A Tea Addict's Journal

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Different locales, different tastes

December 22, 2006 · 5 Comments

One of the things that became really apparent on my trip back here this time is how differently people taste teas here. Let’s start with the brewing.

In Beijing the brewing is usually done with relatively little effort and concentration. In the gaiwan the leaves go. In pours the water. Out comes the tea. There’s some variation in how the tea is done at each store. Some storekeepers will do flash infusions with no regard to how much tea is in the gaiwan or the temperature of the water. Others will let the water sit a bit. However, usually the first method is dominant. This has to do with local tastes, where they prefer lighter, cleaner tasting teas. Anything too heavy is deemed to be either too bitter or no good. Ditto for anything remotely wet stored. Some will go as far as to say that anything that has been stored in Fujian or Guangdong is bad.

Then, in Hong Kong, the tea brewing is very different. This is most apparent with Tiffany at the Best Tea House, who takes a lot of care in both the temperature of the water, the amount of tea, and the way the water is poured. She lowers temperature for brewing after 3-4 infusions for almost all teas, but especially the older ones. However, the same can be said of some of the other places I’ve been to (though not all). Jabbok brews teas also in a fairly careful manner. Sunsing a little less so. The people at the Yue Wah National Products store are more like mainland brewing…. a little less attention than I like.

The tasting requirements are also different. Everybody talk about mouthfeel, but what exactly do you want from the mouthfeel is not quite the same. In Beijing, it’s about how thick the tea is, huigan, where the bitterness is, etc. Flavour is also important, to a certain extent. In Hong Kong, the overwhelming first factor that people seem to talk about is whether or not a tea is smooth. Smoothness, it seems, matters a lot to them. Some teas will be considered smooth by most people, but some of the tea drinkers at the Best Tea House still go “oh, this is quite rough”. Requirement in that side is high. The other thing they look for is “throat feel”, also something that is rarely discussed in Beijing (I seem to be one of the only person who talks about it, no doubt a HK influence). Where bitterness is, etc, is rarely mentioned. The thinness and thickness of teas is talked about in conjunction with these other factors, but not really the first thing they mention.

This leads to very different ideas about what makes a good tea. This is most evident in puerh, but also in other teas as well. I am still trying to figure out exactly what it is that makes a good puerh, and having conflicting concepts doesn’t really help. At the end of the day, it will take experimentation and careful observation. I’d tend to think that the Hong Kong way is right — because they’ve had more experience dealing with it. But then, maybe it just comes down to personal taste.

What do you look for?

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Buying tea…

December 21, 2006 · 7 Comments

I’ve felt less urge to buy tea in Hong Kong now that I’ve been in Beijing. I suppose it’s only natural.

Whereas before I left for Beijing I was only too eager, now…. I feel like I can wait. Of course, having bought a bunch of stuff there helps cure the urge, but I also think I’ve sort of passed the initial “rush to buy” phase, and have settled down a little. I noticed that tastes really do differ widely between here and Beijing, and what people here consider good tea might not be what people in Beijing consider even ok tea, and the same is true vice versa.

Which means that…. there’s always a market for any tea, regardless of “quality” because tastes differ so much.

But more immediately, it means that I need to sit on my stash of puerh, maybe only buy a small amount from now until….. a few years later, and see how my holdings so far develops before making any bigger commitment to buy more. I think I still want to go to Yunnan, and will still want to press some cakes, if the opportunity arises. Yet other than that, I think I should really stop buying until I’ve got more aging experience under my belt.

Of course, this is easier said than done, with something as big as Maliandao there. I probably will succumb to temptation as soon as I get back. I’m sure you all know the feeling.

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Hung Chong Tai loose pu

December 20, 2006 · 3 Comments

I went to the old, wet storage tea store today to pick up the tong of tea I ordered back in the summer. Now that I think about it, I’m overpaying them for it. However, a search through Taobao showed that nobody sells this tea. There’s one item that’s similar, but it’s not the same thing.

