A Tea Addict's Journal

I tried the SE Asia trade fair cake today, the sample of which came from Hou De. This tea is also made by Chen Guang He Tang, the same company (really, same guy) who made the two Yiwus I tried a few days ago.

I got the center of the cake, with a neifei to boot. The piece is literally the centerpiece…

I added a moderate amount of tea to the gaiwan and brewed. The first two infusions were a little strange… there was a strange metallic note to the tea, and also a sort of vegetal taste that I don’t usually find in younger puerhs. In fact, I felt like I was drinking vegetable water at one point. The tea is not very thick, although not too thin either. It’s bitter, and remains so throughout. The vegetable taste goes away after a while, turning into a more traditional Menghai area tea taste. There’s always some huigan to the tea, and the level of huigan is somewhere between the Yiwu Yecha and the Yiwu Chawang.

Sweetness doesn’t really show up until at least 7-8 infusions in. The tea starts showing some sweet notes then on the tongue. Bitterness persists though. The tea was never too rough on the tongue — quite smooth, in fact, despite the bitterness.

Overall I think this is an above average cake, but not a whole lot better than that. One of those teas that is only enjoyable after some years of aging, I think. Right now it’s really too bitter to be a pleasure to drink. If the bitterness is obvious to me, then it must be even more obvious to those who don’t drink this sort of thing regularly, since I generally find myself rather insensitive to tea-related bitterness these days when compared to other people.

2nd infusion

4th infusion

One thing I’ve noticed about these Chen Guang He Tang teas is that they consist of leaves that are more broken than usual.

In the whole gaiwan I couldn’t really find any leaves that were intact. These were the best looking ones

I suspect this has to do with the level of rolling they went through during processing. I suspect these teas are more heavily rolled than the usual ones we see in the market these days. Heavy rolling, according to what I’ve read, also contributes to the higher level of bitterness apparent in his teas. If this is true that heavy rolling is involved, then obviously Mr. Chen thinks that heavy rolling is good for aging. Is it? Only time will tell, I suppose.

On the other hand, I find that a lot of the leaves of his teas are actually quite thin and fragile to handle when wet. They seem to break more easily. Maybe it’s just a question of the general quality of the leaves… and that the stuff he uses are somehow thinner? Not sure.

I, along with a number of other people, have gotten samples from Hou De for the new Yiwu teas they are offering, specifically the Chenguanghe Tang 2006 Fall Yiwus. There are two of them, one called the Yecha, or wild tea, and the other a supposed Chawang, or literally tea king. The Chawang is almost double the price of the Yecha. Since I’ve been drinking a lot of Yiwus these days, I thought I would give them a try.

The samples I got are both close to the center of the cake. Here’s a comparison shot of the dry leaves. The left is the Yecha, and the right is the Chawang:

The only noticeable difference between the two, in terms of their dry appearance, is that the Chawang has more whitish haired leaves, while the Yecha is darker. Other than that though, they don’t look all that different. Both smelled a bit of smoke when dried, certainly foreshadowing a taste of things to come.

I tried the Yecha yesterday with D. It was the first tea we had of the day, so my tongue was not adulterated by other things. I used a generous amount of leaves

Which brewed a decent coloured tea. I think this is the second or perhaps third infusion.

The overwhelming taste, at first anyway, is smoke. It was smokey. In fact, I would say that the first two infusions there was little else going on other than the smoke. Then in the third infusion, the smoke started receding a little, and a little more of the tea came out. However, I generally found this tea to be somewhat on the weak side, without much that appealed to me immediately. Chaqi was not particularly evident, nor was there a strong huigan. There was a bit of it, but it wasn’t lasting. The body of the tea was a bit thin. D didn’t particularly like it either.

The wet leaves… look a little old and thin. I can’t say I was particularly impressed by this tea.

Now, on to the Yiwu Chawang.

I put a very generous amount of tea in the gaiwan. The liquor from this tea is a bit darker than that of the Yecha.

It is also smokey, which is a little unfortunate. I would hope that the tea wouldn’t be so smokey, but it is. It does detract from being able to evaluate it on its own merit, but I suppose smoke is part of the tea now.

The tea is obviously stronger than the Yecha. Not only is the colour of the liquor darker, it is also generally stronger, with a more obvious huigan, and some chaqi. The tea, however, is quite bitter. It’s a little uncharacteristically bitter for a Yiwu, quite unlike a lot of the other ones I’ve had, many of which I personally think are very good teas. I’m not quite sure why that is the case, and I don’t think the fact that this tea is supposedly from Guafeng Zhai has much to do with that. A comparison with, say, the 2004 Yangqing Hao Yiwu would make the difference very apparent. I haven’t tried much of the recent Yiwu offerings from Hou De or any other US vendors recently, so I can’t really comment on anything else.

The Chawang lasted many infusions (I gave up on the Yecha before the tea gave up on me). That in itself is quite nice. I think this is a tea with some good aging prospects, but again… it doesn’t have the familiar Yiwu taste that I’ve come to know as the signature taste of the tea of that mountain.

The spent leaves of the cake show that they were a bit broken. Some is due to the fact that I used some of the shavings in my brewing, but others… I’m not sure what happened. I tried my best to squiggle the teas out of their position so as not to destroy the leaves, but somehow still ended up with a lot of broken bits.

Most of the leaves looked like this

Of the leaves that I could find (there were lots of stems) they were very heavily rolled, which I suppose could’ve contributed to the fact that I couldn’t find many complete leaves. I have also read that heavy rolling contributes to a bitter taste.

In my sample I could only find these leaves…

And this, which was paper thin…. there were another one or two that were also on the very thin side.

It is obvious that the Chawang is better as a tea. I’d even say it’s 2x better than the Yecha. On the other hand…. I’m not entirely sure if there aren’t better teas out there for that price, even in the US market. I know I am prejudiced given my access to teas in a much cheaper market, but even when compared with other teas available in the US market, whether this is good value or not is up to debate. I wonder what everybody else thinks.

I was wondering what to drink today, and while I was contemplating, I took out the gaiwan that my girlfriend put in a box. I opened it up, thinking I’ll warm the cup and then decide… and found there was tea in it!

It was obviously maocha of some sort. I wasn’t sure just by looking at it what it was. I thought maybe this was one of the Hou De samples I got that I forgot about. Then I sniffed it… it’s a Yiwu all right. It must be what’s left of the Yiwu maocha that I gave to her in Paris.

So, what the heck… I’ll drink it (I brought the whole bag of the maocha over). I took pictures of the first five infusions

The first two infusions were weak and slightly bland in the mouth, but delivered a wonderful aftertaste that lingers. The third infusion got rougher on the tongue, but a much stronger taste. The taste of this tea has by now definitely changed from when I first obtained it. Whereas previously it was rather nice and sweet, the sweetness is now giving way to something else, something a little more robust, a little more bitter too. The tea, in some ways, is passing through the very early phase of green-tea like taste into something a little stronger, but only just. From the third infusion onward the taste stayed more or less similar for a few infusions, before it started slowly descending into sweet-water, the usual ending for a young puerh. When brewed for 20 minutes or so, the tea can still give you a good infusion of tea after 15 infusions or so. It’s no longer a powerful cup, merely flavoured water.

One thing that was interesting is that the tea, when dry, smelled just like a Yiwu should. The liquor, however, doesn’t smell quite the same way. It’s odd. The tea is less sweet in taste than it is in dry smell. I’m not sure what to make of that.

Of course, a tasting is not complete with pictures of the wet leaves