Potential separated at birth versions review; 2006 Thai HTC sheng

0802 HTC version I bought left, tea Olivier sent right

Olivier's sample; a cool looking chunk

I'd mentioned that an online contact, Olivier Schneider of puerh.fr, had sent some versions of sheng to try (and a little shou and Dian Hong), and that a 2006 Thai material originated HTC sheng was one of them.  I own what's left of a cake of 2006 Thai HTC sheng I bought from Tea Side awhile back, a tea I first reviewed as a sample in 2015.  Of course I'm assuming here that it's ok to call a Thai version of sheng pu'er sheng, even though officially pu'er is a regional designation; that could as easily be read as "sheng pu'er-like tea."

I first reviewed that cake I bought in 2016, and compared it to another sheng version last year, and the tea seemed to have been improving.  That really could have been that I was developing a preference towards it, in addition to actual changes.

the labeling for that Tea Side 0802 2006 HTC cake

It turns out these cakes were probably not identical, but since I don't know they weren't I'll leave that working title, qualified by "potential," suggesting investigation as opposed to a claim.  I asked Olivier about the HTC name and origins of that tea, and he said this:


HTC basically dont exist anymore, so recent production came from several factories who use this name (more or less legally according to the case)...  Most of them have absolutely no connexion with original HTC, some get some knowledge from old master, workers, etc...

It's mostly impossible when you find a HTC cake on the market to know where it came from, except if you really found it in the factory. More or less like "CNNP" cake in China.




Interesting!  I've been drifting away from researching what's what in this blog and just focusing on tea reviews, which I'll mostly stick to here, but something interesting does turn up.




This sample's description cites some background, including mentioning "dry storage," which should be interesting to consider.

Review

Even in the first initial infusion "my" version (the Tea Side 0802 tea) is sweeter, a bit more aromatic, more like the complex scents in incense, frankincense or something such.  Of course I never will get such descriptions right; I'm not familiar with aromatic woods and spices and it's been a long time since my hippie days.

Olivier's sample is a touch smokier, deeper and richer, "darker" in flavor, even though the tea itself is slightly lighter in color.  I'll break both more into aspects on the second round, which will be a fairer comparison of where the aspects are going through later transitions.

good color, not so different

The Tea Side version opened up a lot in that first round.  It tastes a lot like prune now, moving into that particular dried fruit range.  I could swear it didn't taste nearly this much like dried fruit or prune the last time I tried it, but then I've not been drinking it very frequently, checking it a couple times a year.  Beyond that there is an aromatic dark wood range, that spice I'd noticed in the first infusion.  It's nice enough, different.

The smokiness picked up a good bit in the other version, the one from Olivier.  Some of the underlying dark wood or aromatic spice aspect range does seem common but there isn't nearly as much dried fruit range.  It might come across a bit more like date, where that other was close to matching prune.  This has a slightly different body feel too, a bit dryer, with just a bit more structure.  The other tea wasn't thin but the effect was different, and not pronounced.  It really does remain in your mouth after the infusion, but in a different sense than in younger teas, not as intense and location specific, but significant in a different way.

Both of these teas are complex enough that lots of labels could pin down supporting aspect range, probably related to flavors and also feel and aftertaste.  Sweetness, earthiness, and complexity are expressed in a lot of depth of flavor in both.

I went a little longer on the next infusion, not so much doing that varying times to experiment as I tend to but instead because there's lots going on here that's distracting.  Doing reviews with kids in the house is problematic, but it's the life I'm living.  These teas only infused for between 15 and 20 seconds, versus around 10, but the effect is going to be completely different.

Tea Side version left, Olivier's right (the "long" infusion)

The Tea Side / Bangkok stored tea is much different slightly stronger and more opened up.  That dried fruit flavor shifted, no longer straight prune but more complex, more mixed.  Part a bit more like date develops, and the aromatic spice / hardwood notes increase to match the fruit level in effect.  The depth of the flavor is amazing; it just extends down to lots of "lower" level.  Mineral grounding picks up, a bit along the line of wet sandstone.  All those parts are quite clean though, and they integrate well together.

Tea Side version left, a bit darker; could be the storage difference

The smoke is diffusing in the other version, giving way to other range.  I'm guessing these aren't the same tea; they're just too different.  Some of the aromatic hardwood effect is common but the overlap between the two is limited.  The feel is different too, even though the Bangkok version did pick up structure for being brewed a bit stronger and opening up a bit more.  There is a bit more of a autumn forest floor effect in this version.

