In Search of the Olde School

Gentle Reader, this article is all about taking it back to the old school.  This is because I am an old fool.  Furthermore, and in a very real sense, it is so cool.

Brothers and sisters, we are gathered here today in the sight of this package of copious samplage so that we might bear witness to the 2011 7542.

Let us drink.

Thanks be to Pu-erh.sk.

Yay, unto the mighty packets did come your humble correspondent, and verily did he chortle with great mirth and a slapping of thighs when his eyes did look upon a whopping variety of samples.  Like a man gathering wheat from the field in the time of harvest did he casually finger his way through the ark of tasty delights, only to come across something that didst confound his sight.

Verily I say unto thee, nothing good shall of CNNP after, let's say, 2005ish.  Thusly there was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth as the 7542 revealed itself unto your humble correspondent.

Like the man that doth tear away his clothes only to be baptised in the river Jordan, so this CNNP cake was denuded of its raiments.

Small in leaf is the 7542, like the tiny firstborn shoots of the grain after the sowing.  Mighty rancid is its aroma, reminding the gathered throng that CNNP knows how to make 7542.  And lo, he meant rancid in a good way, and there was much delighting for he knew that it was good.

Before the days of Dayi, there was CNNP, and it was in the time of CNNP that they cooked up mighty 7542s.  Many were their tongs, and they did age quite nicely.  This is before the age of the cheapening, when Dayi did start making silly "Animal Year" cakes to which all did roll their eyes in abandon and mockery.  But still the CNNP did keep making its 7542.

So many shelves of the brotherhood were thus filled with 7542s that they began to wonder if modern CNNP could still take it back to the old school.  With great curiosity, they did sniff at the tea and realised that it was a little bit like 7542 as the scriptures foretold.  They did quaff, and conclude that throatiness and rough sweetness were to be had in good quantity.  And there was much rejoicing.

And LO, the CNNP spaketh unto them and they realised that the tea was indeed cooling.  Verily, it was a bit rough, but for just two sheckles (32 Euro) what does it profit a man to raise his voice in protest?

And so they were sated, and while greatly pleased with the price and the rough-yet-decent sweetness, they decided to keep their purses closed.  For there were many such fish in the sea, and many grapes on the vineyard, and many tongs at rock-bottom prices available at the right vendors.

So it was written, and so it shall be.

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Temple Goldfish

temple goldfish watch

two travellers by the lake

using their smartphones

A Postcard from the Fragrant Port

If all goes well, Gentle Reader, then you are reading this while I am on the way to the Fragrant Port.  I'm not entirely sure which fragrance modernday Hong Kong sports at this time of year, but I suspect that "fragrance" might be a little generous.

As it happens, this article is all about The Dayi, and one of my Hong Kongese chums, Apache, is about as into Dayi as I am.  We're not fanboys, I should point out, but we do get together from time to time to drink up the "Great Virtue".  There are people like us, who enjoy a bit o' Dayi, and there are the other kind of Dayi fans - those folk who can tell you all about the way certain flecks of ink on certain characters indicate special batches, and so on.

This tea came from the now-defunct Origin Tea, by way of JT (many thanks).  2001 Banzhang "Wild"?  Of course it is.

Looking at the photograph above, this tea is as expected.  You can almost smell the tell-tale blackened plantation aroma just from the bitmap.  It is exactly that which you would anticipate for Dayi.  I am fascinated to see that the stereotypical "Dayi" house style existed even in 2001.

It is orange and husky, but you knew that.  This is a sharp cake, with some (ready the lifeboats, stand by your bunks) dry storage.

Queue pictures of Luke Skywalker holding onto a weathervane.

Luke didn't have it so bad.  He lost a hand and the Sith Lord that was doing the Emperor's dark bidding turned out to be his father, sure, but he didn't have to cope with excessively dry tea.  I'm not a fussy drinker, and I can drink everything from a cake that's so humid even your average Hong Kong resident wouldn't touch, all the way down to something that's as dry as a Jawa's gusset.

In this particular case, it has a solid body, but absolutely no huigans at all.  There is simple, plantation strength, but not too much else.  Yes, it's Dayi, but (and don't hate me here) it's really not the best example of Dayi that you might hope to find.

