Wild unsmoked Lapsang Souchong from Cindy

Back to one of my favorite experiences in tea, new samples sent by Cindy Chen, my favorite tea farmer and tea maker.  I've reviewed a Dan Cong from her recently (she also has family in that area), with other black teas in this set.  No oolongs this round, but I'll get back to those at some point.  I reviewed another unsmoked Lapsang Souchong from her family not so long ago but this tea was something else altogether, really unique.

I've mentioned her so often this could get repetitious, but you can hear more about making tea in her own blog, or see more images of tea growing or being made on Instagram, or talk to her on Facebook.  Of course her activity level on those varies with the demands of making or shipping tea.  On to review!

The dry tea scent is intriguing, a very complex profile for a black tea.  A sweet maltiness hits you first, followed by an impression of the complexity, a sweetness, an orange-zest element, layers of smooth earthy scents.

The taste is like that; clean, pleasant, rich, and complex.  I'm brewing the tea Gongfu style on this first try, but it would work well brewed lots of different ways, it's just better to be careful with a tea this good no matter how you make it.


Sometimes a tea being suitable to being brewed different ways means that you can draw out different aspects or shift the profile, true to a limited extent for this one.  But for this tea type when you get the optimum down it goes from a great tea to a unique experience, at least for the best versions, so it's about it all really clicking if you get it just right.  

The sweetness in the scent shows up nicely in the flavors.  An orange element also present, not completely unrelated to Darjeeling muscatel but at the same time nothing like that, more like orange zest.  There is essentially no edge of astringency, no bite or dryness at all, but then brewing the tea lightly would minimize the feel aspect of what is there.

wild!

The other layers of flavors aren't so easy to take in and process as a list, and I don't think a list of flavors and aspects would do the experience justice.  But here goes.  After a rinse and an infusion the flavors move off citrus a little into a stone fruit (peach / apricot), or even butternut squash range, but definitely not vegetal, sweet and rich and very clean in effect.


A light malt is present as a context for that but it's a far different presentation than in lots of black teas, nothing like that strong, sharp, imposing flavor aspect found in Assamica type black teas, and not exactly like malted milk balls or a milkshake, but closer to the latter.  It works to say cocoa is present, but it layers in with a light, mild earthiness as a background in a way that makes distinction more difficult.

I went a little longer to try the tea as a stronger flavor profile and it changed things.  The sweetness, a trace of orange, and the fruit is still present but the mineral tones picked up.  It leans a little towards that complex set of flavors people mean when they say "it tastes like tea," just nothing like the tea-bag blended black tea version they would be referring to.

The feel is nice, not full related to what that description means for lots of teas, but the effect is definitely not that of being thin either.  You know how Dan Cong can get an oddly full feel, while at the same time not being heavy or thick at all, with a trace of oiliness that totally works?  It's like that.  Some of these aspects are somewhat unique, mixing fruit and citrus in a light, mild black tea like that, or the feel, but the most novel thing is the way it all comes together.  

There is a freshness to it that reminds me of Darjeeling, the way unconventional processing lets teas that are sort of black teas, and sort of not, span a range of unique aspects.  The aspects profile overlaps a little with those but it's different.  And I don't even think I'm close to optimizing brewing for this tea just yet.  After a half dozen infusions the tea isn't transitioning much, but staying in that same nice range.  Mineral tones are more pronounced related to using longer infusions to brew to the same level, but astringency doesn't pick up.

I tried the tea made Western style the next day, really using a modified version of it, a proportion of tea to water in between the two approaches (the most typical versions).  It was nice that way too, and different.  Of course the tea works well at different strengths but the feel and flavor aspects profile both changed.


The feel thickened,  towards that unusual and pleasant texture some Chinese black teas get, especially Jin Jun Mei and Dian Hong.  Those are quite different teas, with much different flavor profiles, but some versions can have a feel aspect in common.  Amanda of Rambling Butterflies tea blog calls it resinous, and it would be hard to describe better, even if that would really only be meaningful to people already familiar with it.

The taste was earthier, even extending into a rosemary (pine) aspect.  The flavor elements weren't completely different but they had shifted.  I've mostly noticed a pronounced rosemary element in good Wuyi Yancha teas that are getting close to completely brewed out, drawn out by a much longer infusion process, but in this case that set in earlier in the brewing.  I love rosemary, so it was nice, especially combined with sweetness, clean and light earthiness, and fruit.

Cindy also sent samples of a Qi Lan and three Jin Jun Mei.  Those last are related to this tea type, technically a type of Lapsang Sounchong, but different, made of mostly buds or only buds.  All of those should be interesting, or even amazing if anything like this tea.

Black and oolong teas from Nepal

After reviewing a couple of really nice teas from Nepal a friend passed on (a Himalayan Orange most recently, and a Shangrila White prior) I was happy when a vendor passed on some samples of tea from there, from the Nepal Tea company.  Those other two teas had been completely unique, different in style than other's I'd tried, so I was hoping for more of the same.  On to some reviews!

