Bangkok Chinatown shop Tie Guan Yin and Jin Jun Mei

I'm reviewing two more tea samples from my favorite Chinatown tea shop, Jip Eu.  I was there to buy some other teas and they gave me them (many thanks).  

It turned out they're low-medium oxidation level / high roast level Tie Guan Yin (Chinese Fujian rolled oolong) and Jin Jun Mei, buds based black tea from the Wuyishan area, as opposed to the TGY being from Anxi.  I don't know the full producer details and back-story, so those are the primary origin areas, not a solid claim about the origin of these, but they're probably from those places.  That shop owner has family in those two parts of Fujian, so of course they would be from there.

These are kind of standard tea types.  That oxidation and roast combination for the oolong isn't the most standard form, but it comes up.  Jin Jun Mei is a well known black tea type, just a higher tier sort of theme tea, the opposite of a daily drinker.

This is their Facebook page, one potential contact for them (with their location here).  They have a Shopee outlet page (online sales platform), but it probably doesn't work to cite a link because the web page link details won't apply, but it's here):

I've bought some of that before.  I think the hexagonal tin three over from the bottom right is what I just bought, which I think was Da Yu We Dan Cong oolong, to give to a few monks.  Here's a somewhat recent Da Yu We Dan Cong review, if that background is of interest.

One might expect there to be a good bit of generality related to how pre-packaged tin based teas turn out, related to quality level.  It doesn't work that way.  It's just a packaging and distribution form; the teas can vary a lot, and do.  

In Western outlets we're accustomed to teas being presented in a certain way, then packaged and sold in certain ways (in multi-layer zip sealed bags, with printed labeling), but that kind of form doesn't really improve or detract from tea quality.  We're also accustomed to typical story telling.  Those stories definitely don't make the tea any better, and often if you know tea background well parts tend to be self-contradictory.  Some descriptions work as red flags:  tea master, 1000 year old tea tree, forest origin, etc.  A tea could still be really good even if many of the details a vendor passes on are wrong, if the plant type doesn't match, plant age story, the "master" part makes no sense, they describe oxidation level wrong, and so on.  It's better to go by how the teas are, but you need to try them to know that.

It's nice when Chinatown shops let you try tea after tea, so you know exactly what you are buying, but they don't at Jip Eu.  All of those teas in that image are sold as pre-packaged tins, and they wouldn't have very many of those open to taste from.  They're more of a local wholesale outlet for different grades of Wuyi Yancha, Fujian oolongs like Da Hong Pao, Rou Gui, and Shui Xian.  And then there are lots of versions of teas there no one would know about if they only visited a few times, and after visiting regularly for more than a half a dozen years I still usually try something I've never heard of there.

Shops set up like tourist attractions, where you can taste a lot of things, like Sen Xing Fa, tend to sell teas at higher mark-ups, so you get charged fairly directly for that tasting process.  Sometimes that's in your favor, since you only buy teas you like, but if you pay 25% more for teas that aren't quite as good then that's not favorable.  

It takes a long, long time to be able to judge trueness to type and quality level quickly and accurately.  I drank some of a sheng pu'er with them at that shop that day, an 8281 CNNP yellow label 2007 sheng pu'er, from Mengku, and reviewed a sample at home a week or so later, and my impression was not the same.  How could that be, since I've been drinking mostly sheng for 8 years or so?

Lots of factors enter in.  I was on a fast that day; what you've eaten or haven't eaten changes your sense of taste.  If you are in a hurry that makes your impression less clear.  In a shop they may brew tea slightly differently than you do, which changes things.  Using different water makes a difference.  

Some teas that come straight out of a warehouse storage area will be much better after they rest a few weeks, and air out a little.  Now that I think of it vendors always frame that as the teas needing rest from the trip when shipped, as if temperature and humidity variations affect them during travel, but especially for sheng pu'er it could be that being packed in with tons of other teas is good in one sense and temporarily negative in another; a musty edge picked up from that can fade fast.  The jet-lag theme for teas is usually about intensity being limited at first, for a couple of weeks, or longer.

If you try a half dozen teas at one time that can muddle your impression, especially if you keep mixing stronger and lighter types and versions.  If you can side-by-side taste a tea along with a benchmark version you know, at your home, taking time to settle down and focus in, you'll get a much clearer impression.  

Most of those tins are between $10 and $30, usually for 200 gram amounts, but in some cases for 100, which is on the low end of a normal range, 5 to 30 cents a gram.  Better quality oolong I've bought there was $30 (1000 baht) for 100 grams, at 30 cents a gram, which again is about right, for high demand, high quality Wuyi Yancha.  I've had good luck with Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong there in the past, I just wanted those monks to be able to try something else, so I didn't buy them that.

