Comparing compressed white teas, shou mei, gong mei, and one freestyle

I've mentioned drifting into compressed white teas recently, and I think this last purchase and review are going to be where it all levels off for awhile.  I left behind a gong mei version a couple months back, at the Teeta Talk shop--not far from Central Plaza Rama 9, for people in Bangkok.  I kept wondering about that tea, and since I happened past that shop not too long ago I bought it too.  I don't know much about that specific version, or the type, except that it's described as a higher grade (quality level) than shou mei, with bai mu dan above that.  Bai hao yin zhen (silver needle) is sort of a different thing, made from only buds, while the others are leaf and bud material white teas.

This is going to go long.  I'll add a section covering some background issues first so I won't get far with research or tea descriptions, and hopefully the taste-by-taste part can be a little thinner this time.  I tend to focus on flavor versus other aspects when things get complicated, likely how this will work out.  Passing on a general idea will do; no need to describe the last aspect of every version.  I've tasted all these teas, so that should make it simpler on my end.  Onto a brief description of what these even are, then some background first, then tasting notes after.

Tenfu gong mei cake (online vendor reference here):  it's interesting looking for an example online and finding one for under $5 (but then that's vending related to Taobao, if that means anything, the Chinese version of Ebay).  I was never under the impression that this was rare, exceptional quality tea but the last search I did put online sources in the $15 range (related to a Western vendor I'm not turning back up), and I've just bought this for a bit under $20.  None of that affects how the tea comes across, really.  I've wondered If there is any chance a modest tea version like this could be fake but it almost wouldn't matter, unless it wasn't as good as the original, which is how that is supposed to typically go.


The tea is stamped as a 2015 product (the one on that site 2014).  I won't say much more about what it is, or should be, besides citing a Teapedia entry related to the category:


Gong Mei is a white tea made of the Da Bai subvarietal of Camellia sinensis. It is grown mainly in the provinces of Fujian and Guangxi in China. Because this tea is harvested later than Bai Mu Dan it's liquor is slightly darker in color and stronger in taste. The infusion is golden yellow and thus darker than other white teas. Gong Mei is sometimes also referred as Shou Mei although the latter is considered as fourth grade quality while Gong Mei is a third quality grade tea.

Shou mei (younger version):  I reviewed this tea here, as a Liu Miao brand shou mei cake, also from that Teeta Talk shop.  It's a 2012 tea, for what that's worth, so with a few years of age on it.  These teas are all going to look a bit similar, the cakes, multi-colored, mixed lighter and darker browns, like fallen autumn leaves, images a bit fuzzy from not putting the effort into photography, etc.  I add a bit later guessing the likely best way to break them up versus how I'm doing it.

Glancing back at that review post I wrote a good bit about storage conditions there, about what relative humidity really means, about the carrying capacity of level of humidity in air at different temperatures (the absolute versus relative difference), if that's of interest.

Shou mei (older version):  this is where descriptions are going to get even thinner; this is some random shou mei cake I picked up at that one Bangkok Chinatown shop, Sen Xing Fa, mentioned in this post.  I've tried this tea already but didn't review it separately.  It was ok, but I didn't like it quite as much as the shou mei version I just mentioned, so I never got around to that.


I could tirelessly image-search to find more about it, or use different methods to transliterate the characters, or if all else fails ask the shop what it is, but it doesn't matter.  It's shou mei, and the transliterated Chinese name would just be random sounds to me.  It says it's from Fuding; that's a good start.  I suppose it probably really is a 2008 produced tea but I wouldn't be that astounded if it wasn't; I did just write a review of an obviously fake pu'er from that same shop.  How do I know that tea was fake?  It was sold as an LBZ for around $20; I bought it as a fake, something I've not tried to do before.

candy bar style compressed white:  I'm not sure what this is. I bought it at the Sen Xing Fa Bangkok Chinatown shop too.  It was supposed to be a few years old (5?) but I don't remember much for specifics.  It just looked different and interesting.  From trying it before I know it's about as solid as any highly compressed sheng tuocha so it takes awhile to get the infusion process going.  I'm wondering if that doesn't limit changes due to aging, but then I guess I only need to wait a half dozen years and I'll know that.  Based on already trying this it's not great tea but it's ok.  If it was the only compressed white tea someone had ever tried it may seem better for the novelty but I liked the other versions better, and it's hard not to compare like that.

Background issues

Someone just asked me:  what is white tea?  Starting that far back for this post could turn this into a long read but I will touch on that, then skip across a few other related points.  "White" is a main tea type, along with green tea, black, oolong, and hei cha / dark tea.  Sometimes yellow tea is added but it's not so common now.  I've only tasted one of those, and since it was a South Korean yellow tea there's a decent chance they interpreted the processing and style a little.

tea processing chart (from the World of Tea site)

The general idea behind white teas is that they're processed less.  Green teas are heated in some way to stop an oxidation process early on ("fixed," fried or steamed, although I guess any heating would do), so they stay green.  Of course it's not so much about the color, but about specific compounds not changing, affecting taste and perhaps health benefits.  That last part is a real potential issue but I don't tend to focus on it, since research doesn't seem to clarify the related facts of the matter at all.


