SOTD- sheng of the day

[MattCha]

Had a particularly interesting session with 2017 Yunnan Sourcing Impression today. I have had this one under pretty high humidity sealed in Marco style hot box. The texture was insanely thick and oily for something this cheap. It had a very juicy mouth coating. The rich nutty taste with reminders of peach and hints had suggestions of bitter coco. I think this one will age well. I have a few drier stored cakes and might move them into more humidity maybe just before I consume them. Feels very comfortable in the body for being likely plantation material.

Peace

 

[shah8]

Some quick stuff...

First, The cake from which I got the sample of '04 YQH Zhencang Chawang was compared to a known for sure 400g ZCCW, by the owner and did relatively poorly. Thus the assumption for the tea I tried is either terrible storage or fake.

The last tea of the Thanksgiving break was the '06 XZH Bulang brick. That was good as usual, did need a bit of maneuvering for tartness.

I also did the '09 XZH Xicontianxiang shu. It was rather good that day. Very deep and dark taste that recalls coffee's sensibility without tasting like coffee, with a bit of wood rim to things. Good thickness and qi.

The tea Saturday was the '09 XZH Fengshabao. I didn't have too much fun with it in the beginning. Kind of strong and tart taste, and the aroma was very low. Thickness and qi was good, tho. Not much aftertaste. Once the first five or so brews were done, I did enjoy the milder taste and round mouthfeel, and wound up doing many brews. Still not really a XZH anyone should really chase for. I had wanted a yiwu yesterday, and I just don't really have much cheap yiwu that I could just drink and that I wanted to drink.

Today was the'16 fall W2T We Go High. Very enjoyable, and very firmly in great Mengku character. Doesn't have the honey or mushroom bottom it did when it was fresh. The tea had a lot of complex fruity and floral note, with only a bit of dry florals and a hint of chicory. Good thickness, but is often astringent. Good qi. Very durable.

Recent teas have had much less aroma and more pronounced tartness. Figure it's the change of seasons into more dry winter character or something.

 

[shah8]

Nothing much going on... some '07 YQH Lingya--nice tasting, especially early, but quite boring. Very much merely a drinker. Today was the '06 XZH Lao Man'e, which was much better, a bit more choco than it usually is.

 

[MattCha]

Today I put some 2015 Zheng Si Long Wa Long into a one cup ceramic Korean tea maker. The qi in this one is really powerful. I ended up only steeping a few cups worth and had to stop - too much power! The effect the qi has on my chest is really awesome and I love throwing this in the pot when I need sustained focus and energy. The mouthfeeling is really interesting too- a stimulating pungent minty thing happening. I like this one.

 

[shah8]

Okay, got in a number of teas.

Got off work early and got to try the 2019 High End Wild Jinjunmei from WuyiOrigin for the first time. I mostly think of this as a jinjunmei inspired tea rather than jjm, as this uses a different varietal that has much bigger buds (jinjunmei is a bud tea). Using 6g/75ml, bending towards treating as yancha in amount and time, I think I got okay results, but will need more practice. The brewing is finicky, unlike what the website will tell you--you can definitely both underbrew and overbrew this.

This tea has an excellent and refined aroma, a bit closer to the nature of sheng puerh than yancha or silver needle, as it doesn't do much booming. So one has to sniff with attention, and it rewards with lots of different floral and fruity notes. The main taste is not great, being the naked malt of hongcha particularly when underbrewed. However, it does have a lot nuances within that main taste. With a firmer hand, there is a bit more vaguely barnard depth, and with excess, some bitterness. The mouthfeel is really nice. It is not very thick, but it has a very satin-oil texture to it. There is a lot of flavor transitions that shimmer through the aftertaste, with some mouthcoat. Lots of caffeine and qi. Very durable, and late brews had a very nice blueberry note in the taste. I found this a potentially very enjoyable brew for focused sessions and am glad to have 250g of it now.

Friday morning I tried out the cake of Modern Witch that just came in from W2T Black Friday sale along with a sample of the Great Divide and some of that new chenpi shu coins. I found Modern Witch to be a bit more fermented than my taste but actually exceeding expectations otherwise. I would suggest moving on a cake with reasonable speed if you think this might be up your aisle, as I can't imagine that the press run to be very big, given the quality. Given the two shu sessions, I think it's clearly better than the cost difference between it and The Great Divide.

There was some aroma, but nothing strong or particularly interesting (probably because all of the recent teas just arrived through lots of cold transport). The taste has a strong element of aromatic soil one finds in Lao Man'e shu, a bit of wood, with the depth being choco with barnyard tones. Not a particularly sweet shu early. In the later brews, a bit of a fruity cherry or wine-like edge shows up. The viscosity is thick and smooth. There is, a bit unusual, some feeling going down the throat in middle brews, and there is a bit of a fruity mouthcoat aftertaste mid-late session as well. This has moderate to strong qi. It seems stronger and more interesting than the qi found in Sunday Special and more akin to my best shu. Durability seems to be enough, doesn't feel like it's super durable at this initial session.

Compared to the Hai Lang Hao Lao Man'e kilogram brick that's slightly cheaper per gram, Modern Witch is better. HLH is brighter and with more nuance because of lighter fermentation, while Modern Witch has more qi, more aftertaste, more feeling.

Today was The Great Divide. I was expecting this to be a Lao Man'e shu because of all the talk of medicinal, but it felt like more a Bulang Manno shu in practice. I found this mostly just a nice, full (Modern Witch is very full and deep, too) shu that isn't particularly must try. I also enjoyed the bitterness, as it gave a livelyness to things.

The aroma was also not particularly interesting. The taste was bitter-tcm, a sort of barnyard-cola depth most evident near the bitter pole, and a more general dulce de leche sweetness. This was also thick and smooth. However, not so much aftertaste, and not much qi, tho' I did feel some in my last long brewed cup. The fast reaction is that '18 Pretty Girls is the better shu at similar pricing.

Got in some XZH today as well, and I went straight into the '08 XZH Blessings Iron, which is labeled as being from Dashisi, in the Kuzhushan area of Jinggu. At any rate, it's in the product lineage of '07 Jinggu Nu'ercha and '09 Xicontianxiang... Anyways, while this is a step down from the '07 tea, I found this tea very enjoyable.

Again, the aroma was sort of muted, could make out barnyard, tobacco-florals. The taste is relatively flat and deep with little nuance or complexity. Early brew was kind of a high barnyard with underlying honey, moving to a sort of chicory taste and moving back up to a more fruity honey barnyard late taste. The viscosity pretty good, thicker than Xicontianxiang and a bit less thick than the '07. Early brews were notably astringent, while later brews are rather smooth. Consistently generated strong feeling down throat, the astringency converted to a lot of mouthcoat aftertaste, if not as intensely sweet as the '07. The qi is strong and of good quality.

I got this tea with some though towards make it a regular work tea. For sure, I'll like it better than the YQH Qizhong--another bad thermos on Friday, but the session makes me want to hoard the tea.

I'm thinking that I may have notice that all of the XZH iron cakes tended to have more of a barnyard depth than the comparable non-iron cake versions. Been wondering how that could happen when the leave are less exposed to oxygen. Maybe microbial activities are important in a peripheral sense to the oxidation process, and iron pressing make microbial activities more prominent.

 

[shah8]

Did two teas today, the 2007 XZH Shangpin (Kuzhushan Jinggu) and the now sold out W2T Auburn First Flush black tea. Not too much to say for either, but first--the original sample of the Shangpin that went around wasn't something that sold the qualities of the Shanpin that well, and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of today's session, in being more lively and interesting early. There is very much a random quality to buying cakes out of TW, some cakes are pretty good, and others are not so good. That said, I paid about a hundred before fees and shipping for this Shangpin, and it's probably the best Kuzhushan anyone can buy regardless of storage so long as it's not too horrible. About the Auburn First Flush, this tea behaved very much like the old favorite Hao Xian black tea that Houde used to sell. It's more sweet potatoey like a typical fujian congou, and it's not quite as big floral as the Hao Xian. I'm thinking that the processing must be similar.

