Lmst

This is the original tea that made me a Chinese tea fanatic. In Canada I drank and appreciated tea, learning quite a bit about tea grades, and production from places like India or Sri Lanka. (This is just how I'm wired: I always have to learn more.) But there wasn't a lot of representation of Chinese tea culture in Canada at the time, and instead I fell into the circle of a coffee Lothario who taught me a whole bunch about coffee (to the point I only bought green and roasted at home).

Then I moved to China (Jiujiang, specifically). The coffee at the time was crap (and overpriced crap to boot), but the tea I had was magnificent. My "learn everything" instincts kicked in and I started haunting the streets and alleys of Jiujiang looking for tea shops, one of my "student minders" with me each time (because I needed translation and local knowledge). I quickly learned that the big and fancy shops sold only specific brands and knew nothing broadly, so I looked for the small shops, typically run by a single plantation as their in-city rep.

That's when I ran into Songbai Tea. The shop owner (who also operated a plantation) tolerated my questions, and paid careful attention to how I was tasting the tea, understanding that I actually had a palate for it, and that I could tell the difference between good tea and plain. We developed a pretty good friendship over time, bonding, basically, over today's tea: 庐山云雾茶 (Lúshān yúnwù chá or Lushan cloud and mist tea).

This tea is very famous inside China, being the trope namer, in effect, for the entire class of "cloud and mist" teas. It was an imperial tribute tea since the Song dynasty and is now a protected trademark. And it bears a special place in my heart as my introduction to the madness of Chinese tea, and is a "comfort tea" of sorts for me.

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@tea@a.gup.pe

#茶 #云雾茶 #中国名茶 #庐山云雾茶 #tea #CloudAndMistTea #ChineseTea #LushanCloudAndMistTea

The tea and the tools for the photo shoot laid out in preparation. A window sill is covered by a black tablecloth with sun shining from above. To the left is a glass double-walled cup with a tea leaf basket ready to do the brewing. To the right is a replica bamboo scroll with The Classic of Tea inscribed on it. Behind that, closer to the background, is the burgundy brocade bag that holds the scroll. In between the cup and the scroll is a rectangular piece of paper upon which the bag holding the tea is place. The paper has some seal stamps on it (which will be detailed in later alt text). The bag with the tea will too be explored in more detail in later alt text.

A closer-up view of the sealed bag holding the tea. It's a plain bag, not branded, that has some generic "this is tea"-style marking over which is slapped a vertical sticker reading "Lushan Cloud and Mist" (in Chinese, naturally) from top down in black, then across the bottom in small red type "Jiangxi Speciality Tea". The seal stamps are still a little blurry here so will be described later in a picture that has them in better focus.

The back of the bag has production information on it as is legally required of agricultural products in China. The key information is that it comes from Jiujiang, Jiangxi (thus confirming it is from Lushan, not neighbouring mountains), and has a "date" (a bit ambiguous here if this is the production date or the packing date; I'm leaning toward the latter based on what I know of tea production in Lushan) of 2025-02-08. As is increasingly common it provides instructions for how to brew the tea (which sounds crazy until you realize just how DIFFERENT and DIVERSE Chinese teas can be). In the case it says use 3-5g, add water between 85-95°C, and brew for 30 seconds.

The 30-second brew is not a joke. This tea brews up quickly and if you brew the first round for 30 seconds (after the wash), you can get a good half-dozen cups from the leaves by increasing the brewing time a bit with each round.

Here a suitable amount of the tea is placed on the fold in the middle of the paper (I fold it so it's easier to put into the cup after I've taken the photo). This tea is a very dark green in the leaf (one of the ways you identify a cloud and mist tea) and the leaves are carefully rolled lengthwise into almost a little worm shape. Here the three seal stamps are more clearly visible. The two right-most ones are a dragon design and a phoenix design which I placed there because I like the emblems. The leftmost one is an illustration stamp featuring an old-time tea pot on an old-time stove with a couplet I can't decode at the top right (but it's about tea).

A while back I presented a queue of teas that I would be showing (which I almost immediately jumped with other teas). In that queue was this black tea from 贵州雷山 (Leishan, Guizhou) which is the heart of 苗族 (Miao Nationality) territory: https://pixelfed.social/i/web/post/761086324891990169. Then I got a few more interesting teas and inserted them into the queue ahead of the next tea from the same place.

