Orthodox a.s.sams are the finest of the region, but they are risky to make. Indians drink primarily CTC tea, most often as chai, chai, intoxicating with spices and hot milk. But as a result, the domestic market for whole-leaf, Orthodox a.s.sams is tiny. The best Orthodox a.s.sams come from large industrial gardens that can afford to take a chance. Belying the usual a.s.sumptions about artisa.n.a.l teas, some of a.s.sam's finest Orthodox teas come from enormous multinational corporations. The two Mangalams in this chapter come from Jayshree Tea & Industries, a publicly traded company listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of over $50 million. intoxicating with spices and hot milk. But as a result, the domestic market for whole-leaf, Orthodox a.s.sams is tiny. The best Orthodox a.s.sams come from large industrial gardens that can afford to take a chance. Belying the usual a.s.sumptions about artisa.n.a.l teas, some of a.s.sam's finest Orthodox teas come from enormous multinational corporations. The two Mangalams in this chapter come from Jayshree Tea & Industries, a publicly traded company listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of over $50 million.

These companies have helped improve the quality of the region's teas dramatically in the last fifty years. Though a.s.sams have changed considerably, I have a nostalgic affection for them. I start my day with an a.s.sam. Of the pure teas I trade in, a.s.sams most resemble the dark black teas of my childhood. Only today they taste so much better.

What follows are four a.s.sams, arranged in order from most honeyed to guttiest and most robust. The first, Golden Tip a.s.sam, is a recent innovation, as the name suggests, made entirely of golden tips. The next two Mangalams represent more traditional, robust Orthodox teas. The fourth is a top-notch (though strong and uniform) CTC.

GOLDEN TIP a.s.sAM.When I first joined my father in his tea business in 1988, we offered the standard fare in black teas: a basic Darjeeling, an Earl Grey, an English Breakfast, and not much more. I suspected there had to be others out there. I got the chance to go looking in 1990, when we received a commission from the j.a.panese retailer Takashimaya to source rare teas for their new tea shop in New York. With their backing, I scoured the tea world and discovered this remarkable a.s.sam.

Natural sweetness in tea comes from tips, or buds. The best a.s.sam black teas have some golden tips, both to give them more elegance and to drive up their price. Indian tea makers are understandably reluctant to concentrate all their golden tips in a single tea, as they make more money by spreading them out. But Golden Tip a.s.sam is pure golden tips. Created within just the last thirty years, the tea is so rare that it is made only on commission. I have to place an order before the harvest has even begun.

Golden Tip a.s.sam comes from the Dikom tea estate, a garden in northern a.s.sam known for its great Orthodox teas. Like all a.s.sams, this tea has fairly blunt aromas from a very short withering. Unlike most a.s.sams, however, Golden Tip is only barely rolled to preserve the delicate, expensive buds. The buds then oxidize to a beautiful gold color when they are transferred to an oven to dry.

With so many buds, this tea may scorch if brewed with fully boiling water. You may want to experiment with slightly lower temperatures to see what tastes best.

MANGALAM FTGFOP OR 815 Mangalam Fancy Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe Orthodox 815 Mangalam Fancy Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe Orthodox 815This beautiful, potent tea is one of the best Orthodox a.s.sams. Mangalam tea estate is named after k.u.mar Mangalam Birla, once the son of the estate's owners and now one of its managers. The estate is owned by Jayshree Tea & Industries, a large company that incorporated in 1945 and has tea gardens in a.s.sam and Darjeeling. Jayshree is heralded in the Orthodox world for its special clones that produce a big golden leaf tip, which no one is able to replicate. You can identify Jayshree a.s.sams by the tips' exquisite golden color.

The numbering system for this tea uses the letters OR, meaning Orthodox, followed by the lot number 815. Such a high number indicates that it was harvested during the Second Flush period.

The Second Flush period is arguably the best time for a.s.sams. a.s.sam producers tried to imitate Darjeeling First Flushes, but they were not successful with a lighter version of the region's tea. People just love the taste of this strong, sophisticated tea.

MANGALAM FTGBOP SPECIAL OR 555 Mangalam Fancy Tippy Golden Broken Orange Pekoe Special Orthodox 555 Mangalam Fancy Tippy Golden Broken Orange Pekoe Special Orthodox 555This tea comes from the same garden and harvest as the preceding tea. Tasting the two next to each other helps ill.u.s.trate how much leaf size helps determine a tea's characteristics: Briefly put, the smaller the leaf, the simpler and more a.s.sertive the flavors and aromas, and the darker the liquor. This tea is a Broken Orange Pekoe, while the previous one is graded Flowery. This one has the smaller leaves.

When the tea leaves are rolled, the rolling machine crushes at different rates, creating some longer leaves and some shorter. The previous tea is an example of the "fines," the first leaves to drop out of the machine. By contrast, this tea was put through a dhool dhool and rolled again. and rolled again.

Both are excellent a.s.sams, both have the lovely Mangalam flavors of malt and dark honey. This GBOP Special resembles its GFOP cousin, but this one emphasizes strength while the other shows off its sophistication. I drink a tea like this most mornings. I love its mixture of strength and dark honey flavors.

