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.

2008 Spring Pin-Lin Bao Zhong

As far as I can remember, I never drank Bao Zhong oolong before. But I found a really inviting quote on Another Tea Blog about how Bao zhong tea tastes.

I took a whiff and said, "Fuck me." It smelled good.

That made me curious. So, when I made my last order from Guang, I also order 2oz of his Bao Zhong. Because of the small price difference between the Premium and Grade A batches, I have chosen the better one.



Bao Zhong teas, also misspelled as Pouchong teas on European markets are slightly oxidized high mountain oolongs with leaves in stripe forms. My Bao Zhong was slightly crushed, but fortunately most of the leaves survived the journey.

The leaves are very dark green, really very dark green. When I opened the bag, the smell made me to tell Oooh. It’s quite hard to describe, it is very floral and very alive. Exotic flowers in their top form.

I’m still testing the 80cc teapot – I have to find the correct amount of leaves used in teapot of this size. Today I decided to use 4.5 grams of leaves. I may use less, but I wanted this tea to be powerful today.

Some oolongs smell better than they taste, but again this one is not that case. The smell of liquor is very similar to the smell of leaves, alive, floral, young with touch of exotic flowers. The color of liquor is greenish-yellow, very clean. The body of the tea is floral with a touch of citrus, it’s more complex than an average oolong is.



The tea lasted about ten infusions. It could stay a bit longer, but not much and I do not wanted to spoil today’s wonderful experience with some off-taste late brews. I can still feel the aftertaste – this was my first Bao Zhong experience, but I hope it isn’t the last. I do have some 70’s and 80’s aged Bao Zhong I was keeping for the right moment – I think I will give them a chance.

2008 Nannuo Cha Chan Yi Wei

This beeng is not like other regular production. There are two big differences.
1. It’s probably the most fresh pu-erh I ever had. It least I feel it like the most fresh.
2. This tea is hand made by Nada (or at least supervised by Nada) during his trip to Nannuo.



Limited to only 40 beengs, some of these beengs are kept by Nada and some were sold at his online tea shop. They are sold out, but I was lucky enough to acquire one. Made from hand processed mao cha harvested from old-growth tea trees, the beengs are stone pressed to be compact enough yet not too much, so tea can be loosen by bare hands.

I acquired some other tea from Nada, by this was the one that excited me most. So as soon as I had a free time, I decided to try it out.

It’s a beeng that represent nearly an art. Thick, hand made cotton paper without any print, just with a red stamp. The name Cha Chan Yi Wei means Tea Producing Delicate Flavor Tea Zen One Taste, as Nada pointed out. The beeng emits strong vegetal fragrance, even without breaking the wrapper.

The bare cake shows very good craftsmanship, big bold tea leaves with nei fei again on hand made cotton paper with red stamp. The cake feels solid in hand, it’s beauty outshines most of other pu-erh on current market.



As with other good pu-erh, I carefully harvested leaves enough for gong fu session in my 60s zhu ni teapot, mostly reserved for best teas I have. Again, the dry leaves hit me with their fragrance, strong and incisive – it’s very floral, very green and very young, yet without any harshness.

The liquor is light yellow, thick without any smokiness in the taste. The aroma is veggie, slightly acidic, with a touch of leather and tobacco. It reminded me of 2006 Xi Zhi Hao Nan Nuo a bit. And the infusions just continued on and on, without any sign of weakening. After the tenth infusions I gave up, not the leaves. I should use a smaller teapot with this kind of tea.

Spent leaves, as seen on the picture, are big, strong and green without any sign of fermentation.




Nada, you did a great job making this pu-erh!

GABA

GABA. I like how it sounds. GABA. It could be an alien race from Star Wars. Or a 50’s Japanese monster, younger brother to Godzilla. But no, this GABA is drinkable and sold by Hou De. It’s a Taiwanese chin-shin cultivar oolong, one of the cheaper ones.



According to Guang, the history of GABA oolongs is quite special. In 80’s Japanese scientist discovered, that GABA oolongs can help alleviate hypertension by relaxing blood pressure. While in early 90’s the oolong wasn’t very tasty, in later years the producing skills improved a lot and now the GABA oolongs have very special taste and feel. Please, read more at Guang's page.

Also, this one wasn’t too expensive, so I purchased 100 grams. I switched to high mountain oolongs at my work, so getting good and inexpensive tea is crucial for me. And this one was a great choice!

This double-fermented oolong has unique aroma. It’s excessively sweet, with a touch of ripe fruits but without any flowery smell or taste. The liquor is clear, creamy and buttery with a touch of caramel. Certainly this isn’t a good choice for those who like strong tea. Yesterday I forgot about my third infusion and it steeped for 15, maybe 20 minutes. The tea was still drinkable and I was able to squeeze other 4 good infusions from those leaves. I should note there, that I prepared it in yixing teapot with leaves anough to fully fill the teapot.



