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SOTD- sheng of the day

Yesterday's tea was the 2005 Teji tuo sent out in the white2tea tea of the month program. I found it to be fairly similar to the Xiaguan Cang'er tuo, like the Bo Nan Yun Wu Yuan Cha, but this tea has more of a penchant for depth than either. It's a very north sort of floral tea. I wasn't really crazy about it, and it did emphasize just how professional Xiaguan is. It had small amount of qi, and the last cups before death (wasn't very durable), were very nicely shengy honey and pleasant to drink. Suspect with even more time, it will be more of an appealing drink.

Today I had the Jiajingtang Malishu Yibang. The leaves were tiny! This was a pretty standard Yibang, with slightly fruity sheng-honey. There is often a pretty good long lasting cooling with some mint notes underneath it after the main taste. Some slight tendency for Yiwu huigans, but light and very late. Viscosity is generally just enough or a bit more. Astringency does build and decline during the session. The back end of the session was very weird. It started off with a more pronounced forest taste and some florals, and the next cup was an intense floral soup that was so dominating and unbalanced that I thought dishwasher soap had gotten into it somehow. Think of a cheap moliang dancong or something like that. That jasmine mostly dominated one cup, declined a bit the next, and then disappeared. The tea weakened to uninteresting low flavors soon after. This was only an okay tea that basically isn't of interest, even for daily drinking--their being so many perfectly fine Yibangs out there.
 
today's selection was the Hai Lang Hao Jinggu Da Bai Cha from 2005. It was a bad tea, mainly because a bit into the session, it gets very tart that's lingering. The flavor is a sort of sharp tobacco, and it's not like a normal sheng tobacco flavor you'd find with, say, Hekai or Nannuo. At one point, there was a little aromatic wood that made it somewhat nice. Early in the session, there was a sweet flavor after the tobacco (pattern a little analogous to the diangu session last Christmas) vaguely similar to cream. This does peter out by brew five or so. The tea also just doesn't really become worthwhile to drink very quickly, by about brew nine or so, tho' it does have real flavor long past that. Aroma is like the flavor and there for the first three or four brews. Viscosity is decent to good for the first five or six brews. Qi is pretty decent for about the same number of brews before tailing off. I bet there are better brews in the cake, but for $120, it really should be possible to buy better tea--of course, most of that is newer stuff like the 2011 YS Jinggu that I liked.
 
2001 Jingmai Ancient Tree from Essence of Tea. It has some virtues, but from the bat, it has a real weakness in terms of taste--in this session, it's generally a thin retired smoke, vague sheng aged plumminess, and with the odd grilled fruit, floral, or cream note. In a few cups there is a mildly objectionable tartness. All of this is friendly and sweet, but this is exactly the sort of thing that would set Hobbes off as being hongcha. So if you're really wanting something that's meaty and aggressive and has character in the taste, this isn't for you. There is another critical difficiency in that the soup viscosity is below what I'd think is necessary to be quite a good tea, and there isn't anything interesting about the texture to offset that.

Now, that out of the way, what are its virtues? The aroma is pretty strong and lasts at least ten brews. There is some depth and complexity in said aroma with smoked wood, fruit, floral, and menthol notes to be found. And in general, each cup usually has something slightly different, so it's subtly dynamic. Not so much that I'd be super interested or pleased, but there is stuff to find. Different levels of fruit, florals, cream. Next, a bit into the session, the tea starts delivering some astringency that leaves a mouthcoat and a bit of a yun (generally cream or menthol) at the back of the mouth. Lastly, this does have qi. Not particularly great qi (levels could be an issue since I had a shu with qi earlier in the day), but some qi.

I can't say it's a good deal. It's almost $200, guestimate-wise. I'd almost certainly prefer 7542 private order or the 2000/2002(little yellow mark) 7532. This 2001 Jingmai would make good reading tea, or in general a tea that's potent but also ignorable as you do deskwork or other things.
 
