TEA BOOK REVIEW: Einfach besser(en) Tee trinken – Learning by Brewing, by Jens Dennig

In this video I look at the new book by Jens Dennig: “Learning by brewing”.
Discover with me what these more than 360 pages of tea knowledge do include.
Hello everyone, this is Gabriele
from Nannuoshan, where we share the passion
to drink and discover authentic farm tea.
If you’re new to our channel and
interested in enhancing your tea knowledge and
your preparation skills, please subscribe to our channel.
and if you like the video, please
don’t forget to give us a LIKE.
Let’s get started. Today, I will
do a new book review.
I recently reviewed this other book on Pu’er
and today I’ll talk about a book from a German author, Jens Dennig.
The book is available both in German “Einfach besser(en)Tee trinken” and in English: “Learning by brewing”.
You can find it on Amazon, among others, and it costs less than 20€
or in the US less than 20$
and there is a paperback version here,
like this with over 360 pages,
but there is also a digital one (eBook) in two versions,
for just under €10 or €7 respectively.
So this book is a lot of information and when I started,
I was already content with the very beginning.
The reason

is as follows:
You know, if you know my video about tea knowledge,
it is important to me to find out the information
which is the source of my source, meaning
where did the author Jens Dennig receive his information
and why has he written this book.
At the very beginning of the book,
before it even begins
there are several pages on which the author introduces himself,
not only presents himself, but also his tea route over the last 40 years,
and there you understand that the book is actually one that was written by a tea lover
and not by a tea dealer for example,
not someone like me,
but someone like you, and this is
really important,
because when I get information from a tea merchant, I wonder,
does the tea merchant really want to give me information or just sell his products?
In this case it is personal
opinions, there’s a lot going on here
personal experiences that are being passed on
and the reason why the book was written is also given at the very beginning
and the author says “this is the book I’ve been searching for the last 40 years and never found
and now I felt it was time to write it myself”.
I’ll get to why right away.
But what is there in the book? Of course, it’s about tea,
but about what exactly? I have a digital version here and we can
look at it together and at the very beginning this I highlighted in green:
The book is intended as a recommendation for the selection, the purchasing, the storing
and the preparation of tea – all teas in the world – with a
special focus on China and Japan.
I would say that this description only actually covers the
first half of the book, from shopping to preparation and tasting,
the second half of the book is more of a collection,
a detailed introduction to all the teas of the world,
it spans over 200 pages and I’m going to give you some insights,
because it really is an important part of the book,
especially important for those who already have some experience
and of course I forgot to pour my tea – a green tea
let’s check if it’s too bitter.
So, let’s get started on the book.
I’ll go through the book a bit quickly and then I’ll show you the contents,
so I’m actually jumping all the way to the beginning and, yes, here we go.
The first two chapters are basic knowledge, the aim is to introduce the different tea categories
in this chapter here. At the very beginning, a distinction is made between oxidation and fermentation,
this is actually a very important topic
and then it continues with
all the individual varieties, that is, white tea and so on,
fairly detailed, I must say, but not too much,
so really just to initiate the beginner, so to speak.
An interesting chapter is this one, “Where to begin?” What to start with
and here a procedure is shown over various pages that you may follow
when you’re just getting started
with tea and you simply desire to find out
which tea should I drink at the beginning, how can I quickly find out
which are the teas that I like and which I do not like.
This is just the book Jens Dennig wanted to have and did not have 40 years ago.
It is intended for those of you who are at the beginning,
to find out how you can get to drinking pleasure the easiest.
Then there is also a general chapter on varieties and cultivars.
I’m not going into details here. I’ve marked one thing here, in red,
as said the book is about a personal experience, there are many personal experiences and opinions
and these are also indicated very clearly in most cases
so it’s pretty clear when the author considers something to be a fact or this is his experience.
Nevertheless, oh, I need to switch off the air conditioning for a moment or it will get loud, sorry,
and yet, of course, a book must be made of facts,
but as I sometimes say, “Tea is an
infusion made from the plant Camellia sinensis”,
and one should not and must not say much more about it.
All the rest is opinions
and it actually is no
mathematics and even a
definition of a white tea is
not always the same, so you have to be careful when
you read the book, you have to
understand it really is the opinion of
the author and his experience which
he has aggregated over the years. I always try too
illustrate in my videos that it is often my personal opinion and
interpretation and not necessarily the absolute truth.
