Thai Moonlight White from Lampang Tea

A chance contact from Lampang Tea shared two unique versions of Thai tea with me, this one a Moolight White from Pamiang Village in Lampang.   The other is an Assamica based maocha, a version of loose sheng pu'er, from the same location.  Of course these are based on traditional teas in Yunnan, China, with "pu'er" registered as only officially describing teas from there.

As far as I know "Moonlight White" isn't a protected name convention, but limiting use of style labeling sort of just forces adding "-like" to remain a politically correct definition.  A description like "Darjeeling" is something else; that's an area.  I guess Nepalese producers could brand their teas as a "second-flush-Darjeeling-like" tea but it's as well for them to just make a version that's similar and let naming reference drop.

Moonlight white is one of my favorite styles of white tea.  A good version would be my favorite.  They can express lots of complexity, including fruity sweetness, or even trail into interesting savory aspect range.  I like them for not being so subtle; the quest for a good "Silver Needle" style tea is about finding one that tastes like something without resorting to long steeps.  Some are flavorful, of course, and personal preference can allow someone to like a tea with very limited flavor that expresses other aspects, like a thickness in feel or subtle depth. 

From the scent this tea is not lacking in flavor, even a bit complex towards that savory, sun-dried tomato range.

a close-up showing the colors and texture

Tangent about local teas in neighboring countries

It's been a running theme in this blog covering Northern Thai, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnamese teas, many of which are based on related traditions and similar styles as Yunnan teas.  In some cases the current borders wouldn't have reflected the way those groups of people local defined themselves in the past, or as earlier country borders did. 

I won't get into all that here but I will mention some tea post examples of related versions:


-about sheng pu'er-style tea from Myanmar from the Tea Side vendor, and a Myanmar shou version from Olivier Schneider

-reviewing a sheng variation and white tea from Northern Vietnam from my friend Huyen, and a local sheng version more similar to Yunnan styles from Hatvala

-reviewing a Laos Tea shou from Northern Laos (from a producer based out of Russia), and a Moonlight White style version from Kinari Tea (from a local producer, or really a consultant who helps local producers improve processing styles)

-comparison reviewing two versions of aged sheng from Thailand, one from Tea Side and the other a sample from Olivier Schneider


This isn't the same thing (similar teas from outside Yunnan) but review of a Yunnan Moonlight White version from Farmerleaf works for comparison.  That particular version was a bit floral, fruity, and slightly savory, with a few other minor dimensions to give it more complexity; a nice, interesting tea.

That was already a bit much to cover as background but it does remind me of trying an interesting white tea from Indonesia, a Toba Wangi White Beauty, which wasn't so far off the Moonlight White style.  And the style and overall effect is different but Monsoon produced a Northern Thailand wild tree white I tried a year ago that shared some commonality. 

There are some interesting teas out there, so many that I'm sure I'll never try the last of them.

Review

As for brewing approach for this type of tea you have options; it would brew ok Western style, but I'll use Gongfu brewing anyway since that'll convey transitions better, and just because I'm used to it.  It's typical to back off brewing temperature a little, to use 90 C instead of full boiling for white teas like this one.

Then again I just checked the Kinnari recommendation, since I was going to look up the link anyway, and they recommended 95 C.  It's always something.  Experimenting wouldn't hurt, checking different results using different parameters.  As a rule using hotter water will extract stronger flavors, giving a tea more astringency or emphasizing richer, earthier flavors and feel / structure, and brewing using even slightly cooler water will keep it more subtle and sweeter, shifting the balance to milder flavors.

It kind of depends on the specific tea version characteristics more than the general type which is optimum, and on personal preference along with that.  Different people would prefer different versions, a different aspect balance, so there wouldn't be one optimum. 

A pattern seems to emerge for people to prefer a less mild and sweet version (or more structured, complex, mineral-intensive, and astringent) as their taste evolves, so in general it might be normal to prefer using cooler water for brewing earlier in their exploration of different teas, and later move to hotter water once that transition occurred.  I think of it as the pattern of new wine drinkers liking Merlot, and there being a natural shift to go to Red Zinfandels and Syrah next, then onto complex blends and finally edgier structured Cabernet later.  The main thing:  you do you, go with what works.

Kinnari Tea's Moonlight version and recommendations (a Laos version)

After an initial rinse I elected to go with a really light infusion, under a ten second steep, even though it seemed as if this tea would hardly be brewing yet.  Somehow I wanted to check out the whole infusion process, to see where it started early on.  Part of the reason I skipped an initial fast infusion on the last Thai black tea comparison review was because I tasted this the day before (and posted out of order), so just to change to the opposite of that.

An online tea friend I respect and have learned from mentioned that blog reviewers should try to keep things more standard, and describe exactly what parameters they used, so that others could know exactly what caused those particular results.  There's something to that.  If I'm using 85 C water and you brew with 95 the tea will be quite different, and the same goes for tea to water proportion, infusion times, down to the characteristics of the device used and the mineral content in the water.  I've always wondered how much relative humidity and barometric air pressure might even be factors, but one could safely not even consider that.  But a reader would notice that I do the opposite; I don't typically mention specific water temperature, never include weighed tea amounts versus brewed liquid ratio, and I'm loose about mentioning infusion times, which vary round to round anyway.  It's just how I make tea.

I don't cook with a recipe either, ever (maybe for chocolate chip cookies; I'm not crazy).  I don't wear a watch, and when I present in public speaking or for meetings I never use a set script.  That might relate to a lack of orderliness (conscientiousness, as a "big 5" personality aspect, which I think corresponds in general with being more liberal, ideologically).  At any rate it's just not me.  I am an engineer, so you might think I'd value experimentation and repeatable results, but the kind of engineer I am relates to winging it more (industrial; we just get things to work).  I love the idea of using statistics and modeling for abstract simulation but even that's about replicating relatively chaotic and random inputs to create order more than building up a structured model to impose it.  The model is usually carefully controlled but even then the inputs can be intuitively assigned then adjusted through iterations.  Back to the tea.


