SOTD- sheng of the day

[shah8]

Did a thermos of BFZC 2015 Tianlong Chawang. Being hypercritical, noted that the taste wasn't as potent as it could be as compared to reference XZH thermoses. Gives a sense of where the quality might have been cut, a bit, compared to more heavenly fare. Eh, whatever, it was still quite good.

The shu of Friday was the 2022 W2T Lich's Tears. To keep things on the shorter side, the main advantage it has over The Bringer is that the bitterness and the deep taste is more potent, and the really big advantage is that this potency is over a tea base broadly similar to W2T Reckless Daughter or XZH Carefree (instead of a dark herbal base like The Stranger, or that XZH 2012 Nannuo brick)--there are lots of nuances in the taste (and in it's youth, it's a relatively chaotic tea now), and as with Reckless Daughter, it has a superior aftertaste game, including a very gripping and lengthy mouthcoat. Frankly, I wonder how people would judge The Bringer directly with Loon-Call in the Dark. Anyways, the depth of the taste lasts for about five to six brews before lightening up to something like Reckless Daughter with a certain woody-mineral rod in there. Mouthfeel doesn't immediately capture the attention. Qi is strong. This tea, while it's not a completely light fermentation style shu, definitely needs times to settle.

First sheng of the weekend, I lost the notes for due to an emergency reboot. Sleep function are really finicky, and my graphics card flops the HDMI connections sometimes when coming out of sleep. Aaaaaanyways. it was a 2007 lightly warehoused, no wrapper Bada cake that Paul gave me a long time ago. I felt like something easy yesterday, and was mildly curious to how it was. Unexpectedly good session. Somewhat higher and less awkward than it usually is.

The aroma tends to be a mix of varying proportions of old tea tcm, plummy, mineral, and a sweetness that sometimes defines itself as almond. The taste follows the aroma. There can be a lot of sensate sweetness. Taste is small like factory tea size. The mouthfeel was substantial. The aftertaste had some subtle pungent huigan early. Does a good job with yiwu huigan and mouthcoat. Qi is strongish and calming. I also got a lot of warming from this qi. Durability is decent enough.

It was instructive to compare this with the two '90s warehoused tea sample I had recently during my vacation. The Menghai one was much more solid in deep flavor with a bit better mouthfeel, and probably a touch bigger in taste as well. However this Bada is more complex and nuanced, and a bit more dynamic. Also, the bright and sweet plumminess is a general contrast to that tea, and is notably like some aged traditional 7542s.

The tea today was the 2006 XZH Youle, but TW stored, and not my own dry stored version. In general it is much inferior to mine, as that mine is much more livelier in taste, aroma, and in terms of strength of feeling in mouth and throat as well as the strength of aftertastes. This tea, tho', is superior to mine in terms of mouthfeel. Also, I've found that the longer infusions tends to bring out more of the things that I love about my Youle, so I suspect one needs to use thicker, heat retaining pots to really get the best out this one.

Aroma tends to have a nice apricot aspect to it. Nannuo carrot and mineral also plays a role here and there. One brew has a nice savory herbal with that apricot. The taste is a very soft and mild old tea tcm core with mineral wood with subtle choco tone. Soup is thick with pudding velvet texture and a light-moderate productive astringency. There is subtle feeling down throat early and a subtle pungent huigan back up without much flavor. A yiwu huigan that develops to a number of flavors is there, along with a strong mouthcoat, both fed by melting astringency. Qi is on the moderate-strong side, and calming. Durability is good, but clearly needed lots of firm brewing, early. I did about twelve or thirteen before putting this in the fridge.

 

[shah8]

Nothing too innovative this weekend...

The XZH Youle didn't last but a few more brews in the week, so not as good durability even with long brews.

The shu of Friday was the 2012 XZH Dragon Brick Nannuo. Again, I kind of start off meh, because it's kind of thin for shu, even if it has a nice paper-woodiness. Still it has a really good capacity for nuance in the taste, great quality qi, and can put up a bit of aftertaste game. A sort of boring-not boring shu.

The tea of Saturday was the 2009 XZH Xicontianxiang sheng, made from Jinggu Dashisi. It is a very light tea, but still excellent. What's interesting to me is that it's really not *that* much like the 2008 Blessings Iron that should be the same material.

In the aroma, the first few brews had a kind of aromatic quality that's as if aromatic wood, tobacco, and dry florals were merged together. Then a bunch of high barnyard with a sort of subtle fermented apricot fruitiness and a bit of aromatic wood aromas. Finally ends with either fermented apricot or wood simple aromas. The taste is thin and delicate. While in most cases this is a ding on the quality of the tea, this delicateness is definitely going to be appreciated by some people, especially in the summer. The taste is aromatic wood, artisinal clay, and sugars through most of the session. In later brews a gradual increase in emphasis of a sort of apricot depth with maybe a bit of dark herbalness, and in late brews, it's mostly that apricot with a fringe of wood/artisinal clay. There is a short stretch with a bit of bitterness and tartness. Some brews have some sensate sweetness. The mouthfeel is rather good, with good viscosity and a rather velvet-oiliness texture. The astringency is at moderate a bit into the session and declines afterwards. Relatively full aftertaste game, sans pungent huigan, even tho' there is a bit of nice feeling down throat. Consistent yiwu huigan to sugars even if subtle at times. A dynamic and lingering mouthcoat. Some aromatic wood mouth aroma is nice, along with an occassional yun. Qi is strong, not that distinct but nicely calming. Durability is good, in the sense that a clear flavor seems to be indefinite. Fun stuff is over at maybe nine or ten brews.

In general, Blessings Iron has more nuances going on, and a better quality qi. Xicongtianxiang has stronger and more agreeable aroma, and a stronger, less minerally taste. The aftertaste game is also brighter for Xicongtianxiang. Storage is probably playing a big role in the differences.

Also, for both of these teas, they are very Bingdao adjacent, and both are quite a bit better than any tea explicitly named Bingdao that I've had.

The first tea of Sunday was the 2001 SiRui Liu Bao #16 originally sold at Teapals (and also once sold by Chawangshop). Excellent stuff that is clearly made from whatever that passes for gushu liu bao. Whether or not it actually came from old tree, it counts. It also has not really ever been pile fermented much. There is no real fermentation depth, it's all nice wood and betel-nut plummy in the taste. Aroma is woody-soily in a nice way. Early taste had a nice wine in that plumminess that eventually goes away. In late brews the betelnut/plummy fades in favor of old tea tcm. Good viscosity with a sort of remarkable puffy cotton texture. Manages a good aftertaste game of yiwu huigan and mouthcoat, and there is occasional feeling down throat. And of course, the qi is good.

I decided on a second tea today, very casually, and I did the 2007 XZH Mengsong. It started out with lots of oxidative plumminess, but that actually gets drunk out in a couple of brews in favor of a tcm bitter pole with some choco and menghai almond/sugars. The aroma and taste also has a remarkably nice woodiness, not quite furniture orchid, but something like that. A couple of early brews in the taste had that naka lemony sourness. Later taste has the tcm pole losing bitterness and being mostly choco and sweetness. Good mouthfeeling. Aftertaste game isn't that impressive, but can still manage a very nice mouthcoat. Decent enough qi.

Both teas of Sunday lasts well enough, and putting both in fridge.

 

[shah8]

This hasn't been too major of a tea weekend, still interesting...

The shu of Friday was the 2016 BFZC wild tea shu. Not a whole lot of taste. Also, very little shu fermentation taste, tastes sort of close to dancong chatou. For all of that, extreme durability for a shu. Strong high quality qi. Strong mouthcoat aftertaste when it's going, and it does go fairly deep into the session. Good mouthfeel, somewhat astringent. Finish leaves are whole and non-brittle, really lightly fermented tea with meaty leaves and stems. Well enjoyed, given I drank this from Friday to Sunday...

The sheng of Saturday was the 2006 YQH Qixiang. This was one of those good sessions, with a very Yibang performance.

Aroma and taste has a grain syrup sweetness (not too unlike Bindao adjacent stuff like Vesper Chan's Stone Legend) throughout the session. Other elements of the aroma include a subtle fruitiness and subtle wood rims. The taste had a tcm bitter pole towards the earlier side of the session, and a sort of young tree/taidi bitterness in the late session. Some brews had a wood note, and one or two brews had some fruitiness and/or plumminess. Good viscosity with a light pudding texture and moderate astringency. Pudding texture doesn't last that long in to the session. Earlier brews had feeling down the throat, and flavors painted on the lining. There is also a bit of yiwu huigan to sugars and a strong mouthcoat/cooling element. Qi was reasonably strong this time out, of no particular character. Active phase is about seven brews, but delivered a sweet taste for a long ways, did about fifteen to seventeen brews.

The sheng of Sunday was the 1998 DaXueShan maocha that Sanhetang stored. I am substantially less impressed with this tea than when I first got it--it's warehoused, or was humid stored enough to be effectively warehoused, but very clean with no warehouse storage notes. It's a very pleasant tea, but there was little stopping me from drinking each cup relatively quickly.

Aroma and taste are pretty consistent--a sort of dried fruit-watered molasses sweet taste with a touch of aged tea tcm providing a bit of depth. There is also a bitter rod that's evident when brewed with a strong hand. Mouthfeel is good, with good viscosity and velvet texture, and with late brews having a thick viscosity. Not much astringency. Aftertastes are fairly limited to a very few early brews with a nice yiwu huigan to a blend of almond-custard-sugars sweetness. Very light mouthcoats. Qi is moderate to strong and is warming. This will given the same sort of brew a pretty long ways, but I quickly got kind of bored and put this into the fridge.

