Lincang and Fenqing Fu cake hei cha

 

Lincang origin version

Fengqing origin version

Fengqing version exterior; it's slightly darker than the other version

Lincang left, Fengqing right, in all photos

I'm reviewing two more Fu brick (cake) teas from Oriental Leaf; many thanks for them sending them for review.  Again these include plenty of golden flowers, Eurotium Cristatum, the fungus said to add positive character, complexity, and maybe even health benefits to this type of hei cha.  I'll start with their description:

On Taoism - Jingyang Golden Flower Fu Brick Tea - 190g Cake ($38.50 for 190 gram cake)

This 190-gram round Golden Flower Fu tea cake is the miniature packaging version of another of our best-selling 350g cakes. Although it is small in size and a bit lighter in weight, the quality of the tea is the same as that of the popular product.

The classic Golden Flower Fu Brick Tea from On Taoism Tea Factory is a signature product of our tea house.

We offer two options:

One is black-wrapped, made from grade one dark tea from Lincang, Yunnan, with a more intense tea aroma.

The other is yellow-wrapped and made from a particular grade one dark tea from Fengqing, Yunnan, with a deeper tea aroma.

Both types of tea undergo post-fermentation and flowering processes in Jingyang. The buds in the red packaging are more tender, while those in the black packaging are more durable for brewing.

These high-quality compressed tea cakes were produced in 2020. They stand out for their ability to be stored long-term and transform, resulting in a more mellow taste.

The most distinctive feature is the high density of golden flowers in the compressed tea cake. These golden flowers, a beneficial microorganism, signify high-quality Fu Brick Tea. To emphasize this feature, workers split the tea cake in half before it left the factory, allowing you to see the dense golden flowers upon receiving the tea. As mentioned in a previous blog, the number of golden flowers is a crucial quality indicator of Fu Brick Tea; the more golden flowers, the better the quality.

This Fu Brick Tea, with its unique round cake shape, supports the traditional and natural growth of the golden flower fungus. Unlike the brick shape of traditional pressed tea, this tea undergoes a unique post-fermentation process using Jingyang water in Jingyang. This process, involving controlled exposure to moisture and air, enhances the tea's flavor and aroma. Thanks to the cotton paper packaging, the rich, high aroma can be appreciated even before brewing.

The Golden Flower Fu Brick Tea offers a unique taste and brewing experience. The tea leaves, known for their durability, can be brewed over 15 times. The taste combines fresh, sweet notes and a returning sweetness with a clear and bright soup base. The On Taoism Tea Factory maintains a clean workshop, ensuring the tea's high quality without washing.

I checked and that larger version (On Taoism - Jingyang Golden Flower Fu Brick Tea - 350g Cake, also from 2020) costs $65.50 for a 350 gram cake (19 cents a gram), which is relatively close in price.

It's a little confusing separating out what I've experienced of the two cakes in relation to this limited description, since I always add the product background after the tasting part.  The black labeled version, the Lincang (on the left in all these photos), is said to have more intense aroma, and the other tan labeled version, from Fengqing, is said to have deeper aroma.  If by deeper they mean warmer in tones that's how I placed it, and it might be slightly more complex.

The color difference is interesting (the Fengqing being darker in appearance); there has to be more to the story about fermentation processing differences.  I suppose in the end it's more about the experience than the story.  Both were good.  I think I liked the Fengqing version more, but that might change, if I brewed both a number of times, in different ways.  I might use a Gongfu / gaiwan brewing approach and relate how that goes in a different post.

As far as value, is $38.50 per 190 grams a good value?  That's 20 cents a gram, equivalent to a 357 gram sheng cake costing about $70.  It's hard to say.  I don't doubt that this is a unique character and quality level offering for hei cha, that if you kept trying lower cost versions, which would be out there, they mostly probably wouldn't match it for quality and distinctiveness, over and over.  There could be exceptions, but you might own kilograms of lower quality teas before you found one, unless sampling first worked out.

The other Fu brick tea I reviewed from them (YXT Jingyang Fu Tea Classic Yellow Can 300g, reviewed here, described in a vendor page here) sold for $50 for a 300 gram tin, so for 17 cents a gram.  It wasn't that far off this range, but as far as I remember these are a bit more distinctive.  I'd have to try all three to really confirm that; I last tried that within the last week or so, but it can be hard placing the finest level aspects.

