Back to reviews! Again, since I just posted about teas I just bought in Shenzen first, but I made these notes the day before those. I ordered these Yunnan Sourcing teas awhile back, with this one recommended by a few people. A YS site description says what it is, with the growing location a main point, along with some description of what they mean by "wild arbor:"
Entirely wild arbor tea from early spring 2017! Tea leaves taken from 30 to 80 years old tea trees growing in Xi Ban Shan area just southwest from Bingdao in the county of Mengku, Lincang. Full and stout one leaf to one bud ratio tea leaves. He Bian Zhai (Riverside Village) tea has been growing wild for decades and is picked by local families in the village. Our friend Mr. Duan, oversees the picking and processing of this lovely tea. No pesticides or chemical fertilizers are used in the production of this tea.
He Bian Zhai is a strong full-bodied tea that is a tea that I consider to be much better than it's price tag. The taste is thick and vegetal with a sweet almost syrup-like body...
So there's that. I'll skip the rambling on about different locations, growing conditions, processing, and aging potential and just review the tea. It's been around here for a couple of weeks but I'd expect it might pick up a little more flavor once it airs out some and adjusts to a higher local humidity, but I can say more later if it seems to have changed much later on.
It's Songkran in Thailand now, the traditional New Year, and hottest time of the year, just now 34 C / 93 F even though it's only 11 AM. I'd expect it to change more over the longer term related to that heat and humidity, to transition quickly, to ferment faster, but for all I know it may change character a little in the short term too.
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my tasting space, just a bit hot at this time of year |
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tasting while lightly dressed works in 35 C / 95 F degree weather |
Those "cheap" sheng versions that I picked up in China had me considering whether or not all the dire warnings by vendors about contaminant laden teas might be accurate or not, or what the risk level would be. I'm not nervous about it, and I would still drink the odd random tea, but it does seem like a good idea to drink a good percentage of teas that seem much more likely to be grown under more careful, positive conditions. As this one is represented, as I believe that it was.
Review
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just getting started |
The first infusion I went fast on, trying it quite light before it really had a chance to get the leaves wet. It already has an interesting flavor, with feel coming out a little too. There is a thickness and sweetness to this version even prior to it infusing at normal strength. Flavor leans a little towards spice, beyond the honey sweetness, warm and rich as young sheng goes. I'll add more about that next round since it will develop.
It is interesting and pleasant, complex in a nice way, on the soft side with limited bitterness. Tea from more natural growth plants does tend to turn out like this, per my experience, not as bitter and intense but unusual in flavor profile in ways that tend to be generally positive. A version from Vietnam that strikes me as even more "local" in character I just tried, with a review in notes form, which explains further what that description would mean to me.
A flavor list won't really do the tea justice, but then in general those don't work well to pass on an impression. It's woody, in a sense that spans a greener wood and an aged hardwood. Honey-like sweetness joins that, and a hint towards spice that isn't pronounced enough to describe, maybe an aromatic version of a root spice.
From the sounds of that I should be adding floral or fruit description to it (with floral tones more common in sheng), in order to describe it positively, but it does balance and work without a lot of floral tone or other range. The woodiness could alternatively be described as tree bark instead, but that's back to more of the same. I'll try a shorter infusion now using fully saturated leaves and get a better sense of where this is going.
Really more of the same. It's interesting the way that limited bitterness works out, with astringency that comes across as a sappy or resin-like feel, versus a more typical range seemingly tied to a stronger mineral tone. It's a little like biting into a tree branch bud, the tip, the way a vegetal, slightly biting character comes across in that experience. It's still soft, complex, and flavorful, nothing like trying a bitter and astringent version of relatively young sheng. This tea is coming up on two years old now so it probably has softened a good bit, trading out some of that range for smoothness and different flavor range. I suppose it could be the rare version of sheng that's best after 3 or 4 years, before it goes quieter due to aging, swapping out initial intensity for other character.
I say "rare" but that's an interpretation based on both limited personal background and also based on individual preference. I've been drinking a good bit of sheng for a year and a half but that's still just getting started. As further background for that statement I tend to like to drink sweet, soft, light, and brighter sheng within the first year or two and more bitter and astringent versions fully aged, and I'm still exploring what might fall in between. At this point it would seem more common for a tea to hit some sort of good balance right away, within two to three years, or much later on.
The next infusion isn't transitioning a lot but the character is nice. The feel is catchy, being soft but with a fullness to it, and an unusual texture. That woody flavor range isn't exactly a personal favorite but it works too. It's interesting how little bitterness is present in this tea. There is a little, to give it some balance, but not much. If it transitions towards deeper, warmer flavors over time it might be really good, although I can't guess how it will be different in a few years or 10 more. Buying a few cakes to experience aging transition cycles is the page I'm on now. I'll be mentioning quite a number of them over the next month or so, more than my wife would want to hear about me buying.
One of the two from the Shenzhen trip had more pine character than I'm used to, and one was a bit mushroomy (one I've tried but not reviewed yet), with another an aged version including more dirt taste than I usually tend to notice. It's all surely better than it sounds as one-word descriptions, but limited in positive character due to working from a tightly constrained budget. This cake was around $90 and it cost around as much as the four I just mentioned together.
