2010 Kokang Myanmar shou pu'er-like tea

Dayi left, Kokang Myanmar shou right

I'll take a short break from sheng, leaning into that subject a bit much lately.  But I am continuing with trying samples from Olivier Schneider, just mixing types up.  That exploration started with reviewing this pair of sheng samples earlier.  This should be just as nice, trying what looks to be a very interesting tea from Myanmar. 

There's a little history of that area in the related Wikipedia article.  It sounds like it might be interesting to visit, as long as nothing came up for local conflict.  That article's area description:


It is located in the northern part of Shan State, with the Salween River to its west, and sharing a border with China's Yunnan Province to the east. Its total land area is around 10,000 square kilometres (3,900 sq mi).[1] The capital is Laukkai. Kokang is mostly populated by Kokang people, a Han Chinese group living in Myanmar.

Kokang had been historically part of China for several centuries, but was largely left alone by successive governments due to its remote location. The region formed a de facto buffer zone between Yunnan province and the Shan States.[2] The Yang clan, originally Ming loyalists from Nanjing, consolidated the area into a single polity. In 1840, the Yunnan governor granted the Yang clan the hereditary rights as a vassal of the Qing dynasty.  [2] After the British conquest of Upper Burma in 1885, Kokang was initially placed in China under the 1894 Sino-British boundary convention. It was ceded to British Burma in a supplementary agreement signed in February 1897.[3]

Vietnam is the right (the Son La tea producing area), and Phongsaly province in Laos in the North

But for some local politics and a line on the map this could be part of Yunnan, and the tea could be go by the name "pu'er."

I've been drinking more sheng lately, but I did last review a shou in January, a Laos Tea version, which actually might be similar to this.  I think both are made from older local trees, although I never really heard the related details for the Laos tea (that I recall, at least).  That shou was from Phongsaly, a province not marked on this map, but the border has a "1A" road marker that runs just North of that border (the lower East-West part of it, before the road turns North to the West side).


Someone recently asked in an online discussion if older sheng can overlap in aspects with shou, and that hasn't matched my experience.  It always just tastes like shou.  But then I've not drank any sheng that's 15 years old or older (maybe with the exception of in a shop somewhere along the way), quite a significant gap when it comes to experience with that type.  I'll get there, surely sooner since the oldest in that set of samples has now aged for 19 years.

I'll comparison taste this along with a 2014 Dayi "Golden Fruit" shou version I bought last year.  I don't expect that comparison to shed much light on either tea, it will just be interesting seeing the difference as a contrast, or noticing if there really is significant overlap in aspects.  Part is that I'm in the habit of comparing things.


The brokenness of leaves stands out between the two, in preparing them.  The Kokang shou seems to have been stored as a maocha, never compressed, and seemingly was made from more whole leaves than the Dayi version.  That factory tea version was compressed, with the leaf material somewhat chopped up, including stem content as well as leaves. 

The notes description along with this tea follows:

Review

The Dayi tea is smooth and rich.  Per online descriptions of lots of other shou it would seem normal for it to be a bit "off" in some way for still being young, only a one year old tea now, but it didn't express negative earthy flavors, or fishiness, or anything like that last year.  It might lack a bit of complexity as a flaw, and I wouldn't really expect that to change a lot over time.  The aspects it does exhibit are nice, sweetness, fullness of flavor in the range it does show, a creaminess, mild earthiness, a bit of character similar to the Guiness Stout range. 

For an inexpensive "daily drinker" shou, something to have with breakfast or an afternoon snack that doesn't demand too much attention, it seems really nice.  I wouldn't be surprised if it transitioned to a better tea for having been slightly more challenging in it's first half year after being produced, but that would just be a guess on my part, but one based on experiencing changes in other shou versions.


The Kokang shou is completely different.  A bit of char stands out in the initial taste of the tea, actual charcoal flavor.  It's not necessarily negative but also not necessarily positive.  Beyond that it's also complex, with a lot of aspect layers to experience.  The flavor range unfolds as you drink it, and continues after you swallow it, all earthy and deeper-tone mineral fullness.  It's complex; earthiness extends into dark wood tones or maybe even tree bark, potentially interpreted as bark spice instead. Not cinnamon, other bark spices, although it's closest to the Vietnamese version of cinnamon that Rou Gui is closest to, as versions of cinnamon go.

Dayi left, Kokang Myanmar shou right

That one layer of charcoal is most pronounced in the initial flavor aspect hit, but it stays integrated with the rest of the flavor range after too.  For some it could ruin the experience, I guess.  I've tried inexpensive shou that were awful for that type of charcoal being most of the effective flavor range, but that's not what's going on in this.  It's also one of the last traces of flavor aftertaste to go, remaining as a whisper of flavor a minute or two after you actually swallow the tea.

This is only the first infusion; that flavor may fade as others ramp up across later infusions.  I just checked and the other tea, the Dayi, doesn't just leave your mouth immediately after you drink it, but its aftertaste is a lot less pronounced.

