22 January 2010

Gamma - "Bulang Shang Yun"

After quite a some time I'm finishing the five samples Hobbes sent out to us in the Yunnan Sourcing tasting event. This is Bulang tea made of semi-aged 2006 autumn maocha harvested in Man Nong village near Ban Zhang. The leaves should be harvested from wild arbor trees.

Bulang Shang Yun

The beeng looks nice, with medium-light compressions – it separates easily into leaves. The leaves are definitely darkest of all five samples without any detectable smell. The pictures are somewhat darker because of my dark tea tray, but they show off the leaf and liquors real color quite well.

Bulang Shang Yun

The liquor is orange, maybe a bit too orange for its age. This certainly isn’t a very complex tea; the taste is clean with some aftertaste. I was surprised, how short living is this pu-erh – it turned into sweet juice by sixth infusion. Also, I disliked the mushroomy taste in late infusion – I hate the smell of mushrooms.

Bulang Shang Yun

I’m not fan of this tea. It’s short living, lacking the so needed kick and real character, just a shade of best Bulang teas. I judged it as last of the first three samples.

The samples so far, from best to not so best:
1. Alpha - Yi Wu
2. Beta - You Le
3. Gamma - Bulang

Other reviews - Tea Goober, MattCha's blog, My Private Tea Collection and The Half-Dipper.

4 comments:

Bret said...

In the end I wound up liking this tea. At first I was a little confused at what was a very unusual looking tea, it's color being so dark. From my experience with this Bulang it needs extra leaf and extended infusion times to coax the best from it. It's not a very complex tea but a rather simple tea that is exellent after a heavy meal.

Hobbes said...

Dear TA,

Thanks for the article - an enjoyable read, and a great reminder of a tea that I had entirely forgotten!


Best wishes,

Hobbes

Tuo Cha Tea said...

Bret - I will retry the tea. Thanks

Hobbes - welcome back :-)

sp1key said...

Dear Tomas,

Happen to drop by, nice write up on the experience.


Cheers,
Sp1key