One difference is whether or not these can be bought as samples; these small cakes cannot.  If someone knows that they like this general range of tea I don't think buying one for $38.50 poses much risk; they're quite nice, and type-typical, if anything just better than average.  Determining which one of the two they might like better is a different story.  To the extent I describe one as more positive than the other that may relate mostly to my own preference.

For background context I'm on day 3 of a 5 day fast, not eating for that time period.  That changes my palate a little but not too much.  Sweetness seems to come across slightly differently.  I'm not concerned about these affecting my stomach, as most tea types would, since I checked on that effect yesterday, trying another Fu version they sent.  It's like drinking shu pu'er; not a problem.

Review:

brewed Western style; this should be as favorable as using a Gongfu approach

#1, Lincang:  pretty good; brewed a little light.  I'm not familiar with Western brewing this type of tea, and also not familiar with how much weight the flakes off this cake amount to.  Eyeing out sheng pu'er to brew in a gaiwan is familiar; it always just works out.  Even for Western brewing sheng I might not get it completely right; I just know how that tea looks in a gaiwan, even if varying compression changes the appearance and form.

Flavor is nice.  Of course it's in that odd range, including a dark bread tone, with a bit of yeast input, warm mineral, and decent sweetness.  A bit of what comes across as non-distinct spice adds complexity.  It might be towards fennel seed, matching the dark bread flavor range.  I'm not noticing much of a dried fruit input; a very limited amount of that range could turn up in similar teas.

Feel is pretty good; on the full side.  Those aspects trail as aftertaste, adding more impression of intensity and complexity.  There are no noticeable flaws.

All that is positive, but how good is this, compared to the other versions, or in general?  It being being brewed differently than I've most often been brewing these and my palate being a little off related to fasting make it hard to judge that.  It might be slightly more complex than the YXT Jinyang version, or slightly more distinctive, but it might not be; I might be remembering that wrong.

Fengqing:  warmer in tone, of course with some overlap.  The dark bread tone is darker, more a pumpernickle instead of a dark rye.  The mineral is darker (warmer, or even heavier, however one chooses to frame that).  

There is still a light aspect range in between yeast and fruit in this, which is comparable in the other version, which I only summarized as yeast-like there, stopping short of describing that as fruit.  It's like a citrus peel sort of edge.  In going back and tasting the first a hint of fruit tone is there too, but more pronounced in this one, easier to pick up.  That might relate to this being brewed slightly stronger; proportion seems a bit higher for it, but only a little.  

Again it's hard to judge the amount in the flakes, the way the tea separates.  It wouldn't be with just a little more exposure, but this tea type is still a little new to me, in the sense of brewing it regularly.  I first explored Fu brick teas ages ago, maybe 7 years back, but of course that doesn't help with judging an infusion's worth by appearance.

Those darker tones and the fruit make this come across as closer to chen pi shu pu'er.  It's not like that, instead much earthier in tone, maybe with a little more depth, and way less citrus.  In this it's a faint hint, not as strong as the yeast-like aspect, which might come across more like an aromatic spice.

This is complex enough that someone with a good imagination could see all sorts of flavors in it.  I suppose brewing both Gongfu style would really lend itself to that; the compounds and flavors that are extracted shifts some round to round.  One of the strengths of this tea type is that you can brew it quite strong and appreciate an intense and complex character.  I didn't this time; these were brewed for about 4 minutes, or maybe 3 1/2.  I'll give them a longer soak next round to see how that goes, but of course some of the input of the "golden flowers" fungus has already extracted, so the flavor profile was going to shift either way.

Someone suggested simmering this type of teas in an online comment.  That could be interesting.  I wouldn't expect it to be so different than using a long soak, a 7 or 8 minute Western infusion, but maybe it would be.  Eventually I'll probably get to that. 

Lincang version leaves, left, are definitely a little lighter

Lincang, second infusion:  this is pretty strong; I let this soak for over 15 minutes, essentially fully brewing out.  The infusion strength is different, and flavors come across differently.  Earthy tones are all the more dominant, a strong version of autumn leaf.  That still includes some bread tones, like a dark rye, again including some spice range, along the line of fennel seed.  

One light tone I associate with the golden flowers (fungus) relates to a yeasty aspect, not completely separated from a brighter fruit tone, but again not exactly like fruit.  If you think of a warm citrus input, like a chen pi / dried tangerine peel, then it seems like that.

