Hello and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave on your host of cooking issues coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan the Rockefeller Center and newsstand studios joined behind me as usual with John how you doing John?

turn red. Thanks. Yeah, yeah,

got Joe Hasan rocking the panels here. How you doing? I'm doing great man. How are you doing? Well up in Vancouver Island Nanaimo. We have Quinn. How you doing Quinn? Quinn? He's here somewhere. He's trying to make tea. We'll talk about it in a minute. I'm assuming in LA we have Nastasi the hammer Lopez and Jackie molecules. Am I correct? I'm in Portland with my brother Portland. How's your brother is in LA? Oh la. How's Portland? Good Joey's here. Yeah. Hey, Joey. How you doing? This is Joey Lopez people? Yeah. Yeah. More of an expert in a different kind of herb today is gonna be about tea. Joey a little more of an expert in a different herbs. Different well known herb. Yeah.

Wasn't Joelle about Monica to where am I getting my facts? Mexico?

Of course she's about them. First of all, the whole the whole Lopez family loves any sort of puppet related to moniak and the drink Moon yoga. Obviously that was that's what I was gonna Yeah. It's a by the way. So in the in the spirit of, you know, recent episodes. We're going to introduce our special guests. This one here by request of Quinn, who I assume is back online when you there?

Yeah, have you? Yeah. Yeah.

We have Dylan Rothenberg, T. So founder proprietor will mountain tea. Yep. Okay. And also professor of tea science still at at set. Was it South China Glencoe, south, south China, Agricultural College and in Guangzhou.

Yep. South China Agricultural University. Skousen. SEIU. Yeah. Nice. Guangzhou, China.

So your professor of tea horticulture?

So I'm rapid on my PhD right now. Yeah. So the title I suppose would be PhD candidate. And not not a professor yet. Yeah. Hopefully, would like to be someday. But like very soon. Dr. T. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I'm finishing my thesis right now.

But you live here in New York. Now.

I'm back in the States kind of visiting family. Just here to kind of reconnect with some family and friends. Had my brother get married recently. So came back to see that and then I'm back to China, and probably two to three weeks. Okay. So

you probably left as soon as the zero COVID thing turned off. Because we haven't been able to visit China in stars. Since the pandemic. We haven't been able to go to China. It's a huge. I mean, there are many things but like, it's bad for business. Yeah,

yeah. Yeah, I left when zero COVID was still in place. So it was, it was nice to leave actually is pretty, pretty tough living under those conditions. But

yeah, well, since you have an actual job in China, I'm not going to ask you to comment on anything in China, because I know how that goes.

I actually very much appreciate that. I really do.

Yeah. All right. Well, this is the portion of the show. So Dylan's brewing some tea, which we'll talk about a minute, but this is the portion of the show where we shoot the breeze about what's happened in the past week or so. Hopefully from a food related perspective, but you never know. You never know. So crew, you got anything. You got anything.

I went to Arturo's the other night for dinner on Houston. And Austin and Thompson have ever been Yeah, bought a hat? I see. Yes. Well, yeah, I need a new kitchen. I left my other one in the taxi the other night. But yeah, that place is absolutely freaking delicious.

Okay, can I give you my bad opinion? If you want so I used I went I haven't been there since the, I don't know, maybe late 90s I guess late 90s, maybe early 2000s. And back then it was it was like a well known place. But it was a it was a pizza place. You know, have they changed their game? Or is it just people have come around to their style because it was just it was a place that's fine. You know

what I mean? Finger pizzas. Very good. Cole

Lombardi style called not the Lombardi Owens cola if you've never been to Lombardi okay.

Yeah. Okay. Yes. Very, very good pizza and I don't know, the chicken franchise and fried calamari, and it was all very, very delicious. Yeah, yeah. tea for you. Yeah.

Tea. Alright, so dealing with

tea with tea or we sipping on what we're doing. So this is an aged white tea. So what's that all about? Basically, white tea is a style of, of tea. And I guess I'll give you a quick overview. The most important thing when you're talking about tea is basically that there's one tea plant, one species a plant that is the tea plant and that is used to create green tea, black tea. Oolong tea, white tea, dark tea and yellow tea. There are six major tea types that all come from the tea plant.

