A. C. Perch has been importing tea into Denmark since 1835. And a few years ago they opened their first tearooms in Copenhagen, Tokyo, and Osaka. The tearoom fits the Danish ideal of “cozy”, with warm wood tones and large copper tea tins lining the wall. Tea is served in large silver teapots and nice, but not amazing china.
Their menu offers a few dozen teas from around the world and a few tasty treats. I certainly enjoyed the scones with jam and clotted cream, but for those with more appetite they also offer “high tea” with a selection of cakes. I found their tea choices a bit odd. It looked like their menu was heavily weighted towards India. They go so far as to offer more oolongs from India than from more traditional sources. Their Darjeeling First Flush Oolong was very nice, but has a completely different flavor from what you’d expect from more traditional sources. They also carry a large number of blends. Unfortunately the Danish names don’t always mean much, and there’s no explanatory information in the menu. The staff was more than happy to help describe the few we asked after.
They offer more teas for sale online, and in the quaint shop downstairs. Each of the major tea regions are represented. We picked up the Kronprinsesse-Blanding (Crown Princess Blend) to try at home, and we’ll order a few more in the months to come. I have yet to give them my critical sencha test, but that will come soon enough.
Next time I’m in Copenhagen, I’ll definitely drop by for a second visit.
August 21st,2009
Tearoom |
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Now I’m not one to claim that an organically certified tea is intrinsically better than a conventional tea, but if you want to support the organic agriculture movement, then look no further. Zen Tara only carries organic tea, and quite an impressive selection of them. This little shop, a really just a stand in the Bethesda Women’s Coop, offers good Chinese green and black teas that meet your expectations. I’ve enjoyed their Chunmee and Keemun Hao Ya ‘A’, and Dragonwell. They’re also generous enough to drop a sample or two into any mail order you place with them.
I was a bit disappointed with their Japanese sencha, but it was no worse than most sencha available in the US. I admit I’m a pick picky with my sencha.
Oddly enough, they don’t really advertise their most unique trait. They are the only US company I know of carrying a wide selection of oolongs from Thailand. What you’ve never heard of Thai oolongs? “Are they any good,” you ask?
Let me toss a quick history lesson your way. Oolong processing was invented the Fujian Province of China. Many classic oolongs come from the Wuyi Mountains and the surrounding districts. In the past two centuries, several waves of immigrants have fled from various wars and social unrest in the area. When they left, they took their tea knowledge, traditions, and sometimes seeds and plants with them. At least two waves of migration established the oolong industry in Taiwan, but many tea farmers and processors also fled to Thailand.
Why haven’t we heard a lot about Thai oolongs? Thailand is not the most stable of nations, plus production is small, and I suspect most of the tea they grow is simply consumed by the national economy. Hopefully this will change with the efforts of Zen Tara and others like them.
But is it any good? Oh, yes! They are not identical other oolongs with the same names, but they are quite good in their own right. The Dong Ding, for example is a nice oolong, it’s just a slightly different tea from more traditional oolongs of the same name. One of Zen Tara’s best is the Milk Oolong. Even non-tea enthusiasts quickly pick up on the creamy feel of this delicious tea. I’m surprised they don’t put up a big sign that proudly states, “Thai oolongs sold here!” Maybe they will when they open their new store and café.
I’m packing up my apartment so I can move to the other side of the planet in a few weeks, but that doesn’t prevent me from tying additional bonds to S. Korea. Just over a week ago, the father of one of my students introduced us to an amazing man. I thought he was taking us out to a traditional Korean teahouse or shop.
Instead, we pull up to a modest home in Seoul with a tiny, but beautiful garden out front. It turns out to be the home of Master Kim Myung Ik. Though we arrived earlier than our friend, Master Kim warmly invites us into his home and sits us down for tea. The scent of puerh fills the space. The first tearoom we sit down in is paneled with warm wood tones and several walls display shelves of teapots and teacups from Korea, Japan, China, and Taiwan.
