Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan at Rockefeller Center and New Stan Studios, joined behind me as usual with uh John. How are you doing, John? Doing great, thanks. Yeah?
Yeah. Got Joe Hazen rocking the panels here. How you doing? I'm doing great, man. How are you?
Doing well. Uh up in uh Vancouver Island, Nanaimo. We have uh Quinn. How you doing, Quinn? Quinn.
He's there somewhere. He's trying to make tea. We'll talk about it in a minute. Uh I'm assuming in LA we have uh Nastasi the Hammer Lopez and uh Jackie Molecules. Am I correct?
I'm in Portland with my brother. Oh, Portland. How's your brother? Is he on? I am in LA.
Oh, LA. How's Portland? Good. Joey's here. Yeah.
Hey, Joey, how are you doing? This is Joey Lopez, people. Yeah. Yeah. More of an expert in a different kind of herb.
Today's gonna be about tea. Joey, a little more of an expert in a different herb. Different well-known herb. Yeah. Well, isn't Joey all about the muñeca too?
Or am I getting my facts mixed up? Oh of course he's about the muñeca. First of all, the whole the whole Lopez family loves any sort of puppet-related uh Muneca and the drink muñeca, obviously. That was that's what I was gonna get. Yeah.
It's uh by the way, uh so in the in the you know spirit of uh you know recent episodes, we're gonna introduce our special guest, this one here by request of Quinn, who I assume is back online. Quinn, you there? Oh yeah, I'm here. Yeah, yeah. Uh huh.
Yeah. Uh we have Dylan Rothenberg, T. So uh founder proprietor of Wu Mountain Tea. Yep. Okay.
And also uh professor of tea science still at uh at uh what is it, South China and Guan Show. Uhou, uh South uh South China uh agricultural college in Guangzhou. Yep, South China Agricultural University. Yeah, nice in Guangzhou, China. So you're professor of tea horticulture?
So uh I'm wrapping up my PhD right now. Yeah. So the title I suppose would be PhD candidate. Yeah. Not not a professor yet, but hopefully would like to be someday.
But like very soon, Dr. T. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yep.
I'm I'm finishing my thesis right now. Doing that. All right. All right. But you live here in New York now?
Uh I'm back in the States, kind of visiting family. Uh just here to kind of reconnect with some family and friends. Uh had my brother get married recently, so came back to see that, and then I'm back to China in probably two to three weeks. Okay, so you probably left as soon as the zero COVID thing turned off. Because w we haven't been able to visit China in Stars since the pandemic.
We haven't been able to go to China. It's a huge I mean, there are many things. But like it's bad for business. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, uh I left when zero COVID was still in place.
Um, so it was it was nice to leave, actually. It was pretty pretty tough living under those conditions. But uh yeah. Well, since you have an actual job in China, I'm not gonna ask you to comment on anything in China because I know how that goes. I actually very much appreciate that.
I I really do. Yeah, yeah. Uh all right. Well, this is the portion of the show. Uh by the way, so uh uh Dylan's brewing some tea, which we'll talk about in a minute.
But this is the portion of the show where we uh shoot the breeze about what's happened in the past week or so. Hopefully from a food related perspective, but you never know. You never know. So uh crew, you got anything? You got anything?
I went to Arturo's the other night for dinner on Houston. Houston and Thompson. Have you ever been? Yeah, bought a hat, I see. Yes.
Well, yeah, I need a new kitchen. I left my other one in the taxi the other night. Um, but yeah, that place is absolutely freaking delicious. Okay, can I give you my bad opinion? If you want.
So I used I went, I haven't been there since the I don't know, mid late 90s, I guess. Late 90s, maybe early 2000s. And back then it was it was like a well-known place, but it was uh it was a pizza place, you know. Have they changed their game, or is it just people have come around to their style? Because it was just it was a place, it was fine, you know what I mean?
Well, I think their pizza's very good. Coal coal oven. Lombardi style coal? Not that Lombardi's own coal oven. You've never been to Lombardi's?
Okay. Um yes, very very good pizza. And I don't know, the chicken franchise and some fried calamari, and it was all very, very delicious. Yeah, yeah. Tea.
All right, so Dylan, what tea? What tea are we sipping on while we're doing here? So this is an aged white tea. So what's that all about? Basically, uh white tea is a style of tea.
And I guess I'll give you the quick overview. Um, the the most important thing when you're talking about tea is basically that uh there's one tea plant, one species of plant that is the tea plant, and that is used to create green tea, black tea, uh oolong tea, white tea, dark tea, and yellow tea. There's six major tea types that all come from the tea plant. What do you what is your favorite word for non tea tea? Herbal tea.
Herbal tea. Yeah, I like that better. You know what Quint Quinn likes that awful tizane word. Yeah, that's a it's nasty. It's a bit much.
It's gross. I say I go for infusion. What if it's an infusion, but it's not a tea? Although it is true when I'm making liquors, I'll say blah blah blah tea. I'll be like, here's uh rhubarb tea to add to my whatever, but I never serve it on its own as a tea.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, you can you don't have to say herbal tea every every time. You can kind of shortcut it with just saying tea, but yeah, technically. But you're okay with tea if it has tea in it but has other crap in it as well? Uh I mean, I'm okay with it.
Yeah. I'm okay with it. I don't love it, but it's tea womph with other natural flavors? It it can be okay. It can be good if they're if they're good natural flavors.