2008 private Nannuo production. It's not durable at all, lasting only about five or six brews before decline, though I suspect had I went for a back end of the session there would be one or two good brew still in there. Anyways, it was pretty good while it lasted. Had Nannuo taste of Menghai mushrooms, wood, slight Nannuo juniper/herbal, honey, and after peak turns ever more thinly fruity. Aroma was pretty light, while it lasted, but the viscosity was good. There were some slightly Yiwu still sweetness, which was a pleasant surprise, some menghai floral mouth aroma, and I got a huigan in the throat in a single brew. Qi was basically mellowed out caffeine, so it couldn't really be said to have qi, but some good eye-opening without jitteryness is nice.

This was said to cost $70 for a 400g cake. While it's a lot for a poor durability obviously plantation cake, this was a very well done plantation cake. Compared to Dayi, the 8582 801 has stronger, denser flavor and more durability, but it's a lot harder to drink than this Nannuo. And of the limited experience with other Dayi samples from around 2008, I'd say that it's a little hard to get the same quality as the Nannuo--which definitely more for drinking now, and where you want something nice in a short gongfu session without feeling like you're wasting good tea. For an experienced and discerning shopper of puerh, one should be able to beat this price/quality. Anyways, I did enjoy this tea, and it's a good example of what well cared for plantation can offer.
 
Yesterday's tea was the '14 or '15 Jiajingtang Qingsheng, identified as being from hualianzhi mountain in Mengsong. It's pretty forgetable, and not very durable. Fairly standard mengsong taste, a little more menghai mushrooms and a little less mengsong florals. Tended to get some barnyard chocolate tones. Forgettable viscosity. Doesn't do much wrt aftertaste (aside from a little lingering taste in mouth) or qi.

Today I tried the 2000 Menghai Wild Tree seen here at farwenwa puerh: https://farwenwapuer.wordpress.com/2000-meng-hai-wild-tree-red-ribbon/ . The whole thing looks very non standard--it uses the wrapper meant for the Big Green Tree series, and while I vaguely remember that there was a bulang with this wrapper, none of these teas are without neifei, and none had a mostly yellow red ribbon. After drinking and putting things together, I think this is a follow up to the 1997 Menghai Wild Tree as shown in this first cake image here: http://www.ceramicart.com.tw/tea-forum/article/20-teareview-17.html And there is a further follow up of 2001 and 2002 cakes specifically from MenghaiTF with same typeset, but with red dayi mark--Dayi Banzhang Yesheng such as the one JakubT tried: http://jakubtomek.blogspot.com/2013/05/three-mid-aged-pieces-from-origintea.html . Now, the tea. I guess it's pretty close to how Geraldo described it. I found the taste to be relatively high and thin tasting tea without too much depth or layering. A little like the tiandaren bulang white2tea offered when Twodog first started. You generally have some soil, some sarsaparilla, some wood or nut skins, and some sweet cream. No chocolate, barnyard or anything like that. Not fruity either. This tea needs a degree of skill because it can be a bit unpredictably bitter, and definitely plantation feedback whine bitterness when oversteeped because the pot got clogged and poured slowly. The viscosity is okay, and gets decent towards the end of the session. The aftertastes are relatively subtle, and in the mouth, mostly mimicking yiwu huigan along with some menghai mouth aroma. The qi was respectable. I actually somewhat enjoyed this tea, and am glad I have a little left for a half sized try.

I also can think of this as being similar to the fuhai six leaves yiwu, but that tea has more depth in the taste, and doesn't quite do what this tea does. Shares a similar focus on sweet root herb taste.
 
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I am curious what your brewing ratio was for the Cangliu. I am guessing since you got clear bitterness that it was at >5g/100ml or >20s steep times? I will have to try with higher concentrations to see if I can get some of the notes you described.

Today, I had a much more satisfying tea. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the Cangliu...
 
Today was a really good tea day. After a good session with some shu, I had a tea that wasn't sold by Eugene of Tea Urchin, but apparently was bought by him in his first trip to Yunnan in 2011. It's a XinBanzhang huangpian. You can see the Lao Man'E for sale from that trip as well, and there is a review of the 2011 LBZ by a customer of Eugene who managed to buy one of the cakes that were pressed: https://discipleofthetealeaf.wordpress.com/2012/08/04/lao-ban-zhang-and-aun/.

