Alpha - "Yi Wu Gua Feng Zhai"

This is the first of the series of cakes produced by Scott at Yunnan Sourcing LLC. The tea leaves were picked at "Gua Feng Zhai" (The Stockaded Village of Howling Wind) - according to descriptions, one of the remotest and highest regions of Yi Wu. Leaves from the same area were used by Chen Guang He Tang in his 2006 and 2007 Yi Wu beengs.



This tea is very fresh. After opening the sample bag I immediately felt the aroma of tea leaves – fruity, slightly grassy. I’m certain this tea will change considerably within next year – it will loose this young feeling and will turn into something different. The tea leaves were quite nice and at least some of them had the wild feeling.

The tea was yellow, clear without any detectable smokiness nor astringency. A very good drink-me-now pu-erh with some kick. For me, it’s more on the drink-now side then the age-me side. And since I have way too much beengs opened for drinking right now, I will not buy a beeng of this. By my opinion, this tea is decent, but lacks the true strength and character to be it exceptional.



While this tea was good, it certainly wasn’t the best – at least its cha qi did not make me jump, like one of the other samples. While Hobbes liked this one the most, my favorite will be reviewed later.

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.

2004 Yan Ching Hao Yi Wu Cha Wang

It’s a late summer night. Monday, day after the weekend. I should go to sleep, but I cannot. So I’m just sitting, drinking tea and listening to Bonobo. The windows are wide open, the chill of night slowly drives the fiery sun out of the room.



On table steam arose from the cup of tea. It’s my favorite – four years old Yi Wu pu-erh, one that just left the ferocity of youth, one that started to ascend the devious road to maturity. Born from mountains of Yi Wu under skilled hands of tea crafters.

I know that this tea is hand made – just today I found a long black hair in it. I quickly disposed it, before my girlfriend starts to ask hard-to-answer questions.

This is one of the first beengs I bought from Guang long, long ago in January of 2007. That is past long gone, the ancient time before the pu-erh bubble exploded. And this is the first whole beeng I drunk and shared, except of last small chunk.

The seventh infusion does not loose it’s strength nor taste. The rafined sweetness of Yi Wu shows promises of what it would become if I hadn’t drunk it. If I could just wait another fifteen years. But it’s hard to resist.



Last chips of formerly half kilogram beeng are observing me from wrapper. It’s a farewell to a good friend, farewell that leaves memories of beautiful times.

2001 MengHai Special-order "Yi Wu Zheng Shan"

Phyll recently restarted his Adventures in Tea & Wine after a hibernation lasting nearly one year. To celebrate it I decided to drink today sample sent to me by him.



The story of this tea is quite fierce. It was posted by Guang during Big Pu-erh Price Bubble and after I made a comment about it on LJ Pu-erh Community, it was sold out within 24 hours.

What do I know about this tea? It’s a special-order tea, meaning it’s probably higher quality than standard products. The mao cha it’s made of is probably harvested in 2000 and processed a year later.

The sample smells really good giving out a typical Yi Wu smell, sweet, woody, flowery. The smell reminds me of 2000 Chen-Guang He Tang Yi Wu brick or 2001 Chung-Hwa Yi Wu "Jin Yeh Hao" beeng. Tea feels aged and it’s aged in the right way – no sign of too wet storage, there isn't musty or pondy smell.



This tea is about eight years old and the liquor turns orange, as it should. The smell of the tea is woody, fruity; I definitely like it a lot. Compared to Lao Ban Zhang beeng I wrote about last time is this tea much tastier, even if maybe not quite as powerful. The smell in emptied fairness cup is dominantly spicy, reminds me of 2003 MengHai "BuLang Jing Pin".



The wet leaves are turning from green to brownish; since it is sample I do not judge the wholeness of leaves.
I like this tea a lot. Definite recommendation, if you will be able to get some. Thanks again Phyll for sharing it with me.

2001 Chung-Hwa Yi Wu "Jin Yeh Hao"

The spring is finally here! The weather is of typical April, in the morning rain falls like during monsoon and after lunch it’s sunny and warm out there. Two weeks ago with Xi Zhi Hao minibeengs shipment from HouDe I also received a sample of 2001 Chung-Hwa Yi Wu "Jin Yeh Hao". Today is the right time to try it.



The tea is from Yi Wu area, it’s said to be counterpart of 2001 MengHai "Old Tree Tribute Cake - Jin Yeh Hao" using the same mao cha. Guang wrote, that one half of the mao cha was pressed by Menghai, the rest by Meng La Tea Factory. My speculation is, that it’s for the high royalty fees Menghai asks. Similar thing (probably) happened with 2003 Menghai BuLang beeng, check the whole story here.

