This is yet another comparison featuring the purple Da Yi. It's a useful tea, since it's quite a standard and most drinkers have tried it. This time, I'm comparing it to a no name loose gushu puerh from roughly the same time. Actually, according to the darker dry leaves and brew of the Da Yi, it seems that the Da Yi is a little bit older than the loose raw gushu.   Both have aged dry scents, but storage smells are still more prevalent on the loose puerh, because it has spent less time in my own (relatively) dry Taiwanese storage. The Da Yi smells more woody, while the loose puerh s ..read more

Yiwu 2003 vs DaYi purple 2003 The vertical comparison of a 1999 Menhai vs a 2003 DaYi enabled us to observe the trend of quality over time for this factory. A horizontal comparison between 2 puerhs from 2003 is even more interesting, because it's comparing 2 puerhs that have been produced and that were available at the same time. And both cakes have been stored in Taiwan. It helps to answer the question, from a tea drinker's point of view, which tea was the best choice?  This time, the lighter color of the dry leaves of the 2003 wild Yiwu sheng puerh cake (left) is consiste ..read more

La fraicheur printanière est de retour à Alishan! L'an dernier, il fit tellement chaud au début du printemps que la plupart des plantations de Jinxuan virent leurs feuilles 'griller' et s'assécher sur place. Tout au plus, les fermiers en firent un peu de thé rouge, mais il n'y avait plus rien de frais à en tirer. J'ai dû attendre la seconde récolte de début juin pour pouvoir sélectionner un Jinxuan à faible oxydation.   Avec une récolte le 28 mars, ce Jinxuan d'Alishan est à la fois précoce et particulièrement frais, car peu oxydé! La belle taille des feuilles du Jinxuan accentue l'imp ..read more

A customer suggested that I help him find some older Da Yi puerh cakes. This reminded me that I had several Da Yi cakes in my private collection. I had purchased them in order to have good examples of how puerh tea evolved when Menghai Tea Factory became the Da Yi brand in the early 2000s. So, I compared the purple Da Yi with my 1999 '7542' cake.  What I found interesting is that the color of the cakes shows the 2003 Da Yi to be darker or redder than the 1999 cake. It's strange that a younger cake would look darker. However, the colors of the brews is much more in line with what one wou ..read more

This link is at the core of the above tea class. I explored the thoughts of René Girard. He's a French philosopher who did most of his career in the US (at the University of Stanford). The central idea is that culture, rituals, ceremonies and religion are the consequence of violence. They are the tools that man uses in order to pacify and reduce violence in society. Girard has read the accounts from anthropologists from all around the world and has recognized similar patterns in archaic religions. First, he explains that we humans are very good at imitating others. A young baby will already ..read more

Plantation de thé à San Hsia, Taiwan Si le printemps commence avec la nouvelle année lunaire dans le calendrier chinois, il commence avec l'équinoxe dans le calendrier solaire astronomique! Nous revoilà donc dans cette partie de l'année où les journées sont plus longues que les nuits. Cette lumière permet à la nature de se mettre à croitre et aux feuilles de thé vert de s'épanouir précocement. Sur l'image ci-dessus, on voit toute l'ingéniosité de ces vieilles cueilleuses dont les jambes sont fatiguées par le poids des décennies: elles portent un tabouret attaché à la taille afin de p ..read more

Soutenez les artistes dont l'inspiration prend sa source dans le thé et la beaut ..read more

This article continues the conversation I started in this Sunday's class about 'Good tea and a healthy life #7'. (Watch above if you've missed it or read the article directly if you prefer). Here's a quote A from a paper published in the National Library of Medicine, an official website from the US government: "Overall, green tea has been found to be effective to reduce the risks of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, liver cancer, colorectal cancer, skin cancer, prostate cancer, oral cancer, etc" Quote B comes from the Cancer Council (in Australia) : "There is no clear evidence that green ..read more

Je connais cette plantation de BiLuoChun à San Hsia depuis plus de 15 ans. C'est ma première escale dans mes voyages dans les régions productrices de thé de Taiwan. Et chaque année, il y a du changement! Il y a l'impact de la météo hivernale et aussi celui du travail du fermier. Ci-dessus, nous pouvons vois que plusieurs théiers ont été coupés relativement court et que quelques feuilles poussent déjà sur ces grosses branches. Et, tout autour de ces théiers coupés bas, on voit des branches mortes recouvrir le sol. Que s'est-il passé? J'ai posé la question au fermier. Il m'a dit que quand les ..read more

The French text of Lu Yu's Cha Jing made a specific distinction between Yue stoneware and Xing porcelain. In the note 47 on page 20, the translator even explains that the same character Ci (瓷) designates both porcelain and stoneware. So, even though Lu Yu used the same character about Yue and Xing bowls, the translator thought it necessary to translate Ci of the Yue bowl as stoneware and the Ci of the Xing bowl as porcelain. Was it the correct translation?  The first thing we have to ask ourselves is what is the difference between porcelain and stoneware? So, let's remember that porce ..read more