I'm comparing three shou / ripe pu'er versions, one from Farmerleaf (so of course from Yunnan), another from Viet Sun (Vietnamese), and an aged version from ITea World, part of a themed aged tea set. Going in I kind of didn't know what to expect, but I expected the Farmerleaf version to have an edge, because they've been sourcing pretty good Yunnan teas for awhile.
I suppose it worked out as one might expect; it was a little better, but the Viet Sun was pretty solid, and novel, and the ITea World version represented well-aged tea well enough.
2023 Ku Zhu Shan ($140 for 357 gram cake)
Ku Zhu Shan old tea gardens, Jinggu area
Fermented in Menghai in Winter 2023, medium-heavy fermentation
Complex mouthfeel, a hint of aggressiveness
Ku Zhu Shan is a village located east of Jinggu town, it has a lot of 'teng tiao' gardens, in which the tea trees are allowed to grow tall with fewer long branches, it's a special way of pruning the trees. This tends to give a more powerful brew by limiting the amount of leaves growing.
You can notice the leaves are big and rich in tea buds. This tea has a complex taste which will carry you through a long session. You could even find hints of bitterness if you brew it strong.
This was pretty good (I add the citations after the notes). There's no way I'd ever spend $140 on a cake of shou, but at least it's good.
Thượng Sơn Small Batch-Ripe Puerh 2024 ($52 for 250 grams)
A nice small batch production from a new ripe puerh making friend of ours in Hà Giang. The raw puerh used to make this tea is spring 2023 high quality old/ ancient tree material from Thượng Sơn that was wok processed which isn’t too common in ripe puerh production.
This tea brews up slowly into a rich dark brown/ black brew with some mahogany red hues. Sweet with earthy fragrant wood, and herbal dark sugar notes. This tea retains a bit of bitterness which balances well with the heavy sweetness. Thick mouthfeel and a lasting finish with a relaxing qi effect.
The high raw material quality of this tea shows over the course of the session and performs well over many rounds. This tea is med-low on the fermentation scale and should age nicely with proper storage.
The description doesn't sound so different than the Farmerleaf version, but this does cost about half as much. Note that the sample seems to say that was a 2017 tea version (in the following photo), while this is claiming 2023, so it may not be identical. There wasn't much shou being produced in Vietnam 8 years ago so it seems likely that writing is wrong, or unclear, especially since this listing from the same location is on his site.
Quality level, complexity, and depth gives up a little (assuming that it is this version), but for as good as this is I'd definitely buy it instead of that Ku Zhu Shan version. For people into good shou, who value the difference, the opposite conclusion might make sense, but that's as hard for me to relate to as people drinking Japanese green teas.
For the ITea World sample the information will be limited. It's from this set, 100 grams of mixed aged teas selling for $76 for 100 grams (so it's by far the most expensive, but it's the rarity of other versions driving that pricing, not so much this version).
iTeaworld 2025 New Year Tea Gift Set (Year of the Snake Edition) - The Collection of 10 Aged Teas: Includes 20-Year-Old Ripe Pu-erh, 40-Year-Old Hei Zhuan (Black Brick Tea), 30-Year-Old Oolong, and more
Not much in there about this tea, or even in the site background. It's Yunnan shou pu'er; that's it.
Review:
Farmerleaf Khuzhu Shan (the rinse): I'll just pass an on initial impression, prior to the actual real steeps. For a flash infusion this is pretty good; it's intense and rich, with good depth and feel already. This will be a challenge for the other two to match.
Viet Sun (Thuong Son): much thinner and less intense, but then this is only the rinse.
ITea World: it's smooth, and has depth, but it's not looking good so far. But then for this being much older, 2003, it may come around quite a bit after a rinse, removing a lot of what isn't as positive fast.
Farmerleaf KS (first actual infusion): that's pretty dialed in to good shou range. Some cacao works as a base, along with general earthiness, and then a bit of spice and dried fruit stands out from there. Intensity is good; I brewed these fast to try a light round, between 15 and 20 seconds, and it's already there. Depth is good; feel is nice, pleasantly thick. Aftertaste doesn't extend as with sheng but it does support the experience of complexity. It's clean. Even the early fermentation rough edges seem gone, within two years of this being made. It's a shame that I don't like shou more; this is a really good example of one.