So like uh is adding bergamot to tea f for you like uh hazelnut coffee is for me? A bit. Yeah, I would say that's a great great comparison. Yeah. Yeah.
All right, so uh you got but aged white tea I'm not familiar with. White tea, I'm familiar with aged white tea, what's the what's the premise behind aging it? Well, talk about white tea for a second. So uh white tea, so all those six tea types I mentioned, they all differ based on their processing style. So what you do after you pluck that fresh tea leaf off the tea plant, what do you do with that with that leaf?
And white tea basically is the simplest of the processing styles. You just let the leaves wither for about two to three days. And you know, after the withering, that you then you're done with white tea processing, and then basically at that point the the profile will be a bit tannic. White tea, fresh white tea just after it's done is still it takes on green tea characteristics in that it's a bit tannic still, it has some bitter and astringent properties to it. And then when you age it over time.
How long are we talking? So this is a 2014 white tea. So this has been aging for nine years now. So like puer level aging. Puer level aging, exactly.
Yep. So and so give it again. What's the change in uh I only care about taste, but we'll talk about that later. I only care about taste. What's the organoleptic change over time uh in years?
Yeah, the so the tannins are oxidizing, the catechins are oxidizing, and so basically you have a mellowing and smoothing out of that tannic structure. So it it it basically becomes uh more s I would say smooth in the mouthfeel over time. Um that's the predominant change that happens. Is it aged uh in the way that power is where it'll pick up flavor from where it's being aged and molds and mildews and you know I'm not I'm saying that in a way that sounds pejorative, nostassi's least favorite word that I ever used, but it's like uh you know what I'm saying. Yeah, does it take on that stuff as well?
Absolutely. Yep. It it uh, you know. But tea. Yeah, but you're taking on the characteristics of the environment that you're aging the tea in.
Um so and you know, it's still an active area of research, how exactly the environment is affecting the the flavor and the general profile of the tea as you age it, like what exactly it is is happening as a result of the environment. And are there also straight up losses like there are in coffee? Yeah, yeah. So as as those tannins oxidize and smooth out, um I mean, by nature of them changing, you are losing that tannic structure a bit. And with the loss of tannins, you're I mean that the total antioxidant profile of the tea declines with with the loss of of tan of catechins.
Yeah. Uh John, you okay sharing this with me? Yeah. I I I have a uh third. Oh, those are those are uh for John.
It's just a dark cup, I can't tell whether it's the same thing or not. Yeah, yeah. All right, yeah, okay. Let's pass that back to John. And then tell me how tell me how you like me to Nastasi and I once went through a whole kung Fu Chai thing with uh Roy Fong in San Francisco.
Yeah. And Nastas and I were both like, this is really fun, we don't know what the hell's going on. Was that about accurate? Is that summed up my feelings? What about your feelings, Nastasia?
Yeah, that's what it was. Okay. We were like, oh, there's so much to know. Goodbye. You know what I mean?
That was basically what's basically what we said. Yeah. He's still going strong. I looked him up before I came. Yeah, Roy Fong is uh he's a he's a juggernaut in the industry.
He was gonna try to make his own tea plantation in California, but I can't tell if that ever worked for him or not. He would have run into some troubles recently. Um basically in the last few years, there there was a lot of tea plantations in California. They all burned down with those fires. Um California's attractive because you can grow anything there, right?
But it's dry. And so there's issues with that. LA LA's fine, sun shines most of the time, and the feeling's laid back. Rice? Palm trees grow, rents are low.
You know? Love that song. Love Neil Diamond. Every I think I feel that there's people who love Neil Diamond and people who can't admit to themselves that they love Neil Diamond. Um I'm the latter group.
Yeah? Yeah, I love it what about you, Joe? Neil Diamond. Come on, man. Yeah, kind of.
Well, to me, like uh, I mean, that one what's that one great song that uh UB40 covered, red red wine? No, that's not him, is it? Yeah, that was him. He wrote that. Come on.
Yes. No, isn't that like a burning spear song or something like that? No, red red wine was a Neil Diamond song. Uh that's the when UB 40 covered that, went on tour at Yale. That is the concert that uh one of our Supreme Court justices went to and got in a fight outside of Demoris, because that's the kind of fella he was back when he was in college.
I won't say anymore. How d how do you like me to sift this? Do you have some sort of special? Because people when they come on, experts, like we have a guy, Nick, what call him Captain Greasy, Nick Coleman, the olive oil uh miracle worker. If I don't taste the olive oil the way he wants me to, he gives me the stink eye.
So do you have a way that we're supposed to taste this? I I trust that you know how to are you a thick kind of a guy? Are you like uh what do you what do you do? I'm not quite a, but I'm more of a uh a a modest, respectable pfft uh so some of our people are triggered by mouth noises. So I'm gonna do it off mic.
Okay. All right. I think it's okay if you're mimicking the noise, but if it's an actual noise, I think it like, you know. Sure, I'll keep that in mind too. Yeah, it's like I could mention the happy birthday song, but I can't sing the happy birthday song.
You know what I'm saying? That makes perfect sense. Yeah, I'll say. Yeah, we'll we'll do our sipping off off mic here. All right, John, what do you think?
Since you think more than I do. Think more than you do. So that is the first infusion. And actually the second and third infusions are gonna get better as we go. The especially with white tea, the first infusion is a bit um you you need time to extract all of the flavor out of the of the leaves.
