Once upon a time in Fujian lived a poor farmer. One day, as he went to tend his fields, he passed by a shrine. He peered inside and could hardly believe his eyes. A carpet of leaves and dust covered the floor, thick cobwebs wrapped every corner and the crumbling walls were gray with centuries of grime. Forgotten in a corner, an iron statue of Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, presided over the ruins of her temple. The man was horrified.

�??This no way to worship you,�?� he told the statue. �??I don�??t have enough money to repair the temple�??s walls, but I�??ll do my best to honor you with what I have.�?�

Every day, he swept the floor, cleaned the walls and lit the incense. Soon the shrine looked tidy, if not new. One night, as the man slept, Kuan Yin came to him in his dreams.
�??It is time to reward all you have done for me,�?� she said. �??Tomorrow, go to the little cave behind my shrine and you will find something for you.�?�

The man did as he was told and found a tea shoot. He tended it carefully and it grew into a luxuriant bush, whose leaves yielded a marvellous tea. Grateful for this bounty, the man named the tea after the goddess, calling it Ti Kuan Yin, the Iron Goddess of Mercy.

The story doesn�??t mar its poetry by saying whether the man became hugely rich by selling his tea�??but he should have done. Ti Kuan Yin is by far one of the best oolongs in mainland China and one of the country�??s ten best teas.

For some inexplicable reason, today I felt the urge to brew it gong fu style. Nothing wrong with the idea itself�??this method, which calls for short, multiple infusions, is commonly used for oolongs in China and Taiwan. But gong fu means skill from practice�??and practice is something I definitely don�??t have. Calling myself a beginner is already a gross exaggeration. But this insane need gripped me, so I ignored the instructions that Special Teas had lovingly included with my Superior Ti Kuan Yin sample, turning instead to Stephane Erler�??s Teamasters blog for a crash course on gong fu.

This chap is learning from the pros in Taiwan and does a marvellous job of sharing his knowledge with the rest of us through videos, text and pictures. He was my only hope to make a reasonably decent tea. I duly rinsed my gaiwan, pitcher and cup with hot water, and placed the leaves to cover the bottom of the gaiwan. Then I put the kettle on and waited for the crab�??s eyes, though I am not sure I got it right.When the bubbles started rising from the bottom, I poured it into the gaiwan and tried to replicate the trick I saw in Stephane�??s video.

Let�??s say my leaves didn�??t quite dance. Oh and the kitchen was covered in water because I had omitted to follow his crucial suggestion of placing a towel under the gaiwan. I waited five breaths and poured the tea into the pitcher. Oh my goodness, the scent of it. It was the fragrance of honeysuckle at night. My cup was a crystal clear golden with that fantastic floral aroma. Not as strong as in the pitcher and perhaps with a fleeting note of something vegetaley but still like walking through honeysuckle vines. It was obviously sweet on the tip of the tongue but became quickly floral with an astringent finish. A really, really, really good tea with a fine balance of elegance and flavor, like Van Gogh�??s Irises.

Elated by this success, I promptly proceeded to flood the kitchen some more with my second and third gongfu infusions, which yielded a more astringent tea with no hint of sweetness but still that wonderful floral quality.

I fell in love with Ti Kuan Yin and fell in love with gong fu. I am hoping that if I practice it with devotion the goddess will reward me too.

How easily prejudiced we are. Say Green Pearl and it conjures up images of a fragile aroma, an elusive elegance that tickles the palate. Say Gunpowder and it evokes coarse strength that sends shock bolts down your palate.

Except they are one and the same tea, a mellow green that usually come from Zhejiang in southeastern China. It was once sold as Green Pearl in Europe, but is now known as Gunpowder.

By sheer chance, it was the first green tea I ever tried. No noble reason for picking it�??it was just cheaper than most, and I was a student. I remember the taste bowled me over. I knew very little about China tea at the time and I had thought the name�??Gunpowder�??would be an indication of flavor. So I had naturally expected something strong and explosive. Instead, it was a subtle tea that my Assam-tuned palate would refuse to call anything but delicate. Had I known it, I would have thought Green Pearl a perfectly fitting name.

