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2023 left; higher compression makes it harder to separate |
I've bought more of a Vietnamese sheng that my friend Huyen gave me (an earlier review, and the producer FB contact), which turned out to be a favorite version, from the Quang Tom producer. Let's start with what it is, Huyen's description:
This tea cake is from Hoàng Thu Phố, Bắc Hà, Lào Cai province. It was made in 2023. Mostly old tea trees belongs to the H’mong people.
Seth, who was with her and also gave it to me, filled in even more background:
The area Hoang Thu Pho is in Lao Cai province on the east side of the Red River, which flows into Vietnam from Yunnan. It's in a mountain range called Tay Con Linh that peaks further eastward in Ha Giang (province). Son La is in a different mountain range called Hoang Lien Son with slightly higher elevation on the west side of the Red River, and also sits on the Black River, which also flows in from Yunnan. Both tea areas are owned by members of Hmong people groups.
The tea maker for the Hoang Thu Pho cake is a younger guy named Phuc who has been making tea for about six years. He is not Hmong, but he buys tea material from Hmong tea areas and wants to focus on making high quality teas.
I brewed and drank that cake; it was my favorite during that last 3 month stay in Honolulu. I thought I really loved that 2023 version, but after trying the 2024 cake alongside it I guess I have a new favorite tea again.
A lot of this is about why it is atypical in style, trying to break down how others might relate to it, and why they may not love it as much as I do. As for a contact I'll add reference to their Facebook page and website:
Review:
2023 #1: This early round is muted and light, but it will really kick in. Warm tones define the experience as rich, floral, and fruity.
One heavy flavor range is unique, positive to me, but not necessarily objectively positive, something everyone would like. Described positively this includes the warm, sweet richness of other tea types, leaning a little towards how a more oxidized Dan Cong might come across, with subtle and integrated roast input lending that depth. Described more negatively, potentially in light of not fulfilling other sheng pu'er aspect / character expectations, it could be regarded as yeasty, overly heavy, lacking the brightness, astringency edge, bitterness, and lighter floral range that makes a lot of sheng distinctive. I see it as balancing well as it is, just not in the conventional sheng profile form.
2024: quite different; I love this already. The other expresses heavy floral tones, bordering on rich dried fruit, along the line of dried mango or apricot, but this expresses different heavy floral and fruit range. It's syrupy in texture, and there's a thickness, warmth, and heaviness to the flavor tones as well. There's a trace of dry mineral edge to this version, which could either dissipate as an early round tone, or develop and probably shift to a slightly different flavor and feel range.
That heavy, rich floral tone is indescribable. It's like walking into a flower shop where a lot of the product range is on the heavier side, orchids, roses, and lavender, and then being able to taste that heavy mixed scent as an intense version of a brewed beverage. Could it be too much? I suppose. But then sheng pushing into extremes across a lot of range of intensity is part of the appeal. It's usually just not this exact range; more typically tones would be brighter, light floral, including stronger mineral, some bitterness, and perhaps a bit of medicinal or herbal quality. This is straight rich floral tones with a base of limited dried fruit, which will probably continue to be heavier in the other.
As so often happens I don't have the full hour plus to spare on this review so I'll keep brewing these a bit strong to push the transition process along. These would be fine brewed lighter, taking 3 rounds to really get going instead of 2, then experienced lighter after that, but it's fine to rush them too.
To me that's another strength of this tea too, that you can drink as very positive in character made in different ways. For some sheng you need to drink it light to brew around high intensity, bitterness, and astringency, and I've tried other wild origin versions where you need to push them just to get normal intensity range out of it. Neither limitation applies to these; they will work well both ways.
2023 #2: feel structure isn't exactly what I remember, even though I last drank this tea in the last few days. It's different when brewed heavier, at a higher infusion strength. An astringency structure edge like that of black tea enters in, just a very mild form of it. As a result the sweetness level seemed to drop way back. I suppose brewing this for 10 to 15 seconds instead of 20 to 30 will bring it right back.
Feel is very rich. There's a structure to it too, and stronger mineral than you get brewing it lighter, with floral tones and dried fruit less pronounced in the balance. If this follows the pattern I'm remembering dried fruit comes out much heavier in later rounds, another reason I want to rush this to get through some transition.
