GL BAL EA HUT Tea & Tao Magazine 國際茶亭 December 2018 紅 印 藍 印印 級 Masterpiece Era Puerh GLOBAL EA HUT ContentsIssue 83 / December 2018 Tea & Tao Magazine Blue藍印 Mark To conclude this amazing year, we will be explor- ing the Masterpiece Era of puerh tea, from 1949 to 1972. Like all history, understanding the eras Love is of puerh provides context for today’s puerh pro- duction. These are the cakes producers hope to changing the world create. And we are, in fact, going to drink a com- memorative cake as we learn! bowl by bowl Features特稿文章 37 A Brief History of Puerh Tea Yang Kai (楊凱) 03 43 Masterpiece Era: Red Mark Chen Zhitong (陳智同) 53 Masterpiece Era: Blue Mark Chen Zhitong (陳智同) 37 31 Traditions傳統文章 03 Tea of the Month “Blue Mark,” 2000 Sheng Puerh, Yunnan, China 31 Gongfu Teapot Getting Started in Gongfu Tea By Shen Su (聖素) 53 61 TeaWayfarer Gordon Arkenberg, USA © 2018 by Global Tea Hut 藍 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be re- produced, stored in a retrieval system 印 or transmitted in any form or by any means: electronic, mechanical, pho- tocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the copyright owner. n December,From the weather is much cooler in Taiwan.the We This is an excitingeditor issue for me. I have always wanted to are drinking Five Element blends, shou puerh and aged find a way to take us on a tour of the eras of puerh. Puerh sheng. Occasionally, we spice things up with an aged from before 1949 is known as the “Antique Era (號級茶時 oolong or a Cliff Tea. We love to celebrate the holidays 期)” and from 1949 to 1972 is called the “Masterpiece Era Iat the Tea Sage Hut. We cook a large vegetarian meal, make (印級茶時期),” 1972 to 1998 is the “Chi Tze Era (七子餅 chai and exchange gifts. We will be thinking of all of you, our 茶時期)” and then until now is called the “Newborn Era beloved tea family, as we smile, laugh and drink cups of spicy (新生茶時期).” I have been brainstorming a way to devote chai! You are all in our hearts this month. We hope your hol- an issue to each era, but the problem is that the teas from the idays find you warm and surrounded by great tea and those earlier eras are way too rare and exorbitantly expensive. (We you love. cannot even imagine sending them as an Expansion Pack, let This year has been great. We have started translating Tai- along even dreaming of sending them as a Tea of the Month.) wanese tea history, traveled to Anxi and Chaozhou, as well Eventually, I figured out a way that we could do this, as you as Yiwu and Mengsong. We hope to continue traveling to will see, that we hope will be fun and educational for you. We tea-growing regions in the next year, taking all of you with us are going to start with the Masterpiece Era, as opposed to cov- through these pages. We think that understanding tea means ering the four eras chronologically, because there is an exciting understanding the geography, terroir and people who create Chinese book about the antique era coming out later in 2019 it. We also hope to further our “Classics of Tea” series in the that we hope to translate for that issue. coming year. We have already translated works from the Tang We are also continuing our tradition of using the gift mon- Dynasty (618–907), the Treatise on Tea by Song Dynasty ey in December to get a better quality tea to send for the hol- (960–1269) emperor Song Huizhong and several Ming Dy- idays. This is, in fact, what gave me the idea of a way to find a nasty (1368–1644) tea classics. Next year, we will unroll the Tea of the Month that would be interesting for an issue devot- scroll further, translating and annotating a great Qing Dynasty ed to the Masterpiece Era, which is essentially made up of the (1644–1911) tea text in two parts. Work on this has already various types of Red and Blue Mark cakes, as you shall see. We begun. We will publish the first half in 2019 and probably are thinking of reducing the gifts in 2019 to a few a year, and complete the work the following year. It is our aim to eventu- spending that extra budget on better teas throughout the year. ally publish all these classics in a book. Along with travels and What do you think? classics, you can look forward to some great issues on teaware, Wishing you a great holiday and happy New Year! Let us all tea teachers and some rare and unique teas. We so look forward raise a cup of tea, while reading about puerh history and toast- to another great year of tea wisdom, great tea trips and ceremo- ing all that we have achieved thus far as a community, as well as nies around the world! what is to come as this gorgeous community grows closer and This year, our Light Meets Life fundraiser has expanded to bigger. I love you all dearly. create simple, affordable teaware for bowl tea practice, some great handmade Yixing and porcelain cups for gongfu tea and kettles for both. We also have some great teas now as well, including two shou puerh teas, several dian hong cakes and one excellent sheng as well. The proceeds from these teas are all saved for building Light Meets Life, which becomes more Wu De and more pressing as all our ten-day courses at the Tea Sage Hut have such long waiting lists. We obviously need a bigger Center! Together we can and will build Light Meets Life. We can already envision the tea rooms filled with students practic- ing chaxi, impromptu tea sessions in the dormitories or per- haps around the beautiful gardens. There’s one going on now in the bamboo grove… We see you meditating in the great –Further Reading– hall, walking amongst old-growth tea trees of many varietals and making lifelong friends from around the world. We see This month, we recommend rereading the first a more robust course schedule with a great variety of courses, Extended Edition from September 2014. You from Gongfu I and II to Tea and Meditation, and from Intro may also want to review the Yiwu issue from this to Cha Dao to a Teacher’s Self Course… With your continued year, as it also has some great articles that are rel- support throughout this amazing and glorious year of tea, and evant to these topics. All our past issues are now into 2019, we can build this vision together as a tea family. We archived on the website, and very searchable in cannot express in words how grateful we are! both .pdf and .html formats. 2 of the ver the course of this month, we will be reading Throughout this issue, we will dive into some of the details about and exploring the Masterpiece Era of puerh, of these cakes, talk about the history, production and lore of which spans from the Communist takeover of tea puerh, as well as what it is like to drink some of these incredi- production in Yunnan from 1949 to 1972 when the CNNP ble vintages of red mark and blue mark, which are subdivided (中國土產畜產進出口公司, China National Native Produce into many grades and types. Though the wrappers were close, & Animal By-Products Import & Export Company) was cre- there were grades of puerh even back then. As we thought ated and took over control of the tea industry in Yunnan. of what to send as a Tea of the Month, we remembered that They changed the wrappers, and even included English that there were many tribute cakes pressed in the late 1990s and year, which is the marker that separates the second and third early 2000s to commemorate various Antique Era and more eras of puerh tea. (We will discuss all four eras in this issue.) especially Masterpiece Era cakes. In other words, many facto- We have wanted to cover the four eras of puerh individually ries and small “boutique” puerh producers were making their in an issue for a long time, but were always confused about own Red and Blue Mark cakes. They did this in part because how we could find an on-topic Tea of the Month to go along Masterpiece Era teas were booming in price and reputation, with such an issue, since teas from the first three eras are so and cakes could benefit from association; but puerh lovers rare and incredibly expensive nowadays. In fact, even the also made Blue or Red Mark tribute cakes because they genu- idea of an Expansion Pack with Antique or Masterpiece Era inely loved the classic versions and wanted to make an hom- teas would be absurd, as a single steeping of these teas would age. be thousands of dollars. Sending them as a Tea of the Month Our Tea of the Month is a special tribute Blue Mark cake is even more impossible. We thought about this for a long from the year 2000. We are very lucky that a collector friend time, wondering what to do… donated half of this tea to us, so that we could all enjoy a spec- The Masterpiece Era, from 1949 to 1972, really is just tacular tea to end this spectacular year of Global Tea Hut.