It's light and sweet, partly due to this being such a light infusion.  There is a hint of savoriness that should develop in an interesting way along with the fruit-range aspects, which I'll describe more in the next round.  The overall effect is clean, bright, and intense, with an interesting juicy feel and complexity.

just starting to brew

The second infusion:  wow!  That savory effect came on fast, based on giving this a 20 second steep time this round.  The balance is still great, with plenty of sweet fruit, but this mix is unique.  That one aspect is closest to sun-dried tomato but that's not really it.  Sun-dried cherry tomato is closer.  The fruit will be hard to pin down; it's complex, and could be interpreted in lots of different ways.  Some would go straight to some kind of citrus comparison since that's always easy to consider.  Within that range it's closest to mandarin orange, but that's not a perfect fit.  Still, sun-dried cherry tomato along with mandarin orange gets you about as close to an understanding as splitting all that out to 3 or 4 different aspects that actually would correspond better.


The mild earthiness underlying those is really interesting.  I'll guess at that more the next round.  I'll go a little hotter too, moving from the 90 C starting point up to the 95 Kinnari recommended for their version.  That should shift the balance a little, not dropping out much fruit but drawing out more of that earthy range.


And it did.  The savory aspect shifted from sun-dried cherry tomato range towards a more standard sun-dried tomato range.  There is still fruit along the line of mandarin orange there, but it's deepened, and has been joined by a whole new layer.  That part moves towards plum.  It's been ages since I've tried a ripe, sweet, complex flavored plum and this is as close as teas tend to get to that.  The way this coats your mouth and remains as a flavor along the middle of your tongue after you swallow is interesting.  To me it just makes the experience seems fuller and more complete, although maybe someone else would either like that a lot or dislike it, hoping for something else.


There is more depth to this that might be described in all sorts of different ways.  A light but complex earthiness could come across as cocoa, but it's tied to a sweetness and spice-like range that pushes towards clove a little.  I'm not really noticing a match with standard earthy aspects (rock mineral, wood, leather, mushroom) but the depth, something underlying tying the fruit and savory range together, does sort of move towards that type of aspect, it's just very subtle.  I wouldn't be surprised if a Western brewing approach compressed this other range together more and let that show through more in a longer steep.

It transitions on the next infusion, just a bit different.  The sweet-savory range is dissipating a lot, with the rest moving towards a teaberry range, a fruity and earthy form of mint.  This tea is great; what tea version goes through that interesting a transition over four light infusions?  If it wasn't as clean and sweet as it is all that wouldn't work nearly as well, but it's not muddled or unclear in the least.  There's still lots of complexity, that plum range and the rest still there.  It doesn't seem like it's going to settle into one set of flavors it sticks with, as if it will just keep transitioning.  I'll try a longer steep, the first over 30 seconds, to see how that changes results.

On this next round the intensity is up just a little but the tea strength itself is probably leveling off.  With this being as subtle as it is it would still work well brewed twice as strong, infused for a minute or over using these parameters.  There was a time when I probably wouldn't have appreciated the infusions prepared this way nearly as much as I do now, but I'm accustomed to lighter versions now.  I just drink whatever level matches the tea.

All those earlier aspects are still there but the tea flavor range seems to unify, to one complex flavor set that would be hard to unpack if it hadn't built to this range in steps as other flavors kept joining in.  It's not clearly minty, savory, fruity, or spice-like but lots of different range contributes in a way that comes across more as just one flavor.  It's catchy.  That fruit comes across a little more like juicy-fruit gum now than the earlier mandarin orange and plum, nice but more nondescript.  I'll keep on with hot water and give it even a little longer, but I don't expect much transition round to round at this stage.

The tea is leveling off in the next infusion; it will still provide a few more nice rounds but the aspect range is narrowing, requiring longer times to get that intensity.  It's still really good, just thinned in terms of intensity and flavor range.  I'll stop with the notes here.  I did brew another five infusions or so and the range kept thinning but the tea was still nice.

Conclusion

Really nice tea.  As with other Moonlight White versions the tea is complex, with an interesting mix of sweet fruit flavors and other savory range.  This stands up well in character and quality level to any of those I mentioned on that list of other regional whites I tried (with many on that list pu'er-like variations instead, related to the other sample I'll try later).

It would work well brewed Western style too, and might work even better than that brewed grandpa-style, just mixed in a tea bottle and drank without removing the leaves, "brewing out" over as long as it took to drink it.  Any tea low in astringency would work that way but this version would change some across the time you drink it, and as you subsequently refill the water for additional rounds.

It's what I would have expected but better.  More "local" teas can express less complexity or be off in some ways, just a little less clean for processing not being ideal.  This tea is cleaner, sweeter, and more complex than I expected.  It doesn't seem like this represents rounds of someone experimenting with production styles, or if it does they've already been through a lot of rounds.  It's odd that it would be a local style, though, since I've never heard of versions of Moonlight White coming out of Northern Thailand.  They did good.

Source and cost

I asked about cost, which is listed on the Facebook page, but it's harder to read for being in Thai.  Noppadol Ariyakrua, the business owner--who is a mechanical engineer and manager now, which seems cool to me--cited pricing as follows:




Moon light white Spring 2018 
Bht 250/70 grams.
(this works out to around $5.50 per 50 grams; pretty fair)


Tuo Cha Spring 2018
(sheng pu'er-like tea, the other kind I didn't review yet)
Bht 330/100 grams
(more like $5 / 50 grams, about the same)



That's the second tea version in that photo; they've pressed the loose sheng version I have yet to try into tuochas.  There's just something cool about compressed tea versions, isn't there, beyond them being much more practical to store.

Per most accounts white teas also improve with age, although not everyone agrees with that, or prefers them as aged teas.  Given how good this tea is now it would seem really strange to tuck away an extra hundred grams for a few years to see how that worked out, but you might be the only one who owned a version of it then, good for novelty at least.

Once demand ramps up and they can get production increased too they should press this white tea into a tuocha as well, since they're already on that page, doing that with the sheng version.  Who in the tea world wouldn't want to get a tuocha of Northern Thailand white tea as a gift?  You just don't see that kind of thing.  You'd kind of want two instead, one to drink and one to set aside, and then if it aged well you'd wish you had more.

