献给爱茶的人

献给爱茶的人 “茶”字拆开即“人在草木间”。人生一世，草木一秋，几度冷暖，几许纷繁，人与茶之间有着怎样禅意的相联哦： 茶从离开茶树那一刻起，就期待着与水相逢 ; 水唤醒茶，茶成就水 ; 水包容茶，茶激荡水 ; 茶因水而重生，水因茶而丰润…… 泡茶如人生，需洽到好处 ; 时间短了'茶没有入味，淡了; 时间长了'入味太浓，苦了 …… 茶与水的缘，许是因万年前溪边婆娑的小树，此时才牵手相随 ; 水与茶的份，许是千年前嫩叶上留连的珠露，今朝才倾身相许…… 味因水觉甘美，心因茶而和宁 ; 茶终于寂静，水终于无音。茶凉时，水静了，水静时，茶清了 ; 时光悠远，世事淡然 ; 有一种情怀，淡香如茶，有一种人生，清澈如水…… 人生沉浮，如一盏茶水，苦如茶，香亦如茶。淡名，淡利，无争，无夺。一切自然，一切脱俗，一切入幽美邈远的意境，都是人生的淡雅之美。 水甘味真，茶清梦好！ 一杯清茶，一颗静心。

We went for breakfast at at Anson Road Dim Sum house after our golf game was preempted by untimely rain. The place was crowded, so we managed to share a table with a couple. The lady is a mutual friend of BA. And the husband happens to be another tea lover. He as recommending a tek loh han (vs the more commonly available tek kuan yin). It is time to do research on this new type of tea.

Perfect smooth Chinese tea is just like good aged wine, no juices can compare or replace it..... 香滑的中國菜,跟陳年舊酒一樣,是沒有任何東西可以代替的.....

Master Leung Ka-Dong has been working at Ying Kee Tea House for almost 40 years. "What type of tea do you usually order when you eat dim sum?" asks Ying Kee Tea House英記茶莊 Master Leung Ka-Dong (梁家棟師傅). "I usually order white hair peony because my family always orders it," I reply. "Did you know that almost all restaurants mix their white teas with black to add flavour and colour?" he says. No, I did not know that. I did not know that it's only in the recent 50 to 60 year s that white, green and pu-erh have become Hong Kong 's most popular teas either. With a richer economy, Hong Kong people stirred away from simple black teas from India and Sri Lanka and began to enjoy tea for various health reasons or collect pu-erh tea like wine. Thanks to Master Leung, who has worked at Ying Kee Tea House since the early 1970s, I now know a little more about how to appreciate Chinese tea. Here are 12 things he told me about tea that no restaurateur would have:

