A Tea Addict's Journal

Ok, so it’s about time I tell you what sample A is. Let me show you how it looks like first.

To be honest, I myself don’t really know what it is. I found it in Shanghai. The person who sold it to me claims that it is from 2001/2002. Supposedly made with Yiwu leaves, but freely admitting that they probably weren’t very good Yiwu leaves. When asked about factory, he doesn’t know, and neither do I. Since it’s in a CNNP wrapper, it really could be anything.

As you can see from the picture, one corner of the cake was a bit banged up. There are lots of shavings/fannings in the wrapper, so I decided to use mostly those, plus a little piece I pried off the cake, for my tasting today:

7.2g of tea in a ~75ml gaiwan. There will be some wastage for the tea, because lots of fannings/broken bits will get washed out in the first infusion or two. So maybe it was really more like 7 or 6.8g of leaves.

The times for the infusions was something like 5, 5, 5, 5, 10, 15, 20, 40, 120, 300, 300s. I don’t take exact times, but these are more or less right. Since so many of you took careful notes, it’s only my duty to do so….

Infusion 1 — slightly cloudy, probably due to the tea being mostly fannings. In the mouth — a bit tangy, with what I think some others have described as citrus like. Cools the back of the mouth a bit, and the back of the tongue as well. Some qi, as I drank the cup and start to sweat a little, but nothing major. Ah… I see what some people have said is smokey. There’s an underlying layer of smoke in this tea beneath the tang… just a bit though, and I have a feeling this is a residual of smoke that was a lot more prominent earlier but have dissipated over time.

Infusion 2 — darker in colour, a slightly heavier body, with a stronger taste of that tangy character, slightly puckery on the sides, but tolerable and not unpleasant. Interesting perfumy notes as I swallow. The tea is a little drying on the mouth.

Infusion 3 — The tangy character receding. The tea is turning a little spicy on me, in an odd way, though not entirely unpleasant. Still drying.

Infusion 4 — There’s a slight watery-ness to the tea. Perhaps I ought to lengthen the infusion time. Still a bit thin. Throat feels a little sweet.

Infusion 5 — There’s something odd about the taste of this tea right now. It’s not unlike some slightly aged puerh I’ve had, none of them too promising for the future. There’s something a little bland about the tea as well.

Infusion 6 — More of the same, except this time I took longer before brewing the next infusion and could still feel the slightly sweet and plumy and maybe talcum aftertaste, which is what I think is probably the best attribute of this tea. On the other hand, I also can’t shake the drying feeling of the tea — the throat feels slightly dry, and it’s still thin.

Infusion 7 — I think the tea is turning sweeter, losing that puckery edge and taking on a more talcum like aroma. Still thin.

Infusion 8 — Definitely getting more watery. Need to lengthen infusion time again and see what happens.

Infusion 9 — Steeped for… two minutes? Still a little bland, but it’s gotten a little more of the aftertaste than before.

Infusion 10 — Another long infusion — still got something, more like the talcum. Notice the lack of the word “bitter” in the whole review? There’s still a lingering aftertaste that’s more or less the same as before.

Infusion 11 — Rather weak now, and bland. I might infuse one more, but this is about it. The aftertaste of the tea is starting to die. This is in sharp contrast to, say, the 2002 Mengku I had a few days ago, when the tea left a mark in my mouth for hours. I know that given another…half an hour? I won’t be able to feel much in my mouth that might remind me of having drunk this thing.

The following pictures are infusions 1, 3, 5, 7, in that order

I’ve noticed that when I make tea…. the colour of the tea tends to be fairly consistent throughout the infusions until it really starts dying. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.

This is actually only the second time I am drinking this tea properly, the first being at the teashop when I bought two cakes, one for distribution and one for keeping. I remember thinking to myself that it would provide a nice contrast to sample 1, and that this will be a much more pleasant “drink it now” kind of tea, whereas sample 1 is probably the exact opposite of this. I also thought that this tea, despite its relative drinkability, has problems. The tea’s a little thin, the complete lack of bitterness at this stage of the tea is slightly worrisome, and the slight sourness is not necessarily a good thing. I also thought that, at least for the first two or three infusions, it is quite attractive.

Some have commented on it being possibly pre-feremented. While I can’t say for sure, I must say I can’t rule out this possiblity because of the problems this tea seems to have. Given that I used a fairly generous amount of leaves for a relatively small gaiwan, the fact that it only really made it to infusion 12 is in and of itself a warning sign — especially since the tea started limping along earlier. A good, young puerh worthy of aging should easily brew 15 infusions given my parameters, and it shouldn’t start feeling watery until at least the 10th infusion. Here, the watery feeling starts much earlier. It makes me think this could be summer tea.

Phyll made a comment that it might be a mixed raw/cooked cake. In his sample, he found some pretty dark leaves. I must say I didn’t see any in mine:

There were leaves with different colours, but that’s common in a sample of a few years old.

