2018 Reunion Xiaguan 500 gram Da Xue Shan tea ball

 

In visiting that favorite local Bangkok Chinatown shop not long ago, Jip Eu, they mentioned having a novel version of Xiaguan product that we'd never covered in discussion.  It's a 500 gram  / half kilo ball of tea, not a tuocha or a cake, something else instead.  It's 2018 Reunion Da Xue Shan origin tea, a special production version, seemingly intended for gift-giving, now called gifting.

Why did I never hear of this, since I've bought lots of Xiaguan tuochas there before, and two versions of an older Xiaguan cake from them?  That shop works out like that.  They have different amounts of one-off teas around, and that one might've seemed like something appropriate for giving someone as a gift, versus what a sheng drinker might buy for themselves.  They even offered to let me try it after I bought it, if I was going to buy it for myself, so at least I'd have a chance to taste it, assuming I might be giving it away.

packaging was a bit extensive

extensive

The information I have on it comes from them (Jip Eu) passing on a Xiaguan site listing, which of course has been automatically translated at some point.  It says this:

Mid-Autumn Festival: Drink “Reunion Tuan Tea”

Original by Cheng Nuanru | P u’er Tea Circle

September 24, 2018

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as Moon Night, Autumn Festival, Mid-Autumn Day, Festival of the Eighth Month, Moon-Chasing Festival, Moon-Watching Festival, Moon-Worship Festival, Daughter’s Festival, or the Reunion Festival, is a traditional Chinese celebration...

...The 2018 Xiaguan raw Pu’er “Reunion Tuan Tea” is made from early spring big-leaf tea trees from Daxueshan, Mengku, Lincang in Yunnan Province.

It’s crafted using Xiaguan’s century-old traditional handmade techniques.

If you reverse image search it, or search using terms (which doesn't seem to work), you can find this Dragon Tea House listing.  It includes almost no information about the tea, not a good sign.  At least it seems highly unlikely that someone is pressing a 500 gram ball of tea to pass off as a counterfeit of a moderately priced real version.

I'll skip mentioning the shop cost here; that might change over time.  They tend to sell older sheng on the low side of the standard range, and for some teas there isn't a lot of standard range to work with.  I found one example of someone selling this online (that listing), for $84, and it cost less than that.

Expectations related to aging transition and potential are interesting; a 2018 Xiaguan version shouldn't be ready yet, typically.  But then this may not have standard Xiaguan character, the rough edges, harsh intensity, and barnyard range character.  I'll say more about potential issues with it coming straight out of a storage space in the review notes.

Review:

#1:  on the light side; I didn't use a rinse, so this is just getting started.  Flavor range is interesting, smooth and layered.  Tones are warm, maybe even beyond what I'd expect for a 7 year old version.  It will be clearer next round though.

#2:  it's in an interesting place for being in between where it was and where it's headed for fermentation input and result.  It's intense, but without the typical Xiaguan barnyard flavors, which must relate to a different source origin.  This clearly wasn't light, flavorful, approachable, and sweet as boutique sheng can be earlier on; it still has a lot of power, and some bitterness and astringency.

The flavors are hard to break down to a list.  Mineral stands out, but as usual I see that as more of a base for the rest.  Earthiness could relate to wood or even dried mushroom.  That sounds worse than I would intend; it's complex and balanced, not overpowered by some off flavor, but it's not really centered on floral range, or the like.  Sometimes sheng can loosen up and shift a good bit over the next few infusions; the next one or two might tell a different story.  I'll have to keep infusion times short to keep intensity in check; this is a strong tea.

#3:  it might be musty tones that I'm picking up, possibly as much from a storage conditions input as the tea itself.  Jip Eu's storage is surely very hot and humid (all of Bangkok is), and relatively tightly sealed, so that tea straight from there has picked up some significant mustiness.  That usually fades, but it takes time, a month or two.  I'm not sure if the conditions and that input are a bad thing, neutral, or actually good.  Adding more air exchange to their storage area would resolve that in one sense, but that may cost the tea stored there intensity, removing more of what gives it flavor.  For well-sealed teas it wouldn't matter (sealed oolongs stored there); I mean for sheng, left open enough to access some air contact.  This was stored in what I take to be a muslin cotton bag, inside a box, with no plastic wrapper or bag layer, as is more common.  It would've contacted external scents all the more for that.

Flavor is still kind of clean; it's a bit of a contradiction.  There is that one edge, but beyond that nothing off, earthy, musty, or so on.  It's not really vegetal, at least not as much as is common with sheng still going through the first half or so of its aging cycle.  I'd have expected some residual floral range, but there's not much, and it hasn't transitioned to the standard dried fruit, medicinal herb, camphor, and incense spice ranges.  But it seems to have potential to develop in lots of directions.  There is a lot going on, a lot of complexity and intensity, I'm just failing to describe it.

#4:  it's cleaning up; a good sign.  It's not overly musty, not exactly tasting as if it had been in an attic or basement, but it had been in a storage area that should resemble attic background scent range.  The flavor could seem to imply either aged hardwood, in an unusual vegetal range, or on to rich dried fruit, or medicinal herb, or all of those things, maybe even including some incense spice.  I think I'm trying it right between it's early character and the aged version.  It certainly didn't "go quiet," as people describe as one possible outcome, but it's covering range that doesn't necessarily make sense together.

Some might read this as a negative assessment, but to me the opposite is implied.  It's in a great to place to develop into very interesting and positive range over the next 7 or 8 years.  Sure that could seem like awhile, but time passes quickly.  That would be a rushed version of the process, for a tea like this to be essentially ready at around 15 years into aging.  The hot and humid storage input has definitely rushed things along.

As I keep tasting it tobacco would be a reasonable interpretation, I suppose tasting like a cigar instead of cigarette or chewing tobacco.  That ties to this being anchored in earlier vegetal character and now moving on to richer, transitioned, warmer tones.  I would guess that in just 5 years it won't taste a lot like tobacco, mushroom, or attic, that it will have moved on to whatever other transitioned range instead.  There is still no "barnyard" range developing; it doesn't really taste like leather, cured hay, aged wood, or smoke.

#5:  it keeps getting better.  Sweetness picks up, and that distinctive mustiness is fading.  I think with two months of aging it will be less of an input, and I could tell better where this is going, but it's so far from it's final more-fermented form that it would only be so informative.  I think this tea is going to be wonderful in a half dozen years, and maybe fully at its peak in another 10.  It might be fine to drink through it in 7 or 8, close enough, but then it's always a judgment call finishing tea right before it's fully ready.  I might need to buy another of these, to own a full kilogram, to be able to keep sampling and also have plenty later on.

#6:  there might be more story to tell over the next half dozen infusions, but lots of round by round notes will be too much.  This still tastes in between cured and aged wood, and like tobacco, with complexity that is hard to place filling in from there.  It's not really bitter and astringent in relation to younger sheng range but there is some bitterness and astringency remaining; this started out as really intense tea.  It has lots of potential to keep changing.

#7:  sappiness of feel ramps up, and to some extent a related flavor.  It leans a little more towards pine now.  I suppose brewing a dried pine cone might taste like this.  It's interesting that this keeps changing, but one might expect that, given the earlier intensity.

#8:  more of the same, more minor transition.  It's definitely not losing intensity.  I'll cut off the note-taking here; a minor transition or two won't change much.

Conclusions:

I liked it.  The in-between fermentation ranges issue and mustiness from being direct from storage did stand out, related to how it is right now.  In terms of only how the experience is right now the 2006 tuocha version I tried not long ago is a good bit better.  It's harder to place longer term potential though; I think this might be good even before the general 20 year old age range, which doesn't come up for another 13 years.  In another 7 it might be in a good place, related to hot and humid conditions rushing that process, even though a more final form will probably level off in another 10 or so.

That raises a couple of questions.  Would it better if you stored it in a cooler and dryer place for 20 years, or 25, instead of rushing the process over 14 years here, or maybe on towards 20?  Maybe.  To be clear everywhere but Malaysia is a considerably cooler and dryer place, including Hong Kong.  Taiwan and Guangdong get mentioned as places with moderate storage conditions, which some describe as ideal, but then that interpretation mixes in some marketing spin.