I really do tend to like fresh white teas better though, even though I did go on an aged compressed white tea tangent last year (best summed up here).   That fresh, sweet, bright fruit nature would transition to richer, deeper flavors, which may work well, maybe headed towards flavor along the lines of dried pear, but it works just fine as it is now.

Potential separated at birth versions review; 2006 Thai HTC sheng

0802 HTC version I bought left, tea Olivier sent right

Olivier's sample; a cool looking chunk

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

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

the labeling for that Tea Side 0802 2006 HTC cake

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


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

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




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




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

Review

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

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

good color, not so different

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

at the zoo with the trouble-makers the next day

Conclusions

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

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

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

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


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


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



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


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

Sheng pu'er on the next level; Wang Bing and Nan Mei versions

Wang Bing Yiwu gushu 2017

Nan Mei wild tree tea 2017

Online contacts sometimes share tea with me to try or review but this is something new.  Based on discussing pu'er with one of those people whose names tend to come up related to sheng (if you've looked around more than an average amount) an online contact shared some tea that will certainly change the extent to which I've experienced sheng.


Plenty of build-up, right?  That contact is Olivier Schneider, founder and site author of puerh.fr.  He's not actually a vendor in the typical sense; there is no website to reference to look at a product line.  Although he doesn't sell tea directly he is involved with assisting others with sourcing, so more on a wholesale level, but he's not a wholesale vendor either.  His tea research I've reviewed for years past, a French site with great original background content on pu'er. 

Check these out:

that site is more like a tea encylopedia than a reference blog (puerh.fr)

The main kinds of pu'er tea

The first leaves from Wi Yu Shan, three maocha, three famous villages

Which tea to store

Where to buy good puerh in Hong Kong




It would be easy to go a bit far in pursuing the research related to trying these teas, since I'm not as familiar with all the background as I should be.  I'll read up some as I go, but in general I try to maintain focus on trying and experiencing teas and letting the supporting ideas stay in the background, as sort of a separate parallel interest.

The obvious beginner investigation of sheng would involve a summary review of some basic themes, in study and tasting:  broader locations (areas), related to more specific locations, tea age and storage related.  Then one might review back to processing and source material variations, and so on.  A recent review of multiple years of Yiwu Mountain Pu'er versions of similar teas from different years (last in this post) is a good way to explore aging effect, but the approach only covers that one tea type, from that area, ideally processed in a similar way, from a similar plant source, stored in the same place.  In other words that approach was nice for narrowing review down to that one factor, for the samples I tried, with exploring diverse teas something else altogether.


Let's cover what Olivier sent to try, to get a feel for where this is going:


Wang Bing Yiwu gushu cha 2017

Nan Mei wild tree 2017

Ban Komuen 2017 (old tree tea from the Phongsally, Laos area)

Nan Mei gushu 2015 (small production tea)

Kokang shu cha 2010 (that's Myanmar, isn't it?)

Sheng pu'er 1998 (region not mentioned, but Hong Kong storage is cited)

Hong Tai Chang 2006 Thai sheng (I might own a cake of this tea, first reviewed here, then here)

Fengqing Yesheng Hong 2017 (black tea from Lincang)


I'll get back to plenty of background disscussion and rambling on but here I'll focus more on comparison review of those first two teas.  Trying two together is partly to help place both, and also to keep this moving.  It would work better, in a different sense, to try the teas one at a time, but that would take two months at one per week, and by the end recollection of the first could have faded.  I'll probably try them younger to older, in general, and divert to trying the one black tea and shou when that seems to make sense.

I'm excited to see teas from Myanmar and Laos included, and a black tea version, and even trying a sample of a tea I might already own could be interesting.  Storage changes things, and even if that tea started out as identical it might be somewhat different now.

these teas came with notes; that never happens

Backround on teas tasted, Wang Bing gushu cha (2017) and Nan Mei wild tree (2017)

I won't really get far with background for these teas but I will mention a few places to read further.  This article from the puerh.fr site goes into background on the Wang Bing Yiwu area, with more detail on the area and more description of specific versions.

I didn't get as far reading clear background on Nan Mei area, which is in Lincang.  According to this TeaDB article on the Lincang area it's located in the Mengku / Shuangjiang subregion, but this reference in a puerh.fr page already mentioned to a tea from the Oyang producer doesn't seem to match that:   Terroir:  Yunnan, Lincang, Linxiang, Nan mei.

The TeaDB site also included an interesting post listing short impressions of lots of Lincang sheng, but that doesn't seem to reference this specific area.  It's a bit much scanning through a few dozen tea descriptions in one go in that post but interesting for being a different sort of cross-reference.  As that post indicates it doesn't work at all to try and identify two teas that should be similar based on comparable source area and description, related to them actually being nearly identical when trying them; tasting really is the thing.

About trying these two teas, I didn't expect them to necessarily be similar, but in talking to Olivier by message he clarified the opposite might be more true:

Yeah it's very interesting, two old tree young puerh, but pretty different... different region, different processing, different blend, style at the end...

Luckily the notes and already finished write-up concluded they're not identical, as follows.

Review 

The Wang Bing gushu cha sheng is pleasantly intense.  It's not bitter or unapproachable, with great sweetness and floral complexity, and with overall complexity really standing out.  That blast of feel and pronounced aftertaste effect stand out from the first infusion.  It's the kind of experience that doesn't end after tasting the tea, at all, it just keeps tapering off. 


I get a sense others have developed a deeper appreciation for that range of aspects than I've progressed to but it's definitely an extra layer to the experience.  Since I'm only trying the first infusion the tea will probably soften and deepen with a couple of further infusions, showing off it's true potential.


The character difference in the Nan Mei tea is shocking, how on a very coarse level the two teas are so similar but at the same time absolutely and completely different.  This tea is also complex, with plenty of floral range and sweetness, but much warmer in aspect range.  It's so complex that describing what's going on will relate to that challenge, getting around it.

