T

1997 Hen Li Chang Bulang

2012-02-27T01:22:00.000-08:00

Cold days call for warm tea. Thus, when I returned from -15° forest, where I was struck by a panic attack, I felt in need of good tea. The other day, friends were supposed to come to taste some of more aged tea from Essence of tea, so I thought we'd start with this one.

I did not take any photos in both tastings I did, concentrating on the tea solely. This may seem as some kind of weird wannabe zen, but it is not, it just came naturally. Photos may be found at http://www.essenceoftea.co.uk/tea/puerh-tea/aged-puerh/1997-henglichang.html

First time brewing it with the other two teachums, I probably used too much leaves. First brews were strong, sweet, aged, but very bitter - the bitterness did not transform or go away. I'd dare to call the first brews unpleasant. After five or so brews, the bitterness gradually vanished and was replaced by a pleasant, rather aged taste. Having good stamina, the tea has produced another 10 brews, so we parted as friends.

More about the second tasting, which was better: I used less leaves and it payed an immediate dividend. The taste was pleasant right away. Although it smells, looks and tastes aged already, that good "sweet bulang granary" taste may be still caught. I'm very glad for that, I wanted to see where good Bulang may get and was a bit afraid this one would be so aged that the retracing of taste development would be impossible. My worries were unjustified and, ultimately, uprooted.

After drinking more and more aged tea, my appreciation of them shifts from taste (which is mostly rather similar) to general feeling they give and their mouthfeel. If one would drink aged tea for taste, he could be easily disappointed. A month ago, I did a side-by-side tasting of 92 Da Ye maocha from essence of tea and 2007 Lincang Te Ji shupu. The taste was sort of similar indeed. The mouthfeel was what clearly distinguished these two teas from each other.

I do think that tastes can be described by words, to an extent. I lack words to describe the whole spectrum of feelings a tea's energy does though. I can say that this Bulang is calming, yet vibrant on the tongue - but I can say that about most aged teas too.

Getting lost in words here, I'll finish this tasting note by saying this is a very nice and worthwhile tea for a price which does not murder one's wallet.

Further reading:
Half-Dipper
Wu Xing Cloud
the_skua steeps

2007 Haiwan Purple Bud

2012-02-03T02:09:00.000-08:00

Purple tea all on my tongue
The purple taste lingers so long
Actin' funny, but I don't know why
'Scuse me while I kiss the sky

Or somehow like that it went...

Note that the number of petals is, as in most flowers, a Fibonacci number...

These are purple days in purple haze, me throwing purple gaze on purple cakes. The day before yesterday, I've had YS Purple tea, yesterday, it was the 2007 Haiwan Purple bud about which I'll be writing now. Today, it's YS Purple bud 2010.

Some people say that in human beauty competitions, the asian girls always are the most beautiful (well, people say many things, others say the same about brazilian girls, european, etc.). In the world of tea, I fell in love with purple cakes (at least visually, though, to a degree, in the way of taste too).

I tend to rather like Haiwan - not that they would always do great (or even good) stuff, but there are some nice cakes from them to be encountered. When I first opened the sample bag with the 2007 Haiwan Purple bud a year ago, the first thought was "Wow, Biff Tannen would loathe this tea...". You may remember him saying "I hate manure" on several occasions. The tea smelled absolutely like sweet, cow manure. I have tasted it three times from then, always feeling that this is an interesting cake, although never feeling like loving the tea really.

The dry leaves:

The aroma of wet leaves is very thick, sweet, smokey-manure-fruity.
I feel like saying "Impressive, most impressive" in the way here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVjOH7WeEKk&feature=related

The liquor is already orange, certain aged characteristics appear in the taste and the aroma. This cake is aging nicely so far.

The taste is, as the aroma is, sweet, smokey, manure (not nearly as unpleasant as one might think) and fruit. This is rather unusual (at least in my experience) - to have smokiness and heavier fruitiness in a single tea, I thought they XORed each other. The smokines was not as pronounced last year. Even now, it is not too powerful (as if the airplane carrying the sample has briefly flown over Guoyan TF) - however, I'd prefer if it was not present at all.

The taste is harmonic, thick - just as I like it. The aftertaste is good. The smokiness is unnecessary, but it may be that it is from a sample which did not get a very good aging conditions. I actually quite enjoy the manure taste (which merges nicely with the purple-iness and fruitiness) - it is a normal taste, after all - often found in wine too.

I enjoy this cake as it is rather unique and although I never felt like being absolutely in love with it, I'll be buying several cakes. I have felt the compulsion to drink it several times, being limited by its low quantity. Such a specific character for $22? Why not. When I get whole cakes, I'll add more photos here, as well as the report on the smokiness.

One more exam to go...back to backpropagation networks and the likes of them :)

5000 milestone reached!

2012-01-29T12:35:00.000-08:00

Dear readers,
today is the day when the number of page loads has reached the number of 5000. I did not expect that only a half a year after starting this little tea notebook, there would be so many readers! And that I would discover so many other blogs which gave me such enjoyment when I read through them.

When reading posts like this one, I've often noticed that the writer thanks his readers. I thought - why? They come at their own will, it is not a service to the writer. However, now, when writing this, I feel a compulsion to thank you. So... thank you!

Even without readers, writing notes on teas would prove helpful to myself. Nevertheless, knowing that several more people are reading them makes writing them even more interesting.

I know that many things can be improved about my notes. I hope the improvement will come naturally. That's the way things go when one enjoys what he is doing. Learning by doing and all that... Anyway, if you still felt like you wanted to give me a hint what to improve, please, do so!

Right ho, the lake of sentiment has dried out, let's go to statistics!

Where are my readers from?
About 40% from Czech Republic, then USA, Russia (quite a surprise to me) and Slovenia. Generally, it is 50% Czechoslovakia, 50% rest of the world. The trend is that more and more foreign readers are joining.

From the other end - thank you, readers from Lithuania, Singapore, Poland and Sweden, I hold you in great esteem too!

What is the dominant OS?
Windows clearly in the lead (78%), followed by Macintosh with 14%. Linux has 2%, most of the linux users come from Czech Republic.

Even though I come from computer science area myself, I am a rather proud-ish Windows user, thinking that even though being criticized, it is still a very fine piece of software and Windows 7 show that Microsoft is learning from its mistakes. Powershell is pretty good thing, isn't it?

What is the dominant browser?
Firefox leads clearly, having 31%. Internet Explorer has 21%, Google Chrome has 18%, Opera has 14%, Safari 12%. The trend clearly shows that Chrome is on its rise. In the last month, it has reached 27%, which is mighty rise.

On the other side of the field - there are browsers named Maxthon, Gran Paradiso or Iron I've never heard before. Iron sounds like the browser for women...

I myself used to like Firefox too, then got annoyed with it being such a memory hog and realizing that I am not using any of gadgets I added to it. Now, google Chrome is my instrument of choice. Generally, browsers are becoming better and better - whenever I had to work with any of the three leading browsers, I felt no trouble (even with the ever-hated IE! - most of its critics I've met still point to bugs of IE6, which is a bit out of date).

What has been the most read article?
Jinuoshan You Le 2004
And well deserved that is!

Thanks, good night! See you again at 25000.
Jakub

Not impressed 1

2012-01-29T00:35:00.000-08:00

Just as negative advertisement is an advertisement, negative experience is also an experience.

After finishing the mighty excellent 2005 Fu Cha Ju Jingmai with tea flowers, I started drinking through the rest of my samples which did not captivate me and thought I'd give them a few lines here. This article will be updated periodically, when it is too large, another Not impressed thread will be created.

2009 Guan Zi Zai Zao Chun Yi Wu
The aroma of the liquor was appaling, rather than appealing, being quite hard. However, the taste was pleasant for first three brews. A variant of generic good Yi Wu, a pleasant change from my usual Purple Yi Wu orgies. The problem occured with fourth brew and the brews that followed it. The taste took an invisibility (or rather intastibility) cloak probably. This happened to me on all three tasting occasions. First three brews are pleasant, strong enough - maybe nothing to write home about, but at $20, it would be a decent tea. However, the disappearance of the taste in further brews prevents me from saying this tea is good. Maybe it will gain some strength in further years... In the plethora of cakes which are no "maybe", not good enough.

2010 Hai Lang Hao Qi Lin Jun Xiu
This felt rather too roasted to my taste. The orange liquor raised my suspicion, confirmed by the roastiness in the first three brews. The tea gradually changed into something nice, fruity, Yi-Wu thing, it is not bad for immediate drinking (on the other hand, it is a bit expensive for what it provides). I am not sure how it is going to age though. I guess we'll have to wait some years before we see where the pre-oxidized cakes head. The stamina of this one was not exceptional, rather low I dare say.

2011 YS Ba Da
The tea is rather faithful to the description on Yunnan sourcing website. Indeed, hints of tobacco and pines are present. It is notably grassy, even more than I'm used to in young sheng. It is generally lighter in profile, gently sweet. I believe that that is the reason why I enjoyed it. I'm not really into tobacco shengpu, I prefer fruitier things; this cake had little to offer in this way. Still, although this is not exactly my cup of tea, a nice production still.

2005 Fu Cha Ju Jing Mai with tea flowers

2012-01-24T06:36:00.000-08:00

The happy part of you may have met this cake when it was available at Yunnan Sourcing about two years ago. It has long since disappeared (as well as the rest of Fu Cha Ju things :( ). However, it has appeared in Chawangshop. It is one of their most expensive pieces, costing $46; on the other hand, when one looks at the cost of premium new cakes...

To the tea purists who want to murder anyone who would dare to put tea flowers (blossoms) into tea, ruining it: Don't murder anyone. I have tasted 2005 Fu Cha Ju Jingmai with and without the tea flowers and the experience was basically the same. Both cakes are predominantly flowery, fruity and honey-like, the one with flowers has these features even more powerfully developed, but the difference is not large.

Dry leaves are whole, clean, shiny, looking healthy.