I did a second tea, 2020 WuDi Zhengyan Wuyi Hongcha. I was mostly not impressed with this tea, but to be fair, my standards for hongcha made from oolongs is very high, set by Houde's selections back in the day. This isn't a very dramatic hongcha--the taste is bog standard red oolong flavor with little finesse of any sort in aroma or taste. There isn't that much aftertaste. However, the taste is relatively thick with a mineral floor, and it has good qi. This is another tea where the vendor's tea preferences are very obvious in the selection. Very balanced and even presentation. Way too boring for me--for the money. Does deliver a reasonable amount of brews, more than ten, at least, before I put this pot into the fridge as well.

 

[shah8]

I didn't take notes this weekend, very casual sessions...

The shu of Friday was the trusty An Xiang. Good as usual. I noticed the factory tea smallness of the tea, though, compared to W2T or some other boutique shu. I checked the Dayi prices, and I see that they are coming down...

The sheng of Saturaday was the 2009 XZH YinFeng Pekoe. This was excellent. There was a lot of nuance in aroma and taste. It was really durable. Good mouthfeel, along with a ton of aftertastes and feeling down throat. Qi was good as well. If there were problems, it's that usual Jinggu thinness of taste, and that it's a bit over-stored for what it is. It's better than my '09 XZH Xicontianxiang that I have stored at home, but the Yinfeng Pekoe would be more clearly so had it been stored in the same way--I bet that the aroma would be quite a bit more dramatically nice, for example.

The sheng of Sunday, distracted by a high performing Eagles team, was the '02 Tai Lian International version, mostly from the back and center of the bing where it's all broken up mulch. This, with the storage, meant that this session had an impressive green bitterness still there. It was still enjoyable with a nice patchouli-wood primary character in aroma and taste, good mouthfeel with aging and productive astringency. Plenty of yiwu huigan to sweet flavors seguing to mouthcoats. Good durability and decent enough qi as well.

put both pots in the fridge for weekly drinking.

 

[shah8]

The long infusions were pretty good during the week, the tai lian got easier to drink and the yinfeng pekoe really delivered on qi. I did a thermos of the yinfeng pekoe on Friday, and it was really really good. Some sessions and thermos of this tea is quite understated, but at its best, is a fairly high end tea.

The shu of Friday was the 2021 W2T The Bringer. The year has brought some changes--it's a lot less deep than it used to be, and isn't as bitter. New boutique shu simply isn't going to tell you what it is for a few years... Anyways. Aroma was nice, sweet, sort of like a Bulang blondie rather than a brownie. Taste was a kind of fruit, sugars, with a light bit of fermentation depth. Late infusions has a much more sober, nonsweet taste that's a bit hard to describe--maybe kind of whole wheat bread dough with some fermentation depth? Very durable. Does a good job with mouthcoat. Qi is very strong for a shu, and slowed me down some in drinking it. I think it's feasible to debate that W2T Lich's Tears is more superior to The Bringer than The Bringer is to Reckless Daughter or Nameless, but it's gunna be at least another couple of years before that can be experimentally determined.

The sheng of Saturday was the 2009 XZH Diangu Chen, one of the very most expensive teas on that XZH pricelist per gram. I didn't take notes on it. Twas really good as one might expect. Most of the session was a bit hard to drink as the Tai Lian was. A couple of brews had a strong bitter bite with some tartness. Anyways, lots of fruity mangomy brews with subtle alkaline, wood, barnyard notes. Good aroma. Good mouthfeel, a bit of astringency. Excellent mouthcoat, some yiwu huigan. good qi. One more note in that this didn't have much floralness, tho' I can guess this tea started out with less floral character.

The first sheng of Sunday was the koreahao Wuweisanfang '07 Bangwei. Not too much different from other bangweis like EoT's 2010 or the 2014 W2T 54-46, with the main thing being a bit deeper and richer than usual for a Bangwei. The general aroma is honey, savory herbal and wood. It can be spicy here and there, and the late brews are a sort of sweet herbalness. The taste generally is around honey, savory herbal, wood, hot sand, subtle fruit. There can be a touch of bitterness and tartness here and there. Viscosity is good to pretty good, with velvet-pudding texture and moderate astringency. Some earlier brews have yiwu huigan to sugars along with a strong mouthcoat/cooling. Capable of occasional mouth aroma of wood, and yuns. Moderate qi. Flavor gets light quickly and stops being very exciting by about brew eight. Did maybe five more brews after that. It's a decent enough tea, but there are better things for the price. Sample got finished off at least, been waiting like five years.

The second sheng of Sunday was the 2012 XZH Yiwu Chahuang reproduction (of the 2006). Sanhetang claims this to be a blend of Zhangjiawan, Daqishu, and Wangong. This was pretty good, certainly better than the '12 Classic Yibang in the sense that it's not overoxidized, but it's a very light tea in a way I'm a bit inclined to find fault with compared to other light teas. The aroma is light and floral. Very early brews had honey with it, midsession kind of creamy, late brews is more purely floral but fleshy floral. last brew today was a radical change to a mineral and cola. The taste mostly revolved around a core of soft mushroom with wood rim and a light cola depth/sweetness. A few brews had a nice caramel note, and one brew had some plumminess. Last brew was a mineral, herbal and mushroom taste. There is often a light bitterness. The mouthfeel had good viscosity with a bit of oily texture that quickly fades as the session moves on. Astringency is generally light. There is a bit of feeling in throat in at least one brew. Primary aftertastes are a good yiwu huigan, sometimes multiple huigans of varying speeds, a good mouthcoat, and floral mouth aroma in the earliest brews. Qi is moderate to strong of notably good quality. Durability isn't tested, only did about nine brews. At $850/400g, this is a relative poor value compared to something like the 2013 XZH Walong at the same price...

 

[shah8]

The Wuweisanfang Bangwei brewed very well in the long brews in the sense that the taste was much richer than I'd expect in the long brews, and thereby making more clear the superiority to the EoT 2010 Bangwei. The Diangu Chen performed as expected and was very nice. The 12 XZH Yiwu Chahuang was decent enough.

The shu of Friday was the 2006 Taipei Memorial shu. About the same as it has always been. Good aroma, thin taste with little fermentation depth, etc. Qi was a lot more subtle than it's usual wired up feeling this time. Durable. Good session.

The sheng of Saturday was the 2014 W2T 54-46 That's My Number, a higher end Bangwei selection. This more or less feels superior to the Wuweisanfang, aside from durability in one respect.

Interestingly, the earlier brews tended to have an egg-whites aroma and taste element. Otherwise in the aroma, this tea tends to have the usual Bangwei honey and savory herbal, but by mid-session, it's more of a savory herbal and fruit notion, and late session tends to have some mineral. In the taste, the earliest brew has a chicory bitterness (that can linger awhile) along with the savory herbal, honey and aromatic wood. Fruitiness is sometimes present in the early and mid section. Late brews has mineral with some notes echoing early honey/herbal, fruit in the session. This has a very good viscosity with a velvet and light-moderate astringency. Tends to have a lot of aromatic wood mouth aroma. There is some yiwu huigan to sugars and fruit. Long lingering mouthcoat. Capable of sending feeling down throat, and maybe one fruity pungent huigan back up. The qi is notably strong and of good quality. Seems durable enough, but compared with the Wuweisanfang, the taste quickly dies down even as mouthfeel, qi keeps going well. Probably did about fourteen brews before putting it in fridge.

The sheng of Sunday was the 2001 Xiaguan HuangYin 8653. I definitely liked it and at some price point wouldn't mind having it, but I was sort of bored drinking this tea.

The aroma and taste are some themes of plummy. Earlier brews have some hay in there, while later brews are more strawberryish. On occasion, there can be wood, barnyard in that aroma. Again, the taste is plummy, but it's a very solid and rich plummy taste, but small factory tea size. There can be some bitterness in the taste, as well as wood, and choco and sugars both give a cameo in a brew. Mouthfeel has decent to good viscosity with a bit of plump texture early before changing over to good viscosity with stiff velvet texture. Capable of some feeling down throat in early brews. Good mouthcoat, a couple are quite lengthy. There is also a light, subtle yiwu huigan. Qi is at about moderate with reasonably good quality. Seems to be pretty durable, but it's not very dynamic, and cups generally aren't very nuanced.

I was thinking of how I'd prefer the Tai Lian or the '03 Ke'xing Yiwu to this, particuarly in spite of how much harder the Tai Lian is to drink. They just have a lot more going on in the cup.

The last tea of the weekend was a WuyiOrigin special 4 roast lacongshuixian. Despite my poor brewing technique, it was not difficult for me to have a very pleasant time with this yancha. Good aroma, good taste with plenty of I think yancha yanyun. Say, not as nuanced as SpaceCat, but a lot richer in general. Also feels good in the mouth, delivers yancha-typical aftertastes, and has good qi.

 

[shah8]

Okay, on vacation this week, and so, kind of delayed writing things up until this is ultra-long, so let's get to it...

A thermos of 2008 XZH Puzhen was a lot more wonderful than expected.

The W2T 54-46 did pretty well in the week brewings--the taste is much weaker than the Wuweisanfang, but the mouthfeel, aftertaste and qi kept going pretty nicely. Rough judgement that this is the best Bangwei of the bunch I know I've had...

The yancha was very durable and gave lots of really good brews over the week as well.

