The Essence of Tea

This tea is the darkest chocolate I’ve ever had. It’s also the most brutally potent tea I’ve ever had. The infusion timing for 5g in 85mL employed to prevent over-brewing was as follows: 3s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s, 7s, 8s, 9s, 10s, 12s! I’ve never had a tea like this, although bulang bitterness is incredibly distinct, as it immediately reminds me of the nip of bitterness left in the 1997 Heng Li Chang Bulang. For me, the taste and texture experience on the front end of this tea is most akin to the finish on a 100% cacao super-dry, extra-dark alkaline heavy chocolate bar. Alkaline is really the absolute best word to describe this tea.

good value everyday drinking puerh… no it isn’t as complex as a cake from the 80s would be and it is a fraction of the price! very refreshing, with real energy and a gentle bite

I sampled this one as part of a tasting on two different tea forums. I am drinking some of it again for the first time in many months. It was the strongest of the EoT three sampled in those tastings, and now, after just sitting in a sealed pouch in an airconditioned cupboard for a long time, it is sweet, spicy, anise, mellow, delicious. I’m drinking a lot of short infusions, water is variable temp (trying not to heat up the office too much by keeping water at boiling in the kettle), and it’s just delicious, and a lovely counterpoint to all of the green and green oolongs I’ve been drinking lately.

I don’t have any particular flavor or texture descriptors in mind to throw around. I found the tea fresh, bright, incredibly pure (one of my favorite aspects of EoT’s pressings) and light. I thought the qi from this 2011 Nannuo was less immediate and capturing than any of the 2010 tea’s I sampled.

It was good, but I agree with Hobbes, I don’t believe it’s US$72 good. I preferred the Mansai and that tea is ten bucks cheaper. Taking both 2011 teas into mind, I do think it’s fair to say that the quality of these productions has increased. I preferred them both to the three 2010 examples I sampled. At this point, my interest in trying the single cake of the sold-out 2011 Mannuo I managed to acquire could not be much higher.

Compared with my two sets of notes from the 2010 Mansai, this tea has gained some thickness and depth, coming across less like a fleeting, young green and more like the rich, funky pu’er that it should be. One preparing for the aging process. I like it. Nada excuses a slightly more fractured leaf set due to a long journey through a remote region. This is slightly noticeable in the dry and steeped leaves, as well as in the very first steep, which shows just enough translucency to be detected. However, this in no way detracts from the tea, a quite tippy pu’er, with lots of buds and budsets visible in the exhausted leaves, which makes for a fresh and enlightening session.

This is my first infusion of this tea. It smells like forest loam, earthy, a deep rich compost of decay. I made the first infusions timidly, not a lot of leaf (I only have a few grams) and short, 20 seconds apiece, and they were…..light, thin, clean flavors of compost, but not so interesting. I decided to push to see what I could get and did 3+ minutes with a smaller volume of water at 212°F/100°C, just enough to cover the leaves, and got some sharpness that was a little unpleasant, more intense earthy flavors, but other than the added sharpness, still very similar.
A little while later, the next pair of infusions were done with very hot water, not so long, and the flavor is still very like damp forest earth, but a nicer balance than the first three. I am not getting the fruitiness I like in my favorite young she puerhs or the long sweetness of my favorite young shengs. Quite interesting.

Unfortunately, this was another session where I stopped keeping track as my other activities took over, so I can’t say when the leaves ran out of gas. I am sure I went at least a dozen infusions, but can’t say more than that.

I missed making a note first time around for this tea. I broke off a small quantity of this one to enjoy now, although I intend to let most of it age a while.

Tonight, just 1.8 grams of tea in a very small gaiwan, which holds 50-60mL, and tap water at 205 degrees.

The dry leaf is quite dark, with some paler leaves twisted in with the rest. The scent is light, herbaceous, soil-like.

First a flash rinse, wait a minute or two, then a first flash infusion. Strongly herbaceous, some bitterness waiting in the wings, hint of sweet but only a hint. Leather, fresh-cut wood, umami noticeable after cooling, sipping more slowly.

