There is one more pu'er sample I'd been looking forward to but it had slipped my mind, from Myanmar, sent by the Tea Side vendor with an order awhile back. The type is clear enough to me; the same as pu'er, but from another country, so nearby a distinction is a bit odd, just across a border. Sheng may or may not be considered hei cha, since it's really not fermented, but mapping out that term more is a project for another post. There is a lot of interesting background I could go into related to this tea, obviously, and I will include a bit of background review after the tasting review sections. I will start with their description though:Unique tea. Dry leaves aroma has unusual notes of grape wine. Tastes like no other sheng I know. There are notes of wine, berry jam, plum, grapes and cut wildflowers, tartness of fresh tea. The finish has light and beautiful fresh peach.
My review list-of-flavors differs a little but I completely agree that the final impression is very unique and positive. This is one of those teas where the overall effect is amazing but it's hard to express which set of aspects leads to that.
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that is a big tea tree (photo credit) |
I'll clear past one other part of their description first as well, that the tea trees are ancient, 1000 years old. Of course that subject has been a bit beat up lately, to the extent that many vendors would be inclined to just leave it alone. The trees are massive though; it's clear enough in the pictures that they are very old.
People tend to only live for 80 years or so, give or take, so first-hand accounts couldn't verify that claim, and there wouldn't be pictures or written descriptions from even a century back, given the location. I'd be inclined to just set that aside, and judge the tea on it's merits, accepting that based only on the images this is definitely "old tree" hei cha, and the actual year-count doesn't matter. Personally I'd have no trouble accepting that the trees could be much older than 100 years old, and how much older doesn't matter to me, or even that the plants passed the century mark, really.
One last point: the tea is sold compressed as a cake / bing, but the sample was from the same tea but in loose form. Maocha, people tend to call that, although it seems odd to me that means either unfinished tea that is still being processed or else finished sheng that didn't get compressed. At any rate it's a relatively new tea (2016), so aging differences related to that pressed form would seem to not come into play just yet.
Tasting review
On to review then. I'd tried a loose prepared sheng from Thailand awhile back, also from older tea trees, or so that story went. It was nice, different, not great. Now that I think of it that really was awhile back, more than three years ago, before I started this blog, so there's no write-up to mention.
The scent of the tea is not what I expected, sweet with a raisin - like scent aspect. I brewed the tea a bit lightly, based on experience with other sheng working out well that way.
The taste is different. There is sweetness to it, and an unusual character. Raisin is part of it but not dominant. To be honest it has a flavor profile that's hard to describe. Mineral is present, but not as pronounced as in some sheng, and it's not bitter or astringent. The taste is mainly vegetal, but in an unusual sense, like that unusual flavor when you bite into a grape seed, a bit tangy. Below that it's complex, warm and full, and someone could probably separate out all sorts of flavors, maybe floral aspects, or a subtle but rich fullness as in dried hay. But separating out any is tricky; it integrates into a full experience that's hard to break apart.
From the complexity, the taste range, and the feel presentation it seems nice, maybe a good bit better than nice implies. My personal take leads back to how much I love sheng pu'er, or really don't, and I think I'd like it a lot more if I loved the type more, and I could place how the aspects relate to my own preference better with that as context. It's nice, per a distant memory quite a bit better tea than the Thai version, more complexity, more interesting subtle aspects, definitely more honey sweetness, nothing like taking an aspirin.
I feel like I didn't really do the tasting justice, that I wasn't able to get my senses around the experience. There was enough for one more brewing session so I decided to try it again, this time compared to another pu'er (a Yunnan version, so real pu'er, by the regional definition), and see if that helped.
Second tasting; comparison to a Nan Nuo pu'er
I tried the tea again tasting it side-by-side with one of the Golding samples, the Nan Nuo (first reviewed here, a tea produced independently by the Golding shop in Malaysia). My first thought in tasting both: the teas are too different for comparison to work well, but at least the contrasts might be telling. In retrospect I probably should have tried the Jing Mai tea along with it instead (reviewed here), but it may work better than it seems at first. In general when you comparison taste two teas that are very close in style that helps highlight minor aspects or underlying aspects that are harder to notice drinking one tea alone.
The Myanmar tea is floral, smooth, and light. There is a richness to the tea and an underlying complexity, but it's subtle. It's not like I've been brewing it so wispy thin there is not much taste to go on, the tea just comes across as complex and rich without having lots of pronounced flavors; different. But then it is just getting started. There is a trace of sourness and bitterness as well that gives the tea a fuller effect. Those might sound negative but I don't mean it that way. When you struggle to pick out what's going on that gives the tea that full effect it seems like it is those elements, which are pleasant in that light presentation, even if a list of fruit flavors and such might sound better.
The Nan Nuo tea is not so subtle. A smokiness stands out, and also complexity, but in a different range. It's possible for the stronger astringency to stand out, to be out of balance, but easy to temper by brewing lightly. There's more of a savory effect to the tea, not exactly like the strong umami in a Japanese green but it seems possible the aspect overlaps. This tea also has a touch of sourness, which comes across differently in the different context range.
The Myanmar tea develops a bit early on. It's also rich, but sweeter, lighter, with an effect more like a butteriness. The flavors depth is almost like a touch of salt is present. It's still not forceful related to flavors-list aspects standing out, maybe mild mineral and floral. I suppose that salt could really be a different mineral element, not something typical in other teas described as tasting like stones. The fullness in the flavor context is hard to describe, partly related to that, but with a depth of subtle aspects mixing, something like dried hay, maybe more like a mild version of sassafras root.
