about breaking even since we opened and, despite the steady increase in people beginning to appreciate tea, has seemed that it would take quite a while to be even at the stage where it could employ someone to help us take care of of the shop.

Just after Christmas, we decided that we'd be happier to close the teahouse and spend more of our time concentrating on our online business, spending more time in Asia, learning more about tea and finding better teas for our customers who appreciate the finer end of puerh teas and Wuyi Yancha.

With all the work we'd done to improve the property in Falmouth, offers to take over our lease of the premises have come rather quickly & we've closed and cleared out the teahouse just in time for our annual trip to Asia. It's been a lot of fun having the teahouse and providing a space for people to come and drink tea & we've met a lot of amazing people. Some of my most treasured memories of it are the quiet moments at the end of days where friends have come and we've spent hours drinking some wonderful teas. We hope to keep in touch with our regular customers and organise some special tea events in Cornwall for those who are interested.

I've arrived in Taipei yesterday to spend a month searching for aged teas. Also on the cards in the coming weeks are some time in Malaysia, searching for good aged Liu Bao, some time in Wuyi, Yixing and of course 6 weeks in Yunnan for the spring tea harvest.

While we're away, there's someone helping us to pack and send out orders (so our web shop will remain open) and we hope to return home in May with the new season's fresh Puerh tea and some different aged gems that we find along the way.

We've just restocked a lot of the aged puerh cakes and loose leaf teas on our website. Unfortunately the 1993 7542 cakes we've had for the past few years have already all been sold by our supplier, so these won't be restocked. We'll try to find some other nicely stored, aged 7542 of this era during our trip to Taiwan in February.

We'll be closed for a little over the Christmas period - closing 23rd Dec - 2nd Jan. All orders placed online during this period will be posted on 2nd/3rd Jan. Our teahouse in Falmouth will reopen 6th Jan.

I made the (slightly belated) draw today for the 15th-30th November draw for a Mannuo puerh tea cake, for reviews of teas posted between these dates.

The winner, as chosen by random.org, is 'tT' for the review left of our Xiping, Anxi Tie Guan Yin.

The winner for the period 1st Dec-15th Dec is Antonio Luigi for his review of our 1970's Pinglin aged oolong.

This marks the end of our Mannuo cakes to give away, but we've enjoyed reading the reviews left & would like to give something back to reward the time and thought taken to write them. Until our 2012 cakes arrive, I'd like to continue these draws by offering a 2011 Manhai puerh cake (400g) - a cake that's only been available at our teahouse in Falmouth until now (not listed on the website). There'll be 2 draws per month.

I had the bad news last night that the wholesale price of some of our cakes has gone up. It seems the market in Asia for aged puerh is going crazy.

The rate of change of prices for aged puerh constantly amazes and shocks me. Some of the 80's cakes have over doubled in price over the last 2 years and many of the famous cakes have increased over 40% since last Spring.

Unfortunately, this means we'll have to increase our prices too as we restock these older cakes. Apologies for this, but with the huge rise in demand from the burgeoning wealthy Chinese middle classes and the rarity of many of these teas, it seems that's just the way the world of aged puerh will continue to be.

We'll still try to source some other vintages over the coming year and expand our range, both of some landmark teas from the past 60 years and some more affordable teas for everyday drinking.

I was taking some photos today for a booklet describing our teas & thought something on the website might be nice to demonstrate one method of Gongfu brewing. This isn't intended to be an exhaustive description of all styles of gongfu brewing, just one we've found to work well in general & is relatively simple for all.

The winner for the 1-15th November Mannuo Puerh draw is as selected by random.org is Norbert for his review of our 2011 Nantou Green Tea.