玉山茶

製造日期:2016-5/11

Elevation 海拔：1800meters

Varietal品種：Green Heart Oolong 青心烏龍

位置：距離台灣玉山國家公園範圍300公尺，茶區座落在疏林群系[高山寒原]與[亞高山針葉樹林]中的冷溫帶山地中，產地寒冷陡峭，溫差大、樹日照時間短，濕度偏高，茶區產量少!
Location: 300 meters from the Taiwan Yushan National Park range. This tea area is located amongst the conifer forests. The cool temperate mountain is shrouded in mist. This mist keeps the humidity high and reduces the time the tea trees have under the sun. This area has a very low tea yield because of its location.

特色：茶葉融合原始森林的大量氧氣與芬多精。
我們的製茶工序：手工採收

Features: The fragrance of the tea gardens among the forests is fresh air like no other. The high mountain air mixed in with the tea gives a crisp preview to what your cup of tea may taste like.
Our tea is hand harvested and processed. This ensures complete control and care over every leaf.

日光萎凋
Outdoor Withering

室內萎凋(以熱氣提高室內溫度)
Indoor Withering
(It is cold up on the mountain. Heat is used to raise the temperature of the indoor withering room to help facilitate proper oxidation of the tea leaves. )

殺青
Killing Green.
To stop oxidation, the leaves are heated in the tumbling machines.

高溫殺菁後茶青
After the leaves come out of the tumbler, they are ready to be rolled and dried.

毛茶乾燥
The leaves get passed through the drying machine. Like a giant toaster oven, the leaves move slowly along a conveyer belt under consistent heat.

塑型捻揉(1)
After the first pass through the drying machine, the leaves are then shaped by kneading and twisting.

塑型捻揉(2)
The leaves then get rolled into balls of cloth, which compresses the leaves and helps to maintain the balled oolong shape.

 

成品
Ball shaped oolong leaves, ready to be steeped and enjoyed.

 

香氣:傳統工藝能製造出茶葉品質獨特的寒帶氣候茶香、呈現出類似檜木香、黑木香、或交雜著甜果味的幽蘭花香。

Aroma: the traditional process can bring out many unique notes from within the leaf. A complex range of juniper wood, dark wood, or sweet fruity floral orchids can be detected.

沖泡方式:

Brewing Method:

Fig A: 160cc Glass Gaiwan容器 Fig          B:第一次出湯茶樣 The leaves after the first steeping.

品茶方式:

Brewing Method:

How to enjoy tea making!
Steeping Time Technique Temp Advice Notes

放到第二天13個小時茶湯依然韻味飽滿
The leaves after steeping overnight for more than 13 hours.

 

請勿將未拆開茶葉請勿放入冰箱冷藏，只要存放在乾燥陰涼處即可長期保持茶葉天然的原味。
The dry tea leaves do not need to be refrigerated to maintain its fresh flavor. Simply store in a cool, dry, airtight place. Do not refrigerate!

圖中茶葉是前一晚泡好的冷泡茶。
想不想與我們一起品味天然的玉山茶呢?                         方堅愛
The tea she is enjoying in this picture is a cold-brew, made the night before. Do you want to enjoy the taste of Jade Mountain tea with us?
-Ai Fang

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Nourishing The Pot （養壺）-guest blog by 華平安 Kenan Akbas

Yâng Hú (養壺) in Chinese literally means “nourish pot” and refers to how one cares for their teapot. The most sought after teapots are traditionally made by artists in Yi Xing, China (宜興). The clay from Yi Xing is also considered to be the best quality and is used by famous artists in Taiwan. The skill that goes into hand-making these pots is enormous, and any teapot worth it’s weight in gold deserves appreciation. When buying a tea pot one of the most important things is that you feel a personal connection to it. This personal connection makes nourishing the teapot a labour of love.

One main reason for nourishing your teapot is that after continual use and time (1+years) the pot will begin to enhance the flavor of every steeping. This is due to the essential oils and resins dormant, deep in the pores of the clay slowly being released. The interaction between an experienced tea pot and the tea you brew inside greatly enhances the overall experience when you use a properly seasoned teapot.

What elements are involved in nourishing ones teapot?

