Reading the Tea Leaves

“Hollywood” is spelled out in huge letters in the hills above L.A.  That’s what I thought of when I saw a set of large characters proclaiming “tea” on a hill in the Lu Mountains.  The characters were in red and, set against the green of tea hills, they were hard to miss.

Surrounded by provinces known for their teas (Anhui, Hunan, Fujian, Zhejiang), Jiangxi is well able to hold its own as a major tea producer, and is known in particular for a handful of Green teas.

Even at noon, clouds and mist hover over the hills. (This photo taken in Jiangxi.)

Many Green teas are named for the clouds and mist that provide the gentle moisture upon which tea plants depend in order to thrive.  This image includes craggy cliffs that soar through a sea of clouds, evoking the high altitudes that mean sufficient light for tea bushes.

The “Yun Wu” (clouds, mist) name alone, therefore, may signify aspirations on the part of the tea producer but is no guarantee that the tea came from the origin gardens in the Lu Mountain area in Jiangxi.  For true Lu Mountain Cloud & Mist Green, specific boundaries of the producing area have been drawn and technical standards set in Beijing.

Waterfalls also provide moisture.

Visitors who go to Jiangxi as tourists usually head for the Lu Mountain and Jinggang Mountain parks.  Not as well known as Huang Mountain in Anhui (and therefore less crowded), these scenic areas bring traditional landscape paintings to life, for those with some recollection of poetry lessons, verseas about seas of clouds and swirling mists among steadfast pines may come to mind.

The proximity of China’s largest freshwater lake, Poyang Lake, and of the Yangtze completes the set of ideal tea growing conditions on the slopes of the Lu Mountain district.  The city of Jingdezhen is also in Jiangxi, long a center of porcelain production charged with special commissions by the imperial court.  Nowadays the 5ft tall vases in Jingdezhen’s showrooms may be challenging to transport home but there are plenty of teasets from which to choose.

The Lu Mountain tea growing district has its own research institute.  Since 80% of the tea produced is organic, much of the institute’s work is focused on approved methods of pest control, on leaf integrity, and educating the growers.  The individual tea farmers have formed a cooperative with a uniform set of production standards, and their crop is collected by small factories nearby that are equipped for processing the leaves.

We were received in a corner room, seated on traditional style carved chairs with marble insets, enjoying the cross breeze from large open windows.  The tea brought to us in mugs was Green, of course, and as we tried to keep up with the conversation and translation, and making mental notes, we were also inspecting the swirling tea leaves in our cups.  An assistant was alert to any cups that needed refilling, and we gradually realized with some awe how flavorful the tea continued to be; no additional tea had been added, and for such a tippy tender tea (judging by the wet leaves), the lasting power through the third and even fourth infusion was impressive.

For Lu Mtn. Clouds & Mist Green, only a bud and single leaf (attached) are plucked.  At this high elevation the sun is not harsh and the light is diffuse.  The leaves stay tender longer in the spring.  With stronger sunlight the leaves are apt to turn tough.  Here in Lu Mtn. the lower leaves on the bush are made into “ordinary” Green tea.

Plucking begins towards the end of March; the top grades are made only from the spring crop.  There is also an autumn crop but summer’s growth is not picked.  For the top grades steam is used to de-enzyme the leaves very briefly, about three minutes.  Lower grades are heated in a tumbler-like oven, but the choicest budsets do not touch the inside of a mechanical tumbler.

Clouds & Mist Green

The budsets rest five to ten minutes after being subjected to steam heat; while still warm, and therefore pliant, the leaves are rolled.  Small mounds of leaves are rolled at a time rather than one big clump.  There is rolling pressure downward, alternating with rolling in circular motions, de-clumping and starting again.  The final drying is slow and done at low temperatures.  Leaves are scattered thinly over screen-like trays that slide into ovens.  The trays are rotated to different slots every so often to accomodate slight variations in temperature in the tall ovens.

Before the end of March a plucker can collect only about 500 grams of budsets per day; by mid-April a worker can pick about 2000 grams or 2 kgs.  Bushes at different elevations are plucked at different times.  Lu Mtn. Clouds & Mist Green is classified into twelve grades, with altitude of the specific garden only one criterion.  The timing of the picking, the balance of sun and rain just prior to plucking, the orientation of the garden to the sun, and the skills of those processing the tea, especially the during rolling and the final drying, all affect the final outcome.

Pale color belies full flavor.