Early brews of the Shangpin, the aroma has a strong presence, with the Jinggu off-darkness that's sort of like rubber. The aroma transitions to having more plummy character, before declining to a sort of masculine floral and wood light aroma. The taste starts nice and big and full, with deep Jinggu dark taste and plummy. Almost like drinking a mature factory 8582. A bit of tartness early The taste gets an underlying wild honey element underneath the murk and some wood later on before rising higher into a thinner uncomplicated taste that is drunk quickly. The viscosity was moderate-good for gushu early on, thickens up a bit midsession and thins late. The first four or so brews is pretty crisply astringent, but there is a bit of that slickness you get with aging astringency. It eventually becomes smooth late. In the early brews there were some good feeling in the throat, mostly from pungent huigans, which weren't that expressive in flavors or aromas. A touch of yiwu huigan, and a bit of mouthcoat aftertaste as well. After about six brews aftertaste isn't much of a factor. Moderate qi, more on the mild side. This tea is durable enough, but it gets boring pretty quick with only a short active phase, but it's sort of refreshing in a milk way.

Should be a great work tea in a thermos, at least better/more reliable than YQH Qizhong. Will compare with Changtai Jinzhushan and Koreahao '10 kuzhushan at some point.

Auburn first flush isn't that complex to talk about. It's not nearly as sophisticated as the Jinjunmei drank earlier. The tea starts off with a complex aroma of sweet potato, choco, fruity, floral, and it moves to a more floral and fruity nature, sometimes with a coconut nature. The taste starts off mostly as peppery and sweet potato. Had a sensate sweetness and medicinal character, too. Later brews becomes ever more simple and eventually is mostly malty. There is some wine near the bitterness. It has a bit of viscosity, a bit of astringency. Consistently does a strong mouthcoat. Only a little bit of qi that may well be just caffeine.

I was looking at this tea so as to think about buying a larger quantity of loose non-puerh varietal black tea to put away, but I must have been the among last people to get some as it was sold out after Black Friday. I'm inclined to think this wouldn't have been something I would seriously consider, as it's poor in qi. Still will be a tasty tea for my morning wakeup routine before work.

 

[shah8]

A couple of thermoses before Christmas...

'08 XZH Blessings doesn't have much of a compelling top taste. It does, however, have lot of high quality qi. There was a bit of tobacco floral mouth aroma, too. Ultimately fairly nice, even if, again, it's not close to what the '07 XZH Jinggu Nu'ercha can do.

'07 XZH Shangpin was a pretty good thermos, fairly full, sort of not super attractive savory top taste sort of like how the Qizhong is, but it has nicer nuances, way more qi, and more aftertastes. I intend to regularly thermos this tea.

Some aged shu yesterday and today.

The first shu is the late 80's early '90s Yellow Stripe 7581. Broadly, this tea is very similar to the 2007 Dengshihai fulugongxi shu cake, which I think is generally pretty close to a 7581, big leaf brick ethos.

Aroma starts of high woody-camphor right after the pour, and transitions to a more tcm character with a bit of wood as it cools. Later in the session, it's mostly a tcm, dark woodsy herbal aroma. The taste is mostly a medicinal, darker tcm base with some wood framing. There is consistently a slight sulfer character similar to boiled egg yolks. There is also usually a sweet sensation, sometimes accompanied by a slightly fruity tone. In later brews, the tcm fades to a minerally milk sort of broad taste that lasts through the rest of the session. As with most low fermented shu, this is not a very thick or deep tasting tea. Thick viscosity with a distinctive mouthfeel that shows off the benefit of age. Very smooth. Not too much aftertaste, a bit of mouthcoat. Can be pretty cooling in mouth and throat. Strong, expansive body filling qi.

The other shu was a mini-session of an 80's MTF 8592. This wasn't a particularly interesting or rewarding tea. As before, being a lightly fermented shu, this had very little thickness or depth to the taste, and one would be advised to brew with a very firm hand. The overall taste is pretty much like powdered ginseng with a ground bark framing, like camphor, cinnamon, not all that much like sandalwood as some has claimed they've gotten. There can be some nuances Mouthfeel is pretty good, but not too much aftertaste again, and little qi. Again, this is mostly just a very agreeable shu.

both teas went into the fridge and I'll do more brews later. By and large, everyone who's not rich is better off buying new shu or aged sheng. There is very little genuine value added gotten from aging shu (mouthfeel, some forms of aroma, quality qi), and it take a long time to get these qualities. They are definitely worth having, though.

 

[shah8]

Christmas was celebrated with a new sample of the 2012 YQH Yehgu. Thoroughly enjoyed, and in its way, one of the best tea that the broader public can buy.

The aroma starts off with a nuanced deep choco and herbal character, and a bit later becomes more of a fleshy floral/sweet herbal aroma. Late aroma is mostly herbal. The taste starts off with a powerful dark chocolate essence, and it's really one of the best choco I've ever gotten from any tea. A powerful bitterness accompanies that depth. It's more bitter than the traditional bitter rod one finds with powerful small leaf teas like, say '11 XZH Shantou or '07 XZH Mengsong, but it's less bitter than full on Lao Man'e kucha. This combination of choco and bitterness did bring back memories of the Essence of Tea Wild Kunlu tea that also had something like this character. Anyways, after the initial steeps the taste thins out just a bit, so as to expose wood, creamy, herbal notes. And later on, through the bulk of the session, it's basically a sort of dark herbal murk, bitterness, wood, a slight artisinal clay, a little choco. Late brews often has sweet herbal that verges on fruitiness. The viscosity is pretty good, not super thick, but pretty decent. I didn't find too much in the way of astringency. Early brews had a bit of mild pungent huigans, some long developing yiwu-huigan-finish-mouthcoat that's mostly fruity notes. Most later aftertastes are subtle yiwu huigans dissolving from some of the ever-present bitterness. The qi is strong, not super strong, and doesn't really have any special character to it. Durability is extreme. I took this something like twenty brews, and it's in the refrigerator with some potential for more good brews.

I think it's sort of interesting that this 2012 Yehgu is so clearly better than the similar 2009 Shenyun Tiancheng or the 2013 Taihe though these are all similar teas. I have heard that the 2009 Shengyun has dramatically reduced in bitterness over recent months.

 

[shah8]

A number of teas to get through...

First is the 2019 W2T Dripd O'Bitters coin. It pretty much matches the description at White2Tea, and I enjoyed it more than I expected to last Friday morning. The chenpi gave it a strong citrus oil scent (some chenpi has a strong herbal taste, and not quite so citrusy), and the shu part is a bit like either The Great Divide or Modern Witch. It's sort of deep, with a bitter bite about as much as Modern Witch, but is a substantially sweeter shu than either with some sweet nutmeat. The shu part is not very durable, and the tea turns towards more of a chenpi tisane. Spent leaves seems to have a pretty high proportion of chenpi compared to the 2015 Channel Orange. Channel Orange is much less citrus oils, and more shu, and higher quality shu than O'Bitters, or at least, currently, I'm leaning that way. Viscosity is good, but I don't really remember much in the way of aftertaste or qi.

The tea Saturday was the 2008 XZH Blessings Iron Cake, my second try with the gongfu. This tea was substantially better in taste and aroma, leading me to think that there was a bit of travel sickness to work through. I had such a good time, particularly early on, that I went out and won another auction for a second cake. Basically, while this is clearly not Bingdao tea, this is pretty darn close to some of the virtues of Bingdao teas, particularly in its intense sweetness, cooling feel, and strong high quality qi. If it's going to be $130/450g, shipped, well...

The aroma tends to have high barnyard, dry or fleshy florals, and an underlying sweetness of honey or cream. One brew had a weird fresh salad green leaf element. The early taste tends to have high barnyard, dry florals (the dry florals are kind of close to tobacco florals), cream, a bit of chicory. There is a bit of tartness, too. As the tea moves through the session, there is a transition to a bit of artisinal clay, before moving to a simplified, non-tart sweet barnyard through most of the rest of the session. Still not a hugely complex or dynamic taste. The viscosity is moderately thick with a firmly crisp astringency early on, before plumping up later and losing astringency. The texture is a bit oily/pudding early before becoming mostly a pudding type mouthfeel. This tea, as with its two sister teas that I have, is all about sweetness. There is a bit of sensate sweetness very early before gearing up at around the fourth brew with a spreading sweet sensation from out of the back of the mouth, and an intense tonguetip sweetness. This tea consistently gives feeling down the throat, and gives strong cooling feel in the mouth and top of throat at its peak. There were good mouthcoat and mouth aroma aftertastes at the peak, and declines to a subtle character afterwards. There were some mild pungent huigans here and there. The qi is strong and of very good quality. This is reasonably durable, but one is mainly drinking for the qi late as it mostly gets boring unless very long brew times are used.