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This next cake is the 2003 Dayi "Purple".

Foiled!  The colour balance of my pre-dawn photography was so unalterably nasty that I simply had to desaturate the entire image.  At least you can see the shape of the leaves. 

This second plantation recipe, like the 2003 Jin Dayi, has become very expensive.  As with the 2001 Orange Banzhang, above, this is blackened and sweet in the usual Dayi way.  This cake is also a victim of basic economics: the demand is so high that the price has risen way beyond that which I would consider to be "good value", and has passed even beyond "almost reasonable".  It is, merely, a husky Dayi plantation tea, without much huigan [returning sweetness].  It is good plantation tea, certainly, but you couldn't buy this with a straight face.  This is internet forum madness, and not worth contemplating.

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The 2001 "Commissioned Purple", however, is really worth thinking about, in my opinion.

That picture is enticing.  I am enticed!

Dark and humid, these leaves are calling out for a good session.  The "commissioned" status lifts it above the norm, quite obviously.  Gone is the husky blackness of standard Dayi; in comes the very real scent of grapes and raisins.  This smells much more natural.

This is red-brown, and very smooth.  Compare this 2001 Commissioned Purple to the 2001 Orange Banzhang, at the top.  It's like chalk and cheese; heaven and earth; Optimus Prime and Megatron.

I used all of the leaves in my sample, safe in the knowledge that it would be almost impossible to overbrew, which turned out to be correct.  It is dark and oaken like dodgy Norweigan metal.  Devoid of roughness (unlike the aforementioned Norweigan metal), this is made from quality leaves.

This is surely about as Dayi is ever going to get.  Its pure strength is its primary advantage, but it is the punch of an Ent: woody, solid, and completely unstoppable.

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Finally, shupu.

Please, contain yourself, Gentle Reader, for such wailing is most unbecoming.  You sound like a schoolgirl.

I will have you know that I actually like shupu.  I often drink it in my lab, and I sometimes even drink it at home at the teatable.  Shupu is fine by me, when done right.

Doing shupu right is exactly what Dayi knows.  When you want shupu, you go to the people who invented shupu.

"Wuzidengke" [woo-zer dung-ker] refers, approximately, to five sons passing the examinations for the Imperial civil service.  It's a great name.  It's also a great pu'ercha pun, because a tong is called qizi, as you know (seven sons), referring to the seven cakes in a tong.  Guess how many little cakes you get in the (metallic) tong casing here?

PM of white2tea sent me a sample of this, as you can see in the photographs above, and I promptly swooped like the vulture I am and acquired a groovy metal tin.  It weighs in a about $70 for the lot, which is really good value considering how awesomely stable this shupu can be.

Heavy, black, clean, fresh, husky, and sweet: Dayi are the unbeaten masters of shupu, and here they are on fine form.  It has the soft, eroded edges of shupu, but retains good strength - a marvellous piece of composting.  There is complexity the likes of which one would never expect: honey, and much in the way of vanilla softness.

If you're doing shupu, then do please try a sample of Wuzidengke.  The name is hard to forget, and it is a personal favourite.

The Ancestors Approve

I was recently rather concerned that my collected ancestors would disapprove of my dalliance with what was a rather genteel and fragile pu'ercha from Baohexiang.  Today, we redress the balance with something that even Vercingetorix himself would have enjoyed.  I assume.

This is the 2011 "Jinyun Zhencang", where jin is "golden" and yun is the troublesome word that corresponds to some approximate mixture of rhyme / harmony / charm.  Chinese-English translations typically fail on that word, sadly, but you get the gist.  Zhencang is "collection", easily enough.

Strap on your halberd, polish the horns on your helmet: this is Bulangshan tea.  No namby-pamby ladytea here, thank you very much.

The maocha was made from "wild Bulang trees", writes Peter of pu-erh.sk.  This is terribly exciting, and reminds of some of the better facemelters from bygone years that Essence of Tea was made.  As you might conclude from the above (leaving aside the dreadful colour balance from the dawn light), the leaves are beautiful and loosely compressed.

