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A Tale of Three Shuixians

Comparative tasting rocks. Tasting different things together is a perfect wake-me-up. You become more perceptive to the minute differences and analogies even of very similar things.

The setup.

I recently realised that among my 50+ tea reviews on this blog, one important tea family was still missing: Wuyi. ‘Cliff’ or ‘rock’ tea from eastern China’s Fujian. The Bordeaux of tea. Many, many tea drinkers’ favourite oolong. It’s not my favourite, but as every wine drinker with Bordeaux, I have several bins in the tea cellar, and enjoy them from time to time.

Shuixian (Western translation: Water Sprite) is the most popular and widely available oolong tea from Wuyi (and elsewhere in Fujian). It’s a generic name that refers both to a varietal of tea tree and to the style of tea that is obtained from it. As all Wuyi oolongs this is over 50%-oxidised and medium- to heavy-roasted. Of all Wuyi teas, Shuixian is considered to see the highest roast, though as will all things tea this varies from producer to producer.

Here I have a comparative look at three Shuixians. One was purchased in Poland from online merchant eHerbata and I infer it’s a 2008; it cost the equivalent of 6€ / 100g. (Hereafter referred to as sample ‘A’). Shuixian ‘B’ is the 2008 Premium Laocong (‘Old Tree’) from Dragon Tea House ($20 / 100g; now available in the 2009 vintage). ‘C’ is the 2008 Traditional Shuixian from Jing Tea ($26 / 100g).

Dry leaf appearance is similar in all three. We have the typical Wuyi long, twisted leaves that vary in colour from very deep green to almost black, but mostly are medium and medium dark brown. There’s little qualitative information to be drawn from the visual aspect alone, other than ‘A’ and ‘B’ contain a varying proportion of broken leaf while ‘C’ is the most intact (something you can’t really see on the photo above). Also, A is altogether lighter in colour with a degree of light brown leaves; hard to say why for the moment but it’s a hint I’ll elaborate on later.

As is common practice with Wuyi oolong, I brewed these teas in a gongfu succession of very short steeps on a large amount of leaf (4.5g for 75 ml of water; 15s, 15s, 25s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 1m etc.). The colour of the first brew is rather similar:

Tea ‘A’ came out rather unpleasant. It’s dominated by roast, and tastes both a little stale and overbrewed, with an untasty wet wood and soaked raisin profile. Bitterish and tannic in an unpleasant, unclean way on the finish. Later brewings are a little nicer, coming close ot a black tea in expression with a mulchy, sweaty character. This tea has much deteriorated since fall 2008 when I bought it (at the time it was a basic but essentially correct and pleasant tea). And it makes me think it’s not necessarily a 2008 but perhaps an older stock.

Tea ‘B’ gives a solid performance. It’s a chewy, rustic rendition of Shuixian with little in terms of finesse, and it’s slightly dominated by roast. The reason I compared Wuyi tea with Bordeaux is not casual, as I tend to think of roast in teas as similar to oak in wines. Oak is very easy to overdo. In youth, many red wines are dominated by oak; some shake this off with ageing, some don’t. This Shuixian probably won’t integrate its roast even if you age it for years. It’s also a tannic, mildly astringent tea. Good quality here: at least tastes like the real thing. I particularly like the middle infusions here (#2–5), where the roast recedes a bit, leaving an impressive, almost physical thickness to this oily brew. Later, chocolate comes back again.

Tea ‘C’ is quite different from the other two. It has a delightful clean bitter chocolate aroma to the warmed leaves, and shows lighter than ‘A’ or ‘B’, especially in later infusions whose colour is never darker than deep amber. Never an overpowering tea, this seems less roasted, with the leaf oxidation influencing the profile. It’s quite assertive throughout the middle infusions, semi-rich and rather buttery than milky (milk-chocolatey is often used as a mouthfeel descriptor for Shuixian). A very enjoyable tea with a transparent, high-quality profile and considerable finesse for a Wuyi tea.

