Tea Mania Alishan winter Qingxin and 2012 Guifei oolong

 

Back to reviewing, a week into being back in Bangkok.  I might as well start with some familiar and pleasant teas, and then move on to less familiar and also pleasant ones.

I've had great experiences with winter harvest oolongs in the past, just not enough of them that I'll turn that into cross-references here.  Of course Qingxin is the name of the older style of plant type, which comes in a range of different derived forms, with different evolved plant genetics.  

I've had positive experiences with Guifei too, a bug-bitten material input variation of rolled oolong.  This says the Gui Fei is from 2012, which almost looks like a typo.  A 13 year old oolong, from a vendor that typically doesn't sell aged tea?  It's probably not a typo; the owner, Peter, is pretty on top of things.

I'll add the product descriptions from a site listing later, after writing the notes.

Alishan Winter Qingxin ($25 USD for 50 grams)

Alishan Winter Qingxin is a lightly oxidized high mountain oolong tea, harvested at an elevation of 1500 meters. It originates from Taiwan’s renowned Alishan region, known for its ideal tea-growing conditions of frequent mist, fertile soils, and clean, fresh mountain air. These conditions, however, also present significant production challenges, requiring exceptional skill and careful selection by experienced tea masters.

The tea garden’s unique location on Alishan, with its frequent mist and significant temperature variations, imparts exceptional refinement and natural sweetness to this Qingxin oolong. The infusion presents itself in a warm, luminous yellow color, remaining free from bitterness or unpleasant flavors even with prolonged steeping. From the cup emerges a delicate and sophisticated fragrance of orchids, gentle yet distinctly present. The silky, smooth texture and refreshing sweetness create a harmonious taste experience, offering tranquility and inviting thoughtful appreciation.

Harvest date: winter 2022

Aroma: floral, with notes of orchid and acacia honey

Oxidation: approx. 30%

Roasting: light

Cultivar: Qingxin

Terroir: Alishan, Nantou, Taiwan

Guifei Oolong  (2012; $37.72 for 50 grams)

This Guifei Oolong, also known as Concubine Oolong, originates from the renowned tea-growing region Dongding in Nantou and was harvested in the spring of 2012 and processed by a renowned tea master. Made from the popular Jinxuan cultivar, this tea is known for its exceptional quality and distinctive character.

The infusion presents itself in a golden amber hue and is accompanied by a rich, sweet fragrance with hints of honey, ripe fruit, and light floral notes. On the palate, the tea reveals a smooth, velvety texture with pronounced sweetness and a long-lasting aftertaste. Thanks to expert craftsmanship and ideal storage since its harvest, this Guifei Oolong has developed an even more complex and harmonious character over time, making it a true delight for tea enthusiasts.

Harvest date: spring 2012

Aroma: high aromatic, flowery and fruity, notes of honey

Oxidation: approx. 70%

Roasting: strong

Cultivar: Jinxuan

Terroir: Dongding, Nantou,Taiwan

There's more there about the bug-bitten theme, about the processing style, and the historical background of the style.  These are interesting themes.

Review:

Alishan oolong left, in all photos

Alishan Winter Qingxin:  it's nice.  A little light yet, still opening up, but the flavors are warm and toasty.  I suppose malt stands out, or something close enough to that.  This should evolve to include a really pleasant and rich feel; that's already started.  It's creamy as well, in terms of flavor as well as that feel.  There's a lot to appreciate in this, and that list of aspects will keep going later.  Mineral range really stands out.  It's not really light or heavy mineral, but a complex form, more in the middle.

Guifei (from 2012):  as far as the other being as good as this, or not matching up, it's really not a fair comparison.  That's a great version of the style that is, but good Guifei is really nice, and this has probably picked up lots of depth from that aging.

There really could be a typical plum-like flavor component that has entered in due to the aging, but this includes so much for fruit and warm spice tones that it's hard to tell.  Spice might be closest to nutmeg; warm, aromatic, and complex.  Fruit could include plum, but there's more.  It's warm and rich enough that it's more in dried fruit range, maybe combining prune, raisin, and dried apricot.  Feel is also already rich.  There's a bit more fullness in this related to it being warmer and heavier in tone, so where the other is full and creamy as lighter oolongs are (like cream) this feel has some structure to it.  Not quite astringency, nothing like that, but some of the fullness that typically pairs with that.

It's amazing this is just the first round.  I brewed these a bit long to get them to open up, maybe just over a minute, but the proportion isn't maxed out, my typical approach.  This might be 6 grams or so of each.

Alishan 2:  intensity picks up a lot, and it wasn't even moderate to begin with, already above average.  The same flavor description works:  lots of supporting mineral base, creaminess, and malt-like warmth.  A bit of limited vegetal range enters in, not far off floral range, or maybe it's floral tones and some sort of vegetal input.  That vegetal range is close enough to holy basil, so really where spice and vegetables overlap.  Sweetness is good, and the full feel contributes well, along with notable aftertaste expression (long finish, put another way).  

It's quite clean; nothing in this is remotely negative.  Some would probably interpret it as a lot more floral than I've been mentioning.  It's a subdued form of floral tone though, like chrysanthemum, or sunflower.  Some of that rich malt-like tone might resemble sunflower seeds, now that I think of it. 

Guifei 2:  the pronounced spice note in this is really nice.  It might resemble cinnamon more this round, but also relates to nutmeg.  Depth is nice, and the range of supporting dried fruit.  That last part didn't become more distinct.  It's hard to identify how close it is to plum, or what the exact mix of other dried fruit tones are.  It's also quite clean in effect, and also complex, also exhibiting good feel.  Aftertaste expression is there, just not quite as pronounced as for the other version.  Lighter oolongs tend to be noteworthy for that, and the Alishan version isn't really in a light style, but it's medium, in an unusual sense.

