Appreciating a cup of ancient tree tea often carries an atmosphere of solemnity and slight tension, after all, one is facing tea from ancient trees that have grown in the forest for over a hundred years. A sense of reverence naturally arises toward the tea in the cup before you. However, do not be intimidated by this atmosphere. In fact, when appreciating any tea, what you see may not tell the whole story — it is the comprehensive sensation of your entire body that brings you the truth.
The deception of dry leaves
Generally, we begin each tasting by admiring the dry tea. The overall color of raw Pu-erh dry leaves is a mix of deep ink-green and silvery-white. In some areas, it can even be described as black and white, often called “big black strips.” The dark parts are the leaf surface; the silvery parts are the leaf back, covered with fine hairs that appear white. However, one cannot simply assume that dry leaves with large, dark strands are from ancient trees. Yunnan has abundant tea germplasm resources, with large-leaf, medium-leaf, and small-leaf varieties all widely planted. Judging by appearance alone is one-sided — truly, “what the eye sees is not the full truth.”
The realm of mountain fragrance
After brewing, the tea fragrance immediately commands attention. First is the fair cup’s bottom aroma. After awakening the tea, set the fair cup aside, and once it cools slightly, you can smell it. This fragrance comes in different types — floral, floral-fruity, honey — carried on the warm, moist air rising from the cup, delivering a comfortable experience. After the tea liquor enters your mouth, you can seek another kind of fragrance — water-infused fragrance. This is the tea’s aroma dissolved in the liquor, filling the entire mouth as you drink, extending into the nasal cavity, reaching down to the throat. This fragrance brings longer-lasting and richer bodily sensations.
For ancient tree tea, the aroma types are actually quite rich. After all, ancient trees grow in different environments with different soil compositions, and the aromatic substances they contain vary accordingly. But overall, ancient tree tea’s fragrance is full, heavy, and lingering — never light or thin.
Easier to capture than tea energy is “resonance”
If tea energy is a holistic bodily sensation that varies greatly from person to person, then tea’s “resonance” mainly lingers and dwells in the mouth and throat. First, the timing of tea resonance appears after the liquor has been swirled thoroughly in the mouth, making full contact, and then swallowed. Second, it is not any of the five basic tastes — sweet, sour, bitter, salty, savory — that the tongue detects, but rather a stimulus that causes the oral mucosa to relax and release. More importantly, this sensation does not end when the liquor is swallowed; it continues in the mouth for a considerable time, and it engages the entire throat in the tea-tasting experience, bringing a deep, long, and unique sensation. Ancient tree tea performs notably well in this regard and can serve as an important reference for appreciating ancient tree tea.
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Author: Old Tea Head · Lin Shen (LamSam)
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