Liquor of “Stars Dropping to the Wilds” ancient-tree spring tea, by Xia Qixi
When tasting Pu-erh, we often talk about “rhyme” (yun). We know that “rhyme” is a sensation that brings physical and mental pleasure during the tea experience.
So what does the “rhyme” of Pu-erh tea encompass? And how can we best perceive it?
The “rhyme” of Pu-erh tea, simply put, is “all the wonderful sensations you experience when tasting the cup of tea before you.” It is the beautiful feedback that arises when the tea’s aroma and flavor resonate with your body through the senses of smell, taste, and feeling.
Let us break down “rhyme” from large to small.
The larger categories of rhyme include: aroma rhyme, flavor rhyme, and sensation rhyme.
Aroma rhyme and flavor rhyme are perceived mainly through our nose and mouth. We can call this group the “upper-register rhyme.”
“Sensation rhyme” is perceived through our throat, abdomen, back, palms, armpits, and other body parts. We can call this the “lower-register rhyme.”
If a tea has both upper-register rhyme and lower-register rhyme, its quality is excellent.
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The aroma rhyme of tea fragrance is further divided into direct aroma rhyme and returning aroma rhyme. Direct aroma rhyme is the tea fragrance you can immediately smell and taste. Returning aroma rhyme is the fragrance that rises from the throat, carried by the breath, back to the mouth and nose after swallowing the liquor. A tea with returning aroma rhyme indicates that its inner aromatic substances are abundant.
Flavor rhyme includes sweetness, bitterness, astringency, returning sweetness, and salivation generation. “Sweetness dominates, or a clean bitterness that vanishes instantly, or an interweaving of bitter and sweet, or astringency that dissolves in a flash.” “Returning sweetness intense with salivation accompanying, or salivation swift with returning sweetness accompanying.” This part of the rhyme concentrates mainly from the oral cavity to the throat. Tea friends, when tasting, can focus attention on these areas and feel carefully.
Finally, there is “sensation rhyme,” which requires continuous tasting, continuous feeling, and continuous accumulation.
This part of the rhyme is also the most effective at distinguishing seasoned tea connoisseurs from beginners, because it requires engaging more parts of the body, a broader range, and more patience.
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Within sensation rhyme, we can further identify the main categories of throat rhyme and tea energy (cha qi).
Throat rhyme is felt primarily through the throat. It may be a sensation of clean sweetness with depth, warmth with breadth, or sweet coolness with spaciousness. Tea energy, meanwhile, is a composite sensation felt in the abdomen, back, palms, armpits, and even the head. When two or more body parts give a response, such as warmth or coolness, it indicates that the tea has tea energy.
Perceiving “tea energy” requires tea friends’ accumulation and deepening of experience.
Finally, there is another concept we often mention: “lingering rhyme” (yu yun). You may have heard someone say, “This tea has a long lingering rhyme.” “Lingering rhyme” refers to the duration of the tea’s comprehensive rhyme. “Lingering rhyme” encompasses aroma rhyme, flavor rhyme, and sensation rhyme. The throat rhyme we mentioned above is also included within lingering rhyme.
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The more persistent the lingering rhyme, the richer the tea’s inner substances. If you taste a Pu-erh whose lingering rhyme endures for a long time, you are tasting an excellent tea.
To summarize: feeling the rhyme of Pu-erh tea requires engaging your nose, mouth, throat, abdomen, back, palms, armpits, and head. There is also a cycle from top to bottom, then bottom to top.
Cloud Tea Manor shopkeeper
Liquor of “Stars Dropping to the Wilds” ancient-tree spring tea
Author: Old Tea Head · Lin Shen (LamSam)
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