In a sense breaking the experience down into component concepts does it an injustice; it is that whole range of experience, and converting it to fragmented concepts is like describing the impact a work of art, or music or dance performance has on you.  It's not just limited, but also traces over into absurdity. 


That said this Nan Mei tea's aspect range is further towards a spice tone, with light fall leaves, exotic root spice, and a trace of nutmeg blending to make up a complex impression those types of concept fragments won't capture.  It's a softer tea, intense in it's own right, but so much not in that other familiar sense.

Wang Bing left, Nan Mei right

Wang Bing left, Nan Mei right 

Second infusion

The Wan Bing tea brews slightly darker, maybe not so much what I'd expect based on flavor profiles, but then maybe color differences will make more sense to me later on.  I'll keep these infusions fast, with the intensity level limited, making it easier to fully experience the aspects range (a bit counter-intuitive, maybe, but to me that's how it works out).  I might try one round slightly stronger to experiment but that tends to work out as you'd expect; the extra intensity ramps up feel and aftertaste considerably, but tends to not match my preference for balance as well.

The Wan Bing tea is great.  Yiwu general aspect range is familiar (but I'll spare you the post links, this time), and better tea versions tend to be like this one, intense, bright, floral, fresh, with bitterness and mineral depth that balances well.  It's that intensity that stands out; even brewed lightly it's considerable.  It would work to spend time drinking this tea, to take a couple of sips every couple of minutes, and just stay in the experience.  That kind of effect seems relatively unique to sheng pu'er.  Lots of teas are intense and impressive in lots of different ways but this range of effects seems to extend almost beyond consciousness itself.

By that I don't mean that it's psychotropic, that the "cha qi" is drug-like, and combining two teas in one tasting offsets the ability to notice that as an input of one of them.  For some people I suppose it would be like mixing drugs, tasting two teas together.  In general I don't notice much of that effect at all from most teas anyway.

The Nan Mei is again a totally different tea experience.  It's a lot warmer, softer, and sweeter, giving up intensity and balance, but still quite pleasant in a different sense.  Usually tasting two teas together making any sense depends on them being quite similar but sometimes the contrast can be interesting too.  It's easier to "take in" two completely different tea experiences at the same time with a lot of practice in trying that.  I suppose it's also a little like watching television while you listen to music; it could work, if someone is on that page, but for many it just wouldn't make sense experiencing two related but different things at once.

The range of experience for the Nan Mei is more centered on taste.  It has a fullness to it too but with flavor complexity coming across as more primary, with the other range dialed down.  It's odd how much softer the tea is.  It has a richness to it but essentially it's like a layer or two of experience of the Wan Bing is just missing.  It would work to brew it twice as strong to let the flavor intensity build up, and the range and intensity of feel still probably wouldn't match the other tea.

Third infusion

The Wan Bing isn't changing that much but it does seem like it's softened and filled in just a little and the range of aspects has broadened.  It's odd thinking that someone might not like this tea, related to considering people saying they've not found sheng they can relate to yet.  I think it really is a developed preference, this balance of aspects, in particular seeing that slight bitterness as a positive part of an integrated whole (limited in this version).  Of course it's a much different experience than in lower quality teas, and to some extent it makes sense that someone could be into soft, sweet, and rich oolongs and black teas, or more subtle whites, and just not on this page.

It tastes just a little like taking an aspirin, sure, but in a way that really works well.  As for description I tend to leave off at saying such a tea is mostly floral but balanced, with sweetness and other flavor complexity in mineral range, with brightness and complex feel rounding out the experience.  That's as close as concepts seem to get, but it doesn't really get far in describing it.  The right person could develop "floral" quite a bit more, or the rest.


Again the Nan Mei is a completely different kind of tea.  The warmth and richness is centered much more on flavor experience, in spite of being thick and complex.  It's not bitter at all.  There's actually complexity to spice range alone, ranging from soft sassafras root type range, up through light, mild fresh wood tones (maybe even soft and sweet tree-bark), extending to complexity more like nutmeg.  It has a fullness to the feel as well, and a richness that plays off a hint of dryness, it just doesn't hit with the same overall intensity.

There are layers to both experiences that would require less direct, more poetic interpretation, which could easily just be nonsensical to a reader.  The Wan Bing is bright, intense, and fresh, and the Nan Mei is rich, full, and almost buttery in feel.  It's not exactly closely related but we just had a Thai dinner (I live in Thailand) served with a very light pandan leaf tisane, and there was something hard to capture about the aspect range of that tisane.  The flavor was nice, to the extent it had any brewed so lightly, but something was going on with richness of feel that I couldn't really pin down.  Or maybe that wasn't really feel, just a fullness in flavor range that was surprising because the tisane was brewed so lightly, so that processing the end effect seemed tricky.


These teas will keep going, for lots of infusions, and there would be transitions to talk about, but since this already passes on a lot of general impression I think I'll leave off and just experience them without taking more notes.

Wang Bing Yiwu, dry

Nan Mei, dry

Conclusions, placing the experience

But they were both really nice, and quite different.  They did have a lot to offer related to experiencing more from lots of additional infusions.

I've been stuck more on the idea of sheng aging most recently, and with these teas being from 2017 that's not central theme.  I've completed tasting notes on other teas that will get back to that, and of course related to others in this set too.

As far as liking a particular age of tea it's early to make a call but it seems that in teas that are approachable when young I do like them best right away, which is sort of not what I expected, but then that was partly based on trying teas that needed some age.  I reviewed a 7542 last year that was three years old that seemed it really needed that length of time to soften up a little in overall effect, and a two year old Tae Tea tuocha the year that seemed to needed more time.  I keep meaning to try that second one again sometime but never think to get to it.  I'll say more about which was a favorite in that Yiwu Mountain pu'er age series in another post, but I did like a relatively new Vietnamese loose sheng (or sheng-like tea, if you must).

Related to these other samples, it might be nice to just go down this list and try the next two, since Laos and other non-Yunnan sheng-like teas are a theme that keep coming up.  It would be interesting to compare the experience of a second Nan Mei version to notice terroir commonality versus other version difference. 

