2004 Thai Hong Tai Chang shou, 1991 Liu Bao, 2010's Vietnamese shou

HTC left, Vietnamese version right, in all photos

I'm reviewing three teas passed on by friends in this, two shou and one Liu Bao.  It's not technically shou pu'er, since one is from Vietnam and the other Thailand, but to me it's identical to what is produced in Yunnan, related to that regionally-limited designation.  Others could see that differently.

In part this relates to reviewing a baseline for reviewing ITea World aged teas.  I won't directly compare these to other versions here, in part because that runs long, without informing much, tied to speculative judgment across weeks of time.

I've reviewed this Hong Tai Chang tea twice before, which is a little unconventional.  I tried it here, in 2024, back when I received these samples, which links to trying a relatively identical version in 2015.  10 years changes things, regardless of storage conditions inputs.  Here I'm using it as a baseline, a standard form for comparison for the other two teas.  It was supposed to serve as a way of discerning Liu Bao character / aspect difference, and to directly compare to the Vietnamese version.  That hit a snag, related to the latter, which I'll get into.

Review:

Hong Tai Chang:  it's good.  Rich, earthy, almost oily deep tones define the experience, along with plenty of dark mineral base.  It matches the color, the darkest of the three.  What about other typical shou aspect inclusions:  cacao, dried fruit, betel nut, medicinal range?  Maybe what people describe as betel nut is coming across, but I could be clearer on what that even is.  It could be interpreted as relating to root spice.  This is only the first infusion after a fast rinse; that's good complexity for this stage.

A thick, oily, resinous feel is pleasant.  It adds depth to the experience.  The flavor set is less novel and striking, but it is pleasant, and clean enough.  There's no barnyard range, mustiness, and the like.

Liu Bao:  it's interesting that what I guessed might be betel nut flavor is so much stronger in this; it's more of a main flavor aspect, maybe the main one.  It's hard to relate that to something more common, to explain it better.  It is kind of in between an aromatic wood tone and aged furniture effect, which I think divides into one set of flavors tied to age input and another to aromatic oils range, representing the wood treatment, which combine.  This is really smooth, and quite clean.  A bit of marshmallow flavor fills in some depth, of course along with warm mineral tone.  It's brighter than one might expect, and cleaner.

Vietnamese shou:  there's something odd going on with this.  It tastes too much like one particular range of aged furniture input, as if long contact with a foreign flavor input added too much of an aromatic oil or polishing agent edge.  It tastes perfume-like, in an unnatural way.  That's just a hint coming from it though, not a strongest flavor, but it really stands out for seeming foreign to the natural flavor range.  It tastes like this was stored next to incense sticks.  That may "burn off" over one more round, if it really is from an external contact.  If that's somehow completely natural I don't understand it.  The rest is fine, clean, with decent complexity, balance, and depth.

For using more moderate proportions than I typically do, maybe 5 grams each, I'll need to keep infusion time long to keep intensity up, on towards 30 seconds, versus a more typical 10 to 15.  Of course I intend to drink these on the strong side; they're shou and well-aged Liu Bao.

HTC #2:  feel is nice in this; it almost stands out most.  The rest of the flavor set is complex and pleasant:  what could be betel nut, root spice, and warm mineral.  It would be possible to interpret this as tasting like cacao and some kind of dried fruit, or even bark spice, since good complexity does require some imagination to unpack.  At the same time it comes across as unified and relatively simple, a bit of a contradiction.  All those flavors are expressed within a narrower range than it sounds like they might be.  A hint of marshmallow effect is nice; that's extra range.

This is clearly pretty good shou, as expected (it hasn't been that long since I tried this version).  It also highlights why I'm not all that impressed by pretty good shou.  It comes across as complex but also simple, refined but still basic.  Why seek out better and more expensive shou range just to experience marginal extra flavor, or depth?  Then again people valuing aspects or experience that I don't is normal, and reasonable.  I don't drink a fresh, intense, clean, and vegetal green tea and ask why people like that; they just do.

Liu Bao:  it's funny how much this overlaps with the first shou, but is also different.  It's slightly lighter in tone, and matches the betel nut / spice range, with even more marshmallow.  It's odd how clean this is; usually some residual mustiness comes across in most older teas, but not so much in this.  It's also definitely not faded by a high degree of air contact, although it might have experienced plenty.  Intensity is pretty good.  I suppose it comes across as just slightly more novel than the first shou version, but then the other one (HTC) expresses more warmth and intensity, darker toned and fuller in feel.  Both are good.

Vietnamese shou:  this is cleaning up, but some degree of what seems to be an external incense / perfume / even soapiness remains.  It must have experienced some external contact with something with flavor; there's no way this is completely natural (per my judgment; maybe it really is).  With that fading this much it might work to break down what the other range is without it being present as a main aspect.  

The other aspects beyond that seem fine:  warm mineral, dark wood or even spice depth, perhaps some dried fruit, or one other novel theme.  But the range that I take to be a foreign input stands out the most still, partly for being novel in an unconventional way, along with it being as intense as any other input.

A friend passed on a white tea that seemed to have an even stronger degree of foreign flavor input, which he thought might have come from a processing flaw, instead of being stored in a laundry room, next to soap and drier sheets, as it tasted like it might've been.  This isn't that intense.  It's not ruined, still drinkable, but it seems off to me.

HTC #3:  this isn't changing too much.  It is evolving in a positive way, based on trivial changes.  The same basic aspect list applies.

