Category Archives: Types of Tea

Lapsang Souchong – Smoky Tea

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Lapsang Souchong was developed under Prince Regent Dorgon

Prince Regent Dorgon of the Qing Dynasty, China (Public Domain)

Lapsang Souchong is a smoked tea that originated in Wuyi Mountains in the Fujian province of China. Today it is made in various tea producing countries. The story of its creation has a few different versions but they generally agree that the tea was created during the early part ofi the Qing Dynasty out of necessity to either save the tea from impending bad weather or to hide it from invading troops that had entered the region as part of the effort to unify China under Prince Regent Dorgon. Either way, the tea leaves where smoked over pine wood to speed the drying process and then packed in barrels to store in mountain caves. Eventually it was shared with Western tea merchants who bought the tea and found that the Europeans loved it. So the following year, the merchants asked for more of the tea and offered a higher price for it than the traditional teas and a new product was born. Sometimes you will find references to Lapsang Souchong as “Westerner’s Tea” and while that may have been true to begin with, it is also consumed in China.

Lapsang Souchong is often enjoyed on its own but is also found in blends of  Russian Caravan. By the end of the 1600’s Russia had trade agreements with China that included exchanging thousands of pounds of tea for furs. Included in those teas where Pu-erh and Lapsang Souchong, as both teas weathered the thousands of miles of travel on horseback well.

Lapsang Souchong Production

Lapsang Souchong is made from the 4th and 5th tea leaves on the stem, the same ones used in some oolong and pu-erh teas. These are bigger leaves, allowing them to withstand the pine smoke for drying without losing their shape or their tea flavor. Some people suggest that these tea leaves somehow are of lower quality because they are not as delicate in flavor as the bud and first two leaves, but they neglect to give credit to these leaves for having a more consistent brisk flavor and the capability to hold their form under long travel.

The leaves are withered over pine wood fires (cypress is also used but pine is the original wood for this tea). The leaves are then pan fried and rolled. The rolled leaves are then packed into barrels and left to oxidize. Once they have hit the desired oxidation level, they are pulled out of the barrels, pan fried and rolled into long strips. Finally they are put into bamboo baskets and hung over the pine fire to absorb the flavors of the pine smoke.

Steeping Lapsang Souchong

Lapsang Souchong Infused Leaf

Infused Leaf of Lapsang Souchong

Steep this tea just like a black tea. It should be steeped for 4-5 minutes in boiling water. If the taste is a little strong for you, cut back on the initial steeping time by a minute or so. This tea produces a reddish brown liquor with a smoky smell and smooth full mouth feel. Due to the strong smoky taste, it can be steeped anywhere from 3-6 times before becoming weak.

While Lapsang Souchong tea has a tendency to produce very strong responses of either love or hate from tea drinkers (I love it, but David is not a fan), it is worth acknowledging its place in tea culture and giving it a try.

Puerh Tea and an Introduction to Dark Teas

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Pu-erh Tea is truly fermented unlike other teas.

Puerh Tea (tuo cha) – Fermented tea formed into cakes and producing a very dark infusion.

If you’ve been exploring tea for a while you’ve undoubtedly heard a bit about puerh (aka pu-erh), or fermented tea, though you may not yet given it a try. If you consider yourself a regular tea drinker then puerh and dark teas really are a must for your tea ‘bucket list’. Originally from China, puerh and dark teas offer a very different experience. Smooth and earthy, this class of tea is produced using a very different process from other teas and offers a different taste profile which may even serve a as a great entry for coffee drinkers looking to add tea to their repertoire.

Unlike white, green, black, and other varieties of tea which are oxidized and heated or fired to stop oxidation, puerh tea is truly fermented. It develops, usually in the form of compressed tea cakes over years, developing flavor and becoming smoother the longer it ages. Unlike other teas, puerh is produced by partially heating tea leaves to stop most oxidation. Then they are rolled and bruised slightly before being processed into compressed forms. The compressed forms such as bricks, discs or cakes, and small birds nest shaped, called tuo cha, are then either artificially aged or left to age naturally, sometimes for decades.

Puerh Tea History

The development of puerh teas dates back many thousands of years to Yunnan province in China. The necessity of trade led to packaging of tea in compressed discs which could be more easily transported along the tea horse road and other trade corridors. At the time tea was traded for war horses and other goods and often traveled hundreds of miles over long periods of time. During the this time, in hot and humid conditions, the tea naturally fermented and turned into dark tea by the time it reached its destination.

