Wojciech Bońkowski
Master of Wine

Dancing in the snow

Posted on 3 February 2009

1999 Menghai #7532

21cm of snow this morning but business as usual (in Poland). © S.

Today brought some hilarious news. the mighty British Empire has been brought to its knees by 20 cm of snow. Transport halted, and even banks have remained closed (perhaps they should spend a few pennies from the billions of public help they’ve recently received on a couple of workers to de-snow).

Thank God the subpolar Polish civilisation has learned to cope. By British standards we would need to shut the entire country down from December till March.

Anyway, here’s a tea for my esteemed UK readers to warm up on while waiting for the bus service to resume. This 1999 Menghai Tea Factory #7352 raw puer was purchased from Jing Tea (a full bing costs a hefty $155, but thankfully 25g samples are available for the benefit of the savvy). First brewed in my miniature 50ml gaiwan (2.5g), then with 3.6g in 120ml Dahongpao pot, the following notes are a synthesis of the two.

Dry leaf: It is rare to see such impeccably separated leaves in a tea of this age: Jing Tea assure me the cake was not steamed, so I incur the pressing is loose. Leaves are small and partly fragmented, ranging from light to deep brown. They emit a very clean and apparently dry-stored scent of old wood.

Tasting notes:
20s: A medium brown colour. Nose echoes the dry leaves: a discretly woody scent with minor tobacco and wet earth. Calm but very clean and quite deep, this is a model of old tea elegance. A touch of dryness on the end, not very dynamic but surely not mature or frail.
30s: Deeper brown. Good clean elegant aroma of wood and earth. This is now more powerful, with a bit of bitterish ku appearing on end, adding some zest and length. Power and content.
40s: Same as before but a bit darker and more consistent in colour.
60s: Still going strong. Flavours of old wood and mushrooms, really very clean with (almost) not a hint of wet shicang storage. Integrated but present bitterness, long gan finish.
60s: Less exciting now (perhaps brewed too short): a decent woody nose but palate a bit hollow and with minor sourness now coming up.
2m: Back to good shape, there is a minor post-bitterness on the finish, quite some elegance (this tea’s hallmark) and intensity, a very good balance to the semi-aged character.
As often with older teas, it is the coda – brewings #6 to #10 perhaps – that proves the most pleasant, with a light body and an echo of past glory.

In short, this is an outstanding tea. It shows very good complexity but still has quite a bit of grip to continue improving for another few years. Its aged character – old wood, mushrooms, wet earth, smoke – is balanced by good freshness and considerable finesse; it never becomes heavy or dirty. How sad to see it out of my purchasing range.

First brewing (20 seconds in clay pot).
Category: tea Tags: ,