What HeiCha are you drinking

Puerh and other heicha
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Balthazar
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Sat Jul 24, 2021 12:41 pm

Glad to hear you liked it, @wave_code!

For me it’s been a tough nut to crack in terms of brewing parameters. When I get it right, it’s hands down one of my favorite teas. But I’d say my success rate is only around 50%. On good days, it’ll break through the “rough and muted flavors phase” after a couple brews and move into a really nice territory for a dozen or so steeps. On bad ones it seems to never really unshackle, I can still identify those nice characteristics but they are trapped behind a veil of slight roughness. The thickness of the veil will vary. Body and huigan I have found to be good even for those sessions I consider relative failures, though.

“Something between a more mineral heavy white tea and a young sheng”, I think that’s a very apt description. There is very little fermentation involved here, I believe this is true for most if not all of Yunshan's teas. They let the leaves “do all the talking” more than any other Anhua heicha producer I am aware of (small, "artisinal" ones not included). I have a feeling this is one of those teas that may transform into something really good (and more consistently so) down the line. But it remains to be seen whether or not it will do so under my storage conditions!
Last edited by Balthazar on Sat Jul 24, 2021 12:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Balthazar
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Sat Jul 24, 2021 12:43 pm

Andrew S wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 7:59 pm
Making the most of a continuing lockdown by enjoying a little bit more of a sample of the 1970s liu an from Varat Phong.
Fabulous photo as always. Sounds like a very special tea.
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wave_code
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Sat Jul 24, 2021 12:57 pm

interesting you find it so variable @Balthazar. sounds like I had a good day with it then and we'll see how it goes next time. I wonder if its because of how compressed it is- I feel like with shu or liu bao once its been through waking or if its looser compression you can see a bit more of what you are getting as you work the chunks apart- if theres too many pieces of just stem going in I can go higher in the ratio or grab another piece with more leaf, that kind of thing. This was still so compressed I snapped off one big chunk, managed to get it in to three smaller size ones, but I feel like if I had tried to break it down any more it would have just turned to powder. So, you just throw that in the pot and its luck of the draw if you happened to grab 5 grams of compressed stem that day.
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LeoFox
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Sat Jul 24, 2021 4:40 pm

DaXue JiaDao 80s muxiang liu bao

The flavors and aromas are not what stand out. The absence of bad mustiness is great. Mouthfeel is silky smooth and clean.

What stands out is that qi. I was reading to my daughter and after 2 sips of the second infusion...I lost some time.

My wife asked me "what are you doing staring at the page all glazed over??"


Wow...

What happened?
Attachments
Elite small bud picking; steamed once
Elite small bud picking; steamed once
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5g / 100 mL - rinse and then started with 20s
5g / 100 mL - rinse and then started with 20s
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Seems to do very well with many many steeps - 12+ at least for me
Seems to do very well with many many steeps - 12+ at least for me
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Last edited by LeoFox on Sat Jul 24, 2021 9:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Andrew S
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Sat Jul 24, 2021 7:59 pm

@LeoFox: it's interesting to read other people's descriptions of the 'feeling' of old teas like this one (and at the very least, it helps to persuade me that I'm not making it all up in my mind). It's probably a good thing that you weren't under attack from more bugs this time.

I generally find old liu bao to have a calming, peaceful and gentle feeling to it, whereas I find old puer and old liu an can be more forceful, active, energetic, and even overpowering on occasion. All of that can depend on storage, style, and how I feel on any given day, but liu bao usually feels like it's persuading me to relax, whereas liu an can feel like it's forcing me to relax despite my will.

As I say, drinking old tea is all about the feeling for me, and the fact that I have mostly been drinking old tea and yancha over the last few years has probably resulted in me looking for these qualities in other teas, and not caring too much about taste or smell, to the extent of being unable to describe flavours or aromas in any useful detail.

Today's tea for me is just some loose 1990s puer, but even simple old teas with nothing especially interesting in terms of taste and smell can put me into a contemplative frame of mind.

Andrew
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LeoFox
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Sat Jul 24, 2021 9:39 pm

@Andrew S

Looks like the tea bros recently had it



I definitely did not get fresh payless shoe store leather hahahaha - and it was more cooling than warming for me. Payless shoe stores smell more like plastic and rubber instead of leather to.be honest. Very strange comparison
Last edited by LeoFox on Sun Jul 25, 2021 9:25 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Balthazar
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Sun Jul 25, 2021 12:52 am

wave_code wrote:
Sat Jul 24, 2021 12:57 pm
interesting you find it so variable Balthazar. sounds like I had a good day with it then and we'll see how it goes next time. I wonder if its because of how compressed it is- I feel like with shu or liu bao once its been through waking or if its looser compression you can see a bit more of what you are getting as you work the chunks apart- if theres too many pieces of just stem going in I can go higher in the ratio or grab another piece with more leaf, that kind of thing. This was still so compressed I snapped off one big chunk, managed to get it in to three smaller size ones, but I feel like if I had tried to break it down any more it would have just turned to powder. So, you just throw that in the pot and its luck of the draw if you happened to grab 5 grams of compressed stem that day.
Yes, I think the most common mistake in my less impressive sessions has been using too much leaf, the compression makes eyeballing it really difficult with this one.

