Some 2 years ago, with the passing of Elizabeth II, I speculated in these pages that the late Queen would become, principally, the woman crowned in 1953, young and beautiful. I suspect that was an image she herself was comfortable with. Certainly, she was slow in commissioning coins and stamps updating her profile, happy to issue retro instead.
Just recently, we lost another “National Treasure”. Even if you don’t know her from Downton Abbey, or The West End, you’ll know her as Professor McGonagall, Housemistress of Gryffindor. The actress Dame Maggie Smith was, of course, young and beautiful, too. In the 1960s, she was a star of stage and of both screens.
But she wasn’t the owner of that decade. By the time of her passing, aged 88, her name was the definition of preeminent. Her stature had grown with age, not to mention her bankability. The obituary pictures were mostly of a woman in her 70s.
It’s not only in English that we use the term “aging like a fine wine” to describe the increasing appreciability of a phenomenon. Of course, the interesting word here is “fine”. Implicitly, there is a fine line between a wine that is fine and a wine that’s just fine. Age itself does not guarantee greatness; something intrinsically “improving” must already be there.
We don’t say “aging like a fine tea” in English. Moreover, that phrase which should be ubiquitous in Chinese; “As with Pu Er” (和普洱一样), isn’t ubiquitous in Chinese, just like everything else Chinese that I have ever suggested or guessed at. I am very bad at this.
Anyway, pu er is by far the tea most likely to be name dropped this way. Pu er discs frequently reach price tags lofty enough to render them undrinkable. Is ¥100,000 really justified? No one is brave enough to call the tea’s bluff.
It is sometimes said here in China that pu er is unique among teas in accruing value with age. Not so.
While, yes, many prominent teas, especially greens, are prized for their freshness, requiring refrigeration and vigilant consumption, many other teas are sold in “aged” varieties [老茶]. These include the Fuding White Teas [福鼎白茶] and various types of oolong. Just like the Old Hen [老母鸡] used for soup and the old Shaanxi vinegar [老陈醋], such teas usually sell for a premium and do taste distinctively different.
And perhaps you are familiar with those clusters of oolong tea (for example tieguanyin [铁观音]) in the foil sachets. A seller of such tea once told me that, if unsold, good examples are often re-fired in a pan, annually, then re-packaged. There is no deception in this, he said, for such tea slightly improves. And, after five or ten years, its new foil wrappers can start advertising this fact.
Many of us have carried out tea-aging experiments more unconsciously. This publication’s editor recently dug up a 苦丁茶 [bitter tea] of 15+ years vintage, discovering it to be just as bitter and medicinal as the day it was first rolled.
Returning to the UK, I still find stock unsold from my own days as a tea seller. Old greens, quite predictably, fare badly. The 10-year old 正山小种 Souchong I drank in the summer was already well past its peak. And Strainer readers may remember the tragedy of the Taiwan Li Shan [梨山] oolong I sat on for too long, or the raw pu er I killed in the fridge.
In truth, only a very small range of teas actually improve spontaneously. But the resilience of most teas, even without re-firing or repackaging, is still pretty impressive.
So what is the Dame Maggie Smith of teas? That would have to be an aged baimudan white [白牡丹白茶], a boxset you will not regret investing in. Try it for its early-winter warmth, and for its waspish wit.