Another sample from my candy store.
This was some random tea from a random bag with a random (obviously wrong) label. Looks like shuixian though — big leaves, rolled, not too roasted….
The tea tastes like shuixian, aged some. It’s a bit…. bland, which I find to be true for a lot of older shuixian. Maybe the tea just isn’t very good for long term aging? Maybe I should try crushing the leaves and then piling it in. With a normal amount, it just doesn’t pack enough punch. Sweet, mellow… good for big pot brewing, come to think of it.
You can see the big leaves. She quoted a higher price for this than anything else. I have a feeling she is trying to test to see if she can get away with it. I’m afraid she picked the wrong tea to do it with.
4 responses so far ↓
behhl // December 10, 2007 at 8:02 pm |
Someone told me or I read I forget where (so it could be here on your blog!) Shuixian is The Most common widely planted Wuyi cha, so there is probably much which is just dross from plantations where processing is not rigorous. A person who has some experience in drinking Wuyi reckons a lot of this teas were not fully processed or shall we say not processed in the best manner – they were either not fermented sufficiently or some steps skipped in the name of cost – therefore they just don’t tast good in the first place and are no good for aging.Perhaps thats one of the ones you have there … does the steeped teas still have a greenish smell to it?
MarshalN // December 10, 2007 at 9:06 pm |
No, the steeped leaves smell aged, actually.
Shuixian is probably the most widely planted, yeah, because there’s…. just a lot of it.
If it’s cheap, it’s a good tea.
Anonymous // December 10, 2007 at 11:29 pm |
I bought a sample of aged (90s) Wuyi Yancha from Teaspring. The first time I brewed it, it sucked. Insipid – tasteless in all the worst ways. I’d filled the pot about halfway with leaves. Second time, with the remainder of the leaves, I practically filled the pot to the mouth – and let it infuse a toouch longer. Great tea! It didn’t have huge dimension to it, but it was a pretty excellent experience. Left a minty, almost menthol, taste in the back of the throat and on the lips. And had this QI-type effect of satisfaction and subtle but also almost total well-being. The menthol was, besides a taste, almost numbing in a mentholated kind of way. Tea was alive. And if someone put a gun to my head and forced me to guess, I’d say it was a Tielouhan. But that’s just a guess under pressure. And who can think straight when they have a gun to their head, anyway.
-adrian
davelcorp // December 11, 2007 at 2:34 am |
And who can think straight when they have a gun to their head, anyway?
Werner Herzog.