I have learned much since then. That the tea�??s name had to do with the shape of the leaves, rolled tightly to look like gunpowder pellets�??or indeed green pearls. That, as far as green teas go, Gunpowder is reasonably flavorsome, though by no means explosive. And that I like other green teas better.

But that first experience conditioned my palate like the metronome with Pavlov�??s hungry dog. Gunpowder still shapes my eternal form, my Platonic idea of green tea. It is my unconscious frame of reference.

So I couldn�??t help but include it in my tour. I got the sample size of Special Teas�?? Temple of Heaven. It is a Pinhead, which means that the little pearls of tea are tightly rolled and very small. A teaspoon steeped in 12oz water for two minutes gave a rich golden cup with a very delicate scent�??vegetaley, with barely a hint of undergrowth. The taste was mild, with a subtle vegetaley accent in the end. It brought to mind the beautiful Sisley landscapes I saw at an exhibition in Madrid, Spain, four years ago. On second steep, for three minutes, the scent acquired an ephemeral floral note. On third steep, a slight astringency came across in the end.

In all, though, it remained mild, easy drinking that belied its bellicose name. But I will always wonder whether I would have deemed it just as mild had it been called Green Pearl instead.

Once upon a time in a magical land wrapped in a sea of cloud, a beautiful maiden fell deeply in love with a young man. But a cruel fate awaited them. The local lord kidnapped the girl to have her for himself and when she escaped and returned to her village, she discovered her lover had died. She wept inconsolably over his body, and her love-infused tears turned him into a tea bush. The mountain was Huangshan, in Anhui, southeastern China. And the leaves from the magical bush produced one of the most sumptuous green teas the world was ever to taste�??Huang Shan Mao Feng.

This lovely legend alone made me want to try this tea. Its bushes�??whether magical or of a more prosaic origin�??grow amid pine trees, cypresses and clear water springs on the misty foothills of the spectacular Huang Shan, the Yellow mountain. Leaves are plucked very young�??just one leaf and a bud covered in silvery fuzz. Add to this that Huang Shan Mao Feng is considered one of the ten best China teas and I couldn�??t wait to brew it.

Today was the day. I steeped three teaspoons of Special Teas�?? Huang Shan Mao Feng in six oz. steaming water for two minutes. The cup was a pale golden color with a very delicate, slightly vegetaley aroma with some fleeting flowers. I tried hard to find the peaches that should have supposedly been there�??the tea bushes grow next to wild peach trees, according to the vendor�??and failed miserably. That didn�??t detract from the cup, though. In the mouth is was very light with a pronounced nutty vegetaley end that reminded me of cashews. The second infusion�??three minutes�??was even more delicate and ever so slightly sweeter, although this is by no means a very sweet tea.

It brought to mind those beautifully poetic landscapes by Hiroshige. Who, of course was Japanese. I am sure there must be a Chinese painter who fits this tea even better but I am woefully ignorant when it comes to Chinese art. But you get the gist: Huang Shan Mao Feng is a tea of elegant, intimate scrolls, of birds and blossoms. Perhaps this is the peach that was promised?

Maybe it was its intensely dark leaf, which promised chocolate and flowers like a good Valentine�??s Day. Or maybe it was the name. Keemun. It could have been the hero of a Kipling book. The chemistry of love is always hard to rationalize and I would be hard pushed to pinpoint exactly what attracted me to this big China black one December day of fifteen years ago.

Like every coup de foudre, I remember the moment I spotted the large bottle green canisters on the second shelf of the teashop where I had just started working, sandwiched between Yunnan and Chingwoo, above the smoked teas. Keemun, Keemun Congou and Grand Keemun. They held promises of riches, of silks and spices and imperial courts.

I gave in to impulse and bought some plain Keemun, which was the cheapest of the three. Even with my employee discount, it still was outrageously expensive for a student�??s budget. But this secret guilt only amplified my pleasure, as I went home and carefully brewed a pot. My cup was delicate, sweet, ever so slightly floral, fragile, elusive. It marked the beginning of an enduring love story.

