A Tea Addict's Journal

Well, it’s Saturday. No libraries are open. What else can I do but go to Maliandao (yeah, that’s sort of a lie, but let me rationalize my tea shopping trips, ok?).

It was a bit of a confused start. I made an arrangement to meet with a vendor today, and I also had someone else I was supposed to see who found me by a complicated way through this blog (let’s call him L). Eventually, I went up to the L’s store first. It’s actually in a place I’ve never been to on Maliandao — it’s the new building of the Beijing Tea Corporation, just completed and moved in. You can still smell the paint and what not in there. It’s an airy place, and there are a few stores with stuff that I might want to try later on. I will go back there next time. I think very few people know about this yet, so it’s mostly a place for tea dealers/merchants to buy stuff, I think.

Then I went to the Chayuan place where I was supposed to meet the tea merchant. I found them through taobao. I was looking for a particular tea — I think I might have mentioned it. The tea is made by a factory called Quan Ji, a small operation running out of Yunnan. I tried one of the cakes, a six mountain mix, at a store in Chayuan, but the initial price they quoted me was astoundingly high, so I balked and walked. I found these guys on taobao selling it for much less, so I contacted the owner and went to her store…

…which turns out to be the same store I visited. I found that rather funny, although not surprising. On my last visit to Chayuan I deliberately walked through the whole place to see if I can find another store that sells Quan Ji, but didn’t see any, so I had my suspicions that it’s the same store. Turns out to be true. Oops! 🙂

I sat down, and tried two of their Quan Ji cakes and had a pleasant chat with the owner of the place, a woman in her 30s or 40s. She’s very nice and seems like someone who genuinely likes tea. The manager, who was the person in charge last time I was there, eventually remembered me (I think the tea girl remembered me as soon as I walked in, but she didn’t want to say anything, I suppose). She was as annoying as last time. I really wanted to tell the owner that her manager is ruining her business, but who am I to say such things.

The two cakes I tried were from Gedeng and Manzhuan. Both are very good, big tree, properly made, and tastes like puerh should. Upon further inquiry, it turns out that they have tongs of tea that consist of one each of each mountain, and one cake of the six mountain mix cake which I tried last time (and which really impressed me). I wasn’t going to buy much today….. but I couldn’t resist.

So I ended up with this at home:

I debated whether to open it or not…. but I wanted to make sure I got what I was supposed to get.

The first cake is

While I left the rest in the tong — opening it any further would require dismantling the tong itself, something I didn’t want to do. Other than the six mountain mix, the rest of the six mountains are, properly speaking, Gedeng, Manzhuan, Mengsa, Wangzhi, Yibang, Youle. No, Yiwu is not one of them. Yiwu is technically a part of Mengsa, actually. This is from a text written during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) that I recently looked up.

I opened up this nice wrapping job

To reveal the tea

This is the six mountain cake…. which was really quite impressive. I have very high hopes. The tea doesn’t look very good — none of the Quan Ji stuff do, but somehow, the tea tastes just the way I think it should. Of course, I could be wrong and it could end up being absolute crap, but I feel pretty sure with this one.

After this, I met up with L again for dinner. He’s opening a store in Shanghai that sells tea, and is going to do some shopping for that. I am going to go accompany him on Monday afternoon to Zhongcha’s storage facility here in Beijing to taste some tea. That will be interesting…

Maliandao it was today. When I was walking to Chayuan, I saw this

Which means “demolition”. Apparently, the Jingdinglong Tea Market is scheduled for demolition, no doubt to make way for a newer, shinier, better tea market. It is sort of odd to see all the stores being open one week, and when I came back you see storefronts like this

Nice eh?

I thought it will be good to do a thorough walkthrough of Chayuan, instead of just hitting random stores like I used to, so I walked around methodically. Basically, Chayuan is a grid, and most of the hallways look like this

Which makes it rather difficult to find any particular store in there, unless you already know where it is.

I stopped at one store today, selling a cake called “Gold Yiwu”. It was an interesting store — very large premises with very few cakes on offer. This was the only thing that remotely looked interested. I sat down, tasted it… and thought it tastes like something like the 0622 with a bit of age, as it is aged 3 years. Nothing interesting, although the taste was proper puerh….. except it sells for $100 USD. I balked, and just left. They must’ve been joking.

I then walked around….. until I hit the Pu Chazhaung. This is a store that sells mostly Changtai stuff. I’ve been here a few times, but never sat down to taste anything, mostly because they were always busy with something…. shipping stuff, or organizing stuff, or whatever. This time, nobody was in the store, so in I went.

I sat down, and ended up tasting four cakes and buying two. These two were the best in terms of quality vs price. While there was one that was better (and more aged), it was also more expensive and I wasn’t quite willing to dole out that much. I might go back to get something like that that’s a bit more aged, but I also can probably find something in that quality bracket minus a few years age and for a lot less money.

