Local Phonsaly Laos black tea from Somnuc

not much for packaging description

I don't know much about this tea; it's from the Phongsaly area (North of Laos), and surely it's from a local Assamica plant type ("shan" plant types, I think that is).  Somnuc passed it on, that tea contact I've been mentioning and reviewing teas from.  A short review should cover it then, just describing how it is.

Review

It's an interesting tea.  I expected earthy, on the sweet side, rich, with earthy aspects near a tree bark and fruit so sweet it was like dried dark cherry.  Most of that was from the slightly rustic look and sweet and rich dry tea smell.  It was like that, so much so that it works as an initial description, but with even a little more earthiness than I expected.

The woodiness is complex.  "Tree bark" is still right, but not that smell you get from sniffing a tree, or breaking off a chunk of bark.  It's the smell of the back of the bark, that you only encounter when splitting firewood (or I guess logging, if the tree happened to split a bit, and I've done some of that too, but I'll try to keep this relatable).

It's "cleaner" than it sounds but still earthy in an unusual way.  I suppose another normal description might be that it tastes woody, but like sticks.  The sweetness is really nice; that gives it balance.  I'll stick with describing another aspect range as a warm, rich fruit, but a version that's hard to make out under the rest.  This should evolve a good bit infusion by infusion, so that one aspect interpretation might become more clear.

tasted with a jasmine black just reviewed separately; it never works out like that

In the second infusion that earthy /  woodiness comes across more as autumn forest floor or fallen leaf; not so far off, just a little different.  A faint version of cinnamon spice joins in.  I really like this tea.  I could imagine someone with different preferences being put off by this character, seeing it as strange, or not clean in effect, or just not matching preference, but it works for me.  Sweetness still ties to a fruit range I'm not really putting description to.  It's not that far from apple cider or roasted squash; I suppose it's possible that it's just complex, covering a range, and that's what makes it hard to pin down.

Even description as floral works, it's just a different part; there's a lot going on in this tea.  Experienced together with that clean version of autumn leaf it has a great balance.  Even though this tea is a little odd I think I'd be happy to buy a half a kilogram of it and see how it goes drinking it all the time.


On the next (third) infusion the tea is "cleaning up" (although not in the sense that it was musty, or off), moving off that autumn leaf range.  Cinnamon stands out more, and the wood tone that is present is more like split hardwood (let's go with cherry tree, a wood that actually does smell a bit fruity).  The fruit stands out more too, and complex related range that had been more "apple cider and roasted squash" is now closer to just cherry.  There's a very faint tartness that might relate to some forms of cherry but I'd typically not describe this tea as tart.  The cherry, cinnamon, and hardwood makes for a different, even nicer balanced aspect set.

There is no astringency to the tea but enough of a related aspect range to give it a full feel (as black teas go; oolongs and pu'er feel full in a different way).  Aftertaste is nice; those two supporting aspects make for a complex experience.  Per an alternative interpretation some of that cherry and wood is still tied back to apple cider, the way that sweetness joins an interesting earthiness in slightly fermented fresh apple juice.  A little sourness would match with that cider description, if present, but it seems to only include a trace of tartness instead.


The next (fourth) infusion might again be the best yet, although it's still pretty close to the last, so that describing the slight shift in proportion of the same aspects wouldn't be informative.  The way that cinnamon and cherry combines is great, with a much milder range of earthiness supporting an overall positive balance.  I did go on to stretch a few more infusions out of this after this break in taking notes but it seemed to only fade from this fourth infusion versus transitioning aspect balance further.  It kept producing really pleasant tasting infusions, they just kept getting thinner.

Conclusion

I love this type of tea character, and that it transitioned as much as it did, and this specific aspect set.  It probably wasn't all that far off some Yunnan black tea styles, which is understandable since it came from right across the border.  It's so close that a lot of the teas produced in that general area cross the border and end up being sold as Yiwu, or so I've heard.

It's yet another example of a local South East Asian tea being great in a novel way.  Anna of Kinnari Tea dropped off a number of versions in a visit I mentioned not so long ago; I'll be saying more about other related versions soon enough.  I'm not finished with this set from Somnuc too, so there will be more of novel and--if the pattern holds--very pleasant teas to go from those too.

this map again (Phongsaly); below that Luang Prabang is one of the cooler places I've visited in SE Asia