Liquid Proust Sheng Olympiad; Crimson Lotus Wildwood and Hojo Da Xue Shan

Crimson Lotus Wildwood version left, Hojo Da Xue Shan right

I'm finally trying the first samples of a Liquid Proust Sheng Olympiad set, nearly two years after writing about Andrew Richardson setting up what seem close to group buys.  I've written a lot about trying a Liquid Proust introductory sheng set over the last few months but that theme was different.  Background on the teas from vendor descriptions appears in a second section here.

Again I don't know if trying these two teas together really makes any sense.  At this point it's as much about compressing tasting days and write-ups as much as it is about the comparison being functional.  I must have half a year worth of tea around to write about, if I keep an aggressive pace, and I will buy more within that time-frame.  I'd best keep it all moving.  It will help place the two teas related to each other, since my impression of both won't be mediated by difference in time or any potential other conditions (variance in myself or any other factor).

Review

just getting started; CL left, Hojo right

2018 Wildwood maocha Crimson Lotus tea (both are 2018):  the tea is nice.  A nice moderate form of bitterness stands out that balances well with a pronounced level of sweetness.  The character isn't so far from Yiwu related to how those match up, and the floral tone is comparable, I just doubt this is actually Yiwu.  I don't know why I guess that it's not; intuition.  A spoiler related to the later vendor description details:  they never do say where the tea is from.

There's a touch of mineral tone that doesn't match normal Yiwu range (as much as there is one; teas from that broad area can vary a lot), a heavy mineral in between rocks and iron bar, or maybe complex across the range of both.  In much higher proportion it might come across as tasting like kerosene but a trace of it like this seems different, more like an unusual rock-mineral.

It's not "old tree" sourced tea, it doesn't seem, based on overall effect (it could be more intense, the feel could be more structured, and the aftertaste more extended).  But then wild-grown teas vary in ways that sometimes doesn't oppose that but is different, which confuses things.  Those tend to express flavor across different ranges, and to be a bit softer. 


2018 Da Xue Shan wild maocha from Hojo:  that bitterness edge in the other tea is missing, there is less sweetness, and the flavor range is completely different.  So much for combined tasting making any sense.  A strange flavor aspect stands out, one I'm probably going to have trouble placing.  It's earthy, in an odd way, like an old shed might smell, or a cave.  It's not necessarily overly musty (this is a 2018 tea) but the flavor is pulled in an odd direction by some input.  It's comparable to the aspect "space" where the mineral is in the other profile (which probably does contain a bit of wood as an aspect, to be clear).  I suppose comparing this flavor aspect to some type of fungus might work better; it's not exactly right, but at least recognizable.  Beyond that an earthiness resembles damp forest floor. 

The tea is probably better than those aspects sound, but hopefully it will improve through later infusions.  It's normal for some sheng versions to transition a good bit over the first couple of rounds, to "get to" where they are going.

Second infusion

CL left, Hojo right

Crimson Lotus Wildwood:  intense sweetness still stands out as a main aspect.  Mineral is still grounding the experience but the flavors have "cleaned up" a bit.  The character is nice since flavors weren't overly musty or earthy to begin with.  The iron bar effect and one earth-range aspect mostly cleared out, moving on to tasting more like rocks across that range.  Floral range matches up with the sweetness; the two things seem to connect.  The tea is nice; the thickness, intensity, sweetness, and aftertaste all work.  Sometimes floral range can be different (it always varies); I mean here in the sense that it's closer to on even footing with other flavor range versus standing out as primary.  I could try to guess the flower type but I'd probably be wrong; one that's bright and sweet.  It's not rich like lavender, maybe not so far from orchid.


Hojo Da Xue Shan:  this did transition, just not how I expected.  It picked up vegetal range; that doesn't tend to come up in sheng so much.  It's in between green pepper and green beans, which would be normal enough for a green tea.  In comparison with the other tea this seems really soft, maybe even a bit thin, and lacking in sweetness.  It's really not that bad, it just lacks the intensity of the other tea, and the floral tone that is relatively characteristic of a lot of sheng.  This taste range is odd for the general category.  I'll see how it transitions next round.