Here’s a photo of the final 20-minute brewing:

As you can see tea ‘C’ is quite lighter in colour while ‘A’ and ‘B’ still brew very dark. Let’s have a closer look at the expired leaves now:

Here the observations from the dry leaf and the comparative tasting find their final confirmation. ‘A’ and ‘B’ are showing a high amount of broken leaf, leaf fragments, and in the case of ‘A’ also of stems. ‘C’ has the largest and most intact leaves that are also the lightest in colour; they open almost completely, showing that the roasting was at its lightest and most skillful here (long, careful roasting preserved the leaves better while quick commercial roast in electric machines at high temperatures tends to burn the leaves). Tea ‘A’ has leaves of different colour that remain twisted and rolled: the poorest roasting shows here. ‘B’ looks almost as good as ‘C’ but the leaves are consistently fragmented. It’s a slightly lower grade apparently than ‘C’, although the cup is quite pleasant.

It was an interesting tasting also in how to buy teas. Whether on the internet or in a physical shop we’re often confronted with elaborate prose on a given tea’s origins, and few technical details on how it was actually made. ‘Premium’, ‘Supreme’, ‘Traditional’ are meaningless terms that add to the confusion. Looking at the dry leaf and, if you have a chance, at the expired one (some online merchants post photos of these) can reasonably help you make an educated purchase. But best is, of course, trying the tea before you shell out the $25.

2008 Traditional Shuixian (Jing Tea), expired leaf after 10 infusions.

Tasting tea blind

‘Blind’ tasting lies at the centre of wine assessment. Nowadays, whenever you taste a wine to give a judgment and profess about its merits (or lack thereof), you’re expected to do so ‘blind’ – meaning you don’t know what you are tasting. At least put a series of bottles into brown bags (in Poland, we use black socks), though real blind tasting should be ‘double-blind’: you’re not even supposed to have the vaguest clue about what wine types are possible. (This requires a full-time secretary with a wine degree to organise the tasting for you).

I dislike blind tasting. Profoundly so, in fact. Not only because on several occasions, I made a fool of myself by voting a Banfi Brunello as wine of the tasting (no joke). I dislike blind tasting because to an extent, all wine tasters make fool of themselves by accepting to reduce the wine to its ‘objective’ characteristics. Limpidity (who cares? But it’s a standard criterion on wine competitions), cleanliness of aromas, balance of tannins, ‘persistence’: as if, for example, the L’Inattendu white from Languedoc I blogged on recently could be fairly assessed through a set of technical parameters. I have experienced dozens of occasions where excellent bottles tasted bland and hollow when put in a series of twenty similar wines. Blind tasting is awfully reductive and its only theoretical advantage – that you assess a wine free of any bias – turns out to be an illusion: one bias (the label) is replaced by another (we are influences by elements we like, like a dark colour or a flowery bouquet).

In my book, the only real usefulness of blind tasting is to develop your own palate and tasting mind by making educated guesses. Tasting a single wine blind, you are forced to concentrate really hard on all its aspects: you have no reference points to assist you in your interpretation.

My palate for tea is that of a beginner, and I find blind tasting a truly useful exercise. It was an exciting perspective, therefore, to receive two unlabelled tea samples from fellow US tea drinker, Kimble22 (a.k.a. Shibumi – check out his blog here). I tasted them as analytically as possible (these were no pleasure sessions) and come up with approximate conclusions. Perhaps, looking at the photos and reading my descriptions, you’ll have better ideas: let me know as I’ll hold on posting the teas’ real identity (which I still don’t know) for a few more days.

Mystery sample ‘A’

It comes as a generous chunk of compressed tea: this is obviously sheng [‘raw’] puer. Leaf size is average, with a proportion of tips. Compression is medium. A good-looking sample, showing some age: there’s little green to the colour, and a minor amount of dusty frosting on the consistently brownish leaves. Aroma leaf is very subdued: dominated by soft wet wood, with a bit of tobacco. Tobacco notes are reinforced when leaves are put in warm cup, but it’s a very low-key aroma. The dry leaf hints at a tea anything between 5 and 15 years of age I guess.