The aroma of wet leaves is crazily pleasant - when had the tea yesterday, I sniffed it for several minutes, warming the pot from time to time. Very complex and fruity. When smelling (and drinking) this tea, one wonders how nature does these things...

Wet leaves are mighty thick, fleshy, looking great.

The tea liquor is also very nice, the color is proper, it is clear and pure as the mirror of Galadriel.

And the taste is definitely yummy. It is powerful, flowery and fruity (apples, peaches, nuts? Feels like stuff from our garden generally...) riding on honey sweetness. Very complex and harmonized. Also noticeably darker than when I had it in 2010 for the first time. The aftertaste is long and good, hui gan plentiful.

This tea reminds me that I'm getting older... When mind-wandering, I thought "hmm, it is dark, considering it is only two or three years old". When I realized that the time has advanced a bit since I started drinking more of puerh...is it really so many years? Now, this cake is seven years old, which puts naturally where I felt it was.

It is a strong tea, packed with taste. This is, of course, a very positive feature (I was regularily making 15-20 brews of it), however it is easy to oversteep this tea. I was surprised when it first happened - I wondered what happened to that sweet, harmonic, easy-going tea when I got thick nostrum bitter as hell. Or two hells rather.

Nevertheless, when brewed all right, it is just so good and pleasant. One of the best cakes I've encountered.

This is the last I have of it...

1992 Da Ye loose leaf sheng

2012-01-21T08:19:00.000-08:00

This is the first of samples from Essence of tea I'd like to write about. As I succeeded in the exam from computational complexity theory yesterday, I decided I'd taste it again today and write about it to reward myself.

I quite like the descriptions on Essence of tea website... not boasting, letting one form his opinion himself. I guess that the owner knows that when one is good in what he does, he does not have to boast.

Interesting tea deserves good water, a unit of charcoal was mustered. Will have to buy more soon...

Now, dry leaves...

I find them quite beautiful, healthy. Big (one would expect that of Da Ye, wouldn't he?). They release a pleasant, dry, aged aroma.

The water is boiling, sings the kettle...

Wet leaves in the pot smell rather like shu puerh, more clean and "real" though. Could be just my imagination.

The color of the liquor is similar to aged wine in a way. Older wine is not as red as young, having a sort of brownish tint. Approaching this from the other side, this tea is brown with a reddish tint.

The taste is clean and pleasant, but hardly surprising or mind-blowing. What came to my mind first was "shupu". It tasted according to what I felt I could feel in it... when I thought of dried apricots, I could sort of find them there. Also, in some brews, very slight fishiness was present (carp, to be exact).

Having a look at wet leaves clearly shows this is no shu. Actually, the mouthfeel and energy of the tea suggest the same thing. The tea feels thick, cools the mouth and sends small "sparks" around. It may be just my imagination, but it also felt more "natural" than shu.

As has been said many times before, old tea is not always drank for the taste (it would be crazily expensive for that). The energy of the tea is very important too. This tea has pleasant, quiet cha qi. I generally believe that a lot of calming down and feeling good is caused by calm preparations and enjoyment of tea (furthermore, with older teas, one could have tendency to be wow-ed by the experience of drinking something of such age). I can not say that this tea would affect me so much more than other sheng from 2001-2004. But it is quieter, no rowdydow bitterness or anything notably powerful is in it. Balance and peace, it is.

The unknown amout of leaves I used (5-8g) lasted more than a litre of water, still being enjoyable.

Wet leaves confirm that leaves probably come from several sources, not being too homogenous. I liked how firm and healthy they still were, not being disintegrated by being rubbed a bit.

Were this tea sold as the biggest speciality in the world, for crazy money, I would have thought "all right, interesting, but not for me". As it is so cheap, I think it is very nice tea to be had more frequently. Although I do not need the kind of feeling it gives (and younger tea does not) too often, it is very pleasant from time to time.

2003 Yong Pin Hao Yin Hao Tuocha

2012-01-11T09:13:00.000-08:00

The detested time of year is closing by: exam time. It means there will be less tea notes as my stomach is quite powerfully upset when I have exams. Generally, I'm happy enough when I am able to get to school to take the exam, therefore the art of tea is somewhat neglected. It also means that my mind starts being confused (it is being confused since I was born, to be honest) and when I think that this has been a productive month from point of view of writing, it immediately comes to my mind, whether it was also creative... funny thing these creative and productive sets. Computability theory rocks. Though not as "primitively useful" as mathematical analysis, it is beautiful and makes one understand a lot of things about math and algorithms.

As most readers probably are not interested in creative and productive sets, let us move to something generally more pleasant: 2003 Yong Pin Hao Tuocha, which may be bought at $11 in the great Yunnan Sourcing store: http://www.yunnansourcing.com/store/product.php?id_product=1759

How does it look? Very nice!

It is brown-grey-ish, no signs of green really.

The tuo is rather lightly pressend and feels very dry. It goes apart easily, sometimes breaking almost too much. But breaking this one into pieces is way better than doing the same thing with younger Xiaguan tuos which now reach between 11 and 12 on Mohs scale of hardness.

The aroma of dry leaves is soft, sweet and aged.

Rinsed leaves are also sweet and aged. Soothing and pleasant. Not overly complex or surprising.

The taste is, as one could expect, sweet and aged :) Actually, in the "main" taste, there is not much beside the agedness. This alone, balanced and good, would make me feel "this is a nice little tuocha". However, in the aftertaste, something like roasted hazelnuts appears, making the aftertaste more interesting and enjoyable.

The energy of the tea does not feel too poweful. It is as it was sleeping.

Probably the lack of characteristic Cha Qi and the overally very smooth and "ordinary", inoffensive taste profile, make me feel that this is a nice drink, but not really mind-blowing all-around. This is not to say I did not enjoy it when I was drinking it - I did enjoy it on all occasions.

On the art of sniffing

2012-01-09T09:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's night

It's after midnight. Steam is rising from my trusted cracked gaiwan and the aroma of ancient tree Haiwan Pa Sha lingers in the air (surprisingy, as it ages, it resembles ancient tree cakes I've had more and more - which is kind of unexpected given the - under circumstances - low price). I'm reading some of excellent Musings of Half Diper, feeling guilty reading of how it is not too good to drink tea in the afternoon... Well, midnight is not afternoon, right? Oll korrekt, bad excuse.

However, the aroma reminds me of one thing - my posts may not reflect it, but my appreciation of tea aroma has rapidly increased in last few months. Litres of tea consumed and late hours make me overcome my usual reason for not writing - "who gives a damn about that"... so here is more:

Of course, as one drinks through masses of various samples/cakes/bricks/things, his appreciation of various aspects rises ultimately (actually, this may have an honest neurobiological basis). But I concentrate on the aroma more I would say. Why is that? It is just so pleasant. And it helps me to understand what I am drinking better.

One of less poetic points of view on tea is a table of temperatures and substances being released (and tasted). It is a rather primitive approximation - more dimensions are to it - water composition for example. Or the brewing method. Well, anyway, every time I drink a tea, I am not feeling all of its components. Some of them were not extracted to the taste. However - they are often extracted to the aroma. The aroma often suggests how the tea may taste. When I smell something lovely, but it just is not present in the taste, I know that I may be doing something wrong and local search may be applied to the tea's brewing method, trying to match the aroma with taste.

Then there is the aroma of dry leaves. I must admit that it mostly tells me very little. It mostly tells about a tea's past - how it was stored, how fresh it feels, etc.

Or the aroma of wet leaves. This is my favourite now. I often enjoy it as much as drinking the tea itself. I use the following "technique" to enjoy it best. Instead of simple inhalation, I sometimes blow gently into the teapot for a fraction of second, inhaling right after - feeling the "stirred" aroma. Theoretically, it could cool the pot too much, but I have not found any negative sides to it. I may enjoy more concentrated aroma. However, one could get burned inside the nose if he blowed too close to the opening of teapot or blowed too hard. When done right, it is a pleaasure. I'm often sniffing the aroma for a half-minute, feeling like floating on the waves of the tea's character for eternity, flying to a bamboo pavilion in some chinese tea garden in a parallel universe.

The aroma of wet leaves tells about the tea's current state - whether its tastes are in harmony, for example. It tells how the tea may (or may not) taste, when brewed differently. It often gave me a hint when I should use boiling water or sub-boiling instead (actually, contrary to the past, I don't pay that much attention to exact temperature, the thermometer I used to use five years ago collects dust).

I found that there are two kinds (at least!) of sweetness affected by water temperature. The sweetness of lower-temperature water brewing is well known. However, some sheng pieces I've had were dull, harsh and empty when boiled with 90°C, but sweet and full when brewed with boiling water. This is where the aroma comes into play. When I feel that the taste is dull and harsh and the aroma is too, then, most often, it is a bad tea. However, at times, the aroma is right, it just is not reflected by the taste. That's the time when I know I should use warmer water. Or use different kind of water altogether.

The aroma of wet leaves helps to determine the age of trees from which the leaves come. I can not express the difference with words... But when one smells a lot of tea from younger trees and a lot of tea from old trees, he finds that there is something the young tea just does not have and vice versa. The ability to (partly) determine the age of tea is nothing mythical... just collect enough data and it is obvious then.

The aroma may suggest the future of a tea too. For example the aroma left in drinking cups. I've had bitter, young teas which, after emptying the drinking cup, left a sort of sticky sweetness behind. Some similarly tasting young bitter teas did not. It is a coincidence, that the first kind eventually became sweet, while the other became more dry and woody? I don't think so.

That is all I wanted to say today. I can not provide "Learn to enjoy and use the tea aroma in 21 days" walkthrough. But I can definitely say it's fun to dig inside the aroma a bit!

2009 YS Road to Yi Wu: Man Zhuan

2012-01-08T04:12:00.000-08:00

Interesting sky we had here yesterday. Wind screaming, clouds flying (and making photos blurred) around like witches on brooms - sounds like just the time to drink some tea, doesn't it?

