2005 Chen-Guang-He Tang "MengHai Yieh Sheng"

According to information provided by Guang, the Menghai Yieh Sheng (Wild) is a beeng produced by Chen Guang He Tang in 2005 as a blend of Ban Zhan (not Lao Ban Zhang) and other Menghai wild spring leaves harvested at 2005. This is one of the more expensive young pu-erh, a standard 357g beeng costs $120. It must be an exceptional cake to justify that price – so I decided to try a sample and if it’s really that good obtain a whole beeng.



This tea is produced by the same producer in the same year as the 1st Tea Expo beeng I like very much and even shares the wrapper design with it. Of course, the price is 4 times as much.

The leaves point out to quite wet storage being much darker and more brownish than the Tea Expo Memorial beeng. The cake looks stone-molded, the sample could be easily separated into single leaves, so I used the most whole and biggest of them for the first time.



The smell of liquor points out to the wet storage, though I found a clear fragrance of peaches under the cellar smell. The taste points out to the Taiwanese storing conditions, too, though the aftertaste is excellent, clear and long lasting. Actually, I liked this tea quite a lot, it was energic and fresh with interesting taste.

If this tea is $50 per beeng, I would easily buy few cakes to store and drink later, but since its $120, sadly I have to live without it.

2006 Longyuan Yi Wu Aromatic Pu-Erh

The tea is dead. Not all the tea, but some of my tea already deceased. Last time I drunk some powerless mao cha and I found some similarities with this 2006 Longyuan Yi Wu Aromatic beeng. Now is the time to confirm my findings.

The beeng isn’t single region but is a blend of Yi Wu (third) and Jiang Cheng (two thirds) leaves. But why is it called Yi Wu Aromatic Beeng instead of Jiang Cheng Aromatic Beeng? This is the manifestation of true power of trademarks.



I purchased this beeng alongside some others when I decided to try various loosely compressed beengs, see if they are suitable for long term storage. The beeng itself is beautiful, loosely compressed with small leaves on the surface. But the clothing sometimes hides a hideous body, so it should not distract me.

I don’t enjoy this tea. The liquor is slight orange, but it smells like a chemical substance with smoky undertones. Taste a bit like hay. There is some aftertaste, but the liquor itself lacks the power, the ability to age, the qi.

I’m very upside down with this tea. It’s not nasty, yet it’s not very good or cheap. Two stars out of five, max. Drinkable, but not much more. Maybe some wetter storage may help, but with my wet storage disaster I cannot try it myself.

This tea is available from Yunnan Sourcing.

1998 Menghai 8582

Summer is coming to its end and autumn knocks on our doors. Last Saturday I was on a concert of Jaromir Nohavica – while the concert on castle Červený Kameň was hilarious the stormy night proved really cold.


Actually, the castle on this photo is Smolenice, about 20 kilometres north of Červený Kameň.

As the summer ends I’m more and more time at home and so I drink more and more tea. Fortunately, I got some parcels with really good teas, so I’m able to try and learn more and more teas.

Today’s tea is from Guang, ten years old classical 8582 recipe by Menghai Tea Factory. The price of these beengs was quite adequate, so they sold out fast, in day or so. The leaves I used today were broken from my two beengs during they journey to Slovakia, so they are quite broken down. The color of the leaves is dark and there are lots of stems.



The beeng was originally dry stored, yet I decided to wash it twice – mostly to wash out the smallest leaves and the tea dust. This tea definitely isn’t young, yet it still cannot be considered fully aged. The liquor is dark orange with spicy smell, the taste is semi aged, and round and smooth with similar spiciness I found in 2003 Henry Company 7542 beeng.

It’s an OK tea, yet I will let it rest for another 5 or more years – it could improve with age.

2002 CNNP Special Order 8582

It’s quite rare to see more than two or three years old beengs on sale. And if there are some at least partially aged beengs, they are either quite expensive or faked or both. One of the sources selling excellent pu-erh for, unfortunately, excellent prices is Hou De Asian Art. This is where I got this beeng, too.



Marketed by CNNP - China National Native Produce – this classical recipe 8582 beeng is special order using semi-wild arbor trees. Semi-wild means, that the tea trees were originally cultivated, but then they were abandoned and only the nature took care of them. Also, the beeng is made before 2003 - that means, that the trees were probably neither overharvested nor overfertilized.

You can see how beautiful the beeng is. Compact but not too much, unlike the hydraulic pressed 8582 beengs like 2007 Xi Zhi Hao 8582, this one is airy and the beeng can be easily broken.

I was finally able to start the Lightbox to work, so please feel free to click the pictures.



The liquor is clear, slowly turning into orange. What I like the most of this beeng is the smell in the aroma cup. Exotic wood, spices, touch of pine needles. The aroma lasts long, I can still feel it even after an hour. It’s complex yet easy to savour. The woody character quickly turn into more floral. Unfortunately, the tea can easily become sour when prepared without enough care.

