Bi Luo Chun green tea from China

Visited a friend last week who mentioned her current favorite green tea is a Bi Luo Chun (Spring Snail Shell).  Easily influenced, I found my eye landing on some Bi Luo Chun in my tea drawer.

The stuff I have is truly a beautiful looking tea.  From an arm's length it's a sage green-grey but when you look more closely it is a mix of dark grey with dark green small twisted leaves and flecks of brighter green dusted with the pekoe of the many teeny buds.  It's from Tao's wonderful tea shop and the label tells me it from the East Mountain of Dong Ting Lake in the Jiangsu Province of China.  According to the Tea Drinker's Handbook, this tea in Jiangsu is only harvested once a year at the end of March.

Bi Luo Chun is considered one of the Ten Famous Teas of China.  It's also known as Dong Ting or Pi Lo Chun and, in English, Green Snail Spring.  To truly appreciate the work involved in making 500 grams of this tea, have a look at Chinese Tea 101 which has a wonderful series of photos of the process from plucking to baking.

The beautiful, pekoe-covered leaves of the Bi Luo Chun from Tao's.

The Tea
3.8 grams in 7 oz of 80C water for 1 minute.  Second steep 1 minute.

Can you see the little flower bud
in the lower right quadrant?

When I open the jar the first pleasure of this tea is a rush of fresh clean green aroma, abit like a fresh mown lawn.  The tiny, tiny leaves are whole, tightly wound and tend to curl into little "U's" or spirals.  There's also alot of silvery and pale yellow furry pekoe.

The wet leaves area a bright green and the leaves are a uniform size, tiny and narrow, an indication of its high quality.  Some show a slight rusty brown and I don't know if that is from a little oxidising on the bush or during the withering.  The first aroma is of the "fire" from its processing -- so different from all the Japanese steamed green teas I've been enjoying.  This is followed by rich fried greens and/or nuts (chestnut?) along with a slight sweetness and finished off with just the lightest tang which gives it a nice clean profile.

Bi Lo Chun liquor

The liquor is a mid-golden yellow.  It has good astringency which gives me a slight furring on the tongue, and abit of a pucker.

The flavour is beautifully balanced between a light floral sweetness, a clean lemony snap, fresh raw green bean and abit of bitterness on the sides of the tongue.  (To my tongue, one of the integral flavour notes of tea is bitterness, like another popular beverage -- beer.)  I do love that tang -- so charactertistic of baked green teas, perhaps mostly chinese green teas; it's like the raw green leaf.

My first second brew at 2 minutes was quite bitter -- like slightly burnt fried onions or chinese greens, and I realised I should not have increased the brewing time.  Actually, the best subsequent steeps were all at 1-minute, which continued to give me good flavour and pleasure in the cup.  BTW I got quite a caffeine buzz from this tea which makes sense since it's all buds.

I've made this a number of times over the past few days and I keep thinking that if this were a wine it would be one of my favorites, an excellent Chablis -- crisp and bright with a minerally finish. 

Later:  I made a small pot of this tea a couple weeks ago for some friends and we did three very flavourful steeps from the same leaves.  This is a wonderful example of this tea type and one that just keeps on giving.

Spices in a soup

Spinach soup with cumin, cloves, nutmeg, lemon zest and lemon juice.

It's a bright very cold wintry day here in the great white north.  Minus 15C.  Some home-made hot soup is in order and thus this lovely spinach soup seasoned with cumin, cloves, nutmeg, lemon zest and lemon juice.  Oy! It's absolutely delicious if I do say so myself.  Thought I'd include it here since the spices are really waking up the taste buds and making them smile.  The warmth and exoticness of the cumin always does it for me and today the small hint of clove and nutmeg add a wonderful dark note of heat way in the background.  The lemon zest, well what's better for adding zing to the flavour of anything?  And the lemon juice itself adds abit of astringency which makes the broth very refreshing. 

Recipe Note: found in the marvelous The Greens cookbook.

GYOKURO -- DIRECT FROM JAPAN

Even more on Gyokuro.  Can you stand it?  Mmmmmm it's just so darn delicious though.

