What good tea looks like...

Rich, complex, earthy. 

Deep, calm energy. 

These are words that come to mind when drinking quality aged Chinese tea.

Flavors brew in a small yi xing clay teapot, which gives control for proper steeping.  

Pu'erh tea is from the Yunnan province. Tea leaves are dried and rolled. Then they undergo microbial fermentation and oxidation. 

They age well. The pu'erh I've tasted from the early 20th century left a coating of goodness on my taste buds that I can still feel today. The energy carries on through my bloodstream.

The tea leaves might come from wild trees a thousand years old. Big, bushy, when you drink them, you might feel the power of a thousand years of history--of a being resilient to a millennium of sun, rain, wind. These tea leaves give strength. 

One of my favorite pu'erhs is the one I know simply as Purple Moon and Stars, the image on its paper wrapper. Its dark, silky, earthy flavor goes well with drizzly dark days in the Pacific Northwest. The Menghai tea factory also produces some astounding teas. Some I've had from the mid-1980s gave me the calm energy.

Other tea comes in little bamboo baskets, like pillows, a Liuan.

One of the joys of finishing a tea. The beauties of the spent tea leaves. Here is a spent oolong. Pu'erh also can make beautiful leaves, too.

I get my tea from Daniel Lui who runs the Chinese Tea Shop on Pender Street in Vancouver. He shares with us wonderful aged teas and guides us in our tea journey.