Again I wouldn't expect there to be enough aspects in common for paired tasting to make lots of sense.  Since I went through that theme so many times last year--it was kind of the page I was on--whether the combination of tasting two together makes sense or not (if they're similar enough for that to work well) I feel like I don't lose that much for focus in using that approach.  Tasting three teas gets to be a bit much, and even one is too much to focus on if there are distractions, but comparing two seems simple enough if that general approach is familiar.

one of the two blog mascots

I keep seeing selfies in my phone back-up photos

Ban Komaen 2017 (Laos) and Nan Mei gushu 2015 tasting

 Ban Komaen (Laos tea) left, Nan Mei right

I'm back to trying pu'er samples generously sent by Olivier Schneider, a pu'er expert and author of the reference page puerh.fr.  That page is in French but automatic translation works well between related languages.  It's a separate subject but I've been noticing that automatic translation from Russian to English goes better than you'd expect.  He's not actually a vendor, in the typical sense, more a researcher who is also involved with pu'er sales in the development and wholesale levels.

This follows on a review of two initial sheng samples here, which lists out details for the two I tried and the rest.  I'll compare these two teas:


Nan Mei gushu 2015 (small production tea)

Ban Komaen 2017 (old tree tea from Phongsally, Laos, so this is "sheng-pu'er-like" tea)


There isn't much reason why I'm pairing the tasting of these two.  The ages are comparable, and they're the next two on the original samples list, arranged more or less by age.  Trying very similar teas together works better but I'm not clear on expectations related to these.  At a guess they won't be similar.

Nan Mei is a village area in Lincang, Yunnan, as described in this puerh.fr article.  Olivier includes a producer profile of a woman tea maker in Laos in another article on sexism in tea  (who may or may not have made this tea; I'm not claiming that connection).  I won't do much for describing those locations or variations in the teas here; the point is just review, conveying an impression, which is already a lot to cover.

In this case comparison tasting is also about getting the tasting and review process moving since I've been off that for the last three weekends related to my son becoming a Buddhist novice monk.  It's the main Songkran weekend here (the traditional Thai New Years), so we're a little busy doing water park outings and errands, but it did work to set aside time for a tasting.  Conditions were not optimal since the two noise-makers were around for it but a long day at a water park the day before had their volume turned down a little.

Tasting notes

First infusion:

Nan Mei:  the tea is nice.  It's complex, well balanced, with good intensity.  The profile includes plenty of mineral depth, well integrated with the other range along the lines of wood tone and leather.  I'd expect some of this taste range matches flavor descriptions that would be familiar to others but I'll need to muddle through breaking them down through other comparison descriptions.  The astringency is limited for as intense and full in feel as this tea is.  It won't really need to transition to soften to be approachable but I expect it will develop over the next several infusions.

Ban Komaen:   this tea is similar in one sense and completely different in another.  It also expresses good intensity, good body, and complexity, based in a lot of mineral range, with very different other primary flavor.  This tasting is going to be tough in terms of description.  With a lot of other teas it's a stretch to pin components and labels on what's going on but this really isn't getting far, and I'm not sure it's going to.  I'll probably keep saying things like "mineral, wood, earthy, tree bark" and it won't convey much.  So goes tea review in general.

I guess the difference might be in some teas tasting more like fruit or vegetables, or at least like somewhat familiar range like hay or fallen leaves.  With these teas so far into mineral range and other flavors that aren't exactly familiar it's not going to be easy.  Some unusual versions of nuts might make for a start, and describe one part, or spice descriptions could tell part of the story.  It might work as a fall-back to describe differences in the two instead of getting to an accurate flavor or aspect list.

Nan Mei 2015 gushu

Ban Komaen 2017 old tree

 Ban Komaen (Laos tea) left, Nan Mei right

Second infusion:

Nan Mei:  The overall effect is really nice; it's probably as well to communicate that before tripping over the details.  The depth and complexity are good, and the flavor range is positive, if hard to describe well, with a nice thickness to the tea and a long aftertaste.  The previous mix of heavy mineral, wood tone, and tree bark (for lack of a better description), are joined by a trace of tobacco.  There's more going on that that; a rich depth that reminds me a little of brazil nut.  The tea is really approachable for being as intense and complex as the flavors are.  It's not especially bitter or astringent but it has a lot of aspect range to give it complexity; it's not soft or thin.

Ban Komaen:  This tea shifted into a sweeter spice range that's a lot closer to lemongrass than I'd have expected possible.  It transitioned a lot in just one infusion.  It's not less approachable than the other tea, in spite of being a year old versus three, not harsh or astringent at all, although maybe a little softer in effect.  Neither are bitter.  There is enough complexity that maybe a little bitterness can be separated out as one part of what's going on but it's definitely not dominant in either tea.  There is a lot of mineral depth and wood range in this tea but that sweetness and lemongrass range really stands out.  It also has a nice feel and again the experience lasts a good while after swallowing the tea.

Some of this range reminds me a little of how Vietnamese snow teas come across, it's just not as bitter as those often are, and not quite as vegetal.  Those don't seem like typical green teas to me but they tend to span a character range in between sheng and green tea.  It's that mineral and earthy flavor aspect range that's common, some parts of which overlap with the other tea, with some parts not.

 Ban Komeun (Laos tea) left, Nan Mei right

Third infusion:

 Ban Komaen (Laos tea) left, Nan Mei right (infused a little longer)

Nan Mei:  a bark spice aspect picks up, a bit like that "darker" version of cinnamon Rou Gui resembles.  A local Chinese vendor said Vietnamese cinnamon tastes like that, but I'm really not familiar with a range of versions of cinnamon.  It could come across more like tobacco (and it did to me more in the last infusion) but it's only a little towards that from the cinnamon.  Or it's just both; usually tea review is presented as an aspects list.