Colour of 5-minute competition brewing.

I brewed this tea twice: the first time ‘competition style’ (2g of leaf for 100ml boiling water, single 5-minute steep), the second time in 120ml yixing clay teapot where I’ve used 8g of leaf. It’s my personal record of dosage for this teapot, and it was clearly a bit too much (leaves had no room to fully unfold). The former session brought a subdued, sweet-fruity, not very powerful puer. A darker colour than expected, light brown (not orange or amber). Aroma has a high-pitched woody richness with hints of dried fruits and tobacco, hinting at its moderate age. Tannic power is moderate, and this seems almost completely resolved and mature. I like the balance here, and it’s definitely dry-stored: there’s not the merest hint of fermentative shicang. A harmonious and qualitative tea, and look at the spent leaves on the photo below. Really good quality, little fragmentations, larges leaves with a consistent medium brown colour. The easiest thing to guess here is the age: I reckon this is 8–10 years old, making it a tea from 1999 through 2001. To guess the origin takes a more experienced palate than mine but there’s an elegance and spiciness that reminds me of the Yiwu mountain teas. This tea doesn’t look like a large factory production.

2 grams of leaf after 5 minutes of steeping.

The high-dosage yixing teapot session yielded no less than 15 satisfying infusions (25s, 10s, 7s, 10s, 30s, 50s, 1m, 2m30s and then at will). In summary, the tea showed a lot more power and reserve than suggested by the single long brewing. Through the initial brewings there’s a strong beany character dominating the profile, and a solid core of clean bitterness on end. Good length too, and the lack of fruit notes is interesting. Very good concentration (befits an 8g dosage), this is quite chewy. It is with brewings #4–5 that bone-dry beaniness is replaced with sweeter tobacco, and some sweet huigan making its appearance. Later brewings are consistently good, if perhaps never emotional. All in all this session shows a tea with a lot of stuffing (‘wild tree’? Perhaps) and still some way to go in terms of ageing. It might be younger than I initially thought: a 2001–2003?

Mystery sample ‘B’

Visually this is quite different from ‘A’. Small leaves, very tight compression; there’s a pattern on the surface of the sample like those that are pressed onto bricks, not cakes. A one-dimensional but very intense smokey aroma to the leaves.

As dark as this tea gets: colour after 5 minutes of infusion.

The ‘competition style’ brewing reveals a tea that’s obviously younger than ‘A’. Everything from the wet leaf (‘lid’) aroma through the colour of the brew down to the dryness of taste indicates a tea in that unsympathetic ‘middle age’: 3 to 7 years perhaps. Smoke, white beans, tannic grip, mint, strong young puer energy; this verges on an alkaliney, mildly animal aroma that for a lack of better descriptor, I call ‘sweaty’. It’s a tea with some power but really not very flattering at this stage.

Chopped leaves, smokey aroma: Xiaguan?

A session in yixing teapot (‘dahongpao’ clay) brings a consistent tea. It is very smokey throughout, and looking at the spent leaves, it reminds me obviously of the Xiaguan Tea Factory production: these leaves have gone through every possible torture and dismembration before being tightly pressed. Deep beige colours of mid-age, oily texture, a chewy mouthfeel and a kicking qi energy (courtesy of the high leaf fragmentation, too). This needs to age further to gain more complexity and anything like charm. A good tea. My educated guess: a Xiaguan brick (they’re more known for their tuocha but occasionally make some bricks too) from 2002–2006.

Read another interesting exercise in blind tasting on the Half-Dipper blog (this and following posts). Please do leave comments here on what you think the above-described teas are. I’ll reveal their identity in 3 days’ time.

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Update 6th October 2009:

Kimble22 / Shibumi has now kindly revealed the identity of the above teas.

Tea ‘A’ is the 2003 Jinzhu Mountain. I have little information about this alleged ‘wild tree’ tea other than it’s reviewed here.

