2023 Bulang sheng pu'er

 

In this I'm reviewing a 2023 Bulang sheng pu'er from Oriental Leaf.  This is a fairly unusual form of review, related to tasting this tea twice to get to a workable final set of notes.  I used my normal high proportion for brewing the tea the first time, around 8 grams for a 100 ml gaiwan, and it was too much, and it was hard to dial down intensity, even with use of flash infusions.  

It's odd being a sheng drinker and having intensity be too strong.  I could've just edited that out, but it works to describe problems with a tasting process, and how things go when you get them wrong.

This tea was provided by them for review; many thanks for that.

I'll cite their product description and get on with it:

2023 Bulang Buds First Flush Raw Puerh Cake ($90 for a 357 gram cake)

Spring Buds from Bulang Mountain | Dry-Stored

Sourced from the first picking of 2023 on Bulang Mountain and pressed into only 95 cakes, this silver-tipped raw Puerh delivers the rare combination of Bulang's bold character and early spring's natural sweetness — clean, bright, and built to age.

Bulang Mountain's first flush of 2023, pressed into 95 stone-mold cakes — this is what raw Puerh looks like when the material, the terroir, and the storage are all handled without compromise.

Finding the right Bulang material takes time. Bulang Mountain (布朗山, Bù Lǎng Shān) in Menghai County, Xishuangbanna, is one of Yunnan's most storied raw Puerh origins. It has a reputation for producing tea with a powerful, almost aggressive character — thick bitterness (苦 (Kǔ)) that hits immediately, a bold astringency (涩 (Sè)) that grips the sides of the tongue, and a 回甘 (Huí Gān, lingering sweetness) that comes back stronger than almost any other mountain. That is the Bulang identity: force, then reward.

But this material is different. We spent a long time looking before we found it...

It keeps going from there; it's interesting checking their flavor notes: 

Primary: Fresh floral (orchid, white blossom), light grass, raw green walnut

Secondary: Sweet cream, fresh-squeezed green grape, a whisper of pine resin

Underlying structure: Light mineral, faint peppery warmth, clean vegetal bitterness that resolves quickly

As it ages: Expect the floral notes to evolve toward dried apricot, wildflower honey, and eventually light sandalwood and dry cedar — the classic dry-storage aging arc for high-grade Sheng Puerh...

I'll add more about how my impression matches this in the notes and at the end, but the "powerful" part expressed earlier on pretty much captures it.

first tasting, with too much tea in the gaiwan

Review, first tasting attempt:

the color shouldn't look anything like this; it's brewed way too strong

First infusion:  I screwed this up, leaving it sit for too long looking at something online.  The review will have to start with a too-strong infusion.  The earliest transition isn't usually much of a story anyway, but it's still unfortunate.

That's so, so strong.  There won't be much to say about it, beyond trying to see if this can say something about the much lighter character to come.  Intensity seems fine for this tea; brewed too long it's overly powerful.  

Maxing out proportion, my typical approach, probably isn't suitable for this tea.  I might write another set of notes later on using very little, more like 4 grams instead of 8.

Second infusion:  that's more like it, but still more intense and more bitter than I'm currently acclimated to.  All of that South East Asian sheng has been distinctive, flavorful, and approachable, while this is more about bitterness and intensity.  

Flavors are warmer in tone that I would expect for a 2023 sheng version.  But then if teas are stored in relatively more humid places that's pretty normal.  I recently drank some of the Thai sheng from Aphiwat, that local Chiang Mai area individual producer, and it was pretty far along for transition for being about the same age (although I forget the year version; it might've even been 2024, instead of 2023).  

I suppose floral range does emerge beyond the bitterness.  There's definitely a lot of mineral depth to this, and it's clean.  This tea could stand up to 20 years stored here in Bangkok, for sure.  But how is it now, as a more bitter and intense younger tea experience?  I'll check again next round.

Third infusion:  color indicates the intensity just isn't going drop off, even brewed fast, a flash infusion.  The flavor is strong.  It's more of a conditioning exercise, experienced like this.  It's definitely lifting the haze of feeling groggy from overdoing it at work and outside of work; after another cup or two I'll probably feel normal.  But the review will have to wait, until I try it again at a lower proportion, which I won't do today, for having drank so much tea already.  

Second review, a lot lower proportion:

First infusion:  I've again let this go for longer than I usually would, for over half a minute, again looking at something online.  I'll get this straightened out.  I added a flash infusion to it to get it back to drinkable range, and the next round will be more normal.