2nd infusion was similar. 3rd infusion, still flash infusions, more sweetness starting to come to the fore, although the leather/earthy/umami is still dominant. 4th infusion, waited 5 seconds before starting to pour: sweet, anise/herb notes are stronger again. The leather/umami is still there but lightening, less overwhelming but still stronger than anything else. 5th, 10 seconds before pour: more sweet. 6th, similar, the long sweet finish starting to really take over. Yes, there is some bitter in there too, but my taste buds are doing a happy dance now. Nice nice nice. One more and I’ll be done for the evening [nope, make that 3, we’re up to 9 before retiring for the evening]. This is definitely one to continue tomorrow—want to see how far it can go.

10 and 11 down before I had this note open to edit: sweet, delicious, holding up well to some strong onion flavor in what I was eating before starting back with the tea. 12 was too short, about 5 seconds, just sweet water. 13, was barely patient enough to go 20 seconds (I am thirsty)—more flavor of herbs to back up the sweet—14, 15, 16, similar, beautifully balanced between sweet and herbaceous and sweet forest duff, tastebuds doing happy dance again. Then a horrible moment—I looked over for infusion 17 and the gaiwan was EMPTY. Filled, infused again, world righted itself on its axis. Whew.

18, 19, 20 still delicious, but starting to lighten up. Need to lengthen the infusions again. 21 to 2 minutes….still needs more. #22 will be 3 minutes, and was a little better. Going to push #23 for 5 minutes…..and it is again very nice. 10 minutes on #24, and it is nice, but back to nearly sweet water. Time to add water and go do some chores for an hour or two, maybe. #25 lost something to cooling down; #26 suggests the leaves are finally done.

Overall, an excellent experience, and this is while it is still only an infant tea.

Finished my sample off with only a small quantity of it left, in a small glazed gaiwan. It has an earthy, forest-floor, mushroom background, mild sweetness and hints of spice & herbs. Very nice stuff. Still only about 10 infusions into it, but because I only have a small quantity left—fully hydrated, they take up only 1/4 of the gaiwan volume—I expect it won’t go as many infusions as it did the first few times. But I can’t hold that against the tea. I was the one who only bought a tiny sample!

Surprised I didn’t write a tasting note for this one already….I am already almost done with my tiny sample. Tonight, I’m preparing infusions in a very small yixing pot, about 40 mL per infusion, with about 3 grams of tea. It is earthy, sweet, spicy, a little fruity, delicious. It stood up well to a mixed cheese plate, cutting the richness wonderfully. Water is about 205 degrees, infusions from 30" to a minute or so, fairly long right from the start, because this is a tea that can take it, and keep taking it, without getting bitter or unpleasant in any way. I’m now up to about 15 infusions, and suspect I can get in a few more before the flavor gives way entirely to sweet water.

Opens with a soft perfumed must of old hardwood seasoned with incense. I love tea that evokes a monkish atmosphere. Calm, austere, and beautifully contemplative.

The taste is amiable and sweet with hidden florals and finishes with an interesting mineral hardness which spikes gracefully providing structure to an otherwise plush experience. The hui gan is shallow and simple but the mouth is left coated with a light and airy sweetness. Later steeps slide down effortlessly seemingly lubricated by the lingering silky mouthfeel.

While the ’97 Menghai 8582 was heavy on the flavors imposed by the place of storage to the point that I felt they departed from the realm of natural tea flavors, this tea really holds onto the essence of earth and decay. With more natural humus-like, decaying leaf matter and old pine needle flavors, I found this more attuned to my palate. The nuanced and gentle mushroom, moss, and tree bark characters of young sheng puerh have aged gracefully and have descended the flavor profile of this tea from the tree tops into the sub-leaf-litter level, highlighting the natural warm embrace of a forest floor. Some of the basement notes are there in the form of talc, medicine, and ointment, but they’re not overbearing to the point of disgust.

What I struggled with in this tea, in the first three or four steeps, was its texture. Leaving me with a sensation that greasy, damp lotion had been smeared across my tongue, I found the palate initially murky, slightly sour, and hard to get past. I did not drink much of the first three steeps. Fortunately, this clamminess departed and revealed a thick, sweetness that made it intensely pleasurable to drink from the fifth steep on.

If this tea is supposedly somewhere been wet and dry storage, than I guess I’m more of a dry storage fan. This flavor profile was much more to my liking, and I’ve learned that the first few steeps of a tea such as this are not as meaningful as the middle steeps. This was a bit of lore I found early on in my readings on puerh and something that I did not experience with young sheng puerh, but is something that makes sense in light of an aged tea such as this.