Alishan 3:  this must be transitioning some, but it's hard to say how.  The same aspects just shift a little in relative balance.  This is really exactly what I've loved most about winter oolongs that I've tried in the past, that warmer tone, leaning towards spice range, settling in nicely on malt.  This is a really good quality example of one.  

This kind of effect is why Taiwanese oolongs tend to still hold an edge over Thai or Vietnamese versions.  There's nothing stopping a producer in those areas from making a fantastic version of the same tea, but all the conditions and inputs tend to line up well for some versions from Taiwan.  

The intensity is great; it's hard to pin down how that kind of input factors in.  Of course you can just brew any version a little stronger, but this hits really positive notes well, even brewed fast (this was a very short infusion time, not much over 10 seconds).  If you push other lower quality versions to get the same intensity the aspects won't be as positive.  They won't balance in the same way, and the effect won't be this clean and positive.

Guifei 3:  again it's not changing enough to revise that earlier flavor list, just settling into a slightly different balance.  

I'll probably try one more round and leave off; I need to get on with bathing three cats, and one of them is crying out to be let outside, which isn't going to happen until later on.  I should take pictures of them and add them here.  

Myra is in more than a dozen photos here, probably, the oldest, but the two kitten siblings are adorable at about 3 or 4 times their former size, from 6 weeks ago.  They must be about 4 months old now.  One is a Siamese cat, with such a cute and prized appearance that my wife is nervous about ever letting her roam outside, out of fear that someone would steal her.  Someone might.  Myra won't venture beyond our gate and fences, but it's hard to know where a cat new to exploring the area might go.  Nong On and Sai Thong would go explore roof areas, when they were with us, but we've lost both of them this year, in circumstances too disturbing to cover here.

As for a personal update, while I'm rambling on, I've had shingles for the past two weeks, a skin problem related to having chicken pox earlier on in life.  It's adjoined by significant pain; that part wasn't so nice.  I've not experience that much pain, since a burn and broken arm in early childhood.  Now I get it, about people working through that ongoing experience.  In my case it's like a leg cramp that doesn't go away, that sharp and deep pain, that doesn't persist from leg cramps.  I'm mostly on the other side of it now; the pain is less, and I have meds around for when it might tend to peak.  

I'm eager to go run again.  The doctor didn't see that as a well-grounded plan, saying that it would impact my immune system function, but I'm not so sure.  Early on in illnesses that seems right, but at the end exercise seems to help with recovery (per my experience, to be taken with a grain of salt).

these are naturally so intense that brewing them a little light makes sense

Alishan 4:  it's all integrating more, but I kind of liked how distinct the parts were earlier on.  Warmth is more general, not centered on a creamy, malty flavor as much.  Mineral base still stands out, maybe just not quite as much.  It's still really nice, I just liked that earlier form better.

Guifei:  that same basic set of aspects still remains, the spice, dried fruit, and warmer background or base tones that are harder to appreciate.  Probably what I'm not describing is a lot of what is giving this the effect of so much complexity, depth, and balance.  It tastes like incense spice, or aromatic dark tropical wood, or aged furniture (or maybe the oils used to preserve those?).  It has good depth and balance.  It's not really fading, which it shouldn't be, only 4 rounds in, but flavors can transition to level off some within that timing.  

These really did last for many more infusions, it's just that the notes leave off here.

Conclusions

These are both really good teas, in two completely different styles, and to me this is a really unique and positive experience.  I could drink a kilogram of either, even though I tend not to drink much oolong these days, for focusing on pu'er.  I love the intensity in pu'er (sheng, of course).  These have good complexity and intensity, but lack that same kind of edge, the bitterness and astringency, the overall shock of it all being so strong, even when brewed light.  I remember tasting with neighbors once, a very pleasant experience, telling one about how sheng can come across like a slap in the face.  She was surprised, and said that it was more like a kick in the face, somehow in a good sense.  If you are ok with the bitterness that intensity can balance well.  It's odd that she liked it, on her first try.

Whether or not this Guifei is from 2012 this is the kind of experience that people really tend to value, and that you typically have to pay a good bit to have [later edit; it is a 2012 tea].  If this isn't priced at or over $1 a gram I'd be surprised, and it would be a steal at two thirds that price range.  The winter oolong version is novel, since these are around, but finding a version this good would be tricky.

[more later edit]: it's 75 cents a gram, so still quite fair, for what the tea is.  There might not be another quite similar version of tea anywhere on the internet.  Or the next place you check could carry the same tea, but the odds are much better that nothing like it is out there.  Aged oolong was quite trendy and in high demand about a decade ago, and there was only so much to go around then.  I wrote about this theme awhile back (5 years ago), about what tends to turn up.  The plum-like input in aged rolled oolongs might stand out more at the 20 year mark, but this flavor is so complex that it might still come across as a mix of different fruit and spice then. 

That's kind of the theme for this vendor.  He sells versions of teas that are so good that they really represent their categories and styles well.  Lots are "gushu" sheng pu'er, which is kind of an often-overused selling point theme, but for really nice versions of sheng you can set aside considering plant age and just appreciate the aspects, the experience.

I've complained of not being able to buy teas in a higher than average price range before (or just noted it, depending on interpretation of tone).  Somehow, according to my wife, our budget is such a mess just now that the theme has progressed to me not being able to buy any tea, at any price range.  Flying back and forth from Hawaii doesn't help, and a long series of health crises across our family was problematic, both to experience and related to budget impact.  It's nice that some vendors have been helping me out; I really can't complain, when I have another 20 or so really novel and good teas to get to.  

