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.

2007 8281 Yellow Label Mengku sheng pu'er, compared with 8891

it's like visiting an aunt and uncle there, even though I'm not that much younger

I'm reviewing a tea sample the owners of my favorite Bangkok Chinatown tea shop, Jip Eu, gave to me when I last visited them.  It's a little unconventional that we tried that tea there during that visit, so I'm writing about it again, based on a much closer form of review.  It was nice of them, to give me more to also try later, and perhaps wise of them to get that impression documented in a tea blog, just by handing over a sample.

It's a little odd, but my impression of it changed.  I was fasting that day (the first day of 5), and talking quite a bit instead of focusing in, so two things changed.  Three, really; I also brew tea for myself differently, because I based infusion timing each round on how I liked the last round.  My water source is probably also different (filtered local tap water, but the filtration must vary).

I don't have a listing or site description to provide, under the circumstances.  Jip Eu is on Facebook here, and they're on Shopee, for people online shopping within Thailand (maybe easier to find as "Three Shell Tea").  I looked up online listings, and two different vendors sell this for two completely different price points (the 2007 version, probably the same tea, although I guess this could be sold in different batch numbers, so maybe not identical).  Here is one of them, listed by Crafted Leaf Tea:

2007 Yellow label Raw Puerh - Iron Cake

Tea Bush : Grade 1 Mengku large-leaf tea bush species

Made from supreme old tree Mengku material, this is a high quality raw puerh from a village in the Brown Mount. region. After 13 years of aging this cake has enter its mature stage, most of the strong bitterness & fresh fruitiness of raw puerh has turn into a mature taste crafted by time.  Comparing with our 2003 Premium Yiwu Private Collection Raw Puerh - Chimney. It features less smokiness but with a very well balance of sweetness of ripe puerh and pinewood & mineral bitterness, followed by a lingering light caramel aftertaste. The aroma lingers wonderfully in the throat. After about seven or eight steeps, the taste becomes more tender and mild, and starts to show a light, mellow fruity fragrance.

So they're saying that it's a Mengku, Lincang region tea.  Google's AI input and another listing agree this was made by the Kunming Tea Factory for CNNP release (Zhong Cha).

This second "Dragon Tea House" listing sells this cake for $40, while the other vendor, Crafted Leaf Tea, sells 50 grams for $22.  What should we make of that?  I'll spare you the idle speculation, beyond this summary.  Maybe one isn't "real," maybe one is overpriced, maybe there are other factors.  $40 for a 19 year old standard producer tea does seem low.  This was selling for closer to that than whatever $22 for 50 grams works out to (nearly 50 cents a gram?  come on.).

This other 19 year old CNNP cake is pressed as a 500 gram version, now listing for $104 through Yunnan Sourcing, where I bought it awhile back.  I first reviewed that in 2019 here, seven years ago, and don't seem to have any newer comparison use review to check in on.  People who have been following Yunnan Sourcing for a long time, and drink sheng pu'er, probably have already bought this cake; somehow it became the standard entry point item to try out way earlier on. 

Reviewing tea labels:  this could be a step too far, but in looking at the three labels of the three teas presented as generally the same they don't match.  The Dragon Leaf version has a different bottom producer identifier name, and the yellow mark in the center is slightly offset (although the Crafted Leaf page includes pictures of both types of differently marked labels; strange).  Make of it what you will; it's not intended as evidence of any indirect claim.  Per the owners of this shop they bought a good bit of this tea back in 2007 from a producer outlet when it came out, which on the face of it sounds reliable.  Who knows though.

the Jip Eu cake label

Crafted Leaf Tea version

Dragon Tea House version (note the "product of") section

Review:

8281 left (my cats just broke one of the plainer cups I use most often; not helpful)

8281 Kunming / CNNP 2007:  it's interesting that this is much darker initially, both the leaves and the infusion.  They're both 2007 versions, but the other spent half its time in Kunming, in relatively dry and cool storage, and this tea version came to Bangkok back when it was produced, bought by the shop owners back then.  It has been stored hot and humid.

Flavors are heavy, of course.  It's relatively clean though.  Beyond the heavy mineral base a pine note stands out, and some medicinal herb tone.  Feel has a nice thickness already, and it has only been one short infusion, after a short rinse.  There may be brighter and sweeter spice that will evolve, or maybe even a touch of dried fruit, but I think this will be easier to read next round.