What do you what is your favorite word? For non tea tea,

herbal tea, herbal tea,

I like that better. You know, quick Quinn likes that awful chizine word.

Yeah, that's a nasty it's a bit much gross.

Like go for infusion. That's cool. It is usually

what if it's an infusion, but it's not. Although it is true when I'm making liquors, I'll say blah, blah, blah tea. I'll be like, here's a rhubarb tea to add to my whatever, but I'd never sorted it on its own as a tea. Yeah,

yeah. You don't have to say herbal tea. Every every time. You can kind of shortcut it with just saying tea. But

yeah, technically, yeah. But you're okay with tea, if it has tea, and if it has other crap in it as well.

I mean, I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it. I don't love

it. But tea want with other natural flavors?

It can be okay. It can be good. If they're if they're good natural flavors, though.

Like is adding Bergamot to tea for you like hazelnut coffee is from a

a bit. Yeah, I would say that's a great a great comparison.

All right, say so. Yeah. But age YT. I'm not familiar with YT and familiar with aged YT. What's the what's the premise behind aging? Well talk about YT per se.

So YT. So all those 60 types I mentioned, they all differ based on a processing style. So what you do after you pluck that fresh tea leaf off the tea plant? What do you do with that with that leaf. And white tea basically is the simplest of the processing styles, you just let the leaves wither for about two to three days. And, you know, after the weathering that then you're done with white tea processing. And then basically, at that point, the profile will be a bit tannic white tea, fresh white tea, just after it's done is still it takes on green tea characteristics and that it's a bit tannic, still has some bitter and astringent properties to it. And then when you age it over time, how long are we talking? So this is a 2014. White tea. So this is why aging for nine years now.

So like poor level aging?

Who were level aging. Exactly. Yep. So

and then to give it again, what's the change in I only care about taste, but we'll talk about that later. I only care about taste, what's the organoleptic change over time in years? You have

a so the tannins are oxidizing, the catechins are oxidizing. And so basically, you have a mellowing and smoothing out of that tannic structure. So it basically becomes more, I would say, smooth in the mouthfeel over time. That's the predominant change that

is it aged in the way that we were is where it'll pick up flavor from where it's being aged and molds and mildews. And, you know, I'm not saying that in a way that sounds pejorative. anastasis Lee's favorite word that ever used, but it's like, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. Does it take on that stuff as well?

Absolutely. Yep. Did you know with tea? Yeah. You're taking on the characteristics of the environment that your aging the TN so you know, it's still an active area research how exactly the environment is affecting the flavor. In general profile the tea as you age it, like what exactly is happening as a result of the environment? And

they're also straight up losses, like there are in coffee?

Yeah, yeah. So as as those tannins oxidized and smooth out. I mean, by nature of them changing, you are losing that tannic structure a bit and with the loss of tannins, you're mean that the total antioxidant profile of the tea declines with with the loss of of 10 of catechins?

John Yoki sharing this with me? Yeah, I have a third. Oh, those are? Those are, John. It's just a dark cup. I can't tell whether it's the same thing or not. Yeah, all right. Yeah. Okay. Let's pass that back to John. And then tell me, tell me how you'd like me to. So Stasi and I once went through a whole kung fu tie thing with Roy Fong in San Francisco, and starts now we're both like, this is really fun. We don't know what the hell's going on. Was that about accurate? Is that summed up my feelings about your feelings? Anastasia? Yes, absolutely. We're like, oh, there's so much to know. Goodbye. You know what I mean? That was basically Well, that's basically what we said. Yeah. He's still going strong. I looked him up before I came.

But right. Fung is a, he's a. He's a juggernaut in the industry.

He was going to try to make his own tea plantation in California, but I can't tell if that ever worked for him or not.

He would have run into some troubles recently. Basically, in the last few years, there was a lot of tea plantations in California, they all burned down, but those fires. California is attractive because you can grow anything there. Right, but it's dry. And so there's issues with that

LA LA's fine sun shines most of the time and the feeling is laid back. Palm trees grow rents are low. You know, you love that song love Neil Diamond. Every I think I feel that there's people who love Neil Diamond and people who can't admit to themselves that they love Neil Diamond. Um, the latter group. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. What about you, Joe? Neil Diamond. Come on, man.