Ordered this latest lot on-line from Yuuki-cha in Japan last week and I picked it up at the post office this afternoon.   Organic Uji Gyokuro Gokou which Yuuki-cha describe thus:

A first harvest organic gyokuro tea (Jade Dew) from a small organic tea garden in Uji. It is made exclusively from the tea bush varietal known as Gokou. Carefully grown under diffused sunlight for an extended 30 days before harvest, as opposed to the shorter 20 days that is often suggested. It is minimally processed and sorted and is 100% Uji Gyokuro. This type of unique farmer's gyokuro has become more and more popular over recent years and is very much in demand due to its more natural flavor than blended and/or heavily processed gyokuro teas. It has a rich, sweet, dense, briny taste with a marine aroma, a deep green liquor color, and an almost buttery aftertaste! 

Opening the bag there's a big rush of sweet rich aroma -- sweeter than any Gyokuro I've had before, sweet like a floral sweet, almost hyacinth.  (I went to my cupboard and smelled raisens and apricots and then the sweet frozen berries in the freezer to give my nose a reference just to be sure.)  Also some of that nut hint I've noticed in Gyokuro before as well as big green vegetal and marine aromas.

4 grams in 7 ozs of 65C water for 1 minute.

Wet leaves are a bright mid and dark green mix, can still see leaf shapes and stringy bits of leaf veins, etc.  Strong vegetal, marine and big chestnut (I swear it's chestnut) aromas. 

Beautiful pale bluey green liquor.

Smooth, sweet soft flavour, no astringency at all.  A tiny kick of bitter on the back sides of the tongue as it goes down.  This smells and tastes unlike any gyokuro I've had before -- the breadth of flavour and aroma is greater but also that chestnut note is really forward in this tea.  Different.  Surprising.  Really nice.

TEA & CHOCOLATE TASTING EVENT...

Yesterday, January 29, 2011,  I had the pleasure of being a presenter at the Tea Guild of Canada's second annual public tea tasting event which this year paired a number of teas and chocolate.  The Guild is a volunteer-run association founded by the first lot of certified Canadian tea sommeliers which is open to all tea enthusiasts and is dedicated to furthering the delicious 'cause' of tea appreciation and tea education.

Held at the lovely historic Montgomery's Inn in Etobicoke, it drew some 44 people for afternoon's 3-hour tasting which featured four tasting stations highlighting green, black, oolong and blended teas paired with various (mostly) home-made chocolate treats.

Actually, when I say "home made" chocolate treats I do them a disservice.  The chocolate mousse (!) and other treats were made by Bill Kamula, Laura Bryan and Raelene Gannon, all excellent and professional pastry and chocolate chefs.  Some chocolate bars and buttons were contributed by sponsors to round out the tasting samples.

My task was to present the Japanese steamed green tea, gyokuro, and a dark chocolate.  A total treat since I love both and find them to be a terrific pairing.

Have you tried it?  The soft sweet-ish flavour and satiny mouthfeel of the gyokuro is an incredibly nice match with the rich, bitter-ish flavour and earthy mouthfeel of plain, 80%+ dark chocolate.

A gift of fresh tea from Sri Lanka

 Oh boy.  A friend brought me back two boxes of tea from his recent trip to Sri Lanka.  They visited the Mackwood Tea Estate and the tea is from there.  A box of Ceylon Orange Pekoe (whole leaf) and a box of Ceylon Broken Orange Pekoe Fannings.  Fannings, I said to myself?  Well, okay, thanks.

The Orange Pekoe looks beautiful -- large-ish medium twist leaves of an even size which brew up a beautiful cup of bright red-brown tea.  Full of flavour -- it's fresh after all.  And it has a lovely astringency.  A classic high-grown ceylon.

But the big news was the kapow flavour of the Fannings.  Now, we know fannings can deliver alot of flavour quickly because there are more exposed insides of the leaf but who knew that when you combine that with really fresh tea how big and wonderful the flavour could be?  I take back any derogatory thoughts I ever had about fannings. This has been my breakfast tea everyday since I opened it.