There were two teas today...

The first tea was the 1980s White Varnish wrapper 7581. This was a pleasant but not very interesting tea compared to the other recent aged shu I've just had. This had a strong two-layer component in taste, of old furniture and a kind of sweetness. The aroma is a strong old furniture note. There isn't much complexity or depth (as would be expected for light fermented shu). The mouthfeel isn't very interesting, with only a bit of that aged softness, and I didn't get much qi. I stopped well before the tea was done so I could get to a tea that interests me more. While this is more expensive than the Yellow Stripe late '80s early '90s, the obviously better material in the later brick that gives a bit more herbal complexity and depth and way more qi makes that tea the better one.

The last tea of the weekend is me finishing up my sample of W2T's The Box, which I've been assuming is some sort of higher end Mengku. There are pretty obvious differences from the '08 Blessings to something like this--Blessing is just not that fruity, and the florals are fairly tobacco-ish like Bangwei, while the more elite Mengku usually has a strong fruit component (well, 72 Hours doesn't really seem to have that much) with a more orchid dry floral more similar to Jingmai or Naka. High end Mengku are also very likely to be fairly oily in texture. I enjoyed The Box, for the most part.

The aroma tends to be rich with dry florals that has honey, sweet, fleshy florals woven in. More rarely a bit of white fruits or chicory appears. The taste is generally fruity--MUCH fruitier than how it was when it was new, with all that sencha character. There was some white grapes, honeydew, even some distinctly jackfruit notes. There was also a brew or a few with predominantly fleshy floral and dry floral tastes. When there is bitterness, there was generally a bit of chicory around it. Sometimes, as the soup cools, a honey taste intensifies and becomes sweet. The viscosity is moderately thick, with a strong oily mouthfeel. There is usually a crisp astringency. This consistently sends feeling down throat, not much cooling in mouth. This consistently has a nice combination of mouthcoat and mouth aroma. There are some light pungent huigans in throat especially early. The bitterness can develop a caramelly yiwu huigan. The qi is pretty sneaky early in the session, and builds up to strong and is something that lasts well beyond the finishing of the cup. I didn't push this tea before feeling like I wanna stop, so that's in the fridge, too, so not sure how durable it is, did about fourteen, I think? Certainly not done when I stopped.

Compared to We Go High, this is the better tea with a more decisive pleasant floralness and fruitiness, but the differences in pricing is a bit prohibitive.

 

[shah8]

Two shus and a sheng to talk about tonight...

The tea of New Year's Eve was the beginning of me testing out YS, see how they've evolved since the last time I bought anything from them, essentially eight and a half years ago. I've only had the 2016 Bingdao, think same year Jinggu Huangshan and Dapingzhang since as gifted samples. I didn't buy as many samples as I really needed to, I needed to include a regular Yiwu (two Yibangs) or two to see how they do there, and maybe I could have bought one of the expensive Jinggu, but I did get the most expensive one in YS, Jiu Tai Po '19, as a free sample, as well as the XY blend. Eeeeh, anyways, I'm starting off with one of the shu samples, Yiwu Rooster. 2017 Yunnan Sourcing "Yi Wu Rooster" Ripe Pu-erh Tea Cake - Yunnan Sourcing Tea Shop - https://yunnansourcing.com/collections/yunnan-sourcing-brand-ripe-pu-erh-tea/products/2017-yunnan-sourcing-yi-wu-rooster-ripe-pu-erh-tea-cake

This was a lightly fermented shu made from plantation and young wild arbor Yiwu. This was, on visual inspection, a relatively dull chunk of leaves, compared to other lighter fermented shu, and to things like the YS bawang shu that I also just got. Anyways, I found the shu pretty decent, but not very exciting.

The aroma was cola, wood, and a bit of sweet nutmeat on occasion. The taste is dominated by a broad, full, deep cola note that one finds in some shus, for example Millennium Distant Mountains Ripe Pu-erh TeaBox (50g) - https://www.denongtea.com/collections/denong-collection-ripe/products/millennium-distant-mountains?variant=29238277261 . There can be a bit of woodiness in there. I am also reminded of some of the v93's character, without the paper-wood element in my '08. The visocisty is pretty thick with a bit of a weird slight wet sandy feel. There is some cooling feel in the mouth but not much aftertaste. Qi is moderate but can be sort of caffeinated. There is little dynamcism so I didn't press the tea very hard.

While I'd be happy to have the tea, it is relatively expensive for what it offers.

To celebrate the New Year, I did the '07 XZH Xishangmeishao. While it's labeled as a Dashisi Jinggu, I am very inclined to think that it is, along with the Huanshanlin of the same year, is some sort of Bingdao area tea. Tea sessions like today sort of reinforces the sense that Bingdao is underrated, mostly because almost everyone is operating off of fakes, and many of the rest with random and rare tries, not going from cakes they own. Anyways, I enjoyed this tea very much today.

The aroma was both very complex and very dynamic. The session starts off with a focus on sweet, creamy mushrooms and vegetal herbs. There were mineral and medicinal notes as well. Then it shifts to less creamy sweet mushrooms along with cinnamon, herbs, barnyard. At one point it had an interesting and unusual icing (like on donuts or cake) aroma. Then the aroma centers on herbals and wood most of the rest of the way, with occasional sweet mushroom, fruit, caramel (often). Late infusions are more mushrooms and mineral. The taste was similarly complex that tended to follow the aroma. Early brews had lots of sweet creamy mushrooms, minty herbal, cinnamon, artisinal clay, and mineral. Very slight fruitiness. Then the taste goes darker with an herbal and cinnamon focus with sweet mushroom pushed more to the background along with wood. A tartness starts showing up, and can intensify as soup cools. Then caramel becomes more of a factor with dark herbs/chicory, and a subtle red fruitiness. Late infusions tends to be a light sweet mushroom with a multidimensional yanyun mineralness like what you find in high quality yancha. Whew. Anyways, the viscosity is on the better side of moderately good for a gushu, with a slight astringency that is clearly aging and turning crumbly or slick. Not too much "ice" cooling even if it does taste like mint at times, but strong feeling in throat, and definitely can feel like it's expanding the chest. The aftertaste game is complex, but it's mostly dominated by a very gently pungent huigan that releases a variety of flavors--most in mouth, but some in throat, like a very nice winey fruit one time. There is a consistent mouthcoat, and some mouth aroma happens. Much of the very subtle fruitiness is from decaying astringency. The qi is the same as it's always been, very powerful and very uplifting, like one has had a little cocaine or something. Very durable, twenty brews today, or close to it.

My sweet tooth thoroughly enjoyed this tea, and now I wanna try some baijiguan, given how pleasurably high quality yancha it got late in the session. Late in the session also reminded me a good deal of the 2011 Bingdao Tea Refining Co tea, but a lot more subtle and less overwhelming akaline floral, greeness. Not very much like the CYH Bingdaos or the '14 XZH Lanyin or, say, W2T The Box. Again, those old 2007 and 2008 XZH northern teas are *absolutely wild*. Diangu, Puzhen, Huangshanlin, and Xishangmeishao will basically beat almost anything I've ever heard of from later years, including the best northern tea XZH tried to make post 2010. Only peer is that '07 Vesper Chan Thousand Year thingie that probably is also some kind of elite Mengku.

The last tea is the no wrapper early '90's MTF tuo. This is a fairly simple shu that was very cleanly dry stored. It is very similar to the white wrapper shu tuo that White2Tea used to sell

The aroma is ginseng and bark. The taste is sweetened condensed milk and ginseng, and on balance, more ginseng as the session goes on. Late infusion had a bit of plumminess. Fairly thick and smooth. Only very subtle mouthcoat aftertastes. There is bit of moderate qi. I didn't press the durability because it's pretty boring and that last brew had some exhausted tea astringency.

