Wojciech Bońkowski
Master of Wine

(5) 2009 Uji Gold Shincha

Back to fresh 2009 shincha with this Uji Gold from Marukyu-Koyamaen. This is a limited production tea that’s not even advertised on their website, and only sold for a few weeks beginning in mid-May (I don’t think it’s available anymore). At ¥3,200 / 100g it’s among the more expensive sencha teas from this merchant. And as usually with Marukyu, it’s beautifully packaged:

Package aside, the dry leaves are a joy to look at:
We are on totally different territory than the trio of O-Cha releases reviewed in the last few days (see links at top of post). This is very definitely an asamushi [short-steamed] tea, and the leaves are impeccable, dark emerald in colour, 100% intact, almost exclusively whole. It’s a rare sight among Japanese teas. It has an enjoyable aroma, rather light and elegant, sweet (melon), ungrassy but vaguely reminiscent of spinach, very lightly roasted; compared to the other 2009 shincha teas reviewed in this series, this Uji Gold introduces a sweet-spicy note of vanilla.
The dry leaf tells a lot about this tea’s characteristics and pretty much preannounces the ups and downs of actually brewing it. As much as I am aesthetically admirative of the leaf quality here, it’s a difficult tea to interpret. It has little to do with Japanese sencha as we know it. Brewed with standard parameters (2g / 120ml / water at 70C / 60–90 seconds) this yields a light greenish-golden colour, and the profile is very close to a continental Chinese green tea. Light-bodied, unpungent, vegetal (in the sense of green beans and spinach, not the more usual grass), with little fruit (melon); only a very minor reminiscence of brothy umami. This profile continues through the second brewing (where Japanese greens usually pack in more oomph). Perhaps a bit of creaminess to the texture (egg custard).

Infusion no. 1: 60 seconds at 70C.

Logically for a whole leaf tea, where the leaf surface to water ratio is far larger than in a fragmented leaf fukamushi [long-steamed] tea such as this, it’s reasonable to increase leaf quantity, water temperature, or both in order to get better extraction and more depth of flavour. From these options, a higher 80–85C temperature is fine, with more palate presence and length (but a finish that’s bit hard), but I’ve been happier with a higher dosage. Move from 2 to 4 grams of dry leaf in the pot (60 seconds for the first brewing, shorter afterwards) and you’re getting a totally different animal. Deeper in colour (though still yellowish rather than jade-green), much more saline and mineral, this reminded me of some avant-garde white wines from Alsace or Friuli in its full terroir presence. I’m interpreting this as a signature of Uji, Japan’s most renowned tea growing location. Still not exactly a typical Japanese sencha, again reminiscent of something more continental, but now a really exciting tea.

As it stands, I found this an eye-opener. Too often we are stuck with what we deem is ‘typical’: an important concept in interpreting any agricultural product but dangerous when it starts to handicap truly individual ones. This 2009 Uji Gold is precisely that: a high-quality product with a distinctive style. I’m sorry to see my 50g pack drawing to an inevitable end.

No mistake: this is Japanese shincha.

tea Shortlink

Japanese fortnight (4): 2008 Miyabi Sencha

When I was ordering new shincha teas from O-Cha back in April, one tea that really interested me was unavailable from the 2009 vintage, so I decided to take some 2008. After all, O-Cha proudly state that all their teas are sent out in nitrogen-filled packages, which should effectively prolong shelf life well into the new year. So here is the 2008 Miyabi Sencha.

O-Cha consider this one of their best offerings. Unlike the Yutakamidori and Fukamushi Supreme that I’ve reviewed earlier (see links at top of page), this tea is from Uji, perhaps Japan’s most prestigious tea-growing appellation. At $26 per 100g, it surely has a prestigious price tag.

It’s interesting how I disagree with this vendor’s product descriptions. The 2009 Yutakamidori is described as heavy-steamed and this Miyabi as medium-steamed, yet there’s no doubt the latter sees heavier steaming. While the Yutakamidori, to me, is chumushi (click link at top of page to see a picture of spent leaves: there is a mixture of heavily fragmented and nearly intact that I find characteristic of medium steaming), the Miyabi is a finer fragmented tea, and it also shows in the infusion:

The dry leaf is similar to the 2009 Fukamushi Supreme in aroma, showing a larger-than-life bouquet of ripe exotic fruits that on the whole is reminiscent of a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc; compared to the Fukamushi Supreme, it is less tangy, sweeter, fruitier (melon, papaya, some kiwi), and really tremendously enjoyable.