Third infusion

Wildwood:  more of the same.  I let this run a little long; it's easy to brew tea for over 10 seconds instead of just over 5 for doing other things.  That will work for describing it brewed stronger (just a little), then back to a short infusion next time.  That change picks up the mouthfeel and intensity a good bit; the aftertaste is really pronounced now.  The tea still works well a little stronger, but for being this intense a fast infusion would be nicer.  That bitterness edge doesn't really throw off the experience but the flavor will stand out more with that moderated in proportion brewed half as long.


Da Xue Shan:  this still tastes mostly like vegetable but at least the balance is shifting to moderate that.  It's definitely heaviest on green bell pepper.  It has some feel structure to it, and the aftertaste ramps up being a little stronger, and for infusing better a couple of rounds in.  It's not bad tea, it's just unconventional, not necessarily in a positive way related to flavor aspect.  It's not "good" sheng either, to take the unconventional step of offering a broad judgment.  The typical markers for better versions stand out a lot more in the Crimson Lotus version:  sweetness, mineral undertone, overall intensity, feel-structure, and pronounced aftertaste.

I hope this isn't priced higher than the other tea.  If I were reviewing this tea alone I'd probably not publish a review, since I tend to say more about teas that are interesting for being good than trying to warn off people about teas, or explain how tea versions seem to not be above average in different ways.  At least the flavors are clean, with some sweetness, and the feel is fine, just slightly thin.  It's not bitter at all; there's that. 

If someone was really opposed to bitterness they might like this tea better than the other.  They probably wouldn't be drinking all that much young sheng then, since both of these are below average for the level of that aspect.  Put a different way the other version is more conventional for that range related to teas people tend to prefer to drink when young (not aged).

Fourth infusion

Wildwood:  this does work better brewed around 5 seconds; the balance is better.  Flavor and sweetness isn't diminished much at all but the bitterness drops back.  Feel and aftertaste drop back a little too but they're more than pronounced enough anyway.  The same description from earlier works; sweetness, floral flavors, underlying mineral, a moderate level of bitterness that works, etc.  Without that trace of earthiness towards an odd version of wood or kerosene, and mineral more in the range of iron bar, this reminds me more of a conventional Yiwu character, as much as I'm aware of one.  It's just not quite as floral, sweet, and intense as well-above-average versions of those.


Da Xue Shan:  this doesn't work as well brewed lighter, for a similar reason that the other is better instead; the flavor range stands out more.  The green pepper aspect--which now includes a bit of wood range, more than a faint trace of that before--is transitioning to include a bit of cooked broccoli now.  I guess if someone preferred soft, approachable sheng that tastes a good bit like a green tea this could be perfect.  The negative tone this review probably brings across likely relates to me not really liking green teas.  Of course maybe someone else could hear "green bell pepper," along with almost no bitterness and soft feel, and think that sounds positive.

Fifth infusion

Wildwood:  warmth picks up a little; that comes across as the mineral range changing, but it could be interpreted in different ways.  It also seems like the woodiness, that earthy range, increased a little, and the floral and sweetness dropped back.  It's still pleasant, it just seems to be moving towards a wood-tone that's often present in a lot of teas in later rounds.  It's a little early for that but it is still a minor shift at this level.  It's also possible that it will cross through a different range before the flavors get to that "brewed out" level (eg. it could transition to come across as mild spice instead).  For now it seems closer to wood, or dry autumn forest floor.  It works with the earlier sweetness, intensity, bitterness, and floral tone.

Da Xue Shan:  warmth picks up in this too, in a range that's comparable, more wood or a touch of autumn forest floor.  In this version it's an improvement for swapping out some vegetable taste for that, where for the other it's not quite as pleasant as the earlier aspects set.  It will be interesting to see where these are headed, related to those transitions.  I'll do an one more round, and deal with my nerves feeling a bit jangled for the next 2 or 3 hours.  It is possible to taste the tea and then pour it out instead of drinking it, I just normally don't do that.  It seems disrespectful.

