Wang's Sheng

This sheng sample came to me from BK a few years ago, maybe 2007 or 2008. The tea was sourced from a "Master" Wang Ming Yi who supposedly comes from the Himalayan part of Yunnan, which doesn't exist because the Himalayas stop well before they hit Yunnan. Maybe he's from the Gao Li Gong Mountains?

Zenandtea.com sells his teas and book, and what teas do list prices seem expensive for "three no" cakes (no wrapper, no ticket, no neifei). Apparently, Jessica Simpson tried his "total vitality" program, and so did the owner of Teance; both gave good reviews. The program involves hydration (good) and that old quack diet, the alkaline diet (pseudo-scientific nonsense).

However I may feel about his background, the tea will speak for itself. You can see in the photos above that the leaves are not stripe-rolled, an instant sign one or more of the following is true:

1. The tea is not from Xishuangbanna, Simao, or Lincang, where production is stripe rolled.
2. The tea is older leaf, which doesn't hold its shape in stripe rolling.
3. The tea is not Camellia sinensis.

The majority of teas I've seen in this style are from Dehong, which is where Gao Li Gong mountain is. However, there are some tea makers on that mountain who are using Camellia sinensis and stripe rolling. Other teas I've seen that have this effect are cakes of older leaf, like this one, but when this leaf is usually yellow green. The most common teas with this appearance are "yesheng" leaves from non-sinensis species of camellia, which share the dark emerald leaf color, like this one, but even they usually use more buds.

Huangpian sheng pu'er--raw pu'er made of older leaf--share some flavor traits with this tea: very mild flavor with an olive oil taste and soft, oily mouthfeel. There is little aftertaste, and the tea never tastes bitter, its tannins saved in the buds to deter insects from eating the tender new leaves.

But this tea was really, really mild, and here's why:



After 6 infusions, 5 of which were 60-90 seconds or more, the tea was not unfurling and separating into individual leaves. The flatness of the leaves and the high compression--evidenced by the iron press hobnails in the dry leaf picture above--created a brick of tea akin to plywood. The matrix of innumerable planes compressed together has resulted in a situation where the hot water cannot penetrate through, and only the leaves on the outside infuse well.

Try as I might to get a good steep, steeping this tea for 4+ minutes yielded an under-infused brew that tasted like weak black tea. Frustrated, I pried a layer off the tea and left the tea steep for 30 minutes, hoping to help along the unfurling. It didn't work.

The results are below. Two kettles of water and many long brews later, the leaves remain glued together.



My experience suggests to me that this tea used low grade (i.e. broken), old leaf from non-sinensis camellias and compressed them too much.

He appears to offer many other teas through the Zen and Tea website, and I hope the others are better. My recommendation, as with all teas one hasn't tried, is to purchase samples first.

2002 Menghai Factory 7542-208

I used to think our friend Su kept her tea a little too dry for my taste. I felt that way until trying her 7542-208, supposedly a special production that contains higher quality (i.e., older tree) leaf.



The tea above neither looks nor smells traditionally stored, of course. Su doesn't run a wet storage facility. But it does look rather well aged for a 2002 tea, and the strong, sweet and woody aroma of the dry leaves foreshadows the deliciousness to come.

Bitterness appeared quickly, as did some smoke early on. Yet, the smoke and the aromatic woodiness of the tea reminded me of cedar planks, a trait I associate with Banzhang and some Pasha teas, a good sign that this might indeed have some older arbor leaves from those areas. It moved into more complexity, some "younger" floral notes floated above an almost leathery taste.



The aftertaste was thick and lasting, and the tea remained velvety soft in the mouth. Yesterday I drank this tea with a friend, and I used too much leaf, making some dryness appear early that later softened. The tea is potent enough that a little less leaf than normal might better highlight the complexity.

We drank probably 20 infusions of this tea before retiring for dinner, and it held up impressively.



As usual, many thanks to Su for providing a great experience. This was one of the best stored examples of early 2000s pu'er I've had the pleasure of tasting.

