"Private order", but produced by Baishaxi, if we're talking about this one? It's the first time I hear of BSX taking commissions by private traders.
Let us know how you find it once you've had the chance to try it!
What HeiCha are you drinking
It was super smooth but downside it made me slumber so had top up with monster energy drink. Reminds me quality wise the one from siam-tee German shop. I wrote to the owner saying that Laos dragon balls were good but I blended them with liubao. About a month later Thomas introduced the whole line of dark teas from China on top of Thai he already offered. One of the versions "wokan" nearly sure came across it in one if the British stores but Google failed me this time.
Interesting one today. This is the spring 2021 raw Liubao W2T has recently offered. The owner acknowledges it may be more of a green tea than a proper LB, and I agree. It's nutty, vegetal, and it reminds me more of Yunnan green tea than of the few young raw LB I've had before. It's pretty good though ; I'm simply not sure if it really is a "liubao", or a "heicha" even.
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StoneLadle
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- Location: Malaysia
looks like water man lolfriso wrote: ↑Sun Feb 27, 2022 4:04 pmInteresting one today. This is the spring 2021 raw Liubao W2T has recently offered. The owner acknowledges it may be more of a green tea than a proper LB, and I agree. It's nutty, vegetal, and it reminds me more of Yunnan green tea than of the few young raw LB I've had before. It's pretty good though ; I'm simply not sure if it really is a "liubao", or a "heicha" even.
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StoneLadle
- Posts: 347
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am knocking back a few pots of 90's Duoteli Malaysia stored "basket press" LB... not sure about them raw LB's, cos LB is all about post fermentation and development and evolution. this bad boy is medicinal, floury, and full of mung bean and musty betel nut aromas and thick flavourful soup. flash brewed in a stone ladle pot LOL, one pot, one cup... sipping it till it's time to go bed, maybe with a dram or two of Lagavulin 16!!
@StoneLadle Well, to be fair, a 2021 raw sheng in a green cup would look the same 
Chawangshop used to carry a 90s, Malaysia stored Duotelli. Love that stuff, I might fish it out of my storage!
Chawangshop used to carry a 90s, Malaysia stored Duotelli. Love that stuff, I might fish it out of my storage!
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StoneLadle
- Posts: 347
- Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2020 12:19 am
- Location: Malaysia
i wouldn't know what such a tea would taste like, but it's appearance certainly isn't far off from a raw "LB" lol
was just reading about cooling effects and in tea, it's not usually pleasant. think the last time i tried such a young PE was perhaps a decade or so ago.
I had seen that W2T was offering these "raw" LB and thought it was kinda weird... By 2021 tea do they mean "finished" in 2021, or rather that they are selling tea that hasn't had the minimum 3 year warehousing time/fermentation? I don't really get what would be the appeal of that aside maybe for really specific research, and I don't think by any sort of official definition one can even call that LB. More like Guangxi maocha?
From what I've been able to figure out at the time when LB production/value hit its lowest there already was but then saw a bigger production shift to things like jasmine green teas in the region since it was easier to sell and export. I do see some smaller factories who while they also are selling their smaller production LB clearly are still mainly focused on greens and jasmine teas. Selling what is essentially green tea from a green tea producing region under the name of a post-fermented tea (which can probably command a higher price) that also happens to come from the same region seems kinda disingenuous to me. Has it even undergone any actual oxidation or fermentation? @friso I'd be kinda curious to see the dry and spent leaves. Also was any info given on the cultivar?
From what I've been able to figure out at the time when LB production/value hit its lowest there already was but then saw a bigger production shift to things like jasmine green teas in the region since it was easier to sell and export. I do see some smaller factories who while they also are selling their smaller production LB clearly are still mainly focused on greens and jasmine teas. Selling what is essentially green tea from a green tea producing region under the name of a post-fermented tea (which can probably command a higher price) that also happens to come from the same region seems kinda disingenuous to me. Has it even undergone any actual oxidation or fermentation? @friso I'd be kinda curious to see the dry and spent leaves. Also was any info given on the cultivar?
@wave code I did taste a bit of oxidation, not sure about fermentation though. Overall it reminded me of a green tea ; it had a green, nutty and roasted edge that I wouldn't expect from a raw heicha. I'm putting some of it aside to see how it will develop, but I don't have much hope ; it probably was processed like a green tea.