Between English, Japanese, and Korean had a wonderful time talking about tea and culture. Master Kim has managed to take elements from Chinese and Japanese tea traditions and seamlessly blend them with Korean preferences.
Master Kim is a luminescent man overflowing with kindness. Before we left for the day he carefully went through his collection to select three antique teacups to present to us as gifts. On our second visit, a week later, he pressed an additional teacup and small teapot into our hands. With this kind of generosity, and his natural ability as a teacher it is not surprising he has become a leader in his community. Even middle school boys bow to him out of respect.
Yesterday, he made a visit brief visit to our home. I was amused, and a bit floored when he picked up a teapot we purchased in Taiwan last year. He flipped it over to check the maker’s mark on the bottom, and proclaimed, “ah, my friend made this.” Why didn’t I meet him a year ago when I would have had time to take lessons? Ah the fickle fates. I just guess I’ll have to return to Korea to spend more time with Master Kim.
Of course you can check out his website: www.woonyeo.com
In my last post, I talked about how as a consumer you can identify better quality, more flavorful, and fresher sencha. Unfortunately, most consumers have little choice unless they are willing to travel to Japan and buy from local processors and tea shops. Today, we’ll look into some actions tea U.S. merchants can take to improve the quality of sencha they offer so the rest of us don’t need to travel across the Pacific to get a good cup of Japanese tea.
Firstly, sencha is a green tea, and like all green teas it has a short shelf life. It goes stale much faster than black teas or even most oolongs. The color of the leaves dulls over time as does the flavor and the aroma. Sencha that is merely one year old is usually all worn out and not worth drinking. The first thing we can do is to only sell tea from this year’s harvest. Since all sencha is harvested in the spring, it should be relatively easy to find the approximate harvest date. I believe that all tea packages should include the harvest date, but for now it’s enough if merchants can guarantee the year of harvest for sencha.
Since all sencha is harvested in the spring, you only need to order it once a year. The quality won’t improve if you wait longer to order more. Yes, I realize it’s difficult to guess exactly how much you will sell in the entire year, but selling a bad tea is a terrible sin in an industry that is trying to gain a reputation based on superior quality. Lupicia, a Japan based tea merchant, revels in the full name of “Lupicia: Fresh Tea.” They live up to that reputation by purchasing smaller lots of tea then they know that they can sell. They would prefer to run out of a popular tea, than to over-order and sell something that has gone bad. I suspect that most tea enthusiasts would accept occasionally shortages in order to get higher quality.
There are additional ways to improve sencha’s shelf life. Keep the tea cool, keep the leaves whole, and remove oxygen. Each of these will slow down the processes that ruin sencha. The Japanese have perfected refrigeration systems that keep the leaves fresh longer by carefully controlling both the temperature and humidity. We don’t generally have these high-tech refrigerators in the US, so what can we do? If you buy tea that is pre-packaged into sealed mylar or foiled envelopes, you can put them in any refrigerator to extend their shelf life by about 6 months. The Japanese packager should be able to guarantee the right humidity in the package.
I don’t know if they refrigerate, but Harney & Sons offers sencha that was vacuum packed in Japan. The vacuum packaging removes most of the oxygen, the chemical most responsible for quality deterioration. The rigidly vaccum packed bricks have other benefits as well. The system also helps keep the leave from breaking as they are shipped around the world. Damaged leaves and dust go bad much more quickly due to the additional surface area. These broken bits can add unwanted bitter elements to the brew. Whole leaves stay fresh longer, so protect them with rigid packaging. Tins, boxes, or vacuum packaging are good choices to keep the leaves from crumbling in transit.
In summary, merchants can improve their sencha by following a few straight-forward guidelines. First only sell fresh leaves, and get rid of any sencha that reaches its first birthday. Second, look for Japanese suppliers that can pre-package tea, and especially look for vacuum packaging. Refrigerate pre-packaged sencha to slow the depredations of time. Lastly, protect the leaves from breakage with rigid packaging. If merchants follow these methods, we can all enjoy a superior sencha.