For both one might interpret a mild supporting aspect range as tobacco but it's nothing like an aged sheng that actually tastes like tobacco, when that's mostly what the tea tastes like.  It's problematic to put a label on these different earthy ranges, and describing that as "some sort of darker wood, or maybe spice" doesn't work well, especially since that would be two different sets for both.  This second tea does taste just a little more like tobacco though; that's how the greater autumn floor range comes across compared to the other dried fruit and mineral.

The Tea Side version falls into a nice balance on the next infusion, not different than before, but somehow evened out across aspects range.  The sweetness and fruit is balanced by aromatic dark wood and underlying mineral, all clean and positive.  Olivier's sample version is improved too, not different, but balancing well at this level.  The touch of smoke is still present but warm autumn floor range aspect, with a touch of tobacco, round out a nice effect, with a nicely structured feel even brewed a bit light.

More of the same on the next infusion; I'll leave off note-taking for now, and see what chasing around these kids require.

at the zoo with the trouble-makers the next day

Conclusions

Both teas were really nice.  They just don't seem all that similar; it seems unlikely they were closely related versions to begin with.  Storage differences could cause variation but it wouldn't seem like this much, to cause them to seem like completely different teas across most aspect range.

About the smoke aspect, Olivier said that teas can develop that as a natural result of an aging change, and that it's possible to notice a difference from an input due to smoke flavoring the tea during processing.  If you'd owned the tea and noticed it not there, and then later it was, unless there was some chance of real smoke contacting the tea that would have to be what occurred.  I guess I'd tried enough young sheng that seemed smoky that I assumed it was usually either from smoke contact during processing or a natural and original aspect in the tea, not an aging related input.

Both versions were nice.  I liked the one I'd owned better due to liking that dried fruit effect more than the earthiness, smoke, and additional tobacco / dark wood range.  I didn't notice that much difference I could clearly attribute to a storage condition difference, to Olivier's being stored in a relatively drier place (per the description, at least), but given the range of differences that may just relate to not being familiar enough with transitions to guess better about that.  The color was different, with that tea much lighter, and it could be that the transition to those sweeter flavors was the result of a faster, therefore more advanced aging process.

I talked to the owner of Tea Side, and he recommended looking at the description for another 2006 HTC cake he sells that does include smoke as an aspect, their 0803 numbered product.  It's conceivable that's exactly what I'm trying.


Or not; it would seem a stretch to try to guess at the probability of that.  It is interesting to consider his description of that tea:


Dry tea smells with bark, dried fruits, spices. In the taste there are various dried fruits: raisins, dried apricots, plums. Light smoky flavor reminds of some Chinese raw puers and makes dried fruits taste more like prunes. There are some savoury wood tones and spices.



Pretty close; maybe.  That page passes on more of the story about the HTC producer but it sounds like there is still more to be told about it:


Old raw (sheng) pu-erh tea from the Thai factory that produces pu-erhs under the name Hong Tai Chang.  The tea is made by a Chinese master, a native of Yunnan. He has been making Pu-erhs for more than 40 years. Then he’s been retired and passed on all his knowledge and experience in producing and storing pu-erhs to his disciple, whom we’re working now with.

Tea Side 0802 HTC 2006 Thai sheng re-review

I must admit, I feel like I'm starting all over again with tea in getting back to pu'er (hei cha in this example; it's a Thai tea).  And I don't mean in only a good sense, although that's part of it; I'm way back at figuring out brewing.

Anyway, the tea is a Tea Side 0802 Hong Tai Cha (HTC) Thai sheng hei cha.  It's not really a pu'er since it's from Thailand instead of Yunnan.  Pu'er within Yunnan varies by specific origin location (most blanket statements like that require qualification, but that seems conservative enough to stand alone), and this could be all the more "varied" due to being grown in a different climate.


But that's not really something I'll address here, how it compares to Yunnan versions, or related to tea sourcing issues.  That last subject and the history would be interesting; there are "old" tea trees in Thailand, although old is quite relative, and dating trees is problematic.


About the tea, even the dry tea smell wasn't what I expected.  It comes across a lot like a shou, too dark, too rich and sweet, too much caramel and raisin range, with a bit of old leather.  But clean; no mushroom or peat, none of that other range that can stand out in shou, definitely nothing remotely like fish.  I'd tried this tea before, a sample of it, reviewed here, so it's odd to be going back through all this, being surprised by how it comes across.




