Wuyi Yancha comparison, two Bei Dou and a Huang Mei Gui

I'm reviewing two of the Teasenz Wuyi Yancha samples they sent with the last tea I ordered.  I don't remember trying a Huang Mei Gui version before (also called Yellow Rose), although that doesn't rule out that I have.  Bei Dou I've tried a little of (with another review of one of these versions here); basically it's a cultivar type derived from cuttings of original Da Hong Pao plants, or something along those lines.  The version I'm comparing these other two teas with is from Jip Eu, a Bangkok Chinatown shop.

I'll reverse the typical sequence and add a little more about what Huang Mei Gui is first, then get into tasting review.  Let's start with Wikipedia's take:


Huang Meigui (Chinese: 黃玫瑰; pinyin: huáng méiguī; pronounced [xwǎŋ měi.kwéi]) is a very new Wuyi oolong tea, developed c. 2002. It has a highly aromatic fragrance and a lighter floral taste than most other Wuyi oolongs.  The colour of the steeped leaves is a very light green, much greener than other Wuyi teas.


That last part would tend to relate mainly to processing variances, one might think, not to plant type factors, but there could be something to it related to a more conventional preparation.


A random vendor, Verdant, adds this about their own version:

The Li Family's careful roasting brings out the wonderful balance of floral and savory that this varietal exemplifies. The earthy notes of taro and sweet corn meld with rose and jasmine in a way reminiscent of Turkish Delight candies.


I've already tasted this version and it wasn't like that.  It's interesting that these two type descriptions vary, not completely contradicting but not so similar.  Another one of my favorite blogs just reviewed this tea, My Thoughts are Like Butterflies:

So, if you were ever curious what eating raisin bread covered in honey while sitting next to a bowl of blooming orchids and plumeria tasted like, then good news, you can find out with this tea! It is impressively floral for a Yancha, not quite at Dancong levels, but certainly close, with an intense nectar like sweetness... Yanchas as a whole can be pretty intense, even when brewed lightly, but this one was almost delicate.


The review part will get to comparing my impression with hers, since this is the same tea.  Our takes never completely match, and she seems to have a more colorful and detail-oriented take on description, but the few times I've compared my reviews against hers for the same teas the general impression matches up, even if some details don't.  Let's also check with the vendor, Teasenz:

Huang Mei Gui (Yellow Rose): light roast. this oolong has a very unique floral aroma that evolves after every brew. It becomes sweeter, steep after steep.


This tea was part of a sampler set they offer, designed to let people try different Wuyi Yancha versions.  I won't be able to judge how true to type this one is but I can definitely pass on an impression.


The review notes are finished, in a relatively complete draft form, so none of this was going to change my impression.  Reading any description before trying a tea tends to shift things a little but I went into this only with the expectations related to being familiar with one of the teas, and it didn't taste much like I remembered it, which is covered in the following.

Jip Eu Bei Dou left, Tesenz Bei Dou top, Huang Mei Gui right

Review:

The Jip Eu Bei Dou tastes a bit coffee-like.  It's not the most fair version of it for comparison since I'm tasting the last of this bag, which included some quite broken tea, and that will probably pull the flavor range in a less positive direction, or at least change it.  That aspect might ease up a bit after this first infusion, which is more a rinse, but it's not really negative as it stands, just not how I remember it.  That coffee taste isn't as pronounced as actually drinking coffee, of course, more off to the side of cocoa and some bark spice, a bit interesting.  This tea isn't like I remember it, possibly also related to aging effect, since I last reviewed well over a year ago (the same leaves, not a different version).  Aging could dissipate the flavors or it could conceivably change, or even improve.  I won't comparison review it against that earlier impression, though, just describe the tea.


The Teasenz Bei Dou is also roasted a good bit, still medium though; the first aspects that comes across are in between a light char and dark caramel.  It's still probably going to be fine but that range could make picking out other subtle flavor aspects harder.  It seems lighter than the Jip Eu version, with an interesting undertone going on, maybe towards roasted almonds or chestnut, or perhaps just along that line.  Using a medium to darker roast is sometimes an intentional style preparation, per my understanding, that some people prefer heavier roasts, and some tea types lend themselves more to that than others.  But others see it as a flaw in a tea, either a processing mistake, a technique used to cover other flaws, or just a style they don't prefer.  Let's check a short Teasenz (vendor description) take on it:


Bei Dou Yi Hao (North Star): a light roast yancha characterised by a fruity aroma.


Per my understanding particular aspects like fruit tones versus other types can vary for the exact same tea prepared in the exact same way year to year, shifting based on what the tea plants experience as they grow.



The Teasenz Huang Mei Gui is also on the medium roasted side, not exactly light, but not heavy; all three of these will be in a similar range at least.  I tried a sample of another Wuyi Yancha version recently that seemed both light on roast and even a bit light on oxidation, so in a completely different range, and maybe that's shifted my expectations a little.  Maybe all of these don't seem as "green" and light roasted as if I'd been drinking some charred teas instead.