BOISAHABI CTC PF 642 Boisahabi CTC Pekoe Fannings Lot No. 642 Boisahabi CTC Pekoe Fannings Lot No. 642While 95 percent of the teas on the market in India and Great Britain are CTC teas, this is the only one I'm including in the book. Obviously CTC teas are enjoyed by millions of people, but I feel the world of tea offers so much more. The aromas of CTC teas are simple and strong, with only a ghost of fruit flavors. The liquor is much darker, with much more body.

Though quite robust, this Boisahabi CTC is also palatable. When you taste this CTC, notice how uniform its flavors are in the mouth. Unlike Orthodox teas, CTC teas do not evolve and alter as you taste but remain consistent. The flavor is comfortingly stable but also somewhat predictable.

Boisahibi CTC comes from a particularly handsome garden in a.s.sam that still has traces of British influence in its architecture. The flat fields are filled with thousands of tea plants, with tall shade trees rising high above them.

CEYLON BLACK TEAS..

1. New Vithanakande FBOP EX SP New Vithanakande FBOP EX SP2. Kenilworth BOP1 Kenilworth BOP13. Uva Highlands Pekoe Uva Highlands Pekoe To the south and east of the Indian subcontinent lies the small, pear-shaped country of Sri Lanka. The tropical island is smaller than the state of Indiana yet produces a quant.i.ty and variety of black teas to rival China. Its unique topography and climate allow for three types of tea, determined not by season but by alt.i.tude: low-grown, medium-grown, and high-grown, each with its own unusual flavor profile.

Today, these teas are called Ceylons for marketing purposes; the island has not held the name of Ceylon since it was a British colony. Though the nation won independence in 1948, for the sake of recognizability, Sri Lankan tea makers have kept the name Ceylon for their teas.

The British brought the first tea plants to Sri Lanka at the end of the 1830s, shortly after establishing plantations in a.s.sam and only a little while after seizing control of the island in 1815. Tea did not become one of the island's dominant crops until the 1870s, when blight wiped out the country's coffee plantations. Tea plants proved resistant to the coffee rust, so in the right order of things, tea replaced coffee. Entrepreneurial Scotsmen established the great plantations. Finding the mountains outside the commercial capital of Colombo similar to the Scottish Highlands, they gave their high, cool gardens the names of their homes: Kenilworth, Dunedin, Glasgow, and St. Andrews and St. Michaels. By the early 1900s, they had transformed Ceylon into a major tea source on a par with northeastern India. The Scot Sir Thomas Lipton made a fortune in Ceylon teas, taking advantage of industrialized production methods to ma.s.s-market one of the first cheap blends.

Today, Lipton, the tea company, plays only a small role in Sri Lanka; it sources mostly Kenya and Tanzania, as well as thirty-three other countries. However, Sri Lanka remains a major force in the industry. Belying its size, the island generates a ma.s.sive quant.i.ty of tea. While most tea regions have one peak spring season, Ceylon has two, which allows it to grow tea almost year-round. The island is split down the middle by its Central Highlands, a mountain range with peaks upward of six thousand feet. From January to May, the teas on the western side of the island peak as monsoons batter the eastern side. While the churning clouds drench part of the island, they dry out the western half, drawing up moisture to generate the ideal dry, sunny weather for peak teas. From July to October, the situation reverses, and the eastern side peaks as monsoons soak the western half of the island. Whether peaking or not, in the tropical warmth tea grows all year, and so quickly that some gardens have to harvest the fresh leaves as often as every week. The gardens' yield per acre can be as much as thirty times that of the gardens in China or j.a.pan. Depending on the year, Sri Lanka ranks as either the first or second largest tea exporter in the world, after-or before-China.

To cope with the bounty, Sri Lanka's tea gardens and factories are almost as organized and well run as the best in j.a.pan. Ceylon tea marketing is also orderly and professional, with tea auctions most weeks in Colombo. The average Ceylon tea sells for much less than other British Legacy Teas, because the high volume has hurt the region's prestige. As a result, Ceylon tea makers who want to make money have been forced to innovate. The best tea makers now boast that every garden has its own recipe. From the cultivars to the withering, rolling, oxidation, and firing, every garden performs each step a little differently, resulting in an exquisite diversity of black teas.

The teas fall into three categories according to the elevation of their gardens. Low-grown teas come from the island's periphery, at elevations under two thousand feet. Submerged under tropical heat and humidity, most of these teas are dull and unremarkable, but New Vithanakande represents a chocolaty, honey-limned exception. Medium-grown teas flourish between two thousand and four thousand feet, where the cooler, drier climate produces fruitier, mellow teas like Kenilworth. The high-grown teas, between four thousand and six thousand feet, are what make Ceylon teas' reputation. That rarefied air produces exceptional teas like the wintergreen Uva Highlands. We will now taste all three, in order from mellowest to brightest and most vigorous.

NEW VITHANAKANDE FBOP EX SP New Vithanakande Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe Extra Special New Vithanakande Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe Extra SpecialWhile Darjeeling and a.s.sam teas suffer from hyperbole, the labels on Ceylon teas are more reliable. New Vithanakande FBOP EX SP is truly special-indeed, astonishing.

