I'm reviewing two more sheng pu'er from Tea Mania, one of my all-time favorite sources, and one of the best value places to buy sheng pu'er on the internet. These were sent by the owner, Peter, for review (many thanks for that!).
I'll get around to saying a bit about value, but these are "gushu," old plant material versions, which are ordinarily out of my normal budget. If I remember right his pricing doesn't typically reach up to $1 a gram, so it's not as high as has long since been conventional for many sources. But you pay more for this range of teas expressing a bit more depth, and more mineral undertone, and potentially causing a slightly different body feel experience.
This ties in well to trying a number of sheng pu'er from a Malaysian source, from Legend of Tea. I've been having trouble placing those within the higher end of the quality scale, and comparison with these could help. I still may not be familiar with the absolute best of the best quality sheng pu'er sold anywhere for any price, but teas from this source are always really good, pretty far up the practical part of that scale.
I typically cite vendor listings, to let them add a description, and to cite pricing, but I don't see the 2021 Jing Mai version listed. I'll add another different year citation here, but of course even if the tea had been identical different aging would make it different:
Jing Mai Gushu, 2017 (not 2021), listing for $112 USD (90 CHF) for 250 grams
That pricing is equivalent to $160 for a 357 gram cake, or 45 cents per gram, on the fair side for gushu material, if it matches expectations for that type range (which is never just one thing)..
Together with our friend, Tea Master Panda, we went to Jing Mai to find the ideal Gushu tea leaves. Thoes leaves have been processed in Yang Mings tiny tea factory to traditional 250g Bingcha.
For this Bingcha we used Pu-erh tea leaves of up to several hundred years old tea trees (Gushu) from Da Ping Zhang in Jing Mai and stone pressed. The tea garden with the old tea trees is located at about 1600m. The the top of the mauntain forms a plateau instead of a peak. Therefore, all tea leaves are grown on a similar altitude.
Harvest: Spring 2017
Pressed: 2017
Taste: Mild and fruity with a sweet aftertaste
Terroir: Jing Mai, Puer prefecture, Yunnan province, China.
Yiwu Gushu 2022 ($106 USD for a 200 gram cake)
This pricing equates to $190 for a 357 cake, or 53 cents a gram.
These exceptional leaves have been expertly processed in Yang Ming’s boutique tea factory into traditional bingcha Pu-erh tea cakes.
Yiwu Gushu 2022 is crafted from tea leaves harvested from ancient tea trees, some over 300 years old (Gushu), located in the renowned Yiwu region. The tea bears a striking resemblance to our immensely popular Lucky Bee, sharing the distinctive Yiwu aroma. Additionally, it offers the well-known depth and clarity characteristic of Gushu leaves, along with a subtle hint of camphor...
Yang Ming is a local tea farmer from Yiwu, descended from a family with a long-standing tradition in Pu-erh production. His tea fields are the source of our beloved Lucky Bee teas...
Harvest: Spring 2022
Pressed: 2022
Aroma: Mild and sweet with a typically Gushu aftertaste
Terroir: Yiwu Shan, Xishuangbanna, Yunnan province of China
For lower cost versions that are still really pleasant that Lucky Bee line mentioned represents unusual value. But this is about reviewing the gushu versions.
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they press tea coins for use as samples, with that form involving some trade-offs |
Review:
2021 Jing Mai gushu: that's really fruity for Jing Mai. It's so complex that even for an initial long soak to get the tea coin opened up I'd need to use a few descriptors to unpack what fruit is being expressed. Maybe along the line of red raspberry, mostly, or possibly even dried red raspberry. Bitterness isn't even started yet, but then this is brewed light, for only the outer part of the coin being wetted so far.
2022 Yiwu gushu: sweetness and floral range stand out in this right away. There's already a different kind of depth in this, not just the mineral undertone, which is going to stand out in both to some extent, but along the line of spice, or maybe aromatic tropical wood. Even the next round isn't going to cover where these actually are, related to them still opening up, so I'll say a little about second round and do a flavor list breakdown on the third.
Jing Mai #2: fruity, complex, well-balanced; this will be nice.
Yiwu: interesting that this expresses more depth; I tend to think of Yiwu as being mostly floral, sweet, round and full, and approachable.
It's an option to try to tear these coins apart after a second brewing round, but they're too solid still for that to make sense to me. Maybe I'll tease them apart a bit more after another longer soak. Of course this is going to cause some of the tea to be on the 4th infusion when some is just starting out, but that doesn't ruin the experience, it just causes a different type of complexity, trying it at different infusion stages mixed together. Not optimum, according to many, but it's fine, it works. The dragonball form seems even worse, to me; getting that fully infused takes awhile.