So how were a bunch of twiggy yellow leaves? Really, really good, and much better than the 2013 and 2014 LBZ that have been sold at TeaUrchin. I'm a little perturbed in the sense of what went on with those cakes. To start off with the obvious...the best thing about this tea is a very strong and very comfortable qi. I was pretty much sagging into my chair while drinking this. The qi seems to weaken about about eight brews though, into merely strong or good. Haven't finished with the tea--it's in the fridge. The aroma often was too weak to be prominent, a couple of early ones had mushrooms with a slight floral edge to it. Late long brews had earthy mushrooms in the aroma. The viscosity is generally not that good, but it's enough. It's not that thin, despite being huangpian. The taste mainly seems to revolve around mushroom and celery notes. Sometimes more mushroom, sometimes more celery. Deeper into the session, it's more light mushrooms. There isn't much fruit notes in it beyond a touch of apricot very early. The aftertastes were pretty sophisticated, if quite light. Early in the session, there wasn't much bitterness, so it was mostly a sweetness, a bit like sweet nutmeat. It's somewhat like a yiwu huigan, and it grips the tongue and front teeth. While something like this consistently happens throughout the session, seemingly part of the top taste, once I got deeper into the session and brewing longer times, I encountered a bitterness. Said bitterness, after a bit of time, generated a lovely floral aftertaste in the mouth. There was a touch of dynamic cooling, but most feeling was just the pronounced feeling down the throat. This did not generate much of any huigan in the throat. A little yun at the top, but nothing pungent. This tea also gave me a strong case of the munchies and it was a bit hard on my stomach. The durability doesn't seem to be that great at high quality. I did around twelve, and the taste was pretty thin, the qi took longer to arrive, and eventually weakened in the last couple of brews, so I'll be looking for it when I restart it tomorrow. Compared to the XZH '06, this tea's qi is stronger than the brick, but not as strong as the black wrapper or youle, and all three teas had much stronger flavor/body, aftertastes in throat, and lasts a lot longer with quality. The '11 YQH Tiancang had better everything except sweetness, lengthy aftertaste, and this amount of qi. The Teaurchin LBZ '13/'14 had much more full tasting soup, with more viscosity, a consistent aroma, but not as good on qi or aftertastes.

The Cangliu, I brewed 8g/145ml or so.
 
The White2Tea 2016 Fade (huangpian brick) arrived today as part of the monthly tea club. Normally I let tea rest for at least 30 or even 60 days after shipping, but was curious as Paul seemed to be drinking a lot of this lately. Brewed just 4.4g in a 100ml gaiwan.

Really impressed. Thick mouthfeel, very sweet for a young tea, long lasting huigan and noticeable qi. If the price is right when released on the website, I will probably go deep on this tea.

Unfortunately I'm not able to fully session teas to exhaustion anymore, overdid it on young sheng over the last year and my stomach just can't handle it anymore. No more 15-20+ brews a day. Now on the lookout for a smaller yixing (60-90ml), so if anyone has a lead, hit me up.
 
awwww, poor ninepaths!

Yesterday's tea was a '15 Bulang from T-shop, based in NYC. Not really much to say about this one. Tastes mostly of sweet tobacco, in a way similar to the '05 HLH Da Bai Cha. Didn't develop much or do anything besides a feel down the throat once, and some floral mouth aroma.

Did two teas today.

