Nong Xiang Tie Guan Yin and Longjuan Meizhan Oolongs

I'm reviewing two random oolong samples from Moychay, a Nong Xiang Tie Guan Yin and Longjuan Meizhan Oolong.  Pretty much only TGY means much to me; I'll cite their descriptions to explain what these are.

Flame Tie Guanyin Oolong Tea (Nong Xiang Tie Guanyin)  (60 grams for $23.36)

Origin:  China · Fujian · Sanming, Around 1,300 m · handpicked

Nong Xiang Tie Guan Yin · deeply baked · traditional processing

A traditional deeply baked Tie Guan Yin with a rich and warming character. Roasted fruit and honey meet persistent orchid notes and smooth minerality.

The body is full and rounded, followed by a long, sweet finish.  The liquor is clear amber-red.  Main taste notes:  Roasted · Orchid · Honey...

The intensive baking transforms the greener character of Tie Guan Yin into a warmer profile of baked fruit, honey, orchid and mineral notes.

Longjuan Wild High Mountain Meizhan Oolong Tea , 7g  (only available as 7 grams for $5)

Longjuan Yesheng Gaoshan Meizhan Youji Wulong Cha (2024)

Meizhan is a traditional Chinese oolong tea from Anxi County, Quanzhou City, Fujian Province. Grown at altitudes between 500 and 800 meters, this tea is hand-picked during two main harvest seasons: mid-April to mid-May and mid-September to mid-October. The plucking standard is one bud with three leaves, and only manually harvested leaves are used...

When brewed, Meizhan offers a floral and toasty aroma, with a balanced, rich, and smooth taste profile.

What is Meizhan though, a tea style, cultivar, or something else?  Google AI weighs in:

Meizhan (梅占, or "Plum Blossom") is a versatile and robust tea cultivar from China primarily processed into oolong, though it is also adapted for black or white teas.

• Origin: Native to southern Fujian Province (Anxi County), Meizhan has also been widely planted in the Wuyi Mountains (Wuyishan) since the 1960s to produce rock oolong (yancha).

• The Bush: Often called "tall stem" or "big leaf" Meizhan, the plant grows into a tall tree-like bush with a distinct trunk and thick, leathery, elongated leaves. It is one of the earliest sprouting cultivars in the spring.

Note that primary references it is citing are credited there (Rivers and Lakes Tea, Tea and Whisk, and Nannuoshan's Youtube content).  That's not offering so much source credit, but at least it's a start.

So it's really a plant type.  Probably not necessarily a cultivar, in the strictest sense, since that's usually intended as meaning only a plant type with controlled genetic character, like a Taiwanese hybrid.  Older, broader plant types, like Qing Xin in Taiwan, or Rou Gui in Wuyishan, would vary quite a bit, as genetics drift over time.  It still generally means "plant type," I'm just making that clearer.

On to how the tasting notes relate to all of that.

Review:

Tie Guan Yin:  just getting started.  This is really promising though; the roast input comes across nicely, in a novel form.  There's a root beer sort of sweetness and depth to this.  It should be good, but I'll add more flavor list next round. 

Longjuan Wild High Mountain Meizhan:  also slow to fully infuse, but faster, related to this being open strip form oolong, and also very promising.  Warm roasted tones stand out in this, in a different kind of way.  This tastes like really nice Wuyi Yancha can, when deep floral range is brought out by roasting, instead of masking and replacing it.  One part inclines towards spice, not so far off cinnamon, just not exactly that.  It has great mineral range and depth, and a touch of brandy or liqueur like aromatic range, which is both pleasant and a good indicator of quality.  

For some tea versions I might struggle to place just how good a tea is, or how limited quality or positive aspects are, when one really doesn't stand out.  These stand out. 

Tie Guan Yin #2:  I infused this a little longer than the other, to account for the form difference, and it needing to open up.  Not long though; the other I brewed for 10 seconds or less, and this for not much over 10, maybe 15.  It's good.  There's always the question of why traditional style, more oxidized, and well-balanced roast input form Tie Guan Yin are rare, with the bright and light versions most of what you see (nuclear yellow, a favorite old blog reference would call that, Marshal N of Tea Addict's Journal).  

