Oriental Leaf Bing Dao sheng pu'er

 

I'll copy the vendor's site listing here before posting this review, and just write a few comments first, then the notes.  Bing Dao is one of the two higher profile, known sheng pu'er types, along with Lao Ban Zhang.  Other origin area types would be great too; it just worked out that way.

I've not tried much of it, at all, maybe only a couple of versions.  So this won't get far with describing what it type-typical, and will focus on this tea.  I think it should be sweet, floral, and complex, with great depth and refinement, supported by a pleasant mineral base, and balanced bitterness.  But then that works for a lot of sheng range in general.  Maybe the flavor range should be distinctive, in a way I'm not recollecting.  Let's see how it is, and maybe refer to a second or third reference later, beyond the product listing description.

This is presented as a coin, or tiny single serving cake.  To me that opens up faster and works better than the dragonball / pearl style, letting all of the tea infuse at the same rate.

  

It's in an 8 gram size, with an indentation in the coin enabling splitting it to drink in two 4 gram parts.  That would make sense; for better quality tea it can work to go lighter on the proportion (than 7 or 8 grams per 100 ml volume worth), to enable more careful control of brewing timing.  At 8 grams you are more just flash infusing the tea, versus really dialing in the strength you want.  

I'll still use 8 for this initial tasting; it's more my habit, my own personal norm, and that changes things.  7 grams would be enough, but 8 isn't too much, even though I'll probably end up mentioning the trade-off for using a higher proportion in this.

Let's check the Oriental Leaf site listing:

Bingdao Aged Raw Pu-erh Coin Cakes — Mengku Rongshi ($17.50 for 40 grams, for five 8 gram coins)

Raw pu-erh from Bingdao's core growing area, made from 2020 harvest material that was aged before being pressed and released. Mengku Rongshi — the brand widely credited with establishing Bingdao's reputation — has been sourcing from this area since 1984. Classic Bingdao character: rock-sugar sweetness, a clean cooling finish, and strong salivation that stays long after the cup is empty. Compressed into 8g coin cakes, packaged in small boxes of five. Available as a single box (40g) or a full set of eight boxes (320g)...

Mengku Rongshi has been sourcing from the area since 1984, long before it was a name anyone outside the local tea trade knew. When the brand released their first Bingdao tea, the "Mother Tree" ( 母树茶), in 2005, it was among the first to formally introduce this material to a wider market. 

The raw material for this tea was harvested in 2020 from high-grade Bingdao area gardens — one bud plus two leaves, selected to the same standard as the brand's other Bingdao products.

Rather than pressing immediately after processing, the brand held the material in dry storage at their Yunnan factory — allowing it to settle, integrate, and develop before compression. The first batch was pressed and released in 2023 after aging in dry storage. Subsequent batches — released in 2024, 2025, and 2026 — draw from the same 2020 material, pressed and released in their respective years.

After leaving the factory, the tea has been stored in Xi'an, in northwest China. Xi'an's climate is dry, with low annual humidity and clear seasonal variation — a natural dry storage environment that allows aging to continue cleanly and slowly, without the intervention of high ambient moisture.

To me that was interesting background, so I included a bit more than I usually do.  I don't include the typical "is it real?" discussion point in this.  It probably is, but some people always question everything related to high demand origin teas, and there isn't much more to say about that.  For some maybe the cost would seem too low; it is a bit reasonable, which some could see as a red flag.

So this is 2020 material; interesting!  I didn't guess that it was that age transitioned.  Value seems really good for this high an in-demand region, and the quality and character is positive.  On with the notes then.

Review:

First infusion:  the smell is already sweet and floral, before trying it.  This will be a bit light for taking notes on flavors though; it's still opening up.  Initial impression is positive; it is sweet, floral, and complex.  But the next round will tell a more detailed story.  There's a bright, fruity, creaminess to this already, even though the intensity is low.

Second infusion:  bitterness emerges, along with more other sweet flavor range.  Intensity is good; this really hits on a lot of levels, even though it's really still opening up.  The mineral is a little intense, along the range of a dry rock type, maybe limestone.  Bitterness balances reasonably well, but it's still evolving, not even at its normal, opened leaf infusion character yet.  Flavor range is mostly floral, but it leans towards fruit.  

Aftertaste is starting to pick up already, even though the tea intensity and character isn't in its normal form yet.  It's clearly quite good.  Given how this is coming across I'd expect the next round to be much more intense, even brewed fast, with bitterness, mineral, and an astringency edge as pronounced as it will be, evolving to soften over the next two rounds after.  But we'll see.

Third infusion:  intensity is interesting in this, even for being brewed fast.  So it's on to the trade-off of using a high proportion already; there is no dialing the timing down to try a lighter infusion, at this proportion.  The mineral tone seems to include a little dryness, which isn't coming across as a flaw, but it is distinctive in a way that some would love and others might not.  It will probably fade soon anyway.

Intensity is good; it's a strong tea.  Sweetness level is pronounced; that works.  Floral range flavors--they're mostly that--are positive, complex and reasonably well balanced.  All of this seems a little non-specific, but that's my early impression so far.  I'm wondering how new or aged this is; I didn't catch a year.  It has a bright, fresh, young sheng character, but the warm tones suggest that it may not be completely new, maybe 2 or 3 years old.  But it's hard to tell.  A tea could be this fresh after 6 years in cool and dry storage, or longer, and a year or so of heat and humidity could draw out this kind of character here in Bangkok.  Within 2 or 3 years teas start to take on middle-age form here, what would be more conventional after 5 to 10 years elsewhere.  [Later edit:  it's 6 years old, older than I expected].

At this stage the hint of dryness in the strong mineral base would determine a match to preference for someone.  Then if that evolves, as I think it will, it would be something else later.

Fourth infusion:  a syrupy feel picks up; this had expressed fullness of feel structure before, but now it's in a different form.  The flavor tones warm just a little.  It's still mostly floral, but a hint of caramel range is emerging.  Someone could interpret this as expressing a light citrus edge; that could make sense.  Or I guess if you are really "looking for it" it could be as fruity as floral, maybe along the line of including some mango, or dried longan.  It's complex, but within a limited range.

Then mineral is a lot of it as well.  The dryness that I associate with that mineral tone isn't dropping out, maybe only shifting form slightly.  It comes across in the aftertaste expression, and seems to match with a dry structure in the feel.  This includes bitterness, but it doesn't carry over as a strong hui gan aftertaste sweetness effect.  Moderating intensity may serve this well, using the 4 gram approach instead.  It has plenty of sweetness and flavor to express, and brewed quite light it might fall into a different kind of balance.  That's not intended as an "oh no, I've screwed this up" kind of observation, more about where an optimum might be.

I drank a little cold water to reset my palate after this round, and experienced that sweetness effect that can come up, where it tastes like there is sugar in it, a carry-over from the tea effect.  The mineral and trace of dryness seems to mask that part of the aftertaste effect, for me, the sweetness after swallowing, but the water really brought it out.

This tea seems a bit strong, the stoney cha qi effect.  It would be nice if I liked such a thing more.  I have a history with drug use, well in my past now, so I avoid almost anything that shifts my balance of perception, I guess with the exception of running.  Tea also does, but I eat first, or with the tea, to offset that.  My normal mental balance is fine; my energy level varies a little, but my mental state is typically clear and positive enough.