I'm pretty sure that I own a part of a cake of the 8001 CNNP tea shown in that photo, a 2006 version.  I'd go with the 8281 over that, because that 8001 is on the intense / heavy / burly side, unless someone loves that kind of character.  Or this 8653 Xiaguan cake (from 2006).  That's going to sound strange, to people who know these teas, because that 8653 has a strong barnyard sort of theme, with lots of saddle leather and old barn scent, but to me it works.  Much better than it did in 2022, 4 years ago, when I first reviewed it; that style range of tea can really use the full 20 years or more to age-transition (ferment).

On with this review then.

Review:

TGY:  this isn't really opened yet; the next round will work better for a description.  It's clearly quite roasted, which is a good sign if that balances well with a medium-high level of oxidation (not like black tea; I mean for oolong range), and a bad sign if it's used to cover up flaws, or to re-condition a stale tea version.  We'll see.

JJM:  this is pretty good.  There are a few different styles of Jin Jun Mei, or the range covers some scope, however one wants to frame that.  One style is bright, heavy on honey.  Another is warmer toned, a little closer to a conventional black tea, maybe including more dried fruit range, and slight earthiness or spice.  This is the second.  It does include some honey, and a touch of beeswax, along with a characteristic light dry edge that seems to pair with that beeswax.  Then the rest of the tone is warmer and deeper.  It's closer to rich spice, but hard to place.  There are bark spices out there that aren't cinnamon; maybe that.

Sweetness is good, it balances well, and feel is relatively full, even though this is just getting started.  It's good tea.  I'll need to keep brewing this quickly, at less than 10 seconds, even though this is probably 5 grams in a 100 ml gaiwan, a little less than I usually use.  The other will need to infuse for much longer to get it to open, more than 20 seconds, then probably backed off to 15 or so once it's brewing normally.

TGY #2:  this is much more complex, even though it's still not fully opened.  It's going to be nice.  It includes a bit of cinnamon, so it's not so far off the other in flavor range.  Rich floral tones are a little stronger, quite warm related to the roast effect pulling the whole flavor range to warm mineral.  I'd guess oxidation level wasn't all that high, since bright floral is still present too.  It's probably mineral tone that's warmer, and the two mix, making it seem like warm floral tone, when it's really not.  Sometimes teas like this can seem really out of balance, when there's a lot going on that doesn't completely match, but this is good, just not great.  

A friend shared a decent but moderately plain roasted oolong from Taiwan, that he bought in the airport there on the way back, and this is similar in style but slightly better.  It's not completely balanced, because inky mineral, some warm spice, and some lighter floral range are all mixing, and they don't sync together perfectly.  But it's pretty decent tea.  Maybe on the higher end Taiwanese scale not that good, but that's already filtering versions down a lot for a comparison range.  As teas go you would find in a Chinatown shop, anywhere, this is good.  It would've been nice if just a little more oxidation input had made it balance better.

JJM:  this is on another level, compared to the other.  A bit of sourness, that is picking up, offsets that high quality, very pleasant assessment, but it's still in a different range, just better.  Warm tones add a lot of complexity.  The honey and beeswax, now a lot more subdued, lend it complexity, as spice tones do.  The sourness is a bit much this round, related to it coming across completely positively, but people would have different tolerances for that, or preference range that makes it seem a neutral input, or else awful instead.  Apparently I'm in between; it's worse for including that, but it's not something that ruins the experience.  It would be nice if that evolves back out.

TGY #3:  this might just be where this is settling.  The balance of all of those inputs last round have shifted, but they're all still the same, beyond that.  A cinnamon note is nice; it kind of links the rest.  Warm mineral tones serve as a base, and decent sweetness.  It seems like the floral tone range probably is warming a bit.  Feel has some fullness, which is pleasant, but that's limited; an even higher quality range would probably feel thicker and fuller.  Same for aftertaste expression; it improves the tea including it, but it could be a little stronger.  All in all this is pretty good tea though, with a balanced, pleasant character.  Not perfectly balanced; in between a relative ideal and a tea that's a little off for lacking balance, again good but not great.

If someone loved this high roast, medium-low oxidation style, adjusting TGY character, they would probably assess this more positively.  I'd love a little more oxidation and a little less roast input more, and probably some variation of the Taiwanese Qing Xin cultivar instead.  It's pretty good for what it is though.  A pronounced ink sort of mineral note someone might love, or else dislike.  I don't see it as more positive than neutral, maybe even as a slight negative.