Sixth infusion

I let these go a bit over 10 seconds since intensity is tapering off.  The brewing parameter recommendations by some vendors to add 5 seconds to every round seem completely off to me, but adjusting time less than that does come up.  It would depend on the starting-point proportion.  It would still make sense to use a lower one than I tend to, and the teas would transition faster for being brewed longer each round (if trying to achieve the same infusion strength).


Wildwood:  I like where this has headed, the way that warm mineral and earthiness swapped in for a lot of the sweetness and floral range.  It's not better, or maybe not even as good as it was, depending on preference, but it's still nice.  The mineral is like desert slick-rock, seemingly with a bit of iron in it.  The earthy warmth is towards redwood, just not quite as aromatic; it lacks that one particular high-note.  The balance is what really works, how well it all works together.  It's unusual that this shifted from going more towards autumn forest floor (earthy) to warm mineral tone but changing brewing parameters a little could change the effect on its own, and the tea had already been transitioning.


Da Xue Shan:  Green bean seemed to pick back up; at least it's transitioning.  Again I'd be inclined to cut this review section out entirely if not for two different factors:  this is unusual, kind of so-so in an interesting way, and I really wanted to pass on a full description of how the Sheng Olympiad set worked out.

I have no idea why this tastes so much like vegetables, why it's a lot closer to a green tea in flavor range.  One guess is obvious:  they heated it too much, shifting compounds to make it into a green tea.  I'm not saying that has to be it, just passing on a thought I would expect would occur to many.  If that's accurate there's a good chance this lost most of its aging potential in that step too. 

Sheng transitions positively with age, they ferment, because the compounds present relate to limiting the temperature of the heating step, and due to use of sun-drying versus oven drying.  Green tea will change too, especially if given air exposure and stored in an environment with a good bit of humidity, just not in the same way.  I've never heard of anyone trying to check that by storing green tea exactly like sheng though; if it sticks around it's sealed in a package.  Aging green tea is very unconventional but not unheard of.

All of this leads me back to an idea that connects, about Hojo being an outlier reference for recommending that sheng should be stored sealed (at least packaged, but per my impression well-isolated from air).  I covered that in this post on sheng storage.  It's not fair to summarize it to this extent, but the ideas link in an obvious way:  if they're selling sheng that's processed more as a green tea of course it would hold up better sealed, because it wouldn't ferment properly under any conditions.  I'm not offering that as speculation, again just connecting some dots.  Probably most of the sheng they sell really is conventional in character and processing steps used.  It would make no sense that they would able to source sheng for being flawed in one particular way, all processed incorrectly, closer to green tea in nature, even if they wanted to.

Since so many factors contribute to final sheng character I'm not even claiming that the heating step was responsible for this tea tasting like green bell pepper, broccoli, and green beans.  I have no idea what caused that.  Flavors vary related to using different plant types, or related to growing conditions, plant age, soil type, minor differences in processing steps, etc.  I may never be able to taste a tea and map it all out with any degree of likelihood.  It would be nice if I could just describe a tea accurately, and it's hard to make any claim related to that.  Maybe I'm doing ok with that, or maybe not.


In conclusion, the Crimson Lotus tea seemed a lot better to me, and more conventional.  There's probably no need to add a summary to that; in what sense must have been clear enough in the descriptions.  This Hojo tea wasn't as bad as I probably made it sound.  It was just not a good match for my personal preference since I don't like green tea, and it resembled one.  At least it wasn't grassy but vegetable related flavors stood out most, with limited feel-complexity and aftertaste.

Vendor information

Why not include what the two vendors offer as descriptions?

Crimson Lotus 2018 Spring "Wildwood" Sheng / Raw Puerh:


The tea in this cake is a single origin, full garden blend. There are young and old trees in the garden and this tea blends all the trees. The material itself is full bodied and thick in the mouth but soft in presentation. There is minimal bitterness and astringency, but if you push it you get a floral experience reminiscent of orchids. The overall character of this tea is on the savory and vegetal side but there is a wild essence that makes it interesting...

growing conditions, the actual location (credit Crimson Lotus site)

I did like it, and I guess that description works, it's just not a perfect match for my interpretation.  Blending versions (by plant type, not so much location) would account for the pleasant overall balance and moderate bitterness and astringency.  It did have enough of both to strike a pleasant balance though; it's not as if none of both is better.  I'm not certain this tea would do well related to long-term aging but that's a long story I'm not going to start into, and what I say about such things would just be a guess anyway.