Full blog post: http://tea.theskua.com/?p=392

Fantastic tea for the afternoon, after dinner desert tea or as a kickstart first thing in the morn. Loads of body with a great natural sweetness. Strong flavours of malt, sugarcane, caramel and molasses. Fairly forgiving if oversteeped. Overall a very strong but smooth tea. Easily my favourite black tea at the moment.

This one opens up really sweet with candied yams, a hint of creamed spinach and a fresh ocean breeze. There is a deep and lasting vegetal taste that somehow attains a childlike playfulness throughout and is not gassy at all. Kind of like shiso and sugar. There are floral underpinnings and a dusting of cinnamon on the finish.

The thick mouthfeel and sweet, sweet base translates into a contrastingly bright and fruity hui gan like eating a cold white peach on a hot summer day.

Yeah. The aroma has a goji berry tartness and the decadent sweetness of a strawberry and rhubarb preserve. At first I am met with the sweetness of dark honey and clove but there is a subtle flavor of sugar cane and a definite flat fruitedness I can only describe a tasting like persimmon. The hui gan of flaky fruit pastry and a subtle hint of mild curry powder is sweet and complex.

As I progress through the gongfu session, the structure of the tea is revealed and the dryness of good bourbon comes out to match the color of the liquor. There is revealed an underlying flavor of sweet tobacco and rich spice pushing the fruit flavors into a withered and warm mulled cider.

Picked up a sizable sample chunk and got right to it. The compressed dry leaf is unusually attractive in its appearance and immediately smells like it’s going to be a good puerh. Word. The warmed wet leaf aroma is complex and pleasant with no in-your-face mustiness. Moist tree bark, cocoa powder, a subtle hint of smoked paprika and sweet soil.

The liquor is stiff and dry on the palate and not bitter at all. Very woody and full like chewing on a lightly roasted coffee bean, again, without the bitterness. There is a soft talc flavor on the edges that gives roundness and the hui gan is a satisfying dark, dark chocolate. An obscured sweetness blushes the otherwise austere experience into a generous though still serious warmth.

The immediate wet leaf aroma is a very pungent sweet must and plum tartness with notes of truffle oil and malted vinegar. In the cup the liquor is sturdy and complex yet surprisingly light. Wafts of bleu cheese and saffron mingle with cidery sweetness and a malted vinegar acidity. White wine marinated mushrooms. The hui gan is ambrosial, a definition of umami, enveloping the palate more so than the actual taste of the liquor.

When brewed stronger, a delicate and entrancing malt is mingled with the fruity must and peculiar acidic flavors. This one gets sweeter as you go. Bumped the score significantly.

silky, sweet, earthy, but still with a bit of bite on an early infusion when I forgot it and left the room for a few minutes. A very nice evening tea with a rich dinner.

First try with this aged puerh. Using tap water, small porcelain gaiwan, 2 grams of tea, and 60-75mL water with each infusion. Water is just off the boil.

Dry leaves smell of sweet rich soil.

First a flash rinse, then 20 second first infusion: sweet, earthy, anise, a hint of herby/spicy but no bitterness. The liquor turns my golden shino cup to deep red-orange.

30 seconds 2nd: sweet, earthy, thick, liquor and a little bitter
30 seconds 3rd: sweet, earthy, little bitter
30 seconds 4th: still sweet, earthy, no bitter, bit of fruity
45 seconds 4th: sweet, earthy, little spiciness/resinous but not bitter
60", 60", 60", 90"—color lightening, still sweet, mellow, earthy, bits of caramel and raisin or plum
2’, 2’, 3’—starting to lose it, heading towards sweet water. Going to try one more at 5 minutes—and there is still something there, even earthy and sweet coming forward despite having just eaten a mint. It’s not strong, but not quite just sweet water yet. Nice pu!

The big question I was trying to answer with this order from Nada was how much better aged puerhs are than my current young shengs and shus. While this is a very smooth and pleasant tea, I can’t say that I love it 5 to 10 times more than some of the lovely but quite inexpensive young pus I’ve gotten from other sources. It’s definitely smooth and mellow in a way that has no parallel in my young shengs, but it is approached by the better of my young shus, and the young shengs have other attractions like smokiness and umami that are absent in teas like this.