All right, so for those who I mean, everyone who's not on Patreon can't see what's going on right now, but you have what I guess Roy told us was a gung fu chai setup, which is you have the loose leaves in a small pot, you pour a small amount of water on them, let you you let it infuse for a certain amount of time, you pour it off, and then track so hot, gotta play it again, add more water, get a second infusion, you do that each time you're getting different profiles out of the tea. But do you want to describe this ceremony a little more for people who are just used to like like dunk and toss? Sure. Yeah, so I mean, the essence of it is that uh you have a small vessel that you're using to infuse the tea. And the upside of that is that you can control each fusion very precisely.
So uh, I mean, number one is that the water temperature stays hot. Whereas if you're doing the Dunkin' toss thing, by the end of the cup of tea, it's already lukewarm or you know, tepid at best. Um the temperature stays right, and you're also um controlling how strong the tea is. So, you know, when you're doing the dunk and toss style, it's basically infusing constantly throughout the cup, and by the end it might be too strong. In the beginning it might be too bland.
So with this, it's like, you know, I'm gonna let this sit here for exactly how long I want, then I pour it out, and that's the right temperature at the right strength, the flavor that I want. And then you can just do that a few times. Right. And part of the whole McGillah here, right? Is the spending time thinking about a particular tea and watching its evolution as something of interest, something of note, something to pay attention to, about paying attention to life in general, not just tea, right?
That that's a big part of it. So that kind of gets more into the philosophical side behind it, where, you know, so what I was just mentioning was more of the purely like why does it make sense from a flavor point of view? Why is it better to brew your tea this way if you want to appreciate and enjoy the flavor? Um, but that is another side of preparing tea this way, which comes into the philosophical side, which is you know, taking your time, not rushing through things, not being, you know, in a hurry to just toss your leaves. You're you're you're thinking about the infusion as it goes through.
So it's it's a much more deliberate process that requires attention and focus, I guess. John, go over your flavor notes with uh Dylan here on this first first infusion round. I don't know. I hate describing flavor notes, but it's I don't know, really light. Yes, kind of like nice tannins, I guess, on the on the side of the tongue that are nice and I don't know, just like a really nice refreshing lightness.
I'm interested to see how it's gonna get a little more bitter. Visually, the second infusion a lot darker. Totally. Which is bizarre because you think like and are you using more like how okay? So this cup is the size the the the whole infusion vessel is the size of like Pinkies Out British teacup, kind of, right?
Even smaller. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. So how many milliliters you say that that that is? Roughly.
Yeah, roughly. Or ounces. I don't know how you think. You can think however you want. I mean, I can tell you in terms of shots.
All right. You know, one one to two shots. Kind of. All right, so like 660 mil, 60, 70 mil something. Okay.
Yeah, traditionally you you drink it in three sips. That's kind of Oh no, no, I don't mean in the small cup. I mean in the infusure thing. Oh, oh, in this? Um that's small.
Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Is like the British the British teacup is the actual infusion vessel is like and you're saying T. It's a small amount, and how many grams of tea about you putting in?
So that was eight, probably eight to ten grams. Right. So right. So wicked overdose if you were just gonna make this amount. Exactly.
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The ratio, the leaf to water ratio is is way higher than what you would see in a in a British style. Um and the only way the only way you can get away with that is that you're taking you're stopping the infusion when you decide to, with after 20, 30, 40 seconds. Right.
Whereas British style it's in there for the case. Speaking speaking of British style. Well, uh John, you ready to comment on this second infusion yet? By the way, how many infusions are we gonna do with this? Just so I haven't get my wrap my mind around what I need to keep track of.
Probably five. Okay, okay, okay. And then I have uh a second black tea down there too. All right, so we'll we'll wrap the tastings through the whole show. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. John, what do you think? What do you think tasting number two, Rathicon? Still smooth and more pronoun, I don't know, like clean, more pronounced, but it's I don't know, like for me, it's more of like a tongue thing that I'm getting. So again, like on the sides, but now a little bit more on the top.
Yeah, more they're more of what I would say is a kind of classical, classic uh astringency, which I enjoy in the in the kind of mid-to-back of my tongue. By the way, what's the difference between astringency and briskness? So astringency is more of the technical term for the sensation of that taste characteristic. Um it's more of a biochemical reaction of the mouth to tannins, where it's the drying of the mouth tissue. Briskness is kind of more of uh a a descriptor word that characterizes the whole sensation of consuming something that is astringent, but also has that kind of a little a bit of a bite to it, like uh like a crisp, cold breeze kind of.
So it's it's a bit more of a uh a word that just kind of describes the feeling rather than uh a precise uh descrip uh a precise reaction of the mouth. Yeah. And so you're telling me that brisk brand tea, not actually brisk. I'm just messing with you. You don't need to comment.
You might work for them someday. Who knows? I'm not gonna don't say anything negative about anyway. Come on, man. I'm just joking around.
Uh so while we're on, uh while I'm making you saying negative things, though, uh, someone wrote in, and this is you mentioned English style. Uh mood therapist wants to know if there's any uh best shape of a tea bag, right? Pyramidal, round, or square. I know you have feelings on microplastics, so I know certain of these things you're gonna come out uh against, but uh I told them gotta go loose anyway. Come on, guy, because they fill those things with dust.
