Somewhere in China, I'm sure, one can still find an old tea farmer who processes small batches of his wonderful, high-grown tea, and who will hand it over for a paltry sum. That fellow, I assure you, is not going to be found at Wu Yi. While I am not willing to rule out the possibility that I will stumble across a batch of great Wu Yi tea at a bargain price, I have come to expect that, with Wu Yi teas, you will usually get what you pay for. So if you want to pay a modest prices for your Wu Yi teas, you are going to have to chose how you compromise. Those compromises are the subject of today's post.
So, before I talk about the compromises, I'd like to first describe my idea of the ideal Wu Yi rock tea. That tea would be produced from tea picked at the peak of the spring season, picked solely by hand using the top shoot and the two leaves below it. Those leaves would come from a prime location in the Zheng Yan area, nestled in the shadow of one of the great crags. The leaves would be bright and fleshy, and filled with goodness. The sky would be clear, the weather relatively cool, and the leaves free from moisture. Porters would move them down the mountain quickly, and deliver them to a small, but well equipped and staffed tea factory, where they would be spread out for wilting in the afternoon sun. The tea master would inspect the wilting leaves frequently and then have his staff gather up the teas at the right moment and bring them inside to start the drying and bruising phases. The teas would be carefully guided through each processing step, preferably by hand, but likely using modern machinery if the factory produces even moderate amounts of product. The tea master would not depart until the rolling process was complete, probably sometime the following morning. The tea would be carefully bagged, and then sorted/de-stemmed and given a careful, extended low-heat baking over charcoal at a later time. A blend of the baked batches would yield a tea with a noticeable aroma, combining the deep sweet scents of stone fruits, along with honeysuckle-like florals. The otherwise pure-smelling aroma, would be complex with secondary scents reminiscent of cocoa powder, freshly cut wood, toasted almonds, coconut, honey, vanilla, and a hint of the wood smoke associated with the drying and baking processes. In the mouth, the tea would possess the distinct flavors associated with the cultivar and be deep, smooth, and have a pleasant fruity sweetness. A green/floral element would also be present, as would be flavors associated with the aromas mentioned above. The tea would coat the mouth with the rock essence. This would be most noticeable after the swallow at the back of the mouth and in the throat, where a slightly dry, almost chalk texture, would appear, followed by a concentrated burst of deep flavor. The back-of-the-mouth flavor would persist for many minutes, allowing you to enjoy the tea long after it had been swallowed. The emptied tea cup would be redolent with the concentrated scent of the tea essence. Successive infusions of the leaves would reveal slightly different aspects of the tea, until, many cups later, the tea faded into a light and pure soup. Did I mention it would be inexpensive too? Dream on!
So, if you are trying to find a fairly inexpensive Wu Yi oolong tea, what will you have to forgo? For one thing, location. It will be very difficult, if not impossible, to find any proper Zheng Yan tea being offered for a moderate price. Secondly, you're far less likely to find a tea picked near the peak of the spring season. If the vendor doesn't explicitly state the picking season, there is reason to suspect you'll be getting a summer or fall plucking. While autumn teas can be quite decent, summer teas are more likely to be coarse or to carry off aromas and flavors. Cheaper teas are also more likely to be picked, or perhaps I should say cut, using mechanical means. Mechanical gathering definitely increases the chances of incorporating older, poorer-tasting leaf. Large-scale production contributes to cost savings too, so less inexpensive teas are more likely to be produced in large batches. While there are well-equipped tea factories that are able to process large quantities of leaf while carefully controlling processing, there are others who certainly are not. Finally, cheap begets cheap. If the farmer brings in sub-par leaf, chances are the factory will apply sub-par processing to it.
In the coming posts, I'll review and attempt to spot the compromises in eleven not-too-expensive Wu Yi teas and one rather expensive one.
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