Yeah. Oh kinda doesn't sound like I mean that one. What's one great song that you'd be for dicovered red red wine.

That's not him is yeah, that was him. He wrote that come on. Yes. Oh, isn't that like a Burning Spear song or something like that? Oh,

red wine was Neil Diamond song.

That's the when you be 40 covered that went on tour at Yale. That is the concert that one of our Supreme Court justices went to and gotten a fight outside of debris because that's the kind of fella he was back in college. I won't say anymore. How do you like me to sit this? Do you have some sort of special because people when they come on experts like we have a guide Nick watt called Captain breezy Nick Coleman, the olive oil miracle worker. If I don't taste the olive oil the way he wants me to. He gives me the stink guy. So do you have a way that we're supposed to taste this?

I trust that, you know, how are you? What

kind of guy are you like, what are you?

I'm not quite a, but I'm more of a. Alright. A modest respectable. Yeah.

So some of our people are triggered by mouth noises. I'm gonna do it Off mic. Okay. All right. I think it's okay, if you're mimicking the noise. But if it's an actual noise, I think it like you know,

sure. I'll keep that in mind too.

Yeah, it's like I can mention the happy birthday song. But I can't sing the happy birthday song. Yeah,

that makes perfect sense. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, well, we'll do our sipping off Off mic here.

John, what do you think since you think more than I do? Think more than you do. So

that is the first infusion. Actually, the second and third infusions are going to get better. As we go the especially with white tea, the first infusion is a bit you need time to extract all the flavor out of the of the leaves.

Alright, so for those who I mean, everyone is not on Patreon can't see what's going on right now. But you have what I guess really told us was a kung fu Tai setup, which is you have the loose leaves in a small pot, you pour a small amount of water on them let you let it infuse for certain amount of time you pour it off, and then track so Hakata played again, add more water get a second infusion, you do that each time you're getting different profiles out of the tea, do you want to describe this ceremony a little more for people who are just used to like, like dunk and toss?

Sure. Yeah. So I mean, the essence of it is that you have a small vessel that you're using to infuse the tea, and the upside of that is that you can control each fusion very precisely. So I mean, number one is that the water temperature stays hot. Whereas if you're doing the Duncan toss thing, by the end of the cup of tea, it's already lukewarm, or, you know, tepid, at best. So the temperature stays right. And you're also controlling how strong the tea is. So you know, when you're doing the dunking, toss style, it's basically infusing constantly throughout the cup, and by the end, it might be too strong. In the beginning, it might be too bland. So with this, it's like, you know, I'm gonna let this sit here for exactly how long I want that I pour it out. And that's the right temperature at the right strength, the flavor that I want. And then you can just do that a few times.

Right, and part of the whole Migaila here, right is the spending time thinking about a particular T. And watching its evolution as something of interest, something of note, something to pay attention to about paying attention to life in general matches tea, right?

That that's a big part of it. So that kind of gets more into the philosophical side behind it where, you know, so what I was just mentioning was more of the purely, like, why does it make sense from a flavor point of view? Why is it better to brew your tea this way if you want to appreciate and enjoy the flavor, but that is another side of preparing to this way which comes into the philosophical side, which is, you know, taking your time, not rushing through things not being you know, in a hurry to just toss your leaves, you're, you're thinking about the infusion as it goes through. So it's it's a much more deliberate process that requires attention and focus, I guess,

John, go over your flavor notes with Dylan here on this first first infusion around

I don't know I hate describing flavor notes, but it's I don't know really. Like Yes. Kind of like nice. Tannins I guess on the on the side of the tongue that are nice and just like a really nice refreshing lightness. I'm interested to see how it's going to get a little more better

vision visually, the second infusion a lot darker totally. Which is bizarre because you think like, and are you using more like how Okay, so this cup is the size that the whole infusion vessel is the size of like pinkies out British tea cup kind of right? Even smaller. Yeah, right. So how many milliliters you say that that is the other water you're putting in each time, roughly Yeah, roughly around says I don't know how you think. You could think however you want it right basically.

