Russian white and red (black) gaba tea from Egor Matchak

A friend that I've mentioned before, Alexander Panganovich, sent a few teas for me to try, and to write about.  He's Russian, living in the Sochi area for awhile, as far as I know, but back visiting Thailand again recently, although we've not met yet this time.  Two of the teas were from Russia and two from Thailand; these I'm writing about here were from Russia.  

There isn't much that serves as a bio of Alex in this blog but this post first mentions meeting him two years ago, and we last "met" online in a meetup at the beginning of the year, and of course a Facebook profile covers some of who he is.  He's a good guy, a likeable and interesting friend, and a true tea enthusiast.  In discussing his background further his more accurate name is Alexey Zykov, relating to use of nicknames.

Alex, waving.  I miss that meetup experience.

Alex may or may not be selling these; I think he does sell some tea, but that he's not really formally a vendor, in the sense that people with online sales channels are.  We haven't met in person for quite awhile, so I'm not up to date on that part.  I'll check and pass on that update along with a second review post.

In looking up what those teas are it seems there won't be a product description of any kind, but two references turned up.  One is photos in an instagram account mentioned on one label, which matches the person's name written on the sample, Egor Matchak.  There is a longer, kind of cool background mission statement in a vk.com site profile for Jiva Tea, an unfamiliar social media channel, which I will include all of for completeness:

The main objective of our project is the production of high quality organic tea.

We have revived and improved the technologies for creating tea in Rɣsi. We collect and process all tea manually, without the use of mechanical devices. The collection point is the abandoned tea plantations of the Black Sea coast, namely the city of Sochi. We do not yet have a factory for the production of large volumes, we make all tea at home, in compliance with all necessary measures affecting the quality of tea. Compete with China, India, Laos, etc. we do not need, we create an environmentally friendly and energetically correct consumer product. The high cost of tea corresponds to the quality. We do not have volumes requested by people who want to make a profit on resale, but we are actively working on this issue.

Our group is for those who are tired of Chinese fakes and tea of ​​unknown origin, with a series of hieroglyphs and imposed values.

Here you can communicate in your native language, understand all the subtleties of the freshest Rɣsi tea, there are no cultural and language barriers, so it is much easier to study Rɣi tea traditions, watch how everything develops here and now, taking on new forms. Over time, it will be possible to collect tea ourselves and try to prepare it with our own hands, we have been working on this for several years.

It sounds good.  That page has over 2000 followers, and it looks like it was founded in 2017, so this isn't a brand new initiative.  The tea was good enough that it didn't seem like early processing efforts, refined and positive in character, especially given that just setting up a nitrogen environment for processing to make gaba would involve some equipment and learning curve.  I almost never tend to like any gaba teas, so that's not the best start, a complete mis-match for preference, but some are interesting, and styles and character do vary.

Presumably this is all truly Russian origin tea; that does seem to be the theme.  It's interesting that the gaba red (black) version was pressed; somehow that makes teas seem a little more interesting to me, even though storage taking up more space and accessing an even sized amount when loose is no problem.

I could "read" that using Google Lens, but didn't

more label information

Review:

white:  not what I expected at all.  White tea like this--that appears similar, at least--always hits you with a floral or fruity sweetness first, which can be a bit subtle and whispy, sometimes lacking intensity or complexity, but that's always what it is.  This is a little sour.  Then it's interesting from there, with a depth to it, other smooth, deeper, warmer range that is like the rest of what white teas can express, a creaminess, towards a green tea base of light and neutral vegetal range.  At least it has novelty going for it; I've tried no other tea that this reminds me of.  I'm getting the sense this might evolve a bit early on so I'll do more of a flavor list next round.

red (or black, if one prefers):  equally novel, but for gaba teas this character is the consistent, normal range (more or less).  Sourness can be a problematic input in those, to me, and this includes a version of that.  From there it's interesting, the sweetness, depth, clean effect, and range of other novel flavors.  Part is towards rich dried fruit, like tamarind and elderberry, and another range reminds me of aged aromatic woods and fragrant oils.  This will probably evolve some too, so I'll skip expanding on that for a round or two as well.