Fifth infusion:  this is the most positive this has been.  The bitterness and astringency edge are fading, and strong flavors stand out all the more.  Mostly floral, still, or that could be interpreted as floral with some fruit input.  The touch of creaminess that stood out very early on is ramping back up.  It comes across as creamsicle, as a touch of orange combined with actual cream, or ice cream.  The other fruit range I was describing included a hint of citrus, and the rest isn't closely related, but it adds to overall complexity.  Intensity is pretty good too; I'm not intending to downplay that here.  And overall balance, refinement, etc.  

This tea should evolve positively over the next few years, and then I probably wouldn't like it as much as a more aged version later on, since it's positive now.  It's not one of the more approachable, easy to drink, oolong oriented style sheng pu'er versions, but it's not challenging at all either.  Mineral intensity, bitterness, and a touch of dry feel (astringency) balance well with the rest, but those wouldn't suit everyone in the same way.

For feel input alone drinking 4 grams of this at a time might make more sense.  It's strong.  Five rounds of two teas--a common review comparison form here--usually doesn't contribute the same kind of stoney effect.  I'll either try one more round and get blasted or take a 15 minute break and come back to this.  Maybe the break; it's kicking in plenty already.

Sixth infusion:  it falls into better and better balance.  The bitterness, astringency, flavor range, and depth are all the best they've been.  Tones were warming, and I suppose that hasn't changed since the last round, but it's warmer than earlier rounds.  The flavor list stays the same as described earlier.  I suppose within a round or two the overall balance will shift enough that it will seem different, or if I brew the next round fast enough that might change things.

Seventh infusion:  for brewing two infusions one after the other, and a second one lighter, intensity finally dropped off a little.  It's fine this way, but it's not more magical, or completely different.  To me the feel range is positive in this, but it's also intense, with a bit of drying effect, just less than earlier.  Good sweetness and positive flavor balances that, but in other really nice tea versions that can come across more as fullness than structure, if that makes sense.  Taken one way it sounds like I'm describing oolong in comparison with sheng; I mean within the typical range sheng expresses.  

It's interesting that it's a cool morning, at 10 AM, but I'm sweating a lot.  This tea is affecting both my mind and body.  It has been an unusually rainy monsoon season, raining every day for a couple of weeks; that's a lot of it too.  

During that flooding cycle period last week it was over 80% RH during the days, the most humid I've ever seen it.  It must be in the high 70s just now (77%, 30 C, feeling like 32, my phone says; that relative heat index sounds a little unreliable).  A second source says it's 89 F (32), 73%, and feels like 103.  I'm going to go run in an hour anyway; I finally beat that foot problem I had, by taking a month off of running.

Eighth infusion:  smooth, balanced, complex, and tasty.  The mineral starts to resemble a hint of smoke, changing form from rock to include whatever other range.  It's definitely not dropping out.  For someone who absolutely loves sheng intensity this expresses an interesting and positive form of that.  That distinctive feel might not be for everyone, the heavy astringency structure and bit of dryness.  For a young sheng drinker it's just normal though, not even that pronounced in form, since remotely "young" factory sheng would express much more rough structure and dryness.  7542 would take a dozen years to be this approachable, or maybe 20 under dry storage, and by then the positive fresher flavor aspects would have shifted to a less distinctive, middle-aged form.

I suppose it's fair to say that I liked the Ban Zhang tea version character I just reviewed better.  Stronger sweet flavor range stood out even more, and feel wasn't as structured, or dry at all.  That's because I am acclimated to tolerate, or even crave, challenging, intense sheng versions, but I like strong flavored and sweet but approachable forms the best.

Conclusions:

So very positive.  It's not meaningful to say that I happened to like some other origin and source version better; that was more about my own style preference than a quality judgement.  Looking back on the review notes comment that might have related to really liking the fresh, bright, intense floral range that can tend to start transitioning to warmer tones within a few years, even if it can come at a cost in terms of heavier bitterness and astringency in some versions.  For me a broad range of bitterness is fine, if it balances with the rest.

It's interesting considering that this is a 6 year old tea version.  It had definitely transitioned some, but not nearly as much as any tea spending 6 years in Bangkok would, regardless of starting point.  The initial brightness and freshness is long gone when a tea spends that long here.  It seemed younger, to me, but that probably partly relates to that biased expectation of rapid aging.  10 year old dry stored sheng versions seem really fresh to me.

General quality level seemed positive, and character was nice.  It was a good sign that it kept brewing positive infusions, even well beyond the 8 described here.  It just wouldn't give out.  Let's consider their type-typical aspect description:

"rock-sugar sweetness, a clean cooling finish, and strong salivation that stays long after the cup is empty." 

I don't know.  It was sweet, and flavors were very positive, with good aftertaste expression, especially related to length and "returning sweetness" effect, hui gan, even without a higher than average level of bitterness.  Body feel and stoney effect really stood out; I tend to not notice that much, but for this I did.

I looked up an old Bing Dao listing to see if the character seemed similar or not, even though comparing two random versions of a general type or origin example is relatively meaningless.  The sample size is too small.  But I did review a four year old Bing Dao tea coin in 2022, here.  I guess it sounded a bit similar.  I didn't have a cost to compare it to; that seemed to be something a friend had shared earlier.  So I guess the point here is that you really need to keep trying different versions to have a baseline for comparison.  A couple of examples seeming somewhat similar is hard to place.

This tea experience reminded me of a recurring theme in this blog, about how sheng drinkers acclimate to bitterness and then later really crave the tea intensity (more about the second).  This tea was intense.  To me that's a great thing; it made for a very pleasant experience.  For others maybe it could seem a bit much, if they were more into oolong or whatever else.  It didn't have challenging feel structure, overwhelming bitterness, or unusually heavy mineral tone intensity, but it was intense across different range, just refined and balanced at the same time.  Especially for a 6 year old version; it must have softened and mellowed over time.

Chang Kham 2025 Thai sheng

 

this 5th infusion shows color variation in the leaf best

I'm reviewing a sheng version from Thailand from Chang Kham tea (or Changkham; it can be either one).  As I understand it it's more or less a spin-off or secondary brand started by a family member from Sen Xing Fa, a popular Bangkok Chinatown tea shop, started as a physical shop in Chiang Mai.  They also source and sell tea under their own brand.

He sent a few teas for review, Mr. Tian did, that family member.  We aren't in close contact, but I post a lot about reviewing different Thai teas in different places.

Their store in Chiang Mai is located here, and this is the related Facebook page.  There is a limited detail product description in that page, for this tea, or a similar one from another year, but I'll reference it in the Conclusions section instead of here, since there isn't an aspects description to compare against.

This photo is from a tasting at Sen Xing Fa, posted about here, where they were great hosts for a number of tea enthusiasts visiting, sharing a lot of exceptional tea:

from maybe around a decade ago, again at Sen Xing Fa

I was in Sen Xing Fa a couple of weeks ago, to buy some Thai oolong

This post reviews tea I bought in Sen Xing Fa in 2018, not that it's all that relevant to this.  That was an unusual Zhong Cha looking version, what was a lot better than it first seemed, aging well into really nice depth.

At the end of this I'll place this tea experience in relation to trying some other Thai sheng this year, some of which was kind of ordinary, and some really exceptional.