One might also question if this storage settling period I've been mentioning, a month or two to drop out a lot of initial mustiness, is different than the version relating to letting a tea rest after shipping.  I see it as different and unrelated, but it may overlap more than I know, and correcting for storage conditions input may often be a part of that other rest period.  People rest sheng that has been shipped for a few weeks, or a month, to let it settle from being shipped, with variations in humidity and temperature said to throw off character a little, temporarily.  It's usually described as it seeming a little flat, losing some intensity, which comes back when it normalizes to more standard conditions.  This is about a mustiness fading instead.

Everyone has their own take on how storage issues work out, and since preferences also vary the conclusions are never completely identical.  I just saw a Reddit post about a guy storing tea in a wooden cabinet, without any plastic or mylar coverage of the cakes, just in the paper, all mixed together, at whatever temperature and humidity he lived at, in the Midwest of the US.  That's probably fine, but for some others it wouldn't be, maybe for different reasons.  

It makes a lot of difference if you are drinking through cakes in a couple of years, or a few, or holding onto them for a decade or longer.  I might use individual wrapping to limit air contact instead, the ziplock style bags cakes come in or the like, but that's not a critique, just a statement about personal approach.  If you open the cakes from time to time that's already plenty of air exchange, and probably even if you leave them sort of sealed for a few years it's still enough.  Mylar or multi-layer packaging restricts any air exposure better, but ziplock or the other light plastic wrappings, similar to food wraps, would allow for plenty of contact.  

According to the author of the Late Steeps blog--a great reference--air contact related to tea being sealed in mylar allows enough oxygen contact / exchange to support bacteria and fungus to thrive, one related consideration.  Who really knows, but it's interesting to consider.  Again all of these considerations really only kick in if you aren't actually drinking the tea at all, not even getting it out a couple times a year to check on it.

the chunk that came off in one pu'er knife stroke; it's nice that it's easy to access

Tea Side 2021 "Chocolate Noir" small batch shu pu'er

 

I've written about Tea Side small batch shu / shou pu'er before.  It was exceptional.  Valerie of Tea Side recently mentioned finding some of an old batch that is also exceptional.  "Old" here means 4 years old; that's always relative.  A year or two is plenty to air out most shu, to get most of the fermentation effects to settle.  In some cases longer might make a positive difference.  Four years is definitely suitable.

The backstory:  Tea Side experimented with making small-batch, basket fermented shu some years ago.  Typical shu processing involves wet-piling a lot of tea, maybe tons, in a large room environment.  Small batch shu isn't unheard of; they definitely didn't invent that theme.  In theory it can produce very novel results, where larger batch processing is oriented towards achieving a standardized positive result.

I considered tasting this in comparison with another exceptional shu version, which might have shed more light on it, but to save time and keep this simple I won't.  Maybe I can refer to the other range of shu I've tried from memory.  I've reviewed a couple of very exceptional versions this year, one from Vietnam (really an anomaly), and another a great version from Farmerleaf, of course a Yunnan pu'er.  

[Later edit:  this was distinctive enough that comparing it to other versions or making general quality level assessments didn't seem so relevant, so I didn't].

Review:

1:  yep, there is dark chocolate.  Impressions and interpretations can vary, so maybe someone could make it through a whole tasting without placing that, but when you expect that it stands out quite a bit.  This is roughly as good as shu tends to get, sweet, complex, and balanced.  It will pick up intensity on the second round, once it's fully wetted, but it's already good.  Of course there is a pronounced mineral layer beneath the dark chocolate / cacao.  I'll save the rest of the breakdown for next round.

Sometimes I don't mention parameters, but I might as well.  Of course I've not measured an amount, but this looks to be 7 or so grams to me, a good bit, but not maxed out for a 100 ml gaiwan.  Water is hot, but not full boiling point, since I'm using a filtered version that is heated by a hot water dispenser, which wouldn't quite make it to that temperature.  Transferring it through a thermos would drop out a little more heat.  I brewed that for 15 seconds or so, and this next round a little longer, although shorter would also work. 

2:  Marshmallow really ramps up in this.  I've encountered that a half dozen or so times in trying teas, and it's pretty much always really pleasant, as nice an herbal input as one generally encounters.  To me this tastes more like marshmallow than cacao / chocolate at this point, but both are there.  I've included some background on the plant input that marshmallow is copying, or originally included, which is exactly what you'd expect, the root of a plant that grows in marshes used to make a candy version similar to but different from our modern marshmallow form.  If memory serves it was used more as a thickener than for the taste, but both could be pleasant together.

The flavor list seems a bit short, even though this comes across as complex.  It includes marshmallow, cacao, and limited dark-toned mineral.  Some of those warm tones resemble a really light roasted coffee.  Of course it's not bitter, astringent, or harsh in any way, instead smooth and rich.  Sweetness level is nice; the rest combines better for that being present.

3:  I'm brewing this a bit faster, around 15 seconds, mostly to experience variation, if that comes up.  One thing I might've already mentioned is that there is a particular sweetness and flavor to clumps of tea that form in the wet-piling process, called cha tou, or tea heads, and this resembles that particular sweetness and flavor.  For people who haven't tried that it wouldn't necessarily be informative, but if you like shu it should make your list of things to get to.  

There isn't that much variation in shu to try, so I'll list out what I see as other types or themes here.  Small-batch versions can be different, like this one.  High buds content versions taste different, and can be pleasant, sometimes referred to as Gong Ting grade, or imperial or palace grade.  Aged lower fermentation level shu is another type that is valued, often sold as CNNP / Zhongcha versions from the late 90s or early 2000s, usually as bricks instead of cakes.  There are lots of claims about gushu shu, or versions made from desirable material locations, even up to range like Bing Dao, but those claims can be hard to place.  One might try something offered as from a decent Jing Mai source, and let the more exotic range go, since it could be fake more often than real.

This round is slightly less intense for being brewed faster but it's still quite intense.  Aftertaste expression actually increases, for whatever reason, and it might seem a little sweeter.  Thickness of feel and complexity drop a little, brewed less strong.  Flavor range doesn't vary so much; only the balance or proportions of the prior list shift.  Marshmallow is really strong, but that was probably true last round too.

There may be one type-typical description of the cha tou / tea clumps / tea heads standard flavor that I'm missing, a different way to place that.  It's so bright, sweet, and complex that it leans a little towards tangerine flavor, but it's definitely not that.  Like vanilla?  That seems to work better.

4:  Not so different, but a bit more intense and complex.  Since I'm describing this as tasting like cacao and marshmallow one might wonder if it tastes like a s'more.  It does.  I don't think much of the graham cracker carries over, but that's probably still open to interpretation.  

This is already about as much as I'm going to interpret, without trying another half dozen rounds to explain later stage transitions, which would occur.  This already covers the basic, early infusions, main flavors.  Earthy range will probably pick up as this needs to be stretched a bit more to get the same intensity.  Brighter, lighter cacao and marshmallow should keep fading, but probably not that much over the next 3 or 4 rounds, only in the later stage.

As for conclusions, it's pretty good.  The way they describe it works; it's distinctive, complex, pleasant, and exceptional.  It's as good as shu gets.  Related to value or fair cost range people would have to place that for themselves; options and pricing ranges vary from different kinds of vendors.  

It's hard for me to relate to the very highest quality and most distinctive style range of shu, or for that matter for any tea type.  Different versions out there, of different types, sell for $1 a gram or more, but typical shu range is at the opposite extreme, or more in the middle for the best versions.  It's interesting checking Tea Side's listing and seeing where it falls, and how they describe it:

2021 “Chocolate Noir II: A Long-Forgotten Stash” Craft Ripe Pu-erh Tea ($22 for 50 grams)

This shou pu-erh I crafted from old Thai trees, averaging around 300 years in age—the very same material I always used for "Raspberry Pine." The fermentation was completed on December 5, 2021. And the tea then went off into aging to develop the right, well-rounded profile.

