2013 Pu-erh.sk Bulang, Hekai and Manzhuan

After the rather excellent Naka, let us have a look at three further shengs from Peter. Though perhaps somewhat less excellent, they are still quite good... and that is good.

Bulang

The well cared of leaves smell dry, flowery, woody, with a bit of clay. When rinsed, the wood gets more pronounced and is accompanied by dark flowers, a bit of metallic aroma and some good fruitiness. When the heat cools off, the ripe fruitiness gets stronger, which is a good sign.

In mouth, the tea behaves surprisingly - it is rather thin, but "superfluid", it travels all over the mouth, without sticking anywhere for too long (like some wines from Burgundy).

The taste itself is rather dry, of wood and clay. Fortunately, no smoke here. It all gets sweeter and more fruity after a while in mouth and in aftertaste. Overall, the sweetness is medium and "generic", rather than huigan. The astringency is low. Despite this tea being from Bulang, the bitterness is also quite low, no problem either. None of that persistent "stays on your teeth" Man'E stuff.

The activity in mouth is light, but present. I did not feel much qi, unfortunately.

Overall, the tea shows good signs for the future (could have more "balls" though), although I would not choose to drink it now myself. Its cleanliness and lack of smoke is a good sign (some bad Bulangs just have it) and if the fruitiness gets stronger and better connected to the other components, it could be pure pleasure after some 7-10 years. 

Hekai

I was looking forward to tasting a Hekai tea for some time as I had very little tea from there so far. It is also one of few areas which, when pronounced, mean something in Czech ("they pant").

The dry leaves basically smell like any good grade young pu, nothing special. When wet, things get better. There is also that dark green floweriness that a lot of young tea has, but more seducive than usual. And sweet spiciness and something like "dark pomelo" are there, working in harmony.

Rather dark liquor for 2013, isn't it? 

The taste is pleasantly sweet, with hints of honey, but rather distant. The thickness is "only" medium, i.e., this is not distance due to huge thickness. In the distance, tastes of "young pu" mingle with the fruitiness (a mixture of future overripe fruit and pomelo). After a couple of steepings, interesting floralness develops, something like violets from the wine taste realm. The tastes themselves are good, but at the moment, a bit too far away to be enjoyed at their full, in my opinion.

The aftertaste is long and dynamic, accompanied by good activity in mouth, but qi is not too strong yet. At least, the tea is not downright hollow, qi-wise, far from that.

Manzhuan

Manzhuan... an interesting area. I'm still looking for a great tea from Manzhuan. Some are quite good (e.g., 2004 Shi Kun Mu), but not really as great as some Yiwus can get. Some areas "around Yiwu" (e.g., Jiangchen, Yibang, Mangzhi) can do some things that Yiwu can't (or I haven't seen such examples), but Manzhuans seem like a not-great Yiwu, most of the time, often with a not too pleasant mouth-drying effect.

The leaves are long and very nice. You can almost tell it's from Yiwu or close around only when looking at the leaves.

The aroma is heavier than in previous teas, difficult to describe, with some seriously great tones of dark forest fruit (similar to those in some Yiwu teas, but still different). There is something like dried fruit too, though in limited quantity.

However, one should not be confused by awesome aroma, when drinking Yiwus and surrounding areas - some teas which are quite boring can still smell great (not that it would be the case here).

The liquor is lighter and "less saturated" than previous teas.

The taste itself is quite decent. It is largely sugar/sugarcan, complemented with very good fresh fruitiness (rather an uncommon sort), a mixture of pomelo, unripe red berries and sweet granary (the aroma of spent leaves suggests that honey could accompany the granariness in a couple of years).

It seems to me that the tones in taste will change dramatically in a couple of years and therefore it is difficult to judge it. 

Unfortunately, there is some of that mouth-drying effect, which is followed by a rather powerful bitterness (it can be held down, but the taste is not that strong when uses short steepings). It's not too bad, but it prevents the tea for being straightforwardly enjoyable.

I think that the qi of this tea works better for me than that of the two previous teas. It is nice, though not the Naka powerhouse.

Summary

All the three today's teas were quite good, but for me, they lacked the "X factor". They just did not hook me so. Still, I'm very seldom hooked by young tea and I think that these three are still above-average, nice teas.