In relation to match to my preference this tasting has got off to an odd start.  These teas are interesting, and clearly refined in character, with clean and complex natures, but these aspect sets aren't what I like most in tea experience, at all.  Sourness standing out is a rough start taken alone.  They're so interesting that I probably won't skip posting this review, but if they don't evolve to match what I like more this is going to make for an odd write up.

white tea, second infusion:  sourness subsided just a little, and other flavor range picks up.  Next round this might be even better, but the clock is ticking related to this maintaining the same degree of intensity.  This is very fine and somewhat broken leaf material tea, so it's just not going to brew a dozen intense and positive rounds.  Vegetal range became more interesting, moving off a non-distinct effect onto a green wood and aromatic dried autumn leaf range; that part is nice.  Sweetness picked up, and that part is ok.  Sourness is unusual in form, within that category range; it's a light edge in this, that connects to other aspect range, seemingly continuing from it.  

There's a warm depth to this that's hard to describe, maybe like a woodiness that's closer to balsa wood, or something like toasted oatmeal.  Altogether it's interesting, and not completely unpleasant, but just a bit more fruit or floral range would really make this more conventional, and probably more pleasant.  It's hard to even try to imagine what fruit or floral range this experience could map to.

gaba red:  stronger sourness, than in the first version; flavor at least related to that part is perhaps increasing in strength instead of easing up.  I'm a lot more open to sourness as a part of potentially positive tea experience than I would've been 4 or 5 years ago, but this combined tasting experience is really pushing it.  It's not on sauerkraut level but it's halfway there, a main part.  

Most of what escalated is really tartness, to be fair, a related but different effect, and that tartness has mainly already replaced the sourness.  Unfortunately I don't love tart teas either.  If someone did absolutely love tart black teas this would be ideal for them; that's at least half of the overall experience at this point.  

Rather than unpack the rest I'm going to eat something to clear my palate, drink some water, and try again next round.  To be clear there are redeeming qualities to both of these teas, and there are indicators that they are well-made, a good clean character, good complexity and intensity, but a lack of match to personal preference is unusually negative in this tasting so far.  I rarely like gaba teas, so that wasn't completely unexpected, but beyond finding silver needle / tips versions that don't taste like much uninteresting I tend to like all white teas.

white, third infusion:  now this has settled into a range I can relate to, and like.  Sourness dropped out, warmth picked up, and complexity is interesting and positive.  What I meant by "autumn fallen leaves" may or may not be clear, but that's at the crux of this experience.  It could mean different things to different people, since fallen leaves smell completely differently depending on leaf type, how dry they are, how other background scents combine, and any number of other minor inputs.  Back "home," in Western PA, there's a woody depth to that range, across all it expresses, because the scent of fall is about many types of plant material settling in many different ways.  Here tropical fragrant leaves fall and dry resulting in sweet and complex scents, that are much different.  It's probably closer to what I experience here, with lots of complexity, but in a lighter range, with less earthy depth.

Other almost intangible inputs work out well:  level of sweetness, clean character, hints of other range (maybe floral finally is factoring in), even a light fruit tone, bridging every so slightly into citrus scope.  Depending on interpretation this either is citrusy, light like lime or lemon, or it includes a touch of green wood scope, which is still how I interpret it.  Or that could be like a touch of dandelion, combining many of the other aspect themes I've mentioned, the light floral and fragrant dried leaf range.  It's nice.

red gaba:  brewing this light seemed to help tartness balance better; it still includes that but it has diminished to a minor contributing aspect.  Warmth picks up, now in a cinnamon sort of range.  It's interesting that this changed so much from last round, and that both shifted from tea experience I really disliked into such positive range over just one round.  That has to tie to that intangible complexity and quality issue I mentioned; a poorly made or low quality material tea wouldn't have the potential to transition so much in interesting ways, the flaws would be what you'd get.  I still definitely wouldn't buy this tea, but for people into gaba it could be really appealing.  

Since I've not done a proper flavor breakdown I should mention some of the rest, to get this to add up to a description.  That warm range serves as a base for this now, with tartness very limited, almost gone (strange; I think infusion intensity and round to round transition combined in an odd way).  Beyond that there is a sort of wine-like quality to this now, towards brandy, maybe only partly there, more like a tisane that's popular here, roselle.  I suppose that tastes a little like rose leaf tisane, just with more intensity and more of a tart edge, and a little towards red wine flavors.

white tea, fourth infusion:  I think a pleasant floral infusion ramped up, but the flavor mix is complex enough that it requires a lot of judgment and interpretation.  This is as good as it's been, quite pleasant.

red gaba tea:  also the best this has been; that cinnamon spice warmth, roselle tisane floral tone, towards red wine range depth are nice together.