 

[shah8]

Okay, a number of YS teas to get through today, but it's not too hard, I think...

The '19 YS Bawang 2019 Yunnan Sourcing "Ba Wang" Ripe Pu-erh Tea Cake - Yunnan Sourcing Tea Shop - https://yunnansourcing.com/collections/2019-yunnan-sourcing-brand-pu-erh-tea/products/2019-yunnan-sourcing-ba-wang-ripe-pu-erh-tea-cake . Put simply, this is very similar to a Dayi Dragon Pole but bigger, broader, and deeper. Not buds, but small 1,2,3 grade leaves making for a bold and deep tea. Cola and choco depth. Doesn't have Dragon Pole's floral/paper/wood fringes, and it doesn't really have Dragon Pole's slight fruitiness. Aroma isn't all that impressive. Viscosity is good and smooth. Not much aftertaste. Mild qi. This tea had moderate durability before hollowing out past what I was willing to drink. Anyways, given how much a Dayi Dragon Pole costs, the $38/250g is a fair-ish value. It's on the expensive end for something that doesn't truly do anything fancy, but especially for newer shu puerh drinkers, this can definitely be something worthwhile to put in the ole shu tub.

The first tea today was the '19 YS Jiu Tai Po. 2019 Yunnan Sourcing "Jiu Tai Po" Old Arbor Raw Pu-erh Tea Cake - Yunnan Sourcing Tea Shop - https://yunnansourcing.com/collections/2019-yunnan-sourcing-brand-pu-erh-tea/products/2019-yunnan-sourcing-jiu-tai-po-old-arbor-raw-pu-erh-tea-cake This is the most expensive YS Jinggu listed, per gram. I couldn't find where Jiu Tai Po is from, but from my googling, it seems to connected to the idea of big white tips--which is associated with Yangta. YS has done Jiu Tai Po before, but not apparently this specific grove of especially old trees. I thought I could see some comparison to the XZH Puzhen, particularly to the '08's viscosity and mouthfeel. It is pretty inferior to the Puzhen, which had more flavors and more layers in taste, better aroma, more aftertastes, more qi. I also compared to W2T products I've had that are roughly around that price of $90/250g--for example that two boats meets halfway cake. I think the YS is more drinkable than the W2T cake now, but I suspect the W2T cake will outpace as the newer stuff ages.

Earliest brews have a more vague aroma of mushrooms, grains, vegetalness, that often just feels like a chalky milk or soy aroma. Later brews are more dominated by dark grains aroma. The taste is generally mushroom, dark grains, vegetalness, and chicory early on, and higher note tea of grains, alkalinity, and high barnyard in later brews. YS suggests that there are florals. I feel as if that floralness is very ephemeral and at the fringes of taste and aroma. A lager isn't a bad way to describe the philosophy of the taste--IPA is stretching it a little, tho' there is a bit of bitterness early. The viscosity is excellent, very thick, and while it has a early dip and rise, the tea loses astringency as the session goes on. The tea generally will yiwu huigan conversion to fruity flavors, and a bit of mouthcoat, but this part does fade a bit in deeper session brews. The qi is a bit on the mild side of moderate. I'd say durability is pretty good, think I did like fifteen brews. It does get boring, though, the tea has little dynamacism, and after about six brews, it doesn't really change that much and has little nuance in soup, so I drink fast for the nice mouth and throat-feel.

The second tea of the day is the YS Lao Man'e shu. 2019 Yunnan Sourcing "Lao Man'e Village" Ripe Pu-erh Tea Cake - Yunnan Sourcing Tea Shop - https://yunnansourcing.com/collections/2019-yunnan-sourcing-brand-pu-erh-tea/products/2019-yunnan-sourcing-lao-mane-village-ripe-pu-erh-tea-cake This is more expensive than W2T's Modern Witch at $52/200g. Is it better? Tentative analysis sez that the tea is deeper, bolder, and more pure than Modern Witch, while Modern Witch has more nuances, more throat feeling, more qi. They both have fruity conversions. Modern Witch may be more dynamic and has stronger, more distinct aroma. Anyways, broadly speaking, I found this tea to be a bit close to Bawang, in the that Dragon Pole way, but also close to Star of Menghai. This gives me the sense that YS is a bit more conservative at exploring what a shu can do than W2T. I did decisely like this tea, tho', and indeed, about ten years aging probably would leave it a pretty dang good shu--not too exciting, but pretty good.

The LME has a what seems odd to me (for a bulang shu) aroma of nutty-grainy aroma, kind of quiet. It doesn't change much over the session, but does get more barnyard late. The taste moves from a focus on deep choco early to more of a focus on cola later. In the early brews, the choco is associated with nuttiness, woodiness, a bit of sweet herbal/cola. There was also a loving passing taste of buttered popcorn in the first brew, too. The cola stage is more pure, with barnyard and a bit of papery-woodiness. When I stopped, there was a sense that the taste was turning more towards fruit. Throughout the session, there is a strong asprin-bitterness that bites the back of the mouth. Early brews are more of a direct bite, while in later brews, I felt the lingering bitterness after I finished the cup. This has moderate viscosity, nothing like the Yiwu shu and less than the Bawang. Seems smooth. The qi was about the same as the Bawang, I think. It does seem like the tea is very durable, but I didn't test that out, but I put it in the fridge and I'll do a couple of brews tomorrow.

 

[shah8]

A couple of teas today, the 2019 YS XY Blend and a retest of the W2T Modern Witch.

The XY blend is basically more of a quality drinker, maybe five to ten years down the road. It has some palatable elements, but also a plantation youth edge to it. Not a super interesting tea, and doesn't have a particularly worthwhile durability.

The aroma early is a mid-level mushroom/grains with a bit of high barnyard. One brew had a nice cornsilk thing going on. Later brews goes down to a more robust barnyard with subtle fruit tones underneath. Aroma gets quieter pretty quickly. The taste in the first couple of brews is generic green sheng, mushroom/grains a little celery vegetalness, some chicory. The taste then veers down to a pleasant choco sweet taste with a bit of green plantation edge of bitter/astringency, and thins out from there. Viscosity starts out sort of medium, but bulks up quick to a fairly nice thickness, generally increasing in astringency. Astringency starts tailing off after the third or fourth brew. Not much aftertastes, or at least not put in my notes. Qi is mild. Durability is probably a little okay, but the tea is basically done after seven-eight brews, becoming thin tasting, but with a refreshing thickness if one wishes to continue.

This is an alright tea, but there is a huge universe of even just 2019 sheng puerh around this price range.

I did a bunch more YS '19 Lao Man'e shu before starting Modern Witch, and it was rather good, and not very bitter at all, so one can definitely reach a stretch of very solid taste with minimum bitterness, and in general, it looks to have very good durability.

Modern Witch did pretty well, and I still think it's better than the YS Lao Man'e--mainly because it's good at more things. There is still quite a bit of woidui that has to seep out before I get a solid understanding of the taste. My earliest brews of Sunday Special had a more rich taste from woidui that I sort of though was regular taste, and it cleared out and became less rich after a year. I guess I don't dislike woidui, to a point.

