I'm reviewing two more sheng pu'er samples from Farmerleaf, versions William had on hand and shared when I met him in Bangkok recently. One is their Miyun version, and the other Cang Yuan. The first rings a bell, and I've added what I remember of it in notes, so for now I'll just list Farmerleaf's site descriptions (partial citations; there are more details on those pages):
Spring 2024 Jingmai Miyun ($60 per 357 gram cake)
The 2024 version of the Miyun is slightly improved. Due to the low demand in fresh leaves this year, we managed to get some of the best 'shengtai' tea in this blend. We've mixed the production of our Liu Dui garden with tea made by our cousin, growing close to Da Ping Zhang plateau. We'll see how this supposedly superior material will develop as the tea ages.
At the time of release, right out of the pressing factory, the tea tastes lively and vibrant, with a light bitterness, moderate thickness, good sweetness and some Huigan. This is a good tea for beginners and as a daily drinker.
Spring 2024 Cang Yuan ($86 per 357 gram cake)
Spring 2024
Old tea garden material, Pa Pai village, Cangyuan county, Lincang
Complex fragrance, medium body, good punch without much bitterness
This is a well-balanced tea with plenty to deliver. Somewhat similar in profile to Baka and Hua Zhu Liang Zi, it is a highly fragrant one.
We haven't visited the area, it is located is a remote county at the border with Myanmar, in the far west of Lincang county.
I might add that samples that have been travelling a bit could lose a little intensity, for going through changes in environment, or being opened and closed. Both of these could be marginally more intense as carefully stored, full cake versions. Depending on exposure some aromatic range could even evaporate off, but I'd imagine at most they could have just lost a little intensity.
Review:
Miyun: it's pleasant. Flavor complexity stands out already, even brewed lightly, a bit of pine or related vegetal edge, and what comes across as floral range. Feel has some thickness to it. Intensity will pick up a little on a second infusion, and it will be easier to add more details.
Cang Yuan: there's an interesting flavor range in this version. The other had a nice brightness, and this is warmer toned, towards warm mineral, or maybe cedar / redwood / other spice. It seems negative, describing a tea as woody, but a supporting note matching cedar isn't so far off incense spice, and it can play a similar role in positive flavor balance. The rest is nice, the sweetness, other flavor complexity, decent feel, good overall balance.
It's too early to try to place these in relation to a higher or medium quality level, but that is something that will come up, related to talking to William about such things, and considering it for the last tea version I reviewed. It's not so much distinct aspects or markers that stand out, but that refinement can be better, intensity, clarity, aspects being distinct and clean, balance, feel playing an extra positive role, and so on. I don't over-think such things; I'm drinking whatever tea I happen to have, and exploring to the highest possible quality level was never a main part of my own exploration project.
There is an old understanding that people tend to appreciate tea for flavor first, then learn to appreciate body / mouthfeel, then later can identify and value body feel (cha qi). Of course for the third category I couldn't separate the input of both tasted together, but it seems to me that people often really like a drug-like effect that stands out most when they drink sheng on an empty stomach, a rush of change in internal state that you can't easily notice in the same way if you have eaten. I'm not really endorsing this breakdown of forms of appreciation here, just mentioning it. I like how teas come together, and different sets of attributes make different teas appealing.
I think the other, the Miyun version, is supposed to be their more budget-oriented version, so more moderate in quality level. It would be normal to achieve good results using less exceptional material through blending, to balance what a few inputs can offer, but I don't know if that's part of it. Of course that could come at the cost of diluting down some of the more positive range of one exceptional version, some really interesting flavor input, or a special kind of feel structure, and so on.
Miyun #2: the brightness is nice in this; there is a fresh, bright note that combines some floral and near-citrus input. Sweetness level balances that nicely. Bitterness is moderate for a young sheng, in the normal range, which is pleasant to me. Astringency is normal; feel has some structure, and there's some edge to it. To me it tastes like an above average quality version of a relatively normal style of sheng. I guess Jing Mai origin range tends to be like this? Pine sometimes stands out more; you can notice that, but it's probably as much from expecting it and looking for it, and you might not place it without that.
So it's good. But it feels like I'm leaving out how it could be better, what it would be like. Across all of that range, which is all positive, it could be dialed up just a little. Feel is nice, and aftertaste adds to the experience, but it could be richer, with that more pronounced. It could have more distinct, cleaner flavors. I think that one bright flavor tone range is a main strength; to me that really works. A bit of vegetal edge is fine, but then I love teas with much stronger versions of that, that tend to have a different overall balance, with more intensity, sweetness, and different novel flavor inputs.
Cang Yuan: that one flavor range is nice. The warm tone matches well with a richer feel, which carries over into a slightly stronger aftertaste experience. It includes some bitterness but lacks the slight rough edge of the other. Intensity is moderate, as young sheng goes; I wonder how William would take that? This is still more intense, complex, and dynamic than any oolong, green tea, or black tea; it's all relative. It's good. A hint of dryness matches well with the warm tones, rich feel, and aftertaste expression. I suppose it plays a similar role in the experience as a vegetal edge and slight roughness in the Miyun version.
At this stage, judging between the two, I like the way the Miyun aspects fall together. The brightness and sweetness is offset well by some pine and astringency. It might be more challenging for someone who doesn't drink sheng, because of those, but then it's hard to say what people not started on acclimating to bitterness would make of any sheng. I'm not saying much about bitterness in these because it's moderate, to me, but it is present. To me it balances well in both, not really standing out.