Sri Lanka's low-grown teas are generally quite poor; the region lies only three hundred feet above sea level, and in the tropical heat and humidity, the teas become dark and unremarkable. Most are sold for negligible amounts as bulk teas. To make any money, the low-alt.i.tude Ratnapura district tea gardens had to innovate. Some entrepreneurs figured out a way to keep the tips white, and now the district is famous for its silver tippy teas. New Vithanakande is the best of the bunch, with small leaves like most Broken Orange Pekoe teas, yet flowery with the most unlikely of black tea components: silver tips. Ordinarily, tea tips turn golden yellow during black tea production. New Vithanakande preserves the tips' silver hue.

The tea makers begin by withering the leaves very briefly, then rolling them for just fifteen minutes, using hardly any pressure on the leaves. Instead of rolling them on a table between pressurized disks, they pour the leaves into a vertical cylinder with a sieve at its base. As the cylinder slowly spins, the leaves rub up against and lightly macerate one another. Kept whole and undamaged, the tips don't oxidize while the rest of the leaves do. Thus the tips stay a shiny silver.

As the leaves jostle about, the finest, smallest, and most delicate ones fall through the sieve. The rest of the leaves-about 99.5 percent of them-are transferred to a rolling machine to become ordinary bulk low-grown tea. The smallest and most delicate leaves are left to oxidize for about two hours, much more than most Ceylon teas. They are also blasted with moist air of the sort that jets from a humidifier. This moist air may provoke the leaves to form their characteristic cocoa and chocolate flavors. I only speculate, as the same humidifying treatment is afforded Keemun Chinese black teas, which have similar cocoa notes (see "Keemun Mao Feng," page 112, and "Keemun Hao Ya A," page 114). Like Keemuns, the New Vithanakande teas are fired at a hotter temperature than other Ceylon teas, which likely creates a Maillard reaction to reinforce the cocoa flavors.

After firing, the tea makers spread out the leaves on a fine-mesh strainer and sort through them by hand. Every other British Legacy Tea is processed entirely by machine, but the makers of New Vithanakande sift the leaves, gently working the smallest particles through the strainer. The silver tips are larger and remain with the tea; the smaller golden tips fall through to the floor. The result is a delicious, surprisingly engaging low-grown tea, as beautiful to look at as to drink.

KENILWORTH BOP1 Kenilworth Broken Orange Pekoe No. 1 Kenilworth Broken Orange Pekoe No. 1This medium-bodied middle-grown tea has a wonderfully easygoing nature. The Kenilworth tea estate is one of the oldest in Sri Lanka, established by a Scot in the nineteenth century. Halfway up Sri Lanka's Central Highlands, at an elevation of roughly two thousand feet, the temperatures are not as hot as low-grown tea areas, but the Kenilworth estate is still hotter and more humid than the high-grown areas in the Highlands' peaks. Typical medium-grown teas like Kenilworth are soothingly mellow, yet still a.s.sertively brisk.

Kenilworth teas peak in the spring, when the monsoons douse the other half of the island with rain. The monsoons draw moisture out of the air around the garden, concentrating the flavors in the tea leaves. After harvesting, tea makers at Kenilworth give their leaves a medium wither, in contrast with the light withering of a.s.sams and the hard withering of Darjeelings. To macerate the leaves, they use Orthodox rolling machines, but at a faster pace and for a longer period than any other Ceylon teas-two hours. In another unusual step, the rolled leaves are distributed onto trays that circulate for another two hours on a moving belt that snakes around the room. After oxidizing 100 percent, the leaves are dried in ovens at a hotter temperature than that for high-grown teas. The thorough rolling, oxidation, and intense firing help reinforce the mellow, baked flavors that make this one of the most famous teas in Sri Lanka.

UVA HIGHLANDS PEKOE.Sri Lanka produces an incredible array of teas within a surprisingly confined area in the highest parts of country's Central Highlands. A two-hour drive will take you from Dimbulla, an estate famous for malty, thick, dark-colored brews, to Nuwara Eliya, a gorgeous spot whose cl.u.s.ter of tea gardens is renowned for light-colored liquors and lemony, floral aromas. The teas from both gardens are all worth trying. I had difficulty choosing which high-alt.i.tude tea to include in the book; because of its unique wintergreen flavor, I have picked this one from the garden called Uva Highlands.

Uva Highlands Pekoe comes from the mountain peaks of the Uva district, about 3,600 feet above sea level. Set on the western side of Sri Lanka's Central Highlands, Uva Highlands estate makes its teas during the dry season in August and September, when the mountains block the monsoon rains buffeting the eastern side of the island. Because of both the varietal and the way it is processed, during the tea making the leaves produce an "ester," or aromatic compound, called "methyl salicylate" that offers a minty fresh taste.

To concentrate the tea's flavors, Uva Highlands takes advantage of the cold mountain air and processes its teas in the middle of the night, starting at about one in the morning. The estate does a hard wither for about eighteen hours, making the leaves crackly dry. Then it rolls the leaves in an Orthodox rolling machine, macerating them thoroughly. Finally, it decimates the leaves in a rotovane, a machine resembling an airplane propeller, which shreds the leaves not once but twice, reducing them to a doughy green pulp. The decimation makes the tea heartily brisk, or "gutty," as it's called in the tea world.

The ma.s.s of pulverized leaves is spread out on raised tiles, where it oxidizes for about an hour and a half. The relatively brief oxidation gives the leaves a charmingly lighter hue. It also draws out the lovely wintergreen flavor and aroma. To preserve these scents and tastes, the company fires the leaves in the oven at a lower temperature than that of other regions. The light firing protects the volatile compounds, rather than masking them with additional heat flavors.

