Farmerleaf sent a sheng pu'er sample with that last order of Dan Cong, so I'm onto trying another semi-aged version (with more on that categorization to follow). This will work well with a longer term project of exploring sheng pu'er, helping keep me calibrated.
There is another "vertical" tasting coming up that I should attend, LBZ this time, and some interesting samples are on the way, so it won't have to wait until I see how much tea I run across on a trip to Russia next month. I was thinking about doing a post about that, even before I go, about asking around about tea and shops there, and what has turned up initially.
I'll let part of Farmerleaf's description introduce this tea:
This tea comes from Nanzuo village, a remote village on Jingmai Mountain. It was made by Chen Xiao Hua, our friend from Nanzuo...
...When it arrived in Puer in late Spring 2017, it had a bit of that mountain wetness, this trait has toned down and now is left a sweet and mineral tea, aged in moderately dry conditions. It features a decent huigan that comes after a couple of brews. It was processed on the redder side and this trait can still be found in the tea nowadays, the fragrance is on the fruity side.
A very brewable and inexpensive tea that makes a great daily drinker if you like semi-aged Pu-erh teas.
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separated leaves |
Review
It does look quite darkened, and the dry smell is rich and earthy, along the lines of old leather with a bit of spice. I can't really judge if it seems more aged than would be typical in 5 1/2 years, or guess at storage effect from the scent, and I won't have lots of baseline for estimating that from brewed tea either. I'll just describe what it's like to drink it, starting with the first infusion after the rinse step.
It's definitely not young sheng (in the sense of a new tea' "young" is a bit relative), although it still has some of the characteristic bitterness, which is just subdued. I'd expect the tea to loosen up over more infusions but it's already approachable. It's mostly a bit woody in effect, more complex compared to the woody effect of a brewed-out light oolong late into an infusion count. A soft richness extends out from there into an autumn leaf depth, and that trace of edge might be more like biting a live tree branch tip, but a mellow version of that. Spice and other leather, tobacco, or fruit range isn't coming out, but it is still the first infusion. The feel and aftertaste of the tea are both nice supporting elements, for the early going of tea offered as a modest version, adding depth to the experience.
On the next infusion the tea does soften a little, and pick up even more depth. The woodiness extends a little into tobacco. For pipe smokers or cigar smokers that still wouldn't be a very specific reference, but I'd have to leave off at guessing some variation of cigar tobacco. It's hard to describe why but the aspects work well together; the balance is nice. If the feel was thin, or the aftertaste limited it wouldn't work as well. More sweetness and some version of dried fruit would be nice, but I'm assuming that would tend to pick up in a more aged version of tea, that 5 1/2 years isn't supposed to be there yet.
The next infusion isn't far off the last, perhaps a little sweeter. The hui gan might be picking up too but that effect was already noticeable in earlier rounds, not as intense as in some other sheng versions, but significant. The tea doesn't need extra intensity to show a lot of aspect complexity but I'll let the infusion time go a little longer next time just to check out the effect of the variation.
On the next infusion the feel is a little much, prepared that way, out of balance with the flavors. The flavor range doesn't pick up intensity as much as that astringency edge, which is pronounced throughout the mouth. It's not so noticeable on the front of the tongue but along the rear, sides, and even the top of the mouth, transitioning to a feeling in the throat at the end. I tried that trick with tasting water after, to see if it tastes sweet, and it works, just not nearly as well as with the one Yiwu sheng we tried it with during that vertical tasting.
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not really darkening much yet, compared to the dry leaf look |
Flavor-wise the tea still mostly in a wood range, extending that to autumn leaf and tobacco; I'm still not noticing a move beyond that, to dried fruit or spice. On the next infusion, brewed back in the normal infusion strength range--light for any other kind of tea, normal for sheng--the feel and flavor balance a lot better, and it might be transitioning towards a different kind of sweetness, not too far from fresh sugar cane juice, but the flavor part as much as the sucrose part. That's related to molasses, since if you boil the sugar cane juice down that's what you'd get, but the cooking darkens the flavors into a richer range. Or it might hint a little towards date, or both could just be alternate interpretations of the same thing. The other wood / light tobacco, autumn leaf range is still more pronounced, but how those balance has shifted. A lot of the bitterness has faded, although there is still some countering that other range, it's just not as pronounced.
