While there are plenty of others made, at least for me the first thing I associate with tuo tea is always Xiaguan. There is the Jia ji, teji, jia, xiao fa, 503, jin si... plus all the special pressings that are maybe made only once or are produced in more recent years of special grades, region tributes, so on... Even the more staple tuos seem to have particular special numbered pressings and can be either in boxes or paper bag 5 packs. Its a whole world in and of itself within Pu and one I feel kind of lost in. I have no idea if there are differences between the boxed productions or 5 packs or if it is just a price and packaging difference there for staple tuos. Are all their tuos similarly tight compression made with different grade or regional material/processing, or are some productions more compressed than others? Anyone have any deeper knowledge on differences between all of these staple and special tuo offerings? Tips on particular productions or batches to try or look out for?
I'm hoping to take a bit of a dive in to some more of these. While tuos have the whole dust/compression issue quite often the fact that these teas are so ubiquitous means once you have a good baseline it also offers a lot in to being able to determine how regional storages and aging affect such tea given their friendly price point.
Xiaguan tuo differences/knowledge...
By no means an expert on Xiaguan tuos but there has been a bit of variety in terms of taste and definitely overall "quality feeling" in the stuff I've had. (Wich of course is again, at least partially, reflected in price. Some tuos are still dirt cheap 20 years down the line, others fetch a higher price.) Escpeially if we include other (non-brick and cake) shapes such as jincha. As for compression it always seem to be on the higher side of the spectrum, but with some variety there too. I think this is true for tuos from most producers? Probably something about the shape being less suited for loose compression than cakes/bricks.Are all their tuos similarly tight compression made with different grade or regional material/processing, or are some productions more compressed than others?
Since I'm terrible at noting down what I drink I can't really recall many good examples of the variety I'm talking about. Hopefully someone else will chime in on that. But two teas I'd recommend checking out are the 2003 Baoyan Jincha and the 2004 Nanzhao tuocha*. The latter is one of my favorite Xiaguan teas, with a bit of an atypical profile (less smoke, more fruity, though still on the bassy/deep end of the flavor spectrum) and consistently being very energizing for me, though I dont think it's worth what KTM charges for it.
For the normal range stuff, in addition to the examples you mentioned, the canger seems to get some love too.
*(The 200g one is the only one I've had and it's supposedly "better" than the 100g counterpart. Allegedly contains some Banzhang material, though who knows. I think the 200g version KTM offers is the second batch (5 tuos per bamboo stack as opposed to 10 in the first batch), the tuos I have are from the first batch.)
XG is kinda continuing their traditinal concept of smokey hard pressed tea which I believe is for the original purpose and that's exporting to Guangdong , HK ..etc. Smokey notes turn into the interesting fruity-camphor notes after some time when wet stored and hard pressing guarantees slow but steady ageing there , preserving some original qualities / notes of used sheng which is , in most of the cases , plantation tea leaf from Wuliang mountains.
The grading Jia Ji ( top grade ) , Te Ji ( special grade ) ...and all that naming to distinguish the grades and so the quality based on tips ,small or big leaves involved, 1st , 2nd or other harvest....etc. Although there is some standard on that , yet many producers have their own interpretation what is "top" or what is "special" ( more about grading I wrote https://www.yunnancraft.com/en/tea-vocabulary) . besides lower grade might taste better / you might like more , let alone it's cheaper , so at the end it all goes down to sampling anyway.
Thanks to the large production and cheap material ( please do not confuse cheap with bad quality ) they manage to keep prices realitively low despite of "feeding" such a big business with all those financial and marketing segments need to be involved ( more about TF I wrote here https://www.pageoftea.com/puerh-tea-business ) .
The packaging and all that marketing comes with such a business and basically it's a 1 product - TEA - which has to be sold as much as possible , so the packaging , grading , locations , trees ..all that broadens up clientele and gives to costumer wider selection , therefore desire to try / buy more.
They might blend some 2 different batches or locations and pack it in some aniversary box , then sell it for much higher price than it would be just in paper wrapper. Unfortunatelly Chinese are bad for packaging. It is so bad ,that even in our local TV sometimes can see the animated anti-advertisements for over packaging ( along with others like wasting the food or being noisy in public places ) .
I'm not enthusiast XG tea drinker , yet we had an opportunity to visit their factory and musemum ( which is not public unfortunatelly ). The production area is not that big as I was expected , but they manage to make / process and press lots of tons of tea alrigh.
I also keep some tuos in private storage (not for sell) and drink it in cold days from my yixing I have for aged shengs.
Overall , in my opinion, XG is a good daily drinker and in most of the cases the price is reasonable.
The grading Jia Ji ( top grade ) , Te Ji ( special grade ) ...and all that naming to distinguish the grades and so the quality based on tips ,small or big leaves involved, 1st , 2nd or other harvest....etc. Although there is some standard on that , yet many producers have their own interpretation what is "top" or what is "special" ( more about grading I wrote https://www.yunnancraft.com/en/tea-vocabulary) . besides lower grade might taste better / you might like more , let alone it's cheaper , so at the end it all goes down to sampling anyway.
Thanks to the large production and cheap material ( please do not confuse cheap with bad quality ) they manage to keep prices realitively low despite of "feeding" such a big business with all those financial and marketing segments need to be involved ( more about TF I wrote here https://www.pageoftea.com/puerh-tea-business ) .
The packaging and all that marketing comes with such a business and basically it's a 1 product - TEA - which has to be sold as much as possible , so the packaging , grading , locations , trees ..all that broadens up clientele and gives to costumer wider selection , therefore desire to try / buy more.
