Roughage

2011 Yunnan Sourcing "Autumn Gua Feng Zhai" Raw Pu-erh tea of Yi Wu from Yunnan Sourcing

Roughage drank 2011 Yunnan Sourcing "Autumn Gua Feng Zhai" Raw Pu-erh tea of Yi Wu by Yunnan Sourcing

I spent the day today thinking about Beowulf’s funeral and this tea has helped me. In case you are wondering, the topic for tomorrow’s seminars is Beowulf and we shall be reading the last couple of dozen lines of the poem. It will be hardcore grammar for a large chunk of the seminars but there needs to be time to talk about the text too. It should be exciting, because there is a lot that can be said about just this tiny chunk of the poem. Anyway, this rather lively tea helped keep me focused on the preparation. I hope my students appreciate my effort!

I bought a sample of it from Yunnan Sourcing a while back and finally got around to opening it today. I’m glad I did. The dry leaves are predominantly dark green, the cake split easily into its component parts and I had a grassy smelling pile of largish leaves very soon after opening the packet. I put my usual 8g in a 170ml Yixing pot (green ben shan clay) and brewed away. Several steepings later I was still stuck for how to describe this tea. That seems to be the way of things for me lately. Is this the onset of senility some thirty years or so too early? The tea is sweet and grassy with quite a bite to it. It bounces around in my mouth, never letting me get complacent about it. Just when I think it has mellowed, it jumps up again and gives me a kick. I am really enjoying it and am particularly pleased that YS sells such large samples.

2012-11-15 13:01:25 -0500

185 °F / 85 °C

0 min 15 sec

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Bonnie 2012-11-16 00:53:18 -0500

I think a couple of electric kettles would be a good addition to any classroom. Your students would never leave however.
Imagine, Beowulf and Tea. We’ll all sign up!

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I am a professional Vikingologist and I like tea! To be honest, I have always liked decent tea, but in 2011 I started working at learning what good tea really is. I am busily expanding my tea horizons quite significantly, much to the chagrin of my wife, who despairs of my enthusiasm. My favourite teas are Darjeelings and sheng puerhs, but I struggle to find black teas (other than Darjeelings) that really float my boat. My absolute favourite teas at the moment are Anji Bai Cha and Dong Fang Mei Ren both from Canton Tea Co, neither of which are shengs or Darjeelings. Seems odd, but that’s the way it is. I do wonder if the scores I give out actually reflect my predilection for Darjeelings and shengs.

I am slowly adding to my experience by trying as many different products as possible. I like to think that I am developing my palate and becoming more learned about tea, but I suspect that may be wishful thinking!

I find rating the teas difficult. Often a particular tea will appeal to me because of my mood, even though it does not get a top rating on here from me. As a general guide, I use the following ratings:

0-25 Undrinkable
26-50 Really not to my taste
51-75 Ok to good
76-99 Always welcome in my pot
100 – There ain’t no such thing as a perfect score!

As I rate teas, I try to revisit my scores and check that my old scores are in line with the new ones.