I'm trying a Vietnamese black tea, shared by Huyen and Seth on their last visit, which I've written plenty about. They said a bit about it, which doesn't add up to a Maps link of that village, but the rest is quite interesting, and covers the main parts.
It's from a small village area not known for tea production. I'll copy some of what Seth said about it here:
This tea is a sundried tea from central Vietnam, which was made by a couple who have been making tea for over fifty years. The man who owns the tea farm says that the trees were planted back in the 1960s and that they are using tea making techniques that were introduced to Vietnam by the French, who started massive tea plantations in central Vietnam in the early 20th century, but completely abandoned the plantations a few decades later.
We're not sure if the cultivars being used are from the original French cultivars brought in from Java and Sri Lanka, or if it's a different varietal from somewhere else, but all the trees are seed-grown. The harvesting and all other steps except for rolling are all done by hand.
We actually tracked down this tea area using maps from an old tea book written in 1935. I think it's either Assamica or some kind of hybrid. The gardens are only about 100 meters above sea level.
We covered more, but that's a good start, the basic background. This is a tea version you just couldn't find, unless you happen to live in that village, and then you could. It doesn't work to place it in relation to types or areas other people already know about in Vietnam; it's something different.
Review:
First infusion: that's really nice. I already knew that, because you can tell by the dry tea scent, but it adds more of the experience to brew it. It's clean, rich, and well-balanced, with a decent range of complex and pleasant flavors. Feel is quite thick, especially for this being a first round. The effect is that it's quite refined; this seems to be well-made tea.
An early take on a flavor list would include some toffee or caramel warmth and sweetness, a main part, and other aromatic range that I'm having more trouble breaking down. It could be rich, warm floral range, or maybe that and fruit. This first round isn't brewed all that lightly, as I often do, but it should still gain more intensity and range on the second round.
Second infusion: it's relatively similar. This is interesting, in part because it's good, but also the style is novel. The color is lighter than black (/ red) tea usually is, and the flavor range includes less of the sharper oxidation output effect, even as mild black tea versions go. The flavor range is warm but not on to the malty / cacao / heavier and warmer flavor range. So it seems to be lightly oxidized black tea, that works out well for final character. That's novel.
This brings up the theme of Shai Hong, Yunnan style black tea, that's often oxidized less than is typical, often said to enable further aging transition, picking up more depth over a few years. I'm not sure if this is even Assamica, the main plant type used to make that. These are fairly sizeable leaves but harvest timing and plucking standard also affect that. Then in trying a Yunnan-style Thai version not long ago, with Huyen, she made a comment about how that general type, and that version in particular, tend to taste sour to her. I wasn't placing it that way, for that tea or that type, but I could see what she meant, and later it stands out more when you expect to frame it that way. It's not sour like oolong that has went off due to humid storage, or goishicha, Japanese fermented tea, but still maybe a little. This doesn't seem like that.
It's hard to do more of a flavor list; the intensity of the flavors is subtle, even though the overall effect is that it is complex, with good depth. It's not complex in terms of expressing a range of identifiable flavors, but rich feel and sweetness add in to make up that impression. Of course I'll brew it a little longer to draw out more flavor intensity, but I don't think that's going to change much. This seems to just be the character for this tea, that it has a good bit to offer, but it doesn't span the normal black tea range in a typical way.
Third infusion: it's the same. This brewed for well over 30 seconds, for a timing I didn't track, so it's intense, but not in terms of flavor list. Again that character is interesting, well off a typical black tea form, but pleasant. In a limited sense I do miss that sharper edge but this is nice. In one sense it's better for being novel, since it all kind of works together.
Fourth infusion: it's strange I'm not doing flavor lists for this. Beyond the toffee / caramel, and light but rich floral range, there is bit of a spice note. It's warm and rich, and subtle, like chrysanthemum, or mild root spice, like sassafras. All that is why it doesn't come across as thin or flavorless, even though a list of aspects doesn't jump out. It has depth.
I'm using a pretty high proportion, but it's probably backed off a bit from what I more typically use, maybe only 6 grams instead of 8, in a 100 ml gaiwan. The leaves are long and twisted; it's easy to lose track. They're still connected to some stem material; that would drop intensity, since stem can still contribute positive flavor but not very much.
Conclusions:
Seth mentioned they had tried different versions, and that a summer produced version might have been best (this is from the Autumn), and that it might have gained depth and intensity over time. That's back to that Shai Hong aging theme I'd mentioned. It's odd thinking that this might be better in another year, but it could work out like that.
He also mentioned interpreting some of the main flavor as grain-like, even including a little bitterness. I didn't get the bitterness part (maybe since it's not on that scale for sheng drinker), but that interpretation of main flavor makes sense. I was guessing mild tisane range like chrysanthemum might be a match, or mild root spice could be, but different grain range has a similar flavor, buckwheat or barley tea. Even raising this as a discussion point helps explain why I struggled to explain how it didn't express pronounced flavors that I might have expected, but it seemed to have depth, and to not really lack flavor. The range is unusual, especially in relation to most conventional black tea, even mild and diverse Chinese forms of it.
So it was interesting and pleasant. People tend to accept what they already like most best, although they can still value other experiences, so I suppose in terms of match to preference I still do like the Dian Hong / Yunnan flavor set better, cacao and roasted yam or sweet potato, and so on.
It's interesting the producer would say that summer versions are better than spring teas. The seasons don't really match up as well as people in temperate climates might expect, but some of that framing is still meaningful in the tropics.
I was minding the gardening at our house for some months when my mother-in-law was in the states with the kids, and pondered this theme a lot. Different fruits base season timing on their own cycles, and plants grow or flower whenever they happen to. There is winter here, of sorts, just a warmer version than parts of the Northern US summer. Then a really hot period, then it's rainy, inverting the typical US winter / spring / summer / fall cycle. I still think of March and April as spring, but it's sort of not, here, as seasons go. None of that connects back to this being an autumn tea; it's just a tangent.
Thanks to Seth and Huyen for providing this interesting tea experience.
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