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it's like visiting an aunt and uncle there, even though I'm not that much younger |
I'm reviewing a tea sample the owners of my favorite Bangkok Chinatown tea shop, Jip Eu, gave to me when I last visited them. It's a little unconventional that we tried that tea there during that visit, so I'm writing about it again, based on a much closer form of review. It was nice of them, to give me more to also try later, and perhaps wise of them to get that impression documented in a tea blog, just by handing over a sample.
It's a little odd, but my impression of it changed. I was fasting that day (the first day of 5), and talking quite a bit instead of focusing in, so two things changed. Three, really; I also brew tea for myself differently, because I based infusion timing each round on how I liked the last round. My water source is probably also different (filtered local tap water, but the filtration must vary).
I don't have a listing or site description to provide, under the circumstances. Jip Eu is on Facebook here, and they're on Shopee, for people online shopping within Thailand (maybe easier to find as "Three Shell Tea"). I looked up online listings, and two different vendors sell this for two completely different price points (the 2007 version, probably the same tea, although I guess this could be sold in different batch numbers, so maybe not identical). Here is one of them, listed by Crafted Leaf Tea:
2007 Yellow label Raw Puerh - Iron Cake
Tea Bush : Grade 1 Mengku large-leaf tea bush species
Made from supreme old tree Mengku material, this is a high quality raw puerh from a village in the Brown Mount. region. After 13 years of aging this cake has enter its mature stage, most of the strong bitterness & fresh fruitiness of raw puerh has turn into a mature taste crafted by time. Comparing with our 2003 Premium Yiwu Private Collection Raw Puerh - Chimney. It features less smokiness but with a very well balance of sweetness of ripe puerh and pinewood & mineral bitterness, followed by a lingering light caramel aftertaste. The aroma lingers wonderfully in the throat. After about seven or eight steeps, the taste becomes more tender and mild, and starts to show a light, mellow fruity fragrance.
So they're saying that it's a Mengku, Lincang region tea. Google's AI input and another listing agree this was made by the Kunming Tea Factory for CNNP release (Zhong Cha).
This second "Dragon Tea House" listing sells this cake for $40, while the other vendor, Crafted Leaf Tea, sells 50 grams for $22. What should we make of that? I'll spare you the idle speculation, beyond this summary. Maybe one isn't "real," maybe one is overpriced, maybe there are other factors. $40 for a 19 year old standard producer tea does seem low. This was selling for closer to that than whatever $22 for 50 grams works out to (nearly 50 cents a gram? come on.).
This other 19 year old CNNP cake is pressed as a 500 gram version, now listing for $104 through Yunnan Sourcing, where I bought it awhile back. I first reviewed that in 2019 here, seven years ago, and don't seem to have any newer comparison use review to check in on. People who have been following Yunnan Sourcing for a long time, and drink sheng pu'er, probably have already bought this cake; somehow it became the standard entry point item to try out way earlier on.
Reviewing tea labels: this could be a step too far, but in looking at the three labels of the three teas presented as generally the same they don't match. The Dragon Leaf version has a different bottom producer identifier name, and the yellow mark in the center is slightly offset (although the Crafted Leaf page includes pictures of both types of differently marked labels; strange). Make of it what you will; it's not intended as evidence of any indirect claim. Per the owners of this shop they bought a good bit of this tea back in 2007 from a producer outlet when it came out, which on the face of it sounds reliable. Who knows though.
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the Jip Eu cake label |
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Crafted Leaf Tea version |
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Dragon Tea House version (note the "product of") section |
Review:
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8281 left (my cats just broke one of the plainer cups I use most often; not helpful) |
8281 Kunming / CNNP 2007: it's interesting that this is much darker initially, both the leaves and the infusion. They're both 2007 versions, but the other spent half its time in Kunming, in relatively dry and cool storage, and this tea version came to Bangkok back when it was produced, bought by the shop owners back then. It has been stored hot and humid.
Flavors are heavy, of course. It's relatively clean though. Beyond the heavy mineral base a pine note stands out, and some medicinal herb tone. Feel has a nice thickness already, and it has only been one short infusion, after a short rinse. There may be brighter and sweeter spice that will evolve, or maybe even a touch of dried fruit, but I think this will be easier to read next round.
