2007 Yexiangwang Naka

The cake has a tight compression and a light, sweet aroma. The first steep begins light to medium in strength, but the body feels full and seems to foreshadow the strength in the upcoming infusions of thick, dark orange soup. The flavors tend toward the fruity spectrum and are mostly simple in style, while the body is malty and full of “dark” sweetness, thick and ripe like prunes. Later, more smoky and woody notes climb in, and create a very balanced complexity.

The soup begins slowly and softly with a thick mouthfeel, introducing basic sweet and salty aspects. It develops into a long and waxing complexity across a second or two duration, where the flavors mentioned above begin to grow and amass one after the other. At this point, a throaty kuwei slowly emerges. It is, like the other aspects of this tea, deep. The bitterness isn’t sharp and is more “felt” than tasted. There are some drying effects towards the front of the mouth, but the throat remains moist. It reaches a medium to strong intensity as far as flavors go, before fading slowly to a stable finish that doubles as a long-lasting aftertaste. I found this to be a very interesting quality with this tea, as I usually find the sip’s finish fades before a complimentary, yet distinct aftertaste (with a slightly different flavor) emerges after the swallow. With this shengpu, the soup’s form descends to a stable and subtle intensity that simply “sticks,” lingering for quite some time. Finally, seconds after the swallow, a coolness begins to develop that intensifies as the session progresses. After the second steep, my body is calmed and warmed to the point of sweating, causing my neck and ears to become flushed.

Overall I am really pleased with this one and impatiently await the effects of a bit of age on it. The tea presents an interesting textural experience, but is not without intrigue in the flavor department. Plus, it has an elephant on the wrapper, which adds just a touch more awesomeness to it.

Initially this reminded me of “high end factory.” A sweet and woody smell (delightfully combining into barbecue sauce) and a strong character.

Then I had it after 3 weeks in my pumidor. Its something special I now think. It is really oily, my lips are left feeling like they have balm on them. In the mouth the tea is very viscous and jammy sweet, super sweet. There is a bit of roughness which shows up weirdly, almost as if the liquid is encased in an outer surface of sand paper so that your tongue and cheeks are reacting to its astringency very directly, but when you swish it and move it around its all viscous and thick. Definitely for texture fans. And it gets better. The tea has long legs, and you feel it swallow nicely and then move down your throat all the way into your stomach. That part makes it rich, although it doesnt overall strike me as rich.

The qi is strong. I was, within two sips, pretty knocked out (although on a fairly empty stomach). I sat at my computer, eyes half closed, lips in a half smile for quite a few hours, following this tea through its decently static life.

The flavors are typical strong material middle aged flavors: wildflower honey, sweet wood. Not dirty. Not dry nor humid. Very, very good.

brewed this after the much enjoyed session with the 2007 Repave. Yet the 2007 Yexiangwang Naka…I did not want to finish steeping this out. I came back to it the next day. It has longevity, it made me drunk-ish (stopped before getting too woozy). I just did not enjoy this tea in any way shape or form.

It was harsh on my stomach, and didn’t settle either. Felt like a mild case of indigestion just before acid reflux set in.

Bitterness, smokey, totally smoky, it needs more aging, maybe another 5-10 years? However long I think the smoke needs to mellow a bit longer.

Cooling huigan kicks in about steep 5-6. the first 3-4 steeps it tasted like smokey Lipton tea, with a bit of extra complexity, or perhaps smokey puerh laced/blended with a bit of lipton black tea. That distinct Lipton black tea flavor, its in this tea, that’s the only way to describe it. The description says its blended, and the dry leaves look like some heicha is in there, maybe…? Does appear to have some darker leaves in it.

steeps 5+ it started to open up but never got too complex. Its not super smokey now, but the smoke flavor is prominent and dominant and not much else shines through flavor wise.

Feeling – its medium bodied, oily mouthfeel, lingers on the tongue, cooling huigan, and head chi. This tea if brewed strongly could make you tea drunk.

I’m on the fence if I want to buy a cake to age. If I bought a cake I’d push it to the back of the stack and forget about it for another 10 years, its not something I see myself reaching for any time soon.