I have drunk Keemun for longer than I have known my husband and I have yet to tire of it�??which gives some hope to the husband too. Over the years, my finances allowed me to progress to better Keemuns, broadening my taste palette and my gustatory pleasure. I went around evangelizing family and friend with the zeal of the just converted and even had some success when my staunchly Indian-drinking mother embraced the cause.

So after venturing in the unknown territory of Pu-Erh, opening my Keemun caddies today was like coming home after a long and satisfying journey. Whoever said familiarity breeds contempt must have had a very unhappy home. I like to think it breeds a comfortable, embracing warmth. And it is to this warmth that I gave myself over as I brewed two cups of tea�??a Keemun by Mariage Fréres and a Keemun Imperial by Sans & Sans.

The Mariage Fréres liquor was a brilliant, reddish brown, with a distinctly floral aroma. Fresh on the tip of the tongue, it grew richer and more layered as it travelled through the mouth, ending in a sweet triumph.

The Sans & Sans cup was slightly clearer in color and has a more restrained floral note with a fleeting hint of something else�??chocolate? Surprisingly, though, its flavor was a lot more floral than the other Keemun, carrying that note all the way through the long, long finish.

Two Michaelangelo masterpieces, where vigor and complexity magically blended into simple beauty.

As it often happens to me with Keemun, the actual cup was even better than my recollection of it. What made me happiest today, though, was to see my devil of a toddler pick up the Mariage Frères caddy, bury his nose in it and give a loud �??Ahhh�?� of approval. I like to think of it as the start of his own love story with tea. May it be as enduring and pleasurable as my own.

I�??ll admit it outright. I know very little about Pu-erh. I have hardly ever come across it and, until recently, it was hardly common in the UK. Now it has become a tad more widespread, although it fails to match the levels of popularity that it seems to enjoy in the US.

Much of what I know about Pu-erh I owe to tea books such as the Tealover’s Companion, and to an excellent online resource, www.pu-erh.net , run by a real connoisseur named Mike Petro.

Taking time to delve through his site is the best way to find out about this tea, which is often shrouded in myth. For those in a hurry, a one-sentence summary is that Pu-erh is aged tea, which matures over time to acquire an earthy character. Originally made in Yunnan out of the large leaves of the local tea bushes, it has more than a thousand years of history. According to traditional Chinese medicine, it also has several health benefits, which partly derive from the microbes that become active in the tea as it matures.

Pu-erhs can either be black�??made out of oxidized tea leaves�??or green, made out of leaves that have been heated to stop the oxidation process before being dried. Both then undergo a lengthy aging period.

Like Bordeaux and unlike humans, green Pu-erh mellows with age. Black Pu-erh, by contrast, is mellowed by oxidation so it is easy to drink even at young ages. Connoisseurs like Petro say that naturally aged green Pu-erhs have by far the most intriguing flavor. As I lack the palette of tastes required to appreciate these teas in full, I thought I�??d make my wallet happy and go for a black Pu-erh.

I bought some mini Tuocha�??small bowls of compressed tea that look like tiny bird�??s nests�??from Special Teas. This morning, I brewed the tea according to instruction, by steeping a mini bowl for a six oz cup for five minutes (after rinsing the leaves). The cup looked fabulous. A rich, voluptuous coffee brown with a strong earthy smell. I said out loud that it smelled like mud, so my husband immediately piped:
“Why would you want to drink that?”

It took me a while to explain that it was a lovely muddy, earthy smell. Even when I thought I had managed to get the message across he remained stubborn in his determination not to try it. Of course he was prejudiced, but, for once, he may have had a point. The tea smelled better than it tasted. It was very robust in the mouth, smooth and initially sweet, with a solidly earthy aftertaste. But it was also simple, in your face. It lacked complexity, which left me slightly unsatisfied. Great execution but no layers, like a reliable painter from the Italian Ottocento�??a De Nittis landscape, perhaps.

Maybe this is the reason Petro says that green Pu-erh is better? Or perhaps I need to brew it differently. I have asked him to recommend brewing methods, and I am going to try the Tuocha again tomorrow, Petro-style.

What I love about China is its use of evocative names. How can you fail to fall for a tea called Precious Eyebrows? Indeed those perfectly green, perfectly arched leaves�??each and every one of them painstakingly hand rolled�??are a thing of beauty. They look like tiny, exquisitely shaped eyebrows that would make any self-respecting Hollywood diva green with envy.