Puerh and Dark Tea

Its often stated that the types of tea include white, yellow, green, black, oolong, and puerh tea. However, this isn’t really accurate. Puerh is actually one variety of dark tea, albeit the most famous one. In 2008, China recognized dark tea from Yunnan as being geographically protected meaning this is the only dark tea that can be called puerh despite the fact that a number of other provinces produce fermented dark teas using much the same process and tea plant varieties.

Steeping Puerh Tea

Steeping your puerh tea is relatively straight forward but is slightly different than other teas. While you should steep with boiling water like a black tea, you will likely be able to steep puerh at least four to six times if not upwards of 10-15 times depending on the variety. Wake up the tea initially with enough boiling water to cover the leaf and quickly pour off the liquor. If you are steeping in a pot or mug with infuser then use 3 grams of puerh or dark tea and steep 3-4 minutes and re-steep another 2-4 times. If you are using a gaiwan, use a bit more tea, about 5 grams, and steep the first time for 2o to 25 seconds. For each additional steeping at about 5 seconds more steeping until it becomes thin.

Although dark and puerh teas are unfamiliar to many western tea drinkers they can be a real treat. Unlike the other teas in your collection, if stored properly, with fresh circulating air, away from other smells and aromas, these will keep and mature for many years to come. And for those looking to make a switch from coffee, you may find both the color and flavor to be a logical first step.

There is much to explore with tea, and puerh as well. This was only an introduction to the world of dark and puerh tea. In the future we will explore more to include the world of counterfeit puerh, other regions producing dark teas, and more so stay tuned.

Umami, Taste, and the Brain

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When you find yourself really engrossed in tea, wine, cheese or other culinary item its not long before you’re searching for the right words to describe the taste and the differences between those items. Smell, texture, and appearance have a large impact on the overall experience and enjoyment of a food, though they impact the overall flavor experience. Taste comes from signals sent to the brain from the tongue itself. A recent article in the BBC reminded us of the role these receptors play, illuminates a bit more about how the brain interprets tastes, and discusses why we loose our sense of taste as we age.

Taste map of old showing sweet, salty, sour, and bitter.

Many of us were taught that there were only four tastes and they were detected in very specific places on the tongue.

Conventional Thinking on Taste

In the early 1900’s the German scientist D.P. Hanig developed the taste map which other scientists later endorsed, though in a form which appeared to show that vast parts of the tongue didn’t taste anything (Dowdy). According to the map the tip of the tip of the tongue could detect sweetness, the front sides detected salty, farther back on the sides the tongue could detect sour tastes, and finally the rear of the tongue detected bitterness. This was the way many of us were taught about taste in school and is still used when teaching taste in many books and on-line references. However, over the past 10-15 years there has been significant work to understand taste.  Among other things, scientists have discovered (or perhaps just begun to acknowledge) that taste can be sensed from receptors all over the tongue.

The Five Tastes: Introducing Umami

Despite what we learned in school, it is generally accepted today that there are actually five tastes; sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. While the first four are quite familiar to us all, it is umami that needs a bit of explanation for many. Also known as savory, umami is much more subtle than the other four tastes. Its is the other taste in foods that we often can’t quite put a finger on. Technically it is the taste of glutamate and ribonucleotides in foods. Umami is often found in meats and fish as well as some vegetables and dairy, notably tomatoes and shitake mushrooms. The term itself means “pleasant savory taste” and was coined back in the early 1900’s by Professor Kikunae Ikeda of Tokyo Imperial University.

More recently, researchers in France have suggested there might also be receptors for fat on the tongue, and according to an article in the New York Times there are researchers trying to isolate up to 20 other tastes that can be detected by our tongue (Smith).

New Research on Taste

On November 8, 2014 the BBC published the story “Brain’s taste secrets uncovered” which turned conventional thinking about taste on its head a bit and inspired this blog. The story in the BBC outlines the results of a new study in the US, and published in the journal Nature. In it, we learn that there are roughly 8,000 taste buds on the typical human tongue, some animals have evolved without the ability to identify certain tastes, and we get new taste cells every forty days or so thanks to stem cells on the tongue.

