1997 Xi Zhi Hao Yi Wu Wild Big Tree

Today I felt autumn coming. It's raining all day long, the sun sets before 8 pm and the temperature decreased by 10 degrees. I decided to drink from my more than 10 years old Yi Wu beeng, I feel it is in harmony with the current weather.



I purchased this beeng from HouDe two years ago. I believed that this beeng is quite expensive at $157 – and now I see how good that bargain was. Also, the pictures of one of my two beengs appeared in Art Of Tea Magazine issue 2 pages 31-32.

This tea is calming. It smells and tastes partially aged, I feel a dry cellar in liquor. This tea was probably kept all of its lifetime in dry controlled climate – it feels lively and energetic. The Yi Wu taste is clearly present, plumy and fruity, sweet with long lasting aftertaste. The color of the liquor turned orange.



I’m able to squeeze more than 12 infusions from this lovely tea. While I stop and 8th-10th infusion on most of pu-erh because of the radical unpleasant change in taste, this one goes further with honor.

Leaves are bold and big. The beeng is stone molded, so it’s easy to loosen it without damaging the leaves. These beengs were made by now legendary tea factory San Ho Tang as “study” and they showed the way for equally good 2005 and maybe 2006 vintages. Top choice beeng, I wish I have more of them.

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.

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.

1993 Da Li Nan-Jian Phoenix Tuo Cha

Today at evening I decided to taste something older. Unfortunately, I learned about pu-erh in late 2006, just before the big pu-erh market madness. So I missed the opportunity to buy some good aged pu-erh. All I have are few pieces – and today I decided to drink the 1993 Phoenix from Da Li Nan-Jian Tea Factory.


The tuo-cha is compressed just ok, not tight like the Xiaguan products, but still much tighter than average beeng. I had some problems break it, so I used one bigger piece and few smaller leaves – those leaves should add flavor to first few infusions, until the bigger piece will fall into separate leaves.



First, that catches my eyesight is the absolute clearness of the brew pointing to good kill-green process. The color is beautiful dark ruby. I prefer lighter teas, but the smell is still pretty heavy, clearly aged. The tea is 15 years old now, so it passed its juvenility and is becoming young adult.

The taste is aged yet energizing. There are hints of wood and a subtle touch of camphor in the taste. Huigan is strong and long lasting. In this small tuo we can see the big difference between aged raw and shu pu-erh. There are nearly no flaws in this tea. At least I cannot find any.

This small aged tuo, originally from Hou De is one of my all time favorites. Unfortunately, it’s sold out, as all good aged pu-erh is today. But if you accidentally find it somewhere, buy it!