As does tend to happen on weekends I need to get to a long task list; I'll stop taking notes there and mention changes in conclusion notes later, if those apply

Conclusions:

The teas stayed positive for extra rounds but didn't change so much.

I was considering how I probably would've interpreted the experience much more positively if that tea range had been more familiar.  I really didn't expect such novel white tea range would come up, for that broad category being a bit more consistent, covering a moderate range of styles, but a narrower scope than many other type-categories.  Gaba versions do vary a lot, with some consistency in some flavor aspect range, especially that sourness.  They're not as often so tart, but tart black tea is a familiar theme.

Then hardly any of that is a close match to my main natural preference.  If the tea characters were just more familiar I think that would've seemed like less of a gap, that I would've found them more relatable and pleasant.  They weren't unpleasant; I was clear in the notes that they had redeeming positive aspects, and were clearly well-made teas in a sense, distinctive and complex, free of a broad range of flaws that can turn up in different types and versions.  Except the sourness, I guess; it can be hard to see that as an aspect that others might relate to better and prefer.  For an even newer producer I might expect that a tweak or two to processing steps could identify a cause for that and resolve it.  It's generally not a distinctive type or area typical inclusion, although I guess that it could be that.

The white tea was quite positive after the first two rounds, clearing out that aspect.  I think for people who like tart black teas the black (red) tea would be the same, very pleasant, distinctive, intense, and complex after the first two rounds.  Maybe well-balanced and refined, even.  I just much prefer richer, heavier flavors in black teas that doesn't include tartness.  Almost every gaba tea I've reviewed includes some sort of related statement, about how the tea might appeal a lot more to someone who is on that page for preference.

In trying the first of the Thai sheng versions, which I've already written notes for, it occurred to me again that this may not really serve as a fair, objective account of what these teas are like.  I'm quite familiar with Thai sheng range, and love that style, and the aspects that are usually included.  Familiarity and bias for a certain range of experience combine to make it sound like that tea is clearly, objectively better.  I think it might work better to say that it matches my preference much better.  But I think I'm going in with expectations and openness to range of experience that favors that tea, over these I'm reviewing here, and the limitation in prior exposure represents the opposite of an objective and complete analysis.  I could like them more just for trying them a few more times; that can happen.

I wish this producer the best, based on their expressed mission and values.  For sure their level of success in producing novel and positive teas will vary across versions and seasons, and I hope that they can stick with it, continue to develop, and thrive.  I feel like the tea community that they indirectly reference in that citation, people interested in preserving prior traditions and opening the door to new forms of development, all themed around more natural production contexts and developed forms of interest, all represent themes and experiences that should be valued.  They're already making good tea, even if these two examples don't represent the closest possible match to my favorite styles.

Talking with Alex and Bruce about Russian tea, other themes

 

We had the first online meetup of the year recently, meeting with Alex Phanganovich, who I've mentioned before here, and Bruce Carroll, an American friend living in Chiang Mai.  Alex and I first met at a Monsoon hosted talk about tea and sustainability presented by a Russian ecological researcher, Alexey Reshchikov.

Alex is looking at Kenneth Rimdahl in the back, there at Monsoon

he met the kids that day, visiting while I was at swim class with them

I wanted to write this partly to cover discussing Alex selling a bit of tea he's ran across along the way from living in Chiang Rai, and also to mention Huyen's brother mentioning a new online sales outlet.  Huyen's whole family has an amazing vibe, and they are all tea experts, so it has been nice when they can join the meetups.

it's nice seeing Huyen's nephew join; soon he'll be talking about tea too

We were supposed to talk about tea tourism in Chiang Rai; that was the initial point.  We just didn't get to it.  I think there are only a half dozen main producers that Google search would mention there (like this does), and more unconventional and interesting smaller producers would be something else, maybe further out of the Mae Salong area.  Alex mentioned that learning about local tea culture was interesting while staying there, which we didn't get to far into.

We didn't talk about tea all that much, as those meetups usually go, delving pretty far into introductions, and how covid went for people, even into how tobacco storage and consumption parallels tea themes, which led to talking about weed.  Legalized marijuana is being developed in Thailand, and another friend here uses it for a rare problem with facial muscle pain treatment.  All that is what it is, already familiar or not.  

