New shoots
Posted on 16 February 2012
A small plug today for Five Star Tea, a tea shop set up by two friends from the Polish tea interest group I created. They’ve teamed up with a wholesaler in mainland China who offers both good affordable everyday tea and some handpicked selections.
I’ve tasted a number of these teas recently. An affordable Dancong (not yet on the website) was aromatic with the telltale almondy, spicy character of DC – a good daily pick if you like that style. A limited production (26kg made only) 2011 Pure Qidan Danhongpao impressed with its subtle roast, upfront fruit, and clean sucre d’orge sweetness on the long finish – with less roast than often in Dahongpao, this is a delicious example that I’d be happy to retry. Another roasted Wuyi oolong, 2011 Huang Guan Yin, will be half the price of the above and nearly as good in a similar style.
Puzzling 20-year-old for the hardened drinker.
We then tasted a 1993 Shuixian from Zhengyan. This is a strange tea. My experience is too limited to tell, though I tasted these older Dancongs and Taiwanese Baozhong and they were high-roasted but mellow and clean teas with plenty of fruit. This 1993 SX aged more in the direction of a puer – with plenty of earthiness alongside some subtle orange peel flavours, it developed a strong medicinal, penicillin-like character that I didn’t like too much, but it’s personal and people who enjoy an old fermented puer will like this one too. (This was only brewed three times, and I perhaps should give it the benefit of a doubt). As I’m writing this I’m tasting a Handmade Liuan Guapian, and it’s another impressive tea: assertive and full-bodied with surprising amounts of umami for a Chinese green tea, a perfect green for the winter.
Assertive and full-bodied: the perfect winter green tea.
The Five Star Tea website also has an English version and delivery is worldwide. All these teas are pretty affordable (the Guapian is just $15 per 50g), descriptions on the website are informative, and I’m being told there are some exciting grand cru-level teas are in the pipeline. There is also a selection of nice handcrafted teaware by another friend, potter Andrzej Bero who also runs this blog. Tea in Poland is growing new shoots.
Disclosure
Five Star Tea is run by friends – I’m happy to recommend this shop but have no financial involvement and I make no commissions on sales. I occasionally receive some tea tasting samples from Five Stars Tea.