Tuesday, February 21, 2006

A wonderful afternoon

I took 2 hours off this afternoon to enjoy 2 excellent green teas from China (samples sent by a very dear blog reader). The weather turned warm and sunny today in Taipei (26 degrees) and it was perfect to artfully brew these fine teas. Let me first show you where I went to brew my tea:
A look on the left:
A look on the right (you can see a tall blue 'cloud' in the background. It's Taipei 101, the world's tallest building.)
Now let's focus on the teaware. Notice my Sung dynasty ever filled with hot water.
Now have a look at the dry leaves. The tea is called Azure Mountain Green Water. I had never heard about it before.
I use the old ever and find the small flow of water very elegant and appropriate for the delicate green tea:
Very interesting green leaves. They look like (very small) pineapple leaves.
It tastes a little bitter, sour and very fragrant like old fashioned fruit candy when I was a kid. A very persistant fragrance, a sign of a high quality. It was really nice to discover this tea and I want to take this opportunity to thank the several kind readers who have sent me amazing teas to taste.

Let me add another picture of my old ever that made this brewing even more special. That it fits well with this tea is no coincidence: Sung dynasty ware was mostly used for green tea.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, Stephane,
Could you please write a little more about the "Azure Mountain Green Water"? I am so curious about it.
Where does it come and why the name? It looks really beautiful!
And, is the blue thin bowl on the upper left side fo yourt patchwork from Meissen? I got a similar one too and it is of Meissener product:-).

TeaMasters said...

Hi Yi-Chun,
Funny you post a comment. I just marvelled at your Chinese website this weekend. Impressive all the work you're doing!

So, this tea comes from Suzhou and is a "display" tea. They obtain this shape by coppicing the plants during the harvest. A little bit bitter. I have some left. Maybe we'll drink it one day together!!

The blue and white tea cup is not from Meissen. It's an old Qing dynasty Chinese tea cup. It's very uneven, but the colors are great and it makes tea feel very mellow and round.

Anonymous said...

Hello Stephane!
Thank You for wonderful blog.

It seems to me, that this tea is actually young Ku Din tea.
It's picked from another plant, not a tea plant. More common shape for this tea is a big nail(very bitter).
(Ku Din - bitter nail in translation)

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Hello Stephane!
Thank You for wonderful blog.

It seems to me, that this tea is actually young Ku Din tea.
It's picked from another plant, not a tea plant. More common shape for this tea is a big nail(very bitter).
(Ku Din - bitter nail in translation)