Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Posted by 醉茶生 at 10:09 PM | Comments (2) | Permalink
Categories: Tea Wulong

My time in Thailand is coming to an end and I am running down my stocks of tea, but I have miscalculated how much tea I need and my stocks have run out three weeks too early.

I made a trip down to the local supermarket and picked up the most expensive Chinese tea I could find (38baht or US$1.10, for 100g).  It is not wonderful, but it satisfies a craving.  The tea is dark and astringent, the fragrance weak and dusty; but somewhere lingering in the darkness, there is a glimmer of light, a hint of smoke.  It is like visiting the ruins of a great city: if you half close your eyes, you can almost see the glory it must once have been.

I never liked Chinese tea as a child.  I found it a bitter, unpleasant drink and never understood why the older Chinese seemed to enjoy it so much.  It was not until 1996, when I first drank Chinese tea at the teahouse in Singapore, that my eyes were opened and I realised what a varied and exhilarating experience it could be.  In 1995, I would never have drunk, much less had a craving for this $1 tea, but in 2008, I am a tea addict and even this pale imitation will do.  This tea tastes truly awful, but it is recognisably a dark oolong tea from Fujian.  In the 18th century, the Indians were mystified by the behaviour of their colonial masters, who shipped bottled peas and sides of bacon many hundreds of miles to India, and seemed to eat them with so much relish.  I cannot imagine that the British were deluded into thinking that the hard, yellow pellets tasted anything like fresh peas, but…it was close enough.