I only have a vague memory of the tea I tried. I remember it being somewhat bitter, and quite “strong”. Mainly, I bought it because I want to see what these people pick as a good young puerh (since this is the ONLY young puerh they sell). I think I might just leave it in the tong here and let it sit in Hong Kong. It can use some moisture to age.

I also bought a little of this:

Some wet stored loose puerh (raw), packed in a pretty little bag…. kinda retro

Below the Chinese name of the company, it’s written on the leaf that this place is a “hub for famous teas”. They sell mostly wet stored stuff. Quite a cute place though. I might go back and see if I can find a cake or two of wet stored cooked pu and try it, and maybe take a pic or two of the place itself.

I made my tea:

Mellow, sweet, definitely raw tasting, although somewhat flat as the storage was pretty wet, I think. It’s not nasty though, just flat. I made many infusions, although since I was adding water when it reaches about 40% full, I don’t know how many infusions I can actually count. For the price (40 USD for 600g) it’s not too bad. I’d drink this regularly over a very young cake. It’s probably better for my body.

Some of the leaves… you can see how some are browner, while others are blacker (and stiffer). Did I say wet storage?

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More Best Tea House

December 19, 2006 · 1 Comment

I went back today to the Tsim Sha Tsui branch of the Best Tea House. When this was closed, it was a trek to go all the way out to their main store, so I didn’t go very often, but now… it’s much easier.

A younger tea drinker, B, was there, and they were just about to brew a 1975 old tree tea. The cake itself looks somewhat unappetizing:


Yes, that’s white stuff on the tea. It’s been pretty wet stored (or just pretty poorly stored). You can smell it.

The tea brews a dark brown/black liquor. The first two infusion has a “wet store” taste to it, quite prominent, and somewhat unpleasant. However, it does clear up, as they usually do, after a few, and the resulting brew is still pretty reasonable, and nice to drink. I think wet storage really gets a lot of bad rep, but when it comes down to it, I think I might prefer this cake to the 88 qingbing, which was just a bit bland and flat. Of course, it’s got another 10-15 years extra aging, but still…. in terms of prices they are very close to each other.

The wet leaves:

Then some Japanese customers came in and they tried some tea, and bought a bit. After that, I pulled out my Mengku 2002 cake for them to taste. They all liked it — thought it was pretty decent and tasty, especially given the price. I told them that the Beijingers don’t really like this when I brew it for them, and they were surprised. I think the Hong Kong palette and the Beijing one are so substantially different. They look for different things, different tastes, different feels, and I’m not sure which one’s the right one. The Hong Kong one places heavy emphasis on how a tea feels — whether it’s soft, round, smooth or not. The Beijing one, although also taking these into consideration, is very particular about whether or not a tea is clean — something that Hong Kongers rarely consider. When they say clean, they mean whether or not there are traces of wet storage, and if there is, they generally don’t like it, even if it’s just a hint. I personally think that’s great, as it means that I can usually say “this cake was wet stored” and try to get a discount on the tea in question in Beijing. Can’t do it here.

We also tried the water experiment with this tea… and the tea tasted softer with more mineral water involved. Mark this down in the “mineral” column.

In the middle of this, two guys walked in, one being a famous calligrapher/painter and the other his friend (and host, I think) in Hong Kong. They sat down and tried some tea, and the calligrapher got very happy and wrote some words for Tiffany & Co. After they left, we drank a few more cups, and I took my leave.

On my way back to home, waiting for the Star Ferry, I am reminded of how nice it is to spend Christmas in Hong Kong

It’s good to be home.

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First day back in Hong Kong…

December 18, 2006 · 8 Comments

and where do I go? I go to Tiffany & Co., of course… (actually, I prefer Cartier)

Anyway, I haven’t even been to the new Tsim Sha Tsui branch of the Best Tea House… and like bearsbearsbears said, it’s quite small. Here’s a shot looking out from the vantage point of the tea drinker/brewer

But believe it or not… it’s actually bigger, physically speaking, than the older branch. The older branch, however, was square, so even though it’s physically smaller, sitting in it feels better.