Jing Mai #3: pine does finally enter in, not so much the subdued pine forest effect I kept talking about in reviewing a recent Jing Mai version, but actual fresh needle flavor. Then this is also still quite fruity. The balance is really nice. It's odd how limited bitterness expression and the distinctive astringency is; this is very approachable. Flavors are bright and fresh; 4 years of aging hasn't led to a warmer tone, or offset bright notes. Maybe these were stored somewhere in Yunnan?
Yiwu: there is plenty of floral range to this, and an interesting spice tone. Some of the sweetness could be interpreted as relating to citrus, but only a touch of it, maybe to dried tangerine peel. These taste good. Balance is great, freshness is nice, sweetness is high, and complexity is good. I think a mineral base is playing more role in tying it all together than it's easy to notice; it doesn't stand out. They're both really clean and intense.
This is probably only the start of them tasting like they will across the middle rounds, not even there yet. Maybe some of the initial brightness and freshness, the early round effect, is nice for being mixed in across rounds, from the hard middle getting wet later. If they were challenging that would be the opposite, that the tea loosening up would be taking awhile, but they're not. I'll keep going with long soaks to get the initial infusion process going, to get the middle soaked.
Jing Mai #4: transitions might be harder to identify since new tea at the center of the coin keeps getting wetted for the first time each round. At least this is bright, sweet, fresh, fruity, and complex, very pleasant. Mouthfeel changes; it picks up some fullness. Aftertaste intensity might be ramping up too. That pine note isn't too piney; it mixes fresh needle effect with a bit of pine cone flavor, with fruit standing out more.
Yiwu: it's hard to describe how rich and complex the floral range is. It's nice. I wouldn't necessarily keep aging this; it's in a great place right now. It would be interesting seeing how floral tones become even warmer and richer over 2 or 3 more years, but then you'd be trading out some freshness and brightness, and once it switches towards fully fermented aspect range to me you would have probably lost what represents this tea's most pleasant potential.
There's very limited bitterness, and some fullness of feel, some structure, but it's the opposite of challenging. A longer soak might finally get to the next place in the transition cycle for both.
Jing Mai #5: the pine note switches over from also tasting like pine cone to expressing mostly spice. That's stronger than the fruit now, kind of balancing, but more within that spice and vegetal range. Vegetal makes it sound like a claim this tastes like green bean or grass; it's not that. Pine cone or aged tropical hardwood are vegetal, just not in an ordinary sense.
Yiwu: savory edge picks up in this, tied to the list of flavors I keep describing. This doesn't seem like the floral-intensive, less balanced Yiwu I've mostly tried in the past. The warm towards tropical hardwood part people would probably interpret differently, as spice instead, or some form of dried fruit, maybe on to more exotic descriptions outside of food range, tasting like a particular type of clean canvas, or like a wicker chair.
Jing Mai #6: I'm usually saying that I've got to go do something right about now, and today it's a doctor's appointment. Eye is feeding the kittens for me or I'd be on break for that right now; I'm more or less mother to two month old kittens just now. I finally tore these two coins in two, the first attempt at making them fully open the manual way.
That's so good! I've been drinking this tea for 5 rounds, so it shouldn't come as a surprise, but the final push of intensity from it finally fully brewing all of the tea is really something. Feel depth changed, and something along the line of an aromatic wood note entered in, like cedar or redwood, or maybe even sandalwood. Sweetness is pronounced too, and there is some fruit balancing that, and a touch of pine. The complexity is great. I could relate to someone saying that Jing Mai teas aren't necessarily for them in a recent review citation, but this is something different, not just pine with a touch of floral tone.
Yiwu: this includes a comparable warm spice-like or aromatic wood tone range, and richer, deeper floral range, perhaps with just a hint of citrus, so it's comparable, but completely different. They harmonize with each other, filling similar roles in different ways, just a bit off-key from each other, but in a way that balances.
A savory experience is unique in this. It's almost a touch of sun-dried tomato entering in, along with all the rest. It's not at all what I expected, more of a sweet and complex floral range experience.
Trading out transition speed and clarity for these coins taking awhile to get wet kind of worked out, since these will keep changing over a few more rounds, and continue on as interesting and well-balanced way past 10 rounds. Eventually a more brewed-out bitterness will enter in, but it will help that these were so approachable through the first long stage.
I'm going to blasted by these teas; powering through 14 rounds is a lot. It could help that the infusions weren't overly intense, as I'm prone to cause when using 9 grams of already loose material.