But is there a shape that makes it better? Is there any sort of answer there? No. No, and and actually, if you asked me two to three years ago, I would say the pyramid is the way to go, the pyramid bags. But I mean, this research that you're referencing about the microplastics, that that research dropped in 2020, I believe, and in that experiment, they used the the pyramid-shaped bags, the the you know, the quote unquote nice saschets, and they found that those were releasing a lot of micro and nanoplastics into the tea.
So today, I I can't tell you that any bag or shape, you know, any any type of bag is more is better than another. They both all of them have shown to be not great. Does anyone you know of put their best quality tea into a bag? Uh yes, but don't wanna don't want to call them out. But yeah, I mean it is it I have seen it.
People will take uh uh pretty good tea and bag it because you know, in their in their mind, you know, you have good tea, people like bags, tea bags. That's that's fair though. Why not? Yeah, it makes sense, yeah. Yeah, is there any hope for doing like uh this style, like multiple infusion gong fu chai with a bag, or is it just hopeless because you can't look at the leaves and enjoy it, or can you still enjoy any of it?
If you if let's say I want to go out today, I I don't have a setup, like can I do anything with a bag tea? Uh what I would say is just take a pair of scissors, cut open the bag, dump the leaves into your gaiwan or your teapot, and just do it like that. If you if you're talking gong fu tea and you have the equipment to brew it, just get the bag out of the equation. Just cut the bag open, pour the tea out, and you're good to go. You don't the bag, you don't need the bag.
You don't need the bag. You don't need the bag. Yeah. The bag is superfluous. You reminding me of the end of my favorite Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, Commando, where Arnold Schwarzenegger convinces Bennett, who's not a convincing villain that he can beat up Arnold Schwarzenegger, by the way, that uh he doesn't need uh he doesn't need the knife.
I don't need the knife, John. Or is it he doesn't need the gun? He doesn't need the gun, John. Anyway, like anyway, it's awesome. Uh anytime someone says you don't need X, Y, or Z, my I can only think of Commando, which is not a great movie, but it's structurally perfect, I believe.
There's only one mistake in the movie that I can find. What's that? Uh so Ray Don Chong and Arnold Schwarzenegger are about to steal uh a float plane to go out and kill every living thing other than Arnold Schwarzenegger's daughter, played by Alyssa Milano, by the way, on this island. So the only things that are gonna survive are Ray On Chong, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Elisa Milano, right? Every other living thing is gonna be killed.
And Radon Chong is a aspiring pilot, and so she looks and says, reads something, goes, Oh, that's seaplane fuel to pu prove that they had flown on a seaplane in this island, no such thing. It's a lie at the time. She's like, Oh, that that designation is is seaplane fuel. Not true. Only mistake I can find in the whole thing.
Well, so how how is it not seaplane fuel? Which is I think they just made it wrong ingredients. No, I just think they just made it up. I think they just needed a plot thing to get them from one place to another, and you know, they, you know, it it's the one, unless I'm wrong, which I doubt I am, because my dad used to be a seaplot. You know what I mean?
So like I could be wrong, but probably not. You know what I mean? And so like I was like, oh, this is it's it's you know, ruining my it's uh I can't suspend my disbelief through that, but then I'm right back into it. I'm good. Yeah.
Yeah. Uh what are your thoughts on uh speaking of brewing things? Um is that still a big thing that the flower where they tie the tea into that shape and it blooms into a flower? Is that still a thing? It is a big thing.
You like it, you don't have a look on your face like you like it. Uh in we in in Chinese we have a phrase to describe that we say, how comp how huh? It's just it looks good, doesn't taste good. Wow. Strong.
Yeah. So it's it's pretty, but not in the palate. I feel you and Nastasia would get along. Yeah? Yeah.
That's the kind of thing that she that's the kind of phrase she likes to have in her, you know, in her pocket, right, Stas? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, you know, you're like, oh, nah. You know, someone who's tell it like it is.
I appreciate that. Speaking of, uh, how does an American become a tea horticulturalist in China? It seems like there's a lot of barriers to that. There is a lot of barriers. Uh the main one and kind of the the only one is just speaking Chinese well.
So um that was kind of what got me into this whole space of tea is uh being able to speak and and understand Chinese. So the language came first? The language came first. Yep. Um I just found myself working as a translator, basically for different companies in China.
Like what kind of companies? What were they doing? All types of stuff. I mean, you you've seen made in China like that. Yeah, I uh uh we are made in China.
Our stuff is made in China. Yeah. So, you know, I was I Shenzhen, actually, and like yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was doing work in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, all over the place. I mean, I I uh worked for uh headphone and microphone company, clothing, air purification, I mean, every anything that's made in China.
Like I was kind of just taking jobs for I was a kid, you know, 1920. Um, and one of the companies ended up being a tea company. Uh got into it that way. But a Hong Kong company or a mainland company? It was a company from Switzerland, and so they wanted to export tea to Switzerland, but um I had to kind of move to this city in China qu called Guangzhou.
Uh they have the biggest wholesale tea market in the world there called Feng Tsun Tea Market. Um, but you know, I I ended up kind of just meeting a lot of people in the tea industry. Then I discovered this this tea science major at the local university. But the only way that I can enroll in that program was that I could sit in a biochemistry class, taught instructed in Chinese and understand what's going on. So the only way you can get admitted into the program is if you speak Chinese and kind of understand it well enough to like technical Chinese.