Black teas are roughed up a bit (rolled, to allow for air contact with the internal compounds), then allowed to oxidize, to brown, a combination of enzymes with air, specifically with oxygen.  Whites are sort of just left to dry compared to those, although nothing is ever quite that simple.  These two tea processing charts only mention one potential variation in processing but some reading up would surely fill in plenty of additional complexity, which I won't read up on or mention here.  Onto some other background issues.

another processing chart (from Wikimedia, from a Wikipedia page)

White tea as compressed tea:  why compress this in the first place?  Who knows.  Why not compress it?  Compressing teas was used for helping store and transport tea at one point, very early in the history of tea, per my understanding, and some related practices stuck around.  It wouldn't be exactly the same if it hadn't been compressed but it might not be that far off this either, relatively speaking, or at least that's my expectation.  In contrast to that I just tried some sheng pu'er maocha a vendor shared, essentially just a loose version of the finished tea, and that vendor said that re-steaming the tea and compressing it into a cake (bing, if you prefer) does tend to change it's character to some extent.

Aging tea:  these are different ages; there is a bit of correlation with compressing a tea and aging it.  The standard story with hei cha and pu'er--pu'er is hei cha, unless you think it's somehow outside that category, then it's not hei cha, do what you will with concept use--is that later in the history it was discovered aging helped the tea mature, to ferment and improve.  White tea sort of does the same, or so the story goes.  It's complicated to consider if compressing a tea helps it age in any way, since that would just reduce air contact, so I just won't address that.  I researched storage and fermentation issues for a post and mentioned a fascinating article on what the latter really is (my take:  the influence of bacteria and fungus living out their life cycle).

Rinsing tea:  these ideas sort of all connect, as I'm presenting them.  In that article on aging tea the one research paper says that a rinse helps remove traces of toxins created in those biological processes.  No need to panic, the tea is safe, even if you drink a ridiculous amount of it.  But a rinse makes it a little safer, so why not.  Should you rinse aged whites?  There is no clear consensus on that but why not.  Unless you don't want to.  How bad could traces of toxins be?

Straining tea:  you can; the dust and flecks that get in the cup don't add much to the experience.  Or you can not; they don't take much away from it either.  Being into gear and presentation "tea people" almost always would strain it.  The sloppiness suits me so even though I have a few devices around that would work well for that I may or may not; it goes with how I feel at the time, so almost always not.  But then I'm no role model.  If you ate the tea nothing bad would happen, it just wouldn't make any sense to eat it.

the gong mei cake, missing some

How to break off tea:  it's best to help compressed teas flake off in sheets, more or less, to not shatter the leaves by pulling off a cubic chunk.  A pu'er knife can help with that but it's not so necessary for loosely compressed versions.  I have one, somewhere, but I haven't seen it for awhile.  A letter opener would also work, or I guess a butterknife would do in a pinch (although it would be best if it was shaped exactly like a pu'er knife, which wouldn't tend to come up by chance).

a letter opener, not a pu'er knife

I found a letter opener next to this comparison tasting set-up during cleaning up so I took a picture of it.  But then all that matters more for pu'er, when you might want to limit the astringency and retain a really clean profile by not ripping up the leaves.  I've been giving away parts of these white tea cakes and tend to do the opposite, to tear off sections, because that retains the original look of a compressed tea for someone else to see.  I'm giving away tea for people to experience something new, and getting a sense of the original shape is part of that, not so much for people that know the teas already to experience.

Aging effect on tea:  we'll see, I guess.  Without trying the teas at time of origin I would have no idea.  I've heard the teas get fruitier and sweeter after around a decade but who knows.  That might well depend on the tea, and storage conditions, and maybe even more so on interpretation, on someone carrying a bias towards tasting something in particular into the experience.  Comparing these teas and guessing about that factor as an input isn't likely to work.

Tasting four teas at once, related to quantity:  I ran across a problem with this tasting silver needle style white teas not long ago (in this post), related to taking in too much caffeine.  Better to go with the small gaiwans, if that's an option, but I only have three of that size.  This time I plan to not cycle through 10 infusions each, too, to sweep these aside into a combined cold brewing steep to drink some other time after the effects start to kick in.  

Brewing process / parameters:  I tend to guess all that out.  You don't need to flash infuse white teas, relatively speaking, easing up on times to limit astringency or bitterness as in young sheng.  Some people brew white teas for a long time to get the infusion strength (the flavor part) up to where it would be for most other types, or they also tend to be ok prepared lightly, brewed fast.  I'll probably just use 30 seconds to one minute infusions for these, varying it a little to see how that changes things, and probably won't really use a progressive increasing-time cycle.  The one candy-bar shape tea is pressed like some sort of floor-board material so I'll need to give it more time to open up, but the rest are accessible.

White tea gives you some flexibility; you can brew it however you want, because they tend to work well at different strengths.  A lot of oolongs are like that, or soft black teas, but some oolong types are nothing like that.  With Dan Cong and Wuyi Yancha you generally tend to go lighter and aim for an optimum, or really any tea could have a specific optimum per personal preference, it might just vary by person what that is.  I like white teas brewed on the lighter side, I guess, but not as lightly as some other types.

