I bought a good bit of Vietnamese sheng from Viet Sun, to be sent to Bangkok while I was still wrapping up that stay in Honolulu. We're back in Thailand, so I can try it.
I generally avoid "tea haul" photos because it seems like bragging, which is odd to me, emphasizing how your own tea experience has such depth because you spent some money on it. I bought another of an earlier favorite Son La version (I'll be skipping diacritics / accent symbols in most of this, transliterating it all to Romanized text without that), and four fresh sheng maocha versions ("pu'er-style tea," working around the Chinese regional type designation).
Then four of those cakes are from a favorite Vietnamese version Huyen gave me in January, which I've already drank through, all but about two sessions worth. I reviewed that, and also cited the source, in this post. Steve was nice enough to manage shipping it with his teas, well beyond what one would ask of a vendor, but he is also an online friend. So I'm biased in judgment, about his teas? Sure, if you think so. To me impressions written here don't vary with that input, but who knows. I really love those other Vietnamese sheng but that's a story for another post.
I'm in the habit of citing descriptions from web pages when I edit posts; let's do that:
Y Tý "H'Mông Village" Spring 2024 ($31 for 100 grams)
Y Tý is a beautiful tea area in Lào Cai province right on the border with China. There are two villages that have old tea trees here, one is inhabited by H’Mông people and the other Dao.
This tea is from the H’Mông village. Although only a couple kilometers apart, this area has more clay rich soil and more humid days than the Dao village. The leaves are also darker than the trees in the other area. Tea trees in Y Tý have especially beautiful leaves.
The owner of these gardens said that in the past, there were tea trees covering the entire hillside but weren’t harvested until only the past 10-20 years. The locals chopped many of these trees down but luckily there are still some that survived and many of which were left to grow naturally.
This tea brews up slowly into a rich darker golden brew. I get cane sugar, herbal medicine, deep forest with some floral flavor notes. This tea also features a pleasant minerality with a medium bitterness and astringency. Quick huigan and strong relaxing qi.
I'm not comparing this review's descriptions with those; I added the citations later and won't go back and compare them during editing.
At a rate of $31 for 100 grams that would be a $100+ cake, which is essentially the modern standard for teas of this type and quality level. I avoid buying tea at that high a full retail level; the Son La version was listed for $77 for a 370 gram cake, which is a little better value, especially given that I like that style so much.
Trying fresh maocha is something else though, and these teas are distinctive. Character match to preference is something else again, which is quite hard to judge from descriptions.
Y Tý "Dao Village" Spring 2024 ($31 for 100 grams)
Y Tý is a beautiful tea area in Lào Cai province right on the border with China. There are two villages that have old tea trees here, one is inhabited by H’Mông people and the other Dao.
This tea is from the Dao village. Although only a couple kilometers apart, this area has more rocky soil and more windy, dry days than the H’Mông village. The leaves are also brighter green than the trees in the other area. Tea trees in Y Tý have especially beautiful leaves.
This tea area is about a 45 minute walk from the village up through a forest of wild bamboo. The bamboo forest eventually ends and you reach the tea gardens. There are many old and ancient trees here but many have been pruned heavily to produce buds for silver needle tea. There are still about 15 trees that have been left to grow naturally and produce some really excellent puerh tea!
This tea brews up slowly into a rich golden brew. Heavily sweet with notes of cane sugar and meadow flowers with a light herbal character. Strong mineral note with low bitterness and astringency. Lasting huigan and strong relaxing qi.
I never know what to make of these qi descriptions. Sheng affects me, but not as much as other people describe. It's impossible to determine a single effect input in a combined tasting but I'm essentially never reviewing qi / drug-like effect anyway.
Tea tasting back in Bangkok; it's a bit hot but very nice outdoor space.
