Back to reviewing! I quit while I visited family in the East Coast of the US, in Pennsylvania, and now I'm back in Bangkok.
I don't want to say too much about these, two sheng pu'er versions from Tea Tracks, sent by a friend to try. I'm not that familiar with the narrow local areas, although Meng Song kind of rings a bell, and I don't know much about them for backstory. The website mentions these details:
Meng Song Xiang 2019 - 勐宋 (114 Euro / $124 per 200 gram cake)
Meng Song Xiang is a village in southern Menghai. This tea is made of ancient tree material (gu shu, 古树). It has a full body and a pleasant bitterness, which lingers in the mouth as a fruity sweetness for a long time. Here is a review of the tea (in German): puerh.blog Meng Song review
Taste: Soft yet bold taste. Upfront bitterness that turns into a sweet sensation.
Trees: Old trees (gu shu 古树) growing in a natural environment
Origin: Meng Song, Menghai, Yunnan, China
Ya Nuo 亚诺 2018 (You Le Shan) (120 Euro / $130 per 200 gram cake)
Ya Nuo is a village on You Le Shan (mountain), one of the old six famous tea mountains in Xishuangbanna. This tea is made of ancient tree material (gu shu, 古树). The tea starts out very softly in the first brews with hardly any bitterness, but develops a nice sensation in the aftertaste.
This is one of the teas that can clear your head on a cloudy day.
Taste: Soft and subtle taste that develops a cooling sweet aftertaste.
Trees: Old trees (gu shu 古树) growing in a natural environment
Origin: Ya Nuo (village), You Le Shan, Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China
Harvest: early Spring 2018
The teas seemed pretty solid when trying them, but it's hard for me to evaluate value in relation to pricing beyond a limited range. I could tell they seemed pretty good but not really how good. I suppose then it's on considering how much I like them, setting that aside. I don't buy pu'er that costs over 50 cents a gram, so of course I would run out of benchmark range.
These are almost sold out on the website; there won't be much marketing function in describing these, since they'll be gone any day now. The reviews might be partly about that but also just to communicate about trying teas, and to see what I make of them in notes.
Review:
Mengsong: pleasant; definitely some bitterness stands out. This flavor profile is somewhat familiar but I'm not going to do justice to describing it. Beyond bitterness there is some sweetness, and from there identifying even aspect ranges is difficult. Floral? There is definitely a pleasant mineral layer, a little on the dry side, but pleasant in flavor and feel (to the extent that the two ranges map together). There's good structure to the feel.
So far this just sounds like describing sheng pu'er in general. It is pretty standard sheng, in one sense, just a better than average version, and only type-typical related to a subset, to Mengsong area versions. 5 years of aging has softened this, probably, although there is still plenty of bitterness and feel structure. The tones have surely warmed some. Maybe I'll readjust to reviewing more as rounds go by.
Ya Nua: to me this expresses a distinctive root spice aspect. Think along the lines of sassafras, but it's probably not so close to that. It's not so far off the standard incense spice range, and if I had better scent memory of the main few incense spice versions I could reference one it's closest to. That has the character overlapping just a little with aromatic wood tones. Bitterness and mineral are dialed back just a little in comparison with the other, but it's still reasonably intense. It might slightly less complex. Better luck with deriving two flavor lists next round.
Mengsong 2: I brewed these on the fast side for using a relatively high proportion, and for both being on the intense side. It was still a bit much; I can switch to 5 second rounds to adjust further. It's not that I forgot that I usually tend to overdo it with proportion, I just didn't offset it.
There's a catchy, familiar range in this I wish that I could describe better. It's a way in which feel structure, bitterness, floral tone, and mineral all combine, in a very integrated form. It comes across as a familiar set of aspects, that naturally pair together. Maybe this is what people would seek out in standard Mengsong experience, a good version of it, but of course I can't claim that. I don't retain a matrix of memorized local area types, and I might never, regardless of how long I kept trying different things.
Would people seek out a 5 year old version, and how is the storage input for this if they were inclined to? Those are harder to answer. This aspect set is dialed in though; the proportion of everything is as it should be, and there are no flaws, no out of place aspects. You're signed on for bitterness in drinking it, but to me that's moderate, even if it's higher than I would've expected for a partly age-transitioned tea. Maybe this wasn't stored in a very humid place. To me that's fine, aging and changing a tea over more slowly, unless there is a reason to get it moving quickly, for example to get a factory tea that will need 20-25 years to be good to cover that ground in 15. I suppose at a minimum saying more about the floral range in this would be helpful, but not much comes to mind for labeling it.
Ya Nua: this picked up a little depth and smoothed out some in character; it's better. It's slightly more subtle now, but it still has a lot going on. Bitterness hasn't faded but it's moderate compared to the other. There is plenty of mineral range and other deeper flavor complexity, it's just not as forward and dominant as in the other version. Spice tones still make up a main part of the experience. Feel has decent structure, even a touch of dryness, all of which prevents it from coming across as thin. At 6 years old (probably 6 1/2) this will head into that range where it shifts over from being new to old right around now, and maybe flavors seeming a little less forward now is a part of that.
As with the other it comes across as quite clean and well balanced to me, lacking flaws or limitations. I suppose flavor complexity either settling out, for now, or being limited earlier on could be a limitation, but I see that as more character neutral, just how it is. Something being out of balance would be more what I'm referring to, or a negative aspect.
At two rounds in I'm already feeling this. I'm finally back in Bangkok, which is why I'm reviewing again, back in this familiar hot and humid environment, and even though it's 9 AM it's warmer than Pennsylvania had been during a cooler mid-afternoon. It's too bad that more people back there don't appreciate the great tea drinking weather.
