Coming out in tomorrow's print edition; already up online:
http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la ... 7599.story
Aug 19th, '09, 01:25
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Aug 19th, '09, 01:50
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Maitre_Tea
Re: Tea Habitat article in LA Times
I'm so glad I live in southern California! 
Even though people in NYC have The Tea Gallery, and Seattle/Portland have cool tea places...I'm happy that we have the premier purveyor of DC right in sunny California...
Even though people in NYC have The Tea Gallery, and Seattle/Portland have cool tea places...I'm happy that we have the premier purveyor of DC right in sunny California...
Aug 19th, '09, 06:18
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Herb_Master
Re: Tea Habitat article in LA Times
A nice article.
But I would rather buy her tea while she is still alive
But I would rather buy her tea while she is still alive
Aug 19th, '09, 13:42
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Re: Tea Habitat article in LA Times
I have only had a few commercial dancongs here and there and they haven't been memorable.
I would like to try some of the dancongs from Teahabitat, but they seem to *start* at a buck a gram. Given that DC's are pretty finicky and will probably require many practice brews, and that good tea (probably not dancongs) can be bought for less, how do you justify this?
I guess the obvious answer is that the teas are just amazing and the price is reasonable? Where to start?
I would like to try some of the dancongs from Teahabitat, but they seem to *start* at a buck a gram. Given that DC's are pretty finicky and will probably require many practice brews, and that good tea (probably not dancongs) can be bought for less, how do you justify this?
I guess the obvious answer is that the teas are just amazing and the price is reasonable? Where to start?
Aug 19th, '09, 14:59
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Re: Tea Habitat article in LA Times
I think that commercial DC and single-bush DC are completely different animals. From my limited experience and from what Imen writes, it seems that single-bush DC is more forgiving when it comes to brewing. I find it hard to mess up with her single-bush DC, unless I'm over-steeping it by like 5 minutes or so. I think that they're pricey, but as the article points out...even some of the "cheapest" single bush she offers goes for 12+ infusions. The selection of aged DC she offers is cheaper (since they're usually not single-bush), but it seems like they're very tasty and also have the same kind of durability. Maybe you could order some of her commercial DC...it'll probably be much better than other commercial DC.teaskeptic wrote:I have only had a few commercial dancongs here and there and they haven't been memorable.
I would like to try some of the dancongs from Teahabitat, but they seem to *start* at a buck a gram. Given that DC's are pretty finicky and will probably require many practice brews, and that good tea (probably not dancongs) can be bought for less, how do you justify this?
I guess the obvious answer is that the teas are just amazing and the price is reasonable? Where to start?
Aug 19th, '09, 17:32
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Re: Tea Habitat article in LA Times
Surely DC which is short for Dan Cong means Single Bush.
There are top rated or premium DC and commercial grade DC.
The Older Tea Trees tend to produce more highly esteemed leaf, and are probably only picked once a year, which for one single tree means a very limited production. This size of production is not suitable for selling under a single description on a large scale commercial operation.
The younger trees, once established, seem to be heavier croppers, of inferior leaf that may be cropped more than once a year.
Perhaps it would be naiive to believe that the cheaper DCs on the market are indeed all processed, packaged and marketed on a tree by tree basis. So there are perhaps a number of ways that Commercial Grade DC can be produced to still vaguely deserve the title Dan Cong, or maybe Dan Cong just indicates the processing methods.
One is that the same phrase is being used to describe Single Grove, where every tree in the grove is an identical clone of a mother tree (which may itself be cloned from a grandmother tree) - perhaps in 50 years time they will be producing teas of greater than commercial grade viability!
Further stretching of the phrase may be that it is from trees of such a similar nature that they share the same attributes, though not of the quality to command a price that warrants individual processing of each tree.
Or perhaps that simply the teas are processed using the same techniques as premium Dan Cong teas.
In Guangdong itself tea produced from Shui Xian trees falls under 3 different categories, of which Dan Cong is the highest category, the middle category is Lan Cai and the lowest category is Shui Xian. Perhaps one might think along the way that some teas from the lower categories get labelled as Dan Cong.
