Stone Leaf Tea

Alsi Shan Zin Hsuan Leaves

It is said that the sense of smell has the strongest connection to memory of all our senses.  It is safe to assume, therefore, that it also has the strongest connection to our emotions and sentimentality.  It can bring back long forgotten experiences and transport the mind to far away locations with one deep inhalation.  Tea in general is famous for the wide range of aromas it can produce.  Many teas are world renowned specifically for their delicate, complex, and enchanting smells.  Many teas these days are artificially flavored or scented in an attempt to grab the attention of the consumer and tap into this primitive mental connection.  To the true tea lover, however, nothing can make the synapses fire like the smell of pure, unadulterated tea leaves.  And as far as pure, high quality tea goes, nothing can match the aromas of well crafted Taiwanese oolongs.

Wet Zin Hsuan Leaves

Zin Hsuan Oolong (pronounced Jin Shwan) is only produced in the mountain regions of central Taiwan.  A product of cross breeding by Taiwanese researchers in the 1980s, Zin Hsuan is a fairly new addition to the tea world, but its popularity is ever increasing.  Most of this particular tea’s fame comes from the unique milk smell it can produce.  To those who have never had Zin Hsuan, this might sound a bit strange.  A tea famous for its aromatic similarity to the milk from a cow?  Yes, that’s right, it is beloved because a slight roasting of the leaves imparts this tea with an aroma unmistakably similar to milk.  Often, tea traders will artificially increase this milk smell with food additives in order to play up a teas milk fragrance (nai xiang in Chinese); however, the milkiness of a natural Zin Hsuan should be very subtle.  Despite its subtlety, the nose-brain connection never fails and that nai xiang is unmistakable.  It is hard to describe in words – creamy, fresh, clean, and slightly sweet.  With out having a cup of it under your nose, it is hard to conjure up the smell of milk.  It is not something we normally describe the aroma of much less describe other things as smelling like, but when you stick your nose into a pot filled with already brewed Zin Hsuan leaves, your brain has little trouble making the connection.

The Ali Shan region of Taiwan is famous for its small gauge railway, its wild wasabi, its gorgeous mountain scenery, and its otherworldly sunrises.  It is also renowned for growing teas with smooth, creamy, tropical flavors.  Our 2011 Mei Shan Zin Hsuan and our soon to arrive 2012 winter Ali Shan Zin Hsuan are no exceptions.

                                     
The Ali Shan and Mei Shan, a small town located on the back side of Ali Shan, areas are prime tea growing country.  Steep slopes, dense and lush vegetation, thick humidity and cool evening temperatures make the perfect environment for great tea.  This ideal setting and the Zin Hsuan’s divine gift of aromatic brilliance are a perfect match.  The characteristic creamy Ali Shan flavor combined with the milk fragrance of the Zin Hsuan varietal produces a tea that is rich, captivating aromatic, and full flavored.

As Liao, our Taiwanese supplier,  said when he first described this tea to us, when you “close your eyes and feel the rich and delicate of flower perfume, you will drop in [to] the Fantasy Paradise.”  Fantasy paradise can only begin to describe the rich, tropical flavors and aromas of a fine Zin Hsuan grown in the Ali Shan region.

Here is a very brief video of us exploring the Ali Shan region by motor scooter back in 2009.  Enjoy!

 

To see exactly where these teas are from, visit out new tea atlas, here.

To purchase these, or other oolong teas, click here.

Good tea comes from good plants.  The soil, the weather, the climate, the time of picking, and the age and health of the plant all dictate the quality of the leaf.  One cannot make great tea with inferior leaf; however, good leaf does not always ensure top quality tea.  The best leaf does not inherently translate into great tea.  It takes the hand of a master to bring out the best in a tea leaf.

In the case of Taiwanese Oolong tea, skilled hands are needed for every step of the process.  Careful hand picking, even withering, meticulous rolling, and careful drying are all  essential to producing a fine batch of oolong.  All of these steps are physical actions that are easily observed.  Taiwanese tea farmers have it down to a science.  Their timing and technique have been carefully perfected and passed down from one generation to the next.

In fact, the major processing steps done at one factory are often almost identical to those done at any other factory producing similar quality tea (pictured above: picking, withering, rolling, repeated pressing and tossing/rolling, and drying/sorting).  So what is it that separates one producer’s product from another?  The terroir of the garden, or inherent character of the terrain, can be credited with some of the differences, but that has little to do with the human side of the process.

Tea Master

We often hear of teas produced by a “master’s hand”.  If the process is so similar from one factory to another, where does the tea master come in?  Well, in Taiwan it often comes in the final step… the roasting.