Over the following year, I checked in on it regularly, but wasn’t quite happy with the flavor. So I shelved the box higher up in our warehouse and, honestly, forgot about it. After 3.5 years of storage, it resurfaced during an inventory check—and now, I’m completely satisfied with the profile.

This tea unfolds gradually, requiring water as hot as you can get it, and a generous steeping time. We didn’t separate tea heads from loose leaves: the leaves infuse fast, while the heads maintain excellent steeping durability.

The dry aroma is classic—slightly salty, woody. Once rinsed, the scent transforms into soft, sweet woodiness, with notes of chocolate and raspberry jam.

The flavor profile is smooth, dense, and even: teak wood, a solid chocolate body, and a pleasant coffee-like bitterness finishing each sip.

This shou distinctly recalls our “Chocolate Noir”, which was produced later, from different material and slight adjustments in processing. Over years of aging, the raspberry-berry nuances have faded, replaced by a harmonious, rounded fusion of chocolate and wood. However, if your nose is keen, you might still detect faint traces of berry jam in its fragrance.

The aftertaste is lovely: like a childhood chocolate candy, with the gentlest touch of coffee.

It probably would've been better using the hottest possible water, instead of in the 90-some C range, as I brewed it.

It's interesting that I did mention chocolate (also in the marketing) and coffee in this, leaving out reference to jam or dried fruit, and adding that it tasted a good bit like marshmallow to me, and maybe just a little like vanilla.  Interpretations would always vary; that's normal.  The general impression seems about the same.

If someone was open to spending nearly 50 cents a gram on a shu I guess this version might justify that as well as any.  It's probably as good as any shu version I've ever tried, and I've tried a lot, some presented as exceptional.  Still it's just shu.  I never could relate to people focusing on that type range as a primary preference, but then preferences do vary.  

Even for people not so interested in the type it might make sense to buy a little to see what the high end / most distinctive range is all about.  I probably wouldn't, but then having a tight tea budget narrows a lot of choices down to very few.  I wouldn't buy sheng for 40-some cents a gram either, and that kind of offering is a lot more common.

Ez Teasy (Singapore based) Qimen red / black and Jin Xuan oolong

 

I've recently met a tea enthusiast from Singapore, through social media contact, talking about tea and exchanging some samples here in Bangkok.  He's also a very small scale vendor, selling under the brand / business name Ez Teasy.  There may be no online sales site to reference, but he does have an Instagram page.  It probably wouldn't hurt to at least mention his name, but given how some people are about online privacy I'll leave even that out.

It would've been interesting comparing the pricing level of these two teas with each other, and in relation to the quality of the tea, but that's fine, it's not really necessary.  He passed on a good version of black tea, a Qimen, a decent Jin Xuan, and a couple of green teas, with this only covering the first two.

I'll skip saying much about his philosophy of tea, or other background we discussed.  The short version is that he thinks appreciating good tea doesn't have to be a difficult, complicated, gear-intensive process, requiring formal training or a long learning curve.  I definitely agree with that.  Pretty much all tea enthusiasts think that plain, ordinary, unadjusted teas have a lot to offer, in comparison with tin-presented flavored tea blends, which might stand out more in specialty grocery store aisles.  On with trying two versions of those.

Of course it makes no sense doing a combined tasting of two unrelated tea versions.  I'm in the habit of doing combined tastings mostly to save time, to get to more, and after doing that dozens of times it's a familiar experience, and doesn't take much away from focusing on one, or comparing two similar versions, which would actually make sense.

Review:

Qimen:  it's quite good, but you could pretty much guess that from the appearance alone.  It's made of buds and very fine leaves, so that it resembles some versions of Jin Jun Mei, the ones that include both kinds of content, which some people claim aren't an authentic style.  Flavor range isn't so far off Jin Jun Mei; this could be that.  That comes in a range of styles, and it would be like a more typical black tea version, than the buds-only versions that taste like beeswax and honey.

This does seem to include a bit of honey and beeswax flavor range.  It's complex enough that it's hard to specify what the main flavors are, because there is a lot going on, even though it's all integrated, and entirely pleasant.  From there one might guess about dried fruit, or focus on a mineral layer.  A warm tone is a little bit savory, not so much that sun-dried tomato comes to mind, but along that line.  Cacao would be a reasonable interpretation, even describing that as a main flavor not, or the main one.  I won't brew a stronger infusion next round--lengthening infusion time--but the tea might open up a bit, showing even more, even without being brewed stronger.

Jin Xuan:  not fully opened up yet, but there's enough intensity to see how this will be.  It's a good version of Jin Xuan.  Creaminess is the main aspect in such a version, typically, at least for a version without much for roast or oxidation, and this is nice and creamy.  Remaining range is typically sweet, floral, and rich in feel.  This covers all of that.  Vegetal range can be regarded as negative, although if someone loves that it can be neutral or positive.  This includes some; vegetal range is on par with floral tones in this early and light round.  We'll see how it evolves as it opens up.

Qimen, #2:  intensity jumped quite a bit, even though I'm using a fast infusion time.  It would've made sense to go with a lower proportion for a tea like this, to offset that to compensate for what was going to be high intensity, but of course I didn't.  4 or 5 grams would be plenty, and this sample only had 7 or so in it, so I went with that amount.

Warm tones come out stronger, good sweetness, and what I interpret as bark spice and rich dried fruit.  Cacao is still a main inclusion.  Rich feel is nice in this, and the aftertaste from all that trailing over.  This is a pretty good example of this style of black tea.  It would be hard to find better.  The only time I've had Qimen even vaguely like this was when Dylan of the Sweetest Dew sent me a few versions to try.

Then it's harder to place this in relation to my preference.  For someone who loves this style this would be fantastic, but I've always loved Dian Hong more than Jin Jun Mei, or good unsmoked Lapsang Souchong, which this is closer to, maybe especially the first.  Or it could seem to be in between the two in style, combining aspects from both (from good versions of both).  I like it, and I can appreciate it, but I might love a version of something else that's at the same quality level more.  

Lots of Dian Hong (Yunnan black) ends up being a bit basic though, lacking this kind of intensity and complexity, and especially refinement, so even though I love that style it tends to fall short of this quality level.  Which can still be fine; it's not a problem to appreciate more basic tea experience, if you are on that page.  You don't need intensity, complexity, refinement, finish / aftertaste, and all the rest at a high level.  I suspect that a lot of Dian Hong might be produced from summer harvest material that's not as suitable for making sheng pu'er, drawing on the least potential version of what is ever harvested, but that's more a guess than an informed assessment.

A hint of sourness might be the only flaw or limitation.  I don't always notice such a thing, because I don't mind it at all at that level of input, but for people more sensitive to it, opposed to it, it could seem like more of a limitation.  To me it just matches the rest of the style.

Jin Xuan, #2:  Richness and creaminess are very nice; again vegetal flavor range standing out just a little more than floral tones might be the main limitation for this version.  To some that would be something of a deal-breaker, and to others I'd be splitting hairs, and this could seem like exceptional tea.  It's clean in flavor effect, and bright, with good intensity, good sweetness, rich feel (which could always be stronger, but it's ok on the scale of that), and decent butteriness.  Real Jin Xuan never tastes exactly like butter, more just a bit creamy, as this does.  I have limited or perhaps no experience with fake flavored versions.

Qimen, #3:  depth keeps picking up; this is probably as far as that could go.  It's nice the way that cacao grounds the rest, and there's so much going on beyond that.  It's smooth and clean, intense and complex, even moderately refined.  

I've been drinking through a lot of Thai origin Dian Hong style black tea that includes a comparable level of sourness, that I really love.  I could drink it every other day, and never get tired of it.  Huyen, my friend from Vietnam, visited and tried that tea, and I think liked it, but was not as familiar with the Assamica based tea range, so it wasn't as natural a fit for her preference.  The sourness seemed to stand out to her as more negative than it did to me.  I'm still seeing this as more a match to that other range, to Jin Jun Mei and Lapsang Souchong.

