tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7870491192650451602024-03-19T08:17:55.133+01:00TA blog about drinking it.Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.comBlogger237125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-82576400642178716562020-01-23T08:44:00.000+01:002020-01-23T08:44:06.976+01:00Menghai Dayi Year of the Rabbit (2011) and Snake (2013)Menghai Dayi teas may not be all that exciting on average (not bad, just not overly exciting), but there is one part of the factory's offering that I find rather interesting - it's their "Zodiac" series. Not that I'd fall madly in love with all of these teas, but it's merely because of a certain preference for character/taste profile, rather then them being bad. I sampled the series ages ago via Sampletea, but full cakes were not offered at the time, so even though I liked some of the teas very much, I couldn't get more. Therefore, I was extremely pleased that the <a href="https://kingteamall.com/">Kingteamall</a> shop started selling these, and when the opportunity has arisen, I went for several cakes. Would they live to the sweet romantic memories of the samples?<br />
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<b>Short version:</b><br />
Yeah, pretty much.<br />
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<b>Longer version:</b><br />
First the <b><i>Rabbit </i></b>cake. I'd say this tea is an essence of rock solid and representative Menghai puerh. It may not have an unusual taste or character, but it does what it does extremely well. It's a very classical character of puerh, with a rich mixture of deep fruit, herbs, and wood. It is long-lasting, has good mouthfeel, and while it can be still quite harsh when oversteeped, it's very pleasant when treated well. I think also age-wise, the tea is in a good spot (and will be there for at least 5 years) - it's gone through the unpleasantries of overt youth, while it's not yet going into the aged phase (with which I understand some people lament the convergence of tastes towards earthy). This is a tea that's never disappointed me and I could drink any day.<br />
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Second, the <strike>Plissken </strike><b><i>Snake</i></b> cake. Unlike the Rabbit, which is very classical, this one is going further from the typical taste. While the base is also robust puerhiness, it adds a lot of leathery/animal tones. I really like St Emilion wines (or rather used to, as I cannot drink red wine health-wise now) for this characteristics, and finding a tea with this type of taste developed so strongly was great. I think it's fairly unique to get so much of this in puerh, an it's very characteristic - when I tasted the cake, I could immediately link it to the sample I tasted some 5 years back. I could call this tea Duke for sure.<br />
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Given that both these cakes are around $100, and seeing for how much new teas sell, I think it's a great moment to grab some extra cakes of these teas (which I'd have done if I didn't have enough tea already). They are very good, well-stored, and stable. It has happened with some newer cakes that they were full of fireworks when young, but after a couple of years, they can go bland and/or unbalanced - there is always a risk.Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-4335822116261640502019-08-07T23:53:00.000+02:002019-08-07T23:53:10.751+02:00More teas - 2003 Xiaguan Jia Ji, 2005 Menghai Gu Cha, 2007 Haiwan Purple BudThe nice thing about digging up old boxes with teas is that you find stuff you forgot you had. Today, it's three more, sorted by how good I found them (descending).<br />
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Before getting to them - it's quite interesting to see how my teas age in the Czech Republic versus the UK. Not sure why, but the Czech-aged teas seem much happier, developing along what I'd call a "normal" path, whereas the UK is probably a bit to cold or something, but the teas aren't developing as much or as well. Anyway...<br />
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<b>1) 2003 Xiaguan Jia Ji</b><br />
This was quite a famous tuocha when I started drinking tea, it being imported to the Czech Republic by Longfeng as an example of an excellent factory tea. Which it is, basically. The particular one I have is, if I remember well, from Chawangshop which stocked it a bit later. It has aged really very well - the smoke is all gone, and all that's left is a seriously pleasant mix of overripe fruit and a bit of woodiness. It's rich, deep, and tasty. I wish I got more.<br />
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<b>2) 2007 Haiwan Purple Bud</b><br />
This tea fascinated me when I had it years ago by its powerful aroma of manure (a nice, clean one). It's still there, although very much refined - now it's more about a very thick puerhy taste with a bit of manure on top. It's super-rich and deep, dark tea - really yummy. It doesn't have as much feeling around the taste, but that's allright. It was pretty cheap too. One of the better purple teas as it ages for sure.<br />
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<b>3) 2005 Menghai Gu Cha (maybe a little dud)</b><br />
I was fascinated by this tea when I was getting it (I got around 2 tongs too) - it was super-cheap, and pretty good, tasting of honey, which is something I've always appreciated a lot in tea. There was a bit of bitterness I that hoped would go away. Well, it hasn't. The honey is not as strong. Overall, the tea is not terrible, but not great. I found it interesting that the paper inside the cake says this was produced by Mr. He Shi Hua - didn't notice that previously!Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-39163970011621440472019-06-30T14:42:00.003+02:002019-06-30T15:10:21.012+02:00Digging up old boxes - Haiwan Pasha, Xiaguans, Chawangshop, and othersHi again! As I was reading blogs of good old times I really like and that are still partly alive (e.g. MarshalN's, Hster's Teacloset, or MattCha; a pity that Half-Dipper seems to have gone dry) and reading some new ones (it's nice that tea blogs aren't dying out in the end), I thought I might drop a line in the unlikely case someone visits the blog again.<br />
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I'm still drinking tea pretty much daily, but it's more drinking the stocks I've got rather than buying new stuff (although there are many seriously good or interesting new teas around too - TwoDog's Heart of the City is pretty unique and really very good; or We Go High is imho a thoroughly excellent tea).<br />
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Living away from original home chronically (six years now), I of course took a lot of tea with me to UK - but there are still boxes in Prague (imho better area for aging anyway), and revisiting these is generally a lot of fun. What do I see?<br />
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1) Pasha is a region really to my taste. The 2006 Haiwan Pashas are becoming even better than they were. I was surprised to re-taste 2011 Guan Zi Zai Pasha (which I wrote about as being harsh and needing time) - and it is actually pretty good now. It has mellowed, there is the characteristic Pasha mixture of tastes, and it's generally becoming quite a deep tea in its tastes. Nice.<br />
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2) Small-leaf teas from Jingmai and Yibang really become quite different to "normal" puerh with aging. I don't particularly enjoy the mid-aged character from these areas - but then again, it's just a matter of preference. If I don't bring my "puerh prior" into the drinking, it's generally quite nice, in some aspects similar to black teas. One exception was Shi Kun Mu Yibang (which I don't have, but still remember) - that aged really well (I think it may not have been the small-leaf varietal though). And I don't want to diss teas from these two areas - they are one of the nicest areas for young tea in my opinion, it's just the aging that I don't enjoy as much.<br />
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3) I'm not a big fan of how Mengku teas age. It's been always a distinctly third major region to me in preference, after Bulang and Yiwu (these two in no particular order). The teas that were nice when young-ish turned usually just ok (not that much warming with aging, rather developing more woody and spicy tastes). Teas that were nasty (wink wink, some Mangfei teas) also tend to turn out ok - but not even close to where Bulang or Yiwu teas go in my opinion.<br />
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4) Xiaguan Happy tuo is really good. I remember thinking back then it might be a bit similar to Xiaguan Jia Ji. It seems to me I wasn't horribly far off. On some days, I thoroughly enjoy this tea. For the price, it was a steal.<br />
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5) Jinggu teas that were meh are meh. The one tea from Jinggu that I thought really good (from Chawangshop, 2011) is very good. Then there was another good Jinggu from 2003 (Bai Long Te Ji), but I had just a bit of that and no full cake.<br />
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6) Teas that were mid-age when I got them are turning very nice, but not really yet the "classical aged" character. Getting a cake of the 1997 Menghai Red Mark when it had an aged character already was a really good idea - the tea is superb. Trying a lot of teas that were "aged" already (around 15+ years, usually in at least a bit humid environment), it's clear that there is a quality threshold that the cheaper aged teas simply couldn't pass - the raw material/blending expertise is obviously an important thing. (I know, captain Obvious). Even if I think Prague is not a bad place for aging tea (e.g., it doesn't suck the tea out to miserability), and Oxford is somewhat ok, I really wouldn't expect the teas stored there will age "classically" in the long run. Which may not be an issue for many - just saying that I wouldn't expect to buy lots of cheap young tea and hope it will turn into the beautiful aged earthy puerh which you can now get for $500 per cake.<br />
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7) Honza from Chawangshop knows what he's doing with his teas. Laoyu series is fun, and while even the 2014 version is still rough around the edges, they're very nice. 2013 He He is great - should have got a lot more. I don't think any single tea from there I've got in quantity is disappointing. Maybe the Laos Ban Komaen is not turning as warm in character as I have hoped... I also probably mis-stored the Bulang cake from aged maocha (left it on the sun) and it turned out flat and empty - but I think that really is not a fault of the tea itself.<br />
- that said, this is not to single out the shop as the best one or the only good one. Teas from Yunnan Sourcing, White2Tea or TeaUrchin are still giving me much happiness too!! It's just I've got more full cakes/tongs of the private production from Chawangshop than from these.<br />
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8) Teas from the Wistaria teahouse were as when I bought them - dark, deep, mysterious, and full of energy. Drinking them is a bit like meeting an alien civilization. I wish I took them out earlier from the paper box in which they arrived though, as I think it imparted a little bit of cardboard taste. But they were not about taste to me anyway, so no big deal.<br />
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I may write again if succeed in finding time to order some teas from Kingteamall (Dayi Zodiac series sold online - yess!!). See you in the future!<br />
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P.S. By the way, in case you read this and are aware of good Waishan Xiaozhong (Lapsang Souchong) being sold, could you please let me know? I'm missing that a lot.<br />
