A Tea Addict's Journal

Among the many samples I received yesterday from Adrian is one that I’ve heard of, but never tired. It’s a baozhong from Red Blossom, and it’s supposedly never reroasted. Others have told me about this tea before, so today, I get to try it.

(Forgot to take pictures!)

The dry leaves exhibit the same characteristics of unreorasted aged oolongs that I come to expect — a touch of fruity sourness in the aroma and a sort of intense fragrance that you only really get with the aging. Ok, so far so good. I brewed it with my black pot, and the first cup was indeed very nice. It’s like my biyuzhu, or the competition tea, in that they are all teas that are probably not reroasted since production (or at most only very lightly reroasted). The taste profiles are very similar, and this is the kind of aged oolongs that I have come to like the most.

Unfortunately, this tea drops off a little faster than I would prefer. By the third or fourth cup it was starting to weaken obviously. Part of it might be that I didn’t use quite enough leaves, but I do think this is the baozhong talking – baozhongs being traditionally a little meeker than their gaoshan oolong counterpart. Another aged baozhong I have that’s probably around 15 years old does the same thing — it drops off quickly. It’s unfortunate, but there’s not much to be done there.

Still, this is a pretty nice tea and I think a fair introduction to what I like to call “dry stored” aged oolong. I think the problem with a lot of the stuff on offer through the internet is that they tend to be heavily reroasted and dubiously aged. That’s fine if the tea is truly good and the reroasting is done very well, but often I just find teas that are charcoal tasting without any obvious merit. This tea is different.

Yet another one of what seems to be an endless stream of samples from Will — he sent me a lot of tea (thanks!).

Sample E this time. When I opened the bag and sniffed the tea, I thought “aged baozhong”.

When I brewed it

And drank my first cup, I also thought “aged baozhong”. So I wrote to Will and asked, is this aged baozhong?

After a few cups, I wavered a little. This is sort of like aged baozhong, but could also be some other Taiwanese oolong. I have one that’s very similar to this in profile, taste, strength, and otherwise. Just around then, Will wrote back. Aged baozhong indeed, from Stephane of Teamasters, supposedly from the 70s, although it tastes awfully similar to my mid 80s non-baozhong Taiwanese oolong. This is a nice tea. Good strength, aroma, a little bit of sour, but entirely manageable, making it more of an interesting fruity tartness rather than a nasty sourness. It has some qi, and good throatiness. If there’s any problem, it’s that the tea seems to have lost a bit aroma — it isn’t coming out as intensely as it probably could. There’s an interesting greenness that pops out here and there, but not consistently, which I find rather interesting and a little odd. Maybe I should’ve used a little more leaves too, but this is when samples run into troubles — if I dumped the whole thing in, it would be too much. If I used 2/3 of it, then the 1/3 left would make a really weak cup. Compromises, oh well.

The leaves are decent looking.

A good tea all around, and the kind of aged oolongs that I like.

Another sample from Will of the LA Tea Group

Sample A, it says. Dry leaves are tightly rolled, highly roasted oolong of some sort or another. Based on the look of the leaves, I’m going to guess Taiwanese oolong of some sort.

The tea tastes more or less like other very highly roasted teas I’ve had in the past — somewhat sweet, very roasty, with a bit of bitterness coming from the roasting or perhaps the tea itself. It’s so roasted that you can’t really tell what the tea’s original character may or may not have been — it’s just very roasty. No sourness though, which is nice.

Leaves are very stiff — not much to look at here. Most of them have barely unfurled after being exhausted by me, and that means a few hours of steeping.

This is, again, stuff that is often sold as aged oolong of some sort or another, priced variously from quite reasonable to extremely expensive. I think I’ve said this sort of tea is like cooked puerh (or heavily wet stored ones) — “aged” through an artificial process that approximates an aged tea, but does not really end up resembling the real McCoy. Then again, maybe this is just sold as highly roasted oolong, which is fine.

Another sample I picked up from Boston

This time it’s an aged foshou, supposedly from Shanshui tea, if I remembered correctly. Smelled very roasty when dry. And it smelled even more roasty when wet

The tea falls firmly into the “roasted aged oolong” category, with a prominent taste of roasted tea in the cup and some sweetness that is obviously derived from age. However, I wouldn’t say this one is overly complex. It is stuff that one can find quite easily in Taiwan, often passed off as 30 or even 40 years old, but are often much less than that. Their strong roast is sort of a style, but often, I think, it’s just a way for the tea maker to pretend like it’s really old when it’s not. I strongly believe that drinking stuff like this against another tea that is properly aged is a good way to educate oneself as to what is just a strongly roasted, somewhat aged tea, and what is a lightly roasted and aged tea…. the notes that they share, such as the fruity flavour or the sweetness of the tea, are what all aged oolongs sort of share. However, I still feel that the best aged oolongs are the ones where the roast is almost undetectable (either because it’s been so long, or it’s never been roasted very strongly to start with).

This isn’t to say teas like this is bad. In some ways, this is more enjoyable than yesterday’s tea, because at least here there isn’t that lingering sourness that can really detract from one’s enjoyment. Yet, it isn’t the best an aged oolong can offer.

Before I go on about today’s tea…. if you noticed that the links to your left have disappeared, that’s because my Xanga premium subscription ran out. Xanga, you see, is cheap that way — you can only put up links to outside sites if you pay them (as far as I know anyway). I don’t think it’s really worth the privilege, since I think the ability to link to other places should come for free. So… sorry for no more links.

Anyway, today was another sample from Will. Sample F this time.

The tea is rather reddish in colour when dry. Smells a little sour, but not bad. Not heavily rolled. Lots of stems. Looks old.

Colour came out all right

The tea is interesting. It is actually quite similar to a 15-20 years old competition tea I bought in Taipei just before I left. This tea is a little thinner than that one. The taste is also different somewhat — there’s an interesting (some might say odd) taste in this tea that isn’t in that one, which is mostly sweet and fruity. I don’t know how to describe the taste — it might be slightly medicinal. I am thinking that it might have something to do with the high amounts of stems in this tea versus mostly just leaves in that one of mine. Otherwise, flavour profile are quite similar from beginning to end. Mostly sweet, fruity taste. At the end the agedness came through with a slightly puerh-esque taste. Not a bad tea, so long as it doesn’t cost too much.

The leaves look standard — nothing too remarkable, but sometimes, nothing stands out is a good thing.

Two down… at least another half dozen to go!

As the slow boat from Taiwan arrived, I finally got my stuff, among which are samples — samples from Will of LA Tea Drinkers, in this case. I picked out a bag at random, sample G, so sample G it is.

It smelled like a lot of “aged” oolongs I’ve had in Taiwan…. heavily roasted stuff, rolled, probably claiming to be 20 years old, but probably no more than maybe 5.

It looks like those tea brewed as well

I don’t know if it’s obvious here, but basically.. there’s a difference in hue of the tea. The stuff that is heavily roasted but without much age is generally brownish, whereas the stuff that have been aged, roasted or not, are usually more reddish. It’s a subtle difference that probably barely shows up on screen, but when you see it in person enough times, it shows. The tea is a bit thin, with not much beyond the roasty taste. A little sour. It’s not horrible… but probably not as old and as good as it claims to be.

The wet leaves

Also look true to form. Examining them though reveals that they might be benshan, a cheaper varietal of tea that is often used to make “tieguanyin”. Which reminded me — I have a bag of benshan from Beijing that I’ve been meaning to drink all along, if for nothing else than self education. Maybe that’ll be tomorrow’s tea.