8891: it is lighter in flavor range, but this has transitioned pretty far along already. It's not how I remember it. There could be a faint hint of smoke-like flavor, but beyond the slightly lighter mineral it tastes something like aged bamboo might. It's not exactly woody, but pretty close to that. Sweetness is decent; it gives it balance. There's just a hint of sourness at the finish, which doesn't ruin the effect for me, but I suppose it's not mostly positive. Going back and tasting the other after this, the same first round, a bit more root spice stands out in that in contrast, towards root beer, or sassafras.
I'm not sure why but I'm feeling these teas after the first round. I took a week of drinking a lot less during a 5 day fast, and never really increased back to my earlier level in the week after, so my caffeine tolerance may be low.
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the leaf and liquid color difference is noticeable |
8281 #2: these brewed for about 15 seconds, or maybe slightly over, which is a fairly long infusion for a high proportion and strong teas like these.
It's interesting how heavy and strong this flavor profile is, with it being clean at the same time. This might turn into pretty good tea with another half a dozen years to finish the full fermentation transition process, which is really far along now, maybe equivalent to over 30 years in cooler and drier storage.
Heavy flavors could either be seen as a selling point or a negative, depending on preference. Quite heavy mineral tone stands out. It's strong enough that you need to "taste past it" to identify the rest. One part of the remaining flavor is like a cured tree bark tone (so woody in a completely different sense than the other tea). Spice range is still present; it links with that, or overlaps, some range of root spice. Less of the more forward, bright, dry pine note is present, but it's still there, just in a different balance. Other complexity probably still does relate to medicinal herb range, ginseng and such, but it's all hard to place, integrating with or being overshadowed by the rest.
8891: complexity is good in this; there's a good bit going on (which is all relative, of course). And the tone is lighter, which works well. That hint of sourness at the end is a little more pervasive now. I don't necessarily see it as a flaw, but if it was swapped out for something else the tea could be much more exceptional. It seems to connect with a dryness that you feel in the center of your tongue as you drink it, and more just after you swallow.
I remember this as a heavier and rougher edged tea. It has mellowed. The heaviness of flavor tones fading could easily relate to my judgment changing, or my general perspective. Tasting any tea in combination with another also shifts things; that becomes a fixed baseline, adding a bias for what is a heavy level of any one input, or placing different aspects differently in comparison.
At this point I like the 8281 better, but this early sourness and dryness may be something that evolves out of this version over a few infusions, so it seems too early for that kind of judgment. I should mention here that some claim that dry storage is "bad" for a tea, not for just slowing down transition pace, but also for imparting a slight sour note to teas. I never really knew if that holds up, oddly, even though I've tried a good bit of dry stored pu'er. Storage that is too wet (humid) is said to impart either a mustiness or overly heavy tones to a tea, or maybe both. Then people talking about relative optimums tends to make for a complicated subject.
8281 #3: brewing this faster, at 10 seconds, and being a couple of infusions in really lets this tea shine. The flavor aspects I've been talking about (pine, heavy mineral tones, limited root spice, other medicinal spice) haven't changed, but the balance does shift completely. Feel is still good, and pleasant aftertaste carries over. Sweetness level is nice. It works. Brewed a bit stronger it probably wouldn't; this tea is pretty intense.
8891: this also balances the best it has yet. The bamboo woodiness seems to evolve to more of a sandalwood spice. That one light sour range aspect is fading, or maybe a lighter infusion makes it seem to drop, but it's still present. Feel is better.
It's interesting tasting these and "looking for" the standard descriptors people often apply. Do they taste nothing like betel nut (which could only be a guess on my part, not having tried that), or camphor? Maybe the first (8281) does taste like betel nut, and the second like camphor. Probably that second attribution is more grounded; there is an edge to this tea that kind of matches that. The first seems to emphasize that light spice range all the more in comparison.
8281 #4: I'm getting rocked by these teas. Colors and color definition seems more vivid; it's affecting my vision. Why didn't I put less tea in these gaiwans? It's like a mental block, as if I can't.
This tea is really catchy, the way that a root spice stands out, with so much more going on beyond that. Sweetness picks up, so the rootbeer like tone leans a little towards a dried fruit note input, but it's still really a sweeter range of spice input.