Liu Bao:  the same is true for this.  Root spice is picking up.  By that I typically mean along the line of ginseng, or even sassafras.  I could also mean that it tastes like other Chinese medicinal herbs that I can't fully place, like a Chinatown spice shop.  This also tastes like marshmallow, so that root range stands out most, but there is more to it, more vague, warm, complex underlying spice tone.  At the same time it comes across as quite clean.  It's definitely one of the better Liu Bao versions I've ever tried, giving up some intensity related to a long transition to this complex, mild form, but it's a decent trade-off.  

Comparing this directly to a much younger Liu Bao might not make much sense; something half this old, or a bit younger, may include more intensity, and a slightly different flavor profile, but it would also just be a different kind of experience.  34 year old tea is aging into a different kind of range.

Vietnamese shou:  apparently that perfume-range input will keep declining, but it won't go away.  It's a little disappointing; it would've been nice to get a clearer read on the rest without it, and to have that experience.  It comes across a little like a flavored tea.  Judged as such, in relation to that being a value-neutral inclusion, it's pretty good.  It just tastes like it was stored near incense sticks, and those match well enough with shou experience.  

What are the chances that this could be a completely natural, but novel, extra flavor inclusion?  I'd guess unlikely.  The range of how extra unique flavors enter in and combine becomes familiar over time, and I don't think this is that.

This next round will do it for the note-taking phase; this is so much tea to power through.  Any sensible person would just throw out the tea, after tasting enough to make the notes, but to me that's too disrespectful towards it.

HTC #4:  not changing much; it's still pretty good.

Liu Bao:  the same.  I brewed this round a little lighter so it may not work quite as well for me, but the teas don't seem different.  I never did address this being lighter in color than the first shou.  Could it be less than fully fermented?  I don't think so, at this age, 34 years old.  But the output could be different based on that resulting from different inputs.  Flavor range is slightly lighter too; hopefully that was already apparent in the tasting notes.

Vietnamese shou:  that flavoring input is easing up more than the rest is transitioning; this is the best this has been.  People would probably be divided on whether that one aspect range is a negative input, or relatively neutral, or I suppose if they read it as being natural it's possible that someone would even like it.  

The tea is fine, at this stage.  It tastes like ordinary shou, aged enough that the fermentation related funky input is gone (wo dui?).  It's just not overly complex or novel.  In retrospect, during editing, I really didn't get into aging differences, or differences in intensity or heaviness of flavor tones, in relation to the Thai shou version.  This review process was really thrown off by that one aspect input.

Conclusions:

This isn't really the kind of storage issue I was trying to unpack related to further comparison with ITea World sample set versions, but this does come up, the theme of external contamination.  

In a milder form it's quite common.  If I buy cakes from my favorite Bangkok Chinatown shop they're usually initially quite musty, from being stored in enclosed, hot, and humid conditions.  That will fade quite a bit over the first few months, as they pick up additional air exposure, since I don't keep them in a sealed room with a literal ton of other tea.  Some of that relates to being in contact with a lot of other tea, and also with packaging materials, with the paper in the cakes, and whatever cardboard might be around, all of which is fermenting in storage.  

We have a room full of old books in our house--of essentially no value; it's a long story--and within a few decades the paper browns, as it oxidizes, and as fungus--or mold, essentially--grows on the paper.  The libraries at the University of Hawaii, where I attended grad school, were undergoing something similar.  In one they maintained high airflow to offset that (lots of fans, in the Sinclair library), and in the other aggressive central air conditioning lowered humidity and temperature.  It's normal in the tropics.  Then it's odd how infrequently that relates to tea cakes growing actual mold, which makes for a longer story.

Storing tea next to something that changes its flavor isn't completely normal, but it would come up.  Vendors and producers try to avoid that, but we hear of lots of cases of extra bits of tea being found in unusual places, in attics and such.  That's why I keep expecting more mustiness to be an issue in these aged teas, since that's all the more common, and why I'm surprised that it's often not coming up at all.

2004 HTC shou pu'er and 2011 Xishuangbanna

 

A friend and I just did a tea swap, and I sent some of whatever was around in exchange for aged shou and hei cha.  So nice!  He is Bruce, living in Chiang Mai; maybe you know him.

One is a 2004 Hong Tai Chang shou, which is probably tea from a Chinese producer made in Thailand, since I've tried a good bit of that.  I own a 2006 sheng cake, or what is left of one.  Tea Side sells those here, an online vendor (where I bought that).  Looking back I tried that as a sample in 2015, and a 2006 shou version also from 2006, and bought that sheng then.  Nine years ago I was not a very good judge of pu'er, and my reviewing and blog writing was a bit rough.  Maybe it still is, but at least in a different sense. 

The other is a 2011 Xishuangbanna version, from Yunnan (so "true pu'er").  Bruce wrote on the label that the 2011 represents a version and style he doesn't like as much, sent for comparison, so we'll see.

Review:

2004 HTC:  it's smooth, rich, and mellow, with decent complexity and depth.  My problem with shou has always been that it all covers too narrow a range; this and the best and worst shou versions I've ever tried are all not so different.  Ok, maybe bad shou really is something else, but it's still a lot closer than for other types, nothing like bad sheng or bad Wuyi Yancha oolong.

There's a hint of fruitiness in this, like a dried berry or cherry.  I'd bet that and going on more about mineral will be the story of this shou.  If you use your imagination it could seem a little like spice, I guess, and that familiar dark earthiness does vary slightly.  This is clean in flavor effect; there's that.  Feel is rich and velvety.  It's good.