So today it's the other tea from Leishan that I'm going to be doing: 雷山云雾茶 (Léishān Yúnwù Chá or Leishan Cloud and Mist Tea). Like everything else called a Cloud and Mist tea this is a high mountain tea and …

… unfortunately it's a mediocre one for the grade. I feel bad for being so harsh in this review of it, but it's a bit bland, despite the production of it being top-notch and the black tea made from the same leaves being so intriguing and nice. The black tea is in my rotation; this tea is not. So at least I'll be able to buy tea from economically disadvantaged Miao regions of China. It just won't be this one.

Now don't get me wrong: this is a fine tea, likely better than most of the teas people drink in the west. It's picked and produced perfectly. It's just that the actual leaves can't compare to the literally hundreds of other kinds of high quality greens that surround me. The black is world class tea, but this … really isn't.

More details in the ALT text, as usual, and also Mastodon users will have to click through to see all the pictures.

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#茶 #绿茶 #云雾茶 #中国名茶 #贵州绿茶 #雷山茶 #苗族 #慈善
#tea #GreenTea #CloudAndMistTea #ChineseTea #GuizhouGreenTea #LeishanTea #MiaoNationality #Philanthropy

@tea@a.gup.pe @zdl@mastodon.online

This is the bag (photo from the original "queued tea" post). It's a green satchel holding 50g of tea with a lovely Miao design of flowers and birds on the outside. The Ali philanthropic group did a wonderful job of selling this tea with just the packaging!

The stage is set. My omnipresent 茶经 (Classic of Tea) bamboo scroll frames the setting on the right while the glassware I will be brewing the tea in frames it to the left. The background is the potted plants outside on a sill and underneath it all is the cloth I use to give it a nice colour. The brocade bag for the scroll sits in front of the scroll, and in the middle is a slip of paper with some tea leaves presented.

This is a closeup of the tea leaves on the slip of paper, vermillion stamps of a dragon and a "phoenix" decorating the top left corner. As with any Cloud and Mist tea the leaves are tightly rolled and very sinuous. There's a good degree of the silver tippy leaves in the mix and no hint of chop or stem. The production quality of this tea is top notch.

The production quality continues to show itself in the wash. The leaves unfurl quickly, but do not lose their differentiation: the tippy leaves still look light, the main body leaves still look dark.

But here was the first sign that this tea is perhaps not best-suited to a delicate green like a Cloud and Mist. Literally every Cloud and Mist tea I've ever had: Lushan, Dog Brain, Emeishan, etc. etc. etc. gets a very powerful astringent aroma mixed with a very strong, sweet grasslike one. This has almost no bouquet. What it had was the faint presence of the sweet grass scent, but not very much of it.

Needless to say I didn't wash it for long, dumping it within seconds of taking the photo (and having had the phone readied for taking the photo before the first drop of water touched it).

Another weekend with decent weather. Another photo essay about tea. Another queue-jumper of a tea. This is because of the tea's name and the fact it comes from near my old stomping grounds in 江西 (Jiāngxī). OK, maybe not so near. 遂川 (Suìchuān) is in southwest Jiangxi and I lived in the northeast in 九江 (Jiǔjiāng). Wuhan is closer to my old stomping grounds than Suichuan is. But the name. That name! 狗牯脑绿茶 (Gǒugǔnǎo lǜchá or "Dog Brain Green Tea") is just a hilarious name to me. (It's named after a local mountain that is said to resemble a dog's head.) It's a high mountain "cloud and mist" tea. It's relatively famous in China, but likely not heard of outside of this nation. Personally I still prefer 庐山云雾茶 (Lúshān yúnwù chá) from my old stomping grounds (at the foot of Lushan) but this is a very nice tea and I'll probably be getting more, since it's from the Hakka people. As a detailed look at a "cloud and mist" tea I'll be able to highlight both the category's strengths and weaknesses. This is an almost emblematic instance of such a tea, after all. As usual there are alt tags on the pictures and Mastodon users will have to click through to see all the pictures. --- #茶叶 #绿茶 #狗牯脑绿茶 #云雾茶 #江西 #遂川 #中国名茶 #Tea #GreenTea #DogBrainGreenTea #CloudAndMistTea #Jiangxi #Suichuan #ChineseTea @zdl@mastodon.online

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