I went for a long hike, yesterday. My wife had a day of management training in Schwarzenburg and I asked a friend to go hiking in the same area. Afterwards, as I was waiting for my wife to finish, I went to Länggasstee in Berne. I ended up tasting some Ooolong tea and it was great.
It felt good to visit the tea shop in person for a change.
I didnt want to check my blog while standing in the shop and so this is how I went about it. First, asked for the catalogue. 🙂 I feel that the taste of tea is very different from what it smells like so I’m usually not very interested in sniffing it at the shop.
I went to the Oolong tea (Wu Long Cha) page and started looking. I still remember that afternoon in Hong Kong drinking rock tea in Nan Lian Garden, so looked at their Wuyi Rock Tea section (Wu Yi Cha). I somehow remembered not liking the slightly cheaper versions so I went for the Grade 1. At that point I set myself my budget: no more than CHF 1/g. This particular tea is from the May 2020 harvest in China / Fujian / Wuyishan / Guojiafengjingqu. I’m very I getestet in tasting more rock tea.
I know I like the tea made from the tea leaves attacked by insects. I somehow remember wanting something better than the Yunnan Beauty I had bought in the past and so I took a look at my budget and bought this Dong Fang Mei Ren from the Summer 2020 harvest in Taiwan / Miaoli / Toufen.
The saleswoman walked me whether I was interested in some Phoenix tea and I was looking at the Phoenix Single Bush section so I said, “sure!” The “single bush” doesn’t refer to a single bush but to a genetically identical trees. Again, not knowing what to pick, I simply went with my budget and wanted a tea from Wudong. They didn’t have any Bai Ye tea and so I picked the next one on the list: Ye Lai Xiang, a mix of the 2014 and 2016 summer harvests in China / Guangdong / Chaozhou / Fenghuang / Wudong. Apparently the name refers to Telosma. Color me intrigued.
The plant bears clusters of golden yellow blooms along the vining stems during summer months. Individual blooms emerge successively over a period of weeks emitting a rich, heavy fragrance during the day and night. – Telosma cordata
When I asked the woman whether there was much difference for the “stored” Oolong variants, she referred me to a senior, Tina Wagner Lange, the author of the Gong Fu Cha book I bought a while ago. Within a minute I was given a tea tasting for two stored oolong teas – and then we ran out of time because the shop was about to close and my wife had arrived at the Bern main station and asked where I was. Yikes. But of the two, I liked the oolong from the sea side better (German “Meer” = the ocean). This tea is from 2006 in Taiwan / Pingdong / Manzhou / Gangkou.
I had planned to buy the same tea but fresh, but in the rush at the end I forgot.
I did not forget to ask about Pu Er tea within my budget. I had bought an ancient tree taster last time with five or six different small cakes and loved it. The Jinggu 2018 was well within the budget and so I bought that one. I like the description of that tea plantation up in the mountains. This is tea from China / Yunnan / Pu’er / Jinggu / Yakouzhai.
And I did buy the tasting tea cup because I liked those tiny fish. 🙂
A green garden full of trees with a backdrop of Hong Kong sky scrapers
#Tea
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The new tea cup, with the Gang Kou Cha from the sea side. So nice! And tasty.
A tiny flat cup with two super tiny blue fish in along the edge
– Alex 2022-06-17 14:59 UTC
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This is the Phoenix Single Bush Ye Lao Xiang. I like it. In particular, I like to wash the pot with hot water, put the leaves into the pot, and smell the sweet lychee smell.
This is the Wuyi Oolong. I like it!
– Alex 2022-06-22 18:28 UTC