2011 Xishuangbanna:  there is something a little off about this.  It has that barnyard sort of flavor, like a scent literally from a horse's stable.  At a minimum it takes me back to experiences with country life from my youth; we had a horse at one point, and lots of other animals were around.  I would go help an uncle bale hay in the fall; there is nothing like that experience, for work seeming like a workout.  A tractor and machine does the baling; the workers' part is throwing it into a wagon, then taking it out and stacking it in a barn.  Those must weigh something like 50 pounds?

This will clean up a little over the next two rounds, I think, and it's not as bad as I'm implying.  It's not good either, not like that really dicey Honolulu Chinatown shou I bought a couple years ago, to fill a gap for not bringing enough tea.  In bad shou you end up talking about fishy range, or petroleum-like character, not just a bit of barn smell.

HTC, #2:  it picks up complexity; that's nice.  This expresses a cool marshmallow flavor aspect that I've ran across before, really a nice flavor in shou, for how it integrates with other earthy range.  Sweetness is good in this, and rich feel, and also complexity, depth, and refinement.  This is roughly as good as shou gets, per my experience.  Then again it's not that far off above average shou either, so if a vendor was charging 60 to 80 cents a gram for this, as they would, there's absolutely no way I would buy it.  But then preferences and judgment does vary.

The rest of the description still applies, pleasant earthy range, of course mineral, and probably some spice, maybe some strange dried Chinese medicinal herb I'm not familiar with.  It's good.

2011 X:  rough!  On the one hand this is pretty good, related to the positive range, and on the other it tastes like the smell of dried horseshit.  I get it why Bruce sent it as an example of what might not be ideal, or even further toward the opposite side than that.  It's interesting.  After the initial taste the shock of that one aspect being so oddly placed in that range settles out, and it's really not so bad.  The rest seems to pick up intensity as you keep drinking it, conventional warm mineral and earthy tones.

I haven't mentioned a brewed liquid color difference; the first is inky, and this is lighter, more reddish brown.  These are both pretty far along for aging; 13 to 20 years shouldn't make that much difference for shou, unless one was not very completely fermented to begin with, then I guess maybe.  I actually like this, once I drink a little more.  I don't think I'd be reaching for it often if I owned a cake of it though.

I drink shou when I fast; I've mentioned that here before.  I've fasted for about 60 days in the past two years, I think it is.  It's a long story as to why; to gain supposed health benefits, to offset disease risk, to increase mental clarity, to adjust for insulin resistance, to clear whatever is stored in my tissues that shouldn't be there, maybe even to offset aging effect.  I think it helps.  Shou is the easiest on your stomach, as teas go, and I pretty much only drink that and some aged white mixed in.

HTC, #3:   these will keep brewing, up to at least 10 rounds, even though I'm pushing them (brewing them strong).  But I'll stop taking notes here.  They won't transition that much more, and I have things to do.  

Actually this is pretty much the same as last round.  Which is good; it was really nice.  I love that marshmallow flavor inclusion, and the rest balances well, the depth, intensity, feel, etc.

X:  that more objectionable barn flavor did mostly fade already.  This isn't bad at all.  Maybe not great either, but it's pretty good shou.  If I used my imagination I could come up with a list of ten different flavors in this, but it's also just kind of earthy.

Later:  trying both again later a dark bread like flavor range stands out in the HTC version, like very dark rye.  It's nice; it complements the other earthiness and fullness well.  

The Xishuangbanna version has lost essentially all of that barnyard note, and a mineral aspect like slate stands out.  It reminds me a little of Liu Bao character, how that can be similar in those.  It's so heavy on mineral in a dark range that it's almost like smoke, but it's not that.

Conclusions:

These will keep shifting, a little; another few rounds would turn up another aspect or two.  I just won't write about that.

I ended up liking the second more than I expected; it cleaned up nicely.  The HTC version was better.  I didn't go on much about age issues in this writing.  Shou mellows and deepens in character some over a longish time, but I'm not sure the Xishuangbanna version will be all that different in 7 more years, matching the current age of the other.

I looked to see if Tea Side lists this, and they don't.  A loose 2006 HTC shou version sells for $18.50 for 50 grams there; not as bad as I thought.  Teas like these can vary quite a bit though, since beyond variations in original character storage conditions can change a lot.  That may or may not be a lot like this tea.

Potential separated at birth versions review; 2006 Thai HTC sheng

0802 HTC version I bought left, tea Olivier sent right

Olivier's sample; a cool looking chunk

I'd mentioned that an online contact, Olivier Schneider of puerh.fr, had sent some versions of sheng to try (and a little shou and Dian Hong), and that a 2006 Thai material originated HTC sheng was one of them.  I own what's left of a cake of 2006 Thai HTC sheng I bought from Tea Side awhile back, a tea I first reviewed as a sample in 2015.  Of course I'm assuming here that it's ok to call a Thai version of sheng pu'er sheng, even though officially pu'er is a regional designation; that could as easily be read as "sheng pu'er-like tea."

I first reviewed that cake I bought in 2016, and compared it to another sheng version last year, and the tea seemed to have been improving.  That really could have been that I was developing a preference towards it, in addition to actual changes.

the labeling for that Tea Side 0802 2006 HTC cake

It turns out these cakes were probably not identical, but since I don't know they weren't I'll leave that working title, qualified by "potential," suggesting investigation as opposed to a claim.  I asked Olivier about the HTC name and origins of that tea, and he said this:


HTC basically dont exist anymore, so recent production came from several factories who use this name (more or less legally according to the case)...  Most of them have absolutely no connexion with original HTC, some get some knowledge from old master, workers, etc...

It's mostly impossible when you find a HTC cake on the market to know where it came from, except if you really found it in the factory. More or less like "CNNP" cake in China.




