More about Wawee Tea sheng; this theme is starting to repeat. I bought some after that friend in Chiang Mai sent samples, and they sent me a sample of another older 2014 version along with the 2021 sheng that I bought (which I've not written about; the sample my friend gave me should be either quite similar or else identical).
Thai teas are a favorite subject, and sheng is my favorite type, so I don't mind revisiting it and writing about it more or less weekly. One of those weekly reviews was about a black tea (not by Wawee Tea) and a novel oolong version (by them), so that broke up the cycle.
I really wouldn't have expected this tea to still be available but in checking their website it seems to be:
Chinese: Gu Su Cha 古树茶
Type: Green Puerh Tea (Puerh Cake), listed for 2750 baht
Cultivar: Assam Tea [that would mean Assamica, described as from 400 to 900 year old plants]
Origin: Wawee Mountain, Chiangrai , Thailand
Harvest date: 2014/04/25
Storage Methods: Sealed , Prevent moisture , Seal in a dry ambience and Clean.
Tea Master: Pan Yongchang
I'm not certain that's the same tea; it could be a coincidence that they sold two versions from 2014, but it seems more likely it's a match. Just because it shows up there doesn't mean that it's in-stock; they sell teas in different ways, and not updating a website page quickly would seem normal.
Let's break that down a little, just skipping the part about it being pu'er or not related to not being from Yunnan (I must've typed that out hundreds of times). We can just set aside the 400 to 900 year old plants part; maybe some material was from older tea trees, and hopefully all of it was naturally forest grown, and that's good enough. It's not that I don't trust them, I'm just not overly interested in stories, true ones or false ones. That price is unusual, $80 for 9 year old tea; they should raise that, if it's as good as I already know it is, since I write the intro parts after the notes.
For storage: sealed, really? I take everything I read with a grain of salt, and don't know how to place that as likely to mean something in particular, or meaningful if the tea really was very well sealed. It wasn't all that fermented for being 9 years old; maybe they're not kidding about that part. And character seemed a little unusual, which I took to probably relate to an atypical starting point set of aspects, but who knows.
The tea is good, the main thing. It's not nearly as far along in fermentation as something I'd have kept around here in Bangkok for 9 years, but lots of places in Thailand aren't as oppressively hot and humid, so that doesn't mean anything in particular to me. On with description.
Later edit: I asked the producer if this was the same as the site listing, and it is. Actual pricing is currently at 3050 baht, so around $90 instead of $80, a fairly standard 10% annual price increase, with 3 or 4 percent of that just relating to inflation, to money being worth less every year. More on the background:
This tea was produced in the spring of 2014 and the tea cake was pressed for sale in 2015.
We named Thai-Yunnan's Hero series to commemorate the bravery and sacrifice of the soldiers in the 93rd Brigade. In the past, our tea factory used to be a residence for soldiers in the 93rd Brigade before going to Taiwan.
That's not familiar, but it all makes sense.
Review
first infusion: a little light, not completely started yet, but a couple of early notes are interesting. This has a nice resinous edge to it, both the feel and a flavor reminiscent of how pine sap smells. Tone range is on the warm side. Depth is not going to be an issue for this tea. It's funny how a rich feel develops so early on, while the flavor profile is still filling in from the tea not being completely wetted yet.
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even more intense than it looks |
second infusion: I went a little longer than usual to get this more fully wetted, and infusion will be a little inconsistent while it gets started. Compression level is on the high-medium side, which should slow aging slightly, and get brewing off to a slower start.
This is a little strong, but the slightly long soak will make it easier to get a consistent round next time. A pine-like edge is strong, brewed this way. There are complex layers beyond that, which will be easier to list out brewed lighter. A flavor that seems to connect to the sweetness is really nice, towards molasses, in the range of complex warm tones.
third infusion: there it is, becoming more dialed in. Related to bitterness there is still some, that didn't drop out related to transition yet, but the level is moderate. It integrates well with the pine resin and warm tones. What I was interpreting as molasses like sweetness is a bit towards a malt, not the Assam malt, like malted milk ball malt, or the version in milkshakes. Beyond that I think floral range is filling in complexity, but it doesn't stand out as much as the rest, it's more of a background or base.
