I just returned from China and came across an anomaly/puzzle about
which I'd like expert explanation. I know that in China what we term
black tea is "red." At one tea garden I visited, the managers talked
about experimenting with black tea and showed me the young bushes and
some early harvest of it. It looked to me far more like a darker green
and the leaf was very much in the white tea style. At another factory,
they also mentioned black tea. In Shanghai, I finally bought some
unusual looking China black, wound into long, tight spirals, from a
superb upmarket tea store. Back home I brewed it as I would a black --
boiling water, 4 minutes infusion. Ohmigod. It was extraordinarily
bitter to the degree of being undrinkable. The taste made the
aftertaste of a Gyokuro seem bland. The leaves unwound and expanded
like an oolong. Was I just overbrewing a heavy green?

So, please enlighten me. What is a China "black?" Just a blackish
green? An exotic specialty? A mistranslation of something? Thanks.

pgwk wrote:

> I just returned from China and came across an anomaly/puzzle about
> which I'd like expert explanation. I know that in China what we term
> black tea is "red." At one tea garden I visited, the managers talked
> about experimenting with black tea and showed me the young bushes and
> some early harvest of it. It looked to me far more like a darker green
> and the leaf was very much in the white tea style. At another factory,
> they also mentioned black tea. In Shanghai, I finally bought some
> unusual looking China black, wound into long, tight spirals, from a
> superb upmarket tea store. Back home I brewed it as I would a black --
> boiling water, 4 minutes infusion. Ohmigod. It was extraordinarily
> bitter to the degree of being undrinkable. The taste made the
> aftertaste of a Gyokuro seem bland. The leaves unwound and expanded
> like an oolong. Was I just overbrewing a heavy green?
>
> So, please enlighten me. What is a China "black?" Just a blackish
> green? An exotic specialty? A mistranslation of something? Thanks.

Hello Peter,
apart from red tea (which - as you correctly mentioned - is black tea
in the west), there is also black tea (sometimes referred to as bitter
stalk tea) produced in China. This tea looks more like a dark green tea
and produces a yellowish liquid.
As you noticed, the flavor of the tea is quite bitter to start with. It
should change with subsequent sippings, though. Chinese black tea is
renowned to change its flavor over the course of a tasting.
Judging from your description of the leaf style, I'm guessing you're
drinking Wu Tang. I'd suggest you try playing with infusion times to
make it enjoyable.

--

On May 7, 1:56 am, pgwk > wrote:
> I just returned from China and came across an anomaly/puzzle about
> which I'd like expert explanation. I know that in China what we term
> black tea is "red." At one tea garden I visited, the managers talked
> about experimenting with black tea and showed me the young bushes and
> some early harvest of it. It looked to me far more like a darker green
> and the leaf was very much in the white tea style. At another factory,
> they also mentioned black tea. In Shanghai, I finally bought some
> unusual looking China black, wound into long, tight spirals, from a
> superb upmarket tea store. Back home I brewed it as I would a black --
> boiling water, 4 minutes infusion. Ohmigod. It was extraordinarily
> bitter to the degree of being undrinkable. The taste made the
> aftertaste of a Gyokuro seem bland. The leaves unwound and expanded
> like an oolong. Was I just overbrewing a heavy green?
>
> So, please enlighten me. What is a China "black?" Just a blackish
> green? An exotic specialty? A mistranslation of something? Thanks.

Do they look like little black sticks? I think you got Kuding Cha,
which is..... really bitter.

China Black is actually stuff like Fu Bricks and Liu Bao and that kind
of thing... not stuff you'll normally find and usually aren't THAT
bitter. Not the way you described anyway.

MarshalN
http://www.xanga.com/MarshalN

On May 8, 5:36 am, MarshalN > wrote:
> On May 7, 1:56 am, pgwk > wrote:
>
>
>
> > I just returned from China and came across an anomaly/puzzle about
> > which I'd like expert explanation. I know that in China what we term
> > black tea is "red." At one tea garden I visited, the managers talked
> > about experimenting with black tea and showed me the young bushes and
> > some early harvest of it. It looked to me far more like a darker green
> > and the leaf was very much in the white tea style. At another factory,
> > they also mentioned black tea. In Shanghai, I finally bought some
> > unusual looking China black, wound into long, tight spirals, from a
> > superb upmarket tea store. Back home I brewed it as I would a black --
> > boiling water, 4 minutes infusion. Ohmigod. It was extraordinarily
> > bitter to the degree of being undrinkable. The taste made the
> > aftertaste of a Gyokuro seem bland. The leaves unwound and expanded
> > like an oolong. Was I just overbrewing a heavy green?
>
> > So, please enlighten me. What is a China "black?" Just a blackish
> > green? An exotic specialty? A mistranslation of something? Thanks.
>
> Do they look like little black sticks? I think you got Kuding Cha,
> which is..... really bitter.
>
> China Black is actually stuff like Fu Bricks and Liu Bao and that kind
> of thing... not stuff you'll normally find and usually aren't THAT
> bitter. Not the way you described anyway.
>
> MarshalNhttp://www.xanga.com/MarshalN

Kuding, Ku Ding and Ku Ting are synonymous and refer to the same tea
as Wu Tang.

Jo

It is, as MarshalN & Jo mentioned, you bought a kuding cha instead of
china black. If after the initial bitterness comes a sweetness that
coats the tongue to the back of the throat and slight salivating from
under the tongue, it is most likely you got a kuding cha. It isn't
bad, just cut down your brewing time to 30 sec and use only a single
stick per cup each time...

china black tea comes in several forms - from the fu bricks to liu
bao, they taste very different, depending on the region.

