Thanks all for the very interesting posts. Tea seems so much more
cerebal than that other popular caffeinated beverage (which I
occasionally drink and appreciate greatly). I particularly liked the
idea about watching how the leaves react to the water and the sides of
the cup. I have read about the joys of watching certain green teas
when brewed in a clear glass, but I have never thought much about how
the way a tea reacts to water might tell me about the leaf.

I also like the idea of cataloguing tea photos. In fact, I began
reading MarshalN's blog some time ago primarily because I found the
photos so fascinating. (What kind of lighting do you use to take those
pictures, anyway?)

At one point, when I first started drinking tea and trying to figure
out what it was all about, I sorted through each spent pile of leaves
to find the best representatives of each kind of tea I had. I took the
leaves, pressed them in a book over night, and scotch taped them to a
sheet of paper, which I proceeded to pull out and show to everyone in
my office who hinted that they might like tea. Generally, the sheet of
tea leaves may have been a bit over-the-top for the casual drinker
(judging from the looks of concern I received whenever I brought it
out). But the reason I did it, and that reason has been affirmed by
these posts, is because having that visual reminder of where the brew
came from somehow made tea-drinking seem more intriguing--something to
ponder and figure out.

Anyone know of any books that have a strong photographic component,
sort of like a field guide for tea drinkers? One thing that is clear
from everyone's posts is that this subject is indeed (as Julian
stated) "very vast." Creating my own log may take some time,
especially since I never seem to have a camera ready when I am
drinking tea.

http://houdeasianart.com/download/Oolong_Species.pdf

I just found the above interesting article, which shows some great
pictures of different oolong cultivars--leaves are indeed shaped very
differently from one cultivar to the next.

Cha Bing

Great find.

The varieties of of tea shapes after processing are even greater.
Broadly speaking they can be classified further into three types:
broad/flat (e.g. dragonwell), rounded (e.g. gunpowder) and thread-
like. A Chinese tea book even classified them into eleven shapes -
just for green tea alone. Quite staggering.

Pretty much of the books I use are Chinese, and it is such a hassle to
order from China. Sorry wasn't able to give any references to help.

Julian
http://www.amazing-green-tea.com

How does the opacity of the tea when it is poured define the quality,
like for example I had a high quality japanese sencha and it was light
green yellow and very clear then I had one which was lower quality and
it was a little cloudy. I s this true of all teas in general?

"magicleaf" > writes:

> How does the opacity of the tea when it is poured define the quality,
> like for example I had a high quality japanese sencha and it was light
> green yellow and very clear then I had one which was lower quality and
> it was a little cloudy. I s this true of all teas in general?

No, not even for sencha, in my opinion. A tea can be cloudy because
of the tiny "hairs" characteristic of buds and young leaves.

I think you'll have a hard time coming up with a rule, however trivial,
that really applies to the whole range of tea.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

Lewis Perin wrote:
> No, not even for sencha, in my opinion. A tea can be cloudy because
> of the tiny "hairs" characteristic of buds and young leaves.
>
> I think you'll have a hard time coming up with a rule, however trivial,
> that really applies to the whole range of tea.

what about pu-erh, i usually look if tea is clear or cloudy but there
are pu-erh with buds too, probably not too many of them as i have only
one or two with buds and haven't tried them for a while.

oleg shteynbuk > writes:

> Lewis Perin wrote:
> > No, not even for sencha, in my opinion. A tea can be cloudy because
> > of the tiny "hairs" characteristic of buds and young leaves.
> > I think you'll have a hard time coming up with a rule, however
> > trivial,
> > that really applies to the whole range of tea.
>
> what about pu-erh, i usually look if tea is clear or cloudy but there
> are pu-erh with buds too, probably not too many of them as i have only
> one or two with buds and haven't tried them for a while.

Yes, there's a genre of Pu'er often called Silver Tips that's
basically all-bud. But that isn't all; lots of cakes and bricks have
buds in the mix along with mature leaves. And who knows, with Pu'er I
wouldn't be surprised if there were other good reasons for the liquor
being cloudy. (Not to mention that virtually all cooked Pu'er is
cloudy.)

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

magicleaf > wrote:
>How does the opacity of the tea when it is poured define the quality,
>like for example I had a high quality japanese sencha and it was light
>green yellow and very clear then I had one which was lower quality and
>it was a little cloudy. I s this true of all teas in general?

Not really. Cloudiness is usually the result of dissolved tannins linking
up together and not staying dissolved. It an also be the result of hard
water.

A tea that is more tannic will tend to be more cloudy. If you ice tea
down, it will tend to become cloudy too since the tannins don't stay in
solution as well at the lower temperature.

For a sencha, I could believe that the higher quality ones would have
less tannin, but the same may not be the case for an assam.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."