Liquid Proust Sheng Olympiad 2008 Guang Bie Lao Zhai

I'm reviewing the last of a Liquid Proust Sheng Olympiad set, probably two months after most of the people who bought that set tried it.  It was nice.

Perhaps the main story behind this tea is the part of the label that I left off, "Malaysian Storage," or for others the producer name is the real novelty, made by Huang Chuan Fang.  The other samples in this set were younger teas (newer), and this will be a chance to check if my past impression of Malaysian storage lending a specific flavor to sheng is right.  Not conclusively, since it will take lots more samples of different kinds to really get to firmer conclusions, but it will still be interesting to see.  I don't know what the tea itself is; probably as well to leave that until the end to check anyway.

For here let's start in with the Liquid Proust description:

Malaysia: 16g 2008 Guang Bie Lao Zhai from Huang Chuan Fang 

Still new to Huang Chuan Fang... but these cakes have been stored in Malaysia for 10 years.


I got side-tracked reading up on that area designation and background (between the earlier statement and editing phase), but suffice it to say that it's a Bulang mountain location.  A lot of the tangents that turned up were interesting but these reviews are long enough as it is.  This reference seems to mention this producer, Huang Chuan Fang, and an interesting tea event awhile back, from Phyll's Account of the June 2007 Pasadena Pu'er Tasting Event.  It's odd that's no longer a news update, as presented there, and more like US tea culture history now.

Review

It's pleasant, and it definitely tastes aged.  I let the infusion run longer than I will for the rest of the cycle (well over 10 seconds), to move past a "still getting saturated" phase, so it's on the strong side this round.  Familiar age-related flavors are clear.

People describe those in all sorts of ways and I'm not sure if my own ordinary-language versions really mean much to anyone.  They probably only would to people who are familiar with the experience, which defeats a little of the point of communication, only talking to people who already know what you are saying.  I'll stick with it though.

That warm, mineral-intensive, sappy range reminds me of aged leather, stones, old books, and to some extent to warm spice.  Sweetness is along the lines of an earthy form of molasses.  A lot of this review will probably be trying to put better description to all that than I'm able to, and I think today I'll say less since adding more words won't really help anyway.  That spice is probably in between a tropical dark hardwood, an incense spice, and tobacco.  Maybe on the next round the general-scope descriptions can be clarified to a narrower set.

Next round:  it's still complex, hard to narrow beyond adding that laundry list of what aged teas (sheng) tend to taste like.  Tobacco probably does stand out more this round, but it's not alone, still in a complex other set.  Incense spice is on the same level, frankincense or myrrh or something such.  I should figure out where the modern versions of hippies are hanging out in Bangkok and go to a store selling products in those ranges. 


The level of aging seems right, pronounced for this tea only being 10 years old, and the flavor intensity and general character works.  Sometimes aged versions can seem quite thin across an aspect range, the body / feel can be light, aftertaste just missing, or flavor set one-dimensional.  Maybe that's related to a storage issue, or maybe due to not being suitable for aging in the first place.  I expected this to be slightly heavier yet in flavor tones (danker, to stick with that earlier theme), and it still strikes a decent balance.  I could see why people further along in experiencing aged sheng might possibly think this is great, or might think it's not how such teas are supposed to be at all, outside even a broadly defined range of potential preference scope.  To me it's nice.


On the next infusion the flavor didn't really need to clean up or sort out in any sense, and it has only transitioned slightly.  A different kind of warm mineral tone is ramping up, and the sappy resin-like character that had been there all along.  The rest falls into more of a complex and even balance.  In seeing positive feedback about this version in limited online discussion I was wondering if it was more the positive character of the tea that caused that impression or that it was a chance to try an aged version.  It's probably both; the tea is ok, and aged.

A kind of generic aged sheng version I bought in Chinatown was similar in some ways, or overlapped, especially related to the tobacco flavor, but it was a lot less complex and thinner in feel and overall impression.  Again the range that's there being positive depends on preference but it seems a decent fit to ordinary likes, beyond just lacking common flaws.  I've tried sheng this aged that had just faded away and this didn't.