But there is so little information on the web about Lan Cai or Shui Xian (as a category of Guangdong Tea) that I don't even know if they are Oolongs.
There are top rated or premium DC and commercial grade DC.
The Older Tea Trees tend to produce more highly esteemed leaf, and are probably only picked once a year, which for one single tree means a very limited production. This size of production is not suitable for selling under a single description on a large scale commercial operation.
The younger trees, once established, seem to be heavier croppers, of inferior leaf that may be cropped more than once a year.
Perhaps it would be naiive to believe that the cheaper DCs on the market are indeed all processed, packaged and marketed on a tree by tree basis. So there are perhaps a number of ways that Commercial Grade DC can be produced to still vaguely deserve the title Dan Cong, or maybe Dan Cong just indicates the processing methods.
One is that the same phrase is being used to describe Single Grove, where every tree in the grove is an identical clone of a mother tree (which may itself be cloned from a grandmother tree) - perhaps in 50 years time they will be producing teas of greater than commercial grade viability!
Further stretching of the phrase may be that it is from trees of such a similar nature that they share the same attributes, though not of the quality to command a price that warrants individual processing of each tree.
Or perhaps that simply the teas are processed using the same techniques as premium Dan Cong teas.
In Guangdong itself tea produced from Shui Xian trees falls under 3 different categories, of which Dan Cong is the highest category, the middle category is Lan Cai and the lowest category is Shui Xian. Perhaps one might think along the way that some teas from the lower categories get labelled as Dan Cong.
But there is so little information on the web about Lan Cai or Shui Xian (as a category of Guangdong Tea) that I don't even know if they are Oolongs.
Re: Tea Habitat article in LA Times
Went to Tea Habitat this evening, just before closing...now just got home 3hrs later after lousy LA bus system snafu. Will post up a few tasting notes tomorrow. Didn't have enought time to talk to Imen much about teas and such, even though I was the only one there...got to talking about my mother's orchid collection :p.
Seems she has read these forums before, when not too busy
Steeping for 5min??? She steeped for 8 seconds and 10 seconds ...after much coercion from me, I got her to steep infusion #5 or greater for 30sec. - as an experiment...the tea was none the better for that, albeit *very* slightly more intensely flavorful. She said she uses ~2-3g per cup.
But you have to ask yourself, were the flavors better/more enjoyable? She thought 30sec caused the tea to taste more 'cooked' ( undesirable).
Seems she has read these forums before, when not too busy
Steeping for 5min??? She steeped for 8 seconds and 10 seconds ...after much coercion from me, I got her to steep infusion #5 or greater for 30sec. - as an experiment...the tea was none the better for that, albeit *very* slightly more intensely flavorful. She said she uses ~2-3g per cup.
But you have to ask yourself, were the flavors better/more enjoyable? She thought 30sec caused the tea to taste more 'cooked' ( undesirable).
Re: Tea Habitat article in LA Times
I'm glad, and a little surprised, that you guys liked the article. I was actually rather worried, and specifically worried, that the TeaChat crew would hate it, and heap ignominy on me for all my vagueness.
Anyway: I'm Thi, I wrote the article. I've lurked on TeaChat for a long time, though lately I've tried to avoid it as much as possible, on seemingly infallible principle that any contact with TeaChat seems to remove all the money from my bank account, instantly.
I was actually getting all panicky and depressed before the article came out, because I had this awful sense that I'd *failed* - that the teas were so wonderful, that it was so remarkable to have a teashop like this in the States, and that I'd *completely failed to capture* the importance, the awesomeness. It was actually teachat related - I was back in researching mode, trying to put together an order with Yunnan Sourcing, and reading some wonderful, very particular posts - I think I was reading one of MarshalN's, full of lovingly precise descriptions and eerily crisp tasting notes - and I looked back at my article and decided it was complete and total dog poo. And then to comfort myself I started drinking some dan cong - I think it was cattelya - and it started depressing me even more, because it was so glorious, so radiant, so inutterably alive, that I was ever more sure I'd failed. The tea was *so far beyond* any capacities for description, was *so much better* than I'd made it out to be, that it was just pathetic.
