A little tea gathering in the office

[apache]

I was asked by a colleague to give a talk about tea as they seen me using a gaiwan to brewing Pu. So we had a little tea gathering on last Friday lunch time. I told them a little bit (mostly misinformation) about puerh as well as some tea tasting.

We start off with oolong provided by one of them, then move on to 2009 HK Henry "Mahei". (http://half-dipper.blogspot.com/2010/09 ... mahei.html) I choose this as it is very mild and easy to drink as well as more forgiving of over brewing which is easily happen while brewing tea and giving a talk at the same time. Then we moved on to 2008 HLH LaoBanZhang & Man'E (I decided not to use 2010 EoT Bulang as this probably would blow their heads off!). I only used 3g of leaves and brewed it very light as well as gave them warning before they tried. I was half expecting some of them would pull their faces, but to my surprise, they prefer the HLH LBZ & Man'E than the Mahei, as the HLH has a very nice and long finish. I have to say, I prepared the HLH very careful, painstakingly to pick out individual leaf day before and avoid any breakage at all cost. One of them even asked me to brew it stronger. Finally, I gave them a taste of some 20 year old house blend sheng which I have suspicion it been through some wet storage, as the soup is quite dark and the leaves are not very enduring, but who ever carried out the storage, must have done a very good job, as the taste is very clean and pleasant, Hobbes tasted it before and I think he agrees with me on this. By the end of the tasting session, I noticed some of them began to have some slight sign of tea drunk effect! They seemed much more relax and more open to talk to each other, to put it mildly, it was a very good unintended team building event. Now I understand why good tea is not suppose to drink by oneself alone, as this little tea gathering gave me more than double the pleasure than drink by myself, tea does bring people together.

Finally, I'm glad that I did not buy a whole tong of the Mahei, I was very tempted. It is not so much about the money, but the opportunity cost, as now I could use the same amount of money for the tong of Mahei for something else (I hope I would choose something more worth while). Also, I think I made the right decision to have a couple of cakes of the HLH LBZ & Man'E after I sampled it, even it tasted very bitter, but I sensed something more interesting lying underneath.

[the_skua]

That sounds like a great experience. Sharing tea is a wonderful thing.

[MarshalN]

Yes, tea is meant to be drunk with friends -- glad it worked!