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<br />Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-38921231552915896392017-08-03T18:20:00.000+02:002017-08-03T18:20:04.428+02:00Non-puerh from White2Tea: Ice Green, Mi Lan, Turtle DoveHello again! After some time, I at least gained enough momentum to get some new samples, this time from White2tea. Before getting to the juicy puerh stuff (and there are several noteworthy teas indeed), let's have a quick post on the non-puerh teas. A sequel to Good, Bad, and the Ugly, this is, for me, OK, OK-ish, and Good...<br />
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<b>The OK - 2017 Ice Green Fujian</b><br />
This is a classical fujianese green tea, light and elegant. It's like walking in a botanic garden in a way, being surrounded by a mixture of flowery fragrances and tastes. There is a fair bit of hay in the aroma. It feels a bit anonymous to me in the spectrum of tastes - I had probably dozens similar teas already. That's not a problem though, I suppose. As I see it, the point of this tea is not to be novel, but to rather be a decent worker that is available soon after winter... not that UK weather noticed it's not winter anymore; it's very season-fluid. I'm writing this sitting in a reclining chair in the garden, that's true, but I'm wrapped in sheets and have an umbrella to prevent the nonstopping rain from reaching me.<br />
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I suppose I still prefer teas that have an extra element beyond the floral aspect, such as Mankouxiang, but ok... that's how I find this tea - ok.<br />
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<b>The OKish - 2017 Mi Lan Dan Cong</b><br />
When opening the box with teas, the usually huge bag of Mi Lan was among the first I've searched for - and couldn't find it! That's because this one comes from a small leaf varietal apparently... the leaves are small indeed:<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ifvgOSRPW-g/WYNJt-7FdUI/AAAAAAAAD58/PIoYLTHO6r0lDo4FGLptEsk_jgIO7SvwgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/_PXK1385.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ifvgOSRPW-g/WYNJt-7FdUI/AAAAAAAAD58/PIoYLTHO6r0lDo4FGLptEsk_jgIO7SvwgCK4BGAYYCw/s640/_PXK1385.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-84UCJWJIVrc/WYNJoGlgtEI/AAAAAAAAD50/DMGMQamBK7MdA4L_mdS0OHDviMWgve4eQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/_PXK1387.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-84UCJWJIVrc/WYNJoGlgtEI/AAAAAAAAD50/DMGMQamBK7MdA4L_mdS0OHDviMWgve4eQCK4BGAYYCw/s640/_PXK1387.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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Not sure if this is a Mi Lan or D.S., given the <a href="http://white2tea.com/product/milan-dancong/">website description</a> (unless duck bowels produce honey orchid, which would reconcile the discrepancy, of course, but based on the evidence collected alongside Thames where ducks are abundant and honey orchids rare, it's unlikely).<br />
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The dry leaves smell promising, still with a lot of dark chocolatey goodness from roasting. And after steeping?<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wnepMdaQRhc/WYNJ16IkIJI/AAAAAAAAD6E/WfzFWW7zOqkdeZg7ZvDd2Yd-grZGVJRlQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/_PXK1390.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wnepMdaQRhc/WYNJ16IkIJI/AAAAAAAAD6E/WfzFWW7zOqkdeZg7ZvDd2Yd-grZGVJRlQCK4BGAYYCw/s640/_PXK1390.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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I mean... it's not bad. But unfortunately, it's not nearly $0.5 per gram good for me, rather a half of that. It's an okay Dan Cong, but at this price level, in a Mi Lan, I'd like to see a strong honey line in the taste at this price level and it's rather faint here. The orchid taste is slightly muted with the rocky/woody/baked character coming from roasting, which will probably change in a couple of months. Hopefully, some of the roughness/astringency that is unfortunately present will go away as well, but I'm not sure how much. I find smoothness and lack of astringency, accompanied by fullness of body, to be probably the main feature for which one pays in expensive Dan Congs and I'd like to have more (wouldn't we all, I know). In the absolute terms though, this is still a decent Dan Cong tea, one that will make people happy in general, it's not like it's not tasty or pleasant.<br />
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Gongfu is not really the preferable way of brewing this tea in the end (see also http://www.marshaln.com/2017/07/gongfu-is-not-always-better/), as the ok-ish-ness of the tea just comes out too much and the relative roughness combined with not that powerful and complex character highlight what's lacking for me, rather than what's good. When the ratio of leaves-to-water is lowered and the tea is drunk e.g. as photographed above, it becomes quite good. While there is very little of honey taste still, the orchids become clearer and are pleasant indeed; one just has to balance the amount of leaves to not get a slightly sour brew. The potential for sourness that I've just also noticed to be mentioned by the <a href="http://oolongowl.com/april-2017-white2tea-club-feat-dancong-drinking-experiment/">Oolong owl</a> is something you don't want in a tea for sure.<br />
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For those enjoying this genre, I also heartily recommend Teahabitat, a specialist in Dan Congs that offers the beast teas from there I've ever had.<br />
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<b>The Good - 2017 Turtle Dove</b><br />
Being a proton in the previous life, let's end on a positive note... This is a white tea, which usually excites me about as much as a single photon. However, George McFly would write this down - this is good stuff!<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tVr-6biM1XY/WYNK3nbyEMI/AAAAAAAAD6U/H4uP_HOq5g8egHkMpLuKovaZ8iWXXFhtgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/_PXK1391.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="474" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tVr-6biM1XY/WYNK3nbyEMI/AAAAAAAAD6U/H4uP_HOq5g8egHkMpLuKovaZ8iWXXFhtgCK4BGAYYCw/s640/_PXK1391.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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Not sure how to describe a typical white tea taste - probably hay (lots and lots), usually sweetness, and sometimes a bit of honey taste. This Turtle Dove has all of those in ample quantity and quality. On top of the hay, it offers a rich mixture of happy summer-flowery aromas and tastes, which makes the taste much more exciting than is common in a white tea. It really brings back happy memories of summer and is overall a really happy tea.<br />
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What strikes me about this tea, is the very high thickness, combined with a super-pleasant sweetness and smoothness. Consequently, you don't get the thin-ish haywater that happens with some white teas, but a really rather complex and full-bodied tea.<br />
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Being almost impossible to oversteep, this is a really good fire-and-forget pleasure maker. And it is cheap on top - nothing to dislike here, really...Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-36330800316942139852016-11-01T00:21:00.002+01:002016-11-01T00:21:56.788+01:002015 Wu Yi Qi Zhong<div style="text-align: justify;">
Today comes another Wu Yi wulong from Chawangshop (for some reason, it's not really showing on Google, but it's there) - the Qi Zhong. I wondered what Qi Zhong ment, so I tried to put the characters 奇种 into Google translate. In Czech, it translates as "odd specie" (odd in the way of numbers). Riiight... In English, it's a singular specie, which makes a bit more sense. Anyway, there is no point to this story, just in case you're looking for it... I'll just add that translating the village from which the tea comes (水帘洞) translates as Water curtain hole. English being my second language, I parsed this wrongly and rather than to interpret it as {water curtain} hole, I initially read it as water {curtain hole}, which I thought to be a bubble-filled hole in a curtain. Amusingly, similar difficulties in parsing creep in when I'm now hearing my mother language as well, so it seems I'm becoming an all-around language imbecile. </div>
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Uh, such rambling happens when one writes a post after hours and hours of entirely debilitating manual annotation of signal traces (which I came up with myself, so there is nobody to blame). Indeed, one thing that helps to retain at least some composure is tea. With the onset of autumn upon us, I tend to enjoy warming tea (in case you don't know that, Oxford has two seasons; 9 months of autumn and 3 weeks of spring - it's really like in tropics where you get wet season and dry season, except it's not at all warm as in tropics and there is no dry season). And there is no warmer tea than one prepared with a tea stove!</div>
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The outside tea sessions I have are usually very simple with regards to equipment...</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lmtZSrx7ZdA/WBfOOPqzg2I/AAAAAAAADiw/-UySvDHs5nIteLZxg17S2snmOFbzhghhgCK4B/s1600/_PXK0327.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lmtZSrx7ZdA/WBfOOPqzg2I/AAAAAAAADiw/-UySvDHs5nIteLZxg17S2snmOFbzhghhgCK4B/s640/_PXK0327.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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These are the last leaves I got out of the pouch with the Qi Zhong, so please don't consider them representative from the point of brokenness. However, they do show well that the tea is not as strongly roasted/oxidised as some other teas from Wu Yi:</div>
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Also the aroma of the dry leaves is not as fiery, smelling of caramel, fudge, and summer meadow flowers (and maybe dried fruit) - it's quite rich again, but not as "bassy" as the Rou Gui, putting more concentration on the floral taste.</div>
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And the water is boiling...</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-inAnpr6eWck/WBfPtdyhqfI/AAAAAAAADjE/KJHe_kNQLZ8nYQ0jWF8TO-hsed12L_mkACK4B/s1600/_PXK0333.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-inAnpr6eWck/WBfPtdyhqfI/AAAAAAAADjE/KJHe_kNQLZ8nYQ0jWF8TO-hsed12L_mkACK4B/s640/_PXK0333.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The taste surprised me with the strong focus on floral aspects. It is not only a mixture of sweet summer meadow flowers, but possibly the main component would be an orchid. It's a rather unusual mixture of taste of Taiwanese wulongs with a bit of Dan Cong (orchids) taste, riding on a muscular rocky/fiery base of Wu Yi. Somehow it works together really well and it's not awkward in the slightest - it's simply very rich and tasty. I really enjoy the heavier side compared to Taiwanese/Anxi wulongs, which can be a bit flat, if pleasant.</div>
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Now, I feel the description of a mixture of different aspects of wulongs from other areas could sound like an experience you cannot miss, which I don't think it's true - I find this tea interesting, very good, balanced, fun, etc., but still I'd probably pick the Rou Gui I wrote about last time on most occasions. Then again, I generally prefer a single aspect mastered to great depth rather than a balance on all the fronts - this Qi Zhong definitely scores high on the latter.</div>
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Overall, I do recommend this tea highly, but I do not think it one cannot live without it either.</div>
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Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-67708998123149783552016-10-24T18:00:00.000+02:002016-10-24T18:00:54.075+02:002015 Handmade Rou Gui from Chawangshop<div style="text-align: justify;">
