Two older teas from Yunnan Sourcing
Posted on 8 January 2009
Both were ordered as 25g samples (not whole cakes) from Yunnan Sourcing.
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1998 CNNP Green Wrapper Brick
The 1998 CNNP Green Wrapper brick is a tricky tea to brew. Leaves are small and compression is very tight. With 45s, 45s, 1m, 5m in gaiwan, I got a lightish yellow colour and disappointingly little intensity (aroma cup showed a generic caramel note, and nothing else, in a tea that admittedly is a decade old). Flavour is dominated by bitterness with little fruit. Another couple of sessions in various clay pots (with 20s, 20s, 30s, 40s, 60s, 90s and then at will) resulted in a semi-coloured tea (mostly moving from dark orange to medium amber), with a pleasant first infusion showing a middle-aged brown tobacco note, and an increasingly bitter ku drive through infusion #2–5 (I think due to the mashed leaf of which this is exclusively composed). Later (provided infusions are kept moderate at 60–90s) this reaches a good balance, with some minerality at mid-palate and less bitterness.
Overall I think this has some content, but is unbalanced. On the positive side, there is good patience: look at the darkish colour of the 6th infusion here:
Overall I think this has some content, but is unbalanced. On the positive side, there is good patience: look at the darkish colour of the 6th infusion here:
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With patience comes tannic power, of which this tea has exceedingly much. It takes a finer brewing technique than mine to balance it with properly intense fruit. Looking at the wet leaf, it is pretty much a mashed mess. There is hardly an intact leaf, and with this level of fragmentation (which BTW is typical of the late 1990s, I think) it is hardly surprising to find so much bitter tannins in the brew.
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1998 CNNP Green Wrapper Brick, after 11 minutes total infusion
The second tea is the 2000 Yiwu from Long Yuan Hao factory. As tightly compressed as the above, the dry leaf is showing a little brown and evolved but leaf grade seems quite a bit higher than in the above, with some tips.
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Brewed with 5g in 150ml Da Hong Pao pot. 10s: Light beige-apricot colour. A pleasant nose of wood and brown tobacco, with a degree of depth and complexity. Quite unbitter, with a typically middle-aged woodsy character on palate, and good length. Classy and quite clean (no shicang in sight) if not enormously expressive. 15s: Almost identical to above. 40s (pushing to see how much bitterness appears): Colour is still a little short of brown. Indeed a little bitterish on end, with good tobacco-scented length, crowning what is a good medium-bodied, well-construed tea with some mountain leaf content. Satisfying no doubt, with a cleaner, airier profile than many similarly aged cakes from major companies. Length, in fact, is superior. 1m, 2m: This has a lot of power, staying coloured, concentrated, flavourful and really quite bitter throughout these infusions.
The wet leaf confirms the comparison with the 1998s above: while still rather fragmented, this 2000 shows more high-grade intact leaf.
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2000 Long Yuan Hao Yiwu, after 10 minutes total infusionInterestingly, both teas seem rather young for their age, and very dry-stored. And for their age, they are rather fairly priced: $32 and $58 per bing, respectively.