Flavor is good.  It's a little strong, but it balances ok, and it's still in a positive range.  Mineral base stands out quite a bit, and considerable bitterness.  I suppose floral tone fills in the rest.  As with trying it yesterday it's more age transitioned than one might expect for being 3 years old.  A tea can be darker and warmer in tone if it's a little oxidized instead, and I'd be one of the best qualified tea drinkers to make that distinction, since I drink plenty of unconventionally prepared sheng from South East Asia.  It's not oxidized; somehow this has changed a good bit in 3 years, even being "dry stored."

The mineral tone is so strong that it has its own character.  It leans a little towards coming across as smoky, but that's not it.  I suppose it's like when you drink artesian well tea, that includes a lot of mineral content, but stronger.  That actually links to one of my favorite memories from childhood, drinking from a naturally flowing well at one grandparents' house.  That water was sweet, rich, complex, and delicious.  This is a little like that.

Second infusion:  a little on the light side; that's interesting to experience, after trying it in a really strong range at first.  It had faded to a pleasant and drinkable range after a 4 or 5 infusions yesterday, but I had left off taking notes by then.

Sheng can tend to "loosen up" over the first 2 or 3 infusions, and this is in that process.  Sweetness, astringency, are bitterness are all in a decent range, but it will evolve to balance better soon.  I'll save a flavor list breakdown for next round.

Third infusion:  bitterness still stands out as a main flavor aspect, along with mineral.  It's possible to see mineral and bitterness as a taste, distinct from aromatic component conveyed flavors, which people might call aroma or flavor (a general term); people use the terms in different ways.  But in our experience the final experience form from the two inputs tends to come across as unified.  

There's still a mineral flavor input that leans towards smoke.  It's hard to separate out a vaguely floral range in the rest.  It has good flavor complexity, but it all runs together.  Blended material is often like that, a mix from different inputs, or I suppose a more narrow origin version, picked from the same garden, for example, could naturally be like that.  

The main positive or negative aspect range of this is intensity, even brewed fast, at a low proportion.  Bitterness and mineral really stand out, with some matching sweetness, enough to make it work.  For people who really value that intensity this would probably be good, and for others who can't relate not so good, until this ages more.  I've spent a long time acclimating to different sheng range, and I'm fine with it, but I do love fruity and milder sheng range best, to the extent that I'm open to versions that are so oxidized that they start to move outside of the type category.

Fourth infusion:  this is changing, with the astringency / feel structure and bitterness dropping off, so that other flavor range can stand forward more.  It's just starting though; it will probably be a more complete change next round.

It's interesting trying sheng again that seems to have pretty open aging potential.  

Fifth infusion:  apparent sweetness level might bump just a little, but I think that's probably from other range fading, letting what had been there emerge better.  I'm still not succeeding with a flavor list, beyond saying mineral stands out a lot, and the rest seems mostly floral, but not intensely so.  I'll let this brew a little longer, at 15 seconds or so this round, to see what that changes.

Sixth infusion:  intensity picks up, but it's not as if a list of other flavor now stands out.  Feel gets richer, and aftertaste experience increases.  The defining character range of this tea is intensity.  If someone feels like they can't get a sheng that hits hard enough, even for trying some pretty intense range, this one would cover that.  Someone on that page would probably be good with mineral range standing out quite a bit, and floral range being a main component.  It's not really a sweet tea though.  

If you drink it quite strong the bitterness evolves to sweetness after you swallow it, the hui gan effect, but the sweetness level is only enough to give it decent balance while drinking it.

Seventh infusion:  another strength of this tea is durability; it's really only coming into its own for balanced character now, and it's surely far from fading, judging from an infusion cycle yesterday.

The flavor range reminds me of a funny critique someone once made that all young sheng tastes like kerosene to them.  That's probably more related to teas like Xiaguan tuos, or Dayi's Jia Ji tuocha versions, but interpreted in a different way it could apply more broadly.  This definitely doesn't taste like kerosene, but for someone not on the page of loving intensity and pronounced bitterness and mineral range it wouldn't be good.  This takes some of that conventional sheng pu'er character pretty far in that direction.  