Hi again! Apologies for be silent for so long. I am genuinely fascinated by the fact I'm still getting a lot of reads even though I haven't written anything new in ages. I've even got quite a lot of notes on the teas I'm drinking written briefly, but the final bit of compulsion to post them was missing - maybe this will change, who knows.</div>
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Now, recovering after a draining stint of lab experiments, when real life is slowly coming back to me, I felt like sitting out in the garden with a cup of tea again, which is a positive change to the most common pattern, where I'd drink tea alongside work, book, or music, but not that often purely with tea.</div>
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Before we get to the tea itself, let me show you a new cup/chawan I have - I find it absolutely lovely - it's a sort of parting gift from my main supervisor (made by his wife), when he left Oxford for a better place (that wasn't poetic, he's still alive, of course!). While I do miss his cheerful and super-stimulating presence, in times of Skype and e-mail, the DPhil studies are not really hampered... Netting me a +1 teacup. It's funny, I wouldn't have hoped for such a practical and pretty cup (as pretty as if I dreamed it out, honestly) - it may not be obvious from the photographs, but it's a really personal thing now - and the countless fractal-like details in it gave me hours of enjoyment already from watching alone.</div>
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Anyway, tea tea tea... I'm certainly not getting rusty in tea drinking (well, maybe I am, given the rusty patina that has a tendency to attach itself to everything tea touches). Aside from gallons of puerh, I had the pleasure to drink many teas from Darjeeling, via Vadham tea, recommended by Hster of teacloset. I particularly enjoyed Dharamsala Mann teas - premium, and the handmade more-premium version that is not available anymore. These teas combine the sharp fruitiness of first-flush Darjeeling, with strong grassiness (and a bit of marijuana aroma - I don't smoke anything, but I don't mind smelling it in streets, this reminded me of it), which I found extremely refreshing and stimulating. </div>
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Anyway, the biggest discovery in the world of tea would be, for me, the range of 2015 Wuyi teas offered by Chawangshop. My issue with many Wuyi oolongs was that they were great, but expensive (Essence of tea), or underwhelming (pretty much all the other ones I've tried). Chawangshop's Wuyi selection seems to be great, but not as expensive ($8-25 per 50g or so...). Every single of those is worth discussing, but today, I'll focus at the 2015 Handmade Rou Gui.</div>
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The dry leaves smell so nice when you open the bag - it's a full, deep, sweet aroma, a mixture of dry fruits, without an excessive fire aroma (which is often a problem; mediocre materials seems to be often overbaked to cover up the underlying lacklusterity).</div>
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In mouth, this tea is one of those "hell yeah"-with-a-content-smile ones. It's very thick and making the whole body feel one is drinking it, giving a feeling of concentration around solar plexus (I swear I don't have a second job for those magazines writing about third eye, illuminati controlling our lives, etc.). In this aspect, I find the tea almost a "partner" in drinking. With normal tea, you just drink it, right? This one definitely responds and let's you have his opinion on the session too!</div>
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The strength of feeling makes the taste secondary to me, initially, but when it emergess, it's also totally there. It's definitely opulent, rich, and deep: sweet, tasting of dried fruit, cinnamon, and a bit of fire, but not much (and definitely not TOO much). After several seconds, a noble aftertaste arrives, bringing tastes like oak, malt, and "fiery rocks" (I totally had flashback of drinking Jura whisky there).</div>
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I find no flaw in this tea. It isn't the most unusual Wuyi oolong for sure, rather sticking to its core concepts, but still, it does what it does so well that I cannot but love it. It could last more steepings, I guess, but then that's just me being greedy I suppose.</div>
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See you all soon, I hope! By the way, I have a question for you as well - when I was briefly looking at blogs that used to be active "back in the good old times", it seems that most of them are similarly dead as mine was... is it really the case? Are there new great blogs sprouting, taking over the older ones? Let me know if there are some good ones, please.</div>
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Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-42928178559942852652015-11-20T22:02:00.003+01:002015-11-20T22:11:44.320+01:002015 Bosch by TwoDog (white2tea)First - I didn't expect that if I post something about tea again, that there would be people reading it again - seems I was wrong, so thanks for staying, dear readers! It's always difficult to see how many people actually care when most blog readers are fairly silent. I used to think that there would be lively discussions over teas at blogs, but it seems the drinkership is fairly fragmented and the shared experience might not be that large. Well, anyway, the more teas we drink/write about, the higher the likelihood of an interesting discussion, is it not?<br />
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Now, to the tea at hand (actually, "at a teapot" is more appropriate). Today's tea comes from TwoDog of White2tea and it is called simply "Bosch". I wonder why - when I hear Bosch, I think of the maker of vacuum cleaners. Anyone expecting such thing in a teapot would be sorely disappointed - this tea does not suck at all! Rather, I seem to have sucked the nicely sized sample out quicker than I'd like. Or maybe Bosch stands for the painter?<br />
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Apologies for the fact that only smaller leaves and fannings are shown below - the main chunk I've got was, of course, proper big fat puerh leaves. Unfortunately, the light, in combination with my work schedule, didn't permit me to take better pictures of the chunk before I drank it.<br />
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When it's nice and sunny, but 5°C only, you appreciate the tea is actually a hot drink.<br />
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And this is how the colour is in the 1st and 3rd steepings respectively:<br />
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I find it really interesting how the White2tea website says that the tea has light flavor and fragrance - maybe it has developed a lot from when the description was pressed. Light flavo[u]r? Anything but now.<br />
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Especially when using a reasonable amount of leaves, I found the tea bursting with flavours. It has a very rich, solid base of honey and sweet barley (remarkable in such a young tea - and it's not an over-accelerated processing), which are fairly obvious even when little amount of leaves is used. When more leaves are present, we get strong fruitiness (peaches, ripe grapes) and a sort of nice fragrant woodiness. Also, the tea makes you feel its bitterness, which can be really brutal and citrusy (very much Man'E type). The taste tends to hold very, very long in the mouth and keeps its main components; it's not transforming wildly (which is good, given how great it tastes). I feel that in initial steepings, the tea feels more Menghai and later, it gets more Yiwu-like, with the dark, dense dark green floweriness.<br />
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Irrespectively on whether this one is steeped light or heavier, it's got a very powerful mouthfeel - it numbs the tongue and leaves the whole oral cavity buzzing - fantastic and very clear (I'd recommend this as a tea that consistently shows such features for those who want to experience them).<br />
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The force is strong with this one... you do feel that it's not just an ordinary drink. I found it energising and helping me to focus and calm down. It's that feeling when the countless thoughts swirling around your head go down and hide in the soil and you're left with a single thing to concentrate on. I find it extremely interesting how different teas have "energy", but how it can be very different - from the one as Bosch has, via completely stoning and mind-numbing, to activating and sensation-sharpening ones (and the observations were made using different initial conditions, I think there indeed is an influence of the teas themselves, not just the feeling I have when I start drinking).<br />
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I felt the tea was similar to Xizihao's Golden Brick in several aspects, it will be interesting to observe them over time.<br />
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Overall, all the sessions I had with this tea were simply supercalifragilisticexpialidocius - I heartily recommend this to each and every one. It might not be the cheapest tea ever ($119 per 200g or $16 per 25g), but I think it was definitely worth it and I was more than fully satisfied. It's fantastic, really.<br />
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Cwyn has written about this tea recently too, I recommend the article! http://deathbytea.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/2015-bosch-white2tea.htmlJakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-51654597313883575292015-11-12T18:27:00.003+01:002015-11-12T18:27:34.188+01:002015 Dark Forest from Tea UrchinHello again, dear readers. I've got some good green stuff from Tea Urchin and TwoDog recently, so let's have a look at some of them, shall we?<br />
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Today's tea is the Dark Forest from Tea Urchin, a small production from a small region in Yiwu, near Wangong.<br />
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Before the actual tea, thank you, Tea Urchin, for the lovely wood-fired cup you've sent me!<br />
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It's actually a really nice cup, especially for roasted oolongs. Surprisingly, it seem to work well with young puerh too - I thought porcelain would be better, but the difference did not seem to be a major one to me when I did a side-to-side comparison.<br />
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Now, the tea:<br />
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We can draw two main conclusions here. First, the tea is as furry as a cat in winter - nice. Second, there is sometimes sun in Oxford. Especially the latter might come as a surprise to some, but it's true.<br />
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The first impression that struck me when drinking the Dark Forest was that it's fairly mature-feeling, given it's a 2015. You don't get that "fresh off the press" aroma/sourness from it, rather, it's clear it's nice and high-qualityYiwu right from the start.<br />
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The taste is indeed a lot like Dark Forest, I though this especially when brewing it competition-style. There is ample "dark green Yiwu" - the usual mixture of floral tastes, with an interesting component of apricots, which isn't that frequent in Yiwu teas. The most characteristic property of the taste would be the deep, powerful sweetness. Combined with the present astringency, I feel a bit as if somebody lined my mouth with super-fine sandpaper, where the crystals are of cane sugar.<br />
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While being fairly astringent, the tea is not very bitter. Slight sourness is to be found in the later phase of the aftertaste, but it's not off-putting.<br />
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The taste and aftertaste casually transform into coolness and buzz - it's cool indeed!<br />
