1995 CNNP 7542 Camphor tea

Yet another of Finepuer's 7542s... It is not Dayi this time. I wonder - should this 7542 CNNP be similar to Dayi 7542s? Because it is not that similar...

Although it is not overly obvious from the photo, the leaves are still brown-greenish (greener even than the dry stored 2001 7542), suprisingly so, given this should be from 1995.

Although the dry leaves leave almost no aroma, the wet leaves smell quite strong and good - there is a mixture of camphor (quite strong), longan and some smokiness (like when people burn autumnal fallen leaves in their countryside gardens). It all goes very well together and although I'm slightly worried of the smoke in there, I approach the cup with lively anticipation.

Very light, is it not? I think that it is actually too light for a 95 tea (the 2001 7542 I wrote about recently was too dry to my taste and it was darker). More about that later though.

The taste is very interesting, it's a mixture of the smoke, longan and camphor, but it is mingled in an excellent harmony. I generally dislike smoky tea, but it works here. This tastes like how imagine Xiaguan Happy Tuo to taste in five years. I really like how this tea works together.

It feels slightly dry in mouth and there is some light acidity in the first few steepings, also the astringency is not exactly low (nothing too bad either). Despite all these things, the positive things prevail, at least for me.

As steepings go, the astringency slowly fades away and by about 4-5th steeping, the tea is quite mellow. Even some floweriness appears. However, the rich background fades away too - this tea should not boast with its stamina.

The liquor feels good in mouth, it is thick and complex. Very shortly after it enters mouth, it starts cooling it intensely. It's not really that gushu cooling and tingling sensation. This is more on the surface, but it is very strong too. I felt good qi.

It brings back a lot of memories - especially the smokiness does. When drinking this, I mind-wander around the village where our family had a country house (such a smokiness was often to be smelled in the village), where my great-grandparents lived and where we used to meet with my uncles and aunts. It was such a happy period - I guess that it's why I like this "nostalgic" tea. It's like this tune/song: http://www.4shared.com/music/OCzzeFRm/mmd1.html - at least for me, this tea sort of fits the mood.

Is it 7542esque? Not too much, methinks. Although there are some connections especially to the 2004 version, I feel that this is closer to some of the 2003 Xiaguans from Sampletea. Overall, this reminds me of Xiaguan production, except it is much more ellegant. The other 7542s I tasted had some different components of taste and did have that characteristic long-term aftertaste. This Camphor 7542 is woody, rather than the "fresh plums" of 7542.

Now, the wet leaves: 

Does this seem surprisingly green to you? It does to me. I don't know, it may be just some special storage (or the green leaves may be huang pin), but this tea feels/tastes/looks to me like a dry stored 2000-2003 thing. There is no dry storage weirdness (and it was in pretty much every dry stored 10+ years old tea I tasted), yet it is greener than other dry stored teas of similar age (even younger actually). Also, when I left the leaves to rest overnight, there was no sign of that aged aroma - which did manifest in the other dry stored teas at least a bit.

I don't care that much anyway - if this tea is very dry stored, it was a fine very dry storage and I don't mind it. If not, I enjoyed it anyway. Even though the tea costs certainly more than I would pay, I enjoyed it a lot, such a harmonized mixture of tastes is seldom found. Combined with the strong cooling feeling, this tea performed well.