Chopped or broken material tea tends to be even more challenging, and Xiaguan material often has its own intense and unique character, both in terms of flavor and feel.  This isn't like that.  For a lot of tea types high bud content can lead to a more subtle output, especially if the material is all buds.  Not always; something like Jin Jun Mei black tea can be pretty intense.  But Silver Needle variations, white teas, are often at the other end of the spectrum for intensity, on the mild side.  The fine leaf material in this might make it quite strong, more so than the high buds content.  And it's surely processed in a traditional sheng form, not oxidized or kill-greened more than is typical to pull that style a little towards oolong or green tea range.

Eighth infusion:  this is as pleasant as this has been; it evolves well later into the brewing cycle.  Rich feel is the nicest it has been as well.  A lot of teas, even some sheng, would be fading some at this stage, but this is just hitting its stride.  To me one part of the flavor starts to evolve towards citrus, actual orange or tangerine, but mineral still stands out, and a vague floral designation could still apply.  It's not really a bright or sweet flavor forward tea though; bitterness stands out a good bit earlier on, and heavy mineral tone defines it more.  People could interpret this as resembling root spice, or some type of medicinal herb, but that would integrate with those parts.  

Three years old is probably pretty young for this tea.  It's probably going to get better and go through different phases over the next 4 or 5 years, and then perhaps it would make more sense again later, after a 20 or so year aging transition cycle, maybe best after 25 years.  Bright, fresh, sweet, very floral or fruity sheng tend to lose that appeal after 4 or 5 years, unless stored in such a way that it preserves them and prevents change, in cool and dry conditions.  This will probably keep changing instead of just fading.

Conclusions:

One part of what I consider after the direct experience, the tasting, is how value works out for the tea.  This is pretty good for a cake selling for under $100.  It can be hard to identify a final, objective, clearly determined quality level.  Preference issues mix in, related to how much one likes different styles and types.  Different strengths and limitations factor in, and concerns related to trueness to type.

Intensity was great; the main point stressed in the product description.  Bitterness level was fine, but also on the high side.  For whatever reasons hui gan, a transition of bitterness to sweetness after swallowing the tea, doesn't map directly to that level of bitterness, I suppose as much to the form of it.  It was only a moderate part of the experience, to me.  That mineral base flavor really carried over as a main thing you experience in aftertaste.  It was mostly positive in form, and pleasant, so that worked.

The flavor range could have been more distinctive, if the floral tones had stood out a bit more, or had taken on a more distinct form.  That kind of thing tends to tie back to material input and narrow origin area.  I don't think this was a blend of different inputs, which is one part that can limit that; my guess is that the material was just like that.  The other aspect character was too intense and distinctive, the intensity, bitterness, and mineral input, for a lot of blending to have evened out character.

It's odd that this could pass for a 4 or 5 year old tea, dry stored, or maybe even 8 or 9, since it was presented as dry stored.  They mentioned that it was stored in Xi'an, Shaanxi; I just looked up what the climate is like there:

In Xi’an, the summers are muggy, hot, wet, and partly cloudy and the winters are very cold, mostly clear, and dry. Over the course of the year, the temperature typically varies from 25°F to 89°F and is rarely below 17°F or above 98°F.

So it might have been cool and dry half the time, and warm and humid some of the rest (but 89 F is kind of cool, compared to here in Bangkok).  

For most Western tea enthusiasts dry storage is considered to be a negative factor, but to me it just depends.  If a tea is approachable, with distinct fresh flavors, then moving away from that quickly through transition caused by humid storage input is negative.  If a tea is initially a bit challenging, with unusually high intensity, bitterness, or astringency then that same degree of transition works out well, and it's as well to get on with it.  

The next question, that's harder to settle, is if different forms of transition adjust the different aspect range in different ways, at a different pace for different parts of the change (for flavor versus feel, to look at it from a high level, or related to finer level changes).  People would have different opinions about that.  Bangkok storage seems to warm flavor tones, beyond increasing transition pace; I can leave it at that.  One typical concern over evolved flavors being too heavy, murky, or musty can relate to intentionally humid controlled conditions.  Malaysian storage is often on the humid side, or that can come up in Hong Kong, but it just depends on the specific location and how conditions are controlled, or if they're not.

I've mentioned in this that I like approachable sheng the most:  flavorful, sweet, fruity, less bitter and astringent versions.  At the same time I really do like Xiaguan teas, even though those often tend to be better after 20 years of relatively humid storage.  I've been drinking a Xiaguan tea ball that's an exception, and for whatever mix of reasons it's interesting and pleasant at less than a decade old (this one, a 2018 Reunion Xiaguan 500 gram Da Xue Shan tea ball).  Maybe the origin area factors in:

...made from early spring big-leaf tea trees from Daxueshan, Mengku, Lincang in Yunnan Province.

