puer - sheng Archives - Wojciech BońkowskiWojciech Bońkowski

Awabancha

Awabancha – a rare and odd tea from Japan. Fermented like puer, it seems to go against the Japanese philosophy of purity and freshness.

Wine and tea (2)

Wine and tea: they actually have a lot in common. In the second installment of this seminal article I look at the production process of wine and tea and how possibly they can be similar.

Moving tea

The logistic challenges of moving a tea collection.

Lifespan of tea

Tea is perishable. Green tea doesn’t age. Drink your Japanese sencha within a few weeks. Lies, all lies.

The lure of Korean tea

Three Korean teas on the tea table – more than I normally sample in a year.

Tea at the bar

I visit the first (?) tea bar in Europe.

2009 Mengku Certified Organic

A solid tea – but will it pick up any charm?

Two teas from Vietnam

A surprisingly decent green from Vietnam.

2006 Haiwan Organic Pasha-shan

It’s a long time since I reviewed a puer tea. The forecast for Poland is some snow and frost starting tomorrow so it seems fitting to brew a bit of this. (Although young puer is meant to cool you body in Chinese medicine, I’m primarily attracted to those teas in cold weather, go figure).

This 2006 Organic Pasha Shan from Haiwan factory is an early 2009 purchase from Yunnan Sourcing (actually tasted from 200g mini cake which I paid $17). Tight compression, prying the leaves out of this is a pain (as can be seen on the below photo). Small leaves ranging in colour from pale green to medium. Aroma rather subdued (tobacco), even in warmed gaiwan.

My puer prying knife has left visible traces.

I first tasted this with a safe 5g leaf / 130ml water ratio. A very pale infusion, inexpressive and underwhelming, with a hint of vague tobacco aroma and a simple, herby, dry-tasting but unbitter palate. Better in 2nd and 3rd infusion, still with not much little aromatic expression: green tobacco and a bit of earthiness, with a bit of musk / sweat underneath, developing a bit of bitterness and an interesting austere architecture on the palate, really quite dry, with very little sweetness. Infusion #3 is really interesting in its linearity from a subdued attack towards a more intense and defined finish. A healthy amount of clean, citrus-flavoured ku. Surely an interesting tea although hardly very charming at this stage.

Not too dark, not too light a predictable colour for a 4-year-old puer.

Retried recently in yixing teapot, consistent with the above notes, perhaps a little quicker to open up in the gaiwan. I don’t get a lot of intensity out of this, and looking at the wet leaves I think there’s more than a bit of plantation leaves intervening. For a half-plantation tea (diplomatically speaking) it seems a bit expensive at $40 per cake today, but at least it’s got a personal flavour profile and there’s hope it will develop a bit more personality. Stay tuned for updates down 2012.

PS Another review of this tea is here.

Source of tea: own purchase.

2009 Nada Nannuo Qiaomu

We’re slowly seeing some 2010 teas being released: shincha from Japan, first flush Darjeeling, Chinese green teas. Puer takes a while to manufacture and so usually shows up on the market a few weeks later than other spring teas, but the first cakes of 2010 are already with us. There’s one series of releases that are eagerly awaited by tea fanatics: the private puer pressings by Nada. Nada personally travels to Yunnan province every year to select the raw tea leaves and have them processed and pressed. His stringent quality standards and personal control over the entire production process are among the factors that make Nada’s green puers very special teas.

The 2010 releases are expected in a few weeks’ time (see Nada’s Essence of Tea website), but in any instance you’ll need to hurry as these cakes tend to sell out extremely quickly. Last year, the four labels were out in a matter of days. I was late, and all I could pick up was a set of samples of the Naka, Bulang, Nannuo Old Tree and Nannuo Plantation. (I later got two cakes on the secondary market but had to pay over three times the release price: the latter is actually very competitive, adding to the fever of securing these teas).

Here’s a look at the 2009 Nannuo Qiao Mu cake (the original price was £18 / 357g cake). The leaves are small, clean, impeccably sorted, with a medium loose compression and separating rather easily from the sample. They have an intense if rather elegant aroma of dried autumn leaves, sweet tobacco, but mostly sweet peaches: it’s an unexpected and exciting aroma to find in a puer tea.

I brew this with a conservative dosage of 3g / 80ml in a porcelain gaiwan. The colour is not so light: orange-peachy. And it’s peaches again that dominate the brewed tea aroma. The taste is smokey and dry, not as vegetal as young sheng often is. Clean and invigorating, and not too aggressive; with short steeping this tea is very easy to control bitterness-wise.

The second brewing is a delight: remarkably fruity for a young sheng, with plenty of apricots and peaches filling out a broad palate before a slightly dry (but everything but bitter) finish. As the fruit gently fades over the next few rapid infusions, the register shifts towards a bone-dry, no-nonsense, structured puer with barely an impression of tannic dryness like in a very good red wine; no real bitterness. Infusion #4 also releases an amazing buttery texture close to a gaoshan oolong from Taiwan. At the seventh brewing I give up (the tea doesn’t).

The leading impression with this tea is purity. It is crisp, energetic, leaving the mouth refreshed and cleansed. The leaf selection is impeccable. It is remarkably approachable for a young sheng, though exactly the opposite of an oolonged early-drinking factory stuff. Impressive (and imressively direct) puer. It will be exciting to receive the 2010s from Nada (this year, I’m on the reservation list).
Disclaimer

Source of tea: own purchase.