Maybe eventually I'll get around to saying more about that other tea I just mentioned; I have another sample of it.  It works well to not try completely different teas in a comparison tasting anyway; the contrast can be interesting but it really doesn't help with tasting.  Anyway, this version is a bit earthier, with more of a bark spice component to it, along the lines of dark wood.


Editing note:  so this is not so close to the other descriptions of this tea type so far, even though two of those were of the exact same tea version.  That can happen.

Jip Eu Bei Dou left, Teasenz Bei Dou middle, Teasenz Huang Mei Gui right

Second infusion

This is really the first real infusion, since I tend to use the first one as a long rinse.

The Jip Eu Bei Dou has cleaned up a little in profile, but using more broken leaves seems to be affecting it.  The coffee aspect has dropped back a bit but the general earthiness remains.  It still has spice tones to it making it interesting.  I remember this tea as being unique for balancing aromatic and flavor range aspects well (close to the same thing, but different), and it still does have a nice balance to it.  It comes across as more roasted than I remember it, maybe from using broken leaves, which would change the aspects present.  It's still a very nice version of a Wuyi Yancha, just not quite as exceptional as I remember, since it was one of the best I'd ever tried, per that earlier impression.


The Teasenz Bei Dou is picking up an unusual flavor aspect, a bit towards cardboard (but it sounds nicer to say wood, and that really would work instead).  In general that's a negative thing, a part of a less clean flavor experience, but it's not terrible in this, just not necessarily positive, and taking up flavor space where something more positive might be.  The level of roast has settled a little and it has good richness and fullness in flavor range, and beyond that one aspect is pleasant and positive.  It is a bit more aromatic than some versions of Wuyi Yancha, which I understand to be characteristic of the type.  That range comes across as more a liquor-like experience to me, in this case maybe in the range of cognac more than perfume.  It's still a relatively clean tasting experience, just not ideal due to that one trace aspect, which may well essentially drop out in transitioning.  It has some sweetness that helps it strike a nice balance.


The Teasenz Huang Mei Gui is moving off in a different direction, a good bit earthier, but more along the lines of roasted chestnut still (more like chestnut than almond, as it progresses).  It's a cool effect, and pleasant, although I suppose I would like it just a little more if I liked chestnuts better.  I absolutely love the idea of roasted chestnuts, and the scent, the flavor is just a bit so-so for me.  In addition to the earthiness being a bit like a bark spice or dark wood this has a bit of root spice depth to give it more complexity.  It's all much cleaner in effect than that flavors list would sound, more subtle, lighter and sweeter, but still complex.

3rd infusion

These should all level off roughly to where they'll be in this round, and then maybe just decline from here.  I'm using a relatively high proportion of tea to water, even for Gongfu brewing, because they were small samples so it wouldn't work well to split them up.  It's more than necessary for one infusion but a little light for two, so I just went heavy on all three, which matched how much of the one Bei Dou I had left anyway.


Jip Eu Bei Dou:  this is a really nice tea, with a good balance of aspects.  The coffee aspect has leveled off but it's still driving an earthy side of range that balances with other aromatic elements, all clean in effect, working well together.  It's not as mind blowing as I remember it but it's quite good.


Teasenz Bei Dou:  this tea is probably suffering from being compared directly to that other Bei Dou, which is one of the nicer Wuyi Yancha examples I've ran across, even if it has lost a little for being tasted as the roughed up end of the bag.  It's nice, balanced, complex, and clean in effect, with some nuttiness and plenty of aromatic range.  It's just that the one hint of cognac traces over into either wood or cardboard, not as clean in effect as the other tea.

On it's own it would probably seem a lot more exceptional for the strengths.  It's probably a touch more aromatic than the other Bei Dou, so "how good" in comparison might relate on preference for that too.  I tend to like either less aromatic or more balanced teas, not more aromatic, but others could easily go the other way on that.  It's why I was never really taken by Cindy's Qi Lan versions even though for some others they would be the best of what she makes and sells, and potentially absolutely amazing teas, if that's what someone liked best in Wuyi Yancha character.  This tea is the lightest of the three teas, which I can appreciate in how the style worked out, it just traces into one aspect range that isn't as pleasant along with carrying a lot of other range that works really well.


Teasenz Hang Mei Gui:  fading just a little, although I'm still using quite short infusion times, so it would be easy to compensate by lengthening that to draw out another two or three infusions.  The range is similar, earthy, with roasted chestnut fading a little, more of just a balance of different things going on now.  It's more complex than I'm really going to be able to describe; it might be floral tones filling in that background, but it's hard to sort out.  To put a name to that spice that picked up in this infusion, it's like cinnamon, not as edgy as Rou Gui cinnamon can be or as smooth as cinnamon in apple pie comes across but still cinnamon.

