Farmerleaf 2012 Nanzuo Shengtai (Jing Mai sheng)

Farmerleaf sent a sheng pu'er sample with that last order of Dan Cong, so I'm onto trying another semi-aged version (with more on that categorization to follow).  This will work well with a longer term project of exploring sheng pu'er, helping keep me calibrated.

There is another "vertical" tasting coming up that I should attend, LBZ this time, and some interesting samples are on the way, so it won't have to wait until I see how much tea I run across on a trip to Russia next month.  I was thinking about doing a post about that, even before I go, about asking around about tea and shops there, and what has turned up initially.


I'll let part of Farmerleaf's description introduce this tea:

This tea comes from Nanzuo village, a remote village on Jingmai Mountain. It was made by Chen Xiao Hua, our friend from Nanzuo...

...When it arrived in Puer in late Spring 2017, it had a bit of that mountain wetness, this trait has toned down and now is left a sweet and mineral tea, aged in moderately dry conditions. It features a decent huigan that comes after a couple of brews. It was processed on the redder side and this trait can still be found in the tea nowadays, the fragrance is on  the fruity side.

A very brewable and inexpensive tea that makes a great daily drinker if you like semi-aged Pu-erh teas.

separated leaves

Review

It does look quite darkened, and the dry smell is rich and earthy, along the lines of old leather with a bit of spice.  I can't really judge if it seems more aged than would be typical in 5 1/2 years, or guess at storage effect from the scent, and I won't have lots of baseline for estimating that from brewed tea either.  I'll just describe what it's like to drink it, starting with the first infusion after the rinse step.

It's definitely not young sheng (in the sense of a new tea' "young" is a bit relative), although it still has some of the characteristic bitterness, which is just subdued.  I'd expect the tea to loosen up over more infusions but it's already approachable.  It's mostly a bit woody in effect, more complex compared to the woody effect of a brewed-out light oolong late into an infusion count.  A soft richness extends out from there into an autumn leaf depth, and that trace of edge might be more like biting a live tree branch tip, but a mellow version of that.  Spice and other leather, tobacco, or fruit range isn't coming out, but it is still the first infusion.  The feel and aftertaste of the tea are both nice supporting elements, for the early going of tea offered as a modest version, adding depth to the experience.

On the next infusion the tea does soften a little, and pick up even more depth.  The woodiness extends a little into tobacco.  For pipe smokers or cigar smokers that still wouldn't be a very specific reference, but I'd have to leave off at guessing some variation of cigar tobacco.  It's hard to describe why but the aspects work well together; the balance is nice.  If the feel was thin, or the aftertaste limited it wouldn't work as well.  More sweetness and some version of dried fruit would be nice, but I'm assuming that would tend to pick up in a more aged version of tea, that 5 1/2 years isn't supposed to be there yet.  

The next infusion isn't far off the last, perhaps a little sweeter.  The hui gan might be picking up too but that effect was already noticeable in earlier rounds, not as intense as in some other sheng versions, but significant.  The tea doesn't need extra intensity to show a lot of aspect complexity but I'll let the infusion time go a little longer next time just to check out the effect of the variation.

On the next infusion the feel is a little much, prepared that way, out of balance with the flavors.  The flavor range doesn't pick up intensity as much as that astringency edge, which is pronounced throughout the mouth.  It's not so noticeable on the front of the tongue but along the rear, sides, and even the top of the mouth, transitioning to a feeling in the throat at the end.  I tried that trick with tasting water after, to see if it tastes sweet, and it works, just not nearly as well as with the one Yiwu sheng we tried it with during that vertical tasting.

not really darkening much yet, compared to the dry leaf look

Flavor-wise the tea still mostly in a wood range, extending that to autumn leaf and tobacco; I'm still not noticing a move beyond that, to dried fruit or spice.  On the next infusion, brewed back in the normal infusion strength range--light for any other kind of tea, normal for sheng--the feel and flavor balance a lot better, and it might be transitioning towards a different kind of sweetness, not too far from fresh sugar cane juice, but the flavor part as much as the sucrose part.  That's related to molasses, since if you boil the sugar cane juice down that's what you'd get, but the cooking darkens the flavors into a richer range.  Or it might hint a little towards date, or both could just be alternate interpretations of the same thing.  The other wood / light tobacco, autumn leaf range is still more pronounced, but how those balance has shifted.  A lot of the bitterness has faded, although there is still some countering that other range, it's just not as pronounced.

