Autumn Green
I have just brewed my last cup of my cherished Autumn Green tea. The leaves are all gone now. They have been stale for a while, and this last cup consisted almost exclusively of small leaf fragments. I’m tasting it now, and it is no longer the same. The magic is gone from it, there is almost no sweetness, it is a bit harsh and bitter. Teas are like wine, they are constantly evolving; but unlike wines, most teas just get progressively worse from the time they are first produced.
This tea is one of my all-time favorites (though I’m a sucker for the notoriously unstable matcha [1].) Autumn Green is from the delicate Autumnal Flush, and while it is an oolong it is only lightly oxidized, leaving a lot of green character. It is delicious.
However, the company from which I purchased it, the great In Pursuit of Tea, recently sent in their One Minute Tea Tip newsletter a head-to-head tasting of Autumn Green, which is in the Pouchong style, against the true Pouchong Ming Yue. The Autumn Green leaves were older, and so perhaps did not fare as well as they could have. Even allowing for this, though, the taste test overwhelming favored the Ming Yue in all categories, including color, aroma, palate, and suitability for multiple infusions. If I were more cynical I’d see this as merely a marketing ploy to get people to buy the Ming Yue, which is a steep $180 per pound versus $80 per pound for the Autumn Green. But I trust the guys who run the company, and I’ve spoken to them at length, so I trust their recommendations. My overall sense was that “if you liked the Autumn Green, you will love the Ming Yue.”
I’m considering whether to re-order the Autumn Green, of which they still have some sealed stock left over from last year, or to just order the Ming Yue. Considering their high recommendation, and my sentimental attachment to the Autumn Green, I might just do both.
[1] Matcha, sometimes transliterated ‘maccha’, is the powdered, highly perishable green tea used in the Japanese cha no yu, or tea ceremony. For more information on Japanese tea varieties (including matcha but not including Autumn Green and Pouchong, which are from Taiwan), look here, and here, and here.
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