They account for not even passing on the broadest level of regional designation as follows:

The only way the farmers would take us to see this garden is if we promised not to tell anyone where it is. We will respect their wishes and keep it's location a secret. 


That kind of works, but the counties (main sub-regions) in Yunnan are really big places.  It seems possible that broad area name wouldn't add to the appeal so it was easy to leave it out given that context, along with specifics.  It seems like people overdo it with emphasizing those regions anyway; character in teas varies across that type of generality, and although it's not completely wrong to base expectations on broad area source sheng character also varies by lots of factors.

As to cost, a 200 gram cake sells for $75.  That's a bit, $138 for the equivalent of a 357 gram cake.  It was pretty good, but people tend to pay more or less related to origin, to some extent.  A $150 Yiwu cake is expensive as those go but not at all unheard of, maybe quite justified for quality (almost a separate concern), but for teas from lower demand areas both tea quality and the back-story would have some ground to cover to help that make sense.  For even higher demand areas a tea would more or less have to be fake to sell for only $150. 

Given I've just said that areas as an input are overvalued it makes sense to judge this related to how good it is instead, and that's not so easy to do at a summary level.  It's pretty good tea; that price doesn't necessarily stand out for being wrong, at least.


Hojo 2018 Da Xue Shan maocha:

Hojo wild tea tree (may relate to this version; credit their related web page)

There's a great summary and background description of this Lincang growing area here, in a puerh.fr reference, and a more general (broader area) TeaDB post about Lincang here.  There's too much to cover between the detailed tasting review and including two vendor descriptions so I won't follow that theme further here.

The vendor description (an excerpt):

With every sipping, the refreshing sweet floral scent is emerging slowly in my mouth. I enjoy its flavour which gently unfold on my palate and not rushing out swiftly. This is the type of tea I love to drink daily.  The flavour of Da Xue Shan Wild Raw Pu-erh Tea is like spring flowers, with trace hint of grapes and green apples flavour. If you love the refreshing floral flavour, mao-cha is a good choice...


I wasn't really getting that.  They do explain why the tea might be mild in character, in two parts, which is interesting:

This wild tea is excellent in taste. But it tends to gives milder flavour. It is because the genuine wild tea is grown under the shaded area in the forest. Due to lack of sunshine, the flavour tends to be lighter. On the other hand, human-planted “wild tea” tends to give strong flavour as those trees are directly exposed to much sunshine...


That "wild" reference can mean different things but I have noticed a general trend for more natural-growth teas to on the mild side related to astringency, bitterness, and to some extent even flavor intensity in general.  They tend to make up for it by having an interesting flavor profile (in better cases), which varies by lots of factors I'm never completely clear on, so to a limited degree I'm kind of with him on this point.  And then there's a part about processing:

Last year we have learned from the process of Huo Cao Shan raw pu-erh tea that the longer withering makes the flavour of tea becomes more floral and sweet. So, we applied the same technique on Da Xue Shan wild raw pu-erh tea. We decided not to process the tea on the same day it was plucked. Instead, we let the fresh tealeaf withered overnight and pan-frying was conducted the next day. Thanks to the longer withering, tea has light enzymatic oxidation and developed sweet flavour. It gives very soft and long-lasting aftertaste...


So this really is an intentionally more-oxidized version of sheng.  It's odd that it brewed much lighter than the Crimson Lotus version then, a pale yellow brewed-liquid that's light as typical sheng goes.  And that it tastes like green tea.  I wouldn't necessarily expect a slightly more oxidized sheng to become "more floral and sweet" but that step would soften the nature of the aspects, dropping back astringency and bitterness, swapping out some flavors for warmer tones.  Conventionally processed sheng can be really sweet with no oxidation at all, and very floral, but the overall intensity sometimes comes at a cost if bitterness and astringency offset those.  Of course then aging can transition that.