Technical Chinese, right? So you gotta be able to read the periodic table and in Chinese. So but did you also have to do Cantonese over there? No, actually. So it so Guangzhou, the city I live in, is is the other name for it is Canton.
So it's the home of of Canton of the Cantonese culture. But um in a university setting, nowadays it's all Mandarin because all the professor, you know, you have professors and students coming in from all parts of China. Right. Um, and they the common language is is Mandarin. What about the old timers though in plant plantations and stuff?
They that's all Cantonese. So when I go out to tea farms um and I'm chopping them up with the locals, you know, their first language is Cantonese. And if and if you're talking to someone who's over 50 or 60 years old, they usually don't speak Mandarin or maybe very, very broken Mandarin. Um, but that's yeah, that that it was actually really tough when I first moved there. I had to retrain my brain to be able to understand Mandarin that's spoken with a really thick Cantonese accent.
Yeah. So it was really when I first moved there, I was really excited about the tea thing. I was like, this is gonna be great. And then for the first two weeks, I was like, I don't think I can do this because when I was talking to the locals, I didn't understand anything that they were saying. Um professors and advisors, their Mandarin's flawless, you're good with that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. Um, but it and and it's tough because when you go out to the tea farms to meet with the tea masters and and the locals, uh, it's you've really got to focus and listen on what they're saying to to be able to pick it up. Um but if you're look talking to someone who's under about 50 years old, they can always at least speak broken Mandarin or you know, Mandarin with an accent. Is this number three I've got or is this still number two?
This is number three. All right, John, what do you got on number three? Yeah, I got you. Come on, John, I gotta keep yanking, so you gotta keep current with the teas. Come on, man.
Jeez, Louise. Gosh, jeez. So in China, is there a uh an English version of like builder's tea? What what's builder's tea? Builders's tea is like um I believe it's uh English breakfast with two sugars and milk um that all the construction guys drink.
It's now become a common thing to ask when you go to uh you have tea off builder's tea. Yeah, actually, so and it depends on the region of China. So if you go up north, like in in Beijing, the the working class guys, the taxi drivers, the construction guys, they'll all have a big uh glass mug, like a tumbler, which is full of green tea. And oftentimes it's it'll they'll have some um jasmine flowers. It'll be kind of like a a floral mixed green tea.
So that's kind of their style of of builders' tea. But if you go down to the south, it's puer. Ooh, really? All day. Or or or oolong tea.
Um, or if you go to Yunnan, it'll be it's it's kind of the local tea of that area. Each each area has their own local tea, and the the the you know, the the builders, quote unquote, will be just sipping on that all day long, like it's like it's water. Oh I can't, I mean, like I like Puer, but a lot of people don't like Puer. I know you do, you put some videos up, but like uh Nastasia made the uh the good it was it was your idea, right? Bourbon and Puer, that was your thing, Stas.
Um it was good, right? Remember when Emmerich gave us all of that fancy poo-air, didn't tell us how much it costs, and we had to make a cocktail, you're like pour in the bourbon. Remember? Maybe, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Pour it in the bourbon. That's what you said. It was good. Yeah until we found out how freaking much that tea costs, and then I threw up. You know what I mean?
Like Do you remember what um what area it was from or what the name of the thing? I know it's a I know it was a $400 disc. Yeah. You know what I mean? And uh, you know, we just by the way, the the noise you're hearing in the background is the water boiling.
So that's the sound of freshness, people. Uh this th number three, this is my favorite so far. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Third the third one is typically kind of known as the best. Yeah? Yeah, they say um what about with children? Um third one best. Third one, you know.
I mean I'm not sure. I was I was first, that would make my sister the best on uh on b on both sides of my family, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fine. That's fine.
I'm okay with it. Uh all right, let me get to some questions while this is uh brewing. So one of the questions was how'd you get into it? So you've kind of addressed somewhat how you got into it. My impression is is that um from the tea people that I visited in Hong Kong and in Taiwan, that uh it's a relatively closed-lipped group of people.
Uh so it must be hard to kind of get into the inner circle of some of these producers and whatnot, right? Is it at an ag university? Are you helping them with like uh with problems they have so they're more open to you coming in and talking to them? Or is it like you're a competitor? How do they view you?
Yeah, it's an interesting comment about the closed lipped thing, especially in Hong Kong. There's a lot of closed lip, uh closed lips in regards to tea among the traders and and merchants of tea, the buyers and sellers. Um but in the academic space, it's totally different because you're I mean, you're conducting research and you're all working on the same genome of the tea plant. You're all trying to progress towards the same goal. I mean, there there is a bit of, you know, if you're on an active research project, you can't, you know, you need to be, you can't share your findings until you publish them and stuff like that in a normal academic setting.
But that whole closed lip thing, which I experience and which any person who tries to learn about tea will know about for sure. Uh, that thing doesn't is not a factor in academia. It it is to a small degree, but not for the information that matters. For the, you know, like what's the best tea type? You know, what what's the, you know, when you're just going off the hip and just saying, you know, stuff that you feel, uh opinions, like, you know, there'll there'll be closed lip uh feelings about that, but when you're actually talking about real knowledge and real information, which is you know, the the biochemical underpinnings of the tea plant, how is the tea leaf responding on a molecular basis?
What is actually this tea plant doing? That stuff's all public. That's and and nobody shares that. It's and or you know, everybody shares that. Nobody hides that.
