I guess just a couple of notable thermoses...
'05 Xiaguan Cang'Er tuo was relatively pleasant (northern tea depth, almost chicory, and dry florals. Also, consistently lightly sweet sensation that makes this refreshing) if almost as flat as hongcha. Makes for good work tea.
I blended the last 1.6g of EoT '17 Yiwu Guoyoulin with .4g of Hengrunfeng Yiwu, and I got the performance I expected out of the second full session. Rich foodie sweetness. Seems like the second session was a little more starkly barnyard, and didn't have as much deep vegeto-choco that lent it an easily enjoyable solid flavor. Interesting.
Today was my birthday (and no I don't much like birthdays and holidays, because they make me feel physically isolated, while confronted with feelings of things undone), so I treated myself to some Black Wrapper. I wind up concluding that there isn't very much overall qualitative difference between Black Wrapper and Youle. Outside of the best northern teas, I don't think the '07 XZH productions are as successful as the '06. Mengsong, Manlin, Hekai are all just not in either the Youle or LBZ's class. To me, the Yiwus are a wash as they are substantially different teas, but I do sort of think I'd view the '07 Yiwu at an equal, or close to it, level to the '06 Youle.
Anway, here we go. I took most of the leaves from the middle layers of the cake, plenty of broken leaves. The aroma tended to have a stronger emphasis on wood. First brew even had some light retired smoke. There was also an unusual emphasis on a mineral aspect to the aroma, a bit like a yancha. Earlier brews had the expected sweet nutmeat, and there was also some herbal sense. Plumminess was unusually absent in this session in both aroma and taste. Only one brew had any distinct aged tea plummy character in the aroma. Late brews simplify into wood, and even later, mineral aroma. The taste is generally light wood and sweet nutmeat early. A much more bitter tea than Black Wrapper usually is. The third brew was best in sense as it was the most complex in terms of aroma and taste, good aftertastes, too. Taste sort of shrinks to being mostly wood with other elements as session moves forward, like medicinalness, mushroom, sugarcane. Late brews are more of a aged dry stored taste that you'd find in most Menghai productions, sort of mushroom, barnyard, honey. Only this didn't have much honey in top taste, and more mineral notes. The viscosity was only fairly medium to good most of the way through. Late brews are somewhat thick. Not too much in the way of texture other than a sort of thickness. However, was also more astringent than usual. The tea leaves deep inside the cake could use another decade! The aftertastes, though, reflects that bitterness and astringency--good performance in that department, with early session pungent huigan that return honeysuckle like florals, some good floral mouth aroma. Later has some good mouthcoat, relatively medicinal, and then lots of fairly strong yiwu-style sweet huigan that fills mouth with sweetness late in the session. Excellent performance when it comes to cooling feeling in the mouth and strong feeling down the throat to the tummy this session. The qi was rather gentle. It took a while before I realized that my butt was planted to the chair. Thought the qi was weak at first. The qi didn't really endure through the session, and fades as taste does. Durability was okay, I probably took this a bit less than twenty brews overall.
Youle clearly performs better in terms of viscosity and texture of soup, durability in taste and of qi, and ease of drinking. The BW, like the Qixiang and some of my other all totally dry stored teas, still has slight green bite that interrupts a totally mellow enjoyment. Youle has had same storage, but it's much easier, for some reason. Youle can also have a more elegant aroma, certainly more cups with good aroma. BW has a more complex taste, stronger base taste, at least early, more potent energy in mouth, and a prettier complement of aftertastes.
'05 Xiaguan Cang'Er tuo was relatively pleasant (northern tea depth, almost chicory, and dry florals. Also, consistently lightly sweet sensation that makes this refreshing) if almost as flat as hongcha. Makes for good work tea.
I blended the last 1.6g of EoT '17 Yiwu Guoyoulin with .4g of Hengrunfeng Yiwu, and I got the performance I expected out of the second full session. Rich foodie sweetness. Seems like the second session was a little more starkly barnyard, and didn't have as much deep vegeto-choco that lent it an easily enjoyable solid flavor. Interesting.
Today was my birthday (and no I don't much like birthdays and holidays, because they make me feel physically isolated, while confronted with feelings of things undone), so I treated myself to some Black Wrapper. I wind up concluding that there isn't very much overall qualitative difference between Black Wrapper and Youle. Outside of the best northern teas, I don't think the '07 XZH productions are as successful as the '06. Mengsong, Manlin, Hekai are all just not in either the Youle or LBZ's class. To me, the Yiwus are a wash as they are substantially different teas, but I do sort of think I'd view the '07 Yiwu at an equal, or close to it, level to the '06 Youle.
Anway, here we go. I took most of the leaves from the middle layers of the cake, plenty of broken leaves. The aroma tended to have a stronger emphasis on wood. First brew even had some light retired smoke. There was also an unusual emphasis on a mineral aspect to the aroma, a bit like a yancha. Earlier brews had the expected sweet nutmeat, and there was also some herbal sense. Plumminess was unusually absent in this session in both aroma and taste. Only one brew had any distinct aged tea plummy character in the aroma. Late brews simplify into wood, and even later, mineral aroma. The taste is generally light wood and sweet nutmeat early. A much more bitter tea than Black Wrapper usually is. The third brew was best in sense as it was the most complex in terms of aroma and taste, good aftertastes, too. Taste sort of shrinks to being mostly wood with other elements as session moves forward, like medicinalness, mushroom, sugarcane. Late brews are more of a aged dry stored taste that you'd find in most Menghai productions, sort of mushroom, barnyard, honey. Only this didn't have much honey in top taste, and more mineral notes. The viscosity was only fairly medium to good most of the way through. Late brews are somewhat thick. Not too much in the way of texture other than a sort of thickness. However, was also more astringent than usual. The tea leaves deep inside the cake could use another decade! The aftertastes, though, reflects that bitterness and astringency--good performance in that department, with early session pungent huigan that return honeysuckle like florals, some good floral mouth aroma. Later has some good mouthcoat, relatively medicinal, and then lots of fairly strong yiwu-style sweet huigan that fills mouth with sweetness late in the session. Excellent performance when it comes to cooling feeling in the mouth and strong feeling down the throat to the tummy this session. The qi was rather gentle. It took a while before I realized that my butt was planted to the chair. Thought the qi was weak at first. The qi didn't really endure through the session, and fades as taste does. Durability was okay, I probably took this a bit less than twenty brews overall.
Youle clearly performs better in terms of viscosity and texture of soup, durability in taste and of qi, and ease of drinking. The BW, like the Qixiang and some of my other all totally dry stored teas, still has slight green bite that interrupts a totally mellow enjoyment. Youle has had same storage, but it's much easier, for some reason. Youle can also have a more elegant aroma, certainly more cups with good aroma. BW has a more complex taste, stronger base taste, at least early, more potent energy in mouth, and a prettier complement of aftertastes.