Altogether it's good; clean in effect, the level of roast works, with that dark caramel / toffee sweetness present in all of them maybe a little more pronounced in this one.  I'll let these go a little longer on the next infusion to see what that changes and that will be it for reviewing.

she sings happy birthday (but I didn't do much with pictures of these teas)

Fourth infusion:

"Longer" in this infusion is still around a minute, just to be clear.  From here it would work to push that out to a minute and a half but woodiness would probably increase.  I suppose some people would just call it quits instead; that would depend on preference.


Jip Eu Bei Dou:  the toffee element picked up a lot from the longer time; it's nice.  There's a trace of the coffee and cocoa from earlier but it's softened up, and it never had been murky in any way.  This will probably make another really nice infusion since this flavors balance is working so well this way.  It's a little woody but with toffee, coffee and cocoa on top of that, hinting a little towards spice, with a bit of aromatic range off to the side--more like a coffee liqueur in this than cognac, where the other Bei Dou falls instead--it's still quite good.


Teasenz Bei Dou:  this tea is still one component aspect away from being a fantastic tea.  Drop out the cardboardy overtone to the congnac aromatic range, filled in by very mild earthiness and limited dark wood / spice range, with a bit of toffee, and this would be great.  As it is it still works well.  Even just not tasting it alongside a relatively similar tea without that would help; it makes it stand out.  All three of these are pretty good teas, really.

Lighter Wuyi Yancha can pick up a greener wood tone that's unusual for a background context, and this has a little of that, I suppose not unrelated to what I'm describing, or maybe I'm just reading that in this way.  It's a bit hard to describe what green wood is like.  If you went out and bit into a half dozen live twigs it probably would be a good bit like one of them.  I was never tasting twigs that much--but then I was a strange child, so maybe a little--but I cut and split a lot of firewood as a child, maybe more than Abraham Lincoln, and played in trees, and did some construction.  It was a strange childhood, with lots of wood around.  Now that I think back this slight funkiness in this tea might remind me a little of playing on an old sawdust pile, a remnant of a sawmill operation on our property from a distant past (probably only a few decades back, but who knows).  Aging, fermenting sawdust piled up to about half the size of a small house has a great smell, really, but it's a slight stretch of range for tea.


Teasenz Huang Mei Gui:  this tea is fading faster than the others, for whatever reason, with the earlier character unchanged otherwise.  Part of that could relate to just being more subtle.  It's still nice but it's thinning quite a bit.  It can make another infusion but it will just be thinner, and doubling infusion time will ramp up strength but it won't get the most positive character back.  Four infusions for this type of tea isn't bad, but the Jip Eu tea did hold up a lot better, odd given how broken those leaves were.

Conclusion

All of these were nice.  The Jip Eu was my favorite, even diminished for using the last broken leaves of it.  The Teasenz versions were not far behind, better than they probably sound in comparison.  Wuyi Yancha comes in a range of types of aspects and quality levels (most teas do, some less varied than others), and being in the upper-middle of that range is a good thing.  Per my understanding these aren't being sold as "teas that never make it out of China" quality level, so they're fine for what they're represented as, decent versions, interesting, positive and unique teas.  I'm not so familiar with the Huang Mei Gui but I suspect they're relatively true to the standard types, which is kind of important given the point is trying those related to being sold as a sampler set.

A couple of years ago when I was just getting into better versions of Wuyi Yancha they would have seemed more exciting, now kind of becoming more of the same.  I suppose Cindy's teas have been spoiling me.  Tea can be like that; preferences can shift, but even beyond all that you can sort of end up chasing the dragon related to trying better and better types and seeking out new experiences.  That can work out well if you keep trying better versions, since the teas can just keep improving.  All three of these are a step or two above anything mid-range that you randomly run across, a lot better than teas sold out of large jars.

That cycle of moving expectations I mentioned is probably one part of why people tend to naturally drift to pu'er as more of a preference end-point; with aging differences the same exact teas will keep evolving, and the range in those types is broad, and the experience can extend well out of taste / flavor range.  I'd want to keep drinking some Wuyi Yancha since it's still a favorite type.  But now it's a favorite among other favorites instead, and even interesting, good versions can seem a bit more ordinary, as if I just expect the teas to be that good.

Teasenz Pre-Qing Ming Meijiawu (West Lake) Longjing

It's that time of the year again for spring teas.  I've tried some Darjeeling first flush, a very nice experience, but for me Longjing (also called Dragonwell) is the main spring tea I go out of my way to experience.  This one is from Teasenz.  It's sold as first flush Longjing, or as a pre-Quing Ming version, meaning an early spring tea, from the traditional source area, West Lake, or more specifically from the village of Meijiawu.

weather on a recent outing:  hot

Drinking teas seasonally makes perfect sense, enjoying fresh green teas in the spring, switching to mostly more oxidized teas in winter, maybe along with some masala chai, and associating some others with fall.  I just mostly don't.  I live in Bangkok and it's either really hot here or not quite as hot and raining.  The cool season is still hot.  I'm all over the map related to what I drink, and when, both tied to inclination and what vendors happen to send as samples for review.  I was buying a compressed Shai Hong (Dian Hong) from Teasenz anyway so I ordered their fresh Longjing as well, waiting an extra week or two until the product was ready.