That brings up that some people might be looking for a narrower origin designation than Bulang, for this tea.

All in all it was pleasant and interesting.  It's a great tea to own a bit of, versus just trying a sample, because there is a lot of potential for positive changes to follow, over a long period of time, or it could be good in different ways at intermediate stages.

Bangkok looking a little like Seoul, on a recent outing

out walking in some intense heat with Kalani

home life relates a lot to cats

the last temple outing

The real meaning of hui gan

I have no idea what hui gan means, personally, although I've read lots of discussion about it.  One thing seems clear:  people are using the term to mean different things; they subscribe to a range of varying definitions.

Not unheard of in this blog, I won't be offering much of my own opinion.  I just ran through a similar post context in reviewing a blogging life-cycle, related to people stopping blogging about tea, in which four other people that did that passed on their own insights.

The experience of tea is what it is, regardless of how it is parsed or described, and to a limited extent adopting foreign concepts to frame my own experience isn't a personal interest.  In writing this tea blog I struggle to separate flavors into parts, into an aspect list, and do something with relating the experiences of feel and aftertaste, but my success at any of the three seems limited, to me.

But in this case the concept of hui gan has came up a few times recently and I want to pass on some ideas from that.


I'll start with a more literal and basic definition, from Bablecarp (a tea term definition database):


hui gan (Hui Gan) = pleasant aftertaste, literally Returning Sweet (回甘) [2,1]; or, much less commonly; also, a non-specific label for virtually any effect after the liquor has been swallowed, literally Returning Feeling (回感) [2,3]



Posting that very citation in a tea group is what drew me into this concept and subject, in the form of a Chinese Malaysian online friend sending a long rejection of that definition and explanation of "gan" by message.

I'll get back to that part, and start with another article reviewing the concept I've read since then.  The whole article really deserves a read, even if someone disagrees completely with the interpretation after going through it.  Here are some parts of a recent "Going, Going, Gan" article in the Cleaver Quarterly, written by Angie Lee (which really doesn't summarize by citation well, but doing so will provide access to most general points covered):


I have been to a tea master’s shop in Hong Kong where he brews a pot of Pu’er tea, pouring it into cups no larger than thimbles. We drink it down. There’s a fragrance, with a slight astringency, at first, and then layers of other flavors – tangy plum, honey, and sweet citrus – pile on, and the liquid tastes thicker than water.

The tea master looks at his watch, counts to 15, and exhales. We wait. And then it comes. Sweetness in the back of my throat and a cooling tingle on the sides of my tongue, goosebumps up and down my arm, hairs at a salute. A few of us look around as if the air conditioning has just kicked on... 

Select foods are known to produce gan 甘, this sweet-tasting, air-chilled sensation that follows an initial sting of bitterness. Gan is peptic, but also poetic – the quicker the conversion from bitter to sweet, the more desirable, but there is no shortcutting the bitterness. Gan is an afterimage.


So far so good.  In tea circles it's often used in the form of "aftertaste," but somehow there is always more to it.  I could almost stop at this point, since it's not as if more explanation makes it any less vague.  Maybe the opposite is true, and it ends up making less sense, as further citation of that confirms:


Not surprisingly, all gan-producing foods are native to China... 

Translate gan from Chinese to English and you get “sweet,” but go the other way around and sweet will always register as tian 甜. Tian is sugary, tian is when someone is being sweet to you, tian is what you say when someone is being a kiss-ass...

Gan is not just a taste, it’s an often-eerie sensation that something or someone has come and gone. A little like the way “bittersweet” is used more often in describing a relationship rather than a specific taste. No food actually tastes bittersweet. 

Gan is found in ginseng (a rhizome valued for its medicinal properties and resemblance to miniature humans) as well as in licorice root (not the red twisted candy), but not in star anise or anything made with anise oil, which tastes like licorice without the special bitterness. 

...Lastly, gan is found in Pu’er tea picked from old trees. 