I've tried teas that were only 3 or 4 years old that were aged / fermented to a comparable level; I think higher than average compression level and probably also moderate humidity and temperature input kept this transition at a moderate pace, which is fine, that can kind of be better in a sense. Heavier and rougher tones are avoided that way, a basement smell, or towards-peat earthiness. This is clean in effect, and overall balance is good, with plenty of complexity and intensity.
fourth infusion: warm tones shift this round, a pine edge changes to resemble dark wood towards aged furniture a bit more. It's all a bit subtle, as a change that is occurring, but it seems like both dried fruit and spice are picking up. The fruit range is close to dried Chinese date, jujube, and the spice tone is within the range of warm incense spices that I'm not so good about identifying.
I'm feeling this tea already, a heady sort of light buzz and relaxing body feel, even though I had breakfast not long before partly to offset that. I get it that many people love drug-like effects from sheng but I don't try to maximize that.
fifth infusion: really interesting, for how much this is transitioning. A general warm tone level stays the same but the parts going into that keep changing. I suppose it's not so different in terms of description from the last round but it has shifted slightly. Feel is really pronounced, resinous, full but with just a touch of dryness. Aftertaste effect really lingers. For as much intensity as this possesses, and the aspect range it covers, I think this would be really good in another 9 more years, once it had time to move through more of the rest of an aging cycle.
It's fine now, as a different kind of tea experience, but I could see someone interpreting this as in between profiles that they like, not the partly softened 3 to 4 year old sheng range, and not yet fully switched over to warmer and deeper tones, kind of half and half. I find it pleasant like this though.
Drinking water after that round tasted very sweet, as if it was a light stevia infusion. Is that effect familiar? There is a certain bitterness aftertaste range, I guess that people would often associate with hui gan, only partially translated as "returning sweetness," that causes plain water to taste really sweet when you drink it after sheng. I'll take a break and do a few things and then add notes on a couple more rounds; this feel effect is a bit much to keep going.
sixth infusion: this had included plenty of warm tones before but an actual woodiness is increasing, along the lines of sawdust pile or barnwood. For taking a break that tea must have cooled, so the next infusion will make for a truer test, with the leaves starting brewing already warmed.
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a couple rounds later, leaf color showing fermentation level |
seventh infusion: that did change a lot, perhaps related to the brewing temperature going back to normal (hotter). A pine edge stands out again. I let that brew for over 10 seconds, on the long side for this proportion, round, and tea intensity level, and it probably would be back to more optimum under 10 again. Heavier earthy or woody flavors are ramping up, just in a different form than last round, leaning more towards earthy range.
I could swear that I'm really feeling this tea again, after drinking just two more rounds. It would make sense to go with a much lower proportion to actually make it further through a round. I picked a chunk from a sample set of chunks, and brewed that, which is even further into guesswork from my normal approach. It looked like plenty, and it was.
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taking a couple back out might've occurred to me, but overdoing it is habit |
eight infusion: it's nice, sweet, pleasantly viscous, with interesting and complex flavor range, and loads of intensity. I'm not saying much about bitterness here because that input just seems moderate to me, but without acclimation to that as an input this might come across as harsh. As far as a flavor list goes the set I keep describing just keeps shifting in balance, the pine resin edge, warmer earthy and woody tones, dried Chinese date / jujube fruit, underlying warm floral base tones, and some degree of light and sweet malt and warm aromatic spice tone. There's a lot going on.