Interesting!  I've been drifting away from researching what's what in this blog and just focusing on tea reviews, which I'll mostly stick to here, but something interesting does turn up.




This sample's description cites some background, including mentioning "dry storage," which should be interesting to consider.

Review

Even in the first initial infusion "my" version (the Tea Side 0802 tea) is sweeter, a bit more aromatic, more like the complex scents in incense, frankincense or something such.  Of course I never will get such descriptions right; I'm not familiar with aromatic woods and spices and it's been a long time since my hippie days.

Olivier's sample is a touch smokier, deeper and richer, "darker" in flavor, even though the tea itself is slightly lighter in color.  I'll break both more into aspects on the second round, which will be a fairer comparison of where the aspects are going through later transitions.

good color, not so different

The Tea Side version opened up a lot in that first round.  It tastes a lot like prune now, moving into that particular dried fruit range.  I could swear it didn't taste nearly this much like dried fruit or prune the last time I tried it, but then I've not been drinking it very frequently, checking it a couple times a year.  Beyond that there is an aromatic dark wood range, that spice I'd noticed in the first infusion.  It's nice enough, different.

The smokiness picked up a good bit in the other version, the one from Olivier.  Some of the underlying dark wood or aromatic spice aspect range does seem common but there isn't nearly as much dried fruit range.  It might come across a bit more like date, where that other was close to matching prune.  This has a slightly different body feel too, a bit dryer, with just a bit more structure.  The other tea wasn't thin but the effect was different, and not pronounced.  It really does remain in your mouth after the infusion, but in a different sense than in younger teas, not as intense and location specific, but significant in a different way.

Both of these teas are complex enough that lots of labels could pin down supporting aspect range, probably related to flavors and also feel and aftertaste.  Sweetness, earthiness, and complexity are expressed in a lot of depth of flavor in both.

I went a little longer on the next infusion, not so much doing that varying times to experiment as I tend to but instead because there's lots going on here that's distracting.  Doing reviews with kids in the house is problematic, but it's the life I'm living.  These teas only infused for between 15 and 20 seconds, versus around 10, but the effect is going to be completely different.

Tea Side version left, Olivier's right (the "long" infusion)

The Tea Side / Bangkok stored tea is much different slightly stronger and more opened up.  That dried fruit flavor shifted, no longer straight prune but more complex, more mixed.  Part a bit more like date develops, and the aromatic spice / hardwood notes increase to match the fruit level in effect.  The depth of the flavor is amazing; it just extends down to lots of "lower" level.  Mineral grounding picks up, a bit along the line of wet sandstone.  All those parts are quite clean though, and they integrate well together.

Tea Side version left, a bit darker; could be the storage difference

The smoke is diffusing in the other version, giving way to other range.  I'm guessing these aren't the same tea; they're just too different.  Some of the aromatic hardwood effect is common but the overlap between the two is limited.  The feel is different too, even though the Bangkok version did pick up structure for being brewed a bit stronger and opening up a bit more.  There is a bit more of a autumn forest floor effect in this version.

For both one might interpret a mild supporting aspect range as tobacco but it's nothing like an aged sheng that actually tastes like tobacco, when that's mostly what the tea tastes like.  It's problematic to put a label on these different earthy ranges, and describing that as "some sort of darker wood, or maybe spice" doesn't work well, especially since that would be two different sets for both.  This second tea does taste just a little more like tobacco though; that's how the greater autumn floor range comes across compared to the other dried fruit and mineral.

The Tea Side version falls into a nice balance on the next infusion, not different than before, but somehow evened out across aspects range.  The sweetness and fruit is balanced by aromatic dark wood and underlying mineral, all clean and positive.  Olivier's sample version is improved too, not different, but balancing well at this level.  The touch of smoke is still present but warm autumn floor range aspect, with a touch of tobacco, round out a nice effect, with a nicely structured feel even brewed a bit light.

More of the same on the next infusion; I'll leave off note-taking for now, and see what chasing around these kids require.

at the zoo with the trouble-makers the next day

Conclusions

Both teas were really nice.  They just don't seem all that similar; it seems unlikely they were closely related versions to begin with.  Storage differences could cause variation but it wouldn't seem like this much, to cause them to seem like completely different teas across most aspect range.

About the smoke aspect, Olivier said that teas can develop that as a natural result of an aging change, and that it's possible to notice a difference from an input due to smoke flavoring the tea during processing.  If you'd owned the tea and noticed it not there, and then later it was, unless there was some chance of real smoke contacting the tea that would have to be what occurred.  I guess I'd tried enough young sheng that seemed smoky that I assumed it was usually either from smoke contact during processing or a natural and original aspect in the tea, not an aging related input.

Both versions were nice.  I liked the one I'd owned better due to liking that dried fruit effect more than the earthiness, smoke, and additional tobacco / dark wood range.  I didn't notice that much difference I could clearly attribute to a storage condition difference, to Olivier's being stored in a relatively drier place (per the description, at least), but given the range of differences that may just relate to not being familiar enough with transitions to guess better about that.  The color was different, with that tea much lighter, and it could be that the transition to those sweeter flavors was the result of a faster, therefore more advanced aging process.

I talked to the owner of Tea Side, and he recommended looking at the description for another 2006 HTC cake he sells that does include smoke as an aspect, their 0803 numbered product.  It's conceivable that's exactly what I'm trying.


Or not; it would seem a stretch to try to guess at the probability of that.  It is interesting to consider his description of that tea:


Dry tea smells with bark, dried fruits, spices. In the taste there are various dried fruits: raisins, dried apricots, plums. Light smoky flavor reminds of some Chinese raw puers and makes dried fruits taste more like prunes. There are some savoury wood tones and spices.