The shu of Friday was the loose 2012 XZH Magnificent Pasha. This was pretty good, not too exciting. It's rather similar to the 2009 XZH Blessings from Mengsong--not very sweet, kind of woody, nannuo carrotty, yoghurt, and herbal. The mouthfeel is pretty good, with very good viscosity and pudding texture. Does some decent yiwu huigans. Rather strong qi. Good durability when shown a firm hand--this tea tends to brew on the light side using my normal timing. The 2009 XZH Mengsong is more nuanced in aroma and taste.

The first tea of the weekend was the 2017 YQH Millennial Tree hongcha. A somewhat exclusive yesheng production of which only 5kg was made. I'm generally pretty hesitant to figure out the value of yesheng because it's often hard to figure out just how much any of that is worth, and they all conform to one of a few categories of behavior, and you have to figure out how good they are at whatever type of wild tea it is. YS has at least one tea that conforms (in the description) to what this tea does, for example... In this particular tea, the hongcha is boldly plummy in most of the session, to the point of being rosehips at time. This made it sort of samey at times. However, on top of being a full tasting tea, it has a very long lasting mouthcoat, and the qi is very strong and active within the body, and this is something recommended if you like your meditation with tea. While I have many other high end black teas that have more non-hongcha flavors to balance the plummy, this is still probably up there with the best black teas I own. I would need to try more hongcha yesheng. I believe I've had a XZH hongcha yesheng that I was not excited by.

okay, to the tea. Dry leaf is aromatic and kind of fruity-herbily-winey. The early aroma is mineral, fruity, barnyard, then a stage with fruity-plummy-winey aroma with a woody-herbal rim. Later brews have sugars with varying fruit, plummy, wine, herbals, and minerals. Wet leaf aroma is pleasant through to when I threw out the leaves, but earliest brews had a wet leaf aroma of a very nice raisin-fruit along with wood and barnyard. Late leaf was more typical yesheng honcha fruity-winey. The taste starts off fruity, but hongcha sour plumminess quickly gains strength until one has a bold rosehippy taste with woody herbal, mineral, and wine. At the peak, the taste starts acquiring a thin choco depth, before plumminess gradually fades and becomes more balanced with fruitiness, herbalness, mineral, sugars and an occasional thin choco. Late brews are rather nice in this way. There is no real bitterness (other than a weird one if you brew really hard). The mouthfeel was quite good with good viscosity and an oily texture. Generally light astringency with an occassional momentary increase. Feeling goes down throat a bit in one brew, and paints throat with a bit of flavor. In the early brews, aftertastes are complex with a very dynamic length of taste with an active subtle yiwu huigan and a multifaceted mouthcoat. This settles down to a more straight forward subtle yiwu huigan and strong mouthcoat as the session goes on, with a low point in intensity before long brews. In said longer brews, I also got a yun or two. As mentioned before, the qi is very strong and very active, and I feel it moving into various parts of my body and doing different things--a very slightly bit like old tea qi (30y+). In the middle of the session, I got habituated to it, but after a rest, I felt the strong qi again. Durability is pretty indefinite, probably did about thirty brews over three days, and I could have done more before I threw the leaves out. I sort of thought after finishing the bulk of the session that this was the sort of tea that you just did a few brews a day and drink it over a couple of weeks or something.

The second tea that same day was the beloved 2012 YQH Yehgu. It has been my impression that I have been getting better than usual sessions with this tea as of late. I was careful this time to minimized bitterness and did flash brews until it was a low burn before doing my usual time step routine. I didn't take detailed notes of this, and frankly, the notes from the last time I drank this are sufficient, for the most part:SOTD- sheng of the day - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/sotd-sheng-of-the-day.59712/page-388#post-11931033 . There is a bit more custard sweetness this time. What has been really nice the last two or three times is the aromatic woodiness in aroma and taste, and the more present sweet herbalness that seems to be moving towards a blueberry fruitiness. The fruitiness associated with the plumminess also has me reminded of BFZC Tianlong Chawang and the other BHTish teas. I drank this over two days.

The next day, I did the Yang stored version of the 2006 YQH Qixiang. This kind of made me thoughtful about my previous advocacy of this tea. This particular tea isn't bad, but my tea from Houde is sufficiently different and better that we're almost talking about two different teas. This experience sort of reinforced my impression that Qixiang is a predominantly taidi/shengtai yibang with some not-*that*-potent GFZ area tea thrown in. The TW stored tea got hit with that sort of...hollowness that afflicted so much auction XZH teas, and the basic character is not meaty enough to take such assaults super gracefully. My tea is lively aromatic wood, bright honey, fruit, and floral with a tcm bitter pole and a taidi-bitterness as well. A lot of the experience with this TW storage was not that different from the uninspiring 2000 Mangsong dragonballs (still plenty better, of course). Firm brewing, particularly late, tends to bring best results.

Right when I opened that package, I got a big puff of that Yang storage aroma. So soup aroma tends to have basement woodiness, dark honey with some subtle fruit and mineral notes. The taste tended to be on the thinner side with a dark taste of plummy and honey with some mineral. There can be a small bitter pole with an associated chicory/coffee dark herbal. The bitterness can linger sometimes. Some light sugars notes late in the session. Viscosity is very good with light pudding texture. Astringency is generally low or absent. Aftertaste consist of a light yiwu huigan and a decently strong mouthcoat. Qi is decently strong. I didn't drink too much of this tea, as that I was drinking cups fast because all the nuance got smoothed out and nothing there to slow me down much besides the mouthcoat--such that I got a bit bored. It's okay in durability, particularly if you get aggressively firm on brewing.

Yesterday was the 2010 XZH Boutique Fengqing that is sold out at Sanhetang, but which LiquidProust has samples of. I liked this a rather lot. Not enough that I'd have ever paid $560/400g, but yanno, the same way that I liked the 2005 CYH Shanzong Chuanqi, but not anything like at what its price was... Anyways it's an experience typical of a lot of northern teas that ages and darkens to a bitter-tcm pole with chicory notes, but it does a great job with aftertastes, particularly early, and it has a relatively complex and dynamic taste.

Aroma is relatively complex and dynamic so--dark woody herbal, plummy->almond sweetness, dark wood herbal->aromatic wood, herbal, sugars-> wood and herbal->aromatic wood and herbal->aromatic wood and plummy->plummy and mineral through most of the rest of the session. Dark taste of herbals and subtle plummy along with wood and sugars through most of the sesssion before taste thins and rises to herbal or plumminess. Firm late brews bring back depth and thickness with dark herbals, wood, plummy along with a chicory bitterness. Cooler soups can have a more aggressive sugars taste with some sensate sweetness. Good viscosity with a velvet texture that can be stiff at times. Astringency starts off light and generally rises a bit as the session goes on. Early brews have multifaceted yiwu huigan most of almond and fruit flavors segueing to a fruity mouthcoat. In later brews, while a multifaceted yiwu huigan can happen, it's mostly a good mouthcoat, plus anything generated by bitterness. This had strong qi but rather typical quality, sort of immobilizing. Durability is okay to good--active phase is over in about eight brews and it gets pretty thin, but I got about seven more brews brewing pretty hard.

The last tea in this very long post is the 2009 YS/RuiCaoXiang DongFangBuBai with Manmu Bulang material. Someone was burbling happily about a 2010 Manxinglong Bulang tea on discord, so that had me hankering for a Bulang, too. This is quite enjoyable, and I regret only having bought one of this cake. It's substantially better than the 2010 EoT Mansai today even tho' it does some of the same things, and was roughly about the same price when new.

Aroma is mostly barnyard. Other things that can show up is honey, a touch of wood, fruit, sugars and mineral. As with Mansai, taste can be intensely honey sweet, but this tea has a more consistent deep Bulang taste of barnyard and dark herbal than Mansai. There can also be deep fruit that becomes more evident deeper in the session as I go, and a bit of wood and mineral. There is a bitter pole early in the session. Fruit, honey are among major taste themes in late brews. The mouthfeel had a notably stiff and sticky velvet texture on good viscosity early, but quickly moves more toward a normal velvet texture. Astringency is noted at midsession as being at moderate level. A very occasional bit of feeling down throat with a bit of flavor painting, does some electric mouth as well. Strong yiwu huigan to honey-sugars in much of the session. Lingering bitterness generates some varied aftertastes, and there is a consistent decent mouthcoat. Strong, relatively high quality qi. I did about fourteen or fifteen brews and could have done more today, but I'll just brew a few more times tomorrow before starting another tea.

whew, done at last, time to lift weights.

 

[shah8]

Alright, the next series of teas...

2007 XZH Yuanshilin (Manlin). This was somewhat disappointing. Recent sessions have been very nice, but this one is back to the usual, smells good, tastes good, good mouthfeel, but not so great at aftertaste, and decent qi.

Wood, barnyard, grains in early aroma, then moves to more of a choco depth before said depth fades leaving a more plummy sense by the late stage of the session. Taste is deep choco/plummy/barnyard with a nice wood rim. There is some variance, such as the taste getting higher deeper in the session, strength of a tcm bitter pole, or the wood getting more of an aromatic spicey quality. One brew had a hint of fleshy florals. Good viscosity with velvet texture with light side of moderate astringency. Subtle yiwu huigan and mouthcoat (the main aftertaste). Qi as I have said is decent, moderate to strong. Durability wasn't pushed that hard, doesn't seem to be that durable.

Second puerh of the day was the 2016 Theosophie Yiwu, forget which one and lost the label as I was polishing off the sample. It wasn't very interesting and didn't taste that aged, and didn't have the wonderful aftertaste game of previous session.

