2014 Bada sheng pu'er from Chawang Shop

I'm kind of over the Chinese character labels

It's especially interesting trying these Chawang Shop teas since I don't remember what I thought sounded interesting it's been so long since ordering these, some months back now.  At least they're well rested, thanks in part to a covid-inspired break from tea, and a slow reviewing pace.  

I guess this version I'm reviewing sounded interesting:

2014 Chawangpu "Lao Yu" Xiao Bing Cha 200g

Lao Yu (老妪) : old woman

Material for this cake came from a small Bulang minority village in Bada mountain. This village have very small quantity of tea trees that grow in the forest. Trees are relative old, but farmers cut the branches when trees get too tall. Tea trees are kept at easy-picking height because the tea is picked and made by old women in this village. They follow ancient ways to produce tea. Many of them make tea only for themself. 

We selected and bought good materials from different families. They picked one bud and two leaves. This tea is nice example of old-time puer tea and traditions of Bulang minority.

2014 cake is a bit different with previous year. We keep nearly one year loose leaves "maocha" in Menghai town and pressed in Jan. 2015. Stone pressed in small tea factory. 

Taste of this tea is full, strong with bitterness, huigan is fast and sweet. 

Production date : March, 2014

Harvest Area : Bada, Menghai

It was really the overlap between sounding interesting, not costing much, and tying to a varying age theme that I was looking for, and this matched all of those.  The appeal implicit in that description would either come across or it wouldn't.  It's interesting considering that Bulang is both an area and an ethnic group, with a bit more on that here.

The subject of "middle aged pu'er" comes up a lot, something I've discussed recently in talking about storage conditions and aging inputs.  This will probably be young pu'er instead, although with 8 years of age it could be on the medium side instead, if it were stored in a warmer and wetter place (like Bangkok; it's over 90 F now at 10 AM, maybe a bit over 30 C, but it feels warmer for being soaking wet for humidity level, 63%).

I won't repeat much of all that about storage and transitions; this will just be about trying the tea.

Review:

First infusion:  it is nice, as the description called it.  Warm tones stand out, but there's a brightness to this too.  The warmth comes as underlying mineral, with brighter range harder to define as a light infusion.  Bitterness will ramp up with intensity, I think, but a sweetness while you drink it and afterwards both stand out.  The feel is not so astringent but includes a dryness.  

I've been starting to think that dryness is a main aspect related to dry storage, teas losing a harsher astringency edge, and softening, but heading towards an interim dryness instead of richness or fullness.  A limited range of wood tones might correspond too.  Or it could just be at a medium level based on a certain range of starting points you would get there, paired with other aspects depending on that set of inputs.

It's catchy, pleasant.  The warmth with moderate bitterness and long sweetness afterwards are all nice.

Second infusion:  intensity really ramped up, even for that infusion time being moderate.  I went with a maxed out proportion this time, noticing that it was a bit much for moderating intensity through brewing time variation, but I couldn't stop myself.  

Bitterness is significant; this is one of the most bitter teas I've drank in awhile.  It's an aspect range that I tend to not seek out, so I miss the most extreme examples entirely, but I can still relate to it.  As expected aging transition took a bit of edge off the character but definitely didn't get far through adjusting range.  It's kind of floral, the main flavor range, but there's a sort of bubble-gum fruit character too.  Warm mineral input is intense, along with bitterness, giving those a depth.

Third infusion:  I'm more or less trying a flash infusion; this is opened up and started already.  Vegetal flavor range increases, a plant stem / green wood sort of input that seems to tie to the bitterness.  There's still a cool floral range and harder to place fruit aspect, with warmer range giving this depth.  It packs a punch; bitterness hits hard, and even the sweetness afterwards is intense, with some bitterness joining that part too.  Feel develops a bit more sappiness, a fuller range of impact all across your tongue, with the sweetness moving towards the back as you experience it.  

I don't know how far I'll get in trying rounds without taking a break, at least for water.  For weather this hot it should be part of the tasting set-up.

Fourth infusion:  a spice range develops, extending from the earlier warm tones.  Green vegetal input and somewhat non-distinct floral range are still present, with bitterness and sweetness dominant.   Someone looking for that sweet-bitter smack in the palate would love this tea.  Astringency is nice at this stage; dryness has eased up, with more depth and richness replacing it.  I don't want to say that the bitterness is too much for me but it's kind of like that; it would help to love it more, not just as an integrated part but as a dominant main aspect.

Kalani joined and tried a few drops, after the round was finished, and spit it back out.  It's an acquired taste.  She also took a photo for me, so that one can not follow the standard form.