"Lipstick Red" Aged Sheng from Su

Su sent over a cake of a tea that she indicated Malaysians know as "lipstick red" for the color on the wrapper. Will Y. and I decided to share the cake and sawed it in half.

Upon opening the cake, I noticed it had the familiar compression of Shuangjiang Mengku tea factory productions: a compression that leaves an inner ring (visible immediately below) but keeps the edge of the cake thick (farther below).

I was delighted to think this could be an example of one of the factory's first productions before they broke off from the state-owned China Native & Natural Products (CNNP) firm. I have not had an example of this factory's tea from the years before their privatization, and so I felt some delight when noticing this.





Another way I know that the tea is not by Menghai Factory is the inclusion of these two fellows: an unthreshed piece of rice and a tea seed. Menghai Factory has, in my experience with their aged teas, not allowed such riffraff into their cakes.

Describing the tea in one word, I would say "fruity." The wet leaves smell like raisins in a box, which brought back the memory of my childhood when a small box of raisins was in my lunch bag seemingly every single day of elementary school. Moreover, the taste--aside from its Lincang-proving "rancid in a good way" sour notes--is of dried berries or raisins for many of the infusions. Davin even called the tea a "holiday pu'er"!

Somehow it lacks the earthiness I associate with older pu'er. None appears to be developing here. In fact, the tea doesn't taste of other typical aged pu'er flavors such as wood, mulch, etc. And yet, it tastes like pu'er in a dark grainy sweetness. Later it shows the remainder of its youth in greener flavors like fresh pruned bushes and bitterness.

The tea has an aftertaste of moderate length, and though the mouthfeel is thin, it travels all around the mouth. It lasted a full kettle of water without weakening too much, which I appreciated.

I'll be curious to hear from Su if my guess hit the mark. Nonetheless, I am thankful for the opportunity to try a tea that matched the fall season so well.

2011 (2010?) Yangpin Hao 'Jing Mai'

Today's tea, the 2011 (2010?) Yangpin Hao Jingmai mountain cake, is another sample from the set of sheng pu'er offered by China Cha Dao with the expressed intent of contrasting plantation "small tree" teas with older arbor "large tree" teas. This is one of the small tree examples, and it is not a tea that the vendor carries. Perhaps this indicates the vendor's opinion of the tea?

The leaves, as pictured in the photo above, are of smaller size. This is typical for teas from Jingmai, whose tea trees are of a smaller leaf varietal. One other trait of note is the heavy stripe-rolling treatment given the leaves.

The first infusion has a hard-to-place aroma, and "leafy" seems like a terrible description, but I can think of no better word for the "baseline" smell of raw pu'er leaves when they are very young. It offers a brothy taste, meaty and astringent, with a cooling aftereffect in the mouth. It moves onward to taste more sour, but with a mouthfeel the lasts and extends to the root of the tongue.

At times chocolatey and alkaline, and in later infusions becoming thinner in texture and offering mostly bitterness and hay, the tea falls into the "ok" category. It appears to be well processed enough, but of a medium quality material that, although it will likely improve with age, may not become spectacular. If this is the cake I suspect it is, it sells in China for about US$8 per 380g cake, a reasonable price given the quality.

Douji 2011 Red Da Dou (红大斗)

No manufacturer of tea, however well regarded, is infallible. Yiwu Zhengshan Tea Company, more commonly known by its (only?) brand, Douji, has produced many teas I have enjoyed. Even those Douji teas I thought un-spectactular, none did I suspect were poorly processed.

Unfortunately, today's tea is such an example.

I rather enjoyed the 2008 version of this blend, red "dà dŏu", roughly meaning red star, red north star, or red big dipper. The leaf grade/quality for this year's production compares poorly with it, however. Many small bits of leaf, twigs, and older leaf bits (huang pian) comprise the blend--material that was not hand-harvested.

The smells and tastes of the tea are green tea. This surprises me because usually tea blends' having multiple raw material sources usually results in any one poor source being balanced by other better sources.

How to tell? For one, the flavors say green tea: vegetal, buttery, mild. Young sheng pu can taste bitter, but the bitter of this tea appears in the wrong place: the front of the mouth. It also appears without the delicious feature of shengpu bitterness, which is that it fades into sweetness.