On the next infusion it's not really transitioning further but it's definitely hanging in there, not really losing intensity, even though the infusion count is getting on.  I stopped making notes at this point but it went further, it's just that nothing more novel occurred with transitions.

leaves after finishing brewing

Sheng aging perspective from other references

I'm not sure how I feel about this tea.  The general type and this aspect range is not unfamiliar ground at this point but not exactly well-known, or a personal preference.  I'd probably be most interested in having more to see how it changes further, which is something I can't predict, based on limited prior exposure to that transition process.

I talked a little about looking forward to exploring pu'er, related to aging, and related to ongoing online discussion in this post (which is really about a Dian Hong comparison tasting; not great organization).  One starting point there was a TeaDB blog post discussion of vendors selling mostly "young" sheng, versus mid-aged or aged sheng.  One might reasonably ask, where is the cut-off?  They list semi-aged raw pu'er as greater than 7 years old, so this tea is still young (although in the data a shou from 2011 is listed as semi-aged; that's either a mistake or they see aging of shou as a different thing, on a different time-frame).

It doesn't really work to put the pressure on one reference source to set a definitive guideline, and given preferences for aging vary and fermentation itself depends on storage factors blocking out years as clearly young, semi-aged, and aged on a fixed time-frame might not work.  But to go a step further into their definition (TeaDB's) in a more recent post on Strong, Burly, and not too Expensive. Semi-Aged Xiaguan, MX-Tea Report [Feat. Garrett] the teas listed spanned 2003-2006, so 14 year old teas were not yet considered aged.  Then again tuochas probably would age more slowly due to tighter compression, and that rating could well be a commentary about preference for aging them versus other tea types.  Paging around their blog I found an answer to this specific question in a "Pu'er for Beginners" post, about the category division:

What qualifies as aged pu’erh? This really depends on who you ask and the storage. A tea can develop much quicker and differently depending on the conditions it’s stored in. Things around this range 7-20 years should show their age and generally fall into the semi-aged category.


So this sample was "young sheng," not semi-aged, as they define it, but they've built some openness into that description.  Again the categories seem not to matter as much as the actual attributes of the tea.  This reminds me of another favorite blogger weighing in on that time-frame, Cwyn of Death by Tea:


A ten year old or younger tea is not aged, nowhere near done with its cycle of fermentation...  Quite honestly the fun I have with sheng puerh lately is more about the process of fermentation and aging than with drinking...  

How can anyone know what a tea will be in twenty years when it is younger than ten? I am here to take the pressure off you. Everyone is so anxious about a process that will take two or three decades. If your tea is less than ten years old, you have no idea what will happen and yet the tea itself is far more resilient than you think. A little mold here, a little dry air there, a bit of everything will happen to each tea, even those in so-called ”ideal” conditions. Most of us will not see the final result of our teas, but then most of us will not get to see our great-grandchildren either, unless we started early with both endeavors. 


I read a half dozen blog posts from A Tea Addict's Journal on aged pu'er but none of it condenses down to a simple guideline about time-frames.  And really, why would it?  Storage conditions vary, preferences vary, and the starting point of the actual teas, and so on.  I only mention it here since some readers may not be familiar with that blog (although most would be), and they probably should be.  To mention just one post from there this is a favorite, on how pu'er tends to change with age, and when to give up on potential improvements due to aging, as cited:


It’s true that sometimes teas do go through an awkward phase. They have lost that initial sweetness/floral fragrance that are characteristic of new teas, but have not yet developed old tea taste. It’s that weird in between state where it’s really a pretty bad thing to drink. However, I also think that there are many teas out there that simply cannot and will not age. This is mostly because of bad processing to start off with. If your tea was processed like a green tea, bad news, it’s not going to get better. Aged green tea will never develop that complex and rich flavour of puerh that you should be striving for (and if you are one of those people storing tea to preserve its flavours and fragrance, you’re in the wrong business). A telltale sign of a tea that is processed like a green tea is a beany taste – think a fresh biluochun, a classic beany tea. If your tea smells like a longjing or a biluochun, it’s time to drink it fast because it’s not going to get better.


This reminds me of a good bit of reading up on pu'er processing not so long ago, about the difference between sheng pu'er and green tea, but all that back-story gets to be a bit much.  A short version--of my understanding--is that sheng pu'er is heated during a fixing step but the processing temperature is lower, retaining some of the enzymes (flavonols?) that allows for fermentation to continue.  This Tea Geek article does a good job covering those basics, but that main difference only comes up in the comments discussion, and the basic processing steps for sheng aren't treated in detail, never mind enough to mention a temperature range as being critical.  This part of that is about something else, process naming, but it's still particularly interesting:


Just like the term “oxidation” in chemistry, “fermentation” has a slightly different meaning in microbiology compared to everyday English. Fermentation isn’t just any process that microbes carry out—it specifically describes the way microbes get energy from their food when no oxygen is around...