The first was the '06 MingYuanHao 858 Museum collaboration Yiwu from Houde. This, I feel, has been over-oxidized at the withering stage, leading to a sort of empty pleasant fruitiness. So the aroma and taste usually has some plumminess. Sometimes it's sugary, other time, more often, it's a bit spicy or barnyard. The really good part about this tea is that it's pretty thick in terms of viscosity, and is smooth with only occasional astringent moments. If you brew to the bitterness, said bitterness will generate a slight floral aftertaste (and you'd have to brew pretty hard to bitterness). The light qi, like the rest of the package, recalls that of the YQH '04 Teji, mostly on the face and shoulders, and gentle elsewheres. It is pretty much like the Teji, if it was much weaker and didn't have all the retired smoke. Durability is pretty good. Overall, it's not excellent, given the lack of session dynamicism or too much complexity in cup, but if you roll with it, it's pretty satisfying. The '09 Yiwu from white2tea is better, overall, only being inferior in the sense that the top taste is more awkward, thin, along with the thickness being thin as well.

The second tea was the Chawangshop Hekai. This is one of those insipidly sweet Hekai, with sweet!barnyard, cream of corn, floral (like a dancong), slight tobacco, and tangy candy. Vegetal and piney later in the session that balances the sweetness a little. Thickness is generally acceptable. There is some mouthcoat. No qi, plenty of caffeine. In general not a tea that interests me much, and I think that it's more appropriately thought of as a green tea. This probably is prime thermos grade grandpa'd tea in the summer. Makes lots of sweet water.
 
ninepaths, for a small yixing, you might consider chawangshop: http://www.chawangshop.com/index.php/tea-hardware/zisha-teapots.html. I don't have a lot of experience with their teaware, but one pot I have from them is fine, and I've definitely been more than pleased by their sheng. They have quite a few options in the size you are looking for.

I do wonder though, if you might get more satisfying results by selecting towards tea that is gentler on your stomach, rather than having less of the rough stuff. I personally find that the gut wrenching qualities of young sheng can vary quite wildly for me. Some stuff I don't even want a little cup of, while occasionally something can be pretty chuggable. For example, I found the '09 yiwu from the white2tea club to be pretty chuggable, and I would imagine the Fade brick would be too, significantly yiwu huangpian and all that.
 
ninepaths, for a small yixing, you might consider chawangshop: http://www.chawangshop.com/index.php/tea-hardware/zisha-teapots.html. I don't have a lot of experience with their teaware, but one pot I have from them is fine, and I've definitely been more than pleased by their sheng. They have quite a few options in the size you are looking for.

Jackpot, I've somehow never ordered from them, but I'll throw some samples in with the pots. Thanks a lot!

awwww, poor ninepaths!

Things are improving now that I have been giving my stomach and kidneys a rest... but life just isn't the same without daily sheng sessions. Nonetheless, I may have to rely on your reviews to guide me through the 2016 harvest.
 
That's good to hear, ninepaths...

The tea today was the '07 Chen GuangHeTang Hongyin. This one had a pretty strong fruit edge to the plumminess, as well as a basement wood character to the taste. This stayed more or less the same through the session, and I feel that like the '06 MYH, this tea had too much time to oxidize while withering. The aroma was present for the first few brews, being of similar character. The thickness, though, was on the thin side. This can have a touch aggressive drying astringency. This tea does do well in consisently generated a sweet Yiwu style huigan in the mouth. There were some yuns at the top of the throat. A couple of cups did have some feeling go down throat. This didn't really have any qi. Overall, it seems to be about the same quality as the MYH, where the MYH had better thickness and feel in the mouth, had more qi, and this had a stronger taste and better aftertastes. It's easily better than the CGHT '06 Yiwu Yecha, though. I'm given to understand that the price is about two hundred dollars a cake on taobao, which isn't too horrible for a supposed premium cake from 2007. You can do better if you shop, though.
 
Seems like I'm coming down with the flu, so might be an interruption if nose/tongue gets wonky. Of course, will have trouble measuring qi.

Anyways, today was the 1999 Dadugang Yiwu. For all intents and purposes, it's a cutrate version of the Yuanbao from the same year. Has a similar light, but notably woody taste and aroma. That wood taste is generally accompanied by clay notes (on occasion, some retired smoke), and can shade into chocolate or root herb tones through the session. There is usually a yiwu huigan that generally involves a fruit note, and it's fast and seamless so as to make the taste feels long in the mouth. Viscosity is usually okay to good, some astringency. The qi was pretty decent and made me feel comfortable. As with the Fuhai, this eventually got too boring for me to continue with, so no real test of durability. I generally had a good time with this tea, though. Depending on what you want out of the tea, I'd say that it can be worth $225. The flip side is that this is factory tea with some limitations--like a fairly light taste. Compared to just getting the '07 YQH Lingya or '05 Tsangliu (tho' I think this Dadugang has more qi), it might not sound as great a deal. Flip side is that you can easily pay that much for not as interesting factory tea of that era.
 