This aromatic register is reflected in the teacup. The scents are elegant and subtle: melon, pomelo, with an underlying vegetality. The combination of sweetness and vegetality (becoming a chewy bitterish seaweedy character when overbrewed) is also to be found in the flavour. There is nearly no astringency but quite a bit of thickness. And interestingly, the second infusion is best in nearly all my trials; while I usually rate my first infusions of Japanese greens highest, this tea is an exception. Somehow, it’s only in the second brewing that flavours seem to come together.

This tea is true to its name: miyabi, ‘elegance’. Despite its obvious thickness and a certain power it focuses around clean, elegant fruit flavours. To get the best of this character, I recommend dosing sparingly: in a comparative tasting with 2, 3 and 4 grams of leaf, the former version was the best.

Is this 2008 showing its age? Honestly, not much. It’s a clean, well-defined, reasonably complex tea of real personality, and it’s perhaps my favourite from the three sencha teas from O-Cha I’ve tried this year. But it’s even more ephemeral than the 2009 offerings from O-Cha, and its plateau of highest quality lasts only a few days from opening the pack; later, there’s a slightly drying seaweedy impression on the palate that’s a telltale sign of a Japanese green going stale. The 2009 is now available and I’m sure it won’t disappoint.

tea Shortlink

(3) 2009 Fukamushi Supreme Shincha

Let’s have a look at the 2009 Shincha Fukamushi Supreme. It’s another best-selling tea from O-Cha. Produced from the Yabukita varietal in the central region of Shizuoka. Priced at $23 / 100g.

Dry leaf: living up to its fukamushi [heavy- or long-steamed] name, this is very fragmented with few intact leaves. If you look at yesterday’s photo of the 2009 Yutakamidori, the difference is subtle but visible, as between chumushi [medium-steamed] and fukamushi. The most remarkable thing about this Fukamushi Supreme is the dry leaf aroma. It’s among the most intensely perfumed teas I’ve encountered. It’s a cornucopia of tangy exotic fruits, citrus, pomelo, melon, guyava, kumquat, you name it, with a subdued background grassiness and mild roast; a bouquet that positively reminds me of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc wine from New Zealand. (The aroma also shows you how vital freshness is to this type of tea; four weeks after I opened the pack, it’s not quite the same thing, even stored in a double-lid tin).

Brewed as usually in the present series of reviews (2g / 120ml of water / 70C / 60 seconds), this tea pours a lighter colour than expected. While some chopped leaf residue makes it into the cup, the colour remains a pale green. It’s only with the second infusion (even if very short) that you get that legendary deep opaque emerald colour, like unfiltered olive oil from Central Italy:


Infusion no. 1 (60 seconds @ 70C) and 2 (25 seconds @ 80C).

The aroma is unfruity, fairly brothy, with a distinctive umami character. It’s also rather glutinous in texture from infusion #2 onwards. A dense, chewy tea with some dryness on the finish (as much a factor of astringency as texture). Interestingly, it isn’t exactly crisp, and technically has little acidity; the mouthfeel is similar to a light broth (if you cook it without lemon!) or miso soup. The melony fruit at core is soft and sweetish though, not citrusy, remaining the single fruit reference even in overinfusions at 95C. Second infusions at their densest move towards a more vegetal, chewy bean character (French beans).

Many Japanese tea drinkers have a preference for the full-on style of fukamushi teas, and I can see why this particular Fukamushi Supreme is so popular. Personally, I much like asamushi [short-steamed] Japanese greens, and so approached this tea with no positive bias. It is wholesome, of obviously good quality, and I’m perhaps doing it injustice expecting a bit more poise and zest.