 

TIME
When you first buy your teapot it will appear dull and lack luster. As time passes with every brew, every hour, every year, the essential tea oils will infuse into the water and clay pot alike. The pot will begin adopt the flavors/essences of the tea. The color of the pot, both inside and out will change. A resin like glaze and shine will begin to appear. This shine is known as Hé Shang Guāng 和尚光 literally meaning “monks shine”. Over time a fragrance will become apparent even when the pot is dry and at rest. While preparing and drinking tea it is normal to pour tea soup over the pot, this is called bathing.

BATHING
The first bathing happens just before the first brew when the tea is being “washed”. After the “wash/rinse” the water is poured out of the pot and into small tea cups to warm them. The tea in those cups is then poured back over the pot. After the rinse any extra discarded tea soup can be poured over your pot during the drinking session, this is called bathing. Some people at the end of a tea brewing session will use a brush and paint the leftover tea soup evenly over the pot and leave to dry, this helps to give the pot an even shine.

Also, never wash your teapot with anything but hot water… never use soap or other cleaners. After drinking just leave it to dry.

CONSISTENCY
Consistency is important. If you don’t use your teapot often it will not accumulate the treasures of time that enhance the quality of your tea. Consistently using the teapot is only one part, the other is choosing a type of tea that will match that teapot. I use a very general system to match tea and teapot based on the fermentation level or type of tea. For example, I will buy one pot for brewing Pu-er tea, or one for lightly rosted Oolong or heavy fermented Oolongs etc., this is an important part of nourishing your teapot.

POLISHING
Perhaps a controversial subject among some tea drinkers. This is because there are two ideas on acquiring the “monks light” of your teapot. One is that the pot should shine from the inside out. This means that brewing your tea and bathing is sufficient and beauty will makes its way from the inside out. The other is that one can freely and gently polish the outside of their teapot with a dedicated tea-towel. The polishing is done when the teapot cool and dry, then one gently and scuffs the outside of the pot. The normal polishing time is under 20 seconds.

STORAGE
After the pot has been used and dried off it should be stored in a cool dry place. It should be stored away from other fragrant things. It is easy for the clay pots to pick up the smells of other things such as a moldy closet, incense or the spices in a food cabinet.

 

BASIC GUIDELINES
Do not leave tea steeping in your teapot overnight.
Do not leave damp or wet leaves in your teapot overnight.
Do not wash/rinse you teapot out with anything but hot water.
Do not over polish your teapot, it will damage your progress. (20 sec. is good)
Do not squeeze tea leaves or rub tea oil over the pot.
Do not brew extremely different types of tea in the same pot… It is better to have consistency.
Store pots in a cool & dry place away from other smells.

These are the very basic ideas behind “nourishing your teapot” and what it means. I tried to keep it as simple as possible. Hope you leaned something!
Everything I said above is based on personal experience… if you have anything to add, please do!

Eco Friendly Packaging Design

Tags

Eco friendly packaging design, Tea Packaging Desgin

People often ask us why we spend so much time producing our own packages. To be honest, it started with a simple idea that we want to distinguish our tea-making process and our ideas of tea from others. And it all began from there—a tiny dot that connects with other dots and together they transform into the current Jhentea packaging design you see here.

Our idea of packaging should be as GREEN as possible.  Minimize impact to our environment.

We decided to develop packaging that is not made of plastic or metal as what is commonly produced for tea.  We choose to use recycle Paper for box and can.

 

The paper can was wrapped in exquisite coarse linen.

 

Tea Seed Oil Packaging

Regardless of the packaging, what we care is the essence, or the quality of our tea. We sincerely hope that there will be more people coming to appreciate genuine and authentic tea. We would like to replace artificial tea with the purity and fragrance of authentic tea that touches your taste buds. Artificial tea might be very flavorful, tasty, convenient and even cheap. But have you tried genuine and authentic tea—the tea that contains with itself real fragrance? Have you tried the kind of tea with various levels of fragrance and tastes that evolve with time? We started out with a simple idea of inviting more people to get to know the genuine tea culture of Taiwan. Jhentea grows as we promote this idea and we would love to invite you, a fan of the genuine tea culture, to join us.

Vintage Tea Ceramic Pot

 

 

A Unique Black Tea- Old Fir Narcissus

Narcissus tea is a type of Wuyi tea from Fujian province, China and it was planted in Wulaokeng, Yilan in Taiwan around 1970.