Pretty close; maybe.  That page passes on more of the story about the HTC producer but it sounds like there is still more to be told about it:


Old raw (sheng) pu-erh tea from the Thai factory that produces pu-erhs under the name Hong Tai Chang.  The tea is made by a Chinese master, a native of Yunnan. He has been making Pu-erhs for more than 40 years. Then he’s been retired and passed on all his knowledge and experience in producing and storing pu-erhs to his disciple, whom we’re working now with.

Shopping for fake pu'er in Chinatown

lots of gates and temples around

On that visit to the Bangkok Chinatown posted about earlier I bought a tea sold as a 2006 sheng pu'er, also from the Sen Xing Fa shop.   I didn't know much more about it.  Some of the English wording mentioned Lao Ban Zhang, which only meant to me that if it was being sold as LBZ it wasn't "real."  They sold mostly factory teas, typical Menghai produced versions, so I'm assuming most of what they were selling was "real."  But I wouldn't be the right person to judge that either.  Of course I wasn't really shopping for fake pu'er, I just happened to buy some, along with that Ya Bao (tea buds), compressed white tea, and some Thai oolong to give away.


That idea comes up a lot, about counterfeit teas.  In some cases fakes are obvious, with pricing in the completely wrong range, or vendors selling in-demand tea types that are really completely unavailable through ordinary channels.  Per the normal hearsay in places like Taobao and Aliexpress essentially everything sold as any specific above-average level tea is fake.  A close version of this tea is on Aliexpress, in a similar price range, not costing much.

tea cake under consideration

It was just a gamble, something to try.  The smell seemed ok so it might be drinkable.  I'm confident that it's not "good" tea or it wouldn't be selling at that price (let's just say low), but that's all I feel certain about.  "Good" spans a range, and part of the experiment is to get a feel for that range.


I suppose it could be 11 years old, or much more likely not.  It wouldn't necessarily be good even if it was.  Drinking mediocre or bad tea isn't going to advance my sheng pu'er experience much but it could make for an interesting experience.  I guess the risks are that it's either relatively undrinkable or contains chemicals, on the unsafe side of the spectrum as teas go.

some teaware in that shop

To be clear I'm not blaming that shop for selling something that's not what it's sold as; it's interesting to have that as an option.  If it's actually nice tea, even relatively speaking, then it's a good option for the price.  If not I didn't lose much, and I went into it as a gamble.  Due to language issues I never really did get the vendor's take on what it is or how good it is.  If I was trying to buy something that's much less rare, commercially available, and selling at roughly a retail value then the issue of a tea not being genuine is quite different.


One thing will make it hard to place:  it gets mentioned a lot that people tend not to drink sheng pu'er for the taste, many of them.  Some focus on the feeling they get from it (qi), and the mouth-feel aspects, aftertaste, etc.  Presumably on some level I'll know if I like it but not being into those things will make them hard to place as related factors.  Mouthfeel makes sense as desirable, aftertaste less but it's easy to notice and can add depth, "qi" or drug-like effects not so much.  Here is a funny story in a popular medium that helps place that emphasis, one that would be familiar to some, about comparing wine and pu'er character in an informal NYC tasting event.  That article relates to the pu'er vendor that tends to stand out the most, a bit oddly so since his personal image is intentionally not part of the brand.

more teaware in that shop

I have a Thai version of sheng at the house, from Hong Tai Chang, made that same year as listed (reviewed here, the 0801 version), so I could comparison taste the two, but I'd be up against some of the same issues, only adding comparison to that.  This tea isn't as dark as that one, for what that's worth.


I asked a pu'er authority about that Thai tea--hard to know who counts as an expert, but per background he was that--and he mentioned that what he had tried of those HTC teas was ok, just not exceptional, decent but not particularly interesting.  From some people that could still be in the range of relatively high praise.

Review

I bought the tea because the dry tea scent was interesting, sweet, a bit like aged leather, or maybe woody, but fragrant and complex.  Again it smelled like that at home.  I can't say what that means, related to a range of other teas, but it seemed a decent starting point.

On first tasting it:  not bad.  It has a little bitterness to it, not so much, and some warmth and complexity.  I'll get more impression once it opens up a bit more.

Second try, a little stronger:  different.  It has a little bitterness but the complexity is interesting, not exactly in a familiar range, but then I've not tried much in the way of aged sheng.  I'd guess it is actually somewhat aged sheng from tasting it, but of course I couldn't guess a year.

It's like tasting a cigar.  I don't mean that more figuratively, that drinking pu'er relates in some sense to cigar smoking, I mean this tastes like you'd expect a cigar to taste if you brewed it, like tobacco smells.  It's earthy, it has some complexity, some sweetness, a touch of bitterness, and it tastes like tobacco, much as I could guess how that tastes.  I was a smoker for awhile, a long time back, so I'm not completely unfamiliar with the smell, I just never got into cigars.

It seems on the thin side.  It doesn't really impact the rear of your tongue much at all, even compared to other tea types, but has an odd feel throughout the rest of your mouth, a dryness that mostly relates to the top.  As far as aftertaste goes this tea experience doesn't end after you finish swallowing it, but it's hard to describe how it lingers.  That typical idea about a sweetness remaining in your throat isn't it; it just seems to generally stay present, just not in a pronounced way.