As an aside, it’s one of the most short-lived teas I’ve come across, in the sense of an obvious drop in quality and complexity within a few weeks from opening the (nitrogen-filled as per O-Cha declaration) pack. While my inaugural sessions revealed some limey and grassy tang on the finish and were fairly vivid, four weeks later I am left with a simpler, flatter profile. This is understandable, fukamushi being one of the most fragmented leaf teas out there, and with the higher surface of exposure to air it just loses freshness so much more quickly than whole-leaf stuff.

tea Shortlink

(2) 2009 Yutakamidori Shincha

Other posts in this series:
2008 Gyokuro Kame-Jiru-Shi (O-Cha)
2008 Gyokuro Tama Homare (Marukyu)
2008 Kabusecha Takamado (Marukyu)
2008 Karigane Otowa (Marukyu)
2008 Sencha Miyabi (O-Cha)
2009 Shincha Fukamushi Supreme (O-Cha)
2009 Shincha Shigaraki (Marukyu)
2009 Shincha Shuei (Marukyu)
2009 Shincha Uji Gold (Marukyu)

In the second installment of my Japanese series I have a look at the 2009 Yutakamidori Shincha from reputed online merchant O-Cha. (As an aside, I want to praise their customer service: my original $100+ order went missing somewhere between Japan and Poland, and they’ve replaced it free of charge, even shipping by EMS. It’s the sort of attitude that guarantees a re-purchase there). At $25 / 100g it is priced at the upper middle end of the range for sencha (though objectively expensive).

Other than being a perennial favourite from O-Cha and one of the more consistently high-rating tea among writers and bloggers, the interest of this tea is that it is made with a single tea variety (‘cultivar’, ‘breed’, or ‘tea tree’): Yutakamidori. While Chinese tea is more often than not a single variety product, Japanese teas are frequently blended, and when they’re not, they are predominantly from the hardy Yabukita variety, which accounts for over 80% of plantings in Japan. Yutakamidori is one of the more popular cultivars, responsible for between 3 and 5% (according to various estimates) of tea plantations. It’s a variety typical of southern tea-growing regions: this example is from Kagoshima. Yutakamidori is often described as mild and sweet, yielding a brew that’s less grassy and pungent than Yabukita.

The loose leaf is far more fragmented than the Shigaraki Shincha I reviewed yesterday. While the latter was lightly steamed, leaving the leaf reasonably intact, this Yutakamidori saw a heavier steaming that resulted in more leaf breakage and a fair amount of fannings. O-Cha are classing this as heavy-steamed, but I think it’s more towards medium steaming [chumushi], or perhaps chumushi+ as there is still some intact leaf. The dry leaf smell is very intense and delightfully fruity; from the O-Cha sencha offerings I’ve ordered this year (reviews to follow in the next few days), this is the least tangy, and the fruitiest. There’s also a mild baked bread roast to be discerned when the leaves are warmed in the pot.

Look at the colour: a clear light green-yellow, becoming only partly cloudy in subsequent infusions. It’s another shincha that is, to evoke the descriptor generally used for this class of Japanese tea, not really ‘bold’. As Yutakamidori should be, it is mild, sweet, and fruity. There is never any citric or grassy tang that I associate with tea from other Japanese varieties. Instead, the fruit register centers around melon, papaya and lychee. Later on the palate there is a mealy, grainy, cerealy, perhaps ricey impression that has a bit of umami feel to it. Brewed conservatively at 70C with a minute or so of steeping, it doesn’t really develop much in terms of bitterness or kick. It is a clean, not to say pure, tea that in my experience requires a slightly higher dosage: 2.5 or even 2.8g per 100 ml of water.

It’s a very satisfying tea, a typical chumushi with good texture. But it’s not a monster of expression or intensity: the key characteristic is balance. The high quality is emphasised when you overbrew it: it becomes bitterish and strong, but maintains the same profile and isn’t really unpleasant. It’s the first time I’m tasting this renowned tea from O-Cha, and it’s living up to its fame.

This is chumushi.

tea Shortlink

Japanese fortnight (1): 2009 Shigaraki Shincha

Feeling like green tea?

Weeks are inexorably running since the spring tea harvest in Japan so it’s time to review this year’s releases (with a few 2008s thrown in) from O-Cha and Marukyu-Koyamaen. I hope my wine readers will enjoy this series as the next two weeks will be dedicated to Japanese tea reviews.
This 2009 Shigaraki Shincha is the second-cheapest from Marukyu-Koyamaen (where I’ve received excellent service, and can heartily recommend this shop). At ¥900 / 90g can (and the cans are pretty nice: see photo), it is fairly inexpensive for a quality sencha. Shigaraki is a town historically renowned for its pottery; located next to Uji, I have no confirmation whether the leaves for this tea do indeed come from Shigaraki.