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I thought the Dark Forest to be a fairly calming tea when you're inclined to be calmed; gaiwaning it along work did not give it enough justice, it's not like some teas that just take your attention no matter what. On the other hand, sitting in a sofa, listening to soothing sound of violoncello, warm amp valves being the only light in the room, I enjoyed Dark Forest immensely. Or, taking it outside, watching small bugs moving around in the grass and sipping DF, its close-to-nature character harmonised with the experience perfectly too.<br />
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I consider this to be a very fine tea, both in the quality being refined, as well as somewhat gentle and requiring attention to be fully appreciated. It's not a "I've got to get this" tea, as it's not cheap, but it is very, very good.Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-17299380896575324932015-08-20T16:48:00.002+02:002015-08-20T16:48:54.874+02:002011 Ba Xian, 2001 Private order 7542, 2015 Chawangpu Hekai, 2015 Chawangpu Laoyu, 2015 Chawangpu Mengsong, 2005/15 Chawangpu Bulang \endoflineHello all, my tea friends. The times of long musings about one tea are gone (it happens in my head only and it's too internally connected to be easy enough to write down), but that does not prevent me from sharing what I drink and what's my overall opinion.<br />
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All of today's teas come from Chawangshop.<br />
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First, let's start with an oolong - <b>2011 Ba Xian</b><br />
With Dan Cong, my knowledge does not extend far beyond Mi Lan and too-green-for-me-to-like Dan Congs, so I was curious to try the Ba Xian. And I am not disappointed - the pouch with it is almost gone now, unfortunately. It is a really thick tea with good rocky character, not unlike Wuyi teas. It's less fragrant/orchid/lychee than good Mi Lans, but it's perhaps more compact and rounded, a great mixture of rock, fire, peaches and lychee. The fire feeling seems surprising after four years since the making, but there it is.<br />
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When oversteeped, it packs a fairly brutal bitterness and astringency - but what is crucial, it is free of these when done right (unlike low-grade Dan Congs that seem to be invariably somewhat harsh). I loved this Ba Xian - it's thick, luxurious and ballsy.<br />
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<b>2001 Private order 7542</b><br />
I'm sipping this again and it brought me to writing this post actually, as I just wanted to share how lovely this tea is. Dry storage done right it is (China + Malaysia storage), at the same time, it's not sour or thin, so it should not offend any non-extremist in the ways of storage. I might not have the best experience with "private orders from affiliated factories", but this is a pleasant exception.<br />
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What I find most striking is the great feeling of presence and camphory cooling in mouth, that I haven't felt for a long time - it's indeed very powerful and good. Also, the tea is deeply calming (sort of stoning to be honest) and feels rich and complex, with all sorts of tastes from various woods, longan, camphor, slight aged earthiness, ending in a strong and clear huigan. It is actually a lot like "classical" 7542, except (heresy altert) even nicer in some aspects.<br />
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It is very smooth, sweet and warm. A good tea. $200 was a lot years back, but not anymore - it's a really good price.<br />
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<b>2015 Chawangpu Hekai</b><br />
"Hekai", when pronounced in Czech means "they pant" or "they moan". My stomach sure did moan a bit after this one - it's brutal. Old school, bitter, strong, unforgiving - but clean, smoke-free and fairly sweet as well. This is like when you sip a bit of en primeur Bordeaux, astringency curls up your face and when the spasms subside, you say "aye, plenty of potential in this one".<br />
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<b>2015 Chawangpu Laoyu</b><br />
This is a great Bada recipe, made for three consecutive years. It is strong, cheap and very good. When fresh, the Laoyus tend to be slightly smoky, but this goes away after a couple of months and you're rewarded with "proper puerh" - not a mellow thing for a namby-pamby esoterist, but a well-transforming strong clean tea - with all three vintages of Laoyu, I felt that the tea is harder than I usually like perhaps, but I always liked them a lot, without necessarily being able to tell why exactly.<br />
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Drinking the 2013 one fairly often, I feel it ages really well (unlike the easygoing branch of Bada teas that ages towards something also pleasant, but not really a classical puerh I'd say), it's really sweet and starts to develop slight earthy taste; yum.<br />
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<b>2015 Chawangpu Mengsong</b><br />
Super-hyper-sweet. Actually, this one is so sweet that it feels almost unnatural. It's undoubtedly an interesting tea (and too young to be judged), but even though I enjoyed the sessions with it, it did not captivate me.<br />
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<b>2005/2015 Chawangpu Bulang</b><br />
You probably know the story of loose-aged teas, being pressed in recent years and sold quite cheap. My experience was that they're mostly hollow and no good - the omnipresent feeling of underwhelming when drinking them made me ignore them despite the low price and sometimes nice aspects of taste.<br />
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This one is different - it's not hollow, actually, it's a really nice semi-aged Bulang. It might not blow you through the roof with happiness, but it's really rather good. It's sweet, rich, earthy, with some honey in the taste. At $32/200g, I think you get more than you pay for.<br />
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I hope to write again soon, I need to get some more tea though!Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-1530875805305500772015-04-01T14:58:00.002+02:002015-04-01T14:58:40.476+02:00Reggae tea: 2004 Dehong brickHeavy, dark, soothing, and stimulating - things that reggae/dub I like shares with this tea. And this isn't just a high-pitched run-of-the-mill voice singing about Jah. It's more like Prince Far I - deep, raspy and rolling forward so that there's no stopping to it... or Congo Natty if we go for recent records.<br />
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When you open a bag of this 2004 brick (available for puny $40 per 500g at Chawangshop), you might think that a wizard has teleported your nose into a subterrean cave where you're enclosed by the aroma of earth and water dripping from the ceiling. In other words, the aroma is pretty damp and earthy. I did not have the best of experience with similarly smelling teas from Teaclassico, which not only smelled like clay, but also tasted like that with the added bonus of the fine-sand feeling in mouth that I imagine you might get when chewing clay - it was not a normal level of astringency to be sure.<br />
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Here, things get better after (possibly dual) rinse - we're left with a tea that is a real pleasure to drink now. It's properly aging example of originally a no doubt very strong tea. At this really low price, I'd expect a lot of flaws - wateriness, smokines, too strong dampness, or sourness... but no, these things just don't happen. It is instead healthily earthy/woody and fairly sweet, with swift and strong huigan. If you go too generous on leaves (the compression is quite tight so it's easy to do), you'll be reminded that even 11 years old teas that were aged in appropriately humid environment actually can be bitter. Fortunately, if you get a bit lighter on leaves, the tea just becomes more balanced and sweet, without getting weak. Also, the underlying bitterness would have me believe that there is more aging goodness to this tea.<br />
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The strength also manifests in the number of steepings that is way above average - 15-20 steepings are absolutely doable (with ca. 7-8g per ca. 150ml teapot) and tasty.<br />
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I don't get as much whole-body comforting feeling from this as when I drink nice teas from 90s, but I think that is something that often comes with more age. This is also not to say that this tea is not comforting - it is, exceedingly so! It's just that some teas can go much further.<br />
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In aged tea, one pays something for the original material and something for the storage; this is not only the rent for a storehouse, but also the risk of things going wrong. And things can go wrong very easily - too much dryness, too much wetness, unfortunate choice of material, processing problem, etc. - all these things can run an aging tea straight to hell. A good aging process is worth its weight in gold...uh...processes probably don't have weight... Well, you know what I mean. This tea is really cheap - $40 per 500g is not going to get much goodness in the way of young teas now. And imagine the cost of storage and risks of 11 years... no, I really don't think that teas like this one are likely to be available in near future. And what's better - this tea is not just cheap, really. With some teas, I feel that they're probably good for the price, but despite being really cheap, they're not good enough to be fully enjoyable, and I think you don't want to drink teas that are not pleasing you, right? This tea pleases me 100% - I like it independently on the price; when you take the price into account, I can't feel like this is a tea-treasure-seeker's heaven.Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-61806291483929291742015-03-27T18:54:00.001+01:002015-03-27T18:54:11.172+01:00David and Goliath of hongcha (and a third one as well)After a long sample drought, I finally got more new tea. I'm drinking through them now and with a couple of them, I collected enough samples to finally write.<br />
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So, I might not be the biggest hongcha fan, but sometimes I like to have it as well and besides, all of three today's hongchas are somewhat unusual).<br />
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First one is <b>2014 Autumn Mengsong Old Tree Organic</b><br />
Red tea from an established puerh region of Mengsong? Count me in, I thought when I saw it listed. This is a real Goliath of hongcha - the leaves are bigger than anything I've ever seen in this type of tea - it is actually quite fun to see leaves shaped like puerh leaves (no wonder, with Mengsong), but with so different color and texture.<br />
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And it is a (gentle) Goliath in mouth too - taste-wise, it is like a high grade rose-like tasting Diang Hong, except:<br />
a) Thicker. Much thicker - and therefore fuller, better, etc. (and my stomach does not complain at all).<br />
b) Way longer tasting - and with a pronounced lingering sweetness on top. No sourness at all. The duration of intense taste and sweetness puts most teas to shame.<br />
c) Better mouthfeel.<br />
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Thinking of it, this is probably one of the best red teas I ever had ($7.50 per 100g!) - not that you'll find me drinking it too often as it's not a family of tastes that would be super-close to me, but I do appreciate its qualities nevertheless. It's like when you prefer brunettes above all - you can still find a blonde attractive, even though she might not make you fly to the moon with excitement...<br />
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Uh, glad I'm not working for <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mj59">BBC</a>, for my blog would be probably deleted after this remark...<br />