I have picked one of samples from Yunnan Sourcing: Road to Yi Wu - the Man Zhuan version. I have not found any notes of fellow bloggers, why is that?

...I'll answer it myself - because I haven't looked well enough! http://half-dipper.blogspot.com/2011/04/2009-and-2010-yunzhiyuan-manzhuan.html
Reading through the post of Hobbes I feel that I should have mentioned certain vegetalness - which is much less annoying than when I tried this tea in 2010, but is still present.

When released from the small container I use to give compressed samples invigorating breathing, it was very aromatic and fresh for Yi Wu material.

I found dry leaves quite beautiful, furry. They are darker than when I tasted the tea first (in 2010).

I was unaware of the price when tasting the tea, but the aroma and first sips screamed "I'm a special tea". They did not scream "I am worth that $169" like Yong Pin Hao 2001 which is sadly not available anymore did. However, after drinking several dozens of smooth, thick, sweet, x*chocolaty + (1-x)*fruity, Yi Wu cakes in last months, this one was pleasantly different.

The Yi Wu character is present, it feels like more things than usual are happening in it. It is generally balanced (not overwhelmingy chocolate-like or something like that), still keeping some of its original freshness. It is slightly grainy, slightly fruity, slightly nutty, slightly cocoa... and heavily bitter. I have never had a Yi Wu tea this bitter. On one hand, it made drinking this tea not so calming and easily pleasant as other "smoother" Yi Wu cakes, on the other hand, I believe it may age differently and maybe more interestingly. As opposed to the first tasting, I noticed that the dark malty sweetness I like started developing here. If this becomes more pronounced with age, this cake could be really lovely.

I tried brewing this tea in several ways, but the bitterness was always present. It is not ugly, stomach-upsetting bitterness, it feels like wild tree bitterness, sort of silky, but it did not transform into sweetness really.

I don't think that this tea is too good for immediate consumption, too expensive and bitter for that. However, older and wilder tea-tree cakes (which this one is) age differently than "usual" cakes and they offer an experience unobtainable otherwise.

Wet leaves (from "competition style brewing" of today) are rather thick and unevenly colored.

I'm not sure whether I'll be buying more. In no tasting of it, I felt like wanting to have and drink. However, I'd very much like to know how it is going to age as I believe it will age very nicely.

Several pieces from Chawangshop

2012-01-06T09:42:00.000-08:00

After several good-to-very-good cakes from Chawangshop, I suppose it is only fair to make few notes about cakes/bricks which were not overly interesting or which I did not enjoy. I should note that I have particular problem with wet stored sheng - some of the "too wet for me" may be perfectly enjoyable for others...

Yaga on my old tea tray does not like wet stored cakes either (however, she obviously enjoys young Yi Wu tea - I once went away from tea tray and when I came back, my tea was gone).

2003 You Le Round Cake:

Let us start with the best one of the lot: http://www.chawangshop.com/index.php/pu-erh-tea/raw-sheng-puerh/2004-youle-mountain-round-tea-raw-400g.html

This is probably as wet as a cake may get and still be enjoyed by me. The Xishuanbanna experience is obvious here. However, several years in dry environment were quite helpful. Due to fast aging, the cake is already very smooth, sweet, not hollow or boring. And, which is particularly important to me, it still may be guessed that it comes from Youle - the character is present. Wetter storage is noticeable, but not particularly unpleasant - I am just much more used to more drily stored tea. I'd say this tea is very enjoyable, given the price, but as I have/may buy better You Le, I won't be buying more of this.

2004 Man Zhuan Chawang

http://www.chawangshop.com/index.php/pu-erh-tea/raw-sheng-puerh/2004-manzhuan-cha-wang-yuan-cha-raw-puerh-cake-400g.html

This is a very solid Yi Wu cake. However, given the price, I would expect slightly more. It is one of few pre-2005 Yi Wu cakes I've had which has kept its original character. It tastes like forest fruit and honey - it is generally rather good. Certain younger cakes (YS Purple Yi Wu, some Yong Pin Hao) offer similar character for less money though. This one offers more punchy mouthfeel maybe. First few years of wetter storage have kicked this cake in a pleasant direction.

2003 Jinggu Bai Long Jia Ji

http://www.chawangshop.com/index.php/pu-erh-tea/raw-sheng-puerh/2003-jinggu-bai-long-organic-raw-puerh-cake-jia-ji-357g.html

This is a solid, hearty cake. It is still too young, needs more time. It has strenght, it is bitter, I failed to find any really pleasant aspects of it... It is too different from 2003 Jinggu Bai Long Te Ji to be compared.

2002 Yi Bang Chawang

This one is not available anymore. Too wet for me, I can drink it, but not enjoy it really. However, it is definitely a matter of preference - a friend of mine who is more used to wetter-stored tea said he did enjoy this very much.

2002 Mengma

http://www.chawangshop.com/index.php/pu-erh-tea/raw-sheng-puerh/2002-mengma-qi-zi-bing-cha-raw-puerh-cake-357g.html

This is a very unusual tea. It is probably more smoky than smoking smoke elemental. Too much for me, it made my stomach quite upset. I think this is love/hate thingy - it is definitely interesting and powerful, no wetness present, but we did not harmonize really...

2003 Mangsi Delan

http://www.chawangshop.com/index.php/pu-erh-tea/raw-sheng-puerh/2003-delan-luxi-raw-puerh-tuo-cha-500g.html

Too wet... Several rinses did help to make it almost drinkable. It tastes like forest floor. Sadly, I don't feel like chewing humus right now.

1999 Menghai

http://www.chawangshop.com/index.php/pu-erh-tea/aged-puerh/1999-private-production-menghai-raw-puerh-brick-250g.html

I'll probably sound like nothing is good enough for me... but this is too drily stored for me. However, a lot of original character is still present. The material is obviously not bad (it would not get to the current stage otherwise). It is just not interesting enough. Yet... The price is very low for tea of such age. Since my experience with such a dry tea is very limited, I am unable of telling whether this is really 99 tea or younger.

29/1/2012
2002 Gedeng Chawang Yuan
http://www.chawangshop.com/index.php/2002-gedeng-cha-wang-yuan-cha-raw-puerh-cake-400g.html
Although also a bit wetter than I'd prefer, shicang is not overwhelming, from 3rd or so brew, the tea is rather interesting and pleasant. Easily drinkable, nice enough mouthfeel.

2005 Menghai Gu Cha

2012-01-05T02:20:00.000-08:00

Another pleasant surprise from Chawangshop. Now, I wouldn't like to give the impression that everything I've had from Chawang is great - some older teas were a bit too wet to my taste. Some were not that interesting. Nevertheless, many of them are very good. This one is available at: http://www.chawangshop.com/index.php/pu-erh-tea/puerh-cake/2005-menghai-gu-cha-bing-raw-400g.html

This cake is interesting in three ways:

a) It is a blend. A very well harmonized blend. It seems to me that a lot of fancy new production is single-mountain. Although I enjoy drinking these single-area cakes to find out about tastes of various regions, they mostly have weaknesses - and good blends are able to fix these.

b) It is Kunming-stored, yet nicely aging. Certain Kunming stored teas were too dry. This one is very nice.

c) It is very cheap ($14 per 400g cake).

Let's start with dry leaves and liquor:

It was rather a dark day. The liquor is very pleasant, honey-like colored, has a good spark.

Dry leaves smell grassy. When I first tried the tea, I though "Ok, $14, will be an universal Menghai thing, booooring, Sidney". Leaves after rinsing were entirely different. A bit of grass is still present, but the aroma is very sweet, complex, like fine at-least-a-bit-aged Bu Lang. Not at all universal Menghai.

The taste is lovely and you can still more or less tell which part is Bu Lang (dark, sweet, woody) and which is Jingmai (flowery, nutty). I dare say that in this case, the tea is more than just sum of its parts.

In general, it is pleasantly dark-ish, sort of sweet, woody/flowery, darker honey, with slightly bitter, long enough aftertaste (Jingmai is more present there). The cooling feeling which I enjoy is present. Later infusions are becoming lighter, more nutty and honey-like. Definitely enjoyable.

After the powerful sweetness of aroma, I'd prefer more sweetness in taste actually, but a) this may (I think it will) come with age, b) this cake is cheap, I can't expect it to match $200 cakes. At the current time, after the smelling the aroma (which is awesome), the taste could feel a little underwhelming.If I did not smell the wet leaves though, it would have felt overwhelming.

The slight bitterness, while perfectly acceptable in such a young tea also prevents this tea from being truly great.

Anyway, these two minor flaws did not convince me out of buying more and two tongs will be departing to daddy soon... I'm looking forward to drinking this in 5 years.

2008 Yong Pin Hao Yi Wu Zheng Shan Zhao Chun

2012-01-03T12:10:00.000-08:00

Let me introduce two new friends of mine:

等待他的名字

When I realized that 50% of the tea I drink is Yi Wu, I thought the time for a new teapot has came. Drinking weaker tea, I realized that having one sheng pot and drinking Yi Wu mostly is like having unbalanced data given to a neural network - the Yi Wu dominated too much at times.

Today's tea is one of generously-sized samples from Chawangshop which stocks many rather cheap Yong Pin Hao cakes. This particular one may be bought at: http://www.chawangshop.com/index.php/2008-yong-pin-hao-yiwu-zheng-shan-zhao-chun-bing-early-spring-raw-puerh-cake-400g.html. The price is very modest ($18,8 per 400g).

My experience with YPH is somewhat mixed. His 2001 YWZS Ancient Arbor (less then a cake is available at Yunnan Sourcing) is a grand tea in my opinion. The price reflects it, sadly. Some of his more expensive ($40) cakes I tried were very well made, but not particularly captivating. I enjoyed drinking them but I felt no compulsion to buy more. This cake is rather similar. However, it costs less than half.

