240 Tasting Notes
Picked up a set of four Long Jing samples from Gingko recently and will spend the week working through them, before all of summer disappears and the teas get too old.
Having little experience with quality Long Jing, I thought I’d try brewing with Gingko’s tips (http://gingkobay.blogspot.com/2010/04/brewing-long-jing-dragonwell.html) and wrongfucha’s “Double Brew” (http://chahai.net/long-jing-double-brew-method/).
The two methods created very different results. The Double Brew was intensely sweet, subtle and airy. Delicate and fluffy. I really like this, it was akin to many Japanese greens and required concentration. The “grandpa” style suggested by Gingko also made a nice brew with this tea, a hearty, chunky thicker brew that released the dry chestnut edges of this tea. I think this leads me to a matter of preference. I generally don’t get that excited about those dryer, toasted, mineral-heavy notes in Chinese greens, so I’m interested in the method that produces a sweeter, softer brew.
Definitely one of the better Long Jing’s I’ve ever had and I’ve got three more great ones to go!
Generally, I’m not the biggest fan of bud-heavy, super-tippy tea, preferring the complexity, roundedness, and vigor of large-leaf pu’er. The Mannuo is incredible bud-heavy and I love it. For me, this tea combines the fleeting, ephemeral lightness of say the ’11 Nannuo with the intense, alkaline power of the ’11 Bulang in a harmony that makes it both eminently drinkable and completely intriguing. And unlike my experience with the other ’11 EoTs, the qi on the Mannuo is upfront, quick, and deep in a way that’s pleasing, enveloping and enjoyable. I believe this tea lives up to both the cost and the early-sell-out hype that it garnered. And, I’m not just trying to suck up in hopes of snagging another cake.
Such an interesting tea. I recently finished up a 12.5g pack, with another 12.5g pack set aside for aging as part of my white tea aging experiment. While this tea is white by process, it’s black by flavor. There’s such an incredible rich sweetness that comes naturally from this tea, like light maple syrup or agave nectar. Cooked stonefruit rounds out. What impresses me the most about this tea is it’s durability. Gong-fu style, I was able to produce rich tea for about 12 infusions!
What kind of tea-to-water ratio did you use to get 12 infusions out of it? That’s very impressive for any white tea. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten as many without reaching light sweet water.
Agreed, tell us more!
I think it’s this tea in particular, that can do so many infusions. I used about 2.5g in 80mL.
That’s a leaf/water ratio I’d use, so I agree, it must be the tea and not just really concentrated brewings.
This tea is the darkest chocolate I’ve ever had. It’s also the most brutally potent tea I’ve ever had. The infusion timing for 5g in 85mL employed to prevent over-brewing was as follows: 3s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s, 7s, 8s, 9s, 10s, 12s! I’ve never had a tea like this, although bulang bitterness is incredibly distinct, as it immediately reminds me of the nip of bitterness left in the 1997 Heng Li Chang Bulang. For me, the taste and texture experience on the front end of this tea is most akin to the finish on a 100% cacao super-dry, extra-dark alkaline heavy chocolate bar. Alkaline is really the absolute best word to describe this tea.
This Mengsong is such a stark contrast to the Hekai, both in processing and origin character. This is a cleaner, less-orange tea, with much more potency and strength. So much so that I find myself dialing back the leaf a little this morning. Creaminess dominates this tea. A rich, fruit flesh with whipped cream comes to mind, balanced by bright, fresh minty bitterness. In the back of the throat, strong sweetness returns – I love this character. Enjoyable, but requiring a more delicate hand, as it can get rather bristly if pushed.
Fighting with the dense little bing, my first session pulled leaves from the bottom, inner portions of the cake, while the second session included more of the showy, large attractive leaves melded to the front of the cake. Differences were not particularly noticeable, in large part due to the fact that this tea is fairly tempered, with a very certain orangeness and lack of textural depth. A terrace or plantation origin shows through as that muddy green straw flavor, but it’s not overbearing. Various rich flavors exist in spades, as does front-palate bitterness, but thickness, minty coolness, and returning sweetness escape this tea.
I don’t have any particular flavor or texture descriptors in mind to throw around. I found the tea fresh, bright, incredibly pure (one of my favorite aspects of EoT’s pressings) and light. I thought the qi from this 2011 Nannuo was less immediate and capturing than any of the 2010 tea’s I sampled.
It was good, but I agree with Hobbes, I don’t believe it’s US$72 good. I preferred the Mansai and that tea is ten bucks cheaper. Taking both 2011 teas into mind, I do think it’s fair to say that the quality of these productions has increased. I preferred them both to the three 2010 examples I sampled. At this point, my interest in trying the single cake of the sold-out 2011 Mannuo I managed to acquire could not be much higher.
Compared with my two sets of notes from the 2010 Mansai, this tea has gained some thickness and depth, coming across less like a fleeting, young green and more like the rich, funky pu’er that it should be. One preparing for the aging process. I like it. Nada excuses a slightly more fractured leaf set due to a long journey through a remote region. This is slightly noticeable in the dry and steeped leaves, as well as in the very first steep, which shows just enough translucency to be detected. However, this in no way detracts from the tea, a quite tippy pu’er, with lots of buds and budsets visible in the exhausted leaves, which makes for a fresh and enlightening session.
The tea carries that fearful moniker “old tree,” leaving the buyer to judge the claim of origin. I believe this is old tree tea, but it might be more aptly named “Lots of Old Tree Stems.” Goodness, this was a stem-heavy tea. Pulling apart the steeped leaves, it reveals itself as at least half to two-thirds stems. I guess it can be called “old tree” if the stems are from old trees. There were a handful of large, graceful leaves, but they showed more oxidation than I like. I am, primarily, willing to believe the leaf origin based on a present mint coolness in the finish.
Otherwise, this is boring sheng. I saved the first six steeps in small cups to revisit after pushing the tea out to a 30s steep. This was an enlightening practice, as it was easy to again follow the flavor progression. For this tea, the first was papery, dry and herbal. The second and third bracingly sour, while the remainder desperately held onto a calm, lightly sweet mushroom, straw, and grain.