Narcissus is of the semi-tree family with large leaves. It sprouts late and cannot be harvested until after the Qingming festival, or the tomb-sweeping day (lunar calendar March 15). Narcissus tea is best known for its rich flavor.

Sun Weathering

 

Rolling

Fermatation

Having central mountain range on the one side, and Wulaokeng stream on the other side, the location where old fir narcissus grows is what gives the tea its distinctive flavor.

An old saying goes, “tea that grows on mountains is called rock tea, tea that grows close to water is called zhou tea, or tea grown by the water.” Also, “The quality of rock tea is supreme and right follows it is zhou tea.”

Our tea is planted just between mountains and the water. Most tea-lovers enjoy the rich flavor of narcissus tea as well as different layers of flavors that the tea holds and unfolds in the mouth. In fact, each infusion of narcissus tea changes in its taste.

This year, I would like to make our narcissus tea in a way that is different from that of Fujian’s red robe tea. With the making process of unshredded black tea, we are bringing narcissus tea to a whole new level.

It is more flavorful and its fragrance is so unique that words alone cannot express the taste of it in my mouth.

 

 

 

Why does tea polyphenol so good for you?

Tea Polyphenol

Tea polyphenol is a general term that refers to all polyphenols in tea leaves. They are highly nutritious and high in protein. In other words, it keeps you healthy.

 

Health-wise, it is anti-cancer and it protects one from the radiation exposure, thus slows the aging process.

Tea polyphenol’s effects in maintaining beauty and youth

Free radicals are a crucial contributor to aging. Free radicals in our skin mainly come from ultraviolet. Tea polyphenols can directly absorb ultraviolet and prevent it from damaging our skin.

Tea polyphenol functions to clear free radicals, to curb lip oxygenate and lipid peroxide in our skin. Tea polyphenols function to prevent the formation of wrinkles and delay the aging process. The anti-oxidation function of tea polyphenols is remarkably superior to that of Vitamin E; when it is applied with Vitamin C And Vitamin E, the results and effects are greatly increased.

 

Stop the formation melanin and beautify your skin

Tea polyphenols are water-soluble substances. They can clean the facial grease, reduce pore size on face and has multiple functions such as sterilization, disinfection and anti-aging.

Tea polyphenols can block ultraviolet and clear free radicals caused by ultraviolet so as to ensure the proper functions of melanocytes and curb the formation of melanin. Meanwhile, tea polyphenols can stop lipid oxidation and decrease the level of pigmentation.

Tea polyphenol ROCKS!

 

 

 

 

How to Roast Your Own Tea

Do you have teas that have been sitting on your shelf for so long that they lost their aroma and flavor? Or maybe, sometimes you want to mix different teas to blend a new flavor?  Here are some simple ways to roast your own tea in your own kitchen.

One way to process tealeaves is to roast them. Roasting reduces the water content of the tealeaves at their primary process, it also lowers the amount of impure content resulted from the lengthy tea-making process. Roasted tealeaves are more stable in fragrance and quality and are able to be preserved better for a longer period of time.

Use one of the following roasting tools to roast your tea:

Rice cooker:

Place water-absorbent paper in a rice cooker. The amount of tealeaves roasted in the cooker cannot exceed 0.5 cm in height. Do not cover the rice cooker fully, leave some space so that steam can go vaporized. Do not add water in the rice cooker and keep the cooker in the heat-preserving mode when roasting. It takes at least 3 to 4 hours before tealeaves change when roasted in a rice cooker. But the plus side is, it is easy to clean a rice cooker and it produces less odor; also, roasting tea in a rice cooker does not change tealeaves so rapidly that tealeaves might get ruined in just a blink of the eye when left unattended.

 

Oven:

Your oven should not have the smell of BBQ meat or cakes. Place water-absorbent paper in an oven. The amount of tealeaves roasted in the oven cannot exceed 0.5 cm in height. Preheat your oven to 80℃. Remember to stir and toss tealeaves frequently. Tealeaves are expected to change in 10 minutes and you can start tasting your tea now. An oven is good in that it takes shorter time for tealeaves to change, but that also means tealeaves undergo a more drastic change when roasted in an oven and are more easily to get burned.