Review:

First infusion:  I gave this a bit too long, in part to get it started, and because I looked at something else online, brewing it for around half a minute.  Proportion is lower than normal, so that I can get through a relatively full cycle without doing a dozen rounds.  Lower than normal for me is anything below 8 grams for 100 ml gaiwan; this might be about 6.

Flavor is great.  Honey sweetness stands out, and plenty of floral range.  Bitterness is pronounced, but then this is brewed a little strong.  I'll try a faster infusion next time and it should fall into a relatively ideal balance.  It could be more fruit that I'm noticing than floral range; it's a little hard doing a breakdown at higher than usual infusion strength.  Honey really stands out most.

Tones are warmer than one would expect, for a one year old sheng.  It has brightness and freshness, but it's also warm.  Mineral base gives it good complexity, and the feel is nice, full, and not harsh.  Aftertaste expression is positive, especially for a first round.

Second infusion:  this is still strong more or less flash brewed, which I take as a good sign.  Good intensity is very positive, unless the rest of the range is harsh, or off.  Honey sweetness still stands out.  It's probably both floral and fruit range in this; there is a lot going on.  I always have trouble identifying the floral aspects, but they're warmer in tone than you would expect.  Fruit flavor is along the line of dried longan, which is a personal favorite among dried tropical fruits.  You can think of it as being like dried mango, if that's not familiar, but it's warmer, sweeter (in a sense), and heavier.

The way it's full in your mouth is pleasant, the feel.  The intensity and complexity combine well with distinctive feel and pleasant aftertaste.  There isn't a hint of a flaw in this; everything that's there works well.   

It's less light, bright, and sharp than the Wawee Tea version I've tried recently, that I also love.  For someone looking for warmer tones in a young sheng, that's not challenging, but still complex, spanning some fruit range instead of just light floral tones, this is perfect.  It's probably pretty good for most people, regardless of preference.  I suppose the bitterness would be more challenging for people not into sheng than I'm considering; it did take me time to adjust to that.  I don't see this as bitter, at all, but that is a main part of what is there.

Third infusion:  bitterness might be evolving a little faster than the rest; this is moving from approachable, sweet and mild sheng range on to more conventional sheng character.  For sheng drinkers that's perfect, for others maybe not so much.  One part of the mildness and fullness, almost creaminess, of the feel reminds me of oolong, but it's definitely sheng.  Intensity is greater, complex flavors are different, feel is more substantial, and bitterness stands out.  

This feel hits all across your mouth.  It's almost as if you are tasting it with your whole mouth, as if it reacts with other parts than your tongue.  The feel includes that part about causing you to salivate a little.  Aftertaste includes a good bit of mineral, not really light or warm mineral, but maybe in the middle, or maybe complex.  This tastes like a more wild or natural origin, older plant tea, to me.  Aftertaste effect could be a little stronger, but what you experience is positive.  

One might consider if flavors are less distinct because this was blended from different material sources, or for other reasons.  At a guess it's just naturally like this.

Fourth infusion:  warmer flavor range picks up, in the mineral, and in the fruit and floral range.  I think flavors are combining, that it's not just 3 or 4 main notes, but that the fruit, floral, and mineral ranges cover a combined flavor aspect scope.  One part seems to involve a warmer version of citrus, like some sort of dried peel.  Honey fades, as heavier mineral tone picks up.  It may be moving towards an incense spice sort of flavor range.  

Fifth infusion:  the camera sees darkened leaf material, mixed in with the rest, more than you notice just looking at the leaves.  A higher than average roast input for some of the material is probably lending it complexity, or maybe it's extra oxidation input, or both.  

I see that as positive, although it's not really completely conventional, for Yunnan sheng.  It doesn't mean that it won't age well, although the transition patterns may be affected some by that.  If most of the material is normally processed, not more oxidized or roasted, it should still change in the normal ways, across a typical time-frame, but any alteration for some of the material would make some difference.  Versions that are notably more oxidized don't tend to age very well at all, beyond a few years.

It's clean and complex, and intensity is good.  I'm not having luck breaking flavors down more.

Sixth infusion:  not so different; I'll leave off taking notes here.  Intensity stays positive, but some of the interesting flavor range (honey and fruit) tends to evolve away earlier on, even though the rest stays positive.  It's still pleasant to drink, just not like it was.

Conclusion:

Thinking back on it this post could seem a little less positive than it would be if I hadn't been drinking such exceptional Thai and Vietnamese sheng lately.  Without meaning to I'm comparing this to some of the best SE Asian sheng versions I've ever tried, just because it worked out that way.  I describe it as very good, but it might just sound normal.

It held its own ok, but that might not have came across in those review notes.  I suppose I liked the Wawee Tea sheng I've recently reviewed a little more, but it was a great match for my own personal preference, and a really exceptional tea version.  Others could easily like this more.

To clarify that, the Wawee Tea version included more bitterness, more intensity, and some extra vegetal range, a sort of green wood edge.  I love that, if it all balances well, along with pronounced sweetness, fruit flavor, and floral range.  It does, in that version.  This tea might be a little fruitier, initially, and probably less challenging. 

It would sound like it's less durable, because I'm describing its character as leveling off in a sixth infusion, where I've been reviewing those other Thai and Vietnamese sheng into 7 or 8 rounds, and changes were still not a sign they were fading.  One part of that related to using a lower proportion, and to brewing the first round for about twice as long as made sense, for 30 seconds instead of 15.  It would more optimum to use shorter infusions for a tea like this, and it would run its course over 8 or 9 rounds, at a normal proportion (again for me at 8 grams).  It would then brew a few more pleasant rounds, maybe totaling a dozen or more.

It's tempting to move on to speculating about a fair market value range, but that doesn't work well.  This Facebook post, which may not be an identical tea version, lists small 200 gram cakes of black tea and "raw tea" for 2000 baht each, for about $60:

I wouldn't age this tea, beyond 2 or 3 years, but it might be good after 15 or 20 more years

That would make it $107 for a 357 gram cake size, which they don't seem to sell.  That's not bad.  It's high for local in-Thailand tea pricing, and normal for Western market range.  I paid less for the Wawee Tea versions, which I do like better, but the Tea Side Western-facing Thai tea online outlet tends to sell teas for more, which may be generally equivalent.

For a tourist visiting they are absolutely not going to find local Thai sheng this good anywhere else.  But then you can't just drop in on Wawee Tea (unless you are in that village, and made arrangements ahead of time), or visit Tea Side, which is an online shop.  So if it costs 30 cents a gram instead of some lower amount that's still a great value.

2018 Reunion Xiaguan 500 gram Da Xue Shan tea ball

 

In visiting that favorite local Bangkok Chinatown shop not long ago, Jip Eu, they mentioned having a novel version of Xiaguan product that we'd never covered in discussion.  It's a 500 gram  / half kilo ball of tea, not a tuocha or a cake, something else instead.  It's 2018 Reunion Da Xue Shan origin tea, a special production version, seemingly intended for gift-giving, now called gifting.

