Steaming Apart a Puerh Beeng

When a machine compressed puerh tea is too tight for a knife or pick, I risk injury to my fingers and hands. A pair of pliers will break off chunks, but this breaks the tea leaves too, and sometimes I want loose, whole leaves rather than a chunk. Steaming apart the compressed tea is the only answer, but we rightly worry over subjecting our dear teas to any process. Today I steamed apart a heavily compressed beeng of red tea, and I will show some photos of the process I used.

This cake is 2013 Drunk on Red by Yunnan Sourcing, a very inexpensive 100g black/red tea. Unfortunately this tea is sold out, except for one production with snow chrysanthemum added. I hope YS will do this production again someday. I paid around $4 for it, and the tea is so compressed that I cannot remove any tea. I want to use this tea in my new Teforia machine so I need actual leaves and not chunks, and I plan to tin up the leaves to drink over a month or so.

Steaming a tea is very simple using a strainer and a bit of water underneath in a pot. I made sure the water did not touch the strainer.

Once the water boils, I just need to let it steam a couple of minutes. Keep in mind a lid is needed to start the steaming, but drops of condensation off the lid will drop down through the tea. I don’t want too much dripping or basically I will have drip-brewed tea water.

I turned out the beeng onto a plate. The leaves are hot and steaming, but not drippy wet.

Now the beeng is very loose around the edges, so I can pry it apart with a fork. The middle of the beeng is still mostly dry, however I can break apart some of the chunks with my fingers or just leave them chunk-y if I wish.

Finally I spread the tea out onto a flat pan and set it out to dry. The tea will be dry later in the evening so I can tin it up.

No one needs a guide on how to steam apart tea, but sometimes looking at photos helps with making a decision on whether to steam. I imagine most of us would not want to do this with precious tea, but with hardy teas like bricks or tuos, or teas of ordinary quality, steaming is certainly an option. The tea can go into a caddy and rest until brewing time.

Addenda 

I want to congratulate two puerh writers for their recognition in recent days. Max Falkowitz received a 2018 James Beard Award for his Saveur magazine article “The Pu-erh Brokers of Yunnan Province.”

I was lucky to meet Mr. Falkowitz in 2016 in NYC during the Saveur Blog Awards, and I am grateful for his support of puerh writing.

Congratulations also to MarshalN for his nomination this week for Blog of the Year by the 2018 WorldTea Expo’s World Tea Awards. MarshalN’s “A Tea Addict’s Journal” is one of the longest-running puerh blogs in English. 

If you are new to tea, I highly recommend reading his blog from start to finish. This is the first year that a Tea Industry business association is recognizing puerh blogging, long overdue.

Cups up, friends, and cheers to both of these incredible writers!

$1000 Teforia Wedding

New Teforia with 1960s Mushroom lamp

The toughest thing about giving up coffee in the morning for me was the convenience of a coffee machine, of pushing a button and pouring a ready-made pot in ten minutes or so. I am at the point where I need a maid or a partner. Since winter this year, my back and hips feel all the worse when waking up from sleep. I must spend a few minutes of stretching in bed just to get up. After all that, as soon as I leave my room I am assaulted by cats and house mates who want something even before I can manage to go to the bathroom, which is never by myself since my cats insist on busting open the door. Then I have to heat up water for tea, wait around, and by then somebody else needs something. I just want to get back to my room and enjoy my tea.

As far as I am concerned, the main reason to have a partner in life is to have someone wait on me hand and foot, but for whatever reason nobody seems to understand this very simple idea. Any sort of human partnership at my age is an annoyance at best since they usually disapprove of large tea collections. Also a real human partner generally expects taking care of, and I am too busy with my tea to bother taking care of other people. Can I just get a cup of tea in the morning without doing any work??

Last year I looked at some of the new Gourmia tea makers after deciding I miss my morning coffee maker (which is now appropriated by a house mate with French Roast). I talked with the Gourmia reps at the World Tea Expo after one of them emailed me, unsolicited, at the hotel offering a free tea machine for listening to a sales pitch at their booth. OolongOwl got the same email and we went together and spent more than a few minutes listening to the pitch and looking over the machines. While I might be happy to consider reviewing a free machine, the Gourmia offer evaporated after the Expo.

I deserve the $1000 wedding and new Teforia for a partner. I won’t pay that kind of money and luckily I found one on eBay for $140. Now, this machine is not for ME to brew sheng puerh, I have a gaiwan and a gazillion little teapots for that. I need something for hongcha in the morning and maybe green tea during the day. After spending some serious time with this machine, I am glad now I waited for this thing because it is really awesome. I don’t care if I lose every reader of this blog, at least I have some “body” to make me tea.

Before this purchase, I spent a couple of months using a Kamjove Gravity Steeper, and I tried to like it. It makes decent enough hongcha, but is a pain to clean out. The Kamjove strainer is dome shaped, and leaves get packed down around the strainer and won’t tap out over the garbage. Even when using a spoon the leaves are tough to get out without damaging the strainer, and worse the plastic rod connected to the button pops out when trying to scoop out the tea. Using a Kamjove I rinsed a lot of tea leaves down the drain.

