The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea - Michael Harney [27]
Calling these plants trees is right: Harvesters need ladders to get to the leaves. After plucking, the leaves are withered and gently tossed. This agitation starts the slow oxidation vital to form the aromatic compounds resembling peach nectar. After withering, the leaves are rolled into long twists and left to oxidize until the leaves turn light brown with red dabs on their edges. To preserve the tea’s effervescence, the leaves are only lightly fired.
BAI HAO, OR FANCIEST FORMOSA OOLONG Oriental Beauty
This exuberant, medium-bodied Taiwanese oolong has the classic peach and guava flavors characteristic of darker, more heavily oxidized oolongs. One of the first truly great oolongs to show up in the United States about fifteen years ago, Bai Hao was also the first oolong I really fell in love with. It inspired me to hunt down all the other oolongs in the book.
Bai Hao is extraordinary not only for its flavors, but for the way it is made. Most teas rely on human manipulations to develop their flavors. These manipulations imitate the actions of tiny herbivores called green leafhoppers ( Jacobiasca formosana ), which would ordinarily feast on the leaves. In nature, the bites of tea leafhoppers trigger the plants’ defenses, provoking their flavors. Bai Hao is one of only a very few teas whose flavors are provoked by the bugs themselves. Unlike the other oolongs in this book, which are all harvested in April and May, Bai Hao is harvested in June, after the leafhoppers have emerged from winter dormancy (anyone who has been bitten by a mosquito in June can understand this bug’s life cycle). The leafhoppers feast on the tea’s sweet young leaves, puncturing them lightly. Their munching breaks down the plants’ cells in the same way rolling does, releasing various bug-repelling, flavor-filled compounds. After a week of this, the faintly perforated, fragile leafsets are nimbly harvested, with special care to keep them intact. The withered leaves—by now bug free—are gently rolled into loose, small spheres, then oxidized for a relatively long time, before being lightly fired to preserve the flavors.
DA HONG PAO Big Red Robe
This famous Chinese oolong resembles the oolongs of twenty years ago, heavily fired and with darker, smokier flavors. Fans of the smoky Chinese black tea Lapsang Souchong (page 117) or the charcoal-tinged Chinese green tea Gunpowder (page 49) will find much to love in Da Hong Pao.
Da Hong Pao grows just about an hour’s drive from the area where Lapsang Souchong is cultivated in China. Both come from the Wuyi Mountains, the region in northern Fujian province where oolong and black teas were first invented. Today, a dozen or more oolongs come from the steep and rocky foothills around the city of Wuyi Shan. Known collectively as Wuyi Shan Yan Cha, or Wuyi Mountain Rock Teas, the teas take their name—and their flavors—from the area’s rocky, mineral-rich soil, regular rain showers, and cool mountain weather. Unlike other high-mountain oolongs like Ali Shan (page 81), Da Hong Pao grows in the lower foothills.
While it can’t claim divine inspiration like Ti Guan Yin (page 86), Da Hong Pao boasts its own rich pedigree. The stories vary, but legend says that several hundred years ago a magistrate of the Ming dynasty fell ill while visiting the area. He was nursed back to health by drinking this tea. As a token of thanks, he hung his red robe on the gate to the tea garden, granting the tea both official approbation and its name, Big Red Robe. Today, Da Hong Pao growers claim that three very old bushes outside Wuyi Shan city are the same ones that served as a coat rack for the magistrate’s robe. They insist that every Da Hong Pao bush was propagated from them.
Whether or not the legend is true,