I visited a local shop recently to connect with an online contact, the Ju Jen Tea shop in the Paradise Park mall (out towards the airport and Bangna; out there). I've been to an earlier iteration of that shop, and mentioned it in this blog many years ago, when they were in a smaller food court stall. Now it's a conventional shop, still in that food court zone.
It was very nice hanging out at that shop, and meeting other local tea enthusiasts, and the owner, who is very kind, and a gracious host. I recommend visiting there.
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for sure there is a lot to explore in that shop |
This will be mostly about the tea, but the background of it will be sparse. One I only know as a 2017 purple material version, and the other I think is from Lincang, and it probably has a date on an inner wrapper. That's going to be it for tea background. We weren't talking a lot about these particular teas, and I tried a 1980s shu and some very high end Chinese green tea while there, a sample another guest brought, the kind of tea that sells for over $5 a gram. That's too much, of course, but so it can go with rare and well-regarded teas in China. It was pleasant, at least.
I just wrote a review yesterday (the notes) about an 80s Liu Bao version from Thailand, and it keeps occurring to me that I don't value stories and background enough to make rare and exceptional teas stand out so much to me. If the tea is good it's good, but the moment doesn't necessarily become more special in relation to backstories, and I'm not swept up in extra feelings. If I see people wearing robes or martial arts clothing it all becomes that much more absurd to me, instead of venturing into special event range. To be clear I wasn't offended or put off by that shop owner dressing the part; it's fine. But at the most it doesn't mean anything to me.
On with the tasting part then. I won't cross reference other experience all that much, because I don't have a Lincang standard aspects range in mind to compare this to, and I may have only ever tried two purple leaf tea versions before, not counting a commercial black tea version from Kenya, which is really something else. The one brick I bought of that was a bit sour; it will be interesting to see if that's consistent in this. If it relates to two versions being sour that doesn't mean that purple teas in general are. They are said to be fruity in an unusual way, a bit towards grape (and often a little sour); I'll keep an eye out for that.
The Lincang (if it is that) has 2021 written and stamped on the label; that had been under a desiccant pack wrapped within a plastic outer seal. Intuitively one would drink the lighter tea first, which I would guess would be the purple one, but I'll reverse that to use the more standard tea as a baseline for comparison.
Review:
Lincang: too light to get a complete sense of this round, but it's already quite pleasant, sweet and complex. This is going to be nice. There is a lot going on for flavor, plenty of floral range, and a catchy mild fruit tone, a little towards bubble gum. It seems disrespectful putting it that way; that wouldn't be a conventional interpretation. I'll do more of a flavor list next round.
Purple: That's just crazy. There is a substantial amount of sourness to that, even brewed light. An odd mineral base range grounds it too, warm tones, that are quite unusual. Feel includes a touch of dryness, astringency that would make as much sense in a black tea version. It's the rest of the flavor that is most unique; I'll have a go at capturing it in a flavor list next round.
Lincang, second infusion: there's that bitterness, quite pronounced this round. I really like the way this floral effect comes across. It's intense. Sweetness is very pronounced, and the flavor range carries over very nicely as a aftertaste. If someone told me this was a high quality tea version from an exclusive and in-demand area I'd be inclined to believe it. If I've got the story right it's from a village area that's not one of the main, known areas (translated through someone else from the shop owner, so who knows).
It's hard to go further than "floral" for description; that's it. I might do more with specifying which types of flowers, but I'm not good at that. It's sweet, complex, and very aromatic, let's say most like orchids (just a guess). It's heavy, towards lavender, but not quite that rich and deep a flavor range.
Purple: this is really crazy. I let both brew a bit long, around 20 seconds, and infusion strength is too high for this version, just not the other; funny it worked out that way. It has a dry edge to it. Too dry; I'll need to go quite light on the next round and brew around that. The odd fruity flavor is cool, different, but ruined by that feel in this proportion. I wonder if this isn't a bit oxidized? It's crazy that it ends up feeling like that, completely unconventional for any sheng version. It's essentially outside of conventional tea range, as if this is some sort of tisane.
Lincang, third infusion: similar, very floral, with plenty of bitterness, and a rich, full feel. For anyone not ok with bitterness this would be quite challenging, but for me it's ok.
Purple: it's more approachable brewed fast and light, but still strange, in a way that's more bad than good. The flavor is interesting; maybe that does taste a bit like grape. Not exactly like grape jelly, but more like the old grape juice. Concord grape? My great grandfather had a grape vine and those had that one strong and interesting grape flavor, with a really strong and dry feel to the skin. A little like this, I guess.
Sheng being dry is just odd. It's hard to place what real tea is anything like this. It's like tasting some kind of metal, like tasting a galvanized roofing nail. It's a little sour too. I can't say that it's good but at least it's interesting. It's a little like the flavor and feel of eating unripe mango, which I had with breakfast. I love ripe mango more, and don't tend to even buy the other range, but versions had some yellow skin color, along with being mostly green, so I bought three to try them. They're sweeter than most unripe mango but still quite sour, with a dry feel, not completely unlike this tea.
I bought a Thai wild origin material cake made by Kittichai of Jip Eu (that shop owner) that's quite sour, made from wild growing plant types that I doubt are all conventional Assamica. I bought a second cake version of it, even though it's hard to get a feel for how much I like that, so that I can see how it ages. I'm not even drinking the first cake much, so I have at least half left, a half dozen years later. That second cake I'll probably have still intact in another decade. It would be nice if it somehow ages unusually well but my guess is the opposite, that it won't change as much as conventional tea, and the intensity will just fade, more than warmer tones will evolve.