The tea smells slightly aged with a touch of wet storage in the aroma of dry leaves. The sample I got shows nice leaf structure and stone-molded compactness.

The liquor is clear and turns orange. Smell of the tea reminded me for old books, but the smell merrily turned into incense-like smell – exotic woods and aromatic spices.
The taste followed the smell, sweet, slightly aged with a touch of acidity. After the fifth-sixth infusion the spicy, woody character of liquor gradually turned into sweet, plain fruity taste. This may be grim to those who are used to strong, harsh pu-erhs, but I like it for calm late night tea sessions. Especially when I want to sleep that night.



This tea reminded me of 2004 Yan Ching Hao Yi Wu Cha Wang in means of taste and smell. This is what I believe is the typical Yi Wu mountain taste. The beeng is sold out for long time, but I believe I would buy one or two, if they are available.

In next few days I will try to compare this tea to 2000 Yi Wu Zheng Shan sold by Scott – you will see why.

2007 Xi Zhi Hao "Yi Wu Cha Wang"

Yesterday I received the parcel from HouDeAsianArt with three new San Ho Tang beengs, the Yi Wu Cha Wang, Xue Shan Chuen Lu and Ding Jin Nu Er. Since I really like the Xi Zhi Hao brand I decided to try each of them. This is the first. Yi Wu Cha Wang, the Yi Wu Tea Emperor.

First, here are few facts about the tea. This is the fourth Yi Wu mountain tea made by Mr. Chen, previous were the test-run 1997 "Yi Wu Zheng Shan Wild Big-Tree", 2006 Spring Yi Wu Cha Wang and 2007 Spring Yi Wu Cha Wang. The beeng is Gu Hua, Fall Harvest and it is supposed to be made from the same mao cha, that was used to produce the 2006 (Autumn) and 2007 (Spring) Chen Guang-He Tang Yi Wu Cha Wang beengs – the mao cha is originally from the highest plantation area "Gua Feng Zhai (Howling Wind Village)" of Yi Wu. This may also mean, that the tea is single estate but not from wild trees.

Why I decided to try the Yi Wu beeng first? Because I like the 2006 Chen Guang He Tang Yi Wu beeng a lot, even when I consider the negative critics around. The second reason was my extreme disappointed with this beeng.

The San Ho Tang factory was always an expensive one, but the high price was compensated by the high quality of product. Even the “inferior” product line - the 2006 Ban Zhan beengs and the 2007 LongFeng (Dragon and Phoenix), 7542 and 8582 series - were nice made and used ok leaves. The higher or even premium beengs always displayed beautiful craftsmanship and top-quality mao cha.

In real estates everyone knows the mantra “location, location, location”. And I believe that in pu-erh applies similar mantra – “mao cha, mao cha, mao cha”. The juicier and bolder the leaves are higher is the chance of good pu-erh. And you could understand my disappointment, when the worst beeng I ever saw was this premium-priced San Ho Tang.



Please, click the picture to the top right and carefully examine it. You may notice, that most of the beeng consist not of leaves but of mao cha dust instead. It looks like it was made from the absolute bottom of mao cha sack, where only the most inferior and broken tea leaves rested. Please take special note to the third picture, you can clearly see how fragmented was the mao cha.

By the way, if you check the picture of this beeng on Guang’s website, you may notice, that his beeng has the same problem. The bottom left side is OK, there are nice, big leaves, but the top right side is dusted in the same way than my beeng is.



This tea is hydraulically compressed – that’s certainly not good for aging in dryer environments. Also, it’s pretty hard to break it to get the leaves needed to brew the tea. The smell of the beeng is very fresh, vegetal, and floral; you can feel how young it is.

The tea brews light orange brew, thick and clear. It tastes like typical young Yi Wu tea – rich fruity sweetness and acidity, light floral touch, no smokiness. Actually, this tea tastes really good, I liked it a lot. I was surprised with the aftertaste, really powerful and filling the whole mouth.



Actually, this tea is pretty nice. Tastes good, is strong enough – if I weren’t feel like cheated because of the dreadful mao cha, I would be devoted.

I believe that it’s unwise to sell the “bottom of the sack” beengs to public; it caused a huge scar on my judgment of San Ho Tangs reputation. Well, I will be more cautious next time.

Note: the review of other too Xi Zhi Hao minibeengs will be available here soon. Also, Hobbes will review these beengs in short time, so check his blog, too.