Black tea (probably this one, Kanchanjangha Noir premium black):

The dry tea look didn't give too much away, just showing off some varied colors, a bit different.  The dry tea smell was already unique, sweet, with a bit of muscatel, even a touch of smoke.  The taste I didn't expect, malty with a bit of the Sri Lankan briskness but with flavors tied to those in the Darjeeling range.  There was a lot going on to unpack; not so pronounced muscatel as the smell had hinted, but it was there.  Plenty of malt, raisin or date filled in more fruit, with a touch of citrus, along with just a little dark chocolate, and some of that base of flavors in the floral range.

The malt and astringency would make or break the tea, depending on preference.  It didn't have much bite to it, not "brisk" as some black teas can be, not extending to dryness, but plenty of that feel and structure.  It seemed definitely closest to a Darjeeling but not exactly the same.  There is something cool about the effect of the tea, which is usually not how black teas go, typically generally basic stuff, with exceptions like good versions of Dian Hong.  It's not like that, exactly, but there is a nice juiciness to the feel.  After the malt and that astringency structure and fruit rolls over your palate some sweetness and fruit aspects remains.  

Maybe that run of pu'er tasting has me overdoing it with trying to feel teas and examine aftertaste but it's interesting the way the sweetness and fruit, along with a light mineral edge, remain on the sides in the rear of your mouth.  It's not like an oolong taste profile lingering, where a close version of the same profile remains, since it strips the experience down to some related aspects, which lasts for another couple of minutes.  I'm really a fan of Chinese black teas, which cover a totally different range, but this also works.

I eased up a little on the temperature and time for the second infusion, brewing a relatively soft and light version as black teas go, and that astringency backed way off, with lots of flavor remaining.  The tea is closer to a Darjeeling made this way, and it comes across less like a conventional black tea, just as those tend to fall in their own category.  The scent of the brewed tea leaves covered a slightly different aspects range than the tea itself, towards stone fruit, but maybe closer to butternut squash, and I may have just been missing that in first infusion tasting.

The tea has good complexity.  Some aspects incline towards that mineral intensive Ceylon range and the fruit is like Darjeeling.  Even after an infusion or two (using a modified Western style) brewed tea tastes are still primarily muscatel and that citrus element, with the raisin / date / chocolate fading a little.

Oolong review  (this tea, a Shangrila oolong)

A bit odd to put two tea reviews in one post, but this sort of works into a larger story, and I wanted to compare aspects somewhat directly (although this wasn't a side by side tasting).

The dry tea scent is similar to a second flush Darjeeling,  with muscatel and malt, just a bit softer.  Brewed the tea looks like a black tea, on the reddish side.  Tasting it some differences emerge.

There is some muscatel, and malt, and the earthy mineral tones common to black teas, but with a soft feel to the tea.  The limited astringency that is present is in the range of feel for a black tea, a slight dryness, but there isn't much.  There are also citrus tones, and a rich flavor aspect out towards sweet potato.  Still sounds like a black tea, doesn't it?  Just not exactly.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was processed like a black tea, just backed off a little during the oxidation step.  It's still in that range of being fully oxidized, maybe 80%, so right around the cutoff.  How would I know that?  I don't really, just a guess.  But I've been drinking a number of Oriental Beauty / Bai Hao versions this year, said to be oxidized at least 70% in some sources, so I'm going with my impression of those as a baseline.  Either way this tea is close to a black tea.


The tea is nice,  it all works, just not in the same way conventional oolongs do.  I'd expect that lots of Darjeeling sold as black tea is less oxidized, but then I tend to comment that's odd too, teas that aren't fully oxidized being categorized as black,  but so those can go.

a tea flavor wheel!  (photo credit)

On the next infusion a mineral component picks up that's interesting, not so easy to describe.  When someone describes a "mineral" aspect in Taiwanese oolongs or Wuyi Yancha they mean completely different things, two separate ranges, and this has almost no overlap with either.






It reminds me a little of the flavor aspects that seem to naturally pair with tannins in red wine, that rusty nail effect that can be found in French Cabernets, or also present in a softer, more pleasant form in Burgundies.  But the tea is not astringent, quite soft, so it only relates to part of the flavors profile in those wines, mineral-tone aspects that naturally seem to join with wines with those feels, not so much the feel.  I could have just said it tastes a little like red wine, but only that one part.  It's hard to drag it back to the range of tastes tea is usually described as, but lets try.

what granite is, on the left (photo credit)

Per this prior tea flavor wheel minerals are described as volcanic, chalk, and granite.  That really doesn't help with Alishan oolong or Da Hong Pao; they taste like neither.  This is closest to granite.  It's odd saying for sure that it doesn't taste just like that rock, but I think it doesn't.  Then again, granite varies, doesn't it?