Ban Komaen:  that nice spice range shifted a bit more; it's cool how novel this tea's flavors are.  It still reminds me quite a bit of lemongrass, so I'd say it's mostly that, but of course the mineral depth and earthiness in the wood range isn't common to tisanes.  The wood in both seems like an aged hardwood, if that helps, maybe with a very faint bite of young branch shoot.

The Nan Mei comes across as "drier" in feel when comparing the two; that full feel tightens your whole palate and gives it a dry feel in comparison, which is more noticeable as a contrast with the other tea.  The Laos tea has a good bit of structure and fullness to it (relatively speaking related to teas in general; really moderate as sheng goes) but the finish feels smoother.

Fourth infusion:

On that last infusion I went slightly longer than usual, which I often do to get a better feel for the feel of teas, and to check how the various aspects work out slightly more intense.  In this case it was because my daughter interrupted me, but the effect in tasting isn't so different related to it being planned or not.  I'll try this infusion quite light, which actually can make it easier to notice trace flavor components.

Nan Mei:  this tea is actually nicer brewed very lightly.  There is still plenty of flavor to be enjoyed and the fullness of feel and aftertaste are still pronounced, and the balance works better.  The list of what I'm experiencing hasn't changed, and the gap in describing it.  It's complex; I get the sense there are layers I'm just not getting to assigning a description to.  The woodiness is probably more like leather than wood, which is sweet enough there might be a dried fruit aspect that matches part of it.  Faint prune, maybe?  Possibly something else dried I'm not familiar with, or just not picking up clearly enough to pin down.

Ban Komaen:  the sweetness and lemongrass effect seems to be falling into more of a balance with the earthiness in this tea.  It has mineral range for a base but less than the other tea, and probably in a lighter range.  Neither of these teas express any aspect range that I'd expect would improve by diminishing through aging.  I can't judge aging potential well yet, or how they would change over a few more years, but they're both very nice now, in two different ways.

 Ban Komaen (Laos tea) left, Nan Mei right

Conclusion:

The next infusions will continue to show transitions; these teas are far from finished.  The basic story is already told, and I get bored with review notes that delve into finer and finer details and transition differences.  I expect that few readers want to read further after getting through a full first page of tasting notes anyway.

Both teas were really nice; both somewhat new ground for me.  The Nan Mei was nice for being so complex and pleasant, really solid across the entire range of aspects, and the Ban Komaen for being so novel.  I liked the Laos tea better because that unusual aspects set really worked for me, the unique flavor of the tea, but I guess others with different preferences might feel different ways about it.

It goes without saying but the continuing emphasis on how the teas taste doesn't match the sheng pu'er theme perfectly, for many.  Feel and aftertaste are highly valued aspect ranges for many sheng drinkers, and I'm not even mentioning qi here (drug-like effect, or at least along that line).  Comparison tasting gives up reviewing that as a factor, since tasting two completely different versions together mixes that effect.  I tend to not notice it that much myself anyway, and don't love it even when the effect is so pronounced it can't be missed.  I already put in my time with using recreational drugs and for me tea isn't about that.

There's room for more rambling on about appreciating different aspect ranges in teas, and how to some extent transitioning what one does appreciate could relate to what is experienced.  Exploring that line of thinking works through analogy:  if coffee and beer are acquired tastes, not so delicious or enjoyable when one first tries them, the existence of a lot of coffee and beer drinkers implies that lots of people had to keep trying them after initially not liking them.  Maybe mochas help explain some of the coffee part, or people needing to stay awake late at night.

Maybe I will start discussing how appreciating mouthfeel, aftertaste, and effects of teas are growing on me, or it could go the other way, and I could decide to ease up on exploring sheng because taste alone doesn't make for enough of a draw.  Of course there's no need for a deadline related to that.  It has been interesting getting further with this especially complex and novel tea type.  I doubt I'll part ways with drinking sheng, I just won't drop interest in all other tea types as some do.  I already have one more set of notes on other versions to convert into a post, and more teas to try.

still wearing that novice-monk haircut, which I do like on him

after an 8 hour shift at the water park

two days later, back at that park

Trying a 1998 Hong Kong stored sheng

This is the last tea sample passed on by Olivier Schneider, that pu'er authority who founded his own reference page (puerh.fr).



If the tea was from anyone else there would be less reference value in one sample that's not really well identified.  It's described as sheng puerh 1998 Hong Kong Storage.  The second description reference reads more like "1948;" that can't be right. 


Any tea, tasted even completely blindly, is fine for experiencing what you get from that, but it wouldn't work to assign any degree of confidence that the version might be good, or typical of a certain style or background in any way.  Based on trying those other samples this will be an interesting tea, and a positive experience, that provides insight about aging transitions within a broad but typical range.



One more qualification about that, which extends into a bit of a tangent here before the actual review:  aged sheng pu'er reviews in general tend to draw on forms of prior exposure and expectations more than other types.  Or few people write reviews of aged sheng, probably a sort of "those who know don't talk; those who talk don't know" running theme (a Tao Te Ching reference). 


To the extent discussion takes place in particular qi effect is described in detail, not just a typical range of how a tea makes you feel, but also specifics about energy patterns experienced within the body.  Also mouthfeel effects come up, learned preferences for certain types of experiences related to tightening and sweetness effects in different parts of the mouth or throat.


It doesn't necessarily diminish the importance or validity of those experiences that such preferences have to be learned, that they wouldn't be experienced as inherently positive by an untrained individual.  Full-bodied French red wines or Scotch drinking aren't less valid because those things would taste awful to someone without a lot of the right prior exposure.  It would be possible for an inexperienced tea drinker to dismiss most of that as subjective preference that's not well grounded but something would seem to be missed in that.  At times limited groups of people do learn to value experiences that aren't necessarily meaningful or positive to everyone else, as in the case of these forms of appreciation, but most typically within the context of those groups there are real, valid, meaningful grounds for those preferences. 