This isn't exactly that older and better balanced style.  Roast level is high but oxidation input is probably limited, with more on that to follow.  

It's good, but the other version is probably going to make it sound more limited than it actually is, for being so positive and novel.  It tastes like TGY, that characteristic floral flavor (which some could peg to actual flower types), just warmed and changed through more oxidation and roast input.  

Warm, inky tones are a balanced part of the rest.  I suppose it could be even better with very well integrated additional oxidation, which would sweeten and warm the flavor in a different way.  But it's good.  Often higher roast will seem to cover a flaw in a tea, for example to mask when a version is really a year or two old, and is getting a bit stale, but these results are so positive this could be an intentional optimization of leaf potential instead (or an attempt at it; it would be hard to plan for and identify a perfect outcome).  I'll try to break down the aspects more as a list as I go.

Longjuan Meizhan:  there is no familiar flavor profile or style to this.  I've compared it to Wuyi Yancha, but it's not a close match to the main conventional types of that, even though Wuyi Yancha covers a very broad range of plant types, terroir inputs, and processing styles, so it would be hard to say what couldn't be represented there.  

The combination of spice input with unique floral range is different, and this oxidation input balanced really well with the rest.  It's probably roasted, but you can't identify the inky and heavy input as with the other, a more conventional form.  It at least seems like oxidation input has caused the main transition, and roast input is light, and secondary, supporting that.

Feel is nice, but it could be a little thicker.  Aftertaste carry-over is positive too, but that could also be stronger.  Interesting and positive flavor is the high point of this tea version, which is a nice thing to experience.  Warm mineral base input works, balancing the rest, in a positive and subtle way.  It's all balanced, and to an extent refined, which is a concept or term I use to express that lots of subtle aspects fall together in a very well integrated way.  The other tea version hits a few levels and notes pretty hard, which does balance, but this ties together a half dozen more subtle inputs.  For a sheng pu'er drinker maybe intensity is limited, but then tea character blasting you is more of a sheng thing.

TGY #3:  it's still quite pleasant.  I suppose this is an example of a more roasted but lighter oxidation input TGY, not the older and differently balanced style.  But it works.  Just adding lots of roast to a flawed or limited light version doesn't get you this kind of result.  There's a good bit of floral range, an inky minerality, and a hinting towards spice.  Feel is full enough, and there's some aftertaste carry-over.  If someone was promoting this as some next-level, 80 cent a gram quality range version I wouldn't buy that, but it's a pretty solid tea.  Those inputs balance and integrate fairly well.  There are probably plenty of people who would absolutely love this style and character outcome, then others who wouldn't.

Longjuan Meizhan:  it's interesting how those different flavor inputs balance, and shift from round to round.  This now tastes like a different bark spice than cinnamon, a range of themes I was more familiar with in my 30s when I drank a lot of tisanes.  I think people would unpack a flavor list in vastly different ways, so even though it is complex, balanced, and integrated there probably wouldn't be much agreement on what flavors are going into that.  That would be challenging related to creating a vendor description. 

This is from 2024, so it has settled a bit already, and that wouldn't completely shift flavor but it might let it integrate in a different way than initially.  Roast input could soften over time, but this doesn't seem to have been heavily roasted anyway.

The feel effect is different in both.  You might expect that this kind of aspect range is a good way to distinguish a difference between these teas, and to describe both better.  The first version has a conventional fullness--moderate in intensity, not pronounced--that is common to rolled oolongs in general, and this version is harder to describe.  It's not astringent; there is no roughness, and it doesn't come across as a structured feel.  But it's that little bit towards that, from typical oolong fullness, more impactful in feel, just not rough or dry.

TGY #4:  these teas are far from fading away but I'll still do one longer infusion round (20 seconds or so) and stop taking notes; this runs long enough, and they're not transitioning that much.  It's as positive as it has been.  That set of aspects balances well, the warm tones, mineral, hint of spice, and warm floral range.  It's interesting how as a list it sounds like the other tea, but in actual experience it's all fairly different.  The tones within those categories aren't the same, and the general effect is different.  Maybe for some they would seem almost the same, but to me they're not.