JJM #3:  this is balancing much better; that sourness is fading fast.  Tones have warmed; it includes lots of rich spice and now comes across more as warm mineral.  Brighter honey more or less dropped out.  This probably won't last long, before it's brewing much thinner infusions.  A lot of flavor has extracted out already.  The other took the first two infusions just to open up, and it's only brewing most of the material now, which was true of this much finer black leaf form within seconds.

TGY #4:  for people who haven't explored these ranges of tea a different theme would enter in that I'm not experiencing:  novelty.  I've not tried that many versions of teas in these styles and types, but maybe a half dozen quite roasted, medium-light oxidized TGY, and at least a half dozen JJM versions (not a half dozen in this narrower style range within that type; it's not like that).  It's really nice trying new tea range, but I have to be experiencing something unusually unique to include that.  

Then your favorites it's fine to repeat, over and over.  I could drink decent but ordinary Dian Hong (Yunnan black tea) half of the time, forever, and I tend to like sheng pu'er a little more than that, I just wouldn't tolerate repetition as well for any one version of that.  I suppose that I could drink just one of those relatively basic Vietnamese sheng versions I've been trying two days a week, all year.  These two teas I'm reviewing are nice but not my personal favorite types.

This round improves just marginally; it all hangs together in slightly better balance.  It probably will hold up that way for a few more rounds.  It has to be decent quality to do that (which is early to call, since this is still only a couple of rounds into being fully wetted).  

JJM #4:  this is as good as it's been as well; I suppose it could make a couple of more very positive infusions, and stretch on beyond that.  Warm tones stand out, but there's a lot going on.  The same flavor list applies, but that would be open to different interpretations.  A toffee note seems to be picking up, replacing the earlier honey, settling in where spice and limited mineral covered before.  The spice leans a little towards cacao now; that would make for a more reasonable interpretation, at this stage.  Warm mineral supports and balances that, so that it doesn't just taste like a candy bar.  You wouldn't associate it with sourness in this balance, but I suppose a very light part of it still is that.  

This is a pretty good place to leave off note taking.  These will change a little more over the next two rounds, and they're in a solid part of the infusion sequence now, very positive.  But 8 cups usually feels like a good bit at one time, and the intensity of that Jin Jun Mei has me really feeling these.  It's trivia that most people know, but buds only teas contain the highest amount of caffeine, and processing (the oxidation) barely offsets that any, so this black tea version may well contain 1 1/2 times as much as the older leaf oolong I'm comparing it to.  

At a guess sheng pu'er probably kicks in related to feel related to other compounds also contributing to the experience.  Or maybe it's just magic, "cha qi," the spirit of the earth carried by deep roots from tea trees.  Probably that takes on the form of specific compounds, but that's not as cool a story.

I'd recommend these to others to try.  Jin Jun Mei is an interesting and novel black tea type.  Unsmoked Lapsang Souchong can also be really nice.  I really like rolled oolongs made to balance more oxidation and less roast input, as I've mentioned, but that more traditional style is more rare now.  It might come up more in Taiwanese versions, than for Anxi origin Tie Guan Yin.  Inky mineral and light floral can be ok, evolving into richer spice tones, as this did, but the balance works better for the other style I'm describing, as I see it.

Chinese Tea Time Oriental Beauty / Dong Fang Mei Ren

 

I'm reviewing a third tea sent by Chinese Tea Time for review (many thanks to them), this time a version of Oriental Beauty / Dong Fang Mei Ren.  

It's from China, so not conventional in background right away, since that's a Taiwanese origin oolong type.  Typically it's relatively oxidized in style, more so than most oolong range, twisted in dry leaf form, but in a looser, more curled form than Wuyi Yancha, Dan Cong, or sheng pu'er maocha.  Typical flavor profile includes citrus, bergamot or orange, warm tones, cinnamon, or dried fruit.  Even the leaf appearance of this version doesn't match the standard look, the twisted leaf preparation, so this may be a little off a standard form range.

a Thai Oriental Beauty version that I reviewed last year

This version, one produced in Thailand, shows that typical appearance.  Not only is the leaf twisted in a more open, coiled style color variation often includes dark brown and light tan colored leaves, sometimes with lighter bud content, as this includes.

I can't find a good product description of the Chinese Tea Time version I'm reviewing.  Here is a very general one on their Instagram page:

Dongfang Meiren or Oriental beauty tea is a semi-fermented tea with a mellow taste, easy to drink, and a beautiful bright yellow color. It is suitable for those who love to eat meat. It is rich in many benefits, such as...

