A Legend

The British and Tea. Like a horse and carriage, yes? We love it, we really do. However… I can’t help but feel that the general tea drinker has been losing touch with their roots. We never used to drink dust in a teabag with milk, no sir. We were used to the finer things… it was Oolongs and green teas that first graced our teapots – a far cry from the usual brew we’re used to today, rather than a cup from the exotic misty hills of the Far East.

China has the ‘big ten’, the key ten teas that it is famed for, and all of these teas have a beautiful legend or two behind them. So, I thought I’d share one of my favorites with you. Are you sitting comfortably?

This is the story of Iron Goddess tea, or Tie Guan Yin, a Chinese Oolong. The Iron Goddess is also known as the goddess of Mercy or Compassion. Bear that in mind, there’ll be a test later*. There are two different stories surrounding the creation of this tea, the Wei and the Wang, and today I’m going to share the Wei with you:

Tucked away in the Fujian province of China, there was a crumbling temple to the Iron Goddess, which housed an Iron Statue in her honour. Every day, on his way to and from work in the fields, a Mr. Wei would remark to himself on the state of temple, shaking his head thinking how something simply must be done.

Now, Mr. Wei was by no means a rich man so couldn’t afford to rebuild the temple himself, so instead, twice a month he decided to bring some incense and sweep the temple clean with his broom. He repeated these tasks month after month after month until eventually, the Iron Goddess appeared to him in a dream. In this dream she told him that there was a cave behind the temple, and in this cave lay some treasure that he would share with other people.

So the next morning, leaping out of bed, Mr. Wei explored behind the temple and there, just as the Goddess had told him, was the cave. As he entered he saw, pushing up through the ground, a single tea shoot. He gently cultivated the plant until it grew into a great tea bush which produced some of the finest tea that China had ever seen. He gave cuttings from the plant to all of his friends and neighbours who sold the tea as Tie Guan Yin, the Iron Goddess of Compassion. Soon Mr. Wei and all those around him were prospering wonderfully, and fixed the temple which soon became a pillar of the community and, as one teller puts perfectly, a beacon for the region. So, for every day after that, Mr. Wei would feel joy in his heart when he walked to his fields, admiring the beautiful temple.

I can just smell those tea leaves now… lovely. I’ve been enamoured with the story of this tea for a few years now, and I’m thrilled after three years of looking to finally find it! Now to sit back with my cup of Oolong and unearth some more stories.

* Please note there will not be a test later. That would be mean.

The Year of the Dragon

Another new year! Brilliant. We’ve now entered the Chinese year of the Dragon, so to celebrate here at the Gilded Teapot, we had a free tea tasting (with fortune cookies) in the shop. Yum yum yum

We tasted some of China’s famous teas – Silver Needle, Dragon Well, beautiful black tea and the fabled Oriental Beauty – one of the world’s rarest Oolongs. What makes Oriental Beauty special and so darn delicious is something rather unusual. This tea comes from Taiwan and can only be produced every few years, because it needs a visitor – the Tea Jassid to be precise. These little aphids come to live on the tea plants, and to defend itself against these guests, the plant produces an enzyme to defend itself. At this point the leaf and the bud are picked and it this that makes the tea. The end result is a beautiful citrus muscatel brew the colour of Golden Syrup. Sublime.

So what else has been going on? Well, to brew our China teas we had a brand new piece of tea brewing equipment to play with!

These lovely fellas are the end result of a brilliant collaboration between potter extraordinaire Linda Bloomfield and two professional tea tasters and artisan importers. They’re a modern twist on the traditional Chinese Gaiwan, a lidded cup used for tea brewing, but these are much larger with a pouring lip and rounded top to give maximum perfume from the leaves after they’ve been brewed. So, a big hello to our new Gaiwans! I wonder how we ever managed without them.

And it hasn’t just been Chinese New Year – last week was the first official Farmhouse Breakfast Week, so we went down to Washingpool Farm just outside of Bridport, Gaiwans in hand, to brew some tasty breakfast teas. We were right next door to the tasty folks of Denhay bacon, so we were trying to find which was the best tea to have with a bacon sarnie – we had two winners! The LaKyrsiew tea from northern India and Ceylon Kenilworth.

So, to China and back again. It’s been a fun week!