Okay, I got the package on Tuesday, and so had thermoses of The Box, Lucky Puppy, and The Treachery of Storytelling Part II before trying The Box and Lucky Puppy over the weekend...
The Box was a nice thermos, and it predicted a lot of how the session would go.
However, Lucky Puppy was a very complex tasting thermosed tea. So I figured it was pretty aggressively blended. It was also on the sweet end, so I was thinking that this tea would be more like We Go High and TToS as opposed to Swinedog76 (which is darker and bitter), or **** What You Heard/Untitled02 which were both strong qi, lighter tasting more vegetal tasting, with supersized thickness.
When I did TToS, I was like "whew, no way!" That tea was very coherent sweet Menghai taste with only subtle complementary notes, sedate, with a strong, settling qi, and a really good Menghai forest floral mouth aroma for aftertaste.
Well, the session was a bit different, in that it's a bit more like SwineDog76 early, and more like We Go High late. It still felt very blended. It brought to mind all the times I was telling Paul of White2tea to blend Bulang and Jinggu. And indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if Jinggu or something like it was part of this blend. It obviously has Bulang in it.
Okay, to the tea. This tea changed in aroma a lot over the session while it was active. It had a constant menghai mushroom based, but other notes like cream, fruit, florals, barnyard, and caramel showed up. The caramel was distinct in an interesting way. Aroma faded towards more vegetal notes towards the end. The taste was bulang bitter the first four brews, a bit. The base taste started off high with a menghai mushroom note, then went down towards a darker bulang note before rising higher with more...chunky profile. Late brews are consistently sweet and pleasant Menghai honey, presumably because the other elements of the blend cut out. There were lots of different notes. In the early brews, one found some cream notes. Here and there, there was fruit notes and olive oil. A green bite that suggested younger nitro-fert trees might be part of the blend was there as well. Or just could be certain northern stuff. The third brew had a really nice fleshy floral magnolia note, and there were some merely suggestive floral notes other times. When the dark bulang cut out, what happened was that the taste tended to be some higher misc. taste of fruits, menghai something something, with this really dark anchor like condensed chicory, bark, or perhaps an edible asphalt. There were a lot of these brews, and eventually it becomes a very pleasant smooth and sweet Menghai honey late. Lots going on in this tea, flavor wise. The thickness is pretty good, drying astringency is on the stronger end on some brews, some of it productive. Late brew is very soft, oily velvety, which made for very nice mouthfeel then. The aftertaste game isn't particularly big here, and is most striking in the earliest part of the session while the astringency was going. There was some nice mouthcoat, and a bit of a good nicely floral huigan in the throat. Qi is moderate to strong, generic in quality. Durability is very good. I did more than fifteen, and I probably could hit more than twenty if I had time, more durable than I expected on the back end.
I did a quick session of Swinedog76, using the last of my sample. This tea has improved in the sense that it's less bitter, and more fruity and floral. The qi is relatively impressive, and maybe is stronger than Lucky Puppy. It's not a super-engaging tea that provokes real diving into the depths of its substance.
As said before, the Tianmenshan really figures as more of a hybrid between Yibang and Yiwu character. It's its own thing, relative to other major high end Yiwus. It's also usually cheaper than the teas that are claimed to be Bohetang etc etc--I think for that reason. Tianmenshan essentailly became popular, at least with the taiwanese set because it wasn't over exploited, and not as well known. Now mind you, when it comes to ultra class teas, those are like a couple of thousand dollars apeice, like the one Yang of YQH pressed 86 cakes of, from like 13 tall trees. Making enough tea to sell a real amount, as Sanhetang does, is going to involve some blending and compromises. So let's not get too hyped about exclusivity. As for whether I'd buy a cake (if I didn't have many cakes), no. The big teas from 2010-2014 are generally more impressive, especially since most of them stay more impressive longer than the Tianmenshan from 2017 does.
The Box was a nice thermos, and it predicted a lot of how the session would go.
However, Lucky Puppy was a very complex tasting thermosed tea. So I figured it was pretty aggressively blended. It was also on the sweet end, so I was thinking that this tea would be more like We Go High and TToS as opposed to Swinedog76 (which is darker and bitter), or **** What You Heard/Untitled02 which were both strong qi, lighter tasting more vegetal tasting, with supersized thickness.
When I did TToS, I was like "whew, no way!" That tea was very coherent sweet Menghai taste with only subtle complementary notes, sedate, with a strong, settling qi, and a really good Menghai forest floral mouth aroma for aftertaste.
Well, the session was a bit different, in that it's a bit more like SwineDog76 early, and more like We Go High late. It still felt very blended. It brought to mind all the times I was telling Paul of White2tea to blend Bulang and Jinggu. And indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if Jinggu or something like it was part of this blend. It obviously has Bulang in it.
Okay, to the tea. This tea changed in aroma a lot over the session while it was active. It had a constant menghai mushroom based, but other notes like cream, fruit, florals, barnyard, and caramel showed up. The caramel was distinct in an interesting way. Aroma faded towards more vegetal notes towards the end. The taste was bulang bitter the first four brews, a bit. The base taste started off high with a menghai mushroom note, then went down towards a darker bulang note before rising higher with more...chunky profile. Late brews are consistently sweet and pleasant Menghai honey, presumably because the other elements of the blend cut out. There were lots of different notes. In the early brews, one found some cream notes. Here and there, there was fruit notes and olive oil. A green bite that suggested younger nitro-fert trees might be part of the blend was there as well. Or just could be certain northern stuff. The third brew had a really nice fleshy floral magnolia note, and there were some merely suggestive floral notes other times. When the dark bulang cut out, what happened was that the taste tended to be some higher misc. taste of fruits, menghai something something, with this really dark anchor like condensed chicory, bark, or perhaps an edible asphalt. There were a lot of these brews, and eventually it becomes a very pleasant smooth and sweet Menghai honey late. Lots going on in this tea, flavor wise. The thickness is pretty good, drying astringency is on the stronger end on some brews, some of it productive. Late brew is very soft, oily velvety, which made for very nice mouthfeel then. The aftertaste game isn't particularly big here, and is most striking in the earliest part of the session while the astringency was going. There was some nice mouthcoat, and a bit of a good nicely floral huigan in the throat. Qi is moderate to strong, generic in quality. Durability is very good. I did more than fifteen, and I probably could hit more than twenty if I had time, more durable than I expected on the back end.
I did a quick session of Swinedog76, using the last of my sample. This tea has improved in the sense that it's less bitter, and more fruity and floral. The qi is relatively impressive, and maybe is stronger than Lucky Puppy. It's not a super-engaging tea that provokes real diving into the depths of its substance.
As said before, the Tianmenshan really figures as more of a hybrid between Yibang and Yiwu character. It's its own thing, relative to other major high end Yiwus. It's also usually cheaper than the teas that are claimed to be Bohetang etc etc--I think for that reason. Tianmenshan essentailly became popular, at least with the taiwanese set because it wasn't over exploited, and not as well known. Now mind you, when it comes to ultra class teas, those are like a couple of thousand dollars apeice, like the one Yang of YQH pressed 86 cakes of, from like 13 tall trees. Making enough tea to sell a real amount, as Sanhetang does, is going to involve some blending and compromises. So let's not get too hyped about exclusivity. As for whether I'd buy a cake (if I didn't have many cakes), no. The big teas from 2010-2014 are generally more impressive, especially since most of them stay more impressive longer than the Tianmenshan from 2017 does.