Why did I never hear of this, since I've bought lots of Xiaguan tuochas there before, and two versions of an older Xiaguan cake from them?  That shop works out like that.  They have different amounts of one-off teas around, and that one might've seemed like something appropriate for giving someone as a gift, versus what a sheng drinker might buy for themselves.  They even offered to let me try it after I bought it, if I was going to buy it for myself, so at least I'd have a chance to taste it, assuming I might be giving it away.

packaging was a bit extensive

extensive

The information I have on it comes from them (Jip Eu) passing on a Xiaguan site listing, which of course has been automatically translated at some point.  It says this:

Mid-Autumn Festival: Drink “Reunion Tuan Tea”

Original by Cheng Nuanru | P u’er Tea Circle

September 24, 2018

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as Moon Night, Autumn Festival, Mid-Autumn Day, Festival of the Eighth Month, Moon-Chasing Festival, Moon-Watching Festival, Moon-Worship Festival, Daughter’s Festival, or the Reunion Festival, is a traditional Chinese celebration...

...The 2018 Xiaguan raw Pu’er “Reunion Tuan Tea” is made from early spring big-leaf tea trees from Daxueshan, Mengku, Lincang in Yunnan Province.

It’s crafted using Xiaguan’s century-old traditional handmade techniques.

If you reverse image search it, or search using terms (which doesn't seem to work), you can find this Dragon Tea House listing.  It includes almost no information about the tea, not a good sign.  At least it seems highly unlikely that someone is pressing a 500 gram ball of tea to pass off as a counterfeit of a moderately priced real version.

I'll skip mentioning the shop cost here; that might change over time.  They tend to sell older sheng on the low side of the standard range, and for some teas there isn't a lot of standard range to work with.  I found one example of someone selling this online (that listing), for $84, and it cost less than that.

Expectations related to aging transition and potential are interesting; a 2018 Xiaguan version shouldn't be ready yet, typically.  But then this may not have standard Xiaguan character, the rough edges, harsh intensity, and barnyard range character.  I'll say more about potential issues with it coming straight out of a storage space in the review notes.

Review:

#1:  on the light side; I didn't use a rinse, so this is just getting started.  Flavor range is interesting, smooth and layered.  Tones are warm, maybe even beyond what I'd expect for a 7 year old version.  It will be clearer next round though.

#2:  it's in an interesting place for being in between where it was and where it's headed for fermentation input and result.  It's intense, but without the typical Xiaguan barnyard flavors, which must relate to a different source origin.  This clearly wasn't light, flavorful, approachable, and sweet as boutique sheng can be earlier on; it still has a lot of power, and some bitterness and astringency.

The flavors are hard to break down to a list.  Mineral stands out, but as usual I see that as more of a base for the rest.  Earthiness could relate to wood or even dried mushroom.  That sounds worse than I would intend; it's complex and balanced, not overpowered by some off flavor, but it's not really centered on floral range, or the like.  Sometimes sheng can loosen up and shift a good bit over the next few infusions; the next one or two might tell a different story.  I'll have to keep infusion times short to keep intensity in check; this is a strong tea.

#3:  it might be musty tones that I'm picking up, possibly as much from a storage conditions input as the tea itself.  Jip Eu's storage is surely very hot and humid (all of Bangkok is), and relatively tightly sealed, so that tea straight from there has picked up some significant mustiness.  That usually fades, but it takes time, a month or two.  I'm not sure if the conditions and that input are a bad thing, neutral, or actually good.  Adding more air exchange to their storage area would resolve that in one sense, but that may cost the tea stored there intensity, removing more of what gives it flavor.  For well-sealed teas it wouldn't matter (sealed oolongs stored there); I mean for sheng, left open enough to access some air contact.  This was stored in what I take to be a muslin cotton bag, inside a box, with no plastic wrapper or bag layer, as is more common.  It would've contacted external scents all the more for that.

Flavor is still kind of clean; it's a bit of a contradiction.  There is that one edge, but beyond that nothing off, earthy, musty, or so on.  It's not really vegetal, at least not as much as is common with sheng still going through the first half or so of its aging cycle.  I'd have expected some residual floral range, but there's not much, and it hasn't transitioned to the standard dried fruit, medicinal herb, camphor, and incense spice ranges.  But it seems to have potential to develop in lots of directions.  There is a lot going on, a lot of complexity and intensity, I'm just failing to describe it.

#4:  it's cleaning up; a good sign.  It's not overly musty, not exactly tasting as if it had been in an attic or basement, but it had been in a storage area that should resemble attic background scent range.  The flavor could seem to imply either aged hardwood, in an unusual vegetal range, or on to rich dried fruit, or medicinal herb, or all of those things, maybe even including some incense spice.  I think I'm trying it right between it's early character and the aged version.  It certainly didn't "go quiet," as people describe as one possible outcome, but it's covering range that doesn't necessarily make sense together.

Some might read this as a negative assessment, but to me the opposite is implied.  It's in a great to place to develop into very interesting and positive range over the next 7 or 8 years.  Sure that could seem like awhile, but time passes quickly.  That would be a rushed version of the process, for a tea like this to be essentially ready at around 15 years into aging.  The hot and humid storage input has definitely rushed things along.

As I keep tasting it tobacco would be a reasonable interpretation, I suppose tasting like a cigar instead of cigarette or chewing tobacco.  That ties to this being anchored in earlier vegetal character and now moving on to richer, transitioned, warmer tones.  I would guess that in just 5 years it won't taste a lot like tobacco, mushroom, or attic, that it will have moved on to whatever other transitioned range instead.  There is still no "barnyard" range developing; it doesn't really taste like leather, cured hay, aged wood, or smoke.

#5:  it keeps getting better.  Sweetness picks up, and that distinctive mustiness is fading.  I think with two months of aging it will be less of an input, and I could tell better where this is going, but it's so far from it's final more-fermented form that it would only be so informative.  I think this tea is going to be wonderful in a half dozen years, and maybe fully at its peak in another 10.  It might be fine to drink through it in 7 or 8, close enough, but then it's always a judgment call finishing tea right before it's fully ready.  I might need to buy another of these, to own a full kilogram, to be able to keep sampling and also have plenty later on.

#6:  there might be more story to tell over the next half dozen infusions, but lots of round by round notes will be too much.  This still tastes in between cured and aged wood, and like tobacco, with complexity that is hard to place filling in from there.  It's not really bitter and astringent in relation to younger sheng range but there is some bitterness and astringency remaining; this started out as really intense tea.  It has lots of potential to keep changing.

#7:  sappiness of feel ramps up, and to some extent a related flavor.  It leans a little more towards pine now.  I suppose brewing a dried pine cone might taste like this.  It's interesting that this keeps changing, but one might expect that, given the earlier intensity.

#8:  more of the same, more minor transition.  It's definitely not losing intensity.  I'll cut off the note-taking here; a minor transition or two won't change much.

Conclusions:

I liked it.  The in-between fermentation ranges issue and mustiness from being direct from storage did stand out, related to how it is right now.  In terms of only how the experience is right now the 2006 tuocha version I tried not long ago is a good bit better.  It's harder to place longer term potential though; I think this might be good even before the general 20 year old age range, which doesn't come up for another 13 years.  In another 7 it might be in a good place, related to hot and humid conditions rushing that process, even though a more final form will probably level off in another 10 or so.

That raises a couple of questions.  Would it better if you stored it in a cooler and dryer place for 20 years, or 25, instead of rushing the process over 14 years here, or maybe on towards 20?  Maybe.  To be clear everywhere but Malaysia is a considerably cooler and dryer place, including Hong Kong.  Taiwan and Guangdong get mentioned as places with moderate storage conditions, which some describe as ideal, but then that interpretation mixes in some marketing spin.