It often amazes me how intricately complex manufacturing processes can produce something as beautifully simple as this tea. It only takes a wrong twist of the hand, or a slightly off temperature to scupper the curve and waste the leaf. And yet Chun Mee, or Zhen Mei, as Precious Eyebrows is called in Chinese, is so easily approachable that it makes an excellent introduction to green teas.

The one I tasted today came from Special Teas and was certified organic. Steeping a teaspoon in steaming water at 180F for two minutes yielded a lovely golden cup. The wet leaves had a sweet herbal scent, which came across a lot more subtly in the brew.

My cup had an ephemeral, sweetish, vegetaley note wafting up, which I thought of as caramelised herbs. In the mouth, it was very smooth and sweet with a decisive finish that I couldn�??t pin down. I�??d like to say it was plummy because that�??s what Chun Mee is supposed to taste like and that�??s what the vendor promised. But I can�??t entirely agree on the plumminess. It was sweetish and vaguely fruity but also, in some way, mineraley. As mysterious and indefinable as a Magritte painting. And yes, I am fully aware that I am not making any sense.

Beautiful clouds in the South. Not south of my window, where the sky is uniformly, hopelessly gray, but south of Sichuan on the border with Laos, Burma and Vietnam. That�??s Yunnan, land of rainforests, misty mountains and golden monkeys, the mythical Shangri-La.

It reminds me of a line in a song by Italian songwriter Francesco Guccini, aptly titled Asia and vaguely inspired by Marco Polo�??s journey to Cathai.

Among tropical flowers, among screams of sweetness, a slow, gentle breeze slid/
Whistling through the net, it brought the scent of silk and spices

Except in Yunnan, it would bring the scent of tea. The province is the cradle of tea. The Camellia Sinensis plant probably originated from here and it certainly grew in the wild. Yunnan teas are heady with altitude. They are mostly produced at 3200 to 8200 ft. What makes them unique is the tea bush variety that is grown in this area, with its large, Assam-like leaves. Yi, Jumeau-Lafond and Welsh call black Yunnan tea �??le grand seigneur de Chine, ou même, peut-être, le grand seigneur du thé.�?�

But Yunnan greens are a good match for its black. This is the birthplace of Chun Mee and it also makes an excellent plain Yunnan green, as I discovered today. In my slow move towards uncharted Chinese territory, I tried Special Teas�?? Yunnan Green Imperial.

As I opened the package, an intensely sweet scent assaulted my nostrils. Vanilla sprang to mind. Used to the earthy scent of black Yunnan, I was rather taken aback. But the incongruous vanilla vanished from the brew, which I got by steeping two heaped teaspoons in 6 oz water for two minutes. Instead, the golden green cup had a vegetaley scent with a fleeting earthy notes.

OK, I confess. My first description of that note was�??not unlike cat pee. But it sounds disgusting, whereas the scent of this Yunnan was everything but. It was satisfyingly robust in the mouth, and slightly unctuous, with a vegetaley flavor enriched by grassy field notes. The vanilla-like accents of the dried leaves came surprisingly out in the finish. A lovely tea of many layers, not unlike a Titian.

Pandas, bamboo, the great wall, pagodas, delicate pictures of beautiful women. And tea. This pretty much sums up what I know of China. And even my tea knowledge is very sketchy. Although China is tea�??s place of birth, my drinking habits are thoroughly British (down to and including warm ale, but that�??s another story). And since the day they waged the Opium Wars, Brits have chosen Indian tea�??which they planted and produced�??over China. This attitude has changed significantly over the last few years with the advent of green tea, which has brought China firmly back on the British tea drinking map, making my ignorance of all things Chinese all the more inexcusable. Even my spell in a teashop helped little, as it took place a terrifyingly long time ago, well before customers started talking knowledgeably of Chun Mee or Bi Lo Chun.

Now I suppose I could look at this in a Socratic way and convince myself that knowing I don�??t know anything is the greatest knowledge of all. But I never bought into Socrates�?? maieutics and consequently keep feeling ashamed at my ignorance. Which is probably why I always did my homework back at school. I just couldn�??t envisage anything more embarrassing than having to admit to the whole class that I didn�??t know the answer. It happened to me once at an exam and I am still smarting years later.

