2007 Xizihao ‘8582’

Posted on 22 January 2009

The Xizihao range from Sanhotang Tea Factory has been generating a lot of hype recently among tea lovers. So much so that its top-of-the-range teas have become frightfully expensive. This producer being new to me, I found it sensible to begin from the bottom. This cake, with its distinctive fuchsia wrapper, is from Yunnan Sourcing.

Brewed in: gaiwan

Dosage: 5g/130ml

Dry leaf: Reasonable compression. A pleasant spectrum of colours with various shades of green, and a few tips. Not very aromatic, even when leaves are warmed: a bit of gentle woodiness and that’s all.

Tasting notes:

10s: A pale beige colour. Both colour and aroma show this tea as not being very young. There is little ‘greenness’ or obvious pungency of young sheng. Rather, we get an autumnal, fallen leaf, dry wood & mushroom expression that is really rather mild and smooth. Contrary to my fears, even this short brewing is giving a fair intensity and thickness – this is good.

25s: Amber-beige. Not terribly bitter but there is a vegetabley profile (beans mostly) dominating the palate now. A little overbrewed. But I like the overall balance: there is a feeling of restrained power and high quality leaves.

50s: Similar to above, with a mild sense of overbrewing. A metallic- or perhaps stoney-tasting bitterness throughout. Now a tannic tea with quite some Bordeaux-like power.

45s: Deliberately brewed a little weaker now, this however continues rather mineral and tannic; an architectural tea. Finish finally brings a good, long, suave, comforting huigan.

As you can see above, leaf quality is quite fine: there is relatively little breakage. But the leaves appear a little thin to be true ‘wild tree’ material. A second session in a yixing clay pot yielded very similar results, with perhaps a bit more power and astringency from brewing #3 onwards.

Overall I liked this tea. It is obviously classy. And the profile is interesting. There is little to none raw vegetal power so frequent in young sheng. Instead, at such a young age (leaves are presumably a 2006 harvest?) we get a lot of tobacco, old wood, dried leaves. Anything to do with the leaf processing? My knowledge is too limited to say, but browsing tea bloggers’ comments (see here for a comprehensive collection), I can see their impressions have been similar. At $30, it belongs to the least expensive productions from Xizihao, and is worth its price.