Again this is a time when my lack of language skills are horribly apparent. I really do not know what Uricha is, but from its description it sounds like a compressed Balhyocha, which is a Korean Yellow/oolong tea. Neat little package as you can see above and below its a little ball but surprisingly dense.
This just advances my belief that Korea is a great practically untapped resource for high quality, and incredibly unique teas. For instance, have you ever tasted "salted roasted peanuts" before in a tea? Well through the first two infusions of this tea I could think of little else. If the vendor I received this tea from lists it, I will be sure to let everyone know as it is certainly a peculiar tea.
One thing I will say while it was quite highly compressed, breaking off pieces was not that challenging, and should I have had a tuo pick, it would have been almost childs play. (As close as working with a sizable and quite sharp "needle" can get to childs play.) I just happened to find a slightly looser spot and massaged it with my fingers and leaves started to flake off ever so slowly opening up a larger and larger patch of tea to get more leverage on prying off more leaves.
4 comments:
I could be way off here, but it is possible that "Uricha" (Likely 우리차) in Korean simply means, "Our tea". Many things in Korea out prefixed with the "Uri/우리" as a way to denote something that is purely Korean. For example, one way some people refer to Korean is Uri mal (우리 말) meaning "our language."
Again, could be way off but that would be my best guess.
Adam & Nathaniel,
"Uricha" or "Oo re cha" (as one's poor transliteration stated a few years back) does mean "our tea". The meaning of this name can be found in a post of 2009 Jukro tea that bears this name. See here:
http://mattchasblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/2009-jookro-hwagae-valley-yellow-tea.html
The tea you have here is a balhyocha or Korean yellow tea that has been pressed into a cake. It is the same raw material that is also available in a loose form of Jukro balhyocha.
The Jukro website refers to this cake form as "Tong E Cha" and the loose stuff as simply "Balhyocha" both have the name "Uricha" or "our tea" on the label and the same descriptions on the website. See here under "Black Tea":
http://www.jukro.co.kr/
(there is enough English on the site to navigate).
One drank the 2011 Jukro balhyocha (loose tea) this morning and will try the 2011 Jukro "Tong E Cha" that is currently in the mail from a friend just to be sure.
Peace
Where did you get this tea from? Never seen tea rolled into a huge ball like that before. I really want to try some too!! :D
Chayeji,
This tea is from Jukro. I am not sure about this next part but it may be available through Dao Tea in Canada sometime in the future.
Matt and Nathaniel, thank you for shedding a little bit of light on the Korean term Uricha, like I said I started trying to learn the Alphabet, but I never learned the entire alphabet, let alone started delving into words.
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