I mean, You know, I can tell you in terms of shots, all right, you know, one one to two shots, kind of. Alright, so like a 60 mil 60 70 million. Okay, yeah, traditionally you drink it in three sips. That's kind of Oh, no, no, I don't mean in the small cup and in the infuser Oh, in this? High, so that's small.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm saying is like the British, the British tea cup is the actual infusion vessel is like, mainly saying things it's a small amount and how many grams a tea about you putting in? So

that was eight, probably eight to 10 grams.

Right. So, right. So wicked overdose, if you are just going to make this amount.

Exactly. Right. Yeah, yeah, the ratio, the leaf the water ratio is is way higher than what you would see in a in a British style. And the only way, the only way you can get away with that is that you're taking you're stopping the infusion when you decide to after 20 3040 seconds. Whereas British style it's in there for

speaking of British style, John, you're ready to comment on the second infusion yet. By the way, how many infusions we're gonna do this just to get my wrap my mind around what I need to keep track of probably

five. And then I have a second black tea down there, too.

All right. So we'll we'll wrap the tasting through the whole show. Yeah, John, what do you think what do you think tasty number two Arabica

still smooth and more print like clean more pronounced, but it's I don't know. Like for me, it's more of like a tongue thing that I'm getting. So again, like on the sides, but now a little bit more on the top.

Yeah, more more. They're more of what I would say is that kind of classical classic astringency, which I enjoy in the kind of mid back of my tongue by the way. What's the difference between a stringency and briskness?

So, astringency is more of a technical term for the sensation of that taste characteristic. It's more of a biochemical reaction of the mouth to tannins, or it's the drying of the mouth tissue. briskness is kind of more of a descriptor word that characterizes the whole sensation of consuming something that is astringent, but also has that kind of a little bit of a bite to it like a like a crisp, cold breeze, kind of. So it's a bit more of a word that just kind of describes the feeling rather than a precise description. Precise reaction of the mouth.

And so you're telling me that brisk brand t not actually brisk? I'm just messing with the comment. You might work for them someday? Who knows? I'm not gonna don't say anything negative. Anyway, come on, man. I'm just joking around. So while we're on while I'm making you saying negative things, though, someone wrote in and this is you mentioned, English style. Mood therapist wants to know if there's any best shape of a tea bag, right? pyramidal, round or square. I know you have feelings on microplastics. So I know certainly these things are going to come out against, but I told him, I gotta go loose Anyway, come on guy, because they fill those things with dust. But is there a shape that makes it better? Is there any sort of answer there? No,

no. And actually, if you asked me, two to three years ago, I would say the pyramid is the way to go. The pyramid bags but I mean, this the research that you're referencing about the microplastics that that research dropped in 2020 I believe, and in that experiment, they used the pyramid shaped bags, that's the you know, the quote unquote, nice sachets and they found that those were releasing a lot of micro and nanoplastics into the tea. So today, I can't tell you that any bag or shape or any type of bag is is better than another they both all of them have shown to be not great.

Does anyone you know have put their best quality tea into a bag?

Yes, but don't want to don't want to don't want to call them out. But yeah, I mean it is it I have seen it people will take pretty good tea and bag it because you know in their in their mind. You know, you have good tea people like bags, tea bags. Fair though. Why not? Yeah, it makes sense. No.

Is there any hope for doing like, this style like multiple infusion Gongfu try with a bag or is it just hopeless because you can't look at the leaves and enjoy it or can you still enjoy any of it if you if let's say I want to go out today, I don't have a setup. Like can I do anything with a bag t

what I would say is just take a pair of scissors, cut open the bag, dump the leaves into your gaiwan or your teapot and just do it like that. If you if you're talking Gongfu tea and you have the equipment to brew it. Just get the bag out of the equation. Just cut the bag open. Pour the tea out and you're good to go. You don't the bag you don't need the bag. You don't need the bag. You don't need the bag. The bag is superfluous.