Some bloggers tend not to review the same teas over and over, depending on their writing theme, and Longjing is a type that would tend to repeat in style.  I don't have rules or conventions for writing, beyond an inclination to violate assumed rules, so if it worked out to review a number of similar fresh Longjing then I would.  But it won't.  Then again I tried a really nice version sent by an online friend last year and couldn't believe I didn't review that, so maybe I'm just inconsistent.  Onto review then.


The dry tea smell is nice, fresh and sweet, with a bit of a nutty element (or toasted rice, all along the same line, that one characteristic aspect or range).  There is a touch more vegetal tone than I expected in the scent, a bit of extra grass swapped out for nuts, more or less, but dry tea scent doesn't matter as much as final result anyway.

The brewed tea taste is definitely in the right range.  There is a fullness and richness to the tea that extends the experience well beyond taste, and the taste is also nice.  Describing the one characteristic taste or range shouldn't be so difficult, and it is at the center of the experience, but it's hard to completely pin down.  It's a taste like nuts, or toasted rice, not completely removed from fresh cut green hay, or maybe it spans all that range, but somehow comes across as more integrated than three separate tastes.

I think the character of this version is just a little towards the fresh cut green hay from the nuts / toasted rice part.  That could mean more to someone with more depth of background with Longjing; I can only describe how it works out, or how it relates to what I've experienced, not the type-optimum, or processing inputs that led to aspects.

The tea has a very full feel related to how green teas typically come across, more like an oolong, a creamy feeling, although not exactly the same in effect as those.  It's not buttery, it's creamy.  The aftertaste extends quite a bit related to other green teas too.


It's probably not the kind of tea that gives completely different effects related to brewing variation but there is room for optimizing the balance of the elements.  There is an assumption that comes across in most tea writing--across types--that there is typically one standard, optimum way to brew every tea, and to me that probably holds up for this tea a lot better than for some other types.  But there still seems to be room for slight variation per preference.  Really one could brew this tea gongfu style, if they wanted to, and I did try that the second time, even though it works well brewed Western style.  Or I suppose it could be cold brewed, or prepared grandpa style, but this tea is a bit nice for using those approaches.

All that said, I went with a relatively short infusion the time next time to see how that shifted things.  The tea thins, of course, with the fullness and richness dropping back, but the flavor stays mostly where it was.  It wasn't astringent enough one would describe it as astringent but that range, the feel, was most of what changed.  Slightly less flavor intensity is not quite as positive, so brewing it on the light side but strong enough to retain flavor and feel fullness seems right.  Or just going with a completely standard set of parameters would work.

There is room for more description, more of the flavors list approach.  I'd be talking about Longjing in general as much as about this tea, or both really, so to be completely descriptive it would work better to describe the typical range in detail, or possibly that and the ideal, and where this stands in that range.  But that would be even wordier than this already is.  And I mostly just know when Longjing actually tastes like good Longjing, and then only in general terms, not on the level of people that have been experimenting with ever higher levels of sourcing options for this particular tea version for many years.

brewing in a gaiwan, the second time

As flavors list goes, so far:  nutty (closest to fresh roasted cashew, but not exactly that), toasted rice, fresh cut hay--the green version, quite sweet.  That sweetness isn't so far from the taste of very fresh green peas, which aren't particularly vegetal in nature.  Of course I don't mean canned peas or frozen peas; there is a part of the effect you only get in a very fresh version, something more or less just off the plant, picked only when ripe.  They're sweet in a particular way.



The "hay" aspect isn't completely separate from grass, the effect is just pretty far from what I would mean if I described a tea as grassy.  Mineral picks up just a little a few infusions in, as an underlying tone, with a little of the brightness fading, but the sweetness stays mostly unchanged and the fullness mostly continues through.



I tried the tea a second time made in a gaiwan, using a longer infusion version of Gongfu style brewing.  I liked it more, although I liked it just fine the first time.  It's hard to place that; it could've related to not getting Western brewing just right, or maybe more about moving away from Western brewing approach for so long now that I'm not used to it, and not typically being rigorous about using those standard Western style brewing parameters anyway.


The tea retains a lot of the brightness, freshness, and sweetness brewed lightly, using relatively short infusion times (around 20 to 30 seconds, using a typical proportion of tea to water for the approach).  It really seemed a matter of preference, that someone else might like the tea prepared stronger, where a normal Western brewing approach typically lands, and without significant astringency issues to work around it's not as if it doesn't work well stronger too.