Bulangshan tea from 2011 should look like this: yellow, but dense.  The beidixiang [cup-bottom scent] is heavy and invisible (in the sense that dominates the nose, but has no signal) which then leads to a lengxiang [cooling scent] that suggests long throatiness and afterscent.  The soup is precisely that: heavy and low, before expanding in the throat where it remains for a long time.  The heavy, low aftertaste is rich, dark sweetness that squats on the breath for many sentences.

It tastes very "old fashioned", and those who know me will know that there is no greater compliment that I can give.  The cooling sensation that it imparts to the tongue and lips suggests that the trees were indeed rather decent.  This is a fine tea.

At 5 a.m. it has the approximate effect of listening to chiptunes (Sabrepulse?) at ear-splitting volume with one's ear right next to the speaker.  This, too, is A Good Thing.  Heartily recommended. 

The ancestors, they are approving.

Orchids It Ain't

This is the first of a pair of fascinating samples kindly provided by Peter of Pu-erh.sk.  The two neifei below show Baohexiang, a new pu'ercha brand from Li Wenhua who is (you guessed it) an ex-factory director at Dayi.  The Dayi diaspora is huge.  They must have trouble retaining their senior staff - it seems everyone is off to found their own labels.

Peter writes that the first of these two teas is the Yiwu Qiulan [Yiwu Orchid], and that it has been stored in Taipei.  From the name, we are immediately expecting a namby-pampy floral pu'ercha.  Let's see what happen to our oestrogen levels throughout the duration of this session...

The cake, as you will probably have surmised for yourself, looks gud.  Plenty gud, in fact.  It has loose compression, a good (but not overwhelming) number of tips, and, best of all, a ton of strong and large basis leaves.  My fears about oestrogen levels are beginning to abate.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it does generate a heavy and sweet lengxiang [cooling scent] in the aroma cup.  The soup is clean and sweet, though "pure" and gentle.  It has the warm, rounded body of autumnal tea.  You may be able to imagine my intonation on those words: autumnal tea.

Adding some leaves is an obligatory step, lest I fear for my manhood.  With an increment in the quantity, the soup is encouraged to produce kuwei [good bitterness], which is a necessary component for this Yiwushan tea.  (Note that the sample packet, at the top, may be misleading in this instance as it states "Yiwu-Bulang recipe A".)

The tea does well with what it has: there is honest, straightforward sweetness, and the bitter-straw kuwei of dryish storage.  It resounds pleasantly in the mouth, although it is not "throaty".  I am afraid that this, while being decently-made pu'ercha, is a little too gentle for my barbaric Anglo-Saxon tastes.  I can imagine my ancestors howling in rage to see their descendant messing around with such a genteel tea.  I can only apologise to them, and endeavour to slake their collective thirst for brutal concoctions in subsequent sessions.

Autumn Potency

TeaUrchin came into existence, I seem to remember, in 2011, where at the outset of the venture, its owner kindly sent me a clutch of samples.  This little packet represents the last of them.  I notice that the web-site remains probably the prettiest of all those of the vendors of tea, and this aesthetic style continues to the wrappers of the various cakes that TeaUrchin appears to have made since 2011.

This particular Mangzhishan cake is priced very reasonably, being $44 at the time of writing.  This makes it one of the lower-priced cakes at that site, and therefore, perhaps, the potential for some bargaination might exist.  We shall see...

Mengzhishan is only just inside the borders of Xishuangbanna: it is right up there, on the border with mighty Simao diqu, where the teas are savoury and the prices are not quite as high as in good old 'Banna.  Long-time readers might know that I harbour certain affections for teas from Simao - they can be burly, chunky, rough (in an endearing way), and those that I have in my collection seem to be maturing nicely.

Questions remain about the autumnal leaves, as ever, but the scent that rises from between the slats of the tea-table, after the rinse, suggests that this is a good, sweet cake.

The colour (pictured above) is yellow-orange as might expect for autumnal tea; likewise, the scent is a close, enclosed butteriness with a heavy, husky autumnal base.  The flavour is the comforting warmth of autumn, but there is a fresh potency that is remarkable.  The sweet grain of Mangzhishan is obvious, and welcome.

In fact, this is a genuinely enjoyable cake, which plays to my love of pu'ercha from Simao and Lincang diqu.  $44 is really rather good for such a cake.

