Drinking Pu'erh with my Brothers

Recently J.J. and D.M. came over to my house for a talk. I asked if they would like some tea, and they seemed interested. I took down my canister of Yixing black tea but tarried a moment trying to decide if I was really in the mood for black tea. Then I remembered my Yellow-mark Zhongcha brand Pu'erh tea cake. That was the one that M. had given me as a gift when he had come to visit China.

When I had received it, I had done a little research about it to determine its age and value. Nevertheless, I learned very little about it. The reason is that all of the packaging in this particular series of tea cake looks exactly the same. There is no difference in external appearance between a valuable cake and an inexpensive cake. Only an expert could tell the difference by smelling and examining the leaves. So from what I could determine from the package, it could have been made any time from as recently as last year to the 1970s. It could have been wet aged, a process that involves storing the cake in a moist environment to make it change its color and taste rapidly but producing a substandard product that looks valuable. Or it could have been aged meticulously in optimum conditions for 10 to 20 years. It could be worth 70 to 100 RMB, or it could be worth 7,000 to 10,000 RMB ($945 to $1350). I'm not an expert, so I cannot determine the true value of the cake. I can only say, "I like it" or "I don't like it." I asked M. how much he paid for it because I was just too curious. He said that actually it was a re-gift. A student of his gave it to him, but he decided to pass it on to me since he knew I enjoyed Pu’erh. M. didn’t know how much the student had paid for the tea, but he said that the student was pretty rich and was now studying in an ivy league school in America.

So after thinking for a moment about this tea yet untasted, I decided, in the spirit of the WSJ Wine column's "Open That Bottle Night," to break open my old Yellow-mark tea cake. I opened the box and smelled it deeply. There was something familiar in the fragrance. It had a rich smell, unlike most Pu'erh tea which has a faint dusty smell. If I have to compare the smell to something I would say that it is like the smell of a musty basement. I know that doesn’t sound very appetizing, but the funny thing is that J.J. and I both thought it was smelled heavenly.

I selected some leaves from the cake and noticed immediately that this one was different from my other black Pu’erhs. This one had large leaves, not just leaf pieces. The leaves looked like those of the high quality fresh green tea cakes that I had bought recently, which will not be drinkable for about another nine years. This cake really seemed to have been produced as a green Pu’erh and then aged. How it was aged and how long it was aged are the 10,000 RMB questions.

I placed the leaves in my small brewing cup and boiled some water. Then I rinsed the leaves once very quickly, poured out the rinse water into my pitcher and then went into the kitchen to discard the water. However, I was overcome with the temptation to have a little taste, so I sipped a little bit and then spit it out into the sink.

I was ecstatic. This was the very flavor that I had been looking for. Four years ago my first sample of Pu’erh was a pretty high quality, and since then I had been looking for a similar tasting tea. For four years I had been visiting various tea stores and sniffing all the Pu’erh teas to find this flavor. And now, finally I had found it in my own tea collection.

By this time J.J. was excited too, but D.M., having never tasted Pu’erh before, was curious. To him it looked like mulch, smelled like dirt and was probably going to taste like a mud puddle.

I waited one minute before filling the brewing cup with hot water again. I let it brew for 20 seconds before pouring it out through a strainer into the brewing pitcher, using the lid of the cup to keep the tea leaves from falling out.

The color of the brew was a golden brown. Then I poured out the pitcher into three small teacups, and the tea shone in the teacups as if they were filled with rubies.

We lifted the cups to our mouths and had a taste. I was boiling over with excitement. J.J. was impressed. “This is really good,” he said. D.M. on the other hand had a thoughtful look on his face. “It must be an acquired taste,” he said.

It is hard to explain taste, but it tasted smoky and dry but very rich. The second brew should have been 10 seconds. However, I let it brew too long, resulting in an overly strong brew. Nevertheless, it wasn’t bitter at all; it was completely smooth and gentle. The third brew was not as strong and seemed a little bit wet, not as pleasant. After the initial brews, the smoky flavor disappeared, but it started to come back around by the sixth brew. We were still drinking tea at ten o’clock and after about 10 brews.