Today, after the shu, I did a half brew of the 2008 Mr Feng's Selected Trees available from Essence of Tea. As per my suspicions, this is a Bingdaoish sort of tea. All in all, it's only good to pretty good, and drinking this simply emphasized just how spoiled I am for northern puerh. Anyways, my estimate is that this isn't as good as the 2006 Bingdao Peacock offered by EoT at the same price per gram or the white2tea offerings of 54-46 That's My Number/72 Hours.

So how did I come to that conclusion? There are two big issues. The first and somewhat annoying, is that the tea dulls in pleasurable content as it cools. Which is sort of a weird fault to have. So I'd start with, say a nice incense sort of note in the taste, and after a minute or so, wind up with a light generic fermentation taste that reveals its storage history in 'banna. It's the same with the aroma, which at one point, had a nice cooked grape aroma at the start that faded too quickly. While one can expect aroma to dull a bit after the pour, it's still quite unusual for only the first few sips to have some of that moving, rolling, cooling mouthfeel that Bingdaoish teas can have, and consistently not do it once it cools past a certain point. The other big issue is that the interesting part of the session is over relatively quickly--the qi starts off quite present and pleasant, and weakens after the second or third brews until it's sort of back ground noise by seven or eight. Usually, you should only see that with fairly tippy teas that have qi from converted caffeine. Distinct and worthwhile flavor/aroma also ends around that time, tho' brewing to bitterness can generate some aftertastes for a while after, and yes, you definitely can overbrew this tea, so don't just jump off with ten, fifteen, twenty second brews with this one.

Now, more to this session...This tea has a consistent light background fermentation taste. The top taste tends to favor shallow sweet flavors...the first brew had a nice bazooka bubblegum sort of taste, then the second and most other distinctly flavored brews has a sort of creme brulee sort of taste. There was a brew with a relatively strong leather note. Throughout the early brews, there is usually an incense and clay note--much like the '09 XZH gift set in this respect (and other respects in its youth) but quite a bit milder. There isn't any real depth or solidness to the taste, much as expected from this class of tea. Aroma is like the taste, for the most part, with some oddities like the cooked grapes mentioned earlier. Viscosity wasn't very good, in contrast to the claim on the website, so I'm not sure what was going on with that, perhaps just the sample. It was usually enough, and there was one brew that had a nice clingy texture, but the tea was inclined to thin out after only a relatively few brews. The aftertastes could be very good. As mentioned before, you can get a very nicely swirling mouthfeel from the top of the throat around the mouth with cooling and light flavor, at least early in the cup. In the second to fourth brews, there is a tendency, especially when one finishes the cup, to have a very nice sweet (both sensate and flavorwise) taste that coats the tongue or mouth. It could get pervasive, and I spent some time after the cup salivating, licking at my mouth while the sugar was going. Would have been really nice if the tea could do that after more cups. The qi is mostly of a moderate sort, most of it in the body, a little head. Was nice, but as I've said before, it fades. When I started the back end, it didn't come back, either.
 
White2Tea's newsletter said there are only nine cakes of Tuhao as F*** left. I contacted TwoDog in a panic, asking him how much Bosch remained - as that would determine whether or not I would jump on his last unbroken Tuhao tong.

Well, Bosch was completely gone, zip, nada. No problem, I'm sure it (or something of similar quality) will get pressed again this year. When I got home last night, I sessioned Tuhao to see how much I really want it, as I had already placed a decent sized order with Chawang shop just a few days before. I don't know if it's just cause I'd been cutting back on sheng for the past couple of months, but the qi effect basically took over my mind. I didn't really do anything else the entire night. Just sat around, totally spaced out. I remember the flavours were pleasant and the thickness was good. The tea is very sweet with pleasant huigans. Surprisingly it made me sweat more than I would have expected (again perhaps this is due to reduced tolerance).