The base of this experience is a somewhat greener Tie Guan Yin input, with that distinctive floral range.  After the roasting input it comes across as deeper and broader floral tone, lets say including lavender instead of just lighter tones, that I'm not good at placing.  Let's ask AI what it thinks:

Tie Guan Yin oolong tea most commonly tastes and smells like fresh orchid flowers.

Depending on the specific style and how it is processed, the floral notes can also feature other delicate characteristics:

• Orchid: The signature and most famous floral note associated with the Tie Guan Yin Oolong cultivar.

• Gardenia: Lightly oxidized, modern green-style versions can offer bright, dewy gardenia and spring floral aromas.

• Osmanthus or subtle sweet florals: Traditional roasted styles soften the sharp floral bouquet into a warmer, toasty, and creamy sweetness with faint fruity undertones.

I could kind of see the orchid but that doesn't sound right, even though there are lots of orchid types, and osmanthus is also close but maybe not that.

Longjuan Meizhan:  like it was last time.  Maybe it picked up a little depth and complexity, or maybe not.

Where the other tea includes 3 or 4 main flavor inputs that balance this comes across as a complex and well-integrated broad range of flavor.  People could describe it differently, since it's hard to describe.  To me a bark spice flavor is central, not cinnamon though.  Floral range might be next, and it also leans towards or includes rich dried fruit range, like tamarind, perhaps with a touch of citrus zest.  Aromatic tones are even harder to isolate.  It might include something along the line of vanilla.  There's a touch of creamy effect, that could be interpreted as relating to a caramel sweetness input.  There's a lot going on, but it comes across as a broad and integrated range.

I suppose I like the second version better, and see it as a more novel and higher quality level tea.  It's approachable; there isn't much to it that I would expect some people wouldn't like.  But it's nothing like a conventional more oxidized oolong version, like a rolled "red" oolong, even though it's kind of along a similar line in some ways.

Oriental Leaf Bing Dao sheng pu'er

 

I'll copy the vendor's site listing here before posting this review, and just write a few comments first, then the notes.  Bing Dao is one of the two higher profile, known sheng pu'er types, along with Lao Ban Zhang.  Other origin area types would be great too; it just worked out that way.

I've not tried much of it, at all, maybe only a couple of versions.  So this won't get far with describing what it type-typical, and will focus on this tea.  I think it should be sweet, floral, and complex, with great depth and refinement, supported by a pleasant mineral base, and balanced bitterness.  But then that works for a lot of sheng range in general.  Maybe the flavor range should be distinctive, in a way I'm not recollecting.  Let's see how it is, and maybe refer to a second or third reference later, beyond the product listing description.

This is presented as a coin, or tiny single serving cake.  To me that opens up faster and works better than the dragonball / pearl style, letting all of the tea infuse at the same rate.

  

It's in an 8 gram size, with an indentation in the coin enabling splitting it to drink in two 4 gram parts.  That would make sense; for better quality tea it can work to go lighter on the proportion (than 7 or 8 grams per 100 ml volume worth), to enable more careful control of brewing timing.  At 8 grams you are more just flash infusing the tea, versus really dialing in the strength you want.  

I'll still use 8 for this initial tasting; it's more my habit, my own personal norm, and that changes things.  7 grams would be enough, but 8 isn't too much, even though I'll probably end up mentioning the trade-off for using a higher proportion in this.

Let's check the Oriental Leaf site listing:

Bingdao Aged Raw Pu-erh Coin Cakes — Mengku Rongshi ($17.50 for 40 grams, for five 8 gram coins)

Raw pu-erh from Bingdao's core growing area, made from 2020 harvest material that was aged before being pressed and released. Mengku Rongshi — the brand widely credited with establishing Bingdao's reputation — has been sourcing from this area since 1984. Classic Bingdao character: rock-sugar sweetness, a clean cooling finish, and strong salivation that stays long after the cup is empty. Compressed into 8g coin cakes, packaged in small boxes of five. Available as a single box (40g) or a full set of eight boxes (320g)...