I’ve been enjoying a terrific session with the last of this sample, brewed up in my newest miniature yixing pot. The pot is small enough to be truly stuffed with the leaves—the lid doesn’t quite seat properly, being held up by the leaves. The tea is spicy, sweet, earthy, never bitter (even when I forgot one infusion for a very long time), just delicious. I am certainly at least 20 infusions into my session, and after the leaves have waited patiently overnight, I expect many more, because I was not having to lengthen the infusions yet—15-30 seconds was still yielding plenty of flavor at the end of last night. I’m not going to drop 700 euros on an entire cake of it, but I can now understand why someone else might.

This is a very expensive tea, so I wanted to be well prepared. I finished lunch 30 minutes before tasting, brushed teeth without toothpaste, rinsed mouth with plain water—didn’t want anything to interfere with the taste of the tea.

1.4 grams of tea in tiny gaiwan
30mL water per infusion (used a very small measuring cup)

Water boiling or near boiling (205-212 per the thermometer when poured from the kettle)

Flash rinse

Wet leaves smell like forest floor—sweet clean compost scent

first infusion 15 seconds
earthy like the scent promised, but surprisingly strong sweet and spicy notes right up there with it

2nd infusion 20 seconds
earthy, caramel, sweet, spicy, very very very nice

3rd infusion 25 seconds
About the same as the 2nd infusion, a bit stronger is only difference

4th infusion 30 seconds
earthy, sweet, spicy, caramel

5th infusion, 40 seconds
Still strong and lovely

I have to admit to an ulterior motive here: I was hoping I might find that I actually prefer my young sheng puerhs to the ‘real deal’ of very aged sheng, since I have come to prefer them to most of the ripe shu—ripe shu designed to mimic the aged sheng. So I was hoping to find this would be a rather bland experience like eating dirt. And it wasn’t. It is lovely. It is very, very lovely.

Is it lovely enough to want to invest $$$ in drinking it regularly and in larger volume? Maybe not. I think stuff like this will remain an occasional tea, because even as it is sitting net to me in the cup, and the water has just boiled again, visions of Lao Ban Zhang loose mao cha are dancing in my head.

But do I understand why some stuff like this is praised and prized so highly? Yes. I get it now. It is subtly but dramatically different than the best of the shus I have had, because it manages a wonderful balance of the elements of spicy, sweet, earthy, fruity, more complex than I’ve had yet from a shu.

I’ll report back later when I see how many infusions I can get. Now up to 7, no surprises, still going strong.

Edit: got up to 12 with signficant tea flavor; by 16, it was slightly sweet water, still nice, but not a lot of oomph left.

I had this side-by-side with the Manmai this morning. See that note about how it made me realize that aroma and flavor aren’t all there is to a tea. The flavor and texture in this tea were again overwhelming, but the energy is crisp, satisfying, glowing, and heavy. Mmmmm.

These leaves edged smaller, with more variety in color, but the same healthy sheen. Unlike the Manmai, the aroma wasn’t a bellowing tropical fruit, but instead a mellow, more typical dry sheng smell. Rinsing the leaves, classic woodsy characters emerged: damp moss, birch bark, and distant cedar shavings. The color of the soup was an opaline scallop-color, speckled with bud fur.

Despite the pale moon-colored soup, this tea had a great thick, gloopy texture early on. I found the overal flavor profile fleeting: light-colored uncooked mushrooms, maple wood, and cotton candy. In the gaiwan, the leaves looked larger, darker green, and more mature than the last two Essence of Tea samples, giving me pause that older leaves may have less immediate potency to them.

The middle and later steeps got a touch soapy and thinly astringent for me. And, despite what I consider to be another light tea, this had less quick bitterness, and a better texture and structure than both the Manmai and the Bangwai, hinting at a potentially bright future for this tea.

Full blog post: http://tea.theskua.com/?p=245

A re-visit to this and the Mansai made me realize how aroma and flavor are really not the only characters of a tea to consider. Texture is important, as is qi or energy, or simply how the tea makes you feel. This tea makes me feel amazing.

Flavor-wise, I’m still really focused on the flinty, grassy, greenness of the tea, and find the texture a little light, but this tea has powerful, golden, glowing energy to it, and that’s just something that’s hard to consistently find.

Updated blog post: http://tea.theskua.com/?p=498