Tea ‘B’ is the 1999 Xiaguan Traditional Characters. It’s with the vintage of this that I missed the mark by the widest margin. I can be justified by the fact that the rock-hard compression of this tea makes for a much slower ageing than a standard puer cake: 2–3 years by decade is often the perceptive gap between actual and apparent age.

1980s Loose Daye

Autumn is slowly arriving here to the Polish lowlands. We’re having a delightful Indian summer with afternoons in the mid-25Cs and no rain, a very positive weather for the Polish grape harvest. But the evenings are fairly chilly and mists are rising steadily at 8pm. It’s the sort of weather that makes my go down to the cellar for two things: sweet Tokaj wine and a bing of ageing puer tea.

Let’s start with the latter. After a summer busy with drinking Japanese green teas it’s a welcome change to move into the world of earthy, mushroomey, spicy puer. I have a number of samples to delve into this autumn and today, I went for the simplest of them all.

This 1980s Daye Loose-Leaf is from NadaCha, and costs the incredibly modic (in the context of its age) sum of £11 per 100g. Nada explains this is made of the largest tea leaves that in the production of ‘proper’ puer, are usually sorted out (though you can see more than a fair amount within the lower-end cake blends, in my experience). Due to their size and position lower down the tea branch they usually have less aroma and less than the young leaves and buds.

This tea is interesting in being so old: you don’t often see a daye [large-leaf] of this age. In its youth it’s a cheap and simple tea for quick consumption. Here we have a variation on the theme.

These leaves live up to their name: they are really large! The colour is a consistent dark brown (not black), with quite some evolution: some leaves are looking almost powdery. They are uniformly thin and look rather fragile. They have a low, subdued aroma with some nice walnutty notes; a moderately pungent shicang [wet-storage] character comes up when the leaves are warmed in the gaiwan.

Competition-style brewing: 2g of leaf / 100ml water / 5 minutes.

The colour of the brew is only a medium brown. This is a surprising tea, showing little wet storage and an interestingly fruity, approachable character. Attack shows that unmistakeable old puer umami fatness, followed by echoes of the nose notes: walnuts, dried fruits (dates perhaps) in a sweet context. Length or huigan are not special but this is a very moreish tea, unchallenging, comfortable, balanced and clean. A really good start to the new puer season! And at this price it’s really recommended.

These leaves are not worthy of very intricate brewing strategies. A couple of attempts in yixing pot brought little extra interest. Now I just put a small amount in a gaiwan and brew almost at will: 2, 5, 8 minutes depending on how many e-mails I’m reading through. There’s no bitterness and the wet storage notes are low so overbrewing is not a problem.

Tea and chocolate

An exercise matching tea and chocolate. Can this work at all? Isn’t chocolate too powerful to have with tea? I try some artisanal chocolate pralines with green, oolong, black and puer tea.

Tea on the move

How to brew decent tea while travelling? Without access to infinite tea supply from your own tea cabinet and 25 brewing utensils. The answers are: keep it simple; carry your own tea; choose a tea that will perform well in less-than-perfect circumstances.

2008 Fengqing Fengshan Yihao

Cheap and cheerful

This plain-looking cake of green puer can be had from Yunnan Sourcing for the miserable sum of $9. I think it’s the equivalent of two filter coffees from Starbucks (in Poland, four). We’re not talking about a cup of tea but a 357g cake, which if you apply my liberal dosage, will suffice for 59 sessions of 8 cups each. So much for the puer ‘bubble’ which reputedly inflated tea prices beyond reason.

It might have done so for some upper-bracket brands but the large tea factory of Fengqing (a.k.a. Dianhong Group, hinting at their main activity as a black tea producer) has remained more than reasonable in its pricing. If you browse the internet for opinions about their puer teas, it’s usually dismissive: they’re cheap, basic and uninspiring. Perhaps I’ve been in a forgiving mood of late but I found this utterly satisfying for the price (and better than many $15–20 cakes). One thing it needs is a generous dosage. In fact my initial attempts at 2–3 grams or competition style produced an unaromatic, content-less and anonymous tea. Much better with double that amount of leaf.