Who knows about that kind of thing, attributed health benefits; you can click the link to check if you want.  Their Shopee sales page had included more details for the green teas that I reviewed, but it seems to be out of stock now, so there is no listing to reference.  After talking with the main business owner and contact it's unavailable, at least through that Shopee outlet, and they would only sell directly from China just now.  That earlier Instagram page probably works as a contact link, as well as any other.

To be clear their specialty is probably green tea.  Those earlier two versions were fantastic.  In discussing this with the business owner more input on that background came up:

I think the tea looks different because it wasn't made from a Taiwanese version of a tea plant, but from the plant used to make Xinyang Maojian instead.

Xinyang Maojian from Shangcheng (local area) has a unique smell and taste, which varies by origin location.  Shangcheng tea is unique and positive in taste because natural mineral water is used to grow the tea, and the air is clean (very little pollution).  Shangcheng is near the high mountain (Dabie Shan), and the highest point in those mountains.

I like the taste and smell of the tea from Shangcheng better than from the rest of the Xingang Maojian from other places.

Some of the tea we sell is made by Mr. Sun Wen Shan, a well-known tea master, whom I can say has golden hands.  He loves to make many kinds of tea, not only green tea, but white, oolong, yellow, and black tea.  He has always received awards in events he has participated in the event, this year receiving a gold medal in a local contest.  

Growing location is also a factor, a main input.  I sometimes like other green teas even more than his when they are produced from high mountain tea material sources, because these can include even more floral aspects.

All that is clear enough.  It's interesting to note that tea types can be made from plant types, cultivars, or else plant versions with naturally varying genetics, that have different names than the final tea types, or there might not be distinct plant names.  Either way this OB isn't made from a Taiwanese oolong plant, instead one more often used to produce green tea.

Maybe oxidation level is lower, as I've more or less guessed in this review, or maybe a lot of the difference is from plant type input and and minor variations in processing.  It sort of doesn't matter, how the causes sort out; the end effect is what it is.  The tea is good, just not a close match for conventional Taiwanese Oriental Beauty style.

Review:

Infusion #1:  this is different, not in the normal style range for the type.  Oriental Beauty is almost always about 80% oxidized, or at least that's how it tends to be presented.  Accurately identifying that as a percentage level might not work.  This is much greener, or at least it looks to be so, and flavor character suggests that.  It may work really well, it's just odd trying it in a different form.  

Flavor character is interesting.  There is a greenish / vegetal edge, and then other warm and complex range.  It's a little closer to how some Dan Cong comes across, just not exactly a match for that either.  I'm looking for conventional OB range, citrus, or bergamot, with cinnamon or other spice, and warm and sweet tones in general.  It's sort of like that, but I'd not describe it as such without seeking that out, being biased to find it.  It might be as floral as any of that.

#2:  I brewed this light; often that helps with identifying flavor aspects.  I'll try it brewed stronger next round to see how that changes things.  It's more complex than it had been, including an interesting flavor set.  Some warmer tones pick up, but it's still in a relatively medium range for warmth versus lighter floral or vegetal character.  Sweetness seems to resemble honey, and there is some citrus range, just not as pronounced as OB often includes.  From there it seems more floral to me, not really also including spice as much as that.

Judged in relation to quality this is clearly quite good.  Fullness is pleasant, general character is refined, and complexity is good.  As a match to standard OB style it doesn't work as well.  Someone really into that tea type might absolutely love this, or could be disappointed.  It would depend on the other range that they also like, and how they take this character not being the other way, more oxidized, warmer in tone, including citrus, sometimes dried fruit, even more sweetness, and some spice range, towards cinnamon.

People often want to guess if a leaf material input was really bug bitten, and for this it's more a question of what set of inputs is different.  Is it tea plant type, harvest period, terroir or processing related, or the bug-bitten part?  The oxidation level seems lower than is most typical, so that's a likely part of it.

  

[Later edit]:  per input from the vendor this oxidation level isn't really below medium range for oolongs, and the leaves look darker in the final wet version than I would expect.  But flavors match more lightly oxidized teas, and the brewed color is fairly light, dark golden yellow instead of on towards redder.

second infusion of that Thai OB; I'm using "redder" here loosely

As a separate aside, it's also possible that there had been some original range of "Oriental Beauty" style that is broader than we are now familiar with, that this type evolved later to become closer to black tea than it had been earlier on.  We now just assume that what is fairly consistent from Taiwan is how that tea type had originally been, but it's normal for preference for oolong types and how they are made to shift over time, even time periods as short as a decade.  Wuyi Yancha were more oxidized in a more traditional style, I've heard, and it's even clearer in relation to Anxi (Fujian) Tie Guan Yin, which have evolved to be hardly oxidized at all, often with little or no roast input in processing.  It's commonly mentioned that a more traditional TGY form was nothing like that in the past.