My ever-wise girlfriend said, "Look at it this way, Thi. You've only been writing for a few years. That tree has had *400 years* to perfect it's tea. You don't have a chance."
This actually made me feel better.
Anyway, I shouldn't have worried. The whole thing is powered by those insanely perfect Imen quotes: the thing about the masculine/feminine in particular. About how DC was a perfect balance of masculine and feminine - the feminine aromatic, and the masculine "marking out its territory on your tongue." When she said it, I almost peed myself with joy. I had the distinct sense that this was going to be the best quote I would ever get, for any article, ever.
Anyway: I'm surprised y'all liked it. I was pretty sure the TeaChat crew would be all up in arms for the lack of precision and vagueness about details. There's actually a much longer first draft lying around somewhere that's basically an internal document for other serious tea drinkers. At some point, I realized I was headed down the wrong path - after all, most of the hyper-serious oolong crew already reads TeaChat, and already knows about Imen. This was a chance for *conversion* - a shot to put in front of a general audience, most of whom either had never drunk anything but tea bags, or at best had a few cans of something from Whole Foods, the idea that tea could be as glorious and important and lifealtering as, you know, Scotch and wine and such.
I sort of forget sometimes. Me and my drinking buddies - tea is at the center of our gastronomic lives. Of *course* we have dedicated yi xing. Of *course* we buy greens right after harvest in the spring. I actually had a really nice conversation with a friend of mine, Sari, who basically reminded me that almost every person reading the article never had even conceived of the idea of multiple infusion - that she, who was pretty cosmopolitan and food-serious and all that - had no idea, until she started hanging out with me, that you could do such a thing as put some leaves through multiple infusions and feel them rise and bloom and change. She was like, "Don't write it to your tea buddies. Write it to idiots like me!"
Anyway: so I ditched the old draft, and rewrote something with the express purpose of converting the Average Reader of the Food Section - probably somebody who appreciated wines, cared about food, and might even have a tin of Republic of Tea or something in their cupboard, but...
Anyway - I have all this data - about 40 pages of notes, from about 15 hours of Imen interview - about her story, and information about the history of DC, and the mountain, and her teacher, and how she learned, and brewing technique, and all this data about elevation and climate and soil and all that - that never made it into the article. I'd love to get it out somehow. I could at least post some of the highlights, though I'd have to ask Imen permission, of course, for anything specifically from or about her.
I can definitely say the stuff from my own experiences though;
@teaskeptic (I read your blog, by the way) - I actually dismissed dan congs long ago, because all I had were commercial, some of it relatively expensive, and they were... nasty. I thought they were either overrated, or the sort of thing where none of the good stuff ever made it out of the mainland. I can say this: I'm a graduate student. I'm poor. I have absolutely zero regrets about buying Imen's teas. Her Cattelya Orchid Fragrance is now my single absolute favorite tea I have, suddenly in front of my beloved AAA long jian from Jing, and dayuling from teafromtaiwan, and other comparable stuff. I mean, one of her teas actually made me almost cry. They're incredible, alive teas.
It's not actually that hard to brew. She says (and I have verified through my own experiments) that commercials are tough, but old bush is forgiving. Old bush DC is slightly trickier than other mainland oolongs, but not hugely. To give you a sense: most of my oolong experience is with taiwanese high mountain and anxi - I had almost no experience with DCs. After my first time there, bought a bag of old bush cattelya, and by the second session I was nailing it. Even the first session - I screwed up the first two brews, but was managing decent brews by #3.
The important part is to trust the directions: near boiling water, and 10-15 second brews. Really. Closer to 10. This creeped me out at first - I'm used to 30 seconds inching upwards to a minute - but once you get in that range, no problem.
Next: they seem to go on for eerily long. I'm used to getting 7-12 brews out of most of my good oolongs, but these go 15 easily, sometimes 20. They're actually spooky. They also peak for longer - typically, for most oolongs, I get a single peak, sometimes two truly great brews, but hers will peak for awhile, if you're careful. I've had them stay unbelievably radiant for, like, brews 3-7. I've had them come back when I thought they were spent - though this is something that definitely depends a little on skill. Also across multiple days - Imen's advice was to keep the lid on the gaiwan, keep them moist, and give them a hot wash to wake them up the next day. 2 days easily, I've done them across 3 days. Imen even suggests, when you think the tea is totally tapped out, putting some warm water on the leaves at night, covering, and coming back in the morning to one last strong, clear, cool brew.