I have brewed this tea as all other Japanese greens in my reviews, alternating 150ml glass pot, 180ml Tokoname kyusu pot, and my favourite Korean clay pot (which you can see more extensively in this post), dosing at 2g / 100ml and with water at 70C, 75C, 80C (I find myself stopping by the third brew almost universally with Japanese teas; the first one is almost always the most enjoyable and revealing). Where there is a deviation from this regime I will indicate this.

As you can see from the picture, the dry leaf is of high quality: consistent, well-processed, good-looking asamushi [light-steamed] that fills the drinker with high expectations. The leaf has little distinctive aroma to speak of, lightly vegetal with little intensity; there’s no perceptible roast.

Brewing no. 1 (90 seconds at 70C).

In essence, this is a fairly light tea. It brews a light, transparent yellow-green colour, and is noticeably low in aroma. The flavour, however, is satisfying. No great intensity but a clean character, quite mild and unaggressive with no astringency whatsoever if brewed conservatively. It’s vegetal, leafy (but not grassy), less tangy than most sencha, with decent length. It’s not really thick but has a vaguely milky mildness to the texture, true to its asamushi peerage. Definitely uncomplex but I like it for its clean and classic profile. It’s also fairly forgiving: you really have to beat it hard on the head (i.e., going above 80C and dosing >3g) to develop any bitterness, and even then it’s of the clean invigorating kind.
Shincha [first spring harvest of sencha] is often defined as bold and powerful, and tea vendors routinely warn you against overbrewing it. As with sencha, there’s a wide variety of styles and it all really depends on the region, tea cultivar, grade, processing technique etc. This tea is everything but ‘bold’, which is fine with me. For the price, it’s utterly good, and I highly recommend it.

tea Shortlink

Strawberries & tea

Following my yesterday entry about strawberries & wine pairing I decided to have some fun and find the best-matching tea for strawberries.

Tea & food matching is a hugely underdeveloped research field. Given tea’s similarities to wine in terms of variety and terroir character, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t behave similarly to wine in the endless combinations with food. And unlike coffee or whisky, tea effectively refreshes your palate and quenches your thirst, so it can be served through even an extended meal in countless variations.

Yet it’s really rare to see a more systematic approach to tea as an accompaniment to food. (Read here for one interesting article). It’s a cultural thing. When served with Asian cuisine, tea is subordinated instead of elevated, and is expected to give a discrete support instead of taking first stage. (At Chinese restaurants it’s often served free of charge, so what kind of quality can you expect?). Flavoured tea such as jasmine or Lapsang Souchong are classic mealtime teas. When that antique puer cake is called upon, it’s served between meals to be sipped in isolation.

As my first take on the subject I tackled the fairly straightforward subject of strawberries. They do make a natural match with tea, often being served outside a proper meal, at what is tellingly called ‘teatime’ in Europe. They’re not too sweet and can match with a wide range of teas.


The following teas were tasted at various times over the last weeks (half of them in a single sitting, which you can see on the photos). I’ve tried to brew each tea with what can be termed ‘standard parameters’: green with 70C water, oolongs, puers and blacks with boiling water and longer steeps. All teas were dosed at 2g for 100ml of water in porcelain competition tasting sets. Where available I have linked to my earlier reviews of the same teas so you can click for complete tasting notes.

2009 Sencha Fukamushi Supreme
From O-Cha (to be reviewed here soon). Brewed 90s @ 70C which resulted in a rather light tea with not a lot of tang. May I say this is a bit neutral and hardly adding much to the experience. Also I don’t quite like the grassy overtones with the strawberries’ fruitiness. Save this very good Japanese sencha for fish!

2008 Zhuyeqing
Not reviewed on this blog yet. It’s an excellent Chinese green from Sichuan, purchased from Dragon Tea House. It’s a very light, airy, elegant tea (be sure to brew with well-cooled water, not higher than 75C IME). Not a bad match at all, providing a discrete framework for the strawberries, though there’s no denying it’s much on the light side.