Not all Taiwanese teas are roasted, but for those that are, there is a certain reverence among producers for those that do it well.  It is a point of pride and honor to be considered a skilled roaster of oolong tea.

Spring Tea Competition in Lugu

In fact, Tung Ting, one of the most famous Taiwanese oolongs, is often judged by how well it has been roasted.  It is quite common for people to buy large quantities of un-roasted tea, roast it themselves at home, and re-sell it for a profit.  Even many competitors in the Lugu Farmer’s Association’s prestigious Spring Tea Festival are not the original growers, but actually just roasters!

By roasting tea, an individual can leave his or her mark on a tea, forever changing its character and creating something entirely new.  Here at Stone Leaf Teahouse, we are adding a new chapter to this long tradition of tea roasting by bringing this ancient art to Middleburry, Vermont.  Tea can’t be grown in the northern US, but we can create a tea unique to our shop through this amazing process.  Our in-house roasted oolongs are one of a kind.  Their varied flavors and unique character can’t be found anywhere else.   We start  with fresh, high quality finished tea and transform it into something new and totally our own.

Traditional lidded bamboo roasting basket over charcoal

The art of tea roasting is a skillful manipulation of time and temperature.  The best roasting is done in small batches in bamboo baskets.  Long ago, the heat source was charcoal or open flame, but nowadays in Taiwan, electric coils are used.  Un-roasted oolong tea is bright green and brews a light yellow/green liquor.  Heavy roasting produces a darker, richer brew with, obviously, more roasted flavor, though subtler flavors can also be developed.  Roasting can bring out a floweriness, a sweetness, and/or a smooth creaminess in certain teas.  It is up to the master to bring out the best in each tea.

A modern tea roaster that utilizes racks like an oven

The roasting process can take anywhere from a few hours to several days or weeks.  During this time, the tea master must carefully watch, smell, and taste the tea so that he or she can control and manipulate the process.  Flavors will come and go over time, and the tea will continue to change for a short time even after it has been taken away from the heat source.

Because of this constant change, the tea master must anticipate the changes and stop the process before the tea reaches its best.  Too long and that perfect flavor will disappear, but too short and it will never attain its pinnacle.  It is a subjective process that takes lots of experience, plenty of patience, and a bit of luck!

Tie Guan Yin

One example of a heavily roasted oolong is our Tie Guan Yin.  This tea, produced and roasted in Taiwan, has a rich brown leaf color.  The aroma of the dry leaves is nutty and slightly smokey.  The liquor of the tea is a beautiful golden brown, and the flavor is sweet with notes of caramel and dried fruit.  After the initial processing of this tea, the leaf was a deep green.  The flavor was probably slightly green with a bit of floweriness, similar to the more common Chinese Tie Guan Yin variety.  However, the tea master in Taiwan created an entirely new tea through a long roasting process.  Although we don’t know the exact details (tea masters must keep their secrets), this tea was roasted at a high temperature, for long intervals, over the course of two months.  The roaster was able to use high temperatures to give this tea a rich, dark color and taste with out imparting any burnt flavors.  Surely the hand of a master roaster!

The Tie Guan Yin is a bold tea that really showcases the strong flavors that roasting can produce.  Our house-roasted oolongs, however, show another, more subtle side of tea roasting.

Stone Leaf Teahouse’s tea roaster

Our roasting machine comes directly from Taiwan and is a standard size for professional small batch roasting.  The first tea we tried roasting was Tung Ting in 2009.

Tea shop in Lugu with brew station, loose tea, and roaster in far back

Tung Ting is traditionally roasted in Taiwan, although sometimes it is left un-roasted for those who enjoy a greener oolong.   We started by purchasing a large batch of finished, but un-roasted tea directly from a farmer in Lugu township.  Back in Vermont, through careful experimentation, we produced one batch of lightly roasted and another batch of medium roasted Tung Ting.  The results were a hit.  The sharper, green flavors of the tea had mellowed and new and intriguing flavors had developed.  Both batches quickly sold out and we began experimenting with different teas and different techniques.

Four Seasons in the roaster

Four Seasons Oolong is a Taiwanese hybrid tea varietal that has gained in popularity over the past decade.  Known as Si Ji Chun (Four Season Spring), this variety is prized for its light, fresh, and fragrant character.  The name comes from the fact that it produces this great, flowery, “spring tea” flavor year round.  Because of this special character, this tea is rarely roasted in Taiwan, but we felt that it had potential as a roasted oolong.  Diving into uncharted territory with a new tea, we aimed for a nice, full, medium to heavy roast.  We started by roasting it for two long days with the temperature peaking out at about 110 degrees Celsius.