When I got there after lunch, there were already two older tea drinkers there. They were all getting ready to taste another tea (obviously much has happened already before I arrived). Tiffany was making the tea…. with two gaiwans. Here are the contents:

They are two “thousand taels tea”. The one on the left is an offering of the Best Tea House, whereas the one on the right is brought by one of the drinkers who were there. Thousand taels tea is basically a heavily compressed stick of tea — a very big stick. It’s usually some 5-6ft long, and the diameter is similar to a regular puerh cake. You can imagine how much tea that is. I believe it’s made with Hunan leaves… and it’s got all sorts of stuff in it.

These are how they are brewed, in the same left right setup. Although the way the tea reflected light makes it seem as though the right side is darker than the left, the reality is that they are very close.

The taste, however, is not. The left is sort of medicinal, but a bit thin. The right has everything the left has, but more, and has also a “chen” taste with a sweetness to it that the left doesn’t. Quite nice. Supposed to be around 50 years old (and in the hands of the tea drinker for 15 years already). I’ve tasted a very young thousand taels tea, and that one tasted very rough and unready for consumption. These are both drinkable, although not at these prices….

Then, we tried a Chaozhou gongfu tea — heavily roasted oolong. We brewed it in a pot — sour. We brewed it in a gaiwan… not sour. Something’s wrong with the pot. The owner (the guy who brought the thousand taels tea) said he’ll have to go home and re-season the pot thoroughly to get rid of the nasty taste.

Then… I brought out the two puerhs I brought (well, I brought more). The first is the Yiwu maocha, and the second is the Yiwu girl cake.

Everybody liked the Yiwu maocha… flavourful, smooth, full bodied. It tasted better than when I brew it, so I thought Tiffany’s tea brewing skills are obviously better than mine, for good reasons. I’m glad it tasted so good.

Then we tried the Yiwu cake…. and something was seriously wrong. It was thin, rough, not fragrant at all. Nobody wanted to drink it after three infusions, and I myself felt uncomfortable with the tea too. Something was wrong, quite wrong.

While we were discussing why this might have been the case, we brewed up a little 88 qingbing (88 raw cake) for taste. I’ve never had it, and neither has the other guy who brought the tea and the pot, so we figured it’s not a bad thing to try.

Boy, was I disappointed. Astronomical price tag aside, the tea is thin, bland, lacking in huigan, etc…. only of middling quality all around, if even, and did I mention it’s expensive?

A shot of the wet leaves

I asked a guy I know on Sanzui who’s also from HK about it… and he said “duh… anything left in the Best Tea House at this point that’s a 88 raw cake is not going to be good”. Good point. The good stuff is long gone — picked out by the people who bought it in bulk, or simply lucky enough to buy early.

Meanwhile, we figured that it was probably a water problem — namely that the water I use in Beijing and the water here are different, with the water here (filtered tap water) being very soft and low in mineral content, while the water I use in Beijing is harder. So, to test, I went out, found the closest 7-eleven I could find (2 minute walk away) and bought a bottle of Volvic for our experiment (my preferred option, Vittel, was not for sale there, and I don’t like Evian).

We mixed the Volvic into one of the water kettles, making it an even mix of the tap water and the Volvic, and the other was just tap water. We brewed the Yiwu girl tea up again after a quick rinse.

The result…. was a flavourful, fragrant tea, much, much smoother, and more full bodied. Closer to what I’ve tasted in Beijing. Not quite the same, mind you, but closer.

We then used the tap water to make another infusion of similar time… thin, rough, just like the first few.

Volvic water again… much better. This time the infusion time was short, and it was even more apparent that the tea OBVIOUSLY improved.

However, I think the maocha tasted better with the tap water. What gives?

We tried this with one other tea. This is a tea brought over by the other guy sitting there today, a Wuliang Shan young cake from 05. We tried it with both waters… and the tea was better with the tap water.

I’ve still got to figure out what it is that makes the Yiwu girl tea better with the high mineral content, while the other two better with the regular tap water. This is a bit of a mystery and needs much, much more experimentation.

