The Essence of Tea

Farewell, Long Lan Xu. Going well with a lunch of red lentil soup :D

Not much has changed in 4 years. Four? Really?

This tea needs to be properly aged elsewhere. Lazy bones storage in California has almost entirely arrested the potential transformation of this brash leaf.

Oh my belly. While I love upfront bitterness, this has a kind of flat alkalinity that my body can’t handle. Five years of EoT storage is apparent in the dark, dry leaf (plus one year in Mediterranean California climate) with notes of forest floor, grain and very faint smoke. The warm leaf smells spicy with pronounced baked bread, some type of citrus (maybe pomelo), licorice root, impression of cherry. Rinsing changes the profile into something very pungent and vegetal. Parsley and celery root come to mind, root vegetables in general, more forest floor, dark soil clinging to tree roots.

From there… eh… flat alkalinity is upsetting my stomach. Thin body, tastes are… eh… thin with that same forest floor, moving later to something more tobacco-leathery but still ever-thin; mild, diffuse bitterness. Mellow aged aroma with a touch of cherry-prune. Light camphor feeling. Aftertaste later is citric sour. This tea is giving me a drowsing, heavy limb effect similar to the other Bangwai sheng I’ve tried though too dopey for my liking.

Long Lan Xu, back to the crock with you.

I’ve had this tea for a while and rather neglected it. I was impressed enough by a sample that I bought a cake a couple years back. The fact that it’s semi aged Mengsong old arbor for $165 for 400g influenced my decision. It’s been over a year since I had this tea and I thought I’d check in on it’s progress. It also sounded like it would go well with my breakfast of chicken, gravy and eggs over duck fat potatoes. I know that some people shudder at the notion of pairing pu with food but I come from the beer world so get over it. Anyhow, the crock storage has been kind to this tea. When I last checked in it was what I would consider in the last phases of it’s awkward stage. It has now evolved into a powerhouse semi aged sheng. Thick and woody with notes of tobacco and earthy autumnal forest notes. I get 10 steeps pushing this tea and each had big long huigan. Bitterness is smooth and round. Beer comparison? Theakston Old Peculier or other Yorkshire old ale with treacle in it. As I drink this tea I scroll through the news and am saddened to learn that the King of rocknroll has just left us so I respond by firing up the stereo and putting on a record of all the Specialty era singles. The qi hits as Tutti Frutti comes on and I’m happily dancing around the living room picturing Richard jamming with Jimi and Willie Dixon in heaven. My muscles are relaxed and I’m quite content. The closest tea comparison I can think of is W2T 2005 Naka. While it has a tad more aged character and more drowsing qi, this tea retains more top notes and is slightly more energizing. In a way I rather prefer this tea and think it’ll only improve with age. Of course the same thing can be said of the Naka…but this tea is 40% the price.

If you’re looking for a great introduction into old-growth puerh, then this is your cake! Most “gushu” is very expensive and hard to authenticate, but this is the real deal and for a steal of a price! I bought this as a great travel tea and to brew for company. The cake is moderately compressed with some subtle aromas of live wood. The warmed leaf is quite sweet and fruit forward with nice aromas of apricot. The brewed tea is a little tricky to put my finger on, but it is very nice and soft! You can expect a medium body with clean tones of watercress, easy-going stone fruit, perhaps a background of vanilla. This is a wonderful relaxed tea to drink while working or studying. I’m glad I added this tea to my collection, and i’m curious as to how it will age.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BMUM5nSg7oL/

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I purchased this tea from Essence of Tea’s website. Brewed out of a medium sized gaiwan.

This tea overall is solid. I got 10 steeps out of my gaiwan with steeps ranging from flash to 5 mins. I get notes of grass, pears, and overall fruity flavors from this tea. The tea did have a considerable bitterness and astringency that wasn’t my favorite, but for the price it’s solid. The feeling I get from it was almost overly energetic, but I tend to favor more relaxing teas so this is more of a preference.

Song pairing first: Pachanga Boys — Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTbgyp5VnoQ

In the spirit of nostalgia and friendship, today I brought this out for a session with a coworker who has a history of puerh consumption.

