2015 Bancha Goishicha Dark Tea

Another tea removed from my cupboard! I had one single session left; from the days when derk sent it to my way, through it comes from White Antlers Swedish death purge days… so thank you both and missing the second one!

This tea actually aspires to be one of the strangest, weirdest and most unique teas I have ever tried. I prepared the chunk (5 grams I believe) in gongfu method starting with 15 seconds steep with 5 seconds increments. It went great this way!

On the packet, there is short, but absolutely correct description: “Unusual sour lemon taste”. When I saw it, I had no idea what to expect. I smelled the dry chunk and it was indeed sour, but like from fermentation, but also citrusy indeed. That caught my attention and I was looking forward to it.
In preaheated gaiwan I got even more of the sour notes.

But in taste they are indeed tamed. Derk describes it as “pungent, sour, and medicinal with notes of soy sauce and dried fermented lemon peel” and exactly same thoughts were mine. Indeed sour and slightly medicinal, indeed I got some notes of soy sauce… and fermented lemon peel was probalby the thing I was thinking the most about when drinking this. I believe I had fermented lemon peel in some blend from B&B — so that is my only limited experience with it. But it was that.

Certainly tea I need to keep an eye on — there is 2022 harvest available on What-cha website, but it’s UK based shop (sorry Alistair) and that means customs. Customs means VAT. VAT means extra costs and even worse… all the paperwork.

And in conclusion — it is actually pretty refreshing. Hearty meal is perfect pairing, pot steeping would probably work even better than my gongfu. And yet it is so strange, I want another session to be a more descriptive through session and not writing this post-session note.

This has to be one of the most unique teas I’ve tried. Goishicha is a fermented tea made of whole bancha leaves layered. Do a search for the Japanese Tea Sommelier blog and you’ll find a great page offering much information and pictures of the process.

As I mentioned in my latest gyokuro tasting note, I am unaccustomed to brewing Japanese teas. The package directions from What-Cha say 1 square per cup, 203F for 4-5 minutes. I thought I’d try this out in my black clay teapot that does well with Japanese greens. One square, roughly 110mL, 205F. I did give a rinse, and when steeping the first pot, poured off the tea in increments to get a feel for the level of pungency I found acceptable. Steeped many times.

Dry leaf scent, brewed aroma and taste are all very similar. Pungent, sour, and medicinal with notes of soy sauce and dried fermented lemon peel, like one would find in middle eastern cuisine, a leathery and mushroom midtone and a hint of fermented mulberry. Finishes with a very light licorice root type of sweetness and an almost imperceptible florality, some camphor. A few light burps. I find it to be simultaneously gently warming and cooling, perhaps multi-functional — a brew that could be had when out in the cold or when you have a cold; it also seems like it would go well with a rich dinner of stewed meat and greens with bread or rice, or as an after-dinner digestive. Has the inner strength to be boiled.

While this is a fermented tea, it is nothing like aged or shou pu’er or other heicha. I could recommend this for adventurous palates. It’s something I’d like to keep around but it is not a tea that I would have often.

Thank you much, White Antlers, for sharing. I will soon compare this to a less aged goishicha from Yunomi.

Very interesting tea and unlike everything else! Very sour, citrus and fungus notes as well as soy-sauce.
Images and more at https://puerh.blog/teanotes/2015-bancha-goishicha

Rinse at 100C, let it rest, flash steep at 95C.

So I was going to rinse this one twice, but decided to sip the second rinse. Glad I did! A lighter amber in color, this liquor tastes of a distinct blend of citrus and tamari, with a sweetness that builds in the mouth and at the back of the throat.

The second flash steep has an intense, super-rich condensed milk custard aroma, and tastes of honey and lemon stirred into hot water, with a slight umami kick that rolls into a savory and sour shoyu finish with a lingering sweetness. The aroma that clings to the empty cup is mouth-watering and fruity.

Third steep has more sour stone fruit coming through, and in the fourth steep, I’m starting to almost taste that condensed milkiness, and all of this carries on into the next couple of steeps. Once the flavor started to weaken, I hit it with boiling water from height and left it for a longer steep, and that revived it for a few more rounds.

This was very unique and I quite liked it. I could see myself stocking up this.

I was feeling like a new new experience today, as I’ve been drinking a lot of the 2015 harvest shengs lately. Pull out this mystery fermented tea from Japan, had forgot about it until I added some of my teas to the steepster cupboard the other day. I don’t drink a lot of shu, but I could not resist putting this in the cart when I saw it..

Immediately clear that this is something else. Dry aroma is a unique combination of .. dried bark, earthy/mushroom notes with a stingy nose. 90ml gaiwan and give it a ~15 second rinse plus a little rest. Product page recommends 4-5 minutes brew, seems a little excessive… but let’s trust it and go with 4 minutes.

.. Wow, amazing sour citrus aroma! The liquor is much lighter than expected, nothing like a shu at all, more like a sheng with a few years of age; clear bright orange/brown-ish. The taste is very pleasant, sour citrus with stonefruit and umami/salty quality with slight astringency. Light fermentation, but not at all unpleasant, no “funk”.

3 steeps so far; it’s lost potency but otherwise not a lot of change. My first impression is that it’s not very dynamic, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting. Absolutely worth trying.