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HTC left, Vietnamese version right, in all photos |
I'm reviewing three teas passed on by friends in this, two shou and one Liu Bao. It's not technically shou pu'er, since one is from Vietnam and the other Thailand, but to me it's identical to what is produced in Yunnan, related to that regionally-limited designation. Others could see that differently.
In part this relates to reviewing a baseline for reviewing ITea World aged teas. I won't directly compare these to other versions here, in part because that runs long, without informing much, tied to speculative judgment across weeks of time.
I've reviewed this Hong Tai Chang tea twice before, which is a little unconventional. I tried it here, in 2024, back when I received these samples, which links to trying a relatively identical version in 2015. 10 years changes things, regardless of storage conditions inputs. Here I'm using it as a baseline, a standard form for comparison for the other two teas. It was supposed to serve as a way of discerning Liu Bao character / aspect difference, and to directly compare to the Vietnamese version. That hit a snag, related to the latter, which I'll get into.
Review:
Hong Tai Chang: it's good. Rich, earthy, almost oily deep tones define the experience, along with plenty of dark mineral base. It matches the color, the darkest of the three. What about other typical shou aspect inclusions: cacao, dried fruit, betel nut, medicinal range? Maybe what people describe as betel nut is coming across, but I could be clearer on what that even is. It could be interpreted as relating to root spice. This is only the first infusion after a fast rinse; that's good complexity for this stage.
A thick, oily, resinous feel is pleasant. It adds depth to the experience. The flavor set is less novel and striking, but it is pleasant, and clean enough. There's no barnyard range, mustiness, and the like.
Liu Bao: it's interesting that what I guessed might be betel nut flavor is so much stronger in this; it's more of a main flavor aspect, maybe the main one. It's hard to relate that to something more common, to explain it better. It is kind of in between an aromatic wood tone and aged furniture effect, which I think divides into one set of flavors tied to age input and another to aromatic oils range, representing the wood treatment, which combine. This is really smooth, and quite clean. A bit of marshmallow flavor fills in some depth, of course along with warm mineral tone. It's brighter than one might expect, and cleaner.
Vietnamese shou: there's something odd going on with this. It tastes too much like one particular range of aged furniture input, as if long contact with a foreign flavor input added too much of an aromatic oil or polishing agent edge. It tastes perfume-like, in an unnatural way. That's just a hint coming from it though, not a strongest flavor, but it really stands out for seeming foreign to the natural flavor range. It tastes like this was stored next to incense sticks. That may "burn off" over one more round, if it really is from an external contact. If that's somehow completely natural I don't understand it. The rest is fine, clean, with decent complexity, balance, and depth.
For using more moderate proportions than I typically do, maybe 5 grams each, I'll need to keep infusion time long to keep intensity up, on towards 30 seconds, versus a more typical 10 to 15. Of course I intend to drink these on the strong side; they're shou and well-aged Liu Bao.
HTC #2: feel is nice in this; it almost stands out most. The rest of the flavor set is complex and pleasant: what could be betel nut, root spice, and warm mineral. It would be possible to interpret this as tasting like cacao and some kind of dried fruit, or even bark spice, since good complexity does require some imagination to unpack. At the same time it comes across as unified and relatively simple, a bit of a contradiction. All those flavors are expressed within a narrower range than it sounds like they might be. A hint of marshmallow effect is nice; that's extra range.
This is clearly pretty good shou, as expected (it hasn't been that long since I tried this version). It also highlights why I'm not all that impressed by pretty good shou. It comes across as complex but also simple, refined but still basic. Why seek out better and more expensive shou range just to experience marginal extra flavor, or depth? Then again people valuing aspects or experience that I don't is normal, and reasonable. I don't drink a fresh, intense, clean, and vegetal green tea and ask why people like that; they just do.
Liu Bao: it's funny how much this overlaps with the first shou, but is also different. It's slightly lighter in tone, and matches the betel nut / spice range, with even more marshmallow. It's odd how clean this is; usually some residual mustiness comes across in most older teas, but not so much in this. It's also definitely not faded by a high degree of air contact, although it might have experienced plenty. Intensity is pretty good. I suppose it comes across as just slightly more novel than the first shou version, but then the other one (HTC) expresses more warmth and intensity, darker toned and fuller in feel. Both are good.
Vietnamese shou: this is cleaning up, but some degree of what seems to be an external incense / perfume / even soapiness remains. It must have experienced some external contact with something with flavor; there's no way this is completely natural (per my judgment; maybe it really is). With that fading this much it might work to break down what the other range is without it being present as a main aspect.
