Ten Ren

If there is one single tea China is known for it is the green teas produced around the Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. (Just south of Shanghai.) These teas from gardens in the Xi Hu (West Lake),Mi Jia Wu (Mi Family Valley), Long Jing (Dragon Well), and Shi Feng (Lion Peak) districts are what most westerners know as ‘green tea’. Today, cousins of these greens are grown in various parts of china, but the best are from this region.

This is the everyday tea of most Chinese households – it comes in many different grades from most common (cheap) to Imperial Tribute (extremely rare and expensive). It is consumed in great quantities by the masses, and is found in virtually every home and tea house.

This specific tea is a Special Grade Long Jing Ten Ren Teas (the less unbroken leaves the better the grade – this one has very little broken leaf.) It is equivalent to a better tea severed in a better tea house in China. It is a vivid spectrum of green and jade, and the leaf is long and uniform. Unsteeped it has a very earthy vegetative smell.

Brewed in my green xing, 2 Tsp (3g) of tea, infused in 6oz of water at 160F for 2 minutes. Bright light Jade in the cup, with a green vegetation nose. Taste of chestnuts, with a touch of astringency and a good mouth. The great thing about this green, and most greens is they can be re steeped multiple times – I use a little hotter water – 165f and add about 15-20 seconds, and got 4 more decent steeps. The aromas fade and the flavors as well with each, but it is still a nuanced cup. This is an all day every day good drinking tea – and if you are new to greens, I would recommend trying some.

Ten Ren sells ‘Pouchong’ in several grades—1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th. I first encountered it when I bought a green tin simply labelled ‘Pouchong’ at a chinese grocery store, and promptly put it in the back of the cupboard and forgot about it. A few years and a cross-country move later, I opened it and was very pleased by the mellowness of this very green-looking tea. I was quite surprised, when I looked into it later, to realize that it was technically an oolong, because to that point I’d only had some traditional dark roast Ti Kuan Yin and Wuyi Oolongs. I was happy to discover the TenRen store in my local chinatown and bought some of this ‘3rd grade’ pouchong because it seemed about the same price as what I’d bought in the tin.

It is a solid, but not spectacular, lightly oxidized oolong tea, sweet, tasting of hay and warm summer meadows, not strongly floral, and the sweet fades faster than with the handmade BaoZhong I recently tried. But it tolerates a wide variety of steep times and temps and is exceptionally forgiving of rushed or off brewing.

I like it best about 1g of tea per oz water at 195 degrees, infused about 30 seconds to start, and it is quite pleasant through 3-4 steeps, and better than plain water for several more, although the high notes of sweet and floral are gone by then.

Bland, tepid, dull: my life, my tea. The same two black teas in the morning, the same yard full of weeds, the same job. It was all so exiting a while back. Perhaps this is an existential crisis. Perhaps I need some more tea.

Unlike the Assam, this tea is changing noticeably (even to me) with steep time. Its now substantially more astringent and slightly honeyed. Its still medium/full bodied and not bitter at all. The more things change, the more I’m late for work. Tune in next time.

Since I can’t seem to get good information on steeps longer than 5 minutes, I’m going to switch teas. At 3:30 the Ten Ren is definitely astringent and smoky, but not bitter at all. I’m not sure if the body is full, but its definitely not light. Either the tea is mellow, or I am. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get myself stressed out and try again.

I’m not quite sure this is the right place to put this. Ten Ren sells several grades of black tea both loose and in bags. What I’m drinking is the loose second grade black tea. Its slightly astringent and slightly smoky. I’m sure that there are correct words to describe the rest of the taste and I am sure they are not ‘refined’, ‘pleasant’, or ‘fancy’. But I don’t know what they are, so that’s what you’re getting. This tea plays the BMW to my normal morning Assam’s Camaro SS. They’re both quick of the line, but one is much more poised (and expensive).

this is now my daily tea while I’ve run out of my normal sencha. Light flavored I sweeten with honey.

Teabag. Smells wonderful, jasmine, with a hint of incense, tastes really good until it cools and then is bitter, Temp was too high, , my goof but this is a nice tea. Mix of jasmine tea and Oolong

I picked this up at a Ten Ren’s shop located near me. I only know that this is a Dong Ding because, the large storage tin says “Dong Ding” on it. Other than that, it was hard to communicate to the merchant, who didn’t know much English.

The leaf quality is dark, tight bound leaves, the smell was lovely with it’s smokey-toasty smell. I brew this in my gaiwan, at shy of a boil on one minute ascending brews. The result was a very enjoyable, toasty, woodlike, caramel in taste. Reminds me of coffee. It’s take was rather easy, and it finishes up quite like a Wuyi oolong. Despite being a roasted oolong it’s medium to light in body. I can’t compare to a regular green Dong Ding, as it’s been a while since I have had a cup, but I’ll update in another note, if I end up having both on hand.