It would seem to make perfect sense to me to prepare the tea more than one way and see how that varied it.  Since I bought this tea--it's not just a provided sample--I'll keep experimenting with it, although that definitely relates more to a preference to mess around than a potential to improve results.

Ranking the tea in the Longjing spectrum

One last thing:  how well did I like it, how would I judge the grade?  I think this tea gives up little or nothing related to other better Longjing versions I've tried related to feel, aftertaste, and sweetness; it's obviously very good tea.  The related fullness, creaminess, freshness, and brightness are all where they should be.  I don't remember ever noticing this much fuzz / down in a tea, which is a good thing, a sign of early leaves, per my understanding (this is already long of I'd go into more on that, but you can Google it).

Related to taste range it's a good version of a quality tea, I'm just less certain that it stands out as matching the best version I've ever tried, related to my own preferences.  That one really nice Longjing I tried last year showed off plenty of that one characteristic flavor element as soon as you opened the package, with the scent filling the room, even more fresh and intense in the brewed tea.  I think the aspect range for this tea wasn't far off that one's but it struck a different balance related to proportion of fresh cut hay element versus nuttiness / toasted rice.  It's splitting hairs, but then that's how I see a full description of a fresh Longjing working out, either you split the hairs, consider grade and also bring in subjective preference, or a review is just a flavor-list half measure.

Do I remember that tea right, I wonder; that was awhile back.  If I'd been drinking lower end green teas prior to trying that maybe the shift in level made it stand out as more exceptional than it really was.  Or maybe its status grew in my mind over time.  Or maybe I'm just not drinking green teas much lately, off that page for preference, and I'm rating it lower for an underlying preference shift away from the general green tea type.  In any case I'm just passing on my best guess, which is really all any tea reviewer ever does, although write-ups tend to get presented as relatively objective takes.

I should note that the source for that other tea wasn't an online vendor.  That friend goes out of his way to review and source competition grade teas from as direct sources as possible, and has for years, in a professional capacity.  If someone walked into a random shop or cafe to buy Longjing it almost certainly wouldn't be on that level, true here in Bangkok as well, or probably as good as this tea, for that matter.  I probably should try to verify that though; I've been meaning to go to Chinatown anyway, so I might as well try another version from there.

There was just a discussion thread about "The best green tea in the world" on the Tea Chat forum and someone mentioned a preference to buy teas at less than $1 a gram, which is a relevant part of that general grade issue.  Longjing is a high-profile and highly demanded type of tea, particularly for good quality, region-specific, early harvest versions.  A tea being sold at $1 a gram implies something about quality level, as does costing substantially more or less.  At a guess this tea I'm reviewing is quite good for the cost range it's in, although that seems a bit speculative on my part, given that I'm not trying out lots of sources of Longjing, I just drink it from different sources every year.


I'm also more or less penalizing the tea in description and evaluation for being a green tea, which is strange, since that's exactly what it's supposed to be.  To be clear I love Longjing especially for being distinct from that typical green tea character range, for not being grassy or vegetal, for tasting fresh but mostly in the range of nuts and toasted rice.  It would be completely possible for someone else to switch that around, and prefer this tea over any other they've ever tried precisely for striking the aspects balance it does.  I'm not even sure that actually relates to quality, that there could be plenty of stylistic difference beyond that one concern, just within a narrow range in this case.  I glanced around at some references about Longjing in writing this and one said a touch of vegetal nature of a specific kind identified the most sought types from the right region, and maybe that's exactly what I was tasting.


All in all it's a great tea, very fresh and positive, expressing a wonderful range of positive attributes.  It doesn't feel much like Spring here, being half-way through our Thai hot season, but it feels more like it for drinking this tea.

Testing a video addition, a Pikachu attack enactment, nothing to do with tea

Blind tasting Teasenz Shai Hong, compressed sundried Yunnan black tea

This is an interesting tea, something new to me.  In with samples sent by Teasenz I found a compressed tea labeled as shai hong.  Since I like the idea of blind tasting I didn't check what it was, which I'll retain in this write-up, the unfolding of working that out, and in the end I'll circle back to a full description.

Review (edited original tasting notes)

The labeling only says "shai hong," which doesn't ring a bell.  It didn't seem to be pu'er, so I'm guessing some other version of a hei cha.  [Of course later it turned out to just be compressed black tea.]

what it isn't

The dry scent is sweet, raisiny, with a dark appearance to the pressed leaves.  It doesn't look like pu'er, or at least any pu'er that I've tried, it's compressed differently.  I suppose it's more like I'd expect bamboo pu'er to look, which I've never got around to trying.  It looks like brick weed.  It would probably be better if that reference didn't ring a bell, really.





The brewed tea is nice, sweet and a bit rich.  Raisin - like character stands out, just a bit more complex, but along that same line.  It's a really soft tea, closer to a mild black in character than a pu'er, even a shou.  Complexity relates to subdued earthy tones, just nowhere near as intense as shou pu'er, no leather and tar and the rest, mostly raisin / date.  I recently tried a shou mei cake and it's not as mild and subtle as that, but then few teas are.