Hay, biscuit dough, and honey early aroma. Most of the session aroma was a sort of camphory dry florals. Taste has three stages. First is honey, mineral, subtle fruit. Second is honey and bitter dark herbal like chicory. Lastly is a cola, herbal, honey taste. Only decent viscosity with a light astringency that increases a bit. There was a bit of mouth aroma early. A couple of cups had some yiwu huigan, and most of the session had a good mouthcoat/cooling. Moderate qi. I didn't push this very many brews at all out of lack of interest.

Thanksgiving day was the 2008 XZH Shuangxi Lingmen Iron (Blessings), which was an unexpectedly fantastic session. Top taste was darker, sweeter and more appealing than it usually was. Great aftertaste and qi. I am so sorry I didn't get a third cake or more, would have loved to make this a casual tea...

Aroma starts off honey, fruit, and mineral, then there is a bump where a thin choco rises and falls in prominence over the preexisting aromas. Late aroma is mostly minerals with honey, florals, nannuo-carrot doing cameos. Most of the session had a minerals and thin choco depth. A part of the early session had a nice subtle honey and fruit sweetness. Later brews have more of a minerals and vague depth, with nannuo carrot, and wood showing up at various points in the taste. Midsession had a small bitterness that bites at the tongueroots. Viscosity is good, with a somewhat velvet texture and moderate but productive astringency with a small peak of high astringency. Feeling goes down throat. Early brews have a soft and subtle pungent huigan back up and a yun. Early brews have vigorous yiwu huigan to fruit. Later brews have more of a yiwu huigan to sugars. There is an early bit of floral mouth aroma. Mouthcoat is dynamic and long lasting. High quality strong qi. Probably did about fifteen brews, and last cup was still a nice sweet tasting soup so definitely could have gone further. yum

The next day, I was vaccilating about getting some more Thaipu, so I got out the TeaSide 2014 The Fox. This was quite enjoyable, so I went ahead and got the latest 2021 pressing and a few samples for Black Friday sale... I didn't take notes, but it was mostly caramel, herbal, and a certain fruitiness in aroma and taste, and the tea becoming more herbal as the session went on. Good mouthfeel, strong qi, somewhat weak on aftertaste and maybe durability.

Saturday, I did the trusty 2006 XZH Youle. While I have notes, I think I'll stick to more commentary here. The first is that this isn't *that* different from the TW stored version. The BIG difference is that the rims of the aroma and taste is more richly and aggressively wood, camphor, and aged tea herbalness. The middle of the tea is more bland and generic relating to the non-first spring pickness of the tea. Aroma and taste also consistently had an apricot/dried fruit note. Tastes best when brewed to a thin bitterness. Viscosity was good, kind of had a sticky, phlegm texture. Can have a bit of feeling down throat. Aftertaste was very dominated by a dynamic and long lasting mouthcoat with a bit of yiwu huigan having a defined separate presence here and there. Strong qi, but it was very subtle, feel like it was seeping deep into me. Also tended to really warm my body. Durability was good enough. Thought it was going to be poor for some reason, but lots firmer brews brought back character.

Today, I did the 2001 Dayi Simplified Yun 7542. Excellent session and will beat most gushu teas (certainly the only things the Youle did better was a slightly more agreeable aroma/taste and more action in the throat), and hard not to see it as a gushu Bulang. It is notably bigger than most factory teas. There is a similarity to the '96 Purple Dayi, except much more dry-stored, and thus more complex.

Earliest brews has some of that wet hay (urine) character in aroma and taste, but aroma quickly segues to a lovely rich wood and camphor with plummy, choco showing up here and there. The aroma tends to change as soup cools, to more sweeter lower aromas of plum or sweet white rice. The taste is primarily a bold, deep, minerally, Bulang with dark plummy, barnyard, herbal. There was also generally a thick wood rim and a small tcm bitter pole. A bit tart early. Late brew has higher plummy taste that's sweet, along with a touch of wood and herbals. Mouthfeel is great--good viscosity with a stiff oily texture. Astringency feels aged and at moderate level. Can deliver a light electric mouth feeling. Lots of strong yiwu huigan to rice sweetness as well as a strong and lingering mouthcoat. One weakness of the tea is that it doesn't do much in the throat. Strong qi of good quality. Durability is very good--did about fifteen-sixteen and there was plenty left when I put it in the fridge for the week.

 

[shah8]

The shu of Friday was the 2009 XZH Xicongtianxiang shu that's almost like a CTC Assam since it's all tiny leaf fragments of higher grade leaves. This tea usually gives a pretty standard gongting shu punch without a ton of nuance, but this time, it was really nice. The aroma was strong and nice and sort of includes a floral element that I'm not used to for a shu this old. The bitterness is basically gone and one is left with a deep dark herbal and cola flavor along with some dry stored shu paper-woodiness. Mouthfeel was good, and the aftertaste featured a nice caramel yiwu huigan and some mouthcoat. The qi was strong and high quality.

The sheng of Saturday was the 2005 Dayi Peacock of Mengsong. This was with material collected close to the binghole, so leaf was more fragmented and less aged with the main result that the original strong bitterness was there in early brews. It was also considerably deeper than it usually is. Really enjoyable.

The earliest brews had honey, wood, retired smoke, deep herbal and a touch of choco in aroma that was really nice. Afterwards the aroma is more of a nice woodiness and retired smoke giving it a nice aromatic punch. One brew's aroma had a very nice sweet dark, almost cola, sweet herbalness. The taste generally has a rich deep herbal and woodiness with a bit of tartness, and a bitterness that is slow to arrive and slow to leave. And when the soup cools, there can be evidence of a bit of deep choco and plumminess. In late brews, the taste loses all tartness and most bitterness, leaving a generic dark herbal depth with a strong retired smoke-wood rim as it thins toward the finish. The mouthfeel has a viscosity at about decent to good level for most of the session and the texture is generally a slick-ish velvet with moderate astringency. Early brews has a seemless yiwu huigan and mouthcoat, but it differentiates into a strong yiwu huigan to almond sweetness and a strong, longlasting mouthcoat. Early brews had something of a camphor mouth aroma. One brew had a shallow pungent huigan and one brew had a nice cooling feeling at top of throat. Qi was strong, and early brews generated a warming feeling. Durability was pretty good, did about fifteen brews before throwing out the leaves for the tea on Sunday.

The sheng of Sunday was the 2004 YQH Dingji Yesheng. I came into this prepared to be bored a bit and was just going to enjoy the steady rich mellowness. I wound up enjoying this a lot. It did feel random, though, in the sense that I can taste huangpian in the tea in a tea that has a generally imprecise feeling of flavor. Had visions of Yang just going to random tea vendors at some roadside gathering for some family's tea, which was kind of all over their general property and just throwing this stuff that has a general idea of itself together. I do rather wish I had drier storage, mainly out of curiousity. The yang taste is pretty diminished in this sample, at least.

This is not a dynamic tea at all though, lessee... Through much of the session, the aroma had toffee, wood, vegetal herbal, and earthiness. The taste was more or less the same. In later brews, the taste simplifies into something like Riccola cough drops--a deeper and sweet dark herbal. The aroma is like that, but can also be woody. While the macro details of the aroma and taste are relatively simple, there are a lot of hard to describe nuances in them. The viscosity was good with a light, sometimes grainy pudding texture. Astringency was generally moderate, tho' on the light side if not brewed with a firm hand. Aftertastes includes an earlyish and strong yiwu huigan that plays with the top flavors if one holds the soup in the mouth. There is also a lingering good quality mouthcoat. The qi is also of good quality.

This weekend I also managed to do a nepalese silver needle from Lochan teas that was really enjoyable with the usual silver needle character and made me think for a hot sec whether I'd want to actually buy silver needle. It wasn't actually all that hard for me to get a good performance, using a pitcher to cool the water before steeping. I was sort of expecting the necessity of more precision, but this was a relatively forgiving tea for an, of course unrefined, darjeeling-type silver needle.

 

[caffeine]

An enjoyable 14 year and counting thread. Anyone know how its originator, ouch, is doing?

 

[shah8]

Mostly thaipu this weekend.

The shu of Friday was the 2004 6FTM No. 1. Thinner taste with less wood than usual, bulangish depth with a lot of sensate sweetness and a lot of qi.

First tea of the weekend was the 2018 version of 2021 The Reserve from Teaside. I got a cake of the 2021 for the Black Friday sale as that I thought it was the most likely to be a good buy, and it comes with a sample of the 2018 tea. More or less, this turns out to be right--the tea performs at least as well as JingGu and Lincang teas in terms of richness of taste, has a dynamic aftertaste in mouth, and good qi. Relative negatives are that it doesn't do all that much in throat, is fairly astringent and hard on the tummy, and late brews are harder to drink rather than easier, being of a biting bright acidity. I definitely intend to park this 2021 and try to forget about it for a decade. Material is better than 2014 Fox, but 2018 MaeHongSon is still pretty much the best thaipu by a long stretch.

Aroma is strong and rich in early brews and does okay in most of the rest of the session. There's a nutty depth, with some barnyard nuance at times. herbalness, caramel, and pineapple/dried apples show up in varying proportion through a chunk of brews. Later aromas are mostly mineral and herbals, with occasional sweet notes in isolated brews. In general, the emphasis of the various aroma elements change as soup cools. The very agreeable taste essentially follows the aroma with a strong base of caramel and nuttiness with an herbal rim, and an occassional fruity nuance. A few early brews has a rich bitterness with a lot of flavor to it similar to YQH Yehgu or EoT's Cloud Watching. Good bitterness also shows up in late long brews. Very late brews have a metalic/acidic generic nutty base. Viscosity is at good level, with a pudding texture. Astringency starts off light at session's beginning and gets stronger to moderately high levels. The aftertaste is mainly a dynamic and long lasting mouthcoat. One brew had feeling down throat, and included a yun. The qi is sort of strong, but fairly sneaky about it-feels good... Durability seems good, did about fifteen brews before tossing it after a few brews the next morning.