KENYAN BLACK TEAS..

1. Milima GFBOP1 Milima GFBOP1 Twish I could offer more Kenyan black teas, but only a tiny fraction of the country's pure, Orthodox teas are good enough to drink on their own. As opposed to the centralized tea estates of India and Sri Lanka, and the small gardens of China and j.a.pan, in Kenya tea production is scattered among nearly half a million small farmers, all operating independently. This huge number makes quality control an almost insurmountable challenge. The lion's share of the tea is turned into CTC pellets, added to blends, and packaged in teabags. Hardly any of these blends are even marketed as Kenyan tea.

Kenyans have cultivated tea since the early 1900s, when the British established the first tea plantations in what was then their colony. By the 1920s, the British were manufacturing African tea commercially, and by the 1950s, after South Asia had won its independence from Great Britain, Kenya supplied the British with the bulk of their tea. Today, the equatorial African country still provides Great Britain with over 40 percent of its black teas and is the fourth largest producer of tea after China, Sri Lanka, and India. The largest tea-growing areas lie in the southwestern part of the country, west of the Rift Valley in the Kenyan Highlands. There, tea thrives in the cool air at elevations more than six thousand feet above sea level, peaking during the February dry season.

To command higher prices, a small cohort of Kenyan tea makers has begun experimenting with Orthodox pure teas, both white and black. I look forward to enjoying the results. Though quality is on the rise, the finest pure teas from Kenya are not yet on a par with the best from South Asia. The best I've found so far is the following Milima Broken Orange Pekoe from the Kenyan Highlands, with charming orange and spice notes to make it a tea to watch.

MILIMA GFBOP1 Milima Golden Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe No. 1 Milima Golden Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe No. 1Milima is Swahili for "In a High Place." The tea plants that produce this tea grow more than six thousand feet above sea level in the Kenyan Highlands. The leaves take on lovely flavors in the cool air and rocky soil. Milima is a pure black tea made from a blend of leaves from three gardens belonging to the British James Finlay Tea Company. The leaves are brought to the Marinyn estate, where the teas are withered, rolled in the Orthodox fashion between two plates, oxidized, and dried, all in the manner of British Legacy Teas. The quality varies from year to year; at its peak, Milima offers charming citrus and spice aromas and flavors. is Swahili for "In a High Place." The tea plants that produce this tea grow more than six thousand feet above sea level in the Kenyan Highlands. The leaves take on lovely flavors in the cool air and rocky soil. Milima is a pure black tea made from a blend of leaves from three gardens belonging to the British James Finlay Tea Company. The leaves are brought to the Marinyn estate, where the teas are withered, rolled in the Orthodox fashion between two plates, oxidized, and dried, all in the manner of British Legacy Teas. The quality varies from year to year; at its peak, Milima offers charming citrus and spice aromas and flavors.

BRITISH BLACK TEA BLENDS..

1. English Breakfast English Breakfast2. Earl Grey Earl Grey Tea makers have been blending teas for centuries, mixing them with other teas or with flavored additives like rose petals, cinnamon, and jasmine blossoms to amplify their flavors. The British expanded this practice in the nineteenth century, when the Lipton, Twinings, and other tea companies created blends of Chinese and Indian teas for everyday drinkers. We'll try two of them now. In spite of their popularity, most flavored teas are to pure teas what wine coolers are to fine wines. The added flavors mask the nuance in the leaves. When you drink a pure tea, wonderful things happen in your mouth as the flavors alter and evolve. With additives, the flavor is more often constant and unchanging.

That constancy holds tremendous appeal, for both the tea drinker and the manufacturer. Flavored teas are cheaper and easier to produce: Since the added flavors make up most of the taste, they require lesser grades of tea. It's much easier to control the quality of the additives than it is to control the tea. You can control pure tea as well as you can control Mother Nature. As with the best wines and their vintages, some years are better than others.

Pure tea is an adventure; to help inspire you to keep exploring, we will now investigate two blends that I hope you'll treat as a launch pad into the less familiar pure teas that go into them.

ENGLISH BREAKFAST.English Breakfast was designed as a simple tea for the average middle-cla.s.s citizen to start the day, and for about the first hundred years of its existence, the tea was brewed by British tea makers from Chinese black teas. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, as the new British tea barons started to make their own tea in India, a huge marketing effort was launched to get the English to switch to the new South Asian tea flavors. It took a while, but in time the English accepted the brisker, stronger flavors of the Indian teas, and now they reject the milder versions made with Chinese blacks.

My father learned the tea business from an old English tea man named Stanley Mason. Mason got his start in the tea trade when Britannia still ruled the waves and made an English Breakfast with Chinese black tea. We've continued to have success with Mason's mixture ever since my father started his own tea operation in 1970. It was only when my father and I started exporting Mason's blend to hotels back in England that we hit a snag. In Great Britain, our tea was considered too weak. It also had a slightly smoky flavor that our British clients found unpleasant. I explored the inner workings of strong English teas. What made that spoon stand up? After several trials, I created a more "English" English Breakfast with more robust British Legacy Teas. Since then, I have never heard a complaint, and in fact this blended tea helped the Dorchester Hotel win the United Kingdom Tea Council's award for "London's Top Tea."