On the next infusion the fruit stays heavy, a bit off the typical raisin profile, but still close.  A woodiness starts to emerge, in an odd range, like balsa wood.  It's still clean flavored with good sweetness so that works well.  Along with that just a trace of malt picks up, a mild version of the type found in Ceylon or Assam black teas.  The feel changes, picking up a little more structure and hint of dryness, which may only seem like dryness through comparison since the tea was completely soft before.  The concept of astringency doesn't even come up.

brewed strong a deep dark red

This tea seems to have been opening up for the first four infusions.  It gains intensity, even using moderate infusion times (about a half minute, but then I went heavy on proportion).  It's just a little closer to a standard black tea type, but still sweeter and softer.  Mineral had been ramping up, providing a solid base context in this infusion.


Of course it would be possible to drink this prepared lightly, perhaps more standard.  Trying a flash infusion worked a little better. The fruit falls into a nicer balance brewed lightly, and the tea still has plenty going on.  It's not as if it's necessary to brew around some aspects though.  It would probably suit different people better prepared differently, and for this tea I'd probably vary that based on my mood.


It's amazing that the tea isn't really fading much about seven infusions in, brewed strong, even at a heavy version of Gongfu proportion.  If anything the aspects balance has improved, although it didn't transition that much, just a little.


I could imagine some people not liking the character for it not being more subtle or refined but I do like it.  It's a basic style of tea in terms of character but a unique version of that as aspects go, in between other types.  The next question:  what is it?  The character resembles black teas but that may only be due to overlap, and it might not be made in exactly the same way.  It must be oxidized but it seems possible a light form of fermentation played a role.  It's odd that it came out so clean in effect if so, but I suppose stranger things have happened.

General impression, second tasting notes

brewed lighter; good both ways, just different

I don't feel like the notes really captured my general impression of this tea.  It was nice the way the aspects worked together.  It brewed lots of infusions, staying really positive and pleasant for an absurd count of those, getting on towards 15 or so.  I expect that by dialing in the right temperature, proportion, and timing one could get even better results out of it.  It worked well across a range of different parameters though, definitely not a tea you need to be careful to get good results from.


Tasting a tea completely blindly, not even knowing the general type, is a funny thing.  I've tried parts of unlabeled, left-over samples before and ran across pleasant surprises but this was different.  The experience of the unknown cleared up as soon as I tried those, for the most part.  Per the review notes I would have went with "variation of black," which it was, but not knowing was odd.


It was complex in a way that was hard to get a handle on.  I'll condense a second set tasting notes from two weeks later--just now--to make that point clearer.


The tea is interesting, nice.  Some of the sweetness and richness of better black tea is there, along with good complexity, mineral under earth with lots going on.  I'm picking up a little metal but I think that's just related to a mild throat infection that's back, a near permanent condition for me now.  A more imaginative tea reviewer could just keep on naming different flavors as description, and accurately so.


One part reminds me of toasted pastry, another fruit, but so heavy and complex it would  have to be a mixed fruit jam.  The way minerals layer in is interesting; maybe that part is like volcanic soil.  Some of the interesting earthiness is out towards leather or even crude oil, just nothing like shou pu'er where those might be primary elements.  It has a nice thick feel too, thick in an interesting sense.  That fruit aspect may have been similar to dried persimmon instead of raisin, with some of the other complexity hinting towards spice range, just not cinnamon or something familiar.  All that works well; it's still clean and balanced.  Putting those aspects in some order would be a challenge.  It's not just about relative strength, also interesting how those combine.

Vendor's take, other input

I might start by mentioning that I did order this tea before publishing a review of it.  That might make more sense after reading about how little of it the vendor has to sell, with the other part about what it is here.:

'Pu Erh Shai Hong' or 'Tai He Tian Cha'

Sun-dried black tea, also known as 'shai hong' is made based on a different processing method than mainstream black teas. Most black teas are made letting the leaves wither, followed by rolling and fermentation. Only the last step is different. The most common way is to roast the black tea leaves to stop the fermentation. However, as the name already reveals, for a sun-dried black tea, the fermentation is stopped by drying the leaves in the sun (as it's done for pu erh).

Because tea types are classified based on their processing method, a sun dried black tea can also be considered a type between black and pu erh tea. This is why it's not strange that sun dried black are also known as 'pu erh shai hong (普洱晒红).  The after taste of a Shai Hong is sweet and because it originates from Tai He, it's also known as 'Tai He Sweet Tea' or 'Tai He Tian Cha' (太和甜茶).