The Teforia machine tries to mimic gongfu in a similar way to the Kamjove in that the small chamber for leaves must be infused three times and quickly expressed into the carafe. Unlike the Kamjove, the machine heats the water and expresses the tea forcefully, pushing liquid out of the tea rather than dripping it through. I found I only need 1-3g of leaves rather than the 4-6g hongcha I use in a gaiwan or the Kamjove, because the machine extracts the water with more force.

Unlike the Kamjove, the Teforia infuser and carafe are double-wall insulated. The interior layer is glass. The exterior is plastic to prevent breakage, but only the glass touches the hot tea. All I need to do is fill the back chamber with water which lifts out of the machine with a carrying handle, and add a couple grams of tea leaves.

The machine is run by a Bluetooth app, which requires a paired device like a phone or tablet, but does not require internet once set up. The app has a list of tea types, which matches the teas originally sold by Teforia (now sold by Adagio teas). Since I am using my own tea, I can ignore the names of the teas. I just pick one of the tea types from the list.

From what I can tell, the brewing temps are based on the coder (perceived) caffeine level of the tea, which is how differing types of green and black/oolong teas are distinguished in the app (low, medium, high). I can also adjust the strength which lengthens the amount of time the leaves spend in the water.

The cool part is starting up the machine from my bed. I reach for my IPad or phone, pull up the app and press the button. Most of the teas take 5-7 minutes. I don’t need to leave my room which will trigger the cats and people in the house, although I expect the cats and people will eventually figure out the machine is triggering Mother to get up. I also like that the carafe and infuser lock tight in the machine, so no chance the animals will swat them onto the floor. One of my cats in particular has learned to knock over my tea ware when wanting attention fast.

Teforia, for all the crazy hype, really makes excellent hongcha and green tea. My biggest surprise is green oolong, a tea type I do not own very much of, and in the past I apparently over-brewed with boiling water baths. I have a few green oolong teas to use up, and they come out with honey sweet after-tastes. Yunnan large leaf red teas are great for the first machine brew, but I can get more from these by gaiwan in subsequent infusions because I steep them longer than the app will.

The machine has a setting for sheng puerh, but I have not tried that. I cannot see that brewing sheng in the machine will save me time because of the boiling rinses which must be tossed. Sheng needs hand brewing to tweak the best from it, though perhaps the setting might be useful for fresh sheng, essentially brewing it as a green tea. But again I didn’t buy the machine for puerh. I plan to try Korean teas as well during the summer when I get a craving.

Best of all, the Teforia has a self-cleaning cycle. I don’t even need to clean it! The leaves mostly dump right out, and then the carafe and infuser globe just need rinsing. I won’t need to do vinegar cleaning as with a coffee machine, since the machine will clean with a press of an app button. I also got a microfiber cloth cover in the box to protect it in the kitchen or use as a towel to wipe any tea drips. Really the only downside is the app rather than manual buttons, but why would I want a manual button if I must get out of bed to press it? The whole point is tea without work, orthodox Saturday every day if I program it by the clock ahead of time.

I absolutely love this thing, it’s my new spouse. This is the best tea machine, period. I know a few of you have bought it for puerh and are disappointed, but we don’t need it for puerh. I drink plenty of other teas and having my tea made in the morning for me is well worth the $140 price. I plan to buy an extra carafe and infuser globe from Adagio while they are still for sale, just in case I need replacements. If you want one, try Best Offer on eBay and get the best price you can. I notice that Teforia is planning to start up business again next year with a new $249 model, which compares with the smart Breville currently selling at $250. If the new Teforia also delivers tea from the kitchen to my bed, I’m sold for another.

Clay, and 2016 CYH Mahei

Our February this year is a confusing mix of warmer spring-type weather, think April, alternating back to winter. Best to ignore the weather now and fold myself into my puerh hobby. If you have a lot of puerh tea, free time spent in the company of your teas is time between worlds, somewhere between the places of home and work. I imagine our tea hobby is somewhat comparable to greenhouse gardening of orchids or roses when paying attention only to the plants and what they are saying to us. 

Slipping into the space of puerh tea is like raising a hooded cowl over my head, seeing neither sideways nor above, just a narrow focused meditation, the work of observation. I feel I am moving backwards in time, through my farming ancestors to the medieval times and even further in the human act of storing food in ceramics as I store my puerh in crockery. How much we have in common with all of humanity that has ever lived, observing our stored tea in the same fashion as herbs, vegetables and teas are through the centuries. We communicate faster than light now, my tea collection welcomes me back to earth from cyberspace. 

Lin's Ceramics Tea Ware
2016 CYH Mahei puerh tea in the cup

Last week I read an interesting article in  The New Yorker about ancient clay crockery (M. Bjornerud, 2017). You might have seen this article as it has appeared on a number of websites. Of course The New Yorker is not a scientific journal, but the ideas are interesting. Pieces of ancient crock jars are used in experiments to measure changes in the earth’s magnetic field. This field is what reflects back radiation from the sun and outer space. Apparently the magnetic field in the atmosphere varies from strong to weak, and we are currently in a weak cycle. When this happens, more Carbon 14 is available and shows up in clays which appear younger because of the extra carbon. But when the magnetic field is stronger, the clays appear older. Clay from ancient Judah bore tax stamps which allow for close dating even before the clay is analyzed. Clay pottery tells its story because the firing cycle of hot/cool locks in the iron oxide into a stable form.

