ITeaworld sent another sampler, along with a Christmas themed set of Dan Cong, that I've already reviewed two of. There are two more entire sets to get to; for whatever reason they released four different sample sets at about the same time. The other two are Longjing and mixed Chinese green teas. I guess that I've reached favored reviewer status? Or shill; however one spins that.
Those earlier Dan Cong really were exceptional; I'll get back to that. These are aged teas, identified as a New Year's themed set. These two in particular are hei cha, which seemed like a good place to start, with other aged oolong, black, white, and even green teas included. Aged green tea is an interesting subject; a bit unconventional. I tend to work from least interesting and novel to most in sets like these, and I'd expect the sheng and shou pu'er to also be a bit ordinary, then the rest to be quite novel. We'll see. Maybe I should mix it up and try what seems most interesting next, instead of delaying that.
I'll include minimal product details and thoughts prior to posting this review, but as usual taste the teas and write these notes without reading essentially anything but the type description.
The Liu Bao looks a bit open and twisted, as much like a rustic version of a rock oolong (Wuyi Yancha). The Fu brick tea is quite broken, almost ground up looking. I'm not sure what that's about, but there is some speculation about that form in the review notes. For a tea version with considerable astringency the way that will affect compounds that are extracted would be really problematic, but in the case of aged Fu brick it might just be less than optimum.
iTeaworld 2025 New Year Tea Gift Set (Year of the Snake Edition) ($75.90 for 100 grams in total)
The Collection of 10 Aged Teas: Includes 20-Year-Old Ripe Pu-erh, 40-Year-Old Hei Zhuan (Black Brick Tea), 30-Year-Old Oolong, and more
1995 Shui Xian Oolong Tea
1998 Tie Guan Yin Oolong Tea
1995 Aged Phoenix Dan Cong
2003 Sheng Pu-erh Tea
2003 Shou Pu-erh Tea
2008 Double-Steamed Liu Bao Tea
2014 Shou Mei White Tea
2014 Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong Black Tea
1998 Jasmine Green Tea
1980s Fu Brick Tea
Related to value 76 cents a gram for aged tea seems pretty reasonable. The tea would have to be of decent quality to justify that, but if it's even average--for the type range--that's still fair. Half of these are from the 80s or 90s; that's quite aged.
One thing people who have tried a good bit of aged tea are familiar with is that most versions aren't optimum; less than ideal storage conditions can degrade tea quite a bit over 2 1/2 decades or more. Then what is the best case related to aspects would be hard to judge, without the level of experience that few ever get around to acquiring. I've tried a good bit of aged tea but you need to sample a half dozen versions of any one kind to get a feel for the range, and avoid atypical results repeating by chance. I've tried relatively few 25+ year old teas, maybe ten in total, but it's easy to lose track. I can offer an informed opinion of these but not necessarily an expert opinion.
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Review:
2008 Liu Bao: that's not bad. Liu Bao often includes a characteristic mineral depth, and mix of complex flavors, and this has it. I've seen that phrases as a standard list, including pine, something medicinal, surely some mineral note, and so on. I asked the Google AI bot about that but it didn't find that list, instead saying that Liu Bao might taste medicinal, like ginseng, jujube (Chinese date), pine, betel nut, honey, and so on. Close enough.
There is a pine-like flavor inclusion, plenty of mineral, and what one might interpret as spice range, like ginseng. It tastes "old" too. There's a smell that very old furniture picks up that this includes, which is probably a mix of woody tones, aromatic character from finishes and preservative oils, and then also a mustiness. Maybe some sweetness in this does resemble Chinese date; it's a little early to call. It's pleasant.
1980s Fu brick: this round extracted a lot more from this tea; I didn't adjust timing to account for one being relatively whole leaf and the other ground. I infused both for awhile, on towards 30 seconds, trying to get it started, maybe even moving past early rough edges in one go. This has a bit of mustiness, which may burn off next round. I'm not going to do the rest justice as a flavor list, or rather any flavor list doesn't seem like it would do it justice. Not because it's so exceptional, exotic, or complex, although some of that applies; it's just novel.
Beyond mustiness some dried fruit seems to stand out, and mineral, and aromatic wood or spice tones, like incense. Feel is unusual; it includes dryness, depth / range, and some fullness. Aftertaste is also unique, with that musty range carrying over, along with fruit, spice, and mineral tones.
It's a little early to place these in relation to my own preference, more a natural part of a conclusion phase, but I think that will help explain what I mean by these aspect lists. I've never really loved Liu Bao character, but this is a pretty good example of one, so it works well enough, but not extending into a personal favorite experience sort of range. This Fu brick is a bit odd, interesting, complex, and novel, but the mustiness throws it off, and the rest is about as interesting as it is pleasant. It gains a lot of points for being novel, but it's not necessarily a great experience in relation to a close match to what I tend to like most.
I'll try to be clearer. I've tried at least a couple of old hei cha bricks presented as something random, probably old but not clearly one standard thing, like this one, and the experience seems to go like this. Overall balance can be ok, and flavors and other aspects can be novel, but it doesn't come together as most desirable tea type experiences often do.
Hei cha in general can be a little like that; there is something approachable and appealing to a lot of the range, but somehow the balance of expressed aspects often seems pleasant and interesting but not refined, complex, and well-balanced. Feel is often an unusual kind of fullness, where other tea types might seem rich, or structured, in conventional ways--per the type--that is quite appealing, along with flavors. Aged sheng tends to be more complex and balanced, but then some of that is just plain bad too. Let's keep going.