On the next infusion it's not really transitioning further but it's definitely hanging in there, not really losing intensity, even though the infusion count is getting on. I stopped making notes at this point but it went further, it's just that nothing more novel occurred with transitions.
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leaves after finishing brewing |
Sheng aging perspective from other references
I'm not sure how I feel about this tea. The general type and this aspect range is not unfamiliar ground at this point but not exactly well-known, or a personal preference. I'd probably be most interested in having more to see how it changes further, which is something I can't predict, based on limited prior exposure to that transition process.
I talked a little about looking forward to exploring pu'er, related to aging, and related to ongoing online discussion in this post (which is really about a Dian Hong comparison tasting; not great organization). One starting point there was a TeaDB blog post discussion of vendors selling mostly "young" sheng, versus mid-aged or aged sheng. One might reasonably ask, where is the cut-off? They list semi-aged raw pu'er as greater than 7 years old, so this tea is still young (although in the data a shou from 2011 is listed as semi-aged; that's either a mistake or they see aging of shou as a different thing, on a different time-frame).
It doesn't really work to put the pressure on one reference source to set a definitive guideline, and given preferences for aging vary and fermentation itself depends on storage factors blocking out years as clearly young, semi-aged, and aged on a fixed time-frame might not work. But to go a step further into their definition (TeaDB's) in a more recent post on Strong, Burly, and not too Expensive. Semi-Aged Xiaguan, MX-Tea Report [Feat. Garrett] the teas listed spanned 2003-2006, so 14 year old teas were not yet considered aged. Then again tuochas probably would age more slowly due to tighter compression, and that rating could well be a commentary about preference for aging them versus other tea types. Paging around their blog I found an answer to this specific question in a "Pu'er for Beginners" post, about the category division:
What qualifies as aged pu’erh? This really depends on who you ask and the storage. A tea can develop much quicker and differently depending on the conditions it’s stored in. Things around this range 7-20 years should show their age and generally fall into the semi-aged category.
So this sample was "young sheng," not semi-aged, as they define it, but they've built some openness into that description. Again the categories seem not to matter as much as the actual attributes of the tea. This reminds me of another favorite blogger weighing in on that time-frame, Cwyn of Death by Tea:
A ten year old or younger tea is not aged, nowhere near done with its cycle of fermentation... Quite honestly the fun I have with sheng puerh lately is more about the process of fermentation and aging than with drinking...
How can anyone know what a tea will be in twenty years when it is younger than ten? I am here to take the pressure off you. Everyone is so anxious about a process that will take two or three decades. If your tea is less than ten years old, you have no idea what will happen and yet the tea itself is far more resilient than you think. A little mold here, a little dry air there, a bit of everything will happen to each tea, even those in so-called ”ideal” conditions. Most of us will not see the final result of our teas, but then most of us will not get to see our great-grandchildren either, unless we started early with both endeavors.
I read a half dozen blog posts from A Tea Addict's Journal on aged pu'er but none of it condenses down to a simple guideline about time-frames. And really, why would it? Storage conditions vary, preferences vary, and the starting point of the actual teas, and so on. I only mention it here since some readers may not be familiar with that blog (although most would be), and they probably should be. To mention just one post from there this is a favorite, on how pu'er tends to change with age, and when to give up on potential improvements due to aging, as cited:
It’s true that sometimes teas do go through an awkward phase. They have lost that initial sweetness/floral fragrance that are characteristic of new teas, but have not yet developed old tea taste. It’s that weird in between state where it’s really a pretty bad thing to drink. However, I also think that there are many teas out there that simply cannot and will not age. This is mostly because of bad processing to start off with. If your tea was processed like a green tea, bad news, it’s not going to get better. Aged green tea will never develop that complex and rich flavour of puerh that you should be striving for (and if you are one of those people storing tea to preserve its flavours and fragrance, you’re in the wrong business). A telltale sign of a tea that is processed like a green tea is a beany taste – think a fresh biluochun, a classic beany tea. If your tea smells like a longjing or a biluochun, it’s time to drink it fast because it’s not going to get better.
