Today, finally feeling better from my cold, and finally with some down time that wasn't after 8 pm at night due to exam grading, I decided to crack open a sample of 1960s Shui Xian, in celebration of my brother getting his Doctorate in Biomedical Engineering.
*** Warning Science Zone ***
I do have to say even though I consider myself somewhat science savvy in the short conversations that always seemed to happen around holidays and dinner tables when we happened to be together, it was quite hard to get the big picture idea of what he really did. I will say it is quite exciting stuff, with the wonderful opportunity to potentially improve on his already substantial achievements to enable every person to have their proteins mapped, and with the development of a large number of bio-markers for various diseases to enable quick and accurate diagnoses.
*** Regularly scheduled tea talk will resume now ***
I find it incredible how aged teas develop certain flavours, while I come to call them aged sheng flavours, honestly I feel it is mostly due to flavours generated while the leaves break down slowly. But while the 60s Shui Xian had some of those musty, and earthy almost compost like flavours, it was still distinctively a Wuyi Yancha.
I have had a few aged teas, though I do not have experience ageing them personally much beyond a few short run experiments, but I honestly think a surprising amount of the original tea works its way into the finished product. (Especially when you are not considered the near open environment ageing of puerh.) With oolongs and other teas aged with minimal exposure to air, I get the impression their essence stays preserved in the tea much longer. For instance I have some aged Miao Li oolong, which I swear is almost like candy, and I imagine the initial tea was rather sweet and light tasting, as such while more flavours developed with age, while others are lost, but it stayed rather light an sweet.
Does anyone have similar experiences? Or better yet, a completely contradictory experience?
1 comment:
Perhaps my experience with ageing tea might be considered contradictory:
Last winter I found in a box a tin with two or three packs of tea I hadn't touched in years. Two green teas had just turned stale - but then there was a baozhong. I must have bought it at least 10 years ago - and I remember it being nice, flowery and a bit too green for my liking. But after several years of utter neglect in an open bag within a tin it had turned to ... wow! Dark chocolate, creamy texture - so much more interesting than in its greenish youth.
So a good tea had turned into something different - even better.
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