I'll even see tea friends, and an old friend, here over the next two weeks, so I'll have more to report on about that event theme.  I'd trade it all to be a housekeeper and cook for my kids back in Hawaii, but we work with what we've got.  

Back to this subject, these oolongs, and related to somewhat aged oolongs in general, these teas were exceptional enough that it wasn't easy to frame that part.  The descriptions are positive, but both are a good bit better than just "positive."  That is what it is; it makes no sense to me to fill a post with superlatives to drive home a point about general context.  Within these style and type ranges these were great, and these are two of my favorite type ranges within the scope of rolled oolong.

2014 Ali Shan and Dong Ding oolongs

Getting to some samples that were included from back when I ordered teas from Tea Mania (provided by the vendor, Peter). To me their sheng pu'er are just amazing, and a great value.  That was covered in detail in this 2018 Jing Mai arbor review, and 2018 Yiwu "Lucky Bee," and many earlier posts, but this re-review of how the 2016 Lucky Bee Yiwu version is progressing really tells that story. 

I've come to expect that everything from them will be better than one would expect from even good sources. Then again there are levels to source types, and quality and pricing, so I just mean that the teas seem to be on the higher end for quality, while typically in the middle for pricing, a rare occurrence. 

Oolong being aged for 6 years is new to me. I've only tried a couple of examples of well-aged oolongs, over 20 years, and that aging effect wouldn't be the same over a shorter time period. I'll get around to guessing about expectations in comments about the experienced aspects, but without actual background experience to set up a baseline that's not worth much. 

Heavily roasted Wuyi Yancha are said to improve a lot over even a year or two, and would mellow and become more pleasant over this time-frame too, with the roast effect softening and diminishing. That's not how this will go; you can tell from appearance the Ali Shan was light to begin with, and the Dong Ding was never relatively fully oxidized or charred, as Taiwanese "red oolongs" and high-roast Anxi Tie Guan Yin can be, respectively. 

Vendor descriptions: 

Ali Shan Qing Xin 

This Qing Xin Oolong tea from Ali Shan is a classic Gao Shan Cha (highland tea). Ali Shan, along with Li Shan and Shan Lin Xi, is one of the three regions in Taiwan with highland tea plantations. 

The Ali Shan Qing Xin is warm, full-bodied and has a complex taste profile. The aroma is clearly floral but there are also notes of ripe fruits. The sweetness reminiscent of dark forest honey with a slight woody undertone. The tea is light and airy, but the sweet honey smell lingers in the empty cup for a long time. 

Harvest: Spring 2014 

Taste: Honey sweet with floral aroma and notes of ripe fruits. 

Oxidation: appx. 40% 

Roasting: light-medium Origin: Ali Shan, Nantou, Taiwan. 

Preparation: Per serving 5g, temperature 95°C, time 15s. Rinse leaves gently with hot water before infusing. 

That was selling for 20 CHF, or $20 US, for 50 grams. 

The next tea: Dong Ding  (selling for $25 /  50 grams instead)

Dong Ding is a classic and rightly famous Taiwanese Oolong tea. This Dong Ding is a good example of flavors that a highland tea (Gao Shan Cha) can develop. Delicate floral scents, honey notes and subtle roasted aromas delight the palate and linger in the mouth and cup long after the last sip. 

Like other famous teas, Dong Ding is often and often imitated. Dong Ding is a limited mountain area with limited tea production. Because of its special aroma, Dong Ding style tea is produced in many other tea growing areas. But, even if the cultivar, the style and sometimes even the tea master are the same as on the Dong Ding, its quality and aroma is never achieved. 

Harvest: Spring 2014 

Taste: Flowery, light toasted and delicate honey flavor. 

Oxidation: appx. 40% Roasting: medium Origin: Dong Ding, Lugu Xiang, Nantou, Taiwan. 

Preparation: Per serving 5g, temperature 95°C, time 15s. Rinse leaves gently with hot water before infusing. 

I should add a few thoughts about all that, without getting too far into covering review content, since I've already tried the teas and write this part during editing.  A lot of people would go with full boiling point water; that kind of goes without saying.  It's easier to recommend someone tries both and see what they think than running back through all that.  Given that these have smoothed out a lot with age and some of the more forward, "higher end" flavor has diminished it might be all the more true for them, that hotter water would work better.

It also goes without saying that the Qing Xin reference is to the main, older plant type used for oolongs in Taiwan.  Other posts have covered that; I'll skip going further with it here.

Qing Xin is a more updated transliteration of Chin Shin, table from here

It's not what I expected but not completely surprising that the Dong Ding is oxidized to the same level as the Ali Shan.  I'd have guessed that the Ali Shan wasn't oxidized that much, but this Dong Ding isn't pushing the envelop towards black / red tea range.  The roast input will change character in ways that isn't identical to more oxidation, but it can be tricky splitting back out the two inputs.

I think if I re-tried the Ali Shan I might be able to break down flavor range better, in relation to clarifying what fruit seems to be represented.  I agree that it's primarily floral, and that made it hard to get far with that secondary range, but I suspect that the flavors warming and deepening pull them more towards fruit than when this tea was on the young side.  That oolong version was complex enough that to some extent the broad range of flavor inputs seemed non-distinct, covering floral tone, some fruit, and a touch of supporting mineral, trailing into spice effect just a little.  The Dong Ding seemed to include more straight cinnamon, but it was complex too, with a lot going on in feel range.