Stone Leaf roasted 4 Seasons

We then let the tea rest for a few days before doing a shorter, final day of roasting.  After another few days of rest, the leaves had turned deep green with slight reddish brown highlights.  The aroma was still flowery, but different.  Lilly and honeysuckle were replaced by a deeper rose fragrance with a touch of molasses.  The flavor of this tea is savory with a distinct toasted, nutty character.

House Roasted Four Seasons Oolong

Our next adventure in roasting began just this past month with the arrival of new winter oolongs from Taiwan.  One of these new arrivals was Gui Fei Cha.  This tea is produced in Lugu (Tung Ting area) and at first glance, appears to be a fairly standard rolled, green oolong.  What makes this tea different, however, is what happens to it before it is even picked.

Gui Fei Cha

Leaf hoppers, a kind of sap sucking insect and natural enemy of most farmers, are actually  the friend of some tea farmers.  When leaf hoppers bite a tea plant at the right time, the leaves begin to wither on the plant.  This produces a distinctly soft and sweet flavor in the final tea.  This process is also what makes Bai Hao, another oolong produced in northern Taiwan, so unique.

Like Tung Ting, Gui Fei Cha is normally roasted and the batch we received this winter was no different.  It had been lightly roasted by a friend in Taiwan, but it retained some of its green, astringent flavor.  The tea was delicious, but we were curious to see if we could         push it closer to perfection.

Gui Fei Cha

As this tea was already slightly roasted, we decided to do a low temperature roast for about one and a half days, just to nudge it along.  The resulting tea was a wonderfully balanced, medium roast oolong.  The green mellowed, the liquor had more body, and the sweetness really rose to the top.  The brewed tea looks darker and has more body than our roasted Four Seasons, but the roasted flavor is lighter.  The Four Seasons has an up-front toasty flavor, while the Gui Fei Cha’s flavor is more well rounded and the roasting is more subtle.  Unlike other rolled Taiwanese oolongs, this tea has little floral aroma or taste.  It is strong, savory, and has lasting mouth flavor.

Li Shan Oolong

The last in-house roasted oolong on our menu is our new winter Li Shan.  High mountain grown oolongs, like this Li Shan, are most often left un-roasted.  Sometimes, a tea master will chose to lightly roast a high mountain oolong, but they are hardly ever heavily roasted.  The high mountain growing conditions produce a vibrant, delicate, complex, and captivatingly aromatic tea.  The tea we received, sourced from the Cing Jing Farm area just outside of Li Shan, was highly enjoyable, but we felt that a little roasting might make it even better.  Part of the fun of having your own roaster, is that you can change or redefine any tea on a whim.  It’s often a bit of a gamble, especially with a great high mountain oolong like the Li Shan.  We did not want to lose that great high mountain taste, so we did a short low temperature roast just to try and bring out some of the more complex favors.  The result was a great success.  The Li Shan retained it’s clean and crisp high mountain flavor, but it also developed a slightly creamy, buttery character.  The resulting tea reminded me of a cross between a fresh pine and flowery Li Shan and a creamy, coconut Ali Shan.  In the end, the lightly roasted Li Shan makes for a richer, more enjoyable tea drinking experience.

Li Shan

The Taiwanese say that a young man prefers un-roasted tea and an old man prefers heavily roasted tea.   Un-roasted tea is fresh, vibrant, and energetic, while more heavily roasted teas are smooth, mellow, and have a depth of flavor that can only come from an experienced hand.  Regardless of you age or preferences, there is plenty to explore in the world of oolongs.

Four Seasons, Gui Fei Cha, and Li Shan

It is always assumed that tea is something grown, produced, and perfected in Asia.  It is never considered that we in the west will ever be able attain the tea master’s touch.  It may be a long time before tea can be referred to as a local product here in New England, but by developing our own roasting methods, we can truly say that these teas are, at least in part, hand crafted in Vermont.   Just like local coffee roasters and beer brewers have already done, we can develop our own local tea culture and encourage active experimentation and creativity in the art of tea.  Our house roasted oolongs are just the beginning!

The best part is getting to taste!

You can browse our selection of roasted and un-roasted oolong teas, or explore all our teas here!

Climbing for wild tea

Yunnan Province is the wild west of China.  It often feels remote, travel is seldom easy, and anything can happen.  It is also, arguably, the birthplace of tea.  Situated right on the boarder with Vietnam, Laos, and Burma, the jungles of southern Yunnan are home to some of the oldest known tea plants in the world.