Tasting notes

Really these are from after an initial rinse, which I also tried, but didn't write about.  It was kind of like running a warm-up lap.  After all that about the toxins I still did drink those, although in retrospect given the caffeine issue I probably shouldn't have.

gong mei tea, in gaiwan (they tend to look about the same)

Gong mei:  this tea is nice!  It's soft and full, a bit sweet, with a good bit going on, for the general type being so subtle.  I want to say it's fruity but it'll be hard identifying a fruit.  Maybe initially it reminds me a little of dried tamarind, just to cite a range.  There is a little earthiness, kind of the standard context, but it's hard to pin down, not woody, exactly, maybe how aged parchment paper would taste, but still clean in effect.

gong mei, brewing (first time I tried it)

Shou mei (younger):  also nice, not quite as bright and clean.  It's harder to appreciate that difference without tasting the two side by side like this.  It's also fruity but towards spice from a more conventional expression of that, towards the root in root beer.  It's just a little woodier.

shou mei cake, older / Sen Xing Fa Chinatown shop version

Shou mei (older):  this has a little funkiness to it.  I don't mean that it's off, but it is different.  It's towards a light, sweet expression of dried wild mushroom, maybe.  Or maybe closer to a tropical dark wood tree bark, and somehow that sounds better.  It's not bad, but unusual.  The cleanness slips down a little across this whole tasting sequence, really kind of how I arranged these, from an expected most favorite to least favorite.

Candy bar style:  different, again.  One aspect reminds me a little of coffee--that's different.  I let it brew twice as long because it doesn't open very fast, so in a sense that certainly threw off a balanced comparison, which was actually impossible with the teas not unfolding at similar rates.  It's probably the least clean and bright / most murky in effect, but still decent tea.  It's not bad, with that coffee aspect drifting a little towards cocoa, just well off what these other teas are doing.

For the third infusion I'll go around a minute soak again, thick enough to not be grasping at subtle aspects.  I'm feeling these teas already; maybe two more infusions should be plenty, and that cold-brew experiment as a second part really could be medicinal strength if I'm not careful.  There is a lethal dose amount of caffeine but long before you get to that it can seem like too much.  About 5 grams might kill you, perhaps 100 cups of tea, something to keep in mind.  And it doesn't pass out of your system very fast, or at least mine, it can make for an all-day ride.

Second infusion

Gong mei:  the tea didn't pick up intensity or transition much.  It's nice how clean the flavors are, how it all comes across and balances, but it's not exceptional in terms of any one aspect or a set.  Maybe it's just my imagination, and the power of suggestion from just mentioning a related aspect, but I seem to pick up an underlying trace of wintergreen that fills in with the mild fruit and subdued spice / earthiness that gives it a bit more complexity.  If so it is quite subtle.  If someone didn't like subtle teas, which would be quite a reasonable thing, then they'd not like this one.  I can be put off by silver needle styles that don't seem to have much going on but the complexity of the context layer of these works for me.  It's not that there's not much to experience, it's just not in your face, instead complex in a subtle way.

dried persimmon; another reason to swing by a Chinatown

Shou mei (younger):  all of that general commentary can apply to this tea too.  It's a little thinner in effect though; there's slightly less to experience.  It's still quite clean in effect, and to me that makes earthiness work much better.  Add a bit of murkiness / peat / mushroom / oxidized aluminum (kind of joking related to that last one, but not completely) and this wouldn't work.  Distilling this to a flavors list is tough.  The earthiness is a little like a tree bark, the fruit a little like a dried persimmon.  But those are subtle, and I'm not capturing the complexity saying it tastes like those two things.

Shou mei (older):  this did transition; way different.  Now that is tree bark, just a bit towards aged leather from that.  It has a touch of fruitiness but it's hard to sort out under that earthiness.  It might be more like an aromatic bark spice under an earthier, heavier tree bark.  The woodiness is towards cedar, or maybe redwood.  It's not bad but it wouldn't be for everyone.  The flavor is still a bit clean but not like the first two.  This could almost pass for something other than tea but I'm sure it's tea.  Aging might have changed it; this is supposed to be nine years old.

candy bar style version, it never does flake apart as well

Candy bar:  I went with the same infusion time for this one this time (around a minute) so it lightened.  It's closest to the third, of the other three, but still tasting a bit like coffee.  Kind of strange, really, who would buy a tea intending it to taste like coffee, since there is another beverage option for that.  It has a slight toastiness to it too, and a touch of cocoa, so at least it's interesting.  It's hard to imagine someone preferring this tea version from the rest in this set but I guess that is possible.  

If shou was someone's favorite tea type this would be the one that rings a bell.  It's still ten times more subtle than any shou, so to be clear I'm talking about within a compressed white tea range here.  It has some sweetness but the last two gave up a little to the first two related to that.  That doesn't match the idea that teas would sweeten as they age, since the first tea in the set is the youngest (the gong mei is 3 years old), the third the oldest, and second and and fourth about the same (both probably around 5 years old now).

teapots at the Sen Xing Fa Bangkok Chinatown shop

Third infusion, last one

The caffeine is going to add up, and I've been tasting teas for awhile and have things to do, so this will have to be it.

