I felt my kidneys yesterday.
Yesterday was a full on tea day and binge. The day started with me going to Floating Leaves Tea for a Bulang mountain puer tasting class. So far I have only wrote about the High Mountain tasting event, but I have also attended a Nannuo puer and Phoenix Dancong tasting class, all very educational with great tea! Here was the tasting pile for Bulang!
Going in I expected some really bitter puer typical of Bulang, however we also had some Bulang area puer that had so much energy or feels of being jolted awake. The Bulang on the menu was a maocha picked by Floating Leaves Tea and friends on one of their tea tours. It was light tasting but it was most impressive that it was handpicked!
Also up for tasting was 2010 Yunnan Sourcing Bu Lang Jie Liang (which was insanely super bitter), a 2009 Houde Bulang, Bana Tea Company Sheng and Shou Bulang. I got super excited as we followed those teas with a BanZhang, which drinking that felt like my body was so keened up to buzz around and fly.
However….
THE PINK GAIWAN. Whatever was in this pink gaiwan just wrecked me. It was something acquired by the Floating Leaves Tea shop owner. Apparently it had banzhang material and wet storage.
I got tunnel vision, my head felt like it was getting attacked by one of those wire head massagers, my mayo brain was doing back flips within my skull, and crawly. Going to the bathroom after drinking this was a strange experience of walking into everything. This tea was amazing though, I recall loving the wet storage taste and needing a cake of it.
That concluded the tea tasting class of Bulang puer. But wait, there’s more! I had another tea gathering to sit through! A couple out of town tea buddies came and we had more tea. I also got to admire this pretty silver tea pot!
This sitting – Yunnan Sourcing “Green Duck Shit” Dancong, Crimson Lotus Tea’s Old Warrior, Crimson Lotus Tea 2014 Jiangcheng, and then Phoenix Tea Kenya Oolong. The Kenyan Oolong was strange as it smelled and tasted like a black, looked a little green and light brewed as an oolong. It was dubbed #blacklong and #blackblackdragon.
Bitterleaf’s Mad King made an appearance and this is when my body started screaming. I’ve never turned down a cup until this. I had a couple steeps then was getting way too jittery and tea drunk at this point – 3 banzhangs in one day was just asking for it. You know it is bad when after you drink White2Tea 1998 Numbers puer and it makes you chill out enough to mostly function. At this point my sides were hurting, this is what they are talking about when you have too much tea and you know you are drinking too much tea. I probably would of been fine if I had these two tea sessions day or so apart. My kidneys were protesting and I needed off the puer and some food.
Shiuwen had the best idea and we finished with a 3 Roast Dong Ding Oolong. That Dong Ding was excellent, brought us down enough to buy a bunch of oolong and stumble into the streets. We somehow made it to Northern Thai food for dinner and Full Tilt Ice Cream for dessert. I’ve reviewed a few tea flavors of Full Tilt Ice Cream, but in person it was really cool as we got to taste all the flavors. I ended up with a big scoop of “Blue Moon” which tasted like childhood (Fruit Loops) but as an ice cream. The ice cream pleased the kidneys.
I actually slept after all this tea, though it was of dreams of people’s faces melting and dinosaurs at Costco. I spent the tea hangover at a Farmers Market tasting handfuls of salmon (literally, Ballard Farmer’s market sellers dump a handful of smoked salmon in your hands as a sample) and getting arnica lotion rubbed on me. The rest of my Sunday hooting will be snuggling with vat of Muzha Tieguanyin and cookies.
No regrets and I have a week to recover to be in good working order for the Northwest Tea Festival.