So I felt like luckily, the deeper I dove into it, the more open it became, it became because when you're looking into it that deeply, um, you know, you don't have time to to play games and to conceal information. It's like, all right, I have a three billion base pair genome sequence here. We need to figure out what the hell these genes are doing. Is that really roughly what it is? Yeah, it's actually about the same size as the human genome.
Um, so you know, you're you're doing real, real science. And like all of that closed lip stuff, like that's kind of for the for the merchants and for the people who don't really know what's going on. And I get that a lot on on my channel a lot because I take in my videos, I take everything that I know and put it completely out there and don't hold anything back. I say all the information. And the reason I'm like that is because of my professors at the university, they're like that too.
And it's tell them where what your channel is so they can find it. Sure, it's it's just woo mountain tea, w-u-woo mountain tea on YouTube. Um and the I I saw in academia the the guys who and the women who know the most about tea, they are who truly know the most about tea. They're the most open about the knowledge. They're the they're the least gatekeeping people.
The ones who are gatekeeping are actually the ones who don't know that much because they feel insecure about the information they have, and they feel that it's limited and they need to kind of safeguard it because that's that's where their value is is coming from. And their money's coming from. Where their money's coming from, right? But the ones who really have the profound knowledge, they just let it all go. And I've had the privilege of studying under some of these people, and it's it's incredible.
And when you really look at it and you start to dig into all of the information there is out there, you realize that there's so much information, there's so much still to be discovered that there's no point in holding anything back. Um it's it's you know, it's it's a drop in the ocean, you know. So um to go back to the question that you've been answering the whole time, how'd you get into T uh AXBYCZ D zero? Uh basically asked all of those questions. How how'd you how'd you get into it?
Um, but you know, maybe to kind of piggyback on their question, uh, what prompted you to become so interested, which you've been talking about, uh like how would you say if someone wanted to get into this industry, what should they do? I guess learn Mandarin is what you said, but like, is there anything else you think or I mean, so learn Mandarin actually, it sounds a bit ridiculous, but that that's a great start. Um I mean, if if you want to, I guess if you if you want to study tea in academia here, I'm pouring up some tea here. Thank you. So, yeah, I'll give a bit more of a realistic answer because you know it's not like anyone who's listening to this who wants to get into tea is gonna be like, okay, step one, go go learn go learn Mandarin.
So I would say um actually a great place to start is to learn about plant biology and actually just basic biology. And again, that is a kind of a large barrier to entry, almost analogous to learning Mandarin, right? But there's one textbook. Um if you get just a basic biology textbook and kind of just learn about you know how the cell works, especially in a plant, that's that's a great start. But if you want to maybe go a bit simpler um than that, actually, I so I made a master class.
I so I released it in August, and for the six months before I released it, I did nothing but sit in my room and film and edit this uh series of eight different chapters. And it's actually kind of aimed at what you're talking about, which is that if you're someone who wants to get into tea, where do you start with all this information? Because I'm not gonna learn Chinese and I'm not gonna read multiple textbooks about plant biology. So I kind of compiled all the relevant information um related to tea and everything that is relevant and good to know about tea. And I'm not you know trying to plug that, it's just the simple answer to that question.
It's it hasn't really quite been compiled in a way that I've seen that's really accessible. So if if you go through those eight chapters, it kind of touches on all of the critical aspects because there's there's no textbooks, there's no resources quite out there that really put it together in a good way. So I just kind of went ahead and did that. Um so that is a free resource on the on the YouTube channel that I just mentioned. Um but you can kind of try your best at getting the the piecemeal resources that are out there, but it's not great.
Um it's yeah, that's that's that's infusion number four. Is infusion number four? Yep. So it's still balanced, but I feel it's dropping down a little bit. You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, the s the savory elements are are kind of dropping out a little bit, right? Quinn, what do you got for me? Yeah, we have uh just a question from the live chat. Um, going back to the language thing, uh Rail was asking if uh Dylan has any recommendations for actually resources around Mandarin. Yeah, how'd you learn college?
Or all your whole life you've taken it or what? So actually the way that I learned the most was by talking to a tutor on Skype. I mean, so basically it doesn't matter what language you're talking about, the the framework is grab a basic textbook, grab it, grab a basic um a book that teaches you just the fundamental structure. You don't need much, you just need to learn how the sentences are laid out, their basic grammar, you know, do you put the verb first or the noun first or the adjective first? You know, it's just each language is a little bit different in that sense.
You pick up, you get the basics in a in a few vocabulary words under your belt, you know, maybe 50 verbs or a few adjectives and nouns. You just get the basics, and then before you feel like you're ready, then you dive into forcing yourself to speak with a native speaker as much as humanly possible. And for me, that came through just chatting with uh a teacher on Skype. And so what I would recommend, I mean, what I did is I just found a graduate student whose major in China is teaching Chinese as a second language. I just, you know, went and and DM'd this university, this professor.
I found her email online and said, Hey, do you have any graduate students who would be willing to tutor me, learning Chinese? And she said, Yeah, I I mean, my whole department is Chinese as a second language. I have a great graduate student, and I paid her, you know, 15 bucks an hour. This was in 2010, 11. Not much, you know.