2007 "5th Puerh Appreciation" Memorial beeng

Full name of this beeng is 2007 "5th Internatiol Aged Puerh Appreciation" Memorial beeng.This pu-erh was blended by Mr. Huang Chuan-Fan of Jing Mei Tang and processed by Chang Tai Tea Factory. Same blender and same factory produced the 2006 Taipei Tea Expo Memorial Beeng. But the characters of these two teas are totally different.

As seller, Guang from Hou De Asian Art states, this beeng is made of mao cha from Bulang, Nan Nuo and Ge Lan He areas with some big leaf mao cha from old plantations in Nan Nuo that was harvested in 2006.



This tea cake was produced to commemorate the 5th internation aged pu-erh meeting. You can read the report on various blogs, most detailed is on Phyll Shengs blog – parts I, II, III, IV and V.

I decided to retry this tea after discussion with Phyll, who said that this beeng isn’t very good.

The leaves I used are from sample – the beeng is probably light to medium compressed,since most of the sample fallen into separate leaves. If you look at the picture, you can see how different leaves are in this beeng – they prove, that the mao cha was really blended from very different sources.



The liquor is clear, dark yellow with strong, smoky smell. The taste follows trails of smell - it isn't particularly nice. The taste is full bodied, harsh and heavy with very strong smokiness, nearly nicotinic one. Lots of caffeine makes this tea bad to drink late night.

On the other hand, when I forgot and overbrewed the fifth infusion (approximately 15 minutes), the tea was still drinkable.



It's hard to enjoy this tea right now. It’s too strong, astringent, very smoky. On the other hand, the aftertaste is long, lingering and sweet. This tea could be nice - in year 2027, it certainly needs lots of aging.

I have three beengs in my stash, so I will let you know when they will be 20 years old.

2007 Xi Zhi Hao Autumn Nu Er Cha

Today’s tea is one of the non-limited autumn productions of San Ho Tang factory, the Nu Er (Daughter) Cha. As Guang wrote, this tea was made of sun-dried mao cha from remote old plantations in Jing Gu blended with also Jing Gu’s unique Da Bai Cha (big white tea). Mr. Chen stressed the Da Bai Cha there was a naturally occurred cultivar in mountains, not like usually on the market they use silvery tips pf Yun Kang #10 cultivar and claim the same thing.



Dry leaves are big; the sample looks stone-molded, like all of the autumn production. Since I had 10 grams of sample left, I decided to use them all with my rather big zhu-ni pot. So it was nice that I was able to loosen the sample and get the big chunk of tea into teapot without breaking the leaves too much. Later I discovered, that most of the leaves were broken, but I’m ready to accuse for that the fact, that they originated from sample.



The infusions were very clear, light yellow. I found traces of smoke in the smell of tea; fortunately, the brew itself does not taste too smoky. It lasted lots of infusions; the taste was the entire time solid and strong. It reminded me of 2007 "5th International Aged Pu-erh Appreciation" Memorial cake in some moments. The Nu Er Cha looks like it was blended for spirit, not the beauty.

What was absolutely missing from the brew was the floral taste I found in Da Xue Shan, a bit less in Pu Zheng Cha and in traces in 2006 Xi Zhi Hao Nan Nuo. This is old-school pu-erh, yeah.



What really disappointed me was the inconsistency of leaves. They were from yellowish through dark green up to brown. Looks like some of them remained in the basket for a bit too long. Also, some of them had unhealthy looking black spots.



Conclusion – this tea isn’t bad, but I like the limited productions much more. And since the difference in cost isn’t huge, I believe they are far better choice. But it could be nice to see, how will this beeng age and mellow in next 20 years – it has potency to improve.

2006 Tea Expo Memorial "Hun Tie" Xiao Beeng

Today I was pretty tired, so I decided to drink only something "normal", so I decided to drink the last pieces of my 2006 Tea Expo Memorial Minibeeng. The particular tea is still available at Hou De for relatively reasonable price.



This pu-erh is medium compressed, processed and made by Changtai Tea Factory, just like the 2005 Southeast Asia Memorial Cake. But while the 2005 cake is very heavily compressed, not very suitable to age in dryer climate, the 2006 minibeeng is of medium compression.

As Guang wrote, this beeng was blended by Mr. Huang Chuan-Fang and the minibeeng was aimed to re-create the traits of aroma/taste of 50's Hun Yin Tie Beeng. Well, we will see if Mr. Huang succeeded in next 50 years.

Dry leaves are OK, nothing spectacular, but good enough. Tea liquor is orange, I believe it's a bit darker than the photo shows.

The tea is strong and pretty bitter, leaving long aftertaste. The tea isn't that strong (may I say brutal?) as another creation of Mr. Huang Chuan-Fang, the 2007 5th International Tea Expo Memorial Cake, but still leaves tickling tongue and fresh mouth feeling. No smokiness at all.



This minibeeng may not be the best tea around, but still easily outruns most of the pu-erh currently available. I'm still playing with the thoughts to purchase one tong of ten minibeengs. Hmm...