Jin Xuan, #3:  creaminess really stands out, but that might be staying consistent.  Warm mineral undertones seem to pick up a bit.  Those often stand out more in a #17 / Bai Lu / Ruan Zhi plant type based version.  This is as creamy as Jin Xuan typically get, but flavor range could be a little sweeter, including a bit more floral range.  It's still quite nice.  If you buy random Thai oolong in a tea shop or Royal Project shop it probably wouldn't be quite this good, even though there is surely better quality range out there.  Intensity might not match this, and creaminess could be less pronounced, even though the basic flavor range has more room for improvement.

Qimen, #4:  not really changing.  There probably was some shift in the proportion of what I've already described but you need to be really focused in to pick up on that sort of variation.  Doing a combined, unrelated tea tasting throws that off, as does background noise, and there's a bit of that in the house today.  The kids are here, and I just checked on the cat, and Eye is around preparing for something.

Jin Xuan:  more of the same.  To me this is quite pleasant, even though it's only sort of an upper-medium quality level, with lots of room for improvement.  It covers the basics well, with decent flavors, good intensity, feel, and creaminess.  It's clean, doesn't include flaws (beyond limitations), and is drinkable.  This would be a really good breakfast tea, or might work especially well cold-brewed, since that draws out the most sweetness a tea has to offer, leaving behind astringency, even though this doesn't have a problem with that.

It's interesting how one of these, the Qimen, represents an exceptional quality of a tea type you just never see, and the other is a basic, standard version, to me.  In Thailand most oolong is #12 (Jin Xuan) or #17 (Bai Lu or Ruan Zhi), although there are others, and Jin Xuan is common enough out of Taiwan.  I suppose the Qimen should be priced a good bit higher as a result; it could cost twice as much as the oolong, and that would still be fair.  In terms of how much I like both they're on more even ground.  The types and styles are completely different but I like both about the same. 

That could seem odd, since the Qimen is definitely a higher quality example, and I drink black tea as a secondary choice in relation to sheng pu'er now.  Rolled oolongs have a basic, broad appeal to me; they're easy to appreciate.  I'm not sure why I never drink them.  I guess it might be that black tea serves as a good alternative to sheng, quite removed in style, so that limiting most of my tea experience to both works well.  Of course I keep trying other things, for review, and just checking in with other teas I have around.  I've drank quite good Dan Cong and good basic Liu Bao in the last week, re-connecting with the rest of my tea collection, which I left behind living in Honolulu for 2 1/2 months.

I think black tea is probably the most suitable as a breakfast tea, but then this Jin Xuan version would also work, and I don't feel like I'm missing anything drinking sheng pu'er most days.  Some people would connect both with different climate inputs, but I can drink all three here in the ridiculously hot weather in Bangkok.  I did ice down the coffee I just drank yesterday afternoon; that's novel, but also sort of a different subject.  I sometimes drink iced jasmine green tea here, the inexpensive, basic version that comes in those dark orange tins.  But this is tangent after tangent!

These teas were really nice, distinctive and pleasant in two different ways.  The Qimen represents the best of a type and style range well, and the Jin Xuan doesn't quite as much, but both were pleasant to drink (to me).

Asking The Expert: Choosing Pu’er Tea (Michelin guide)

 

Someone commented this on a Quora post I added about a Vietnamese tea shop, some writing I did for Tea Journey magazine a year ago.  It's what the title says, a Michelin guide to pu'er from a pu'er expert.  

I'd expect some inconsistency and error in such a guide, even if written by a relative expert, and I wasn't disappointed.  Most of it was fine, but the exceptions stood out.  And what they didn't say also seemed odd; they referenced shou / shu / ripe pu'er processing, but never called it any of those names.

Since a lot of the content is good background information, and since selection of what to include or not include is a bit arbitrary, I don't want to be too negative about this source.  By highlighting what doesn't work I'll be implying that it's full of errors, and low in quality or accuracy, but it's really not.  It's just not 100% correct.  Since it also lacks clear framing, what range the ideas fall within relative to the rest of pu'er experience scope, to me it's a bit more deeply flawed, even though most of it is ok with that framing added back in.

Let's start with the intro to the author, which places it as likely to be completely reliable:

For newcomers to the tea-drinking culture, how should they select the right pu’er tea? Ann Sit from Fook Ming Tong gave us some valuable insights.

Sit is a tea sommelier and Fook Ming Tong’s general manager. She began learning about Chinese tea as a teenager, and her qualification in tea connoisseurship has been recognised by the government of Mainland China. At the moment, she dedicates her time scouring tea plantations around China to source the best teas for her customers.

Sounds good.  I don't know what Fook Ming Tong is, and that makes a lot of difference, but let's move on from that (after pointing out that the first Google search entry describes it as a Hong Kong tea shop).

What’s the distinguishing characteristic of pu’er? 

Tea leaves are mainly categorised by the degree of fermentation. The production process of pu’er involves procedures such as picking, withering, fixing, kneading, drying. In the end, it’s heaped up and stored before it gets fermented. In comparison to oolong, green tea, shoumei, tieguanyin and other tea varieties, pu’er is fermented the most. Industry professionals call it black tea or post fermented tea.

In fermentation, the stimuli in tea leaves like chlorophyll are decomposed. Pu’er is usually dark brown in colour. It tastes mild and smooth. Thanks to the long fermentation period, there’s also a deep fragrance to the tea.

At first read this is all wrong, but taken in the right way it works better.  Fermentation is a main input to pu'er, but it's not clear that she doesn't really mean oxidation here, or isn't mixing the two terms and inputs.  Pu'er isn't typically oxidized, but any background on pu'er should make it a bit clearer which process is being referenced, since fermentation is often used incorrectly to specify oxidation.

The processing steps are fine.  Kneading should really be shaping, since it's more conventional to call a different leaf bruising step in black tea processing kneading, intended to break open the plant cells to allow air contact with the cell contents, and resulting oxidation.  Pu'er is made using the other steps, then after a pan-frying fixing step it's shaped into that twisted leaf form.  It's probably not so bad to call that shaping step kneading; the different use of terms is minor.

In the next sentence, about tea types, Tie Guan Yin is a type of oolong, and Shou Mei is white tea, so it mixes types and broad categories in an odd way, but that's still fine.  Saying that pu'er is a type of hei cha--black tea, or dark tea, from the Chinese categorization system that calls oxidized teas red instead of black--sort of works, and sort of doesn't.  Some people think it's a version of that, but it's more common in China to use hei cha to designate a range of other types, like Liu Bao, Fu brick teas, and so on.  Again this is sort of splitting hairs; plenty of people use this categorization that she mentions, it's just that others wouldn't see it that way.  In "the West" people argue if sheng pu'er is really hei cha, since it's only fermented after aging input, but they seem to miss some background too, as I see it.  We can just call pu'er pu'er, and leave the broad categories out of it.

The next part skips over that sheng pu'er exists, that not all pu'er is fermented in any way.  It circles back to including that, so it's just an odd initial framing choice, to get that mostly wrong.  Really you need to read those sentences a few times to sort out what she's really saying, and later it gets more confusing when sheng and shou descriptions are mixed together in different places.

How many types of pu’er are there?

Pu’er can be roughly divided into loose tea leaves and tea cake. After fermentation, tea cakes can be made using steam and machinery to flatten. Without shaping, it would be sold as loose leaves.

Some pu’er teas can be fermented longer than others. The dry room method puts leaves in an airy space for natural fermentation. Alternatively, some tea makers would ferment the tea manually by placing it in a room with high temperature and humidity. This step is called piling. The wet room method has the tea in a humidity-controlled space to speed up fermentation.

Loose leaves or tea cake can be further categorised into many more varieties. For example, raw (sheng) or green pu’er have a shorter post-fermenting period and would display a light green colour after brewing. As for tea cakes, there are many shapes available. Tea bricks are pressed into rectangular blocks, while tuo cha carries the form of mushroom caps.

This is all more right than wrong, but the degree of error included is puzzling.  Of course someone can see the distinction of loose and pressed pu'er as primary.  Most people would see the divide between sheng / raw and shou / shu / ripe / pre-fermented tea as more fundamental, but this part is still ok.  

