After being here for just over a month, I decided it was time to follow my cousin and his girlfriend to their bi-weekly trip to the tea market. I had a feeling it would be quite an experience, but I had no idea how much I would learn.
The particular tea shop that the couple frequent is just at the end of a long corridor on the ground floor of a large building out of many that line a district entirely devoted to tea. The woman who owns the shop (Luo Ping) has known Jocelyn for many years and calls her by name (Xiao Hui) as she greets her.
We sat round the only table in the tiny shop, which was littered with wet tea leaves and covered with an enormous tea tray, containing clay pots, glass pitchers, and small tea cups. A little girl’s tea party dream come true.
It didn’t take any time before we were already sampling our first flavor. It was a flowery green tea, which tasted like a light perfume.
But the main reason we were here was so that Jocelyn could sample different levels of Rock Tea. This was the second kind of tea we sampled. Unbelievably, there are 820 types of this particular kind of tea. It gets its name from the leaves that grow on rocks in the mountains. Each mountain has a different flavor, and each rock adds its own particular taste; each one is unique.
With traditional Chinese tea, each pour is called “Pao,” which actually connects both the steeping and the pouring of the tea together as one act. There is a name for every Pao – some more poetic than others. The first Pao is a wash and isn’t to be drunk, despite the fact that it is poured into each cup as though we would. Instead, it is turned over and the tea drains from the tray, emptying our cups for the second Pao and first tasting.
Before the first Pao, however, Luo Ping will wash the pot with hot water, dump it out, and place new, dried leaves inside. She covers the pot and shakes the leaves inside. This is called “Waking Up the Tea” (something I believe would make a great title for a poem).
After the tea is awakened and in between each Pao, Luo Ping reaches across the table and gets us to inhale the levels of aroma of each Pao. On the third, fourth, and fifth Pao, that’s when the flavor really starts to come out. The difference between one pour and the next can be considerable or marginal. I found it to be considerable, more often than not, with each type of tea I tasted today.
The second Pao is named for the man who made the small cups we drink out of, whose name escapes me now. The third Pao is to signify “Mother Feeding Child. But apparently the fourth doesn’t have a name (or at least not one that Luo Ping or Jocelyn knew of).
Occasionally Lu Ping would pour boiling water over the surface of the clay pots. This was called “Breath Over the Face.” Everything in the tea ritual sounds like poetry to me. The clay pot is porous and with each Pao, the flavor of the tea is absorbed into the pot. This is why traditionally you use one pot for each type of tea, changing pots as you change teas. This way, over time, the tea takes on more flavor as the pot absorbs more of the leaves’ aroma.
Our third type of tea was a Wu Long tea (Oolong for us western folks). Its name: “Black Dragon Entering the Palace.” Technically, however, “Wu” is not black, but a shade lighter. A deep charcoal, if you will.
After our third type of tea, an apprentice tried her hand at the fourth type. She was not as steady or confident and I noticed she had a hard time with her hands as she poured the tea or held the pots.
The fourth tea was a white tea – my favorite of the afternoon. The dried leaves smelled like hay and made me think of a barn. It was, at first, off-putting. However, the taste ended up completely different than the smell: slightly sweet and pure and nicknamed the “Silver Bud,” because it is taken from the best leaves of the plant (the top of the stem). It is said that this particular tea is said to be the healthiest of them all. When I drank this tea, I felt as though I was doing something good for my body. It has a cleansing feeling and soothes the stomach (definitely a bonus for me).
The fifth tea was a red tea called “King of the Red Tea.” The awakened dried leaves smelled a lot like jasmine – or so Jocelyn and I thought. However, the wash makes the leaves smell a little less flowery, a little less sweet. The second Pao was less strong, but brought out more of a spicy flavor. This particular tea was weaker with each Pao, but tastes like the tea I grew up with. On the final Pao, it tasted more like molasses. It is from the southern mountains of China.
The sixth tea was Ripe Pu’er (pronounced Poo-Ahr). The difference in grade between old and ripe Pu’er is in the way they make the leaves. Old Pu’er is dried and deeply burned, whereas ripe Pu’er is compressed and not as fried. It isn’t just age that separates the two branches of Pu’er, but the method of preparation. The second Pao tasted a bit like the dentist’s office, so I wasn’t a big fan. It is from Yunan province.
The final tea was another Wu Long, very like the previous Wu Long, but much stronger and a better grade. It has been more deeply burned and dried. This tea has to be made with super hot water (unlike the white tea, which you can make with warm water, if you are ok with waiting longer for it to steep). With green tea, you can burn the leaves with hot boiling water if you don’t let the water sit before the Pao. For this Wu Long, I found the taste was better after each Pao and the more you drink the more you like it.
With the seventh tea, Luo Ping brought out some Dove chocolate (the kind with hazelnuts and raisins – yum!), which was supposed to compliment the Wu Long. She was right. It changed the flavor of the tea and brought out the sweetness in the chocolate.
Luo Ping’s husband then walked in with their three-year-old son, an absolute doll who knew quite a number of English words. We shared the chocolate with him and he recited a young child’s poem for us with three words to each line that teaches morals. It was a cute cadence. All Chinese children are made to memorize it.
Altogether, we sampled seven different varieties of tea. Each variety gave us at least four Pao, which meant I made repeated visits to the squatting toilet in the back of the shop. It was a lot of tea. That being said, there is a saying that you can get drunk from all that tea. You can be physically drunk, just as we get when we drink alcohol; but you can also be drunk in your heart. I think by the time we were finished, I was a little of both.
When I was drunk of heart, I asked if Luo Ping’s position as tea pourer had a name. As we call our wine stewards Sommeliers, the Chinese call their tea pourers Cha Yi Shai (Tea Artists). Fitting, I think.