Mengku Rongshi has been sourcing from the area since 1984, long before it was a name anyone outside the local tea trade knew. When the brand released their first Bingdao tea, the "Mother Tree" ( 母树茶), in 2005, it was among the first to formally introduce this material to a wider market. 

The raw material for this tea was harvested in 2020 from high-grade Bingdao area gardens — one bud plus two leaves, selected to the same standard as the brand's other Bingdao products.

Rather than pressing immediately after processing, the brand held the material in dry storage at their Yunnan factory — allowing it to settle, integrate, and develop before compression. The first batch was pressed and released in 2023 after aging in dry storage. Subsequent batches — released in 2024, 2025, and 2026 — draw from the same 2020 material, pressed and released in their respective years.

After leaving the factory, the tea has been stored in Xi'an, in northwest China. Xi'an's climate is dry, with low annual humidity and clear seasonal variation — a natural dry storage environment that allows aging to continue cleanly and slowly, without the intervention of high ambient moisture.

To me that was interesting background, so I included a bit more than I usually do.  I don't include the typical "is it real?" discussion point in this.  It probably is, but some people always question everything related to high demand origin teas, and there isn't much more to say about that.  For some maybe the cost would seem too low; it is a bit reasonable, which some could see as a red flag.

So this is 2020 material; interesting!  I didn't guess that it was that age transitioned.  Value seems really good for this high an in-demand region, and the quality and character is positive.  On with the notes then.

Review:

First infusion:  the smell is already sweet and floral, before trying it.  This will be a bit light for taking notes on flavors though; it's still opening up.  Initial impression is positive; it is sweet, floral, and complex.  But the next round will tell a more detailed story.  There's a bright, fruity, creaminess to this already, even though the intensity is low.

Second infusion:  bitterness emerges, along with more other sweet flavor range.  Intensity is good; this really hits on a lot of levels, even though it's really still opening up.  The mineral is a little intense, along the range of a dry rock type, maybe limestone.  Bitterness balances reasonably well, but it's still evolving, not even at its normal, opened leaf infusion character yet.  Flavor range is mostly floral, but it leans towards fruit.  

Aftertaste is starting to pick up already, even though the tea intensity and character isn't in its normal form yet.  It's clearly quite good.  Given how this is coming across I'd expect the next round to be much more intense, even brewed fast, with bitterness, mineral, and an astringency edge as pronounced as it will be, evolving to soften over the next two rounds after.  But we'll see.

Third infusion:  intensity is interesting in this, even for being brewed fast.  So it's on to the trade-off of using a high proportion already; there is no dialing the timing down to try a lighter infusion, at this proportion.  The mineral tone seems to include a little dryness, which isn't coming across as a flaw, but it is distinctive in a way that some would love and others might not.  It will probably fade soon anyway.

Intensity is good; it's a strong tea.  Sweetness level is pronounced; that works.  Floral range flavors--they're mostly that--are positive, complex and reasonably well balanced.  All of this seems a little non-specific, but that's my early impression so far.  I'm wondering how new or aged this is; I didn't catch a year.  It has a bright, fresh, young sheng character, but the warm tones suggest that it may not be completely new, maybe 2 or 3 years old.  But it's hard to tell.  A tea could be this fresh after 6 years in cool and dry storage, or longer, and a year or so of heat and humidity could draw out this kind of character here in Bangkok.  Within 2 or 3 years teas start to take on middle-age form here, what would be more conventional after 5 to 10 years elsewhere.  [Later edit:  it's 6 years old, older than I expected].

At this stage the hint of dryness in the strong mineral base would determine a match to preference for someone.  Then if that evolves, as I think it will, it would be something else later.

Fourth infusion:  a syrupy feel picks up; this had expressed fullness of feel structure before, but now it's in a different form.  The flavor tones warm just a little.  It's still mostly floral, but a hint of caramel range is emerging.  Someone could interpret this as expressing a light citrus edge; that could make sense.  Or I guess if you are really "looking for it" it could be as fruity as floral, maybe along the line of including some mango, or dried longan.  It's complex, but within a limited range.