The tea becomes more ordinary as the session draws on, but it remains strong and decent - if a touch green.  For $44, that is entirely acceptable.  It is a good cake for bulking out a collection, and is perhaps (if memory serves) my favourite autumnal cake from that set produced by TeaUrchin back in 2011.  Gentle Reader, if you have any further experience with cakes from this vendor, for comparison, I would be delighted to hear your reports.

A Punch in the Netherdimensions

Did you ever try a tea that made you wish you could go back in time and regain the time spent at the tea-table by avoiding the tea in question?  I give you the 2011 Chawangpu "Baoshan Yesheng".

To say that this tea "sucks" would be to discredit things that actually suck.  This tea is so far deep beyond suction that new adjectives must be constructed, in bespoke manner.  We need a word artisan to hand-craft a new adjective that suitably describes this tea.  In the absence of such finesse, we will opt for the temporary placeholder phrase: "totally sucks".

There was a Jet Li (I think) film, once, in which the main character (a monk, predictably enough) expounded on teas: he said that every tea is magnificent, even the most humble tea.  Every tea was worthy of respect, because the grandeur of its creation and its presence, here and now, is beyond the faculty of language to describe - indeed it is beyond the self to comprehend the true nature of the tea in the cup.  Every tea is not just a tea, but an inexpressible example of Buddhanature, brewed at the current instant, which tastes unlike all other teas because it is part of that instant.

However, I'm fairly confident that, if Jet Li's character tried this Chawangpu Baoshan Yesheng, he would said, "Oh man, that really sucks.  Like, totally."

Baoshan is a place far away.  Even in Yunnan, which is far away in the general sense, Baoshan is far removed from pretty much everywhere.  It is beyond Simao, beyond Lincang, and has borders with Dehong.   It is so unimaginably remote that it is next to Xiaguan country.

Baoshan probably has some amazing teas.  Tucked away in its remote location, there are probably unspeakably ancient arboreal grandfather trees, quietly producing ninjitsu pu'ercha on a regular basis.  The tea is probably famous among the locals, allowing them to reach unimaginable life-spans, and imparting to them the deep secrets of the primeval forests of which the trees are the last living creature capable of remembering.  It is, perhaps almost literally, the fruit of the Gods, the holy grail, the remaining link of mankind to an aeon now long past.

Not, however, this tea.  It really, totally sucks.

Thanks to Jakub for the session.

Aging Tea: A Mixed Bag

I have been sampling my own shelves widely, of late, and have come to some conclusions on the relative merits of my cakes ability to age.  (In each case, I have added notes to the original articles, which you are invited to inspect by following the corresponding links.)

The Good

The 7542-801 is quite good, although a little akin to a "dry storage" cake. The 7532-801 is better - it tastes more humid and more developed, and does not have the "dry storage" straw of the 7542-801.  Oddly, the 7542-901 is absolutely first-class.  Made just one year later, it is dark and heavy in that classical Dayi manner, and tastes very nicely aged indeed.  I suspect that most people would enjoy it - they would certainly enjoy it for the sub-$10 price in 2009.

Another success story is our aging experiment in central China, where Chinese Mama and Baba have recently brought us a few tong from our stores there.  The 1997 Laojunshan (pictured below), being one such cake brought to England, even though it is shupu, is heavy, round, and excessively sweet with old vanilla.  I look forward to trying the shengpu that we have.

My post-viva Hongjie cakes, bought in 2009 in Maliandao, when my dear wife was unknowingly carrying Xiaohu, our eldest son, has come on very well (much like dear Xiaohu himself!).  The change in the tea-leaves from their original green to a husky red-orange is very encouraging.

Finally, the 1996 Xiaguan bricks from Maliandao (pictured below) are coming on a treat - somehow, they are superdense carriers of vanilla and smooth huigan.

The Not-So-Good

Oddly, the 2003 Zitenglu Zipinhao [Wysteria Teahouse purple-label], pictured below, fits in this category. The original sample that I tried, stored in Singapore, stopped the clocks and was unfathomably excellent.  The actual cake, stored in Taiwan, was less amazing.  I managed to overcome some of this simply by using many more leaves of the Taiwanese-stored cake, which got it a little closer to the Singaporean version.