Let us have a closer look at dry leaves:

I like their appearance. They are shiny, furry, they pleasantly smell of cocoa. After being rinsed, the aroma becomes wider, more complex. The best description I can give is that rinsed leaves smell of dried bayberries (yangmei), which sadly did not win the last year's contest of best known fruit. Shortly said, it is very typical Yi Wu with less fruit, more cocoa and leather.

The reflects the aroma rather accurately. First brews are sweet, full, cocoa is dominant, a bit of bayberries, honey, flowers. The tea gradually becomes more leathery, fleshy and honey-like. The aftertaste is not particularly breathtaking, but it is sufficient. The liquor is clear, good looking, even inspection of wet leaves shows no unwanted overprocessing.

I think this tea is more or less very well produced and typical Yi Wu. It is more chocolate/cocoa-like than most I've drank. Good for more frequent drinking, I found no more obvious flaws, on the other hand, I did not find anything particularly interesting (but it may be just me, I feel like that about most YPH cakes/Maocha). The price is sound - a fine cake I'd say.

2003 Jinggu Bai Long Organic Te Ji

2012-01-01T02:24:00.000-08:00

This is a public service announcement...with guit... with a cup of tea!

A year ago, I often asked whether the newly produced sheng costing $40 a cake is worth it when you can buy more mature and "you-know-where-it-is-going". I did not find an answer yet. However the matter is even more pressing as our currency has, due to interesting economical experiments happening, managed to outrun dollar and euro in falling down. Thus, all things bought with dollars cost 25% more than a year before.

Although I do enjoy drinking young tea, it is often a matter of study than of enjoyment. I generally enjoy pre-2006 tea more. Where to buy it though? One of very interesting sources is a rather newborn tea-store named Chawangshop. In this cruel world of pursuit of best leaves, best processing and all that, I feel that Chawangshop offers a lot of more "normal"sheng - but the best specimen chosen of these. It offers several $10 bricks which are much more enjoyable than a lot of $20-$30 bricks/cakes I've had. Some of the cheaper older sheng is a bit wetter than I would enjoy (another friend enjoyed them immensely though), but some is simply a well aged product for a very good price. This all is not to say that Chawangshop does hoi polloi tea - not at all. I would prefer to say it does not fall to the hysteria of "20.6.1951 Yi Wu Dia Jing Zhai 3rd farmer's house from the north Ancient Wild Organic traditional beeng cha".

To get back to today's specimen, which may be bought here: http://www.chawangshop.com/index.php/pu-erh-tea/aged-puerh/2003-jinggu-bai-long-organic-raw-puerh-cake-te-ji-357g.html

It is one of more expensive cakes in Chawangshop. First, I wanted to do a comparation with Jia Ji of the same place, but since these two cakes are so different, it would make little point to do so.

Let's have a look at dry leaves and 2nd brew:

The tea is dry-stored, no hints of wetness of any kind. That is good and it justifies the price tag in my opinion.

This tea is probably the best Jinggu I have drank. This, of course, does not mean something as good as "the best Yi Wu I have drank". On the opposite, Jinggu is one of less favourite areas of mine - I often find Jinggu tea to be a bit boring. However, I certainly did enjoy drinking this one.

It is not boring - it is powerful, it lingers over tongue, cooling and "tickling" the mouth. It definitely feels as older and wilder tree production (the cake is not declared as such, but the owner of the store agreed with me on it). It is rather sweet, grainy, Jinggu-ish, very balanced. I dare say it ages very well. Powerful "wild" bitterness comes after a while. But it is not mouth-disturbing, it is rather silky in a way, pleasant (like barrique). This bitterness was probably one of things I did enjoy the most in this tea (it is very different from usual unpleasant bitterness). The aftertaste is warming, long-lasting and thoroughly enjoyable.

This cake is what I imagine under proper $40-costing cake.

Two not-so-awesome bits from Guan Zi Zai: 11 Pa Sha and 11 You Le

2011-11-10T05:28:00.000-08:00

I have to apologize to all my gentle readers. I have been rather busy and... I promised to myself not to write about new teas until I write about these two teas first. But since I did not enjoy them so much, I had a hard time finding the time to write about them. But it is here, at last. I hope that my contributions will become more frequent again.

Pa Sha 2011:

The pleasant part of the cake is the fact, that it is distinctly Pa Sha. But young Pa Sha tea is not always of the most pleasant... I have been drinking a lot of Yi Wu lately, so I forgot that young sheng may be unpleasant.

It is rather light, vegetal, a bit acidic and bitter, but not too much. The liquor is not too thick. The aroma is not very noteworthy, as well as the aftertaste.

However, I do not dismiss the cake - it is just too young.

You Le 2011:

The tea is too young too. I'm afraid that it has been postprocessed - reddened - artificially. I really dislike the taste of it.

The tea is not simple. Simply put - it is "weird". But saying that, we are saying too little. I brewed the tea several times, using different temperature water. The purpose was to find all parts that compose the weirdness.

I found that the tea has a lot of going on in it - a lot of small-ish tastes. Sadly, they don't mix too well together when I brewed the tea gong fu style, the result was unpleasant, hard. When brewed "grandpa style", it was ok.

I guess the tea just needs more time - some tastes have to die away, some should become more pronounced. We shall see...

2010 Guan Zi Zai Early Spring Jing Mai

2011-10-16T02:04:00.000-07:00

This is a continuation of young Guan Zi Zai series. As with young Indiana Jones, it is probably not as good as older, classical production. But, opposed to young Indiana Jones, sheng matures on its own.

And a progression of this tea is obvious, drinking it right after its 2011 version. It seems to be from the same, or very similar material. Many very young shengs taste similar and some of them become bad and some of them become good. To know how young sheng will develop may be a big money saver. And it seems that this GZZ production develops very nicely.

The cake is not as shiny as the 2011 version, but it is still rather nice. It smells young, but more interesting.

It is rather lightly pressed, it goes apart easily:

The evening is to blame for its more aged look - it is still rather green actually.

The liquor confirms its greenness:

I think that it looks like standard 2010 un-post-processed sheng. The liquor is clear and nice. I did not notice any weirdness from possible postprocessing, which immediately puts this tea above the 2011 cake. The lighter color suggests so too (when these teas are brewed using the same amount and method, the 2011 is noticeably darker).

The taste is nice. It is still too rough to make this an everyday drinker to me, but it is good. Hmm, actually, if I had to drink every tea I labelled "everyday" every day, I would die...

The taste is powerful, slightly heavier than in the 2011 and much more diverse. And more Jingmai typical. It is acidic and slightly bitter, but it is fruity (red berries mostly) and not so much floral. Do not confuse acidity with sourness - this tea is not sour. There is plenty of taste aspects to become better with age and I believe they will - the strength is there. Now, it reminds me of young burgundy wine (except that burgundy gives me stomach ache and this tea does not) in character - not as thick, full and rich as Bordeaux (or Yi Wu, if we get back to tea), but pretty intensive anyway.

The aftertaste is long and pleasant. Stronger hui gan would be welcome, but it is not bad.

Cha qi is strong and energizing.

I liked this tea. I think that in a year, it may become very enjoyable. The price seems good to me, although people who have more contacts in China could probably get similar quality at lesser price (I am afraid that in case of Guan Zi Zai, one pays for its renowned previous production a bit). But at $16,50, this is definitely a nice material with (hopefully) good aging potential.

2011 Guan Zi Zai Early Spring Jing Mai

2011-10-15T14:36:00.000-07:00

The autumn is coming, which is nice. Another nice thing is that I got a big box full of tea :-)

This & three more upcoming posts will be about four recent Guan Zi Zai cakes: 2011 Jing Mai, 2010 Jing Mai, 2011 Pa Sha, 2011 You Le. I bought these for vertical tasting - I'm going to taste them (and other cakes too) now and retaste them every half year to watch their progression systematically. I did not expect them to be particularly great but a pleasant surprise is always a pleasant surprise. And I do like all four regions a lot.

To get started, this cake is not a pleasant surprise. It is not an unpleasant surprise either though.

The wrapper and the cake inside look nice (Guan Zi Zai wrappers are usually thought nice):

I realize that I am spoiled by nicely looking puerh - the former thought that it is an usual looking cake means it is a nice, shiny cake. Dry leaves are shiny and slightly furry.

The aroma of the cake is not particularly captivating. It is strong and pungent, but not too characteristic of Jing Mai I know.

The aroma of wet leaves is also powerful, but too pleasant. It is to be expected from so young spring tea I believe.

The tea liquor is surprisingly dark:

I am afraid that certain wet postprocessing may have been applied. I do believe I can feel it in the taste a bit. It is different from wet taste from Hong Kong or such areas. I managed to get this taste when, in an experiment, I kept a young sheng in 95% wetness and sprayed water on it for two weeks. The tea has became much darker, got more aged taste, but got that unpleasant and difficult-to-describe taste too. Luckily, the unpleasantness is difficult to notice here.

The taste, when we do not mind the slight weirdness, is very green. The tea is astringent, bitter (not overwhelmingly) and light I would say. But it is not bad, I would not say that. I think it is like a 16 years old boy trying to demonstrate his newly acquired strength to the world around - there are some promising features, but it does not work yet. The tea's power is its main good feature. According to my (limited) experience, the tea should not just turn to ordinary generic sheng.

The aftertaste is long and rather nice.

I'm not entirely sure whether this is pure Jingmai material or not... There is an element of Jingmai, definitely. But it is a bit like it was mixed with not-so-special leaves.

I did not particularly enjoy drinking it (but nothing wrong about that - when tasting wine en primeur, the taste is largely different from the resulting taste too). But at least I did not find it repulsive and I am generally intrigued to see where this tea will go.

And one photo from today's walk to the north of Prague which reminds me of this cake. The tea octopus.

2009 Hai Lang Hao Yi Wu Zheng Shan

2011-10-09T12:48:00.000-07:00

I may sometimes criticize the price/quality ratio of more recent Hai Lang Hao production, certainly. This is one of cheaper cakes the given producer offers. And, I must say, it is one of the best I have tasted from him. I am not sure that everyone will necessarily like this cake, but it definitely is in my favourite spectrum.