To be fair, W2T owner himself specifies that this is not a classic heicha and may very well be more of a green/yellow tea... Not trying to drag anyone in the mud!
To be fair, W2T owner himself specifies that this is not a classic heicha and may very well be more of a green/yellow tea... Not trying to drag anyone in the mud!
The weather is getting warmer this week, I am sampling a 3 Cranes 2503 LiuBao. Zisha pot about 300 ml, estimated 15-20g of tea. Cheers!
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The weather here is rainy and humid again, so I've raided one of my little jars for 5g of some 1970s liu an.
No special occasion, other than having a bit of spare time.
A very potent and 'penetrating' feeling to this tea, which keeps building from infusion to infusion. It forces my mind to relax, whether I want to or not.
It's a reminder of why I like old teas so much. This one is like a standard against which I judge other old teas, and others usually fall short. I'll be sad when it's all gone...
Andrew
No special occasion, other than having a bit of spare time.
A very potent and 'penetrating' feeling to this tea, which keeps building from infusion to infusion. It forces my mind to relax, whether I want to or not.
It's a reminder of why I like old teas so much. This one is like a standard against which I judge other old teas, and others usually fall short. I'll be sad when it's all gone...
Andrew
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Been drinking a lot of this 2013 first grade liu bao. At first it seemed kinda non-descript to me in a way that I was disappointed, but the more I drank it the more I liked it to the point that it became a go to tea. Its nice and thick, gets plenty dark and rich, and while not having super distinct storage or super novel profile its just so smooth and easy to drink. I feel like I have even passing over teas I've got that price point and in many other ways are actually 'nicer', but finding something so good for almost any day or situation that you want to go back to over and over is always a nice treat. I also usually find first grade teas less interesting - too jumpy feeling, they often crash out too fast, lack depth, but this one due to age and production style sits really well with me.
also been enjoying some newer things from Lao shop recently. 2012/2018 Malaysian stored Black Box is nice. I haven't had any black box in a long time as prices have gone kind of crazy with COFCO trying to push up prices to absurd levels on their boxed special productions (and now they are ALL special productions), so nice to try this style again.
Also the 90's HK stored CNNP was quite nice. The storage is very clean, either its been aired out a lot or was never that wet. Still has nice aged notes, and while not as strong as some other this sort of incense/aromatic wood profile I really love. While I feel like CNNP usually has the more heavy handed fermentation style, when they do go lighter I feel like its more often in their teas than say Wuzhou where I find these incense like notes and I really enjoy them. I was hoping it would wake me up a bit after a run, but its a super relaxing tea and actually was pushing me further in to nap territory. Would make a good evening tea.
also been enjoying some newer things from Lao shop recently. 2012/2018 Malaysian stored Black Box is nice. I haven't had any black box in a long time as prices have gone kind of crazy with COFCO trying to push up prices to absurd levels on their boxed special productions (and now they are ALL special productions), so nice to try this style again.
Also the 90's HK stored CNNP was quite nice. The storage is very clean, either its been aired out a lot or was never that wet. Still has nice aged notes, and while not as strong as some other this sort of incense/aromatic wood profile I really love. While I feel like CNNP usually has the more heavy handed fermentation style, when they do go lighter I feel like its more often in their teas than say Wuzhou where I find these incense like notes and I really enjoy them. I was hoping it would wake me up a bit after a run, but its a super relaxing tea and actually was pushing me further in to nap territory. Would make a good evening tea.
There is eBay seller "niequn-oleg" who once in a while lists rare editions. I got 5101 liu bao which was like clearspring version of oolong. He has this site and some other and I don't remember being successful in asking to list on eBay. But I will ask if they could list last one "jin-jian-2015". Being in Russian, it is likely to glitch and not sure how they are rerouting these packages now, maybe thru turkey.
https://tea-expert.net/magazin-kitajsko ... aj-hej-cha
https://tea-expert.net/magazin-kitajsko ... aj-hej-cha
Some musings about the state of Anhua heicha while I'm sipping on this 2021 Muyangjie heizhuan from Yimuyiyang/Qingyang/Chen Yangwen.