Woidui, soil, barnyard, maybe some choco in aroma early. As the session goes on, more or less woidui with more of a cola depth. Modern Witch doesn't have the super robust depth like the YS shu, more like choco and sweet nutmeat early on in taste. Woidui element, barnyard also present. What was nice was a mint taste that one could spot. Ocassionally a subtle fruitiness. Later brews get a bit more vague and cola focused, with woidui and barnyard. There can be more of an explicit fruitiness. Throughout the session, there was often a sweet sensation. This shu is not a viscosity monster, starts out as enough, gets decent, and thins back down. Earliest three brews had some astringency. There was some feeling through the mouth and into throat. Very light pungent huigans were spotted, but the big aftertaste feature were licorice taste mouthcoats. A little bit of a yiwu-huigan to fruit and a bit of sweet nutmeat. The qi was on the strong side. This doesn't feel like it's crazy durable, it gets soft and undefined like the YS '19 XY, but not so empty in later brews--or at least compare to the YS Lao Man'e. I believe I did about 12-13 brews, and put the gaiwan in the fridge.

on the head to head basis for the two shus, Modern Witch wins because it has more feeling and much stronger qi. It is also a bit more interesting in terms of flavors. The Lao Man'e has a lot of overlap with the '19 YS Bawang, and also, it's just a very pure, intense, bulang shu experience. So it doesn't do that much, but what it does do, it does well. The Lao Man'e aftertaste is more obvious, and that tea does better in terms of viscosity and mouthfeel as well as durability. The finished leaves of the Lao Man'e is also very pretty and complete--obviously a bit lighter fermented than the Modern Witch. Both, for new shu, are relatively worth an affirmative look towards purchase. Some people, if they need to conserve money, the '19 YS Bawang is a reasonable substitute (and you don't give up more quality than you save per dollar) and a lot more similar to LME when you compare the pair to Modern Witch and The Great Divide at W2T.

I think that it's interesting that all of the shu from YS I just tried are lighter fermented(and as one result, brighter tasting) than '19 W2T shu I've tried this year.

 

[shah8]

Did Sunday Special shu on Friday. It was quite enjoyable. There was a sort of musky wood on top, a big pleasantly bland sweetness in the middle (the idea of tapioca) and some fruit notes lurking around. And as always, I'm enjoying the big qi.

The first tea Saturday was the YS 2017 fall Dijie. This is the highest of the Bingdao area teas, and it's basically the second most important village in the Bingdao area, the Lao Man'e to LBZ (well, LSD to Mahei is more like it, actually), so to speak. I thought it was a pretty good effort, and there's at least some claim to gushu for me, as this did have a real aftertaste game. Unfortunately, this is a difficult drinker with high astringency, not only in the mouth, but quite hard on my stomach.

The aroma tends to have barnyard and mineral in some way, with floral and fruitiness peaking out in some brews. Also, the aroma tends to change some as soup cools. The taste has barnyard being the backbone, with cream, mushroom, and a bit of fruitiness early. In later brews, there is more of barnyard-brown sugar combo. Viscosity starts off pretty good, and gradually thins as the session progresses. Astringency is more than crisp. Not all that much feeling, but there there is a cup or two with very strong cooling in mouth and throat. The regular aftertastes are a light, shallow pungent huigan, and a sort of combo mouth aroma/mouthcoat--there is a degree of development in the mouth. There is occasionally a bit of tonguetip flavor and sweetness. There might be some brown sugar from yiwu huigan. In late long brews, bitterness will generate a floral mouth aroma. The qi in the early going is moderate to strong and does some interesting feeling, but become milder and less interesting pretty quickly as the session moves on. This tea stops being interesting after about seven or eight brews, though it does keep going, and I had to stop after a bit of shenggut, before it was really close to being done.

There was a period where I was wondering what this tea was strongly reminding me of, and I came to the conclusion that there are some basic similarities to We Go High in the flavor profile, except that the Dijie is deeper and more barnyardy. We Go High is the overall better tea, more macro complexity, a bigger tea, and a more durable quality qi. Dijie is more subtle microcomplex.

I've been wanting to retry the Wild Tree Jinjunmei again, 8g in a nixing pot. This was quite excellent. Broadly the tea is pretty close to an Oriental Beauty, white tea, and maybe one of those fully oxidized oolong varietals like the Hao Xian black I have. Anyways, early on, the tea taste was really really nicely reminiscent of a great litchee. A bit later, it was a bit more generic with a high choco note. Late, it's more like shoumei taste with more white fruit note in with the jujube taste. Rose, that musky grape white fruitiness. That rose was really great in the aroma--the heated dry aroma was really nicely floral. The viscosity was good and mouthfeel soft'ntender. There were some mouthcoats and a bit of slight pungent huigans. The qi was mild to moderate and consistent. Crazy durable, has lots of flavor well past twenty brews. I like the performance of this tea in a pot compared to a gaiwan, feels like I need more heat for the tea to suit my tastes. Thoroughly recommended, and the price for this tea at Wuyi Origin is quite a bit more than fair, even considering how stiff $16/25g is.

The last new tea of the weekend was a new try of the 2016 YS Bingdao. I enjoyed this tea, and it certainly did not have the astringency problems that the Dijie had, so I drank it easily. However, it is a relatively small tea.

This has minerals and barnyard consistently in aroma. Aroma also to have cream and fruit often. Occasionally, chicory. With a cooler soup, aroma tends to be more of a floral fruit/sugar. Wash brew had a nice sweet pea taste. Then it swings down to the sort of fermentation flavor shu earthiness with choco and cola themes. A bit of fruit around the edges. Then chicory, and the bitterness associated with it becomes prominent, amidst barnyard, fruitiness, and subtle cola tones. And later, barnyard gives way to a more dried fruit sense to go with that chicory, cream as well. Late brews develop a kind of resinous woodsiness that's nice if quite mild/subtle. Very late brews are a simple mineral fruitiness. Rounded bitterness and tartness here and there. As you can see, a very complex tasting and dynamic tea through to nine brews or so. The viscosity starts off moderate, gets to moderately good, and thins from there. Soft mouthfeeling, with a mild, semislick astringency. The aftertaste game is pretty complex. A brown sugar yiwu huigan is the most common aftertaste, but there is often also this long developing taste in mouth that resolves to fruitiness (and mint once as well). There is a combo moutharoma/mouthcoat occasionally. At least one nice, complex yun. One brew had a nice resinous woody character at tonguetip for an aftertaste. This isn't as cooling as the Dijie. The qi follows the Dijie, very nice early at moderate to strong strength, and then tails off a bit. The durability is pretty decent, tho' I only did about thirteen brews so far before putting rest in refrigerator.

I think this is a pretty good effort at a "Bingdao gushu" at a price point that doesn't really allow for real stuff at $300/400g. 2019 Bingdao gushu is probably some thing like five to ten times that price. At the end of the day, I'd much rather get old XZH northern tea. 07 Huangshanlin is very similar to this tea, and '07 Xishangmeishao/07JingguNuercha-08Blessings-09Xicontianxian all deliver the same kind of high end characteristics that Bingdao gives, regardless of where they're actually from. Just like how Yibang and Manzhaun gives you some of how Yiwus are like.

 

[TexLaw]

@shah8, thank you for your reviews. If you don't already write more than these posts on B&B, you really should. You are expert at painting a picture with words.

 

[shah8]

You're welcome...

Okay this week I did a bunch of confirmatory thermoses...

Monday was YS fall '17 Dijie, and the similar issues about difficulties drinking showed up in thermos as well.

Tuesday was the YS '16 Bingdao, this was a pleasant tea, but thermos really shows how small the tea is. For both the Dijie and Bingdao, the qi in thermos wasn't that impressive, so I think there is something to it that the overall qi over a session isn't very much, and the strength is pretty front-loaded. The aroma had a very nice sort of musky sense, a bit like incense. This made me think of the Bingdao from a Thailand puerh brand that didn't have any real dark flavors, but was fruity and had some musk. And then I remember the higher quality Xigui from that brand too, and I thought that my memory of it is similar to W2T The Box. A lot of somewhat fleshy florals in decisive aroma and a lot of fruitiness in the soup.

Wednesday was the W2T 72 Hours, the first of two W2T to compare. Really a little closer to XZH '08 Blessings in basic nature than the YS teas. Even so, this was an outstanding thermos and one that had me thinking about whether if 72 Hours is the second or third best W2T production after '14/'15 Last Thoughts and maybe something else like Treachery of Storytelling. I also wound up wanting to retry 54-46 That's My Number and seeing how well it's doing today. Last time I tried as I finished my sample, the tea had become simple-more pure feeling than 72 Hours. 72 Hours taste was very complex and dynamic, and sort of hard to describe except as a kind of dance of fruit, florals, vegetalness around cream, clay.

