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.



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.



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.



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.

2007 Hai Lang Hao Bulang Wild Arbor

This tea sold by Yunnan Sourcing claims to be wild arbor pu-erh made from first flush 2007 spring mao cha harvested in Bulang mountain range from 70-80 years old tea trees. I got a sample of it together with various other Hai Lang Hao samples, and I decided to give it a try, since Hobbes praised it quite high.



From the sample I got I decided to use the whole part – as for most of my stone-pressed beeng samples, I got one half in its pressed form and the second half in separate leaves. The tea liquor smelled quite … it’s hard to describe… Bulangish. It was slightly vegetal with very little smokiness.

What kicked me off my feet was the aftertaste of the first few infusions. Strong, clear, everlasting. I believe it is Bulang where Red Bull got the inspiration. Ok, except the taste.



Unfortunately, the tea faded quite soon, after the sixth infusion it turned into sweet water. The character found in the first few infusions was completely missing.

The leaves are tiny, so I suppose they could be spring harvest and some of them even look like wild arbor.It is an OK choice, but I think I will look into the other Hai Lang Hao samples for something longer lasting.

2003 Menghai Bulang Jing Pin

Some tea has its own story, and few stories are quite interesting. Today I drunk a five years old Jing Pin (Superb Product - 精品) by Menghai Tea Factory. It's a sheng pu-erh made from wild mao cha harvested in Bulang mountain range. The tea was sold by Hou De, and it was sold out very quick, within a day, despite the fact that it was limited to two or three beengs per customer and the price was quite high.

Few days later BearsBearsBears suggested, that the nei-fei on the beeng suggest, that this tea could be fake. Guang from HouDeAsianArt answered, so the beeng is probably authentic. I already ordered one, so I decided to keep my order and not to cancel it. And now I’m drinking the tea.



This tea certainly went through some not very-serious wet storage, probably in the first two years of its existence. That’s good, at least in my opinion, because it added a few years of age to the beeng without damaging it too much. The last three years it stayed in dry environment in Houston and then in Šamorín (yes, with me). The leaves are browner than on dry-stored beengs of same age. The dics is quite compact, I had hard time to loosen enough leaves without damaging them too much – the edges are a bit loose, but the center of the cake is xiaguanish hard.

The dry leaves give out very nice, warm smell of wood and grapes, I like the fragrance a lot. The first infusion is quite bitter, not really enjoyable, but in later infusions the tea quickly turns from bitter to sweet. In the second infusion fruitiness emerges, resembling the red grapes from the smell of the dry beeng, in late infusions the fruitiness is covered by woody notes and the slightly-aged taste, reminding me of the smell of cellars.

The tea is still young, the liquor is just very light orange, so there is enough place to develop more depths and complexity. The stamina of the tea is very good, surviving 10 infusions with ease, so there is a hope of turning it into something even better. Fake or not, I like this one.