I dropped out essentially all discussion of aftertaste range, probably mostly related to experiencing an unfamiliar tea type, and also due to rushing the tasting process.  My normal weekend morning routine is to wake up, eat something, mess around and become more fully awake, then to do a tea review with notes.  Yesterday I got a haircut instead after step 2, and went to a lunch, and then a play area with my kids at noon.  I am concerned about "doing the teas justice" when they are this good and this novel, but if I waited until I had a 3 or 4 hour block of free time I would stop review blogging.  This will be a bit quick and rough as reviews go, because I don't have that much time (so the standard process).

Review 

I let these brew for too long the first round, not because of some strategy of getting them to start faster, just due to looking at something on the internet for half a minute. Not an auspicious start.  This is a little later than I typically start the day for ingesting any caffeine, late morning instead of right away. 

If these had been sheng I'd be talking about how overbrewing teas lets you analyze flaws or limitations in different ways, but for these I'm not sure how it will work out. 

Alishan: very pleasant; floral and fragrant. I expected some of the high end to dissipate, with these evolving more depth to compensate, and it will be interesting to see how that goes. The most intense and forward high end is diminished, even though I let this soak a bit long (towards a minute). A warm spice-like character fills in other range; that's interesting. This is floral too, but it's a warm, muted floral range, shifted from brighter tones to a deeper, warmer floral type. There's no edge to this at all, even for being slightly over-brewed, but that's not really a surprise. 

Dong Ding: this is warmer yet, with cinnamon as the most intense flavor aspect. Again the sharpest, brightest high end flavors seem to have evolved out, with depth and smoothness filling in more character range. I must have mentioned it in the later intro but I have no experience with 6 year old Taiwanese oolong range, that I remember, so it's unfamiliar to me how these are "supposed to be." 

There's a perfume-like character to this that shows up in really good quality oolongs across a broad range. I've mentioned it so many times I don't want to go far with explanation, but it's a little like cognac, not just the floral tone a perfume brings across, but seemingly tied a little to the solvent range. 

This is full in feel in a really novel way too. It's creamy, but not in the same range of senses I would usually mean that. Real cream actually feels quite heavy in your mouth, related to the way it coats your tongue and the rest, and this matches some of that, almost a coating type feel. Lots of oolongs feel thick, and sheng pu'er exhibits a broad range of types of feel and structure, but this is different. 

Second infusion: 

Ali Shan: this picked up "higher end" floral intensity, or maybe that's just from the brewing time difference shifting balance (brewed for 20 seconds or so, drawn out a little to account for not maxing out the proportion). The feel has a pleasant thickness, just nothing like the other version. The warmer range depth isn't different, just less intense. There is some light mineral tone to this, characteristic of Taiwanese high mountain oolongs, but that seems to have softened with the aging process, along with the bright, intense floral range that always reminds me a little of new car smell. Right, like plastic, but more pleasant in effect, and somehow similar, in a way that I'm sure most people wouldn't see as associated. 

It works well; it's clearly very good tea. I personally probably would've liked this better when new; trading out that front-end intensity and brighter range for depth just doesn't improve things, to me. It is interesting experiencing a slightly different version though. This is amazingly clean and smooth; the character is just different. It's not "plummy," the flavor range that more aged oolongs tend to pick up (per limited exposure to those and hearsay input). 

Dong Ding: more of the same; very pleasant. Again warmer tones and cinnamon stand out in this. It was definitely roasted more, and while I'm guessing a well-balanced higher level of oxidation also led to this positive outcome. It is just a guess but I'd expect both contributed to this character, with anything remotely like a "char" edge having dropped out years ago. 

Again I'd probably rather try this as a slightly rougher-edged new version, trading out this smoothness and unusual depth for front-end intensity, even if a bit more astringency and some slightly rougher flavor comes with that. "Rough" is within relative standard range, of course; this had to start out very drinkable as sheng, green, and black teas go. I'll go back to giving these a longer soak for the third round to ramp up intensity (30 seconds), since there are absolutely no negative aspects to "brew around" in these. 

Third infusion: 

Ali Shan: floral range shifted in character. That will be hard to describe, since I've not even grappled with breaking down distinct floral tones so far. This seems closest to lotus flower in nature to me. Before it was complex enough that it probably covered a range, and two or three flower-type descriptions would've been required. That's still true, but that one lotus flower range aspect bumped up. It's not so different than orchid, and given how there are many types of orchid that's already a range, that must cover some scope, but lotus flower has a sweet, rich depth to it, and a unique character. 

It's interesting how this bridges over to spice range as well, with some warm, more neutral floral tones filling in the space between those. A hint of dry mineral gives it depth, but that's adjoining slightly warmer tones that drift into aromatic wood, towards cedar, just not exactly like that. It's odd how this comes across as somewhat simple and approachable but really there is a lot going on, when you focus in on noticing it.  Versus this being interpreted as covering a broad floral range with some mineral and spice I think that fruit tone interpretations would make sense too, related to ripe fresh peach or dried apricot, but it all integrates well enough and covers so much flavor scope that it's hard to break apart.

Dong Ding: straight cinnamon might have picked up a little. Again at first "glance" (in the taste-sensation range) this isn't so different than soaking a cinnamon stick for a minute or two, but really a lot more goes into underlying that experience. There is floral tone supporting that, and a creamy feel that teas almost never exhibit, never mind spices. Vanilla is an exception; real vanilla bean gives an infusion so much texture that it's almost too creamy, like a custard in mouthfeel, and this overlaps a little with that experience, except for the "going too far" part. That liquer / cognac / perfume like aspect isn't pronounced but it also rounds out the rest. 

I'll give these one more longer soak, up towards a minute, and leave off, because I'm due at a lunch today. 

Fourth infusion: 

Ali Shan: not so different than last round, so I'll just say that it's not transitioning much. 