You reminded me the end under my favorite aren't Schwarzenegger movie Commando, where Arnold Schwarzenegger convinces Bennett who's not a convincing villain that he can beat up on Schwarzenegger by the way that he doesn't need? He doesn't need the knife. I don't need the knife. Or is it he doesn't need the gun he doesn't need the gun John anyway like anyway, it's awesome. Anytime someone says you don't need X, Y or Z my I can only think of commando which is not a great movie, but it's structurally perfect. I believe there is only one mistake in movie that I can find. What's the so right on Tron and on Schwarzenegger are about to steal a floatplane to go out and kill every living thing other than Arnold Schwarzenegger his daughter played by Alyssa Milano, by the way on this island, so the only things that are going to survive are radon John Arnold Schwarzenegger and Alyssa Milano right every other living thing is going to be killed and radon Truong is a aspiring pilot and so she looks and says read something goes oh that's seaplane fuel to prove that they'd flown on a seaplane is no such thing it's a lie. At times she's like, oh that that designation is is see Plainfield not true. Only mistake I can find in the woods.

So how was it not seaplane fuel? Ingredients?

No, I just think they just made it up. I think there's needed a plot thing to get them from one place to another. And, you know, they you know, it's the one unless I'm wrong, which I thought it was my dad used to be a seaplane pilot, you know what I mean? So like, I could be wrong, but probably not. You know what I mean? And so like, I was like, Oh, this is Steve, you know, ruining my it's a I can't suspend my disbelief through that. But then I'm right back into it. I'm good. Yeah. Yeah. What are your thoughts on speaking of brewing things? Or is that still a big thing that flower where they tie the tea into that shape? And it blooms into a flower? Is that still a thing?

It is a big thing.

You like it? You don't have a look on your face like you like,

in we in Chinese we have a phrase to describe that. We say how kombucha it's just It looks good. Doesn't taste good. Wow. Strong? Yeah. So like that. It's pretty but not not in the palate.

I feel you Anastasia get along. Yeah. Yeah. That's the kind of thing she that's kind of phrase she likes to have in her in her pocket. Right. So yeah, I mean, like, you know, you're like, oh, no, you know, someone who's tell it like it is. Appreciate that. Speaking of how does an American become a T horticulturalist in China? It seems like there's a lot of barriers to that.

There is a lot of barriers. The main one and kind of the the only one is just speaking Chinese. Well, so that was kind of what got me into this whole space of tea is being able to speak and understand Chinese. So the language came first. The language came first. Yep. I just found myself working as a translator, basically, for different companies in China.

Like what kind of companies what were they doing

all types of stuff? I mean, you you've seen made in China, like we are made in China. Stuff is made in China. Yeah. So you know, I was against and actually and yeah, so I was doing work in Shenzhen, Guangzhou all over the place. I mean, I worked for headphone and microphone company clothing, air purification, I mean, anything that's made in China, like I was kind of just taking jobs that was a kid, you know, 1920. And one of the companies ended up being a tea company. Got into it that way, but a Hong Kong company or a mainland it was a company from Switzerland. And so they wanted to export tea to Switzerland, but I had to kind of move to this city in China called Guang Joe, they have the biggest wholesale tea market in the world. They're called fountain tea market. But, you know, I ended up kind of just meeting a lot of people in the tea industry, then I discovered this, this tea science major at the local university. But the only way that I can enroll in that program was that I could sit in a biochemistry class taught, instructed in Chinese and understand what's going on. So the only way you can get admitted into the program is if you speak Chinese and kind of understand it well enough to like technical Chinese technical Chinese, right? So you got to be able to read the periodic table and in Chinese so but did you also have to do Cantonese over there? No, actually. So it so Guangzhou the city I live in is is the other name for it is Canton. So it's the home of Canton of the Cantonese culture but in a university setting. Nowadays, it's all Mandarin because all the professors you know, you have professors and students coming in from all parts of China, right? And they the common language is is Mandarin,

but about the old timers though in cotton plantations and stuff, that's all Cantonese.

So when I go out to tea farms, and I'm chopping them up with the locals, you know, their first language is Cantonese. If if you're talking to someone who's Over Femi 50 or 60 years old, they usually don't speak Mandarin, or maybe very, very broken Mandarin. But that's yeah. It was actually really tough. When I first moved there, I had to retrain my brain to be able to understand Mandarin that spoken with a really thick Cantonese accent. So it's really when I first moved there, I was really excited about the tea thing. I was like, This is gonna be great. And then for the first two weeks, I was like, I don't think I can do this because when I was talking to the locals, I didn't understand anything they were saying.

But professors and advisors, they're mandarins flawless. You're good with that. Yeah, totally.