Interestingly, everybody today thought I’m a tea merchant of some sort, and kept telling me which ones they have a whole jian of and how many jians they have left. I don’t know why I seem to be giving that impression today… but the quoted prices at Pu Chazhuang were very reasonable to start off with, so I didn’t need to bargain down very hard (nor was there a whole lot of room to do so, I think…)

What I got were:

An 2005 Yichang Hao Mangzhi, and…

Two 2005 Yichang Hao Mengsa.

Neither are the greatest things ever, but they weren’t very pricey. The Mengsa is obviously a little more punchy than the Mangzhi, which is a little more fruity and mellow. They were decent tasting puerh that seemed to have been made with proper craftsmanship, and should have aging potential, I think.

I think the girl was disappointed I only got three cakes, and seemed a little disinterested at the end. I wonder if she was just hungry for food, or if I was annoying her for my small purchase. Whatever. I might go back again and see if there are other things worth considering. Then again, I really should slow down my purchases. I have too many cakes.

I’m a bit worried. Both Blogspot and Livejournal seem to be blocked off. I hope Xanga won’t get the same treatment.

If it does…. I might ask my girlfriend to post updates for me.

Anyway, I went back to Maliandao today. This wasn’t scheduled. Basically, I made a few tea friends on Sanzui, and I was going to go to Maliandao with one of the guys on Sunday morning. However, he wanted to push it up to this afternoon…. so off we went.

This guy is an artist of sorts, but he also doubles as a buying agent for his friend’s teashop in Beijing. So I met up with him, and we started roaming Chayuan. The first place we went to is one of the Dayi 1st class distributors in Beijing.

What does that mean?

Well, Dayi these days operate in a somewhat complicated manner. Since their stuff is so popular (mostly speculative buying) what happens is that there are a number of 1st class distributors in various regions/cities, and what happens is that you basically are given whatever the Menghai factory decides to assign to you. You, as their first line of distribution, oddly enough do NOT get to choose what goods you get. You also have to pay for all of them, and try to sell them on your own. All risk is yours, while the factory has already made all the money they need by selling to you.

So this places enormous burden/risk on the distributors.

Amazingly enough, the prices of Dayi stuff and the circulation of goods are still quite impressive, and in general Dayi does lack buyers. In fact, prices are sky high, IMO, especially given what I’ve tasted today.

We first tried the 0622 mini-bing. This is the same formula as the bigger 0622 that I tried with BBB. This time, the tea didn’t turn sour, but also because the sales person brewing it did not add nearly as much leaves, and did not brew them nearly as long. The stuff is…. ok. Good for drink it now, but I can’t imagine it tasting good in a few years’ time. One such mini-bing approaches 100RMB. Expensivo.

We then went to another 1st class Dayi distributor and spent most of our afternoon there. We tried a bing that has been rather famous recently, and which is basically all sold out. Nobody in Beijing got the goods (even for the 1st class distributors) — this shipment was taken via Guangzhou. The taste…. ok, so so, but my oh my, it died on us in the 8th infusion. That’s a pretty big no no for puerh, I think, as young cakes should almost never die on you so early if it’s raw. You can taste the water by then, and that’s just….bad. I also think there are some craftsmanship problems.

We tried another cake, this one suggested by my tea friend. It’s not a Dayi cake, and is quite all right. It’s an 03 Bulang cake. The taste reminds me of the Mengku 2002 cake that I bought, maybe this one is slightly better/stronger. However, the price is also 5x “better”, which makes the cake….. not worth the money.

Then I asked to taste a Yichang Hao cake from Qianjia Zhai. It’s quite good tasting…. until the 5th infusion, when the tea started showing signs of dying. By the 7th infusion…. it was gone. Almost no taste. This is from I think 02, and a raw tea, again, shouldn’t die so fast. Something’s wrong. And they want 400 RMB for it. No way!

We left the store shortly thereafter. Had dinner at a local hot pot store, and then, upon my suggestion, went to the Mengku store to compare the 2002 cake with the Bulang. My friend thought they did taste a bit similar. The 2002 is slightly inferior, but the price differential was so substantial that it’s hard to justify getting the Bulang one. He’s basically scouting teas out for his friend, so he said he’ll tell his friend to go taste the cake himself and see if it makes business sense.

We then wandered around Chayuan a little more, and then came to this one store that sells this puerh from a no-name factory. We walked in, and I started picking up cakes to look at.