This reminds me of a good bit of reading up on pu'er processing not so long ago, about the difference between sheng pu'er and green tea, but all that back-story gets to be a bit much. A short version--of my understanding--is that sheng pu'er is heated during a fixing step but the processing temperature is lower, retaining some of the enzymes (flavonols?) that allows for fermentation to continue. This Tea Geek article does a good job covering those basics, but that main difference only comes up in the comments discussion, and the basic processing steps for sheng aren't treated in detail, never mind enough to mention a temperature range as being critical. This part of that is about something else, process naming, but it's still particularly interesting:
Just like the term “oxidation” in chemistry, “fermentation” has a slightly different meaning in microbiology compared to everyday English. Fermentation isn’t just any process that microbes carry out—it specifically describes the way microbes get energy from their food when no oxygen is around...
So what do microbiologists call a food that is made by microbes but not by true fermenting microbes? Ripened foods. Salami, brie cheese, and katsuobushi (AKA bonito flakes) are all examples of microbially ripened foods where exposure to oxygen is necessary in production.¹ On the other hand, kimchi, sauerkraut, and kombucha are all fermented under limited oxygen exposure...
If we want to be really specific and geeky, we can call this process microbial ripening which naturally lends support to calling shu puer “ripe” or “ripened” puer in English.
Per my current impression ("understanding" would seem too strong a description) the bitterness remaining in this tea I described is a good sign, a potential indicator the tea can continue to age and transition in positive ways instead of just fading away onward from here. But it's not false modesty for me to claim that I have no idea what this tea would be like in another five to ten years; I really don't. I also can't really evaluate the level of bitterness as meaning anything in particular, or the rest of the aspect (thickness in feel, type and level of flavors, etc.). Maybe it's not even possible to look around the corner in that sense. Exploring how that works out takes a lot of time and exposure, and I'm barely getting started on it.
I talked a little about looking forward to exploring pu'er, related to aging, and related to ongoing online discussion in this post (which is really about a Dian Hong comparison tasting; not great organization). One starting point there was a TeaDB blog post discussion of vendors selling mostly "young" sheng, versus mid-aged or aged sheng. One might reasonably ask, where is the cut-off? They list semi-aged raw pu'er as greater than 7 years old, so this tea is still young (although in the data a shou from 2011 is listed as semi-aged; that's either a mistake or they see aging of shou as a different thing, on a different time-frame).
It doesn't really work to put the pressure on one reference source to set a definitive guideline, and given preferences for aging vary and fermentation itself depends on storage factors blocking out years as clearly young, semi-aged, and aged on a fixed time-frame might not work. But to go a step further into their definition (TeaDB's) in a more recent post on Strong, Burly, and not too Expensive. Semi-Aged Xiaguan, MX-Tea Report [Feat. Garrett] the teas listed spanned 2003-2006, so 14 year old teas were not yet considered aged. Then again tuochas probably would age more slowly due to tighter compression, and that rating could well be a commentary about preference for aging them versus other tea types. Paging around their blog I found an answer to this specific question in a "Pu'er for Beginners" post, about the category division:
What qualifies as aged pu’erh? This really depends on who you ask and the storage. A tea can develop much quicker and differently depending on the conditions it’s stored in. Things around this range 7-20 years should show their age and generally fall into the semi-aged category.
So this sample was "young sheng," not semi-aged, as they define it, but they've built some openness into that description. Again the categories seem not to matter as much as the actual attributes of the tea. This reminds me of another favorite blogger weighing in on that time-frame, Cwyn of Death by Tea:
A ten year old or younger tea is not aged, nowhere near done with its cycle of fermentation... Quite honestly the fun I have with sheng puerh lately is more about the process of fermentation and aging than with drinking...
How can anyone know what a tea will be in twenty years when it is younger than ten? I am here to take the pressure off you. Everyone is so anxious about a process that will take two or three decades. If your tea is less than ten years old, you have no idea what will happen and yet the tea itself is far more resilient than you think. A little mold here, a little dry air there, a bit of everything will happen to each tea, even those in so-called ”ideal” conditions. Most of us will not see the final result of our teas, but then most of us will not get to see our great-grandchildren either, unless we started early with both endeavors.