The most interesting note the tea gave was Parmesan cheese. The most interesting occurrence during the tea session was the appearance of this little stinker on our rubber plant.

Sort of appropriate.

Anyway, here are the leaves, which along with the soup, prove that looks can only tell so much about a tea. That is, they don't look bad.

2011 Mengsong Maocha (sourced from Douji)

Mengsong is a huge region comprised of the mountain range west of the Lancang River and east of Menghai city. It includes pu'er tea regions/mountains Nannuo, Hekai, Naka, and others. When I see a tea labeled Mengsong made in the past few years, I wonder if the tea leaves came from one village or many, and if this village was not famous enough to merit renaming it Nannuo, Hekai, or Naka, for example.



This 2011 sample was given to Jerry of China Cha Dao as a gift, and he decided to share a limited number of samples as part of a sample pack whose aim was to contrast presumably old tree tea with the lesser-regarded plantation tea.

If you were wondering about that odd orange twiggy thing in the photo above, it appears to be some sort of dried moss. Finding this stowaway lends the tea a "wild arbor" or other naturalistic feel, and, always skeptical, I asked myself if Douji included it intentionally (hopefully not fraudulently). Here it is up close:



As natural as these tea plants' environment may be, the tea itself disappointed me. Although the leaves are beautiful and the flavor pleasant, I had to brew this tea in long steeps to extract a decent strength of flavor and texture. 7g in a 100ml gaiwan (same as the previously reviewed Douji Nannuo) should offer up enough mouth feel, even if the flavor is lacking.

The tea tasted biscuity, like sheng pu'er tinged with some first flush Darjeeling, but only one or two leaves showed any visible reddening. The flavors are all "middle notes": no bright florals or heavy meaty/mushroom flavors, just middle cut-stem and ashen flavors.



The leaves completely unfurled look beautiful with their thick veins chunky stems:



No conclusion, as I have come to none myself.

Douji 2011 Nannuo

I have finally (finally!) made the transition to full-time living in Georgia. Now, if I could only find some others to join us for tea...

They could have enjoyed the 2011 Douji Nannuo, a pretty decent example of the region. By decent I mean: a well processed, tenacious example exhibiting the flavors of Nannuo Mountain with patriotic fervor.

Leaf from Nannuo is a smaller family member of the "big leaf" (dà yè 大叶) varietal, as shown above. Though small when dry, they expand to an appreciably larger size than plantation teas.

While I cannot say that fresh Nannuo tastes more delicious than aged Nannuo, not having had much of the latter, fresh Nannuo does have some traits I love: a distinctive herbal flavor, like sweet tarragon and anise, a fertile scent, and an easily controlled bitterness that lends the tea much flexibility in brewing.

This particular example's bitterness returns as a sweetness at the back of the mouth, and it even displayed some cool camphor on the lips in the later infusions. It outlasted a full kettle of water, becoming more savory with each infusion. It is very easy to like.

It lacks thick texture, unfortunately, and though it lasts many infusions, later infusions are, to borrow from hobbes, "namby-pamby." But such is the flaw with single-mountain and single-estate teas: strongly idiosyncratic performance that highlights the region's best and worst traits.

As a value question, I would only recommend this tea to someone seeking old tree Nannuo specifically, and I might not recommend more than a cake or two at the price. Douji's pricing always carries some brand inflation.

Though, it is selling on China Cha Dao for cheaper than you could get it in China at the moment. My thanks to them for the sample.

2005? Haiwan Lao Tongzhi Sheng Bing (wet stored)

"Lao Tongzhi" (老同志) can mean one of two things: "old comrade", as intended by this brand name, or "old homosexual", in Chinese slang. I would really like to make a pu'er cake under the brand "Old Homosexual" and have a pic of Rip Taylor smiling, perhaps confetti would dot the paper. I don't think the Chinese would get it, though.

I think it could work, no?