“Talk to me about operation Talon Vise,” a diminutive lady wrapped in a yellow suit that set off her very dark hair and olive skin.

I couldn’t see the other students at the back but I could sense them, the buzz, the murmured answers. I felt a sudden heat rising from within and spread crimson red to my ears and cheeks.

“I am sorry, I don’t know about it,” I blurted out. And wished intensely, deeply, desperately that the earth would open and swallow me that instant.

The earth didn’t listen.

I have since found out that operation Talon Vise, later named Frequent Wind, was the one that evacuated Americans and their allies from Saigon in 1975. But that shame has stayed with me and I always feel deeply uncomfortable when I catch myself out. At the risk of sounding like a complete fruitcake, I will admit I sometimes cringe at my ignorance even in the privacy of my own home.

�??Oh my goodness, I haven�??t even heard about this tea and I am supposed to be something of an expert,�?� is a familiar sentiment.

The silver lining, of course, is that not knowing carries a distinct advantage�??it means that I still have much to learn and discover. Which is exactly what I set out to do with my tea tour.

The small problem with this is that from the little I have read in books and on Chinaphile tea blogs such as Cha Dao, Tea Masters and Floating Clouds, Gliding Eagle, I could easily devote an entire lifetime to armchair touring China and I probably wouldn�??t get any close to knowing much about its teas. Still, any start is a good start, and it is with this feeling and a degree of expectant trepidation that I approached the China section of my tea cupboard. My hand hovered on the teas I knew least about. What should I pick? Should I start with a cup of Zhongshan Baiye or perhaps Huangshan Mao Feng?

And then I cheated. I went straight to the familiar safety of a black Yunnan, which makes up my usual China repertoire together with Keemun, Jasmine Tea and Gunpowder. I suppose it makes sense to start this journey into the barely known from a safe harbour. Or perhaps I am simply a tasting coward. To make up for my lack of guts, though, I decided to compare two different Yunnans. The first was a Yunnan d�??Or from Mariage Frères in Paris, the second a Grand Yunnan from Soana in Milan.

I brewed them both the same way, steeping 2.5g (roughly one heaped teaspoon) in six oz water for four minutes. The two cups I got looked nearly identical, a beautiful dark amber, veering slightly more to the red in the Soana tea. The scent told a different story. The Yunnan d�??Or was fiercely smoky�??not in a Lapsang Souchong kind of way, but in a smoky earthiness. I like to think of it as smoked undergrowth, if any such thing exists, except I am not really sure what smoked undergrowth smells like. Nevertheless, the smoky earthy note predominated in the nose and I failed to find the promised “caramelised scent recalling sometimes hazelnuts, sometimes spices.” The mouth was much milder. Sweet at first and rich, with a light smoky, earthy accent at the end. A dark, passionate Goya painting, probably the Maya.

Soana�??s Grand Yunnan had definitely less smoke in the nose. It was there, but it was more delicate, ever so slightly earthier. The mouthfeel, by contrast, was a lot more robust. Earthy and malty with just a hint of smokiness at the very end. Definitely Rembrandt.

Both were excellent teas and I drained both cups. Maybe I could have been more daring, but I doubt my exploration of China could have been off a better start.

I scooped a tablespoonful of butter and gingerly placed it into my blender. �??I can�??t believe I am really going to waste some perfectly good tea and butter to make this,�?� I muttered to myself.

But my right index finger had a will of its own and pressed pulse. The blender started up and butter, milk, salt and tea spun in the glass bowl to emerge as a thick beige liquid. I had made po cha. Now, I�??d have to drink it.

I can�??t remember where I first read about po cha, Tibetan butter tea. I know it was several years ago, and the idea of a tea made with butter somehow stuck into my head. Not that I had really considered trying it. Somehow, I didn�??t think butter and tea would make a happy marriage. But then I embarked on this tea tour, and decided that I wanted to experiment tea customs from around the world, as well as teas themselves. And few places have a stronger tea drinking habit than Tibet. Tea is the country�??s main drink�??to the point that recent research links it to the incidence of dental and skeletal fluorosis among the local population.