Dry leaves release a nice, promising sweet malty aroma. They a bit darker than one would expect.

Now the leaves are already inside, waiting for more water to be poured over...

Upon smelling wet leaves, I feel immediate and powerful happiness. I really like this. The aroma is heavy, sweet, malty, buttery a bit of barley, a bit of "sweet ground after a light spring rain". Maybe a bit of camphor and something I could name "medicinal", if I really tried. I did not mind it though. It is similar to several teas I had and liked, but these were 2003-5, i.e., much older than this one. Even the color of the liquor is dark, considering the age of this tea. However, it is not primitively accelerated as some modern teas are. This cake feels natural, not hurried.

The taste is strongly correlated with the aroma of wet leaves, very pleasant, "warm brown" I would say. It is not as deep and striking as more aged teas of similar character I drank, but these were four times as old and four times as expensive. I do believe that this cake will become similar to them.

I found that it enjoys softer water - with hard water, it became a bit "hollow" and cold around 5th brew, but I do not find that to be a problem. Most sheng tastes bad with local hard water...

The tea is not bitter, it is warm, quiet and embracing. I managed to squeeze a bit of dry wild-arborish bitterness when making 11th and 12th brews, about a minute long - but before that, not a bit of bitterness.

The aftertaste could be longer and more pronounced, but it is already very good and I believe it will improve even further.

Cha qi is calming and soothing, very harmonizing.

I rank this tea in my personal top category because it just suits me so well. But I believe it is generally a very good and not overly expensive cake. At the current price of $35, it is a good buy I dare say, I plan to buy it as soon as I get some money.

Merchant worshippers - why?

2011-10-02T13:29:00.000-07:00

Well, writing this post is a bit embarassing. Nevertheless, I once decided so I have to do it.

Irrelevant part 1
When I noticed that blogs actually do exist, I thought the were pretty awful. Nightwish-loving kinder-goths crying how much they love their idols (using awful language - if you think my English is bad, you should see their Czech). Later, it became more Emo and Justin Bieber-like.

Then, maybe three years ago, I noticed that there was another category of blogs: Blogs of people who feel undervalued and overlooked - so they write their rants and "novel" views (which, in better cases, were first formulated after the great cultural revolution).

Well, then, a year ago, I found several great tea blogs, which eventually led me to creating one (a blog, not necessarily great) too (it was a pretty intense internal fight - it's like creating a Facebook account just because most people around have it).

I try to post relevant things, but today, it will be just a "novel" rant :-) It is not trying to be novel actually. It is just that I made an observation and I would like to know whether things are similar outside Czech Republic (i.e., I would be greatly interested in your opinions).

Irrelevant part 2
The history of tea in Czech Republic may not be long, but definitely intense. It could be named The splendor and miseries of tea merchants. To make long story short - there is an eternal loop: There is a great new tea merchant who is better than the rest. For several, years, everything is great, then he becomes too satisfied and does not evolve much anymore. Then another guy/company comes, better than the previous, etc.

Now, there is a healtier situation in means of tea quality, there are several tea sellers of sufficient quality. However, the situation is not-so-healthy from the point of view of relations between these merchants. Previously, the single good tea merchant/company criticized their competition, but he was mostly right. Recently, some very nasty and false bad-mouthing came between merchants selling good tea. It is very disappointing to find out that people you believed in and who were so nice, are, in fact, ruthless actors. Anyway, this is not the point of this post.

Partly relevant part
The point is - there is a strange form of cultism among many tea folks. Earlier, it happened with the single good merchants. Now it works with several merchants in parallel.

Cultists generally despise other tea vendors than their chosen King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Merchant of the Tea of China, and Elect of God (well, maybe I had enough of Prince Far I for today... :-)). When their taste tea of their god's competitors, they passionately persuade you that it is crap, a fake or whatever (mostly it's that "whatever"). On the other hand, they automatically take the tea of their god as the best thing in the world, too good for Chinese emperor (if he had lived) himself and all that.

The bad thing is that merchants themselves do support that. For example, if you buy from someone, the competing merchants may refuse to sell things to you in some cases. Funny, isn't it? Luckily, it is not frequent I hope. But it does happen. Even between the best merchants, which makes it even sadder.

What I found interesting is the subjectivity of tasting. When tea cultists jump with joy over ordinary good tea that their god has mercifully bestowed on them, they really feel the joy. The same holds true when they spit fire on one of arch-devils (i.e. competing tea merchants) dares to offer his tea (generally also good), which he dared to produce from trees old 70-80 years!!! Everyone (well, their god says so) knows that treas old 80-90 years are much better and the 70-80 years old tree tea is useless and should be thrown to pigs.

Why is that? My belief is that here is a strong tendency to "do things right". It takes time and money to drink through hundreds of cakes, trying to find out what is good on your own. Actually, with a good "teacher" who points out interesting features of teas, it would be much faster. But it seems even faster when the teacher is your tea vendor claiming there is a bijection between his tea and good tea that you can buy. Buying from him, it is easy to feel grand and "correct learner of the art of tea"... But the reason may be different, of course, I do not know.

Do you feel anything similar in your countries?

Concluding remarks
I usually did not know why blog ranters do write their stuff. The problem here is, I do not know why I wrote this stuff either. :-) I am genuinely interested in situation in other countries. Being it just an excuse or not, I bid you good night and thanks for reading if you made it this far!

And thank you, Yunnnan Sourcing, Essence of Tea, Hou De, Teahabitat, Teamasters and the rest who give us the opportunity to form our opinions ourselves!

While we are thanking, I would like to thank to independent tea bloggers who help people choose, not pursuing their own agenda.

2010 Yunnan Sourcing Autumn Bang Dong

2011-10-02T04:12:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is a long expected day - back to the whirlwind of thinking, coding and studying again. The semester awaits... Also, sunny days are coming to their end it seems. And the third good thing is, that a large pack of tea awaits in local custom office.

After two not-so-awesome teas, let's go back to something better. It is a Yunnan Sourcing production - a production which is usually very good.

The tea comes from Bang Dong in Mengu, from wild arbor trees 80-100 years old. I have always enjoyed Mengku teas. Although Mengku is in Lincang and teas declared as Lincang sheng are often rather hard and cold, Mengku is generally more fruity, flowery and easy-going. This cake is a very nice example of the Mengku character (according to my experience), but it is better than most Mengku teas I drank. Also, it is a bit more expensive.

Dry leaves are usual, very nice looking leaves... Slightly furry.

The aroma of rinsed leaves is very pleasant, fruity-spicy. I would almost say the aroma has hui gan. Funny feeling... The components of the aroma are well coordinated and harmonic.

The tea is still young and fresh, not unpleasantly green though.

The liquor is not powerfully aromatic; it is very thick and sweet. It is fruity (apples, peaches), spicy and flowery (less than a year ago though), very easy-going. It has a tendency to get somewhat acidic (it is not bad storage sourness, I think this acidity is rather natural for Mengku teas), a bit too much for my girlfriend, I did not mind though.

This tea has a lot of strength, it knows how to be bitter. However, the bitterness may be easily controlled by the length of brews. When brewed not bitter, it is very nice, warm tea with full body and pleasant aftertaste. When brewed more bitter, the body of the taste is slightly obscured and not so easy to recognize. But the aftertaste and beautiful hui gan make up for it absolutely. Actually, the transformation resembles the one of YS Ban Zhang Chung Qing a bit.

These two interesting faces of the tea, along with its power, are why I think this tea is better than most Mengku teas I drank. Actually, it might be the best one (it is also one of the more expensive) I think.

I just don't know when to drink this tea - it's a bit too good for everyday drinking, while for guests, I have more fancy tea. Well, we could define a everyweek or rather everymonth tea...

At the current price of $23 per 400g cake, this cake is very nicely priced and I can only recommend trying it.

Mr. Bang Dong and me wish you a nice day!

2007 Hai Lang Hao Bu Lang

2011-09-28T12:49:00.000-07:00

First, I have to excuse about the lack of photographic material. Thinking that nothing relevant is present on the camera's SD card anymore, I accidentally deleted it.

Now, to the tea itself. Hobbes at Half Dipper has written about it here: http://half-dipper.blogspot.com/2008/04/2007-hailanghao-bulang.html

I fully agree with it. The tea is now rather dark, nicely aged. It is not unpleasantly bitter as many of younger Bu Lang teas are.

In general, it is dry, dry, dry. In the aroma and in the taste as well, there is dry grain, dry wood and dry leather. No fruit, no flowers, it is a rather hard tea. The bitterness is not overwhelming (it could be more powerful and it would still be nice). Hui gan is long and pleasant, that's one of the best things I find in this tea. Cha qi is activating and clearly present.

I think it is a very nice tea. When Hobbes was writing about the cake, the cost was $15. At that price, it would be a very good buy. Now, it costs $40,5. This is way too much for me. I'm afraid that the mighty Hai Lang Hao bubble is to blame, at least partly... I'm not sure that the tea is worth this much (for drinkers, not investors).

2004 CNNP Yi Wu Zheng Shan

2011-09-28T09:56:00.000-07:00

Smelling the leaves of this tea, I thought it would be just another modern CNNP universal sheng puerh which lacks any particularly interesting feature.

Well, it is a bit better actually. I believe that a part of leaves indeed does come from Yi Wu (although the overal character is, in my opinion, a mix of Yi Wu and "universal sheng" taste). The leaves are generally heterogenous - a mix of dark and light.

The best thing to say about this tea is probably that it does not have any significant flaw. It is well balanced - a bit aged (not as much as you might expect though). The taste is rather full, nutty, grainy, still vegetal, very slightly smoky. However, not overly interesting for me. The aftertaste is not much interesting. Generally, the tea is nini (not intrusive, not impressive).

I think it is an easy-to-drink tea which is still not too expensive. However, at the current price, you may almost certainly get better tea to drink.