It's quite different on the third infusion, much warmer, more towards spice.  If I end up brewing this a dozen times I might want to keep these descriptions more brief.  The feel loosens up, and the bitterness that was there drops back.  That feel shifts from the top of my mouth to tongue; odd.  I don't feel like analyzing the experience to get a flavor list out of it if it's going to just keep changing anyway, but it at least has some complexity.  It's hard to say if I like it but it's interesting, and not terrible.

The next infusion transition isn't as pronounced, just a trace more of the same direction.  I used more tea for this than I thought I should and that may not work out if I drink a lot of this.  I tend to not feel teas much at all if I drink them while I eat, and typically I do that.  I'm already feeling this though, it's kicking in, too early to tell if that's a good thing or not.  I'm sweating like I'm in a sauna, but then I am in Bangkok, so it's hard to separate how the effect would differ from drinking warm water.

It kept transitioning a little but basically the tea tastes like tobacco, maybe with some leather and woodiness as background, and a faint touch of spice to make it more interesting.  It's ok, an interesting balance, but I can't really place this in relation to better aged sheng, or even so-so aged sheng, especially related to aspects beyond taste.   Somewhere along the infusions that bitterness softened then transitioned to include a touch of sourness, not necessarily positive.  It became smoother and richer, gaining some depth along the way, so it stayed interesting, and not awful.  I suppose it's better than I expected.

I'm not sure if I really liked the feeling it seemed to give me, a bit edgy and anxious.  I'm not used to teas having much effect on me at all beyond a mild caffeine lift, again per my own take because I tend to eat along with drinking tea.  I might have just been well-caffeinated, related to rushing through infusions of a tea prepared on the stronger side due to having limited time, so this isn't a claim about "qi."

Compared with a 2006 Hong Thai Chang "pu'er-like" sheng version

In order to get some type of baseline I tried it alongside a Thai version of pu'er (still called "sheng," most typically).  In particular I wanted to check on the mouth-feel aspect related that, and also to compare taste.  Of course separating drug-like effect when drinking two teas at the same time wouldn't work.

HTC Thai 0801 2006 sheng "pu'er-like" tea

A taste difference really stood out.  This tea I'd already reviewed isn't awful, but it's not overly interesting, mostly in a tobacco range.  The HTC version is sweet, plummy, with a good bit of richness and complexity, some earthiness filling in a deeper range, lots more going on in comparison.  Related to feel that tea is thicker too.  This "fake LBZ" version seemed on the thin side before, but tasted alongside another of the supposed same age it seemed thinner yet, like there wasn't all that much to it.  I had brewed it strong the first time, so that did change the effect, backing off to taste these in what seemed a more normal range here instead (no weights or specific proportion to go with that).

Thai tea left, "LBZ" right; completely different colors

I can't really say for sure just how good that Thai HTC version is but it's lots more interesting in comparison.  Maybe that rich sweetness wouldn't be favorable to some.  It could seem too fruity or a bit too sweet, or not balanced if someone desired a different "structure," but that tea does seem nice to me.  I just shared some with a tea vendor friend passing through town and he was surprised that it seemed interesting and generally ok to him (that's still not placing it on some objective scale, beyond "odd that it really is ok").


It will still be interesting messing around with this other version, even though it's not great.  I can see how it ages over the next couple of years, if it keeps changing, although I'd really just expect it to fade.  It doesn't make for an impressive gift for people that like this kind of tea but it would work for letting non-pu'er drinkers try the type, with proper clarification on where on the scale it falls.


For me personally I'm still not sure how much I like it.  It tastes a lot like tobacco, or how I'd imagine it would taste, which I guess is ok, just not something I'm particularly attached to.

random fake tea citations online, from Ebay

Real Lao Ban Zhang

It's almost an afterthought what this tea was suggesting it actually was, isn't it?  It wasn't that, clearly, and there's no reason to think that in addition to copying the wrapper label the character was also similar.  But really, what was it supposed to be?

An image search turned up the same label selling through Aliexpress as "Chinese Yunnan Puer Tea Laobanzhang Pu Er Tea Factory Sheng Raw Pu Erh Tea," listed as from 2008, while the one I've been talking about is labeled as 2006.  That was selling for $21; in a comparable range.  This turns up the problem I'm having in even identifying what this is sold as; no remotely reputable vendors are carrying anything like it.  I'm just not seeing what the label had been based on, an earlier real version, except in entries like this one.

An Ebay version from 2011 turned up, selling for $8.53.  A Vancouver based online vendor sells a similarly labeled cake, listed as from 2012, for $242.  There's no way I could really speculate on what is real or fake but according to this Tea Chat discussion it's pretty much all fake (so you just pay more for better fakes, or that's more tied to vendor strategy?).  It's not reassuring that the product description just cites the label in that online listing:  2012 Lao Ban Zhang (Gu Shu Cha 1st Village) (in gift box) Raw/Sheng Pu-erh Tea Cake.  I guess they did add "Gu Shu," so it's from old-tree sources; nice.

Lao Ban Zhang village, from a nice article source on there (credit Tea and Mountain Journals)

Finally a vendor reference seemed to pin down the origin of the label style, and potentially even sell a real version:  the Tea Tong vendor site showed a similar cake label identified as originating from the Chen Sheng tea factory.  The name was familiar from that Tea Chat discussion; one comment said that producer made related teas using other materials mixed with some LBZ origin content.


A Yunnan Sourcing reference tells a little more of that story:

Cheng Shen Hao is a brand of Pu-erh that was started in 2008 by Mr. Chen Sheng He, a long time tea drinker and Guangdong native. In 2008 he signed a contract with more than 100 Lao Ban Zhang villagers for exclusive rights to their harvest. It was after this that Chen Sheng Hao brand pu-erh became known and soon after he began to produce teas from Yi Wu, Naka, Nan Nuo and Bu Lang as well.


