Two inexpensive 2008 cakes
Posted on 19 June 2009
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.
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.
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).
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).
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