Further reading: http://half-dipper.blogspot.com/2007/05/2004-cnnp-yiwu-zhengshan.html

2001 Xiaguan Jia Ji tuo cha

2011-09-23T09:44:00.000-07:00

Xiaguan is one of the best known factories known for its consistent quality. I can not say their teas are always to my taste, but their 2003 Jia Ji is a truly great tea. This tuo cha is two years older than the 2003 one. Is it better? I would say it is definitely not. But just because you are not Jimi Hendrix, you do not have to be a bad guitarist.

This is how the dry leaves look:

The aroma of rinsed leaves is very pleasant. It is rather heavy, rich, fruity-woodsy-camphor-like. There is slight smokiness, but not very powerful.

The liquor looks this way:

It is nice, rather dark (this is 5th brew, previous brews were darker) - these cups are rather shallow so it may seem lighter than it is. It smells well.

The taste is strong and well-defined. The base is slight smokiness, camphor, woodiness, darker overripe fruit and a hint of raspberries. Over this base, there is a taste of hemp (as a young boy, I used to chew hemp string - don't ask me why - and this is the taste). The bitterness is very moderate, not disturbing. The problem with this tea is, that it tends to get somewhat sour. It is bearable for me, but only so-so.

I was not much impressed by the aftertaste.

I think the tea is good, I did enjoy it, it was an interesting tea session. But I can not say I would find it great. Here, it can be obtained for more than $30 (100g), which is definitely too much for me to pay.

2009 YS Ban Zhang Chun Qing

2011-09-08T14:20:00.000-07:00

About two years ago, a lot has been written about this tea. I have tasted it a year ago and now, so I can see at least short bit of its development. The bit is definitely a pleasant one. It is also the last tea I'll write about before the long journey to Italy.

The tea tea is two years old now, which makes it older than a lot of 2011 teas (and now you see what this tea has done to me - this fact seemed funny to me). Although the statement is somewhat trivial, it is true at least, not many politicians get that far.

I have to admit that I may not be a proper hardcore sheng drinker as I do not really get the Ban Zhang fuss of last years. If you walk the dark streets of Prague (down dalling road) and you see a scarred sheng veteran who considers Nan Nuo to be a region for softlings and most of Bu Lang bores him, being too weak, it is most certainly not me. However, I surely did enjoy drinking this tea this evening. Without further ado, let's get to business.

The aroma of dry leaves is nice, pleasant, but not too powerful.

The aroma of wet leaves after rinsing is very nice. It is noticeably full, complex. I would call it spicy with a hint of honey, flowers and fruit. Nothing is dominating though.

The liquor is not very fragrant.

The taste is a bit cooling at the beginning (though not nearly as much as some Ban Zhang from old trees). I would call it full, powerful, complicated, mostly spicy. There is a bit of fruit and a bit of flowers, not much though. There is a greenness in the taste, but the overall taste is darker and warmer.. The bitterness is powerful, mouth-drying; in some brews, it consumed the rest of the taste. Aftertaste was rather short. Cooling feeling stays the longest. Around fifth brew or so, wet leaves started smelling of pines and this was reflected in the taste too. The cooling feeling became weaker and weaker. The tea was a bit sour, but not in an unpleasant way, it was a natural part of the taste.

Generally, I can not say that the taste would feel directly pleasant to me. I did not feel "wow, this tastes great" at any moment. However, I felt very good throughout the whole session and I did enjoy the taste in a certain way.

A historic note: In the year of 2010 A.D., the tea was much more tobacco-ish and smoke-ish. These parts of taste are mostly gone now, for which I am grateful.

The endurance of this tea is not astonishing, a bit below average of what I drink... Nothing to cry about though.

The tea is filling me with calm energy...feels really good.

Wet leaves are generally thick and of noticeably different colors:

Now they do not smell at all, completely washed out...

This tea is funny. It seems to lack noticeably in certain areas. The only area in which it seems grand to me is in the smell of rinsed leaves. Other than that, the aroma of the liquor is rather weak, taste not trivially nice, hui gan not that powerful. Number of brews produced is nothing to write home about either. Then why do I like this tea so much? Why do I feel so good? I believe that its Cha Qi is especially harmonizing for me. But not only that. The tea is strangely harmonic in a way...

I am interested in where this tea is going to move in five or six years. Pity that it costs so much now. Still, I would not call it overpriced.

2009 YS Bu Lang Shan Yun

2011-09-04T12:37:00.000-07:00

To start this tea note, let us note that maocha for this tea has been picked in 2006, so this tea might be considered to be a 2006 tea instead. However, it is declared as 2009, so I will stick to that.

I tasted this tea in 2009 and was not immediately impressed. It was nicely rounded, a bit bitter and a bit strange. Now, I suspect that travelling has not done this tea too well. Now, after sitting and resting for two years, the experience is different. It is not too different, however the difference makes it, in my opinion, a very interesting tea.

Dry leaves:

Leaves are dark (at least for 2009 or maybe even 2006 tea) and smell a bit earthy, but it is nothing surprising considering the tea has been stored in loose form in Banna. However, I consider this processing to be a feature, not a bug.

Most of my brews looked like this:

The tea is very consistent across brews: sweet (in a dark way, if sweetness may be dark/light), earthy (but in a light way, not like mold or shu puerh) and aromatic. The earthiness may not be enjoyed by everyone, but I enjoyed it this time. There is a certain bitterness which does not go away, but it is not powerful enough to be noticeably unpleasant. Aftertaste is good, undisturbing. Hui gan is weak, but I did not feel it as a problem in this tea.

Felt a bit like it felt to be outside here:

Cha qi felt strong to me, which I did not expect. It brought melancholic memories and let me be in them again. It made them pleasant though, even though they may have been sad.

In its character, it is sort of similar to 2001 Yi Wu Bao Pu Xuan, which is slightly more interesting and complex in taste (but lacking in energy for me). The similarity is probably a consequence of similar technology of processing.

I believe that the tea does not have much from its original character, but it is interestingly processed. And it still develops. Two years ago, it was a bit boring (again, it may have been the travelling), now it is stronger and clearer in taste. I'm interested in where it will develop in future years.

Further reading: http://half-dipper.blogspot.com/2009/09/2009-yunzhiyuanruicaoxiang.html

24/1/2010
Actually, the tea develops better than one would expect. The sweetness is more pronounced, the "storage smell" disappeared. Still a bit rough finish, but it looks promising...

2006 Fu Cha Ju Ai Lao

2011-09-04T07:27:00.000-07:00

This tea comes from a bunch of 2005-6 Fu Cha Ju cakes previously available from Yunnan Sourcing. Now, sadly, FCJ section is empty. There are factories from which I haven't drank any good tea (e.g., Guoyan), some from which I haven't drank any bad tea (e.g., Haiwan) and one from which I had only very good tea - Fu Cha Ju. I enjoyed their Wu Liang and Jing Mai cakes a bit more than this one, but that does not mean that this tea is not very nice.

Dry leaves may be seen here:

The aroma of dry leaves is pleasant, a bit of meadow flowers, a bit of sweet grain and a bit of woodiness (all of these are present in taste too). No smoke often found in Ai Lao tea.

This tea can be rather light, but it is not oversteepable, it may get bitter quite easily. And the bitterness does not transform too well.

3rd brew (a bit cloudy, I used a bit of broken and almost-powdered leaves; it is clear normally):

When I brewed it, it was flowery and sweet in first brews and it gradually became woody. Still, it was rich in texture and sweet. Aftertaste was long, decent, enjoyable.

It is one of better "woody" teas I drank in last year. Many of them were hollow, cold, hard and dry wood was the leading part of their taste. This one is warm, soothing and generally nice.

Hui gan is not one of the main strengths of this tea I believe. Its energy did not interact with me too much. But when you drink tea only for its taste, it is not that much of a problem I guess.

This tea has not blown me through the roof. However, I do believe that it is a high quality and very tasty tea to be had.

2010 Yunnan Sourcing Purple Yi Wu Tea

2011-09-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

This little chap has became my most frequently drank tea and is one of the best in its price category. Why? I'll try to explain in further lines...

First, the cake may be bought here: http://www.yunnansourcing.com/store/product.php?id_product=1518

It is a purple tea varietal, however, I'd suggest that even if you do not like purple teas in general, do not dismiss this one. It is much more pleasant than most of cheap bitter purple cakes.

Several pictures to get started (click them to to make them larger):

The cake is indeed pretty dark, black-blue-ish. For me, it is one of the most beautiful cakes to be seen. It is made from rather young plantation trees. However, plantations in Yi Wu produce very nice tea, so I do not consider it a drawback.

The aroma of the cake is very nice, pleasant, Yi Wu (that implies nice and pleasant directly :)).

The aroma of brewed tea is lovely. Sweet, complex, fruity. Brewed leaves... one of the best smells I have ever smelled. Beautifully sweet and overwhelming.

Since most people do not drink through their nose, but through mouth, the taste is not less important than the aroma. And the good thing is, that this tea has great taste.

1st and 3rd brews:

When I first tasted the tea, I was really surprised. At the time, I was drinking through a lot of Yi Wu samples. Several of them were not Yi Wu I believe. Some were nice. Some were very good, some were great. Actually, two of them were what I would call great (for immediate drinking, more about that later). One of them was this purple tea, the other was Hai Lang Hao 2009 Gao Shan Zhai. Looking at the price tag, you may see that this tea is more than three times cheaper. However, the HLH cake is very different experience, comparing these two lovely Yi Wu cakes based on their price would make very little sense. Using a paralell of wine world, this tea is like Languedoc Syrah-Carignan, HLH cake being more balanced Bordeaux.

To describe the taste is not that hard as with other teas. The taste is rather straightforward, but powerful, thick, very intense. It is heavy, fruity, tasting of darker forest fruit: blackberries and blueberries come to the mind first. This taste rides on thick and sweet Yi Wu undertones. Some Yi Wu teas are only "nice sweet water". This tea adds a lot to it, it is pretty unique.