2008 Organic Boseong Nokcha.

2008 Korean Nokcha
Not a happy match. The tea’s too nutty, and the mild astringency on the end is masking the strawberry fruit. They need a lighter, crisper flavour.

2008 Jirisan Woojun
This tea has a powerful flavour but even this remains a bit too green and pungent to accompany strawberries.

2008 Baozhong Fleur de Lys
A very lightly oxidised oolong from Taiwan that’s close to a green tea in body. Brewed 60s @ a low 90C to develop the floral character. I enjoy the flowery aromatic ornament this adds to the session, but there is something about the light buttery body than doesn’t quite match with the strawberries. This just lacks an element of flavour that would bridge to the fruit, and also the crisp tannicity of e.g. the below Dancong. Average match only.

2008 Dancong Milan Xiang AAA: spent leaves after 6 infusions.

2008 Dancong Milan Xiang AAA
A medium oxidation, very aromatic ’Phoenix’ oolong. Brewed 45s @ 95C, resulting in a less bitter brew than expected. Showing very well. Something about that highly aromatic flowery bitterness is enormously attractive when matched with fresh fruits. Although if too tannic this is becoming a problem. A brilliant natural match and one of few to generate a sweet-lasting huigan. Perhaps my favourite.

Tea Masters’ 2008 Baihao (Oriental Beauty), first infusion.

2008 Baihao
From Tea Masters (see comprehensive review of the 2007 here), to be reviewed here soon. This Taiwanese oolong has a high grade of oxidation and a very spicy, unfruity register. Not a bad match at all, spice juxtaposing strawberries well, if perhaps a little too dry on the finish. But at the same time I would also like a bit more body. Not perfect but a convincing match.

From left to right: Baozhong, Dancong, Shuijingui, Fengqing black tea, Fengqing green puer.

2008 Wuyi Shuijingui
Not reviewed on this blog yet. It’s another Dragon Tea House offering. It’s a classic Wuyi yancha oolong that however offers a more extravagant dried fruits bouquet than your average Shuixian. Brewed 30s @ 100C it gives a medium dark brew (see photo above) with moderate structure and expressive aromatics. It acts as a nice discrete support to the strawberries – which is perhaps disappointingly little for a top Wuyi. And there’s an irreconcilable clash between the high roast and the fresh fruit. Charcoal, roasted coffee, fumé, caramel: you don’t want these flavours juxtaposed on your strawberries, especially on the tea’s finish with its charcoal-flavoured edgy tannins. But I can think of worse matches: this is helped by this Shuijingui’s high aroma and expressive fruitiness.

2009 Fengqing Waishili
A hefty black tea from Yunnan. Brewed 90s @ 100C. Generally speaking, this is a miss. Oxidation, roast and smokiness just don’t pair (for my palate). Though culturally a black tea like this one would perhaps be a first choice for most Europeans. Not very pleasant: black tea just kills the fruitiness. Perhaps try with a fruitier type.

2008 Fengqing Fengshan Yihao: spent leaves.

2008 Fengqing Fengshan Yihao
Brewed 30s @ 100C, giving a very mildly bitter, nicely full-flavoured green puer that on its own was really quite enjoyable. As a match with strawberries, not bad, although structurally these seem two divergent entities: airiness versus depth; uncomplicated freshness versus complex undercurrents. Yet I like the vegetal kick of ku on the tea’s finish, and the bean-like flavour on the palate that emphasises the strawberries’ unsweetness. A good surprise and one of my preferred matches.

2008 12 Gentelmen Chun Ya Shen Yun
Not reviewed on this blog yet. This is a cooked puer from NadaCha (but not available on their website anymore). It’s young and fairly potent. In fact brewed at 2.6g in a 120ml Terre & Feu clay pot during 45s this yielded an overpoweringly dark superintense brew that proved really repulsive with strawberries. Chewed paper and wet earth against crisp juicy fruit. It reminded of a pickled herring & sweet LBV port match we once tried to our peril. But then again, I don’t generally like shu puer at all, so you might as well enjoy the match (but don’t overbrew the tea).