Gong mei:  the tea is thinning a little; it seems early for that.  The general effect is still nice and it just seems to be tapering off slightly, not transitioning.  I'm sure it can brew a few more by stretching the time but it doesn't seem like it's going anywhere for changes.

Shou mei (younger):  the same for this one.  Maybe compressed white teas aren't as interesting for expressing transitions as some other types, in general.  A lot of the effect is subdued too, a base of rich, complex flavors, but not something that stands out as a list as for some other types.  I guess I'm saying they're not perfect for review description, but the experience is still interesting, if someone is on that page.

Shou mei (older):  this tea is changing a little, moving more to root spice off heavy wood and tree bark.  Maybe those few extra years did lend it more complexity, at the cost of coming across a bit extra earthy in the first few rounds.  I'm not sure though; I'd have needed to try it when young to know.

a break from pictures of compressed white tea

Candy bar:  this one is just thinning.  That coffee / earthiness / cocoa effect doesn't work as well thinner, but it would be possible to bump that with longer infusion time.  It's not just about intensity but also depth of the experience, the range, and it wouldn't work to get that richness back, even if it was stronger.  This just isn't as good a tea as the first two, and the third probably depends on preference related to it being the best or the worst.  It was the most complex but in an earthier range.

Overall take

I like these teas, the first two the best.  It's nice that I like the gong mei since I paid twice what I did for the younger shou mei for it, or rather the same amount for half as much tea (just under $20 for 200 and 100 grams; still a decent price for both).  I think my intuition did well in selecting that first shou mei; it probably was one of the more interesting teas and better values in that Teeta Talk shop (as if I'd really know that).

I think if someone tried white teas for the first time all of these might seem a little thin, too subtle.  It takes some adjustment to appreciate the range.  It's not the same kind of adjustment it takes to crave a sheng that tastes like tasting an aspirin, quite the opposite, but to me a light oolong or soft black tea makes for a more reasonable starting point.  Even shou can work as a starting point if the earthiness--tasting like a crude oil soaked chunk of peat--matches personal preferences in some odd way; there is no finer level of appreciation to dial in related to liking or not liking those.

These teas could all ramp up intensity just by giving them a longer soak, and in a limited sense they would push more towards the range of a black tea for doing that.  That sense would be quite limited; the astringency would never be the same, and the taste range couldn't shift.  Brewed stronger this set of aspects is still going to seem subtle in a different way, just stronger, and the effect of feel might thicken a little.

I like all of them, and it will be interesting to see if they change with more age.  I have enough I don't mind sharing them too; I've passed on some to two local monks to try out not so long ago.  Some feedback from one:  he thought it was interesting but likes pu'er better.  Another I didn't talk to about it but he's more into oolong anyway.

she probably has no future as a monk, really

Kunming 7581 shou pu'er review

a brick of shou pu'er, or so it seems

This is a second tea I bought from that Bangkok pu'er-themed shop, Teeta Talk, with an introduction about the shop here and first review of shou mei cake from there here.  The tea is a Kunming 7581 shou pu'er brick, per my understanding one of the basics related to the general type.  Given the reasonable price it may not be considered the most exceptional example, and it is a factory / mass produced tea, but at least it should be decent and type-specific.

three years old, probably a good thing

What is it?

It's more typical for me to review a tea then mention research after that, but let's try it the other way this time.  What is it?  Per my original understanding it was a standard shou type, but I'll check on that, and get some idea of how it's supposed to be as well.

A blog post in TeaDB works for a start:


Another type of raw pu’erh using big, broad and coarse leaves. The most famous recipes of broad leaf ripe pu’erh are Kunming Tea Factory’s 7581 and Menghai’s 8592 and to a lesser extent Menghai’s 7572. Properly aged, these recipes will develop a bit differently than smaller leaf ripe pu’erh often with a nice, sweet aftertaste.

Note #1: The 7581 is a notoriously inconsistent recipe even occasionally (and weirdly) produced as raw pu’erh! This is partially due to the inconsistency produced under the CNNP label, a contrast to the relative consistency of most Dayi ripe pu’erh productions...

The traditionally-processed and blended 7581 can be a great example of pu’erh that improves with age due to its lighter fermentation. Instead of a lighter ripening, sometimes the 7581 is composed of half ripe/half raw leaves.  Note: The original 7572 is a mix of 70% ripe, 30% raw.


Interesting!  So per this not exactly just shou / pre-feremented pu'er.  There is a discussion thread on this tea in Tea Chat that talks around some of those issues, and passes on some impressions, but since that's from 2009 it seems possible the tea has been adjusted since then.  The idea of it being a blend of pu'er types and that particular ratio is mentioned there, even though that was attributed to a different tea.

This vendor description fills in a bit more on the maker background, and the typical warning about fake versions, but not much more about the character of the tea.  Their post does clear up the naming inconsistency:


COFCO (used to call CNNP), China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation, is one of China's state-owned food processing holding companies. COFCO Group is China's largest food processing, manufacturer and trader, it holds the 393th place in the Global 500 companies.  All pu-erh teas under COFCO are made in famous Kunming Tea Factory.


Let's get on with review then.