I still like this tea brewed in this way but the appeal isn't optimized, per my preference. It's interesting the way feel structure and aftertaste ramp up so much. Made this way this tea could stand up to a lot of food adjoining it, even rich and heavy versions, or breakfast foods with different aspect sets, the intensity and sourness of a strawberry cobbler, or sweetness and heaviness of a raisin pastry. To drink this alone brewing it lighter would be better, for me.
2024: to me this is just magical. I love the other version, but this is richer, deeper, more complex, more floral, with more dried fruit base. All that from a tea with less time to transition to include more depth, as occurs in the first year or two, if teas are stored in hot and humid conditions.
To me this fruit includes a citrus tone, leaning towards bergamot. In other tea types you typically don't experience that paired with heavy floral range, and warm tones; together it's really something. It can come up in Darjeeling, or more as dried citrus peel in other types, often pronounced in Oriental Beauty / Dong Fang Mei Ren versions, often adjoining cinnamon spice, but the context and other flavors typically don't match this range. The sweetness resembles honey as well, not a warm, rich version of it but a lighter type, I suppose one the bees made from orange blossoms.
Returning to one running thread, what is not to love about this experience? It's not conventional sheng; there is that. Bitterness is present but at a very low level; astringency structure gives it a base but that's light, and not in the same form. It includes some mineral range but that would be easy to miss, instead of a dominant aspect balancing evenly with bitterness, astringency, sweetness, and light floral tones.
I'll be able to taste a third round without a break but then six small cups of this will be too much to keep going. Water input for a palate break alone would work, or some food. One Krispy Kreme glazed donut is holding down the function of coating my stomach to protect it; it's a lot to ask of just one.
2023 #3: this seems a little flatter than I remember. I think the comparison with a younger version is not helping, that the brighter, fresher, more intense floral range is dropping back.
I suspect that there is an odd twist occurring with an uneven compression in this cake version too. In the middle of the pressed disk it's frustrating how much more dense it is, hard to tease apart, or actually impossible in relation to how the 2024 version is much, much looser, so that you don't really even need a pu'er knife to access whole twisted leaves. But I think that part has age-transitioned much slower, preserved by the lack of air contact, resulting in an odd slow-rate transition form. That compression related transition restriction seems to draw out dried fruit tones. Or maybe I just imagine all this, and I've actually walked off the map.
Without the other being so much more intense, in terms of floral and fruit range, and sweetness, with a more pronounced citrus input, this would seem to express all of that, to an extent. Fruit is more subdued, and it seems closer to dried peach or apricot than that other lighter tone. Floral range is pronounced, but it's more of a subtle and broad layer. Then warm tones integrate differently. It doesn't seem right saying that it seems muted, because it's not that, but it is dialed down a little in relation to the other.
Again, as with the other, bitterness and astringency edge being so moderate wouldn't suit everyone. It's not standard sheng character.
2024: fruit and floral range just pops, in a pleasant warm and rich context. Feel seems almost liqueur-like. It's sort of like that effect from eating a chocolate covered cherry, a theme that might have been more familiar 30 years ago, at Christmas time. In some teas a related effect I describe as being like cognac or brandy, but this lacks the intensity of that volatile component from the alcohol. In a different, lighter form some teas seem perfume-like, and it's closer to that, but the base context also isn't a match for that lighter volatile base in perfume. Citrusy range is serving the same role, closer to a bergamot input.
I could relate to others seeing this as not balanced, missing the pronounced bitterness, astringency, and mineral layers in most sheng. This is sheng for an oolong drinker, I guess. I don't see myself as unable to appreciate moderately challenging sheng, and even feel like having the harsher tasting experience of a 10 or 12 year old Xiaguan tuocha once in awhile, or the corresponding Dayi Jia Ji tuo aspect set, well prior to when drinking either makes the most sense. But I don't need that kind of edge or structure--a lighter version of it--to balance a tea for me to enjoy it.
I just read another tea friend describing Shui Xian, the Wuyishan / Wuyi Yancha version, not the Dan Cong plant input range, as tying to gan, the bitterness returning as sweetness effect, from "hui gan," more or less "returning sweetness." It's an effect that happens after you swallow the tea. That's not how I ever interpret that experience, from good, bad, or medium quality Shui Xian, but I can kind of get where he was going.