Part of why I'm re-reviewing it relates to testing my own experience against my earlier experience, not that I could really separate out error, subjective preference changes, and other possible changes.  What are those, you might wonder, since a nine year old pu'er shouldn't change that much in the 10th year (or could it?).  If storage conditions had changed over the last year it would be different, and people tend to speak of pu'er resting from travel (seriously).


I've had this tea for around two months so it should be feeling ok, settled.  One odd variable is the tea being sold as either 0801 or 0802, apparently two different but closely related teas, perhaps not identical to what I tried last year, one more thing I won't really get sorted out.

Review:

After overdoing it with a Golding Nan Nuo sheng pu'er proportion of tea to water (a real pu'er, with Nan Nuo being one of those distinct regions), and after getting better results the second time, but brewing slightly too thin, I went light to start on this one.

This tasting is going to have to go in rounds, and more ideally several sessions would be better.  I was reading up and watching videos on brewing and drinking pu'er and a Tea DB video talked about trying the same pu'er ten days in a row to get a feel for it; sounds about right.  I'm not sure if those guys actually have jobs to schedule tea drinking around.  On to review then.

The first infusions were way too light, although still nice, interesting fruit and earthy flavors.  Later when I get my sense of taste adjusted I may well drink the tea like that, but I just wasn't getting much out of it at first.

It's early for a tangent, but related to that, I was just talking to a friend about subjectivity in tea tasting, and to me that means a lot of different things.  One thing is that preference determines what is good; very straightforward (eg. tea can be enjoyed at different infusion strengths, a preference which can change over time).  Another is that one person might "get" a taste as plum and another as raisin; a bit more going on there, seemingly that one person is right and the other is wrong, but maybe it's not that simple.  Or two people might have completely different impressions, and this is where it all gets strange.  Other factors could account for real differences, brewing parameter differences, even using different water, or tea ware.

so much for straining

Where am I going with all this?  One other interesting case--interesting to me--is that maybe I could taste a tea differently at different times, for reasons that might not be so easy to explain.  In that post where I tried to comparison taste a black tea from one year to the next to determine that I couldn't separate the effect of different tea versions from year to year.  Now I'd like to do the same for this tea, compare the tea and my sense of taste, and to practice on the type.


Once I did get the tea brewing--it sort of "opened up" after some infusions, and after I lengthened infusion time a little--it was even more interesting.  It was complex enough that it would be hard to describe, but that's the whole point of this exercise.  The tea tastes of dark wood and raisin, maybe a bit of leather, possibly with just a touch of peat (much as I know what that tastes like; maybe I really mean "forest floor").  Oddly by all that I mean the tea is nice.  It has a cool feel, not a dryness, but towards that, something in the range I'd need more vocabulary to say much about.  From there aspects get even harder to describe.  Even if I added another three or four taste aspects I'm not sure I could really describe the tea through them.


It has an earthiness that tastes like actual earth, like dirt, but in a good sense.  That isn't helping describe it, is it?  It's like the smell from digging up roots from under the ground, dirt mixed with an unusual vegetal smell, heavy on minerals, something different.  Oddly that's one of the smells from my childhood, playing with dirt, damming small streams, or playing in basements and root cellars, out in the woods knocking down different kinds of plants for no good reason (I think the last relates more to green tea range though).  It's rounding things off too much to say it's a taste of age itself, but there's something to that.  Like a really old baseball glove, or at least along that line.

So why do I like this?  Maybe there really is no accounting for taste.  Something in all that effect I kind of connect with.  I think it would work good and strong, since there is no astringency to brew around, beyond whatever component is giving it an unusual feel.  I don't mean unusual as in how fresh teas come across, it's a full bodied and complex feel, just different.  Some teas taste better as strong as possible, based on a limitation from one aspect, and more often a great balance point works best, probably how this one goes.

I honestly can't say if this is a good sheng pu'er or not; I don't have enough background to have a clear judgment on that.  Me just liking the tea is a good start.  It has an aftertaste but nothing too unusual, not so lingering.  I'm not sure if that feel is preferable to pu'er enthusiasts or not.  It coats my mouth and tongue in an unusual way, which I feel in the top of my mouth, but I'm not really feeling it in the throat.  I never really got that part anyway, about taste or feel in the throat, how that's such an interesting thing.

junior taster likes hei cha, just a little

My junior assistant had no idea what to make of it so she said it tastes like flowers.  She's stuck on that.  I guess if I had to give it just one taste description I'd go with old leather, which isn't even something I've ever actually tasted, at least not that I remember.  I'll give it another try before I finalize this, and compare it to last year's description.

