2008 Spring Chun Cha

A lot is happening today. Slovakia, the country I’m from will loose its national currency Slovak Crown by January 1st 2009 – we will switch to Euro. And because I work in a company producing and distributing enterprise-wide information systems, we have now a lot of work ahead to help all our clients to convert their systems to euro. That’s why I haven’t had too much time to blog. Yet I still drink a lot of tea and have a lot of samples. My current plan is to post a blog here at least twice a week.

Let’s drink today’s tea. I got this free sample with my last order from Nada.



What says the note: 2008 spring tea (Chun Cha) from ‘Bang Wai’ the village near Jing Mai Mountain. All the leaves from one tree ‘Gu Shu Cha’ Old Tree Tea.

Jing Mai is located in southern corner of Yunnan near Burma and Vietnam. Bu Land is near Jing Mai, so I expected the mao cha to produce strong and powerful soup. The leaves were whole and large, covered with long silver hair. I decided to stuff my pear-shaped teapot to get a heavier tea than usual.

But I’m quite disappointed. The tea isn’t what it should be. I found the very similar taste in 2006 Long Yuan Yi Wu Aromatic Beeng sold by Yunnan Sourcing – same sweet and empty tea. Overbrewing makes the tea too bitter; the way I prepare tea normal makes it uninteresting and a bit miserable. I will try this tea in next few days again; hopefully I will have more luck finding its heart.



Coming soon: I purchased several tea-flavored chocolates. Now I will try them and report to you how they taste like. Hope they will not be too nasty. The Gyokuro one looks a bit suspicious.

2006 Lao Ban Zhang Mao Cha

Few weeks ago I received a pack of mao cha samples from Jacqueline. Thanks again! She obtained them on last Tea Expo held in May or so – the sample pack contains five different mao cha samples from different mountains.



To prepare myself for tasting them I drunk today two years old mao cha from higher regions of Bulang mountain range, from remote tea plantations in Lao Ban Zhang. This mao cha was acquired by Guang as a special order from San Ho Tang tea factory.

This tea is supposed to come from hundreds years old tea trees and the leaves look so. They are long and whole, many of them in two leafs one bud system. Unfortunately, many of the tea leaves broke while they got to me, because of their delicate shape, but there are still plenty of them too long to fit even into my tallest teapot.



I had to soften the tea leaves with hot water, just like the spaghetti, before I was able to put the lid on the pot.

The mao cha brew strong and thick soup – in second and third infusion I encountered an expressive smoky aroma, yet the rest of the infusions were very satisfactory. The tea reminded me the 2008 Pu Zhen Yuan Cha, with its strong character, nearly creamy aftertaste and bold spirit.



Spent leaves are characterized by strong and high veins suggesting the wild ancestry of mao cha. If the 2006 Xi Zhi Hao Lao Ban Zhang (Yin and Yan) beengs are made of same material, their price of $145 could be acceptable.

Early 90's Yi Wu Mao Cha

This is a tea I got as a free sample from Guang nearly a year ago (thanks Guang!). The more than generous amount of tea was marked as 93/94 uncooked sun-dried mao cha from Yi Wu mountains. I brew it few times and I liked it a lot.

The leaves of this tea are fairly small, mostly brown with few yellowish tips. Unfortunately, as I kept the sample in plastic bag, some of the leaves were probably mangled. Still, they are much smaller than any other mao cha I have.



When I brew the tea for the first time, I was really surprised by the color of infusion. It's dark brown close to the color of some shu pu-erh I had before. Also, the taste was surprisingly shu, earthy, calm and sweet. In aged pu-erh, at least in those few I had before, I’m used to find the smell and taste of wet cellar. This may be caused by wet-storage, I’m not sure. One beeng that exhibits in it is the 2001 Mengku Yuan Yieh Xian thick paper version. But not in this one.



This tea isn’t shu, either. Instead of the true shu flavors I found the smell of freshly ditched potato. Maybe the tea is semi-cooked, or it's blended by various leaves from various seasons. When I checked the leaves carefully, I noticed, that some where darker, nearly shu-ish while others where green and yellow. This is similar to 8972 Menghai brick sold by Guang, too.



While the true origin of the tea remains a mystery to me, I like it. Only few grams of the sample remain, so I have chance to explore and enjoy it only once or twice.

2007 San Ho Tang Da Xue Shan Mao Cha

The most limited 2007 single region, autumn season San Ho Tang product, Xi Zhi Hao Da Xue Shan (Big Snow Mountain) was made from this mao cha - less than 200 kg of mao cha was available this year from that particular mountain. Available in USA only through Hou De, sold out within day or two.

Since I ordered some beengs too (1% of all production :-), it will be interesting to compare the mao cha with the pu-erh.

First impression - leaves are huge, dark green, some are yellowish (problems with processing?), with few silvery tips. The smell is vegetal, really nice young tea.

Liquor is of very light color, with color being a mixture of yellow and brown. The smell is very strong, very vegetal - at least in first few infusions. The smell is nearly too strong. But the taste is strong and the aftertaste is nearly the strongest I ever encountered. The taste is bitter with fruity background. Also, the tea lasts long, for ten and more infusions.

I'm very excited about this mao cha and I'm looking forward to taste the beeng.



I added a photo of one of the huge leaves - it's wider than my hand! Also, nottice the mighty and strong veins and the silvery hair. Simply beautiful!