I just ran across an interesting aging related review post describing teas seeming quite young at double this age, if stored in dry and cool enough conditions.  It stands to reason; just as this tea probably experienced an environment that more or less optimized related bacteria and fungus growth it would be easy to imagine the relative opposite in the form of a typical Northern US or Canadian indoor household, generally cool and dry.  I'll probably get around to mentioning more about it but I also ran across this interesting post on a series of combined-trial environment tests on aging.

On the next infusion flavors settle a little and the mineral picks up, still warm and complex but across a narrower range now.  I saw a post about someone drinking tea-bag tea (in a Gong Fu Cha FB group; it wouldn't be funny in others where that's common), claiming that it tasted like pennies.  This does too, a little, but it works.  From aged leather to incense spice then tobacco and now pennies; I could imagine it not working as well for everyone, but I liked it across that range.  It seems likely that it will settle into a character that's different and just as positive or more so over a few infusions, that also sounds a bit strange.

More of the same on the next round.  It's nice the way the mineral intensity balances, and a related feel coats your tongue and transitions to a pronounced aftertaste.  More of the same the round after.  There are going to be mild shifts in character but I'm not as much in the mood for trying to split that apart today.  I'll go slightly longer and add a few notes and let it go.

A tree bark / warm spice range is picking up, although some of that is the character seeming different infused slightly longer.  I could imagine that being interpreted as tobacco instead; it's close enough.  Mineral underlays that nicely, with molasses sweetness filling it in.

Conclusions

On the subject of storage-area and climate related changes, I think I can taste what I expected, but it's hard to be certain.  Other Malaysian aged versions seemed to have a warm, earthy, mineral and almost musty flavor range that this matches up with.  It's not so far off the smell in a basement, something hard to pin down, but noticeable and distinctive.  It smells a little like a wet cement block, or just a little towards a tree root from there.  It's not so far from the slate-mineral taste common to Liu Bao, just not exactly that.

It's hard to evaluate how good or bad a thing it is, but the effect / aspect I'm talking about is quite faint, with the general fermentation level something else altogether.  Maybe this could've achieved a more subtle and refined complex aspect range in another five years in a slightly less damp environment; I couldn't know.  At least it did get relatively completely aged (fermented) in 10 years, and the character stayed pleasant, not musty at all, in spite of how I've just described that aging effect.


Placing this in relation to other aged teas I've tried seems in order.  It's quite decent tea, it seems, per match against my preference.  It's not significantly different than the Thai aged shengs I've tried, Hong Tai Chang versions from Tea Side, one of which from 2006 I own what's left of a cake of.  I tried a Changtai version from that same year a friend passed on that shares some aspect range that seemed a good bit thinner, missing some depth, with limited complexity and a bit thin over-all.  Of course there's no guarantee that a tea is as presented, and all the details of that one weren't shared anyway, but the point here is more a general comparison.

This tea was pleasant for me going back to it and brewing a lot more rounds of infusions, so many that I couldn't guess a count.  It faded over those but stayed positive all the way through them.  Infusion count isn't necessarily a definitive guide to tea quality but to me it seems to be a marker, along with the character of the aspects (of course), and undergoing a pleasant transition cycle. 

It could seem odd that I'm not mentioning feel at all (cha qi), but I only tend to notice that in the most extreme cases, when a young old-tree sheng or older well-evolved sheng version stand out for intensity related to that.  Eventually I might be more "in-tune" myself in order to pick it up better but my kids would need to adopt more regular sleep cycles so that I could share in that practice.  The youngest is now 5; it's about time for that.  I spent some time as a stoner so I feel a bit over experiencing externally caused changes in myself, even if the character of those is generally positive.  My natural neurochemistry balance is working out.

I'm tempted to judge just how good the tea is, or try to place it further, or to estimate how fast it aged related to that storage location and climate.  It's as well to just let the description stand as a partial account; after a few more years of trying tea versions I'll be better prepared for it.

at a local water park with my daughter's friend and his father

Kalani and a cousin at a play area

that little girl is so cute and sweet

this one too