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Thinking about tea on a plane

December 17, 2006 · Leave a Comment

The past few months in Beijing, aside from my dissertation research, has been fairly productive in terms of my tea studies. Maliandao is a valuable resource for those adventurous enough to go and seek out the teas. Although I have been told by some that only lower end puerh exists in Maliandao, I don’t find that to be true — it just takes some effort to locate the stores with nice puerh. As for other types of tea, while Maliandao is woefully inadequate in roasted tieguanyin and roasted dancongs, it has a reasonable selection of Wuyi teas and more qingxiang tieguanyin than you’d care to drink. There are also an amazing array of green tea, which I almost never touched. The presence of a lot of government officials, important businesses, and simply a lot of people has made sure that the supply of tea is varied and good.

I have probably tasted at least 150 teas on all the trips I’ve taken to Maliandao and other tea gatherings. I have made a bunch of purchases, usually in the form of one or two cakes at a time, that seem to suit my fancy. Some are supposed “big tree” teas, others are teas that seem to be genuine big tree or high quality puerh, and then there are the oddballs, the ones that I bought more out of curiosity than anything else. All these, of course, present a wonderful opportunity for learning about the nuances of all the teas that are available, and to use as reference points for separating the good from the bad.

I have learned a few things so far. I think I have finally started divorcing myself from getting too attached to particular flavours in a tea, especially when looking for puerh for aging. Instead, the important point is to go for the “mouthfeel” of the tea, and how it literally feels while swirling in the mouth. This also includes how your mouth feels after the tea is swallowed, as that also yields important clues as to the quality of the tea. Flavours are, in short, a smokescreen. It’s not that they are not important. If a puerh is sour… something’s not quite right. If it’s extremely bitter and does not turn into a sort of “huigan”, something’s not quite right, but to get too carried away by individual aromas is, I think, missing the point, because the aromas will change very quickly. A fresh puerh that has a certain aroma will most likely lose that within the first 5 years, or at least, it will be changed enough so you no longer recognize it as the same thing.

That, of course, is only if you’re looking for teas that are for storage. If you are looking for a puerh that is for immediate consumption, whether raw or cooked, then any of the above-mentioned things really don’t matter. As long as you like it, and as long as the price is right, then anything else does not matter at all.

But what about other teas?

I can only talk about the ones that I’ve tasted a lot recently, namely Wuyi mountain “rock tea”. There is a whole spectrum of these teas, ranging from basically no roasting to heavily roasted teas. Here, again, it depends on individual taste, first and foremost. I personally find that roasted teas will generally last longer in infusions, and have a depth and character that cannot be matched by the lightly roasted ones. Of course, the light roasted teas will have an initially alluring aroma that is unparalleled, but that is really up to individual taste.

I think when it comes down to it, buying tea that suits your taste is simply the most important thing. If somebody tells you that dry stored puerh is good, but after comparing dry and wet stored tea, you decide that you like the sweetness and smoothness of wet stored puerh… then what’s wrong with that? Go buy it, and consider yourself lucky because wet stored teas are cheaper. Similarly, if you like that $10/lb tieguanyin over the $100/lb one…. go for it!

The danger in all this, I think, is imperfect information and a “mob effect”. It is more pronunced for puerh than other teas, and certainly more obvious here in China, where information regarding tea travels faster. Those in North America or Europe are quite insulated by this as there is a real information barrier, and whatever is the current fad in China often takes a long time before it gets translated over. For example, current guesses is that teas from the Mengku Rongsi factory will be the next candidate for speculation — its prices are likely to rise in the coming year. It has already begun, with the heavy promotion of their early 2001 tea, the Yuanyexiang bing. There are also a number of merchants recently who have been touting the Mengku Rongsi made Big Snow Mountain wild tea brick (made for Ruirong trading company), and when I went to the Ruirong store yesterday to taste stuff, I asked if that brick were available as well. In one of the few useful pieces of information she gave me, she said lots of people have been asking about this brick lately, whereas half a year ago, nobody even knew about this thing. BBB and I tasted it when he was here, and honestly… it’s not any greater than any of the other Mengku stuff. I will be surprised, however, if the price of this brick does not skyrocket in the next two years.

