Wojciech Bońkowski
Master of Wine

2007 Twelve Gentlemen Wei Zhong Wei Yiwu

In the third installment of my review of puer teas from NadaCha, I look at the 2007 Twelve Gentlemen Wei Zhong Wei Yiwu. This tea is a twin to the 2007 12 Gents Menghai which I’ll review tomorow; the following tasting notes are based on a side-by-side comparison in competition brewing (3g leaf, 150ml boiling water, 5 minutes of infusion in porcelain). This cake is moderately priced at £27.

Leaf: A big difference between the two origins, this is far more fragmented, and has apparently opened less in the infusion (hence less power) but don’t ask me why as the dry leaf chunks were looking very similar. Wet leaf smells of energetic mountain-grown sheng.
Tasting notes: A beige, somewhat lifeless colour. There is little obvious aroma, showing withdrawn and low-key similarly to the 2006 vintage reviewed yesterday. Attack is typical of ‘green’ puer (tobacco, minor mushroom) but later there is a bean-like chewiness I find unattractive. Clean and transparent. Medium length and average power. This is really tasting a bit bland compared to the Menghai: the difference in impact is quite vast. Another session in gaiwan (4g / 120ml) confirms this impression, and needs pretty long infusion times at the beginning for the leaves to soften and unfold. Even further brewing (#3 through 6, ranging from 30s to 1m) yield a darkish beige colour but still very little grip. Clean, very dry-stored, with good promise through its leaf quality, but if you like kick in your sheng, this is not for you.

Sharing thoughts.

tea Shortlink

2006 Twelve Gentlemen Yiwu

The Quiet After the Storm

Oddly for this season here in Poland, today we have had the first thunderstorm of 2009. I like winter, and this has been a colourful, almost symphonic one, but am happy to see springtime arriving with its new vegetables, new teas, and Rieslings of the new vintage on the lunch table.

After 10 minutes of heavy rain and wind this afternoon, a tranquil moment of overcast coolness, mixing memory and anticipation in a way that seemed the perfect setting for the 2006 Twelve Gentlemen Yiwu puer tea from NadaCha. At £43, it is quite a bit more expensive than yesterday’s 2004 Jingmai, and definitely into the ‘expensive’ category.

Brewed in: dahongpao clay pot
Dosage: >6g/120ml
Leaf: A mixture of different colours, with medium-large leaves; loose compression and little damage to leaves apparently; some evolution to the colour. Warmed dry leaves smell sweet, with a little tobacco.

Tasting notes:
25s: Pale apricot colour. Little aroma, but there is surely little tobacco or other herbiness. Disappointing as I was expecting quite a bit more intensity, especially at this dosage. Mouthfeel is harmonious but not particularly long. No bitterness. Some underlying structure perhaps. Clean, post-green aftertaste. Let’s wait and see the subsequent infusions.
30s: This is now a little more assertive but still far from overwhelming. Flavours are fruity (peach and apricot) but not very sweet; tobacco is very minor. Power is balanced and restrained. Still lacking in character I thought, but better. Good length now, some minerality.
60s: Deeper colour now. The aroma is really underwhelming, little happening beside a notional sugary fruit; I even took an aroma cup to double check. Bitterness now seems a bit lower than brewing #2. Good density and length, the substance here is not bad but definitely lacks in incisiveness and expression. Clearly little more can be coaxed out of this batch.
3m: Low flavour, medium length, balanced bitterness. But overall flavour is really quite enjoyable and this is one of top-scoring brewings.
5m: Similarly good impression. The balanced ku is especially noteworthy: it is present but has not dominated in any brewing. Little on the nose, a bit better on the palate, with notes of apple and apricot. Length is good, though perhaps less exceptional than brewing #1.
Another session in gaiwan (4g / 120ml): Remarkable purity and transparency (of both colour and taste) to the initial brewings.

Overall I rate this highly: an obviously noble sheng with balance, potential and some impressive leaf material, but slightly lacks in intensity and personality today to really justify its price tag.

Infusion #1 (25 seconds).
tea Shortlink

Two older teas from Yunnan Sourcing

Both were ordered as 25g samples (not whole cakes) from Yunnan Sourcing.