Teeta Talk shop; this tea is behind something on the bottom

Review section

It tastes like ordinary shou: leather, peat, dark wood, and a trace of fresh crude oil.   One concern is over such teas tasting a bit off, like fish, and I'm not really getting that.  It is a bit funky though;  I wouldn't disagree with someone saying it tastes a little like an old boot.  But in a nice way, oddly.

looks like shou / shu

All that is based on the first infusion, so it could still clean up a bit more.  It doesn't really taste off or murky but there is space for improvement.  It's definitely earthy instead of showing off cleaner dark woods or even some type of fruit.

The next infusion picks up richness; it is better.  It's definitely not brewed lightly but the tea works well at significant strength, it picks up a nice thickness.  The flavors are still smooth and balance well enough.  Those include dark wood with a touch of crude in this infusion, less peat and old leather.  It's not exactly complex in the sense of expressing a range but there's plenty of depth to the flavors that are there, and a thickness to the tea, that typical touch of oiliness, in terms of feel.

It's so thick and rich that someone with a better imagination could describe lots of flavors, if they could move past the dark wood, crude, and touch of peat and leather, both now subdued.

It would be interesting to review this tea alongside the version I bought at Sun's Organic shop in NYC.  They seem similar.  This might have a different mineral undertone going on, and a bit more oil versus other types of earthiness, where that tea sticks to dark wood and leather with a touch of tar (as I remember).

I did drink both in the same day, trying that other shou later in the afternoon, so I can pass on some less direct comparison impression.  This tea (the 7581) is thicker and stronger, and it is earthier, related to expressing stronger flavors, even a bit of oil.  That tea is nice, maybe a little sweeter, and lighter, with flavor range that's not so different but not as heavy.  An element stood out as leaning towards a light spice range, a bit like root spice or even root beer.  That Sun's version wouldn't seem at all like a thin tea but in comparison with this 7581 it seems more so.

plants at the house (photo filler)

A friend recently mentioned he'd hoped to try a fruitier shou at some point, but this 7581 is the general profile I'm used to, quite earthy.  I like it but wouldn't want to drink it all the time.  I'm halfway through that other Sun's Organic shop shou tuocha and drinking that now and again has been plenty.  Per the input in that Tea Chat thread on this specific tea it won't change much due to aging past five years (just some people's opinions; nothing is really ever the clear fact of the matter), but I can still see how that goes over the next few years, if this sticks around.

Songkran 2017; what Thais do on the traditional New Year

It goes without saying that this tea is going to brew a lot of infusions.  I drank quite a few that first day and saved it for a couple more the next, switching to a Western style approach out of laziness.  The tea can work brewed that way but it's as well to use Gongfu brewing, more appropriate for the type and lending to better results, even though it's not touchy about parameters and still works.


For being a relatively inexpensive tea this seemed a great value, quite interesting and unique, to the extent that doesn't contradict it seeming like a typical strong-flavored shou pu'er.

gun safety basics:  don't look down the barrel

Liu Miao shou mei white tea cake review, and on relative humidity

I just posted about buying a shou mei cake at a Bangkok pu'er themed shop, Teeta Talk (compressed white tea, nice they carry a range of products), and this is about trying it.  I've never owned or even tried compressed shou mei, aside from trying one in the process of buying this version.  It's a relatively standard tea type, so that comes down to my own inconsistent exposure to different teas more than the type being that rare.

That's going to keep happening; some tea type that seems relatively common will keep coming up for the first time, even though I do keep trying other basic teas and some from out of the way places, for some years now.  Since this is intended more as a "journey to tea" theme blog instead of expert opinion that'll work.

I found a bit on the tea online here; it's a Liumiao Tea product, with the following detail listed:

Name: Shou Mei white tea cake (public version) (2012)

Brand: six wonderful white tea
Item: BB300-006-2
Net content: 300g
Retail Price: 159.00 yuan  [converted, $23]
Product Origin: Ningde City, Fujian Province (Fuding)



The automatic translation of the additional description is cryptic, or even the brand name translated as "six wonderful white tea."  I had tried this version in the store instead and didn't like it nearly as well, but what do I know.

the origin, Ningde City, Fujian Province (Fuding), from Google Maps

Straight onto review then, even though there would be more to say about the type or source.  It's my impression that this is a typical commercial producer and product, both just don't turn up much in English language online search. Here's a reference to a different version by the same producer on Amazon that doesn't list the producer name at all; that kind of thing would make it harder to search for.

shou mei leaves, broken up (a little like autumn leaves)

The dry scent is nice, sweet and subtle, in the range of a sweeter forest floor scent.  I know different people would be using that term in different ways, and it would often mean something closer to peat, but I'm comparing the scent here to the clean, sweet, dry, earthy scent in autumn temperate climate forest.  It's a good thing, pretty far removed from the smell of peat or dirt.  It resembles dried hay, just sweeter.