Perhaps most concerning of all, the 2011 Yunzhiyuan "Autumnal Xikong" (pictured below) has collapsed into tasting like purple tea.  I am deeply concerned for its future, and will take this as a warning concerning the purchase of super-sweet, unaged autumnal cakes in future.

Tea is such an education, and an experiment in itself.

Crab's What?

By virtue of the time-tunnelling effect of blogging, while I am writing this on an afternoon in late September, I suspect that my words will have travelled forward in time to be read by you, Gentle Reader, just after Boxing Day.  Though it seems strange to me in September, it will undoubtedly seem quite normal in December, for me to extend to you the season's greetings.  The season of Christmas (the time of reading), that is, not the season of mid-autumn (the time of writing).  Time-travel was always complex.

While nowhere near the Christmas period, I have just finished a session with two samples sent kindly by Tea Urchin some time ago (perhaps in 2011?).  This first cake is a "2002 Lincang", which is all that is known about it - Eugene's pretty web-site doesn't seem to mention it.  It seems to have been a zhuancha [brick-tea], as pictured above.  This is also apparently in the grade of the leaves, which have a homely "leftovers" feel to them.  The scent is sweet, with some age.

"Straightforward and quite strong" is my summary of this Lincang cake.  It has the red maltiness of a few years, but I would be very surprised if this were older than 6 or 7 years old - certainly, the supposed 11 years of aging are not apparent.  Perhaps it was stored in a state of preservation.  What we do have is a bold, uncomplicated sweetness that performs well and gets me ready for the "main act"...

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...the eponymous "crab's feet", or pangxiejiao [aprrox. paang-shee-air-djow].

I have rather enjoyed cakes laced with pangxiejiao before.  It is a vine that grows on the pu'ercha trees in the Jingmaishan region, and whose flavour seems to complement that of the pu'ercha leaves with which is is sometimes mixed.  Imagine my surprise, then, when I opened the packet to reveal...

...pure pangxiejiao!  This represents an excellent opportunity to come to know the character of this strange additive that is usually only present in small amounts.  The leaves of this life-form are yellow and green, with a "wrinkled" level of detail that you might be able to discern from the photographs.

The scent of the dry leaves is particularly unique.  I have encountered in only one location before today: the giraffe enclosure of the zoo.  The leaves have that blend of hairy, rich, and definitely animal scents that occur only in giraffe enclosures.

The soup, as you can see below, is a watery yellow-green.  I was wondering if this might make it rather tasteless, but the character is quite obviously not at all weak: it is creamy, thick, quite sweet, and tastes remarkably close to Jingmaishan's lanxiang [orchid scent], perhaps because of its growth in close proximity (well, crawling up the bark of the tree).  It is tangy, cooling at the back of the throat, and enduring in a way that few teas can achieve.  Quite surprising is its overall effect, and really rather nice, it has to be said.

You may not have received any pangxiejiao in your Christmas stocking this year, but I do recommend trying some should the opportunity arise.  My opinion of pangxieojiao has entirely changed from "novelty" to "pleasant addition".  Heaven knows how it ages, but the immediate character is rather fascinating.

Yiwushan Clan

Today's article covers a week in the world of Yiwushan, in which I've been focussing on getting to know some of the various villages, as my almost-depleted bag of samples allows.  The motivating tea for this excursion was a sample generously provided by Prof. GV, who is now departed for an old British trading colony attached to the south of China.  I suspect that his access to good tea has improved accordingly.

This is, as far as I can make out, "2006 Eight Pcs", or that could be "2006 Eight Pos".  I suspect the former.  Eight pieces?  Pieces-of-eight, pirate style?  If the good professor happens to be reading, perhaps he might be able to shed some light on this.

Funnily enough, I brewed this tea as a remedy for washing away the sins of a pesticide-laden cake in the previous session.  The leaves have a dense and sweet aroma of good ol' Yiwushan that promises tongue redemption.

PIECES-OF-EIGHT turns out to be a spicy-sweet Yiwu with some warmth and decency in the straightforward style typical of the region.  It has some backbone that keeps it going; even though I crammed a large quantity of leaves into the pot, I am rewarded with stability and sweetness, without scaling any heights of grandeur.  It definitely put me in the mood for more Yiwushan tea, however, and that formed the focus of my sessions over the few days following.