Second infusion

The Dayi does pick up a bit of richness.  I wouldn't expect it to develop a lot through infusions but it has improved from the first to the second.  It still has pleasant character, flavor fullness, and if very approachable, but it's a little thin related to complexity.  It was sold as supposedly being designed to pick up fruit flavors but I'm not really getting that.  Imagination helps you cover a lot of ground, and if someone really wanted to maybe they could interpret a dried apricot in some of the flavor, but peach is stretching it, or really even that dried apricot.  It has nice sweetness, I'm just not seeing that as relating to fruit.  This is sort of part of the limitation of the tea; it has plenty of flavor, it just doesn't come across as complex.  It's earthy, again like that rich flavor in a stout (beer), but it doesn't lend itself to listing out flavors.

The char did fade in that next infusion of the Kokang tea.  It's still the most pronounced aspect, for flavor, but has fallen more into balance with the rest, as contributing to a whole instead of being half of what you pick up.  Just a little more transition along the same line and this tea really will be exceptional.  The fullness is cool, the way the intensity somehow crosses into different levels, and how after you swallow the tea the experience is still just getting started.  That charcoal is fading into more of a richer (darker?) mineral dryness instead.  If someone doesn't see that as being "off" then there is nothing unpleasant about this tea.  And again if they did it could be hard to drink; it just depends on preference.  I really like it.

Dayi left, Kokang shou right

Third infusion

These two teas are probably leveling off where they're going to stay, with some additional transition coming later.  The Dayi hasn't changed at all, as far as I can tell.  

That char effect did soften further in the Kokang version, and the balance is quite nice as it stands.  The fullness and aftertaste stand out as exceptional more than the actual flavor profile, to me.  It's a lot fuller in range for flavor than the Dayi too but it's not really as complex as it might be.  It's earthy, with warm mineral tone, dark wood, and tree bark or bark spice, but all that makes for a related set of flavors, or complexity within a narrow range.  I'll give it one more slightly longer infusion to check range and then leave off the note-taking.  It does tell the full story to write out transitions through 7 or 8 infusions but it's a story that tends to get repetitive for a lot of teas.

Having invoked the issue of timing I can explain how I've been preparing both:  using medium length infusion times, as I see it, in the 20 to 30 second range.  Sheng often works out well at light infusions, brewed fast at normal proportions, but for me shou works better a little stronger.  It's possible to drink this tea brewed much more lightly, but a slightly medium-ish infusion strength helps place what's going on, and there's nothing objectionable in either tea to brew around.  It's also possible to drink these types of teas brewed as strong as coffee tends to come across.  I don't prefer shou that way but it works much better than for most other tea types.

Fourth infusion

The Dayi is still nice, not changing all that much for being a bit stronger.  It was a little neutral and mellow in both preparations, with enough complexity to be agreeable but not enough to be really interesting either way.  It does "taste like shou" at least; it's got that going for it.

The dryness and mineral tone pick up in the Kokang version, brewed slightly stronger.  A mineral / rock tone mostly like slate picks up.  Again someone might absolutely love that, or not like it at all.  Now that I think of it this tea reminds me quite a bit of Liu Bao.  It could almost be a Liu Bao, it's just not.  It's softer than those tend to be but that char is normal for those, and the earthy mineral range.  Shou is usually different, sweeter, with a different sort of complexity, more towards leather, molasses, or toffee, or the Guiness stout effect in the other version, potentially extending into dried fruit range, but as often earthy instead.

NYC Chinatown shop shou tuocha; not bad

I should qualify that:  I've drank a bit of shou before but haven't explored that much in the way of better, more expensive versions.  That's true of Liu Bao as well, really, even though I reviewed 4 or 5 of them last year.  I've also not tried much for older shou, so I really can't say anything about how 10 to 15 years of aging tends to affect such teas.  I've tried a couple in that age range, but one or two versions doesn't really inform general patterns very well.

These teas will keep going; they're far from finished.  I've been getting in the habit of dropping note taking after the first half of the infusion cycle since the main point is communicating a general impression.  A tea continuing to evolve in positive ways in later rounds is meaningful, or lasting through a lot of infusions, but I don't expect anything unusual to occur with transitions as these continue.  An aspect description or two might change, and the balance of aspects would definitely shift.

Conclusion

This Kokang tea is interesting, one of the better shou I've ever tried.  I really didn't expect it to remind me of Liu Bao as much as it did, to express that char and dry sort of slate-like mineral range.  The overall complexity of aspects was very nice, better than any of the Liu Bao I've tried, a bit fuller and creamier.  Flavor depth could've had just a little more going on but the feel and aftertaste made for a really interesting experience.

The relation to that char effect in the Kokang tea would really make or break someone's impression of it.  Before drinking those Liu Bao last year I'd have been less open to it, but after those it's just one more aspect that can come up, not overly negative, just not positive.  It was a little intense in the early rounds, and would've thrown off the experience of the tea at that level, but it softened it integrated well with the other earthy flavors.

The Dayi version was ok.  It was nice having it for comparison, even though it seems a bit flat and neutral compared to the other tea.  For an inexpensive version it turned out well enough.  It would've been interesting to compare these to that Laos Tea shou the Russians passed on but I finished that sample.  That tea hadn't struck me as an amazing version of shou but it was nice.

she's always cheerful; at the pool in this

same location, the next week's shoot

family photo; two aunts leaving from a visit