In Tibet, brick tea is boiled in water for a long time. Some of this liquid, called chaku, is then diluted with boiling water and churned with milk and sugar, or with butter, milk and salt. Both teas are fortifying and warming�??perfect for cold Himalayan weather and particularly useful to digest yak meat. Tea is to Tibetans what coffee is to Italians and wine is to the French. More than a drink, it�??s a way of life.

That�??s why I found myself fiddling with brick tea, butter and blender this morning. Finding the right recipe was a challenge in itself. The Internet gave all sorts of contradictory instructions. Use two teaspoons of tea for five cups. No, use one oz. In the end, I settled for a recipe I found on Lobsang�??s Tibet recipes website, which sounded slightly more credible than the others. Except I really wanted to use brick tea to make it, as it is done in Tibet, so I replaced the tea bags with 5g (about two teaspoons) of brick tea that I had bought from Soana, in Milan. I made it the Tibetan way�??putting it in cold water and letting it boil. I don�??t have a churner, so tea, milk, salt and butter went into the blender for a couple of minutes. And of course, I had to use cow�??s milk and butter�??yaks being distinctly unavailable on this side of the world.

The liquid�??I still find it hard to call it tea�??was creamy, the color of a pale, milky latte. It had an intense buttery nose�??that sweetish, dairy scent�??with just a vague hint of tea in it. The flavor�??yuk! It reminded me of airline tea when they put that thick plastic-packaged cream thingy in what is already a weak brew. It had a creamy texture with definitely a lot more butter in it than tea. Sod the understatement: it had so little tea, it was like sipping melted butter. I can easily see how this drink can warm Tibetans through a day�??s work in Himalayan temperatures. I definitely appreciated making the experience�??but I am lucky to live in a better climate and I doubt I will drink po cha again anytime soon.

I was about to give up on Bangladesh. Although tea production plays a crucial role in the local economy, yielding some 55,000 tonnes from more than 140 gardens, I simply couldn’t find a leaf or two to sample.

All my usual sources failed me. I even went to Harrods, which had hosted a presentation of Kazi and Kazi tea, an organic estate from Bangladesh, about a year ago. Alas, they didn’t have it in stock just now. Instead, they were now hosting a white tea tasting which touted it as the next big thing�??a year or seven behind times, if you ask me. But I digress.

I was about to throw in the towel when a providential message on the rec.food.drink.tea group came to the rescue. One of the group’s members, who is originally from Bangladesh, although he no longer lives there, pointed me in the direction of Le Palais des Thes, a French online tea merchant.

I had come across Le Palais but never purchased from them before, so this was as good an excuse as any. I had a seamless buying experience, and a week or so later my tea from Bangladesh (and another five or six) arrived at my door. Just in time for my tour.

I had heard plenty about Bangladeshi tea, and not just from rec.food.drink.tea. I knew the industry dated from the mid-19th century and, although it had been severely hit by the war of independence from Pakistan, it had somewhat bounced back, making Bangladesh the ninth largest tea producing country in the world. I had also heard that Bangladeshi productivity remains low and about half of total tonnage is consumed at home. But I didn’t really know what flavor to expect.

Le Palais des Thes described its Bangladesh TGFOP as mild and amber. Amber it was indeed. My cup, from a level teaspoon of leaves steeped for 5 minutes as recommended, was a rich, dark amber color with a lovely floral scent and just a whiff of smokiness. But the flavor, I’d have hardly called mild. It was a strong caffeine punch, with a fleeting sweet note at first that evolved in a hugely powerful sip with a slightly bitter note in the end. It screamed oversteeping to my taste buds. For the very first time ever, I found a merchant that recommended longer steeping times than I would use.

I made the Bangladesh tea again with the same amount of leaves, but steeping for only four minutes. Miles better. It still had the lovely aroma, the caffeine punch and the powerful mouthfeel, but the bitter note had gone. Still, this is a tea I’d rather have with milk than on its own. And although it is described as suitable for drinking throughout the day, I definitely found it a kick-your-eyes-open morning tea with all the strength of a Futurist painting.