Thursday was the W2T We Go High. There is a basic background similarity to Dijie, but it's this background interplay between vegetalness, tcm bitterness, and a slight fruitiness. We Go High, though, is not as barnyardy, more mushroomy, and more chicory than Dijie. Good, but not nearly as good as 72 Hours. I'd say it's the better value than the YS teas--it's about the same per gram as the YS '16 Bingdao, but I think it was originally materially more expensive, as YS raises prices in larger increments and more often such that their Bingdao caught up to We Go High. WGH taste was basically mushrooms, chicory, tcm-bitterness, and a slight fruitiness.

Friday was the OriginTea Wild JinJunMei. First pour had that dominant Ovaltine I'm not so fond of, but second and third pours were great, with a much more clear choco than in gongfu or western, and that atop a really nice shoumei jujube fruitiness with slight plumminess and wine highlights. Not precisely a *great thermos tea* as in that there is a high level of bitterness and astringency that makes drinking slightly difficult, but the other stuff makes it well worth it. Has quite a bit of aftertastes, and good, caffeine boosted qi. I think this tea was not rolled very hard. I think that it has something like 20-30% white tea character, but that character only comes out at the late part of a gongfu or after very long western or thermoses. Maybe the very center of the buds is basically only withered, with little cellular damage or oxidization of leaf juices. Think this may well be a good ager, but might be thwarted by buds becoming fainter in flavor and sharper in bitterness and tartness as often happens with buddy teas.

I had two gongfu sessions with teas from Yunnan Sourcing.

The first tea was the YS '16 fall Mansong. First things first, this ain't the sort of Mansong that gets people paying huge money for. It's more closer to mid-sized leaf tea rather than small-leaf tea. So it approaches more Yiwu character, where the midsized Wangong teas are on the opposide side of the Yiwu-Yibang divide. Paul Murray gave me a baggie of Mansong maocha from 2002, and the YS is fairly similar to that tea. Sort of as a result, I wouldn't bet on it being all that interesting as it ages, tho' maocha does age differently than a cake. I was rather happy with this tea--so long as you forget the Mansong biz, it's a fairly good quality Mengla, if not very exciting, and I can't easily find a way to buy a better Yiwu of similar age--only shot would be some of the Yiwus sold at Puerist' Etsy shop.

The aroma doesn't last very deep into the session as a material source of enjoyment. It tended to have dry florals, honey, vegetal, some white tropical fruit like jackfruit, and some minerals. Later brews had things like sugar or roasted grains. Aroma was never very exiting or intricate as with many Yibangs. The taste is consistently dry florals and vegetal-fruity. Early brews had some tcm-bitter, some choco. Later brews tends towards light honey, roasted grains and a deeper sweet herblyness(particularly late)
The mouthfeel is excellent. Very thick soup with a pudding, slightly oily mouthfeel. Usually with a crisp astringent finish that's tolerable. Most of the aftertaste game is yiwu huigan to sugars. Brewing to bitterness, especially late, can generate some floral mouth aroma. The qi is generally around a moderate level. One very early brew gives a pretty strong qi, but this levels off and declines quickly to a consistent mildish qi. Durability is okay, about fifteen or so brews, even if active phase is very short at about four brews. Viscosity lasts, and if you brew with firm hand, can get some character as well.

The second tea of the day is the '14 BaoHeXiang ZiYunGui, the premium Manglushan blend with an emphasis on Xigui sensibility. Pretty much from the start of this tea, I was like, this is much like the '07 XZH Jipin. While the difference in price is about a third again more (seeing as how it stopped showing up on Facebook Auctions...) at Houde, one would be better off with the XZH. This was still a pleasant session for me.

Honey and barnyard aroma early, and more of an herbly sage-focused character late. Sometimes a bit of wood or fruit shows up. The taste is a bit unusual, thinking in terms of Bangdong, in that it has a depth of wild honey along with tcm-bitter, when northern teas bend more towards chicory or burnt rubber. Gave it a sense that there was some aged yibang in the blend or something. Wood, mineral, and honey (with a slight and round barnyard funk)are also present in the taste. Late brews have a fruit suggestion. Mouthfeel is pretty good, reasonable thickness with a rather sticky juiciness. Slight bit of astringent finish. Aftertaste game not very good, a decent mouthcoat is the best to hope for, from some brews. Qi is generally mild, with some moderate boosts. Reasonably durable, but after the initial brews, it needs to be brewed with a firm hand, maybe with some rests in between a few brews for interesting cups. Much like the YS Bingdao, it's not very generous at all about any sort of specialness.

 

[shah8]

I finished up my purchased set of YS sample today with the 2013 YS Donggualin. I was reasonably impressed by the fullness of taste, but then it crashed after only about six or seven brews, so I was disappointed...

Then I did a second session with some of that 2018 Essence of Tea Bamboo Spring. That tea did fine, but it's not so delightful to drink anymore like it was when fresh, and is now a kind of woody, sweet herbal sort of humble Wuliang.

Alright the Donggualin, forgive me, but I had to reboot and deleted my notes (there wasn't that much anyways), so going off of memory...The aroma and taste were dominated by roasted grain character with some honey backing, and a bit of florals on the fringe The viscosity builds up to pretty good, but it has a relatively strong drying astringency that approaches the danger zone, but doesn't go overboard. The aftertaste game was pretty good, lots of mouthcoat, and a solid yun. Good feeling at top throat. Qi was around moderate, I think, of no particular quality. As said before, the durability sucks, and the tea hollows out starting around the sixth brew. Some aggressive brewing can get a bit back, but not that much. I wound up doing maybe thirteen brews, and putting the pot in the fridge where I can wring out some more.

The EoT was very low key. It's basically your standard vegetal Wuliang, but much more gentle than the usual green Solanecae vegetalness. So mostly a sweet herbal, slight woody character with a dull sweetness underneath in taste. I do miss the candy notes in the taste when I first got this. Not to much of an aroma that I can recall, feels like it was the same as the taste. Okay viscosity, not particularly astringent. Not much aftertaste game. Mild-moderate but enjoyable qi.

So, all in all, YS isn't a particularly high hedons/dollar ratio place...
Best sheng in order
'17 fall Mansong
'19 Jiu Tai Po
'14 Bohexiang Zi Yun Gui
'16 Bingdao
'13 Donggualin
'19 XY Blend
'17 fall Dijie

Shu is pretty easy, the Lao Man'e '19 is first a gap, and then the others that all have round the same value.

 

[Mike H]

The last of my 8582.

 

[shah8]

Okay, a bunch of stuff to write about.

First, the EoT '18 Bamboo Spring did well in late brews during the week, and one of those brews had that nice candy taste I missed from its younger days. Kind of like a weedy Jinggu.

Thermoses...

YS '17 Fall "Mansong" did well, and I continue to think it's pretty reasonable as a value.

YS '13 Dongualin mostly was just okay. The thermos makes me inclined to think, along with what went on with the gongfu, that this tea wasn't particularly well processed. I suspect the bake drying or maybe it was fried at too high a temp. The original material wasn't *super* good in the first place anyways.

Baohexiang ZiYinGui '14. This was a very pleasant thermos. It wasn't super potent per se, so I can't say it's top notch, but it's certainly not a horrible value at YS. Bet one can find it on Taobao cheaper, though.

'04 Changtai Old Chen's Teapot brand Jinzhushan. I wanted to evaluate relative to '07 XZH Shangpin. The Changtai actually did well. This tea is much closer to the Shangpin in quality than any of Changtai's yiwu to anything boutique. It had a nice wood edge, had mostly the same depth and strength of taste. It was just a little smaller, with fewer finery in details, and less aftertaste and qi.

'12 YQH Yehgu. Blew my mind. Get to it later.

Alright, the first tea of the weekend was the the 2001 Menghai Tea Factory Simplified Yun, Zhongcha version. I have the Red Dayi version and I've been looking forward to trying the Zhongcha for a very long time. One person has already tried both teas (I will do the tw stored Red Dayi later), and had basically said that the Zhongcha is a bit bigger, less obnoxious, and more rich in taste compared to the Red Dayi, while mouthfeel, aftertastes, qi are more or less the same. My session with the Zhongcha was marked by the realization that this tea is about a "dry stored" as the dry warehouse version of the Yuanyexiang. While it's clean, this has had a bit of humidity, and it rounded this tea a lot after a few brews.

