2006 12 Gents Dabaihao
Posted on 10 January 2010
Time for more puer today. Here’s the 2006 Dabaihao cake from the 12 Gentlemen company, available through NadaCha for £28 / cake.
I reviewed four teas from 12 Gents back in March 2009 (see links below and archive link on the left). I have a weakness for their productions: they process some impressive leaves and have a very elegant, subdued, sweet style I enjoy very much. That being said, these are pricey teas, and brewing this sample from Nada made me realise they more often than not lack a bit of expression and oomph.
The dry leaves look very similar to the 2006 12 Gents Yiwu, and quite different from the 2007 Yiwu and Menghai: while the latter have small leaves and tight compression, both 2006 cakes are loosely pressed and consist of impressively intact, large, healthy leaves that have a glorious sweet tobacco & vanilla smell. Contact with the uninfused sample couldn’t really be better.
I’ve had several sessions with tea, both in porcelain gaiwan and in yixing clay pot (the latter surely more successful, with more body and juiciness). No matter how high you dose (I’ve reached 7g / 140ml which is about as much as I can put into my pot without squeezing the leaves) this tea is fairly unintense and light-bodied. The initial infusions are particularly puzzling, very simple, light-coloured, low on fruit, dominated by a beany profile, with a smokey hint on the finish the only real point of interest. Yet there is also notable patience in the xiangbei [aroma cup] which is one of the lovelier I’ve encountered of late, starting with sweet tobacco and evolving lengthily into caramel and candies; it’s really a very ‘long’ smell.
You have to push this tea quite a bit, with a high dosage and brewing times as long as 1 minute by infusion #4 to coax any intensity and character from it. A bone-dry tea, broad-shouldered, architectural, mineral, smokey, never too bitter though with more than a hint of dryness at end (emphasised not the lack of much flavour at mid-palate); notes of mushrooms, a bit of wood, white beans throughout the sessions, a mere hint of smoke.
I really wanted to like this tea in order to keep my positive feelings about the 12 Gents production. But in all honesty, as much as I was looking throughout the session for the tea to finally reach a satisfying extraction, it never happened. It just lacks content; it’s thin and vague. On the positive side it’s clean and noble in aroma, and both the dry and infused leaves are a joy to look at. But it’s just not enough to justify a £28 cake.
Source of tea: own purchase.