That does sound familiar.  And I think that's going to do it for this review, since the trail goes cold about what this tea might have been.  Other versions turn up searching LBZ in the character form (老班章), like this page, but they just seem to be alternative foreign-language sources of fake teas.  Even if they're not that--which they must be, from glancing at pricing--they still don't add more background.


One interesting tangent that didn't come up is about the worst case:  just how unhealthy could the cheapest, most random tea you could buy be?  I won't be doing a lot of buying random fake teas to try and test that.  I had reasonable luck with gambling on inexpensive and unfamiliar teas in NYC not so long ago but I did throw out some Lapsang Souchong that seemed to be artificially flavored, and perhaps not healthy to drink.  Trying inexpensive and unfamiliar teas seems fine for experimentation but for consuming lots of teas as part of a daily habit it's probably better to regularly go with known trustworthy source options instead.

Tea Side 0802 HTC 2006 Thai sheng re-review

I must admit, I feel like I'm starting all over again with tea in getting back to pu'er (hei cha in this example; it's a Thai tea).  And I don't mean in only a good sense, although that's part of it; I'm way back at figuring out brewing.

Anyway, the tea is a Tea Side 0802 Hong Tai Cha (HTC) Thai sheng hei cha.  It's not really a pu'er since it's from Thailand instead of Yunnan.  Pu'er within Yunnan varies by specific origin location (most blanket statements like that require qualification, but that seems conservative enough to stand alone), and this could be all the more "varied" due to being grown in a different climate.


But that's not really something I'll address here, how it compares to Yunnan versions, or related to tea sourcing issues.  That last subject and the history would be interesting; there are "old" tea trees in Thailand, although old is quite relative, and dating trees is problematic.


About the tea, even the dry tea smell wasn't what I expected.  It comes across a lot like a shou, too dark, too rich and sweet, too much caramel and raisin range, with a bit of old leather.  But clean; no mushroom or peat, none of that other range that can stand out in shou, definitely nothing remotely like fish.  I'd tried this tea before, a sample of it, reviewed here, so it's odd to be going back through all this, being surprised by how it comes across.




Part of why I'm re-reviewing it relates to testing my own experience against my earlier experience, not that I could really separate out error, subjective preference changes, and other possible changes.  What are those, you might wonder, since a nine year old pu'er shouldn't change that much in the 10th year (or could it?).  If storage conditions had changed over the last year it would be different, and people tend to speak of pu'er resting from travel (seriously).


I've had this tea for around two months so it should be feeling ok, settled.  One odd variable is the tea being sold as either 0801 or 0802, apparently two different but closely related teas, perhaps not identical to what I tried last year, one more thing I won't really get sorted out.

Review:

After overdoing it with a Golding Nan Nuo sheng pu'er proportion of tea to water (a real pu'er, with Nan Nuo being one of those distinct regions), and after getting better results the second time, but brewing slightly too thin, I went light to start on this one.

This tasting is going to have to go in rounds, and more ideally several sessions would be better.  I was reading up and watching videos on brewing and drinking pu'er and a Tea DB video talked about trying the same pu'er ten days in a row to get a feel for it; sounds about right.  I'm not sure if those guys actually have jobs to schedule tea drinking around.  On to review then.

The first infusions were way too light, although still nice, interesting fruit and earthy flavors.  Later when I get my sense of taste adjusted I may well drink the tea like that, but I just wasn't getting much out of it at first.

It's early for a tangent, but related to that, I was just talking to a friend about subjectivity in tea tasting, and to me that means a lot of different things.  One thing is that preference determines what is good; very straightforward (eg. tea can be enjoyed at different infusion strengths, a preference which can change over time).  Another is that one person might "get" a taste as plum and another as raisin; a bit more going on there, seemingly that one person is right and the other is wrong, but maybe it's not that simple.  Or two people might have completely different impressions, and this is where it all gets strange.  Other factors could account for real differences, brewing parameter differences, even using different water, or tea ware.

so much for straining

Where am I going with all this?  One other interesting case--interesting to me--is that maybe I could taste a tea differently at different times, for reasons that might not be so easy to explain.  In that post where I tried to comparison taste a black tea from one year to the next to determine that I couldn't separate the effect of different tea versions from year to year.  Now I'd like to do the same for this tea, compare the tea and my sense of taste, and to practice on the type.


Once I did get the tea brewing--it sort of "opened up" after some infusions, and after I lengthened infusion time a little--it was even more interesting.  It was complex enough that it would be hard to describe, but that's the whole point of this exercise.  The tea tastes of dark wood and raisin, maybe a bit of leather, possibly with just a touch of peat (much as I know what that tastes like; maybe I really mean "forest floor").  Oddly by all that I mean the tea is nice.  It has a cool feel, not a dryness, but towards that, something in the range I'd need more vocabulary to say much about.  From there aspects get even harder to describe.  Even if I added another three or four taste aspects I'm not sure I could really describe the tea through them.


It has an earthiness that tastes like actual earth, like dirt, but in a good sense.  That isn't helping describe it, is it?  It's like the smell from digging up roots from under the ground, dirt mixed with an unusual vegetal smell, heavy on minerals, something different.  Oddly that's one of the smells from my childhood, playing with dirt, damming small streams, or playing in basements and root cellars, out in the woods knocking down different kinds of plants for no good reason (I think the last relates more to green tea range though).  It's rounding things off too much to say it's a taste of age itself, but there's something to that.  Like a really old baseball glove, or at least along that line.