Liu Bao #2: this is pretty good. This is what I'd expect of an aged Liu Bao experience, complex, hitting these flavor notes, with limited astringency, but decent feel structure. It's hard for me to judge this in relation to pleasantness, or even quality, related to the flavor set. I've tried a couple dozen Liu Bao versions, I'd expect, and have drank through some volume of the type, hundreds of grams worth, but all that is limited exposure in relation to personal favorite categories, sheng pu'er, different oolongs, black teas, to some extent even white and green teas.
The intensity is ok, and feel is fine. Flavors hit that complex set one would expect. To me Liu Bao often tastes a bit like how a cement block smells, which I would naturally associate with mineral range, but at the same time you don't notice mineral as standing out from other components, in relation to other range. It's on the same level as other flavor range, just not dominant.
I might mention that Liu Bao comes in raw and ripe (pre-fermented) forms, mirroring sheng and shou pu'er. Maybe the difference isn't as pronounced as with shou, related to that flavor set being so distinctive. In theory--per some limited common understanding--30 year old sheng and shou pu'er should be similar, but in practice they seem quite distinct, to me. But then pre-fermented Liu Bao just seems less harsh to me, and at 17 years aging it's not as natural for me to be able to spot a clear difference. That may just relate to having tried a lot more shou pu'er. Or maybe relatively new "raw" Liu Bao is fermented a little in processing, just not nearly as much. But then I'm no expert on Liu Bao, and I definitely don't seek it out.
Fu brick: mustiness did ease up, as one would expect. This is better, but some of the flavor aspect balance issues still remain. It's pleasant, but that's an odd set of flavors and feel to experience. It's not completely different than the Liu Bao, but then not much maps over entirely directly either. The warm sweetness is hard to describe; that might include spice tones, and a touch of honey, or a bit of dried fruit. To me it's also like very well-aged wood, just not heavy, not like damp forest floor, or earthy like shou pu'er. It includes a flavor like cedar, which seems to stand out from the rest, as a dominant tone. Feel is still a little dry, or it includes dryness; putting it either way works.
On the one hand this is pleasant and complex, and reasonably balanced. On the other it tastes a little like the smell in a high school wood shop, a mix of brighter and fresher wood fragrances, with one part remnants of sawdust and woods that have been around for decades. I like that kind of scent in old work-space buildings, but it's an odd association to stand out this much in tea.
Liu Bao #3: the prior flavor set is evolving. For someone new to this tea, or just seeing it as a more engaging experience, they might make notes on which note is stronger in each round, the minor shifts. But the prior set still works as a description; the balance just changes. It's pleasant.
Fu brick: the same is true for this version. I suppose a sappy sort of input is shifting, in a way that's positive, related to both flavor and feel. It gains a different kind of intensity, where before there might have been a slight thinness across part of the feel range, and to a lesser extent also the flavor range. Feel becomes more viscous, richer.
It's not so unusual for some interesting and more pleasant aspects to stand out in later rounds in older teas, or for what is extracted in the first few infusions to be less pleasant, parts that drop out, mustiness, dryness, or slightly off flavors. It would be a shame to not brew these Gongfu style, to see how they vary across infusions. At the same time I'm not on the page of writing pages long reviews now, covering even a half dozen rounds, so I was considering throwing in the towel. I'll write about one more.
Liu Bao #4: this is much darker than the other tea now, the brewed liquid, the opposite of early rounds. I'd expect that the other rinsed out relatively quickly, for being so ground up. I don't drink much tea of any kind presented like that, beyond maybe having a tea bag at work. We work from home most of the time so I dropped the habit of bringing decent tea in there.
Again this is pretty good. Again the same flavor list is presented, just in a slightly different form (pine, ginseng, dried fruit, some other medicinal tone, and mineral structure). If I loved Liu Bao this would be more of an exceptional experience. It's just ok, for me. If someone liked Liu Bao experience in the past but found the typical harsh edge a bit off-putting, the astringency and strong mineral tone, then this might seem wonderful, since it has mellowed a lot over the aging. Or if it's pre-fermented then that's not true, since it would've started out kind of mellow, but whatever funkiness was related to fermentation input has faded away over time, if there had been some.
Fu brick: this isn't dying, and transitions are continuing to be positive, so it's good. It's hard to put my finger on what seems like a limitation in this. Flavor complexity, feel, the way it balances? Feel structure does seem to cover a relatively limited range.
This may well be one of those pressed hard as stone giant tablets of tea, which would explain why it's ground up, and also why the character is fine, but seems to cover limited range. Tea can only age to be as good as the initial quality and character allows. Those can be made of decent material, but if it's hard pressed ground tea it's highly unlikely that it was ever exceptional.
Conclusions:
On the next round the Liu Bao was still intense enough, and still transitioning, maybe adding more of what gets described as betel nut flavor, but I'm not so familiar with that. The Fu brick was essentially done; it brewed out fast related to being ground material.
Related to the Fu brick tea, some people might be disappointed that there isn't more going on, a different kind of complexity, and more depth. Others might see this experience as very novel and pleasant. To me it's interesting, and positive, not bad in any way, just a little limited. It only expresses so much.
I suppose that extends to both as final conclusions. For the Liu Bao it is nice experiencing a good version, one with enough age and transformation input, as this represents, but this also highlights why I've always favored other kinds of teas more. Aged sheng pu'er can be a lot more exceptional, there's just a lot of filtering requirement for finding better versions, and expense that goes along with that.
I'll be trying some aged teas two friends passed on; it will be easier to place those in relation to these, and vice-versa. I've not mentioned flaws much in these; I'd expect that along with novel and pleasant additions to these basic characters that some additional flaws will enter in. Some rough edges can wear off over decades related to aged tea character, but negative storage input can come up too.
These were fine; they didn't go dead or pick up any strange flavor notes, and flavor ranges were pleasant. The Fu brick might have faded in intensity and complexity a little, but I'd expect that really related to original material character more.
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