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A second tea is a David, for its leaves are really small, yet it hits hard: It's <b>2014 Wuyi Jin Jun Mei</b><br />
The dry leaves do not smell that interesting, it looks like yet another allright small leaved tea... but it's a lot better actually. It might not be as sweet as the previous tea, but the tastes are more to my liking - deep chocolate, nuts, a bit of the Wuyi rocky taste, and some honey sweetness. It's not massively awesome tea, but it is still pretty good - and different enough from other red teas I had to provide me with fun when I drink it.<br />
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I guess that if the 2014 Mengsong hongcha is an example of subgenre that I do not like so much, but is great at doing that, I find the 2014 Wuyi hongcha to be a style I like a lot more, but I do not linger on its qualities for as long... if you can't see which one I prefer, then let me assure you that neither do I.<br />
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A third hongcha is <b>2012 Fujian Waishan Xiaozhong</b>, i.e., a Lapsang Souchong that does not come from the original area, but from the region nearby. Well, this tea is a bit of a hit to the myth of "original is best" - it's probably better than most Zhengshan Xiaozhongs I remember having - and this includes the 2013 one also from Chawangshop that's a bit more expensive.<br />
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This Lapsang is just so pleasant - after the years, there is almost no smoke, but you get plenty of the dried apricots and generic mixture of dried fruit, riding on a tide of broad sweetness. If you had the 2004 Shui Xian from Essence of Tea, it's this style of taste to a degree.<br />
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All in all, this is a really good tea which is likely to please just about any drinker, from casual to hardened puerh veteran.<br />
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<br />Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-57329860944558254282015-02-05T21:34:00.003+01:002015-02-05T21:34:48.962+01:00200? Ailao and 1998 8582 Red Mark comissioned<b>200? Ailao</b><br />
This is one of the teas that TwoDog has sent me the ones I've actually ordered. Unlike most other ones, I find this fairly nice. Maybe it's the prior (Ailao) which made me expect something band, smoky, and aggressive. The first impression from the aroma was just that - smoky and aggressive. Fortunately, after that, things did improve. The cigarette-style smoke is more clear in aroma than it is in taste and the taste itself is ok - light, fruity (sort of similar to Chawangpu's purple Baoshan cake), somewhat bitter and astringent. There is not that much going on otherwise though, which is what I suspect to be one of reasons why this tea did not make it among the teas sold by Paul.<br />
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<b>1998 8582 Red Mark comissioned</b><br />
It is slightly unfortunate that after having the 1998 tuocha from teaclassico, that I quite liked, I can't seem to enjoy the rest of the teas I got from them - they seem strangely stored and have off tastes. Such as this 8582. I mean, I never got excited over a 8582, but this one is not only not that interesting, but it feels really strange. The aroma of rinsed leaves seems to be ok at one moment and is intimidating the other moment. The tea is not really rich, nor deep in its character - it's very clay-y and really really astringent (it leaves a smooth sandpaper feeling for minutes). I like a bit of earthiness in my puerh, but this tea does not feel right to me...<br />
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One thing can't be denied - the huigan is good though.Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-85610085932788490212015-01-27T15:05:00.002+01:002015-01-27T15:05:29.775+01:002002 Little yellow mark (White2tea)What is this LYM? Little yellow mark or Little yellow miracle - both are equally valid I'd say.<br />
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This is one of the teas you can't really fault. First, it is fairly thick and sweet, in a very "well defined" fashion (imagine the sound reproduction of double bass - it can be either all-over-the-place-boom, or a well focused, if bassy, sound - the sweetness is like the latter in the LYM). At the same time, there is a lot of taste: gentle, but clear. I taste wood (a hint of sourness in it), camphor, but also garden fruit and meadow flowers. It has got a very balanced, smooth, and elegant character indeed. It feels fairly northern to me, perhaps there's a good deal of leaves from Mengku?<br />
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Some teas hit hard with a single trait; this LYM takes a different approach, providing many subtler traits that are superbly added together, producing one of the most pleasing teas I had recently. Looking at prices of teas over the internet (ugh!), I find it quite underpriced at $149.Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-78916477602850750582015-01-24T17:22:00.003+01:002015-01-24T17:22:56.587+01:00Still alive (with more teas from Chawangshop)Hello again! Long time no see I guess... I have decided to transform this blog, as I no longer have the compulsion to dissect teas, photograph every piece of sparkling fur on the leaves and such things. I am not living in an interesting region tea-wise, nor do I possess noteworthy knowledge (such as MarshalN) of which to write - so I won't write as much, rather than to inflate my posts with meaningless words.<br />
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I still drink tea (lots and lots), but I enjoy it more simply now - I just enjoy it and that's it. So my opinions will be shorter now - we'll see if they're still of some use to some people.<br />
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What captured my attention recently? Teas below came in a box from Chawangshop<br />
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<b>2014 spring Te Ji Huilong</b><br />
One cannot resists when his beloved wife asks for some more green tea for work-time-drinking, to provide a change from the ubiquitous puerh. I picked this one hearing good things about Huilong and it certainly did not disappoint us. Due to its processing style and innate strength, even though it's early 2015, this 2014 Huilong is still powerful and good. It's tasting very fruity, not much flowery, full and quite sweet, with a bit of honey taste. There is plenty of bitterness should one want so, but it can be also steeped to be almost bitterness-free. It's also got that "puerhy" kick in mouth - it feels vibrant and alive. For $7.5 per 100g, this is great stuff.<br />
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<b>1998 Fengqing green in green</b><br />
This is the second tea with fairly dryish storage that I like (the second one is 2002 Little yellow mark from TwoDog). The aroma of dry leaves is fairly boring - I was afraid it would be another messy overdried cake, but it's not. The taste is very balanced, there is a little bit of clay, some ripe fruitiness, plums, spice, a bit of camphor and generic woodiness; the aftertaste is long and has the pleasant component of slightly unripe fruit, which is refreshing. It is quite active and buzzing in mouth. Despite being fairly dry, it has an overall harmonising effect on me.<br />
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There is detectable dry-storage-sourness, but it's quite controlled and does not negatively interfere with the main stream. Also, it can feel a bit like hongcha-tasting at times, but in a puerhy-style, no problem either.<br />
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$218 is not cheap though... I guess that the bargain-ness really depends on preference for a style. While I find it much better price than most tea from this time with similar (or drier) storage, I'd still prefer the 90s red mark (bought for $160 a year or so ago) readily.<br />
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Heichatime...<br />
<b>2011 Hunan Zhu Xiang Ji</b><br />
This brick (with website description indeed suggesting a fancy product) was again something quite new to me. It's got the strength of puerh, aged taste of bamboo-stored heicha (not overpoweringly so, though, it tastes a lot more dark woody/earthy than bamboo-y) - but at the same, it's got the taste of dried raisins/plums you can find in aged oolong! Together, the two types of taste mingle wonderfully to create a really lovable tea.<br />
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It's perhaps not as deep now, feeling-wise, but I suspect that aging process can help with that. Tasting this tea was a great experience to me.<br />
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<b>2011 CNNP Hei Jing Zhuan</b><br />
For me, this tea is much less prepared for drinking compared to the one above and needs a lot more storage (or using a low amount of leaves). This is really a brutal tea, that can get quite sour and impossibly bitter when oversteeped. When treated better, it is fairly sweet and herbal heicha, pretty decent. I wonder how it will transform with aging - there is surely ample strength for that.<br />
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<b>1996 Sichuan Yibin tuocha</b><br />
This is one of more puerh-like heichas I've had. On top of somewhat generic (but very nice) good-heicha-aged-taste, the main taste is of honey, which I really enjoy. Rich, mellow and good is this tea.<br />
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<b>2011 Shaanxi Shouzhu Jingwei Fu Zhuan</b><br />
This is one of better Fu bricks around... Unfortunately still not as great as the 2007 CNNP one, but very good nevertheless. It does not feel hollow/dried out, has plenty fruitiness and spicy taste and it is an overall super-pleasant easy drink...<br />
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Otherwise, I get a lot of pleasure from Haiwan 2006 Pasha - it is aging very nicely. And another good one is Yunnan Sourcing's 2010 Purple Yiwu (gosh, is it five years? I feel old...) - it has awoken from its slumber and developed into a really nice and honey-tasting mellow (not weak!) Yiwu...<br />
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Next time, I'll write about teas by TwoDog and Teaclassico... See you soon, dear readers!Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-60380107758478158162014-08-20T20:02:00.000+02:002014-08-20T20:02:55.352+02:002003 CNNP Big Zhong 7542And here goes another tea from Teaclassico - a 7542 from the year of 2003, for a promising price of $129. There is perhaps no recipe more classical than 7542 and a rather many have found their way to my cup, generally to my pleasure. I even had a 2003 example, thanks to generosity of MarshalN - and, slightly surprisingly, it seems to be similar to the one currently in my teapot. Why surprisingly when it's the same tea from the same year? Well, because 7542 (showing that 42 is <u>not the complete</u> answer!).<br />
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Being not too wetly stored, there is still a clear degree of green-ness in the leaves.<br />
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And it is good! Not surprising, but still good - and very balanced. 7542 is a generally balanced recipe and the year of 2003 is, with this type of good storage, is right between youth and age, in my opinion.<br />
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It is very thick and sweet (with light honey taste), which always appeals to me, as does the (also present) tingling and cooling of palate. The taste is a good mixture of warm earthiness (not realy storage wetness though), woodiness, herbs and a sort of fruit. None of these dominates the others, leading to feeling of richness and complexity. It's well within the characteristics of 7542, which probably says more than an attempt at direct description.<br />