So it is both a blessing and a curse when information travels imperfectly and slowly. On the one hand, valuable information regarding various teas are difficult to obtain in English (not to mention any other foreign language), but at the same time, it also filters out much of the rather commercially motivated “information” available as well. The key, I think, is still to try as much as you can and take everything everybody says (including this very blog) critically. In the past few years we’ve seen a few things being speculated on with skyrocketing prices. Some Menghai factory stuff (new ones) are literally “one price a day”, as if there’s hyperinflation going on. Changtai group teas have, over the past few years, appreciated in value significantly. Xiaguan is also undergoing the same process, according to people on Sanzui, and I think I am seeing a similar maneuveur beginning for Mengku. When all is said and done, however, it isn’t about who made the tea, but the tea itself. There are reports of people buying fake Menghai stuff, but ended up laughing when they took it home, because when they tried it against the real one at home… the fake was better. That’s probably not common, but it’s not inconceivable either. The point is, of course, that a lot of people are simply buying teas per recommendation of “experts” who peddle various things, but as all experts in all agricultural products are… in order to have something to write every week (or month, or season, or year) you end up recommending a lot of teas that may or may not generate the buzz necessary for a huge increase in demand and price. In a market as young and uninformed as puerh (9 out of 10 people who drink puerh have probably started within the last year or two) there is a lot of demand for information, but it is also in this kind of atmosphere where manipulation of various channels (whether they are virtual places like Sanzui, tea fairs, or various publications) can easily create the appearance that something is in hot demand. As recent studies have shown… human beings put a lot of faith in what others are doing when it comes to purchases, and are easily influenced by that sort of information.

This is not to say never buy anything Menghai (or anybody else). This just means that when buying a tea… it is important to evaluate it simply on its own terms, and not on whether or not it says “Banzhang” on the label or whether or not others are also buying it in droves. It is, of course, not easy for those far away from any real life puerh vendors to try things out, but by studying the cakes, looking at the way it is pressed, the wet leaves, the tastes, the feeling of drinking it, the liquor…… and trying a wide variety of teas is an important place to start. It’s also what makes this so much fun.

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Last Maliandao trip of 2006

December 16, 2006 · Leave a Comment

Tomorrow I’m flying back to Hong Kong, so today was the last hurrah of 2006 for Maliandao tea shopping.

It was the coldest day so far this season today… hitting something like -10 degrees (around 14F for those of you in backward countries that still use Fahrenheit). After freezing in the antique market at Panjiayuan, I and my house guest went to Maliandao for some tea.

We first stopped at the store that sells that aged dancong, where I bought 500g of the tea. I figured it’s good enough for some regular drinking, and since it will keep, I decided to buy more of it. Again, the tea is not great, but it is unique, and I’m basically paying for that unique flavour. It goes down smoothly enough, and I quite like it. We tried a few teas there aside from this one, but all were only so so (and one, a winter pick dancong, was not good at all). I think my business today is probably the first (and maybe the last) for him today. I feel bad for them — sitting in a corner of a big puerh/teaware store. I don’t think they get much business at all, selling dancongs in Beijing, but what can you do. It’s not an easy business.

Then…. we went to the Ruirong shop. These guys have their headquarters in Hong Kong, and I might very well visit them in Hong Kong when I get the chance. I tried two teas there today, but neither of them were good. The first was a Yiwu from something like 2001. It looks great. The leaves look thick and meaty, and the cake is well pressed. I thought it would be nice, but instead…. something’s wrong about it. It’s bitter, very bitter. I don’t think it’s Yiwu at all, but something else (or only with a small amount of Yiwu mixed in). The tea also had some off flavours that I can’t really describe, but which leaves a nasty aftertaste.