Anhua heicha has had a tremendous growth over the last 15 years. The total tea plantation area has grown from 85,500 mu (1 mu = 614.4 m2) in 2006 to 350,000 mu in 2020. Annual output has grown from 3900 to 75,000 tonnes in the same period. (Interestingly, "only" a threefold increase of plantation area but an 18-fold increase of output...). And the annual revenue of the industry rose from less than 200 million CNY in 2006 to more than 22 billion CNY by 2020, a 109-fold increase.
This same period has seen improvements in processing techniques and a big increase in both premium and "premium" tea material being used. Gimmicks abound too, though I would say this is a bigger problem in the fuzhuan genre (where a certain segment of the market is all about covering questionable stuff with ever-increasing amounts of jinhua) than it is in other types on Anhua heicha.
The "border area tea" part of the production is certainly no longer dominant. The biggest factories dutifully keep churning out their "tezhi" productions, but this is not where the growth has been happening.
While the industry overall has turned more premium, it feels to me like there is more "unclean" (or even doped, in reference to the recent discussion here) stuff hitting the market too. I can't recall a single <2010 Anhua heicha leaving me with a bad body feeling or having "off" flavors (even the crudest border area intended productions of earlier teems feel remarkably clean to me), but I certainly have had that with some more recent ones. Types of reactions that I doubt are due to the aging factor.
In any case, I wonder Anhua heicha will go much further or if it has already reached a kind of peak. While Anhua is supposedly now the county in China with the highest tea tax revenue (which seems to me a kind of odd thing to highlight), it doesn't seem to be nowhere near as well known as say puer, longjing or yancha outside of Hunan. Even within the world of heicha (excluding puer from that category from a moment), I'd think both liubao and liuan were far better known.
Anyways, back to the tea. I haven't had anything from Chen Yangwen I don't like, and this heizhuan is no exception. As with all of his teas, the mouthfeel and huigan are very prominent. It has a clean minerality taste that only strengthens through the first 5-6 steeps. Good endurance. Likely to improve in a few years time, once the (light) smoke has settled.
On par with the Yunshang Yunyin heizhuans, I'd say.
Anhua heicha has had a tremendous growth over the last 15 years. The total tea plantation area has grown from 85,500 mu (1 mu = 614.4 m2) in 2006 to 350,000 mu in 2020. Annual output has grown from 3900 to 75,000 tonnes in the same period. (Interestingly, "only" a threefold increase of plantation area but an 18-fold increase of output...). And the annual revenue of the industry rose from less than 200 million CNY in 2006 to more than 22 billion CNY by 2020, a 109-fold increase.
This same period has seen improvements in processing techniques and a big increase in both premium and "premium" tea material being used. Gimmicks abound too, though I would say this is a bigger problem in the fuzhuan genre (where a certain segment of the market is all about covering questionable stuff with ever-increasing amounts of jinhua) than it is in other types on Anhua heicha.
The "border area tea" part of the production is certainly no longer dominant. The biggest factories dutifully keep churning out their "tezhi" productions, but this is not where the growth has been happening.
While the industry overall has turned more premium, it feels to me like there is more "unclean" (or even doped, in reference to the recent discussion here) stuff hitting the market too. I can't recall a single <2010 Anhua heicha leaving me with a bad body feeling or having "off" flavors (even the crudest border area intended productions of earlier teems feel remarkably clean to me), but I certainly have had that with some more recent ones. Types of reactions that I doubt are due to the aging factor.
In any case, I wonder Anhua heicha will go much further or if it has already reached a kind of peak. While Anhua is supposedly now the county in China with the highest tea tax revenue (which seems to me a kind of odd thing to highlight), it doesn't seem to be nowhere near as well known as say puer, longjing or yancha outside of Hunan. Even within the world of heicha (excluding puer from that category from a moment), I'd think both liubao and liuan were far better known.
Anyways, back to the tea. I haven't had anything from Chen Yangwen I don't like, and this heizhuan is no exception. As with all of his teas, the mouthfeel and huigan are very prominent. It has a clean minerality taste that only strengthens through the first 5-6 steeps. Good endurance. Likely to improve in a few years time, once the (light) smoke has settled.
On par with the Yunshang Yunyin heizhuans, I'd say.
