Vietnamese sheng from Huyen

 

Huyen is always so cheerful like this

One of my absolute favorite tea friends just visited, or really is still here visiting Bangkok, Huyen Dinh from Vietnam.  She and her whole family are a different kind of people, radiant and angelic, just wonderful. 

Visiting and catching up was so nice.  It included meeting her friend Seth, an American she travels with and works on tea research with.  Time was tight that day of a first visit and two hours just flew by.

She gave me some tea, a whole cake of Vietnamese sheng.  It was a bit too generous, but so that can go when you have friends like that.  Her description is this:

This tea cake is from Hoàng Thu Phố, Bắc Hà, Lào Cai province. It was made in 2023. Mostly old tea trees belongs to the H’mong people.

The tea is from here; with the label shown following:

Seth filled in even more background:

The area Hoang Thu Pho is in Lao Cai province on the east side of the Red River, which flows into Vietnam from Yunnan. It's in a mountain range called Tay Con Linh that peaks further eastward in Ha Giang (province). Son La is in a different mountain range called Hoang Lien Son with slightly higher elevation on the west side of the Red River, and also sits on the Black River, which also flows in from Yunnan. Both tea areas are owned by members of Hmong people groups.

The tea maker for the Hoang Thu Pho cake is a younger guy named Phuc who has been making tea for about six years. He is not Hmong, but he buys tea material from Hmong tea areas and wants to focus on making high quality teas.

He is doing a fantastic job.  He might be able to shift style to match standard Yunnan versions a little more closely, but that might involve a trade-off of positive aspects instead of improving results, given how good this already is.

Review:

infusion #1:  just fantastic!  I let this brew a little long, in order to skip the part about not being able to identify any aspects.  Of course I didn't use a rinse.  You can tell it's going to be like this from the dry scent, which is very sweet and floral, which contains plenty of other range that's harder to isolate.  I never review tea by dry leaf smell though; brewed liquid description is plenty to get through.

Sweetness and floral range is intense, especially for this being the initial round.  There is one or more very distinctive aspects in this that I'm probably never going to do justice to describing.  It includes honey sweetness, that one warm tone, but I don't mean that.  Floral range is bright, also warm, and complex, but I think I mean beyond that too.  It could just be how those two inter-relate, with the honey including beeswax, but I think there is also vegetal or light spice range making this seem a lot more complex.  

Regardless of getting a flavor-list breakdown right it's fantastic.  In relation to my own preference, of course; this is just what I like.  For others it might seem unfamiliar, or they might not be on this page.  I couldn't relate to someone not liking it, since bitterness and feel are really approachable at this early stage, but preferences do vary.

#2:  intensity is really good in this.  I'm probably brewing about 7 grams in a 90-100 ml gaiwan (depending on how you judge the volume, if you include the top that doesn't fill), and using a short time, not much over 10 seconds, and it's quite intense.  

I think it might be that beeswax part that is making this seem so distinctive and pleasant, along with the complex floral range.  Of course there is nice light toned underlying mineral filling in range and complexity.  And more bitterness in this round; that should increase again next round and then level off.  It's not bitter at all compared to what I'm accustomed to, just in a normal sheng range, not relatively bitter, or if anything below average at this point.  The feel is soft and full; aftertaste adds to the experience of complexity.  It's good, really good.

From there it's down to trying to identify the one part that I still think I'm missing.  It might be two parts; this might include a little warm aromatic incense spice that supports and fills in the warm tone the beeswax covers.  Then in the lighter range the floral tone might be expanded on by a light spice taste along the line of lemongrass, but then that might not be it.

note that I'm not editing photos to adjust for camera input variations

#3:  bitterness never did ramp up to a level I expected, and feel stayed full and rich, never picking up the sharp astringency edge common in some younger sheng.  That's all a good thing, really.  I can tolerate, or even appreciate, quite a bit of bitterness or astringency edge if it's paired with complementary flavors and other aspects, but it's easier to relate to a tea version like this.  

This normally leads me directly into a longish discussion of root causes and inputs; why is this version probably like this?  Is it from a cultivar difference, or processing, did they let it oxidize a little more (probably partly that), or heat it a little more than is typical (shifting it towards green tea style), or could there be other inputs, related to growing conditions, tea plant age, or whatever else?  It would all just be guesses anyway; the tea is what it is.

Flavor isn't changing or evolving but it was quite complex from the start, so that's fine.  Warm tones might be picking up slightly in relation to the rest, but that kind of impression will shift with infusion strength of any given round.  The honey sweetness is really captivating, combined with rich and complex floral tone range.  This is already one of my favorite teas, three rounds in.