Dong Ding: this also seems to have leveled off, and may even be fading a bit, with those longer infusion times taking a toll on it. These teas are far from finished but they may be declining from here on out. Transitioning aspect range through longer infusion time and more roasting seems to come at a cost for the number of infusions a tea can produce, so it wouldn't be that unusual if this was a round ahead of the other in terms of progression through a cycle. 

Conclusions: 

Excellent teas, interesting in style. Aging seemed to have brought on the changes I would've expected, with the teas picking up some depth at the cost of higher end intensity. They were interesting, novel, and pleasant, clearly very good quality teas, as I would have expected. For someone interested in owning truly aged oolongs, versions aged to older than a decade, buying some like this in a mid-range and hanging on to them might be a great option. Time passes quickly, and any 10+ year old oolong version is going to be really expensive. I didn't check yet what these are selling for but at a guess it's on the moderate side, for what they are.

(Back later) ok, they're $20 and $25 per 50 grams; how to place that?  I'd expect that's about what these would typically cost when new, based on an informed guess about quality level, and you just can't find aged versions like this easily.  When tea types relating to any factor are all but impossible to turn up supply and demand concerns become strange; if there is significant demand the price is whatever the vendor wants it to be, and the type could no longer be available at some point even given high pricing.  I reviewed a comparably aged Oriental Beauty version once and said roughly the same thing, but that was selling for an order of magnitude higher cost than this, several dollars per gram.

To me aged oolong is a strange thing to begin with.  Letting well-roasted Wuyi Yancha settle makes perfect sense but I don't completely "get" aged light rolled oolong.  That said, why not consider an opposing viewpoint from people who do get it.  James of TeaDB writes to advocate the general type here.  He never really gets far with describing that appeal, limited to this statement:

I enjoy drinking pu’erh and happen to own enough that I’ll be aging it for a very long time. But I I also really do enjoy aged oolong… And for partly inexplicable reasons have hardly even a pu’erh cake worth of oolong put away for the long haul.

Liking it is the thing, I guess.  He mentions his own criteria for what he considers as aged in that post:  15 to 20 year old versions.  Buying these particular teas, that I just reviewed, and waiting another 9 years would be a long term project.

Looking back through their earlier posts there isn't much describing what is commercially available for aged oolongs.  Those would tend to come and go, and be found in one-off examples that later disappear, many of which wouldn't necessarily be that exceptional anyway.  James reviews a lot of versions in this post, most contributed by friends, with this conclusion:

Sorry guys. I can’t really wholeheartedly recommend any of the available teas from this report. The western landscape is barren, even more so than matured pu’erh. It’s littered with re-roasted oolongs which can be OK and overly tart/mis-stored teas but aren’t really the same thing as un-reroasted oolongs. There are some OK options (Everlasting Teas, Floating Leaves, Chawangshop, and Tea Urchin) but you’re guaranteed to pay more and expect less.

With that advice being offered in 2016 all of the versions he mentioned as commercially available, and less interesting than the others he tried, would probably no longer be available.  Then again I just pulled up one of those vendor pages and found Tea Urchin still does carry a 1985 Dong Ding, selling for $1 per gram; a steal, if it's a good version.  It's a commonly encountered theme that storing an average quality tea for a long time never tends to convert it into an exceptional aged version, and anything short of relatively optimum storage conditions can turn out a lot worse than that, regardless of the starting point.  That Tea Urchin version description sounds great, and also addresses this point:

After first infusion, the gaiwan lid wafts with sweet notes of honey, toffee apples, salted fluffy white butter popcorn, mixed with heavier aromas of sandalwood, camphor, leather, musty herbal medicines. The tea liquor is a dark amber with the aroma of dried orange peel. The tea floats on the tongue - light bodied but viscous, with a smooth clean mouthfeel. There is very little sourness often found in teas of this age. 

Right, I like teas that are not so sour.  A comment on the first TeaDB post mentioned by Shah (one of those few real tea experts who turn up) covers all this in a short space:

Speaking as that proverbial hard-bitten veteran, who isn’t a huge fan of aged oolongs in the first place, a few comments:

1) Anything that can be said for oolong, can be said for hongcha and baicha. In my experience, hongcha is a better age-performer as a whole. Ie, my home aged hongcha is much tastier than my home aged oolong, for me.

2) Twenty years is not a realistic view of a hobbyist’ perspective of time. Not for puerh, not for wulong.

3) Initial quality matters. As a practical matter, given that aging rich and bitter/astringent puerh makes it more drinkable, you can start with somewhat lower quality and end up with better tea. Aging seems to erode an oolong’s harsh qualities much slower than it does for properly processed sheng. I have not enjoyed some 70’s yancha because of this. Which leads to the next point…

4) For me, age-worthy oolongs have only gotten in rough comparison to puerh within about the last four years. Cheaper yancha is much better processed than it used to be. And puerh is much more expensive than it used to be. I do not typically like aged oolongs much because they tend to be very one-dimensional, and if I want mellow, then I want high quality shu, usually. If one is going to age anything on purpose, it’s best to buy a kilo+ of the highest quality yancha/balled oolong you can afford...

Related to that last comment, then it's back to the same to waiting-game problem, that of setting something aside for 15 years.  I plan to still be alive in 15 years but I'm not setting aside anything but sheng to hang out for a long time and drink later.  Even for that type the quantity and range of what I have on hand is pathetic; I just don't have the tea budget to set aside some extra tongs.  I can buy a little more than I drink from year to year but that's about it.