The aroma only ever had a hint of that ammonia punch urine smell. Earliest brews are more choco centered in aroma with wood or barnyard along for the ride. Then it transitions to a more complex barnyard, wood, fruitiness before increasing aromatic woodiness as the aroma peters out. Early stage taste is plummy, woody, choco, barnyard before going to a deep barnyard with a top of tangy woodiness. The earliest brew in this phase has a subtle almond sweetness, but from there, the taste mostly stays the same and thins. Very late brew runs out of barnyard, and gets sort of light rotting wood and plummy. The mouthfeel is good, has that 20years aged factory tea softness and tenderness that's quite enjoyable. There is a touch of drying astringency. First few brews show off some nice cooling in mouth. During the same period, aftertastes were ongoing, which were some yiwu huigain, some mouthcoat, one cup did a nice woody mouth aroma. This was pretty low key and ended by the fifth brew. The qi was pretty good, but it was rather subtle. The durability is pretty good, but the active phase is very short before turning into a series of pleasant drinks that doesn't slow down one's drinking.

My storage Red Dayi should have better set of aftertaste, more fruitiness, and stronger qi than this tea does. Still an interesting and worthwhile drink. I wonder if I'd want the YYX more. It's a little bit more exciting, but less full tasting.

My second tea of Saturday is an anonymous 7581 wrappered sheng brick, inspired by Marco Gaultieri's comments on instagram. This tea feels like a late '90s tea, especially going by mouthfeel with similar features as the MTF. The aroma and taste are sort of fruity and camphor. It has a pretty strong tangy bite. It's not really bitter or astringent unless you really overbrew. The viscosity was moderate at first, then thins in the late brews. This does well in terms of aftertastes for a generic factory tea brick--some yiwu huigan, some mouth aroma. There is also a measure of qi. I think this tea is basically made from plantation associated with Kunming Tea Factory as they made their 7581 brick recipe from 70s-90s. The leaf grade isn't right, these leaves are small, around three or four grade, but the camphor, and the way the aftertastes are similar makes me associate this material with the shu. I think the plantation is some 50-60yo Mengku plantation.

Okay, the tea today was the 2012 Yehgu. Through a series of fortuitous circumstances I had gotten myself a cake. I did a thermos on Friday, and it was an intense experience, with lots of bitterness and astringency, but an extraordinary full and complex taste along with an aggressive and long lasting set of aftertastes in the mouth and throat. I had not planned on doing the Yehgu this weekend, but I wound up changing my mind. I also started trawling through the internet to find out more. The first thing is that the Yehgu wrapper is much less complex than the other 2010 forward top YQH teas, with just the name and no calligraphy written passage like the others. The other thing is that this wrapper does not have the year on the front like the other teas. You have to look for the pressing date stamped on the back of the wrapper. The stamp is faded, but it looks to me like this was pressed in March, instead of the usual April dates. This has lead me to conclude (heh, the fact that I could even buy this, too! Remember, 2016 YQH 18 Trees was $1500 before selling out) that whatever the story about Yang sneaking into some protected forest might be, there was probably something shady that went on about this, and Yang can't promote or openly sell this tea. Like that '03 Bulang JingPin than Houde sold that was essentially an unauthorized run, and so people went around saying it was a fake even though the material was obviously pretty real--thus nobody could hype that tea to the moon or do Puerh Teapot Magazine competitions with it. I did a bunch of research about tea areas, mainly on Tongqinghe, because people talk about tea from that area as being strong with a real bitterness and astringency. While I didn't consider this seriously, forest Walong tea also gets described like the way Yehgu does. However, '10 XZH Hungshan isn't really like this, nor Koreahao Walong, and while the '14 XZH Hongyin Grade B is pretty choco, it's not very similar. BYH Xiaomannai isn't that far, though. Anyways, the session today sort of moved me back to thinking that this is probably from a grove close to Bohetang. The aftertaste game does have real similarties to the '12 XZH Chawangbing that is claimed to have Bohetang in it, even if the basic tastes aren't similar.

On to the tea. Aroma and taste has a lot of the typical Yang storage character through about four brews. Aroma is very complex and dynamic, so hard to summarize, but--plummy, wood, floral->floral, fruity, banyard, herbal->masculine florals, choco, herbal->masculine floral, plummy->floral, choco, mineral->floral, herbal-> and then can be summarized as saying stuff around a plummy aroma, usually herbal. The taste is less complex. Lots of choco, a well controlled bitterness that's quite nice for me (never let it get to lao man'e asprin bit), and a subtle plumminess through much of the session. After some brews, a mineral character shows up. In the late brews, a bit of woodiness shows up. A bit of slight masculine florals here and there. This session didn't have much herbal character found in previous session or in the thermos. The viscosity starts off great, and moves to excellent before gradually declining. Astringency starts off light, builds to crisp, and fades. The mouthfeel isn't that distinct, a little softness, I guess. There was a lot of aggressive cooling in mouth and throat, and there were a few good feelings down the throat. First couple of brews had some electric mouthfeel. The aftertaste game is great. Lots of mouth aroma to florals. Yiwu huigans to custard/almond. Subtle pungent huigan that comes up floral or fruit. Lots of astringency conversions to fruity mouthcoats. I have had a tendency to feel like this tea's qi is muddled, but in this session, at least the early brews featured a strong, moving, and dynamic qi. It does sort of get weird and generic later, though. Durability is great, well...I put this thing in the fridge after about 15? brews. However the active phase for this tea lasts at least through 11. It's not quite '14 Hongyin impressive, as it's tired that deep, but it's still active and engaging even that deep.

I really love this tea and I don't think there are very many teas better than this. '14 Hongyin is pretty much the only clearly superior tea. Yehgu is pretty clearly superior to the bitter Yiwus '10 YQH Shengyun Tianchen, '13 Taihe, '16 18 Trees, and while it's a stretch to compare with the older YQH Yiwus that has a different basic characters, it's really just '09 888, and maybe the '05,'06 Wushang Miopins that can keep up.

 

[shah8]

Let's do some shu housecleaning first...

First was some late '90s MTF Grade A shu tuo. It was mostly similar to the early '90's wrapperless, but did not have as much almond sweetness, and more of a strong dark taste that's almost bitter. This wasn't a very interesting tea.

Last Friday was the late '70s- early '80s Xiaguan shu. This was also not very interesting (especially compared to that really nice Xiaguan tuo I've had seven or eight years ago). This was mostly a rather herbal shu that's sort of odd tasting for a shu but not unpleasant. It does have astringency, despite it being shu and despite the age. Only a little bit of qi.

Last Thursday, I had one of my own shu, one that Paul of White2tea gave me long ago, and which were a shu companion to the White Whale bricks, only from 2005 instead of 2002. It feels very much like a Fengqing shu, and normally, it has some of that awkward foetid character found in other great Fengqing shus. This time, it was free of any wierd stuff, and was a rather great experience with camphor, shu fermentation flavor, and a good deal of almond sweetness. A bit of fruitiness, too.

By and large, aged shu is a terrible deal, and one should only be interested in the best of these, like good 7581 bricks. Thing is, people have gotten *much* better at making good shu over the years. Younger, well made shu is almost always going to be the better bet.

The first tea today was the 2001 Red Dayi Simplified Yun, so I could compare with last week's Zhongcha version. For me, the key difference between *this* Red Dayi (not mine) and the Zhongcha is that it has a very yancha mineral bitterness that dominates a stretch of the tea. The taste of the Zhongcha is in general more agreeable (with depth provided by barnyard instead of dark mineral), while the Red Dayi is more lively and active. The late brews has the Zhongcha with a mellow core, and the Red Dayi with a more active but hollow taste. Otherwise, these are indeed pretty much the same tea.