Then mineral is a lot of it as well.  The dryness that I associate with that mineral tone isn't dropping out, maybe only shifting form slightly.  It comes across in the aftertaste expression, and seems to match with a dry structure in the feel.  This includes bitterness, but it doesn't carry over as a strong hui gan aftertaste sweetness effect.  Moderating intensity may serve this well, using the 4 gram approach instead.  It has plenty of sweetness and flavor to express, and brewed quite light it might fall into a different kind of balance.  That's not intended as an "oh no, I've screwed this up" kind of observation, more about where an optimum might be.

I drank a little cold water to reset my palate after this round, and experienced that sweetness effect that can come up, where it tastes like there is sugar in it, a carry-over from the tea effect.  The mineral and trace of dryness seems to mask that part of the aftertaste effect, for me, the sweetness after swallowing, but the water really brought it out.

This tea seems a bit strong, the stoney cha qi effect.  It would be nice if I liked such a thing more.  I have a history with drug use, well in my past now, so I avoid almost anything that shifts my balance of perception, I guess with the exception of running.  Tea also does, but I eat first, or with the tea, to offset that.  My normal mental balance is fine; my energy level varies a little, but my mental state is typically clear and positive enough.

Fifth infusion:  this is the most positive this has been.  The bitterness and astringency edge are fading, and strong flavors stand out all the more.  Mostly floral, still, or that could be interpreted as floral with some fruit input.  The touch of creaminess that stood out very early on is ramping back up.  It comes across as creamsicle, as a touch of orange combined with actual cream, or ice cream.  The other fruit range I was describing included a hint of citrus, and the rest isn't closely related, but it adds to overall complexity.  Intensity is pretty good too; I'm not intending to downplay that here.  And overall balance, refinement, etc.  

This tea should evolve positively over the next few years, and then I probably wouldn't like it as much as a more aged version later on, since it's positive now.  It's not one of the more approachable, easy to drink, oolong oriented style sheng pu'er versions, but it's not challenging at all either.  Mineral intensity, bitterness, and a touch of dry feel (astringency) balance well with the rest, but those wouldn't suit everyone in the same way.

For feel input alone drinking 4 grams of this at a time might make more sense.  It's strong.  Five rounds of two teas--a common review comparison form here--usually doesn't contribute the same kind of stoney effect.  I'll either try one more round and get blasted or take a 15 minute break and come back to this.  Maybe the break; it's kicking in plenty already.

Sixth infusion:  it falls into better and better balance.  The bitterness, astringency, flavor range, and depth are all the best they've been.  Tones were warming, and I suppose that hasn't changed since the last round, but it's warmer than earlier rounds.  The flavor list stays the same as described earlier.  I suppose within a round or two the overall balance will shift enough that it will seem different, or if I brew the next round fast enough that might change things.

Seventh infusion:  for brewing two infusions one after the other, and a second one lighter, intensity finally dropped off a little.  It's fine this way, but it's not more magical, or completely different.  To me the feel range is positive in this, but it's also intense, with a bit of drying effect, just less than earlier.  Good sweetness and positive flavor balances that, but in other really nice tea versions that can come across more as fullness than structure, if that makes sense.  Taken one way it sounds like I'm describing oolong in comparison with sheng; I mean within the typical range sheng expresses.  

It's interesting that it's a cool morning, at 10 AM, but I'm sweating a lot.  This tea is affecting both my mind and body.  It has been an unusually rainy monsoon season, raining every day for a couple of weeks; that's a lot of it too.  

During that flooding cycle period last week it was over 80% RH during the days, the most humid I've ever seen it.  It must be in the high 70s just now (77%, 30 C, feeling like 32, my phone says; that relative heat index sounds a little unreliable).  A second source says it's 89 F (32), 73%, and feels like 103.  I'm going to go run in an hour anyway; I finally beat that foot problem I had, by taking a month off of running.