Re-tasting, a second go and earlier notes:

I tried the tea a second time, with a higher proportion of tea to water, with somewhat similar results.  I didn't need to keep adjusting time to get some flavor out of it but did need to adjust time to keep it in the right range, soft and balanced enough.  The basic flavors were similar, raisin and date, dark wood and old leather, with an odd feel, a slight fullness and dryness, all of which seemed to work.  It's consistent enough with the first tasting, I just need to get parameters dialed in a bit finer.  I'm sure it does evolve across transitions but I wasn't noticing as much of that as I expected, probably related to still messing around with parameters.

This is probably a good place to check that review from last year:

not dark, not green, in the middle

Very nice; the tea is smooth and rich, full flavored, not astringent, complex, a little sweet.  Flavors are all layered together:  plum and fig, molasses, earthy tones, tobacco, a bit of mineral, maybe something like roasted almond in there.  A number of infusions in the flavors mellow a little, deepen, with some of the fruit giving way to stronger earthier tones.  The fig and plum element is still prevalent enough to give good balance, and the texture stays smooth, with just enough astringency to give the tea some body but no bitterness.


Sounds a little better than my last description, but similar, although that difference could just relate to paying more attention.  I'm not sure what it's all about but my kids are louder than ever lately, often engaged in minor battles with their mother, interesting in small doses but not a great background for tea tasting.


Maybe as well to cite the vendor's take, given going this far:


The tea is made from old and wild 200-300 years old trees. This Sheng resembles a sheng of purple bushes in looks - the tea is very dark for its age. This is my absolute favorite among Thai Shengs...

Dry flavor: Raisins, tree bark and spices. Neat leaves are carefully ripened. The infusion looks like dark amber, it's absolutely clear.

Taste: Full-bodied, very smooth (balanced) and intelligent. Nice raisin profile laced with spicy woody tones. Notes of plum are also present. Velvety and spicy aftertaste remains long after the drinking.


Close enough.  The parts about tea tree age are a bit taboo these days but I couldn't resist including it, and his subjective judgment wasn't necessary, but why not.

Conclusion:

Oddly I find myself considering how much I really like this style of tea.  Usually that type of response is easy to sort out, it's right there, I do or don't.  I had said I did, but now I wonder if I like the tea as aspects and a whole experience, or if it's more about the novelty, since this is quite different from most tea experiences.  I think I like it, but it's not that "wow, I love this" experience people tend to express.

It makes me think more about shifts in preference curve, that idea of people acquiring taste for some teas, as they do Scotch, in the other post.  Perhaps a different tea example will put more context to this.  Related to sweetening tea, I recently commented in a Facebook group that there is a natural tendency to evolve a preference away from sweetening tea, expressed as such (quoting myself, again--strange):


There is a natural tendency to use less sweetener over time, as a result of preference change, brewing technique improvement, and from drinking better tea. I only use sugar in masala chai now. There is nothing wrong with the existence of a preference curve or people being at different places on it, and I wouldn't pass judgment on someone that stopped in a different place.


As for preference shifting from one type of tea to another it's not so simple.  I keep referencing back to an idea I'd read in another blog (Tea Addict's Journal) that people drink tea for taste preference first, then others, related to feel and other aspects next (body and aftertaste), and then effect (qi).  I've mentioned before which teas seem like better gateway teas to me (light oolongs, to go with a short version, but it's more complicated related to better oolongs from Taiwan).

So what about pu'er (hei cha, in this case); is there a natural drift in preference to that type?  It doesn't seem to be so simple.  Pu'er is really two types of tea anyway, sheng and shou, and maybe it does work to say shou could function as a gateway to aged sheng preference, or even young sheng (another idea from the Tea Addict's Journal, but then he says lots of stuff).  But really it's not clear to what extent anyone would naturally change what they like over time, or how exposure is going to work related to that, or if there really would be a natural direction or number of likely stopping points.  A lot of people seem to keep drinking broadly related to types.

Some types are trendy, and expectations factor in, group "consensus" direction.  One could find justification to continue to prefer pu'er or oolong in tea groups, and might feel a bit marginalized if black tea seemed best for some reason (or green; both don't get much respect--individual teas can by the types sort of don't).  White teas are different, held in higher regard, fine to cite as a favorite type, but it would seem strange if someone just drank white teas.  For now I'll stay on the same path, trying a broad range of teas, but this is an interesting way to evaluate preference shift, by experimenting with one type I'm not so attached to.