The first tea that comes to mind when people think of Japan is matcha, as is used in the tea ceremony. Sencha, however is much more representative of daily life and culture in the island nation. While living in Sendai, Japan, I adopted sencha drinking, and have started my morning with a cup of the brew every day since. While in Japan I tasted senchas from dozens of producers, and even visited several farms and factories while traveling through the major tea growing regions of Shizuoka Prefecture. After leaving the country I tried to recapture those experiences with sencha’s from several US merchants. Unfortunately they just aren’t the same. It’s no wonder some people never acquire a taste for sencha. Many people in the US have never been exposed to good quality tealeaves. Lets take a look at what sets the good apart from the bad and the ugly.
When you first open a package of sencha you should notice a distinct vegetal or grassy aroma. It should smell “green”. It should not smell stale, or roasted, or have any other odd aromas.
Look at the leaves. They should be a consistent deep green. Lesser senchas have a mixture of different shades, but in higher grades, the leaves should look identical. If the leaves look pale, you can bet they are old and stale.
The traditional leaf shape is that of a flat spear. Lower grades have more broken bits and dust in the package. Assam teas are usually broken leaf teas because the Assam plant (camellia sinensis assamica) is tough, and they must be mechanically manipulated to rupture cell walls and release the soluble compounds. Japanese teas are made from the China bush (camellia sinensis sinensis), which is much softer and doesn’t need to be broken. The tea should also contain few stems. Because almost all Japanese teas are mechanically harvested, they all contain some bits of stem. Processors remove stems with static rollers or optical sensors, and the degree of success of these machines is one of the factors separating the higher and lower quality senchas.
Let’s brew it up now and examine the liquor. It should be a bright green ranging in color from golden green to a lime green. You should still smell those vegetal aromas. As the tea settles, you should only see a small amount of dust collecting at the bottom of your cup.
Now take a sip, or a slurp. Those vegetal aromas should translate into a mild vegetal flavor, but there should be no harsh or bitter notes. Harsh or bitter flavors are usually due to brewing errors. Confirm that you are using good distilled or filtered water as many common minerals like iron or magnesium can ruin the taste as can chlorine. Shorten your brewing time or reduce the water temperature until those harsh elements disappear. Now you have a balanced cup of sencha. If the vegetal flavors disappear too, then it’s a poor grade of tea. By the same token, those vegetal flavors should not be strong enough to be unpleasant. Their strength is determined by how long the manufacturer steamed the leaves, and how well they’ve been stored, and how old they are.
Personally, I think aroma and flavor are the most important elements in the tea I drink. All the rest are indicators of what I should expect to taste and smell once it gets to my cup. Based on these two criteria, most of the common senchas sold in Japanese grocery stores are generally superior to what most US merchants carry. That doesn’t even take into account the wonderful tea you can find at specialty merchants in any Japanese city or local shops in tea growing towns. There is one exception, Harney & Sons, who’s basic sencha always evokes memories of my time in Japan. In my next post, we’ll take a look at what they do differently, and how other merchants could improve their sencha offerings.
I consider Chow and Kramer’s work to be the first “modern” book on tea. Instead of hinting at the foggy mysteries tea, they reveal the real complexities and nuances of tea for a western reader. They obviously have a lot of firsthand experience in China, and as you can guess from the title that is their main focus. Even if you haven’t heard of their book before, it has had a huge impact on most of the western authors writing about tea since it’s publication. You will find All the Tea in China listed in the bibliographies or The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea, The Story of Tea, The Book of Green Tea, and more. You might say the Chow and Kramer have laid down the foundations of our understanding of tea, and all of the other authors have expanded or refined their work.
The authors introduce just about every tea topic from history, to chemistry, to medicine. As one might expect from an early work, their language is as precise as those who have come after them. And because the book is under 200 pages, there is a limit to how much detail they can provide.