Related to "setting aside a kilo+" it doesn't really make sense to buy a 100 grams of any tea to age it.  If you try it a few times to see how that's progressing only half would make it through the process, and then it would be gone soon once that extended time had passed.  Sinking $200 or $250 on an aging experiment to buy a kilo of these (or $225, to buy half of each) would be a reasonable expense to some, but for many it would make a lot more sense to set aside 4 or 5 $50 sheng cakes instead.  That would amount to a kilo and a half of tea that wouldn't just become a bit mellow and plummy, although depending on selection some versions might just fade over the long term.

Preference is a funny thing though, and I can definitely relate to the value of pursuing different experiences.  It was interesting trying these very moderately aged oolongs, and they were quite novel and pleasant.

that lunch; decent Thai food, great company

for some reason I don't remember seeing her in jeans.  she often wears dresses.

one part of that play area

I gave up the "second pandemic wave" look

Switching to online contact during the pandemic

First posted to the TChing site, here and here.


It's not that novel an idea to ramp up online contact over this pandemic period; I'm mostly just passing on my own experiences with it.  This post was originally going to be about the potential to move expo / conference events online, since that came up in Facebook group discussion two weeks ago.  I've since seen just a little of an example of that, covered by Elyse Peterson in a post here  (called a Virtual Tea Festival).  I didn't see much of that event, only parts of two sessions, because it was held from 2 to 6 AM here in Bangkok, but the videos are now posted online.

Soo Chung, who was a presenter in the Tealet version, and who initiated that Facebook discussion, is also planning an online Nomad Tea Festival in July.  It would be nice if this pandemic was over by then, wouldn't it?

Beyond not attending online tea conferences in the past, I have very little prior exposure with online meetings or tastings related to tea.  It's a theme that has been coming up ever since Google Hangouts made that kind of connection relatively simple, which was years after Skype made basic two way video calling easy and free.  I just never got to it; I like drinking tea alone, and talking by text message is generally enough for me, maybe except for talking to my Mom.  I talk in online groups about tea, and of course write a blog, and have done real-life open tastings, and online work meetings; all those themes just never linked.  Until now.

I tried it, talking to online friends in India and Germany.  I've met both, that friend in India just the once, but we talk online, in part related to me being an admin for Suzana's tea group on Facebook (Tea).  I've met Ralph a few times here in Bangkok, maybe 4?  We mostly hung out at Jip Eu, the Chinatown shop I visit most, but also visited a Thai temple at one point, and did a tasting session at my office building.

meeting Ralph and Jaba Borgohain (more on that in this post, and this one about a cool wild Thai tea) 

Using Zoom worked out.  I've only ever talked through video using Skype, Hangouts, Messenger, Wechat, Line, Whatsapp, and Microsoft Teams before (the last we use for work).  It's odd discussing an experiential theme like tea drinking through an online medium.  We actually did taste some teas, although due to the time difference I ended up drinking a few extra rounds of a Myanmar sheng I wrote review notes for earlier, versus doing the whole tasting, since I don't usually drink tea in the late afternoon. 

Both of them tried samples I'd passed on, both Thai teas from the same vendor (Tea Side); cool it worked out like that.  One was a small batch produced Thai shu and the other probably a wild-source Thai black tea.  Of course it does work to share tea experience through discussion, it's just not as shared an experience without syncing the teas being tasted.

that first meeting with Suzana and Ralph (on IG here)

It was just as interesting hearing about how the pandemic goes where they are, and their own personal experience of it.  I'd talked with three tea contacts in Italy a couple of weeks ago (by text) and it had been interesting looking ahead to roughly what a lot of other places are experiencing now.  It's just what you would expect though; experiencing social isolation, anxiety, and personal loss.

In Germany they're a bit strict about monitoring the social contact restriction guidelines, and people are fined for violations.  Apparently in India getting beaten by a police officer is a potential form of reprimand.  Interesting!  Here in Thailand anything goes (kind of like always), with lots of people walking around in my soi (side street) not wearing masks.  So far that's not going badly, because voluntary isolation and company closures seem to have leveled off the spread of disease.  Malls and restaurants are closed here, except for take-out; I mean police don't check who is walking around, and why.

It's a positive idea that maybe many of us might gain exposure to some unfamiliar ways of connecting through this, a potential bright side to an otherwise problematic time.

more photos (courtesy of Suzana) from a later meetup, with Huyen (who is mentioned a lot in my blog)

Huyen's brother Dung and sister-in-law are local Vietnamese tea experts, too long a back-story to cover here

this session ran long; lots of tastings and showing off teas and gear

it's crazy the range of tea and teaware Huyen and her family experience and use

Ralph showed a nice collection of pots as well

other visitors dropped by

even Kalani sat in

the next meeting version

Water testing, Alishan oolong using Volvic versus filtered local tap water

This is a follow-up to the prior water input testing, using Volvic and filtered tap water to brew both Rou Gui and sheng pu'er (a Lao Man E version, not the best choice, sorting out results past that bitterness).  In that testing Volvic brewed infusions were clearly better for both types in the first and second infusion, and not quite as positive as the filtered tap water versions in the 4th and 5th infusions.  I guessed about why in that post, but I'm really not certain.

It seemed better to try this using a mild tea version, something flavorful enough that results in that range would stand out, with feel and aftertaste aspects to evaluate, but with a generally mild tone making finer distinctions stand out better.  Alishan oolong should work better.  I had a couple of samples of what should be pretty good oolong left to try from Song Yi tea, the Taiwan based vendor source I'd reviewed a Brown Mountain (Bulang) sheng pu'er and Mannuo sheng from.

Those both were a lot better than I expected, and a good value for the quality level, so it seemed the two oolong samples they sent would probably be even more interesting, for actually being Taiwanese teas.  I just never got back to trying them.  Those reviews were in July and September of this year; it can work out like that, when lots of vendors send samples to try.

