Dancong

[steanze]

I mentioned a couple of references on temperature and taste in a post on a small blog I started when some friends asked for an introduction to tea. I haven't posted the blog in the tea blogs section yet because it's a very introductory blog (I myself have to learn much more before I can write about more advanced things). I also don't know how regularly I can update it. Given the introductory nature of the post I don't talk much about the content of the references, but you can find them here: https://shuocha.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/enjoying-tea/

[kyarazen]

I think this part seems particularly relevant for dancong. The way I learned to brew dancong, I was told that it is best to drink the tea quite hot. Perhaps this, in a way, rationalizes the omission of the cha hai - the tea is hotter when you drink it because you pour directly from the teapot into the cups. Maybe drinking dancong as hot as possible allows the drinker to bypass some of the bitterness of the tea.

if you are from the school of zheng choonan and yehangchong they advocate sipping tea without the lips touching the tea cup..

if you use a cha-hai, the filtration and the height of pouring into the cha-hai allows the tea to cool, the person dispensing sometimes pours tea as a thin stream into the cha-hai from a height allowing some "bubbling" and dispenses into cups from the cha-hai in the similar thin stream fashion. apart from the thermo effects, the oxidation is purposely done in this process, as the tea oxidizes, the bitterness is decreased

[kyarazen]

I mentioned a couple of references on temperature and taste in a post on a small blog I started when some friends asked for an introduction to tea. I haven't posted the blog in the tea blogs section yet because it's a very introductory blog (I myself have to learn much more before I can write about more advanced things). I also don't know how regularly I can update it. Given the introductory nature of the post I don't talk much about the content of the references, but you can find them here: https://shuocha.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/enjoying-tea/

nice!!.. temperature, taste, texture, smell, arrangement, tea ware aesthetic, environment, people, might be interesting aspects for an excellent experience

[steanze]

Yes, I have not said anything about teaware, environment and people yet, it's for future posts teaware and environment are very interesting, the question of how their aesthetics blends with the enjoyment of the tea but at some time how to balance it so that it does not take away the attention from the tea... and people is the most complicated topic

[Devoted135]

c) the location of the tasting regions in the mouth and the temporal sequence of sensory response in regulating our perception on a drink's property. if a drink is steaming hot it is lightly sipped and the first point of contact tends to the front of the tongue, where the sweeter receptors are. one seldom burns the innermost/middle rear of the tongue regions..
but if a drink is warm, it can be quickly sipped with the tea having a higher chance to encounter the bitter tasting patches that are located further inside. i have personally observed that the same brew of tea, when sipped hot was quite nice, mild bitterness, lively, some sweetness, but when it cooled to room temperature, the bitterness was sharper and more forward tasting than when it was hot. it may be possible that the first "taste" sensation that is recognized is perceived to be dominant.

(Bolding mine)

I believe the traditional map of taste perception on the tongue has been largely overturned. While there may be a denser concentration of bitter receptors on the back of the tongue (for example), they can actually be found distributed over the entire space. I no longer have access to papers behind a paywall, but google leads me to believe that this one on a potential sour taste receptor should be relevant.

[debunix]

That paper is free in PubMed Central...http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1571047/....but it doesn't show a clear map of the distribution of these receptors on the tongue.

[kyarazen]

(Bolding mine)

I believe the traditional map of taste perception on the tongue has been largely overturned. While there may be a denser concentration of bitter receptors on the back of the tongue (for example), they can actually be found distributed over the entire space. I no longer have access to papers behind a paywall, but google leads me to believe that this one on a potential sour taste receptor should be relevant.

well.. thats a pretty cool paper trying to explain mammalian taste receptors with a bunch of mice. reminds me of an experiment 15 years ago when a prof asked my friend to feed his mice with pu-erh tea.

perhaps i should have phrased it better, yes indeed all sorts of taste receptors are scattered all over the tongue, but there are certain regions that should be most sensitive to a taste than another.