Basically, this is an ager, mostly, but still pretty drinkable and enjoyable.

The second tea of the weekend was the Myanmar tea 2013 Lynx from TeaSide. Philosophically, it's quite similar to the 2013 BFZC wild tea that I have but not nearly as good. This is more of an interesting tea rather than a good one. Late brews are more pleasantly coherent, tho'.

The aroma is strong with an herbal-floral theme that has some parallels with eucalyptus (even if it's not actually that aroma). There can be a bit of barnyard depth early, but midsession has some sugars note, while long brews is more purely herbal-floral with maybe a woody emphasis. The taste is generally woody herbal-floral with a sour plumminess. As the session goes on, the sourness fades some and sugars notes takes their place, and it gets reasonably nice in late brews. Viscosity is at decent with no distinct texture and high astringency. The aftertaste tended to feature a strong mouthcoat of sour plumminess, but there is often some yiwu huigan to sugars and also some mouth aroma. There is some qi, but not really of note. Durability seems pretty good, as that late brews are more appetizing, and I did thirteen or fourteen before setting this aside in the fridge with plenty still left in the tank.

The first tea of Sunday was the 2007 Ming Dee HongtaiChang that was a newish addition. I didn't like it. The taste was not rich, and the mouthfeel wasn't very good. Aftertaste was okay, and I didn't really note much qi. Substantially inferior to the 2006 MingDee that used to be sold.

Aroma and taste are woody herbal. Taste has a certain combo of deep herbalness and nannuo carrot along with a certain tartness. Decent viscosity with no real texture. Moderate astringency. There tends to be a yiwu huigan to almond and a bit of mouthcoat. Maybe some qi. I stopped paying attention to this tea pretty quickly.

One more session, got abbreviated to four brews 'cause tummy said no, but this tea doesn't seem like it'd be very dynamic anyways. That being, the 2018 Bitter Leaf. This one was okay, aproaching puerh level richness in taste. However, it's not very dynamic and there isn't a ton of aftertastes.

Prunes are a consistent feature in aroma and taste. Aroma also tended to have a touch of wood, barnyard and sugars in varying proportions. The taste includes a slow, gripping bitterness with a dark herbal depth. In the fourth (the last as of this writing) brew, the herbal depth faded and some sugars notes appeared. Viscosity is generally decent to good, but it does have a pudding texture. Astringency is on the light side. Primary aftertaste is a bitterness mediate long lasting mouthcoat. Qi is rather caffeinated and feels strong and ennervating.

Definitely somewhat hard on the system, and not that attention catching, but this seems to be a pretty solid tea that should be pretty good after ten years or so at least. Reviews on TeaSide keep mentioning how theraputic this tea is, for headache and bloodpresssure and bleep.

 

[shah8]

The long brews of the 2007 MingDee during the week was okay, and it performed reasonably well in a thermos, so I am inclined to believe that my standard brewing method wasn't great for the tea.

The Shu of Thursday, this time, was the 2014 XZH Huangyin. Mostly a rather subtly good tea with generally standard shu flavors, and good in ways that are hard to describe, and other than the qi, was not remarkably good today. Some late brews did have a pleasant candy-fruity nature.

The first tea of the weekend was the Teaside 2016 Lord of the Forest wild tea. This is exactly the same general style of material as the 2013 Baifuzangcang wild tea, except less potent in most or all ways, including being less sharply sour and less scraping of the throat. I am also inclined to think that the YQH hongcha wild tea is also made from this class of wild tea. In any event, I just sat back and enjoyed the tea. I wish there was a proper classification system for the various kinds of wild teas.

Through most of the session, there is a grape sense in the aroma. Initial brews also had wood and herbal in aroma as well as a meaty umami. Then it becomes more grape and woody-herbal, while late brews are more simply herbal as in pachouli. Wet leaves have a nice mélange of herbal notes. The taste has the general broad sourness of its type of wild tea along with grape and herbal notes. Good viscosity with a distinctive pudding-velvet texture. Astringency is generally light. If soup is held in the mouth, a number of flavors develop, and the mouthcoat is generally similarly notably dynamic along with some lingering sweetness and associated mouth cooling. In later brews, there is a bit of yiwu huigan to sugars. The qi is moderate to strong with a tendency to be a bit unobtrusive in utilizing its strength. Durability is pretty decent, not as lengthy as the bfzc, but good enough.

I already have a superior version of this tea, so I'm not really invested in anything but the immediate drinking, but for other people, I'm not sure how to price this and say whether if it's a good deal or not.

The second tea of the weekend was the 2018 Sky in Buckets Tibetian Yaks from Teaside. This tea is too thin in taste to be anything but a drinker, and its aftertaste game isn't that much either, but I have enjoyed the thermos, and enjoyed the session as well, soo... Still, $75 is about $20 too much for this tea, but people should consider this if and when it's on sale.

Aroma is generally dried apples, nuttiness (in the way Jingmai/Mangjing or Bangwei is nutty), and sugars. Later brews have more of an herbal emphasis. Aroma is relatively strong and rich. The taste more or less follows the aroma. Good viscosity with a slight pudding texture. Tends to have a yiwu huigan to sugars and a light mouthcoat. Qi is noted in thermos, but not so much in session. Durability is sufficient, about fourteen or fifteen brews.

Third tea of the weekend was We Go High from W2T. Thoroughly enjoyed. Didn't take notes and not going to go into details here, but aroma was on the lighter side. Taste was rather fruity based in a way quite similar to 2022 W2T Hypnotrain through most of the session before becoming more of a mineral based tea. Taste was also generally sweet. There was a good mouthfeel, and a strong yiwu huigan and mouthcoat. Strong qi. Yeah, Hypnotrain is pretty similar to WeGoHigh, but, it's substantially inferior.

Last tea of the weekend was the 2003 Ke'xing Yiwu. Thoroughly enjoyed. Substantially less oxidatively plummy this session.

Dynamic aroma and taste, so... basement mineral, wood, honey, plummy->dried fruity, honey, barnyard->dried fruit, old tea tcm, camphor rim->camphor, wood, dried fruit, cherries->cherries, mineral, tcm->stronger cherries->tcm and light cherries in aroma. Taste is wood, honey, dried fruit-> wood, dried fruit, tcm, sensate sweetness->deep dried fruit, slight bitterness-> higher dried fruit, cinnamon/camphor and plummy->dried fruit, tcm, cinnamon/camphor->wood, tcm, mineral->tcm. The mouthfeel has good viscosity and a creamy texture. Very low to light astringency that is productive. Has the full range of aftertaste, tho' mostly a good yiwu huigan (often to almond sweetness) and a strong, lingering mouthcoat that encourages salivation. There is some feeling down throat, and a couple of brews has pungent huigan back up. One brew had a yun while several manages camphory mouth aromas. The qi was strong and of high quality. This brews easily to about 15 brews before I essentially ran out of time and packed it in for the week.

 

[shah8]

Long holidayish weekend...mostly short notes here...

Shu of Thursday was the W2T 2022 Reckless Daughter. Still has cottonseed wodui. Very floral/fruity for a shu. Good quality qi, and good durability. Did some comparison with the likes of 2014 XZH Huangyin and 2018 Carefree that are somewhat similar in nature. Huangyin is better in somewhat subtle ways, and has a more robust core depth of taste. Kind of even with Carefree, which is also somewhat more nuanced.

Friday was the 2013 BFZC wild tea because I wanted to compare with the TeaSide 2016 Lord of the Forest. Lord of the Forest didn't fall that much behind this tea. The BFZC is substantially less grape than LotF, while having a stronger wood aspect. In general the taste is stronger and less complex. The mouthfeel involves a thicker viscosity and even more pudding velvet texture, and the astringency is a bit higher. However, it didn't really scrape my throat like it tends to do. This has feeling down the throat in the way that the Teaside wild doesn't. The yiwu huigan and mouthcoats are about the same strength and dynamacism, but is more hidden under stronger top flavor. The qi is stronger than LotF by a good stretch, though. Also more durable. Pretty good stuff.

Saturday's tea was sort of shortened because I was drinking more brews of the BFZC, so I did some finishing off of sample, 3g or so of 2019 W2T Both Steals Boat with the rest being this maocha Paul gifted me long ago and which I suspected was the basis for Snoozefest. This turned out to be a very bitter tea unexpectedly, with a degree of a more fruity and deep herbal aged yibang character. The W2T didn't really show anything major until late in the session. Decent-good viscosity, lots of caffeine. Wasn't really a very good experience. Oh well.

There was a second sample finished off on Saturday which was the 2005 Dayi Peacock of Mengsong, 3g. I was also pretty casual here. The smoke was a bit less than in the past, so wood, a bit of smoke, honey, and a subtle fruitiness in the taste. Decent viscosity, a bit of yiwu huigan to sugars and a long lasting mouthcoat. Moderate qi. Still quite a bit inferior to the last time I had the 2005 Dayi Peacock of Mengsong.