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Unlike in most other real 7542s I had, there is a chestnut tone in the aftertaste, suggesting there might have been some tobacco smoke taste earlier.<br />
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It's still perhaps a bit young to drink - it is thick and silky, but there is still bitterness that is painfully obvious when you use more leaves; similarly, there is an astringency that can be clearly felt. MarshalN's sample was more ready in these aspects<br />
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All in all, a very solid tea at a solid price; perhaps not surprising, nor very dynamic, but good, and I'll be happy to enrich my teabox with one of these I think...Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-80306328573542453322014-08-17T16:10:00.001+02:002014-08-17T16:10:34.468+02:001990s CNNP Apple Green TuochaI recall that as a young boy, 6 or so, I've dreamt of unexpected discovery of a hoard - the general form was looking under the bed and finding a package of collectible cards in there (anybody remembers Middle-Earth game? Not the after-movie LoTR.). Surprisingly, such a thing once happened - a small deck of cards that fell out from a book I was taking out of library. My parents said they did not do it so I have forgotten them there myself or there are supernatural forces out there. Nevertheless, I had to wait about 20 years for the next miracle - how does it sound that your darling wife comes home to you with a paper bag filled with packages with labels starting with 1980s, 1998, 1990s, etc.? Sure sounds good to me! However, this time, there were no supernatural forces behind it, as the package has been most kindly provided by <a href="http://half-dipper.blogspot.co.uk/">Hobbes</a> (thinking of it, the presumption of non-supernaturalness might be invalid). The teas come from Teaclassico and we'll get to them all soon. Let us start with the 1998 Apple green tuocha. Or, rather, spelled "toucha" at the website, which always sounds like "gotcha" to me. Based on online shops and discussions, I wonder whether toucha is US and tuocha being used by the rest of the world?<br />
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The white coating is quite clear and it does not seem to be present only at the surface of the tuo, but also inside, which, together with tight compression, suggests a rather wet storage (where dry HK storage is written at Teaclassico's website).<br />
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Rinsed leaves, however, do not smell all that damp - there is some classical aged mixture (with fishiness as a not-entirely-welcome bonus), but as they cool down, the aroma gets sweeter, more fruity and more woody.<br />
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The color of the liquor is dark brown rather than dark red one might be used to - I wonder what are the variables explaining the progress in hue with aging.<br />
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The tea does smell quite interestingly, reminding me of coconut milk with some sort of fruit.<br />
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In the initial steepings, there is an unwelcome fishiness in the liquor, but it's not too bad (certainly not making me pour the tea out) - and the tea is already sweet and reasonably smooth. As the taste goes away, cooling feeling takes its place. Fortunately, the taste of fish soon dissipates and gives way to much nicer spectrum of tastes - wood, herbs and garden fruit - all quite aged, but not really earthy. The fruitiness gets strongest in the aftertaste - it's a bit like what you get from 85+% chocolate.<br />
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The tea can be well felt in mouth - there is still bitterness left and it is overall active, cooling and sometimes numbing.<br />
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What is always important in tea is - do its parts work in harmony? I feel that they do here. The tea is not really "normal" - on one hand, it is covered in white frosting, on the other hand, it has very little if any taste signs of much wetness in storage. The color is not exactly ordinary either. But I like it - it tastes clean and right. I wonder if the discrepancy between looks and taste might be explained due to initially wet storage with a drying-out period afterwards. Sometimes, such an approach causes weird flatness and lack of body, but if it has been done here, it has been done right.<br />
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While the tea is not super-excelent, when I saw the price of $83 per tuocha, I thought it is not entirely horrible, certainly not a complete ripoff. Then I've noticed that it's a 250g tuo, not a 100g - at first, I thought "This cheap? I'm not buying that" - but after looking again, I reconsidered - I am.Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-14762743516609870542014-08-03T17:15:00.000+02:002014-08-08T08:57:48.326+02:002013 Chawangpu Shuang ShuI believe this is the last of Chawangpu's teas from 2013 I'm writing about. It has been a good year, with teas like Hua Zhi, Lao Yu (!) or He He that I consider very good. I kept postponing the "final tasting" for some time, but the time has come at last...<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wr81iMxOwpE/U95Mb3cRIQI/AAAAAAAACYk/CU1Mv-L3Jw0/s1600/_PXK7353.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wr81iMxOwpE/U95Mb3cRIQI/AAAAAAAACYk/CU1Mv-L3Jw0/s1600/_PXK7353.jpg" height="494" width="640" /></a>This is one of the more expensive teas at Chawangpu at $90 per 400g of tea (sold in 200g pieces).<br />
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It's probably quite a fancy tea, old tree material, pretty, whole leaves and all that.<br />
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The aroma of rinsed leaves is deep green, quite sweet, having a mixture of flowery aromas, such as lilies or magnolia. It has nothing of the "flowery meadow" (found, e.g., in Youle or Bada) - this is more like what you can smell at a flower exhibition.<br />
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After a year or so of existence, the liquor is greeny, turning into pale orange.<br />
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The first impression upon tasting the tea is the sweetness and then thickness. Other than that, the taste is buttery and sugary, with the above mentioned "garden" floralness (if I went more deeply botanical, I'd say I taste violets in there). However, even with tea stove water (that makes the taste more noble and clearer), I can't help feeling I'm missing something in the taste.<br />
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The old-tree-ness is not only apparent in the taste, but also in the pleasant cooling feeling it leaves in the mouth. There is no bitterness transformation due to no bitterness present... however, we're reminded that this is a puerh by the astringency, which is not indecent, but still noticeable. Eventually, it goes into a nice long-term aftertaste.<br />
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One locally famous chef has once said about a certain food that it is good, but it lacks the right <i>jeb</i>, which is a somewhat vulgar (he's a chef) Czech word for a "one instance of sex" - it is usually used as a verb (to-have-sex), but used like this, it basically is a punchy way of saying "the kick". I guess that the G.W.Bush's brother, Jeb, might find it difficult to lead a common life in the Czech Republic... Anyway, I remember this because this tea, in my opinion, also lacks the "X factor", despite being quite good otherwise.<br />
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I can drink this and be happy, but I won't be excited about it... which is not a major concern, of course, just noting... In this regard, it is similar to the previous year's Jingmai (leaves from there are also present in the Shuang Shu and the taste has not changed dramatically between 2012 and 2013) which ticked basically all the boxes of desirable properties, but failed to excite me too...<br />
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<br />Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-35185983978303587702014-07-21T10:57:00.001+02:002014-07-21T10:57:48.817+02:00Mid 90s CNNP Ba Zhong Red Mark<div style="text-align: justify;">
This tea originally came from Origintea to Hobbes, who has kindly gifted me with a sample of this. It happened after the announcement that Origintea is closing - given this tea, sadly. In my first order sampling their around-2000 puerh and some oolongs, I've received very nice oolongs (even one from Tony's private stash that was among the best oolongs I have ever had), but the puerhs were, unfortunately, not to my taste, being uniformly distributed in the range between "where is the dissinfection" to "rather good". I am well aware that the prices were not that high, but I have had many much better teas from that tea even in that price range, so I don't buy that argument entirely. Therefore, it is perhaps unexpected that this "gravestone" cake should be good, especially as the part of its marketing was its low price.</div>
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The cake looks amiably brown and rusty, containing a mixture of all sorts of materials (leaves, huangpian, twigs,...). It is rather lightly compressed too. The dry leaves give a happines-inducing aroma of clay.<br />
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After rinsing, the clay/earthiness goes away surprising quickly, leaving nuttiness (cashew). The edges of the cake seem to me to be a bit more earthy - possibly due to larger area being in contact with aging-inducing surroundings in there?<br />
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Even though the tea has seen some wetness, it is not really dominant at all. The color of the liquor is not too dark either, for a mid-90s tea either (mind that this is quite a deep cup). It's like if this tea was kickstarted in HK and then moved somewhere to dry out. It ttends to form a layer of something on the surface, I wonder what it is. I don't think that it's merely Oxford water this time.<br />
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When a normal amount of leaves is used, the taste is mainly about old paper, wood and slightly rancid nuts, feeling slightly stale and hollow overall. Nevertheless, the taste tends to hold for a good amount of time, however not-awesome it is.<br />
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Hobbes suggested to me to use more leaves than normal - when I have done so, the tea has improved, becoming stronger and more concentrated, without acquiring sharp edges. It essentially becomes a quite nice, easily drinkable aged tea with enough sweetness and thickness to feel pretty good. With many leaves used, it can also sometimes cool the tongue down, which I do enjoy. It is calming and recharging at the same time, which is what I like about teas with some age to them.<br />
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What I miss is the long-term aftertaste of fresh plums that is often found in Red Marks (and in 7542 recipe too). There is a hint of it, but not enough.<br />
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Overall, even though this is possibly the weakest 90s Red Marks I've tasted, it is still plenty good for normal drinking and I'm always looking forward to tea sessions with it - not bad at all! I just wonder what the price was - could someone please fill me in on that?<br />
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Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-57677550703337425862014-07-10T23:38:00.001+02:002014-07-10T23:42:54.695+02:002002 White2Tea White Whale<div style="text-align: justify;">
This little brick (for which I thank Hobbes) seems to have aroused some interest lately. It can be attributed to its reasonable age (12 years) and low price of $15. The price is actually so low that it nearly did not pass TwoDog's own scam alerting <a href="http://www.twodogteablog.com/2014/06/19/avoid-fake-puerh-scams-fake-puer/">system</a>. </div>