[Devoted135]

That paper is free in PubMed Central...http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1571047/....but it doesn't show a clear map of the distribution of these receptors on the tongue.

Sweet, thanks for pointing that out! Okay, yes if I'm interpreting their in situ hybridizations correctly, they show multiple areas of sour taste cells on the tongue.

well.. thats a pretty cool paper trying to explain mammalian taste receptors with a bunch of mice. reminds me of an experiment 15 years ago when a prof asked my friend to feed his mice with pu-erh tea.

perhaps i should have phrased it better, yes indeed all sorts of taste receptors are scattered all over the tongue, but there are certain regions that should be most sensitive to a taste than another.

Haha, how did the mice like the tea? Fair enough, there do seem to be regions of concentration for the cell types

[steanze]

In humans: http://link.springer.com/article/10.100 ... 014-9166-3

[debunix]

Even cooler article...with diagrams. Need to study it--while drinking some Dancong, in honor of the topic!

[steanze]

Happy you like it it's pretty up to date (2014). All regions of the tongue seem to respond to all tastes, but there are some regional differences in the detection thresholds for some tastes (in particular bitter and umami), which could be relevant for tea tasting.

[ryancha]

MarshalN has new post today, where he worries specifically about chemicals and DC:

... many farmers from the area rinse their tea twice before brewing, a relatively unusual practice for oolongs, because they are also worried about pesticides residue and things like that. This is not the first time I’ve heard worries about dancong specifically – a few friends from Taiwan with good contacts in the mainland have also told me that I should try to avoid dancong in general, because they’re pumped full of chemicals you probably don’t want to ingest. Funny too, because although I usually don’t drink dancong at all, recently I bought a couple boxes, one of which is really quite good. Your run of the mill dancong, however, is usually quite difficult to brew and is thin on the mouth while having nice fragrance. It was never the best tea, and this is just one more reason to not drink it.

http://www.marshaln.com/2015/03/early-early-spring-tea/

[BW85]

MarshalN has new post today, where he worries specifically about chemicals and DC:

... many farmers from the area rinse their tea twice before brewing, a relatively unusual practice for oolongs, because they are also worried about pesticides residue and things like that. This is not the first time I’ve heard worries about dancong specifically – a few friends from Taiwan with good contacts in the mainland have also told me that I should try to avoid dancong in general, because they’re pumped full of chemicals you probably don’t want to ingest. Funny too, because although I usually don’t drink dancong at all, recently I bought a couple boxes, one of which is really quite good. Your run of the mill dancong, however, is usually quite difficult to brew and is thin on the mouth while having nice fragrance. It was never the best tea, and this is just one more reason to not drink it.

http://www.marshaln.com/2015/03/early-early-spring-tea/

I'm sure it's the worst with commercial grade, lower altitude plantation tea. It would be nice to believe that higher end producers who harvest from older bushes care a little more about maintaining the integrity of there product. And.. Hopefully that's not just wishful thinking on my part

[kyarazen]

MarshalN has new post today, where he worries specifically about chemicals and DC:

... many farmers from the area rinse their tea twice before brewing, a relatively unusual practice for oolongs, because they are also worried about pesticides residue and things like that. This is not the first time I’ve heard worries about dancong specifically – a few friends from Taiwan with good contacts in the mainland have also told me that I should try to avoid dancong in general, because they’re pumped full of chemicals you probably don’t want to ingest. Funny too, because although I usually don’t drink dancong at all, recently I bought a couple boxes, one of which is really quite good. Your run of the mill dancong, however, is usually quite difficult to brew and is thin on the mouth while having nice fragrance. It was never the best tea, and this is just one more reason to not drink it.

http://www.marshaln.com/2015/03/early-early-spring-tea/

That's pretty interesting to hear and the propagation of rumours without clearer evidences at the moment. The same can be said for pu-erh, since dancong is similarly divided between old trees and plantation tea.

[AT333]

Can anyone advise us on how to really identify whether it is from old tree or plantation tree. How about the presence of insecticides? Thank you