26 April 2010

2009 Xi-Zhi Hao Shu minibeeng

This is the second minibeeng from the Xi-Zhi Hao pu-erh tea gift set sold by Hou De. As Hou De stated, it's made from tiny pieces of mao-cha that left after sieving the spring 2009 Xi-Zhi Hao mao cha used for sheng cakes. These leftovers were then fermented by an ex-Meng Hai Factory master.

2009 Xi-Zhi Hao Shu minibeeng

The beeng looks and smells good, the smell reminded me of 2005 Menghai Golden Needle White Lotus I have. Not a bad start. The tea brews very dark yet clear soup with no fishy or pondy taste or smell. I drink shu pu-erh only once in a while, because I know, how it's made, but this tea is fine by me - it's gentle and smooth.

2009 Xi-Zhi Hao Shu minibeeng
What is hidden in the dark depths of this tea?


Now, the negative side of this tea. As you can see on these bottom picture, the tea leaves are extremely fragmented, it's almost a tea dust, so you cannot expect too many good infusions made of this beeng. Even when I broke a whole chunk, it fell apart in seconds, making a coffee-colored liquid and in fourth brew it sharply started to fade into nothingness.

This pu-erh requires either very short infusions with moderate amount of tea leaves, making it into sixth or seventh infusion gracefully, or slightly less leaves with longer infusion times - but then you can expect only two or three good brews. Even prolonging the infusions at the end does not help, the tiny bits of tea already totally gave up.

2009 Xi-Zhi Hao Shu minibeeng

So my resume is: this xiao beeng, like it's sheng counterpart, is good for softcore tea-drinkers (is this an accurate opposite of hardcore tea-drinker?), being easy and smooth without unpleasant taste. For more experienced tea-drinker this pu-erh may be a bit light and short-living.

To be continued... with the two minibeengs as a whole gift set.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

For me, the best brews are pretty much after I start needing more than one minutes (4th brew +) worth of brewing...I do not rinse tea.

I decided to get samples of other shu on Hou De so I can figure out where this thing is on the ladder of good vs bad.

Speaking of which, I took a look at that 2006 xzh menghai/banzhang natural habitat brick and decided that it's drifted into not-a-bad-deal territory and bought it sight unseen. Have you had it?

--shah8

Anonymous said...

hi. do you have a email address. in your office setup i have seen a nice picture right of the red tetsubin. where can i buy this picture. my email is acute@gmx.de

Tuo Cha Tea said...

Hi,

I got the picture from a collegue who bought it in his trip in China, probably Beijing.

Tomas

Anonymous said...

thank you. that is too far away. i like the picture very much. enjoy it.

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