But it's tough because when you go out to the tea farms to meet with the Tea Masters in the locals, it's you've really got to focus and listen on what they're saying to be able to pick it up. But if you're talking to someone who's under About 50 years old, they can always at least speak broken Mandarin. Mandarin with an accent is this number three, I've got our system. This is number three.

John, what do you got on number three? Yeah, I got you. I gotta keep yakking. So you got to keep current with the T's Come on, man. She's Lee's class. Jase.

So in China is there a an English version of like builders t

what what's builders day builders T is like

I believe it's English Breakfast with two sugars and milk that all the construction guys drink it's now become a common thing to ask when you go to you have to have builders team

yet, actually, so it depends on the region of China so if you go up north like in Beijing the the working class guys the taxi drivers the construction guys they all have a big glass mug like a tumbler which is full of green tea. And oftentimes it's it'll they'll have some jasmine flowers it'll be kind of like a floral mixed green tea so that's kind of their style of of builder state but if you go down to the south it's poor air oh really all day or or or oolong tea. Or if you go to eunan It'll be it's it's kind of the local tea of that area each each area has their own local tea and the you know the the builders quote unquote will be just sipping on that all day long. Like it's like it's water.

I can't I mean like I like pool air but a lot of people don't like pool air. I know you do you put some videos up but like Nastasia made the good was it was your idea right? Bourbon and pool air. That was your thing. Stars. was good. Right? When we're when Emmerich gave us all of that fancy poo air didn't tell us how much it cost. We had to make the cocktail you like pour into bourbon. Remember, maybe? Yeah, pour it into bourbon. That's what you said. It was good. Until we found out how freakin much that tea costs. And then I threw up. You know what I mean? Like,

do you remember what what area it was from? Or what the name?

I know, as I know, it was a $400 disc. Yeah, you know what I mean? And, you know, we just by the way that the noise you're hearing in the background is a water boiling. So that's the sound of freshness people. Number three this my favorite so far?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The third one is typically kind of known as the best. Yeah. Yeah. They say,

What about with children? Third, one best.

Third one, you know? I mean, I'm not sure

I was. I was first I would make my sister the best on on both sides of my family, actually. Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. Okay. All right. Let me get to some questions while this is brewing. So one of the questions was, how'd you get into it? So you've kind of addressed somewhat how you got into it. My impression is that from the two people that I visited in Hong Kong, and in Taiwan, that it's relatively close lipped group of people. So it must be hard to kind of get into the inner circle of some of these producers and whatnot. Right? Is it at an ag University? Are you helping them with like, with, with problems they have, so they're more open to you coming in and talking to them? Or is it like you're a competitor? How do they view you?

Yeah, it's an interesting comment about the closed lipped thing, especially in Hong Kong. There's a lot of closed, lit, closed lips, in regards to tea among the traders, and merchants of T the buyers and sellers. But in the academic space, it's totally different. Because you're, I mean, you're conducting research and you're all working on the same genome of the T planet. You're all trying to progress towards the same goal. I mean, there is a bit of, you know, if you're on an active research project, you can't, you know, you need to be you can't share your findings until you publish them and stuff like that. And normal academic setting, but that whole closed loop thing, which I experienced in which any person who tries to learn about ti will know about for sure. That thing doesn't is not a factor in academia. It, it is to a small degree, but not for the information that matters. For the, you know, like, what's the best T type? You know, what, what's the, you know, when you're just going off the hip, and just saying, you know, stuff that you feel opinions, like, you know, there will there'll be closed lip. feelings about that, but when you're actually talking about real knowledge and real information, which is, you know, the, the biochemical underpinnings of the tea plant, how is the tea leaf responding on a molecular basis, what is actually this tea plant doing? That stuff's all public, that in nobody shares that it's an, you know, everybody shares that nobody hides that. So I felt like, luckily, the deeper I dove into it, the more open it became, it became because when you're looking into it that deeply, you know, you don't have time to play games, and to conceal information. It's like, Alright, I have a 3 billion base pair genome sequence here, we need to figure out what the hell these genes are doing. Is that really roughly what it is, yeah, it's actually about the same size as the human genome. So, you know, you're, you're doing real, real science. And like, all that closed loop stuff, like, that's kind of for the, for the merchants and for the people who don't really know what's going on. And I get that a lot on my, my channel a lot, because I take in my videos, I take everything that I know, and put it completely out there. And don't hold anything back, I say all the information. And the reason I'm like that is because of my professors at the university, they're like that, too. And it's so I'm telling you what your channel is, so they can find Sure, it's just Blue Mountain T, Wu woo mountain tea on YouTube. And the I saw in academia, the guys who end the women who know the most about tea, there are, who truly know the most about tea, they're the most open about the knowledge, the least gatekeeping people, the ones who are gatekeeping are actually the ones who don't know that much. Because they feel insecure about the information they have. And they feel that it's limited. And they need to kind of safeguard it, because that's, that's where their value is coming from their money's coming from where their money is coming from, right. But the ones who really have the profound knowledge, they just let it all go. And I've had the privilege of studying under some of these people. And it's, it's incredible. And when you really look at it, and you start to dig into all the information that is out there, you realize that there's so much information, there's so much still to be discovered that there's no point in holding anything back. It's, it's, you know, it's a drop in the ocean, you know, so.