Concentric incision on a jar handle
from Ramat Rahel, modern-day Israel
Photo courtesy Oded Lipschits
Reproduced in The New Yorker 13.2.2017

You may have seen this image as it appeared in most other articles on this topic, such as in the Daily Mail. I like this jar handle which reminds me of my clay teapots and redware crockery. In fact, somehow this handle evokes my Lin's clay boiler kettle in the photo above. I don’t know what effect, if any, variations in the magnetic field captured in clay might have on puerh tea, either stored tea or tea brewed in a clay teapot.

I wonder if pottery truly has a magnetic field and whether minerals in water interact with that field and have any effect on the flavor. Certainly my tea friends have explored mineral waters for brewing. Tea people think minerals in water add something to the flavor of the brew. But a potter has more hands-on insight into clays. I think of my potter friend Inge Nielsen who makes iron clay teapots that I like to hoard. I message her to ask if she saw any articles like the one above. and turns out she already has. “Like a tape recorder,” she says of the clay.

So with my hooded cowl I channel the buzzing magnetic field in my teapots. Good tea and bad does not get any worse, but I feel glad now for my crock storage. I wonder how my tea will taste someday when compared with a pumidor like the one I previously had, lined with plastic. Will my crock tea have a magnetic field that rocks the drinker off her feet? Maybe the field is linked to hoarding behavior. Perhaps my brain is affected by all this magnetism and I am inexorably drawn to buying more tea and clay tea ware. I am not right in the head to be sure. Now that I think of it, I really started hoarding after putting my tea in all these clay jars and crocks. I did not have big problem before. No, this cannot be, for I have plenty of hoarding friends with pumidors and nary a clay shard in the house. The tea is fully to blame.

Speaking of which, I just tried a bit of my sample of 2016 Chen Yuan Hao Mahei sent by a friend last month. This is a rather generous sample, so I still have half of it left after picking out 7g to drink. The leaves are long and pretty and not easy to carefully stuff into a taller teapot. I brewed my water in a Lin’s clay kettle to get an extra dose of earth's magnetism. Earth's magnetism will surely be linked to a longer life span and possibly greater sexual libido by some tea company very soon. 

Long Leaves are always a turn-on

Teapals is no such vendor and the 2016 CYH Mahei is still available for purchase by sample, cake and tong. The description states that the tea lacks any bitterness, and to get more qi one can “soak” the tea. This suggests that perhaps the tea dies out rather quickly. I did not rinse the tea, and am glad because the first fragrance is orchid-like and fruity, which dissipates quickly in subsequent steepings. The leaves look a bit oolonged on a few, with red edges, the description emphasizes the sun drying and lack of char, but I wonder if the chaqing was short to preserve the floral sweetness of these leaves. 

Amber first steeping.

The brew is pudding thick and sweet with not much astringency. I get a bit of qi along the back, and increased visual acuity but I drank on an empty stomach which magnifies tea effects. The flavor is all top note floral and fruity, with not much underneath. This is a grassy tea, and to be fair is still less than a year old. After the fifth steep the tea died out markedly in flavor. I “soaked” the tea as recommended and got some sweet/sour bitterness. The brew looks right with the golden color, but this seems like a prime loose leaf green at this stage and skews vegetal after the initial beautifully floral nose.

Some reddish leaves in the pile.

Again, reserving some thought that the tea is less than a year old and perhaps still needs to settle in, I worry about my ability to store this sort of tea. My conditions are on the drier side which could easily fade this tea or turn it sour. On the other hand, too much humidity will kill it. You can find lots of examples of Mahei Yiwu teas on the market, such as from Wymm Tea or puerh.sk of varying quality. This CYH is certainly a decent leaf, but at the outset I am missing some lower notes. The leaf might do better in a blended cake, giving the drinker something to enjoy now in the somewhat oolonged Mahei leaf, and then something else from a different leaf down the road that ages well, yet more darkly bitter when young. CYH has a history of offering Mahei in blends in the past. I need to try this again in another year perhaps. Certainly my storage will speak to me at that point. I will either have a sour brew on my hands or the tea will steep out longer than five steeps as it settles.

You can get a 75g sample of this tea for about $40, and a 357g cake is about $180, making this tea one of the less expensive options in Chen Yuan Hao. Looking at the other CYH teas from last year, the high end teas like the LBZ and Guafengzhai, and even the Mansong are long gone. The fan base for these productions will jump on the good stuff early, and they have the money to spend. This Mahei tea falls clearly in the middle drinker range and probably is not what the typical CYH buyer is after. But as an example of a nice fresh Yiwu, you can do a lot worse.

Early 2017 spring greens are already showing up on sites like Yunnan Sourcing. The season is right around the corner. This reminds me I need to tackle my sample stash, and soon before the samples dry out. I will try and post any interesting ones I find.