As you read the rest it becomes even less clear what "gan" is, not more so.  That last citation already contained an example:  ginseng has almost no taste at all (the root and related tisane infusion), so it could hardly be aftertaste, in any normal sense.  That ties into the conclusion:


Unlike its friend umami, whose tongue-tingling delight ends as soon as it’s swallowed, gan isn’t a flavor...  Gan is curious. Gan is a transformation that may or may not happen. We may fail to find it, or have a muddling of sensation – no returning sweetness – but the act of listening transforms the moment.... Gan is a gift, and it’s neither here nor there. If you’re lucky, it’s a glorious buzz, this muddy footprint, this temporarily sunning dog.

this guy gets it

It sounds a bit zen-like, as if not making sense is part of a designed approach here.  A commenter on the Facebook page post for the Cleaver Quarterly was not impressed:


The overall content leads one to believe the author does actually know "gan", much less how to describe it. But without going further into minute details or refuting every bit of factual error, I will make just one point: contrary to what the author thinks, gan is not social, it's not philosophical, it's NOT "curious", it is as solid as salty, sweet, sour, pungent, or bitter, and every bit as REAL a flavour as any other organoleptic sensation. And if the author does not cannot see that, I don't know what to say.

No hint there what gan actually is, in that comment, never mind hui gan.  To me that's bad form, to criticize ideas without actually adding a specific criticism.

Discussions in tea groups turn up alternative definitions, like this one in a Reddit thread, or this one on Tea Chat, or one that started 13 hours ago in a FB pu'er group based on this article posting (at time of first draft of this post).  A lot of reading only broadens possible meanings, it never settles into a narrow range.  It means something like aftertaste, or feeling, or both, or something else.  

Again I'm only passing on other people's ideas here, and my friend's explanation goes long, so I'm going to cite that and be done with it.

A Chinese Malaysian friend weighs in on the meaning of "gan," edited

After a longer explanation of "gan," which I'll get to next, that friend passed on this summary of the concept:

Often times, both taste and sensation could be felt, simultaneously. It is not uncommon for a person to make the funny sound, similar with an animal lapping water, with quick movements of the tongue tapping the roof of the mouth to savour '甘' or 'Kam', an awareness more than a sensation but not a flavour proper per se I had mentioned earlier, whilst experiencing bitterness. Perhaps the 'sensation' or 'awareness' of '甘' or 'Kam' could be closely described as having an ice-cold fingertip gingerly brushing the back of one's neck. Such a feeling is felt sporadically and enveloped the rear of the tongue and the soft palate of the mouth. Others might have different description.

So far so good.  I like his writing style, by the way, very clear and precise, with a tone that reminds one of reading a classic novel.  That's the clear and simple summary version; here goes with the longer explanation:


First and foremost, the character, '甘' or 'Kam' is not 'sweet'.  Then, what does '甘' or 'Kam' truly mean?

The expression 'Kam' is only suitably used if it involves Chinese medicines, certain vegetables, fruits and nuts, such as bitter gourd, some pomelo and walnut, repectively. Of course, our favourite drink, tea.

What is the similarity shared amongst these foods? The crucial characteristic with all these foods is bitterness. It is therefore, for one to really find 'Kam', the food itself must at least has a hint of bitterness.

To further explain 'Kam', it is inescapable to explore a few Cantonese phrases. 

'苦口良藥' pronounced as 'Fu Hau Leong Yeok', means 'Bitter medicine provides good remedy', a phrase often used to cajole a sick person to take the Chinese medicine. 

'甘甘哋' pronounced as 'Kam Kam Dei', having '哋', a combination of '口' or 'Hau' also 'mouth' and '地' or 'Dei' also 'ground', is strictly a Cantonese characters, provides the meaning 'a little bit', thereby making '甘甘哋', a conversational Cantonese, exclusively, referring to tastes and flavours.

Both the phrases, '苦口良藥' and '甘甘哋', are usually used together, it means 'Take the medicine, although bitter, it also tolerable as it tastes Kam'.

Unlike those distinct tastes of being categorically defined as sweet, salty, sour, hot and bitter, 'Kam' is neither a taste proper per se, nor 'pleasant' for the lack of accurate and better description, but it is more than a sensation or awareness that lingers in the mouth. 'Kam' is a redeeming or compensating feature of bitterness and for it to manifest itself, there is a prerequisite that the medium being savoured, must be bitter or at least a tinge of bitterness. However, not all bitterness would necessarily has 'Kam'.

