A Tea Addict's Journal

Zhizheng is an outfit I’ve discussed before once.  I found that tea to be very good, though expensive.  In fact, nothing on that site is cheap, but are they all as good?  I bought three samples, and I tried another one out…

All green cakes look the same when you have it in small chunks, so leaves themselves don’t really tell much of a story.  This is the Xiangzhi cake that they have, 357g for a somewhat pricey $240 or thereabouts, especially considering that this is tea that is less than five years old.

I used my usual young puerh pot, and brewed this thing up, consuming much of the sample I got.  I must say that this tea is actually quite pleasant.  It’s soft but strong, without the intense bitterness that the Hongyue has.  It’s a bit sweeter than that.  The tea definitely shows its age of a few years, and it wasn’t stored in a very dry climate either.  It’s also quite thick, and you can see the bubbles on the surface of the tea – these things do a pretty good job of approximating the thickness of a tea.  It has legs, and will keep brewing.  All in all, a well rounded, well made, well stored puerh.  If only I can say the same about the price.  I personally find it hard to shell out that kind of money for a cake of tea.  I’m sure others will disagree and gladly gobble it up.  After all, somebody must be buying this to keep them in business.

As many of you know, I am in the northeast corner of the United States.  This not being a very sunny territory to begin with, I live in a small, relatively old house, which means that it is cursed with poor lighting.  Until I finally get my act together to buy a decent tripod (any suggestions?) and moving my tea setup to somewhere closer to the window, my tea pictures will at best be sub-par, and at worst, unviewable.  So, no pictures for now.

It’s been ages since I actually posted anything about a specific tea.  This tea is something which I bought a sample of a while ago from YSLLC.  The wrapper says Menghai, but Scott says it’s Bangwai.  I’m thinking Bangwei mountain, but that’s in Lancang county, not Menghai.  As is typical though, wrappers really don’t mean much in the world of new puerh, and we shouldn’t put too much stock in them.  The proof is in the pudding, or in this case, tea.

The leaves of this tea is relatively finely chopped, with some young buds in the mix, seemingly indicating that this is some sort of spring tea.  The tea, when brewed, displays a nice brownish colour — fit for something that is around 7 years old, and not too dryly stored, which is good.  The tea is punchy, and a bit bitter, but not too much so.  In fact, it’s starting to change into that “second” phase, where the tastes become a little more pleasant.

There are better teas out there, certainly, but there are many worse.  It’s a bit of a smaller cake than 357g, so the pricing needs to be adjusted to make the comparison fair.  I do think it’s not a terrible cake though.