Back on that subject of sheng that won't age as well ("oolong pu'er," as I've seen it expressed, and written about) one guess was that increasing oxidation level (letting leaves wither longer) might be a reason for why mild and approachable sheng versions fade with age instead of improving.  The theory is that compounds that might make the tea harder to relate to initially (think Xiaguan tuochas) could transition with some oxidation, trading out long-term aging potential. 

That wasn't accepted as the main factor by most in that one discussion I'm referring to (that took place in Tea Chat some time ago), related to some bright, sweet, approachable sheng being ready to drink young.  Another theory is that using oven-drying versus sun-drying causes related changes (in final character; as to why I never really got that part sorted out).  It seems to me that sheng versions vary a lot by lots of different factors:  growing conditions have already come up here, and oxidation / length of withering step, but plant type gets folded in (and that seems right), and degree of heating in a sha qing step must also be a factor.

I'm not completely clear on whether long-wither / higher oxidation relates to making tea that's better to drink right away, and not age.  Maybe that's right, and it came up in that discussion as a potential factor.


Of course that vendor description doesn't mention that they think it tastes more like a green tea, quite vegetal.  Typically I'll try to give vendor descriptions the benefit of a doubt and write differences off to varying interpretation but this tea just isn't that floral or fruity, to me.  It's my impression that people's sense of taste can vary, based on starting to get a cold, or being tired, or eating something that alters the tasting process, so passing on a single-tasting based description as a final, objective take doesn't work.  But in this case that second sheng version seemed pretty normal to me, and matched the other vendor's take fairly well, even though those tend to be general in product descriptions.  As they should be; teas will change based on lots of factors, even with limited aging, and interpretations varying is natural.


Pricing for this second tea is only listed on a pre-order article, not the main one cited, appearing here:

100g  (100g x 1)       JPY3,900
200g　(100g x 2)    JPY7,600
600g  (100g x 6)      JPY22,500
1000g (100g x 10)  JPY31,200


3,900 Japanese Yen equals 35.55 United States Dollar; this same tea had been going for around $120 per 357 gram pressed cake equivalent.  I wouldn't buy a cake of it for $35 myself but that really relates to not liking green tea all that much.  It was novel though, and not really bad tea; limited as quality markers go but not flawed.  It's hard for me to imagine but someone could really be on that page for character.


I've seen a Hojo price list before (they don't run an online shop with product prices) and their teas mostly averaged around $.50 to .75 per gram, across a range of types.  I think part of why that runs well above a standard average--beyond high quality and rareness in teas justifying that, which I haven't tried enough of their teas to judge; only one other appears in a review in this blog--is that they run physical shops, and seem to sell tea online as a secondary related business.  Shops often sell teas for more, especially if the location makes that necessary (eg. a Manhattan, NYC based business isn't going to compete with internet pricing; they couldn't).

Their main shop (or only physical shop?) is in Kuala Lumpur, which would experience lower overhead burden than NYC, but South East Asia retail space and general pricing doesn't work out as you might expect.  Mall-space rent can be costly, and for lots of products here in Thailand you pay more than in the US.  That mostly has to do with high import taxes, to be fair, but the general point remains that one might expect everything to cost a lot less in "developing" countries, and it's not always like that.  If import taxes in Malaysia are anything like in Thailand the base cost of that tea is doubling just by moving the tea between countries, aside from shipping.


To get back to this specific context they're still selling a sheng cake I didn't care for, that I expect many would judge to not really even be typical of sheng character in general, for well over $100 (or equivalent; that maps pre-ordered loose tea cost up to a 357 standard size version).  Someone would have to judge this tea quite differently than I did for that to make any sense. 


Even without truly loving both of these teas this made for a very interesting tasting experience.  At least the one I cared for less was novel, and the other matched my preferences and seemed like generally good tea.  Related to trying teas in a mixed-type set, of experiencing the "Sheng Olympiad," I'm definitely not disappointed.