The piling description of pre-fermentation of shu is too far off to accept in this way.  It's piled wet, with water added, not just stored in a humid room.

The reference to a "shorter post-fermenting period" really makes no sense.  You can sell sheng as completely unaged, as soon as you make it, not fermented through ordinary storage at all, so there is no period to reference.  Just referencing post-fermentation is misleading, as if there is some other treatment step.  You just hold onto the tea.  Within one year it's not really all that age / fermentation transitioned, regardless of storage climate, and after 25 to 30 years the process is relatively complete, with other changes happening in between.

Note that the light green reference is the wetted leaf color.  Sure, they're a bit green, where shou pu'er is brownish.  The brewed liquid color would be a pale yellow, and this isn't clear on which it's referencing.  Not much brewed tea liquid is actually green, but that can come up with Japanese green tea versions.

I like this reference to mushroom caps; tuos do look like that.  Usually they're referenced as bird's nest shaped, and I guess that also works.

the bottom is sort of cupped, so from the top it just looks like a ball

In the next section she says that people new to sheng should buy loose tea, which is fine, even though that's not how it usually tends to go in practice.  The she comments this, which doesn't work:

A tea cake costs at least $300. Some are even priced at several thousand dollars.

I wouldn't own a tea cake if it costs $300; that's way outside my budget.  That Xiaguan tuo shown (two different pictures of different versions) would often cost between $10 and $30-some for different versions of different ages, in online outlets.  They're not tea cakes though; those are 100 grams of tea, instead of a standard 357 grams for cakes (which varies).  I've just ran across mention that a famous Hong Kong shop, Yee On Tea, sells one of their aged Xiaguan tuos at the same age range (around 20 years old) for $60; that kind of thing would depend on different factors, like preferred storage input, and initial quality of the material.

I'd say the range of factory cakes, large-scale producer versions, is between $40 and 60, for new, moderate quality versions.  Those aren't ready to drink yet though, because that kind of tea requires aging.  Most Western boutique-oriented vendors sell their cake versions between $80 and $160, with fully aged versions falling into a higher level and broader range.  You can find high quality, limited production, high demand young (new) sheng cakes for $300 and up, but they are very much the exception.

What to look out for when buying loose leaves?

The most important element is that the leaves remain intact. There shouldn’t be too many broken leaf fragments, branches and petioles. You need to also give it a sniff. The leaves should smell fragrant instead of dull or sour. If you spot green mould, it means the leaves have gone bad and should not be bought. It would be ideal to taste the tea on the spot. The brewed tea has a rich and bright red colour. However dark the tea is, it should be clear enough for you to see the bottom of the cup.

If you spot any color of mold you shouldn't buy a tea.  Again this works ok for shou or aged sheng but for younger sheng the color range isn't right.  I just reviewed a Xiaguan tuocha from 2006 that's in a decent place for aging input, not fully through the process, but quite pleasant, and it's not "red" yet:

It's pretty far off the initial pale gold infusion color, but will seem closer to red in another decade, at 29 years old.  It might seem more desirable then, so maybe saying that at an optimum aged sheng should be darker works, but this isn't clarifying things for people who can't place those specifics.  Let's consider a 20 year old version stored in Malaysia that I reviewed a couple of years ago:

It's more fermented, redder, related to being stored in a humid place, but then the other 19 year old Xiaguan also was (stored in a different humid place, Bangkok instead of Malaysia).  Well-pressed tuochas seem to ferment a little slower, as hard-pressed iron cakes also do.  Oddly younger teas stored in the right way can darken (ferment quite a bit) even faster, as these 6 and 9 year old Dayi / Taetea 7542 sheng pu'er versions did:

Just brewing a tea light or strong will affect coloration quite a bit, so I don't mean to make too much of this tangent.  And loose stored sheng might well transition faster, making 20 year old versions more fermented and darker colored, as those two considerably younger cake versions--aged for less than a decade--just shown were.

Rating her content and input

Most of it is fine.  I don't think it works well as a general guide as it could, since so much is left out, and what it all means is only clear when you already know what it's saying.  The description of what shou pu'er is (a ripe or pre-fermented type) doesn't work at all here; it could hardly be less clearly explained.  The premise of it talking about higher quality range pu'er should be made clearer, which really doesn't work well for shou, since even better quality, higher demand versions aren't all that expensive, so it's a different theme.

Shou tends so much less expensive that finding any cake that costs significantly over $60 to 80 is a rarity, unless it has been extensively aged, which doesn't really help much with shou.  Of course there are plenty of outliers out there that cost over $100, but the average of what's on the market would be under 100, maybe even counting many aged versions.

The implication that she is mostly covering high quality tea range shifts things quite a bit.  I can go and buy good factory shou cakes for $40 to 50 in lots of places, but she's talking about other range, what is better yet.  Those same cakes would be kind of expensive in 15 to 20 years, so people see value in significant aging, even though it makes less and less difference past 3 or 4 years of early transition, for shou.  

Let's go back to the initial framing, the intro, and see what is implied:

Pu’er tea is arguably one of the most popular Chinese teas. Its pervasiveness across all social groups is reflected in the price difference of various options in the market.

Pu’er can be seen at any dim sum restaurant for ten dollars a pot, but the same tea can also be sighted in the form of a cake at auctions, with connoisseurs splashing hundreds of thousands dollars for it.

That last part seems high; spending thousands on a cake should be enough.  A desirable version from the 1930s might go for an outrageous price.

What does it tell us that the most basic range is ten dollars a pot?  That could be about right, for low-medium quality pu'er, sold at a medium cost scale restaurant.  

To discuss the quality range you are talking about you really need to specify what tea is selling for by cake, or as a price per gram, and from what kind of outlets.  That level of detail isn't brought up in this, beyond the vague claim that tea cakes might sell for $300 or more, in general, which again doesn't really work.  For higher demand, 20 or more year old cakes that's about right, or even some new material cakes from the more sought after origin areas, but for most of the market range that's way too high.  She was focused more on generalities related to pu'er, and the experience, not cost and buying issues, but to invoke the cost theme at all it's necessary to place whatever range you are describing.

Maybe this fails the most related to the implied purpose:  covering "Choosing Pu'er Tea."  The main advice this gives is to buy loose tea versions (called maocha, which is also a reference to semi-processed teas of other types), which sort of works, and also sort of doesn't.  Without it being clearer on the distinction between shou and sheng it couldn't possibly succeed.  You need to outline why brand new--unaged and unfermented--sheng might be a viable selection, and why plenty of other range is only consumed as well aged tea, back to the boutique versus factory tea theme.  It would help to treat the cost issue a bit, versus just saying that it all might be expensive.  Xiaguan tuochas selling for between $10 and 30 are not so costly; standard cakes priced between $80 and $120 are less affordable, even though the per-gram higher end range of both isn't so different, which brings up the sampling theme, that vendors often sell smaller quantities for people to try.

Maybe I should re-write a better version.  I've written sheng and shou basics posts before, (on exploring sheng pu'er, sheng pu'er aging exploration, but it's been years, so I could run back through that, with an eye towards how to source tea during the exploration phase.

I ran across this looking for another photo; the visits are a favorite memory of those tastings

2006 Xiaguan FT Te Ji sheng pu'er tuocha

 

On a recent visit to my favorite local Bangkok Chinatown shop, Jip Eu, the owner, Kittichai, gave me a Xiaguan tuocha.  They'll often pass on a sample of something interesting, but I don't remember them giving me that much tea like that (100 grams; not so much, but a significant amount).  It's very kind of him.  I suppose it's partly in thanks for me writing here about them, and steering some business there, which to me is about helping others find decent tea, not really about benefitting me.  I typically mention other shop options as well, as I did in the last post, discussing how Sen Xing Fa--another nearby shop--is set up better for doing extensive tasting.