Whatever the version, an English Breakfast blend can serve as a wonderful launching point for a voyage through tea. If you like a traditional English Breakfast made of Chinese black teas, try some of the other China blacks: Keemun Hao Ya A or the lighter version, Keemun Mao Feng. From there, sample some Yunnan black teas. If you like Yunnans, you might also try puerhs, the aged teas made from them. Another path might lead toward the darker oolongs such as Da Hong Pao or Bai Hao. Those two might lead to the lighter oolongs: Ti Guan Yin and Ali Shan. From there, jump into China's fabulous green teas.

If you prefer a brisker, more "English" English Breakfast, taste some a.s.sams and Ceylons before sampling Darjeelings. You may prefer darker, Second Flush Darjeelings; if so, try Bai Hao, which has a similar dark stone fruit flavor. If you like the greener First Flush Darjeelings, it is a short trip over to j.a.panese Senchas-the j.a.panese are big buyers of First Flush Darjeelings, so they have pushed the Indians to make it similar to Sencha. As you can see, English Breakfast is a great base camp for your explorations.

EARL GREY.Though this book is a guide to pure tea, I wanted to include the Earl Grey blend since it is one of the most widely known teas in the Western world. I like to think of it as a gateway tea for novice palates. Though its profile comes as much from added bergamot oil as from tea leaves, the best versions incorporate delicious black teas from all over the world; once you feel comfortable with this blend, you can explore the pure black teas on their own.

Every tea company has its own version and guards its recipes, but traditionally Earl Grey is made from both Indian and Chinese teas, which are blended in a drum with bergamot oil extracted from the citrus peel. (Bergamot is a citrus native to Italy, a pear-shaped orange that tastes very much the way Earl Grey smells.) The famous English tea company Twinings is credited with inventing the blend. The tea is named after the second Earl Grey. His father, the first Earl Grey (Charles Grey), was a famous (or infamous) general on the British side during the American Revolution. In grat.i.tude for his service, King George III elevated the general into the peerage with the t.i.tle of Earl. "Grey" is thus a family surname, not a place; that is why the tea's name is Earl Grey, not Earl of Grey. The second Earl Grey ruled as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1830 to 1834. The story of the tea goes that while Grey served as prime minister, a Chinese mandarin sent him some scented tea as a gift. When the prime minister ran out of the tea, he asked the Twinings tea company to replicate it. The tale seems a little tall: Bergamot is native to Italy, not China, and although the Chinese flavor their teas with plenty of other fruits and blossoms (see "Dragon Pearl Jasmine," page 47), I have never seen a Chinese black tea flavored with bergamot.

Legends aside, Earl Grey remains a popular blend. In my family's version, which we call Earl Grey Supreme, we use some of our favorite black, oolong, and even white teas. Ours has the toasty smoothness of Keemun, the heft of a strong a.s.sam, the briskness and aroma of high-grown Ceylons, the roasted stone fruit flavor and lightness of Formosa Oolong, and the sweetness and beauty of a white Yin Zhen. Each component offers an avenue to discover those teas on their own, each sip of Earl Grey enticing you to explore the enchantments of pure tea.

PUERHS..

1. Ban-Zhang 2004 Green Ping Cha Ban-Zhang 2004 Green Ping Cha2. Loose-Leafed Black Puerh Loose-Leafed Black Puerh3. Tuo Cha 1991 Yunnan Tea Import & Export Corporation Tuo Cha 1991 Yunnan Tea Import & Export Corporation With every other category of tea in this book, tea brokers perform something of a race to get the tea from factory to pot. The aromas and flavors of fresh teas are so volatile, even when vacuum-packed in airtight foil, most teas start to lose their sparkle within a matter of months. Many green teas and oolongs are gone before a year, black teas within a year or two. Puerhs are different. Puerh makers finish making the tea, set the leaves in cakes on shelves, and wait anywhere from two to fifty years before drinking a cup.

p.r.o.nounced "POOH-airs," these are aged teas. Their prolonged resting periods give the teas their own cla.s.s of extraordinarily earthy flavors. No other teas taste of tobacco, or musk, or even dirt.

I've put them last in the book in part because they are so robust; as with any tea tasting, we begin with the lightest tea and end with the strongest. Puerhs also close the book because they are the farthest removed from the pure tea leaf.

Puerhs get their unusual qualities from fermentation, a process no other tea endures. (While it is common to credit fermentation for turning green teas black, that browning process is in fact called "oxidation.") The science of the puerh fermentation is not much understood outside of China, but we can speculate that fungal and bacterial microbes in the air likely go to work on the leaves in much the way that yeasts act on wine grapes or sourdough starters alter bread dough. These microbes convert starches and other compounds in the leaves from simple sugars into the wonderfully named "monoterpenoids," which in turn oxidize and degrade over the years into "sesquiterpenoids." Sesquiterpenoid compounds are known for their earthy and camphor flavors.

For many tea drinkers, these musky flavors make puerhs an acquired taste. It's no surprise the teas are among the most popular in two cities known for their unusual foods-Guangzhou (formerly Canton) and Hong Kong. Those who do acquire the taste often become unusually, almost spiritually, devoted to the tea.

