Tea meetup at a Bangkok Chinatown shop, Jip Eu

 

I've let the subject of tea tastings go for quite awhile, aside from holding one in Honolulu this year.  But a Bankgok Tea Tasting theme Facebook group I started has seen more members join this year than ever before, so it made sense to try to meet some of them.  I was going to my favorite Bangkok Chinatown shop to replace an aged sheng cake (Xiaguan) anyway, so I announced the visit as a meetup in that group.

Four others met with me for a pleasant tasting session there; their participation made the event work.  Writing about it is in part about communicating more to them about what we tried, what the teas were, and leads for buying similar teas.  Of course my main thanks go to Kittichai and his wife, the Jip Eu shop owners, for serving as the actual hosts; he was kind enough to share samples of several teas for us, and to keep pouring rounds for two hours.  For me it's always like visiting an aunt and uncle there, which makes buying good tea at great value all the more pleasant.

Conversation points

This is mainly about the teas, adding more about what they are, and reference links, but I wanted to also pass on the feel of discussion, even though I'll cite very little of it.  It's always interesting starting out with what people already like and experience of teas.  A good lead on visiting shops in Little India came up, but I've lost track of those details; maybe at the very back of Phahurat Market?  There's more on that area here.

Brief discussion of willow herb came up, aka Ivan Chay, a rare tisane type that can be oxidized.  I've tried some really nice versions of those, mostly from Moychay, and other novel and pleasant pressed mixed tisane bars.  It would be more odd that willow herb and tisane blends never caught on if decent tea wasn't also slow to gain acceptance.

From there lots of short tangents related to the teas we tried came up, so I'll skip on to that.

What we tried

2006 CNNP (/ Zhongcha) 8001 sheng pu'er:  later I was thinking about how the tasting theme went from heavy to light and back to heavy, kind of unusual.  I think maybe we had stopped by in the middle of two others trying this aged sheng pu'er, which is characteristic for one style (a bit heavy, earthy, slightly rough-edged for being this far through fermentation, definitely intense).  

Readers may think back to trying 17 year old sheng pu'er versions that seemed pretty fresh to them, still including bitterness, not fully transitioning from earlier slightly harsh range onto milder earthiness.  Storage input plays a big role, along with the initial starting point; Bangkok is as hot and humid as anywhere, pretty close to Malaysian storage.  It's not exactly like 20+ years in Hong Kong or Taiwan, but at least fermentation level is equivalent to that.  

I own part of a cake of this tea, reviewed here.  Note that I reviewed that 4 years ago, when it was 13 years old; those extra years of transition since have made a lot of difference.  Of the three more-aged versions--leaving out a Dayi purple label version in this discussion--I might like the CNNP the least, and see it as least refined, with heavy earth aspects that can come across as rough edges.  I've tried it in the last month or so, part of a normal routine of checking in, and it's good, but the other two I like better.  I have a spare cake of that Dayi sheng (reviewed here in 2020; it's better now too), but the Xiaguan runs a bit low.

silver needle style tea, from Fuding:  it came up that the range was a bit heavy, and Kittichai was nice to help switch theme back to the opposite extreme, brewing a pleasant silver needle version.  I didn't catch much for details; maybe this was partly aged, or maybe not.  My guess is that a slightly higher degree of initial oxidation than might be typical for the type added depth and heavier flavors, but both inputs (that and aging) could lead there, probably in slightly different forms.  It was really nice.  

It's hard to do a flavor-list review here by memory; plenty of mineral base stood out, it seemed quite floral, and there was at least one more aspect in there.  We weren't discussing teas in tea-tasting form, offering rounds of input about flavors and other experience, although more of that came up related to another version.

2022 Thai sheng (pu'er-like tea):  I brought some newish Thai sheng (not pu'er, to most, since that's a Yunnan-restricted designation), it seemed like a good time to try that, moving on to heavier but not exactly heavy range.  That shop specializes in Wuyi Yancha (Fujian rock oolong), and Kittichai has family roots in Wuyishan and Anxi, so trying Tie Guan Yin would also make sense.  We just didn't get to either.  To me Tie Guan Yin isn't the most interesting range, even though it can be pleasant, and it takes a lot of doing to get far with Wuyi Yancha, since you need prior exposure to place any given version, and to see how closely it matches your preference related to all the rest.  True of lots of tea types, I suppose, but with sheng my personal favorite we went ahead and tried a Thai version.

It was nice, fresh and sweet, intense, of course including plenty of bitterness.  There is a characteristic flavor range Thai sheng tends to cover, which I'd mostly describe as floral, but it seems possible that I'm missing one or two aspect descriptions that really pegs it.  I cover the source and reference a review in a later part about vendor background.  

