This is part 5 of my guide on the art of tea. Here's part 1 of my Art of Tea series.
Tea Master?
Spending a whole lot of our year working with farmers, we think it is important to fight for the term "Tea Master." This is because the concept of 'master' (?? ) in China is deeply tied to technological hands-on skill, also to the responsibility of a get better at to have students to pass prove lifetime accomplishments in their field. The mastery of the farmer-technician-craftsman is what makes tea tastes good at the end of the day. Usually in the west, we see an overzealous motivation to treat the planning of tea with value and call someone beer making tea as a grasp, but a stubborn refusal to acknowledge the competence of anyone in farming. This type of elitism denies the creative act of harvesting and processing tea.
For the end of the day,
tea made by a master doesn't almost always
need to be made by a master;
the tea will speak for itself.
This is essentially of our beliefs.
We all are all beginners comparative to the generations of technical achievement of small family farmers like the Li Family in Wuyishan. We are lucky to get to drink their tea, and even luckier that at the end of the day, perfect tea isn't fussy in any way.
Perfect tea is moving when sipped from fine Jingdezhen in an increased tea room, but it is also moving when you simply add drinking water to leaves in a cup and take in the aroma at home, in the office, on a street trip - wherever you are.
The myth that enjoying tea takes excellence needs to go away so that tea can be made part of our everyday lives, however much time we have to spend on practice preparation, or how much money we need to spend on fancy equipment. The actual professionals in the domains already did all hard work for us.
Looking at the role of craft in tea making becomes really interesting whenever we start imaging what happens if you got Wuyi oolong finished in Laoshan, or Laoshan tea finished as pu'er in Qianjiazhai. Indeed, one of our permanent goals is to encourage more exchange of techniques and ideas between farmers across locations. One of the ways we try this is by money experimental tea harvest of things that contain never recently been made before, such as applying drastically different roasts to uncommon tea varietals in Anxi like Grasp Zhang just did in his CSA-style Tea of the Month Box for June of 2016.
The most intriguing opportunity of most - the one that challenges the actual foundations of current tea culture - is making use of the thousands of years of craft and excellence learned in tea to other plants.
When humans first started drinking real tea,
it rocked our word.
The tea grow seemed magical.
teacash_circle
What if tea is not the only plant out there
that does amazing things when brewed up right?
This year, we had to rethink everything after the He family shared an incredible task they have been working on under the palpeur. They are picking sprouts and young tender leaves from wild Jujube plant life growing unmanaged and outdoors high up the inclines of Laoshan, just the way they carefully pick out tender spring tea leaves.
Then, they can be taking this wild-picked, spring-fed, mist-shaded pile Jujube with their workshop, growing it out in bamboo sheets baskets to wither just like green tea. Everybody in the workship sits down at the basket and sorts through every loose tea leaf, discarding buds and leaves that are not perfect. Mr. That's exactly what takes this withered leaf and temperatures it over careful temperatures control, just like his green tea, then curl it into thin spirals like Laoshan green. In this manner, he slowly dries each batch at low temp in tumblers until the jujube is merely as great smelling as Laoshan green.
Almost all the subtle techniques that Mr. He has discovered as a pioneer of tea in Laoshan Town apply directly to this herbal, non-tea leaf. The leaves respond in the same way to withering and processing, getting progressively aromatic.
When we tried out Mr. He's Laoshan Gan Zao Ye (Wild Jujube), i was blown away. It had the taste complexity of any amazing green tea with profound lingering sweetness, rich malt tones and a barley flavor all its own. The character of the finished tea seemed an extremely true expression of Laoshan, and the This individual Family's values despite originating from an totally different types of plant.
Tasting this tea was a thought to us. It was a huge reminder displaying how important craft is in order to fine tea, and an request to delve further. In the event a green tea handling on Gan Zao Dans yields such promising results, what about Tulsi? Mint? The options are endless. What about oolong processing on herbal products? Our company is hoping to work with more farmers in the coming years to enhance these boundaries and see how else the craft and culture of tea making can be applied.
At the end of the day, the task of our tea panda friends across China is an inspiration. It is worth fighting for. This is what gets all of us up every day. Actually is endless to continue meeting new friends across China, learning about different perspectives on processing, looking at different techniques in action, and witnessing innovation and creative imagination in the industry. We will continue showing everything we can- pictures, videos, stories, and naturally, the tea itself from your talented friends in the hope that it proceeds pushing our industry to focus more on the actual people behind each leaf. Understanding the people that make all the gorgeous things in life recognizes their contributions to the world besides making our own enjoyment all the higher.