Guess What, The Earth is Spherical

In the past year I have come under the opinion from my reading that people in the middle ages were not half as stupid as they get credit for. If you read a little bit of history about the middle ages, you will find that most history writers paint the mediaeval people as the most ignorant fools that you could imagine. You will hear things such as, "the middle ages' society was backward because of too much importance on religion" (from a Chinese textbook). Or you will read things about the church burning heretics that dared suggest that the earth doesn't have four corners or that the sun doesn't orbit the earth.

Then such historians will then speak of the renaissance as if it were a magical rose arising ex nihilo out of the world's sleeve, not considering that the middle ages was the stem from which bloomed the flower of the renaissance. They don't usually take the time to discuss why the renaissance bloomed out of the context of a Roman Catholic Europe instead of some other place that did not have the supposedly darkening influence of the church.

I suppose that this sort of mentality comes from two sources, Secularism and Protestantism. Secularism, since it took over dominance on Western culture from Christianity, has almost always scoffed at religious belief and religious believers. This is part of the reason that most Secularists so thoroughly misunderstand it. Richard Dawkins' attitude that theology is the study of nothing, since there is nothing to study, explains his ignorance of the topic.

Protestantism in the Reformation made a complete break from Roman Catholicism, and since then they have generally speaking had a mutual dislike. However, when Protestants sympathize with secular writers' view of history simply because they both dislike Catholics, Protestants are shooting themselves in the foot. Protestants need to realize that much of Roman Catholic doctrine is similar to their own and that if they are saying that Catholic doctrine did only harm to Europe socially and philosophically, then they are putting their own belief in a bad light too.

What lead me to think of all of this was something I read recently that confirmed what I had heard: that the mediaeval church actually did not believe in a flat earth. I was reading Augustine's The City of God, Book 16, Chapter 9 "On whether we are to believe in the Antipodes." In this chapter he says he does not believe that people could live on the other side of the earth because people could not have taken a boat across such a vast ocean. (He obviously hadn't heard of the Bering Strait.) Nevertheless, though he did not believe that people lived on the other side of the world, he did believe that the world was spherical. He says, "But they do not remark that, although it be supposed or scientifically demonstrated that the world is of a round and spherical form, yet it does not follow that the other side of the earth is bare of water; nor even, though it be bare, does it immediately follow that it is peopled."

Something I read this morning about the Venerable Bede confirmed this again. He was one of the first ones to write a history of the English people. Besides his history, he also wrote many commentaries on the Bible and some works of his observations of nature. From the latter works, we know that Bede too in the 8th century knew that the earth was round and furthermore had some idea of latitude.

It seems that the middle ages were not the dark ages because of any darkening influence of the church. Rather it seems that the middle ages are dark to the secular man because he is willingly ignorant of them.

L'Ingenu

L'Ingenu is another work by Voltaire. I have not read it yet, but I heard about a humerous story in it.

An American Indian comes to Europe and becomes a Catholic. He is getting lots of advice on how to be a good Catholic. Someone tells him that the book of James says that a person should confess his sins, so the Indian, eager to do the right thing, goes to confess.

After he tells all of his sins to the priest in the confessional booth, he hops out and yanks the door open to the priest's booth. He hauls out the priest and seats him in the confessional booth. The Indian then leaps into the priest's booth and sits down. The priest, confused and disheveled, says, "What are you doing?!"

The Indian replies, "Saint James says, 'Confess your faults one to another.' I have confessed to you; now you are going to confess to me."

Knowledgeable

The addict knows,

The guy I saw asleep beneath past days news knows,

The lady, needle sharing, partner sharing, lady,
now near her end on white sheets knows,

The girl now knows,
The girl who heard the words
"Forever," "always," "true," and "love"
From lips that spoke them countless times before,
Who now has just a memory the night left and
A woman's clinic receipt of payment,

The boy too knows,
Whose pa buys bargain beers
And having neither punching bag nor wife
Gives his boy reminders, blue and black on pale skin,
To stay away from Dad on drinking days,

I well know too
that it "brings forth death."

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This is a draft of a poem that I am working on. I have been meaning to post it for a long time, but have had no time to revise it. I decided just to post it as is rather than to keep waiting.

