At that recent tasting at the Sen Xing Fa Chinatown shop in Bangkok they let us try a really unusual tea version, an oolong "farmer's tea," a type that isn't processed by completely drying the leaves. They gave us samples of it too, even though they said that they don't actually sell it, and only had some to try and share, and I'm reviewing that sample today.
How would that work, preserving relatively fresh leaves, only mostly processed, according to the standard sequence of steps? They kept it frozen. I've never heard of such a thing. Farmer's tea usually refers to huang pian, to yellow leaf tea, to farmer's drinking instead of selling what is processed as older leaves. It's lighter and sweeter than normal leaves, the green ones, and slightly different in flavor profile, but maybe not as intense or complex. This isn't that anyway; I think it's just oolong they didn't completely dry, made in a Taiwanese style, just stopped short of final processing.
There should be more details, about origin area, and who made it, but I don't really remember the little they did cover about it in discussion. I'm pretty sure this is from Taiwan but even that might be wrong; trying teas in a group of 8 people can lead to conversation tangents, and missing some points. That makes for less of a story, but since it's a form of tea I've never heard of I'll pass on what the experience is like here. I already know though, from trying it before: this is really buttery and creamy.
Review:
1: it's not that different than a normal, good, high elevation Taiwanese oolong. The sweetness and floral range match that, and even the creamy feel. It's just a little extra sweet and creamy, with really intense floral range.
That range does match some Taiwanese oolong scope, I'm just not caught up on how different production areas tend to vary, so I can't continue on to mapping to that. I went through some exploration of Taiwanese oolongs some years back, but I switched to mostly focusing on Wuyi Yancha and Dan Cong something like a half dozen years ago, and switched to mostly drinking sheng pu'er maybe 4 years back, with some overlap in those preference patterns. I end up drinking black tea most as an alternative, either Chinese, Indian, or SE Asian versions; it remained my other favorite type across all that time.
This tea would be fine brewed very light, since intensity and sweetness is great, and there are no negative aspects to brew around, but I'd prefer it at medium intensity, to really dial up the experience. I think it did start brewing a little slowly, even though this infused for around half a minute.
I should mention that one might be curious what very fresh leaves would be like if you eat one; I thought of that, and did. It's mild and flavorful, not bitter at all due to oolong processing leading there. This would make a really nice pesto. If I were just slightly more interested in crazy exploration themes than I am I would've cut a third of this off and cooked with it, but it's too much trouble.
2: this isn't so different from good Taiwanese oolong that someone would necessarily notice it's not just an example of that (and maybe it is; maybe the final drying stage doesn't change as much as one might expect). Feel is really rich, sweetness is good, and floral tones are heavy, which is all a match. Somehow it's extra silky smooth, almost buttery, in both taste and feel. When Don Mei says that a tea tastes like a butter cookie I'd bet that they never taste this much like a butter cookie.
When I drink really good versions of Tie Guan Yin I can appreciate what is positive about those, but when I try exceptional Taiwanese oolongs that seems even more positive, and I wonder why I'm not drinking more of them. Once you get hooked on the intensity and complexity of sheng pu'er it can be hard to adjust to dialing it all back. This tea is great, with such nice flavor and feel, but the nice Thai wild origin sheng I've been drinking--pretty much every other day for awhile, and on and off for a year--hits so hard. I guess it would be like an espresso drinker trying to adjust to appreciate American drip-brewed coffee; it can be fine, but something gets lost.
3: I let this round brew out towards a minute but it wasn't that fresh leaves aren't infusing out enough flavor or intensity, what I was just talking about related to a difference in tea-type character.
Again it's sweet, rich, complex, and nicely balanced. Brewing it extra strong did bump up feel and aftertaste intensity, and draw out a hint of an edge, all of which lend it more impact. There's nothing not to like about this experience. It's probably even about as good as any Taiwanese oolong I've ever tried, not that that's saying much, since I never really put enough focus, effort, or expense into that to get to the very top level. Maybe this lightness, sweetness, and buttery range match baozhong style better, and this does remind me most of a tea made in a similar style, just from Indonesia instead of Taiwan, but I'm not the right person to place that either.
Just the scent alone is pleasant, that characteristic sweet and complex floral range. Too bad I'm not better with placing a broad range of floral scents, or this description could keep going. I'm not noticing that much transition so I'll probably write notes on one more round and keep this short. It will no doubt shift some in interesting ways over another half dozen rounds but most of the story is this basic experience.
4: warmth picks up a little, and more mild spice tone enters in, like just a touch of nutmeg. This isn't fading yet but I'd bet that stretching it by extending infusion times over the next half dozen rounds will change character. In a way this isn't about that part of the story, because this isn't a type of tea people really have much access to, and I'm certainly not comparing this to other versions out there.
The next round really is similar, so short of doing the full 8 to 10 round cycle of notes this covers it. The three rounds after that stayed pretty consistent, with the character really only changing later on once stretching out infusion times let a touch of extra green wood range flavor and feel enter in.
Conclusions
Many thanks to the Sen Xing Fa shop staff for sharing it; it's just great tea. A few of the ones we tried that tasting day really stood out as something extra novel and high quality, with the whole range as really solid examples of those individual types.
For someone focused mainly on value, for getting the best tea experience for the price, it would've really required careful sorting of those options, to see what worked best for that. Personal preference also has to be a main yardstick; the match to what any given person likes most.
This tea works as a good example of that. It's clearly just great, and it would be worth a relatively high selling price, if they actually sold it. But I'm really more into approachable young sheng experience now, so I would prefer a different range of teas, that just happen to cost a good bit less, across a lot of that range. Vendors and supply and demand balance have pushed selling prices so that really interesting and pleasant young sheng might cost $100-120 per cake now (for 357 grams), which I don't spend on tea, never mind the 60 to 80 cents per gram range some other teas sell for, or more. Luckily that hasn't extended to the entire range of South East Asian sheng just yet, although I suppose it will as exposure increases.
Exposure for this type I'm reviewing is a non-issue; I've never even heard of it. It was great to try it, as pleasant in terms of experienced aspects as it was novel and interesting.
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