The earlier post on a water input testing outlines Volvic details, and as much as I know about the local municipal water.  I cited a lot of real-time testing (monitoring) results in that post, from over last weekend, but I'll skip that here.  Since it didn't list out mineral content as grams / liter amounts by type the half dozen factors they do monitor aren't really of as much interest.  Ph is always around 7 for that; it should be fine (although it is 7.25 right now at the station nearest to home).


I'm filtering this local water too, so whatever is in it is reduced, but I don't have measurements for anything but free chlorine and total chloride levels.  I'm more concerned with calcium, magnesium, and total dissolved solids measurements, which they don't provide.

the ph monitoring result just now

I did turn up a dated 2014 study of mineral content of water sources in Thailand, including Bangkok tap water, which may or may not pass on some idea of what was in that water:

There's really no guarantee that's at all relevant to what I'm using to make tea five years later, and again to repeat, whatever had been in that water was partly filtered back out.  The last water test review post included some real-time measurements (of free chlorine, chloride, and turbidity), just not including calcium, magnesium, and total dissolved solids values.

Background on the Song Yi Alishan oolong:

It would work to cite more input about the tea, even though I tend to see light Alishan as varying more by quality level than other factors, so basically it's something you judge for yourself once you try the tea:

Origin ：Tea-growing region with gravelly soil
            Camphor Tree Lake Stone Table, Alishan, Chiayi County

Altitude ：1,500 to 1,700m above sea level
Cultivar ：Qingxin (Green-Core) Oolong
Flavor ：Orchid aroma, Almond Peach scent
Fermentation ：30%
Roast ：Light


On their sales page 150 grams of this is selling for $45, so $15 per 50 gram amount.  In retrospect, after trying it, that sounds about right; the version quality is pretty good.  It would be a lot easier to find versions selling for in that range that weren't as good than it would be to find a better quality example selling at the same price, which would seem unlikely.

Versions can get better than this, emphasizing floral range just a little more, dropping back the limited vegetal range, bumping intensity or thickness a little, or that one characteristic mineral aspect, but this one seemed pretty far up the scale.  For sticking within a moderate price range this is good quality and type-typical, just what you'd hope it would be.

Review:

Volvic: flavor is nice; it includes that nice floral range that signifies Taiwanese high mountain oolongs. Mineral undertone is nice, pronounced.  This includes a little vegetal range that distinguishes the best light oolongs from quite good versions, or at least that's my take.


Filtered Bangkok tap water: not all that different. There might be a trace more vegetal range, slightly less high note floral, and a little more perfume base. For those minor differences it's about the same. Trying a faster infusion might help to tease out minor differences. Thick feel and pleasant aftertaste is common to both.

Volvic left, filtered tap water right

Second infusion:

There is a slight brewed color difference; the tap water version is slightly darker.

Volvic: slightly improved; floral range hits even harder, perfume like base is even stronger. Vegetal range is still notable, a touch of green wood. Feel is thick, and mineral and floral both trail after as aftertaste.


Tap water: maybe slightly less high end note, slightly deeper perfume base, more mineral tone. Those last two differences I'd expect related to brewing the tea slightly longer, just probably not the first. That one almost odd, characteristic mineral taste is stronger, not completely unlike new car smell, a unique mineral range. It's flinty, as much as anything.

Making a "better" judgement is tough; they're just different. The Volvic version is better for being slightly sweeter with a touch more floral high note. The tap water version has a lot more mineral base and perfume depth, a less bright floral range closer to lavender. Vegetal range shifts in form a little in each, slightly stronger and just different in the tap water version.

Third infusion

I think the tap water may be brewing stronger, based on color and also taste and feel aspects, but I'm not sure why. Proportion, temperature, and timing are definitely all identical, or at least very close to it, so it's not one of those.  The proportion is too high; I'm not as accustomed to judging rolled oolong amounts these days, and used the smaller version of tasting gaiwans, but didn't bump down the amount (probably a 60-70 ml version, versus the 80-90 ml versions I use more frequently).


Volvic: pleasant; sweet, rich, soft, intense but not overly so. Floral range is slightly different, but the difference is so subtle it is hard to pin down.  The point here isn't to derive a flavor-list as much as specify differences anyway.


Tap water: more intense; it pops a little more. A touch more vegetal edge goes along with that, and more mineral. It comes across as creamier. These are definitely different, but again which is better would be a judgment call. The higher intensity is nice but a touch more vegetal range comes with that.

Fourth infusion:

More of the same, and I won't trail this tasting out to 8 or 9 rounds to see the whole cycle. It's interesting that the prior pattern of tasting two other teas didn't hold, that the Volvic didn't seem clearly more positive early on, and then the tap water better after the 4th infusion.

I thought I probably did like the Volvic version slightly better on this fourth infusion, that being a little lighter and sweeter worked out better, versus there being a bit more vegetal and mineral range in the tap water version.  But the tap water version was fuller in feel, and on the fifth infusion I thought it was more positive for that reason, with flavor differences secondary to that distinction in that round.

Potential next steps:

Not much to conclude; the two outcomes were different, but neither was really notably better.  The Volvic version was a bit lighter and sweeter, the tap water outcome richer in feel, heavier in mineral, and in some cases it had slightly more flavor intensity.  More than that flavor aspects just shifted slightly, in ways that was about as neutral as related to being positive or negative.

I suppose it's some comfort that it seems to not make much difference.  Using Volvic, cited as some people's favorite in online discussion (which of course others disagree with) didn't prepare notably better tea than filtered local tap water.  Oddly it was a lot more positive for the first two rounds of brewing the Rou Gui in the last post.  And it was probably slightly more positive early in the infusio cycle for the Lao Man E sheng as well, but for both that bitterness hit so hard "better" was about sorting past that in those two infusions.  This oolong never really matched that outcome, or the tap water version becoming notably better in later infusions.

