Hello!

I am back. Sorry for not posting in a long while, I have a lot of interests and sometimes I just want to drink tea and not blog about it. But today, I do.

Leaf of the East is probably not well known throughout the blogosphere compared to other vendors. It feels cool to know that there is good stuff that isn’t well known, but hopefully I can help spread the word.

Clean-ness

The goodness of a tea is very subjective, but I think clean-ness is rather objective. You can look for grime and residue as a sign of a tea that isn’t clean, or a feeling of pinchy-ness in the throat, or a feeling of unrest and anxiety. There’s a lot of “organic” tea out there, but organic is just a certification. You don’t need a label to tell you if a tea is clean and pure or not.

Full disclosure, I know Markham, the man behind leaf of the east, through his tea. This doesn’t influence my review, but it’s why I have the tea, because I like his tea and I know him. Ok, moving on.

The dry leaf in the pot smells immediately like someone is baking something. It’s very intensely aromatic. I like dong ding because it’s commonly roasted, and you get that depth. I think the more in-depth tea market is craving some darker roasted stuff now, since everything has trended so green in the past decade. This one isn’t that roasted, but it’s about perfect, kind of lighter dancong level of roast.

It’s bright like a dancong too, with bright fruity tones. But it’s also deep. I’m still talking about the smell of the tea.

It’s clean, pure, it rings like a bell. I don’t know, I like it a lot, it makes me happy to drink it. What’s it taste like, honeysuckles, mango, baking chocolate, how’s the body, thick yet refreshing, but beyond that, it feels good to drink. Like an amazing meal feels to eat, made by a passionate team of cooks. This tea has good karma, or something. It’s so clean.

Very very good vibes from this tea.

I got a Lin’s kettle recently, and it makes gongfu a lot better. You get to hear the wind when it gets up to temperature, it performs well with just one hand, and there’s no metal or plastic involved. It’s out of stock now at camellia sinensis, but they have a purion clay one still.

My water today is Foodtown brand spring water. Bought on a whim at $1.09 a gallon, I was floored from the first sip. It comes from a company called fox ledge, and it hits all the marks. 100%. Refreshing, thick, carries flavor well, clear, clean. And it comes in a big plastic jug! For $6.99 an ounce or so, this dong ding and this water are similarly pleasant surprises.

Does this tea have any flaws? Not to me! It’s quite balanced and has many good qualities.

Score (out of 10): 8.1 (blown away)

https://leafoftheeast.com/shop/wulong/charcoal-roasted-dongding-wulong/

Yesterday I hosted a gongfu session with my friend Joey. I had my whole six-hour music playlist set up, with my tea table moved to the middle of the rug. We started at 10:30 AM, sitting on little cushions. My mind was clear, I had plenty of water, and I knew this would be a great session. All of the teas were made with unmineralized filtered tap water, except for the Diangu which was made with Lurisia. We burned some nice incense from minorien.

Tea #1: 2001 Zhongcha Huangyin

We started off with this tea in a Novak pot. I used to structure my sessions from younger to older, but I thought this one would be great to start strong. It’s stimulating and heating and really gets straight to the point. Lots of activity in the throat. The sun was shining through the glass kettle making rainbows all over the tea table, so the session started off special.

Tea #2: 2018 Maocha

Joey brought some maocha which he made in my jianshui pot. We got nice bitterness and huigan. It’s fun switching brewers; it demonstrates equanimity and it is nice to experience tea from both sides of the table.

Teas #3 and 4: Tea Masters’ Qing Xin High Mountain Oolong vs. Leaf of the East‘s High Mountain Oolong

Two little gaiwans with two rolled oolongs. We liked the one from Leaf of the East better. They were both good, but the Qing Xin made us feel heavy and sleepy. The one from leaf of the east was a little bit darker. Both were complex and clean. We were ready to move on after four steepings of each.

Tea #5: Hua Yuan 1992 Ripe Tuocha

I told joey that an aged ripe would probably put us all the way to sleep, but we found that it provided a very comfortable feeling. This tea was made in a glazed pot from teawarehouse. This was absolutely delicious.

Tea #6: 2018 Xizihao Diangu

After a lunch and music listening break, we made this in a gaiwan. This tea was purchased from Liquid Proust. We chose this tea because I knew it would be interesting. The furry leaves smelled like red tea to joey but it became apparent when brewing that it was not red tea at all. It’s a raw puer with intense florals (jasmine is most striking to me) and an energy that made us laugh.

Tea #7: Beyond

This tea is no joke. Brewed in a small QSN yixing from tealifehk, one sip of this purportedly vintage loose puer and we were blasted into a new dimension. Joey said at this point that he felt like he was “a different element.” We could not stop cracking up. This is what a tea secrets party should be. We were not comfortable, but not uncomfortable, or maybe we were both. We got stomach aches from this tea and had to stop drinking. Could be because of over-wet storage. This concluded the five hour session.

Tea Secrets Party 0.5 from Tea Secrets on Vimeo.

 

The tea shop I work at stocks Global Tea Hut founder Wu De’s book “The Way of Tea.” Out of curiosity on a slow day I started reading the display copy behind the counter. Now before anyone says anything, this post is not about my opinion of Global Tea Hut. This post is rather about a specific quote in that book:

Master Rikyu said, “imagine your life without tea, and if it’s any different than it is now, you don’t understand tea.”

I actually can’t find any sources that contain this quote other than this book. Regardless of who said it, the idea is interesting to think about. If I imagine my life without tea, I would be yawning constantly. The time spent brewing tea would be spent doing something else… video games, music making, or hanging out with friends. Speaking of friends, I wouldn’t have any of my tea friends, and I would not work at a tea shop. So of course my life would be different! This seems trivial and must not be the actual meaning of the “quote.”

So what does it refer to? It does seem that my quality of life would be different, but just as fine. It is not necessary to drink tea to be happy. The point of the quote to me is that if you can’t apply what you have learned from tea to all aspects of life, you have not made the most of your tea practice. If you can do the dishes the same way you make tea, that would give you a happier life. The quote’s condition isn’t that you never had tea (of course you would not understand tea if you never had it), but that your privilege to have tea is taken away. Perhaps the essence of tea can remain when the actual tea is no longer present.

After all, it is not advised to have tea constantly all day. Most of our lives are spent without tea, although it can be in our system for a few hours after drinking. We should not be clinging to tea so tightly, and should be willing to let go of it: not by giving it away, but by letting it be.

 

I had a non-tea-drinking friend ask me once, what is the point of having a nice teapot? Why does it matter how nice your tea comes out? To me, it’s obvious; the tea tastes fuller, a fast pour gives me more control, it enhances the entire experience. Even with that, he still didn’t seem to get it. I wondered where that question was coming from. Perhaps he didn’t want me to spend a lot of money on something that has no practical use. I mean, it’s only tea. I think other people see tea obsession as a distraction, something that gets in the way of more important things. They see it as a waste of time and money.

He might have a point. What’s the point of making better tea? Why do our standards have to be so high? Tea is a beverage.

But tea is also a secret. The best cups of tea cause the drinker to be silent. It’s hard to explain, but when I’m having tea, there’s something in the air. I’m not obsessed with the energy of everything, but I feel a certain energy. What is that? Why is there no word for it?

I know I’m asking a lot of questions and not answering any. That’s because I don’t know why I have made tea such a significant part of my life. Well, I actually do know why, but I don’t have the words to say. I guess it’s a secret.