As a side note - I do wonder how all these new cakes will age over time. Not just W2T, but all newer producers who are pressing cakes that are very drinkable young compared to the factory productions of yore. I do have some concerns about my own cakes drying out.

Regardless, I decided this is a tea I would like to have more of. It was my favourite 2015 W2T production over the last year (though my last Bosch session may have been better), so I jumped online and pulled the trigger on the tong.
 
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Right now I am revisiting 2014 Last Thoughts. I only have a 25g sample of the 2015 version, and haven't tried it yet.

This was mainly a test to see if my storage is too dry. The cake is nowhere near as fragrant as it used to be, so I'm not sure if that's normal or if I should be concerned. I looked at my notes the first time I tried the tea. Back then I noted it was incredibly green tasting with a pale yellow liquor.

This time the liquid has turned more orange, so taking that as a positive sign of ongoing evolution. The flavour is also no longer green/vegetal like it was before.

My tongue feels coated with the tea for a minute after the cup is swallowed. It is more sweet and less floral than I would expect from Yiwu, I push one brew for longer, which resulted in more astringency and a strong drying of the mouth. The lingering aftertaste reminds me of white grapes.

I did use 25% less leaves than I should have, but it was still an enjoyable session, and the qi has left me feeling very peaceful.
 
ninepaths, at this point, given the consistent tendency of elite yiwu to go to sleep for a long while, I'd not really expect much for another five, six years.

I was naughty today, had two shengs...

First I had the 2002 Little Yellow Mark from white2tea. Aroma tends to be sweet, and much like the flavor, but rounded off. The flavor is predominantly barnyard, wood, and tobacco with a light fermentation background. As the session went on, I found notes of minerals, menghai florals, and chocolate. The viscosity was usually pretty good. Capable of plenty of bitterness and some drying astringency--somewhat productive. The aftertastes tended to be mostly mouthcoat, a little yiwu huigan, and maybe a light pungent huigan or two in the throat. Decent body qi. Durability, I think is good, but I sort of got bored with it. It's core weakness is that the flavor isn't that great--compare with the 2002 7542 that I've almost drunk up, that has a lot more plummy sweetness and other notes to counter the barnyard aspects. The 1999 Dadugang Yiwu from Farwenwa puerh is a better value at $225, also because of better taste (if lighter), more consistent aftertastes. This Little Yellow Mark is more masculine, for those that like the chest hair, and it has notably good viscosity and qi.

I felt somewhat unfulfilled, so I went "what the heck, I'll do a second tea..." and I picked out the 2013 XZH DaXueShan. This tea is obviously not at the level of 72 Hours, 54-46, or even the Mr. Feng's Selected Trees. However, for what it aspires to do (at the level of, say, white2tea Pin or a bit better), it is a remarkably solid tea. The dry leaves are very pretty in that it's all gold buds and small leaves, and they have a tobacco and floral scent. The aroma of the soup started with a very nice smoke-tobacco-vegetal sophistication, and then with the second and so on, was mostly a nutty aroma. After the first brew with vegetal/sweet squash notes, the taste in most of the rest of the brew emphasizes a nutty, tobacco character. In late brews the soup turns pretty sweet, and with honey notes. Not too unlike honey-nut cheerios, with a little tobacco in it. The viscosity is very good, obviously, from all those buds. Aftertastes were very light and occasional, mostly a light huigan in the throat. Definitely does go down the throat, nicely. Some sweetness left in the mouth after the cup, but nowhere near as nicely as Feng's '08. The qi is pretty good and declines slowly and gracefully--it was still decent when I stopped at probably about fifteen brews. The tea definitely could have gone further, so I wasted some brews doing two tea sessions in a day. Late infusions were sweet, and still a layered taste, if not quite "complex". This tea delivered a pretty strong impression of being something that had a lot of genuine guts to it. Very solid taste, feeling, viscosity, etc. While it's not going to age into anything wondrous, given how teas like this have aged--Shuangjiang Mengku's '05 DXS as an example, this is quite probably going to be very pleasantly sweet with some more florals and maybe light woods. It feels like it's not dramatic enough as a tea that you pick off a single cake, but a tea that you tong for easy, casually good consumption a decade on. Not anything like as refined and full of complexity like the Lao Wu Shan, but solid and good, nonetheless.
 