Review:
Hmong village 1: the dry scent of these is amazing. I'm not really starting a review there, but the scent of this tea is bright, rich, complex, and sweet, with the other showing more richness and warm tones. Then the brewed color matches the opposite of what one would expect from that. Let's start with brewed flavors though.
It is bright, fresh, sweet, and complex. Pleasant rich fruit shows through right away, even though I brewed this too fast to really pick up the full profile. There's a different character edge to fresh sheng, especially wild origin versions, that isn't there in any other types, and this has it. Words like complexity and intensity don't capture it at all, and individual flavor descriptions also don't. Maybe I'll think of how to describe it as I review.
Dao village: there is a deep plum sort of note in this not present in the other. It's too early to call but the other might be more complex. Both of these are going to fantastic; let's just move on to that flavor list next round. I should hold true to form and brew them a little too strong next round.
Hmong 2: this is brewed light again; I was just joking. Sweetness and freshness stands out, and complexity. Even brewed light, not fully opened up yet, there's a wonderful aftertaste finish that continues on after drinking this. Bitterness is slow to enter in, but more surely will. Layers of flavors include fruit and mild earthy / vegetal tones, like hay early in the curing process, closer to fresh baled. I could guess about the fruit range, or how floral tones mix in with that, but next round might be clearer.
Dao 2: it's interesting how this profile centers around a narrower range, one particular fruit tone, and a bit of base that might be vegetal, as the fresh-cut hay was in the other, but different. There's a note in this very common to that favorite tea cake that I've been going on about, that I ordered with this, and essentially drank through one full cake of already. It's my current favorite tea. Honey sweetness is part of that, but also a rich fruit tone that's hard to completely place. Dried apricot is close enough; that will work as a place-holder.
I really will give these a little more time this next round. I've been brewing them at 15 seconds or so, pretty fast for a normal proportion, for teas that weren't completely wetted yet.
I'm trying these back in Bangkok. It's 9 AM, drinking outside at my favorite tasting spot, but it's 28 C already, or about 80 F, as hot as Honolulu tends to get, and maybe a little more humid. Honolulu is humid but breezy, offsetting the heat, and the weather is providing me a nice breeze just now, even though that's less typical here. It's hot though; it might be over 28 right where I am, and I'm a little jet-lagged.
Hmong 3: I'm probably never going to arrive at a clear flavor list for this tea. I think it's more difficult because fruit, floral, and spice range are all mixing, with a light mineral base below that. Lemongrass and holy basil stand out as spice inputs (more or less; that's just an interpretation), with the fruit a bit towards lemon or grapefruit, or in between the two. A light dry effect joins the feel structure; it works in this. Sweetness is pronounced, and light mineral is contributing a lot.
The overall complexity is more than all that; I think a lot of floral range joining that is part of it. It's sweet like plumeria or orchid, like a tropical flower, maybe like the heavily flowered vines that tend to smell very sweet, but only for one part of the day. There's not all that much bitterness, but some, which seems to connect with that light dry feel. This isn't challenging at all in terms of bitterness or astringency, and not only because I'm not drinking it brewed very strong. It's best on the lighter side; the flavors shine through better, and intensity is still on the high side.
Dao 3: there's that primary dried apricot range again; so nice! It's not one-dimensional; warm tones and a very different mineral base fill in beyond that. That one flavor range is half what you experience though, where the other one is more complex, spread over a broader range. I can relate to both.
In the case of that other sheng, that I've finished a cake of, and am describing as comparable related to a main flavor aspect, I grew more attached to it over time, and it kept evolving to be more positive. This is quite pleasant now. Mineral range is typically hard to describe, but this version's is warmer, and depth of other flavor enters in as a warm and deep tone, similar to how driftwood tends to smell, cured in a very unusual way.
I'm back to using water a good bit off boiling point now, for using heated water from a filtration system stored for use in a thermos. It will change things a little. I've been using a kettle for 3 months, full boiling point water, and it makes a difference, but people tend to overstate how positive that is. It probably is slightly better, but it's also just different. To claim that the tea is completely different is absurd, but I guess people discuss narrower ranges of variation when they are looking closer and basing that judgment on unusual levels of exposure. There's an electric kettle in the house; I could switch back at some point.