Jing Mai #7: again, as for all of these rounds, that fruit note is amazing. It's so complex that it must relate best to a mix of different fruits. Dried raspberry may be a main theme, but there's more to it. Gradually increasing light bitterness and a fuller, dryer feel are pleasant.
Yiwu: this experience integrates so well that breaking it down to 3 or 4 main parts mis-represents how you actually experience it. It's good. It's going to be hard to place how much better these are than the Legend of Tea versions, but they are a little better, even beyond lots of difference just relating to preference or character differences. Both could be equivalent amazing value.
Conclusions:
I've concluded so much already! The teas were just great. I had made it sound like they were going to brew 15 great rounds based on starting so slowly but at 10 or 12 the effects of pushing the outer material to brew faster started to show, and some characteristic late-round bitterness and green wood effect entered in, mixing with flavors I described in the first 6 or 8 rounds in the notes. They still brewed a full cycle, over 10 rounds, but there was no free lunch related to the interior taking awhile to get soaked, so they didn't make it to 15.
Is there any one or more aspect or character ranges that sets them apart as gushu? One part of the vendor description mentioned depth and clarity (as related), and another referenced aftertaste expression being different, or more intensive. All of that was impressive.
I think clarity is worth considering further. I might reference an overlapping aspect I refer to as refinement, when a tea isn't just complex, intense, pleasant, and so on, but expresses something else. I see it as the opposite side of not expressing flaws, as going further in the other direction.
Is that worth shifting to paying 50 cents a gram for a tea instead of 30-some, beyond flavor aspects just being positive? I suppose it depends on tea budget. It should definitely be an easier judgment call to make at 50 cents a gram instead of $1. But then character and quality level become quite complicated, and it doesn't work to say that lots of range of versions are equivalent, all based on one input. These teas are better than some of what I've tried represented as gushu from elsewhere, but I can't compare them to the entire range of the best of what is on the market (of course).
I think you need to drill down to more local areas to even discuss what is most type-typical; comparison at the broad region level muddies the discussion. Then distinct styles could enter in.
It's harder to say if these are clearly better teas than the last two I tried, because aging issues also factor in, and complicate things (and comparing Mang Jing and Jing Mai may not be apples to apples, back to the last point). This Jing Mai version is really something; I suppose it is probably just better, and you can set aging issues aside. That Bulang version from 2021, equivalent in age to these, was really in a favorable place. It was far more fermented; these retained a lot of the earlier character, which in this case was also favorable, since they were fresh, sweet, complex, approachable, and very well balanced. Since the per-gram pricing was around half of these for that maybe it's a partial victory for that tea, related to value.
But these teas were so exceptional, for what they are, that to me it doesn't reduce to being that simple. You really probably can't find experience like this for considerably less. I'm not completely sold on the gushu theme as something I would need to regularly experience, that extra depth and clarity, but I also can't really discount it as irrelevant.
Tea Mania also sells "arbor" teas; they carry the other intermediate range that people bring up. It costs less. The extra rough edges or slight limit in some intensity range isn't considerable, not a night and day difference, but it is different. Their Lucky Bee Yiwu line I recommend that people can buy a cake of without tasting a sample; it's that pleasant and consistent, and that good a value, but of course it's not the same as these.
Would these two teas necessarily age better for being gushu (a claim that also comes up, just less so at the current time than a decade ago, back when this was all sorting out more)? Probably not. I see that as relating to certain style, to high levels of distinct types of intensity, in general terms to teas expressing more astringency and bitterness when young (new).
I think that these would go through very favorable intermediate transition stages, when stored in a cooler and dryer place than Malaysia, as we are seeing 3 and 4 years after production now. But at a guess I don't think it would make sense, to me, to keep these around to re-try them as 15 to 20 year old tea versions. They're great now, and will continue to express great moderately aged character for a few more years, before they reach that in-between stage. Stored in a cool and dry enough place they won't be in that in-between range at a decade old yet, when character can make less sense, they'll be preserved, but there may be a trade-off in slowing and stretching out that process. But that part is idle speculation, not even a guess.
Tea Mania sells 2012 and 2014 Jing Mai gushu versions; someone could check on that aging transition guess, by buying them. That 2012 version sells as a 357 gram cake for $187; it's not bad for good material tea of that age. That could work as a tasting set theme. I looked up what they offer for those and there's only one, here, including varying origins and ages of sheng pu'er (listing for $37 for 56 grams of seven different teas; not bad).
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a recent make-up birthday party, really an excuse to eat ice cream cake |
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