'甘' or 'Kam' is not 'sweet' because in Chinese, 'sweet' is '甜' or 'Tim', certainly not the intention of the creator of these characters to have them used interchangeably. A Chinese character could always be used unaccompanied or in combination with other letters, in various situations creating nouns, verbs and adjectives. However, it is not common to have different characters describing the same taste, creating redundancy. It is well known that amongst the many difficulties of learning Chinese, especially Cantonese is its uncompromising jigsaw puzzle trademark, both in writing and in conversation, requring precision in numbers of strokes of a letter and pronunciation, respectively, having each character applies to each situation, tastes in particular.

Perhaps, the words '甘蔗' or 'Kam Jeh' also known as 'sugar cane', a noun, had somehow provided the confusion that '甘' or 'Kam', an adjective, is associated with 'sweet', merely with the existence of the word 'sugar'. However, with '甘蔗', the letter '甘' is not used to refer to 'sugar', the character '蔗' or 'Jeh', a standalone character in itself, is sufficiently understood as 'sugar cane'. 

Also, '竹蔗' or 'Juk Jeh', a variant of sugar cane, boiled in a pot of water for its stock, used as traditional remedy to reduce discomfort caused by measles and mumps during childhood. The liquid is not as sugary as sugar cane juice, but leans towards bitterness, it qualifies as Kam. Therefore, normally '冰糖' or 'Bing Tong', means 'Crystal sugar' is always added as sweetener.

I strongly believe that '甘' or 'Kam' being defined as 'sweet' is a lazy and reckless decription offered to others especially to the western society and younger generation of the Chinese, without giving much thought that by so doing, would deny the true identity of '甘' or 'Kam', vis-à-vis taste or sensation... 


...Please remember that I am not here to convince your goodself of the precise definition of '甘' or 'Kam', because there is no specific English vocabulary providing the corresponding designation to this Chinese character used to define the taste or flavour, but only to identify with absolute certainty the error and fallacy of equating '甘' or 'Kam' with 'sweet' or 'pleasant aftertaste'.

Just like any other Chinese characters, '甘' or 'Kam' is a mere ordinary letter, even in combination with other Chinese characters, but if it is utilised to illustrate foods, a more detailed narrative is needed to properly explain this letter in relation to 'sensation'. 

Other references

After all that it would be easier to stick with "aftertaste" as a definition, but to the extent that I understand it I trust that friend's summary.

Or one could just go with nonsense as a final summary, as in the Cleaver Quarterly article, that it's something that absolutely can't be described.  That final Zen koan definition was that "it's a glorious buzz, this muddy footprint, this temporarily sunning dog." Mind you parts of that article were simple and clear, and did match the rest of these other ideas better than that conclusion, but parts of it also seemed to directly contradict other parts.  But then sometimes complicated ideas can be like that, a bit irreducible.


Or that Reddit thread discussion I had mentioned passed on a nice simple version in the introduction (here related to hui gan, since the term as used to describe an effect of tea is expressed as both characters combined):


Some people say it's a sweet lingering aftertaste rising in the back of your mouth after swallowing.  Some people say it's a cooling sensation (something like what menthol gives) you feel in your throat and back of your mouth after swallowing.


One could just go with one of those definitions, or both.  I turned to one of the classic blogs for a final working definition, the Tea Addict's Journal, and didn't find one there, but I did find a summary of some general ideas that relates:


From observations and discussions with other tea drinkers, I think after a while, we all move, slowly, towards a deeper and more subtle appreciation of tea, and that means that we start moving away from just looking at what the tea taste like, and put more emphasis on what the tea feels like. Good (and usually expensive) teas invariably feel good in a way that inferior teas do not.  They don’t always taste all that different, however...

...The chief difference among them is the feeling you get from the tea.  What I mean by that is not that it makes you high or your head spin or what not (although I suppose it could do that).  Rather, it is the physical sensations that you have in reaction to, first, having the tea in your mouth, down your throat, and then the reaction that your body has towards it that distinguishes the better from the not so good.  A nice one is full, thick, smooth, hits all corners of the mouth, leaves a strong, lasting aftertaste, stimulates the tongue and throat, and gives you a feeling of qi.  Bad ones are just a beverage — you taste it, it goes down, it’s over.


I think the subjective perspective focus here, in terms of this relating to a specific form of individual experience, not in terms of it being not-objective or made up, could easily be overlooked or misplaced.  Regardless of the extent to which there is one specific, limited range of experience that relates to gan / kam, and there probably is, it only means something to someone once they learn to relate to that experience.

Getting the labeling right--partitioning off specialized terms to identify limited experience range--is only a part of that, and probably not the most important part, although using the same terms in the same ways would help with communication with other tea drinkers.