Viet Sun: there's an interesting distinctive flavor range in this; thinking it through that was the one way that it could hold its own, given the first version is as good as it seems. There's a perfume-like note (possibly a foreign input, but the rest of flavor is quite novel, so maybe not), and rich, warm, earthy tones, along with pleasant spice range. It might be slightly thinner and less intense and complex than the first, probably giving up the most related to depth, whatever I take that to mean. More fragrant flavor range is quite pleasant, and also clean, but the feel and base flavor range (depth, earthy and mineral tones) doesn't match it.
ITea World: a pronounced aged furniture input is interesting, like aromatic woods and essential oils that have been resting for a couple of decades, or longer. It's also relatively clean; I guess age does tend to soften rough edges, and this is 22 years old, with the Vietnamese version 8 years old, plenty of time for a shou to settle. Related to the Farmerleaf version that lack of age could have limited positive nature, depending on the starting point. Sometimes inky, petroleum or tar-like flavors can transition into a creaminess, over some time. It seemed to be a bud-heavy version, that probably wasn't fermented to death (absolutely completely), so it probably retained brighter flavors when new. Sometimes high bud content shou ends up tasting like cacao, as that did.
Richness and depth are fine, and intensity. All of these are pretty good, really. I expect a longer soak will really let the Farmerleaf version shine, and improve the Viet Sun results some, and this will just gain a touch more intensity. This older version could fade faster than the other two; aging can convert flavors in interesting ways but different kinds of transitions can lead teas to "brew out" faster. I'm probably using one gram or so less of this version, which won't help it in comparison.
Related to this showing off what a 20+ year old shou is like this really works. In terms of matching the complexity and quality of whatever this Farmerleaf version is, and the novelty of the Viet Sun tea, that's asking too much. It's not noticeably inferior to either, it's on the same general level, and that's already a major victory.
Farmerleaf Ku Zhu Shan (#2): these brewed for closer to 30 seconds, for a longish soak. It's unusual how good this is, how positive all the layers of flavors and other aspects are, and how it all comes together. It will be interesting to hear what this is.
Plenty of cacao stands out. That can taste like dark chocolate, or the actual powdered coffee bean, or I suppose even a little like cocoa, but in this it's like ground cacao bean, like what you bake with, or even how the nibs smell and brew out (fresh chunks). Warmth stands out beyond that, a clean version of earthiness. The rest blends a bit but warm mineral, some spice tone, and what I take to be limited dried fruit input all combine, along the line of a hint of dried dark cherry, but interpretations would vary. Balance is good, the completeness of the experience. As for intensity shou is only ever so intense but this is doing fine with that. Feel is relatively rich, a little oily; it's positive.
Viet Sun: actual flavor layers are even more novel in this. It's expressing something more like novel and mixed spice range. Warm tones are pleasant, and feel is nice, with some underlying mineral, but it doesn't strike that really unconventional balance of hitting every note in sync that the first (Farmerleaf) version does. It's good, and it's balanced, just a little lighter and less complex and intense in overall effect. I really didn't expect it to be this good. I should be mentioning more of a flaw than a lack of intensity across some scope, like an off flavor, odd feel, something like that. Vietnam just hasn't been producing high end shou for long, and it's not just a matter of piling up some decent material and keeping it wet but not too wet.
As a sheng drinker it's odd switching this back to personal preference as a filter. I miss that hit of intensity, the high bitterness, sweetness, strong flavor, intense feel, crazy complexity, and I suppose although I don't acknowledge it often the body rush from consuming it. These are just pretty good. Maybe on a cold fall day it would really make more sense; it's probably about 31 out now (C; that's almost 90 F), and ridiculously humid. You don't crave warm toned teas on a day like this.
ITea World: aged effect, the old furniture theme, and some extra medicinal spice picks up, along the line of whatever that really diverse set of spices they sell you in Chinatown herb shops as medicine smells like. Like ginseng? But really complex; like a few different things. This is warm too, but as with the Viet Sun version it lacks the same intensity and depth of the Farmerleaf version. Which is odd, because it has pretty good intensity, complexity, and depth.