Candide

I am currently reading Candide by Voltaire. It is about a young boy, Candide, and his tutor, Pangloss. Pangloss has a conviction that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. No matter what happens, Pangloss declares that it is for the best and that this is the best of all possible situations because it is the situation that is. Candide adores his philosopher/tutor and takes Pangloss theory as firm truth until, that is, he encounters horrible troubles in his life and begins to doubt it. The book is short, an easy read and funny.

Here is one of my favorite lines. Candide and Pangloss are going on a voyage along with an Anabaptist named James.

"On the voyage, Pangloss explained to James the perfection of the scheme of things. James disagreed: 'Men must have deviated somewhat from their original innocence,' he said. 'They were not born wolves, but they are become wolves. God did not give them twenty-four pounders nor bayonets, but they have made these things for their own destruction. I might also speak of bankruptcies, and the law which seizes upon the property of bankrupts solely in order to keep it from the creditors.'

"'All that had to be,' replied [Pangloss]. 'Private ills make up the general good. It therefore follows that, the more numerous the private ills, the greater the general good.'

The Little One

Probably most of you know my news by now, but for those who don't: My wife is pregnant.

Just Thursday we went to a doctor to have the three month checkup. This time we went to a new hospital, and the visit went well. We felt very comfortable there because the building was nice and clean, the doctors seemed to know what they were doing (they doubtless take a lot of care to cultivate that image) and the workers there were all friendly.

We had the first ultrasound, or at least the first one in which we could recognize the baby. Now before seeing the baby in the ultrasound I didn't think I would write something about it here because the experience can never really be related in words except perhaps to those who have experienced it themselves. I also thought that I would never, never post that little ultrasound picture on the Internet, so that everyone can squint and say, "What is that?" I always felt that all ultrasounds of little infants in the womb looked like grainy pictures of peanuts.

However when that little peanut happens to be your baby, the whole thing changes. My wife and myself were excited beyond words to see that little one for the first time. I had thought that the tiny guy would not be recognizable at all as a baby, but actually it was very clear. We saw his (I say "he" in the general sense, not knowing the gender of the child) head, body, arms, legs and even backbone. We even saw his heart beating (at least that's what the doctor said it was). He moved several times during the ultrasound. For the first time he seemed like a real guy.

When the nurse first turned the machine on, I saw the infant clearly. A moment later they turned on the screen for my wife to look at. She didn't recognize it at first, but when she did she gasped. She covered her mouth and giggled. She said, "It never seemed real until now!" She was amazed. I enjoyed watching her enjoyment of it as much as I enjoyed seeing the image myself.

Later as we were walking to catch a bus, she was talking excitedly on the phone to her parents. As she talked, she used animated gestures. She was telling them about how we could see each leg separately, and she held her fingers up and made a scissors motion with her fingers to show "separately." They asked her a question, and she said, "yes," nodding her head with a shining smile. She told them, "We saw him put his hand on his head!" and she put her hand on her head. I was the only one that got to enjoy these gestures.

The hospital gave us a printout of the ultrasound picture, and true to the long tradition of ultrasound operators, the picture they gave us resembled a peanut.
















When my sister sent me a picture of the ultrasound of her first child, I wrote out a little bit of doggerel.

The sonograms show my sister's sweet fruit
In a pillowed pouch with a humble mein.
This precious infant whom they say is cute
Looks to me like a human lima bean.

Bad Egg

I was making eggs and potatoes for my wife just now. I had finished frying the potatoes and went to put in the eggs. The first egg was beautiful with a brilliant yellow yolk.

The second egg was putrid, all watery and disgusting, and it splattered all over the pan. The yolk was black and clumpy. The smell was horrible, making the whole house reek. As I was dumping it into the garbage can I was almost vomiting because the smell was so sharp and so horrible.

But then it struck me that the smell of the stinky egg is really exactly the same as the smell of stinky tofu, a common food here. It came to me secondly that I have eaten stinky tofu several times and never vomited while eating it.

Eating stinky tofu is a strange thing to do now that I think about it. When ever people eat it together they always close the jar tightly when they are not taking some so as to avoid making the room stink. Why put something into your mouth that you don't want filling the room with its fragrance?

Further, this experience made me think of another thing. The stinky egg smelled the same as stinky tofu, so would I slurp up a rotten egg if someone told me it was edible?