The point about tobacco comes up in discussing humidors quite a bit.  The main difference between tobacco storage and tea is that aromatic woods used for tobacco storage can add positive flavors, and for tea you don't want anything but the other tea contributing to the changes.  Then apparently for tobacco you use different pipes for different kinds of tobacco, as with clay teapots.  Who knew?

It has been snowing in Sochi, where Alex is living now, and a main place where tea is grown in Russia.  And also in Krasnodar, I guess?  In the US tea plants used in Sochi are known for being among the most cold tolerant types that exist, which applies fairly directly for a lot of the US too.  We talked a little about Russian tea preferences, and produced styles, about changes in gaba development and shu and such, but no developed sub-themes that really need to be filled in here came up.

hopefully they're cold tolerant

A question came up about Russian blends really being smoked or not, which didn't get far in discussion.  It's my impression that this is either something made up, or a reference to Russians importing and then mixing smoked Lapsang Souchong with other teas, or to tea transported from China by horseback picking up a smoke flavor from campfires as it was transported.  My guess is the first, that it was made up.  I'd expect most of the tea that made a trip by horse, earlier, was pu'er or hei cha instead, which would make it easier to transport, and matches the theme of Yunnan producing tea for Western and Northern Chinese areas that are too cold to make their own.  Not that I'm well informed about any of that; I asked someone by message before posting this but it didn't work to get more input.

Huyen covered a bit about range of Vietnamese teas, but I've been through a lot about that here in the past.  There are two really good articles on all that by Geoff Hopkins, the owner of Hatvala, on history and evolution of tea there and on origin areas, geography, and types.  Some interesting backstory on the article source:  per my understanding when the old World of Tea blog (by Tony Gebely) transferred content to become the Tea Epicure blog some of the material went to a partner's site instead, which is what that killgreen.io site is.  So unless I'm completely wrong that had been a World of Tea guest article, which is cool.

So I'll mention a little more on those two tea sales updates and let this go.

Huyen's family has long since founded a cafe in HCMC (Saigon) and a chain of gift shops with different outlets, Tra Viet.  I might have reviewed at least one tea from them but I never kept track of origins of what Huyen shared.  Her brother is now expanding to selling tea through Amazon.  It's nothing too novel, but if better tea really is starting to creep into outlets like that it would be good.  I don't think they'll kill off small tea vendors or foreign outlets any time soon, although minding that concern makes sense.

Alex specifically mentioned that he's not necessarily trying to become a mainstream vendor (he can be reached through Facebook though, or Instagram), and that he mostly sells a bit of what he picked up in a year or so of living in the north of Thailand.  Or in general gaba tea, gushu versions, or aged shu, per asking him for this write-up, and maybe later on more Russian teas.  Maybe that's especially relevant to someone living in the Sochi area, since meeting up with someone and trying some teas helps a lot for getting a sense about such things.

This has barely touched on tea issues in Russia so far, right?  That's partly because the general background about what teas Russians like and perspective on the subject repeats what is in other posts (like this one on Russian tea culture).  An interesting sub-theme came up about perspectives on Moychay, a Russian outlet I mention a lot here, for reviewing a lot of their teas.  Some Russian tea enthusiasts love Moychay and some don't--normal enough.  They share teas for review in this blog, to be clear, so my potential bias should be noted, which isn't going to come up here since I'll set aside going further with that discussion for another post.  Alex offered some thoughts on what objections might be, or how different biases could factor in, and how it relates to perspectives on other vendors, and that really got me thinking.

Short discussion came up of a book on tea by Sergey Shevelev, the Moychay owner, Geography of Chinese Tea.  He posted a nice intro of that as a Youtube video recently.  It pretty much matches the review I wrote, talking about what's in it, about Chinese tea types, geography, history, some old stories, tourism sites, processing steps for teas, and so on.  

For covering all that, and for including a lot of photo content, it's a bit general, but that seems fine for what it is supposed to be.  It's not a manual for how to process tea, but it does contain a lot more of the typical processing steps than other books I've read.  It's not a tourism guide, but it could work to cover ideas for what to see related to tea while visiting China.  It's not a comprehensive guide to tea types in China, although it is pretty close to covering all of the main types in limited detail, and many less known versions as well.  Someone just mentioned what they took to be a rare steamed Chinese green tea type in the Gong Fu Cha group, a tea from Hubei, and there was a short section on processing steps in that book on it.

So it was the usual, nice keeping in touch with people and making new contacts, and talking a bit about tea.  It takes the pressure off to do justice to a subject not talking to a tea producer or sub-theme expert, freeing up space for covering tangents.