Danny

Thank you, Marshal, Danny and Jo. You solved my puzzle and I much
appreciate your expertise. Yes, it is indeed a kuding. I didn't get to
its sweet aftertaste because I'd brewed it far too long as if it were
the green I assumed. I gave it four minutes and used a full
spoonful !!!!! Overkill.

This little experience is a reminder to me of just how much I don't
know about tea and how helpful this Group can be. I am beyond a newbie
and in fact quite knowledgeable at the broad level across most types
of tea, but there is so much more to know! I have just finished
writing a book that aims at getting the tea bag/green tea for health
drinker familiar with the wider options and wonderful choices of great
teas. I reference the Google group several times as a valuable
resource -- it provides the next level of information beyond that of
an amateur like myself. One of the blockages to building the tea
community for me is the lack of decent literature -- that a picture
book like Jane Pettigrew's cosy nostalgia or the 1906 Kokuza (for me,
much overrated) Art of Tea constitutes the basic library really gets
in the way of moving newbies and amateurs to a fuller knowledge base
that you guys have. I have o many friends who love the tea they know
about but, for exam[ple, have never once drunk an oolong or even heard
about puehrs. There is such a wide set of information voids. At my
level, too, there are even more voids; for instance, I drink plenty of
Silver Needle/Eyebrow whites and Dragonwells/Gykuro/basic Tuchas but
am completely out of my depth in understanding the varieties within
them and the grade differences. I had simply never even heard of
kuding and realize that I have many other such blindnesses. I think I
am representative of a growing community of tea lovers, who needs and
wants plenty of information help.

Anyway, thanks so much; I genuinely appreciate your reply and admire
your expertise and willingness to share it.

Peter

PS. I'd love to send any of you the short speech I gave in Liyang and
get your feedback and insights
..
On May 7, 10:43 pm, wrote:
> It is, as MarshalN & Jo mentioned, you bought a kuding cha instead of
> china black. If after the initial bitterness comes a sweetness that
> coats the tongue to the back of the throat and slight salivating from
> under the tongue, it is most likely you got a kuding cha. It isn't
> bad, just cut down your brewing time to 30 sec and use only a single
> stick per cup each time...
>
> china black tea comes in several forms - from the fu bricks to liu
> bao, they taste very different, depending on the region.
>
> Danny

Hi, Peter,

I'm deeply impressed that you survived a pot-full of kudingcha! The
most I've seen people use in a brew is a few stalks, simply because of
its enormous potency. I can only imagine the agony induced by using
the quantity that one would use for normal tea - my sympathies are
mixed with admiration!

As is my very limited understanding, kuding"cha" isn't tea at all;
I'd welcome confirmation from a regular kuding suffer/drinker.


Toodlepip,

Hobbes

Hi Hobbes......

It was indeed a truly interesting experience -- as in the cliched
Confucian curse "May you live in interesting times." I think I broke
every record for the 29 foot dash from chair to sink to grab a glass
of water record. I only managed three gulps, one of surprise, the
second a "surely not" and the third "omigod" -- the rest is probably
corroding my water pipes. Still, it could have been worse -- a
Constant Cummings fruit flavored lawnmower ejection special perhaps? I
gather that kuding is ingested (via tracheotomy?) for medicinal
purposes only. In a taste-off competition between my local
supermarket's green tea tags with ingredients from somewhere that dare
not speak its name, a kuding and a sip of cod liver oil I wonder which
would win the Healthy Food Award from the Thunderbird Wine Foundation.

with regards and a still aghast shudder
Peter

On May 9, 3:38 am, HobbesOxon > wrote:
> Hi, Peter,
>
> I'm deeply impressed that you survived a pot-full of kudingcha! The
> most I've seen people use in a brew is a few stalks, simply because of
> its enormous potency. I can only imagine the agony induced by using
> the quantity that one would use for normal tea - my sympathies are
> mixed with admiration!
>
> As is my very limited understanding, kuding"cha" isn't tea at all;
> I'd welcome confirmation from a regular kuding suffer/drinker.
>
> Toodlepip,
>
> Hobbes

pgwk wrote:
> ... it could have been worse -- a
> Constant Cummings fruit flavored lawnmower ejection special perhaps? I
> gather that kuding is ingested (via tracheotomy?) for medicinal
> purposes only.

Sounds like just the thing to wash down a nice dish of surstromming:
"A greater agony erases thought of a lesser."

-DM

Pickled herring in brine -- ah, yes. I taught in Sweden for four years
and managed to avoid ever eating surstromming but out in romantic
Sollentuna and Ciste -- small towns outside Stockholm -- you could
smell it from a thousand meters. I think you are on to something -- a
new international food niche. Perhaps it might be named cusiine
affreux -- frightening food -- built on the principle of the fouler it
smells the more redolent the delicacy. Add to the surstromming menu
kuding plus a Swedish cloudberry wine, that viscous and expensive
sugary overdose, and a few British classics (ah, memories of my
childhood) such as spotted dick, and then on to stardom on cable TV's
Food Channel. The ad slogan might be "Kuding. It's unique! We hope."

regards
peter

On May 10, 7:36 am, DogMa > wrote:
> pgwk wrote:
> > ... it could have been worse -- a
> > Constant Cummings fruit flavored lawnmower ejection special perhaps? I
> > gather that kuding is ingested (via tracheotomy?) for medicinal
> > purposes only.
>
> Sounds like just the thing to wash down a nice dish of surstromming:
> "A greater agony erases thought of a lesser."
>
> -DM