Eighth infusion:  smooth, balanced, complex, and tasty.  The mineral starts to resemble a hint of smoke, changing form from rock to include whatever other range.  It's definitely not dropping out.  For someone who absolutely loves sheng intensity this expresses an interesting and positive form of that.  That distinctive feel might not be for everyone, the heavy astringency structure and bit of dryness.  For a young sheng drinker it's just normal though, not even that pronounced in form, since remotely "young" factory sheng would express much more rough structure and dryness.  7542 would take a dozen years to be this approachable, or maybe 20 under dry storage, and by then the positive fresher flavor aspects would have shifted to a less distinctive, middle-aged form.

I suppose it's fair to say that I liked the Ban Zhang tea version character I just reviewed better.  Stronger sweet flavor range stood out even more, and feel wasn't as structured, or dry at all.  That's because I am acclimated to tolerate, or even crave, challenging, intense sheng versions, but I like strong flavored and sweet but approachable forms the best.

Conclusions:

So very positive.  It's not meaningful to say that I happened to like some other origin and source version better; that was more about my own style preference than a quality judgement.  Looking back on the review notes comment that might have related to really liking the fresh, bright, intense floral range that can tend to start transitioning to warmer tones within a few years, even if it can come at a cost in terms of heavier bitterness and astringency in some versions.  For me a broad range of bitterness is fine, if it balances with the rest.

It's interesting considering that this is a 6 year old tea version.  It had definitely transitioned some, but not nearly as much as any tea spending 6 years in Bangkok would, regardless of starting point.  The initial brightness and freshness is long gone when a tea spends that long here.  It seemed younger, to me, but that probably partly relates to that biased expectation of rapid aging.  10 year old dry stored sheng versions seem really fresh to me.

General quality level seemed positive, and character was nice.  It was a good sign that it kept brewing positive infusions, even well beyond the 8 described here.  It just wouldn't give out.  Let's consider their type-typical aspect description:

"rock-sugar sweetness, a clean cooling finish, and strong salivation that stays long after the cup is empty." 

I don't know.  It was sweet, and flavors were very positive, with good aftertaste expression, especially related to length and "returning sweetness" effect, hui gan, even without a higher than average level of bitterness.  Body feel and stoney effect really stood out; I tend to not notice that much, but for this I did.

I looked up an old Bing Dao listing to see if the character seemed similar or not, even though comparing two random versions of a general type or origin example is relatively meaningless.  The sample size is too small.  But I did review a four year old Bing Dao tea coin in 2022, here.  I guess it sounded a bit similar.  I didn't have a cost to compare it to; that seemed to be something a friend had shared earlier.  So I guess the point here is that you really need to keep trying different versions to have a baseline for comparison.  A couple of examples seeming somewhat similar is hard to place.

This tea experience reminded me of a recurring theme in this blog, about how sheng drinkers acclimate to bitterness and then later really crave the tea intensity (more about the second).  This tea was intense.  To me that's a great thing; it made for a very pleasant experience.  For others maybe it could seem a bit much, if they were more into oolong or whatever else.  It didn't have challenging feel structure, overwhelming bitterness, or unusually heavy mineral tone intensity, but it was intense across different range, just refined and balanced at the same time.  Especially for a 6 year old version; it must have softened and mellowed over time.

Oriental Leaf Jin Hua sheng pu'er dragonball

 

I'm reviewing a Jin Hua dragonball version of sheng pu'er, provided for review by Oriental Leaf (many thanks for that!).  I don't really know much about the background, so I'll go right to the listing information first:

On Taoism Silk Road Black Pearl Jin Hua Raw Pu-erh Fu Tea ($40 for a 200 gram tin, or there's a sample size, three 7 gram "pearls" for $4.50).

On Taosim has long focused on crafting Fu tea (茯茶) using quality raw leaves from southern China. The Silk Road Black Pearl is an interesting expression of that approach — Yunnan raw Pu-erh material from Lincang, sent to Jingyang in Shaanxi province for the traditional Jin Hua (golden flower) fermentation process, bringing two distinct tea cultures together in a single tea...