So what do microbiologists call a food that is made by microbes but not by true fermenting microbes? Ripened foods. Salami, brie cheese, and katsuobushi (AKA bonito flakes) are all examples of microbially ripened foods where exposure to oxygen is necessary in production.¹ On the other hand, kimchi, sauerkraut, and kombucha are all fermented under limited oxygen exposure... 

If we want to be really specific and geeky, we can call this process microbial ripening which naturally lends support to calling shu puer “ripe” or “ripened” puer in English.

Conclusions

Per my current impression ("understanding" would seem too strong a description) the bitterness remaining in this tea I described is a good sign, a potential indicator the tea can continue to age and transition in positive ways instead of just fading away onward from here.  But it's not false modesty for me to claim that I have no idea what this tea would be like in another five to ten years; I really don't.  I also can't really evaluate the level of bitterness as meaning anything in particular, or the rest of the aspect (thickness in feel, type and level of flavors, etc.).  Maybe it's not even possible to look around the corner in that sense.  Exploring how that works out takes a lot of time and exposure, and I'm barely getting started on it.

I would drink this tea aged to this level if I had more of it but I'd probably save more than I'd drink, checking it a couple of times a year to see if it was improving versus just fading.  According to the TeaDB perspective I'd need to wait another 15 years to experience it as aged sheng, a time-frame Cwyn also seems to endorse.


I'm not so sure about that level of patience.  It does match up with my thinking that I should get the process started by stacking up some cakes now.  I don't really have $1000 set aside to do justice to even beginning that kind of project, to buying a good bit of tea I don't plan to drink much of within the next decade.  But I'll see what kind of balance I can strike related to that over the next year.  I have most of three sheng cakes set aside from what I've bought this year, I just need to not drink too much, and go easy on sharing samples from them, and pick up the pace or acquisition.

Loy Krathong, 2017; the little "boats" carry away your sins

Tea culture; a blog anniversary retrospective

Originally contributed to the TChing site for publication.

My blog will be four years old in the next week, which is a good excuse for looking back.  I don't really want to talk about me so much, or this blog, more about tea culture, and perhaps a little about how perspective towards the subject changes.

one version of tea culture and community (credit Global Tea Hut organization blog)

How much did tea culture seem to change over those four years?  Given that the subject of tea is thousands of years old not that much, relatively speaking.  Matcha is bigger now, and trends come and go, like people putting different types of cheese on tea, or mixed in with it.  Hybrids styles develop, people trying out new things in existing areas but traditional teas wouldn't change much decade to decade.  I'm in the middle of reviewing an Assam oolong now, and covered a Japanese smoked black tea this year (it was ok, a good bit like a Lapsang Souchong, but different).

Beyond tea itself I am interested in shifts in online tea culture, for example in older style forums moving towards Facebook group activity.  I suppose there wasn't much for Facebook tea groups four years ago compared to now, so things do transition, but the function isn't so different.

It's not as much about evolution but interesting how tea culture means different things to different people, how it fragments.  One meaning is embracing old traditions, ceremonial practices, collecting traditional gear, etc.  One running theme is that given that the experience of tea is either generally positive or somewhat value-neutral the shared interest should help people come together, to share experiences without conflict.  Then divisions and conflict come up, related to commercial interests as much as anything else, but also just to people taking the ideas and practices in different ways.

I had written out a bit about those splits, and transition in how people perceive tea differently over time, about a typical personal experience / learning curve, and how those go in general.  But I'd really like to keep the focus here on how I think tea culture is changing, more than about how it fragments into sections, or about personal experience transitions.

a tea group at my alma-mater, the Penn State Tea Institute (photo credit)

In talking to people in tea groups one main theme is that tea awareness is just now ramping up where the person commenting lives.  I guess in the US in the Northwest or parts of California it may seem like a lot of that really started a decade ago, but in a different sense it's probably true in those places as well, just in a different sense.  Bangkok has went from only having local Chinatown shops and two others in malls, beyond booths and smaller stores, or Tae Tea outlets, to there now being a modest number of other cafes and loose tea outlets.  But beyond matcha and bubble tea, really not the same thing, it's only now getting started.

A friend bought Nepal tea through a source that was hard to access roughly four years ago, and had luck selling or trading some of that, because it was far less accessible then.  I've talked to a good number of people starting tea businesses related to Nepalese tea in the past year or so, enough that it's hard to keep track of how many.  Two used Kickstarter approaches, and one of those talked of opening a physical shop, a couple visited Nepal from the US, and two based their businesses out of Nepal.

