2011 Fuding Shoumei Aged White Tea

For the sipdown prompt, “a tea you’ve forgotten about.” Derk gave this to me when we both attended the San Francisco International Tea Festival all the way back in 2018… and it has sat in my cupboards since (I’m a terrible person…) Prepared gong fu.

180ml (mini teapot) | 6.5g | 185F | 20s/30s/40s/50s/60s/70s

The first steep, when the leaves hadn’t really broken up yet, tasted like a faint floral dew (in retrospect I properly should’ve given it a rinse to help break the leaves apart, ah well). The second steep was also pretty mild, but had more of a hay/pollen with a hint of honeysuckle floral. The honeyed notes started to pop more as the cup cooled. Next steep brought out a subtle syrupy note that reminded me of a combination of cherry and dates, and perhaps just a little almondy?

Steeped for 6 infusions, which is about the point where my liter kettle runs out and I feel really full and just don’t feel the mood to continue. However, the leaf was still mostly all intact, so I decided to remove it from my little mini pot and stick it in a cold brew bottle, and see what the leaves have left to offer as ice cold tea later. (Which is really what I’m more in the mood for at the moment anyway)

I definitely prefer aged whites to any sheng or shou I’ve tried, so that may just be where my preferences are when it comes to aged tea.

Thanks for sharing, Derk!

Last of my sample. Previous brews were all gongfu but I didn’t take notes. I think I recall it being red fruity, woody, leafy, citrusy, mineral. What stood out to me the most way back then was the aroma and intense energy. This is the tea that sparked my interest in aged whites. Unfortunately for others looking to try it, it’s sold out.

This time around I used 7g of leaf, simmered in a liter of water until it reached a little over half the volume and was a dark magenta-brown. I can’t smell shit right now but I did pick up on some syrupy red fruit and citrus as I hovered over the steaming saucepan. What I can taste is a fairly smooth light body with all those notes I picked up gongfu. I’d say it’s dominated by autumn leaf and red fruit with some light citrus and mineral. Not sweet at all. Is this going to be the impetus to finally get my ass out of bed for a few hours?

My first aged white and surely not my last. I now see why the Chinese shudder when they hear of westerners tossing white tea after a year and why they say 1 year tea, 3 years medicine and 7 years treasure. 8g gong fu starting 85 then ramping to 95. The flavor of this stuff reminds me of a combination of Red Man chewing tobacco and the date and nut cake my great aunt used to make at holidays. This is actually a good thing. This stuff refuses to stop steeping and keeps giving. The qi is unique. It’s not relaxing like an aged sheng but both speedy and spacy. Perhaps this should be reserved for a weekend party tea…

Dry leaves smell like raisins and musty books. My sample looks like it was literally cut with a saw/serrated knife haha. Brews a clear golden orange. Tastes of dried herbs, raisins, old books, and citrus. Nice, oily mouthfeel like I get with a lot of W2T teas; I feel like that’s something he selects for.

I got a few chunks of this, so cranked the puscifer, grabbed a pot, and began a boil.

The leaves are moderately compressed with strong scents of hap, white grape,and sweet but heavy wood. I let this boil until a deep ruby colored liquor (pictured below), and then I let it cool for a few minutes. The brew was medicinal with sweet but very rough body. The aroma was fantastic! My home was filled with the scent of sweet candied dates. The brew carried a nice plum and date taste with phenomenal qi. The brew gave a rush through my head and made me feel lopsided. The later sipping I could hint at some burnt sugar; this was a very interesting experience. I used about 11g and maybe 1L or so on the stove-top. It was a lot of fun, and I was pretty drunk by the end.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRZiV9Xg9Vy/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel&hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRZjZnLAPIn/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel&hl=en

Last tea of the night;

I’m drinking this Western just to get a taste of it – but I look forward to Gong Fu brewing it ideally sometime this week if I can find time after work.

The liquor for this one was much darker than I’d expected from a white; a red/amber kind of hue. As it was steeping, in filled my kitchen with the smell of straw and red fruits! I was pretty excited to taste it.

I’m finding this to be a fascinating cup: it’s got some solid straw/hay notes like I’d expect from Shoumei or really any white tea, but they’re certainly more undertones/background flavours and the key notes here are a wide range of fruit notes! In general, there’s a red fruit sort of sweetness to this that’s a little generic, but also some peachyness and overall stonefruit flavour that’s sweet and inviting. I also taste some honey notes in the top of the sip. The finish is maybe what’s most interesting to me; sour/tangy isn’t quite the right word to describe it but it’s sort of in that ballpark area? Sharpness might be another good way to put it. It’s not unpleasant, but is kind of different.

I’m cautiously on the fence about whether or not I’ll like this profile for Gong Fu styled brewing, but as a Western cup I found it pleasantly unique and really enjoyable.

Roswell Strange sent this to me as part of the Slack chat Secret Santea event, so thank you so much! I’ve been wanting to try this one. Since I also had a sample of Teavivre’s 2011 Fuding, I decided to drink these side by side.

I can tell from the beginning that this one will take a while to fully expand and steep out, as the initial steep is extremely light in color and flavor and the chunk of cake is really holding itself together. The leaves are very intact with almost no fannings come off in the rinse or during multiple steeps.

Gongfuing this, I get a delicate flavor with stone fruit and a nice fruity sourness that develop throughout the session, along with an eventual acute sweetness. I revisit it the next day and it keeps delivering, and the day after that, the cake still hasn’t fully pulled itself apart.

Knowing that this one can be steeped quite a few ways with good results, I look forward to experimenting with it some more. Thanks again, Roswell Strange!

Well, I typed up a whole thing for this, then lost it when I closed the window for some strange reason.

Anyway, starts out medicinal, which I didn’t really understand the description of until this tea. There was also a lot of autumnal leaf pile. To be honest, I didn’t really like it at all until the fourth steep or so.

It started to change with some cinnamon with a touch of honey, autumnal leaf pile still being the base flavor. As the brew itself cooled, I got a hint of green apple, which is a first for me in any kind of tea. Am I getting better at this? I hope so.

The tea seems to mellow out to vanilla, honey, and dried flowers. I kept alternating between 200 and 212 because I was trying to decide which temperature I liked better. I liked them both really.

I may cake this.

I liked this tea a lot more than I thought I would! I used 7.5g in my 120mL gaiwan with 200F water. The dry leaves, which looked quite interesting, with different shades and large leaves and stuff in there, smelled slightly of honey and a bit sour. Once rinsed, they gave off an interesting aroma, part sour plum, honey, and a bit of a medicinal aroma.

The tea didn’t break apart quite as readily as I thought it would – took probably 6-7 before it was most of the way broken up. My first three steeps were plummy with those same medicinal notes and a honey finish. I also detected kind of leaf-litter autumnal flavors in there too. The plum note started to fade after these initial steeps, but throughout the session the sour aroma remained kind of in the air whenever I took the lid off the gaiwan. This flavor sort of reminded me of oriental beauty, but this was way better than the oriental beauties I’ve tried.

A couple steeps later, I started pushing the tea a tad bit more, and it got a bit drying with the medicinal flavors taking more of the fore. From about the 7th steep on, the flavors (still honey, medicinal, autumn leaf) seemed to be in constant flux from steep to steep. One steep the honey would be the front, the next the medicinal, etc. It was pretty interesting and fun to drink.

I’d be interested to try more aged white teas. Apparently the next W2T club shipment is going to be a white tea cake, though from this year I believe. Interested to see how that’ll turn out. I would definitely put this on the same level as sheng puerh as far as how enjoyable I found it. At least from this one example.