I read a half dozen blog posts from A Tea Addict's Journal on aged pu'er but none of it condenses down to a simple guideline about time-frames. And really, why would it? Storage conditions vary, preferences vary, and the starting point of the actual teas, and so on. I only mention it here since some readers may not be familiar with that blog (although most would be), and they probably should be. To mention just one post from there this is a favorite, on how pu'er tends to change with age, and when to give up on potential improvements due to aging, as cited:
It’s true that sometimes teas do go through an awkward phase. They have lost that initial sweetness/floral fragrance that are characteristic of new teas, but have not yet developed old tea taste. It’s that weird in between state where it’s really a pretty bad thing to drink. However, I also think that there are many teas out there that simply cannot and will not age. This is mostly because of bad processing to start off with. If your tea was processed like a green tea, bad news, it’s not going to get better. Aged green tea will never develop that complex and rich flavour of puerh that you should be striving for (and if you are one of those people storing tea to preserve its flavours and fragrance, you’re in the wrong business). A telltale sign of a tea that is processed like a green tea is a beany taste – think a fresh biluochun, a classic beany tea. If your tea smells like a longjing or a biluochun, it’s time to drink it fast because it’s not going to get better.
This reminds me of a good bit of reading up on pu'er processing not so long ago, about the difference between sheng pu'er and green tea, but all that back-story gets to be a bit much. A short version--of my understanding--is that sheng pu'er is heated during a fixing step but the processing temperature is lower, retaining some of the enzymes (flavonols?) that allows for fermentation to continue. This Tea Geek article does a good job covering those basics, but that main difference only comes up in the comments discussion, and the basic processing steps for sheng aren't treated in detail, never mind enough to mention a temperature range as being critical. This part of that is about something else, process naming, but it's still particularly interesting:
Just like the term “oxidation” in chemistry, “fermentation” has a slightly different meaning in microbiology compared to everyday English. Fermentation isn’t just any process that microbes carry out—it specifically describes the way microbes get energy from their food when no oxygen is around...
So what do microbiologists call a food that is made by microbes but not by true fermenting microbes? Ripened foods. Salami, brie cheese, and katsuobushi (AKA bonito flakes) are all examples of microbially ripened foods where exposure to oxygen is necessary in production.¹ On the other hand, kimchi, sauerkraut, and kombucha are all fermented under limited oxygen exposure...
If we want to be really specific and geeky, we can call this process microbial ripening which naturally lends support to calling shu puer “ripe” or “ripened” puer in English.
Conclusions
Per my current impression ("understanding" would seem too strong a description) the bitterness remaining in this tea I described is a good sign, a potential indicator the tea can continue to age and transition in positive ways instead of just fading away onward from here. But it's not false modesty for me to claim that I have no idea what this tea would be like in another five to ten years; I really don't. I also can't really evaluate the level of bitterness as meaning anything in particular, or the rest of the aspect (thickness in feel, type and level of flavors, etc.). Maybe it's not even possible to look around the corner in that sense. Exploring how that works out takes a lot of time and exposure, and I'm barely getting started on it.
I would drink this tea aged to this level if I had more of it but I'd probably save more than I'd drink, checking it a couple of times a year to see if it was improving versus just fading. According to the TeaDB perspective I'd need to wait another 15 years to experience it as aged sheng, a time-frame Cwyn also seems to endorse.
I'm not so sure about that level of patience. It does match up with my thinking that I should get the process started by stacking up some cakes now. I don't really have $1000 set aside to do justice to even beginning that kind of project, to buying a good bit of tea I don't plan to drink much of within the next decade. But I'll see what kind of balance I can strike related to that over the next year. I have most of three sheng cakes set aside from what I've bought this year, I just need to not drink too much, and go easy on sharing samples from them, and pick up the pace or acquisition.
I'm not so sure about that level of patience. It does match up with my thinking that I should get the process started by stacking up some cakes now. I don't really have $1000 set aside to do justice to even beginning that kind of project, to buying a good bit of tea I don't plan to drink much of within the next decade. But I'll see what kind of balance I can strike related to that over the next year. I have most of three sheng cakes set aside from what I've bought this year, I just need to not drink too much, and go easy on sharing samples from them, and pick up the pace or acquisition.
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Loy Krathong, 2017; the little "boats" carry away your sins |
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