Fifth infusion:  lesson learned about moderating proportion; even brewed fast this intensity is off the scale.  Not everything is those mild semi-aged or more character neutral versions I drink more of.  No significant change; I'll go do a break, drink some water, eat a little of whatever is on the table in the house, and try a couple more rounds, before it's off to some play area.

Sixth infusion:  I didn't realize that my head was spinning quite that much until I took a break and laid down.  I don't keep track of which "cha qi" is the good version, but drinking this on an empty stomach seems like a bad idea.  And I didn't; for breakfast I ate fresh pineapple, banana, and some traditional Thai baked good (that's hard to describe), but all that is lower on offsetting that drug-like impact than a bowl of cereal or toast and jam.  At most I'll drink two more rounds.

It's warming, settling into a nice range.  I suppose if this was much "younger" and bitterness was lower I'd guess it might've oxidized a little, for that warm tone matching how that input can go, but it had to evolve there through aging input, or the bitterness should've moderated more if they had let it oxidize during processing, not "fixing" it fast enough.  Just guesses, really.

I do like this tea but overall intensity and feel intensity are a bit much.  In a few more years this could moderate a bit, and be easier to relate to for me.  Maybe in another decade it would be really nice, stored somewhere it will actually transition, but for owning a half sized cake I'll probably never know, even if I just try this a couple of times a year.

Seventh infusion:  I rarely mention how much tea volume I'm really drinking, and don't emphasize parameters, but the .7 liter thermos I'm using is pretty much empty.  This had to be something like 6 grams of tea, brewed in a 100 ml gaiwan, using water not far off full boiling point.  Backing off that proportion would have made more sense.

I'm not doing justice to describing the complexity in terms of part of this flavor range being warm and part being bright, leaning towards fruit.  Warmth I've described as in mineral range, or towards spice, but aromatic wood is starting to apply more, cedar or something such.  Fruit is more onto dried Chinese date now, jujube, maybe with a bit of longan character.  Yesterday, and often really, I had a mixed Chinese and ice bean desert, one of my favorite Chinese-Thai food experiences, this time in Chinatown.  The range is not separate from that.

my wife (right) and her friend with me in the Bangkok Chinatown

Eighth infusion:  I took the cat inside to cool off in the middle of brewing a round, and diluted that--then brewed too strong--using the trick of doing an immediate flash infusion to combine with the other.  This is really catchy.  Floral tones are picking up, it seems.  It had always expressed a lot of nice floral range but it develops more richness (and intensity, the single word that describes this tea experience best).  A Bangkok summer day is ramping up here too, onto 95 F / maybe 35 C, so hot; it kind of works as a set, a lot of intense experience at the same time.

Conclusions:

I like this tea but it needs a couple of years to settle to a range I can identify with better, or maybe 4 or 5.  I think astringency probably did moderate in the 8 years since it was produced but if bitterness eased up it must've really been something earlier on.  It's nice that the other character and flavor is positive, but it's all just so intense.

I got blasted on this tea and stayed blasted.  It can be hard to separate that effect from heat impact, but it seemed like both.  To stick with and extend that theme I went for an 8 km run at around noon, in mid-90s (upper 30s C) temperature, which really sets the tone for the rest of the day, themed around recovering.  After the usual couple of hours of fighting with the kids about doing whatever I think we will go to a water park; it's so hot that only that or being in AC makes sense.  I'm not so sure how climbing 30 flights worth of stairs to do slides over and over will go.

that outing went well, except for one scraped knee

It seems a little abbreviated, placing these conclusions.  If I remember right I tried a Bada origin version that was nothing like this from Chawang Shop a few years back (reviewed here).  Scanning through that it included bitterness, as a three year old version, but not like this.  It comes up that tea tree varietals vary, a subject that it's hard to delve into much.  I don't know what caused that difference, or if one of these is more origin-typical than the other, or if both represent styles that should mean something to me, related to processing themes or other inputs.  It's all a work in progress, learning from multiple varied experiences, and it's not settling towards conclusions just yet, more the opposite.

This was an interesting experience.  There seems limited risk of this tea fading to become bland and uninteresting if I leave it sit awhile.  I have one tea left in that set to try, and they sent no samples this order (so much for the theme of tea bloggers being "bought off" by free tea for promotional benefit).  They're on their own page there at that outlet; I like that.  Apparent bone dry storage isn't a theme that everyone else would appreciate, but to me it kind of works out, trying teas that are feel-transitioned some after 8 years but probably not so different than they started out.