This is my favorite amongst 2008 oolongs I drunk yet, I can only reccomend it.

By the way, GABA means Gamma-aminobutyric acid, it's the "healthy element" of this tea and you can read more about it in Wikipedia.

Flowery Darjeeling Risheehat

I got a sample of this fine tea from Salsero (thank you again!) today, so when I get to office and sat down I decided not to drink oolong today, but darjeeling tea instead.

This Indian tea from Darjeeling province is, according to information provided by Salsero, sold by Tea Emporium as Flowery 2nd Flush SFTGFOP Darjeeling tea from Risheehat tea estate.

Second flush (second harvest, mostly in June) of darjeeling teas is quite different from first flush. While the nature of first flush teas is much more green and fruity, the second flush teas I encountered before were closer to black teas. Judging from the color of leaves the fermentation in this darjeeling gone quite far. On the other hand, the “flowery” attribute turned on my imagination.

The tea makes dark orange color brew with distinctive fresh smell. While I found 2nd flush darjeelings quite heavy for my taste, this one is much lighter, though I will call it “fruity” instead of “flowery”. I can smell apricot and passionfruit in the brew. The taste sticks on tongue and leaves a light aftertaste behind.

It’s lovely and enjoyable tea, a welcome change in my everyday tea-life.

As always with the darjeeling teas, I prepared it in cast iron tetsubin using small amount of leaves with longer infusion time.

2008 HouDe Dong Ding

I got this oolong from Hou De few weeks ago. I drunk Dong Ding oolong from Hou De last year and I liked it really much. It was very pleasant, very sweet, nearly candy like tea.

The Dong Ding (literally Frozen Summit - 冻顶 or 凍頂, source: Tea Babelcarp) is a traditional medium roasted Taiwan oolong. As the site claims, the Nantou style Dong Ding oolong was produced in January 2008 in Taiwan.

The character of this vintage is quite different from the one I bought last year. The tea produces dark yellow, nearly amber liquor. The taste is sweet, slightly caramel with fruity undertones. The aftertaste is strong and leaves an acidic citrus feeling in the mouth. I feel this tea is pushed from the “caramel” to “fruity” side, like the roasting was lighter this year. Altogether I like the change, especially the aftertaste.

I like this tea – the price is nice, so it’s affordable as an everyday beverage, yet the quality of the leaves and the taste is still good to very good. I prepare this tea using 4-6 grams of dry leaves in 120cc yixing, mostly making 8-9 infusions.

Darjeeling FF Thurbo Tippy FTGFOP1

Today at work I decided to try another Darjeeling. This one is from Thurbo plantation in India. The FTGFOP acronym could mean Far Too Good For Ordinary People, but actually it is Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe.



While the definition of Orange Pekore is used to identify a large leaf size characterized by long, thin, wiry leaves, the actual leaves are quite small. They are very colorful with emerald green leaves and much darker and very hairy tips.



The liquor is orange, not as dark as red teas should be, but this darjeeling certainly fermented more than a green, white or yellow tea would. The seller declares that this tea is fermented for about an hour and half, total fermentation is 65-70%. As I experience darjeelings, they are each year greener and greener.



It’s an OK tea, tasty, fruity. It lives long enough for three good infusions; I like to drink it at office, when I do not have either time or opportunity to prepare something better.

2008 Top Grade Mao Jian

I’m not a big fan of green teas. I dislike their floral, grassy taste caused by chlorophyll. While at home I prefer kung fu cha in yixing teapots, I also believe, that green teas are best prepared in gaiwan or bigger teapot. That’s why I drink green teas mostly at my work prepared in tetsubin.



But once in a while I afford a good quality green tea. Today was quite hot out there, so I wanted to end the day with lighter fresh tea. It’s hand processed tea made from tip and top leaf. Mao Jian is much more term of grade then name of tea meaning ‘Downy tip’.

Immediately after opening the vacuum sealed pack I felt the smell of the tea – dark chocolate with peanuts. I never had tea like this, not with such intensive smell, though I like it very much. It’s nice surprise.

The leaves are small, dark green, even and unbroken; most of them are a tip with small top leaf. Because of the size the silver hair aren’t visible.

The liquor is greenish because of the chlorophyll, but most of fresh and tender green teas have more green than yellow liquor. The chocolate in smell of the tea vanished; it was replaced with delicate but definite floral and flowery fragrance. Fortunately, the grassy scent did not dominated the brew, so this tea could be savored by irregular tea-drinkers, too.



The tea lasted quite a few infusions, cheering me up with the sight of its fresh green leaves. I found this tea being similar to higher quality Japanese sencha. After all, this tea is harvested at Zhenjiang province on eastern coast of China near Japan.

I like this tea quite a lot; however it’s quite expensive ($15 per 2 oz) the even taste, number of infusions and high quality craftsmanship makes this tea worth of purchase.