I think it was too bitter for him, at least in comparison to the 2005 Changtai Yun Pu Zhi Dian we sampled first.

On the other hand, I was and still am at a loss for words. Nothing but wild associations with this sheng. At least there is often some inkling of shared subjectivity when describing sensate experience, of which I have some to offer but I feel it is inadequate.

This tea is a slow bewilderment that builds into a crystalline clarity. Something about winter in the high desert, pastel sunrises, icicles. It’s subtle beneath the balance of bitter, sweet and cooling. At times it’s woody, others leathery, or with impressions of cacao or fragrant desert wood or floral incense or frigid desert air. Lots of sweet vanilla-mint flavor. Mineral, tongue tingling, mouth-watering but still astringent. Pretty freaking amazing. Yeah, zing. Crystalline.

Thanks mrmopar <3 I bought a cake after trying it at the Great Table Commandeering.

I’ve tasted dozens of spring 2019 shengs from choppy terrace tea to gushu from Mansong and Tongqighe and at $68 a 200g cake it easily gets my bang for the buck award of the year. Even competing against top tier teas I’ve had from Yiwu and menghai I’d put this somewhere in the middle performance wise. That’s against teas 2-3x the price. This stuff is olive oil thick and super mouth watering. Early steeps start herbal with notes of sage and thyme with a mango/coconut finish that reminds me of a Manzhuan tea only not nearly as sweet. Wet leaves smell of white pepper and lemongrass. Later steeps see vegetal notes taking over the herbal character and bitter orange peel replacing the mango. Now when a vendor sources single garden tea from an undisclosed prefecture I usually assume it’s Puer or Lincang. This tea has some traits of Jiancheng teas I’ve tried but not quite as evergreeny. The tea it reminds me most of is Long Tang (the first Jinggu sheng to impress me) from YS although a tad less fruity and sweet and definitely oilier. This goes over a dozen steeps even when pushed final steeps remind me of fruitcake. The qi is grounding and puts me in tune with my surroundings. It’s serene and not of the slaphappy variety I get from some border tea. This is awesome tea, especially for the price and I have little doubt that hip western vendors could get away with dressing it a wrapper adorned with copulating skeletons and a snarky name and sell it for twice the price…

So I’ve been on a yin trip lately and have accordingly been drinking mainly Yiwu (and a bit of aged Lincang). I figured it was time for a little Yang and broke out a sample of this. Yang indeed. I was immediately transported to 1990 when I was 16 and puffing on a Camel light at the skating rink. The security guard handed me a Pall Mall non filter and said try this son. This is a MAN’S cigarette. Indeed it was, just like this tea, brimming with toxic masculinity. Actually this tea doesn’t so much remind me of a cigarette but of a Parodi cigar. When most people talk of cigar notes in a tea they mean nice smooth cedary notes you’d expect from a fine Dominican wet cured stick. Not this tea. It tastes for the world like a Parodi, the Italian dry cured cigars you see in gangster movies. Bitter, spicy, strong and manly. The soup is thick and bitter but not as much bitterness or returning sweetness as a Lao Mane but close. It also has the slate and fennel notes I get from Lao mane teas but less pronounced. It’s also thick enough to satisfy an espresso drinker. The qi is also powerful but not of the calming euphoric meditative type I get from an Yiwu or the bombastic stoner qi I get from an LBZ. This stuff makes me spacey, lethargic and dumb. Like I lost a few iq points. I find myself looking for my phone while talking on it and reminiscing about Pall Mall cigarettes. I get a similar effect from adolescent red mark teas so I wonder if they got their material from the same part of Menghai. If you like a tea that is simple, potent and zonkering try this stuff…did I mention it was potent?

Through the generosity of a tea friend, I am tasting my way through a number of samples of aged raw puerhs. I had also ordered a few additional raw puerhs to sample. When I first began drinking loose leaf teas, I tried everything (green, black, oolong, ripe, raw, etc), and gravitated toward mildly roasted Wuyi rock oolongs. However, I have always been curious if there are puerhs out there that I would love more if only I found the right ones. I already have a number of cakes in storage that were purchased several years ago with pure chance. With the help of a tea bud, I have already found a couple of puerhs I like in these samples, and I’m working toward sampling my way to my preferred sheng region, cultivar, etc.