One might wonder, why spend money on tea purchased at Western retail online and then reign that spending in completely when actually visiting China? My wife was with me; that's a main reason why. $90 might have bought a really nice cake version there, or two, or I may have just wasted a lot of time trying fake 90's sheng. Having a local guide along would've made a huge difference, and I didn't.
It's hard enough talking about tea to vendors here in Bangkok when their English is limited, and my Thai is all but worthless at that level of detail, but things were a lot worse in China. I've noticed that I'm not familiar with tasting teas on the fly too, since I tend to go through it under very limited and specific circumstances here, taking a quiet hour to really get through one or two versions. I can get a sense of a tea tasted in a shop but more detail fills in later, also in part because it's easier to judge without the variable of someone else making it using different parameters, water, etc.
Back to this tea version, the next infusion is just a bit softer, with the balance of what was already described shifting. The wood tone might be moving towards pine, versus green wood spanning complex range across aged hardwood and tree bark earlier. The warmth and depth of the flavor range (along with thickness of feel) is pleasant and promising, but it's hard to put labels to that. On the next round I'll try mentioning alternate flavor and character interpretations to get there.
Flavor doesn't stand out as much as feel and overall effect as interesting or unusual; that makes it harder. It tastes like something but the experience isn't centered on that. For mineral range a warm version stands out, in between Utah slick-rock sandstone and a very mild version of rusted metal. Or that part could come across like red clay instead. Instead of wood the vegetal tone might strike someone as being like the scent of fresh tree leaves; not far off but different. It hints towards spice but it's mild in comparison with the woody tone, like the one edgy aspect of nutmeg, but not the warmer and sweeter part, and nothing like cinnamon, where those two spices either seem similar or overlap a little.
As to changing feel description it coats your mouth, covering your tongue after you swallow, leaving behind an impression that's more feel-related than aftertaste related. I could imagine people feeling all sorts of different ways about this tea, some loving it, some not liking it, and others just not completely getting it. Someone drinking tea almost entirely for positive flavor range might not like it, especially if they wanted their sheng to taste more like an oolong, softer and in a different flavor profile. Some Wuyi Yancha do drift into mild, complex, woody and aromatic liqueur flavor range a little but in general those are more straightforward and just different.
Around 8 or 9 infusions in the tea is still pleasant and intense (I've not went round by round in this description, and it's not transitioning that much anyway). Flavor is still subdued in relation to the feel-character and overall effect seeming more complex. It's an approachable, easy to drink tea; there's that. There is some bitterness to it; I may be understating how that aspect is represented and does balance the rest since I've become accustomed to drinking more bitter versions lately. That can relate to very positive teas that age well, high quality versions, and also in a different form to cheaper, harder to take teas, just in different forms.
Conclusions
It's decent tea. It's hard to not compare it to some of the rest I've been trying over the past week since it overlaps in character a little with some. It might be better quality tea than it is a match to what aspects or style I like most.
That judgment naturally relates to considering value, if this costing around $.25 / gram stacks up well against other versions. Value comes up especially since it was mentioned in the description, "...that I consider to be much better than its price tag." One Farmerleaf Jing Mai version I bought a month or so ago cost pretty much exactly that but they're really different in character. It might be possible to try to compare quality level or match to preference but I like them for different reasons, in different ways. I can pick up quality level markers in some tea types that are familiar that places them at the next level up, what types sold as "gushu" tend to be like, but I don't necessarily prefer those aspects more, which makes the evaluation process a little odd. I still need to dial in what I like best more, then compare more just across that limited scope.
In relation to those two teas from China (costing around $10, a complete anomaly) they're quite a bit better than 1/9th as good. It's not fair comparing teas bought under favorable conditions inside China. Or really with luck as a main factor, since those could've been pretty bad, maybe even the one I tasted prior to buying it, they just didn't turn out to be.
This doesn't strike me as better tea than would typically cost $90 for 400 grams. The value is ok; the tea is pretty good, but I think this pricing isn't low for what it is. That middle range for teas that are better than typical factory versions or blends vendors produce is a funny thing. Blending more limited source versions keeps costs low and pricing around $30-40, with the trade-off being a loss in distinctiveness. It's similar to semi-aged sheng versions; the supply and demand is a little odd because there isn't that much out there. I have more to say about that related to two more such versions reviewed since this edit (mid-range priced versions) so I'll hold off on saying more until that post.
Related to the other running theme I have no idea how this will continue to transition over coming years. Or if it will change any based on spending another week or two steaming here in the Bangkok hot season. I tried it again with breakfast within a few days of doing this tasting session and the only additional thought was that I probably understated the level of bitterness, which was still moderate but seemed more pronounced then.
So far it has been my impression that compounds that cause bitterness and astringency in sheng enable transition to other forms of complexity, but I'm still at the stage of testing that out, and trying exceptions, and I can't judge expectations for this version. For some teas I get the impression that drinking them within the next year would maximize their potential, before they change and become less positive, but I'm not as concerned about this one. I'll keep trying it over the next year since it's pleasant now but will be in no rush to get through it before aging trades out too much early positive character.
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