Eco-Cha Tea Club: 99 - Traditional Lugu Oolong Tea from Taiwan | Eco-Cha Teas

In this video, we will be tasting and talking about batch 99 of the Ecocha Tea Club, a traditional Lugu oolong tea from Taiwan. Batch 99 of the Ecocha Tea Club is a traditional Lugu oolong tea from Taiwan. Lugu is a historical tea growing region in central Taiwan, Nantou County, the home of Dongding oolong tea. And prior to the popularization of that name, Dongding oolong, it was just referred to as Lugu tea. Even when I first started drinking tea in the early 90s, I heard Lugu tea more often than I did Dongding oolong tea. The name Dongding was really, well, it was chosen and developed by the Lugu Farmers Association when they established their tea competition. And it does have historical roots in the place named the mountain that started growing tea, one of the earliest places in the township, which is rather large. Dongding Mountain has this historical tale of Mr. Lin, who went to mainland China in the 1850s to take the official exam to become some sort of government official and brought back with him tea saplings. And that's how it all started. That's one of the stories that exists. Tea developed in the area. It had been developed already around the Sun Moon Lake area and in northern Taiwan as well. And here we are in the 21st century and people are still making tea similar to how it was made 50, 100 years ago, or at least 50 years ago, because there are members of the tea community that can attest to that. This batch of tea is similar to that kind of tea before I personally got here. And well, I started coming to Lugu in 1993. And the Farmers Association competition was pretty well established then and they promoted a roasted version of this oolong tea and that has become most popular. Dongding and other traditional oolong teas that were made in this area were not originally roasted, at least not by the tea farmers and tea makers. The merchants would roast batches of tea that they acquired or procured from this area. And eventually that type of tea kind of claimed its fame over this traditional version. So when our friend told us that he made a batch of winter tea that was well oxidized, we're always interested to taste that. And we went up and tasted this batch and it indeed is. It's definitely more oxidized than most teas that are made around here. And he did that for a specific reason. It was a winter crop and the leaves took a long time to grow. So they were getting a little bit laohua or they're getting a little leathery, not as tender and supple as they were a month before. But that's because they didn't grow very fast. So he decided to just go for it and he put these leaves through a much longer solar withering process. And definitely, I think it's the longest tumbling, the shuffling that kind of lightly bruises the leaves or at least activates the circulation within the leaves and allows them to oxidize more fully. You know, in high mountain oolong tea, that's done for 20 minutes, 30 minutes. Baozhong tea is less than that. He went for well over an hour with this batch of tea in the dalang or the bamboo large cylinder that slowly turns and tumbles all the tea leaves inside. So that alone impressed us that he just figured that that was what is appropriate for this batch of tea. And it did turn out quite nicely and interesting in terms of its flavor profile. Having said all that, I want to take a sip before I continue. I brewed it the way I was hoping that it would brew, which is not too strongly this time. I brewed, I think it's about 1 to 17 ratio. So I did 10 and a half grams of tea leaves in this 100, close to 180 milliliter pot, 175, 180. You know, that's just a reference because, but after you put the tea leaves in, that significantly decreases the volume of the pot. And then, you know, these lids kind of push some water out of the pot when you put the lid on. So, but basically it's just a starting point reference. When you can fill up your pot to the brim, that's what I go with, with the capacity for the teapot. And then everything else is just based on that. So 175, 180 milliliter teapot, 10 and a half grams of leaves. I brewed the first, second, and third brew all for one minute. And I did that with a certain rationale. I decided to do it all for one minute, the first three brews, so that I could compare them in stages. Same brewing time and see how they develop for the first few brews. Fourth brew, one minute, 10 seconds. So the most pronounced thing is kind of this fruity aroma, but when I taste it on the first brew, which I will guess is going to be the lightest because the leaves are still opening up. And they are hardy leaves. They have a thickness to them. And just like they needed extra work in their processing in order to bring them to their optimal quality of brewing tea, I think that they need, they take a little while to open up while brewing. So the first brew, I get more than just a sweet fruity thing. There's a perfumey floral thing. While I'm tasting, I'm not going to be able to stop. Second, yeah, way more substantial. Much more of the classic tea character, some bitter base in there, but definitely sweet, sweetness on top. Is it fruity? I think fruity is what comes to mind because there's this combination of bitter and sweet and this fragrant thing that goes on. If I were to choose a fruit, I think I'd choose apple. Something that's kind of light in its fruity character, not syrupy, but has a little bit of tartness as well. It doesn't really taste like apples. You know, we can just, we can just go with what comes out in tasting it. So I'm getting flowers and apples. Third brew, pretty similar. A really nice full-bodied oolong tea. Oolong, you know, is that large spectrum between green and black and there's a lot of variations in between. I would say this is a nice mid-range and it's unroasted. So you really get to taste that original flavor and it does include bitter and astringent notes in its flavor profile. But that's what brings it alive. That's what makes your face kind of light up when you're tasting it. And that's what I think tea lovers are a little bit addicted to in the end. And it's good for us as well. Those qualities are the polyphenol compounds that are beneficial to our health. I won't get into that. There's too much of this story to