#4:  that flavor list breakdown isn't really changing, but there is some evolution in how it comes together, the overall impression.  Feel richness might keep gradually increasing.  Flavors don't shift much but very subtle changes in balance of what is present might continue.  

The softness of this and mild bitterness both lean the character towards oolong range.  I'm not really saying that it's probably significantly oxidized but that may be it; the brewed liquid color is a dark yellow instead of a bright yellow.  If that is it this may be better drank quite young instead of aged, but for being as good as it is I wouldn't age this to hope it improved anyway, I'd just drink it, and drink most of it right now.

#5:  all the same comments from the last round apply to this one, maybe even the very slight shift in how it comes across, a change in the overall balance, which is hard to describe.

I can't help but suspect I'm missing a possible interpretation, that this really does taste like something else I'm leaving out.  Maybe it's light toffee flavor instead of honey, something like that, or maybe it shifted from one to the other.  The aftertaste range is really ramped up now; it's just as strong after you swallow it as when it's in your mouth.  Someone good at breaking down floral range might construct a list to describe just that part, as a warm tone that dominates, a brighter tone matching other range, and who knows what else.  There's a lot of floral scope.  

It's all very pleasant; that's the main effect.  Not in a unique or novel way that's not easy to relate to either; I could drink this every day for a month.  Even an oolong drinker who can't tolerate much bitterness might really love this tea version.

later infusions:  the notes stopped there; I had something to do.  I noticed a bit of citrus picking up in later rounds, later on.  Of course it was warm citrus, more like tangerine or some type of orange than lemon, maybe more yet like dried peel.

The rich feel shifted too.  It never had picked up that feel structure that sheng often has, which could be negative for some, but which sheng drinkers end up liking, giving tea an extra experiential complexity, as the aftertaste does.  It took on a sappy sort of feel, which comes up in different teas sometimes, but not in consistent enough ways that I can describe a range of other types it might be common to.

It didn't seem any less positive in later rounds.  I'm not sure that it transitioned to become more pleasant and positive either, but then I already loved it in earlier rounds.  One of my favorite teas reminds me of this, just in a different form, a Thai sheng version that just doesn't fade.  But it doesn't transition that much either; what you get after 3 or 4 rounds isn't so different after 10 or 12, or more, and this kept varying a little.

Conclusions

This is comparable to a Son La sheng from Viet Sun, one that I bought not so long ago, and also love.  It is so similar in some ways and quite different in others.  This has a slightly softer feel, thick but not structured or astringent, and I think both are oxidized just a little more than conventional Yunnan pu'er.  The flavor range is comparable but different, with a good bit more bitterness in that version.  It might be that the Son La is a well-made version from good material and this is a well-made version, in a closely related but different style, from slightly better material, from an unusual quality range.  I do really like that tea too though, so I don't mean for that positioning to make it sound like it's less-than.  It might be interesting to drink them side by side.

Huyen described differences between the two growing areas, which I can guess at here and then edit later once she reads this, and notices the errors.  From memory she said that plant types could be different (or vary across individual areas too), even though they're not so geographically removed, and growing elevation range is probably different, with that tea grown a bit higher.  

It really wouldn't work to describe processing differences.  She did tell a story about one area using a more centralized processing center (or more than one?), and another relying on farmers doing the processing, but I don't remember which is which, and that story could have even related to two other areas.  It hardly matters anyway; ideal processing doesn't relate to one particular background context (a processing center versus an individual doing it, for example), it's about the steps being optimum, the temperature of the wok, turning the leaves during heating, batch size, isolation from smoke exposure (too much; a little might be interesting, but that's another story), rolling step outcome, drying approach and conditions, etc.

There is so much more I should add about Huyen and Seth, but I wanted this post to mostly just be a tea review.  He is also easy to relate to, a good guy, and a good reference for a range of tea themes, I've just emphasized an earlier connection with Huyen and her family more because that has meant a lot to me, for a long time.  

I don't know how much they want to release about the interesting things they are working on now, their research.  That story will be out at some point though, and I think they'll come back after a visit to the North, the Thai growing areas.  Maybe I can add more when I describe them holding a local tasting to share Vietnamese tea experience with other tea enthusiasts here, probably in two weeks.

This also fails to cover everything I've discussed about general Vietnamese teas with Huyan and Seth lately, about tea types and quality levels, source areas, processing issues, shifts in supply and demand, sustainability / conservation issues, and so on.  If it works out I'll collect a clearer summary of those issues and post more about them.  A local tea outing brought up potential updates about boutique producer versions of specialty Thai teas; I'll try to get to that too.

meeting Huyen and Seth and two other local friends in a Bangkok shop

the Thai teas at that shop were exceptional, really next level

visiting a favorite local restaurant and desert place, Cheng Shim Ei

my company for the tastings, when I'm outside