Now that I've blurted about the tea, here's the scoop on Mackwoods: one of the oldest tea companies in Sri Lanka it was established in 1841, initially as a coffee plantation.  I've noticed that most of the Sri Lankan tea companies are involved in many industry sectors and rarely just tea.  This is true of Mackwoods too and its website explains that "today, Mackwoods is a Conglomerate of several companies engaged in essential sectors of the Sri Lankan economy; namely – Agribusiness and Plantations (Tea, Rubber and Oil Palm), Healthcare (Pharmaceuticals and Medical Equipment); Science & Technology; Information Technology Education, and Software Development; Imports and Value Added Exports; Energy Sector; Leisure Sector; Manufacturing Sector; and Financial Services (Insurance, Asset Management & Stockbroking). Mackwoods provides employment to approximately 8,500 individuals, and owns & manages 27,000 acres."

But back to the tea -- it comes from their Labookellie Estate which is in the Nuwara Eliya region.  Nuwara Eliya is the highest tea region in the country at about 6000 feet and tea from that region is considered the best and, I've been told, is rarely blended.  One of these days I'll go and see for myself.

Fukamushi-cha with a Gyokuro and a Sencha

When I was at Sanko last week getting more 2010 Gyokuro I also found some (beautifully packaged) Fukamushi-cha and thought it time to go a bit deeper into the Japanese tea world and do a taste comparison.  I'm only just beginning to scratch the surface of its many variables -- types, steaming level, amount of sunshine, seasonal plucks, etc.  This is the first Fukamushi-cha I've (knowingly) tried.

What is Fukamushi-cha?  From O Cha's site:  "Fukamushi Sencha, known in Japan as Fukamushi-cha, is sencha which is steamed for a longer than normal period of time during it's processing. This green tea is often grown at lower elevations. An expert tea grower will steam his tea according to the right conditions for each individual yield, and much knowledge and experience is required in order to adjust it just right. Fukamushi-cha tends to have a thicker, cloudy consistency and the loose leaf is finer."   

Being a steamed green tea, the water temperature should be quite low and again, I found ranges of recommended temperatures from 65C to 75C.  The steaming process starts to break down the leaves which makes them fragile so they need to be treated gently with cooler water than, say, any black tea or even a Chinese green tea which is more traditionally baked than steamed.

I was not aware until recently that Japanese green teas can be lightly, medium or deeply steamed.  This would affect their ideal brewing temperature and how you steep them too.  Oy the head spins.  (I'm keeping in mind the mantra that it's all in our own taste buds though and forging ahead.)

From left, the dry leaves of Gyokuro, Fukamushi-cha
and Organic Sencha.  Click image for a closer look.

So here goes -- because I have three different types of tea I decided to compromise on the water temperature and brewing times and do all three at 75C for 1 minute.  I don't know what I was thinking, really, since it wasn't perfect for any of the teas.  But, it certainly exaggerated their flavours which wasn't a total disaster for a contrast-and-compare type tasting.  For subsequent tastings, I brewed each individually at appropriate temperatures.  

Dry Leaves
Very different look to them from colour to texture -- some beautiful rolled needles in the Gyokuro, very powdery Fukamuchi-cha and rather rough looking organic Sencha with some whole leaves evident.  Hard perhaps to see in the photo above, but, although all three are deep, rich greens the Gyokuro is bluer-green, the Fukamushi-cha more leaf green and the Sencha lighter, more a yellowy-green and with yellow stalks through it. 

Wet Leaves
The Gyokuro leaves give off rich, soft, buttery spinach and seaweed-marine aromas.  By contrast the Fukamushi-cha has a noticeably sharper aroma dominated by what I think is a nut paste, like chestnuts.  On the second brew at a cooler 65C there was an initial almost unpleasant rotting aroma and then the nut paste notes.  The organic Sencha was very different -- after a nice sharp green tang, more like sweet wet hay with a whiff of mustiness.

First hot brew of Gyokuro, Fukamushi-cha and
organic Sencha.  Notice how cloudy they all are
from the too-hot water.

Liquor
As you can see in the photo, all three teas were quite cloudy as a result of the hot first brew I did, although the Sencha was the least affected.   On subsequent cooler brews none were as cloudy although the Fukamushi-cha was always quite cloudy, a result of the extra long steaming.