I wasn't completely guessing that out in review.  The tea struck me as close enough to a Dian Hong, but I didn't make the full connection to the sun-drying step.  That's even though I tried a sun-dried Dian Hong from Farmerleaf not too long ago, reviewed here.  The other difference is that it's a compressed tea.  They go on to describe more about the character:

The taste was really interesting and was 'confusing' because we couldn't really place it. The first sip told me it was the aroma of a Yunnan black tea, but then the after taste was kind of like a ripe sheng pu erh [presumably meaning aged sheng, not the way everyone uses those concepts].  The texture was indeed thicker as the grower told us, something that also reminded us of a shou pu erh. The smoothness is amazing and probably due to the 2 years of aging. We also noted that the aging allowed us to brew the leaves up to 9 brews, which is pretty amazing for a black tea. The aging seems to result in more yield. 

Pretty much what I experienced, with that aging potentially filling in some of the gap in how it arrived at that character.  All in all it's a nice tea, which made for an interesting tasting experience.

Teasenz Da Hong Pao Review

I'm just getting over a cold but I'm guessing that I'm at 90% functionality for tasting, so I'll get back to it.  Reviewing a familiar type will make it easier, Da Hong Pao, one of the basics, the Wuyi Yancha type everyone knows about.  This version is from Teasenz, a sample provided by them.  I went over what that type is not so long ago, about how it's typically sold as a tea plant type and final version, or also commonly made as a blend of teas.


The flavors range is nice, and typical, what I'd have expected.  The roast stands out, maybe a bit upper medium related to level.  There's a nice woody basic flavor range.  The roast effect doesn't come across as char, as really heavy, just quite notable instead.  There is nice sweetness, and layers of flavors, also typical.

Two questions come to mind: how typical is this for the type, and how good is it compared to the range of other versions?  I'll get back to that.


More on separating out a flavors list:  dark wood does stand out.  There is complexity but it's hard to separate out other elements. A list would include stone fruit and spice but it's difficult to be more specific.  It might be harder to separate tastes due to my sense of taste being a little off.  It's also possible that the tea is a blend, which would lend it a balanced profile but at the same time give up specificity of aspects.

the typical look

A third infusion is consistent, not much transition, with that roast effect and clean wood tones still standing out. There is some aromatic range but that's balanced with flavor components,  not as pronounced as in tea types that emphasize that.


The feel is on the full side, and the aftertaste is pronounced, and lasts a long time, both nice aspects.  It brews a good number of infusions, a half dozen very consistently, stretching a little to go past that, but it will keep going.  Not fading quickly, as some related versions can, is another good sign.

I'm having trouble separating out the flavor aspects.  One could be a mild stone fruit aspect, but then it seems reviewers tend to say that in part to explain that they can't be more specific, since there is a range of different stone fruits.  It could be floral instead, or maybe a combination of the two.  It is possible to taste individual elements even when the basic tones are earthy, around dark wood, layered over mineral base, with other aspects mixed in, but it doesn't always work to.

Evaluating the tea, beyond flavors review

All of that is in the right range, just also all relative, both to personal preferences and to how those compare to other versions.  I think it's nice, but of course it's hard to pin down a range, how nice.



Part of judging how good a tea is overall relates to what it's being sold as, in a sense leading back to both the description and the price.  Lets check the Teasenz description (the summary version):


Enjoy a sophisticated, complex flavour with woody roast, aroma of orchid flowers, finished with subtle caramelised sweetness. Up to eight steeps when applying Chinese kungfu brewing as you can expect from a true Wuyi rock tea.



Sounds about right, I just had trouble separating out orchid.  It wasn't nearly as aromatic as Qi Dan and Bei Dou versions I've tried, more balanced between that effect and flavors, so at a rough guess it may not have been one of those plant types, or if it was perhaps blended.


My take on this tea is that it's a good example of an upper-medium level version, or compared to buying teas randomly in Chinatown shops probably a little better than that, a "good" tea (a term that is very relative).  For teas in this price range it's probably a great value, a very good example; for teas sold as rare versions that never typically make it out of China not quite as good.  That level of roast could be a bit much for some but it's typical of what I've tried of other versions, and per my understanding that is how Chinese people tend to prefer this tea type prepared.  A lot of tea enthusiasts seem to favor lighter roasts, but all that is really just personal preference.

Puakenikeni flower at the house (pronounced Poo-ah-kay-knee-kay-knee)

It might not be quite as nice as the blended version I tried from Cindy not so long ago, but that's not a fair comparison, judging directly across different tasting at different times, and against a tea from one of the nicer producers in that area (all relative, that).  It's in the same general range, which is a very positive judgment, perhaps just not quite as specific in terms of individual aspects.  Since her version was also a blend--the one I'm talking about; the Qi Dan reviewed in that post could be considered a single-type Da Hong Pao--that tea also showed less specific individual character than a single type would tend to.


