Liquid gold: unknown 2003 Bulang

Although origins, processing, etc. of a tea are generally a thing one wants to know, there are some teas which make such features rather irrelevant. This is one of such teas.

What do I know about it? Not much indeed. I know that it is from Bulang and the year of production is 2003. The first is obvious when one tastes this tea, the second is probably the most likely guess one can make. Honza (of Chawangshop) and Michal (another teachum) bought this tea from a Haiwan man (I can't remember his position), as it was in his private stash and they thought it great.

I think it is great too. Such a sweet and pleasant tea, not lacking in complexity, is seldom found.

When I open the package, I think about, "dark honey" and bees:

Hster from teacloset could tell you about honey more than anyone I know. But even a humble consument of honey knows that there is ordinary honey and extraordinary one. And in the genre of honey-sweet Bulangs (and Yibangs too, actually), extraordinary tea is not that easy to find. 

I hope you will pardon the lack of photographic materials today as my SD card decided that she was too long on this planet and ascended to her forefathers.

First, the tea is strong - I had only about 3g left, yet I used about 0.7l of water throughout the session. Strenght alone is not enough, however.

The dry leaves smell of light agedness, sweet wood, a bit of honey and something young and good (probably some kind of fruit).

The taste is kind of too complex to describe wholly, so I'll "montecarlo" it - I'll describe the features that were important to me, without any particular structure: The sweetness and thickness is very good, just right, yet the main body of taste is very strong - there is beautiful sweet wood with honey, with a bit of fruitiness, all with a bit of starting aged taste. The mouthfeel could be better, but it is there. The aftertaste is a pleasant one and there is even the taste of fresh plums in the long-term aftertaste. 

Shortly said, if gods ran out of ambrosia, this would be a  suitable substitute. I remember how impressed I was when I tasted this tea for the first time and expectations are often a killer of experience. But not this time, it is just as great as it was before.

The tea is sort of similar to the 2003 Bulang Jingpin. The leaves are similarly sized and I guess that there is a possibility that it is actually the same tea. It does not matter much though. I do enjoy this 2003 Bulang even more than the Jingpin. This one is more concentrated in taste, a bit darker and I feel it is in better harmony with itself (and the 2003 Bulang Jingpin is already very harmonized).

I'll try to get at least a bit more of this tea so I can send it to other bloggers - this tea wants to be shared.

Righto, back to the visualization of brain's activity... Poor mice, not drinking puerh.