There is a degree of chenxiang-nature multidimensional-ness of aromatic wood in the aroma. There can also be a foodie-ish toasted grain or sweet mushroom sweetness as well as choco. Later brews tend towards more of an herbal/mineral balance to the wood. The taste tends to have a deep character through a number of the early brewings, mostly a dark tcm (a touch of choco too), but also deep plummy sometimes as well. Along with this is an associated mineral bitterness, tangyness. Wood is on top. In later brews the mineral bitterness fades, and the dark tcm character gradually thins, making for a tea that's a bit more hollow than the Zhongcha, but with a nice emphasis for the aromatic wood on the top of the taste. The viscosity is moderately good, and has much of the nice soft aged factory tea mouthfeeling of the sort you get starting around 18 years. The tangyness lends to an active feeling in the mouth. Later brews get pleasantly thick, even as taste thins. There is some astringency, but it's old and getting a bit slick. Early brews get some nice fruity mouthcoats and yiwu huigans, especially as the bitterness unspools itself to sweetness. Mouthcoats lasts a few more brews before the aftertastes are fairly minimal. The qi is on the milder side of moderate, and is rather sneaky, but it's of good quality.

I did a micro brew, 3.5g of a sort of special order '18 fall Yiwu Tree tea, collected by a person and sold as small batches of maocha to people in Taiwan for immediate drinking. I found this tea pleasant, but very small, like the YS '16 Bingdao.

An aside, I did some more focused reading to try and figure out the nature of the '12 YQH Yehgu. I did a number of brews during the week, many were really great (got very plummy), and the tea probably lasted above 20 brews in the end. I examined the leaves, but I didn't find what seemed to be three sets of leaves like Marco Gaultieri, but more like two sets--it's mostly, maybe 60-70%, rather large, very dark green and meaty leaves that are very tightly rolled, and the rest being a more normal green of a variety of leaf grades--either stuff that was filler or enhancer. Getting back to the reading part, I would up reading about Baihuatan, which is a mico-area that is a subset of Tongqinghe type teas, and a couple of thing jumped out. First, some of the descriptors do mention a lingering bitterness, in a way that makes me think of the lao-man'e sort. Second, there was apparently a controversy about some dude trying to buy a "best" tree for an outrageous amount of money, and the state eventually coming in and cancelling the understanding on the basis that people ought not to be privatizing state assets like state held forest resources. That made me think of the old "sneak in and pick" story from Yang. Baihuatan does seem to be, low key, one of the highest desired areas in Mansa. One thing that has started to bug me is about people claiming that such and such super high end yiwu has no bitterness, and, well...I'm leaning to the conclusion that many tall tree forest resources should be expected to be materially bitter in the sense of 2010 and later YQH yiwus.

whew, now where were we? Ah, yes, the tea, let's talk about that. I didn't get as deep into the session as I'd like, because my digestive system was acting up all day, and the inconvenience, too of smaller cups made me a bit lazy and I stopped for today, well before I could have.

Anyways, the early brews had that classic brown sugar character from the BHT-GFZ axis. Aroma started off with fleshy florals, some brown sugar, some high barnyard, then it transitioned to a floral and vegetal intermediate before going to dry florals with some sugar aspects in it as well. The taste didn't have any bitterness the first couple of brews, and had plenty of brown sugar, toasted grains, high barnyard, a little gently sour umami. The basic taste doesn't really change that much. The viscosity was never more than moderate, and it had slight astringency.
There was a bit of feeling down the throat here and there. The aftertaste game tends to be mostly fruity mouthcoats and floral mouth aroma, and they can combine in nice ways, especially early in the session. Moderate qi of good quality. I think I stopped at around nine brews and put it up for more brewing later in the fridge.

This tea is alright, but say, the 2013 XZH Chawangbing or ROL is a lot better, particularly in viscosity and loudness/expansivness of taste. Even that 500y BYH Yibi is a bit better, and of course W2T's Unicorn is better even with little flavor in the beginning. This is pretty strictly just a nice tea to drink now.

 

[shah8]

Two good teas of the day today, before the big game...

The first is the 1999 Hongyin Yiwu Spring Tips. This is a tea that has been of longstanding controversy over its production, particularly when it was made. It has generated positive sentiment over the years as a slightly famous tea, so I was interested in trying a sample. I was slightly disappointed, mostly in that I had relatively high expectations, but this is largely a *good* tea, like the '01 no.4 recipe 103. It's also very tippy, if not all tips, and I'm not usually someone who is much of a fan of that.

The aroma was unusally dynamic over the course of the session where aroma was a factor. First couple of brews were plummy, then it started switching between cola, caramel emphasis and a wood, emphasis, roughly, with various barnyard, graham crackers, etc, nuance. Taste is a bit less dynamic, and also more "transparent" in the way tippy teas are. It starts out with fetching wood nature, with things like choco or deep plumminess before moving on to a mostly deep plumminess that is a bit tart or sour. Then the plumminess rises and gets various wood and choco nuances back. The viscosity is moderate at the beginning, but does builds up to a good thickness by the late brews. It's a little aged soft, and has slight astringency that's aging and becoming more slick. The main aftertaste is a yiwu huigan to almond notes. There is a bit of mouthcoat, and one early brew generated a sensate sweetness in the front of the mouth. The qi is on the mild side. Durability of the active phase is about seven or so brews, but it does seem like it'll deliver a lot of cups with some flavors for a while, but I probably only drank about thirteen or so brews before putting it away.

I decided that I needed to calibrate the 2001 7542 samples with my own stored 2001 Simplified Yun Red Dayi. It does seem to hew to the TW stored Red Dayi version in basic nature, but overall, it is just much, much better than either samples--it delivers a fuller taste, is more durable, has a much better set of sensations in feel and qi, and has a better aftertaste game. Storage just matters a lot more than whether you have the Zhongcha version or the Red Dayi version--even though these are indeed sliiiiightly different teas, they are still pretty much fraternal twins. If that, say single stamped barcode Brown Changtai isn't that great stored, some of the cheaper versions that are better stored may well be overall better, same with a good Dayi 8581 502 versus a 504 that's poorly stored. I do often fantasize about proud owners of badly stored '50s Hongyin whose teas perform quite mediocre.

Alright, enough lecturing--the aroma was a bit weaker than it usually is, presumably from all the drying out from winter heating. Much of the time, it has that pungent wet hay (urine) smell, with plumminess, and a sort of chenxiang woodiness that's clearly floating above the rest of the aroma, providing dimensionality. Sometimes, depending on brew, it's a bit more simple plumminess for aroma. The taste has the same basic deep mineral taste(like a yancha) as the TW version, but there is a lot more nuance around it, particularly cola and aromatic wood. Also choco and plumminess. This is not as bitter or as tart as the TW sample, in part because the tea is more crisply robust, and it was easy for me to manage brew times to avoid bitterness at least. There is still a slight acidic potency that renders the taste "bright" in a pleasant way. As the tea moves through the session the taste rises a bit higher in taste. The mouthfeel is very good, good viscosity, good soft aged factory tea mouthfeel, aged astringency. There was some feeling in mouth and going down throat on occassion. The aftertaste game was rather excellent for factory teas--consistent robust yiwu-huigan to sweet flavors vaguely around caramel. There were extended mouthcoats that generally were fruity. I was surprised to find that this maintained a lovely pungent huigan, if subtle, but also returning refined aromatic woods. The qi is materially stronger than any of the other factory teas I've recently tried. Of course, the tea was able to be active longer into the session, around nine brews, and while it feels more glass transparent as with the TW Red Dayi rather than a rock core like the TW Zhongcha, the later brews were still more "present" and engaging than the more mellow Zhongcha version. I did about fifteen before putting it in the fridge. Three teas for me to drink over the week! Red Dayi, Spring tips, and tall tree Yiwu.

Thorougly enjoyed this Red Dayi, though. I'm generally more for gushu teas, but this, I definitely enjoy as much as a good gushu production.

*edited to add* I think I should mention that I used a smaller pot, about 20ml less in size, for the same size of sample in grams, 8 for my stored Red Dayi try. I don't think it had much material effect on my judgment, but others might think the added potency from proportionally more leaves may matter)

This does make me think that Houde's huge price, $500 on the Yuanyexiang might not be that horrible in a sense. I've recently have had a Yuanyexiang that's supposed to be the gancang version, but had wet storage type fishiness through a few brews. A known high quality dry storage for a tea that old is just not nothing.