More likely this is a modern interpretation, based on the current OB form, but adjusted from that, more different in relation to a number of inputs varying than just one.

#3:  I'm not describing the vegetal input clearly for this.  It tastes like flower plant stem, that characteristic odd astringency, touch of bitterness, and light edge.  From there fullness of feel, clean flavors, and complexity identify this as good quality tea, but again the style is unusual.  Not just for Oriental Beauty, really; it's in an atypical range in general.  

I had said that this seems to share some common ground with Dan Cong, related to it being lighter (less oxidized), floral, complex, and refined, but it's not a close match.  That vegetal input isn't so familiar from any other tea type that comes to mind.  Any vegetal range overlaps most with green tea as a broad category type.

Feel is a little unusual too, more noticeable when brewed stronger.  It has an unusual form of the astringency.  I guess that matches what one might expect tying to the vegetal flavor, what might result from biting a flower plant stem, a mild puckering effect, versus other conventional fullness or roughness.  That part isn't necessarily positive, but not so negative either.  It just makes for an odd experience for so many parts being unconventional.  It's as if this is more connected to a tea type that I'm not familiar with, instead of being an example of Taiwanese-style Oriental Beauty.

#4:  citrus picks up; that's positive.  Warmth increases too, with the honey-like tone standing out more.  This is more like conventional OB than it had been.  If the plant-stem input was swapped out for something richer and deeper, like cinnamon or raisin, this would be a perfect match.  As it is these aspects work well enough together; it's pleasant.  

It's quite refined, a vague term I use to mean that it's clean, complex, and balanced in a way that's hard to describe.  Since this isn't transitioning so much I'll probably just do one more round of notes and let that go, even though this might only be half finished.

mixed oxidation level, per this color range

#5:  more of the same.  Depth may pick up just a little; this is evolving positively, even if it's not changing much.  That's a good sign for the quality level.

  

Later rounds, which I tried later and didn't take notes for, tasted distinctly like pine needle.  So much so that I wondered if I hadn't missed an obvious flavor interpretation, or if instead it had evolved to change, shifting from a different vegetal tone to that.

Conclusions:

Someone's experience of this tea would depend on how they relate to the atypical aspects set, if that seems positive or off-putting.  Often you can tie that to other types preference, for example concluding that a green tea or sheng pu'er drinker might love it, while a black tea drinker wouldn't.  Maybe that's it, setting aside the sheng part, since this isn't as intense, astringent in the same way, as bitter, or as complex across floral or other typical sheng range.  Someone would need to be open to a range of different green tea styles to appreciate this.  

A Dan Cong drinker may or may not completely get it; it overlaps with that type as much as any other, but still not so much, kind of in between that and green tea character.  That one vegetal flavor range and edge is different.  Anyone who mostly loves the connection between typical OB style and black tea range might be disappointed; it lacks the warmth, depth, heavier tones, and towards dried fruit sweetness and flavor, versus lighter honey.  Citrus is moderate, and in a different form than is typical for traditional OB, not the heavy bergamot / richer orange tone.

I like it; that may or may not have come across in the descriptions.  But then I'm also a black tea drinker, and love warm and rich oolong versions, so I might like a more basic and flawed conventional OB version as much as this one.  It probably matches preference better for people who drink green tea and also oolong, versus a sheng pu'er drinker who also likes black teas.  I like oolong too, lots of range of it, and it had been my main preference for years, but once you get swept up in sheng it's hard going back, and I use black tea as my main range for alternating experiences.

One last aside, that Chinese Tea Time vendor mentioned that direct sales from China are still possible, of course varying in relation to Spring green tea availability, with the 2024 season pretty much over now.  They were selling teas in a conventional diverse volume range through Shopee, the local Thai Amazon equivalent, but their sales from China would need to be higher in volume for that to still make sense, more like 500 grams per version instead of 50 or 100.  Their Instagram profile should work as a contact.

That list of health benefits, and the Instagram page appearance.  It's interesting that their Tik Tok page has good following, shown in a post citing that profile's high level stats.

completely unrelated, a cute little girl wearing a beanie