The aftertaste may be controlled by length of brewing. I could not make this tea bitter by oversteeping, however, when it is brewed for a long time, the aftertaste is more powerful, a bit bitter at first, but becames explosively fruity and sweet (i.e., the hui gan is very strong). Such an aftertaste lasts for many minutes. On the other hand, with shorter brewing, aftertaste may be a continuation of the main body of the taste, fruity and sweet and not so long.

Cha qi is calming, concentrating. For example, when I listen to music and drink this tea, it brings me great inner harmony.

The tea is balanced throughout brews (I mostly drink 7-10 of them).

Good water benefits it a lot, but the tea tastes nicely even when made using unfiltered tap water boiled in an electric kettle. Therefore good water is not as crucial as with some other teas.

I think that this cake (and some similar, though not as good Yi Wu cakes) may present trouble to some producers who give you a cake for $80 and tell you "stick it somewhere for 20 years and it will be great". A lot of bad things may happen: thieves, flood, etc. Or the tea may be bad, the vendor/producer may have been wrong or an imposter. This purple cake is great for drinking right away, no unpleasant bitterness, no stomach ache, but a lot of power and taste, not common for such a young tea.

Purple cakes are rather uncommon at this time, it is difficult to tell how it is going to age (but based on its taste profile, I believe it should age well). Other, more expensive cakes may become better with time, of course. However, I believe that if you are looking for a tea to drink, not only to stock, this cake is a good choice. The price is quite low for such a nice tea.

Therefore this is a tea I really recommend for you to try.

Since I have about 20 cakes left, I have a lot samples to be exchanged for your favourite teas if you are interested ;-)

2009 Guang Zi Zai Zao Chun Nan Nuo

2011-08-31T12:36:00.000-07:00

After a consideration, I decided to write about teas which I did not find interesting. After all, negative or neutral information is still an information. I hope you will excuse the lack of photos...

This tea is the first such tea I will write about. At the time of buying, I believe its cost was around $20 per 400g cake. That is not much I think. However, the tea bears little attraction to me...

It looks nice, smells ok (typical Nan Nuo). The tea broth is thick, clear, nicely colored (and the color suggests proper production process, it seems that it has not been artificially darkened). It has many not-so-pleasant (for me) taste tones typical of Nan Nuo. However, pleasant tastes I have found in certain Nan Nuo teas were not present. It is woody, a bit tobbaco-like, rather dry. Not much sweetness, not much hui gan, no fruit, not much flowers.

I do not think it is a bad tea, it's just not my cup of tea. It is still not expensive ($24), it has no immediately noticeable flaws and it is typical for the declared region. If you enjoy generic Nan Nuo, it may be a good candidate for everyday drinking.

It may be bought at Yunnan Sourcing.

2006 Haiwan Pa Sha

2011-05-05T12:42:00.000-07:00

This is the first tea I have bought in larger quantity, so I have a special feelings towards it. I really like the character of Pa Sha and this tea has it.

I've been drinking it a lot lately and I have to note that it is a real bastard concerning the quality of water. With bad water, it's simply not worth it. On the other hand, with good water...

The look of the cake:

And the look of dry leaves:

Today, I have used a tea stove again.

This is how the second and the third brews look like:

It aged (and ages) in rather dry conditions, it is not particularly dark or aged.

The tea is not for everyone I think. It has nice, complex aroma, very difficult to decribe. The taste is, however, a bit hardcore. At the beginning, there is thick sweetness, similar to the of dark forest honey. After it comes a complex taste which I'm unable to describe too well. It's slightly grainy (which I like a lot), fruity, there is wood, maybe sweet tobacco too (not the ugly smelling burning tobacco, normal tobacco smells rather nicely I think). Then, a wave of heavy bitterness comes. It is a bit hardcore I guess, not everyone will enjoy it. Even though it is powerful, it quickly transforms into sweetness. The hui gan is particularly strong in this tea. The aftertaste is rather fruity, sweet (both coming from transformed bitterness) and enjoyable. A bit of the bitternes does not transform too quickly, I suspect older/wild trees playing their part. Cha qi is powerful and wild.

I'm looking forward to it after four or five more years. It is enjoyable and promising already, but I think it needs a bit of aging to become a great tea (and I believe it will). It is still very strong, the sweetness started to develop very nicely already . If these grainy tones present in it will become more pronounced and they stick to the darker sweetness in harmony. Two years before, the sweetness was much different and the grain (barley?) not present. A year before, it was sweeter, darker in taste and more grainy. Now, it still develops these attributes. Therefore it is natural to expect it could continue...

A few pictures of water spirits playing:

2007 Yong Pin Hao Yi Wu Mao Cha

2011-05-04T11:08:00.000-07:00

A friend has sent me this sample; I think it is probably the same tea Hobbes has mentioned here: http://half-dipper.blogspot.com/2008/05/2007-yiwu-yongpinhao-maocha.html

Now, several years after, the tea has gone through a certain development.

Dry leaves are obviously much darker:

The smell of dry leaves was not particularly pleasant. Not fruity, somewhat hard and iron-like.

The smell of rinsed leaves was even more unpleasant. Tobacco-like, hard, non-yummy.

After smelling it, I was a bit afraid to taste it actually, but considering the smell, it was a pleasant surprise. The tea is very thick, definitely Yi-Wu, slightly chocolate-y, but I miss the fruit so often found in Yi Wu sheng. The liquor is really dense, but the taste is not overly powerful. If not for the thickness, it would be almost like a warm water, or some 8th brew of 2007 Chawangpu Yi Wu. It's not bad for everyday drinking though.

The tea broth looks like this:

The aftertaste is rather nice, but nothing special. There is slight bitterness which sadly does not transform.

All brews were rather similar, the chocolate was gradually leaving the taste and bitterness and slight fruitiness grew stronger. Rinsed leaves started smelling nicely around the third brew too...

All in all, it's not bad. It's sort of similar to the above mentioned 2007 Chawangpu Yi Wu, but the Chawangpu mini-cake is more fruity, better balanced, smells nicely right from the start and is generally better. On the other hand, it is more expensive too.

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2001 Yi Wu Bao Pu Xuan Gu Shu

2011-05-02T00:54:00.000-07:00

I got a sample of this tea from a friend in tea, Michal.

The maocha of which this tea has been kept in loose form for several years, it could be why it is so interesting.

Dry leaves show the pressing was not too heavy, leaves are quite large and not broken. The tea iss already fermented a lot, leaves are something between green and reddish-brown.

The aroma of leaves was rather interesting, the basis reminded me of good shu puerh (if something like that exists at all :-)), but someting more was present. A hint of camphor and a bit of aged "green" taste of sheng puerh.

This is how the tea looks like when brewed.

The second photo has been made to capture the very good clarity of the tea. I think it is one of characteristics of a good tea. Not that I would never drink a good tea, clarity of which was low, but these were exceptions really. Unclear broth often suggests bad storage.

Basically, what was in the smell of leaves was in the taste already. At times (mostly in the first several brews), I was not sure whether this is an unusual sheng or a fantastic shu.

The taste is lovely, calm, full-bodied and sweet. No sourness or astringency is present. It is very well aged, no cellar smell, yet it has aged a lot already. Probably the effect of maocha aging in loose forms for several years (By the way, do you find it interesting too, that some loose stored shengs age so badly and some other so well?).

The taste is slightly fruity (like very ripe peaches and plums maybe, a bit of lychee too), a bit of barley, all riding on the thick and sweet layer under it (the layer is quite similar to tender shu).

The aftertaste was not particularly long, but it was definitely nice and the tea had very calm and enjoyable cha qi.

Leaves after I finished drinking the tea. They smelled mostly after very ripe lychee.

It was a very interesting tea to drink. A friend of mine told me that shu-lovers loved it absolutely. I can't say I'd be positively blown away, my preferred tastes are slightly somewhere else. Nevertheless, this is a great tea, very well made, very well stored. Try it if you can.

1990 Ali Shan Qing Xin

2011-04-10T10:41:00.000-07:00

This evening, I want to write about a tea, which was something entirely new to me. And I quickly fell in love with it - after a month of drinking it, I'm still surprised by it every time I taste it.

It is a roasted, rather highly oxidized aged wulong from Taiwan. I want to emphasize "aged" (i.e., it is not merely old). I do not believe that a tea anywhere near to this one would be produced without aging.

Let's have a look at dry leaves:

They are really dark in color and the aroma is really special. It smells of smoked almond and walnuts. The smokiness is very delicate and pleasant. Nevertheless, I have drank teas with more pleasantly smelling dry leaves.

I decided to use Brita-filtered water boiled on a tea stove. This tea is great even when brewed with electric kettle boiled water, but the water from a tea stove is much better.

I like to use these bone porcelain cups for darker wulongs, it may be used instead of a sniffer - it keeps the aroma in the cup.

I rinsed the tea with a rather cold water - about 50°C I believe. The smell of leaves after rinsing has improved immensely. The aroma is thick as a brick, strong, much more complex and pleasant than the smell of dry leaves. There are strong tones of chocolate, cocoa and nougat, all rolling on a layer of sweetness.

This looks promising:

I used pearl water - about 95°C for following brews.

1st brew: 15s

The brew is light in color, very clear.
The aroma is very powerful and heavy (one wouldn't expect it of such a light brew), slightly smoky (this will vanish in further brews), nougat-like.
The taste is very special. It is heavy, very sweet (not like honey, it reminds me of treacle), it has complex, long and full body. The taste reminds me of great whiskey. The taste of nougat and chocolate is dominant, along with a slight woodiness (oak), a bit of smokiness and a bit of vanilla. There is not much fruit, maybe raisins?
The aftertaste is long, great, full, nothing unpleasant jumps at you. The tea has been re-roasted several times, but very delicalely, it is not over-roasted (which can be often felt in cheaper roasted TGY in the aftertaste).