1. Never drink tea on an empty stomach 別空肚喝茶 Always drink tea during or after a meal. Our stomachs are acidic and tea is alkalizing. Acid and alkaline combined have a bloating effect. 酸鹼中和會產生胃漲 2. Drink white tea if you are a smoker 吸煙者喝白茶 White tea is really good for the lungs and throat, so it is especially beneficial for smokers. A cup of white peony tea helps clear all the phlegm in our throats and cures coughs. 白毛牡丹能去痰,潤喉,止咳 3. You won’t be able to tell the quality of white tea by its colour 從顏色不能分別出白茶的品質 Most restaurants mix white peony tea with black tea to add colour and flavour because customers generally prefer tea that tastes richer and looks darker in colour.坊間白牡丹常有紅茶混入以增強色香 Pure white tea itself has hardly any flavour or colour compared to other teas. 4. Only fine dining Chinese restaurants serve screw shaped green tea只有高級食府才供應碧螺春 Genuine screw shaped green tea is the highest grade of green tea and the most expensive. At Ying Kee Tea House, it sells at HK$5,067 per kilogram (HK$380 per 75 gram bag). Produced only in Jiangsu Province Dong Ting Mountain , it’s also the rarest green tea in China , producing only about 1,000 kilograms a year.正宗洞庭碧螺春年產一百公斤,售價每斤五千多港圓。 It must be consumed fresh, within a year after picking the tea leaves. Screw shaped green tea of higher quality is best consumed within six months even. If it is tasteless, solvent or extremely bitter, that means it has already gone bad.此茶要新鮮飲用,久藏失香味苦。 But while it is certainly expensive, screw shaped green tea has a very particular taste that not everyone may like. Even when it is fresh, it tastes more bitter than other teas. For all those reasons, screw shaped green tea is only served at fine dining Chinese restaurants, usually at hotels. 5. Treat pu-erh tea like a digestible detergent to flush all the grease away普洱茶助消化,去油膩,降膽固醇。 Always pair oily food with pu-erh tea. Dim sum, no matter steamed or fried, contains lard. When you eat shrimp dumplings, there is always a piece of fatty pork in there to add flavour and fragrance. Pu-erh tea helps you rinse all the grease from the food out of your system. It aids digestion, blood circulation and lowers cholesterol levels. If you don’t have detergent at home, boil some pu-erh tea and use it to wash your dishes. It’s like a digestible detergent. 普洱茶可代替家用洗潔精。 6. Sweets go best with green tea甜品跟綠茶是最佳配搭。 Sweet food is best paired with tea that is more bitter. Loong cheng green tea helps moderate the sweetness of desserts.龍井能減輕甜品甜度。 Like pu-erh tea, drinking green tea helps lower cholesterol levels and break down fat.和普洱一樣,綠茶亦可去油膩降低膽固醇。 But while most teas are best brewed in boiling hot water, green teas like screw shaped green tea and loong cheng only need to be brewed in water that is about 75 to 85C degrees. If the water is too hot, it will be difficult to maintain the same fragrance in the second brew.泡綠茶水溫不能大沸,應維持在75至85度C之間。 7. Teh kuan yin goes best with spicy food鐵觀音配搭香辣菜式最妙。 Spicy foods are best paired with teh kuan yin because it has a bitter sweet effect. If you ever visit a Chiu Chow restaurant, they always serve teh kuan yin tea with their spicy dishes. 潮州菜館專供鐵觀音(又各溪茶) Plus, Chiu Chow city borders Shantou city and Fujian province, which is known for harvesting teh kuan yin leaves. 8. Fried food goes best with white tea煎炸食物與白茶配搭最宜 Basically, any type of fried or deep fried food goes well with white tea. In Chinese medicinal terms, fried food is considered dry hot.白茶清熱氣 White teas like white hair peony help release body heat. 9. Smell quality外普洱外,其他茶葉都有不同香味。無香味的茶肯定是過期。 Aside from pu-erh tea which is almost odourless, quality tea should always give off a fragrant smell. If you can’t smell the tea or see that it is very solvent, then it has probably expired. 10. You won’t be able to find good pu-erh tea at dim sum restaurants茶樓永遠找不到好的普洱 It is simply not cost-efficient. Pu-erh tea is like wine. The longer you store it, the richer it becomes. Storage for at least three to six years is optimal.普洱像洋酒一樣,越陳年越好。但儲藏普洱對茶樓來講不甚化算(可能陸羽除外) Regular pu-erh teas served at restaurants have generally been modified during the fermentation process to reduce storage time. By doing this, they lose whatever fragrance and flavour they originally had.食肆用的普洱大都是比較新的品種,所以香與味都大打折扣。 Good pu-erh tea should look very smooth and deep red in colour, not black like regular pu-erh tea.好做普洱茶香滑呈琥珀色,不是深褐色。 You can also test the quality of your pu-erh tea by the stain it leaves on your cup after drin king it. If you see a stain surrounding the rim of your cup, that means you are drinking regular or low quality pu-erh tea. If your cup is left with no stain after consumption, you are drinking pu-erh tea of high quality. 上等普洱茶喝清後杯邊不留痕跡。 11. Teh kuan yin, daffodil and oolong are all the same at dim sum restaurants普通茶樓食肆,鐵觀音,水仙及烏龍通常是同一種低級水仙茶 No matter which of the three you order, dim sum restaurants will serve you low grade daffodil tea. All three teas come under the same oolong tea category, yet they are very different in flavour. Teh kuan yin tastes more clear and fragrant. Oolong is stronger and more solvent. And daffodil is the purest of them all. 12. The best moments of tea enjoyment are when you have time最佳品茶時間是你有閒暇去享受的時候 Drinking tea is a matter of mood. And when I talk about mood, it mainly has to do with the condition of time. You’ve probably heard many rules about tea, from water temperature to colour. But at the end of the day, drinking tea is a very personal experience.別理所謂茶經。品茶是一種個人喜好,濃淡皆宜,有暇就好。 Some people like their tea boiling hot while others like theirs lukewarm. Some may like theirs stronger than others. So it’s all about time. We need time to brew that perfect cup of tea.

Still a leave lover

Recently I watched a TV about lifestyle in Taiwan. It feature a Hongkonger settling in Taiwan (through marriage). He started a "Hongkong Stye Tea house" offering primarily English style milk tea. They way they prepare the tea is very much like our corner coffee shops or mamak stalls in Malaysia.

Apparently the products this Hongkong Tea house offer are a great hit with the local Taiwanese.