I probably found what it was, more or less by chance.  A King Tea Mall listing looks exactly the same, down to all the numbers listed, and Chinese text (as far as I can tell).  Of course there is also Google Lens translation, but that helps less than one might imagine.  It's probably this:

2006 XiaGuan "FT-Te Ji" (Special Grade) Tuo 100g Puerh Sheng Cha Raw Tea

Listing for $26 for a 100 gram tuocha there.  That probably is market rate now.  You can buy the newer ones, that need another 15 or 20 years to age more, for more like $10, but someone holding onto it to cover that part costs you, with varying storage conditions inputs giving different results.  Then it's probably also an above average quality version, outlined in detail by that King Tea Mall listing:

Description:

The 2006 XiaGuan "FT-Te Ji" Tuo is part of the esteemed "Te Ji" series, denoting "Special Grade" in Chinese. This line of Puerh Sheng Cha, initiated in 2003 by XiaGuan, aimed to exceed the quality standards set by the JiaJi tuo cha. Renowned as "TeTuo" ("特沱"), an abbreviation of "TeJiTuoCha," this series underwent an official renaming in 2016, underscoring its prestige.

Distinctive Features:

The wrapper bears the trademark design of a "Pine tree and Crane," emblematic of the series' heritage and superior quality.

Variants of the "Te Ji" series include the general version and a higher-quality variant distinguished by a red-eyed crane.

The "FT" (Fly to Taiwan) version employs slightly superior tea materials, featuring more young buds and tiny leaves.

I had thought FT stood for "for Taiwan," but that doesn't change much either way.  This shop, Jip Eu, doesn't carry this tea anymore, per my understanding since they've sold out of a large batch they would've bought back in 2006 or so.  I do keep buying another 2012 Xiaguan tuo version there, which they still sell.

Review:

first infusion (after a rinse):  flavors are nice, subdued, clean (as this range of tea goes), interesting and pleasant.  The distinctive flavor that reminds me of aged horse saddle leather is there.  Harsh edges have largely aged off it, in those 19 years.  That would have to do with the hot and humid storage here; that wouldn't be true of the exact same tea stored in a cool and dry area.  

second infusion:  feel is thick, oily, and viscous.  I really do like that odd earthy range of flavors, especially in a version that's closer to ready to drink than I usually try.  I re-tried a 2012 Xiaguan tuo (from Jip Eu, the one that they still do sell) over the past week and it's close enough to enjoy, but not this far along for fermentation transition.  Beyond the leather--or at least what I interpret as leather--there is good depth of other range, mineral content, towards medicinal dried herb, and a little towards dried longan or tamarind fruit, it's just not overly fruity.  Feel is pleasant and the overall effect isn't harsh at all.

third infusion:  it reminds me a little of smoke, brewed a little stronger.  Often if a tea has contacted smoke that input will come out strongest right away, and keep fading.  This might well just be a natural related flavor, which does kind of match with the rest.  I'm not sure if this is a positive transition or not, related to my own experience just now.  I'm open to teas tasting like smoke, natural (inherent) or added, and it does match the other barnyard scope, but it's not necessarily better for including it.  Or worse either, as I see it, so just different.

fourth infusion:  quite balanced at this level; everything I've mentioned is still going on.  It's got decent intensity, of course.  I'm brewing this using a moderate infusion proportion too, for me, maybe only 7 grams in 100 ml gaiwan, versus the more typical 9 or so (typical for me).  Mind you not everyone would like this; to others it could be harsh, or off-putting.  The 2012 was more so, with so much of the earlier rough edges standing out.  I had my daughter Kalani taste it, and to her it was awful.  She asked why anyone would drink that.  I liked that version too (yesterday, I guess it was), but it wasn't quite ready, maybe by those extra 6 years.

her, posing

It's hot as Hades here, trying this tea in Bangkok at noon.  I should at least turn a fan on, but I've not even done that.  It was so nice living in Honolulu where the temperature is between 75 and 80 F all the time, maybe 25 to 28 C, and now it's back to 30s / around 90 F all the time.

fifth infusion:  the complex balance of flavors keeps shifting, the proportion, but the range isn't changing.  Smoke isn't gone but it was only a main flavor input for that one infusion.  Sweetness is nice for this; to me that one input helps tie all the rest together.  Feel is nice, and intensity, and aftertaste expression.  Layers of leather, barnyard flavor, medicinal herb, and some dried fruit really complement each other.  But only for people who like aged Xiaguan, of course, and it's hard to imagine someone preferring newish, untransitioned versions.

sixth infusion:  not different.  I might even drop taking notes here.  There probably will be some degree of interesting change as this wraps up, around infusions 10 to 12, or it could be pleasant and interesting up to 15 rounds or so.  Intensity is high enough for this that I'm using short infusion timing, 5 seconds or so, which will enable it lasting longer than if I was soaking it for longer.

Seeing a Tiger Balm pack of balm on the table reminds me how someone might interpret this as including quite a bit of camphor.  I suppose that it does, as people use that term.  I've never been completely comfortable isolating that as a description very often, but it's there.  Food range makes more sense to me; you get chances to eat those things, and it associates more naturally as a flavor.  Something like smoke is familiar enough from foods that this connection often makes sense too.  

Then I just can't remember specific floral ranges or incense spices.  Maybe this tastes a lot like one of them, and I wouldn't know.  Interpreting it as including incense spice would make sense too, but it would be helpful to be familiar with a half dozen of those, to break it down to that next level.

seventh infusion, comparison tasting with a Dayi (8582):  I was re-trying a standard Dayi cake with breakfast, not to see if it was ready, because it wouldn't be, from 2016 (9 years old).  It's pretty far along for spending that time here in Bangkok, but it needs at least another half dozen years, and it will level off closer to where it will be in another 10.  I keep trying the teas to see the transition patterns, because they're interesting.  It's not even about education or learning, it's just interesting.

The Dayi tea is harsher; it's not there yet for age transition.  It includes a green wood component, and a harsher form of astringency.  This is much better than it was two years ago when I first bought it (reviewed here then), becoming more pleasant.  Positive warm-toned flavors are developing.  

It's interesting how that "barnyard" range stands out in the Xiaguan.  It's not just that it's further along for transition, and it is that; the basic flavor range is also different.  There's a nice sappy effect that goes along with that, crossing over from flavor to feel.  I'm not sure what I expected this comparison to highlight.  The flavor and other character differences are interesting, but not informative.  It was sitting on the table beside me doing the tasting, so it seemed as well to try both and mention it.

This stopped short of guessing where the Xiaguan stands in terms of being relatively fully age transitioned, fermented, or how it might change over some of the following years.  19 years of transition in Bangkok storage is a lot, but it will keep changing over the next decade, probably mostly for the better.  It's definitely not going to run out of intensity.  Most of the green wood type flavor range and harsh-edged feel is gone, so it's fine to drink now, but it might still be a good bit better later.  I'd have to try it in another half dozen years to know.  I suppose that I probably will mostly set it aside to see.

Benchmark reference:  Liquid Proust now carries a similar Xiaguan tuo

I remembered seeing a mention of a Liquid Proust (vendor) Xiaguan tuo of about the same age, and that will help set what a market rate is for this.  Here is his listing:

2006 Xiaguan FT7653-6 100g, THB 1,016.95 (around $30)

Out of all the storage I've had there was always the Yang Qing Hao and Wistaria house notes that couldn't be rivaled. Then comes along this 2006 Xiaguan random tuo that has been pushed in warm and humid conditions in Taiwan. The depth of the tea with the smoke notes that are matured into something new with the puerh... it's a treat that I will miss dearly. This might be one of those extremely lucky finds.

Per the comments it's the aging conditions that give the tea great value, and the one Hong Kong shop that James of Tea DB keeps mentioning, Yee On tea, carries something similar for about double that cost, so $60.  

So market value is somewhere between $30 and 60?  That's a good bit for a Xiaguan tuo.  Next one would need to compare storage inputs to determine if the one I've just reviewed is really as good, or better, and personal preference would enter in so much in making that determination that it really wouldn't work, as an objective finding.