Jens Dennig succeeds very well here,
not always, that’s why you have to
watch out a bit for example in
in this case, when I read this sentence,
“If you are looking for the real Long Jing,
only accept the cultivar Long Jing #43”. If I read the sentence
I immediately think that would mean
only Long Jing #43 is a real
Long Jing and all the rest of it is not, but in my opinion this is not the case,
Long Jing #43 did emerge later, actually Long Jing had been for a long time and
there were and there are other cultivars, the more famous and the more traditional,
like all the local cultivars or, Qun Ti Zhong and
Lao Long Jing, for example, are other cultivars and so in this sentence
you might think that only Long Jing #43 is authentic. There is little of
such mistakes in the book but I wanted to
simply say, be careful in general, not just in this book
if you read about tea, be careful, it’s not an encyclopedia
it’s not a dictionary, it’s always an interpretation behind it, also
about facts. And here it goes quite into detail with different cultivars and
here you can see a detailed list of
the main cultivars
the “Tea Research and Extension Station” in Taiwan
has developed. You rarely find such a list.
It then goes on with China, with examples for every category,
Japan, India, I really can’t go into details. Here are the picking standards and
the different qualities of
leaves, both in China and in
India and here is an interesting chapter about
deciphering tea names. You know I have
made a video a long time ago about the different ways
names have been given to Chinese teas and also a series of tea lexicon videos
and Jens Dennig tackles the same topic here and lists in quite
a detail the different
options one has to name Chinese teas.
A very, very nice chapter,
with decent examples, I have to say.
You can find more information under “quality indications for Chinese tea”. I have marked this table,
because you rarely find such. This one is mainly intended for Pu’er lovers but
such a table, and it continues on the next two pages
that describe the different types of tea trees and their cultivation, is rarely found.
Then the book goes on with the procurement of tea,
a whole chapter with the different
forms of tea, from teabags over
loose leaf tea and what different
sources of supply are available, from the supermarket
to the elite tea shop and their respective advantages and disadvantages. Oh, and I do
appear in this book too. This is me
ten years ago and I was happy
when Jens, whom I know personally,
because we drank tea together
a few times when I was in Munich,
I was there to visit and
we drank tea with him and his TeaNuts group in Munich and there asked for my permission to use this
image as an example for a European tea retailer who goes
to China in order to select fine tea locally.
It was an honor, thanks Jens for that, and
here a chapter on friends, very important, tea is social and best drunk with friends
and that is very important for Jens Dennig. And a whole chapter about prices.
You know, this topic is also very important to me, I made three videos about it
and Jens Dennig dedicates a whole chapter here on the cost of tea.
What does quality mean, what does price mean, how do they relate to each other?
How much should you spend on tea? Then storage, I’m not going into details here,
it is both about short-term storage
over the next few months and then also
long-term storage over many years. The individual types of tea are being looked at individually.
PREPARING TEA. The chapter on tea preparation is split into two different parts.
The first part deals with all possible dishes and utensils,
that you have available, how to use them, when you use them,
and I skip a little over these pages, both Chinese teapots as well
Japanese teapots, this chapter is interesting, and here
the author calls the Gong Dao Bei not only fairness cup but also cooling vessel
and that is indeed an aspect of the jug, which is not often presented, but it is actually important.
The small pot or Gong Dao Bei is not only used to ensure a homogeneous taste poured into all cups,
but also to cool the tea down a bit, because when the temperature is lower you can enjoy it better.
And here is a whole chapter about it.
So, I’ll just go on a little further here. A chapter on water,
very important, the better the tea is,
the more important the water, here is a
full chapter about water,
also with a recommendation
how to find the best water for yourself and compare it with other waters.
Then it continues with the infusion of the tea,
as I said the first part of the chapter is about accessories and now it’s about how to
uses these accessories correctly. There are four different methods
that are outlined, the Western style, Gongfu Cha,
grandfather style and cold infusion,
and for each one a description is given,
what it consists of and afterwards
details are given for the individual teas,
here white tea and then yellow tea, green tea and so on, in detail like that, how the
author recommends preparing them.
So, a little further here …
Chapter on “Travelling with tea” and how to prepare tea on the road. I love traveling, it is
an important chapter, because one wants to drink tea even when travelling, and also in a certain quality.
TASTING.