Hmong 4: the balance of the same flavors and other input is shifting some, but not enough to justify spelling out how. I'll probably take notes for one more round and then just drink these teas. Bitterness is picking up a bit, a form similar to how flower stem comes across, a vegetal range of bitterness.
Dao 4: still bright as ever; that fresh note stands out in both, common to fresh sheng experience in general. These will settle to be different in a few months, but to me it's nice to experience them like this. It's interesting how much warmer the tone is in this version. You'd think it would be slightly more oxidized, but the liquid color tells the opposite story.
Hmong 5: finally brewed much longer, 30 seconds or more, just checking, but also related to losing focus and looking at something online. Bitterness ramps up a good bit. This works well with that. Warm spice tones have been gradually increasing; this exhibits more of an aromatic spice than anything else now, one of those incense spices that I can't differentiate between, frankincense and such. For someone mainly on that page this would be amazing, but I'd expect many people could relate to it.
Dao 5: warmer and richer, still centered on that main fruit tone. I suppose this matches what I like best in sheng experience better. And also people who are more into black tea or oolong--Dan Cong seems closest--would relate to this better. Probably both will settle and deepen just a bit within half a year or so, losing some of that very positive fresh edge, but gaining some depth in the trade-off. Complexity could be the same either way, since that fresh-tone range is part of a broader experience, and heavier deeper flavors also would be.
Conclusions:
No need to add more summary or an overview take; these were really nice, as described.
I can say a little about how I perceive the value, or place these in relation to quality level of a broad range of Yunnan versions that I've tried. They're quite good; 30 cents a gram is fine for teas that are this good.
Often for South East Asian sheng a main difference in placing them in relation to Yunnan sheng relates to atypical style, like a higher degree of oxidation, or less frequently a hotter than average kill-green will shift them to close to green tea character. These fit fairly well within Yunnan processing input range, per my judgment. Material is good quality, and aspects are unique to these particular versions. Maybe someone with a much broader mapped-out awareness of local village teas across Yunnan could cross-reference them to somewhere else, but I can't.
I've surely implied personal preference related judgment quite a bit in these descriptions, but the second--Dao village version--matches what I like most in sheng just now better. The Hmong village version was also quite pleasant, balanced, distinctive, high in quality level, with good intensity, appropriate sweetness, and so on.
The Dao village version including rich fruit tones, interpreted here as close to honey and dried apricot, is exactly what I really like most. Steve's description: cane sugar and meadow flowers with a light herbal character. That also works. I'd probably be describing it as more floral if I'd read that first; it's funny how interpretation can shift like that, along with expectations.
I might add that my impression of these would probably change after trying them a few times. Sometimes an unfamiliar character type really clicks once you try it more, or the experience could become less novel and one could seem less desirable instead. Judgment about aspects, interpretation, would also shift a little. For teas you like having 100 grams is a decent amount for trying them a number of times, not for use as a regular choice, but enough that it doesn't run out nearly as fast as 50 grams.
It seems as well to skip discussion of aging potential for these; they're quite pleasant now, and these won't be around in a few months, never mind a few years. A fresh edge will fade from fresh maocha, over that few months, and to me it's pleasant drinking them when new.
They'll be pleasant in a different way in a year, picking up some extra depth and complexity, just trading out brightness and freshness. That would be interesting as a very different effect in 2 to 3 years but I'd probably not keep these for a long time, because they're fine now. Wild origin material sheng being distinctive, flavorful, and approachable is normal; it's how one would hope these would be.
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back with family, that one missing member (grandma / Yai) |
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I had missed Myra so much, and she's as sweet as ever |
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there's even one extra aunt here now, Tukkie |
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