Thai minor deity tea cups, in the MBK mall; something different

Visiting my favorite Bangkok Chinatown shop; on Bangkok pu'er storage

visiting with Huyen and Seth earlier this year

This must copy a few other posts, since every time I get back to Bangkok after a break I check back in with the owners at Jip Eu.  I just did that again.  I'll cover what we tried here, and go back through how shopping there would work for others, framed as advice.

  

There are some interesting strengths and drawbacks for those traditional kinds of local shops.  Pricing is much better than most outlets, even for online sales, for all but the most value-oriented or producer-direct sources.  Range of products is inconsistent but good; they carry a lot of tea.  But then it's not set up as a place to try lots of teas, not as a tourist destination, as Sen Xing Fa is (another nearby shop).  So dropping by to taste tea with them for an hour isn't the conventional visit form; you usually just go there to buy tea.

When you are their friend it's different, and the visit can be more social, instead of only related to tea shopping.  To me they're like visiting family.  As an expat here, a foreigner, those kinds of connections mean a lot, because I'm not as socially connected in friends groups as I normally would be back in the US.  When we stay in Honolulu, where I just got back from, I do things with my daughter's friends' families, and talk to neighbors, or occasionally do things with them.  Here I talk to local shop owners, but that's about it.  Even work colleagues are separated by a cultural divide, and we don't end up socializing much.

So when I dropped by Kittichai, the owner, was happy to share an interesting black tea he picked up traveling back in Wuyishan.  He has family in Wuyishan, Anxi, and Hong Kong, so he's pretty well networked for tea related travel, and sourcing.  He has a friend who makes tea in Bing Dao, Yunnan, as well, so it isn't limited to those places.

that black tea

Of course Wuyishan is better known for twisted style oolong, for Wuyi Yancha, rock oolong teas (Da Hong Pao, Rou Gui, Shui Xian, Qi Dan, Bei Dou, and so on).  But oolong related cultivars often make really good black tea.  It's probably seen as a waste to use the material for that, since good oolong might sell for more.  Exceptional, novel black teas are really pleasant though, as this one was.

It will hard to convey tasting notes; I focused in more on catching up, on hearing how they were doing, what they'd been up to.  And they asked about my kids, and Hawaii, and we talked about tea themes, about market patterns back in China.  They said that Wuyishan tea demand remains strong, since the supply is limited, but that pu'er supply has probably overextended demand, so that especially for factory tea versions demand and sales are flat.  

So it would be a great time to buy a lot of volume of mid-range pu'er, except that you'd need to either be in Yunnan, closely connected to a wholesale vendor, or good with using Taobao to do that.  It would be all but impossible, for most people.  I just saw in online discussion that Farmerleaf actually dropped higher end cake pricing, since that higher quality range of material now costs them less too.  That was for $120 to $150 cakes.

Back to that tea, it included the typical exceptional flavors, a warm mineral base, pronounced mid-range (again I've lost track of flavor characteristics though; maybe like an aromatic spice, a bit off seeming like a rich dried fruit), great feel, and good character over many rounds.  He said that brewing it using a slightly lower proportion works well, 4 or 5 grams per the standard 100 ml gaiwan, using slightly longer infusion timing than for sheng or oolong.  It was just perfect, the way he prepared it.  It was very refined.  It's all but impossible to find black tea in this general range, and since the type and style was sort of a one-off it's even more impossible to find that.

Does he even sell it though?  Probably not.  Often I'll try what he finds that is interesting to him there, his own tea.  Then in other cases it actually is for sale.  Another customer came in to find specific things and we looked over a high end chrysanthemum version and two types of Longjing, that he actually does sell.  One of those was pretty far up the scale for Longjing character and quality, about as good as they ever get, and it would really be worth $1 a gram, if you could buy it for that.  I can't afford that, due to wasting money moving back and forth around the planet.  The more moderate range Longjing also seemed pretty good, from just smelling dried leaf, but I didn't buy it either.  I drink sheng, and also buy black tea sometimes, but I'm in a cycle now where I'm drinking through what I already have.

Again I don't really remember the pricing or availability, for those green teas.  I think I'd asked, but I wasn't making notes, and I was focused on visiting.

A tangent about trying aged sheng, and about other aging patterns

Then we tried a 1999 Chang Tai sheng pu'er cake, which he definitely doesn't sell (although he did; this is the last of a large batch he sold most of years ago).  It was pretty good.  I can't appreciate aged sheng as much as others who are on that page.  I've bought three versions from them (Jip Eu), so I own three of their cakes, a purple label Dayi (from 2004 or 2005), and a Xiaguan 8653, and Zhong Cha / CNNP red mark cake from around that age range.  20 years is a good age range for drinking those styles of sheng, or 18 is even ok, maybe just not quite there yet.  That 26 year old cake had levelled off to where it was going to be.  I've drank enough of both the Dayi and Xiaguan that I'm on the second cake of each now, or really mostly just holding onto them, to see how they keep changing.

I've been trying some of my other older cakes and noticing how interesting aging patterns play out, strengths and limitations.  Today--when I started this draft, at least--I tried a CNNP / Zhong Cha cake I bought at Sen Xing Fa, that was kind of good but also a bit iffy, maybe from sometime in the 2000s (I could look that up; I reviewed it here).  It's much better now.  Some early round funkiness has aged off it, and depth and flavor character is great.  It's better than it should be, based on how it was a half dozen years ago.

Then two other versions I've recently tried ran in a different direction, more or less dying.  One was a boutique style cake from Tea Mania, one of my favorite online tea sources.  It lost so much intensity it seems it will probably just disappear later, and it's probably only a 2017 or 18 or so cake, so not all that old yet.  Someone might bring up the "teen-years" in-between aging forms issue, that it could rebound, but it's really going to fade to next to nothing.  The style wasn't right for aging; I could tell that earlier on.  But I bought two cakes to see, and one is long since drank, and now I have the other to keep trying over many years.  

Another was an inexpensive factory version from Chawang Shop, an earlier favorite online source.  It shifted to taste like wood, a common enough unfavorable aging pattern.  When you buy a cake for a very low price you kind of expect limited potential, and it's interesting seeing how that works out in different cases, over time.  They sell plenty of exceptional tea, that would hold up well to 15 or 20 years of transition time, this just wasn't one of those.  The better teas I bought from them as smaller cake versions, 100 or 150 grams each, so they're essentially all gone now.  I bought Xiaguan mini-cakes and small Kokang Myanmar sheng for long aging from them, and both aren't ready yet, over a decade old but not even close.  

Today--at time of revising the draft, anyway--I re-tried a white label cake that I have no idea of the type, origin, or age of, that's actually quite good, aging well, and in a good place.

I wouldn't say that the Chang Tai version had the greatest potential, or had landed in an ideal place, but it was slightly better than most of the other versions I'm describing (maybe not the last I mentioned, but it might need 6 or 7 more years to be in a related place for fermentation input).  I really like that rough, barnyard flavors oriented Xiaguan 8653 character though, but that's a personal preference, not something that would apply to everyone, and definitely not a statement about general quality level. 

visiting them years ago, with friends I now miss

Back to the visit

I bought inexpensive Wuyi Yancha (Shui Xian) to give away to local monks, who can't shop for tea on their own.  It's not the most indulgent gift they would tend to get, that moderate quality tea.  But it's nice to drink sometimes, as medium quality rolled style oolongs can be.  It's hard for me to appreciate or remember to mix in other tea experiences, as a sheng drinker, but when I do it still works.

an earlier (2022) version of the same kind of Shui Xian blend, from them

what that 2022 version looked like.  blend versions vary, but one was exceptional once.

Kittichai gave me a Xiaguan tuo when I left.  It was a bit much, sharing those exceptional teas with me, and giving me some, but again I see them as friends first and a tea source after that, or a bit like family.  That shop is a great place to pick up an extra Xiaguan tuo.  I think the ones I usually keep buying are from 2012, not quite there yet for aging input, but pretty close, and you can see how that part is coming together.  This one was from 2008, something he sold most of earlier on, I think, so I don't think that you can buy it.  Maybe I'll write about it, comparing it to others; I have a half dozen different Xiaguan versions around, or maybe more, counting cakes, and it's been awhile since I've been through a review.