And just chatted with her on Skype. I was in upstate New York, that's where I grew up. I was there in high school chatting with her on Skype for an hour a day, using the the basic vocabulary and grammar that I had learned through the through the the book. And you it's uncomfortable. It's really uncomfortable because you're trying to converse with somebody in a language that you're not familiar with, but this is how the human brain learns language, right?
When you're a kid and you're trying to learn your first language, you it's either it's sink or swim. It's like I need to convey this information and and your brain kind of you force yourself to have to figure it out. And it's pretty I'm pretty sure I would sink. Yeah. No, I mean, look at you speaking English right now.
Like you you clearly you clearly swam. So basically if you if if you get the basics and then you force yourself to try to speak it with a with a tutor um that's that's all you need. And you can you can find tutors for not that much. And then if you know maybe that's outside of your budget then you can um watching TV shows with subtitles is a great way but just really you have to try to force yourself to speak as much as you can learn just enough just barely enough and then throw yourself into the deep end of the pool with with speaking as much as you can that's what I would say. Now Max wrote in and once he says you hear a lot of Chinese sources talking about uh cha chi so I guess that's qi like like qigong like energy yeah uh is this just caffeine content or is it more complicated than that?
It's a bit more complicated. Uh so there's a few psychoactive compounds in tea. You have caffeine which is the you know the the stimulant the famous one you have theanine which is an amino acid which provides the calming properties of tea which actually synergize with caffeine to create the unique cha chi that this person's referring to. What do they mean focus but alert? Yeah yeah it's it's a calm focus an alert calm relaxed focus as opposed to just purely caffeine which would be kind of a bit jittery.
You mean like my espresso high that I have every morning. Yep. Yeah. Yep. So it's that but but calm more meditative than that.
So you have caffeine and L-thenine those two are the primary drivers of the chachi, but there's it's not quite just that. It's a bit more complicated than that, and we don't fully know the picture of cha chi. All because there's other compounds that studies have shown are probably bioactive and they affect the brain for sure, but we don't know exactly how and in what way. Um, but caffeine and theanine, that calm focus is a major part. And then you have other kind of catechins, those tannins, those are acting on the brain as well in ways that we're not totally sure about, and then all of the bioactive compounds, the the sugars, the polysaccharides, everything that's bioactive affects the body and affects consciousness in specific ways that we're still figuring out.
But chachi, it's it's complex, but at its core, I would say caffeine and al-theanine are the key drivers that calm focus. And Max also wants to know if there's any type of tea that you think are wildly underappreciated in the West that you found in China. So raw puer, I would say that's that's the first one that comes to mind. Raw puer. Uh white tea, I would say, is uh a bit underappreciated.
I mean, honestly, all good tea is underappreciated, I would say. Really another big one is really fresh green tea. Because we don't produce tea here, and all of our tea is imported. And for this one, it's aged, right? So it doesn't matter that we're an arb and a leg in an ocean away from where this was produced because you know we're aging it for 10 years anyway.
But green tea, the the best green tea should be fresh, just just fresh. How fresh? As fresh as possible. Really? You know, I plucked it this morning and now I'm drinking it this afternoon.
Maybe uh a bit longer than that. So, in other words, like but on the same level as roasted coffee? Yeah. Yeah. Yep, that's a great analogy.
So and you simply don't get that here. You you only have access to that degree of freshness in the tea producing areas. And how much does vacuum packing, as long as it's not crushed, right? But vacuum packed in a solid, like how much does that preserve the life of the freshness of the green tea? Uh pretty good.
Yeah. No, it that's that's the best you can do. And does anybody do that? Ship it over in VAC? Uh not that I know of.
I'm working on trying to do that too. Um it's tough because in the past I've tried to do fresh green tea, and I just I I don't have that. I sell tea to my friends and family and a few other people. So it's it's hard because I'll I'll buy it and I'll be hey, fresh green tea, then you know, six months will pass, and then I still have some. So does hard vacuum in a bag affect the infusion because you crush the pores of the leaf?
Does it affect it in any way? I mean, no, it's gonna stop some of the oxidation and all of that, but is there any negative effect of vacuum packing if it's hard packed like that? If if there are they would be negligible effects compared to what you're gaining? Exactly. Yep.
So it's it's a net positive for sure. Yeah, I mean, it it would be best if you didn't damage the leaves in any type of way. And again, like all of that adds up, which is why the true fresh tea is great. So I guess to come back to the question, really fresh green tea is uh it's hard to even say underrated because people don't even have it. So they're not even rating it.
It's just uh non-existent. So that that's something that we're missing out on big time. So if green tea freaks here, and there's plenty for health reasons, green tea freaks here, if they could taste that, would they be like, what? Oh my god, what a jerk I've been my whole life. Yes, yes, it's it's mind-numbing.
Like the how incredible a fresh, really well done green tea is, is it's unbelievable. Like, because you know, with our with the white tea that we're having now, like it's a good white tea, and you can appreciate certain elements of the flavor, and it will knock your socks off, you know, with a good pure or a good white tea. With green with a fresh green tea, it is so different that you don't even believe what you're feeling in your mouth. It's because it's there's a whole level of umami and um food-like qualities. It doesn't even feel like you're drinking tea.
It it's a different universe. So like could it like how much like is it expensive there or is it not expensive there? Uh not that expensive. I mean, it's it's I mean, would it be a relative term? Would it be a valid business to like, you know, there's a direct flight from you know, United, Hong Kong, Newark every day, right?