The first infusion wasn't completely clear; in fact a bit cloudy.  It's been odd hearing people comment so much on the clarity of teas since actual cloudiness just never comes up, but it just did for this.  It made me think back to a research article on pu'er storage about those teas fermenting due to the presence of fungus and bacteria, and how toxins go along with that, so a rinse step is really preferable for shou and aged sheng (that research article, mentioned in this post on pu'er storage).  Here's some input from that:


An interesting finding is that the most sought-after tea, aged raw Pu-erh, has a fungal community more like ripened than young raw Pu-erh, and a similar trend was seen for the bacterial community (Fig 3)....  Multiple mycotoxins were detected from either or both categories of Pu-erh, but all but patulin and asperglaucide were under the safety limit. For safe drinking, we recommend discarding the first brew.

starting to open up, looking more like autumn leaves

Given all that background I still tasted that rinse--just a few drops worth--but dumped it, and gave it a second fast rinse.  The tea is five years old, stored in relatively damp climate, just less so and more temperature controlled in a store space.  I didn't notice cloudiness in the initial rinse when I tried the tea again later but I didn't drink it.


You might wonder, what difference would aging make, and how would that have varied stored in a dry place versus in Bangkok?  I can't say much about the first point, but I did write up some thoughts on humidity variation after this review.

Back to tea review (end of that tangent)

I went long on the second infusion, distracted by writing, so I can describe what a long steep is like.  It's nice, but still subtle.  There never will be even a hint of astringency from this tea.  That's not a surprise, really, but interesting to experience it.

The flavor range is still similar; light, earthy, and soft.  It does remind me of brewing a mild version of fall leaves.  There is sweetness to the tea but that's subdued as well.  It's not really complex, not floral, without much mineral, so just a bit subtle in overall effect.  Of course brewing it stronger, as I just did, can help offset that, but it only varies so much.

medium strength infusion

When I tasted the other version in the shop I just wasn't picking much up, which is why I didn't care for it.  The trace of range I did get was interesting, there was potential there, which is why I still bought this tea, a different but similar product.

The next infusion was shorter, but still around a minute, and it didn't lose much for intensity.  It's still subtle, and that's still a lot of infusion time compared to most tea types at the same brewing parameters (it is Gongfu style, a high proportion of tea to water, even given that style range).  A more typical 30 second steep just wouldn't bring enough flavor out, unless someone adapted to drinking this tea very lightly, which does seem possible.  Different tea types seem to work better at different infusion strengths (that's a given, isn't it?), and it's interesting how people tend to be divided about white teas related to that.  Some go with those long 5 to 7 minute Western style brewing times, and bump it up to a more typical strength range for other types, and others just go with the lighter presentation.  I might favor different strengths depending on the character type of a white tea.

fully opened, on the darker side

Even though this tea is quite subtle there is some complexity there, it's just all in a closely related range.  That dry leaf range is accompanied by some dried hay, supported by mild underlying tones like sunflower seed.  It might even pull a little into chrysanthemom / sunflower range, a bit of light, mild floral.  All that is still quite mild, and not unrelated in flavor range, so it doesn't come across as complex even though it expresses some complexity.


The flavors are clean enough, not murky at all.  That was part of my initial concern related to the cloudiness, along with potentially being poisoned, which completely resolved after the rinse.  All this isn't so far from that Sri Lanka Peony style tea awhile back (described in this post).  At first I wasn't attached to it but after drinking it awhile the complexity and that specific profile were really pleasant, and this also is, I'm just not quite there yet.  I could imagine someone being on a different page and not liking it.  It's probably a little less complex than that other tea, with less in the way of mineral undertones, and a bit less full feel, but the general range is pretty close.  It's not typically part of the scope of discussion in a tea blog but I paid a lot more for that Ceylon version than this one, on the order of a bit less than half as much for 1/6th the amount of tea (this is a 300 gram cake).  That tea was slightly better and this one a much better value, but the chance to see it evolve through aging draws it a little closer, and it might be the better tea in a few years.


It seems possible the woman in that tea shop had been using short infusion times appropriate for pu'er in brewing a different shou mei sample tasting, especially necessary for sheng, which caused that related tea to just not taste like much.  It's quite subtle related to other tea type results even brewed longer but a range of flavors are there.

the final test:  she liked it

I went long on another infusion again, a bit too spacey for controlled brewing this morning, so it's probably as well I'm on this particular tea.  Brewed strong it's still subtle but it picks up an unusual fullness.


In conclusion, the tea is nice.  It'll be interesting to see how it changes with aging, and it was inexpensive enough I won't mind sharing it (some).  Before closing this post I'm also going to ramble on about humidity, a factor related to tea aging (fermentation, assuming this is going to undergo that, not completely a given).  In particular I'll discuss how temperature range relates to relative humidity, which I never really will link to the comfort zone of the bacteria and fungus mentioned in that pu'er fermentation related citation.

On a storage environment issue, all about humidity

A bit of aside on local climate:  in the house in Bangkok where I live we experience the natural environment, which is hot and humid, except for using air conditioning when we sleep.  There is more detail on that humidity part here:






When you see people discuss humidity related to pu'er storage they tend to not pair that consistently with discussion of temperature range, and express it in relative humidity percentages.  That one measurement, RH, is convenient, easy to work with, just one number, and that number is meaningful.  The range I live in is typically 70% to low 80s here, per that graph, at least outside.