And I sifted through the leaves pretty thoroughly. I also think that given its relatively lightness and airy nature, that a mixture of cooked leaves is pretty unlikely. If cooked tea were mixed in, I’d expect a darker brew and a heavier mouthfeel, neither of which were really present. Instead, as vl pointed out, Phyll’s dark leaves could be more like burnt leaves.

Somebody asked if this tea was wetstored. Once again, I don’t think so, at least not very noticeably. It could’ve been stored in a relatively humid climate (as Shanghai is). Because of the problems or concerns that I have about the cake, I’m not sure if this will really age so well, and I’m not even sure if we could really look at it from the point of view of a normal raw puerh.

What it is is a tea that is pretty easygoing, if a little boring. As long as one doesn’t mistake it for a good aged puerh…
it’s fine, but I can definitely see how somebody can sell this tea for 5x the price it sold for and get away with it.

It has really been interesting to see the range of responses to the tea, and has me puzzling over some issues. It is less apparent with sample A and much more so with sample 1, so I’ll leave that discussion till tomorrow when I give that tea a try again.

I think it will definitely be interesting to see what happens to the sample A cake in the next few years. I hope I’m wrong and it ages wonderfully, although I really have my doubts.

I drank this today:

This is the really really cheap cake I bought for Rosa. Her requirements for the purchase were twofold.

1) Really cheap
2) Really bitter.

She made it pretty clear that’s all she wanted. She thinks the more bitter the tea is, the better it will age in the long run. And she wants it cheap. Ok, well, I bought this thing after trying out a few (all pretty nasty tasting) teas. It was in the right price range and it was definitely bitter. My girlfriend thought it was really, really bitter. I have to concur.

I bought some for myself, to see how it will age.

I decided to try it today, because I actually haven’t tried the tea since getting it. It was a while ago.

So I went ahead and pried a corner

It was a little more than I expected, 8g, and I took it almost all from the surface of the cake. No matter, I’m not trying to sell the thing anyway.

So I threw it in the gaiwan, poured water over it, and out came the tea…

Colour is, hmmm, light.

The taste is, hmmm, not great. Bitter. Wait, do I detect something wrong? Uh oh… I brewed another infusion, and another… hmmm, I think something is wrong.

There’s green tea in this thing.

I can’t really tell how much green tea this cake is consisted of. I don’t remember tasting it quite like green tea when I tried it at the tea store. Then, I had the middle of the cake, while this time it is the surface. Seeing how silvery and light the surface of the cake is, I wonder if that might have something to do with it.

Green tea will add some fragrance and sweetness to the otherwise nasty and dull young puerh. The downside, of course, is that it doesn’t age well. Oftentimes a good green tea added puerh will be pretty floral even when very young, and has a light, sweet taste, with only a modicum of bitterness. The bitterness will show through in a few years though, and the tea will taste terrible then.

IMO this tea tastes too bad now to be fully green tea. Then again, maybe I just used too much leaves. But I feel that there’s some puerh taste in it, just not…. pure.

Oh well, it’s so cheap, it doesn’t really matter that much. I won’t miss it horribly if it all ends up in the compost pile. If it is mostly green tea, at least I will get to watch the progression it makes in aging, and once in a while, taste it to figure out what happens to such tea. The wet leaves look good too…

Oh well.

On another note — the comments for sample 1 and sample A are mostly in. There are a few of you who haven’t said a word about it yet. You know who you are. I’ve been very intrigued by the wide range of responses on the two teas — both have lovers and haters. Perhaps it’s a good sign that way.

I think I’m going to drink the two teas in the next two days, and post my own thoughts on them as I drink them. I should stress, now that the tasting is mostly over, that I only have one cake of each, and that part of the point of this exercise was to see what other people thought and whether I should buy more of either of these (by getting your second, third, and fourth … opinions). Both teas I’ve tasted only two times, so my thoughts are by no means definite.

I am feeling “shanghuo” today, which basically means I have a slightly sore throat, a nosebleed, and generally feel like I have too much “heat” in the body. I thought perhaps a few cups of young puerh will help cure the problem.

I got more samples yesterday from a reader of my blog, iwii. There are quite a few of them. There’s one in particular that he wants me to taste, so I decided to try it first.

Looks good enough? Leaves are long and flat. It’s from a cake, as there are compressed pieces. They are a little flakey and feels dry. Smells a little like the plastic bag it came in. I know my samples had the same problem and could’ve contributed to an initial off taste, I’m afraid…

I broke the big gaiwan while preparing the setup, so I have to use the small one… used something like 6-7g of leaves.

The initial infusion was a yellow coloured tea. There was a slightly spicy and slightly familiar smell to the wet leaves… I think it was from one of those huge column teas that use Yunnan maocha to make. Not entirely sure though, and I don’t think I own anything that smells quite like this.

