A Tea Addict's Journal

Puerhshop’s Jim came out with the “Meiguo Hao”, or “American Hao”, a few years ago.  I’ve had this cake for over a year now, but have yet to open it for a tasting.  I did just that this week, twice, in fact.

The cake I bought was the 802 production, from fall 2008, and is of the 200g variety.  Not much decoration on the wrapper on this one, one of the earliest runs for his cakes.  His newer products have fancier packaging.

There’s a sticker on the back too keeping the wrapper together with a nice stars and stripes, and a serial number for the cake.  BBB reviewed this cake a while ago, and seemed to have liked it.  It’s important to note that “Half Slope Old Village” is banpo laozhai — the same place where the Sanhetang maocha came from.

I’ll tell you what I don’t like though — when you open the wrapper, the sticker is too strong.  It tears the paper apart even though I unwrapped it fairly carefully, ensuring that I can’t wrap the cake back properly without losing some tea or messing it up.

Blah blah blah cures cancer blah blah 10,000,000 years old tree blah blah will be worth a zillion dollars…… made by “Menghai Nannuo Mountain Banpo Zhai Old Tea Factory”.  No, it doesn’t actually say it cures cancer, it does say it’s from trees that are 500-800 years old or above, at elevations between 1250-2000m.  Take it for what it’s worth.

The leaves look nice enough, nothing too old, nothing with too much stem.  The cake is not terribly tightly compressed, and a few stabs with a tuocha pick does the job pretty well.

Enough with physical appearances.  How’s the tea?

Good.  Compared to the Sanhetang stuff, this actually tastes like puerh, although it retains its regionality and you can get that Nannuo taste from it (of which, I might add, I’m generally not a fan).  The tea is not too bitter, but it has that bitter note to it, especially when I brewed it a little stronger the second time around.  It’s a little on the thin side though, perhaps a product of it being a fall tea, and so it lacks a little of that fullness that I look to find in good, young puerh.  Given the price, however, one can hardly complain.

This is the stuff that, long time ago, Hou De used to carry.  It’s a nannuo area maocha, supposedly leftover from production.  Guang was quite fond of giving them away as an extra, and I got my share when I bought a few small things from him.

It’s been at least three years since I last drank it.  I can’t quite find my notes from Beijing, but here’s something from 2006.  Funny enough, I remember this tea quite well, because I’ve had it a few times now, and interestingly enough, every time I’ve had it, it tastes the same.  Fragrant, straw colour, tastes more like an oolong than a puerh, and even though it’s been a good four years since I first got it — my impression of the tea is almost exactly the same.  No real change going on here.

This compares with some of the other maocha I bought since then, for example one I got from Beijing, which has aged some since my purchase in 2006 and in fact provides a good study in comparative change.  I’ve always suspected these Nannuo maocha from Sanhetang were processed badly — killed green, which means it won’t age.  The leaves, as I’m staring at them right now, are bright green.  I don’t think it’s a good puerh candidate for aging.

At least this is the last I’ll see of it — it’s the final bits in my bag.  So long, Banpo laozhai.

If you look carefully, there are four teas here.  From left to right

1) My 2003 Bulang that I love a lot.  This tea is mostly buds — very small leaves, young, and fresh.  I think the reason why the tea is so punchy in terms of caffeine is because of the heavy proportion of buds in the leaves.  You can probably tell from the wet leaves that they are small, especially in comparison to….

2) A 2005 Manzhuan which is no longer available anywhere, not even Taobao.  I like Manzhuan teas.  Large leafed, but not old.  Very few “woody” stems in the cake, which is supposedly a good thing.  I like this cake a lot, and I think aging wise, it has real potential.  I can’t say that about…

3) A 12 Gentlemen Jinggu from 2006.  I’ve never liked Jinggu teas, thinking that they are poor candidates for aging, and this basically confirms that suspicion — the tea was thin, bland, and gave me a stomach ache for some reason.  It didn’t go down well at all, and I dumped it after a few infusions.  12 Gentlemen’s makers got some publicity back when they first started in 2006, and although I was never impressed enough with them to buy anything (other than a few samples, of which this is one) their other offerings were at least better than this.  There’s probably a reason why, after the explosion of young puerh a few years ago, you no longer see Jinggu teas showing up very much these days.

4) The last is a sample from Lew of babelcarp that I have kept for a few years now.  It’s from the 101 Plantation (not sure if they still sell tea).  The tea was quite expensive back then.  I used the remaining sample, and am happy to report that the tea is actually holding up quite well.  It’s got good body and flavour, and should continue to evolve over time.  Lew, how are the cakes doing?

I’m actually going to talk about a tea that I drank.  When’s the last time I did that?

Among the teas I bought from Taobao recently is a cake from a producer that I knew from back in 2006.  They made some nice Yiwu, and I’ve always been on the lookout for them.  According to things I’ve found online, they are located about 100m from the Sanhetang workshop in one of the Yiwu villages, and the cake I bought off Taobao (since soldout — thanks to me) is a Manzhuan cake.  I happen to like Manzhuan cakes a lot — more depth than Yiwu sometimes, and less watery.  There’s also less faking going on.

The leaves are fairly good looking

And the tea brews a darkish colour, for something that’s from 2005.

It’s got some sour notes early on, which I think is 1) fairly typical of some Manzhuan teas and 2) also a characteristics of a 4-5 year old tea, again depending on storage conditions, etc.  It has that nice, deep, lingering sensation at the back of the mouth that I love from my younger pu, and a sweetness that comes through after an initial bitterness.  My kind of pu.