The second is a “Banzhang” which definitely was not Banzhang either. I thought my taste buds were off… but I don’t think it was me. The cake was slightly Banzhang-ish, but compared to some of the other Banzhang stuff I’ve had, especially the Banzhang maocha that was amazingly nice, this was…. crap. Both teas also suffered from being very coarse, and the seller of the tea was clueless (I think she was just subbing in for the regular shopkeeper who might’ve been gone for a while). All in all, disappointing.

With those two teas down…. it was KFC time to recharge, and then we went to Chayuna, and entered the Wuyi tea place again. My guest wanted some gift teas for family. I figured young puerh is not really a good idea, interesting though it may be.

When we went in, they just finished trying two tieguanyins, and they gave me a cup each of the xth infusion — pretty weak. I was happy to be able to tell the good one from the lesser one (800 vs 600 RMB per 500g). The pricier one is more “pure” in its taste, while the cheaper one, though initially more fragrant, has a subpar aftertaste. Not bad, mind you (600 isn’t that cheap) but not great either.

Again…. like everytime I go there, I get stuck drinking a dizzying array of Wuyi teas. Too many. All sorts of flavours. It’s really a difficult genre to fully penetrate, and I feel like I’m still just scraping the surface. I think I can now tell apart what’s a good one and what’s a great one with more accuracy now. Since there’s no aging worries… in some ways as long as you’ve got that down, you are ok.

Next time I go to Maliandao it will be 2007. Meanwhile…. Hong Kong calls.

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Reading tea leaves

December 15, 2006 · 2 Comments

Today I drank the pieces I broke off yesterday from the cheap brick that I got in Hong Kong:

The pieces in question:

I realize that now that I have a scale … I am actually using less leaves. I never realized that sometimes I was putting upwards of 10g in my teapots/gaiwans. I ended up with about 7g of tea in my puerh pot.

Anyway, so I brewed it, but this time without the two long washes that I subjected it to last few times I made this tea. I originally did it because I was worried about my health (the tea looks a little nasty, with little white bugs on it). Now that I’ve been airing them out for close to 4 months here in this rather dry weather (I’ve kept it out of the tea closet, figuring this is better to get rid of the off taste/smell), I feel more confident with the tea.

This time the off taste is basically gone. Whereas the first infusion when I first tried it was a slightly odd, and uncomfortable, aroma of something sort of medicinal, now it is a more orthodox “somewhat aged” puerh taste. There’s still something off about it though… but the tea goes down smoothly and nicely enough. It’s very soothing for the throat… doesn’t feel dry at all, and there’s a sense of coolness that I like that extends down the throat. This is mainly the reason why I bought the tea to begin with.

Looking at the leaves… I think I am learning a little more about the particular variety of tastes in this tea

Look at them…. tell me what’s wrong

Some closeups

Basically…. I think the tea is a raw/cooked mix. The picture of the pile of stuff in a corner are the big, beefy leaves that look like this when unfurled

And then you have the other stuff… skinny, black, dried up looking things, that disintegrate when touched. I don’t think it’s bad storage, but rather, I think it’s just cooked puerh. This might explain the slightly odd mix of tastes. There’s that nice sweet, mellow, smooth nature of cooked puerh in the back, coupled with the punch of the raw. The cooling sensation produced by this tea cannot be a product of cooked stuff. The leaves also are not, mostly, cooked leaves. There are, however, a scattering of the black pieces that fall apart when I try to unfold them. If the tea is uniformly like that, then I’d say it’s probably bad storage, but it’s not… some of the leaves are incredibly green (as you can see) and a lot of it are brown…. I think it’s just a mix.

It might also be the case that this tea is recompresed maocha mixed in with cooked puerh. The bad thing is that this is probably done to cheat people (i.e. saying this is well aged tea). The raw leaves have some years, as most of them are some shade of brown. But it’s not all old… but then, maybe the stuff that are more green are the ones in the middle of this very tightly compressed brick, and thus having had less aging done to them?