1998 CNNP Green Wrapper Brick

The 1998 CNNP Green Wrapper brick is a tricky tea to brew. Leaves are small and compression is very tight. With 45s, 45s, 1m, 5m in gaiwan, I got a lightish yellow colour and disappointingly little intensity (aroma cup showed a generic caramel note, and nothing else, in a tea that admittedly is a decade old). Flavour is dominated by bitterness with little fruit. Another couple of sessions in various clay pots (with 20s, 20s, 30s, 40s, 60s, 90s and then at will) resulted in a semi-coloured tea (mostly moving from dark orange to medium amber), with a pleasant first infusion showing a middle-aged brown tobacco note, and an increasingly bitter ku drive through infusion #2–5 (I think due to the mashed leaf of which this is exclusively composed). Later (provided infusions are kept moderate at 60–90s) this reaches a good balance, with some minerality at mid-palate and less bitterness.
Overall I think this has some content, but is unbalanced. On the positive side, there is good patience: look at the darkish colour of the 6th infusion here:

With patience comes tannic power, of which this tea has exceedingly much. It takes a finer brewing technique than mine to balance it with properly intense fruit. Looking at the wet leaf, it is pretty much a mashed mess. There is hardly an intact leaf, and with this level of fragmentation (which BTW is typical of the late 1990s, I think) it is hardly surprising to find so much bitter tannins in the brew.

1998 CNNP Green Wrapper Brick, after 11 minutes total infusion

The second tea is the 2000 Yiwu from Long Yuan Hao factory. As tightly compressed as the above, the dry leaf is showing a little brown and evolved but leaf grade seems quite a bit higher than in the above, with some tips.


Brewed with 5g in 150ml Da Hong Pao pot. 10s: Light beige-apricot colour. A pleasant nose of wood and brown tobacco, with a degree of depth and complexity. Quite unbitter, with a typically middle-aged woodsy character on palate, and good length. Classy and quite clean (no shicang in sight) if not enormously expressive. 15s: Almost identical to above. 40s (pushing to see how much bitterness appears): Colour is still a little short of brown. Indeed a little bitterish on end, with good tobacco-scented length, crowning what is a good medium-bodied, well-construed tea with some mountain leaf content. Satisfying no doubt, with a cleaner, airier profile than many similarly aged cakes from major companies. Length, in fact, is superior. 1m, 2m: This has a lot of power, staying coloured, concentrated, flavourful and really quite bitter throughout these infusions.
The wet leaf confirms the comparison with the 1998s above: while still rather fragmented, this 2000 shows more high-grade intact leaf.


2000 Long Yuan Hao Yiwu, after 10 minutes total infusion

Interestingly, both teas seem rather young for their age, and very dry-stored. And for their age, they are rather fairly priced: $32 and $58 per bing, respectively.
tea Shortlink

1990s Loose Old Bush Yiwu

A truly wild tea

This tea was kindly included as a free sample in my last order from Tea Masters. Interestingly, it is not reviewed on their website, and so I have no information whatsoever as to its provenance – perhaps Stéphane can step in and enlighten us.

Brewed in: gaiwan
Dosage: 4g / 120ml
Dry leaf: Long twisted yancha-like leaves. Nothing very special to their appearance but a really unique smell: dirt, dirt, dirt, a bit of dust and dirty stones. I personally find this quite repulsive.


Tasting notes: 20s: Judging by the colour – a medium deep reddish-brown – and aroma this is rather from the end of the 1990s, surely showing younger (and probably drier-stored) than the 1989 Jiang Cheng or 1990 brick from Tea Masters. Aroma is calm and less repulsive than that of the dry leaf, earthy, a little beany. Palate is unaggressive, echoing the nose with a bit of wet earth and some bean-like chewiness. No ku apparent on the finish. Finish is quiet, energy rather calm, not particularly warming (and this was tasted during a wave of –20C temperatures here in Poland). Less dirt-driven in taste than my first attempt (un-TNed) in a clay pot.
30s: Minor shift in aroma, now stonier and dirtier, less earthy, a little more intense. This is really very elemental tea. Flavour is also a little more pungent. No sweetness, no vegetal or spicy notes, this tea is dominated by earth.
Later brewings of 1m, 1m, 2m are very enjoyable (if still aromatically rather challenging), with a calmer and lighter expression.
5m: This is now quite weak, and I finish the session.


Overall this is – for me – a striking tea. It is about the dirtiest- and earthiest-smelling sample I have ever had, but not in the meaning of wet storage (in fact it shows almost none). There is something quite wild and elemental about this, yet it also manages to show smooth and harmoniously aged. I would be curious to learn more about this one. At 68 € per 100g it is surely not cheap, but then there is the benefit of tasting an aged tea without having to order a whole 357 or 400g cake.
tea Shortlink