2007 Xi-Zhi Hao "Xue Shan Chuen Lu"

Last week I traveled across whole Slovakia, from west to east. Since I rode a car, I had enough time to sightseeing. I took a picture of Castle of Spish, the largest medieval castle in Central Europe. Few weeks ago Australian sculptor Andrew Rogers finished a huge stone sculpture, a geoglyph depicting a “celtic horse”. Though the geoglyph is best seen from balloon or height – do you think this is how a horse looks like? (click the picture to enlarge)



Being out of home I lacked good tea. So as soon as I returned back, I brewed the third of the 2007 minibeengs produced by San Ho Tang Tea Factory under the Xi Zhi Hao brand. You can find my notes on the Yi Wu minibeeng and the Din Jin minibeeng here.

The last two teas had certain flaws. While I disliked the poor leaf quality of the Yi Wu minibeeng – problem probably found only on few last made beengs – the Din Jin was processed in very unusual way, it tasted like the leaves were overfermented before the kill green step was done. Is at least the Xue Shan worth the money? Lets see.



As Guang wrote, the tea trees the mao cha comes from are located close to Wu Liang Shan of Si Mao, east of Ling Cang from mostly around 300 years old plantations.
The beeng is heavily compressed, on the leaves is clearly seen the pattern of sack the tea was compressed in. If I compare it to relatively loose 2007 Da Xue Shan from the same factory - Chang Tai - this one looks hydraulic pressed. Separating whole leaves is possible, but it requires lot of precise effort. The leaves are very colorful – silver, yellow, all shades of green.

The liquor is light yellow, thick and clear. This tea is definitely sweet, very sweet without any acidity. The brew leaves slight hint of smokiness and a bit more bitterness in mouth. The floralness I found in the Da Xue Shan beeng does not occur here. Aftertaste is long, sweet, lingering. Tea lasts long enough and even in later brewings it's strong enough to kick me in the head. The spent leaves are ok, but more than few of them are black-dotted, like they were taken from sick trees.



Will I buy this tea? No – I don’t like enough how it tastes to spend the rather large sum on these minicakes. Instead I decided to purchase few of the Yi Wu minibeengs to store, age and consume them later on. Hopefully that batch will be made from higher quality mao cha.