I really don’t know, and it’s a bit of a mystery — a mystery that I can’t pinpoint for certain beyond what I’ve just said. However, I enjoy drinking it, and I think it will get better with age. After all, one of the favourite puerhs I’ve tasted… the Zhongcha Simplified Character from YP, is a cooked/raw mix. That one is very good……

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Fall 2006 Yiwu “tea farmer’s” cake

December 14, 2006 · 2 Comments

I was originally going to brew up my wet stored bricks of some years today, and was ready to go with broken pieces and boiling water, but then my house guest came back and requested to try the cake from the Yiwu girl, since I talked about it in quite positive terms. So…. I brewed that instead.

I didn’t measure how much tea I put in, but I didn’t put in too much as my guest is sick. I brewed it up, doing it lightly this time, with quick infusions instead of those 30/60/30 types. The resulting tea… is sweet, with a hint of bitterness. The liquor is quite smooth, thick early on, but getting thinner as infusions go on. Since it wasn’t a lot of leaves (I think about 4g) the tea was rather mild, although, there was a drying note after a few infusions, leaving the throat slightly dry. It wasn’t serious, but it was there. I wonder if this has to do with the weather having been exceptionally dry the past few weeks (we haven’t had percipitation for a month now, I think). My guest also thinks it is floral, like jasmine, in some ways. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad in terms of aging… but it tastes good now.

The tea, when brewed with fewer leaves and quicker infusions, seem bland when compared with the more punchy puerhs. The age of the tea is still young. I wonder how this tea will age. I think it might develop some sort of flowy aroma, talcum powder, perhaps, and not the usual heavier taste.

You’ve all seen the cake, so nothing new to show, but I will shoot a few pictures of the leaves

Closeup:

As you can see in the closeup… the veins are popping on the leaves. The same is true for all the leaves.

However, I do wonder… it’s supposed to be a fall tea, but somehow, the variation in leaf size is quite large, with some stuff being very large, and some being very small. Do trees in the fall have such small leaves (like the one on the left)?

On a blog administration note — I’ve decided to organize my posts a little better, with titles, and also start using tags so that at the very least, if you click on one of the tags (you can find them to the left) you can see all posts related to that. I haven’t done the tagging of older posts yet — only a few. It will get done, eventually.

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2004 Yangqing Hao vs 2004 Changtai Yiwu Zhengpin

December 13, 2006 · 1 Comment

Lots of photos today — be warned

That, of course, means I’m doing a double tasting again when photos will tell more about the teas, especially since something interesting does happen… 🙂

The teas in question are:

2004 Yangqing Hao Yiwu Chawang, and 2004 Changtai Yiwu Zhengpin. Both of them are samples from Hou De. I figured it’s going to be an interesting comparison to drink these two side by side. The Yangqing Hao is made by a Taiwanese tea merchant who started pressing puerh a few years ago (as it is fashionable to do in Taiwan these days) and the Changtai cake is made by the Changtai tea factory, recently famous for their Yiwu products. The Yangqing Hao costs something like $90 a cake, while the Changtai is $29.50 (both prices from Hou De), or one third of the Yangqing Hao. Is the Yangqing Hao three times as good?

Let’s look at the dry leaves

YQH:

Changtai:

The YQH is very meaty, big, bold, while the Changtai is quite broken and thin and weak in comparison. I think this much is obvious. Both are 4g of sample (thanks to my new electric scale). I tried preserving the leaves’ completeness as much as possible by breaking up the bigger pieces by hand. You can even see very fine, small shavings of leaves in the Changtai piece that I got, whereas in the YQH piece you can tell that everything is big, whole leaves. The YQH leaves are also lighter in colour, whereas the Changtai is very dark. So in terms of dry appearance, YQH wins, hands down.

But puerh’s not for looking. Puerh’s for tasting.

My gaiwan is very small. I’m not sure exactly how many ml it is, but it must be less than 100. My guess is that it’s around 70ml or so, but I could be off. Either way, 4g of tea is not too little… as you will see in the next few infusions

Infusion 1 (30s)

Infusion 2 (60s)

Infusion 3 (30s)

Infusion 4 (30s)

The Changtai, on the right, brews up a much darker brew. The YQH, on the other hand, is lighter in colour.