I drank red wine for a few years, and without a lot of specific training in the form of group indoctrination I moved from liking milder, sweeter versions into more subtle, complex styles, and I may well have been headed towards becoming a burly Cabernet drinker eventually, I just stopped before that happened.  As with tea drinkers experiencing oolongs or aged sheng as natural end points people with different inclinations in red wines might well be headed towards appreciating subtle, complex Pinot instead, or fruit-forward Bordeaux style blends, or maybe those rough-edged French reds that taste like a nail was stored in the bottle to a newer wine drinker.

In the case of art it relates to forms of meaning being carried in styles that one really needs to be familiar with to appreciate, to completely human-developed patterns of forms.  Tea styles and aspects appreciation might not be so far from that but even if so that wouldn't make them less valuable for only be valued through learned association.  It also seems possible that unlike in how art forms can match current trends and meaningful patterns, based on earlier trends, an individual would learn to appreciate some of the same aspects in tea without training, just maybe in a different form.  I was never really into art, just to be clear, but a grad-level class in aesthetics philosophy made for a confusing but interesting investigation of what it was all about.

To simplify:  I can appreciate teas having a more complex feel, and can recognize obvious physiological effects from some teas, but I don't value those to the extent many others do.  I haven't been trained to appreciate some versions over others, whether those goals are tied to conventions or to an organic natural preference curve, or both.  Sheng drinkers tend to drink sheng less for flavor than for most other types, but to some extent that's still the main page that I'm on, the main range I appreciate.  That's not to say that a pronounced aspect in another range can't stand out and make for a very interesting experience.  That occurred in trying a Lao Man E huang pian shou recently; that tea was unusually thick in feel, unique in a way not mostly based on flavor.  On to it then.

Review

First infusion:  I did taste the rinse, just to get an idea where this tea is going, and it was heavy on slate with some mustiness and char (probably as well to not even sip a few drops of that; it'll be there next round too).  This tea might not be so positive for the first couple of infusions.  The first infusion is just a little musty but it's nice how fast that is clearing up.  There's lots of depth to this tea, apparent very clearly beyond any more challenging aspects, which seem like they'll largely be faded by the next round and perhaps even more so on the next.

It reminds me a little of Liu Bao, that intense slate-mineral effect.  It's a little different in this expression because there's more depth behind it.  But then I've probably not tried higher level, fully aged Liu Bao yet, so I would be comparing apples and oranges.  The smoothness is nice.  Even for expressing a range that earthy and still being a little musty it's quite smooth.  The depth is nice too; it covers a lot of that old-furniture range of flavor, and the sweet nutty range that gets hard to describe, not so far off roasted chestnut but not exactly that.

the leaves did take awhile to unfurl, even though not compressed so much

The next infusion is what I expected; it picks up a good bit of depth, and cleans up quite a bit.  It might sound like I'm saying that the tea is "off" more than I intend.  That one range of slate-mineral flavor can easily bridge into different levels of mustiness and it's hard to pin that down on a relative scale without any mention making it sound more significant than it is.  The feel is interesting.  The tea comes across as really rich and really smooth, which will spare me talking about which parts of the mouth it impacts.  The overall experience lingers quite a bit but that relates to there being a depth to it, not one particular feel in the mouth or one distinct, limited trailing flavor.  Breaking any of those parts of the experience further would definitely be possible but somehow wouldn't seem more informative.

People tend to ask how aged sheng compares to shou, and I definitely won't have a clear and final answer to that based on trying this one tea, and little to go on based on trying more in the 10-15 year old range.  But it could work as good input; I can see how shou, this aged tea version, and Liu Bao map together better related to trying it.  I probably won't get far with explaining it though. 

In one sense this tea shares some common ground with those cheap, char-intensive droplet / tablet mini-tuo version of shou.  In a couple of others it's relatively not like those at all.  Some flavor range is common but the overall effect of dropping some charcoal into a cup of hot water is closely tied to the mini-tuo experience, and not this.  Slate mineral and subdued charcoal are main flavor aspects though, but there are layers below that.  It seems possible this tea will transition more over the next couple of rounds to move to a balance further away from that, and if it doesn't that'll make it easy to keep these notes short.

even short infusions were a bit dark

It does take another very pleasant step the next round; good.  That slate / mineral / char falls back into a nice balance, and an aspect I think of as "something I'm not familiar with" moves forward and develops.  It's not completely unrelated to "old furniture," but sweeter, better balanced, and cleaner.  This tea has already moved way past whatever any Liu Bao or shou I've ever tried can express, in terms of depth and complexity, just in a sense that's hard to describe.  Thickness escalates quickly.  It's so full in feel that it's a bit oily, in an interesting and nice way.  I get the sense it'll evolve to a place easier to describe in the next infusion, so I'll say more about that in the next round.

Next round:  maybe not; I was wrong about this getting easier to describe.  There's a depth to the experience that I can't put words, or maybe even completely grasp.  Breaking out any description of part of it doesn't cover the rest at all.  Flavors could be like roasted chestnut, or anything else I've already expressed, but the flavors-list approach drops more out than it catches.  It works to say it balances, that subtle, complex range of feel combines with flavor range that has an unusual depth and complexity, but that altogether it amounts to a sum greater than the parts.  I'd be writing poetry to describe it further than that.  You kind of just have to experience it.  I'm not saying this is some sort of heavenly transcendent experience but it is definitely one of the most interesting and positive teas I've yet to try.

It's like shou but nothing like shou, depending on which level one would mean.  In terms of flavor it's not that far off, just more complex.  Some shou I've tried were complex and smooth but not to this degree.  I'm not even sure this tea is completely where it's going to transition to, that it has went through its own version of "opening up" yet.


More of the same on the next round.  It is still transitioning, but I can't describe how.  It keeps getting cleaner and sweeter, with the slate-mineral receded to a mild supporting element very different in form.  That "old furniture" aspect also cleaned up and transitioned, not gone, but different.  A richness like roasted chestnuts remains, but the effect closest to char also smoothed out and fell into a different supporting layer.  There's an effect you get in some better Wuyi Yancha that matches how certain types of liqueur come across, sort of a perfume-like aspect, but nothing like a chemical, the nail polish remover type ranges that would make up a base for those.  All this range is subtle and well integrated.