Brewed in: dahongpao pot
Dosage: 6g / 130ml
Dry leaf: Compression is rather loose, and the leaves are very easily separated into a clean and intact collection. Reasonable leaf size, minor amount of tips – nothing special here but the quality is good. Wet leaf is quit thin and clearly plantation-grown but mostly wholish and intact, adding to the good overall impression.

Brewing #1 (30 seconds in clay pot)

Tasting notes:
20s: Fairly enjoyable: it is obviously a rather generic pu but at this dosage nicely intense, with medium pale (but not the palest yellow) colour and sweet tobacco dominating in the aroma cup.
30s: As tasty as brewing #1 but a bit less alive, slowly receding into a generic bean-like chewiness and sweetness. Quite some bitterness appearing, but it is of the clean, energetic, positive kind.
40s: More beany character but there are also hints of apricot and almost flowers replacing tobacco in the aroma cup. Some citrusy bitterness on end. Not massively structured but better than expected for the price. Dosage is the key to satisfaction here.
40s, 70s, 60s. Slowly becoming a little generic-candy but still satisfyingly intense. Brewings #5–6 still very good indeed: good huigan.
3m: Surely quite light in flavour but there is still enough bean, mushroom and sweet candy for interest. Long live high dosage. This delivers another half-dozen of gradually fading infusions (provided you keep the times short).

Overall this has all the characteristics of a basic but well-made sheng: tobacco, old wood, beans, some citrus, some invigorating bitterness, reasonable patience. It takes a lot of leaf in the pot to show content and texture, but at this price I don’t mind it at all. This tea will not sparkle a romance with puer if you’re still to be converted, but is really a smart choice if you need (who doesn’t?) an inexpensive tea for various mundane uses. I’m happy I bought it.

Tea bonanza

42 teas in one day

By pure coincidence (well, a polite way to thank Polish Mail for holding packages for two weeks for ‘customs inspection’) I’ve received no less than four shipments of tea today. Now this is real embarras de richesse! My Japanese 2009s are here (tins on the photo above are from Marukyu-Koyamaen and there’s another box from O-Cha; I must praise the latter’s service as they’ve replaced an order that went missing, free of charge on EMS) and I’ll dedicate a series of future posts of various shinchas and gyokuros from these two vendors.

New season teas also include a dozen Darjeelings from Lochan; these are actually free samples that are being sent out on a promotional scheme where you only need to pay for (very efficient) shipping. I really draw your attention to this offer (currently available for both first and second flushes) as it allows for very interesting comparison between various single estates teas including the famous ones of Margaret’s Hope, Castleton, Jungpana etc. More on these teas on this blog soon.

By contrast I’ve also ordered a box of various aged puer samples from Nadacha (and some excitingly affordably yixing clay jars):

I’ve started the exploration with a black tea from Nada:

The 2009 Fengqing Wai Shi Li is a high-grade spring flush from the Fengqing Tea Factory (and more specifically their Dianhong brand) who are classic producer of both black tea and (more recently) puer. It’s fairly inexpensive at £6 / 100g, and I also very much like Nada’s wabi-sabi packaging:

Brewed in: gaiwan
Dosage: 3g/140ml
Dry leaf: Rather small leaves with a degree of golden tips but overall colour is darkish. Aroma is typically Yunnan and very hongcha: earthy, herby, rather unfruity, not terribly complex or deep; perhaps a bit of smokiness. No increase in intensity as the leaf is warmed.

Tasting notes:
45s: The profile of this brew is best described as ‘traditional’. It has a subdued aroma dominated by earth and smoke, with no fruit frills. The nose might be unremarkable but the flavoury is very good, with medium body and a less oblivious oxidation than I expected from the nose. Hardly a lot of complexity or poise but this is good for the price. I might have been just lucky with the brewing parameters as this is showing a perfect balance of tannins and body. Really quite traditional: rather solid and oxidised, less fruity than many modern examples of black Yunnan but more consistent and solid.

Brewing #1 (45 seconds).

2m: Lighter than brewing #1 even with the prolonged time, exposing a somewhat naked finish but the profile is more or less maintained. I won’t brew it a third time though.