tell about the tea. Back to the tea and its source. This is a friend of mine who I've really only gotten to know well in the last few years. I've known his family for over 10 years. It all started with his father's older brother, his uncle, who we sourced several batches of tea from. He's well into his 80s now. When I pulled up on my motorcycle yesterday to stop by, I saw the older brother uncle first. He was on the side of the road and it was really nice to see him and talk with him. My American friend's wife's parents introduced me to this old farmer in Lugu. They had been buying tea from him for 20 or 30 years and that was 15 years ago. So there's a lot of history. I told the old uncle that I just found a bag of tea that we shared with the tea club as batch number two, I believe. We shared two, so I'm not sure which one it was, but one of the very early batches. We're in batch 99 now. I found a bag in my New Year's cleaning last week of that batch of tea. I'm going to bring it to old man Su. Their family name is Su. We're going to open that vacuum sealed bag and see what it tastes like. I'm really looking forward to that. I haven't sat down with him in a long time. He's one of the first old school farmers that impressed me a lot and that made me feel like I am, well anyway, I'm glad to know them. Now the younger nephew, he's working for the tea research and extension station, Dongding workstation as they call it, Dongding branch in Lugu. He's really doing a lot to preserve his local culture. He's the guy that we get the Dongding Tieguanyin from in recent years. He's recultivating an old strain of tea, what we could call an heirloom strain. That's not this batch of tea. He also has plots of Qingxin Oolong, which this is. This is winter 2023 Qingxin Oolong, about 700 meters elevation in the Yonglong village, right next to Phoenix village, kind of the heart of Oolong tea country and definitely the highest, the most dense population of artisan tea makers on Taiwan. So it's got a lot of history and a lot of reputation and he's very enthusiastic, very dedicated to his trade and always willing to talk as much as we want to listen about the tea industry and all kinds of things. We've learned a lot from him in recent years. So we decided to share this batch of tea because it is a traditionally made tea, Oolong tea in the Lugu fashion, in that the leaves were more mature than they normally are harvested in recent years, but how they used to be harvested decades ago. So that's what happened with this batch of tea and we decided to share it unroasted. If you end up putting this tea aside or you decide to get, if we have any in the reserve, tea club reserve stock and you let it sit for a year or more, I wouldn't be surprised at all if it develops a honey flavor because another client of his bought a significant amount and they roasted it at his house for, I think they roasted it for 20 hours or something, a good roasting sesh and I got to taste that and it definitely tasted like concubine tea after the roasting. So this tea, after that experience of tasting the roasted version, is a bug-bitten tea. It's not so evident in its unroasted form but it's in there, it's in the composition and maybe you'll get a brew that reminds you of honey as well. Okay, brew four. Really nice thick mouth feel. It's got substance, you know. What turns me on about this kind of tea is that it's complex and it's flavorful. It's got bitter, it's got sweet, it's got a little bit of astringent tartness, but it has this substance in the consistency of the brew and it's not that watery kind of thing. You get a nice thick mouth feel. Take one more sip of four. If you're not into bitter, I would suggest brewing this at even a lighter ratio. Start at 1 to 20, you know, 10 grams of leaves for 200 mils of water or 5 for 100, that kind of thing. It's got a bitter base but I love that and it makes the flavor more interesting because it brings it all alive. The astringent factor is not drying my tongue totally but it is a dry enough finish so I'm getting a nice balance of sweet and dry finish. So there we have it, a family that we are very happy to continue to know, kind of moving into the next generation. Old man Su, he procures batches of tea and roasts them still. He's still providing people in his community with the tea that his customers came to know and love. That's a very, well, it's kind of the heart of it really, like when you have people that have been coming to you for 30 years or maybe close to 50 now saying, can we still get tea from you? And he's 85 and still doing that for them. Okay, quick look at the tea leaves. So there's not a lot, they're not overly mature because if they were you'd see a lot more yellowing in the coloring of the leaves. There's not really any yellow, there's a little bit lighter green and in the brood leaves we can see the reddening around the edges of the leaves and in the stems and some like at the tips of the leaves as well. That's all that tumbling that he did in order to get this well matured batch of winter tea. Winter tea is known to be more fibrous and less juicy, basically less water content in the leaves by the time it's harvested due to the weather. It's not as rainy usually in the winter season. So that is the art of determining what you can do to take your raw produce and bring it to its optimal quality in the end product. And it's what a lot of people are not really willing or that skilled or experienced in doing. This guy has learned from his father and his uncles and his grandfather how to do just that. That's what they've been doing for generations. Okay, is there anything else I want to say? It was a really nice experience to show up on my motorcycle. I asked him, what time do you get home from work? About 5.15. Okay, I want to come up and take a couple of photos of you and your dad in the tea garden before it gets dark because I need to write some blog posts this weekend. And I just went up there and it's just that casual. Sit down and have a quick pot of tea and say that I'll bring this tea of your uncle's next time because there's not enough time tonight to enjoy it and we'll come back and have a more relaxed tea sesh. Batch 99 of the Ecocha Tea Club Traditional Lugu Oolong Tea from Yonglong Village, Winter 2023. Thanks for being with us. See you next time.