The meat of the article illustrates how scientists took a close look at taste buds noting that all taste buds can sense the range of the five (at least) tastes, yet specialized receptors within each taste bud pick out the chemical compounds relating to sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami. These receptors, in turn, signal specific parts of the brain for each of the different tastes. The rejuvenation process for creating new taste cells every 40 days or so becomes less efficient as we age impacting our taste and raising interesting questions about how we could improve this experience in the coming years.

Implications for Tasting Tea

Loose Leaf Japanese Sencha is Known for its Umami Taste

Japanese Sencha Green Tea Illustrates the Umami Taste

So how do we boil this back down to tea? Well, first of all, we need to dispel with the notion that certain areas of the tongue “own” the identification of sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. These tastes can be detected all over the tongue, yet some parts may be more attuned than others to each of them. Its also important to start to recognize umami. We can do this through practice with tea as well as by eating and noting the umami taste in other foods like meats, broth, and certain vegetables.

One of the teas most noted for its umami taste is loose leaf Japanese sencha tea. Take care to steep this with cooler water, around 170° to 185°. This will bring out the sweetness and umami of the tea without causing it to be bitter tasting. As you develop a taste for sencha you may wish to pickup a Kyusu instead of using an infuser or single serve tea bag. The slightly larger holes in a Kyusu allows some of the fine particles to pass through which serves to enhance the texture and mouth feel of this wonderful tea. Through practice you will be able to pick out the different taste components and move on to more in-depth descriptions of flavor.

Sources Cited

Brain’s taste secrets uncovered, by James Gallagher, BBC, November 8, 2014, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-29912877

How Taste Works, Susan Dowdy, howstuffworks, http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/perception/taste3.htm

Beyond Salty and Sweet:  A Budding Club of Tastes, by Peter Andrey Smith, The New York Times, July 21, 2014, http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/a-budding-club-of-tastes

Gunpowder Tea

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Gunpowder Tea looks much like real gunpowder.

Actual Gunpowder (not tea) by Wikimedia Commons User Hustvedt, CC BY SA 3.0

Gunpowder tea (also called Zhu Cha) is believed to have been first produced during the Tang dynasty (618-907 C.E.) in Zhejiang provenience of China. The withered and steamed green tea leaves were balled by hand into small pellets before being dried. Its English name came from its appearance as the tea pellets after drying look like shiny greenish-black pellets, much like gunpowder. This is truly an art form given that they are balling a whole tea leaf into a very small pellet. It makes me wonder why they would go to the trouble to do such a thing. This is a case where necessity really does prove to be the mother of invention.

Gunpowder Tea and the Tang Dynasty

Gunpowder Green Tea

Rolled gunpowder tea.

The capital of the Tang Dynasty was in what is now present day Xian, in the Shaanxi provenience almost 1,400 kilometers (869 miles) inland from Zhejiang province. Trying to get your tea to the emperor was not going to be easy. It is thought that the tea was balled to allow it to make the trip to the capital, as something unique for the emperor, while maintaining its flavor. One of the most famous Gunpowder teas, Hui Bai, or tribute tea, was made exclusively for the emperor. It is made with small young leaves that are rolled into loose pellets that, when brewed, release a pale yellow liquor with a sweet herbal flavor.

Balled Teas (Gunpowder and Oolong)

The art of rolling tea leaves into balls came into being almost a thousand years before the partial oxidation that makes Oolong tea possible. Most modern drinkers of tea think of Oolongs when presented with balled tea leaves, but those were far from the first teas prepared in this fashion. Taiwan, which has the most famous balled Oolongs, did not apply this technique to commercial tea until well into the 1800s. Today Gunpowder Tea is not simply the domain of China as other countries, like Sri Lanka, also produce their own variations.

Modern Gunpowder is rolled with machines with only the finest quality teas still being rolled by hand. These hand rolled Gunpowder teas rarely leave Zhejiang provenience due to the high demand for the tea locally.

Tuareg Tea
Don’t turn your nose up at a machine rolled tea. Here is a fun recipe for Tuareg tea, which is a Middle Eastern mint tea drink that has been around for centuries whose base is Gunpowder tea. (Four 8 oz Cups)

  • 4 teaspoons of Gunpowder Tea
  • 4 cups of water
  • 40-50 fresh mint leaves*
  • 4 Tablespoons of sugar

In a pitcher, mix the tea leaves and sugar. In a pan crush the mint leaves and pour in the water. Heat the mint leaves and water until the water boils. Pour the water over the tea and sugar and allow to steep for 5 minutes. Pour the mixture through a strainer and serve.