This sample comes to me courtesy of MarshalN, whom I begged for a sample because I happen to own a similar cake from the year before. I wanted a glimpse into the future. The moldy future, as per the frosty leaf below:



This traditionally stored tea went through its time at a wet storage warehouse, and its release into the market is perhaps premature. Generally, these teas are wet stored for 2 years and then aired out for another long period, perhaps as much as 6 to 10 years or more. 2005 plus 2 is 2007, plus 6 is 2013. But here it is, our little premie, forced into our world still frosted with mold.

In 2005, this cake was known for being a punch-you-in-the-mouth (ow!) sheng pu, powerful, bitter, complex, and with a long aftertaste. And now...?



The first two infusions are mostly mold taste, with some tea flavor appearing when cool. The more interesting flavors appear thereafter, but with the mold taste ever-present above them. It's strong but more like a slap (I demand satisfaction, sir!) than a punch, to keep my violent metaphor going. The "soup" is nicely thick and the aftertaste and afteraroma are decently long. It even lingers at the root of the tongue.

It pleased me to see this tea change into something drinkable and enjoyable, moldiness aside. It would do better with drier storage, and so I'm looking forward to tasting mine again soon to see how it compares.



From the brewed leaves as pictured above, it seems the storage was not too wet; the leaves have not carbonized, and they retain their tenderness and flexibility.

Two Teas from Tearoma: 1996 YCTT Ye Sheng Brick & "1999" 8582

Will of Teadrunk.org gave me two samples he ordered from the new vendor Tearoma.us: a 1996 "Wild" leaf tea brick and a 1999 8582. Oddly enough, I decided to brew the former Sunday morning, just before the LA Tea Affair group was scheduled to meet, and one of our number had a full cake of the 1999 8582 that he had purchased from Tearoma.

1996 YCTT Wild Tea Brick
This was the tea that appealed most to me when I browsed Tearoma's site. Appearing visibly aged and at an unbeatable price for its age, it seemed almost too good to be true.


The dry tea confirmed it had some age with a hit of the "mold smell" concomitant of 15 years of aging in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and this stinkiness was echoed in wafting steam from the brewed leaf.

This storage smell became a storage taste, the telltale "mold taste" ("mei wei"), along with the straw underpinnings of the "wild" variety leaf. It tasted salty at times, with some youth to the taste in a bitter herb/fennel note. The flavors were fleeting on the tongue, the feeling of the tea remaining on the tongue moreso and longer than the flavor.


The storage taste did not wash away with subsequent brewings; perhaps it will air out over time. This made for a "one note" experience. Not a bad tea, but not a great tea, worth about what they're charging. Perhaps it was just aged poorly or needs more time to air out. Wild leaf is darker to start with and given how wet the tea smells, I still expected darker brewed leaf. The emerald/purple leaves are common for the "wild" varietal.



"1999" 8582
Hobbes of The Half-Dipper already reviewed this tea, and rather than expand upon his review with my own writings, I'll simply leave it with "he's right" and some photos.

One thing I will add is that the "butteriness" he detected I also detected, and it's a marker I associate with "green tea pu'er". There is some green tea/poorly processed sheng pu'er in this blend; the real pu'er flavor kicked in after infusion 4 with longer steeps.

Please note the following signs as to the tea not being from 1999: the stainless, bright white neifei; the 100% fresh, bright, unfrayed ribbon; the neifei being added on later, as though the tea was pressed and marketed with different nei fei for different buyers; the bright green of the leaves; the bright yellow of the liquor. I've had 2003 teas from dry Kunming that look more aged.

2011 Nannuo "Ba Wan(?) Village" Mao Cha

We in LA are very lucky to have a regular in our midst who travels yearly to China and purchases and/or receives as gifts or samples some interesting teas. Linda of Bana Tea Company has brought us curious teas, such as a black tea made of Simao pu'er varietal tea buds.

During our last meeting, she promised to bring some mao cha (sheng pu'er raw material, i.e., unpressed sheng pu'er) from this year. Today, we sampled a 2011 Nannuo tea from an area called "Ba Wan" (an unfamiliar name to me that I may be butchering).