So why do I like this?  Maybe there really is no accounting for taste.  Something in all that effect I kind of connect with.  I think it would work good and strong, since there is no astringency to brew around, beyond whatever component is giving it an unusual feel.  I don't mean unusual as in how fresh teas come across, it's a full bodied and complex feel, just different.  Some teas taste better as strong as possible, based on a limitation from one aspect, and more often a great balance point works best, probably how this one goes.

I honestly can't say if this is a good sheng pu'er or not; I don't have enough background to have a clear judgment on that.  Me just liking the tea is a good start.  It has an aftertaste but nothing too unusual, not so lingering.  I'm not sure if that feel is preferable to pu'er enthusiasts or not.  It coats my mouth and tongue in an unusual way, which I feel in the top of my mouth, but I'm not really feeling it in the throat.  I never really got that part anyway, about taste or feel in the throat, how that's such an interesting thing.

junior taster likes hei cha, just a little

My junior assistant had no idea what to make of it so she said it tastes like flowers.  She's stuck on that.  I guess if I had to give it just one taste description I'd go with old leather, which isn't even something I've ever actually tasted, at least not that I remember.  I'll give it another try before I finalize this, and compare it to last year's description.

Re-tasting, a second go and earlier notes:

I tried the tea a second time, with a higher proportion of tea to water, with somewhat similar results.  I didn't need to keep adjusting time to get some flavor out of it but did need to adjust time to keep it in the right range, soft and balanced enough.  The basic flavors were similar, raisin and date, dark wood and old leather, with an odd feel, a slight fullness and dryness, all of which seemed to work.  It's consistent enough with the first tasting, I just need to get parameters dialed in a bit finer.  I'm sure it does evolve across transitions but I wasn't noticing as much of that as I expected, probably related to still messing around with parameters.

This is probably a good place to check that review from last year:

not dark, not green, in the middle

Very nice; the tea is smooth and rich, full flavored, not astringent, complex, a little sweet.  Flavors are all layered together:  plum and fig, molasses, earthy tones, tobacco, a bit of mineral, maybe something like roasted almond in there.  A number of infusions in the flavors mellow a little, deepen, with some of the fruit giving way to stronger earthier tones.  The fig and plum element is still prevalent enough to give good balance, and the texture stays smooth, with just enough astringency to give the tea some body but no bitterness.


Sounds a little better than my last description, but similar, although that difference could just relate to paying more attention.  I'm not sure what it's all about but my kids are louder than ever lately, often engaged in minor battles with their mother, interesting in small doses but not a great background for tea tasting.


Maybe as well to cite the vendor's take, given going this far:


The tea is made from old and wild 200-300 years old trees. This Sheng resembles a sheng of purple bushes in looks - the tea is very dark for its age. This is my absolute favorite among Thai Shengs...

Dry flavor: Raisins, tree bark and spices. Neat leaves are carefully ripened. The infusion looks like dark amber, it's absolutely clear.

Taste: Full-bodied, very smooth (balanced) and intelligent. Nice raisin profile laced with spicy woody tones. Notes of plum are also present. Velvety and spicy aftertaste remains long after the drinking.


Close enough.  The parts about tea tree age are a bit taboo these days but I couldn't resist including it, and his subjective judgment wasn't necessary, but why not.

Conclusion:

Oddly I find myself considering how much I really like this style of tea.  Usually that type of response is easy to sort out, it's right there, I do or don't.  I had said I did, but now I wonder if I like the tea as aspects and a whole experience, or if it's more about the novelty, since this is quite different from most tea experiences.  I think I like it, but it's not that "wow, I love this" experience people tend to express.

It makes me think more about shifts in preference curve, that idea of people acquiring taste for some teas, as they do Scotch, in the other post.  Perhaps a different tea example will put more context to this.  Related to sweetening tea, I recently commented in a Facebook group that there is a natural tendency to evolve a preference away from sweetening tea, expressed as such (quoting myself, again--strange):


There is a natural tendency to use less sweetener over time, as a result of preference change, brewing technique improvement, and from drinking better tea. I only use sugar in masala chai now. There is nothing wrong with the existence of a preference curve or people being at different places on it, and I wouldn't pass judgment on someone that stopped in a different place.


As for preference shifting from one type of tea to another it's not so simple.  I keep referencing back to an idea I'd read in another blog (Tea Addict's Journal) that people drink tea for taste preference first, then others, related to feel and other aspects next (body and aftertaste), and then effect (qi).  I've mentioned before which teas seem like better gateway teas to me (light oolongs, to go with a short version, but it's more complicated related to better oolongs from Taiwan).

So what about pu'er (hei cha, in this case); is there a natural drift in preference to that type?  It doesn't seem to be so simple.  Pu'er is really two types of tea anyway, sheng and shou, and maybe it does work to say shou could function as a gateway to aged sheng preference, or even young sheng (another idea from the Tea Addict's Journal, but then he says lots of stuff).  But really it's not clear to what extent anyone would naturally change what they like over time, or how exposure is going to work related to that, or if there really would be a natural direction or number of likely stopping points.  A lot of people seem to keep drinking broadly related to types.

Some types are trendy, and expectations factor in, group "consensus" direction.  One could find justification to continue to prefer pu'er or oolong in tea groups, and might feel a bit marginalized if black tea seemed best for some reason (or green; both don't get much respect--individual teas can by the types sort of don't).  White teas are different, held in higher regard, fine to cite as a favorite type, but it would seem strange if someone just drank white teas.  For now I'll stay on the same path, trying a broad range of teas, but this is an interesting way to evaluate preference shift, by experimenting with one type I'm not so attached to.