And then something I hate happens…. the owner, a middle aged woman, was of the “you must know nothing” variety. By that, I mean, she just assumes that we know nothing about puerh. When I asked “what cakes are these”, meaning what mountain, make, etc, she told me “this is a Qizi bing”. DUH! As if I can’t tell. These storekeepers who assume you know nothing piss me off to no end. I mean, while I do not claim to know a lot, I do think I deserve the minimum amount of courtesy and any storekeeper — any good storekeeper anyway — should assume their customer know something about what they’re looking at. Qizi Bing tells me nothing.

Anyway, I looked around, this factory makes cakes that are 400g each. The shape of the cakes are not terribly appealing. They look a bit fat and stunted, but the leaves looked good. I wanted to try one — the Mengsa cake.

Then the owner gave me the “here at Chayuan we only let people sample tea by the gram”, which is technically true, except that NOBODY ever follows that rule, or even so much as mention that rule. Annoying. I ended up trying the six mountain cake (i.e. tea from all six) instead of the Mengsa one. The tea is actually quite good, real big tree tea, nice overall. Asking price is not so nice, and annoyingly, all the cakes from this same factory are selling at the same price, which is ridiculous (because the cost of the materials should be different). When I came back to check on taobao, I can find some of them online, for about half.

I like those cakes. I think they can age well, but I don’t like how much they want. I’ll see if I can go back and get a better price, or find them somewhere else for cheaper on Maliandao. It’s possible…. although somehow I don’t think too likely.

Maliandao today.

The usual wandering — I went into a store that had some stuff that I’ve never seen before. And I ended up with one cake:

Yup…. Burma. Now, the owner claims that this is actually not a Burma cake, but the whole thing sounded like what Chinese call “there’s no 300 taels of gold here”, i.e. too much detail about how this is NOT something that it sounds fake. I was, in fact, rather interested in it precisely because it is said to be Burma cake. The taste is also a little odd. I think it’s one of those wild tree teas…. the typical dark green colour with some yellow. The taste was strong. The cha qi, especially, is very strong.

This is how it looks naked

So I bought one for the heck of it — mostly to see how this will taste in some time. After all, tea is not bounded by national borders, and just because it’s not in Yunnan doesn’t mean it can’t be good.

Then I went into a store that sells Cheshun Hao tea. This is an old tea manufacturer whose brand is being revived by a descendent of the family. They got a plaque at one point from the Daoguang Emperor, and it’s now serving more or less as their main advertising thing. The plaque is in Kunming right now, from what I know. The teas are EXPENSIVE. I tasted one toda — 700 RMB a cake. Not cheap by any stretch of imagination, especially for Maliandao. And this is a NEW tea.

So how did the 700 RMB cake taste? It’s very odd. The tea is almost tasteless. There’s a “tea” taste, but there’s very little aroma. There’s a hint of aged taste in it, just a hint, as it’s from spring last year. However… that’s about it. The tea is round, smooth. There’s not much of an aftertaste…. until about 5 minutes after I walked out of the store. Then I could feel it. All in all, a very mellow and boring, almost tasteless tea. I don’t quite know what to make of it.

I then walked around some more and ended up in the store where I bought some dancong with BBB, and tried one of their Yiwu cakes. A bit sweeter, also fairly good, nice, etc, but not top notch, and the price was a little on the high side. The store is a little annoying. There are all sorts of good stuff in there, but all are not for sale. Their owner is apparently somebody who has another business, and whose interest is tea. So, they make all these things that are, actually, for fun, and mostly only for friends and such. I guess I will have to try to make friends with the owner, except he’s not usually around. Oh well…

My last stop was at a store that BBB and I looked at, but didn’t really walk in. I tasted two cakes… both Yiwu. One was better than the other, and I bought two of them.

A bit bitter/astringent, a bit of aroma, some huigan, reasonable mouthfeel/aftertaste. Not expensive. I think the craftsmanship is very good. The quality of the leaves less so. I have hopes that this will age into something decent. I also hope that they will use better materials to make cakes….. this is a store I will come back again and check out, as the owner was very friendly and we had a good conversation. They are two brothers, one of whom is in Yunnan right now making cakes for the fall. Maybe I can tag along in the Spring? I don’t know. It’ll be nice though if I can go with somebody I can sort of trust.

The first thing I did was go to a store that I’ve read about on Sanzui, where they sell a Yiwu tea from a somewhat famous boutique producer. When I got there, however, there was only one storekeep there, and she said she’s really quite inexperienced — been on the job for about a month, and never dealt with tea before. She only has authorization for me to taste their crappiest Yiwu cake, which she said is from shortened tea trees that are about 100 years old. There was a more promising cake that is made up of arbor leaves of a few hundred years old, but she needs to clear it with her boss (no immediately available sample) and I didn’t want to bother. The Yiwu I tasted was… ok. Not great. Lacking a good aftertaste, a bit flat, not a lot of huigan, makes my throat dry. They want 200 RMB for it, I wouldn’t pay more than 50, even though it’s pleasant to drink…. but not great.