The Christmas tea was the 2010 XZH Hungshan, which I keep drinking. I really like it. Basically like a poor man's 2013 XZH Risk One's Life, or a manzhuan version of it. Only a tier or two down from the top available quality. It did have plenty of sour plummy and tart bitterness in the first set of brews that both reminded me of my bad session yesterday and give me a momentary panic that ermagod the storage is turning all my tea sour! Of course, later looking at my old reviews, I see this happens on the regular.

The aroma is consistently excellent at or near nonpareil level with a minerally-savory floral, plumminess, cupcake/sugars sweetness in varying proportions. The early taste is dominated by a sour-plummy with a bitter-tartness that bites at tongueroots. The sourness and bitterness gradually fades as more of a dark cupcake with hints of choco becomes the primary taste, which in turn fades to a sweet floral mineral plummy sugars light late taste that is quite delightful. The viscosity is good with a nice runny honey texture. Astringency bounces between light and moderate at time, but fades to nothing in the late session. The mouthfeel is still going, so this results in some very pleasurable feeling in drinking the tea in the late session. Feeling goes down throat pretty nicely, mostly in the early session. Also good feeling in mouth and top of throat. Early session also has some soft pungent huigan coming back up. There is a bit of mouth aroma early. More generally some yiwu huigan to sugars/honey and a good mouthcoat. The qi was strong and of high quality. Durability is very good. Did more than fifteen brews and feels like it still has some good long brews left. Thoroughly enjoyed.

The tea today was the 2006 YQH Wushang Miaopin. It was good enough, but I definitely like the Shenpin Chawang better, and think a properly potent 2004 YQH Dingji Yesheng would clearly be better as well. This tea also has a sort of bitter-tart bite so I got to wondering if it's a Walong. If someone told me it was a Walong, I wouldn't have questioned it that much.

The initial brew aroma was a bit of smoke, wood, meatiness, and some underlying plumminess. The aroma evolves toward barnyard, sugars, plummy before finishing with mineral woodiness. The taste has a core dark herbal and plumminess. There is a rim of smoky wood early as well as some sourness and bitter-tart. All this fades towards barnyard, choco, wood, sugars for a second before the long brews of old tea tcm, woodiness, and plumminess. Has good viscosity, but sort of generic texture. Has strong feeling in mouth and throat, but doesn't really go down throat. There is a bit of yiwu huigan to almond and sugars with a couple brews featuring strong one, and a more consistently strong mouthcoat. The qi is strong and pretty good.

 

[shah8]

A ton of teas to cover this write-up... One errata, last time I was finishing off the Peacock of Menghai, not Mengsong for 3g.

The '10 XZH Hungshan lasted well, with a number of very tasty brews. The '06 YQH Wushang Miaopin did well, too, but not as tasty, of course.

The Shu of Wednesday was the '07 DengShiHai shu. Quite good. Sour taste, but not unpleasantly so, with camphor, wood, herbal, and a thinner tasting depth of dried fruit. Has very little fermentation depth. The aroma was usually very nice with elegant camphor and woodiness. Decent viscosity, very smooth texture. Strong and gripping mouthcoat aftertaste. Strong qi. I didn't push this tea that far because I was pretty slow drinking it and I didn't do more brews the next day...

The first tea on Thursday was a bit of a disappointing session with the 2009 XZH Pasha. I was thinking about Menghai teas, and I was also thinking about how 2009 and 20010, along with 2014 XZH were very much the best years. I was also comparing with my memories of the 2012 Baifuzangcang Pasha. The main reason I was a bit disappointed was that the Pasha didn't have a lot of deep oomph other than for a brew or two. To some degree, it was because the selection of the leaves, a bit usual for XZH, was rather more cut and chopped than typical for gushu production. I'd say it's about even with the BFZC, where the BFZC has more strong tasting brews, particularly if you are very firm in brewing, and this XZH has more nuances (easier to enjoy if the top taste isn't robust) and better aftertastes (ditto).

The early bulk of the session in aroma had some balance of apricot, paper-woodiness, choco nuance, a touch of barnyard here and there, and a dark tobacco depth. Later in the session, apricot shows up less, sugars shows up more, and it's generally a mineral, wood, and tobacco light, late, aroma. The taste starts off with Menghai honey base, a subtle fruitiness, and a floral-tobacco-paperwoodiness. Quickly, for a brew, a robust dark tobacco depth happens with bitterness and apricot in an enjoyable stimulation of banzhang ethos, but quickly loses that depth for a more shallow apricot-floral-woodiness. Some higher tobacco and woodiness happens before a late session taste of wood, mineral (and that sappy taste one gets when you're slurping the flavor straw vigorously). Viscosity is good, but it doesn't really have a definitive texture other than a gesture or two towards pudding. The astringency bounces between light and moderate astringency through the session, generally productive. In terms of aftertaste, the best brew had the full panapoly of aftertastes, but more usually there is a yiwu huigan, sometimes a good one to sugars late, and a good mouthcoat that lingers nicely. There is a strong feeling in the mouth throughout the session, some feeling does go down throat, again, in the best brew. This consistently delivers good quality qi on the moderate side of strong, but late brews might not have had much, in the way that '10 Hungshan could pound... Durability is good, but it's a lot of late brews with mostly a mineral taste and relying on aftertastes for a bit more fun.

The tea on Friday was the 2011 Essence of Tea (Mengwang)Mannuo. Clearly not super-premium level but still highly enjoyable. I didn't get any of that Werther's Original Butterscotch taste that I typically look forward to. Again, reminds me a great deal of a sort of blend between Banzhang and Yibang features.

Aroma has aromatic wood, honey, sweet mushroom, dark herbal in varying proportions in the first part, and later brews have a more mineral, dark herbal, and woodiness balance. The taste has a bit of bitter-tart dark tobacco, woodiness, and a broad, quite sweet mushroom base in the earlier part. In the later part, the sweetness changes from mushroom to honey based, like a Yibang or Jingmai. There is also a bit of a tendency to have some old tea tcm notes and mineral. Has good viscosity with a velvet texture in earlier brews, and moderate astringency. A touch of feeling down throat very early, and one cup had a good mouth aroma. However, the aftertaste are a strong yiwu huigan and strong mouthcoat that is very persistent deep into the session. This, like the previous Pasha, also had a notable feeling in mouth, an active cooling. Qi seems to have been at moderate, but it lasts through the session. Remembered when this was a relatively strong qi! Durability is very good, as usual with this tea.

Saturday had a pair of teas... First was the '07 XZH Xishangmeishao, which was extremely enjoyable. These sorts of things are less valuable than other elite teas because of the relative thinness of taste and mouthfeel compared to things like, oh, the '07 XZH Yuanshilin Manlin, but I like this much more than the '07 'Banna based XZH teas. Picked this over getting more '07 XZH Yiwu Chahuang back in the day and this session doesn't make me regret that. Flip side is that this is largely a product of drier storage--a TW stored version of this tea isn't nearly as enticing. Check out Teadb's two videos of XiShangMeiShao if you don't believe me.

Aroma tends to be floral woodiness with sugars. Artisinal clay shows up very early, chicory happens from time to time, and spice a couple of times. Aroma tends to be quite good and complex and worth savoring. The taste was the same. A thin sugars base with bitter chicory, plummy, floral wood, and the occassional artisinal clay playing supporting roles. Mouthfeel is mainly decent-good viscosity with albumin texture. Astringency is mild much of the time with a couple of brews being astringent. There is feeling down throat and pungent huigan coming back up in the initial brews. One brew had some painting of magnolia down throat. One brew also had good mouth aroma. Most of the session is about complex yiwu huigan and strong mouthcoat that delivers a lengthy complexity in the mouth. Qi was strong and of high quality, tho' I do not remember any euphoria like what I've gotten before. I certainly still had a smile on my face. Durability was pretty good, about fifteen brews.

I found a XZH cannister in a random pile during the day and gradually figured out it was a white taiji maocha, presumably 2020. I generally associate this sort of Taiji was a super yancha-bangdong minerally tea as per the 2019, but this maocha, while very green, to the point that I suspect that it's a bit overcooked, has a substance to the base and a very nice floral forestiness as the rim of aroma and taste Not really a very complicated tea, a lot like the '18 XZH Chocobrick sheng with Bulang material, but this reminds me more of Banpo Laozhai Nannuo. Anyways, good mouthfeel, and earlier brews tend to have a good yiwu huigan to sugars. Only a light mouthcoat. Some qi. Sort of think this is pretty made to be enjoyed as a green tea. Tea is durable but it kind of gets harsh a bit and was never all that interesting to drink in the first place. I generally intend on thermosing this stuff. Feels like it will be less harsh in a thermos than the other XZH young maocha that I've tried for the purpose.

I only did five brews of today's tea before putting it aside for the traditional dinner, but it was a very high end five brews from the '09 XZH JinTaiji made with Hekai materials.

Aroma and taste actually reminded me a lot of high end "LBZ" shus. Wood, mineral, high barnyard is the base with almond and a sort of cookie dough sweetness adding to the agreeability. Deep barnyard, plummy, a small tcm bitter pole, and a woody nuance is mostly the taste, tho' one brew did have a nice wine note hanging in the plummy. A touch sour. Decent to good viscosity with cotton-velvet texture, and the astringency is on the light end. High end aftertaste game, with a couple of brews with light pungent huigan after some feeling down throat, along with a high end yiwu huigan that does its own stuff and segues to strong, lasting, and sweet mouthcoat. One brew also had a good yun. Moderate-strong qi that's a bit sneaky. And of course, no news on durability, but doesn't seem to be that dynamic in character, and hasn't been that dynamic over the course of past sessions. Thoroughly enjoyed and looking forward to brewing a bunch more times tomorrow.