Is it better brewed stronger?  I think so.  Body is nice and stout, the feel.  I suppose it even resembles one part of a brown ale or stout beer character, that dark bread-like range.  As with any tea type not everyone would love this, but people on this page for aspect preference would.  It might be a little better than the better of the other two Fu hei cha versions from Oriental Leaf, or maybe just different.  

It would help to try all three together, ideally with brewing dialed in, and probably not while fasting.  My palate is fine, I can taste it in a similar way, it's not like at the end of being sick, when things are muted.  There's just some slight variation.

Fengquing:  this is even more different.  The fruit tone in this shifted; it's not mostly a warm citrus range now.  It's hard to place though, because it's a bit complex.  One part might be like dried apricot, but that's hard to separate out from the warmer tones that are stronger.  Warm earthy range is still a bit like pumpernickel bread, one part of it, and there's warm mineral range, but it's complex, not limited to that list.  Maybe it's just related to this being brewed from a slightly higher proportion but I seem to like it better.

Overall tone is warmer, and there might be a touch more fruit, setting up a different kind of balance or different inputs.  It comes across as more complex and intense.  The wet leaves are much darker; there is more of a story there too.  Looking at the wet leaves the difference in leaf amount is quite limited; this might be brewing to a slightly higher intensity level without that being a main factor.

One nice part of this tea experience is what isn't there; there is no pronounced astringency, no rough feel, no off earthy flavors, and of course no bitterness, or objectionable mineral tones.  You could brew this as strong as you like and there's nothing to avoid or work around.  Or it would work lighter, as in the first infusion.  To me why not go inky strong; it's suited for that.  These would work well thermos brewed, or "grandpa style."

And it's easy on your stomach.  If you try drinking most kinds of teas, especially this much of them, after 2 1/2 days off eating you're going to be in trouble.  Shu pu'er is pretty forgiving for that, and aged white you can get away with, just not at this dosage, drinking four large cups.  I always feel a deep emptiness two or more days into fasting, and that doesn't drop out, but there is no discomfort from drinking these, even plenty of them.

I'll skip taking notes on a third round; I'll need to keep this moderate, and two giant mugs of tea over an hour + is plenty.  It would be nice to conclude if these really were better than the YXT version, but I can't confirm that from memory.  They seemed a little more complex and interesting, but it's a stretch to conclusively say that.  I'll try these brewed Gongfu style later, and see if it works out better, or not as well.  

I wanted to also share photos related to making a holy basil / tulsi tisane during this fast, a chance to use herbs from our garden.  It was quite pleasant, and the first time I've used that herb as a tisane in a long time.

there's a few holy basil plants growing, and a small lime tree in the photo center

I've been brewing tea for the plants too, from fallen leaves

Assamica Agro Green Adventure and Tulsi Green Sensation

Assamica Agro Green Adventure

Tulsi Green Sensation

I'm trying out two more teas from Assamica Agro, a tea producing cooperative from Assam.  This time I'm onto a plain green tea and a blend (their Green Adventure and Tulsi Green Sensation).  Tulsi wasn't familiar, but from their description it rings a bell:


Being known as the queen of Indian herbs, it was only natural to include tulsi in our tea blends. Tulsi or Holy Basil is one of the most precious herbs in traditional healing methods. This spicy and warm sensation will help you relax and charge your batteries for a new day, while offering a very pleasant flavor combining anis, basil, cardamom and mint notes all in one. Fresh and deep green tea is serving as a base of this perfectly balanced blend. Mild and pleasant scent of brew is matched by a delicate and savory flavor.  


Holy basil is familiar; we cook with that here.  This reference goes on and on about health benefits.  And I thought it was just another type of basil.

Review

The green tea smells fruity and rich, with a bit of concord grape to the scent, and earthy and mineral notes below that.  It actually smells nice, for a green tea, which is not exactly my favorite category.  That grape scent is not all that closely related to muscatel, another somewhat grape-like range of Darjeelings (or in some Oriental Beauty  Taiwanese oolongs), with that version closer to citrus.