Wild tea plucker

The tea producing regions of Yunnan are also some of the few that still cultivate, pick, and process leaves from these old growth, or “wild” tea trees.

Yunnan is most famous for its Pu-er tea -  an ancient style of production in which the leaves are often pressed into cakes or bricks for ease of transport.  In recent years, Pu-er tea has become quite fashionable in China and around

freshly plucked leaves

the world.  Pu-er connoisseurs have driven up demand, and price, for this once rare style of tea.  However, with all the excitement over Pu-er in the last decade, many tea drinkers often overlook some of the other great teas from this prolific tea producing region.  So today we will try to restore a modicum of balance to the tea world by shining the spotlight on three different black teas from Yunnan.

Tea farmer and withering tea leaves

Nowadays, Yunnan produces all types of tea (green, white, oolong, black, and pu-er).  One of my personal favorites, though, is Yunnan Black tea.  The Chinese refer to black tea as “red tea” (hong cha) and Yunnan is often referred to by its old name, Dian, so this style of tea is frequently called Dian Hong (literally Yunnan Red).

Tea from Yunnan is powerful.  Although there are subtleties to be explored, the character of the flavor is always wild, strong, unapologetic, and sometimes arrogant.  This is original tea flavor, and the plants seem to know it.  No matter how far the leaves travel, they retain a uniquely Yunnan flavor that can’t be replicated anywhere else.

Feng Qing Yunnan Gold

Feng Qing – Yunnan Gold – Spring 2010

This tea is all about balance.  The Feng Qing Yunnan Gold, produced, as the name implies, in the Feng Qing region of Yunnan, has a ratio of one leaf to one bud.  This means that when this tea was harvested, in early march, only the young bud and tender first leaf were plucked.  This one-to-one ratio can easily be seen in the dry tea leaves.  The soft golden tips are in perfect balance with the darker, chocolate brown leaves.  This balanced ratio means that the Feng Qing is a great everyday drinking black tea.  Not to strong, but also not too delicate.

Perfect for outside!

Because of its everyday drink-ability, I decided to brew the Feng Qing in a decidedly everyday manner – my trusty tea jar.  Fine porcelain makes for great tea, but sometimes an old travel worn tea jar fits the bill perfectly.  My tea jar is double walled glass with a metal strainer.  The leaves can be left in the jar with water for easy traveling and tea drinking, but today I am using my jar as I would a tea pot.  I placed about a teaspoon of loose tea in the jar, filled it with water just off the boil, and waited about 2 minutes.  The glass allowed me to see the color of the liquor and strain the tea before it got too strong.

Even in the snow

The fist sip of Fend Qing, Like Yunnan itself, is powerful.  The liquor is a dark brown with touches of deep ruby red.  The aroma is earthy with notes of black pepper and semi-sweet chocolate.  The flavor is full and lacks the dryness of a Darjeeling or Assam black tea.  After a few sips, the subtleties begin to unfold.  Rich caramel flavors intermingle with ripe cherry and faint memories of distant wood smoke (or maybe it was just my neighbors wood stove).

The sweetness and delicate subtleties of the Feng Qing Yunnan Gold come from those fine young buds, and the full flavor, richness, and backbone of the tea come from the leaf.  Again it is the golden ratio of one bud to one leaf that creates the perfect balance of strength and grace in the cup.

One bud (on left), one leaf (on right)

Jing Gu Golden Strand – Spring  2010

Golden Strands!

If the Feng Qing Yunnan Gold is about balance, then Jing Gu Golden Strand is about lush decadence.  This tea is made exclusively with large furry buds.  In order to make this tea, the plucking and processing must be painstakingly overseen as to ensure that the final product contains only the finest tips possible.  Not only does this make the Jing Gu Golden Strands a bit more expensive, but it also makes for a sinfully delicious cup of tea.  Produced in the Jing Gu region of Yunnan, the Golden Strands also makes an excellent everyday drinking tea, but the fine quality and sheer beauty of this tea beg for a special occasion.

Tea like this calls for extra special preparation.  So, instead of my trusty tea jar, I used one of my favorite Yixing pots, a glass pitcher, and a small bamboo painted cup.  After warming the pot, I scooped in a large, heaping tablespoon of tea buds.   The aroma of dry tips wafting out of the warmed pot was almost unbearable.  Sweet fruit, earthy almond, rich chocolate, and a touch of wild flower honey filled my head.