I think people could have expected one or the other to be better, and based on that expectation and a positive interpretation could have judged that either one of these outcomes was clearly better.  It seems natural to say "depends on preference" instead, but it's not as if flavor was better for one and feel better for the other, as if an aspect category worked out better using one of the water sources.  Although these seemed relatively different prepared side-by-side I think for tasting them days apart prepared using the two water versions it would be hard to separate out that difference.  The basic character and aspects profile was the same.

I could keep going, trying other versions of water.  This didn't cover RO (reverse osmosis) water, a version stripped of almost all mineral content.  There are other types of water at home (my wife is into mineral water these days, for whatever reasons), and I could run this again prepared using a number of different versions.  It would be interesting checking out results using a water type that's very high in mineral content, with this Volvic seemingly on the moderate end of the scale, especially related to calcium and magnesium levels.  I'm not sure that I'll keep on with this for now though; it adds a good bit of messing around to tasting, and I have teas around to try that deserve more attention than this tasting format allows for.

Alishan oolong review; related tea discussion

It's been so long since I've had a rolled lighter oolong--hardly any in the last couple of months--that now it's like a change of pace.  This is a sample that May Zest tea sent along with teas that I ordered.  They're a bit different as tea sources go, a higher volume sales oriented vendor in Taiwan, a great place to get a half a kilo of a couple kinds of nice tea, or maybe even more.

The dry scent of the tea is nice, sweet and fresh, with butter and corn scent, maybe more towards popcorn than fresh corn, but sweeter.  The taste is similar, nice, sweet and buttery, with more of a fresh sweet corn flavor.  More floral range is also typical for this type of tea but I've ran across that sweet corn aspect in other lighter oolongs.  More of a mineral element would also be normal, which does become more pronounced on the next infusion.


Over the next infusions the mineral keeps picking up, along with floral elements, and the sweet corn aspect fades.  The flavors aspects are nice and clean, bright, even, with a reasonably full feel and lingering aftertaste.  The general effect is also nice; it all comes together.



There is potential for the tea to have a slightly fuller feel, or even longer aftertaste, the types of aspects that separate exceptionally high quality teas from good teas, but this version is good.  The touch of butteriness is a nice compliment to the other components, bringing it to a good balance.

The tea keeps going in that range, aspects shifting just a little, but brewing a lot of infusions without flavors going off in any way.  A mineral aspect stays pronounced; typical, and positive.  The effect of freshness stands out in the experience; the tea is really bright for having that degree of richness and depth.  To me this is a nice, basic lightly oxidized oolong, a bit better than we tend to experience from teas made in Thailand but probably in the normal range for tea from Taiwan.

Ideas from discussing tea online

With a tea like this it's normal to think of aspects that place it on a scale of quality level, or maybe that's always normal.  Someone commented on a recent post about Bai Hao / OB that they'd tried an exceptional version made by a Taiwanese tea master.  That's a real thing; the quality level and types keep going.  But the "my tea is better than your tea" theme can get old fast, along with input that "you are making it wrong," regardless of the suggestion.  Then again good input about better teas and better brewing can be helpful and interesting, sort of relating to how it is offered, just in that case the implication seemed to be that person had tried much better tea.

Related to concern over quality and levels of teas, turning tasting a tea into a competition could potentially drain the experience of what drinking tea is all about, appreciation and enjoyment.  This was a really nice tea, with no flaws, in one sense, just room for existing aspects to be different.

Someone visited the North of Thailand and mentioned seeing tea labeled for sale as Taiwanese tea, in an outlet for direct sales from Thai plantations, selling Thai tea.  Make sense?  It would have been "fake" Taiwanese oolong, except they were pretty open about the local origin and the mis-labeling.  This tea I reviewed is surely really from Taiwan, but how could one know?  In tasting it I was reminded of some grade-related issues that "reading" the leaves may have cleared up, about when it was harvested (leaves were a bit large), and which leaf / plant type it was, although I'm confident it was Chin-Shin from Taiwan, as it was described.  Not much more to add about all that; not every vendor tells it like it is, and errors (false marketing) could creep in from "upstream" sourcing.

I don't lose sleep over all that.  If I had bought a great Wuyishan tea that was really from outside the park reserve area instead it wouldn't matter so much, although per my understanding they really do control use of chemicals in that area, so that may not make for the best example.  As you continue to get better teas from better sources those sort of trust issues dissipate, to some degree, but never completely end.  Back to the scope of Chinese oolongs, I'd trust Cindy Chen with my kids (my favorite tea maker), so if she says a tea is something it probably is, but then again my own confidence doesn't exactly change the facts of the matter.

A different tangent:  another recent tea group discussion comment about Oriental Beauty / Bai Hao style teas being produced in places other than Taiwan expressed that regions should stick to their own processing styles, and not borrow region-specific versions from other places.  That seems crazy to me.  Taiwan wouldn't be making black tea based on that premise, and probably not oolong, if you trace the history back far enough.  I think the comment might have been a gut reaction to that idea not matching something from a training class, something they'd not really thought through.  Making "fake" Taiwanese OB somewhere else and selling teas as something it's not is something else entirely.  Of course that shouldn't happen, even if they do a good job of matching aspects, or even if a really good counterfeit could potentially be just as good as what the tea is supposed to be.

Maybe I'll get a chance to try that tea from that one "tea master" someday, and I hope I get around to trying a Japanese version of Oriental Beauty as well.