 

[shah8]

Relatively easy going weekend here...

'09 JinTaiji gave plenty more good brews, and the mouthfeel is a genuine standout for the tea. The '20 BaiTaiji continued on its Nannuo way, and a weekday thermos felt quite similar to W2T Sister Brother, only less flavorful and more elegant with more aftertaste and qi.

Shu of Friday was the '20 W2T The Stranger. A really good session with this tea, wondering whether it's getting settled and the improvement will be a constant. Very nuanced flavor for a shu, good mouthfeel, with strong mouthcoat aftertaste and strong qi. Also pretty durable.

First sheng of the weekend was the 2013 Baifuzancang Old Village Auspicious Clouds, the baiyingsheng area tea, that's older than the 2015 sample that I tried some time ago. This is a lot less floral and sweet and agreeable, and more something resembling a hollowed out Fengqing tea with some age. Yeah, Baiyingshang is definitely generally speaking is an area for fresh drinking and not really for aging. That being said, all of the other factors besides richness/potency of taste marks this as a nicely gushu tea. This also made me think a lot about Jinggu teas and the degree to which people are holding out on us. It's pretty clear that Jinggu teas most definitely can be as elite as many other teas, and the best isn't that second tier. However, very little advertising of the good stuff while plenty of articles exist of that Mojiang county Fengwangwo tea...Jinggu teas certainly can be higher end than Baiyingshan, that's for sure.

Mineral, body must/musk, wood, and a certain woodsappiness are the main features of aroma much of the way through. There can be some sugars and some florals on occasion. Late aroma is more dark herbal, sugars, and mineral. The taste is wood, woodsap, dark herbal, toasted sweet grains, and maybe an edge of camphor in varying proportions. One brew was sour, and a couple had a bit of bitterness. Relatively similar to aged Fengqing but without a strong core of tcm bitter or dried fruit depth. Taste simplifies to dark herbal, mineral, sugars, toasted sweet grains in late brews. Good viscosity, a light pudding texture. Astringency builds from light to moderately strong and back down a bit from there. Early brews can have some feeling down throat. Good yiwu huigans and mouthcoat in the first six or so brews before fading to a light mouthcoat afterwards. Strong qi that is present even in late brews. Durability isn't so great in that the tea really tires out after six-eight brews and drastically longer brewing times are needed for good taste. I suppose I got about fourteen brews.

Anyways, not mindblowing, but well worth the price I paid (about $120/357g), and about the quality of a XZH Lao Wu Shan or XuShanChuenYu, especially if you don't discount on accordance of lack of rich taste.

The tea today was the 2006 0083 Thaipu...I didn't really take any notes, but I am happy with this tea. This tea is also thinner tasting, but in a different way from the baiyingshan and more like other thaipu. But also, it gives good taste (prune and wood early, sweet earthy late), good feeling in mouth (oily texture early), strong mouthcoat, and good qi.

I also did a bit of lochanteas Socklatinga Assam green. Pretty much as per description, coarse green tea heartiness that is low with a certain mossiness/certain kind of aromaticness, with a hint of pear sweetness. Is easily bitter and astringent and would need skill in brewing for best effect.

 

[shah8]

Did a thermos of the bfzc baiyingshan, and it was similarly light tasting, with a kind of transparent nannuo-carrot/plummy that's a bit like an aged kuzhushan without wood or deep plummy. The mouthfeel and qi were very good and the aftertaste was good.

I contrast this with a thermos of XZH '09 Xicongtianxiang. Much more taste and depth, can feel the greater oxidation, causing a bit of flatness, but also contributing towards solid taste. Aftertastes are a bit better, and mouthfeel/qi is about the same or slightly less.

The shu of Friday was the 2015 W2T Channel Orange. It was mostly okay. The chenpi is more medicinal and less citrusy, the shu is highly fragmented and a touch on the heavier fermentation side. There can be a bit of sourness here and there, and for the most part, there is a short peak after about four or so brews. Good enough mouthfeel, some yiwu huigan to almond sweetness, and the qi is reasonable. Drinking this made me appreciate the ZTMDKZ even more--I really probably should have bought that second tube.

Ruminating on the BFZC, and not wanting to dig cake out of storage, I dove into my sample box and brought out some Bingdaos. I noticed that one of my 2010 Ke'xing Bingdao samples has extra writing on it starting with the character for millenial, so I go "hmmm, some kind of special grade?" and went for it. Yeah, it's something that is better than the regular 2010, but presumably, since the regular would have cost about a dollar a gram, this would have been quite unreasonably expensive...

Through much of the session, mineral and egg whites were consistently in the aroma. A few early brews also had sugars, and one had wood in the aroma. Later brews are more grain syrup and minerals, with apples and herbals showing up here and there. The taste also tends to have subtle bitterness along with a light egg whites note with a dominant mineral and sugars character. Sometimes there is also a light dried fruit depth. Late brews is grain syrup and herbals for the most part. There is a degree of sensate sweetness here and there. Generally thick viscosity with oily texture. The astringency starts off very low and gradually builds to moderate before falling off again. Relatively full featured aftertaste game, tho' not all of the aspect shows up together in a cup. One brew had a bit of feeling going down throat, and the cooling feeling can be dynamic. Third brew was nice with yun, pungent huigan, yiwu huigan, and mouthcoat. Most brews before the very late ones had a dynamic, lingering mouthcoat that sometime had a minty bite. Mouth aroma shows up in a couple of brews. Qi is strong early but faded in the late brew. Durability is good, did at least fifteen brews.

I enjoyed this as a premium effort.

The tea today was the XZH '12 Yibang Classic. Still overoxidized, and had somewhat poor durability, but quite enjoyable, and probably better than the Bingdao in straight tea values on account of stronger taste, better quality qi, even if it gives some on the aftertaste.

Aroma tends to be honey, barnyard, light cupcake, light fleshy floral, and light fruit in varying proportions. tastes has several stages. First stage is honey, cupcake, mineral, and a bit of barnyard. Second stage has a slight tcm bitter pole, deep plummy, mineral, wood, a bit of tartness. Then it rises up to be a more agressively sweet honey, cupcake, mineral sort of taste before fading to a thin mineral, touch of deep plummy and tcm bitter in the late taste. Good viscosity, pudding texture along with generally light astringency for mouthfeel. Aftertastes has light yiwu huigan, occassional subtle mouth aromas, and a good mouthcoat early. One brew had a yun going. The qi was strong and of high quality. This tea was very tired by brew eight or nine, tho' I kept drinking past that as the mouthfeel and qi were still decent.

I did a second, 4g Bingdao this weekend, the unknown year, unknown form factor baifuzancang Bingdao. Again, reminds me strongly of a more agreeable, less potent 2002 Tai Lian.

Honey, herbal, fruit in early brew aroma, while more of a light fruitiness in late brew aroma. Generally, a savory herbal, light wood, honey, and artisinal clay in varying proportions for taste. Can also have a slightly bitter chicory depth late in the session. Sweet flavor also tends to be grain syrup rather than honey in late session. Some sensate sweetness as well. Good viscosity with oily texture, low astringency. There are yiwu huigan to fruit and sugars and a slightly dynamic mouthcoat for aftertaste. Moderate to strong qi. Durability seems moderate.

There doesn't seem to be all that much of an advantage with the BFZC Bingdao as opposed to the Baiyingshan, just stronger, more agreeable taste, and maybe a slightly louder aftertaste? Baiyingshan has at least as good mouthfeel and perhaps better qi.

 

[shah8]

It was mostly a fairly casual drinking weekend...

The shu of Friday was the 2019 W2T Modern Witch. It was really rather good, and is easy to see why iterations keep getting sold out. It's a lot closer to more premium shu like The Stranger in quality than to Pretty Birds or Sunday Special. It's just a bit thinner in taste. Good Bulang shu taste with a core bitter rod, good mouthfeel, good qi. Has a strong mouthcoat aftertaste that lingers.

The first sheng of the weekend was the 2002 Tai Lian. This is quite bitter, and it's a touch hard on the tummy, but otherwise this remains one of the better buys for what it is around, either from YS or King Tea Mall. It has an excellent aroma, very nice aromatic woody and honey taste, good mouthfeel, and good qi. It is very durable, and eventually the bitterness does quit, and can give some really nice latter brews. I'm actually kind of interested in what another 20 years of dry storage would do for this tea.

The second tea of the weekend was the 2007 XZH Shangpin. Reminder that Kuzhushan is one of the few northern teas that will age into a reasonably full taste as this tea has plenty of wood and some depth in aroma and taste. There is spice early, with one brew having a strong cinnamon note. This tea also has a strong bitter rod, but throughout the session, and not as productive as other tea's bitterness. There is also a murky candy or fruity sweetness in the depth of the taste often. Good mouthfeel, and a bit of aftertastes. Strong qi. Durable. This was a well better than usual session with this tea.

Okay, to the tea I actually bothered to take notes with, the 2014 Baifuzangcang Guzhai Xiangyun. I had originally bought two 2013, but somehow it went out of stock and so I got one 2013 and one 2014 cake. I've tried the 2013, and now I'll try the 2014. Long and short of it is that it's not that great. It's much more like the 2015 version that I've had a sample of, but I kept drinking brews very quickly--not that much goodness slowing me down to savor.