8891:  it is lighter in flavor range, but this has transitioned pretty far along already.  It's not how I remember it.  There could be a faint hint of smoke-like flavor, but beyond the slightly lighter mineral it tastes something like aged bamboo might.  It's not exactly woody, but pretty close to that.  Sweetness is decent; it gives it balance.  There's just a hint of sourness at the finish, which doesn't ruin the effect for me, but I suppose it's not mostly positive.  Going back and tasting the other after this, the same first round, a bit more root spice stands out in that in contrast, towards root beer, or sassafras.  

I'm not sure why but I'm feeling these teas after the first round.  I took a week of drinking a lot less during a 5 day fast, and never really increased back to my earlier level in the week after, so my caffeine tolerance may be low.

the leaf and liquid color difference is noticeable

8281 #2:  these brewed for about 15 seconds, or maybe slightly over, which is a fairly long infusion for a high proportion and strong teas like these.

It's interesting how heavy and strong this flavor profile is, with it being clean at the same time.  This might turn into pretty good tea with another half a dozen years to finish the full fermentation transition process, which is really far along now, maybe equivalent to over 30 years in cooler and drier storage.

Heavy flavors could either be seen as a selling point or a negative, depending on preference.  Quite heavy mineral tone stands out.  It's strong enough that you need to "taste past it" to identify the rest.  One part of the remaining flavor is like a cured tree bark tone (so woody in a completely different sense than the other tea).  Spice range is still present; it links with that, or overlaps, some range of root spice.  Less of the more forward, bright, dry pine note is present, but it's still there, just in a different balance.  Other complexity probably still does relate to medicinal herb range, ginseng and such, but it's all hard to place, integrating with or being overshadowed by the rest.

8891:  complexity is good in this; there's a good bit going on (which is all relative, of course).  And the tone is lighter, which works well.  That hint of sourness at the end is a little more pervasive now.  I don't necessarily see it as a flaw, but if it was swapped out for something else the tea could be much more exceptional.  It seems to connect with a dryness that you feel in the center of your tongue as you drink it, and more just after you swallow.  

I remember this as a heavier and rougher edged tea.  It has mellowed.  The heaviness of flavor tones fading could easily relate to my judgment changing, or my general perspective.  Tasting any tea in combination with another also shifts things; that becomes a fixed baseline, adding a bias for what is a heavy level of any one input, or placing different aspects differently in comparison.

At this point I like the 8281 better, but this early sourness and dryness may be something that evolves out of this version over a few infusions, so it seems too early for that kind of judgment.  I should mention here that some claim that dry storage is "bad" for a tea, not for just slowing down transition pace, but also for imparting a slight sour note to teas.  I never really knew if that holds up, oddly, even though I've tried a good bit of dry stored pu'er.  Storage that is too wet (humid) is said to impart either a mustiness or overly heavy tones to a tea, or maybe both.  Then people talking about relative optimums tends to make for a complicated subject.

8281 #3:  brewing this faster, at 10 seconds, and being a couple of infusions in really lets this tea shine.  The flavor aspects I've been talking about (pine, heavy mineral tones, limited root spice, other medicinal spice) haven't changed, but the balance does shift completely.  Feel is still good, and pleasant aftertaste carries over.  Sweetness level is nice.  It works.  Brewed a bit stronger it probably wouldn't; this tea is pretty intense.

8891:  this also balances the best it has yet.  The bamboo woodiness seems to evolve to more of a sandalwood spice.  That one light sour range aspect is fading, or maybe a lighter infusion makes it seem to drop, but it's still present.  Feel is better.  

It's interesting tasting these and "looking for" the standard descriptors people often apply.  Do they taste nothing like betel nut (which could only be a guess on my part, not having tried that), or camphor?  Maybe the first (8281) does taste like betel nut, and the second like camphor.  Probably that second attribution is more grounded; there is an edge to this tea that kind of matches that.  The first seems to emphasize that light spice range all the more in comparison.

8281 #4:  I'm getting rocked by these teas.  Colors and color definition seems more vivid; it's affecting my vision.  Why didn't I put less tea in these gaiwans?  It's like a mental block, as if I can't.

This tea is really catchy, the way that a root spice stands out, with so much more going on beyond that.  Sweetness picks up, so the rootbeer like tone leans a little towards a dried fruit note input, but it's still really a sweeter range of spice input.