One might also question if this storage settling period I've been mentioning, a month or two to drop out a lot of initial mustiness, is different than the version relating to letting a tea rest after shipping.  I see it as different and unrelated, but it may overlap more than I know, and correcting for storage conditions input may often be a part of that other rest period.  People rest sheng that has been shipped for a few weeks, or a month, to let it settle from being shipped, with variations in humidity and temperature said to throw off character a little, temporarily.  It's usually described as it seeming a little flat, losing some intensity, which comes back when it normalizes to more standard conditions.  This is about a mustiness fading instead.

Everyone has their own take on how storage issues work out, and since preferences also vary the conclusions are never completely identical.  I just saw a Reddit post about a guy storing tea in a wooden cabinet, without any plastic or mylar coverage of the cakes, just in the paper, all mixed together, at whatever temperature and humidity he lived at, in the Midwest of the US.  That's probably fine, but for some others it wouldn't be, maybe for different reasons.  

It makes a lot of difference if you are drinking through cakes in a couple of years, or a few, or holding onto them for a decade or longer.  I might use individual wrapping to limit air contact instead, the ziplock style bags cakes come in or the like, but that's not a critique, just a statement about personal approach.  If you open the cakes from time to time that's already plenty of air exchange, and probably even if you leave them sort of sealed for a few years it's still enough.  Mylar or multi-layer packaging restricts any air exposure better, but ziplock or the other light plastic wrappings, similar to food wraps, would allow for plenty of contact.  

According to the author of the Late Steeps blog--a great reference--air contact related to tea being sealed in mylar allows enough oxygen contact / exchange to support bacteria and fungus to thrive, one related consideration.  Who really knows, but it's interesting to consider.  Again all of these considerations really only kick in if you aren't actually drinking the tea at all, not even getting it out a couple times a year to check on it.

the chunk that came off in one pu'er knife stroke; it's nice that it's easy to access

Xiaguan and Dayi Jia Ji partially aged tuocha review (7 and 10 years old)

 

I talked to a couple of vendors about thoughts on a rapid increase in pu'er pricing, the average levels doubling over 5 or 6 years, related to this post, about Context and concerns related to high quality level sheng pu'er.  A few clarifications are required, ideas I thought generally covered in that content, but which may not have stood out or have been explicit enough.  The general theme was that consumer demand for better tea versions, coupled with overall demand volume shift and increased costs, have caused pricing to increase.  Then vendors or producers are probably making more profit too; that's how it would go when demand level (as volume, and also demand for higher quality range) and pricing both rise.

Vendor costs are rising too.  Not just for the tea material, which increases year to year, but nothing stays at the same price level, for processing costs, transportation, marketing related, etc.  Consumers would expect more sophisticated packaging and presentation, because that evolves too.  It's not possible to guess if, related to costs and demand volume increases, a general mark-up level remains the same, so that profits would rise as fast or faster than any other input.  In a sense it doesn't matter; market demand supports better quality cakes selling for $80 to 100 now, so that's what they cost, without any supply side correction pushing that pricing downward. 

Geoff of Hatvala mentioned a special case of changing pricing, which I had known about but hadn't considered as factoring in.  He adjusted shipping cost so that it's free past a certain volume level, a common practice now, which of course bumps the initial listed product pricing a little to compensate, just moving it from one place to another.  It's funny how that psychology works, that most people would much rather pay for a $150 order that has free shipping included than a $120 order without an extra $30 of shipping cost already included, resulting in the exact same total cost.  At some point in the volume purchasing range someone's order pricing went up a little and someone else's down, so that people buying $200 or more worth of tea at a time now probably are paying slightly more, and someone right over that volume threshold--whatever it is--a bit less, but it's all not so different.

I'm thinking of how all this works out in relation to what I was trying to describe as options, as ways to work around this rise in demand and pricing.  In that post I suggested that South East Asian tea (sheng) might provide a temporary lower cost alternative, with rising demand for that likely to offset that as being much of an alternative better value later.  So what else is there?  Factory tea comes to mind, buying what is considered to be a lower quality range instead, and a generally different type and style.  There would be other alternatives, like exploring more direct purchasing through Chinese and Taiwanese markets, or looking for other small-vendor exceptions, the first of which I've never really explored much myself.  I suppose King Tea Mall could be seen as a reseller option version of that; they buy from within normal Chinese market sources and resell teas, per my understanding (not retail buying to retail purchasing, necessarily, but closer to that form).

To back up to clarify the problem, it's partly like someone complaining that the cost of cars is sky-rocketing, because they bought standard sedans for much lower prices in the past, and now their SUV costs $50 or 60k (or hybrid, electric car, whatever it is, with those costing even more).  You can still buy a Honda Civic for $22k (of course I had to look that up), but it's not what they want.  The car companies aren't "taking advantage," they are selling at supply and demand rates, just in a broad range of options.  Tea is a small enough niche industry that temporary market rate positions can happen, so it's a little different.  I guess it is possible that in both industries there could be a higher profit potential to playing up bells and whistles, to adding marketing spin to make catchy, attractive features seem all the more so.  Maybe almost no tea sold as gushu really is gushu, and "wild arbor" doesn't actually mean much in some cases; who knows.

So I wanted to review what an option might be like, where factory tea offerings would get you if you try to drink those as "middle aged" versions, here also in relation to a modest quality starting point.  Obviously buying 15-20 year old, ideally aged sheng pu'er puts you right back in a supply and demand crunch, back in the $150-200 cake range, even for teas that were selling for $20 back at time of manufacture in the early 2000s (see future post correction comment about that being wrong, right?).

So I'll re-review a couple of moderately transitioned, inexpensive, large producer teas and see what they're like 7 to 10 years after production.  It's hard to find these teas at 7 to 10 years old, compared to buying them new, but someone very concerned about costs could buy a bunch that are a year or two old or so, and still around, and hunt for other exceptions closer to this range, maybe just not from Xiaguan and Dayi (what these are).  Within a half dozen or so years they could be having this kind of experience, which may or may not be a good thing.  I'll try to comment here to compare that to what different styles of tea better when drank young are like, and to what the aged versions I've been trying are like (without so much focus on the latter; that's too complicated for a complete mapping).

Let's get one last detail out of the way:  do I think these are higher risk teas related to pesticide, chemical fertilizer, or heavy metal contaminant risk, one selling point for more "natural origin" versions?  No, not really.  I think if you buy random $10-20 Ebay cakes you run the risk of that contact, since you would be intentionally buying the lowest cost and quality versions you could find, but I don't expect there is much greater risk from these versions than for the foods we all eat.  For sure many more chemicals were used in producing these teas than some real forest grown version, so I'm also guessing that limited exposure to traces of that would come up, but per my guess it's largely a non-issue, or at least not a greater risk than for foods.  But then that risk is hard to place; it might be common for people to suffer from the cumulative effect over decades.

One last, last detail:  this Xiaguan has been here in Bangkok, held by the vendor, for a long time, and this Dayi tuocha spent part of its life in Kunming and more than the second half here, so storage conditions aren't identical, but they overlap a lot.  I've reviewed both before, years ago, but comparison with those earlier impressions wouldn't be so helpful.  The "Jia Ji" branding term is more or a less a version tied to a somewhat consistent style, in theory, and Xiaguan makes a lot of tuocha versions, so really there is a lot more to be unpacked about what that version was like initially, and where it stands in relation to others, it's just not included here.