I am creating tasting note placeholders here on Steepster as I go through the teas that I intend to come back later and add more detailed tasting notes. I was given enough sample material for at least two sessions (thank you!!) and so that will allow me get to know the outstanding character of each tea and those traits that are more common across raw puerhs.

So far I have tried:
2004 Yang Qing Hao “Te Ji Pin” Raw by Yang Qing Hao
2007 XiaGuan FT Shan 4th golden wrapper by Xiaguan Tea Factory
2008 Menghai “SPRINGTIME WATER” RAW by Menghai Tea
2010 “AUTUMN NAN NUO SHAN” RAW PU-ERH TEA BRICK by Yunnan Sourcing
2012 Baotang Raw by The Essence of Tea

Since this little summary of my experiment is posted under the 2012 Boatang Raw tasting note, here are my initial thoughts on this tea:

Brewed gongfu style in 70 ml clay pot with 5 gr of material. One rinse and very fast initial steeps of only 5 seconds, gradually increasing (very little).

Flavors/Aromas I pickup in this tea are a lot of sweetness. That’s very evident. I also get a little bit of cocoa in the early steeps, but it is nothing like the strong chocolate flavor that comes through with black (red) teas. It’s definitely tannic and possesses some bitterness, and in later steepings still reveals some young sheng characteristics. It’s smooth in the mouth and has very little astringency initially, but the tea does become more astringent after awhile. If I smack my lips, I get something like a blackboard chalk in the aftertaste.

In the 2010 “AUTUMN NAN NUO SHAN” brick, I felt some pretty strong qi or caffeine buzz or something going on very quickly. With this 2012 Boatang, I feel a little something in my body, but it came on slowly and is far more subtle.

When I got this sample it had sourish notes of a tea that had gotten too dry or was sealed in a sample bag too long so I did my usual trick of wrapping it in paper and placing it in a humidified canister with other samples in similar condition. After a few months I’d forgotten about this tea and reread the description on the eot site and remembered that I had some. First 2 steeps were smoky and sweet. Oddly I’m reminded of Korean bbq pork with perhaps a touch of pineapple and cardamom. Steeps 4-5 are among the thickest stickiest shots of tea I’ve had in recent history and have a thick brown sugar caramel taste that reminds me of a Belgian strong ale. Steep 6 sees an enormous drop in thickness and the emergence of the tart and snappy but thin tastes of semi aged Wuliang yesheng like that of YS. At this point the qi hits and is of the relaxing clarifying type. At this point I keep doing long steeps expecting the kill steep is near but I’m rewarded with a slight return to thickness and continual shape shifting flavors. Excellent yesheng.

Second time with this tea. The first time I had it, I didn’t really “get” this tea. But a second try has revealed its redeeming qualities. Loving the aroma on the lid of the gaiwan for starters, old tobacco and old rooms, filled with grandparents and comfort. The flavor and body are still perplexing to me, they’re so much lighter than my other liu bao experience, centered on a distinct and enjoyable candied pumpkin, but not much spice or fermentation, or seemingly depth or thickness. Likewise for the finish, nothing exceptional. But the feeling is fantastic, a giddy, calm joy, quite calming and settling, almost to the point of sleepiness, but not. Sometimes heavy qi teas make me feel very disoriented and disconnected, but this one feels light, clear, yet relaxed and happy.

Current count of yet to be tasted and written about teas in cupboard:

Pu erh: 11

Oolong: 22

And a bunch of pu erh samples, including this one.

I got a sample of this from Essence of Tea when I ordered some yixing pots from them a while back.

The next step in my pu erh adventure is to develop a more discerning palate. Right now I honestly have no idea how to judge the quality of a pu erh, be it sheng or shu.

Thoughts?

In the packet, the sample smells like hay/grass/straw. All of the pasture elements are represented.

I rinsed and set this aside in the gaiwan for more than 15 minutes. Then I steeped at boiling for 5/5/7/7/10/10/20/30/40/60

The first steep was very, almost deceptively mild. I really couldn’t develop much of an impression of the tea after the first steep. It was sort of like my experience with some white teas. I can sense that the tea is there, but I can’t say that I really know what I’m tasting.