I'm not a weather expert, but I am an engineer, with a bit more background in lots of subjects as a result, so I'd like to pass on what the limitations are of that humidity specification.  I'll touch briefly on why there are some cases where people might move onto more specific discussion of the actual amount of water in the air.  To cite an unrelated example, data center humidity range guidelines--about facilities for IT equipment--aren't only specified in RH in the more recent forms, also with some reference to dew point values.  To be clear, if you specify the specific air temperature and relative humidity you have expressed how much water is present in that air, with slight variation related to local pressure, but you get the idea.

ASHRAE 2011 thermal guidelines for computing equipment environment range

The short version:  air holds more or less water at different temperatures, so saying that it's 70% relative humidity (RH) here in Bangkok now, when it's close to 90 F (32 C, how we measure temperatures in Thailand), and 90% RH somewhere else where it's 65 F (more like 18 C) relates to a lot less moisture in the cooler place.  The air just won't hold as much at lower temperatures, and RH is relating to the amount relative to what the air could hold.  All that's probably not interesting to most people, but the chart above spells it out in even more detail, along with some guidance on what IT equipment should experience.  That part is really complicated, with variation by type of equipment (shown in the different ranges), and all of it a little controversial.

Maybe it's of more interest to me than most, but it's particularly interesting what happens at the far extremes of temperature.  Around 0 C (32 F; everyone knows that) air can hold very little moisture, relative to at higher temperatures, so when you go out in the cold and it feels damp there is still not much water in the air.  That's also why when you mix cold outside air in the winter into your home it feels bone dry inside, because that outside air contains next to no humidity, and as a result the indoor relative humidity (RH) could drop to next to nothing.  Of course that's why static electricity effect increases.

To put numbers that that effect, on that psychometric chart air at 50% RH at 0 C / 32 F heated to 25 C / 77 F would then contain 10% RH, with no change in actual moisture level (water content, in this case 2 grams per kilogram dry air).  On the upper side from 90-100 F (32-37 C) air can hold loads of moisture.  That explains why when it's 32 C (90 F) and 80% RH here it feels oppressively hot and humid; evaporation of sweat to maintain body temperature stops working well.  At 25 C (77 F) at the same RH it's only a bit damp, and there is actually half as much water in the air.


It's interesting that the current weather reporting says the dewpoint is around 24 when the temperature is 26 (when I first started tasting this tea), and the "realfeel" is as if it were 35 (well into the 90s).  That seems to not really capture that effect, that it still feels cool--to people that live here--but quite damp.


I can only guess at how fungus and bacteria relate to the two differences taken together, if RH or absolute water amount is more critical to them, or if temperature also is for life cycle.  My guess is that they're durable little organisms that thrive across a broad range of conditions, but especially well where I am right now, when it's quite warm and damp.


Another reason to go into all that:  that shou mei cake may have been aging a good bit faster than if it were somewhere cooler and dryer.  It seems likely that most discussions of pu'er aging environment factors overemphasize humidity concerns due to oversimplifying temperature as a factor.  I don't know for sure that shou mei ages and ferments related to exactly the same micro-biological elements--fungus and bacteria--performing the same role, and that doesn't match part of the typical sheng back-story, but I expect that's the case.  It's one more subject to revisit later.

Discovering a Bangkok pu'er tea shop, Teeta Talk

A chance online contact, a woman from the Philippines, now living in Phuket, mentioned a pu'er-theme shop in Bangkok I'd never heard of.  I waste so much time discussing and reading about tea here that shop had to be Google-proof, and as it turns out it is.  Even their own business website doesn't mention they sell tea, since it's also a household goods chain here, or mostly that.  It seemed a good time to write about both that store and bit about what Bangkok is like.

yard at the house; not so urban right there, and tropical

I don't typically write lifestyle-theme content here, since this blog is about tea.  But it seems as good a time as any to break with that convention, since I am talking about exploring a new part of Bangkok, and since I do live in an out-of-the-way corner of the world related to most of my readers.



About that audience, you might wonder who would read a blog about tea out of Thailand.  In a sense it doesn't matter where I am, since only local cafe and shop posts relate to where I live, not the reviews, and for the travel theme posts I could've started from anywhere.  Related to readership, sometimes I'll check who is reading a particular post by reviewing the day's stats, and I just did earlier, so I'll share a little about that before moving on:

A good bit more people than average visited that day due to that post about pu'er group buying being of interest (600+, half to read that post, in the first day).  Half were from the US, the rest from all over.  Of course some of those views are from loyal bot-readers, who probably don't feel a close affiliation to their origin country since they're computer programs.  It's odd that India didn't make that list, since I help run an international themed Facebook tea group with a lot of Indians as members.


Anyway, this was supposed to be about that shop, and partly a lifestyle-theme post.

me as a monk; those were the days, two months worth of them

I don't write about my life because it's not interesting, to be honest.  I work in IT, doing process and compliance implementation and auditing, which is about as compelling as it sounds.  I don't take a tuk-tuk or long-tail boat to work, or even visit local markets by way of those on the weekend.  I use a bus and then a sky-train to commute (an elevated train), and today also a subway.

river ferries are a cool way to get around

I work in a high rise office building, and on the weekend I'm busy taking my son and daughter to swim lessons, or piano lessons, to study Chinese language (Mandarin), or maybe to a park or zoo, or to a water park.  I certainly don't go to bars where ladyboys pole-dance on stage (the Thai expression for that third transgender, which is not negative, it's just normal here), although that's a real thing, not only a cliche.  If you see a woman that's very beautiful here you might naturally wonder if she's really a man, or started as one, however that works.  That "Hangover 2" scope is part of Bangkok but not related to my own experiences.