2006 and 2012 tuochas, reviewed here, with the 2012 from Jip eu

those 11 and 17 year old Xiaguan tuo versions (that aged back then, in 2023)

The range of what they carry that you can buy is still ridiculously broad.  They carry a lot of tin based teas that are good value, like the best of what you'd stumble across in a Chinatown market shop back in the US, if you were luckier than ever tends to happen.  It's a great place to buy things like Dan Cong or jasmine pearl white tea.  Upper medium quality, moderate cost Dan Cong is a strange thing to run across anywhere.  Probably most vendors pass on that same quality range as exceptional, leading to the mistaken convention that Dan Cong should include a lot of characteristic astringency.  Better versions aren't like that, and the couple I've tried from Jip Eu weren't harsh, requiring careful, fast brewing to be approachable.

I'd already mentioned some sheng pu'er range, but they really specialize in Wuyi Yancha.  They sell a lot of inexpensive blended Shui Xian versions, like the one I bought, but they carry much better and more interesting versions.  A standard pricing range for the higher end range is 1000 baht for 100 grams, $30 or so, which is pretty good value for teas as good as they tend to be.  Styles and cultivars used would vary; they don't sell those in a limited style range, as can occur.  When they do carry versions from within the restricted park area in Wuyishan those are pretty good, but that extra demand factor makes them a less favorable value, even though quality level and style tend to be more consistent and positive inputs in such a case.

They don't sell everything that a US Chinese market would carry, but then those tend to not carry much for really good tea either.  They don't sell the little dried mandarin orange peels stuffed with pu'er, and there aren't large-jar stored teas to choose from.  They keep their teas in sealed packaging, with better versions in 100 gram versions, ready to sell.  The inexpensive versions, like I bought, either come in sealed bags inside custom printed boxes or else just in folded paper, made into a brick or bar shape, the old-style presentation.

The random stuff they have around that they don't sell is an even more interesting range, but people would never see it, unless you tend to be a regular visitor, a friend, and then you might.  When I first visited there they were drinking an aged green tea from the 70s, of course which they wouldn't have been selling.  Kittichai must have lots of aged sheng that he sometimes drinks but doesn't sell.  He likes oolongs better, and those can be nice with a few years of aging, but in general they're not so different beyond after a year of rest.  High roast level versions are an exception; those might keep improving with multiple years of aging, as that input fades and balances.

More advice about shopping there

The main obstacle is walking into that shop, or others, and hearing "what are you looking for, what kind of tea do you like?"  For some people that's an easy question, and they'd mention the one or more main types and styles.  Plenty of others would like whatever is especially interesting or novel, and are open to exploring.  That question could be hard to answer.

It can help knowing what a shop specializes in, what tends to be exceptional there.  I've already covered that in this writing, but I can summarize it further here:

-inexpensive, modest quality Wuyi Yancha, Shui Xian (what I bought, what Da Hong Pao often really is); this might cost around 100 baht ($3) for 100 grams

-much better quality Wuyi Yancha (twisted style Fujian oolong); this often costs 1000 baht ($30) for 100 grams

-a range of tin based medium quality teas:  Dan Cong, jasmine green, jasmine white tea, some plain greens.  Cost would vary by quality level and demand, but they would be in the middle, more like 5 or 600 baht per 100 grams ($20).  For lower quality tea that's too much, but for true medium range that's a good find.

-aged sheng pu'er:  there isn't too much, but the exceptions are fantastic.  Some 2005 or so cakes are worth considering (Xiaguan, Dayi, CNNP), and inexpensive Xiaguan and Tulin tuochas are a good find.

-fresh Longjing and Tie Guan Yin:  market rates push these to often be a bit pricey, beyond the range of most of what I've described.  Good TGY is different than the stuff that costs almost nothing, and is everywhere.  It's not worth it to me, because I'm not mainly an oolong drinker now, but for others on that page that trade-off is familiar ground.

-Thai teas:  there isn't much; this is a Chinese tea shop.  You could still ask if there is something, but I'm listing this to clarify that it's not their main range.

-black tea:  how could a Chinatown shop not carry this?  The range would keep varying though.  I've tried great Lapsang Souchong from there, the unsmoked type, and pretty good Jin Jun Mei (just not in the most standard form of that), and they may sell that Wuyishan version I described trying.  What they offer would keep changing, but it wouldn't be a difficult discussion to sort through.

-exceptions:  I once asked them if they sell pressed white tea cakes, and they said sure, and produced an aged buds-only version, that I bought for a special gift.  There are probably another dozen or two exceptions around, or more; it couldn't hurt to ask about something unusual, if it's of interest.

-teaware:  they don't specialize in this, but they have some Yixing around, of course with the product certifications, and I keep buying inexpensive white, porcelain gaiwans there.

Shop storage issues

Kind of an afterthought, but some people would be looking for this, as a main consideration.  If they do sell older sheng, as they do, what is the storage input like, tying back to conditions?

It's hot AF in Bangkok, and I think that plays in as much as the high humidity.  Teas might be closest to Malaysian storage input.  They were just telling me that Hong Kong storage seems more humid to them, the shop owners, and that teas from there pick up an off taste, a funkiness, like dirt or peat.  It's considerably cooler and even a bit drier there, in HK, so I think this relates to shops there managing storage to achieve specific outcomes, like fast aging, and heavy resulting flavor range.

To me tea stored in that shop (in their storage area) picks up a certain mustiness, that typically fades over a month or two after you get it.  I don't think that relates to Bangkok climate, I think it's about a lot of tea being stored in an enclosed, hot space.  To me it's familiar and favorable, but it's funny how people tend to prefer whatever they become accustomed to.  People who love Hong Kong or Taiwan storage explored ranges early on and happened to find good versions from those places, and then that character range, how teas tend to transition there, became familiar to them.  

Over and over you see "separated at birth" comparison stories of cakes being stored in two places, with the friends sharing them each preferring their own local range version.  Kunming vendors saying they like dry storage input seem to be obviously conducting marketing, not telling the truth, but it's possible that teas not changing much, and transitioning slowly, is what they come to prefer.  Probably not for Xiaguan tuos, which need 30 years to get there under those circumstances, or maybe 40, but for other types losing the freshness and brighter range so fast could really seem negative.  It's odd to me encountering freshness and brighter range in a 10 year old tea, and that can happen, but you get what I'm saying:  varying starting points would give best results with varying storage related inputs, and a general preference could tip in different directions.

This input can make it hard to judge what you buy from Jip Eu, or other places.  A month of rest wouldn't typically settle out all of that somewhat negative input.  After two months you'd know what you have.  If they have a broken up or last bit of a cake out to taste with you of course that's something else entirely; that has already went through this airing out process.

One might wonder if a cake shouldn't taste good pulled directly out of storage; is there any reason why slightly musty storage input is a good thing?  I'd be guessing in answering that.  I will say that aging cakes by giving them ample air contact is probably a bad thing; that would kill them, over time.  Maybe the optimum trade-off does involve less than optimum results straight off the storage area shelf.  If you pull a cake out of a basement, or a cave, and it tastes like it had been in such a place that's something else; I'm not talking about that.  

This is one of those odd discussions where people who already know exactly what I'm saying would fully get it, and others would need to go try a dozen cakes to get it to map to personal experience.  I'm not saying that Bangkok storage, and Jip Eu's in particular, is good or bad, I'm saying that it depends on preference, and it's good in one way and bad in another.  I think that the more fragrant, delicate, less challenging cakes I have would transition slightly better in cooler and dryer storage, just slower.  I think that for something like a Xiaguan tuocha or Dayi 7542 you need to get it all moving, to appreciate the tea before 25 years pass, and hot and humid storage input could easily be regarded as better.  Moderate but considerable mustiness from storage involving no air exchange at all is probably negative.  Going into that storage space more often might already be enough air exchange, opening and closing the entry door more than a couple of times a month.

This isn't headed towards even more conclusions; that's pretty much all that I had to cover.