Since it would be Lunar New Year soon, the teacher asked me to lay out the table with a red cloth for tea class. I grimaced. It was a very bright red cloth. It was jarring, but it could have been worse. Instead of picking out instruments and vessels with floral designs, I went straight for dark monotones. Too much red isn't exactly cheerful. It stared in my face as I began preparations to brew tea. It was grating and mostly annoying. But fine, I let that pass.
I was pretty much focused on brewing the oolong- a Huang Jin Gui (黄金桂) from the Anxi province. It's a tea with light oxidation, and nowadays, slightly roasted. Note that it's not osmanthus tea. Strictly speaking, osmanthus is a flowering plant, and not a tea per se. The Huang Jin Gui simply holds the fragrance of the osmanthus flower, and hence derived its name.
This particular batch is top grade. It has been kept for years. Maybe 5 to 7 years. By now, it has been fully oxidized. The teacher dug it out from her treasure chest and passed it to us to brew. Partnered a senior to do it. So she used a heavy Zisha brown teapot, and I decided to stick to my preferred heavy Zisha dark green clay. In the tasting, I realized that my choice was perfect. Somehow, the specific interaction resulted in exactly the flavors that the tea teacher told me to look out for- the taste that's similar to a Shui Xian (水仙, Narcissus) rock oolong, simply because this batch has aged beautifully. Most intriguing.
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