Back and forth. Would it be a valid business to like ship it here, drink it tomorrow or not? Yeah, yeah. And and I would say, right? So if I were to, if you want if you asked me, hey, go get me some fresh green tea, right?
Because the spring crop is coming in March, it's about one you know, month or six weeks away from today. Um, if you wanted to get your hands on some green tea, and you know, I'll be in China actually at that time. If you want me to ship you some back, it wouldn't for the price for me to buy it there fresh, not that expensive to ship uh a box of it back, not that bad. And in relation to the value and how different, how drastically different it is, um, I would say it's not expensive at all compared to the value that you're getting all right quinn get on that let's do it we'll taste it on air you want to yeah I know I know I I I I'm already sold I don't worry about that all right so we'll do it we'll do it we'll get it done we'll get it done people we'll tell you about it I don't know you know maybe I don't know we'll figure it out we'll figure it out we'll make it yeah quinn let let's uh let's keep in touch about that I'll I'll I'll send you a little green tea package this this spring. For sure.
Uh Will wrote in and said you know what's upsetting? What? Oh what? So go ahead. No what go go ahead we'll talk about after.
Wait you just told people there was something upsetting about tea anger come on what's what what's going on okay okay there is of course a tea plantation on Vancouver Island which is of of course absorbently expensive but the last time I checked they take their green tea and they smoke it they smoke it they smoke the the green tea well they they like like not in the blood not in the imagine smoking it like a blood I've tried what's it like uh nothing right home about yeah okay yeah yeah about what you'd imagine so they they they're smoking their green tea that that that's hard to hear because it it incited hope that a fresh green tea could be had from a plantation that close to us, but maybe I'll I'll see if it if they've changed their offerings. But last time I checked, that was the green tea they offered. Alright, well talk talk to them, Quinn. Talk to them. Yeah.
Especially because like the thing is like, let's say you could grow tea here, which you know, obviously, as you said, you can, right? Yep. Or I'm sure in Hawaii they grow, I'm sure they grow great tea or whatever. I mean, I don't know that I'm guessing climate. No, they do.
Uh, but if there's not a culture of understanding what fresh green tea is like, there's no incentive for the proprietor to do a great job. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yep. Yeah, that that's that's a big issue.
Is is for me for when I'm in China, it's like I I could get some great fresh tea and send it back, but I don't have that many people who are lining up at the door to get their hands on. And they already do. Yeah, you do. Okay. We'll we'll we'll fix that problem.
Why does tea get put on the back burner in the US as opposed to coffee? Uh, and if you have only one tea to get somebody hooked, what do you brew for 'em? And how? Uh tea gets put on the back burner. Tough.
It I would I would say maybe because it's it's difficult to brew. With coffee, you can throw it in a machine. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. You know, I mean Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Anyway, go ahead. We have two minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So tea is tough. It it takes skill, it takes practice to brew correctly.
So it there's it's a nuanced thing. It's it's not easy to to to make. So it's by way of that, I would say it's it's less appreciated and less less common. Uh second question. It was any chance of getting a good tea at a third wave coffee shop.
Probably not. Brew your own tea. That's what I would say. Do it yourself. If I there are a couple gung fu chai places in New York that are uh I don't haven't been to them.
I don't know if they're any good. Yeah, and just the nature of it, like, you know, it it's not something you can easily just buy at a shop and take it to go. It it's something you sit down and spend time with a bit. So we got two more quick ones. Solarfish 30 writes in.
Curious if you have any solid recommendations for tea tourism in China. Would love to make it the focus of a trip one day. Uh yeah. So there's a few tea terroirs that are really famous, worth checking out. But is there like a company that does it like we take you to the tea?
Not uh not that I know of. I I am interested in doing that at some point. Oh well. Um I I have done some guided tours and I'm gonna reach out, reach out to Dylan. Go to go to yeah, go down.
I'll be in China if you're if you're coming through, I'll show you around. All right, you ready? Here's the last one. This is the one we're gonna go out at. Uh uh CA uh Schofield writes in, hey, I want to know more about that duck poop tea.
Needs to know about that duck poop tea. And I had to read about it because of the question, I was like, duck poop tea. Do you know about this? You want to talk about this? Yeah, yeah.
Like describe what it is real quick and then give me some duck poo. Yep. So duck shit oolong is uh it's a type of oolong. It's from my province, Kwangdong province. Uh it's just the style of oolong tea that's been in existence for a couple hundred years now.
It doesn't taste or smell like duck foo, right? Nope, no relation to actual duck shit. There's a story behind it where you know the the cultivar originally used to make it was so treasured that the farmer s uh covered the the tea plant area with duck shit so that other people wouldn't pluck it. Uh like you know, to keep people away. So that's kind of the backstory, is is why it's called duck shoe.
Is it any good? It's fantastic. Thank you. I highly recommend it. Does anyone ship it to the US or no?
Do you? I do. Yeah? Alright, so you can go on your website. You want to give them your website again?
Sure. Wu Mountaintea.com. And go get yourself some duck, uh, your duck excrement tea. Yeah. Go get it.
Well, Dylan, uh, thanks for coming on. What do you think about this last infusion, John, on the way out? Good. More, yeah, more what I was expecting in the initial one, but I also didn't know anything about white tea. So very good.
Well, uh, thanks for uh coming on, Dylan. Hope you had a good time. Yeah, had a great time. Thanks for having me. Cooking issues.
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