2006 Ming-Yuan Hao "Yi Wu - 858 Puerh Museum"

Even with the spring knocking on the door, it’s still dark outside when I come home. As I took photo of church outside my window, I noticed, that its clock isn’t adjusted. The weather was today sunny and warm, so I wanted to try some tasty tea today. So I ended up with sample of Yi Wu tea, that was produced by Ming Yuan Chung Guang Tea Factory with cooperation of 858 Da Yu Pu-erh Museum following traditional processing skills.



The leaves of the sample are nice, still green and young with few yellow buds. Some of them are quite hairy. The sample included lots of stems – it’s a good sign, at least the good teas I drunk before were full of stems. I’m not sure; maybe they give power to the tea broth.

The broth is dark orange, much darker then I could expect from less than two years old tea. One fact is important – I have this sample in airtight small plastic bag for about 4 months by now, so the tea can be affected/aged a bit more than a whole beeng would.

When I washed the tea with boiling water, it gave up a bit metallic smell. Later I used about 95 Celsius (205F) water. The broth smelled a hint of tobacco (a rare smell, at least in my teas), little smoked with very gentle touch of apples. The taste was free of any smokiness; instead it was sweet with acidic ending, very fruity and refreshing. There was no mouth-drying effect at all.



This tea is very pleasant to drink. If prepared properly you can serve it to guests that are not used to powerful and harsh taste of some of the pu-erhs. It’s more like a real pu-erh gentleman, with good manners and behavior.

I already got one beeng from HouDe (thanks, Guang!) and maybe I will purchase some more to store. This tea was created from sun-dried and stone molded mao cha to pursue and re-produce the glory of 50's Hong Yi cakes and it behaves like that.

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.

2005 Yan Ching Hao Yi Wu Cha Wang

Today I tried the last 7 grams of my Yan Ching Hao sample I got from Hou De. Hou De lists three different Yan Ching Hao products - 2004 and 2005 Yi Wu and 2006 blended beeng. The 2006 blend got some mixed reviews (check out Half Dipper). Mixed reviews for mixed cake... how poetic :-)

The 2004 and 2005 beengs are supposed to be pure wild arbor material from YiWu Mountains. The price of cakes reflects that fact - the 2004 beeng was sold for $90, and then price rose to $137. Still, the beeng sold out. The 2005 beeng was "only" $75 - maybe because it was sold out long before the 2007 pu-erh price bubble.

Fact is, that the tea is beautiful, both the 2004 and the 2005 one. Love in the first sight. The leaves are uniform big, bold, strong. They are slowly turning brownish.

The liquor is orange with the typical Yi Wu taste - sweet, lingering with fruity background. No smokiness, at least I cannot detect any. Complex, yet still very tasty - this is the tea you can offer to your friend who does not drink pu-erh and he still will like it. The aftertaste is very good, too.

The tea last about 8-10 very very good infusions, then it slowly gives up.

Also check out about this tea : Pu-erh Community.

1999 Haiwan Yi Wu Beeng

I acquired this sample as a gift from owner of Czech teashop Longfeng.cz. Since it was approximately 9 grams, I decided to use whole sample with a slightly bigger (200 ml) yixing teapot.

As the owner of the teashop claimed, this beeng was one of the first produced by Haiwan tea factory.

The scent of dry leaves reminded me of 2000 Cheng Guang-He Tang "Yi Wu Yieh Sheng" brick sold by Guang. While I like YiWu pu-erh very much, I'm not a big fan of that particular brick, so I approached this tea with caution.

As you can see from photos, the leaves were still pretty green, which could mean, that the tea went through clean dry-storage. I believe, that this particular beeng was stored in Czech Republic last few years slowing down the ageing. And since in the Central Europe is the weather pretty dry, it probably means, that my tea will also age slowly.

After a short rinse in first cup of tea I immediately saw, how clear was the liquor - it went through a very good kill-green step, indeed. The aroma of the tea also reminded me of the CGHT brick, but I felt it a little less boring, livelier. The tea was sweet, with of woody and floral feeling. No smokiness at all. Aftertaste was long lasting (I still feel it in my mouth), fresh, filling the whole mouth.

It was a sample, so the leaves were chopped and quite green for being nearly 8 years old. Oh yeah, dry storage.

I liked a tea a lot, it lasted about 8 great and then other 4 very good infusions. Should I buy this cake? Well, if it is available, probably yes, one to drink. It is a bit expensive (about USD 100), but the quality is clearly visible. Fortunately for me, the cake is not available to buy, so I will not be tempted.

On the other hand, I acquired one whole 1998 Haiwan YiWu cake (made under CNNP license), so I hope, that it will be pretty good, too.