For me, the highlights of this book outweigh all of its shortcomings. The book contains illustrations and picture reproductions that I haven’t seen anywhere else. They show scenes of tea’s history and help establish context. I also found the descriptions of Fifty Famous Teas worthwhile. Reading such a list from end to end can be tedious, but when I peruse the offerings from a new tea merchant, I will certainly compare it to this list. Chow and Kramer also provided us with another fascinating tool. They listed their teas in pinyin (Mandarin) transliteration, along with the Chinese characters (Hanzi), and their Cantonese pronunciation. For someone living abroad, this is an invaluable tool. Even when I don’t speak the local language, the Chinese characters always help me out. Just being able to point to a line in a book, is a good way to get my idea across. I have built similar tools for Japanese, and I’m thrilled someone else has already tackled the project in Chinese.
I started replying to Michael Harney’s comment, but I realized it was growing to the size of a post and not just a comment. If you haven’t read the book review, you should probably start there. I’ve copied his comment here, and then my response follows:
Thanks for the kind words!
Please let me know what your thoughts on Hojicha (there are several versions, so I edited it to the one I like best- roasted twigs). Also let me know your thoughts on sencha.
Best Regards,
Mike Harney
Just as a reminder, these differences of opinion stand out in my mind because The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea only contains two items I disagree with. The rest of the book is a wonderful resource.
Most houjicha is roasted bancha. This is both from my own experience living in Japan and from information I picked up at the World Tea Museum in Shizuoka. If you look at the kanji, 焙じ茶, it means “toasted tea.” This is the heart of houjicha. It is a roasted tea. Go into any department store and walk up to the tea counter, or the tea isle of a grocery store. Every package that is only labeled houjicha is filled with roasted leaves.
In his excellent book, Michael Harney implies that houjicha is a twig tea, and sometimes roasted. This appears to be backwards to me. A twig tea is kukicha, 茎茶. Again, every package only labeled with the words kukicha is will filled with stems, or a mixture of stems and leaves.
Using kukicha is a way of extending your tea supply, while houjicha is defined as an additional processing step. The Japanese love mixing various kinds of tea, to produce new creations. What Michael Harney describes in his book is one such mixed idea, which would be better called houji-kukicha. But first it is a kukicha because it is a twig tea, and only second is it a houjicha because of the added roasting process, and for a houjicha, it is the exception, rather than the rule.
The other item is in his section on sencha, and it really is a nit-picking detail. On Page 60 Michael Harney states, “The Japanese have so come to enjoy the flavors of fukamushi Sencha that almost all Sencha in Japan today is deep-steamed.” Most of the sencha I drank and purchased while in Japan was not labeled “fukamushi”, or deep steamed. On my most recent trip in February, I was standing in the tea isle of COOP, a common grocery chain. Of the three dozen teas on the shelf in front of me, only one was labeled fukamushi.
I can think of three possible reasons for the discrepancy of our beliefs. First, I’m right and Mr. Harney is wrong. Second, most tea really is fukamushi, but it is not labeled as such. Third most tea for export is a lower grade, and hence subjected to the fakamushi process. Which answer is closest to the truth, I cannot say.
However it is made, Harney & Sons Sencha is one of the two teas I buy by the pound. That’s right, when I run out of sencha from my most recent trip to Japan, I will replace it with yet another pound of Harney’s sencha. Even though I live right across the pond in S. Korea, I still order my sencha from my favorite U.S. supplier
If you ever get a chance to check out the library stashed away behind the counter in an old teashop in Taiwan, you’ll find numerous catalogues listing ancient and modern teas of note. Chinese scholars have produced these catalogues for hundreds, if not thousands of years. At last, we have a similar book in English. And since Michael Harney is not a Chinese scholar, he kindly covers teas from all of the major tea producing nations.