The tea gets its name from Puerh county in China's Yunnan province, where the style likely originated. In the Tang dynasty (618-907), the region became the starting point for the Tea-Horse Roads, trade routes for tea, horses, and other commodities between China and the Mongols in Tibet. One of the better stories claims that the teas fermented by accident while strapped to the horses during the long journey across the Tibetan plateau. Puerhs remain popular in Tibet today.

Puerhs are prized throughout China as slimming teas. While there are no conclusive studies to prove this, the tea is often said to reduce cholesterol and blood pressure. China's Yunnan Tea Branch, a prestigious producer of puerhs, also boasts that the tea "quickens your recovery from intoxication." The company has plenty of experience with the tea, having made puerhs since the company was first established in 1944.

In large part because of its health benefits, the tea has become extraordinarily popular throughout Asia in just the last five years. The tea has seen a big surge in value, to the point where investors now speculate in puerhs. Unfortunately, the speculation has also attracted counterfeiters. It is possible to find a puerh as much as fifty years old, but the older they get, the more likely they are to be fake. It is crucial to buy from reputable sources that get their puerhs from the better factories in Yunnan such as the Yunnan Tea Branch.

The very best puerhs are made from large-leafed tea plants native to Yunnan (see "Yunnan Black Tea," page 115). The leaves are processed in one of two ways: green or raw (sheng) and a more recent style, black or cooked (shou).

Green puerhs are the most traditional form of the tea. The leaves are fixed green on a hot surface after harvesting, withered until they grow limp, then steamed hot and compressed into cakes. The cakes are wrapped in paper and left to age for anywhere from two to fifty years. It's possible to buy young green puerhs and age them at home: Keep the cakes in a cool, dry place, away from mildew and damp and out of the sun, and they should last for just over a decade.

Black puerhs are an innovation of just the last few decades. To meet an increasing demand for the tea, researchers found a way to make a sort of imitation puerh that does not require aging. I explain more about this science in the entry on the tea "Loose-Leafed Black Puerh," page 179.

Both types come in a charming variety of shapes. In green puerhs, the shapes influence the rate and quality of the aging; in black teas, the shapes are just for decoration. They range from bing cha bing cha, a flat round disk, to fang cha fang cha, a square brick; tuan cha tuan cha, a melon; and even jin cha jin cha, a mushroom. There's also ping cha ping cha, which means "iron tea"-a cake so compact that it's as solid as iron and is actually hard to break off. But ping cha ping cha also boasts even more nuanced characteristics from aging and oxidizing that much more slowly. also boasts even more nuanced characteristics from aging and oxidizing that much more slowly.

As a result of their cake form, with the exception of a few loose-leafed black puerhs, you cannot scoop this tea into a pot with a teaspoon. To brew the tea, begin by breaking off a small chunk of the cake. The cakes can be fairly stiff; if you cannot break off a piece with your hands, use a blunt knife or letter opener to jimmy off a square. You can buy a special puerh knife for this purpose, but a regular table knife works fine. Since the ratio of tea to water is the same with puerhs as with every other tea, break off about 1 rounded teaspoon's worth of the cake for 1 cup.

Unlike every other tea leaves, puerh leaves require rinsing to open up their flavors. Set the piece in your brewing vessel, pour in boiling water, and let stand for 30 to 45 seconds before draining. Wait a few seconds to let the drained tea awaken.

You can make just a single cup or you can brew the leaves up to a dozen times. As with oolongs, with each round it is fascinating to observe how certain flavors emerge as others disappear. Traditionally, each brew is poured out into puerh tasting cups. Though each contains only a few thimblefuls' worth of liquor, after twelve of them you will feel quite alert. Puerh devotees call the buzzing sensation "puerh intoxication."

There are many different ways to brew puerhs. Whether for a mug or a round of small cups, brew the first batch in boiling water for 1 to 3 minutes. For subsequent brews, start by steeping the tea for just 10 seconds, increasing the time by a few seconds for up to a dozen rounds. (Puerh fans sometimes time it by a number of breaths, but breaths can be so variable, seconds are more reliable.) What follows are three puerhs of varying styles. We'll start with a young, bright three-year-old green puerh that still has some sweetness and fruit. Next comes a blunt, earthy black puerh typical of the more recent mock-aged style. The chapter ends with a robust, rounded fifteen-year-old green puerh, a nice example of an aged puerh, full of ripe earthy flavors. Don't worry if you cannot find these exact varieties; just look for a young green puerh, a black puerh, and a true aged green puerh, and the descriptors should still help you understand the general categories.

BAN-ZHANG 2004 GREEN PING CHA.A characteristic young green puerh, Ban-Zhang Green Ping Cha can also be aged at home. Like a young Bordeaux wine, it is drinkable now, but its best days are ahead of it. While it has nice fruit flavors in its young state, age will help mellow and round those out, giving the tea greater nuance and polish.

Like a great French wine, this tea comes from one of the finest puerh "chateaus." But unlike a Lafite or Latour, this name is a little more c.u.mbersome: the Yunnan Tea Branch of the China National Native Produce & Animal By-Products Import & Export Corporation. As the awkward t.i.tle suggests, the company is a relic of Communist China's old ways before it began privatizing many tea companies just a few years ago. But unlike most state-run tea operations, the Yunnan Tea Branch is a reliable company, producing some of the best puerhs in the world.