Review:

This Xiaguan version (right in all photos) is a lot more compressed, so it looks smaller for being left as chunks (and maybe it is less tea material; I didn't weigh these).  It'll be interesting to see how that factors into fermentation level, once both have a few rounds to open up, and the related slower start for it works out.  I'll compensate with slightly longer infusions for the Xiaguan for the first two rounds but transition pattern still won't be completely identical.

2015 Dayi Jia Ji tuocha:  the pleasant effects and limitations of drinking this tea only this fermented stand out right away; it would be normal to give it another decade.  At the same time warm tones are developing, and the earlier astringency edge and harsh level of bitterness have subsided.  Pronounced taste is a bit like pine resin smells, with a sappy feel to the tea matching that.  I like it, and I drink this version from time to time, just not very often.  I picked up a sleeve of these some years back and per usual I'll probably finish them right about when they're ready to drink, in 10 more years.  I have a small chunk of a 2014 version stashed somewhere but it seemed as well to emphasize the age difference for this.

It's hard to compare this experience to younger, different style tea, or older versions.  I'll hold of on making any start on that.

2012 Xiaguan tuocha:  it's more age transitioned, that's for sure.  Much more; warmer, softer tones stand out.  The sappy, harder edge feel to the Dayi, which included limited vegetal range, just isn't expressed in this.  10 years stored in Bangkok is probably more like 25 stored in a dry place in Kunming, beyond the type of transition never being identical, with that not working out as one equal, linear level.  

There is an equivalent to the pine-tree sap range in this too, but a lot of warmer, smoother, towards-spice range stands out instead.  I suppose it could be interpreted as similar to aromatic wood or leather, with some dried fruit input, closer to Chinese date than dried tamarind, but not exactly either.  Going back and retasting the Dayi after this makes that seem all the edgier, with bitterness and a lean towards vegetal range a bit harsh (with floral tone included; it's not just like eating a dandelion leaf).

After repeated tastings of expressing how using a maxed out proportion is problematic for getting through caffeine contact and other feel range you'd think I would've learned.  I'm feeling these teas after one round.  It just doesn't make sense to brew 8 or 9 grams (10?) of two versions of tea and see how far you get through that.  Live and not learn, it seems.

2015 Dayi, second infusion:  pleasantly intense.  Bitterness is at a higher level than I prefer but it's a lot lower than in a new maocha (2021) Myanmar version I just reviewed (although I may post these out of order).  It's transitioning, but to keep this readable it will work to do a next flavor list next round, once it has opened up and loosened up a little.

2012 Xiaguan:  intensity is at the other end of the scale for this; interesting it worked out that way, but compression level is reducing infusion strength too, in spite of going a little longer.  Bitterness and astringency largely transitioning is a lot of that, but tea quality may have factored in to, or other initial character at time of production must have.  This is pleasant too but some of that warm tone is towards wood and cardboard instead of spice and dried fruit (with the flavor list for both next round).  It seems like I might've used less tea for this version but chunks are still unfolding, so it might even up for intensity level over the next couple of rounds.  

2015 Dayi, third infusion:  it's in a nice place now, with vegetal range, and even floral tones, swapped out for deeper and heavier range.  Lots of warm mineral joins in, and sappiness similar to pine sap informs both flavor and feel.  The feel and aftertaste effect are cool, the way this really coats your mouth, and continues on as a taste experience that seems to happen all throughout it.  One part is a little like that edge in Ceylon tea bags, a black tea warmth and bite, not unlike Lipton, just framed in a completely different experience context.  It's crazy thinking that a Lipton tea-bag tea drinker might relate to this, but maybe, if they could tolerate the bitterness.  Intensity fading and feel softening will bring this to a nicer place, over the next few infusions and also years, if both work out like that.

2012 Xiaguan:  this finally opened up to it's normal range character, I think.  Feel did pick up a lot of intensity, in part probably related to letting the infusion run longer, out at 15 seconds or so ("long" is relative when proportion is this high).  These flavor tones are a lot warmer than people accustomed to drinking dry stored teas might expect for this aging time-frame; I tried 2005 or 6 versions from that Chawang Shop set that were much less progressed in fermentation level.  I'm not as opposed to dry storage as is conventional among pu'er drinkers, seeing it as a slowing of transition more than a clearly inferior form, but then again I'll know more about optimum transition patterns after another 10 years of trying teas, and I'll be able to place claimed negative outcomes better.  I just tried a half dozen dry stored sheng versions I've kept posting about, but it doesn't help not having tried the exact same tea versions a dozen or more years ago.

There's an unusual aromatic wood tone / spice aspect in this that works to tie the rest together, as I see it.  On the other side, I can also interpret this as showing potential for a full aging transition that's just not there yet.

2015 Dayi, fourth infusion:  positive transition continues, but for sure I'm tapping out early in this cycle.  A couple more rounds will tell two thirds of this story, and that'll be enough.  Sappy, towards pine-resin character is nice, but warm tones will be better in a few more years, more developed and dominant.

2012 Xiaguan:  better in relation to aging transition placement, but there's a funkiness to this the other doesn't have.  It's not musty, but vaguely towards that.  It seems like part of the range is missing, since the brighter and more vegetal range, and bitterness, in the other has largely dropped out, but it's only at the threshold of starting to express deeper tones and different character.

It doesn't sound like I'm describing these as a good, inexpensive replacement for what to drink right now, does it?  They're drinkable, and I think keeping one of these in the rotation could make sense, if you like that range, and can keep picking up $10 or $15 versions at a Chinatown outlet.  It probably makes more sense to buy them faster than you drink them, or grab a large set and hold that for a half dozen to ten years.  I don't love the "locking it down" idea, someone thinking that if $10-15 is a good value and these should age well why not buy 100 and sell them for $20-25 later on, or maybe more.  That would be possible, not exactly a get rich quick scheme, but probably a workable business model.  And a way to keep other tea drinkers from having the same access, unfortunately.

2015 Dayi, fifth infusion:  I'm brewing these out towards 20 seconds, to give an idea of how slowly I increase timing, although the point this time is to try them stronger than usual.  They would match my preference better, and probably most others' preferences, brewed for around half that long.  After this round and a faster infusion I'll leave off.  I've been drinking these teas for an hour, since I don't rush while also making notes, and my kids and my cat keep interrupting.  It's 98 F out now, the one temperature I can easily convert to C, 37, which is also human body temperature.  I've gotta be the only person drinking hot tea outside in Bangkok right now.

I like that sappy, piney character, although it is a little much tried out brewed strong.  This longer infusion approach probably works better for the other version.

2012 Xiaguan:  it's hard to really describe this flavor impression, either by breaking it into a set or as a general impression.  As a set it includes warm wood range, towards spice, with some dried fruit undertones, and some mineral base.  As a general impression it's like drinking the essence of that smell of really old books in a tea version.  It wouldn't be for everyone.  Again it will seem to soften, deepen, and sweeten over the next few years, becoming more subtle and pleasant (I think, as I would interpret changes).  It's definitely not fading away, but it's much milder in intensity than the other tea.

2015 Dayi, sixth infusion, brewed around 10 seconds:  to me this is a more standard brewed intensity.  Character balances as well as it's ever going to for this, with bitterness and feel edge strong but moderate compared to earlier, with warm tones a much more pronounced effect.  This needs another 7 years to really move into aged range though, as long as it has had already.