Nepal white tea, in a unique style (reference link)

There are less and less unexplored corners of the industry.  I first visited Laos almost 10 years ago now--the time just flies--and later returned and bought tea from a local farmer.  It occurred to me that someone could do a great business by helping those farmers process teas better, and now Kinnari Teas is more or less selling doing exactly that, working with Laos producers to raise standards.

A recent post on more direct tea sourcing options covers a trend that all but didn't exist four years ago.  Others might rattle off counter-examples, of a plantation with a website, or related to one-step-removed sourcing going on a decade or more ago (in some cases a small vendor going on a sourcing trip, buying from a farm there), but now actual producers are setting up sales websites.  It's rare, and in some cases what's being sold is still really being re-sold, but it's starting.

 a small family tea producer's sales page (reference)

New types of tea interest groups are evolving, a subject I've not had space to develop here.  At the level of the individual tea drinker culture change really does reflect one person after another moving through an experience curve.  Every week lots of discussion forums see posts about people just now moving from tea bags into loose tea, asking how they might get started on brewing and sourcing, about types, and all the rest.  It's a slower process but every year people who were only first introduced to loose tea the year before push further towards the middle of the learning curve, switching types and preferences.

The online associations tend to be a bit loose, but those are an expression of tea culture.  It has been nice for me to be a part of that, conversing here and there, researching different themes, and rambling on in posts in TChing and Tea in the Ancient World.

Halmari Hand-rolled Assam Oolong

a bit tippy as oolongs tend to go

Halmari, one main producer of Assam teas, sent an oolong version along with two orthodox versions of Assam black tea, one of which I've already reviewed.  And an Earl Grey; that should be interesting.  Indian oolong isn't a brand new concept but I've not tried many examples, and no specific versions come to mind (not a great sign).  As I only vaguely recall the versions I tried seemed a lot like a black tea, just backed off in oxidation level a little, not all that different than how that works out for Darjeeling first flush teas.  That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing given how nice those can be.

Their description of this tea doesn't add that much to that but I'll cite it, since Assam oolong does seem atypical:

Halmari’s handcrafted tea follows the five basic steps of tea-making, however, it is carefully hand-rolled and oxidized repeatedly over the course of days. This unique method enables us to create beautiful complex layers of aromas and flavours from this tea. 

one minimum-requirement version of a processing chart (credit World of Tea)

Per World of Tea's processing chart the only minimum-requirement difference in types between oolong and black tea is that oolong is fixed at one step (heated to stop oxidation at one level).  Of course a lot of oolong is actually roasted too, and processing steps can vary, but I'm not going to develop all of that in this post.

Review

The dry tea smells a little like a Darjeeling,  with orange citrus or maybe even bergamot scent. But it's slightly earthier, an interesting combination.

I brewed the tea Gongfu style (odd mentioning what that is, but just in case:  using a high proportion of tea to water, and multiple infusions versus only two or three).  These instructions recommend Western style brewing, and I did also try that method later, which I'll describe at the end.  The first infusion was more a rinse, but not discarded, a normal approach for me. 

The taste is sweet with a good bit of fruit and complexity, but prepared light enough that I'll start the detailed review on the second infusion.  It's already clear that this really will be a type of tea that's new to me, not just black tea eased off a little on oxidation level, a bit different in character.

The tea is interesting.  The tie to Assam black tea related to the aspects is clear enough but that only seems to represent half of what is going on, and it's not based on a dominant malt aspect as Assam black tea tends to be.  It also shares a lot in common with Darjeeling, more so than any Assam I've ever tried.  I'd say second flush style since the astringency level isn't as light as in first flush, and since citrus / bergamot is so pronounced in this.  It's not exactly that, with a lot of the flavor in this tea expressed in a different citrus range.  It's still related to a type of orange, I'm just not going to venture which orange (blood orange, juice orange?; definitely not navel orange).

There is malt too, it just shares the space, only one part of what is going on.  From there the citrus range is next, then a black - tea related effect of oxidation, a specific kind of earthiness.  It's something I've been referring to as a resinous feel, which seems to relate to taste range that's a little towards pine.  There's a good but of mineral complexity under all that.

It's definitely novel, and doesn't remind me much of any other oolongs.  I'm guessing that this wasn't roasted at all, although not all oolongs are, and I'm not sure it would improve it anyway.  The oxidation level must be backed off that of their black teas but it's hard to notice that as a single cause input.  Oriental Beauty style oolongs are typically prepared at a relatively high oxidation level, up near the border of what would be considered black tea, and I guess this does share some commonality with that type, it's just not exactly the same.  It contains more bud material than oolongs typically tend to, or at least it seems to, so it ends up looking a little like some Oriental Beauty teas.  The fruitiness isn't far off some OB versions range (pronounced citrus is typical for those), and like those this tea has great sweetness, it just has a black tea-type earthiness underlying that which isn't common to those, maybe except in more oxidized versions nearer to the boundary for black tea.