If flavors were a little heavier it would be too much, but for me that part is fine. It's really clean, supported by great sweetness, rich feel, good balance, and pleasant aftertaste. Maybe it would've been even better if it had been stored in a slightly cooler and drier place, and aged for 30 years instead of 19. A decade of extra wait is a significant trade-off; you can't just move yourself through time to experience that.
8891: that early sourness is losing its place in this tea, for the best. It lacks some of smoothness and root spice complexity of the other, but a different form of lighter sandalwood sort of range spice is nice in this. A light camphor edge has seemed to replace the sourness, definitely an improvement. It might be even better after 4 more rounds, but it would be pushing it to drink just one more. Let's go there; let's push it.
8281, #5: I'm giving these more like 20 seconds to see them from a different perspective. Heavier tones pick back up again; it's interesting how infusion strength varies perceived character like that. And it's also handy, to be able to shift what you experience so easily. It was better a little lighter. That heavy mineral starts to come across almost like a charred tone, where is was part of a less prominent background context, less strong than the root spice, last round.
It's still not bad, not flawed, or too far out of balance, but it's better brewed lighter.
8891: this version balances just fine brewed a little stronger. The sourness didn't return; that did evolve out over early infusions, as I guessed might happen. It might be slightly better than last round for being a little stronger. It balances well. One might expect the camphor effect to pick up, brewed stronger, but it's kind of the same, the flavors are just a little more intense, and the feel. The other is smoother and richer, with this retaining a little dryness, just not in the same form as over the first few rounds, not as pronounced.
If you drink the other right after this, while the aftertaste is still present, the contrast in it tasting so much more like spice really stands out. Tried the other way that dryness stands out most in this, tasted right after the other. It's not all that challenging or negative when you just drink this 8891, but in comparison it's more negative.
Conclusions:
I tried a couple more rounds later and there wasn't more story to tell based on that. Of course they didn't fade out and die within the first seven infusions.
I suppose that I like the 8281 more. Could it be because it's more fermented, further along in aging transition? Hard to say; that's not impossible. The 8891 is lighter, smoother, and more balanced than I remember. I may not have tried this for years.
Both are pretty decent. I don't think these are what the Teas We Like curator vendor are probably looking for as the absolute best examples of aged sheng potential, but they're decent, and solid. It doesn't help that I very rarely drink 20 year old range tea at this point; I mostly drink young sheng, within 3 or 4 years of being produced. It's completely different in character. It's interesting completing a 1500 word tea review without mentioning bitterness, for example.
What was missing, if these were reasonably well balanced, with pleasant flavor range, and not really expressing clear flaws, but I'm judging them to be good but not great? Complexity was decent, and balance ok, but they both could've had a little more to offer. That root spice range in the 8281 could've been more pronounced and spanned more interesting scope. The 8891 had issues with dryness and light sourness early on, and then later evolved to be more pleasant, but it still mostly covered spice that wasn't so far removed from wood. I think both will probably be better as 25 year old teas, that having plenty of intensity at this age is a good sign, so both have room to change positively, if only a little. This 8891 might be fully age-transitioned at 30 years old, as this is going.
I hadn't planned to buy a cake of this but now I might. As I mentioned I tried it once before, visiting that Chinatown shop, during a fast, on the first of 5 days off eating. I didn't like it as much as this time. It helps slowing things down and spending time with a tea, and brewing according to your own preference. It helps having eaten. Your sense of taste changes a lot more after 3 or 4 days of fasting, and you can smell the neighbors cooking dinner really far away, but just skipping breakfast changes things, a little.
This tea--the 8281--might be even better with a few more years to complete a transition, or a half dozen. The 8891 is also much better than it was something like a half dozen years ago when I tried it last (maybe 3 or 4? I lose track). These are definitely not fading to not include much flavor intensity.
To me this range, standard CNNP character, is one of three good examples of favorable and distinctive factory tea production, along with Dayi and Xiaguan. Maybe people would typically prefer one of those over the others? I really do like best-case outcome Xiaguan versions. Or even the barnyard character of well-transitioned more standard range. Many of their teas come across as rough-edged and basic but that flavor range is interesting.
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there is a second cat over on the other side of the fence |
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