The other aspects beyond that seem fine: warm mineral, dark wood or even spice depth, perhaps some dried fruit, or one other novel theme. But the range that I take to be a foreign input stands out the most still, partly for being novel in an unconventional way, along with it being as intense as any other input.
A friend passed on a white tea that seemed to have an even stronger degree of foreign flavor input, which he thought might have come from a processing flaw, instead of being stored in a laundry room, next to soap and drier sheets, as it tasted like it might've been. This isn't that intense. It's not ruined, still drinkable, but it seems off to me.
HTC #3: this isn't changing too much. It is evolving in a positive way, based on trivial changes. The same basic aspect list applies.
Liu Bao: the same is true for this. Root spice is picking up. By that I typically mean along the line of ginseng, or even sassafras. I could also mean that it tastes like other Chinese medicinal herbs that I can't fully place, like a Chinatown spice shop. This also tastes like marshmallow, so that root range stands out most, but there is more to it, more vague, warm, complex underlying spice tone. At the same time it comes across as quite clean. It's definitely one of the better Liu Bao versions I've ever tried, giving up some intensity related to a long transition to this complex, mild form, but it's a decent trade-off.
Comparing this directly to a much younger Liu Bao might not make much sense; something half this old, or a bit younger, may include more intensity, and a slightly different flavor profile, but it would also just be a different kind of experience. 34 year old tea is aging into a different kind of range.
Vietnamese shou: apparently that perfume-range input will keep declining, but it won't go away. It's a little disappointing; it would've been nice to get a clearer read on the rest without it, and to have that experience. It comes across a little like a flavored tea. Judged as such, in relation to that being a value-neutral inclusion, it's pretty good. It just tastes like it was stored near incense sticks, and those match well enough with shou experience.
What are the chances that this could be a completely natural, but novel, extra flavor inclusion? I'd guess unlikely. The range of how extra unique flavors enter in and combine becomes familiar over time, and I don't think this is that.
This next round will do it for the note-taking phase; this is so much tea to power through. Any sensible person would just throw out the tea, after tasting enough to make the notes, but to me that's too disrespectful towards it.
HTC #4: not changing much; it's still pretty good.
Liu Bao: the same. I brewed this round a little lighter so it may not work quite as well for me, but the teas don't seem different. I never did address this being lighter in color than the first shou. Could it be less than fully fermented? I don't think so, at this age, 34 years old. But the output could be different based on that resulting from different inputs. Flavor range is slightly lighter too; hopefully that was already apparent in the tasting notes.
Vietnamese shou: that flavoring input is easing up more than the rest is transitioning; this is the best this has been. People would probably be divided on whether that one aspect range is a negative input, or relatively neutral, or I suppose if they read it as being natural it's possible that someone would even like it.
The tea is fine, at this stage. It tastes like ordinary shou, aged enough that the fermentation related funky input is gone (wo dui?). It's just not overly complex or novel. In retrospect, during editing, I really didn't get into aging differences, or differences in intensity or heaviness of flavor tones, in relation to the Thai shou version. This review process was really thrown off by that one aspect input.
Conclusions:
This isn't really the kind of storage issue I was trying to unpack related to further comparison with ITea World sample set versions, but this does come up, the theme of external contamination.
In a milder form it's quite common. If I buy cakes from my favorite Bangkok Chinatown shop they're usually initially quite musty, from being stored in enclosed, hot, and humid conditions. That will fade quite a bit over the first few months, as they pick up additional air exposure, since I don't keep them in a sealed room with a literal ton of other tea. Some of that relates to being in contact with a lot of other tea, and also with packaging materials, with the paper in the cakes, and whatever cardboard might be around, all of which is fermenting in storage.
We have a room full of old books in our house--of essentially no value; it's a long story--and within a few decades the paper browns, as it oxidizes, and as fungus--or mold, essentially--grows on the paper. The libraries at the University of Hawaii, where I attended grad school, were undergoing something similar. In one they maintained high airflow to offset that (lots of fans, in the Sinclair library), and in the other aggressive central air conditioning lowered humidity and temperature. It's normal in the tropics. Then it's odd how infrequently that relates to tea cakes growing actual mold, which makes for a longer story.
Storing tea next to something that changes its flavor isn't completely normal, but it would come up. Vendors and producers try to avoid that, but we hear of lots of cases of extra bits of tea being found in unusual places, in attics and such. That's why I keep expecting more mustiness to be an issue in these aged teas, since that's all the more common, and why I'm surprised that it's often not coming up at all.
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