2012 Xiaguan:  that one odd edge becomes more pronounced as rounds go by; strange how that works out.  Quite often odd character, that might be seen as a flaw, comes and goes in early rounds, but this is the opposite.  It's towards a mineral effect, or that taste that I often describe as of aged furniture, or maybe less positively summarized like old books or cardboard.  I think it could potentially decrease and soften over time, as character keeps shifting, but I also think it's probably a side-effect of relatively wet and hot storage, so that it won't fully drop out, it'll stay like that.  It's not so separate from what I've experienced from heavy and wet Malaysian storage input, which I suppose I don't love, compared to other area forms I've tried different examples of (all a work in progress to map out).  It is what it is.

Conclusion:

I definitely don't see 7 and 12 year old tuocha-form factory teas as a good alternative for daily drinkers, but both of these are drinkable.  Higher quality, whole leaf, more natural growing conditions origin teas (or at least those typically presented as such) tend to be better brand new, as newly made maocha, or even more so after 2 or 3 years of moderate aging transition.

There must be another range of "factory" (high volume production) versions that would work better for this purpose, to drink within the first 7 years of being made.  Origin area and other factors enter in, plant types, processing styles, and all the rest.

2006 China Tea (CNNP) 8001 sheng pu'er

This tea version goes back to when that new friend visited from Germany, Ralph.  He bought this China Tea Company / CNNP / Zhongcha 2006 8001 sheng pu'er tea cake at my favorite Chinatown shop, Jip Eu.  Not only did he say that he liked it but another friend visiting from Germany backed that up (if I know you a little and like you then to me you're my friend, as I use the concept, a bit loosely).  The curiosity got to me, and I also bought a cake.  This is the third version of a similar cake I'll have bought, with more on that in the following.

with Ralph and Jaba at that shop, and Kittichai, the owner

The research on what it is could have went better.  A few online sources mentioned the same version, but then you can find online references to tea cakes that are clearly not what they're labeled as, like that LBZ version I bought from a Chinatown shop here, or most of what's sold on Ebay.  That wasn't even supposed to be LBZ, given the pricing, just a random tea that happened to be mislabeled as that.  Next it becomes a concern not just if a cake is what labeling says that it is, but if that's even a reference to anything that it might actually be.  I'm not going to dwell on all that, but the number system story helps cover what I mean.

8001 refers to specific information, if it follows the convention, which not all cake numbers do.  The first two digits reference the year the tea recipe was developed, serving as a type number, the last a producer number, and the third a grading of leaves, more or less wholeness, but perhaps used in different ways.  So this was--if that holds--a type developed in 1980, from the "1" producer, Zhongcha, CNNP, or China Tea (one of the names of which dropped out at some point, no longer applying, if I'm partly remembering right), with a leaf grade of 0, the highest possible level.  Per input from that other friend, Jens, the third digit is also used to evaluate leaf quality in some instances, not just form / wholeness.  The date is something else; this has 2006 stamped on the label.

Sounds reasonable, right?  So why would I be uncertain that's it?  That probably is what this tea is, what it looks to be.  I just didn't turn up any familiar references, vendors like Yunnan Sourcing selling it, online discussion, and so on.  Dodgy looking Chinese vendors selling seemingly identical cakes isn't conclusive.  All the same the proof of the pudding is in the eating; it's real enough if it's pleasant to drink.  And this would be aiming a bit low for a tea to fake, since it wouldn't have been costly at all back when it was made, and it's not as if this shop just purchased it, so it can't well have been a very recent recreated version. 

There is a second concern, about image of this blog if I review or support a tea being something when in fact it's not that.  I'm not losing any sleep over that; as far as I know I don't have all that much public image to be worried about.  All this part is just framing what I'm thinking about the background.  Obviously I'm still exploring aged sheng, kind of just starting, even though there have been at least a couple of dozen reviews in that general range here.  It takes awhile to start on this particular subject.


I'm reviewing it alongside a 2007 red mark version from Yunnan Sourcing (reviewed here); that will help serve as a baseline.  I remember that tea being a bit rough-edged, extra earthy, but pleasant if someone was ok with that theme. 

This tasting was rushed , conducted in just over half an hour, limited in time due to a swim lesson occurring at 10 AM.  I had woke up early enough to use a full hour for it, about as long as note taking for a half dozen rounds would take, but used a significant amount of that time making French toast.  One has to keep priorities in order.  It wasn't mostly for me but the French toast was quite pleasant; we had it with ham, spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and cardamom, so a slightly non-standard version.

More sort of related background:

I'll cite a lot of that Yunnan Sourcing description of that first tea I tried with it here, not all that directly relevant to this different version, but it will describe half of what I'm tasting, the benchmark version:

8891 Red Mark is one of two 8891's released in 2007 by the China Tea Co (aka Zhong Cha/CNNP)... 

...Most importantly this tea is incredibly good tasting and has a very unique flavor profile. It's been stored in Guangdong since 2007 in a dry-wet storage condition (wet stored but on the dry side of the wet storage spectrum). The raw material is from Nan Jian area of Yunnan which is technically part of Dali prefecture. I suspect the given the name "Da Li Cang Shan Xue Yin Yuan Cha" (Dali Town, Cang Mountain, Snow Mark Round Cake) and the font used that this was pressed for the CNNP company by the Nan Jian Tu Lin tea company. The material is fairly tippy, large leaf and obviously pure assamica. Not only that, but the raw material used is not from young plantation bushes as it's quite burly and large in scale.

Compression is medium, not too tight at all and the leaves easily separate in layers from the cake. The tea brews up an orange-red tea soup with a pungent aroma of flowers, mushrooms and earth. The taste is clean with no musty wet storage notes, but does have some some earthy notes. There is a kind of pronounced spice and cloves taste and aroma with a strong viscous sweetness throughout...

It's great that Scott tells you so much about what you are buying, beyond the tea just being what it's supposed to be. 

I really rush the flavor break-down here so I don't get far with interpreting the spice notes, or pinning down earthiness level or type, and skip over doing much with describing feel.  I reviewed that tea initially here, in April, and used it as a benchmark against a similarly aged tea brick I bought in a market in Shenzhen (China) in June, but I won't go too far with cross-comparing the different impressions.  I mention at the end it's not exactly as I remember it, even though I've tried it again a few times between June and now.  The purpose here is for comparison, more than for determining if it's transitioning.

I briefly mention how this compares with another CNNP / Zhong Cha / China Tea company version I've tried again in the last couple of weeks or so, another 2006 version I bought in Chinatown at Sen Xing Fa last year, reviewed here.  That review doesn't say how much I bought that for; if I'm remembering right a bit under 2000 baht / $60, but then that tea is slightly flawed related to storage mustiness (or so it seems to me).  It cleans up in character after the first 4 rounds or so but it's not really as pleasant as this tea through the first 5 rounds, based on these initial tasting notes and my memory of it.

I mentioned the apparently identical listings of it that turned up online weren't promising related to offering background or clear descriptions, but didn't add that Ralph also reviewed the tea in his tea blog (the Daily Tealegraph).  He also lists three Chinese vendor references relating to this tea; anyone interested in checking on that can click through to those.