Mengsong 3: this is shifting, in a pleasant way. A bit more spice tone picks up, not completely unlike the range found in the other, just not the same either.
Ya Nua: less transition, but the tones may be warming slightly. This seems like a good round to let it transition and get back to describing it more next time.
Mengsong 4: it's interesting how bright and fresh this is, for being a 5 year old tea. I could try to guess about how this has softened in character over that time, how it would've been more intense and challenging within the first year or two. In part that would relate to describing what could be taken as positive about somewhat drier range storage. Or maybe just a medium humidity and heat input range version; it's easy to pick up a biased judgment of norm here in Bangkok, where both are dialed up to maximum.
It's also interesting to consider where this will go from here, what relatively full aging might look like for it, when, and in what character range. It needs at least another decade, or maybe more for full transition. It's in a decent place for drinking as somewhat transitioned tea now, I suppose not so far out of entering into the teen years phase, when it might not make as much sense. I certainly can't project ahead and list out likely flavor range to develop, but the intensity and balance at this stage seem like a good sign, that it's holding up well so far.
Ya Nua: this is less complex and intense, but it has an interesting character, and plenty of intensity related to providing a pleasant experience now. It's not muted. The earlier spice range is still dominant, and a bit of vegetal range might've picked up as well, along the lines of tree leaf, not exactly like wood, but kind of related. Maybe it only shifted in form, and it had seemed more like aromatic wood earlier, now vegetal in a different sense. In most forms that would seem like a flaw, a subject I've already referenced, but with plenty of spice tones and mineral range it integrates well in this.
For someone preferring intensity of experience the other might be better. One might question if this doesn't express a different kind of depth, related to the gushu theme, a standard idea that forward flavors might not be as intense but a base of depth could stand out more. I don't know. Both are fairly balanced; both have plenty going on across a significant range. Underlying mineral range is a strength for both.
A different kind of acid test comes to mind, based on having visited "home" recently, drinking mostly a half dozen versions of tea for a month: which would I keep returning to, if I had plenty of both? I really love approachable, interesting, sweeter range, even fruity sheng, more than these two styles. Sometimes I do crave a more intense experience, and it's not hard to appreciate good quality in tea versions. Probably I like the Mengsong more. It's more standard and less novel, in a sense, and would fill more of a craving for intensity and complexity, when that comes up. I tend to go in cycles, and I'll even drink harsher teas sometimes, a bit here and there for weeks, like not quite ready Xiaguan tuos (which seem to never be fully ready, maybe until 25 or 30 years along, even aged in Bangkok).
Mengsong 5: better than ever; the character really integrates. In terms of description it's still about the same, but the balance has shifted to work even better.
Ya Nua: this is still interesting for being on the subtle side, as sheng goes, related to flavor, which is perhaps a bit odd since it's on the intense side as oolong or black teas go, never mind white tea. Then it has a lot of depth, including some bitterness, and great mineral range, so the intensity is there, just not in terms of forward flavors, as in the other.
It's breezy out just now; that's not usually the case in Bangkok. At 9:30 it's sort of cool (30 C / 86 F and 71 % RH), or at least what I'll need to adapt to as cool for here. At its maximum the PA "Indian summer" was in the mid-80s, but much, much drier. Running there was fantastic. It was easy to pick a time to go out when it was only 60 or so (16 C), so "cold" that your body heat would never accumulate.
Mengsong 6: I'm maxed out for tea, and these aren't changing that much anyway, so this will do for notes. Again it's interesting and pleasant how the earlier floral tones have transitioned more into a spice range. The brightness, intensity, and complexity are all quite positive in this. This seems like the kind of tea everyone should own a cake of, I just don't. This version should cost a bit, for as good as this seems. I suppose it's possible that the most recent peak in sheng pu'er costs happened just after this was made, so it might be more reasonable than I expect [not really, unless more current pricing is really high].
Ya Nua: quite nice; good depth, good balance, interesting character. I love the other one more, so that offsets that positive judgment some. I think that has to do with relation to preference as much or more as quality, or it being more interesting. I suppose local area demand shifts pricing as much as any of those other factors, so cost could relate to what other people seem to value, or at least what the market takes up and promotes.
Conclusions:
Both pretty good teas. I kept going back and forth over how good while trying them. They seem better in quality than they are a close match to my own natural preferences; I like them, but they're probably better than a match to my preference indicates.
Since other people sometimes value more aged character ranges that I don't love it can be hard to project ahead to what others might like later on, as they transition more. Often I'd fill in more guesses about that, but it wouldn't be based on much, and would be unreliable, so I may as well skip that part.
I had a fairly typical experience with trying a tea in this general age range just today, the day after making these notes, so I'll mention that. I re-tried a Nan Nuo version that I really liked, that I had drank most of the cake of back when it was new, made in a really bright, fresh, sweet, approachable when young style, from 2017. It was still ok, but not nearly as positive as it had been 6 years ago. It wasn't simply fading away as much as I'd expected, but it had been a good call to mostly drink straight through that over a year's time back then, setting a little aside to see how it might change later.
These are different, and especially the Mengsong seems to be retaining some intensity and complexity. The Ya Nua version had interesting character too, it was just more subtle already. It's interesting how sheng versions need to be made in a very specific style, related to aspects included, and I guess to how versions are processed, or else the flavor tones warm but they seem to oxidize instead of fermenting. Or so it seems to me, but then what do I know.
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back to my favorite tasting spot |
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cleaning up after a month of unmanaged growth in the garden |
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October must have been a bit rainy |