Lincang, 4th infusion: brewing both these fairly quickly, around 10 seconds, works well for this tea version. When we tried teas at that shop they were brewed even lighter, wispy thin, which is one normal preference range. Somehow that makes it even easier to identify flavor range, but feel mostly drops out (mouthfeel, I mean; who knows about cha qi). I guess that I like a medium strength infusion that many would consider brewed strong, which varies along with what suites a tea.
This has plenty of intensity, complexity, sweetness, bitterness, and rich feel to come across well brewed light. It balances well made that way. Again this wouldn't be light to everyone, just normal to many.
These are the worst flavor-list interpretations of any teas I've reviewed for ages; they reduce to "floral" and then "sour and dry in feel." I was talking to my kids while writing those notes. They sometimes play video games while we talk, so doing something else while I talk can work out, but it's distracting.
I haven't done justice to describing a vegetal range input in this. It's kind of a green wood tone, not completely different than the pronounced range in that favorite Thai sheng I drink all the time, the one from Aphiwat, but that's more like plant stem, and this is plain green wood. Strong aftertaste is pleasant; the experience doesn't diminish after you swallow it, and the form of that aftertaste is pleasant, very sweet and rich, all floral range.
Purple: this makes the most sense that it has so far. Warm tones join in, along with the dominant sourness and dry feel. There's an inky character to that extra flavor, overlapping with mineral range, but going well beyond that too. It reminds me of the smell of a tar based shingle on a hot day, not exactly like tar, but based completely on it. It's odd how a construction theme has evolved in tasting this, all based around roofing. If you could taste the experience of putting a new shingle roof on a house this would be it. Then it's a separate question if that's a good thing.
Interpreted differently that could be incense spice that's picking up, something along the line of frankincense. It sounds better, that this is like drinking the experience of smelling incense, instead of brewing up roofing materials. A lot of that flavor is captured in mineral tone range too, what your tongue identifies, so it's not just the aromatic range. It's actually pleasant, this round. The others less so; the experience has evolved to become more approachable.
Lincang, 5: this will be it for notes; my patience is running out. This is the most pleasant this tea has been; it's softening and gaining depth in a very pleasant way. I would guess it has a few more rounds like this in it too, that it will be exceptional for another 4 or 5 infusions, before it ends up fading some. Even then this might make another 10 rounds; it's pretty strong tea. This has been a pleasant surprise, better than I expected. I think this is quite good tea.
Purple: this is the best it has been too; that dry feel keeps fading, and sourness diminishing as a main input. It's fruitier now, more along the lines of grape, I guess. That might be from the power of suggestion, that I was expecting that. It's nice how that fruit integrates with what is more of an aromatic spice range aspect now. It could as easily make no sense together, but the two link together quite well.
For novelty this is much more interesting than the other version. In relation to being judged in relation to standard sheng character range this is off the map, while the other is in a favorable range. These have both been interesting and pleasant. It's nice this evolved as favorably as it did, so I can conclude that. Two rounds ago it would've left off at at least being interesting.
Conclusions:
Two really interesting and pleasant teas. I didn't mention value yet; that's another part of the story. If I'm remembering right the Lincang version was about 350 baht, or $10, and the purple material version was 800 or so, so just over $20. These were a good value for that.
Then it's interesting how I like the Lincang version quite a bit more, and how it matches standard good quality sheng more. That's how it would go though, that the complete novelty of the other being purple leaf material could raise the cost. It's older too, but I doubt that improved it much, or would even in another decade or more.
It's interesting considering that the Lincang version would cost about $35 for a standard cake size; that's fantastic, for what this tea is. Then it makes sense that it's from an off area, not a place of origin in high demand, so it could be sold for a good value even though the quality and character really stand out.
All that is relative though, right? It's better than most of what I normally drink, but for being on a tight tea budget the 50 cents to $1 a gram range is inaccessible to me. The Thai sheng I've been drinking isn't easy to place on a quality scale, in relation to Yunnan versions, because the style is slightly different, and that changes everything. The material used to make Aphiwat's versions is clearly amazing, but it's still a little unusual in style. I love it, but then others might not even like it.
This purple leaf tea is all the more like that; some sheng drinkers might love it, and others hate it. It definitely works for novelty. It would be interesting doing a comparison tasting of this along with the "probably not Assamica" version I mentioned buying from Kittichai. Both are a bit sour, both somewhat challenging. This purple version seems much better after the initial 5 infusions or so, which is odd. That kind of thing is normal for rough edged, really-should-be-aged younger sheng versions, but for those a more conventional form of astringency and bitterness would settle over some rounds, not this completely atypical version of those.
A lot of people might think that they really should go back and get more of that Lincang. It's too far of a drive, on the opposite side of town, and in general I'm fine with getting to what I get to in teas. It would be nice to have 3 or 4 more of these tiny cakes, and if I made it back out there I would buy at least a couple, but I can live without them. With just a few minor changes to that character it would have amazing aging potential, if the feel structure was just a bit more developed, and intensity dialed up just a little. As it is the tea is quite good now and will continue to be for quite awhile, maybe on into when it is aged, but that's harder to guess.
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