It was fairly well received; people are often exposed mainly to young factory sheng versions instead, which can be a little more undrinkable.  Or to moderately aged versions, not onto optimum transition level yet, or to aged versions that don't express the full potential of the type range.  I suppose the CNNP version might've been guilty of that, but style and aspects relate to personal preference, and lots of aged sheng isn't "refined."

2006 Xiaguan 8653 sheng pu'er (full size cake):  this is what I was there to buy, and Kittichai offered us some to try.  I thought it was good.  It was better received by everyone joining.  To me it tasted a bit like aged leather, but another participant added that it covers a lot of the same scent range from smelling cigars in cedar storage, both the aromatic wood smell and the tobacco, which smells nothing like a burning cigar while in storage.  That really is it.  

I had tried the tea last about 3 days ago (after initially reviewing it last year), and it's much more refined than it had been just 6 months ago.  It has turned a corner in the aging cycle.  I bet in about 2 more years it will be really special, so that I should probably be buying a few of these, but my budget is fairly locked down these days, with the moving back and forth between Bangkok and Honolulu.

after a year more than half is gone; I'm drinking more than just to check on it

Vendor references

I wanted to add a few vendor references before this ran too long, related to what we tried.  Of course Jip Eu themselves are a great reference; all but one of those teas is from there.

Qing Fu Cha:  the owner of this online business, selling Thai sheng and Taiwanese oolong, joined with us.  I've tried some of their Thai sheng before (reviewed here) and it was quite nice, although I'll also mention other fantastic options for other versions.  Their FB page is here, and it's probably possible to find their teas in an online outlet shop, which Google search would identify if so.

Aphiwat:  a small local tea producer, selling Thai sheng, the source for that tea I brought (reviewed here last year, compared to one from Vietnam and to a version from Moychay).  I just ordered some from him today, which I suppose is tea blogger code for either that source's tea completely matched my preference or quality and value makes lots of sense, especially when I'm also listing other good source options here.  

An earlier review of a pressed cake version tells that story.  If I could live on only one tea version right now it would his, or Wawee Tea's.  I drank a 150 gram small cake in that first two-month stay in Honolulu, when my kids first started school there, and repeated that with another Thai tea I mention next on the next stay.

Wawee Tea:  a well-respected Thai sheng producer, who I wrote about here.  I've liked different things I tried from them, but one particular new version last year I couldn't stop myself from all but finishing in short order, almost a whole cake's worth in under two months.  

Mind you new sheng or the Thai sheng profile range isn't for everyone; Kittichai, the owner of Jip Eu, kind of gets it but doesn't love it like I do.  I don't think most versions are suitable for aging, and they would be fine, and a little different, a year or two later, but it's as well to burn straight through them.  You absolutely have to be ok with bitterness mixed with sweetness, and I definitely wasn't for the first half dozen years of trying sheng versions over and over.  Then it clicked.  I don't think there's any need to rush that, to see it as some higher form of preference; if you like it then you like it, and it's fine if you don't.

two of the teas I'm describing, compared with one from Vietnam

Moychay's Thai forest-origin initiative:  I might as well add a third exceptional source, related to Thai sheng I absolutely loved last year, this one, with more background on the source here.  It's possible that it's not quite as close a match to my preference as the other two versions, but in a way that's not fair, given that it was their initial production of the type, past early trials (or I suppose this maocha version was, but they're from about the same time).  

I bet they're right there with the other two producers already.  Wawee Tea has been a producer for decades, I think, and there are reviews in this blog of Aphiwat's teas from 2019.  My guess is that material quality is covered in their case too, that terroir and plant-type issues are dialed in.  All three versions were so similar, in such a narrow related style range, that it would take someone with plenty of exposure to notice differences and have a preference.  

those three teas

One thing I want to repeat to make it crystal clear:  the style of all three matches my own main preference; I don't mean to imply that these are better than teas from elsewhere, especially Yunnan, or even from Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam, for that matter.  

Of course versions from the most valued narrow origin areas in Yunnan are superior in a few different ways, beyond better aging potential.  But if your preference matches mine something will really click when you first try a really good example, and your whole tea preference will shift a little.  If it's a first encounter with a tea with bitterness as a main aspect that probably won't happen, which is fine.

That Xiaguan cake must have been relatively undrinkable 17 years ago, when first produced.  Some other sheng versions hit an atypical fermentation transition "sweet spot" in the middle instead, softening and gaining depth without needing that decade and a half to be approachable.  But these two polar opposites seem the norm, to me, that sheng is often best within 2 years of being produced, or even right away, or only after nearly 20 years of very appropriate storage conditions input, or longer.  It was nice that we could experience that much of that range in just three versions in this outing.