So, to go back to the question that you've been answering the whole time, how'd you get into TXBBYCZD? Zero? Basically asked all those questions. How did you how'd you get into it? But, you know, maybe to kind of piggyback on their question, What prompted you become so interested which talking about? What like, how would you say if someone wanted to get into this industry? What should they do? I guess, learn Mandarin is anyways head, but like, is there anything else you think or?

I mean, so learn Mandarin? Actually, it sounds a bit ridiculous. But that that's a great start. I mean, if if you want to, I guess if if you want to study tea and academia here are enough some tea here. Thank you. So yeah, I'll give a bit more of a realistic answer. Because, you know, it's not like anyone who's listening to this, who wants to get into tea is be like, Okay, step one, go, go. Go learn Mandarin. So I would say, actually, a great place to start is to learn about plant biology and actually just basic biology. And again, that is kind of a large barrier to entry, almost analogous to learning Mandarin, right? But there's one textbook. If you get just a basic biology textbook, and kind of just learn about, you know, how the cell works, especially in a plant. That's a great start, but if you want to maybe go a bit simpler than that, actually, I so I made a masterclass. So I released it in August and for six months before I released it, I did nothing but sit in my room and film and edit this series of eight different chapters. And it's actually kind of aimed at what you're talking about, which is that if If you're someone who wants to get into tea, where do you start with all this information is I'm not going to learn Chinese. And I'm not going to read multiple textbooks about plant biology. So I kind of compiled all the relevant information related to tea and everything that is relevant and good to know about tea. And I'm not, you know, trying to plug that it's just the simple answer to that question. It's, it hasn't really quite been compiled in a way that I've seen that's really accessible. So if you go through those eight chapters, it kind of touches on all the critical aspects, because there's, there's no textbooks, there's no resources quite out there that really put it together in a good way. So I just kind of went ahead and did that. So that is a free resource on the on the YouTube channel that I just mentioned. But you can kind of try your best at getting the the piecemeal resources that are out there, but it's not great. It's yeah, that's that's confusion. Number four. It's

infused number four. Yep. So it's still balanced. But I feel it's dropping down a little bit. You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, this, the savory elements are kind of dropping out a little bit. Right.

Quinn, what do you got for me?

Yeah, we have just a question from the live chat. Going back to the language thing. Will was asking if Dylan has any recommendations for actually resources around Mandarin?

How'd you learn with college, or all your if you've taken it, or what?