Even though in the past few post, i mentioned only Chinese tea, my love also extends to tea of various kind, including Ceylon (or so-called English) tea.

Newly Arrived from HK --- Queen Peony

You may think Khoo EL brought back a young China Doll from his recent trip. Indeed he knows better than that. He brought back some good stuff to share with us all HGGers.

The Queen Peony, branded as Tian Ting Mou Tang (Peony Flower from the Sky) by the seller in HK, must be the premium selection from the Peony tea family. The tea leaves alone emit a very pleasant fragrance. After brewing for a few minutes, the unmistakable tea favor is so tinged with the fragrance that it should satisfy a very wide range of tea-drinkers, from the aficionados to those who just want to quench their thirst with some drinks that do not leave them with a bad aftertaste and even thirstier still.

Seriously, Peony teas are not easily available in Penang. Certainly not from the usual super or hyper market shelves. I enquired with some specialty tea shop in town. They also do not carry them. Just too few connoisseurs around, they said.

Just from the appearance and favor, i believe Peony tea belongs somewhere between green and dark tea. Thus it should have the great properties of both. That is rich in antioxidants, vitamins and a widely acceptable favor.

Let us enjoy it in the next few days. 75gm won't last very long.

Happy Golfing and "Yum Char"!

喝普洱茶請小心了哦...



農委會茶業改場長廖慶樑說，大陸雲南出產的普洱茶

近年席捲香港、台灣，變成搶手的茶葉，但學者專家

調查，普洱茶因特殊製程、陳年儲藏環境等因素，

使其總生菌數高的嚇人，必須煮沸才得以完全消滅，

一般人單用開水沖泡的飲茶方式，對人體可能有害。



廖慶樑說，雲南出產的普洱茶近年來被渲染成具有神

奇保健療效的茶葉，對腸胃尤其有益等，使港台一帶

掀起一股「普洱茶熱」，人手一杯，且早、中、晚不

停喝，部分人士更認為，喝得愈多，對身體愈佳，

事實上大謬不然。

廖慶樑解釋，普洱茶屬於後發酵茶，是將茶菁經殺菁、

揉捻、乾燥等手續後，堆置在倉庫中稱為「渥堆」，

使茶葉內部多酚類化合物氧化，其氧化可分自動氧化、

酵素性氧化、麴菌氧化等三種不同方式。

廖慶樑說，普洱茶後發酵堆置倉庫有乾倉及濕倉二種，

前種為自動氧化作用與酵素氧化作用二者混合併行，

後者則加上麴菌氧化作三者混合進行，市面上出售的

普洱茶，其貯存年限有五年、十年、甚至四、五十年

以上者，業者常標榜陳年普洱，愈陳愈香，更增醫療

保健效果，並抬高售價。事實上，廖慶樑調查，普洱

茶在產地雲南西雙版納、孟臘等邊疆地區，居住環境

都離乾淨清潔有一大段距離，何況茶葉經長時間貯存，

是否能維持好衛生安全品質？值得懷疑。

廖慶樑引用中興大學食品科學系教授區少梅的研究報

告指出，從普洱茶微生物的分析結果顯示，其總生菌

數與黴菌數高的驚人，如五年特選普洱茶，散茶總生

菌數每公克有一點廿六乘以十的六次方菌落數，黴菌

數則每公克有一百十五個菌落數。

廖慶樑說，早年普洱茶是運往中國西北地區作為蒸煮

調製奶茶的原料，均經高溫殺菌後再飲用，不會出問

題，但現在人們均習慣用小壺沖泡方式來飲用，則大

大不妥，不但無法增進健康，反對身體有害。

廖慶樑鄭重警告，飲用普洱茶，務必以高溫充份煮沸

為宜，例如以傳統中藥煎煮後飲用，亦可增加安全性，

避免感染。

Tea for breakfast gathering after golf game

It has been at least over a year since we have added Chinese tea to our breakfast gathering after a friendly private golf competition at BJCC.

I think it is an excellent practice since the other beverages (mostly kopi-ais or other common coffeeshop offerings) are not as wholesome as Chinese tea (known to be rich in antioxidants and other "natural goodness").

We have so far been fortunate to have several HGGers bringing their private collections to share with us. Most of them travel widely or have friends who travel widely to bring in exotic varieties for our enjoyment.

Todate, we have stuff from Beijing, Vietnam (both northern and southern parts), HK. Some tastes great, some appears great, and all are enthusiatically imbibed often after some greasy breakfast items are ingested. So I can deduce, the tea has not just provided quench for our thirst, it probably also works to allow us to have many many happy golfing years.

At this point, how I wish we start this tea drink earlier before Soon Lee has his fall.