Subsequent steeps brought out the flavor, and a darker liquor that varied in shade from a lighter to a darker butter yellow with a tinge of brown at its darkest.

In aroma and flavor, this one spanned the gamut of things I’ve tasted in the other shengs I’ve tried recently. The second steep had a slight bitterness, but most of the steeps were the cocoa-toffee-coffee-white chocolate-butter melange I’ve come to quite enjoy. The fourth steep had some of the linen aspect that I noticed in my early forays, and was also, surprisingly, lightly floral.

The sixth steep made me notice a tingling on the tongue.

The seventh seemed sweeter than the others.

Can someone explain to me what qi is and how I know when I encounter it?

When tasting the first steep my thoughts were like “oh great…another POLITE tea” as is was so mild and subtle. Funny thing is halfway through that steep my eyebrows became noticeably heavy…this was indeed peculiar. Second steep, notes of the Hawaiian Lehua honey my mom gave me began to emerge and this tea began to make sense. First steep had no notable huigan but this second steep made up for it. Third steep is thick with more honey and perhaps a bit of woodiness. At this point my whole body is limp and grinning at the floor pondering the patterns in the tiles. Now I’m at steep 10 and the tea is fading out as I ponder taking a hike as I have cabin fever from being cooped up with a stomach bug that’s finally relented after 5 days…will I venture out into the winter air or will I sit here and drink more tea? Decisions decisions….

Having a sample of this one tonight.
Dumped the sample into the breaking tray. Looks to be bigger leaf and an almost purple hue to the leaf. Ye Sheng maybe? Not sure at this point. Got 10 grams out to brew with. Heated the water and pored some into the easy brewer and dumped. Tossed around. Very fruity almost like grape skin mixed with honey.
First brew after a quick rinse. Whispers of a touch of smoke. Very light. Taste very fruity and just on the tip of the tongue. Sweet on the aftertaste lingering.
Second brew, still flash steeping. Nice and sweet. A little more thickness and the mouth coating is starting. I saw a few buds mixed in so this may be some of the sweetness. I know there are two types of wild tea. Bitter version and sweet which this one seems to be. Starting to carry heaviness and some berry malt to it.
Third steep, a little more of the white grape creeps in. Starting to have a touch of bitterness mixed in as well. Very light though. Almost like drinking a sweet white wine varietal. Pretty close just without the alcohol.

Sipdown no. 5 of March 2019 (no. 40 of 2019 total, no. 528 grand total). A sample.

Trying to weed through my lower rated samples to aid the sipdown effort and this is my lowest rated oolong sample. I made the last of it Western style today.

My initial assessment remains spot on. Pleasant, but not in bowling over territory.

This is a never before opened sample that I got when I bought some yixing pots from Essence of Tea.

The leaves are big and dark and twisty. On first sniff, I didn’t get much out of them at all, but sitting with my nose in the packet for a while, I get a mild smell of earth and trees. Not toasty roasty or sharp at all.

Four steeps in gaiwan after rinsing, in 5 second increments starting with 15.

The tea is golden yellow, maybe a bit darker than that. I want to say bronze yellow. The color got a bit lighter by the fourth steep.

As with the scent of the dry leaf, I didn’t get a ton of aroma out of this on the initial steep. As I got more attuned to the tea, I started to get a smell reminiscent of walnuts. Sometimes it is more the bitter, shell scent. Sometimes and more often, the meaty mild nutty scent. I could go so far as to liken it to stonefruit pits.

By the second steep, a sweetness started to emerge. Again, nothing roasty or toasty or smoky, but a sort of raisin or honey smell and flavor.

It doesn’t do a lot for me, unfortunately. It is tasty enough, and it gets high marks for not being overly roasty. But It’s not bowling me over.

Tried a small sample of this included in a recent private tea purchase. I usually prefer spring teas to autumn, but this was certainly a nice treat. Aroma was floral and sweet. Early steeps were easy-going with a very light astringency and a floral, honey huigan. The body started off a little light, and remained that way throughout the tea, though it did pick up some as I reached the meat of the session. Around 6 or 7 steeps in, the astringency picks up – unsurprising for a tea this young – and soon grows to be the dominant part of the tea, though it is still floral in flavor, especially the huigan.