My description so far hasn't done it justice but there is a sweetness and lightness to the tea, offset by the complexity and bolder flavor range.  It's true that I'm expressing a contradiction, but there is a complexity to the experience beyond individual aspect input that is hard to pin down.  It's definitely not as light as lighter / "greener" oolongs always are, or even as roasted oolongs go, but it's not as heavy, earthy, or astringent as black teas.

For the last infusion I went over 30 seconds and it was just a little intense;  I'll back off that.  Prepared on the light side this tea really shines, bright with lots of fruit, lots going on.  The feel isn't even thin, and brewed strong--what would be normal strength for other teas, at least related to brewing time--that feel might be too much, along with the flavor not being as positive.  Using the same parameters as this for the Dian Hong (Yunnan / Chinese black teas I tasted yesterday, at least related to when I made these notes) those black teas wouldn't taste like much, especially the two leaf-type versions (versus the one bud / gold tips version).

Part of the taste range is back at cedar / redwood, matching the orthodox black version I tried earlier, but it's layered along with the rest in this.  There isn't that much common ground with light rolled oolongs to talk about,  or with Wuyi Yancha or Dan Cong styles.  It's closest to Oriental Beauty, as I'd mentioned, but it seems just as close to Darjeeling second flush tea as well, sort of in between the two.

The malt aspect is different than in Assam black teas.  It's still in a malt range but beyond being only one flavor contribution among others instead of dominant the effect is lighter, and the aspect itself different.  I tend to describe malt as spanning a range of earthier and heavier flavor,  like aged rusty iron pipe, to being much softer, lighter, and sweeter, more like ovaltine, closer to cocoa, or more like the original sense of a fermented grain.  This might be closer to the middle now, still a bit towards the heavier side, but less so than as expressed in Assam black teas.

The fruit effect transitions some along later infusions, but still in a similar range.  It's becoming lighter in character and perhaps more complex rather than less.  It's at a place where interpretation of individual elements could vary quite a bit, but then to some extent that would have been true of the fruit and earthier aspects in earlier infusions too.  It's slightly wood-like, but it's also picking up a touch of root spice complexity.

On the next infusion I went a good bit longer, over a minute.  The tea is brewing out, fading after a good number of infusions, but the aspects range is staying consistent, and it's still possible to brew with that more intense,  heavy-earth, thick feel.  It comes across as slightly dry made that way.  I'll stretch the tea to brew another infusion or two, or it would work to try and get the last out of it by trying cold-brewing (putting it in the refrigerator with slightly warm--but not hot--water, overnight or for at least 8 hours).

A second try, Western brewed

Whenever I'm brewing teas Gongfu style (using that tea proportion and timing) for types that would either typically be prepared Western style, or I think might do better that way, I try to check results making them using both processes.  And I did that for this tea.

The results did seem similar.  Again this tea reminded me a lot of a second flush Darjeeling, not that far off a black tea style related to oxidation level, but a good bit fruitier than most tea types tend to be.  The muscatel was swapped out for other orange citrus range to some extent, and the oxidation level and subsequent malt / earthiness / astringency was subdued, but it was definitely still along the same line.  It did well related to using that approach; it was easy to make, and provided plenty of flavor, even though I really did use a light infusion proportion compared to how I generally make teas. 

This tea is soft enough that it would work well across a range of infusion strengths.  There is no notable astringency to brew around, and just enough earthiness and structure to give it a bit of feel, perhaps a bit softer than it might seem it would be given the flavor range balance.  Related to overall balance and the "clean" nature of this tea, there is a subtle way that teas come across that shows them to fit somewhere on a range.  Let's express that as ranging from flawed, to decent tea, to instead really good, and at the highest end of that spectrum something exceptional.  This tea is pretty far towards the more positive end of that scale.  Some teas can come across as very subtle and sophisticated, and also intense at the same time, as better Dan Cong can, and this tea is a bit more along the lines of a conventional tea tied to that scope of effect, similar to how better than average Oriental Beauty oolongs tend to come across.  The flavors aspects set is nice and unique though; all in all a very nice tea.

Typically it's not a blogger's place to mention cost and value related to tea but per my take it would still make sense to buy this tea at twice the listed price, with some teas of comparable quality and overlapping aspects range selling for more than that.