2008 12 Gentelmen Chun Ya Shen Yun cooked puer, 45 seconds of infusion.

food, tea Shortlink

2008 Fengqing Fengshan Yihao

Cheap and cheerful

This plain-looking cake of green puer can be had from Yunnan Sourcing for the miserable sum of $9. I think it’s the equivalent of two filter coffees from Starbucks (in Poland, four). We’re not talking about a cup of tea but a 357g cake, which if you apply my liberal dosage, will suffice for 59 sessions of 8 cups each. So much for the puer ‘bubble’ which reputedly inflated tea prices beyond reason.

It might have done so for some upper-bracket brands but the large tea factory of Fengqing (a.k.a. Dianhong Group, hinting at their main activity as a black tea producer) has remained more than reasonable in its pricing. If you browse the internet for opinions about their puer teas, it’s usually dismissive: they’re cheap, basic and uninspiring. Perhaps I’ve been in a forgiving mood of late but I found this utterly satisfying for the price (and better than many $15–20 cakes). One thing it needs is a generous dosage. In fact my initial attempts at 2–3 grams or competition style produced an unaromatic, content-less and anonymous tea. Much better with double that amount of leaf.

Brewed in: dahongpao pot
Dosage: 6g / 130ml
Dry leaf: Compression is rather loose, and the leaves are very easily separated into a clean and intact collection. Reasonable leaf size, minor amount of tips – nothing special here but the quality is good. Wet leaf is quit thin and clearly plantation-grown but mostly wholish and intact, adding to the good overall impression.

Brewing #1 (30 seconds in clay pot)

Tasting notes:
20s: Fairly enjoyable: it is obviously a rather generic pu but at this dosage nicely intense, with medium pale (but not the palest yellow) colour and sweet tobacco dominating in the aroma cup.
30s: As tasty as brewing #1 but a bit less alive, slowly receding into a generic bean-like chewiness and sweetness. Quite some bitterness appearing, but it is of the clean, energetic, positive kind.
40s: More beany character but there are also hints of apricot and almost flowers replacing tobacco in the aroma cup. Some citrusy bitterness on end. Not massively structured but better than expected for the price. Dosage is the key to satisfaction here.
40s, 70s, 60s. Slowly becoming a little generic-candy but still satisfyingly intense. Brewings #5–6 still very good indeed: good huigan.
3m: Surely quite light in flavour but there is still enough bean, mushroom and sweet candy for interest. Long live high dosage. This delivers another half-dozen of gradually fading infusions (provided you keep the times short).

Overall this has all the characteristics of a basic but well-made sheng: tobacco, old wood, beans, some citrus, some invigorating bitterness, reasonable patience. It takes a lot of leaf in the pot to show content and texture, but at this price I don’t mind it at all. This tea will not sparkle a romance with puer if you’re still to be converted, but is really a smart choice if you need (who doesn’t?) an inexpensive tea for various mundane uses. I’m happy I bought it.

tea Shortlink

2009 Doke Silver Needle

My first taste of a white tea from India: the 2009 Doke Silver Needle. Actually, a nice surprise: a pretty good imitation of Chinese yinzhen, or ‘silver needle’.

tea Shortlink

Tea bonanza

42 teas in one day

By pure coincidence (well, a polite way to thank Polish Mail for holding packages for two weeks for ‘customs inspection’) I’ve received no less than four shipments of tea today. Now this is real embarras de richesse! My Japanese 2009s are here (tins on the photo above are from Marukyu-Koyamaen and there’s another box from O-Cha; I must praise the latter’s service as they’ve replaced an order that went missing, free of charge on EMS) and I’ll dedicate a series of future posts of various shinchas and gyokuros from these two vendors.

New season teas also include a dozen Darjeelings from Lochan; these are actually free samples that are being sent out on a promotional scheme where you only need to pay for (very efficient) shipping. I really draw your attention to this offer (currently available for both first and second flushes) as it allows for very interesting comparison between various single estates teas including the famous ones of Margaret’s Hope, Castleton, Jungpana etc. More on these teas on this blog soon.