In terms of aroma and taste… the overall aromatic profile of the two teas are actually similar, as they probably should, since they are both Yiwu teas. Smelling it, you can sense that the YQH is a little more refined, a little more subtle, while the Changtai is a little more aggressive. The taste… the YQH is soft, supple, aromatic, slightly bland in the first infusion, with a hint of aged Yiwu in its taste. The Changtai has some of those notes, but one thing stands out in the back to back comparison — it’s sour. It’s not terribly sour, but it’s sour. The sides of my mouth felt that astringency distinctly. Also, the tea is more bitter, and it’s less smooth than the YQH. Whereas the YQH is soft and moisturizing, the Changtai is rough and drying. The sourness persists into infusion 3, after which it disappears. This, coupled with the bitterness, must’ve been why I thought it tasted green tea like the last time I tried this Changtai cake.

I have read on Sanzui (according to someone who claims to be a puerh expert) that the sourness is a sign of higher temperature “kill green”. Whereas high temperature “kill green” plus high temperature for final drying will produce a green tea, a high temperature “kill green” with low temperature final drying (such as drying under the sun) produces a puerh tea that will be somewhat sour. Is this it? I’m not sure. But it sounds awfully like it.

Moving along…

Infusion 5 (extended infusion time)

Infusion 6

Infusion 7

The colour of these infusions show that the two teas are now brewing similar coloured teas. The taste, as well, show that they are approaching. The YQH still holds an edge in smoothness and being more moisturizing, but the difference is quite slight… it’s won’t be terribly obvious if I weren’t tasting them side by side.

Then something funny happens

Infusion 8

Infusion 9

Infusion 10

The YQH is starting to get darker than the Changtai. This is not a result of the camera doing funny things. The tea actually showed in person how the YQH was brewing a darker brew by infusion 10 or so.

The taste… as my house guest describes it, the YQH at this point (the house guest didn’t get to drink the earlier infusions) was more fruity, whereas the Changtai was more metallic, which I think also implies that the Changtai is thinner. It is definitely a little thinner. I was, by this time, a little uncomfortable with the amount of (rather strong) young raw puerh I’ve consumed by then. So I stopped.

I think part of the reason the Changtai died out faster is because of its brokenness. The tea simply infused faster and gave out more earlier, and thus couldn’t last as long. I suspect this might have some implication in future aging. The broken nature of the Changtai is more obvious when you look at the wet leaves

Small bits, shavings, incomplete leaves, broken stems… whereas the YQH is whole, looks nice, soft, etc. The YQH leaves feel strong, sturdy, while the Changtai ones, when I can find a complete one (there were only two in the whole sample I brewed) were flimsy. The two leaves I unfurled — the YQH one is clearly nicer, with an obvious sawtooth edge, while the Changtai one has a very undefined edge and is thinner. The veins are also much more obvious on the YQH.

But it was surprising to see that the aromas aren’t THAT different between the two. In fact, I might have trouble telling one or the other apart just by aroma alone — it’s the other stuff, such as mouthfeel (like me feeling the sourness, but not tasting it) and thickness of the tea that really tell them apart.

Does the similarity in aroma mean that they will age similarly in the future? If the price differential is based on aromas alone, the YQH cannot command 3x what the Changtai sells for. It’s not that different. However, how will they age?

I think judging by what people like YP has told me… it’s the mouthfeel that counts. Is this what commands 3x the price? Of course, YQH, being an operation in Taiwan and all that, is going to cost more regardless, but 3x? I’m not terribly sure myself.

But if nothing else, I think this goes further to show how important it is to look for the other signs of a puerh, and not be too carried away with just focusing on the aromas of a tea, at least if we’re talking about young puerhs meant for storage. It’s the other stuff that you can use to tell apart an average te
a from a great tea, but that is so much harder than just tasting the tea as a nice tasting drink.

Categories: Old Xanga posts · Teas
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