So here's my (poor grad student's) justification: $30 for a 1 oz bag = $3 per scoop = $1.50 per day for 2 days of at least 7 infusions a day. More expensive than most of the other teas I have, but still entirely within the realm of the worthwhile. It just barely breaks the Snapple barrier. (You know - the ability to claim that the best, rarest, most incredible tea you have, acquired at great expense from China, is still cheaper, per serving, than a bottle of Snapple.)
Recommendations: first timers, honey orchid, cattelya, passionate tail ant. After getting spoiled on the old bush, I can't really tolerate the commercial stuff, but she's got one remarkable bargain - 5 year old Wild Hong Yin, $15 for a 3 oz bag. It's stunning. I say: chicken bones, mineral clear broth flavors, peppery and alive and wild. My girlfriend says: horses. Stables, fresh hay, saddle leather. It's wonderful, gorgeous stuff.
Recommendations: for the wealthier buyers: song zhong is her most expensive, and typically the most refined/delicate. (There's a quote from my beloved book, Chinese Gastronomy, after describing a 3 hour process of properly velveting chicken for a classic chicken-egg dish: "While eating this, one feels immensely civilized. Surely this is worth a few hours of work.")
She occasionally has some 30 year old wild hong yin that drives me completely insane. It's like... a stew made from fresh mackeral sashimi, layered with citruses and coppers and malts. It has tang and life and vividness. It's almost... a relative of good cooked pu-erh (the closest thing I've seen to the flavor profile is, say, dayi 7562 cooked pu-erh, but instead of low-fermenty-dying-fish-pungent, the aged wild hong yin has that DC lush/floral/living/aromatic/upthrust thing).
I took a friend of mine who was all depressed about her life and we did a tasting with Imen and when we tasted the aged hong yin, my friend turned bright red, almost cried, got up and hugged Imen, and said she was all full of glowing emotion and couldn't hate herself anymore.
I actually, during the research for the article, managed to taste, with Imen brewing, a majority of her old bush stock over the course of two or so weeks. Like, almost thirty of 'em. I can try to dig up my notes and put them up, if anybody's interested.
She just got in some new stock, trees she's never stocked before. I personally got to see Imen pull out a 3 pound vacuum sealed bag, say, "I got it! This is the whole harvest from this tea for this year. It's all mine!" and then hug it like it was her new boyfriend. She's putting them into circulation, at tastings and I think they'll be online soon.
Anyway: I'm Thi, I wrote the article. I've lurked on TeaChat for a long time, though lately I've tried to avoid it as much as possible, on seemingly infallible principle that any contact with TeaChat seems to remove all the money from my bank account, instantly.
I was actually getting all panicky and depressed before the article came out, because I had this awful sense that I'd *failed* - that the teas were so wonderful, that it was so remarkable to have a teashop like this in the States, and that I'd *completely failed to capture* the importance, the awesomeness. It was actually teachat related - I was back in researching mode, trying to put together an order with Yunnan Sourcing, and reading some wonderful, very particular posts - I think I was reading one of MarshalN's, full of lovingly precise descriptions and eerily crisp tasting notes - and I looked back at my article and decided it was complete and total dog poo. And then to comfort myself I started drinking some dan cong - I think it was cattelya - and it started depressing me even more, because it was so glorious, so radiant, so inutterably alive, that I was ever more sure I'd failed. The tea was *so far beyond* any capacities for description, was *so much better* than I'd made it out to be, that it was just pathetic.
My ever-wise girlfriend said, "Look at it this way, Thi. You've only been writing for a few years. That tree has had *400 years* to perfect it's tea. You don't have a chance."
This actually made me feel better.