If flavors were a little heavier it would be too much, but for me that part is fine.  It's really clean, supported by great sweetness, rich feel, good balance, and pleasant aftertaste.  Maybe it would've been even better if it had been stored in a slightly cooler and drier place, and aged for 30 years instead of 19.  A decade of extra wait is a significant trade-off; you can't just move yourself through time to experience that.

8891:  that early sourness is losing its place in this tea, for the best.  It lacks some of smoothness and root spice complexity of the other, but a different form of lighter sandalwood sort of range spice is nice in this.  A light camphor edge has seemed to replace the sourness, definitely an improvement.  It might be even better after 4 more rounds, but it would be pushing it to drink just one more.  Let's go there; let's push it.

8281, #5:  I'm giving these more like 20 seconds to see them from a different perspective.  Heavier tones pick back up again; it's interesting how infusion strength varies perceived character like that.  And it's also handy, to be able to shift what you experience so easily.  It was better a little lighter.  That heavy mineral starts to come across almost like a charred tone, where is was part of a less prominent background context, less strong than the root spice, last round.

It's still not bad, not flawed, or too far out of balance, but it's better brewed lighter.

8891:  this version balances just fine brewed a little stronger.  The sourness didn't return; that did evolve out over early infusions, as I guessed might happen.  It might be slightly better than last round for being a little stronger.  It balances well.  One might expect the camphor effect to pick up, brewed stronger, but it's kind of the same, the flavors are just a little more intense, and the feel.  The other is smoother and richer, with this retaining a little dryness, just not in the same form as over the first few rounds, not as pronounced.  

If you drink the other right after this, while the aftertaste is still present, the contrast in it tasting so much more like spice really stands out.  Tried the other way that dryness stands out most in this, tasted right after the other.  It's not all that challenging or negative when you just drink this 8891, but in comparison it's more negative.  

Conclusions:

I tried a couple more rounds later and there wasn't more story to tell based on that.  Of course they didn't fade out and die within the first seven infusions.

I suppose that I like the 8281 more.  Could it be because it's more fermented, further along in aging transition?  Hard to say; that's not impossible.  The 8891 is lighter, smoother, and more balanced than I remember.  I may not have tried this for years.

Both are pretty decent.  I don't think these are what the Teas We Like curator vendor are probably looking for as the absolute best examples of aged sheng potential, but they're decent, and solid.  It doesn't help that I very rarely drink 20 year old range tea at this point; I mostly drink young sheng, within 3 or 4 years of being produced.  It's completely different in character.  It's interesting completing a 1500 word tea review without mentioning bitterness, for example.

What was missing, if these were reasonably well balanced, with pleasant flavor range, and not really expressing clear flaws, but I'm judging them to be good but not great?  Complexity was decent, and balance ok, but they both could've had a little more to offer.  That root spice range in the 8281 could've been more pronounced and spanned more interesting scope.  The 8891 had issues with dryness and light sourness early on, and then later evolved to be more pleasant, but it still mostly covered spice that wasn't so far removed from wood.  I think both will probably be better as 25 year old teas, that having plenty of intensity at this age is a good sign, so both have room to change positively, if only a little.  This 8891 might be fully age-transitioned at 30 years old, as this is going.

I hadn't planned to buy a cake of this but now I might.  As I mentioned I tried it once before, visiting that Chinatown shop, during a fast, on the first of 5 days off eating.  I didn't like it as much as this time.  It helps slowing things down and spending time with a tea, and brewing according to your own preference.  It helps having eaten.  Your sense of taste changes a lot more after 3 or 4 days of fasting, and you can smell the neighbors cooking dinner really far away, but just skipping breakfast changes things, a little.

This tea--the 8281--might be even better with a few more years to complete a transition, or a half dozen.  The 8891 is also much better than it was something like a half dozen years ago when I tried it last (maybe 3 or 4?  I lose track).  These are definitely not fading to not include much flavor intensity.  

To me this range, standard CNNP character, is one of three good examples of favorable and distinctive factory tea production, along with Dayi and Xiaguan.  Maybe people would typically prefer one of those over the others?  I really do like best-case outcome Xiaguan versions.  Or even the barnyard character of well-transitioned more standard range.  Many of their teas come across as rough-edged and basic but that flavor range is interesting.

there is a second cat over on the other side of the fence