1998 Raw Basket Aged "133" Liu Bao Tea

Thank you beerandbeancurd for this sample! Initial rinse: Some type of Chinese veggie. Drywall. Creamed…. something. Initial taste at about 30 seconds reveals a silky mouth feel with cream of wheat and old wood in the basement flavors. the 1800 house notes really punch your face the longer you steep. Makes me seriously want to get back to my Ancestry searching but I promised myself I wouldn’t touch it till after I am done with my current tea dream. Oh and pine. Big pine notes too. Walking through a pine forest. Actually, I’m finding some new basement notes in there as well. That smell of crisp drywall and spackle. Each steep brings out more woodsy notes but thus far nothing much different. A bit more cream of wheat, no maple syrup or butter of course. Holy smokes. I just bit into a chunk of rotting wood. You know that big pieces of lumber they used to use to hold up earth before they started using concrete blocks and such. Wow.

Sending some of this onward in a trade, so this is a 3g sipdown… for now. This is a raw — not wet piled — Liu Bao.

Notes of basement and forest floor in the first steep; wet leaf in the gaiwan is cinnamon stick and camphor.

Nose briefly becomes pine for the second steep, with flavors of basement, oakmoss, damp wood. Wet leaf is kelp, wet driftwood.

Third: more pine, wet stones. Taste of old books, wet rocks, cucumber. The wet leaf persists with faint cinnamon stick and cooling notes.

Nose becomes beach salinity/lake dampness, a kind of light fragrant wood in the fourth. The taste takes a sudden creamy turn, like a wood dust and basement storage smoothie… WHY IS THIS SO APPEALING I LOVE IT. Wet leaf still a little camphorous, slowly moving toward generic wet wood…

Fifth starts the tamp down: forest floor and wood on the nose. Taste becomes gently metallic, stone, wet wood.

Metal and stone persist in the sixth, with light cinnamon/nutmeg. I had a hunch this persistent cinnamon note might be the betel nut aroma I’ve seen associated with Liu Bao, and sure enough — google turns up cinnamon/nutmeg/cooling.

Steeps continue to have wet wood/betel/metallic/stone flavor. Dungeony, I think Togo wrote… yes. All dungeons are basements, but not all basements are dungeons. No astringency or tannins here. Cha qi is fun and relaxing.

I kept at it for maybe 16-ish steeps; I lost track. The flavor didn’t really develop any more, but it didn’t go away for a long time. I really meant to throw this in a pan for a boil afterward, but home got distracting and I chucked it on accident. :(

I have some more Liu Bao samples coming from YS… I’m very interested to see how younger examples stack up. Buying a basket of this seems excessive, maybe… maybe? I will almost certainly grab some more of some quantity.

Gongfu Sipdown (1455)!

Finished this one off during the afternoon while also also breaking in some gorgeous new Qinghao teaware pieces from a recent Crafted Leaf Teas order!! I love the distinct heavy and dank earthiness of heicha so much, and this one is very interesting with some very brothy & resinous notes of cocobolo wood, golden raisins, peat and damp forest undergrowth, and casacara! It hits so deep, with some really grounding and complex flavours that are making for a really serene afternoon session!

My only complaint is that it steeped out more quickly than I’d have liked. I got like eight or nine good steeps and I would have easily been able to sit down and enjoy a session double that length without coming close to tiring of these amazing flavours.

This was another sample that I recieved from Togo – so far I’ve been very impressed with the different heicha samples he provided me and in general I’m enjoying the teas from Yunnan Sourcing much more than I had expected to. I’ve found several I would order for myself, and I’m including this among that list.

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CULMaR0r8K6/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzDSoIEsmlU&ab_channel=anjimile

This is the oldest Liu Bao I’ve had to date iirc. It does breathe with age, and it would be a good choice for those who like earthy, sweet profile with a strong camphor note.

Dry leaves have a nutty smell of dungeon with a light smokiness to it. After the rinse, the aroma is sweet and earthy with notes of beetroot, courgette, and whey.

First proper infusion is sweet, nutty and mineral, with a slightly biting, cooling and cavernous mouthfeel. The liquor texture is buttery and colloidal. Second steep is more savoury and milky. It is followed by a strong aftertaste that’s a mix of vanilla and camphor. This one is thicker and numbing in the mouth.

Later on, the profile is a bit more woody, with notes of caramel and forest floor. If pushed, the tea also has a pleasant bubbly quality.

It is not the longest lasting tea out there, but I find the 200ml/g one can get from it to be reasonable. Plus, the tea can be boiled after a session to produce final few strong infusions.