Questions & Answers: The Fire Cannot Be Negotiated

Editor's note: This piece is compiled from MULAN TEA STORY's notes gathered over years of asking about tea. At the interviewee's request, he is identified only by his role — "tea maker", Wuyishan, thirty-one years in the craft.

On the Fire

Q: What is the hardest part of roasting?

A: Knowing when to stop. The fire cannot be negotiated, because the tea does not negotiate with you. It is a little damp today, a little dry tomorrow; if the same batch of leaves is roasted across two days, the fire has to be adjusted. The temperature written in books is only a starting point.

Q: So how do you judge it?

A: By smell. Toward the end of the roast, the aroma moves from "green" to "cooked", then to "sweet". The moment it turns sweet you must take it off — ten minutes more and it scorches. That sweetness is not the sweetness you drink; it is sweetness in the air.

Q: Have you ever ruined a batch?

A: Yes. One year, rushing an order, we cut the simmering fire six hours short — that whole batch was ruined. I kept half a kilo of it in a tin and drink it once a year. Not as a memento. As a reminder.

On Terroir

Q: Terroir or craft — which matters more?

A: The leaf sets the ceiling; the craft decides how much of it you can reach. With poor terroir, however precise I am, it is what it is. With good terroir, the moment I cut corners, it falls. Neither can replace the other.

Q: How do you read "zhengyan", the zhengyan core?

A: Look at the soil. Soil of broken conglomerate, grabbed in the hand, is loose, gritty, not sticky. Red clay clumps. No instrument needed.

Q: Does the old-bush taste of laocong really exist?

A: It exists. But it is not fragrance — it is weight. Between the third and fifth steepings, the liquor suddenly turns heavier. That is it. Many people taste nothing the first time; the second time they do, because the body remembers.

Tea does not deceive.
Every shortcut you take, it remembers.

On Time

Q: Why won't you sell tea in the year it is roasted?

A: Because it is half-finished. Straight off the fire, the heat is still locked inside: it drinks dry and tightens the throat. If that is a guest's first sip, they will decide my tea is no good. I would rather hold it a year before selling.

Q: Doesn't holding it a year tie up your money?

A: It does. But I have done the other arithmetic: sell early, and the guest drinks once and never comes back; hold a year, and he can drink for three years. Which is the better trade needs no long calculation.

Q: What is the biggest problem in this trade?

A: Speed. Everyone wants it out this year, sold this year, money back this year. Tea grows by the year; when people insist on counting by the day, the only way left is to fake it.

Advice for the Ordinary Drinker

Q: Someone who doesn't know tea — how should they buy without being cheated?

A: Buy tea whose fire has settled. Buy rock tea at medium roast or above, Pu-erh with age, tea from a clearly named terroir. Even if you cannot yet read these teas, they will not taste bad.

Q: How does one train?

A: Buy three portions at a time — same cultivar, different terroir or different year — and brew them side by side. The differences announce themselves on the first sip. Three months of this is worth more than three years of books.

Q: A last sentence — what would you like to say?

A: Tea does not deceive. Every shortcut you take, it remembers. And equally, every bit of work you put in, it remembers too.

Afterword

Editing this dialogue, we noticed one thing: across thirty-one years, he almost never uses an adjective. He speaks of the fire with "smell", of terroir with "grab a handful in your hand", of the old-bush taste with "it turns heavier".

This may be what is most worth learning from a tea maker — describe nothing, verify everything.

• Questions & Answers
• Tea Maker
• Roasting
• Terroir
• Old Bush
• Asking About Tea