Reggae tea: 2004 Dehong brick

Heavy, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.