Of course it does; granite is a general category of rocks comprised of orthoclase feldspar, quartz, plagioclase feldspar, micas, and amphibole.  Of course I looked that up, and I really don't know what those smell or taste like.  This was already plenty of tangent but one more interesting aside from that same reference source about what granite really is:



In the commercial stone industry, a "granite" is a rock with visible grains that is harder than a marble. Under this definition, gabbro, basalt, pegmatite, schist, gneiss, syenite, monzonite, anorthosite, granodiorite, diabase, diorite, and many other rocks will be called "granite."


Cool!  Would be nice to scratch and sniff all those rocks sometime.  Where was I going with this again?

oolong brewed leaves

Right, describing a Nepalese oolong, that tastes like a black tea, and a little like stones.  I'd need to re-taste the black tea and oolong again to see if the mineral aspect is the same, but it must be comparable.  I had the impression the aftertaste that a mineral tone was evident as a part of was quite different for both, and that the teas had a much different feel to them.  As a black tea drinker I love the oolong, but as an oolong drinker it's not what I expected.  Both teas are nice, and unique.  I think they share some common ground with the Himalayan Orange I reviewed not so long ago, but as always direct comparison tasting would help clarify that.


These have been a great start into exploring some new tea range from Nepal.  I think it will get more interesting from here, on to white teas, and a "golden" version.  I'm getting the impression that it's typical for teas from Nepal to challenge preconceptions related to typical styles, and it will be interesting to see how those different changes sync up with my own preferences.

Golding Jing Mai gushu sheng pu'er

This is the last pu'er sample sent by Golding, a shop in KL, Malaysia, a Jing Mai gushu sheng pu'er, tea from old tea tree plants.  They are in the process of updating website content, to add more detail, and there's an additional Facebook contact; always different pictures and notices on those.  According to the shop owner this version is a 2016 tea, with only a 2013 version shown on that site.


My first thought on tasting the first infusion was that this is something different, likely my favorite of these samples, but more comparison tasting would help determine that.  It's still sheng pu'er but the range of some aspects is different, aromatic and floral to a different degree.


I'm brewing this way on the light side,  following up on that working well for others.  Aromatic and floral pretty much describes the main initial infusions,  but doesn't do them justice.  That flavor must be a certain flower, maybe in the orchid range, but not the light, sweet, bright honey orchid familiar from Dan Congs.  It's richer and rounder, a step towards lavender.  Or maybe that just is close to lavender; I'm not great with floral scent memory.


The overall effect stands out in the sense of being novel and interesting,  but not at all in terms of which particular aspect is so interesting.  This is a new way for a tea to have a rich feel, a general theme that comes across differently in different exceptional teas.


Some of the effect must be from what's missing; the flavors are clean and balanced, with no negative aspects at all.  There's no bitterness (which wouldn't be negative to people who like bitterness), no astringency to speak of, related to that bite.  Mineral tones are part of the context of flavors but that aspect range is subdued, nothing pronounced, and not related to any corresponding bitterness or astringency.

The tea isn't transitioning so much; not sure where I expected it to go.  I brewed one infusion longer to check that effect and it did start to have that astringency in sheng; apparently completely eliminating that is possible through brewing lightly, with the same general flavors aspects.  It's interesting to consider where preference for that might lead others to brew the same tea in different ways.


It's a nice characteristic that this tea isn't going to stop brewing any time soon; around 10 infusions in it seems to be getting warmed up.  The flavors soften a little, gain a bit more depth, but don't shift much.  Even brewed lightly it's got a fulness to the feel,  and a lingering aftertaste.  As far as mouthful effect or where the tastes land on your tongue someone who cares about that could do reviewing it more justice.

Conclusions

After trying these I'm still not clear on where I stand on pu'er.  There's something to the type, of course, a novelty and depth of different dimensions not found in other types.  Aging adds yet another.  I reviewed that topic in another post, and the one thing everyone agrees on is that there are different approaches and preferences related to aging.


I really enjoyed the different pu'er versions I tried from Golding, this one, a Bulang Dragonball, a Jing Mai Xiao Shu, and a Nan Nuo gushu.  I suspect that if I went back and comparison tasted them I'd change interpretation a little, and probably add more depth to the descriptions.  There is a lot more story to be told about Golding producing their own teas as well, about experiences with that process, and insights into the types of pu'er-related claims that make for heated discussion in tea circles.  Some of that I may get into later based on more input from a Golding owner.


At the same time sheng pu'er doesn't match my natural taste preference as well as more roasted oolongs, or even black teas, mostly related to Chinese-style versions of those.  That doesn't stop me from enjoying pu'er and green teas, also well outside that range, and I'll continue with pu'er.  I bought a cake of an aged Hong Tai Cha Thai version this year (so really hei cha, not pu'er), the third sheng cake I've bought, in addition to several shou.  I experience some degree of natural preference shift in different teas and types, changes over time, and it's been interesting to see to what degree I can anticipate and lead that.

More on Wuyishan teas is coming next, along with reviews of an interesting set of samples from Nepal, but I will get back to pu'er.