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England, contrary to popular belief, is not constantly lashed by rain... only almost constantly. However, there are certain moments when there is no rain for a whole day or so - which calls for enjoying a tea outside.</div>
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John Henry Bonham... Moby Dick dick ick ick ck... and you know the rest. Or is it different whale that has been the inspiration to the label of this brick? It might be also that TwoDog is obsessed with finding good tea for good prices and this brick epitomises that painful pursuit - putting TwoDog into the position of captain Ahab (in this case, I'm sorry to break this to you, dear Ahab, but you've got a couple of white whales already).</div>
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The little (100g) brick is perhaps not composed of the fanciest materials, but it has got a decent color and aroma - not all teas from 2002 can say the same. </div>
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The leaves, dry and wet, smell of wood, camphor and perhaps a little woody smoke. There is not yet the aged earthiness, but the depth of aroma suggests a proper aging process.<br />
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The color of the liquor is pleasantly amber, heading for darker and redder hues after a couple of steepings.</div>
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Now, how does the tea do in mouth? I must admit that I was not really that thrilled about it as some others seem to be, however not bad the tea is, but that may be just that I do not care for this family of tastes so much. It seems to be mainly woody and camphory, with a varying amount of smokiness (I do not yet understand the latent smoke function except perhaps that yixing clay ameliorates it considerably) and longan. Despite the undoubted strength and relatively good balance of tastes, there sometimes is s a taste of something rancid which slightly irritated me - fortunately, when it appears, it is more in the aroma of wet leaves rather than in taste. Despite not high thickness and not that much sweetness, the liquor does coat mouth nicely and pumps taste for a good amount time - it might be also due to the bitterness that is still present and that sometimes acts as a carrier of tastes.</div>
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The general characters heads towards north on puerh map, in my opinion - Mengku, I'd say. It's not unlike some Xiaguan cakes from 2003 which, despite looking a lot prettier, were actually not that much better if at all (they did cost about the same too). There is a clear link between the taste of this White Whale and 2001 Mengku Yuanyexiang (which bolstered my belief that the WW comes from Mengku), which is good. The grandeur, sweetness and all that is missing in WW, but that was not really expected of it, was it?</div>
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The tea did not do anything to me physiologically - I think it to be a good workhorse tea rather than something fancy... which is not that surprising given the nature and price of the tea.</div>
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Right... I think this is one of the non-prettiest teas I've seen in some time. But then again, a lot of the prettier teas sucked, while this little brick does not.</div>
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In general, this tea shows how important a decent aging process is. The brick seems to come, in my opinion, from relatively low quality of leaves, but due to good storage conditions, it has actually beaten many nicer teas that either changed into dried out mummies, or moldy manure in the process of 10 or so years. And due to its baseline character, it retained a reasonable price tag, which is important. </div>
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$60 per 400g for 2002? Why not? However, before clicking BUY 100 times (it's too late for that anyway), I have to say that there is still some competition even at that price tag. Some time ago, there were several shops selling 2003 Xiaguan Jia Ji which, in my opinion, is from far better leaves and while aging more slowly, it is likely to get better. Finepuer has 2003 Xiaguan Blue Label for $45 that is somewhat similar to the White whale, better in something, worse in something else. Sampletea has Purple Dayi 7542 from 2004 (also rather quickly aging) for $80 or so, which sounds like a good deal and that cake is more to my taste, like the 2004 Shi Kun Mu Menghai (which is, imho, a really nice tea). If you dare to go to 2005-6, one starts encountering teas made from a nice-ish material that are likely to get pretty good. All that said, the teas above that I consider better than the WW (i.e., everything but the 03 Xiaguan Blue Label) are slightly more expensive.</div>
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By mentioning some competition, I do not wish to imply that the 2002 White Whale is not worth buying or anything - it is a really good tea for the price if you don't expect too much and I'm afraid that such finds, while not impossible, are less likely to happen in the future. Thank you, TwoDog and Hobbes!<br />
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P.S. I've just read the description on White2Tea website - it is pleasant to see vendors accurately stratifying their offerings. Some others would go how the brick is super-awesome and how the last Chinese emperor actually died of happiness when he had been gifted a similar brick and all that, which is not the case here... </div>
Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-53903943586132426512014-07-07T15:22:00.001+02:002014-07-07T15:22:16.453+02:002013 Chawangpu He HeI consciously postponed writing about this tea of somewhat funny name - Honza, the maker, has warned me of it, that it may need some time to settle down. It did indeed - I'm periodically checking it and it is only two last months or so when it has stabilised. Before that, it kept switching between several characters, none of which were super-pleasant.<br />
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Once, I had a piece broken off and when I tasted it, I was surprised how lemony it was - I haven't seen such a strong lemon character in a tea. I wrote to Honza, whether he thought the same, but he did not. The strange taste has been explained later when I discovered that the piece of He He has peacefully resided next to a small pouch with lemon scented mate for some time... However, even excepting this genuinely "off" case of changing taste, there were enough changes to make the tea quite unstable for some time.<br />
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After reaching the stable state though, this tea is a most pleasant one!<br />
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The taste is a very solid one, classical and powerful. Even though interregional blends often don't work so well (this is a blend of 2007, 2012 and 2013 leaves from Yiwu and Menghai), it all does work really nicely here. The start of the taste is dominated by the Yiwu part - sweetness, sweet tobacco, some leather and fruitiness - with the Menghai part kicking in a bit later, keeping the taste strong and "puerhy". Possibly due to two strong sets of leaves, the taste feels really strong and muscular. Admittedly, after the "simply nice" initial phase, a not inconsiderable bitterness arrives, but it's not an unpleasant sort, at least for me. As steepings go, the garden-fruity characters gets more pronounced and more flowery and honey tastes are suggested for the future (in the way, e.g., of my favorite Spring of Menghai recipe).<br />
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The tea feels very warm and pleasant, which is a no mean feat given its nontrivial bitterness. Also, it is surprisingly full in taste and body - I'd expect the 07 Yiwu component to give more hollowness (as I expect it has aged uncompressed, which often yields a somewhat empty tasting tea). Similarly unexpected is the fact that it is so coherent now - it's really not a slightest problem that it comes from such a wide range of age and places.<br />
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I suspect that due to the good strength of character, there should be no problem in the future either. Of course, it may happen that all the components forming this little chamber orchestra fail to cooperate - we'll never know until it happens, but at least, I don't see an immediate threat of that happening. At $17 per 200 xiaobing, I can't fault this cake at all, it's really very nice. I think that Chawangpu may be actually hurting themselves a bit, selling such teas this cheap.<br />
<br />Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-45404262959647876722014-06-23T09:40:00.000+02:002014-06-23T09:40:56.305+02:002003 Wistaria Tz Ing<div style="text-align: justify;">
Is it really almost a month since the last post? Time seems to speed around so quickly now. It's not that I'm not drinking tea - I'm drinking gallons of it (most notably and happily, 1997 Red Mark, 2013 Chawangpu Lao Yu, 2006 Haiwan Pa Sha and 2012 Jalam teas Meng Zhr), it's just I'm not having so much new tea. Possibly peculiar, but I don't feel as strong urge for discovery as I used to - now, I'm more in the process of discovering new things in what I already have.</div>
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That said, I discovered the rest of the sample of 2003 Wistaria's Tz Ing and so I took my old notes and reinforced them with a new experience. All the teas from Wistaria I had previously ranged from good to excellent, so I was approaching the Tz Ing with anticipation.</div>
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The aroma of both dry and leaves is characteristic of Wistaria's production/storage, rather than the raw material. I can try shooting at the "house taste" saying it's herbal, woody, slightly plummy and very slightly smoky, but you have to taste it really. I found people for whom this specific taste is a "no go" as it tends to somewhat overshadow the original character of the tea.</div>
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The taste is kind of ok, but not very special - and, again, dominated by the "Wistaria taste". I did not mind so much in the other teas they make, as they were part Wistaria, part their own character, but in this one, I really struggled to find anything beside the house taste. I'd say that it was a bit more herbal than most their other teas, with sandalwood type of taste and a bit of smoke. I'd guess that from behind the veil of Wistaria taste, a not-so-super Bulang tea was peeping.</div>
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The taste is okay, but not great. It is a bit thick, but not much. A bit sweet, yet not so much again. One thing that is not "not so much" is the dry bitterness which reluctantly transforms and disappears, but again, the pleasantness of the process returns to the "not so much" territory.</div>
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I felt subtle qi in the leaves - i.e., the tea is not a hollow trunk of mediocrity... but it does not really shine either.</div>
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From Wistaria, I was used to AAA teas (or AA), but the Tz Ing is, I'm afraid my least favourite. It was not bad, to be sure, quite ok, rather, but entirely forgettable.</div>
Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-55911824511720834582014-05-25T23:18:00.003+02:002014-05-25T23:18:29.366+02:002014 Chawangpu Ban Komaen maocha<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Chawangpu aren't making many teas this year, I've been told. Looking at the prices of raw materials in famous areas, one is not surprised. In the line of Meng Zhr of the previous post, we're still staying in Laos in this post. I've been kindly given maocha from Ban Komaen, which is the fancier of two villages in Laos where Chawangshop have sourced their tea...</div>
