Monday, April 21, 2008
Posted by Miss Neddy at 10:22 PM | Comments (2) | Permalink
Categories: Tea Wulong

[Miss Neddy was unwell last week and has fallen behind on her updating. She humbly begs the forgiveness of her gentle reader(s)]

I recently made the last of the Lishan (梨山 or Pear Mountain) tea that I had bought from my trip to Taiwan late last year.

The individual leaves are curled up into tight but still very big lumps, and despite being more than 4 months old, are still very green. Even under close inspection, one would be hard put to see that this is a wulong tea, as there is little or no oxidation on the leaves. As it is a very light wulong with a delicate scent, I have used my Phoenix teapot to steep the tea. The original tea I used for the Phoenix teapot was called 翠峰灵芽 (Cuì Fēng Líng Yá or Wonderous Buds from Jade Peaks), which is a very green wulong by Tenren. Alas, it is not available every year, as they have very high standards for this tea and if conditions are not optimal, they may harvest very little or even none for that year. Moreover, the tea is only made once a year, during Spring. One last consideration is price. The tea, if a batch does make its way to Singapore, can be quite expensive, and although i quite like it, I am able to get a rather good Tie Kuan Yin, or Gaoshan for the same price. This means that opportunities to steep tea in my Phoenix teapot comes few and far between, as both Tie Kuan Yin and Gaoshan have very distinctive flavours that I don’t wish to mix into the teapot. Perhaps I will buy a teapot eventually just for Tie Kuan Yin....

Back to the Lishan tea. Tea from Lishan is well-known to be light, the colour of the tea pale gold, and has a refreshing and delicate floral or sometimes fruity fragrance. Not that the tea tastes of pears, though, even though the mountain itself is named after the fruit. The aftertaste is faintly sweet and slightly astringent, as if after a quick tooth-brushing. I love Lishan tea after a meal, especially a very savoury or oily one, as it gives my palate a very clean feeling. This particular tea was grown 2000 to 2500 feet above sea level, so the leaves are thick, very green and the tea made is very pale for a wulong but still quite strong in fragrance and taste. The last batch endured about 7 steepings before the flavour faded noticeably, although previously, when it was newer, I was able to get more than 10 steepings per pot. 

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