Anyway, I shouldn't have worried. The whole thing is powered by those insanely perfect Imen quotes: the thing about the masculine/feminine in particular. About how DC was a perfect balance of masculine and feminine - the feminine aromatic, and the masculine "marking out its territory on your tongue." When she said it, I almost peed myself with joy. I had the distinct sense that this was going to be the best quote I would ever get, for any article, ever.
Anyway: I'm surprised y'all liked it. I was pretty sure the TeaChat crew would be all up in arms for the lack of precision and vagueness about details. There's actually a much longer first draft lying around somewhere that's basically an internal document for other serious tea drinkers. At some point, I realized I was headed down the wrong path - after all, most of the hyper-serious oolong crew already reads TeaChat, and already knows about Imen. This was a chance for *conversion* - a shot to put in front of a general audience, most of whom either had never drunk anything but tea bags, or at best had a few cans of something from Whole Foods, the idea that tea could be as glorious and important and lifealtering as, you know, Scotch and wine and such.
I sort of forget sometimes. Me and my drinking buddies - tea is at the center of our gastronomic lives. Of *course* we have dedicated yi xing. Of *course* we buy greens right after harvest in the spring. I actually had a really nice conversation with a friend of mine, Sari, who basically reminded me that almost every person reading the article never had even conceived of the idea of multiple infusion - that she, who was pretty cosmopolitan and food-serious and all that - had no idea, until she started hanging out with me, that you could do such a thing as put some leaves through multiple infusions and feel them rise and bloom and change. She was like, "Don't write it to your tea buddies. Write it to idiots like me!"
Anyway: so I ditched the old draft, and rewrote something with the express purpose of converting the Average Reader of the Food Section - probably somebody who appreciated wines, cared about food, and might even have a tin of Republic of Tea or something in their cupboard, but...
Anyway - I have all this data - about 40 pages of notes, from about 15 hours of Imen interview - about her story, and information about the history of DC, and the mountain, and her teacher, and how she learned, and brewing technique, and all this data about elevation and climate and soil and all that - that never made it into the article. I'd love to get it out somehow. I could at least post some of the highlights, though I'd have to ask Imen permission, of course, for anything specifically from or about her.
I can definitely say the stuff from my own experiences though;
@teaskeptic (I read your blog, by the way) - I actually dismissed dan congs long ago, because all I had were commercial, some of it relatively expensive, and they were... nasty. I thought they were either overrated, or the sort of thing where none of the good stuff ever made it out of the mainland. I can say this: I'm a graduate student. I'm poor. I have absolutely zero regrets about buying Imen's teas. Her Cattelya Orchid Fragrance is now my single absolute favorite tea I have, suddenly in front of my beloved AAA long jian from Jing, and dayuling from teafromtaiwan, and other comparable stuff. I mean, one of her teas actually made me almost cry. They're incredible, alive teas.
It's not actually that hard to brew. She says (and I have verified through my own experiments) that commercials are tough, but old bush is forgiving. Old bush DC is slightly trickier than other mainland oolongs, but not hugely. To give you a sense: most of my oolong experience is with taiwanese high mountain and anxi - I had almost no experience with DCs. After my first time there, bought a bag of old bush cattelya, and by the second session I was nailing it. Even the first session - I screwed up the first two brews, but was managing decent brews by #3.
The important part is to trust the directions: near boiling water, and 10-15 second brews. Really. Closer to 10. This creeped me out at first - I'm used to 30 seconds inching upwards to a minute - but once you get in that range, no problem.
Next: they seem to go on for eerily long. I'm used to getting 7-12 brews out of most of my good oolongs, but these go 15 easily, sometimes 20. They're actually spooky. They also peak for longer - typically, for most oolongs, I get a single peak, sometimes two truly great brews, but hers will peak for awhile, if you're careful. I've had them stay unbelievably radiant for, like, brews 3-7. I've had them come back when I thought they were spent - though this is something that definitely depends a little on skill. Also across multiple days - Imen's advice was to keep the lid on the gaiwan, keep them moist, and give them a hot wash to wake them up the next day. 2 days easily, I've done them across 3 days. Imen even suggests, when you think the tea is totally tapped out, putting some warm water on the leaves at night, covering, and coming back in the morning to one last strong, clear, cool brew.