It’s an “awlright” oolong. I’d have Lupicia’s TKY mucha, or Zhi Tea’s TKY over this anyday.

I’m going into dead week of the winter quarter which means that when I woke up this morning I was too lazy to do anything besides putting a pu-erh tea bag into a mug with hot water. I brewed it extra strong in order to wake me up.

Another lovely tea. Very nice to the nose, with a beautiful scent. Brews easily. Wonderful relaxing afternoon tea. Would recommend to anyone who likes floral teas.

I absolutely love this tea. It is lovely hot or cold with honey. One can steep the leaves more than once with the tea staying fairly similar to the first brewing. I like the quality of this tea and would highly recommend this tea to anyone… it is my favorite go to tea…

Third tea of the night.

Less than enjoyable. Honestly, the first brew tasted faintly like gasoline. I brewed this twice, and poured out more than half of each infusion. I…really can’t say much more. I can see why people generally use this as a base tea for scenting and flavoring, rather than a tea on its own merit.
Granted, I know there have to be some great Pouchongs out there, somewhere, and I’m still open to trying them. As for this tea… anyone want it? Take it. Really.
The only upside to this tea is that I got it for free, from a small shop that was closing.

Second thing to research tonight – information on Pouchongs.

I picked up this tea from a small teashop in Vancouver’s Chinatown after being offered a sample and being impressed with its strong flavour (being a person who often finds fruit flavoured teas smell lovely, and don’t taste like a whole lot). While it is called Plum Green Tea I’ve always associated the taste more with green melon, and after serving it to several friends I can say this is definitely a love it or hate it flavour. This is a tea that required no additions, especially not sugar/honey, I find the plum flavour to be sweet enough as is, and becomes especially strong as the tea cools.

I find this is one tea you don’t want to over-steep as it can quickly develop an overpowering bitter note that along with the fruit taste can cause unpleasant mouth-puckerage. Mind you I also tend to forget what sort of tea I’m making and pour boiling water over this poor green tea which might account for the tendency towards bitterness. This is a nice tea for people who enjoy green teas, strong fruit teas and especially sweet melon/plum flavours.

I got this from a co-worker the other day, she was in Chinatown in San Francisco and bought a bunch of tea and wanted to share with me.

Spirits? What does that mean? Well, apparently it means mint and chamomile. It smells strongly of mint, dry and infused. The color is an interesting green-brown, reminded me of that brown Zune. Kind of different. And it turned really dark as soon as the water passed through the bag! The taste though is chamomile, not a whole lot of mint. The second infusion was a little lighter, as to be expected, and as it cooled, the mint came out a little more. It’s an interesting mix of chamomile and mint, maybe not to my liking.

Somehow, I just don’t think ghosts taste like this.

Augh! I’m on my last pot of this tea and I need more. This is a reliably delicious tea that holds up to at least 4 steepings, still giving beautiful color and excellent flavor, though milder by the 3rd and 4th time through. It doesn’t hit you over the head with the rose too much, doesn’t muck it up with any other flavors. It’s truly one of my “staple” teas and I buy it loose leaf from the gigantic cans at the Ten Ren in New York Chinatown. I’m tempted to try some other rose teas just to compare, but now that I’m out of this one, I need to restock ASAP!

Such an aromatic tea! Rather good.

I like to call this my grind tea. Helps me get through a day of work. Great buzz, keeps you on your toes, and all while not crashing you. Great, sweet flavor. I personally don’t add anything to it. I approve!

Still amazing. The taste of pu-erh just….warms your soul. There’s something about the feeling that lingers. It’s wholesome and comforting. And the chrysanthemum, what can I say, just delightfully sweet.

In a nutshell, the chrysanthemum is the mmmmmm and the pu-erh is the ahhhhhh.

This tea is yummmy. I was trying to find a bagged version of my favorite dim sum tea so that I could enjoy it at school. Somewhat difficult to find without knowing Chinese characters, but after standing in the tea aisle long enough, I picked up this box and whaddayaknow!

Anyway, this tea is great, not too sweet, not too bitter. I have tried Ten Ren’s chrysanthemum tea and found it way to sweet. Their combination with Pu-erh is spot on!

2009-11-22 8pm
Not something that I would normally drink, but I’m feeling under the weather. The taste is strongly like ginger – not a sweet ginger (like cookies) but a strong ginger (like freshly cut ginger root).

There’s a definite bite in the back of my throat from the ginger, it’s very strong.