I think the high buds input in the Farmerleaf version might be impacting the outcome. Buds-only white teas can end up relatively flavorless (not always), but even those usually have great depth. You never drink good Jin Jun Mei and feel disappointed by the lack of complexity, intensity, and depth. Probably finer leaf material are covering one aspect range, and buds input another, and they overlap to balance really well. Or maybe that's completely wrong.
I'll do one more round and drop taking notes. These will transition a little over more infusions, but not enough to make it worth writing or reading about.
Farmerleaf (#3): not really different, but then it was pretty good over the last couple of rounds. Maybe I'm making it sound like that good balance and complexity really matches my personal preference more than it actually does. I appreciate it, and like it, but again I'm a sheng drinker. For whatever reason I really crave black tea experience as well, and can also appreciate oolong novelty and refinement. I appreciate that this is so good, but I don't love it. I think pretty much all shou drinkers would, maybe even across liking different styles, since this has a lot going on, and it's essentially all positive.
Viet Sun: that atypical flavor complexity shifts just a little but it doesn't change. This probably wasn't affected by an external flavor input (eg. something nearby in storage), because all types of external flavor inputs fade faster instead of just changing in form. It didn't really taste off, or adjusted, I'm just clarifying that. You can probably get any tea to taste like old furniture by storing it in an old furniture cabinet for a half dozen years. Maybe that's actually not a bad idea. This just includes unusual flavor range naturally.
ITea World: this still tops the others in terms of "aged taste." Warm slate mineral works as a nice base, sweetness and thickness is fine, then lots of flavor complexity joins that, again in an old furniture and Chinese medicinal / root spice range.
Drinking this on a winter day could seem magical, in a rustic cabin, maybe with some neutral flavored butter cookies, and snow falling outside. In comparison with two other good shou versions on a hot day in Bangkok, at 12:30 now, not even in the morning, it's more about comparing strengths, what aspect ranges stand out. Probably I'm losing something in missing the intensity of experience in sheng, turning up the volume in exposure, while these tea inputs add depth to the set of things you already experience. That, and warm tones match with cold weather.
Conclusions:
All simple enough, the Farmerleaf version is a little better than the other two, the Viet Sun tea is solid and novel, and the ITea World represents aged shou well, giving up some complexity, depth, and novelty. For people who haven't tried a lot of 20+ year old teas that part would've seemed more novel than it does to me. It doesn't come up too often, but pretty regularly.
I really can't relate to anyone paying 40 cents a gram for shou, but if that part is fine the Farmerleaf version is worth it. To me why even pay 20 cents per gram; decent factory shou might cost two thirds that, and that can be fine, since all shou is as close to the same thing as is true for any tea type (just how I see it; obviously shou drinkers probably don't agree). Here is an example:
2022 Menghai "7572" Ripe Pu-erh Tea Cake ($36 for 357 gram cake)
This probably was a little rough-edged for the first couple of years, and may not have fully settled yet. In Yunnan Sourcing's words:
A classic recipe from Menghai. This is an average blend of 7th grade material that was fermented last year, so the cake does not have that just fermented taste, rather it has already mellowed a bit. Another 6 months to a year down the road and it will make even more improvements in taste and liquor clarity. When brewed this cake will taste a little sweet and lighter than the creamy 7262.
That "7th grade" relates to the material being chopped in form, as much as some general quality level. All three of these teas surely are better than this, but from a "shou is shou" perspective not by much. Farmerleaf's equivalent value-oriented entry, 2023 Bangwai Ripe, sells for $36 per cake; I'd probably buy that instead.
William gave me these samples I'm trying from them on a visit here (many thanks for that), and after checking I have some of a 2023 Mengku version yet to try. Since it lists for $60 per cake it represents another variation of a good-value theme, just not tea as inexpensive as Dayi versions. Shou really does vary, from heavier flavored from being fully fermented, to being lighter, or even heavier on cacao range if a version includes more buds. All three of these being pretty good, and relatively novel, might've made it seem like it's normal for above average shou to work out like that. If a version is from a reliable source and the character is positive one can be nice, complex and well-balanced, but including a bit more rough edge than these did would be quite normal.
For this ITea World version representing the more ordinary range in an aged tea tasting set it held its own better than I expected compared to two interesting and positive shou examples. It definitely showed off aged effect the others didn't, and some people would value that more than I probably seemed to.
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