He logically organized the book as if it were one gigantic tea tasting starting with the lightest white teas and ending with puerh, the heaviest and darkest category of tea. He exhaustively describes the characteristics of the leaves and the liquor of 59 teas along with a few paragraphs or pages describing its origin or production. I just wish Harney and Sons would sell all of the listed teas in sample sized packets.
His section on chemistry is one of the best I have read yet. This is a confusing area for most of us, especially since the chemical composition of the golden beverage is dependent on variables in weather, climate, harvesting techniques and processing methods. Michael Harney takes a realistic approach and describes the relationship between some compounds, production choices, and aromas and flavors.
This book is not for the novice tea drinker. Rather, if you are serious about tea, this will become an important reference work in your library and help take your understanding of fine tea to the next level. My only disagreement with the author is over his description of houjicha, and one comment he makes about sencha. This is only noteworthy because of how few complaints I have with Mr. Harney. I usually find myself gnashing my teeth over assertions made by tea authors, but I only had two occasions while reading this book.
I highly recommend Harney & Sons Guide to Tea for enthusiasts and professionals alike. As an added bonus, if you order it directly from Harney & Sons you can get a signed copy.
One of the exciting things about the world of tea today are the many fine flavored and scented teas produced by master blenders like Harney & Sons, Lupicia, Mariage Freres, and others. There’s no reason that tea masters should have all the fun of mixing and blending new concoctions. You can experiment in your own home as well. Here’s delicious minty tea we created this winter when we were both fighting of nasty colds. We call it Duke of Earl.
We started with Harney & Sons’ Earl Gray tea as a base. We usually use 7 grams of tea in our teapot, but for this we cut back to 6 grams. To the tea, add 2 grams of Harney & Sons’ Peppermint Herbal. Pour in boiling water and brew for 5 minutes. Mmmm…delicious.
Of course you can try it with other Earl Gray teas and mint leaves. Don’t be afraid to open up your spice cabinet and look for other flavors to experiment with.
Happy blending!
While Adagio is not our favorite tea supplier, they offer a great deal of support for the novice just starting to look into loose-leaf teas. If you have only purchased tea from the grocery store, then I would highly recommend you look at Adagio’s offerings. In addition to a long list of teas, they focus on educating consumers, and providing clever tools to help those intimidated by traditional brewing techniques.
Amongst those clever tools is the ingenuiTea infuser. It looks a bit like a large clear plastic mug with a lid, but is much more. Simply put leaves and hot water into the ingenuiTea. When your brew is ready, set it down on top of your teacup. A valve opens, and your tea drains through an integral nylon strainer and into your cup. If you’re not fond of the way plastic slowly picks up flavor and scents, Adagio also sells several glass tea infuser mugs as well as teapots. They even carry electric teakettles and almost every other item you need to get started on your journey into gourmet loose-leaf teas.
Where Adagio really excels, is in teaching the newcomer about tea and brewing. When we placed our fist order with them, we received a small book entitled: A Guide to Tea: A Traveler’s Companion through the World of Tea with Adagio Teas. It is a good introduction with good photographs. Their website has lots of information and includes a link to email questions to their tea experts. A large and active community regularly posts to their online bulletin boards. You won’t be intimidated or pressured by the folks at Adagio, and you should be able to find all the help you need.
Having said that, I don’t usually buy tea from Adagio. While living in Japan we became enthusiastic fans of sencha and other Japanese teas and we decided to search out a US supplier that we could recommend to our friends. We ordered samples of Adagio’s sencha primier, sencha overture, gyokuro, kukicha, houjicha, and genmaicha. Unfortunately we were underwhelmed by the aromas and flavors of these teas. They were weaker than the teas we were used to, as if they had been sitting on the shelf a bit too long. Perhaps they just decided that the American market, used to tea bags, would prefer milder green teas. Because of this experience, I haven’t tried Adagio’s other teas. If you feel I’m doing them an injustice, please tell me your favorite Adagio tea, and I’ll give it a try.