Producers of Lu Mtn. Clouds & Mist Green understandably place their tea alongside famed teas such as Pi Lo Chun, Huang Mtn. Maofeng, and Tai Ping Hou Kui, all much sought-after teas by those who really fancy fine Green teas, and these come on the market but once a year. If numbers were considered, Lu Mtn. Clouds & Mist Green is certainly on a par with those other renowned Greens.  It takes 80,000 budsets (bud with a single leaf) to make one kilo (2.2 lbs) of a top grade Lu Mtn. Clouds & Mist Green.

It is easy to see why the top one or two grades sell out quickly each spring.  I ran into this problem when I dawdled or hesitated too long in deciding between two grades and lost my chance to procure my first choice.  Sending samples to customers to gauge their preferences meant days lost while the stock of tea was diminishing.  I had some quantity held in reserve but there was a deadline looming.  At the top grades the leaves are quite comparable; was the increment in cost really justified by fine differences in the leaf?

So why bother describing a tea that is obtainable by only a relatively small number of consumers?  And if one happens upon this tea, the question arises: since the leaves of this particular Lu Mtn. Green are not very distinctive – as Dragonwell and Pi Lo Chun leaves are – how is one to assess the quality of a Lu Mtn. Clouds & Mist tea?

The members of our specialty tea group certainly benefited from tasting the tea, from walking through the gardens, and watching parts of the rolling and drying steps.  We left with a better understanding of why the top grades seem well able to fetch the prices they do.  But why dangle a tea that is limited in production and quite costly (over $100/lb for top grades here)?

As I write this now I think of those times when I’ve read about a lovely wine – small number of cases released – and have been duly warned that I probably won’t be able to find it in local wine shops.  In most instances I may not even embark on the search but I can hold on to the qualities to look for in other wines, paying attention to the characteristics that made the wine so enticing and memorable for the writer who reviewed it.

The following day we took advantage of a fine sunny day to take an easy hike thourhg the Lu Mtn. nature reserve.  At the beginning of one trail was a small teahouse, what must have been once a home that had been converted to a shop with tea service, well positioned to attract visitors who cannot avoid hearing about the famous teas originating from the area.  A patio in front allowed customers to rest and sip tea, sitting on simple benches and stools around low wooden tables.  The interior was dark, a pity since the jars and baskets of freshly made Green teas couldn’t be shown to their best effect.  In the back we could see women sorting through more tea leaves.

What most interested us was a display set up near the door with a large sign warning consumers not be fooled by imitation teas. (The sign was in Chinese and it occurs to me now that one of us should have offered to provide the women who ran the business with an English version.)  Large glass jars held teas that were identified as fake Pi Lo Chun or fake Dragonwell.  To us, the teas inside certainly resembled our image of the tea named on the labels, so we assumed that the teas had been made from material not from the origin gardens.  Apparently the lesson to be gleaned was that tea consumers must take care in buying authentic Clouds & Mist tea as well.  No doubt the glut of generic Green teas loftily named “Clouds & Mist” inspired the teashop’s owners to make their sales pitch more forceful.  To date this was the one of two or three times I’ve seen (in a retail establishment) this type of display devised to educate tea customers.

We of course had asked for a Clouds & Mist tea, the best the women had available.  The tea was brewed in a large lidded mug, then poured for us into little jigger-sized glasses.  The tea was fresh – its best feature. The cleansing herbaceous character of a fine Green was refreshing after our stroll.  Poking and smushing through the wet leaves at the bottom of the mug, we could easily recognize the budsets, a light shade of olive-green.  The pointy tips and smallish leaves were there,  but they were not as neat as those we had seen the previous day.

There was no smugness as we left, no self-congratulation on our part for having some set of standards for evaluating what we had just tasted.  Yes, the teahouse was aimed at tourists but the operation was not gimmicky.  There was a good selection of teas for sale at different price levels, and the rustic setting was not jarring or out of place as some kitschy tourist stops.  If anything our sentiments were those of admiration for those plucky, enterprising young women who ran the place, and in their own fashion were spreading the good word about authentic teas.

So even if upon our return we found that we couldn’t get a specific grade of this tea, we had taken with us an appreciation of the precision in the initial plucking and the hand sorting that continues throughout the processing (some places have their workers use tweezers).  There was also the realization that de-enzyming, rolling, and drying are not as straightforward as the terms suggest, but in fact involve smaller steps at each stage that demand a good deal of close monitoring from someone with a long acquaintance with the tea material before him or her.  Above all, the experience of drinking a tea imbued so strongly with a sense of place helped us retain memories of the taste and aroma of what we had only sampled.

Such a set of guidelines (examining the wet leaves, gauging uniformity of the leaves, etc.) would serve anyone well next time s/he comes upon an interesting Green, from the clouds or below.