Professional tealeaves roasting oven:

Don’t forget to stir and toss tealeaves so that they can be roasted evenly. Be gentle when you stir so that you can avoid the smell of scorching resulted from the tea dust that fall into the oven and got burned.

 

 

Heat induced from roasting changes the impure contents, tannin and catechuic acid in tealeaves. This change lowers the bitter and acerbic tastes and brings out the sweetness in the tealeaves.

The changes of tea are defined by the changes in their bitter and sweet tastes. It is not difficult to roast tea and I encourage you to give it a go. Roast just a small amount of tealeaves each time you try, and I am sure you will get the result you love the most. Just do it! You might not roast your tea to its perfection, but the taste of imperfection itself is just equally worth exploring.

Roast at 60℃ for about an hour and you will see obvious changes in tealeaves.

Making your tea with water at the temperature of 95℃

The color of tea changes after you heat them up.

After sitting the roasted tealeaves for a few days (We called it awakening tea), the fragrance of the tea gets stronger.

 

 

Virgin Tea

Tags

tea trees, Virgin tea

A virgin forest is a piece of land that has never grown tealeaves or crops. Virgin tea is the first harvest on this land since its first reorganization for water and land conservation and establishment of irrigation facilities.

It takes three years to have the first harvest of tealeaves from virgin tea trees, which yield 1/20 of other mature tea trees.

Virgin tea is special in that the tea trees are fresh and vigorous, and so are its shoots. Virgin tealeaves are thicker and can produce tea that is more flavorful than others. Virgin tea is also special in that it is limited in quantity, supreme in quality, and thus much more expensive in price.

 

 

Top 4 things to look for when buying loose leaf tea.

Tags

buy tea, Tea quality, Tea Tasting

How can you tell the quality of the tea you wish to buy?  How can you tell if the tea is mixed with other lower quality teas or perhaps had other enhancers added? How do you make sure you are getting what you paid for?  Here are top 4 things that you can do to make sure the quality of the tea is as good as advertised.

A. Observe Appearance

1. Look to see if there is difference between colors. Color should be consistant. For example, black mix yellow or green mix with yellow red which are not consitantent.
2. Dry tea luster degree.  If tea has been store for long period of time, it will lose its lust.
3. Whether its pearl shape of twist shape, one-bud-3 leaves should be compact.
4. Fresh leaf maturity. Look to see if tea leaves is young or old.  Young tea leaves are usually smaller.

B. Smell

1. Smell the dry tea leaves. Pre-brew scent. Dry leaves should have light and subtle aroma.  If the aroma is too strong, like perfume, chances are there are added fragrances which should be avoided.
2. Smell hot aroma. Post brew scent.
3. Smell cold aroma. See if aroma changed in anyway.  No odors. 
4. Smell the empty tea cup.  Does tea aroma linger even after you finish tea?

C. Observe tea flavor

1. Sweet aftertaste, bitterness, astringency, richness,  Strenghts, mouth intenseness, sharpness degree and total brews of vessel.

D. Observe brewed leaves 

1. Tea Spices.
2. See if the brewed leaves are mix with different type of tea. Different shape and different colors.
3. Brewed tea luster degree and softness.

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4. Smell brewed leaves. Good quality tea usually has stronger aroma after brewed.

My unique experience of design and produce our tea ceremony table

Tags

Business, Furniture design, interior design, slab table, Taiwan, Tea, Tea Shop Design, Teak, teak wood table, Tree, Wood, Wood Finish

I’ve been thinking of a design for a tea table. One idea is that it should be made out of wood slabs. For sustainable reasons, I didn’t want to cut down a new tree, so I began my design by searching reclaimed wood. Functionally, a tea table needs to seat a minimum of 8 people for tea tasting. There should be a dishwasher under the table top, a storage area for tea ware and space for tea plates that hooks into a drainage system.

My childhood guitar teacher has a building material business. In his warehouse, he had cut piles of wood to be used as wood flooring material. Also inside are huge piles of wood logs, 14 of which are from Teak trees that had been laying there for more than 20 years. I just can’t believe how lucky I am to find this tree laying there waiting for me. Although this particular  tree is not in any way perfect, it is really ideal for what I am looking for.  A 3-meter (118 inches) long Teak tree ended up costing ONLY $400.  Somebody’s junk is my precious stone! How incredible that is!