They might blend some 2 different batches or locations and pack it in some aniversary box , then sell it for much higher price than it would be just in paper wrapper. Unfortunatelly Chinese are bad for packaging. It is so bad ,that even in our local TV sometimes can see the animated anti-advertisements for over packaging ( along with others like wasting the food or being noisy in public places ) .
I'm not enthusiast XG tea drinker , yet we had an opportunity to visit their factory and musemum ( which is not public unfortunatelly ). The production area is not that big as I was expected , but they manage to make / process and press lots of tons of tea alrigh.
I also keep some tuos in private storage (not for sell) and drink it in cold days from my yixing I have for aged shengs.
Overall , in my opinion, XG is a good daily drinker and in most of the cases the price is reasonable.
I hadn't considered it but it makes total sense to produce higher compression and smokier tea if its intended storage and export was to more humid areas for storage. The dry/kunming stored XG I have had (granted usually lower quality productions) didn't seem to have any favors done for it under those conditions - there are characteristics of it I liked enough that I do drink it, but I can see how these teas really need humidity. Same can be said for the Tulin teas I had from dry storage which I feel are produced with similar profile. Iron pressed shu in particular wasn't very great from dry storage, had a kind of unpleasant doughy. Different production but in comparison the shu I had from Guangzhou storage was much more interesting. Also maybe not a surprise that I find aspects I like in these teas if they take well to humid storage. I think I'll try to pick up some HK or Guangdong or Malaysian stored examples to try. I have one of those jincha from TWL which should be showing up any day now too which should be interesting.
I stumbled across this on KTM while looking at some examples
"Te Tuo" (特沱)： an abbreviation of "Te Ji Tuo Cha"(特级沱茶), directly means "Special Grade Tuo Cha" made from special grade tea leaf (high ratio of tiny buds and young leave)
"Jia Tuo" (甲沱)： an abbreviation of "Jia Ji Tuo Cha"(甲级沱茶), directly means "1st Grade Tuo Cha" made from 1st grade tea leaf (high ratio of young and large leave)
"Yi Ji Tuo Cha" (乙级沱茶): directly means "2nd Grade Tuo Cha" made from 2nd grade tea leaf (high ratio of large and strong tea leave)
"Bing Ji Tuo Cha" (丙级沱茶): directly means "3rd Grade Tuo Cha" made from 3rd grade tea leaf (high ratio of strong tea leave and stems)
"Da Zhong Tuo Cha" (大众沱茶): directly means "4th Grade Tuo Cha" made from 4th grade tea leaf (high ratio of rough tea leave and stems)
I feel 90% of what you find tends to be the Jia, then sometimes Te and Yi. While I have Jia I like, given that I tend to like tea with a lot of stems Da Zhong or Bing Ji sound like blends I would enjoy more if I can find them. I generally don't tend to like the energy of really tippy teas.
Also my understanding is the XG in general changed or restructured a lot of their production around 2003. As usual the talk seems to be teas made before then = better. Whether true or maybe just different rather than better I am curious what a non-vendor or someone who isn't sitting on a bunch of pre '03 tea has to say. I don't know to what extent this is true or what changed (quality of raw material?) and if this is across the board in all their teas.
I stumbled across this on KTM while looking at some examples
"Te Tuo" (特沱)： an abbreviation of "Te Ji Tuo Cha"(特级沱茶), directly means "Special Grade Tuo Cha" made from special grade tea leaf (high ratio of tiny buds and young leave)
"Jia Tuo" (甲沱)： an abbreviation of "Jia Ji Tuo Cha"(甲级沱茶), directly means "1st Grade Tuo Cha" made from 1st grade tea leaf (high ratio of young and large leave)
"Yi Ji Tuo Cha" (乙级沱茶): directly means "2nd Grade Tuo Cha" made from 2nd grade tea leaf (high ratio of large and strong tea leave)
"Bing Ji Tuo Cha" (丙级沱茶): directly means "3rd Grade Tuo Cha" made from 3rd grade tea leaf (high ratio of strong tea leave and stems)
"Da Zhong Tuo Cha" (大众沱茶): directly means "4th Grade Tuo Cha" made from 4th grade tea leaf (high ratio of rough tea leave and stems)
I feel 90% of what you find tends to be the Jia, then sometimes Te and Yi. While I have Jia I like, given that I tend to like tea with a lot of stems Da Zhong or Bing Ji sound like blends I would enjoy more if I can find them. I generally don't tend to like the energy of really tippy teas.
Also my understanding is the XG in general changed or restructured a lot of their production around 2003. As usual the talk seems to be teas made before then = better. Whether true or maybe just different rather than better I am curious what a non-vendor or someone who isn't sitting on a bunch of pre '03 tea has to say. I don't know to what extent this is true or what changed (quality of raw material?) and if this is across the board in all their teas.
Good summary @aet, thanks.
By production area, do you mean the facilities where the teas are processed after picking or the plantation area(s)? I would have guessed both were massive, so an interesting piece of information in either case.
yes, the productiona area is not tha big. The pressing area could be like 10m width and 30m long room at the gr.fl in building . also packing of tongs was happening there. Next room ( half width size ) was full of tuos and 3 women packng them up. The marketing department is just simple 3 storey building with probably 20 - 30 offices max.
I gave me an impression that the place we do custom presssing for our clients here in Kunming , is bigger ( although less equipment ) .
I haven't been to their storage but lulcky enough , on the way from Lincang to XG the bus stopped for WC break at some sort of village and when I was passing by, I saw XG logo at some kind of storage area where hudge piles of mao cha was. I asked guys and they told me it is tea for XG from local mountains and they gave me a sample...like kilo of tea in shopping plastic bag
When I have a bit time, I'll dig out my old HD and put photos somewhere and share it he.