The Nan Nuo tea moves to be a bit more vegetal, hard to tease out particular vegetables though, maybe artichoke. It tastes a little like tree bark can smell though, out of normal foods and spice range but closer to the latter, with mineral and a touch of smoke added to that, and a trace of tartness. The feel is interesting, and it somehow corresponds well to those flavors, a juiciness with a little dryness. The bitterness and astringency can move towards that of biting a grape seed, potentially something to work around, or someone might really enjoy that effect.
The Myanmar tea gains depth, opens up more, but never did need to loosen up in terms of being unapproachable. The fuller taste moves into something like a fresh cork, probably better than that sounds though. Maybe sassafras root still works better for description, with just a touch of fruit, a hint of raisin.
Both of these teas were much better than those aspects citations sound to me. Both were complex, refined, unique, and positive. To keep saying the tea from Myanmar (Tea Side) was subtle it might sound like it didn't have much to offer, but the actual experience was the opposite, it just didn't come across as a clear list of flavors.
I pretty much never get excited about an aftertaste effect, or different feels of teas, although I can sort of see where people are going with all that, there is a lot of range to be experienced. Only some of what stood out for these two teas was on those levels. Both teas were interesting within the range of flavor as well, but still subtle and complex within that scope, and quite different from each other.
Background research
I'll try to keep this brief; the post runs long already, but there are a few interesting threads to follow a little. Past research into tea types based out of Taiwan have identified native plant types of variety Assamica tea coming out of Myanmar and Northern Thailand, as listed and in this research article:
I2
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Burma
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A
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Introduced variety
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B
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Original from Myanmar
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I3
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Shan
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A
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Introduced variety
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B
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Original from Thailand
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I4
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Shan-1
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A
|
Introduced variety
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B
|
Original from Thailand
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I5
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Shan-2
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A
|
Introduced variety
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B
|
Original from Thailand
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I6
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Shan-3
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A
|
Introduced variety
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B
|
Original from Thailand
|
I7
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Shan-4
|
A
|
Introduced variety
|
B
|
Original from Thailand
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Of course I don't know which plant type this tea is from, and the reference to this study of plants being imported from Thailand doesn't indicate that the original plant versions weren't from Myanmar instead. The tea plants native to Taiwan are listed as "landraces" instead of "introduced variety," since the study is about teas growing in Taiwan. But that designation seems to only indicate plants are native in the sense that past origins can't be traced back further. Another research article summary offers an interesting observation, based on examining genetic characteristics of local plant types:
The cultivated teas in the estates of Southeast Asia region also belonged to C. sinensis. However, the native cultivars in Myanmar and southern China had a genetic similarity to C. taliensis and C. irrawadiensis.
It would take a lot more review to know what to make of that, but interesting. It seems quite possible, based on genetic testing results, that this variety Assamica tea should be unique. The other issue, which is also likely to remain mostly open, is how long tea plants have been growing in this area. If it's less than 1000 years the age claim couldn't possibly be true, and even if longer there's still the matter of how old the actual tea trees are. This reference gives some insight to the history:
Any attempt to understand the natural environment in which the tea plant evolved... is hampered by the fact that it is very doubtful whether any truly wild tea still exists. In Yunnan there are patches of tea still to be found which appear to be wild, with the occasional large tree which is several hundred years old. It is difficult to decide whether these plants are truly wild or might better be described as feral, that is the residue of earlier cultivation by native peoples. Charles Bruce explored much of Northeast of Assam in the 1840s and discovered a large number of tracts of apparently wild tea amongst the Singpho people [25]. However, both he and, a century later, Frank Kingdon-Ward [26] noted how the tea plant had been spread by the Shan tribes migrating through Burma and Manipur as far as Assam. An ancient route connecting Yunnan to Assam through Burma is known to have been in use at least as early as the second century BC, and possibly much earlier.
Fascinating stuff! This is implying tea trees can only reach several hundred years old, but then it is a historical study, not a botanical-oriented work. The author doesn't really speculate how far back regional tea plant distribution occurred but offers that more than 2200 years ago is possible.
For most of you that's enough with the research, plenty of history and plant type genetics, but for that other minority I'll mention a couple of other studies, related to Chinese (Yunnan) plants instead:
ISSR DIVERSITY AND GENETIC DIFFERENTIATION OF ANCIENT TEA (CAMELLIA SINENSIS VAR. ASSAMICA) PLANTATIONS FROM CHINA: IMPLICATIONS FOR PRECIOUS TEA GERMPLASM CONSERVATION
Genetic diversity and differentiation of Camellia sinensis L. (cultivated tea) and its wild relatives in Yunnan province of China, revealed by morphology, biochemistry and allozyme studies
You might wonder, how could any of that possibly be relevant to me, to what I'm drinking. Trace compounds do cause the taste and feel in brewed teas, along with the input of processing, which changes those present. But all that gets complicated. Related to that consider the following excerpt from the latter source:
As a whole, caffeine content had the highest variation with CV of 22.7%, water extract solid showed the least variation (13.4%) and content of polyphenols (20.0%) and free amino acids (18.8%) showed intermediate variations.
I would assume that implies two different answers for relevance depending on personal interests.
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