So I went out hunting for other things. Then I remembered seeing the Liji Guzhuang tea store, so I went in there to take a look. They only have one king of raw cake on sale. There are some other stuff they sell from other brands, none too appealing.

I tried the Liji stuff. It’s ok. Not great. Not very cheap, but I’m sure I can bargain it down. Then again, it’s not impressive, and I decided that since I am not going to do shotgun buying of everything… I will only buy things that I am impressed by. This one is not one of them. It tastes quite ordinary…. maybe a little better than ordinary, but not a lot better. Incidentally, the two storekeepers here are also young girls (18) with no tea industry experience. What’s with all these girls who know nothing about tea trying to sell me puerh??? There are lots of them. It’s a little sad seeing them stay in this place with no natural sunlight and no opportunity to go out, but I suppose this beats them staying in their villages or wherever they’re actually from. They are not going to college (probably can’t… for various reasons) and wasting their life away in a dark tea store…

So…. I left again.

I wandered around Chayuan a bit. I should’ve taken a picture of the interior there, but basically, it’s a grid system with something like 7-8 avenues and two or three crossstreets. It’s a little disorienting, especially if you don’t have a clear aim. My anchor point is the washroom, which is on one side of the mall. Otherwise, they all look pretty much the same.

I saw this other place afterwards… a place that sells direct from a Guoyan Factory, all puerh. So I went in there to see what they’ve got.

I ended up spending most of my afternoon there. It always turns out that way — I go to a few places, settle down in one and do some serious tasting.

At this place, I looked at almost all their raw cakes, most of which are just regular crap. Then, there was this 2004 cake that looked ok. I tasted it…. nothing to write home about…. although it probably will age into something ok. At $5 USD a piece, it’s not too bad. Then I tried a banzhang cake of theirs. Tastes like… a banzhang cake, quite strong, a bit bitter, and the cha qi was hitting me. I was getting a little dizzy again. It seems like banzhang tea does bad things to me. There was a bit of smoke at the beginning of this tea but then fades away. I wonder if this is a banzhang thing, or if I was just getting tea drunk. I thought about getting it… until I saw this brick.

The brick looks good. It looks loosely compressed (for a brick anyway), aged, shiny, smells nice… with a hint of that “wild” smell that I’ve been talking about, so I picked it up. They didn’t have a sample, but the guy eventually broke one open for me to taste. Nice, aged, well stored, still got a very strong “bite” while having a lot of aged puerh taste. Quite a good brick…. not the strongest qi or a very strong “throat aftertaste”, but… it’s cheap!

I ended up with four of them. I wanted to get more, but I decided to stop myself from getting more before I get a better taste of it. I think I will eventually snap up a few more though. It’s great for drink it now… I’ll be happy drinking this everyday as my “regular pu”

So I left the store with 4 bricks. Then, I thought I should drop by the store where I ordered those Yiwu cakes to make sure they’re on their way.

Bad news — they said the cakes are sold out! Crap.

I did get my deposit back, but I am bummed. I REALLY liked those cakes. I still think they’re easily the best new stuff I’ve tasted on Maliandao so far. Why???

I pressed the question. They said the guy who produced it said he doesn’t have any more cakes. But when we talked last week, it was fine, and his daughter talked to him herself. Did someone pay a higher price? I wonder. I looked around — that girl’s there, but she’s not saying anything to me. I looked on the shelf — that half-tasted cake is gone, nowhere to be found. I was hoping maybe I can at least buy that. Yes, I liked it that much.

So I walked out, dejected. They wanted to give me a mini-bing of cooked puerh for free as a sort of compensation. I refused. I was quite mad with them. I got the feeling that something’s not quite right, especially with the disappearance of the cake from the shelf.

Just when I was standing out there in the parking lot looking rather sad, that girl whose dad makes these cakes came up to me (she walked out earlier). Turns out the boss of the place got mad at them for selling stuff that isn’t hers, and I guess she is preventing the sale from happening. I can understand, in fact, I suspected as much. She didn’t look too pleased last week when I was there and didn’t buy a single thing of hers (and splurged on this rather expensive tong of stuff). None of her tea even comes close, so it makes sense for her to eliminate this competition from which she earns nothing.

So… now I am trying to work it out with this girl to pick up the tea, which apparently is already in town. We’re probably going to make the trade tomorrow. I’m rather happy 🙂

I walked around Chayuan a little more, and found a few Yichang Hao stuff that I want to try, but I am stuffed with tea, and I knew I couldn’t take anymore without feeling sick, so I left it at that, and headed home.

More on the brick in a few days, and hopefully, the new Yiwu 🙂