This tea feels lively in the mouth – both flavor and aroma were solid, where in a lot of autumn teas, aroma is dominant. A nice couple of sessions – doesn’t appear the tea is available anymore.

Symphonic. Has it all. Apricot tops all the way to a shimmering mineral base. I hum along though I don’t know the tune yet. expectant with age to come.

I received a sample of this tea ifrom mrmopar in a Christmas card! I wanted to try it with family at a time when we could sit and discuss the merits of the tea and really focus on it, rather than when we were sipping as we palyed games or had snacks. The opportunity came a few nights ago.

The dry leaves reminded me of a tobacconist shop, not something I was expecting from a young-ish sheng. It is an aroma I enjoy, so I had hopes for everyone to enjoy this sheng, even the shu drinkers.

The steeped tea is very, very lively. The briskness translates to such an energy on the tongue, and the aftertaste is sweet and pleasant. We were drinking it shortly before bedtime, and I thought that it would be a wonderful tea to drink as a daytime pick-me-up when energy is flagging but there is work to be done. It didn’t keep me from being able to fall asleep at my usual time, however. The flavor was reminiscent of green teas I have had that are brisk on the tongue with a sweet rising aftertaste. My youngest said it was very minty to her, more like spearmint than peppermint.

My eldest and youngest had a sheng at a tea festival, and the Chinese vendor told them that his sheng sample might not be what they were accustomed to. They bravely told him that they drank puer all the time! He laughed and told them it wasn’t like his, and handed them a cup…and they nicknamed it murder tea. Apparently, it was a VERY sour sheng!

Youngest was one of the people drinking this Bao Tang, and pronounced it very drinkable. It has helped her recover from her sheng trauma. We had numerous steeps before heading off to bed in sloshy contentment.

Thank you to mrmopar for a nice new tea experience!

What a wonderful example of a good Autumn sheng.

You can tell from this tea how powerful these leaves are. There is much less of a dropoff from steep to steep compared to most Autumn productions. My front pallet is salivating while the back of my pallet is also ringing, great mouthfeel. Great energy, wouldn’t have expected this type of energy from a Autumn.

Fantastic example of how great Autumn sheng can be. This is easily the best Autumn I have tried. Expansive mouthfeel with great energy and flavor. 10 steeps deep and still pushing, VERY nice surprise for low initial expectations.

I would say the only characteristic in this tea relative to other Autumn productions I have tried is the flavor… Light sweetgrass-like scent and taste which is accompanied by a subtle astringency.

Wish I had more, but I will now need to try the Spring version of this tea.

After several years of anticipation, I’ve finally gotten this tea in my cup.

Initial wafting of the dry leaves met me with freshness (almost menthol) that was unexpected for a tea of this age. I’ve not tried any Essence of Tea puerh before so I am not accustomed to what the storage taste may be. Waited about 2 weeks to air this out and threw it in the Jian Shui (my semi-aged sheng pot).

Now, I went this entire session with a somewhat confused demeanor. Any previously sampled semi-aged sheng that I have had did not resembled this at all; this tea was different. What a friendly tea. I still do not really know what stands this one on it’s own… Lacking smokiness and almost all astringency, it makes for a very consistent brew similar to other semi-aged sheng in my experience.

Wasn’t taken back by the energy, but I usually drink a lot more leaf per session. All-in-all I had a great 15-20 steeps of this and it was still giving when pushed to 20-30 second steeps.

Earthy tones and subtle fruit led this to please me very much for about an hour.

It’s been a while since I tried this cake but I always remember it being a very fresh clean young sheng.

The dry leaves didn’t seem to have darkened quite as much as I was expecting but a lot of the fresh younger scent seemed to have given way to something a bit more aged. The colour of the brew was still a rather bright yellow but was definitely darker than before.

The flavour still had some floral sweet elements like when the tea was younger but has now given way to a lot more straw and wood elements. The body of the tea is still thick and there is a good energy that comes with drinking it.

Using it as a test of how things are ageing in UK climate, it seems as if it is a slower process but it seems to be producing good results, (it helps that I enjoy the younger characteristics of this cake as well)!