Review:

2007 8891 left, 2006 8001 right

8891 left, 8001 right (in all following pictures)

2007 8891, red mark:  first infusion is too light to do much with, but it should start to tell something about storage conditions.  This tastes really clean, light in flavor, a sign it wasn't stored overly wet, or even moderately wet-stored, I'd imagine.  To some extent I'm speculating here, in claiming that storage flavor would stand out immediately, pushing past experience into the range of guessing a little.  Flavor that does come across is pleasant, towards tobacco (not matching everyone's preference, surely, but pleasant as aged sheng tasting like tobacco goes).  Within a round or two that will probably shift some.


2006 8001:  completely different; pronounced mushroom and mustiness comes across immediately.  That's not a terrible sign; per past experience that might well clean up a lot over the first two rounds.  Other flavor is along the lines of old barn smell, versus tobacco in the other.  Of course it's not nearly as clean in effect as the other version but to me this is still very promising.  It has intensity and depth, and with some degree of transition it could be quite nice.

Second infusion:

2007 8891:  much improved, probably not completely ramped up yet but getting there.  Sweetness increased, in a toffee-like range.  Tobacco gives way to other flavor complexity, warm mineral base, rich dark wood tone, hinting a little towards aromatic root spice.  It's nice, just a little light still.


2006 8001:  cleaning up but not there yet.  Mustiness fades; it's no longer in the range of mushroom (as much, at least) but there's definitely an aged character to it, like stored items in an old garage or barn.  It's still promising, a bit clean for being that musty, with a lot of depth and complexity.  I expect it will be a good bit cleaner next round, and then more where it's going to be the one after.

Third infusion:

2007 8891:  this could've been brewed slightly longer than the 8 or so seconds I gave it.  Flavor level is appropriate and pleasant but it would be fine a little stronger.  Earthy range is evolving, but since time is tight I won't put effort into unpacking that.  It's clean enough, and pleasant.


2006 8001:  this version is around optimum for intensity level, brewing slightly faster, or else just more intense flavored tea.  It has cleaned up a lot; probably one more round to go for that process to complete, but the character balance is fine now.  If I had an extra half hour for this review (taking notes) it would be interesting to do a more detailed comparison of flavor, adding more about feel differences and aftertaste, but I'm running out of time, off to that swimming class.  Mustiness is still on an even level with the other flavors, even though I could enjoy it like this; we'll see if that keeps tipping next round.  I'll give these over 10 seconds to try them a little stronger.

Fourth infusion:

2007 8891:  more of the same, clean and pleasant, more into light toffee and root spice range now.  Earthiness is present but not necessarily woody or like tobacco, just adding some depth, along with warm mineral.  I think this might have improved since I've first tried it, cleaned up a bit. 


2006 8001:  much better; this did just tip over to tasting less musty and more into warm mineral, earth, and spice range.  It's similar to that other CNNP / China Tea / Zhong cha sheng cake I bought--at least that seems to be that--that needs 3 or 4 infusions to really settle off that initial musty range, but then brews another 10 or so positive infusions.  We'll see about that part, in the case of this version.  Complexity is quite good; that might include a bit of dried fruit, along the line of date, or maybe jujube, Chinese date.

Fifth infusion:

2007 8891:  nice, just a bit light as flavors go.  It's positive, what is there, and feel has a bit of thickness to it, but it's subdued.  Warm earth and mineral give it great complexity, it's more the front end that's a bit light.  It's not how I remember this; I thought it was earthier [and in going back to glance through a first review that description seems to say that].


2006 8001:  this tastes a bit like jujube, dried Chinese date.  It might keep evolving; that main flavor might be a phase it's going through.  Warm mineral is strong beyond that.

Conclusions:

It's more or less what I'd hoped it would be.  I often end up saying an aged sheng version will probably be great when it just has a few more years to finish aging, and this is ready now.  The first two infusions are slightly musty, and that's still evident in the third, but beyond that the taste is relatively clean, balanced, and quite complex. 

It's comparable to the other CNNP version in character, seemingly just relatively different, probably partly tied to storage background.  It seems more fermented, further along in aging, but at the same time a bit more intense than the 8891, just not as clean in aspect range.  But then that other version did seem to improve related to earthiness mellowing out, and maybe some mustiness could fade from this.

It's interesting comparing this to Ralph's impression, from his blog review (an excerpt):


Out comes a dark orange liquid, which reminds of leather, honey, sweet-sour exotic stone fruits, sugary notes, a warm and comfortable tobacco aroma (not to be confused with a colder smokey flavor which I personally dislike) and a typical aged sourbittersweet aroma.

The brewed leaves have a leathery brown color, you can really see the 13 year dry warehouse aging process as this is a very post fermented tea already.

The brew is strong and thick, the steeping times can be kept short for 7-10 seconds. The aroma is wonderful, the honey sweetness in this one is outstanding and it should be a perfect product for further aging...


It seemed fine to me, a lot like that.  Where I left off the notes it was closer to a dried Chinese date than stone fruit but that flavor range was transitioning a good bit per round.  The tobacco distinction he makes is nice; there is a dry, light, flintier range smoke aspect common in some sheng that I also don't care for (although some people do), and this did include a warmer, sweeter, closer to pipe tobacco earthiness instead of that.

I tried both teas another half dozen rounds after the swim class.  The 8891 was still positive but fading, and this 8001 version picked up more mushroom again, maybe somehow related to lengthening infusion times a little, which can shift character, emphasizing some aspects over others.  It was really positive except for that one flavor aspect (dried wild mushroom, to be more precise, close enough to shitake).  The sweetness, depth of flavors, supporting mineral balance and light earth tones, complex fruit range, thickness of feel--all that was fine.  I don't necessarily expect that mushroom is going to drop out over aging for any reason, but I suppose stranger things have happened.


I hadn't mentioned cost, did I?  It sold for 2000 baht, $60, for a 400 gram cake.  I just checked the Yunnan Sourcing 2007 8891 (which I bought about 6 months ago) and it lists for $67 for a 500 gram cake; not so different.  Character is quite different, probably related to aging conditions as much as to the teas not being the same thing.  The leaves in this 8001 version are much more whole than the 8891, although it seems odd that both would be at the far ends of that scale (the 0 and 9, the third digits), odd related to appearance in both cases.

It raised the question, which do I like better?  They're kind of just different.  Not in completely different ballparks for character, but not really similar.  For being more intense and complex this 8001 is better, even though I didn't love that one mushroom aspect.  For being more subtle, a bit cleaner, and not including any rougher earthy aspects in the first three rounds, or towards the end, the 8891 is better.  Feel was fine for both, maybe with the 8891 thinning more later on.  It would really require a slower, more complete tasting session through a dozen rounds to pin down more differences.  I think the other Zhong cha / CNNP cake I'd mentioned might have been more positive in later rounds than both, maybe with this 8001 only clearly the best of the three for 2 or 3 infusions in the middle.

It will be interesting to see what I make of it over more tastings.  And nice to have over a kilogram of similar teas to mess around with, drink over a long time, check on aging transitions, and give away samples of.  It's nice having aged sheng that works as a daily drinker, as something to have 10 quick infusions of with a breakfast, stacking (mixing) some rounds during brewing to speed that along, without worrying about fully appreciating the nuances of the tea.  Shu works for that too, for rushing brewing as an easy to drink tea, but it's nice having a range of types on hand, to pick whichever sounds best that morning.

with her best friend at the swimming class (from that set of kids)

adding some silliness to a warm-up  walk