Today I did the 2013 XZH Xuan Xi. To me a short description is that it's like as if you had 70/30 ChenYuanhao Yiwu Chahuang blended with white2tea Tuhao As ****. The aroma tends to be menghai mushroom/barnyard and yiwu sort of chocolate, like the CYH. The taste tends to be an energetic menghai taste, sort of like Naka or good Hekai with Yiwu depth. I was very much reminded of the 2007 XZH 8582 with the bulang/yiwu blend. Not quite the same taste, but similar philosophy--menghai and heavier yiwu. The menghai character eventually retreats into mostly a floral layer atop of Yiwu experience that generally gets sweeter. The viscosity is pretty good, only a bit less than the DXS I had yesterday, with only a very occasional astringency. The aftertastes are pretty quick. There is some mouthcoat, throatfeel early in the session. There is also sometimes a quick flash of fleshy florals at the end of the sip. Qi is light to moderate and is pretty good. Durability was somewhere between fifteen and twenty brews.

This tea is tastier than the DaXueShan I had yesterday, but there is a strong sense that it's much like the 2010 XZH Manlin in that it's crafted to be tasty right now--did see a bit more color than I think should be expected in the finished leaves. Overall, I think that the DXS is a better constructed tea, and better positioned to age well. There also some thought given to comparing this tea to the white2tea Bosch. The Bosch is reasonably clearly the better tea, despite being made a couple of years later with the resulting increase in materials and labor that implies. While not dense like the XZH DXS, the Bosch does share consistent layered subtlety of depth that's not really present in the XuanXi.
 
I had two good teas of the day today...

The first is the last of the three XZH teas before I head on to YQH...The 2013 Que Zhen. I entered into the session with the preconception that it's a JingGu tea so this may have colored my impressions while drinking. While discussing with someone else, the idea that this was a Yiwu tea came up, similar to the 2005 Big Green Tree that Yunnan Sourcing sold...At the end, I wasn't convinced of either. Anyways, there was a light and complex aroma that tended to be almond, floral, green sap, and honey in various proportions. Lasting about four brews before becoming mostly a very light floral aroma. The taste was only reasonably strong for about four brews--with various honey, almond, some green sap, fruit tones. Then it collapses into a somewhat consistent light honey and floral taste. This is very irritating to me when the fun part is over by brew four. The viscosity is very good, though, and maintains as such indefinitely, particularly if you brew with a firm hand. The tea doesn't really bite back with bitterness much, tho' it does have some tartness in places. Aftertastes were pretty nice in the first four brews, with a good mouthcoat, some yuns that flow back into the mouth as a huigan there. A pungent huigan in the throat at the end of the active stage. Mostly the same pattern with the qi--moderate through the first four, and powers down a bit, but still continuing the rest of the way through. However, there was a lasting positive feeling, I think. The durability is very good though, and I didn't get as many brews as I could have, at around fifteen. Just had to accept thick, light tasting brews. So while I was disappointed, and remembering how the sample of the 2007 XZH Kuzhushan used to pull this same behavior, I was mostly pretty okay with it. It's a relatively close call, but I think I'd choose this over the XuanXi, mostly because there might be a better chance of quality aging. Ultimately the major differences in quality rests one what flavors you like. The XuanXi has darker, more substantial flavors, while the Que Zhen is more delicate and without much backbone.