Roasted grain, wood, a bit of wood, and subtle wood and barnyard nuances in the early aroma. Later aroma has more of a wood, dark herbal, sugars, camphor in varying proportions. A couple of brews have a very nice aroma. The taste has pretty consistent theme of wood, roasted grains, dark herbals and sugars (in later brews) in varying proportions. A couple of brews also has a touch of bitterness. Taste doesn't have a lot of nuance, so it tends to be kind of refreshing to drink. Mouthfeel is pretty good with good viscosity and a sort of cotton-soft pudding texture. Light astringency. Aftertaste is primarily a buildup to a mouthcoat by the end of the cup, which lasts for a while past the cup. There is some associated cooling feeling in mouth. Only subtle yiwu huigans are present in a few brews. One brew had a bit of yun. Moderate to strong qi. Durability is pretty decent, did about 12 brews before losing interest.

I had the idea that there was something hinky going on, and I retried the 2013, four grams minisession... Yeah, the 2013 is substantially more gushu than the 2014 or 2015 even as it has less taste, and sort of a different taste--again, more like a weak Fengqing taste with little of the roasted grains, dark herbals, or sugars. The 2013 has a stronger wood and camphor edge with maybe a dried fruit sense for depth. The mouthfeel is about the same, but the 2013 goes down the throat the way legit gushu does. The aftertaste is different too in that there is something of a seemless yiwu huigan mouthfeel aftertaste that is mostly an extended finish that acts on the tongue rather than quite coating the lining of the mouth, and does this with some nuance. Qi is about the same potency, but its of substantially better quality. Didn't have time to really push brewing times, but I certainly did not refrain from getting about ten brews in, it was a rather good experience.

This made me think a lot about the 2017 XZH Tianmenshan Sing Tree that was another tea with light, subtle, layered taste, comparing it with things a much more solid taste like the 2019 XZH Heart Sutra or the 2019 Tianmenshan maocha from YiwuTeaMountain. Yeah, in a lot of cases, legit gushu is going to fly over the head of many a puerh drinker, as you have to really pay attention...

 

[shah8]

Nothing too complicated this weekend...

Shu of Friday An Xiang--not particularly great in terms of top taste or aroma. Qi was still strong.

The sheng of Saturday was the 2009 RuiCaoXiang GuShuLanXiang. This was pretty enjoyable, and I had another spasm of a wish that I had bought more bulang long ago.

The earlier aroma was a bit complex with plummy, mineral, a touch of barnyard and wood. Occassionally has sugars as well. The later aroma tended to be more of a plummy with a fruit tinge. The taste is largely consistently high plummy with a bitterness that has fleshy florals around it. There are other nuances like barnyard, mineral, and wood to a slight degree. Late brews need to be brewed to the bitterness for best taste. It can be sensate sweet late as well. The original advertisement for this tea talks about a floral aroma, it's interesting to me how it's not floral (or woody) today, but the taste has florals. The soup tends to have good-very good viscosity with a velvet (slightly oily as well) texture. Light astringency throughout as well. Early brew manages some feeling down throat as well as yuns and mouth aroma. The tea regularly has yiwu huigan and good mouthcoat. Qi was something like moderate level. Durability was pretty good, did about fifteen brews.

The sheng of Sunday before the Eagles game was the 2009 XZH Jingmai. Slightly disappointing, but still pretty enjoyable.

As one might guess, the aroma was a highlight with fruit, honey, powder florals, and a touch of savory florals at its most complex, and later brews has a nice fruity aroma. The taste was initially kind of dynamic so: slightly bitter, fleshy floral, fruity, and cupcake->honey, nutty(like mangjing), slight fruit, slight powder floral with some bitter tart-> stronger bitterness with greater darkness of taste along with some sourness, longan and honey-> higher, fresher longan taste, thinning and less bitter/sour taste-> later brews will have a touch of bitterness and some fruit/longan notes. Decent to good viscosity with grainy-velvet texture early. Generally moderate astringency with dips below and above. Aftertaste has some yiwu huigan early, a good mouthcoat consistently, and single cups with a yun or mouth aroma. Moderate-good level qi. Durability was good enough generally, but a number of cups didn't have much nuance. I did about twelve or thirteen cups before putting it in the fridge.

 

[shah8]

Again, not much happening this weekend--basically, I didn't want to dig tea out, so got tea from easy at hand places. Also, no notes taken, so not much detail...

The Gushu LanXiang didn't perform that well in a thermos, so it's not *too* good...

The shu of Friday was the 2006 Taipei Memorial. Might well have been the best tea session of the weekend. Same usual delicate taste, but quite nuanced and deep in its way. Decent aftertastes and good qi.

The first sheng of Saturday was the 2010 Essence of Tea Manmai. Nothing too exciting, tho' it tasted very similar to the 2008 Dayi 8582 801 that I've long since drunk up. Of course, doesn't taste that aged, but it has hints of wood, etc, with the basic honey. Didn't have much of that Bada raspberry or whatever fruitiness. Decent enough yiwu huigan and mouthcoat, but the qi was notably strong.

The second sheng of Saturday was finishing off the 2006 Naked Tea Horse sample from Essence of Tea. I've mostly just dismissed it as being not very good, and certainly not worth the money compared to other relatively similar priced tea of this nature at EoT, like the 2010 Bulang. Big point in its favor is a degree of aggreeablenss. It has a kind of peach and wood smoke top of the taste, with a low-key menghai bottom of barnyard-plummy. Mouthfeel is okay, but not that much qi or aftertaste. Processing was clearly problematic as discussed before.

Last tea of the weekend was a highly broken set of 2006 XZH Bulang brick leaves from the bottom of my tin. Not too much can be taken from the aroma and taste, given the material, but earlier brews had a nice bit of feeling down throat, and qi is generally good and strong throughout.

 

[shah8]

A good tea weekend...

2006 Naked Tea Horse Road did very well in brewings during the week. Got tasty brews with a bit of qi and aftertaste after a hard day's work, so I'm a bit more up on the tea.

The shu of Friday was the 2021 W2T The Bringer. It was fine, but I was sort of down on it, relative to Lich's Tears and other high end shu. Mainly because its primary advantage was having a potent depth with a bitter pole. For how much it costs, I wanna bit more nuance, more aftertaste other than the mouthcoat it generates, etc. Good tea, but kind of plain. Of course, this is still in the process of settling, and good shu are going to have bland days while they figure out what they are.

The first sheng of the weekend was the 2007 XZH Yuanshilin, the Hekai tea. It was pretty good, the oxidation issue was a bit muted this session. I sort of think the durability could have been better, tho'.

Dynamic aroma, sooo Wood, barnyard, touch of honey->barnyard, cookie dough sweetness, honey, plummy->honey, barnyard, cookie dough in light aroma-> wood, sweetness-> mineral. It wasn't a tea that had an aromatic game lasting that deep into the session. Taste was more consistent with a dark, tart, bitter tobacco, wood, plummy, and barnyard featuring in most brews. The tobacco depth and wood fades, leaving a predominantly and often sensate sweet plumminess in later brews. Good viscosity with a velvet texture at least early on (late brews have very good viscosity with something like a pudding texture), and a generally moderate level of productive astringency. Said astringency generates a long lingering and generative mouthcoat through most of the session. There is also a slow yiwu huigan usually in the first half of the session. A little bit of cooling mouthfeel in the latter session. The qi was present at at least moderate to strong levels, but I never paid that special of attention to it, so sort of pedestrian. I took this tea a long way, but much of the latter session was rather light in flavors as I really squeezed out the leaves. Probably about twelve worthwhile brews on the way to doing fifteen or sixteen brews.

I did the WuyiOrigin Wild JinJunMei (all tips, no leaves)--think the 2019 version for a quick spin. Very enjoyable hongcha. More mellow and less floral than it used to be, and now is a pretty lychee and honey taste much of the way, with later brews having more malt and choco in there as well. Good aroma as well. Good viscosity and very round texture. Good mouthcoat aftertaste. Not that dynamic, of course. Qi is strong in the early brews, but taper off after five or so brews, sort of interesting. Less full taste than the WuDi Zhengyan Wuyi Hongcha sold at Essence of Tea, but more fun.

The sheng of Super Bowl Sunday (man, what a terrible call at the end of the game, huh?) was the 2011 Essence of Tea Douyizhai Nannuo tea. This was a really good session that was kind of knocking on super-premium level experience. I certainly enjoyed it more than I had recent sessions of the same year EoT Mannuo, which I usually like better. Southern Nannuo that has always had some commonalities with Hekai teas and was especially sort of Banzhang-Youle today.

Aroma is generally sweet, especially early, with barnyard, mushroom, fruit (like apricot), mabe a tint of dark herbal and wood. Later aromas are mostly fruity with occassional moves toward menghai mushroom, wood, minerals in a specific brew or two. Earlier brews are darker in taste with dark herbal toward cola, barnyard, mushroom, sugars, fruit, light wood rim, and with an occassional bitter-tart bite very early in the session. Later brews lighten up to mostly mushroom and sugars with hints of the earlier thing lurking in the depth. The viscosity was good to very good with a nod toward velvet for texture. Again, the astringency was moderate and productive of aftertastes. The third brew had a bit of feeling down throat and a small pungent huigan coming back up. More brews had a yun, while most brews had a strong, slow yiwu huigan and a strong mouthcoat that lingers nicely. Moderate to strong enjoyable qi. Very nicely durable, did at least fifteen good brews.

Yeah, not really trivial to buy this stuff anymore--I mean, Sanhetang doesn't really do this sort of Nannuo--they generally have stuck to herbal, foresty nannuo from around BanpoLaoZhai with only a nod for the 2010 Bama, which might be their only southern Nannuo. Also, this is good enough such that it's easily better than stuff like today's Essence of Tea Youle, even at more than a dollar a gram.