I've recently tried another tea from them (Teasenz) that is something much more unique, a first for me within a general range I'm familiar with, something I'll get back to writing about.  But this tea is as it should be, a good example of a standard type.

hot season in Bangkok

Teasenz Black Needle Dian Hong, and more comparison

I'm reviewing a Teasenz Dian Hong, which they describe as a Black Needle style tea (with a sample supplied by them for review).  I often mention shooting for a simple review, and then drift off on tangents, and in this case I did also taste it along with another related tea.  That wasn't informative, they weren't similar enough, so I'll edit out the comparison and say a little more about that after the review.

I brewed the tea Gongfu style, modified to use relatively longer infusion times.  That involves stepping back the proportion from some teas I brew using really short timing.  The tea would be ok prepared Western style, not so different, but using more infusions instead and a bit higher proportion gets you a better look at the aspects, and I tend to like Dian Hong better made this way.  It's hard to know if a certain tea wouldn't be slightly better prepared using a modified Gongfu approach or a more typical Western approach without trying both, but the general aspect range is typically not so different, it mostly just shifts around how the aspects balance.

On first tasting the tea seems nice, all the typical range, a bit earthy, with some soft and rich redwood-range wood tone, and with some cinnamon standing out.  Fruit is present but I'd expect that range will stand out more after an initial round.

Things do change a lot on the next infusion, even though still moderate in time-length (a bit over a minute but I wasn't timing it).  The color of the tea darkened to a clear dark red.  It picks up a good bit of toffee or dark caramel sweetness.  The spice isn't pronounced but I'm still picking that up.  I suppose that could instead be interpreted as cocoa, or maybe as a bit of both, but the other complexity makes it trickier to separate them.  The fruit tone is still subtle, in the yam range, but with enough depth adding another fruit or two to that description-list might be justified.

The flavors are relatively clean, and the feel is nice, maybe a bit soft, but to me that works.  It still has decent body and lots going on so it doesn't need some unusual form of dryness to make it more interesting.

dark and reddish; it would work brewed lighter too

It doesn't transition much on the next infusion, but it was nice the last round anyway.  The flavors weren't really murky before but the wood tones may have brightened just a little.  That wood is in an interesting range, along the lines of cedar / redwood.  It hints a little towards spice still, or maybe cocoa, although that last may have faded, a little harder to pick up.  More fruit shows up, but still as an underlying layer, not as pronounced as the earthy wood tones.  It all works; it strikes a good balance.  It's on the softer side, not astringent at all, but still full.


Light mineral tones underlie those aspects, and sort of tie to the body of the tea.  Something comparable happens in lots of other teas, just in different senses.  It's nothing like the Wuyi Yancha background context--those particular minerals--but the function is the same, the way it gives the range of both types of teas a nice depth and balance.

brewed leaf, still needle-like

The tea is nice:  a comfortable, complex, easy to drink black tea.  Aspects do vary for Dian Hong but this is within the range of what is typical.  It could pick up a little in the way of structure, or feel, or even a little in complexity, but it's well balanced, with a good bit going on, and nice character.  It's a kind of tea you could keep drinking frequently, which would probably work out well brewed different ways, or prepared at different infusion strengths.

Comparison tasting; why that doesn't always work

I tried this tea at the same time as a Farmerleaf sun-dried autumn harvest Jing Mai (Yunnan) black tea (reviewed alone here), but it wasn't similar enough to be informative.  The comparisons are just a phase I'm going through, what I'm experimenting on lately.


Even if the teas are different as long as they share enough commonality tasting two together can help highlight subtle aspects that they don't share.  But if they're too different it won't work out like that, and comparison will just be a distraction, too much about differences.  This was more like that second case.  Someone really into that cha qi aspect might not do comparisons at all; it would give you a blended cha qi effect, who knows if good or bad.

The Farmerleaf tea also had light wood tones as a starting point, it was also sweet, and also full in feel, maybe a little "drier," again with some fruit and hinting a little towards spice.  It started out more in the cocoa range but shifted to wood-tone aspects later.  It sounds exactly the same, put that way, but it was quite different.  The Farmerleaf tea came across as more subtle, which stood out in comparing it to the other oven-dried Farmerleaf black tea as well.  Per that vendor input sundried teas are supposed to keep gaining more character over the first two or three years, but I've only let it sit for however many months so far, and it's not even close to a year old.

There was an overall effect difference, how it all balanced, beyond the secondary characteristic differences between the two teas.  Maybe those contrasts would have been informative, if written out as a comparison tasting, infusion by infusion as the tasting notes were taken, but it was subtle enough that it didn't seem clear.  More than that, it didn't seem to add anything to helping with the review process.

The Farmerleaf tea also had a bit more earthy range, and less fruit.  Pronounced aspects ran a little towards forest floor, or maybe just woody in different sense, or possibly even towards a leather range.  It always sounds odd describing teas outside the range of actual food flavor aspects but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  I had a shou pu'er with lunch today that might be described as tasting like tar that was nice.  I love the odd earthy flavors ranges that can stand out in Wuyi Yancha, when those work well, in nice versions.

Both teas were nice, just different.