So here's my (poor grad student's) justification: $30 for a 1 oz bag = $3 per scoop = $1.50 per day for 2 days of at least 7 infusions a day. More expensive than most of the other teas I have, but still entirely within the realm of the worthwhile. It just barely breaks the Snapple barrier. (You know - the ability to claim that the best, rarest, most incredible tea you have, acquired at great expense from China, is still cheaper, per serving, than a bottle of Snapple.)
Recommendations: first timers, honey orchid, cattelya, passionate tail ant. After getting spoiled on the old bush, I can't really tolerate the commercial stuff, but she's got one remarkable bargain - 5 year old Wild Hong Yin, $15 for a 3 oz bag. It's stunning. I say: chicken bones, mineral clear broth flavors, peppery and alive and wild. My girlfriend says: horses. Stables, fresh hay, saddle leather. It's wonderful, gorgeous stuff.
Recommendations: for the wealthier buyers: song zhong is her most expensive, and typically the most refined/delicate. (There's a quote from my beloved book, Chinese Gastronomy, after describing a 3 hour process of properly velveting chicken for a classic chicken-egg dish: "While eating this, one feels immensely civilized. Surely this is worth a few hours of work.")
She occasionally has some 30 year old wild hong yin that drives me completely insane. It's like... a stew made from fresh mackeral sashimi, layered with citruses and coppers and malts. It has tang and life and vividness. It's almost... a relative of good cooked pu-erh (the closest thing I've seen to the flavor profile is, say, dayi 7562 cooked pu-erh, but instead of low-fermenty-dying-fish-pungent, the aged wild hong yin has that DC lush/floral/living/aromatic/upthrust thing).
I took a friend of mine who was all depressed about her life and we did a tasting with Imen and when we tasted the aged hong yin, my friend turned bright red, almost cried, got up and hugged Imen, and said she was all full of glowing emotion and couldn't hate herself anymore.
I actually, during the research for the article, managed to taste, with Imen brewing, a majority of her old bush stock over the course of two or so weeks. Like, almost thirty of 'em. I can try to dig up my notes and put them up, if anybody's interested.
She just got in some new stock, trees she's never stocked before. I personally got to see Imen pull out a 3 pound vacuum sealed bag, say, "I got it! This is the whole harvest from this tea for this year. It's all mine!" and then hug it like it was her new boyfriend. She's putting them into circulation, at tastings and I think they'll be online soon.
Re: Tea Habitat article in LA Times
Well I think we are pretty much an easy going bunch, and you nailed it when you said we already know about Imen. Many of us have met her and visited her shop and many, many more have ordered her wonderful teas online. We love her, respect her and consider her part of our tea family. And I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say that an article which attempts to reach the masses is understandable and a good thing. More importantly Imen is "ecstatic" and that is good enough for us. Thank you for your time and dedication to this article and for writing us here, so that we can know, in some small way we were a part of it too. Thank you!moot wrote: Anyway: I'm surprised y'all liked it. I was pretty sure the TeaChat crew would be all up in arms for the lack of precision and vagueness about details. There's actually a much longer first draft lying around somewhere that's basically an internal document for other serious tea drinkers. At some point, I realized I was headed down the wrong path - after all, most of the hyper-serious oolong crew already reads TeaChat, and already knows about Imen. This was a chance for *conversion* - a shot to put in front of a general audience, most of whom either had never drunk anything but tea bags, or at best had a few cans of something from Whole Foods, the idea that tea could be as glorious and important and lifealtering as, you know, Scotch and wine and such.
Aug 20th, '09, 18:46
Posts: 20891
Joined: Apr 22nd, '06, 20:52
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Re: Tea Habitat article in LA Times
Hi Moot. Glad you came out of hiding and posted! Welcome to the forum.
I hope you will take a few moments to introduce yourself under Introduction at the top of the TeaChat.
I hope you will take a few moments to introduce yourself under Introduction at the top of the TeaChat.
Re: Tea Habitat article in LA Times
I thought it was an awesome article. I sent it around the office this morning to my coworkers who don't quite understand my tea obsession.
Thanks!
Thanks!