By contrast I’ve also ordered a box of various aged puer samples from Nadacha (and some excitingly affordably yixing clay jars):


I’ve started the exploration with a black tea from Nada:

The 2009 Fengqing Wai Shi Li is a high-grade spring flush from the Fengqing Tea Factory (and more specifically their Dianhong brand) who are classic producer of both black tea and (more recently) puer. It’s fairly inexpensive at £6 / 100g, and I also very much like Nada’s wabi-sabi packaging:


Brewed in: gaiwan
Dosage: 3g/140ml
Dry leaf: Rather small leaves with a degree of golden tips but overall colour is darkish. Aroma is typically Yunnan and very hongcha: earthy, herby, rather unfruity, not terribly complex or deep; perhaps a bit of smokiness. No increase in intensity as the leaf is warmed.

Tasting notes:
45s: The profile of this brew is best described as ‘traditional’. It has a subdued aroma dominated by earth and smoke, with no fruit frills. The nose might be unremarkable but the flavoury is very good, with medium body and a less oblivious oxidation than I expected from the nose. Hardly a lot of complexity or poise but this is good for the price. I might have been just lucky with the brewing parameters as this is showing a perfect balance of tannins and body. Really quite traditional: rather solid and oxidised, less fruity than many modern examples of black Yunnan but more consistent and solid.

Brewing #1 (45 seconds).
2m: Lighter than brewing #1 even with the prolonged time, exposing a somewhat naked finish but the profile is more or less maintained. I won’t brew it a third time though.

Overall this is satisfying tea for the price. Another good buy from Nada! This also makes me curious about the other 2009 Fengqing black that he’s offering.

tea Shortlink

Two inexpensive 2008 cakes

Value for money

It’s funny how the so-called credit crunch can influence even such sophisticated areas of intellectual activity as your tea buying. Suddenly we forget about those hyped Xizhihao productions or low-volume antique offerings from www.suchandsuch.com and start packing as much tea into the $ as possible. Tea is reputed to be a very inexpensive luxury, and surely this is true when you are paying little more than $10 for 400 grams of compressed tea that will last you a good few years of brewing. Here I look at two such widely available, long-time favourites.

Menghai Tea Factory Peacock of Menghai 2008
Merchant: Yunnan Sourcing
Price: $14 / 357g cake
Brewed: competition style + subsidiary notes in dahongpao pot (5g / 120ml)
Leaf: A faint tobacco smell with some (artificial?) age. The leaf composition is not unimpressive: composed of mostly whole leaves, looking green, healthy and inviting. Very good consistent grade here.

Tasting notes:
Medium deep orange-peach colour. Aroma is simple but extremely typical: broad, chewy, tobaccoish, semi-aged; when brewed gongfu style, a white bean (almost flageolet) aroma dominates. Quite some bitterness to this, but not unintegrated (this is very controlled bitterness, nothing too wild at heart clearly). Sweetness is more hidden than often with Menghai productions. Good length, texture and flavour dominated by an alkaline, low-acid, bean-like flavour. Solid, clean and dependable if hardly a lot of personality here.

This tea is one of the main productions from one of the main tea factories, and has been widely discussed on the internet (see e.g. here). I would perhaps have liked more content and density but for what is essentially a village-level tea at an affordable price, this is really well-composed with some depth and some grip to this safe, commercial, unintense style.

Mengku Old Tree 2008
Merchant: Dragon Tea House
Price: $12 / 400g cake
Brewed: competition style + subsidiary notes in dahongpao pot (5g / 120ml)

Leaf: A good-looking cake (well, a bit dressed-up admittedly with some tips on the surface – see photo above) with medium loose compression. Leaves rather large, with what appears to be very little breakage. No aromatic surprises here, but quite some pleasantness: leafy tobacco, wet forest floor, some sweetness. Spent leaves are rather small but, for the most, intact (see photo below) and show various shades of green – including a very light one that could substantiate the ‘spring picking’ declaration.

Tasting notes:
Medium pale orange colour. A degree of agreeable sweetness and wet tobacco, no complexity (predictably for a 2008). Entry on palate is vigorous with some peppery energy, then come sweetness and vegetabley breadth (cauliflower coming to mind) but this is never bland. Finish is rather gently bitterish for a long competition brewing, with a metallic tinge, but followed by a positive huigan. Interesting how this would show equally tannic-bitter in both the 5-minute competition-style brewing and in a 40-second gongfu infusion. Pretty good tea: not masses of personality but a solid medium-bodied performance, and more than satisfying for the price. Its packs in a bit more punch than the Menghai Peacock (and is better value).

tea Shortlink