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Scraping the bottom of my sample bag for residue, I came across a packet of tea kindly provided by Eugene of Tea Urchin, when the on-line shop opened some time ago.  It looks as if Eugene has gone on to good things; the samples that I tried previously had the disadvantage of all being autumnal, and were consequently a little underwhelming.

Intriguingly, this tea is sold as being "Wangong" tea, although the product description reveals it is Dingjiazhai.  This is sort-of, kind-of the eastern Yiwushan region, and often classified as "Mansashan".  Wangong is rather sexy, as far as tea locations go, Dingjiazhai is about as sexy as old corduroy.  Don't get me wrong, I love me my corduroy.

This is an autumnal cake from "Xinshenglihao", a brand so minor that it does not appear in the mighty BABELCARP, long may she reign over us.  I found the Xinshenglihao "Xikong" to be good, but a bit simple compared with the competition from Yunnan Sourcing.

What you get for your $49/200g here, which is quite a lot for an autumnal cake, is some dark, sweet soup with a cooling penetration.  It is, unsurprisingly, warm and rounded in the autumnal "guhua" style, without the aggression of springtime tea - this could be acceptable if you're looking for a muted drink-it-now cake, but will prove a hinderance to aging.  There is little complexity but there is, at least, comfort.  There is just an edge of kuwei [good bitterness], dimmed.  By the fourth infusion, this cake has collapsed into mediocre Dingjiazhai territory.

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Days later, I went into a session with the 2012 "Early Yiwu" cake from Yunnan Sourcing ready to be underwhelmed.

Scott has demonstrated, over the course of the years, that he knows how to pick good cakes.  I am always wary of "early season" cakes, however, because the emphasis is on rushing to market, and this can sometimes correspond to the sacrificing of quality.  Scott has made this using leaves from Yibi and Luoshuidong, where I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever had a good pu'ercha cake from Luoshuidong.  Hence the feeling of impending doom.

You have to go into pu'ercha with an open mind.  The first few infusions of this tea were so watery that I was ready to confirm my schlerotic prejudice almost immediately.  Thankfully, I soldiered on.

It turns out that this tea really needs four infusions to reach maximum speed.  This is quite unusual in young tea, which is usually deceptively pleasant in the first two infusions, and which may then easily collapse after the third.  If you're lucky, the tea will stay pleasant.  This cake, however, bucked the trend, and actually got better during those first four infusions, until it peaked and remained stable.  This is a characteristic shared by some of my favourite teas, and hints at the fact that the leaves might actually have quite a lot of density, in some sense, that needs some coaxing to turn into strong soup.

Eventually, the soup turns a thick yellow.  By this time, the straightforward, almost empty, Yiwushan sweetness has swollen into something thick and proper.  It has a heavy solidity that I appreciate, and the sweetness continues out until the ninth or tenth infusion.  So, in this case, as so frequently occurs, my prior assumptions turned out to be false, and I should learn to give the tea its time in the sun.  At $24/250g, it is quite nicely priced, too.

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This was an article about Yiwushan, which I have totally misrepresented, because I want to finish with a tale of the 2010 Longfeng "Phoenix", which actually comes from Jieliang (near Laoman'e), in the Bulangshan region.

There was some soap-opea drama associated with the Longfeng brand, involving a cross-over with Yunnan Sourcing, as far as I recall, and which I hope to ignore as my tolerance for drama is extremely limited.

Much better to consider, the tea leaves (pictured below) are fragmented, and a little dark, but have the heavy scent of good sweetness.

This tea, as with the "Early Yiwu" cake described above, starts slow and watery.  However, by the third infusion, it delivers a razor-sharp edge of sheer metallic kuwei that is unmistakeably "Bulangshan".  I love it.  The sensations in the mouth are simultaenously cold, which reinforces the "cold steel" feeling of this cake.

The core of sweetness develops as the perfect foil to the cold-steel kuwei.  "This pure antisocial hatred is rather refreshing, and I am happy to brew it again and again."

I'm sure that this cake isn't available any more, but I loved its deadly ruthlessness.  Fine stuff, and a great way to end a week that was otherwise spent pottering around in the sweet comfort of Yiwushan.