This tea is made in Ban-Zhang, a mountainous region in southwestern Yunnan province, close to Burma. Yunnan is thought to be the region where tea plants first emerged; near Ban-Zhang, centuries-old wild tea trees still grow, many of them up to thirty feet high. The tea bushes for the puerh teas are tended by a local ethnic minority called the Hanai, and the puerhs are made in a particular style. After the leaves are fixed and partially dried, they are shipped to the Yunnan Tea Branch, where they are fully dried and formed into cakes. The Yunnan Tea Branch holds on to the cakes a little longer before selling them, to allow the rawness to dissipate and the fermentation to begin.

More and more puerh drinkers in China and elsewhere are collecting and then aging these teas at home. The best way to age Ping Cha is to keep it in a dry room away from strong smells and let it sit there for ten to fifteen years. Of course, it can also be drunk sooner, if you run out of patience.

LOOSE-LEAFED BLACK PUERH.Often marketed simply as "puerh," this black, or shou, shou, puerh ill.u.s.trates a style invented in the early 1970s to imitate the affects of aging. True aged puerhs are so rare that black puerh is now the most common style found in the United States. puerh ill.u.s.trates a style invented in the early 1970s to imitate the affects of aging. True aged puerhs are so rare that black puerh is now the most common style found in the United States.

With the demand for puerhs on the rise, tea makers at the famous Menghai Tea Factory discovered a way to speed up the aging process. Instead of aging fixed green teas, tea makers oxidize them to anywhere from 40 to 90 percent. Then they put the tea through wo dui wo dui, or "moist track." They pile the oxidized leaves into heaps, where bacteria and fungi decay them at an accelerated rate, just as in my compost pile. After a few months, leaves are fired to stop the oxidation and the decay and to compress the leaves into cakes.

Black puerhs have plenty of charm, but they lack the nuance and depth of true aged green puerhs. While this tea has strong earthy, ashy flavors, it has a thinner body and a sharper edge than the aged Tuo Cha, following.

TUO CHA 1991 YUNNAN TEA IMPORT & EXPORT CORPORATION Bowl Tea Bowl TeaAlthough Tuo Cha has recently become all the rage in France and Spain as European women drink it to keep from getting fat, Tuo Cha also provides all the rich flavors of a true aged green puerh. At the time I tasted it for this chapter, it was fifteen years old.

Fifteen years in a cool, dry room have given these tea leaves pleasurable earthy flavors, with no trace of the fruit sweetness of the young Ban-Zhang Green Ping Cha (page 177). The time has also turned the once fixed green leaves a solid, mesmerizingly deep and shiny black color. The tea has a seductive mellowness, a smooth, rounded quality from its years sitting quietly fermenting. Its leaves are almost impenetrably dark, its liquor equally so.

This tea can be rebrewed as many as a dozen times. The later brews are mellow but thin in body, lighter in color but with sweeter notes, especially in the finish.

THE FUTURE OF TEA.From puerhs to white teas, from tobacco to honeysuckle: I hope by now you have relished the spectacular range of flavors of pure tea, and feel confident to call yourself a connoisseur. My goal has been to guide you through the incredible variety that's become available to tea drinkers since I entered the business, to help you enjoy tea that much more. Few of these teas were available in the West when my family started working in the industry forty years ago. Since then, high-mountain oolongs have emerged from Taiwan and white teas from Sri Lanka. Darjeelings brightened, a.s.sams lightened; how could the tea world possibly get any better? All that remains is to continue supporting these innovative tea makers by drinking their creations.

The best tea is a miracle of Mother Nature and of human ingenuity. We can treat tea as we would cherish a good summer tomato or a ripe peach. We can drink it when it's in season: spring teas when they come ready in the summer, summer teas in the fall, and autumnal teas in the winter to tide us over to spring again. In j.a.pan, tea stores stretch banners across their storefronts in the early summer proclaiming the arrival of the Sencha harvest. I have a banner to display in my store-but it's in j.a.panese. I'd love to see more versions in English.

We can study tea the way we research fine wines and get to know its terroir terroir. We can make it a priority to know exactly where it's made and the people who make it. We can speak of Yoshihiro Matsuda with the same reverence we reserve for the makers of great wines. We can encourage the incipient movement toward sustainable tea cultivation, supporting tea makers who nurture their plants using organic methods. Tea currently lags behind other agricultural products in this area, but more gardens convert to organic each year.

Cultivating a palate for better tea can also help protect the beverage. These teas often come from poorer areas of the world threatened by development. The hills south of Taipei in Taiwan were once carpeted in tea fields; today, they're stacked with office buildings. In the British Legacy areas, tea makers can often make more money in industries like banking and software. The same pressures exist in China: It can be more rewarding to trade widgets in Shanghai than to run a tea plantation in Anxi, a poor and rural part of the country.

China in particular is at a real crossroads. In the last ten years, the Communist regime has moved to privatize much of its tea industry, allowing families and farmers to operate small-scale businesses of their own. The improvement in quality has been dramatic. To appeal to an ever richer domestic market, these private tea makers have been inventing new teas every year. Many have tinkered with making green versions of black teas, like green Keemuns, and black versions of greens, like an oxidized Lung Ching. Let's help them along.