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I think this is possibly the first tea from 2014 I'm having and hopefully not the last one.</div>
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The leaves give the aroma of young puerh you would likely expect. They smell sugary, floral and a bit fruity.<br />
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Rinsed leaves smell very nicely too. It's not a really new aroma, one smells a lot of teas with roughly similar aroma many times a year, so the angel is in the detail really (in some teas, unfortunately, it is a devil). This particular aroma gives away its near-Yiwu character, being sugary sweet, floral (magnolia), with an element of exotic fruit and citruses. The latter elements are more pronounced than is common in most of Yiwu. The floralness is so intensive that it can resemble glue/solvents containing toluene and similar aromatics.<br />
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The liquor has standard good color and clarity. The taste follows the aroma closely, being mostly sugary and floral, with some fruitiness and light cinnamon tones. The cinnamon works interestingly with the flowers - especially the aroma of the liquor can resemble a part of aroma of a green Tie Guan Yin - I'm not saying this Ban Komaen tea is much like green oolong - I'm just noting that there is an interesting intersection of aromas and, to smaller degree, taste.</div>
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While the thickness of liquor is rather high, it is not really super-high, allowing for more taste to get to our tastebuds (this is probably the biggest difference from Yiwu teas that I could find).</div>
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The astringency is very low and while the tea can be pushed to be bitter quite easily, I would not say it's too bitter by default. Furthermore, the bitterness is of a rather pleasant sort, transforming into a good, pomelo-like long aftertaste.</div>
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The tea feels very clean and pure in its qi, being calming and soothing. It gently numbs mouth cavity and vibrates. Of course, the sensation is completely unlike the feelings imparted by pesticides. </div>
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Overall, I thought this tea to be very nice. Not a super-exciting one, but well produced and all-around of high quality. Its cost of $38 or $48 per 200g cake is quite sound (sigh...). Is it expensive? Perhaps - but compare it to young Yiwu teas that cost two or more times as much... I honestly can't say that I could discern this Ban Komaen from Yiwu. Of course, it has got some properties that make it not really like "standard Yiwu", but so does Guafengzhai and surrounding areaas... </div>
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Wow, Laos seems to be the next area to be discovered, I guess - both teas (this Ban Komaen and previously mentioned Meng Zhr) were genuinely good puerh. It was also interesting to taste these two teas side by side - it was fun to observe the difference between old and not so old trees (which were very good and clean as well, just different).</div>
Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-56147385863201165282014-05-16T20:39:00.001+02:002014-05-16T20:39:58.977+02:002012 Jalam teas Meng ZhrRecently, I have been offered a tea for review by representatives of Jalam teas. Who am I to oppose?<br />
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I was surprised to learn that Jeff Fuchs, a photographer I appreciate for some years, is behind the company and tea. I must admit that Jeff's surname carries a slight unwanted connotation with it, - I'm sure that those middle-europeans among you have at least heard of the (in)famous Horst Fuchs - yes, the crazy teleshopping chap who tries to sell all sorts of things on TV (e.g., kitchen knife, which is so good you can cut nails with it... or a frozen can of something - so useful)... just imagine him selling puerh.<br />
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Now, going back to serious stuff - Jeff has made some seriously serious journeys and he is by no means an arbitrary westerner who went on making tea. Anybody who manages to walk for 6000 km in less than 8 months has my respect. Of course, long-distance walking is probably not directly correlated to tea making abilities, but I think that people who pursue their non-profitable dreams, are seldom sly, trying-to-rob-you and all that. Furthermore, if you've read Jeff's book on travelling along Ancient tea horse road, you have no doubt realized that he loves tea.<br />
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This particular cake comes from "Meng Zhr" - I've never heard of this place, I shamefully admit. According to the site of Jalam teas, Meng Zhr is a town near the Laos border - it seems that teas from there are getting larger share of market.<br />
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Cakes don't get much more "white label" than this...<br />
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The large leaves, purportedly coming from trees of 20 to 50 years of age are pressed into this small cake. The cake seems to contain a good mixture of leaf types.<br />
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After rinsing, I got a flowery, dark green scent, with some spice and animality. It is more interesting than average.<br />
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Even though the taste is distinctly young, it is actually quite rich and multi-layered. It is mostly flowery (lilies, magnolia), toasty/bready (I never thought I'd encounter this taste in tea, but here it is), quite strong and thick. It is indeed a "classical" young puerh, but with more complexity in taste than is ordinary. There is some positive bitterness that keeps the taste going. Even though the spectrum of tastes is somewhat narrow (flowery), there are many facets and little differences that make drinking this tea fun.<br />
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Thickness, cleanliness and lack of unpleasantry show, that even though some teas are no super-fancy gushu from trees that remember female ents, they can be still very good. I'm starting to believe that health of trees and attitute of harvesters to them is as important as the age of trees. If old trees keep being overharvested (and supplemented with artificial diet), they may lose their charm in a couple of years and well cared of younger trees may be the next way to go.<br />
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The leaves are quite strong and they look "happy".<br />
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As did I, actually, after I kept having this tea for several days in a row - because this is indeed a good tea! Many new tea makers have to get through phase of half-good teas or teas that suck - it is nice to see that Jeff makes good tea straight away.<br />
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Now, the tea is good, that is not the issue. What is the issue, a bit, is the price. This 100g cake costs $24 for club members and $39 for non-members. Ugh. I don't know about this. The tea is nice and all that, but maocha from near Laos, from trees of 20-50 years of age should be fairly inexpensive, right?<br />
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I find it difficult to criticize price (unless I have a cheaper reference), there may be a good reason why the tea costs this much, but at least for me, it is too much to payJakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-91113872596673102392014-04-30T22:32:00.000+02:002014-04-30T22:32:10.147+02:001999 Tie Guan YinAnd here comes another oolong from Chawangshop:<br />
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Aged Tie Guan Yin can be a completely delightful tea. It is sometimes even not that awfully expensive, which is definitely a plus (unless you get a cheap overroasted ripoff). This particular TGY is not super cheap, but $2.70 per 10g sounds quite fair to me, if the tea is a real deal. Which this... is. Unfortunately, dramatic pauses are not really that punchy when written.<br />
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The leaves are of a pleasant dark brown color and an even more pleasant aroma of aged plums and nuts.<br />
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It certainly does not disappoint when drank too. The taste is very rich and deep. It may not be as explosive as the 2006 Benshan from the last post, but it is fuller and without a sign of a disturbance.<br />
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The taste consists mostly of dried plums, treacle, rich dark nuttiness and dark forest honey (which is quite in contrast to the 2006's meadow honey). The roasting seems to have been medium indeed - there are not features of a green oolong on one hand, but on the other hand, no harder roast is to be discerned.<br />
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It is also "well sat down" (~not that dynamic is another point of view), going along at its own pace as the steepings go.<br />
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Overall, this is a very rich and pleasant tea, much enjoyed.Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-787049119265045160.post-10497820666269713942014-04-22T22:26:00.001+02:002014-04-26T12:41:02.841+02:002006 BenshanAfter a long time without tasting any new oolongs, two inteeresting teas of the genre arrived in a package from Chawangshop. Let us start with the younger one today:<br />
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You have surely seen many packages like this. They are a sort of lottery - sometimes, they contain great tea, sometimes not-so-great tea. I was curious to taste this particular tea as Benshan is not an area I'd associate with a great deal of character and/or ability to excite me.<br />
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The doubts are forgetten when the little package is opened though. The aroma is so sweet, honey-like, with dried plums. A part of it must have been in the original material, but certain balance and sort of sweetness is, in my opinion, to be found mostly in a slightly aged tea. The leaves are quite green (possibly more than the photograph suggests), but no trivial floralness is to be found there - it is a balanced, summer-like meadowy good aroma.<br />
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With a rinse, the beautiful spectrum is made only more beautiful and sweet.<br />
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The taste can not really hold the extraordinary fullness and sweetness of aroma, but it is still very good nevertheless. It is smooth and thick, but feels perhaps a little empty (this is a criticism of a very good tea overall, it is not like this tea is hollow as a trunk of a tree from King's quest). The taste character is similar as the aroma suggests - mostly honey with dried plums. It is quite pleasantly light in character - a very friendly tea indeed.<br />
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The taste lasts... oo ... long! It is also rather active for this genre too - no dull flowery soup at all.<br />
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It rather reminds me of aged Dong Ding tea - I had one or two of these which, on top of the lovely taste spectrum, had the full fullness a tea can offer, which is why I considered them better. But for a rather casual oolong drinker such as me, the price difference is simply not worth it. This 2006 Benshan sells for $6 per 50g, which is basically a joke. For $8-10 per 50g, I'm used to decent oolongs, without major faults, but often lacking in aroma, being too bitter, etc. This tea is simply better than that - it is not an awesome oolong perhaps, but very good nevertheless. Yum!<br />
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The next post will have a look at a 1999 Tie Guan Yin, which offers quite a different experience.Jakub Tomekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641381393855983478noreply@blogger.com0