The mail came in and I got a bunch of samples from an outfit called Theasophie. They've been out there making tea since at least before 2012, when TIM showed off some of their teas previously. I also have previously drunk a "state forest" yiwu from 2012 that was produced/stocked by them, that TIM sent me. They do seem to keep a low profile, and while there are some plans to be more...open this July, those plans are still tentative as to how they exactly want to do it. Anyways, I got a sample of 2004 JinWangHao Gedeng, fall 2011 LBZ, 2014 Bulang, and 2015 Yiwu. The Bulang (very sweet smelling dry leaf, btw) and Yiwu are blends. I had gotten roughly an ounce of each, so I went ahead and did a preliminary half brew of the gedeng in a gaiwan.

The basic pattern of this tea is very similar to the 2001 Jingmai sold by Essence of Tea, which I attribute to both being made of lobular leaf tea. The striking aspect of this tea, however, is that it produces a butanol-blackberry fruity note on a consistent basis, which is pretty delightful. It recalled the distinctive fruity notes that the Qixiang could have, as well as this not so great Dingxing tuo sample sent by Teaclassico (who looks like they are out of business). The aroma and tastes were pretty dynamic going through the first seven brews or so. Interesting enough, this was a very clean tea--no smoke, as with the EoT Jingmai, and only the usual sheng plummy fermentation, with no storage notes. The aroma tended to have spicy woods, and there was one wonderful time where it was cinnamon and blackberries. There were other notes like butter or floral elements, and different cups had different aromas. These aromas, while present enough, were never as strong as the EoT Jingmai. The taste tended to follow the aroma (butter, wood), except consistently with fruit notes, generally blackberries. One time it was blackberry and fruit punch, which was a little out there. Eventually the fruit notes dies down and it's a subtle blend of wood, aged sheng plums, and spice/florals the rest of the way. There was also a sort of sweet cream finish in some of the earlier brews. Viscosity is good, but texture is very smooth and juicy, so feels as nice in the mouth as the Que Zhen earlier, but in a different way, of course. There isn't much bitterness and very little astringency. There is not much in the way of aftertaste, and only a little feeling in throat. There is only perhaps a little qi. This also seems like it can last a long time. I'll give this a full brew after I'm done with the YQHs.

I'm not sure if this is gushu, because it's not really that potent when it comes to qi, feeling, or aftertaste. The 2001 EoT Jingmai is a bit more potent in that respect. On the flip side, like the XZH DXS, there just aren't really all that much in the way of faults, and it doesn't decay badly like plantation does in a long session. It has much better viscosity and texture than the Jingmai, free of smoke, unlike the Jingmai. There isn't any tartness or other awkward flavors, and there isn't astringency. It could be plantation, but it is really well produced, from well cared for shengtai.

These sessions with lobular tea also made for an emphasis on the quality of the XZH '09 Jingmai, in the sense that it is less "empty" and thin than aged lobular tea usually is. Richness in lobular tea past seven years is something to keep an eye out for.
 
Today was the YangQingHao 2007 Lingya. It was a nice session, but kind of boring. I also think that if I were told that this was a Nannuo, I wouldn't have rejected that idea. The aroma was generally cooked fruit, wood, and juniper/leather. The taste tended to be deep with a chocolate sense, wood, and juniper. The chocolate tones are gone quickly, and as the session progresses, more of a light fruit sweetness creeps in. This is general a very solid tasting tea, in comparison to the Qizhong, which can have a short taste and be disjointed. There was not very much in the way of aftertaste, and only a light qi that at least builds to pleasantly enjoyable as the session reaches its peak. The Qizhong is more potent and full of aftertaste, I think. The durability is not that great, as the tea is exhausted by brew seven or eight. The taste is still reasonably pleasant well past that point, but it's something I just chug as flavored water. Very late infusions does have some nice sweetness.

I like the tea, but I think it's mostly an okay price at $200. Theres a good bit of commonality with the 2007 Jincha in how it's mostly just a solid tea rather than anything really lovable. I do recommend it for people who like mellow teas with some depth and elegance. It will not be exciting, but could be nice as part of a contemplative exercise. If that's not what you're here for, the money is probably best spent elsewhere.
 
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