Note: This is a based on a green Gunpowder tea, so you can feel free to allow the water to cool down to 180-190 degrees Fahrenheit before pouring it over the tea. It is not necessary to do this as the mint and sugar would hide any bitterness caused by the boiling water, but worth considering.

*There is a special type of mint that grows in the Middle East (cultivar Mentha Spicata) that does not taste like the mint that we typically have in the grocery stores in the US. That is not to say you shouldn’t use regular mint, but if you find it overwhelming you may have better luck with spearmint or apple mint or any other varieties of the mint family that you might come across.

Green Tea and the Japanese Kyusu

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Green tea is often made with a kyusu in Japan.

Japanese Yokode Kyusu

Just as we love to explore the history, culture, and various types of tea, we also are fascinated by the variety available in tea accessories. There are of course many different shapes and sizes of teapots available in western cultures but these are so, well… familiar. We love exploring tea and stories of tea from all sides. If you enjoy green tea then an experience not to be missed is that of the Japanese Kyusu. This small, by Western standards, teapot is excellent for steeping your favorite green tea. It provides an experience of multiple rapid steepings and is ideal for sharing green tea with several friends or guests at once. Correctly steeping green tea in a kyusu will yield a fresh umami (subtle savory taste) flavor without the overwhelming grassy flavor or bitterness often associated with green tea.

About the Japanese Kyusu

Teapots themselves are believed to have originated in China out of necessity for brewing the camellia sinensis (tea) leaf and evolved from there. As tea was brought to Japan by monks, teapots naturally followed. Over time the Japanese experimented and developed their own teapots, producing them from kilns that have been in operation since approximately 1100 CE. In Japan, the sencha style of tea has developed over hundreds of years. Unlike Chinese green tea which is pan fired to stop oxidation, sencha is a steamed product, with some varieties being light steamed (asamushi sencha) and some deep steamed (fukamushi sencha). Sencha is normally steeped at cooler temperatures and has less uniformity in leaf size with many smaller particles coming from the slight leaf breakdown that comes with steaming.In any case, Japanese teapots have evolved over time to support brewing this style of green tea.

Green Tea in a Yokode Kyusu

Geen Tea in a Yokode Kyusu

The term kyusu literally means teapot in Japanese and generally refers to a small clay teapot used for brewing green tea. While the kyusu is generally considered to be a teapot with a large conical handle attached to the side it turns out this is actually a yokode kuysu. There are also ushirode kyusu that looks like a traditional western teapot with the handle attached to the back, uwade kyusu which has a handle on the top, and houhin kyusu which doesn’t feature a handle at all. The yokode kyusu is the most distinctive to westerners though all can be considered works of art. Indeed, if you appreciate the artistry of the kyusu you will find any number of colors and styles available from skilled craftsmen.

 

Green Tea Steeped with a Yokode Kyusu

Holding the Japanese yokode kyusu.

Hold the yokode kyusu with your thumb on top of the lid.

Preparing Japanese green tea with a kyusu is simple though it is a bit different than brewing with single use teabags or hard infusers.  To get started it is best to have some kind of cooling pitcher since we want the water to be around 160-180 degrees Fahrenheit. Pouring hot water from a teapot or kettle into a cooling vessel will quickly allow the water to cool to the desired range after only a couple minutes or so.

Add 6-8 grams or about a tablespoon and a half of Japanese green tea.  Although this style teapot is normally associated with Japanese sencha green tea it can be used with most other varieties including bancha and gyokuro. For what should be obvious reasons this teapot isn’t a good choice for matcha.

Steeping with a kyusu is intended for multiple rapid steepings, so add the water to your kyusu and steep for 25 to 30 seconds.  When pouring a little gentle rocking of the pot will ensure the contents are well mixed and balanced throughout. Pour a little into each cup and then return to add a bit more so that each cup ultimately gets an even balance of flavor and umami.

Green tea poured from a Japanese yokode kyusu.

Pouring green tea from a yokode kyusu.

Be sure to pour out all the liquid so the leaves don’t sit in hot water.  When ready, infuse a second and even third time.

Finally, be sure to remove all the tea leaves and rinse out your kyusu with cold water.  Do not use soap to wash your kyusu or use it to make other kinds of tea as the clay absorbs and retains a little bit of the green tea with each steeping, flavoring the teapot as its used.