Overall this is satisfying tea for the price. Another good buy from Nada! This also makes me curious about the other 2009 Fengqing black that he’s offering.

Two inexpensive 2008 cakes

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.

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.

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).

1989 Jiang Cheng Brick

Tea as memory

Amidst the merry celebrations of last Thursday, there was no way to forget the other June 4th. While Europe rejoiced in a regained freedom and prosperity for the following two decades, the people of China were negated political freedom, and the country continues to be ruled as a dictatorship.

Yesterday night, in memory of those who perished on the Square of Heavenly Peace two decades ago, I brewed a very special Chinese tea in a commemorative tea ceremony. A full-blown chaxi (tea setup), such as I never prepare. I slowly brought the best Polish mineral water to a boil in my earthenware kettle, put dry leaves of the 1989 Jiang Cheng Wild Tree Brick in my dahongpao yixing clay pot, and let it infuse slowly. The tea was brewed in silence and no tasting notes were taken.

This outstanding tea, produced a few weeks before the mournful event, is full of unabated elemental force and seemed a more than appropriate homage to the departed. What follows is an account of an earlier tasting session with photographs from today, as I finished off the leaves from yesterday’s session.

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Sourced from Tea Masters, this expensive (140€ at the time of purchase) yet special brick is comprehensively described on their website.

Brewed in: gaiwan and dahongpao clay pot (5g / 130ml)
Dry leaf: While Stéphane Erler on several occasions describes the compression as loose, I found it rather difficult to flake off leaves, and used a largish whole chunk of the tea brick instead. (Consequently, I made a quick rinse with boiling water – something I never do normally – before the first infusion to soften the leaves). It is a very dry brick with a lot of evolution to the dark brown, through-fermented leaves.

Infusions no. 1 (40 seconds), 4 (after a total of 3:30′)
and 7 (total 22 minutes – no mistake!).

Tasting notes:
40s: While the brewing time for this dosage is longish (I was deliberately seeking to extract a lot of power), I was surprised by the very deep brown-burgundy colour, especially given the initial rinse. There is instantly a blissful aromatic moment in the aroma cup, with a warm fleshy softness and sweetness; later notes are of old wood and earth. While this tea is obviously aged, little wet storage is evident. This is a far more concentrated and intense brewing than expected for a #1, although there is relatively little dryness. We are in for a treat.
25s: Still extremely dark. Quite a different balance now, less aromatic without the soft notes of the above, quite earthy and chewy, and on the palate this is dominated by a vegetal, almost tree bark-like bitterness and earthy tannic dryness. Lots of power in this tea! A challenging infusion, not so very much pleasant to drink. This looks like it could continue to age and improve for many years.
35s: More in the style of the first than second infusion. The aroma is sweetish, soft, if less fleshy, and taking on an almost wafery or baked-cakey sweetness. Flavour is still earthy, old-leafy, vegetal. A more balanced finish now, firm but with a bit of sweet huigan. A balanced qi, not very assertive, building up rather slowly.
Instead of continuing with short analytic infusions I let this loose, and brewed almost at will. For several more minutes this shows a very deep colour, but aroma and flavour are lighter (though not light). Still chewy-earthy on finish, but without the intensity and complexity on the palate of the former brews.

This is an extraordinary creature of a tea. Looking at the expired leaf (see photo above and below), there are still lots of intact whole leaves after 20 years! Really thick with very developed veins. This tea abounds in rough, elemental power, making it easy to believe the declared ‘wild tree’ provenance (how many modern puer can you say this about?). In purely drinking terms, it may lack the elegance (or ready-to-drinkness?) of the 1999 Menghai #7532 but shows an unadulterated old style of sheng puer when no concessions were made for the modern yuppie public and teas were made to last decades. I wouldn’t have liked to be near these leaves in 1989. A majestic tea of authority and austerity. And right for the occasion, I would say.

2008 Biluochun AA

The Chablis of tea: a worthy name for one of China’s greatest greens.