The Green Sensation reminds me a lot of Vietnamese green teas as I first try it.  Those have a distinctive mineral base of flavors that is common to this, with differences in the other flavors.  There is some vegetable, as with those teas, as in those close of kale (which works better than it sounds, but if someone really hates kale then maybe not for them).  Beyond that secondary aspects are more floral than fruity.  Given all that is going on it comes across as complex.  The mineral helps it work, and the sweetness is nice, with clean and bright flavors.  If the taste ranged into cooked kale more--or cooked spinach, or other cooked vegetable range--it wouldn't be as pleasant, but it doesn't, it stays fresh and bright.


Since I wrote these notes I retried a version of Vietnamese tea I wanted to mention, which is pretty close to this one in character.  It's somewhere between kind of crazy and slightly bad form to put a tea review inside a tea review (like a Russian doll, someone once mentioned) but check out this green tea description for Hatvala's Vietnamese Purple Rain:


...distinctive taste which is a little earthy but with flavours that hint of mushrooms and other vegetables such as artichoke and asparagus.  Brewed sympathetically it will show off its natural sweetness with no bitterness.

Hatvala Purple Rain green tea (Vietnamese instead, but still a bit similar)

that tea that day; not the way they drink it

The "brewed sympathetically" in that tea description seemed to mean using cooler than boiling point water (around 75C / 170F, but that varies per preference), and not over-steeping it; nothing too demanding, how anyone would brew green tea.  Except most Vietnamese people, it seems; they tend to like the astringency and go with full boiling point water without limiting infusion times (per my limited understanding).



The last time I was in Hanoi (almost three years ago now; the time just flies) cafe staff brought a pot of green tea to drink, and trying the first cup I noticed it was a little edgy, from that boiling point water temperature choice.  I started to panic when five minutes went by and the pot still had the leaves brewing in it.  There was no way to "drink down" a pot of boiling hot tea, tiny cup after cup.  It must have seemed silly to them for a customer to dump the whole thing out in water glasses to stop the infusion process at that stage, but I did already get enough of the effect of where the extended infusion time was heading.  Hanoi is awesome to visit, by the way, a generally cool spot.


This is probably a good place to go back and cite the Assamica Agro Green Adventure description:


Smooth and tingling, moss and mushrooms with mineral notes that change to leafy vegetable flavor with subsequent steeping, light astringency that melts into a sweet aftertaste.


I noticed they had more interesting product information on that page:

picking tea in Assam (credit Assamica Agro Facebook page)

PERFECT FOR:  Deep and autumnal taste, perfect for refreshment in chilly days. 

SEASON:  Second Flush, 2017 

FARMER:  Prithivi Group of Small Growers, Dibrugarh (Assam)

CERTIFICATION:  This tea is produced following India's National Program for Organic Production (NPOP) Standards.  



I'm not so sure about the fall day theme but it is interesting that the teas are harvested in flushes (like Darjeeling), that the producer is a co-operative of sorts (I probably should have said more about that by now in earlier reviews), and that the teas are organic.


Neither of the descriptions for the Vietnamese tea or the Assam mentioned kale but they both taste a bit like that to me.  I'm not noticing mushroom so much in either, but some flavor depth for both could be that.  Unless I'm remembering wrong both have some floral tone to them, and a good bit of mineral base, and are kind of similar.  Good Vietnamese green tea is a nice thing, and even ordinary versions are nice, very consistent, with that "Purple Rain" version a good bit better and more interesting than average.  It's a good tea to seem similar to, for the Assam version, if someone is into complex, clean-flavored, mineral based, slightly vegetal green tea with some rich floral tone.


I'm not necessarily noticing the concord grape (in the Assam tea; back on target here).  There is a lot going on for flavors though, and it could include that.  I'd also list citrus, and the floral range is along the lines of lavender, on the rich side.  To the extent that I like green teas in the normal range for green teas I like this one.  It's not really astringent, the balance works, and it's not "straight grass."

Tulsi left (a bit darker than plain green tea), Green Adventure right

The Tulsi Green is really an herb blend, something I don't get to much.  I drank tisanes instead of tea for a long time, for something like 15 years, so I'm open to the experience of them, and still dabble in them a little.  I just never get around to drinking tea and herb blends, since I tend to value the simple, natural range of aspects in plain teas.  I really appreciate the way complexity and subtlety can result from using only one type of plant leaf processed in one way.

The scent of this dry tea is a bit like incense, or a spice blend, kind of hard to describe, but appealing, and bit intense.