So actually, the way that I learned the most was by talking to a tutor on Skype, I mean, so basically, doesn't matter what language you're talking about. The the framework is, grab a basic textbook, grab, grab a basic book that teaches you just the fundamental structure, you don't need much, you just need to learn how the sentences are laid out their basic grammar, you know, D put the verb first or the noun first or the adjective first, you know, just each language is a little bit different. In that sense, you pick up, you get the basics. And in a few vocabulary words, under your belt, you know, maybe 50 verbs, or a few adjectives and nouns, you just get the basics. And then before you feel like you're ready, then you dive into forcing yourself to speak with a native speaker as much as humanly possible. And for me, that came through just chatting with a teacher on Skype. And so what I would recommend, I mean, what I did is I just found a graduate student whose major in China is teaching Chinese as a second language. I just, you know, went in and DM this university, this professor, I found her email online, I said, Hey, do you have any graduate students who'd be willing to tutor me learning Chinese? And she said, Yeah, I mean, my whole department is Chinese as a second language, I have a great graduate student. And I paid her you know, 15 bucks an hour, this was in 20 1011. Not much, you know, and just chatted with her on Skype. I was in upstate New York, that's where I grew up. I was there in high school, chatting with her on Skype for an hour a day, using the the basic vocabulary and grammar that I had learned through the through the book, and you it's uncomfortable, it's really uncomfortable, because you're trying to converse with somebody in a language that you're not familiar with. But this is how the human brain learns language, right? When you're a kid and you're trying to learn your first language. You it's either It's sink or swim. It's like, I need to convey this information in your brain kind of you force yourself to have to figure it out. And in fact,

I'm pretty sure I would think, yeah, no, I

mean, look at you speaking English right now. You clearly clearly swam so. So basically, if you if you get the basics, and then you force yourself to try to speak it with a with a tutor. That's, that's all you need. And you can you can find tutors for not that much. And then if you know, maybe that's outside of your budget, then you can. Watching TV shows with subtitles is a great way but just really, you have to try to force yourself to speak as much as you can learn just enough just barely enough and then throw yourself into the deep end of the pool with with speaking as much as you can. That's what I would say.

That's a max wrote in and once he says, You hear a lot of Chinese sources talking about cheese, I guess that's chi like, like Chi Gong energy, energy. Yeah. Is this just caffeine content? Or is it more complicated than that?

It's a bit more complicated. So there's a few psychoactive compounds in tea, you have caffeine, which is the you know, the stimulant the famous one, you have theanine, which is an amino acid which provides the calming properties of tea, which actually synergize with caffeine to create the unique Chachi that this person is referring to when their main focus but alert. Yeah, yeah, it's a calm focus and alert, calm, relax. To focus as opposed to just purely caffeine, which would be kind of a bit jittery. I

mean, like my espresso higher than I am every morning. Yep. Yep.

So it's that, but but calm, more meditative. And that so you have caffeine and l theanine. Those two are the primary drivers of the Chachi. But there's, it's not quite just that it's a bit more complicated than that. And we don't fully know the picture of Chachi all because there's other compounds that studies have shown are probably bioactive, and they affect the brain for sure. But we don't know exactly how and in what way, but caffeine and theanine that calm focus is a major part. And then you have other kinds of catechins, those tannins, those are acting on the brain as well in ways that we're not totally sure about. And then all of the bioactive compounds, the sugars, the polysaccharides, everything that's bioactive effect affects the body and affects consciousness in specific ways that we're still figuring out. But Chachi it's complex, but at its core, I would say caffeine and l theanine are the key drivers that calm focus.

And Max also wants to know if there's any type of tea that you think are wildly underappreciated in the West, that you found in.

So Rob, where I'd say that's that's the first one that comes to mind. Rob, where white tea, I would say, is a bit underappreciated. I mean, honestly, all all good tea is under appreciated. I would say, really, another big one is really fresh green tea, because we don't produce tea here, and all of our tea is imported. And for this one, it's aged, right? So it doesn't matter, that we're an arm and a leg in an ocean away from where this was produced. Because, you know, we're aging it for 10 years anyway. But green tea, the best. Green tea should be fresh, just junk, how fresh as fresh as possible. Really, you know, I've plucked it this morning, and now I'm drinking it this afternoon. It may be a bit longer than that. Let it in

other words like, but on the same level as roasted coffee.

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. That's a great analogy. So and you simply don't get that here. You only have access to that degree of freshness in the tea producing areas.

And how much does vacuum packing? As long as it's not crushed? Right, but vacuum packed in a solid? Like, how much does that preserve the life of the freshness of the green tea?

Pretty good. Yeah. No, that's, that's the best you can do.

And does anybody do that? Ship it over in vac?

Not that I know of. I'm working on trying to do that, too. It's tough, because in the past, I've tried to do fresh green tea, and I just, I don't have that I sell tea to my friends and family and a few other people. So it's, it's hard because I'll buy another Hey, fresh green tea, then, you know, six months will pass and then I still have some so