2nd brew: 15s

The tea broth is very thick, perfectly clear.
The aroma is even more powerful than in case of the first brew. It is somewhat hard, yet tender and soothing (again, it reminded me of great aged whiskey).
The taste is even better and more complex than the one of the first brew. Even the smallest of sips leads to an explosion of tastes and sweetness (this brew is also great when being 5 seconds long , more of these tastes will be in further brews to enjoy). At first, there is dark chocolate and nougat, giving way to lovely sweet woodiness - I could identify it here - it's like good old oak cognac kegs.
The aftertaste is looong, oak-like with almonds and vanilla in taste.

3rd brew: 10s

The broth is getting darker, it is very pleasant though.
The aroma of dry leaves is incredible, above all, tones of sweet cofee have appeared.
The taste is similar to the taste of the second brew, it is a little less sweet, the cofee appears in the taste lightly and nicely.
Aftertaste is slightly emptier than the aftertaste of the second brew but still very complex and at least 5 minutes long (until the water in my kettle boils again :)).

4th brew: 10s

The broth is still dark, really enjoyable to look at I think.
The aroma is sweeter than in the third brew.
There is a change in taste: dark chocolate and cocoa are not so dominant (still present though), nougat is notably powerful, changing into raisins and that awesome cognac-keg aftertaste.
The aftertaste is, as noted, cognac-keg-like, sweet, great.

5th brew: 15s

The broth is still very thick, but lighter than previous brews.
The aroma of leaves has changed again - the aroma of burning applewood has joined the oak (I'm not a beaver, nor a looney, we burned a lot of applewood in the countryside so I happen to know how it smells/tastes). The aroma of the tea is similar to the aroma of leaves.
The taste has changed again: first, there are sweet tones of oak and applewood, followed by nougat, which is again followed by the Allen taste again. All tastes are still in harmony.
The aftertaste is still sweet, intense, complex and all that. The tea has an incredible stamina.

6th brew: 30s

The broth is lighter again, but still thick and clear.
The aroma is still powerful, though maybe a bit harder than in previous brews. It is cocoa-like, with a bit of cofee and wood.
The taste may not be so deep and full as in previous brews, but it is still great (and my girlfriend who came to me at that time was very surprised that it was so deep and full - so even though it was not as complex as in previous brews, it is still very good). It is woody-nougat-cofee like.
The aftertaste is oak-like still, with walnuts.

7th, 8th, 9th brew: 60, 90, 120s

All of these brews were similar in nature, nice taste, not so sweet, more woody, a little smoky, the aftertaste is still long and intense. No weak stuff.

The tea would manage another two brews, but I would not... enough for today.

I do not like to be so yippie about this tea, but once again, it is great. It probably is not a tea for everyone I think. Its taste reminds me of good, aged cognac - not everyone likes that eiter.

One last thing which surprised me about this wulong: Cha Qi: This tea had it (strong and calm). I find that many new taiwanese wulongs lack it seriously (later, I read in the Art of tea that it is not only my opinion).

2007 Chawangpu Yi Wu

2011-04-10T05:57:00.000-07:00

This little cake may be bought at http://82.100.62.113/chawang/index.php/pu-erh-tea/raw-sheng-puerh/2007-chawangpu-yiwu-xiao-bing-cha-100g.html

I have to say I really do like it. There are many new "Yi Wu" teas produced, while some of them are not from Yi Wu at all. According to my current experience, this tea is definitely Yi Wu.

It is 2007 maocha pressed in 2010. I had maocha which aged awfully badly and maocha which aged very nicely. This tea belongs to the second group.

Some pictures:

Dry leaves (yummy):

The first brew:

The second brew (other brews were rather similar)

Wet leaves:

I had about 8 very fine brews from 7 grams (in 120 ml teapot). The tea broth was very thick, taste very Yi Wu-like, sweet, fruity, with long and pleasant aftertaste. It was never bitter or disharmonic. Very balanced tea. Cha qi quiet and harmonizing. There is really nothing wrong with this tea in my opinion.

I can only recommend this tea, the price is not overly low, but it is a great and I dare say authentic little beeng cha.

2004 Jinuo Shan You Le Spring 400g cake

2011-04-02T08:46:00.000-07:00

This exact tea is not easy to get (I managed to get it only because of a friend), another Jinuo You Le 2004 cake can be bought from Yunnan Sourcing (which has 357g); the 400g cake is less tightly pressed and stored in drier conditions. I feel it has more complex taste than the 357g cake, but the 357g cake is a very good tea too.

However, beware of autumn 2004 Jinuo You Le. It is obviously You Le tea, but it is much, much worse.

Let's see some pictures to get started:

The wrapped cake:

The cake unwrapped:

Dry leaves (7g); lovely, honey-fruit-spicy aroma:

A comparation of 2004 spring material (the left sample) and 2004 autumn material (the right sample - beware of it). The autumn cake is darker, very lightly pressed and almost unnaturaly dry.

Today, I prepared the tea with fish-eyed water, 90°C. It can be brewed with warmer water (more spicy, more intense hui gan, the energy (cha qi?) is wilder), as well as with colder water (more honey-like, gentler, the energy is soothing and calming). I feel that both approaches are very interesting and worthwile. The temperature chosen today is a compromise - one can feel both.

I used Brita-filtered water, boiled in Chao Zhou tea stove.

The amount of leaves used was 7 grams (I usually do not know it exactly, but since this tasting should be reproducible, I measured it rather exactly).

After rinsing the tea...

1st brew: 10s (We have rinsed it, and it is not too heavily compressed, so it is not that short):

Rather light-colored broth, very clear, rather thick (I have drank thicker teas, mostly from Yi Wu, but this is definitely above average). Let us note that a part of the thickness is caused by the water being boiled in the tea stove (I have no idea why, but I like it).
The aroma reminds me of hot summer meadows with all the flowers around, bees buzzing etc. There is also something "darker", sweeter in the taste (I think that this is the blackberry tone which appears in further brews).
The taste is very warm and soothing, nothing disturbing is present (which is quite rare for a tea of this age). There are tones of fruit (peaches), meadow flowers and meadow honey.
The aftertaste is long and very warm, with just a hint of astringency, which transforms into sweetness (this astringency is not present at all when the tea is brewed with colder water).

2nd brew: 10s

The tea broth is darker, still crystal clear (in sunny weather, nice colorful sparks show up)
The aroma is very complex, definitely heavier than in the first brew: deeply sweet (still not unpleasantly heavy), still having a certain meadow-like lightness to it.
The taste corresponds to the aroma. It is very complex too, a little less sweet, a little mory spicy and fruity (peaches, a bit of pineapple).
The aftertaste is very long and intense, it has nice hui gan (If I had to pick a negative, albeit a small one, I'd say the transformation to sweetness could be a little bit faster). The tea energy is more powerful as it resonates in my body.

3rd brew: 10s

The broth is, again, thick, clear and lovely-colored.
The aroma is a bit lighter-toned than in the 2nd brew (but heavier than in the 1st brew), more meadow-like.
The taste is not so complex as in the 2nd brew (we'd have to prolong the length of this brewing), peaches are dominant fruit, but blackberry tones appear too. The taste of honey is still present and complements the fruity tones nicely. The main body of the taste could be a bit longer though.
The aftertaste is more fruity than in the previous brew, the transformation of slight astringency to powerful sweetness (not a bad tradeoff - a bit of astringency for a lot of sweetness, another positive of this tea) is now fast enough and very satysfying.

4th brew: 15s

The color is similar to the one of previous brews. Since I quite enjoy it, I have no problem with it.
The aroma is less powerful than in the previous brews, very meadow-like. Something like "aftersmell" is more fruity.
The taste is great, balanced, has almost everything this tea has to offer - meadow flowers, peaches, honey, a bit of pineapple at the beginning, a bit of blackberries at the end. The main body of the taste is long enough.
The aftertaste is very long, again rather fruity, with powerful hui gan. The tea energy seems calmer now, not so wild as in the 2nd brew.

5th brew: 20s

The aroma and color is quite similar to the of the previous brew.
The taste is less complex, the taste of peaches is less dominant, on the other hand, spicy tones start to show up again.
The aftertaste is long, less fruity (more spicy instead), good hui gan.

6th brew: 25s

The color is lighter, still nice.
The aroma is light, flowery and spicy.
The taste is not as complex as in the previous brews. It is not so warm and soothing, it is more spicy and wood-like.
The aftertaste is, at the beginning, not so great as in previous brews, but the hui gan is very powerful (probably the best part of this brew).

7th brew: 60s

The tea broth is darker (as we brewed it for a longer time), clear.
The aroma is complex, spicy and wood-like
The taste is more masculine, still elegant though. Fruity tones are almost missing, so we get flowers with a bit of honey and a lot of spice and wood. The body of the taste is not so full, still very entertaining.
I felt the hui gan was so good I ceased to drink at this moment to fully enjoy it...I felt the sweetness for another hour. More brews could be prepared though, the tea was still not empty.

A picture of the wet leaves:

Summary:

I think this tea is great. Not only because it is great, but because it is not that expensive either (Those YS Jinuos are very well priced, in my opinion, very nice teas too).

It is surprisingly mellow and mature for its age - I consider it to be very drinkable now. More aging may change it, of course, but I felt no flaws of youth already.

I like this tea, as there is nothing unpleasant it - it's sweet, complex, interesting, having nice hui gan... I can only recommend it

One last note: if you have a chance to buy it, I recommend buying a sample first, a friend of mine bought some "great spring Jinuo", but it turned up to be the bad autumn Jinuo... there are better ways of spending money. Plus, the factory's production does not seem too orderly to me - sometimes, the same tea is in different packagings, sometimes, different teas are in the same packaging...ugh. Gets confusing easily :-)

Hello World

2011-04-02T06:21:00.000-07:00

Well, this is my new blog, it should be about tea, especially about teas I consider noteworthy. Therefore, it is going to be about roasted wulong tea and sheng puerh. I hope it will grow steadily and it will be well-liked.
Sincerely yours
Jakub Tomek