Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Posted by Miss Neddy at 12:30 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Categories: Tea Gao Shan

Low grade 高山  Gaoshan can make me nauseous quite rapidly, as the effort to make lower grade leaves put out that astringent flavour of Gaoshan instead creates an alkaloid tasting tea. If you’ve ever had to drink water that has been purified by bleach, you’ll know exactly what I mean.

Today I tasted the spring batch of Gaoshan at the teahouse, which, unsurprisingly, was lighter and greener than the autumn batch from last year. What I found impressive this year was that the tea was particularly clear, and the leaves more robust, with far fewer broken leaves and bits. The astringency that I associate with Gaoshan is not immediately apparent, and if I was told that this was a 金萱 Jin Xuan (also a light wulong from Taiwan), I might have been taken in for a while. Gaoshan, like Tie Guanyin, is a domineering tea, its fragrance and taste unmistakable from the moment you decant the tea leaves to the the first sip.

Yet, the master who made this batch has added a great deal of subtlety and layers of an almost milky texture to the leaves, and as the tea infuses my palette, I am momentarily unaware that it is a Gaoshan that I am tasting. The scent from the tea leaves is not as strong as the autumn batch, but carries certain floral undertones and a rich odour, as if saturated with cream. The tea colour too is more subdued, almost a pallour. But this softer, gentler spring tea is more forgiving on the tastebuds and stomach, allowing me to drink several steeps of it without the feeling that my mouth and stomach are being slowly bleached clean - a feeling that at first feels refreshing, but becomes distressing in the long run.

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