Some of that pine resin / woody / now a bit towards earth flavor aspect lingers quite a bit in the aftertaste, along with a full, slightly dry feel, astringent in an unusual way. For people who mostly love sweet, floral, aromatic, almost citrusy newer sheng, or else faded to warm, deep, softer, and subtle but complex flavored aged sheng this might not work very well. Moderately aged sheng can be an odd range (or not yet aged, depends on how one parses out those concepts). Someone else just mentioned that they also like sheng kind of in the middle in a Gong Fu Cha group discussion, even related to drier storage conditions, and if they meant they love the high intensity then this might work for them. Versions that are sweeter, fragrant, and approachable early on are something else altogether; this must have been quite intense when younger.
Conclusions
This just wouldn't start fading in intensity, even after a number of additional rounds. This is some intense tea. A part I didn't get to later in the Wawee Tea site description sums up my impression well, once you read past the translation:
Note: can brew 15 - 20 water, able to develop itself from raw tea to ripe tea The older it is, the better it tastes.
It would've been more conventional to brew 2/3rds or half as much material as I did, and not lengthen infusion times at all, and this would still surely brew at least 15 rounds, under more normal parameters. And it has plenty of aging potential.
They mentioned a sweetness tied to bitterness, which I've only read in this description in the final editing process, and also had expressed in the notes. It's almost odd they didn't mention the feel effect, a solid body buzz and head effect combined.
I'm not sure it came across clearly how much I liked this, what an objective quality assessment of it is, and how I place that style. I can definitely appreciate half-aged sheng, and this is an interesting and pleasant version of that, so I really liked it. I think even in 3 or 4 years this tea's character will make a lot more sense, that it could switch to a very young version of an aged tea instead of being so "right in the middle." It's quite good, I think, related to the style that it is, so much so that the pricing is unusual.
The heaviness of pine edge may mean more to others than it did to me. I suspect that it's at an unusual phase of transition, and it was much rougher a few years ago, intense in a less approachable way, and in a few more years it will be different again. Jing Mai area sheng can have a quite pronounced pine flavor note, but I don't remember it coming up in Thai teas, not that I'm well-versed in styles and versions from 9 years ago.
This material was a little broken, and that can change a lot, in terms of flavor set and feel. Maybe that partly related to tearing up more than average compression level chunks, where newer style versions are often slightly looser. This particular chunk was at the edge of the beeng-hole, so maybe it's not the most fair representation, more compressed than the rest, and I could've factored that in and picked a different piece.
I suppose it would have been possible to brew this like a dragonball instead, taking the first 3 or 4 infusions to mess around with one 5 to 7 gram chunk, working it apart while partly infused. It's at least conceivable that maybe air contact was very limited, that it was more or less sealed, and that changed fermentation effect to an unfamiliar form, instead of compression level, or that relating to a starting point character input. I guess I could ask Hojo about that, how sealing the tea affects sheng aging. I would guess that this had enough air to ferment normally, that character just relates to where it is in a transition cycle.
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judging from the Wawee Tea website image breaking it up may have broken the leaves |
All in all I really liked it. This would be a fantastic tea to buy with the intention of trying it once a year for the next half dozen years, and really having something novel then. You might think "just 5 more" at that point, and then extreme patience would come into play. Or it's interesting now, and some people would drink this just for the drug-like effect, never mind how much they love or are ambivalent about the rest. If I wasn't about to move to an expensive place to live, and hadn't just spent some money on tea and a new pair of running shoes, I'd probably try to buy this. Never mind; according to my wife I already have enough tea to drink for years, and I really love newish Thai sheng, and I just bought a cake's worth of that from them, so I'll be happy drinking that for awhile.
For others feeling left out because vendors charge you $1 a gram if the word gushu is mentioned, which may or may not relate to a true story and experienced aspects, I've already spoken about as plainly as I'm going to. If someone hates pine flavor in sheng and would intend to drink it soon then that's that, but even related to that part I'm not sure to what extent that will stick around through further aging. I would guess that dryness of feel is from the same thing, just where it is right now, not how it's going to stay.
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