Bai Ying Shan (White Eagle Mountain, 白莺山) sits in Yun County, Lincang, along the middle reaches of the Lancang River. It's a tea area known for a relatively diverse range of tea tree varieties. This tea is a blend of several cultivars from the area, including:

Er Ga Zi (二嘎子): A wild hybrid transitional variety. Known for its smooth, soft liquor, naturally high sweetness, and low bitterness or astringency.

Mengku Da Ye Zhong (勐库大叶种): The classic large-leaf Mengku variety.

Mengku Xiao Ye Zhong (勐库小叶种): A smaller-leaf counterpart from the same area.

Bai Ying Shan is not a hyped or speculative single-origin mountain. The material cost is honest, and so is the price. This tea is designed to be a reliable, everyday Pu-erh — something you can drink without second thoughts.

It mentioned being from 2024 material, which was fermented after that.  I didn't notice that much golden flowers input or secondary fermentation effect, so I'll have to speculate about how these noted aspects relate to that, or don't, in the conclusions.  Calling it a dragonball is kind of a marketing expectations judgement; in "the West" I think that's the most common term, but calling the shape "pearls" can work.  I think of that as relating to jasmine white tea, which are always smaller, but again naming doesn't change anything.

That last part they mentioned is something I had meant to comment on.  After writing review notes I had this tea again, and it works well for something to have with breakfast, to not pay that much attention to (as I did then).  And in a sense I think this "daily drinker" theme is often connected with a low-medium quality level more than it has to be.  Tea can be pretty good and still work well without the extra focus.  I drink sheng versions all the time that serve this role well, from different places, often enough as SE Asian sheng versions.

But to extend that a little good versions of orthodox Assam comes to mind, as a tea style that's great with food.  Or Dian Hong (Yunnan black); it's not that close, but still not so far away in character.  I can't really spend 45 minutes just focusing on a tea most days, and would get bored with repeating that over and over if it did work out that way.  People do mention using lower quality teas as something to drink with food, and others for focusing on over a longer time, but I drink a broad range of teas with breakfast, and don't think through this quality level cut-off issue too much.  If I really want to experience the tea more of course I won't eat while drinking it, but beyond reviews I mostly have tea with breakfast.

Review:

First infusion:  getting this dragonball to open is going to be an issue, as is typically the case.  This infused for over 30 seconds and it's not strong enough to really say much about flavors and the rest.  Maybe it will be bright, sweet, and floral, or maybe I'm getting that wrong.  

Often it works to pry the ball open once it has been through two or three infusions, and if you don't rush it leaving the ball sit in a closed gaiwan between early rounds can seem to let it steam to open.  I'm mostly just giving it long soaks early on, letting it sit for more like a minute on the second round.

Second infusion:  this unfurled much better than these usually do.  I'm not sure why; they all seem to be compressed to the same degree, or at least you can't tell the difference.

Bitterness stands out; this was brewed for awhile.  But it's in a pleasant form.  Sweetness also stands out, and what seems to be floral character.  It will be easier to do a flavor list from a lighter infusion, so I'll write it out next round.  Feel is positive already; that strong infusion form draws out some extra astringency but in general this seems rich and full instead of harsh and dry.

Third infusion:  it's a touch cloudy; that's interesting.  It's more a bad sign than a good one but it doesn't necessarily mean much.  Flavor include significant bitterness.  I didn't use a really fast infusion and that might make sense for this.  Sweetness is still good, but unpacking generally floral range beyond the bitterness is still tricky.  

There's an intensity that sheng drinkers end up craving, and this has it.  Sweetness is really pronounced, feel is full and intense, flavors are strong, if not particularly distinct, and bitterness stands out.  For people accustomed to other kinds of tea this wouldn't be that pleasant; it takes acclimation to like this style and form.  But this is a positive example of that, if one is ok with moderate bitterness.

