Do you remember where your tea journey started?
Mine has developed from an aversion of tea, to a discovery that is actually nice to what can fairly be described as a bit of an obsession!
To celebrate Day 1 on the #teatagchallenge I thought I would unearth two of the teas that I started my journey with, which I have (for some reason) not drunk in several years! They were both in unlabeled bags and it took a little digging to pull out the right ones!
Lan Cha (蓝茶）
Six years ago I moved to China. At that time I didn't enjoy tea, but I slowly started drinking a couple of different ones. The first one I bought (that sticks out anyway) is a Lan Cha which literally translates to Blue Tea. I a pretty sure that intrigue at the idea of the tea being blue is why I picked this one!
Much sweeter than usual teas, I used to drink this pretty much every day in the drinking bottle I would take to classes or out and about. As my interest in tea grew, I started buying and trying new ones and when I returned to England it was with a small amount of this strange blue tea left - which I promptly forgot all about!
I decided to pull this tea out this morning to try it again and for the first time I discovered what it is - a herbal tea! Last week I tried Amachazuru tea from Mei Leaf and this was EXACTLY the same!
Turns out the tea was made from the Jiao Gu Lan plant (hence the Lan). This herb grows from a climbing vine pant, and it has a long list of health benefits - so long in fact that it is known in China as the Immortality herb! So even though I thought I was drink tea all this time, at least I was drinking something full of health benefits!
Having drunk this tea in a large carry bottle in the past, I never got the strong bitter-sweet flavor that comes through when drunk gong-fu style, and so today I made a small brew with a limited amount of leaves - to make a soft and pleasantly sweet drink!
Hong Mei Ren (红美人
The second tea of note is Hong Mei Ren. On one of our weekend travel trips in China, we headed to the Tulou in Fujian province. Here, we sat down for a rest in a small cafe in an ancient building, and enjoyed some tea with the old tea master. The tea we had was called Beautiful Red Lady and we immediately fell in love! So much so that we all bought a bag!
This was our go to tea for a long time, and I event bought several bags before I moved back to the UK, but with that nearly gone, the last few grams were saved in an unlabeled bag at the bottom of the tea box!
With today being a day of firsts, I decided to hunt it out, and I was glad I did to enjoy a cup and reminisce! (Although I must admit it hasn't aged brilliantly!)
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