Despite Hobbes calling it "namby-pamby" and noting that MarshalN simply isn't a fan, I rather like Nannuo teas for their high floral fragrance that floats above their thick, herbal terroir. Nannuo is a flavor and fragrance that is instantly recognizable, but doesn't punch you in the mouth like Bulang or Lincang teas can.


This Nannuo, although a little light from a weaker brewing at lower temperatures (the preference of the purveyor), brought me back to tasting mao cha on the mountain in 2007, watching the Akha farmer's toothless mother walking to and from their bushes, doubled over with the years of hauling that big-as-she-is wicker basket to and from their patches of tea trees.

Thanks again, Linda!

Bearsbearsbears in Beijing

Bearsbearsbears 2007 Youle Mountain small cake on display in Beijing. :)

Two Teas from Twenty Ten

Amongst a small cache of cooked pu'er MarshalN recently gifted me he included a sample of a raw pu'er from 2010, indicating only that it was one (the only one?) he liked, and that this tea is not inexpensive. For some context, I decided to try it back to back with another 2010 raw pu'er sample I received, the 2010 American Hao Youle Mountain (1001, spring). I tried them both in the same teaware using the same amount of leaf by weight.

Both teas have appearances I find attractive: mostly whole buds with 1 to 3 "flags" and healthy, furry leaves with minimal visible signs of excess oxidation. But one I liked and one I really disliked. To reiterate at a point I often repeat: a pretty appearance says very little about a tea.

The sample from MarshalN surprised me. When I think of what he has avoided in young green pu'ers in the past, it has been bitter and smoky teas like this one. In terms of flavor, it takes many infusions for the smokiness to disappear and the bitterness to soften. When it does, it becomes floral, rocky, and astringent.

But the sample from MarshalN didn't surprise me in that he normally seeks in young green pu'ers a "ubiquitous" sensory experience that only begins by hitting the tongue and affects and lingers as many other regions of sensory tissues as the tea manages to touch. In that regard, this 2010 is typical of his tastes, and in my opinion, pretty good. It's a little thin in terms of texture in the mouth, but it triggers salivation, soaks into the soft palate, cheeks, tongue root, and even into the throat a bit at times. It has a menthol/camphor effect as the flavor dissipates (evaporates?) off the tissues, and my face became quite flushed drinking it.

Also, it smells really nice, too, thicker than it tastes. And it lasted 15 infusions before I became bored and figured it was time to move on, and for the first 10 or so, I didn't have to increase steep time by more than a second or two.

The cons: at times pretty thin textured and there were some burnt flecks of leaf in my cup (hence the smokiness?). Minor complaints, overall.

If I had to venture a guess, I'd say this tea is a Bulang, because the flavor profile matches well with the Bulang samples I've had recently from Yunnan Sourcing and Nada and the leaves seem the right size. [EDIT 15 March: I was right!]

2010 Sheng pu sample from MarshalN:

The flecks in the cup make it look like the carp are coming to feed on fish food flakes.

2010 American Hao 1001 (Youle Mountain)

Looks are deceiving!


I had already tried the 2010 American Hao 1001 (Youle Spring) in 2010, but I suspected it was too fresh and thus waited to try it again now. Which is to say, I tried it and disliked it for flavor reasons that I thought might change as the tea aired out. As it turns out, it didn't change much.

The tea is confusing. It smells like green pu'er (smoke and all), but its flavors are very vegetal. It tastes leafy and creamy like green tea, and the very light color in the cup supported this idea. The bitterness in the leaf dissipated, rather than transforming into the lingering sweetness of pu'er it became alkaline, and there was very little detectable aftertaste. Past the 6th infusion or so, some pu'er flavors emerged: florals and straw. Although the texture was thin even when pushed, the tea certainly had more tenacity than a typical green tea, lasting upwards of 11 infusions. Another point in its favor was a certain tingliness in the earlier infusions.

This Youle also had many black burnt bits in the cup, even across many infusions. Maybe these are more frequent in newer teas, or maybe I have begun noticing them only now.

As a Yunnan green tea, it was actually quite nice, but as a pu'er, I don't know what to make of it. I almost want to buy a cake just to see what happens to tea like this, but I think I'll just keep the rest of my sample to try in a few years.