Flavor isn't the most interesting part of the experience.  The smooth fullness also isn't.  I don't even mean the same thing by "smooth" and "full" as I typically would; kind of an extension of those instead.  The experience after tasting the tea isn't like an aftertaste, although there is some part that corresponds to that.  I don't mean a "buzz" as I've experienced with some teas either, the form I connect with some "qi" effect.  Levels of experience continue on after you swallow the tea, a mix of taste and how it feels.  Back to the poetry, it seems.


I might just leave off there and drink another half dozen infusions without the note taking.  The aspects will change, for sure, but for being so hard to describe it'll be a similar form of rambling on anyway.  I will say this:  two infusions later the balance is even nicer; the tea just keeps improving.  I can see why people might get hooked on this sort of thing.  The depth of the experience is much different than for other tea types that just taste nice, have a nice full feel, and some aftertaste effect.

maybe 15 infusions in, still a bit thick and oily

Around 10 to 12 infusions in the tea suddenly required longer infusions to produce the same intensity, and a couple more rounds later it dropped off that much more.  It was still far from finished though, but longer infusions shifted the range of aspects quite a bit.  The char came back, extracted more from the longer times.  The tea was still positive around the 15th or so infusion (where I'm tasting it now), interesting, pleasant, and oddly still quite complex, but not as nice as that range had been from rounds 5 through 12.  It definitely made for a unique experience.

I won't have much for additional conclusions, so I'll mention some closing thoughts here.  I can't place this tea related to other relatively fully aged versions, related to other teas that had spent 20 years aging under similar conditions.  I'm sure different starting points and slightly different storage conditions would change results.  As with any new range of teas it is possible to try just one "good, typical version" and get some sense of where things are headed, but it almost never works out that the variations are something that you'd expect.

More input, and an event notice (in Europe)

I talked a little to Olivier Schneider about this tea, the person who passed it on.  It doesn't shed that much light on the storage environment but it is interesting hearing him say a little about that:


This tea is a sheng (raw) puerh from 1998, mean that it was raw when he left Yunnan, with a very good Hong-Kong traditional storage, aka. wet storage. HK traditional storage is a traditional way to age puerh, made in Hong Kong and guangzhou area for long time. Because we speak about Hong-Kong "storage" many beginers think it's just a question of storing tea in the humid atmosphere of HK, but in fact it's not. HK traditional storage is like shu cha (shu cha was inspired by HK trad storage), an artificial method to age tea, but when shu cha is an industrial process which take around 6 weeks, HK trad storage is an slow and hand made process which usually take at least 15 years for a high quality product. It's really an art, like whiskey aging or cheese aging, and when it's badly done it's really terrible (with typical moldy taste), but when it's made by good house, like this one, it makese really amazingly great teas!


Surely a few details beyond that about related factors are familiar to many, even those without broad experience, but in the end trying a tea that has been through a positive version of this sort of transition is the thing. 

One thing I didn't mention in that review:  I would've believed that the tea had been stored a lot longer than 20 years.  Versions of sheng not that much younger than it that I'd tried in the past had seemed very young in comparison, not all that affected by age at all, beyond more limited related transitions occurring.  I've had limited exposure to teas being ruined by poor storage.  A Liu Bao was way off due to being stored too wet, really musty, but it sort of came back from that after sitting around for a year.

The slate-mineral and char effects that were stronger in the beginning and end of the cycle seemed to be outcomes related to that transition.  On the more positive side the smoothness and level of depth in those infusions in the middle were new to me.  Even in those earlier and later infusions when those aspects weren't necessarily positive they were still more neutral than they might sound, and the overall effect and complexity was positive in ways that was hard to describe.


To move onto another idea kind of related to this tea, but not directly related, Olivier is doing a series of tea tastings and ceramics displays in Europe over the next month or so.  My Vietnamese tea-friend Huyen might even make it to one in Paris, but I think she's still working out paperwork and travel planning.  Either way, I'll mention that schedule here, by citing a FB post, and the related link:


Before to leave Asia, choosing the teaware I will bring with me for Europe! This year there will-have two special guests I would be happy to show the thesis work during tea events: The great tea ceramics artist Emilio Jose del Pozo from Taiwan, and Xunhuan Wǎngfù , amazing cloth and Chabu designer from Norway!

credit his FB page (probably as well to just link to the contact pages here though)

Happy to see you in Europe in some days:  (full program here)

June 28 in Paris: Blang Vibration, immersive sound and tea experience
June 29 in Paris: Vietnam mountains tasting tea
June 30 in Paris: Free puerh tasting tea
June 30 in Brussels: Workshop on green puerh
July 1 in Paris: Tea and gong fu cha time
July 2-8 in Paris: Complete puerh tea education
July 11 in Waterloo: Free puerh tea tasting
July 12 in Namur: Free puerh tea tasting
June 12 in Namur: Blang Vibration, immersive sound and tea experience
July 13 in Brussels: Free puerh tea tasting
July 13 in Brussels: Puerh tea bar and surprises
July 14-15 in Brussels: Two days puerh tea education
July 21 in London: One day puerh tea education


I'm sure with that many events going on a detail or two could change, so it would be as well to check that page and check in about the planning, of course also related to seeing where an event is, and how to check in about plans to attend.

I've been very grateful to him for sharing these teas.  He's said a little more about them in discussion but not all that much, and it wasn't really framed for making up extra sections in the review posts, which are more about passing on an impression. 

It's nicer to discuss tea in person though, since you can also try some, and I hope that some of you get that chance over the next month or so.  If Huyen does make it to one in Paris that would be a nice added bonus, to get a chance to discuss a tea tradition that doesn't come up much (Vietnam's) with someone from there who has been looking into it.  Even beyond that information her enthusiasm is a bit contagious.  I've not done much with passing on contact information for her--the tea trades were never about marketing anything--but her family's gift business site may be of interest, since it does include some teas.  I think they're more standard types though, not like those local-style sheng I just reviewed, but glancing through to snag a picture I did see tuochas, so it's definitely not just Thai Nguyen green teas.

Huyen at work (credit their site)