Bangkok, an out of the way part of it

Asians do this; it doesn't seem to mean anything

The closest I get to ancient culture is passing by a temple, unless we're visiting our family monk.  I love the local markets, rows of smelly tables full of exotic fruits and vegetables, or fish sitting on top of ice, which probably really should be better refrigerated, but we typically buy food in grocery stores.


My life is all about my kids, and even for other people with kids hearing about that would get old fast.  We play; puzzles, monopoly, a little chess, frisbee, hide and seek, drawing, soccer (football, to some), whatever comes up.


Tea is as much about needing a hobby as about tea being great, but it is amazingly diverse, interesting, and tasty.  It works out well that it's a bottomless subject, with so many dimensions to learn and appreciate.

Yaowarat road, Chinatown, which looks like it always has

You would expect tea to be a common theme in Thailand, since they grow it here, and since Chinese culture is part of the general background, with lots of people of Chinese origin.  But not so much.  They drink bubble tea, or instant tea, flavored teas, RTD / bottled, CTC black tea with condensed milk, etc.


I wrote a post about that once, about tea in Thailand, but it's mostly a long version of expressing that.  They produce oolongs made from Taiwanese cultivars in the North, and a little black tea, with the styles imported as well.  But being only 30 or 40 years into that Taiwanese versions still tend to be better.



I've heard that Bangkok has the second largest Chinatown in the world, outside of China (after San Francisco; hard to know if that's true though), but tea appreciation still isn't prevalent, to some extent even there.  Of course you can buy tea there, but I only know of one tea cafe in the Chinatown.  Most of the tea shops sell tea in open bins (exposed to the air; the horror), or large jars, so they're not really on the page of presenting really good teas at their best.  Tea is only now entering the culture through modern cafes and mall shops, with more specifics on that in that post.

good at joy

About that tea shop, Teeta Talk

I just happen to be working at a recently spun-off division of the company for ISO 27001 and 20000 certification auditing this week (information security and service management scope), and that mysterious low-profile tea shop is right down the road from here, one subway stop away.  For Bkk locals, it's at the Belle Condominium shops (like a mall), beside the Central Plaza Rama 9 mall.  It's more or less a Tae Tea / Menghai Dayi outlet (factory pu'er), and they also sell some white tea cakes and a bit of loose tea, all a range I can work with.

Teeta Talk shop

The woman at the shop was very nice when I visited, offering samples of pu'er and shou mei cake (compressed white) tea, and letting me try some Thai loose teas.  Again and again they were interesting but not so much that I wanted to buy any of it.  It's not that I'm a tea snob, I've just been spoiled by vendors passing on samples of better sheng, and I don't drink much shou, and have a little at home.  I reconsidered that and bought a brick anyway, to get better calibrated for standard shou (read:  inexpensive).  It's a 7581, which means nothing to me, yet.  If it tastes a little like pressed garden mulch with a touch of tar and old catcher's mitt that still might be ok.

I reviewed some 7572 Tae Tea / Dayi versions three years back (here and here; odd citing posts from that far back, when I still don't know what I'm talking about now, and much less then).  Shou is not exactly new to me, but aside from picking up a tuocha in NYC I've been off it since I tried some Thai versions awhile back.  Good stuff, those, and this Thai sheng version was quite nice too, which I have a cake of at home, except for drinking just a little now and again and sharing small pieces.

Finally I did break down and buy a shou mei cake there too.  I didn't love the version I tried but there was more investigation to be done, to see how it ages.  Not knowing what the other versions were like made it nearly impossible to choose.  Circumstances like that require soul searching, looking deep within to draw on intuition.  Sometimes walking out empty handed is the right option, just not usually, and I picked one almost at random.  It was from the same commercial producer, just a bit older (2012), slightly more expensive, with a cooler label.  I'll get around to review and pass on more details.

The loose teas, Thai versions, didn't work out.  I want to like Thai teas more than I do, but they usually taste like the mid-range style of tea you might find in a grocery store (here, at least), or being sold all over the place in China.  I'm not a tea snob (really!), and I can drink that, but I have two versions of decent high mountain oolong from Taiwan at home that I've not tried yet--all relative, "decent"--from that visit there in January, and what I did try in this local store wasn't even close to the level of the other one that I have been drinking.  I would guess that a Wuyi Yancha sample that store employee passed on was much better; I'll check back about that.


It would be hard to do good business selling factory pu'er in Bangkok.  I'm not sure how that works out, and I've not yet met the owners to ask.  There is one pu'er theme shop here, Tea Dee Zhang, way, way out on Srinakarin Road, in the Thanya Park mall, but they've put some serious effort into building up business, and they also sell a range of loose teas.  Their business is not Google-proof, and a loosely associated Facebook tea group has 1,792 members.  The largest Thai Facebook tea group has 12,762 members; seems like a lot, for all the more Thais that are into loose tea.


I was excited to discover this store, and look forward to trying those teas, and it's nice to share a more about how things go here.