The taste… has an “off” taste. I wasn’t sure if it was from the bag, or if it’s something else. The tea is not bitter. A little flat, perhaps, and a little strange. There’s an aftertaste. Not a terribly strong one. There’s some obvious qi.

A few more infusions… the tea stays more or less the same, with the off taste going away a little, but still there, so I think it’s not the bag, but the tea itself. I can’t quite describe what the taste is, except it is a little medicinal.

Iwii told me that almost everybody who’s tried this tea didn’t like it. He does though, and hopes that I find something nice about it. I must say I can see why people don’t like it. The taste is a little off-putting. I can also see why he likes it, because there is something to the aftertaste. Is it enough to offset the rather awkward taste? I’m not so sure, honestly. I think this is something I might buy a cake or two of and see how it ages over time and learn from it. I don’t think I’d invest in it, unless it’s very cheap. The wet leaves look quite good, just like the dry ones, but somehow… there’s something weird about the taste that I can’t quite put my finger on.

I felt energized today, so I drank more than one tea. Since there are lots of samples I need to work on, hopefully before I leave Beijing in a month’s time, I decided I need to clean some of them out as they are difficult to carry around. Since the Teacuppa stuff is sort of on a time constraint, I decided to try one. I picked out F, since I have plans for E and really don’t want to try D given other people’s reviews.

I threw the whole sample into the gaiwan. Since others have noted it’s weak, I figured it won’t hurt.

The tea is very strange. When I sniffed the lid…. there’s an obvious citrus like scent. The tea… tastes like an artificially flavoured orange drink, because it’s sort of cirtrus like, but not really. There’s a tangy taste to it that lasted through all four infusions that I tried. I only drank a little of it, because it is really very strange, and in a somewhat unpleasant way. I have a feeling this wasn’t quite made properly, as a puerh, and that with some aging.. it just turned into something really quite odd.

The leaves actually look ok

But something is really strange about the taste of the tea, and I don’t know if it has to do with storage.

One of the wonderful things about having a tea blog is the exchange of information that takes place. I sent out some samples, but I probably get more in return. In fact, I have a feeling that I will always have an endless supply of samples of tea to drink. (By the way, please keep commenting on the samples I sent out — and I have questions for some of you that I posted in the comments section as well).

Since I had Davelcorp’s sample A the other day, I decided to have the sample B today. He told me this is the Fuhai factory 2001 Yiwu Wild Tea. The tea looks quite decent

Last time I drank it, I remembered I liked it better than the Menghai. I have to say I hold the same opinion, although my estimation of this tea has decreased slightly…

The tea as infusions 1, 3, and 7

As you can see…. the colour remains pretty consistent throughout, although that might be a product of my brewing…

The tea is mildly fruity, with a hint, just a hint, of tartness throughout. There’s a pleasant sweetness to the tea, and almost no bitterness whatsoever. It’s lost the Yiwu taste, but what replaced it is something that I don’t normally associate with Yiwu aged a few years. I think storage has to do with this, because Yiwus I’ve had that are aged a few years were stored in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong storage is probably different from Davelcorp’s SF storage, with the tea being lighter and fresher.

The downside that I didn’t notice as much last time was that the tea was a little monotonic, and moreover, a little thin. Not a huge down, and perhaps the brewing vessels/waters changed my impression a little.

Which reminds me… I used 6.6g of tea in my bigger gaiwan (not sure how much water it holds…). Infusions are something like 5, 5, 5, 10, 10, 15, 15, 20, 40, at which point the tea starts dying on me. I’m guessing a little here, but the general point is that… infusions are short. I noticed that parameters vary very wildly among different people who got my samples. Since I have requested people to give me some idea as to how they’re brewing the tea, I should tell you how I brew mine. Generally speaking, I use a relatively (so it seems) high amount of leaves, but doing it in very short infusions. I find this to minimize astringency, generally speaking, and also avoids overly harsh bitterness. The longer the tea sits in water, the more bitter the tea will get and the rougher the tea becomes. In younger raw puerh, it could completely swamp out other flavours sometimes, as I’ve discovered before.

Anyway…. the wet leaves are nice, although a little easy to bruise and break for some reason. Not sure why. Perhaps a few years of rotting did a number on them, but they do appear slightly thin.

All in all though, not a bad tea, and I won’t mind drinking this now. I’m not sure how well it will age into the future, as it is already showing a little weakness. Pleasant enough 🙂

Please post your comments for sample 1 here.

If you haven’t tried either of the teas, please do try to refrain from reading. The reason I tried to keep people from posting is so you don’t get go in the tasting expecting something 🙂

Ok, since I talked to a bunch of people… seems like quite a few have had a chance to drink it.

So, please post your comments for sample A here. I will have another entry for sample 1.

Please try to include the method of brewing along with your comments. I have noticed quite a large discrepency in brewing methods and it does have an effect on taste. If you don’t have a Xanga account… I think it is now possible to post without one?