I guess it tastes like infused tulsi (holy basil; one kind of it since there are two).  It's closest to lemongrass, based on spices range I'm familiar with, but comes across as an herb blend that also includes lemongrass, with that as only a base for part of the flavor range.  It shares some taste range with licorice.  Of course I mean the black candy and plant type, although I only ever tend to experience the plant flavor in better versions of the black candy.  It's funny how the Twizzlers version sort of tastes like that and sort of doesn't.  That candy is still nice, it just doesn't taste exactly like real licorice.

The complex flavor range doesn't leave off there, but that's where a struggle to describe it picks up.  A lemongrass and licorice blend would taste like this, but it goes further.  That probably would be a good idea for an herb blend, based on trying this.  That reminds me to check what licorice really is, since I'm only familiar with the somewhat chewy candy:


Liquorice (British English) or licorice (American English) /ˈlɪkrɪʃ, ˈlɪkər-, -ɪs/ LIK-(ə-)rish, LIK-(ə-)ris)[5] is the root of Glycyrrhiza glabra from which a sweet flavour can be extracted. The liquorice plant is a herbaceous perennial legume native to southern Europe and parts of Asia, such as India. It is not botanically related to anise, star anise, or fennel, which are sources of similar flavouring compounds.

Most liquorice is used as a flavouring agent for tobacco, particularly US blend cigarettes, to which liquorice lends a natural sweetness and a distinctive flavour and makes it easier to inhale the smoke by creating bronchodilators, which open up the lungs.[6][7] Liquorice flavours are also used as candies or sweeteners, particularly in some European and Middle Eastern countries.


Cool, I did not know all that.  Funny how the British are about spelling.

It might have a sweet tone to it that could be floral, it's just hard to isolate as that.  A hint of spice is out towards one that I'm not completely familiar with, maybe tumeric or coriander.  I do cook and eat lots of foreign foods but my range of taste awareness still has limits.  I can barely remember the names for different types of flat breads with Indian foods.

It's odd this doesn't taste that much like basil, any kind of it.  This herb version I cook with isn't just like sweet basil, and definitely not like Thai basil, which tastes a lot like mint, but in cooking it did seem to remind me more of sweet basil than this tea does.  Then again I'm always mixing it with food, and drying an herb can change the flavor more than one might expect sometimes.  Or it doesn't always seem to, it depends on the herb.  Dried rosemary infused as a tisane tastes a lot like fresh rosemary and infused papaya leaf varies lots in taste depending on if you heated it at all during drying or not.

Second infusion

I'm brewing these Western style so there won't be a long list of different infusions to comment on; this second will do, even though these will surely brew a third.

The green tea didn't transition that much, at least in one sense.  The flavor might be a little less bright, filling in some depth in richness instead, with the mineral range broadening.  It's funny how shifting the balance of aspects really did change this tea but I would still describe it using the same concepts, it's just not the same with them layered differently.  With that mineral picking up as much as it did it's now on the flintier, limestone side leaning a little towards metal.  That might sound horrible but I don't mind it; it's the grassy, seaweed or cooked vegetable range I don't care for in green teas.

The kale had been ok, but the overall balance has shifted more towards mineral now, with some floral undertone hanging in there.  But that's a personal preference thing: someone else could love or hate seaweed or intense mineral.  And likes can change over time.  I started out on Japanese green teas, and did like that seaweed / grass range in those, and then later moved on to liking black teas and more roasted oolong aspects range most.

The "Tulsi" tea is fading just a little, but still plenty intense.  It lost a little in terms of the brightest range, and picked up depth and earthiness.  The lemongrass related effect dropped off a little, and the licorice picked up.  I guess it must taste a lot like holy basil, but then I can pick that up locally, dry it out, and check further to verify that.  It has an interesting mouthfeel too, a slight drying effect, which I don't find to be positive or negative, just different.

I have to close this on the early side.  It's time to chase the kids, who seem to be trying to tear down one of the walls from the sound of it.  I did brew a couple more infusions later but didn't take notes on those; as likely it was more of the same, with limited transition.

Both teas were nice, and trying out a tea and herb blend went better than I would have expected.  They included a rose petal and green tea blend sample, way off what I usually drink, but if that turns out to be interesting I'll mention it.  They also sell the rose petals as a plain tisane and I think per my preference I might like that better with black tea, and it would be easy enough to buy both from them and mix them.

they look like trouble, don't they?