The Gyokuro gave me what I love and is very smooth and oily/satiny and big on the mouth (no astringency at all) with a soft buttery spinach flavour, with some of the nut paste.  By contrast the Fukimashi cha has some very nice bitterness, also quite a smooth mouthfeel, raw spinach flavour and then fishy!  Yes, like salmon.  On the second, cooler brew (65C) there's, not surprisingly, less bitterness but still a nice sharp tang which lands in the middle-back of the tongue, and after the sweet spinach comes the salmon flavours.  It has very little astringency; is still quite cloudy but not as much and a beautiful rich green.

The organic Sencha is distinctly golden in colour as compared to the bluey-jade green of the other two, and in a completely different taste spectrum.  It's bright, tangy, quite astringent, with a thinner, lighter mouth feel, and a sharp fresh tongue furring bitterness.

Mmmmm. A lovely way to spend a few hours on this Christmas afternoon before the family feast.

GYOKURO 2010. Yum.

I hopped into Sanko yesterday and their fresh Gyokuro had arrived.  This was $10 for a 50gram bag.  I'm only telling you so you understand that this cannot be the really good stuff.  But OMG.  When I opened the bag I was knocked out by the rush of its big rich sweet aroma.  I decided that it would definitely be worth brewing this up in spring water (although I hate the plastic bottle it comes in) instead of (pretty decent) Toronto tap water.  Just to up the potential for the sheer joy in the tea, know what I mean?

Brewed in 72C water for 1 minute.

Fresh 2010 Gyokuro from Sanko -- if you click on the photo
you can really see the rolled needle shape and the delicate
tea dust covering it all.

The dry leaves show a more uniform needle shape than the batch last week, but then that was the end of the package.  The leaves are a lovely deep blue-green and are shiny and smooth.  It's also showing fewer bright green bits and those bits look more yellow than green when compared to last week's Gyokuro.

The wet leaves, wow, much more depth/nuance to the aroma.  Immediately get more of the wonderful marine scent, more of the vegetal, and great sweetness and something nutty, like ground hazelnuts or Brazil nuts. (I should know my nuts better!)






The liquor has quite a bit of colour -- jade blue-green, is lightly cloudy and has tea dust floating in it.

Gyokuro -- note the little bits of leaf dust.

The flavour is very nice.  Interestingly, while the flavours are bigger, broader, deeper than last week's Gyokuro, its mouthfeel is not quite as big and satiny smooth.  There's no astringency but I can feel a slight burr of the leaf bits.  It's quite pleasant but I wasn't expecting it.  This tea also has more of a distinct but light, and very nice, tang at the back of the tongue after it goes down. Overall this is the most flavourful Gyokuro I've every had.  A real treat, and yes, a joy.


I think I'm coming to the opinion that fresh tea is really the only way tea should be drunk.  (Except for Pu-er, of course.)  Definitely current year's production, and best not over six months old.  Sadly, I probably won't be able to find this tea most of the time.  And my overstuffed tea drawer(s) mean I'm guilty of over-aging the tea too.

I will keep brewing this tea over the next few days, and add some notes.  It's possible that in my rush I may not have let the water cool enough.   Which means, oh darn -- I have to taste more Gyokuro.

CUT TO: Two days later.
Ok, this tea improves with a cooler steep -- and it was already bringing me joy.  Yup, when those in the know say 'steep this at 60C to 65C' gosh darn it they know of what they speak.

Yesterday I steeped it for 1 minute at 64C and noticed it had a rounder, smoother feel in the mouth. And today I've done it at 62C and it's definitely rounder, smoother in the mouth and sweeter overall because it's lost pretty much all but a little note of its bitter tang.  I didn't mind the bitter tang with all the sweetness but it was, in hindsight, brought out by the hotter water.

The liquor is, naturally, a paler jade green, still abit cloudy but not as much.  The wet leaves give more of the wonderful ground nut aroma and a slight toastyness.

Oh Yum.

P.S.
It's tulip time at the corner grocery stores again in Toronto and I've a bouquet in the middle room that, every time I stride by, overwhelms with its wonderful sweet green-peppery aroma.  I love, love the smell of fresh tulips, don't you?

OK, nothing to do with tea but oh my do these tulips smell good!