Fourth infusion:  it's the best this has been, balancing nicely, but bitterness is still the main flavor input.  Or taste, if someone uses those terms in a different way.  A faint hint of smoke enters in, but it's still bitter, sweet, and floral.  A touch of fruit might be picking up, a bit of citrus to join the mostly floral range.  Brightness of tone and freshness makes it positive.  Plenty of mineral range grounds the experience, adding complexity and depth.  

A good number of years ago I would've had trouble relating to this tea, earlier on in sheng exploration, but now I like it.  If this had a rougher astringency feel it wouldn't balance nearly as well, but the feel intensity is in a good range.  It doesn't stand out as a great tea version, but it seems like a good example of this particular style range.  

Fifth infusion:  some vegetal range picks up this round.  It's hard to place; sort of a spring forest scent, nothing too pronounced.  It seems like the floral tone range deepens and warms as well.  A little supporting fruit hasn't changed, and it's still not very pronounced, a matter of interpretation whether it's there at all.  

To me this is the kind of tea experience that I tend to crave once in awhile, but not often, or most of the time.  It doesn't match with food experience particularly well, but you could have this with the right kind of breakfast.  Heavier and warmer flavors would work well in opposition to it.  I'd rather have a mild black tea with something like French toast and bacon, but a lighter or mixed tone breakfast would be ok with it.  I just had scrambled eggs with Thai spinach (amaranth), some pear, and rice with milk and cinnamon, as a porridge, and that would be ok.

Sixth and seventh infusions:  the brightness, sweetness, and freshness fades over these rounds, while intensity is still good.  The profile thins a little, and that hint of smoke shifts to be a hint of ash.  It's not as positive, but still pleasant.  Extending the infusion time so much for the first two rounds probably speeded up the transition cycle, so that at least some of this tea material is now brewing similar to how it would be brewed for a higher infusion count.  There are trade-offs to this presented form, and that's one of them.  Convenience is what you gain on the positive side; this would travel well, compared to carrying around a cake and pu'er knife.

Conclusions:

I had this with a breakfast within a few days after writing those notes and it was well-suited for that.  So I guess I changed my mind?  I might have been thinking that this would be light for pairing with a heavy American style breakfast, but I typically eat two eggs, often scrambled with spinach, and also some fruit, and either yogurt or a croissant.  It's not that heavy.  It all goes well with a light character young sheng, typically, even if those are more intense, bitter, and astringent than this was.

This doesn't sound like a hei cha style tea review.  I didn't even mention it, approaching it as normal sheng, and nothing in the character shifted me off that context.  Maybe there are warmer tones or a slightly different flavor profile; to some extent that's probably true.  I end up drinking a good bit of sheng that's oxidized more than is typical, for the most standard Yunnan sheng, so I wouldn't necessarily give limited style deviation much thought.  

But this expressed bitterness, and some feel structure comparable to normal sheng, it just wasn't challenging or rough.  Floral tones stood out, and a touch of citrus, and a hint of smoke, all of which doesn't sound like hei cha.  Probably if you are "looking for it" you would notice a touch of extra yeast-like flavor, and maybe even a little more honey than is typical for sheng, characteristic of that fungus input.  And it might seem like it had transitioned more than generally occurs in two years, but to me that's so variable related to storage conditions input that it doesn't mean anything in particular.  Teas change a lot here in Bangkok in two years.

It's good.  Related to value it's fine; 400 grams would be $80, so cost is moderate as decent sheng goes ($70-some per standard sized cake amount).  Someone might be disappointed if they wanted to experience a good bit more hei cha style effect, since this just seemed like sheng to me; some of their other sort of hybrid processing versions are a lot more like that, covered in earlier reviews here.

I was just drinking an earlier Fu zhuan version from them (Oriental Leaf) as Bangkok experienced heavy rain (for two days; it's flooding), reminding me how warm toned teas go well with different cooler weather.  It's never cold here; this is about as close as it gets.  The tone of this Jin Hua ball shaped tea isn't that warm, although it's not as bright and light as some sheng.  To me I can drink light, young sheng most of the time, and it matches my mood and relation to the weather, but then I only live in the tropics, so a rare 20 C / 68 F cool morning only happens a few times a year.