It's been wonderful to watch the thirst for tea increase so much in the United States. Granted, much of the interest stems from tea's many health benefits, both as an antioxidant and as a more soothing stimulant than coffee. I'm happy for any reason people may have to drink more tea-but, unfortunately, the true extent of its health benefits has yet to be established. We cannot state categorically that tea prevents cancer or cardiovascular disease. It is safe to say that its polyphenols act as antioxidants, but scientists are still determining what antioxidants do. The catechins appear to reduce the effects of free radicals free radicals, molecules that may impede the healthy expression of DNA. Thus tea may help stave off cancer and heart disease. Indeed, recent studies suggest that the antioxidants in green tea are so effective, it may not be a good idea to take herbal supplements containing green tea extracts. These extracts may actually trigger too much of a response, in essence providing too much of a good thing.

Health seekers can also overlook black tea as a source of antioxidants. Though green teas contain more polyphenols than black teas, blacks contain their fair share. Only a portion degrade to theaflavins and thearubigins during the oxidation that turns green teas black-and these theaflavins and thearubigins seem to have some healthy properties of their own. Some claim that the antioxidant properties in tea may be inhibited if milk is added, but this also is not true. Black tea may not contain quite as many antioxidants as green tea, but it's still good for you.

In my ideal tea world, tea drinkers will know the joys of pure teas. A large portion of the tea consumed in the United States is blended or flavored. Many tea manufacturers boast of tea sommeliers or artful mixologists of tea and additives. The blending tradition stretches back centuries in China, where tea makers often mixed their leaves with blossoms, spices, and dried fruits. Flavored teas can be wonderful: They provide the tea maker opportunities for creativity in layering citrus, rose, coconut, or spice notes along with the tea. All those diverting flavors, however, often mask the true flavors of tea.

To help you continue tasting, I've created the "Tea-Tasting Menus" appendix, containing more advanced comparisons for you to try. I've grouped together the finest green and black spring teas, for example, as well as teas sweetened with buds and teas heavily smoked during their firings. This way, you can compare teas across varieties: a spring green tea against a spring black, for example, or a heavily fired tea with one that has no fired flavor at all. To broaden your understanding, I've also provided appendixes on the science and history of tea. Knowing the whys to tea's flavors will strengthen your palate. Understanding how British Legacy Teas came to be more heavily rolled than Chinese black teas will refine your ability to discern the teas' flavors. Just remember, this is not an exam: The ultimate goal of perceiving these flavors is to make you smile. And I hope, over the course of these last nine chapters, that I've given you plenty of reasons to grin.

APPENDIX.

Tea-Tasting MenusAlthough I've organized the book by styles of tea, many individual teas within each style resemble one another in unexpected ways. I've compiled a few lists to give you some ideas of other comparisons you might try.TIPPY TEAS.

These teas all have high numbers of sweet buds, or tips, the incipient leaves that some say are the most prized part of the plant. You can experience how tips lighten a black tea by comparing these three against each other. Yin Zhen is a white tea made entirely of tips; Golden Monkey is a Chinese black tea merely sweetened with tips, while Golden Tip a.s.sam black tea contains tips alone.

* Yin Zhen white tea, page 21* Golden Monkey Chinese black tea, page 107* Golden Tip a.s.sam black tea, page 144SPRING TEAS.

I dream of a day when we drink teas when they are in season. Spring teas are among the best of all teas, flush with nutrients to help the plants recover from their winter dormancy. They usually become available in midsummer. Here are four of the best spring teas in the world, from all over the world: two greens and two blacks.

* Bi Lo Chun Chinese green tea, page 37* Matsuda's Sencha j.a.panese green tea, page 57* Panyong Congou Chinese black tea, page 110* Singbulli SFTGFOP1 Supreme Dj 18 Darjeeling black tea, page 130MIDSUMMER TEAS.

After the burst of life in the springtime, tea plants quiet down and produce more subdued brews. These two teas take advantage of naturally occurring herbivores to boost the flavors in the leaves. Though one is an oolong from Taiwan and the other a black tea from India, they have charming similarities.

* Bai Hao, aka Fanciest Formosa Oolong, page 91* Margaret's Hope FTGFOP Muscatel Dj 275 Darjeeling black tea, page 133BROTHY TEAS.

These two teas are packed with amino acids; each has profoundly satisfying mouth-filling qualities.

* Taiping HouKui Chinese green tea, page 45* Matsuda's Sencha j.a.panese green tea, page 57CHOCOLATY TEAS.

These teas contain more than average amounts of certain amino acids that help generate surprisingly chocolaty flavors. They don't taste like fudge, but they have the roasted flavors of barely sweetened cocoa powder. Though one is from China and the other India, their production methods are remarkably similar, designed to play up these cocoa notes.

* Keemun Hao Ya A Chinese black tea, page 114* New Vithanakande Ceylon black tea, page 156FLORAL TEAS.

To discover the range of flavors possible in pure tea, it's fun to compare a tea flavored with flowers with one in which floral aromas occur naturally.

* Osmanthus oolong, page 88, versus Golden Monkey Chinese black tea, page 107 * Osmanthus oolong, page 88, versus Golden Monkey Chinese black tea, page 107* Dragon Pearl Jasmine Chinese green tea, page 47, versus Ti Guan Yin oolong, page 86HIGH-ALt.i.tUDE TEAS.