Its not bad, fun to sample, but not something I’d be reaching for. Final thoughts the next day when finishing this…not worth a cake. It gets you drunk, but the other effects are too harsh on me personally. Too much indecision. Love/hate…

this smells like smoked cedar or red wood or something. this is most prevalent in the smell. then there is sweetness that comes in after. i brewed this western style for about 5min right after a rolling boil. the color of the brew is not really dark and not really light.. i would call it golden. It is slightly bitter and slightly sweet (apricot is probably the best description of the sweetness,) and the two mix. astringent mouth feel on the sides of my tongue.

its another hot day and it is completely crazy to be drinking boiled water- but you know, im in a tea coma if not high on coffee and vice versa. I knew this tea from the past and fully expected for it to light me up and make me sweat like a fish (is that a saying?) im taking my shirt off to wipe tea off my computer screen, plus its bloody hot.. funny how things work out.

im on my second cup (100ml maybe) and its much more astringent (even though the basket is out.) this is actually a very tiring tea for me, since my limit for bitter is lower than this, though i could see this tea working well with a “heavy” type of meal, in which it can cut straight through and add dimension to a meal.

i never particularly liked this tea, but i thought id sipdown on some of this and contribute a lazy afternoon review.

-nycoma

Second session tonight. Good, strong, downer Naka cha qi as expected. It only takes a few gulps to put me in a pretty deep hole. I taste a pleasant mixture of leather, sweet tobacco and apricot, with a little smoke in the background. There’s a gentle bitterness and quite a deal of cooling. This tea yields a bronze-ish liquor with very little body, and the endurance sadly seems to be around 8 or 9 steeps. That said, I feel no compulsion to drink this quickly, as I do with many other teas. The compression is incredibly tight, and the leaves are small and a bit fragmented. Consult last couple reviews for brewing parameters. Were the price still less than $100, I would have gotten a bing without much hesitation.

I was lucky enough to get a sample of this tea from a kind friend. Only my 2nd Naka puerh ever and so far they are consistently winners. The taste was wonderful and the feeling even more so. I drank this on Thursday while making art and it was like liquid inspiration! Sadly I did not steep the leaves all the way out in the first sitting, so I decided to try to save them to have again the next day and that did not work out very well for me. Lesson learned though. Next time I’ll just drink it all at once! No wasting Naka!!!!

You’ve got to enjoy this wrapper! Also known as The Wild Elephant King cake, this is a blend of Naka and Bulang material. At the price I paid, it was a great bargain purchase given the high quality. The visual appeal of the cake is acceptable, not beautiful by any means, but pleasant looking. The level of compression makes it fairly easy to pick apart and produce a mixture of whole leaves and pieces. The dry leaf offers a pleasant smell which became sweeter as the leaves steeped. The liquor is dark brass in color. The sip conveys what I would term power with a definite sweetness – clean, strong and smooth with a very nice cooling effect. The activity in the mouth is strong and clean offering a swelling sensation with nice huigan. The leaf has good endurance and remained strong and flavorful through ten resteeps. At the end of the tea session I was left in a very thoughtful meditative state which persisted for about two hours.
Purchased from White2Tea in June for $34.50 (quite a bargain). Unfortunately the current price is $115 (a true indication of the escalating price of Naka tea products during the past 12-18 months).

I bought this Sheng after much scientific research. I love Asian Elephants, this tea is named Yexiangwang [Wild Elephant King] and it has an Asian Elephant on the wrapper so I bought it. Okay, enough of my scientific methods. The soup is a very light bronze color. The first steeping had me puzzled. The taste was a earthy, leafy, grassy, smokey mix (or, I really wasn’t sure what I was tasting). There was just a hint of kuwei and astringency that were not present in subsequent steepings. When I first tasted the second steeping I knew what the flavor was. To me it is a smokey tobacco flavor that is very mellow and pleasing to the tongue. I really liked the consistency of this tea. Steepings two through seven tasted the same. This is a great Sheng but if you don’t like teas with a heavy tobacco flavor then this tea may not be for you.