Our town was a major wood harvesting area during the occupation by Japan. The Japanese would cut down trees thousands of years old and shipped them to Japan to build temples and houses. They had built an entire transportation system and factories to do so. As a result, there are still numerous old wood production factories here. I probably would have never known such productions existed had my guitar teacher not tell me. There is a factory in the middle of a rice field that looked like it had been there for centuries. Even the workers there are all in their 50s. Here in Taiwan, you talk and negotiate right when you first meet. I simply asked him to cut the wood I selected into 3 pieces… 50 dollars, done!

This cutting machine must be the coolest old machine I have ever seen. They hefted the tree on to a train, where it was secured and measured into the thickness that I requested. The cutter then drives the train over a huge chain saw. I was extremely nervous, because even though I designed hundreds of furniture before, I had never had my own tree cut to measurements. I was worried if the cut is not in the right place, I would have ruined this beautiful tree. I didn’t have a lot of time to think long on this.  The workers were there, measurements were made and in 10 minutes my tree was in 3 pieces.

The left over slabs I’m saving for a later day to make something else out of it.. stay tuned…  J

This is why I really appreciate small mom and pop shops. There are still so many highly skilled wood finishers in our town. We found this shop that as it turns out knew my college professor really well. I had majored in Forestry. Our professors are pretty well known in Taiwan. They have been associated with many workers in the field. This old Master must be 70 years old or so and he is still doing wood finish for a living. He quickly decided how we should assemble these 3 pieces together and how to fill the imperfections.

The production time is 2 weeks!
Each slab had to be fastened together, then the finisher will sand, stain, and apply the finish coats. A natural lacquer was applied on top to give a subtle but rich sheen.

I also had a local metal shop made the table legs and storage components. It was a lot of visiting shops and discussing design ideas. There were very minimal detailed drawings that had to be done since I was able to work around the workers’ skill set. Their experiences had taught me a different way to doing design and I love the way it came out!

2013 Taiwan Yilan County Tea Making Competition 3 of 3- Judging Process

Tags

Competition, Drink, Odor, Oolong, Taiwan, Taste, Tea, Uncle Cien

The deadline for tea submission is 7:00 am next day.   All tea masters had gone home to rest after 24 hours of working.  The organizer take 40 tea submissions, and randomly assign a new number for each tea which is different than the number that is assign to each tea masters.  This way the judges would not be able to influence by tea masters.

8:20am Pour first hot water.  100 degree Celsius, 4.5mins.

8:25am Pour first tea out and begin judging process.  The first run is judging Aroma. One main judge and one secondary judge.  The third person is recording the score for each tea.

8:27am Judges smell the aroma second run.  Temperature now is not as high, so tea aroma might change.  This is to confirm that the first aroma stays the same.

8:42am Jude tea flavor- first run.  Swirl couple times, then spit out.

8:50 am.  Second taste run.  Main judge pull out tea counter clockwise around tea cup to decide the tea is to hold or to eliminate.  If second judge agreed, the cup stay the same.  If not, they both taste the tea again.

8:58 am.  Third taste run.

9:00 am. Final taste run.

9:05 am.  Giving out the number rating and eliminating 21 competitors.

9:20 am.  With 19 competitors left, repeat the same procedure.

9:42 am.  Eliminating another 5 out of 19.

9:45 am.  Group different grades to judge.

10:08 am.  Final tea judge begins.  Repeat same procedure with previous steps. Some tea masters start to show up at this point to observe the judging process.  You can tell that most of them are pretty anxious.

10:25 am. Winners are decided after 2 hours tea tasting.

Results:  Uncle Cien won the third place.  We are so proud of him.

Note: Ai didn’t continue her win from previous competition.  Her tea flavor is great, but the aroma is not what judge is looking for.  Judge wants to have tea with milky flavor.

It was fun event for 3 of our family tea masters from 3 different tea shops to enter competition.  In the end, we all sit down and have our own tea tasting of what they made.  They discuss the pros and cons of each one’s tea, and noted what to do next time.  Judge’s taste might not be the same as consumer’s taste, but in the end of the day, only the well balance tea can win the competition.  END.