Because of the delicate nature of this tea, I cooled the water slightly before brewing the tea.  Drinking this tea is one of the smoothest black tea experiences you will ever have.  The golden buds produce a soft and sweet brew and the lack of leaf makes for very little tannin.  The color was bright golden orange, and the flavor reminiscent of ripe grapes covered in dark chocolate with a hint of nutty olive oil and drop of aged tamari.  The richness, however, does not come at the cost of delicacy.  The overall mouth feel was light and sweet.  The flavors danced around my mouth with ethereal grace, and the lingering velvet aftertaste made me long for just one more cup.  Thankfully the leaves, or lack there of (after all this tea is just tips), kept giving, brew after brew.

The Jing Gu Golden Strand has a beautiful appearance, a rich flavor, and an intoxicating aroma.  Made with the finest tea buds and produced under the highest standards, this tea is close to a work of art.  Although, it has only been in the last few years that this kind of tea has even been available.  The combination of new technology, demand for high quality Yunnan tea, and the popularity of all-bud-teas like Silver Needle (a traditionally eastern Chinese specialty) has made the production of Jing Gu Golden Strand possible.In fact, both the Feng Qing Yunnan Gold and the Jing Gu Golden Strand are fairly new inventions.  They are the result of years of plant varietal cultivation and production experimentation.  A combination of modern Chinese style and skill with the raw materials of the ageless jungles of Yunnan.  However, for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, the people of Yunnan have been making black tea a different way…Hand-made Wild Yunnan Hong Cha

Wild Yunnan Hong Cha – Fall 2010

This tea is all about purity and authenticity.  Produced in the rural mountains of the Bu Lang region of Yunnan, harvested only from wild, old growth tea trees, and manufactured completely by hand, this brand new addition to Stone Leaf is a gorgeous example of traditional tea making skills at work.

front: Hand-rolled Yunnan Black middle: Yunnan Gold back: Golden Strand

The dry leaf has a bold appearance compared to the previously discussed black teas.  The leaves of the Wild Yunnan Hong Cha are much longer, wirier,  and less tightly rolled.  This more open leaf is a result of leaf selection and the hand-rolling process.  It allows for slightly different oxidation and flavor development compared to machine rolled teas.

To brew this tea, I decided to use every hard working tea farmer’s best friend, a gai wan.  This lidded bowl (literal translation) is one of the most common tea brewing vessels in China and is used at many homes, tea shops, and farms in Yunnan.  As they often do in Yunnan, I stuffed the gai wan overflowingly full with the unruly,

overstuffed gai wan

tangled tea leaves.  I gave the leaves a quick wash with hot water, filled the gai wan again and let the first infusion steep about 20 seconds before pouring off the tea into a glass pitcher.

The first brew was a sparkling reddish brown.  The aroma was subtle but captivating.  The suggestion of sandalwood smoke was followed by a rich raisin and fig fruitiness with a hint of exotic spices.  The flavor was malty with a bit of woody tannins and a refreshing herbal aftertaste reminiscent of some loose leaf pu-er teas.  The chocolate flavors, characteristic of many Yunnan black teas, came through with a slightly bitter, dark chocolate note.  There is something distinctly raw and wild about this tea that makes it unmistakably from Yunnan.

vibrant colors of Wild Yunnan Hong Cha

The jam packed gai wan really allowed for multiple infusions.  The second and third brews were deeper and darker than the first.  The sweetness had come to the front and was complimented by a foundation of full bodied earthiness.  The leaves kept giving, and the tea stood up well to several hours of extended teadrinking.  The flavors mellowed and blended, but the tea remained full and smooth, and it actually started to remind me of a slightly spicy and delightfully fruity, ripe pu-er.

The beauty of the Hand-rolled Yunnan Black is in its simplicity and authenticity.  A true labor of love by skilled craftspeople who care about making pure and honest tea.  It has been hand plucked from old growth trees that have been cultivated for generations, hand processed in small workshops using traditional techniques, and packaged in hand made baskets made from sustainable materials.  It doesn’t get any more genuine than this – some leaves, a few delicate hands, a little hot water, and your cup.

In a world where producers like this seem few and far between, it is also increasingly more possible to make informed decisions about where the tea you drink comes from, how it is made, and who makes it.  The Wild Yunnan Hong Cha is a tea with old world charm that you can feel good about in a modern world.  Simple and elegant, it exudes a true tea aesthetic and reminds me of how many people have drank great tea in simple villages on far away mountain sides.

All three of these great teas really showcase the power, grace, and magic of this special corner of China.  There are countless amazing teas coming out of Yunnan these days, but the Yunnan Gold, Golden Strand, and Wild Yunnan Hong Cha make for a great starting point to a limitless adventure!

If you are interested in learning more about these or other great teas, stop by our shop in Middlebury, VT!

To buy any of these teas from our online store, click here!

Yunnan black tea... pot