After the preparation comes, of course, the tasting,
and here it goes into detail about different types
and ways how to taste tea
and then at the end of the chapter the author shares his personal thoughts on that.
Here I find the chapter very
nice, because there’s a
detailed description in the beginning and then at the end his personal opinion and
he says “I’m not making a big fuzz, I only use five levels
to categorize the teas that I have at home in my
collection, and I think that’s a good approach and if you
don’t want to make it too complicated at home and still need to sort your own teas
in a certain way, that is one good practice.
FOOD PAIRING – I do that a lot.
at home and also made a few videos about food pairing,
how to pair food and tea.
There is also a chapter here and that has
made my happy to see. A chapter about
HEALTH, an important topic for many of you
and I completely agree with Jens Dennig here.
He starts with “personally”, and the whole chapter is just about his personal opinion and there
we have pretty much the same perspective. Then a little bit about active substances in tea,
what substances are there in tea, GABA,
caffeine, etc. and thus the first part of the book ends.
I’m not going to do the second part today
in very much detail, I got not enough time
now and it’s simply overwhelming. There are honestly 200 pages in which he offers an overview
of all sorts of teas in the world,
divided by country and variety and
really very detailed. I couldn’t think of any other
source offering something like that, not one book or blog,
or a website where so many teas are
being discribed. I have taken a few examples from all these lists and descriptions to show you
how much into detail the book goes. In fact, which is very exciting, this book seems to be meant for beginners
at first, but it isn’t, so it fluctuates between the very general and the very detailed information,
throughout the entire book, very harmonious and fluent,
back and forth between general and details, throughout the book, very harmonious and fluid
and I think that’s wonderful how the author
succeeded here.
I would be happy if I could do the same. In my videos I try…
I always… either I make a video
for beginners or I’m making a video
for experts, but to create a video
where you make both of them happy,
that’s actually difficult. OK, let me show you a few examples how it goes into detail.
It takes a little bit until I have loaded the whole thing here
– hold on –
Wait, here we go, it takes a bit, the book is very large and it takes a bit to load.
Here you have a comparison between Mao Feng and Mao Jian. Mao Feng and Mao Jian are two terms for
two types of tea that actually mean the same thing and
this meaning is always difficult to describe, regarding
the differences and such and here the author tries that.
I have not even made a video about it because it is actually very difficult and he
provides a table where he says those are characteristics of Mao Feng, these are the characteristics
of Mao Jian, he gives examples, something like that is extremely rare, and I wanted to show you this
and one other example is this table here
these are the most famous tea mountains
and growing regions in Yunnan, such a detailed table
one finds very rarely, it extends over four pages and
alphabetically lists the main tea mountains in Yunnan for Pu’er, so Pu’er aficionados
will be really thrilled with this decent reference. And one more thing
I wanted to show that there are many
photos in the book and
here is a tea cake (bing),
the same one that I have at home, I thought that was funny, because of course it’s a 7542 from Dayi,
this is the most famous tea cake in the world, the most famous Sheng Pu’er in the world
and we even own it in the same
version, what he is showing here in the book is from 2014
while mine is from 2013, still
unopened, and I thought, well,
if Jens Dennig has it in the book, then maybe I might dare make a video about
a tasting session – coming soon, stay tuned. On it goes
with Japan, not just with China, and after
Japan there is India,
the whole Indian subcontinent,
not least Africa and other growing areas,
I’m not going to show you the whole thing,
but one thing I wanted
to show you from Japan.
He goes through all different types of tea
and even post-fermented tea, dark tea. A whole chapter on post-fermented tea from Japan is also very rare.
I was surprised, I once made a video
with Noli, an expert on Japanese teas,
exactly on this topic and it was really gratifying to
see pictures here of the teas that I also drank with Noli
and as I said, that’s all I wanted to show you
about this book, there is so much! The price is extremely reasonable, I think almost too cheap,
more than 360 pages cost less than 20€ or $.
In paperback, all pictures are black and white.
It works well when you want to
hold something in your hands,
but I actually recommend the digital version too,
where all the pictures may also be watched in color.
And in case you are on a budget and still want to get this tea knowledge,
you can get the text-only eBook for less than 7€/$.
I hope I provide you with a decent insight into this book and… until the next video!
Thank you for watching and please don’t
forget to subscribe to our channel and
to give us a LIKE.
Ciao!

%d bloggers like this: