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well-compressed but easy to break up |
I was up a little early for a run before work and checked out an aged sheng tuocha I'd been meaning to get to for awhile, the last of an order from Chawang Shop. It's nice trying teas when I'm cycling through related versions, and I was curious how aging for a 2006 tuocha aging would compare with that 2006 China Tea / Zhong Cha / CNNP 8001 red mark cake I just reviewed. There isn't much comparison so this post doesn't go into that; the teas probably started out different and that one was relatively fully aged, or at least quite far along, and this was only partly through that process.
That order list will say what it was (the first entry on that list):
2006 Fengqing TF "Jiaji" Tuocha Raw 100g
Jia Ji recipe is one of the classic products of Fengqing Tea Factory. 2006 is the last year of using bamboo boxes and also high quality spring materials which is mostly use for Fengqing red teas nowadays.
Stored in clean and professional storage place in Fujian. After 9 years this tea lost most of the bitterness which is so typical for Fengqing TF raw products.
Mellow, honey sweet with light bitterness and fast huigan. Can brewed many times.
Yunnan Sourcing often includes more background on producers and products, so I checked if they listed a version:
2002 Feng Qing "Jia Ji Tuo Cha" Aged Raw Pu-erh Tea $45.00 USD
Classic production under the Phoenix Brand by the Feng Qing tea factory of Lincang. Tightly rolled spring 2002 material was blended and pressed into these 100 gram tuo cha. Aged for 10 years in Kunming. This has a powerful cha qi and mouth-feel. 10 years of aging has made this into a delightful experience!
A bit odd they would sell a 100 gram tuocha for $45; the Chawang Shop version seems a steal at $10 in comparison, even for being 4 years younger. A 2012 Steepster review of their 2002 YS-sold version sheds light on one person's less aged impression and their mark-up over 7 years since:
...complex aroma reminiscent of savory herbs with a touch of wet tobacco and a wonderful nutty aspect. Can be smokey in the first infusions. This the oldest sheng I have tried so far. It is also one of my favorites, due its strong, savory-herbs flavor and aroma. $16 for 100g of a 10 year old sheng with strong flavor seems like a decent value.
Close enough to a 200% mark-up in 7 years; a bit aggressive. This reviewer being brand new to aged sheng throws off them placing it across any typical scale but the pricing and flavor list impression still work. Of course the starting point for a 2002 version and a 2006 product may not be all that similar, so this definitely doesn't work to indicate aging transition patterns, but it's still one person's impression, interesting to consider. That tea was 10 years old back then, versus this being 13 years old now.
Review:
Initial flavors are clean, positive, just a bit vegetal. This isn't even close to fully aged, but not towards the beginning of that process either. Bitterness and astringency have tapered off, and if there had been any smoke present that's now gone, but there's still green wood flavor to this. That high level of compression probably slowed aging some. It's promising though; texture is thick and it has complexity. I'll add more on other flavor range in the second infusion.
Second infusion: there's no smoke, mushroom, or mustiness. Green and cured wood stand out, with a resinous feel to the tea. It leans a little towards pine. Sweetness helps make that range work, along with the thickness of feel (all relative; only "not thin" per a different type of judgment).
Third: wood, resin, and pine develop. I like this more than that flavors description would imply. It's not aged to an optimum level yet, I wouldn't think, but the cleanness and rich feel work well. Aftertaste isn't extended per a norm for young sheng but fine per the standard of the modest aged versions I've been drinking. It's probably the bit of pine that works well for me, in combination with the rest.
Fourth: minor transitions occur, but only the balance of prior aspects shifts in proportion a little. It's nice that this has no negative aspects to brew around, and no earthy rough edges. It just hasn't transitioned to warmer, deeper flavor range yet. Intensity is positive; younger teas or others in this age transition range could be more muted.
Fifth: it's picking up a little more warmth and depth, shifting into warmer wood tones, or towards spice or tobacco range. It would seem natural for this to have more astringency edge based on flavor range. The thick feel is quite pleasant.
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2011 Xiaguan (left) and 2007 Tulin tuo; both leaves a bit darker |
More infusions along mineral depth picks up. It could be enjoyed like this, it's pleasant, but it seems a waste of the tea's potential. This probably needs 5 to 6 years to seem more like an aged sheng and even longer to fully ferment. Its potential seems great though, how clean, complex, and intense this is, without rough edges or negative aspects to wear off. That's assuming that the flavor range becomes more positive, instead of just different, but for as nice as this seems while so vegetal that seems likely.
Breakfast was a bit rushed at the end but I still managed to drink about 10 infusions worth, and it didn't require overly extended timing to maintain intensity at the end, and character was still positive. It wasn't finished.
Conclusions:
It seemed this tea would be even better when more fully aged but very pleasant and promising at this point.
It occurs to me that these Chawang Shop product reviews could have seemed negative since I keep going on about dry storage, and how limited aging transitions have been for the time-frames. This tea is 13 years old; it could be a lot mellower, switched over to much warmer, deeper flavor range, into dried fruit or spice or whatever else. At least bitterness has dropped out completely (assuming it included that initially, which seems very likely).
I don't intend the impressions that way, as negative. I think the teas would've aged faster in a warmer, more humid environment, but all the versions I tried were very positive. One Xiaguan tuocha wasn't quite as positive as the rest but that's how it goes, and evaluating a partly aged version of sheng isn't the best indication of where it will end up after more transition anyway. It worked out well for the three year old cakes because then I had a chance to try them before they were far along through transitions, closer to where they would've been here at an earlier point if stored elsewhere.
Next the idea comes up that it's not just the speed of fermentation that varies, but the character of the tea, depending on those conditions, that it's not only about being further or not as far down the exact same path. Flavor profile is different for teas stored in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Kunming. Malaysia's effect might seem a bit musty for some, although it does push the teas to change the fastest. For storage in Hong Kong it varies by conditions there, it's not all just one thing, but in general that range is regarded as striking a good balance, for allowing sheng to transition but not causing the same degree of mustiness or damp effect. Dry storage results in a more vegetal range, not just transitioning slower but towards a different flavor range.
Of course my own experience with sheng aging and storage inputs is a work in progress. The same general patterns that seemed evident in a Yiwu vertical tasting here two years ago do seem to keep repeating, reinforced as somewhat standard as I keep trying other versions. But as years go by and counts of examples increase it will work better to map out different starting point inputs and variations in better and worse storage case examples, and those differences tied to climate.
This tuocha works as a semi-aged tea, it's perhaps just odd that's what it is at 13 years old, or at least that it's not very far along. But then I would really need to try a number of 13 year old tuochas to be sure about that.
I did try another version of a 2007 tuocha yesterday, re-trying the Tulin version I bought locally, and reviewed here, compared with a 2011 Xiaguan cake version to check transition difference in that case. The previous image of those helps show the fermentation / aging difference, in comparison with the wet leaves of this tea.
As I mentioned in that review (from May, so awhile back but not long enough for the tea to change much) that tuocha version is a little musty, probably tied to storage effect. It didn't wear off quickly through the infusion cycle as apparent storage effect sometimes can. That tea was much further through an aging transition cycle, even though it was only one year older, due to spending that time here in Bangkok. A bit of mustiness was probably a trade-off for aging faster, which could've also related to storage conditions beyond local climate, to the degree of air contact it experienced.
Anyway, I really liked this tea. It's good now but it would make sense to buy more of these and put them away. That was part of the idea, to use this purchase as sampling, but it will remain to be seen how much I ever follow up on that. It works better to buy teas locally and slip them in the house, since there is no paper trail to pick up related to cash transactions. According to my wife I have enough tea, and should drink what I have before buying more. She doesn't get the aging part, even though I keep explaining it. I do have a lot more tea than I can drink over the next year but this version would be really nice in 5 to 10 more years.
That context makes me mentioning it odd, doesn't it? I gain nothing by passing on this account and this tea version could be sold out when I do get around to trying to re-order it, potentially based in part on mentioning it. So it goes with tea blogging. This would be a good time to check how many views this draws without much link sharing.
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