Sochi area Russian green tea from the Perlov shop in Moscow

a really nice Russian guy; he helped with translation quite a bit

that shop was absolutely beautiful, inside and out

It's taken awhile but I finally tried the only Russian tea I brought back from Russia, a version of green tea.  This is from the Perlov tea shop in Moscow, website here, a very beautiful shop and building, which sold a broad selection of teas.  I could guess out more about their product range but having only tried this tea from there it seems as well to leave it at that.  I'll also mention this post covers travel in Russia, but it's not mostly about tea.  I loved visiting Russia, and I'm sort of a fan of the culture now, but I'll skip all that here.

Green tea isn't my favorite general category, so it's not as easy to judge, but I've drank plenty of it, and can sort of relate to it.  I haven't mentioned all the Vietnamese green teas I've tried over the last couple of months, some of which were exceptional, and those should have helped keep me dialed into that range.

It goes without saying that it's not ideal to try a green tea in March from the previous year, perhaps made nearly a year ago.  Green teas don't seem to be destroyed by age and storage as fast as people sometimes let on but they do change, and for types for which the bright, fresh intensity is the main draw they could change for the worse over several months.  This may have been a slightly different tea nine months ago.

It was still nice though, and I bought it because it was the only Russian tea I found.  I'll resolve that, and try more of others in the future.

familiar parts of Moscow, not so close to the shop but not far either

Review:

It was interesting that the labels for a willow herb tisane and a green tea were so completely in Russian that what they say really can't distinguish which is which.  The green tea package mentions that it was produced in the Sochi area, by Matsesta tea, with a website and sales page here.  It just doesn't actually get around to clarifying what it is.  That would be funny if I reviewed a willow herb tisane here, and a green tea in that post.

The tea is nice, definitely green tea (really, I'm sure).  It reminds me a little of the range for those Vietnamese versions, some of them, definitely vegetal, with a good bit of mineral, good sweetness, and a little grassiness, but heavier on other vegetable range.  The sweetness stands out, and an overall complexity and richness.  This is probably pretty good tea, it's just that I don't love green tea, so it's hard to appreciate in the same way as tea types I do like a lot better.

The aspect-list approach probably works as well as that ever does for tea review.  Sweetness stands out as an initial impression, with that vegetable and grass range next.  Mild and well integrated green bell pepper, green bean, and field grass all combine, supported by some mineral.  As green teas go the feel is a bit richer than is typical.

I tried a better version of a Thai Nguyen region (Vietnamese) green tea than I've tried before not so long ago, and it reminds me a little of that tea, but only in a couple of limited senses.  It was sweet as well, and complex, and of course primarily vegetal supported by mineral range.  It also drifted more into seaweed range, with a good bit of umami (savory taste element).  This Russian green tea expresses a little of that, just not nearly to that same extent, or to the degree some sencha and gyokuro can.

On the next infusion the warmth and depth picks up a bit.  I'm brewing the tea Western style, but at a higher proportion than would probably be typical, and using limited infusion times, around 2 1/2 minutes, so I guess in a hybrid approach process.  It was prepared using a typical well-below boiling point range.

Lately brewing temperature has been coming up a good bit, and this probably would still be ok made with boiling point water, it would just be different.  It would be necessary to compensate by adjusting either proportion or timing, or both, and astringency would pick up a bit, emphasizing mineral and astringency over that sweetness.  It's probably possible to adjust which flavor aspect elements come across (which vegetables, or grass versus the rest), so that different people might like it made different ways related to that.

The grass aspect in this is more like field grass, like a fresh cut hay version, versus lawn grass.  I guess that's better, to me, but then I'd as soon be drinking black tea, oolong, or a broad range of pu'er and other hei cha instead.  The brightness and freshness is nice; that compensates some for flavor aspect range not matching my main preferences.


That's really it for the tasting notes I made, and it would be nice to keep a review simple for once.  If the number of infusions a tea produces is considered critical for judging quality--and the two things do seem to correspond, they just don't always go together--then this is great tea, because I kept on drinking infusions all day long.  I'd probably be able to add a bit about how it works to vary brewing parameters, or what else I notice related to trying it a few more times, but I'm sure this initial impression captures enough about it.

I do have other family than that one girl

Bangkok, from a boat

like taking a bus, except there are no traffic jams on the river