Part of the complexity--in Shui Xian Wuyi Yancha, I'm still on that--relates to astringency range, and another part ties to complex flavor input, which varies a lot in different versions. Bitterness isn't so typical, as with sheng, but a significant edge that takes different forms is. He compared that to black tea experience, as being different but somehow vaguely related. I get it; I agree, it's just down to parsing out partial similarities. That's sort of what I'm describing as missing here, that edge.
I don't miss the astringency, bitterness, and mineral layers though, filled in here by warmth, sweetness, rich but smoother feel, and other flavor depth. This tea would be amazing with some of that range dialed up, but to me it's already really good in a different way.
2023 #4: even better brewed lightly, for no more than 10 seconds. Floral tone is much stronger. I'd see sweetness as very pronounced, although direct comparison with a slightly sweeter tea offsets that judgment. Warm, rich dried fruit tones are just starting to pick up, to me closest to dried apricot range at this point.
2024: it's interesting how this version comes across so differently for including a good bit of citrus tone. It lightens everything, and a slightly sweeter flavor range shifts context. Fullness of feel and flavor depth play some of the same role that much heavier different inputs do in more conventional sheng.
Is this yeasty, or too heavy? Does it drift into odd mineral range, or bread-like flavors? I suppose, if someone is included to see it that way. It tastes a bit like a butter croissant, or really more like a cinnamon raisin roll, not the cinnamon or raisin part so directly, but that pastry base.
There is a touch of vegetal edge too, maybe just now entering in. It's hard to identify for mixing with other range; maybe like green wood.
2023 #5: note that I've not mentioned cha qi / body feel effect yet; what is that like? Don't know. It seems likely to me that some people are more sensitive to such things, or less so, and that vendors emphasize and even exaggerate such claims because it works as extra easily accessible, hard to critique marketing spin.
You don't get that? That's your own limitation. It also makes a difference if someone doesn't eat food right before trying a tea, and drinks through a lot of rounds of one single type. I'm not in it for the buzz anyway. I did my time as a drug user, and I'm happy to not live that out. Maybe I run long distances in heat at high heart rate to experience something related, but I don't see it that way. I drank some water and ate a second glazed donut between the last two rounds; it will be all the harder to notice feel shifts as a result, which is fine. I'd rather protect my stomach than appreciate my head spinning a little.
Brewed light (again) richness and floral tones extend, with dried fruit gradually increasing in proportion. This tea doesn't need to be pushed, and it's better when you don't go there. Limited feel structure, richness, and warm toned flavor depth (extra complexity) has to fill in the role that harsher aspects do in most sheng, and most other teas in general. People who rushed through tea exploration from black teas onto sheng, barely pausing to cover oolong range, might not "get it."
For white tea drinkers this may be all the more amazing; it's more intense, and in a related experience range. This is what a shou mei would age to be like in a better than ideal case. It just never gets there.
2024: the balance of what I keep describing shifts again. Rich and warm floral tone stands out, general sweetness, and a bright citrus edge. Some warm mineral grounds that, and a distinct secondary aspect is just now entering in, like tea berry, between berry range and mint.
That could be interpreted in all sorts of ways. What I've described as a touch of yeasty, bread-like, pastry aspect has shifted some too. It's a bit like that warm, odd, distinctive edge in apple cider now, the flavor tone you don't need to actually drink the cider to experience, already present in the smell. It's just so light that you do need to drink the tea to even notice it in this.
Conclusions
I'd better let this go for now. Aspects will shift a little more, some of which will be positive, before these fade. It's looking like that dried fruit flavor depth will pick up a bit more in the first (2023 version), and the second will gain unusual complexity, at least one more subtle shift that I don't see coming.
Because these are so mild the edgier feel and flavor that tends to enter in across later rounds for sheng, often expressed as ramped-up bitterness, mineral, or even wood tone, will probably balance reasonably well. Then sweetness and heavy floral range fading will be less positive, so in the end the teas might just be different, not so much better or worse. At a guess the first might seem to cover it's best range, since per past experience the fruit really seems to come out, but the second losing that heavy initial floral punch probably represents the best of it's range already transitioning out.
It was interesting using the theme of considering which aspects I love could be seen as negative by others. For me these are two personal favorites, teas that I absolutely love. For anyone matching up with my own preferences directly these would be fantastic. I would imagine that includes people who love oolongs as much as any other types, and then also rich flavored white teas and mild and flavorful black teas, like Dian Hong. For sheng pu'er drinkers I guess it would just depend.