Miyun #3: there was a sort of synergy to how the citrus-like edge and what I interpret as floral range came together, along with sweetness, and that has developed further. It almost tastes like a lemon drop candy. That hits your palate first, as you taste the tea, then feel structure next, then the flavor paired with that, a touch of vegetal edge, then aftertaste after that. It's a nice complex tasting experience. To me--and this part is completely subjective--this is the kind of tea you could drink two or three days a week for an extended time, and it wouldn't get old. It covers basic range in a novel way.
The Vietnamese tea I've been using for that purpose, one a Son La version from Viet Sun, that I'm on my second cake of, is more intense, but also edgier, even harsher. I'm fine with that; I don't think it would necessarily be better with a couple more years to mellow out, losing some brightness and intensity in exchange for the sharp edge softening.
Cang Yuan: it's interesting how different this is. Flavor profile is quite different, warmer, almost into spice range, but it's hard to place within that. I could relate to someone interpreting dried Chinese date as a flavor inclusion. Feel is full instead of being expressed as an edge. It's not necessarily rich, not quite to that sappy sort of character, but there's some thickness to it. It's mild, as a sheng this age goes, but there is a good bit going on, across a few dimensions. This seems like it could be an autumn harvest tea, that limited intensity and slightly reduced range.
Miyun #4: the aspects integrate better and better, and that lemon sort of edge becomes more pronounced across rounds. I really like this. The light vegetal edge and astringency are in a perfect very-moderate range to complement the rest instead of detracting from it.
I did break form and look at these vendor listings between rounds (always added during editing), and this is what I'd described, their moderate cost version, using blending to optimize results, selling for $60 a cake. To me it's a great value at this pricing. William mentions in the description that it's a good year for this particular cake, that the material is better than normal. I could see how with just a little less of that positive flavor, a little less sweetness, and a touch more astringency and vegetal edge this would be pretty ordinary tea. As it stands in this it's quite pleasant.
It makes me think about that "daily drinker" theme, what is implied. It seems to sweep in that you would drink better tea some of the time, and then an inferior, budget oriented version a lot of the time, the kind of thing you'd have with a rushed breakfast. That mixes two sets of ideas that don't necessarily go together: quality level (also relating to value), and general character, what kinds of aspects would work best for tea with a breakfast versus what you'd enjoy in an hour long session focused on the tea itself. Who knows about the second; people would find different experiences most interesting.
Good black tea is great for a really rushed breakfast, but I can brew 10 cups of sheng pretty fast for a standard experience. One trick is to use two cups, pouring from one to the other to pull out a bit of extra heat. Not pouring back and forth; once would do, or if you really like the tea cooler you can drink a little cold water from one first and it will draw out more heat.
Cang Yuan: it's not really evolving much; it is what it is. Would this have greater "depth," giving it an extra dimension of experience the other lacks, one relative superior range? Not really. That can be meaningful to me, it can work out like that, but in this case it's more just mild, and expresses a novel flavor range, warm in tone, covering a good bit of spice, potentially partly interpreted as whatever else.
For someone who dislikes the edginess in a lot of sheng this may be perfect. That would seem odd, seeing young sheng experience as harsh instead of positive, at least in relation to better quality tea range, as these are. Of course anyone drinking almost any "factory tea" is going to be put off by astringency and high bitterness, maybe appreciating drinking those on the still challenging side 10 years later, or after 25 years of age transitioning.
Conclusions:
Pretty good, especially for these being on the lower side of their pricing range. The style of the Miyun suits what I like in young sheng, the brightness, freshness, floral and touch of fruit, and sweetness, which is fine with a bit of vegetal edge. Feel could be richer, and aftertaste more extended, with hui gan carry-over kind of limited, but to me it all works. I talked through ordering this or not in my mind, since it's not so much, and this plus some good Dian Hong (black tea) for under $100 is a great value for basic range tea to drink for awhile. I only drink basic range teas, for the most part, it just varies in character because some is from Thailand and Vietnam, lately. And I tried a lot of samples last year; that's nice for mixing things up.
The other, the Cang Yuan, seems well-suited for someone initially adjusting to sheng, not quite ok with bitterness and astringency yet. It's a little odd considering which sheng would be good for people who don't like sheng, but I guess preferences would always map out over a range.
I wouldn't expect aging concerns to be much of an issue for these teas. They would mellow a little more over a few more years, but they're drinkable now. Maybe someone else would be looking for a relative optimum that I'm not familiar with, something really approachable. The slight extra edge to the Miyun might transition better over limited aging, but I can't imagine that there would be any reason to hold onto it for a decade or longer, or even to see what it's like after a half dozen years. To me it's just not that kind of tea.
Then again I've bought an extra cake of something similar before, just to see how it turns out; I should go back and figure out what that was, and how it's doing. It was from Tea Mania, that I bought about a half dozen years ago. They had this annoying habit of labeling white paper cakes with Chinese letter stamps, so it would be a bit of a project sorting out what it is, even after finding it. Any sensible person would've just written on the label before stashing it, but I have a few cakes like that, not so easy to identify now. For the ones in only blank white wrappers I never will know what they were. At least the experience of drinking them is the same, with or without that background.
I never did guess at why the second version of this lacks intensity to this degree. I don't think it related to the sample experiencing air exposure; that could change things a little, but not this much, to shift the character to a relative opposite. Versions from Lincang are known as being more intense and bitter, if I'm remembering that generality right. But then different factors come into play. Plant types can vary, and not all local areas within a broad area will be the same. Micro-climate and terroir issues come up related to local environments. Harvest season changes things, but these are both spring teas.
Often more wild-origin teas (which this isn't described as, just natural growth, less managed plantation sourced) are more flavorful and distinctive, and also more mild. I'm not sure if that relates to plant types varying, or the growing environment changing outcome. So in the end I really don't know.
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