Speaking of the compression, this is the only tea I have stabbed myself more than once when trying to pry off chunks. I do wonder why they make it so tight, which also contributes to a bit of cloudiness in the soup in the early brews of these hei/huazhuans. (On the plus side, it makes it easier to fit the bricks into my largest ziplock mylar bags. Perhaps they are made with the modern tea hoarder in mind. j/k) In any case, I think I need to get one of these
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TeaTotaling
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Sun Jul 25, 2021 6:12 pm

tjkdubya wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 9:22 pm
Andrew S wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 7:59 pm
TeaTotaling: I'm glad to hear that we've had similar experiences when tea and drink are combined... I was wondering, though, which raw 2008 liu bao you were referring to; perhaps I missed the reference.
Hopefully I'm not misreading the reference here, but I believe @TeaTotaling is referring to our 2008 Bamboo Column Wild? We began sampling out to some people recently, but it hasn't made it officially onto our lineup yet.
Precisely. Didn’t realize it wasn’t in the lineup, yet. I thought it was great! Unique compared to my experience with Liu Bao, being a Sheng, and with good strength.
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Balthazar
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Tue Jul 27, 2021 9:47 am

Drinking the 2014 COFCO Xuefeng Golden Classic fuzhuan again. Real addictive stuff that I've already secured another brick of.

On the topic of Anhua Heichas, 香木海, an heretofore to me unknown producer (with the odd English brand name "Homoo Apical Tea") that seems to focus on (or exclusively make teas from) Furong, had a billboard up in New York for a week recently. Odd to see a relatively niche producer make a move abroad (edit: Apparently they're not really niche at all, and the advertised product is a freeze-dried powder jinhua heicha).
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Balthazar
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Sat Jul 31, 2021 1:39 pm

Solipsism corner, chapter 88

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Received this 1.2 kg slice (don't be fooled by the specification on the wrapper) only three days ago, so I really should give it a good week or so more before trying it. But with these quantities of tea and curiosity, an early taste couldn't hurt.

This is the 2018 version of Yunshang's 野臻千两 (yezhen qianliang). It's one of the two qianliangs Yunshang produces under their 云隐 (Yunyin) series, which is their "premium" line (the 2017 heizhuan mentioned earlier belongs to this series too). The other series are (in descending order by quality) 云脉 (Yunmai), 云品 (Yunpin), 云镜 (Yunjing). (There is also the 云禧 (Yunxi) series with gift stuff where most of the value probably lies in the wrapping.)

Navigating the Yunshang offerings can be a bit of a jungle, but here's an overview of the available huajuans.

Dry leaf has a slight rubbery smell, which I think might be a jet-lag thing. I've had recently arrived and plastic-wrapped pu smell the same.

10 grams, 140 ml gaiwan. Body, texture, longevity all very good. Profile wise it's obviously still quite muted from travel, but there is so far very little of those typical notes of glutinous rice sweets, dates, "medicine shop" etc. that one finds in BSX qianliangs. Very different processing, which of course is clearly visible from the leaves too. There's more of a minerality sweetness, honey perhaps some pomelo.

At steep eight I move the leaves to a 230 ml nixing pot at steep 8 for better heat retention. And wow! Don't know it's the change of vessel, lower leaf/water ratio or a progression of the tea, but it entered into even nicer territory. The texture is some of the thickest, most syrupy, I've even had.

After ten steeps I have to leave home for the rest of the day so the leaves are moved again, this time to a thermos. Still plenty to give.

An excellent first impression. Very much looking forward to see how it turns out after resting for a couple weeks.
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Balthazar
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Sun Aug 15, 2021 8:47 am

2021 Muyangjie Tianjian

This is a "special grade" selection from a certain Yang Wen, sold loosely and not pressed into baskets.

("Artisinal" Anhua heicha producers have taken a note from the terroir focused storytelling of puer, and regarding Muyang village we learn that it's a remote and sparsely populated village where most of the tea is grown at 7-800 meters. The tea is known for its deep and long-lasting sweetness in addition to the almost sticky texture of the soup.)

Well, it's a very nice tea. It starts out almost like a fruity lapsang (only quite a bit thicker and sweeter) with its gentle smoke. After a couple steeps a pronounced sugarcane-y sweetness takes over. Good body and huigan throughout.

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Balthazar
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Tue Aug 17, 2021 12:33 pm

Been doing thermos brews of the 1999 Linxiang fuzhuan on an almost daily basis recently.

Linxiang Tea Factory was established in 1966-7 (and began operating in 1969), allegedly to meet the growing demand for fucha that Yiyang/Xiangyi was having a hard time meeting. They mostly produced fuzhuan but also qingzhuan tea.

From 1973 there were apparently an agreed upon division of labor between Yiyang and Linxiang, where the former would focus on the production of “special” (tezhi/特制) fuzhuan and the latter on the common/ordinary (putong/普通) fuzhuan. (It's not clear to me what role Baishaxi had in all this, considering their size and state ownership. I've done some searching to no avail, they're left out of the story in the posts about this that I've come across.) The common bricks from Linxiang supposedly contain lower quality material, which considering the crude state of the Yiyang/Xiangyi Tezhi bricks says a lot...

Anyways, this is what I in lack of a better name would call "typical borderland fu" which is not really suited for gongfu brewing. The very stem heavy material used simply requires more heat over a longer time period than than anything resembling a gongfu session can deliver, unless one is satisfied with a thin and slightly sweet soup. This is of course by design, the teas are meant to be boiled.

Boiling is a good option, but I personally prefer thermos brewing. Do a quick gaiwan rinse, dump the leaves into a preheated thermos, fill with water straight off boil. Steep for at least 2-3 hours. The longer the better, you're gonna have a hard time overbrewing this. I use my smallest thermos (about 350 ml) and about 6-8 grams of tea. Enjoy it as an after dinner treat.

There's not too much to say about the experience of drinking these teas. They have their place, they're comforting (particularly as a digestif) and very clean tasting, with woody sweetness dominating. But they're also monotonous and I don't find them very energizing. The latter weakness is a strength as far as my after dinner drinking is concerned, I'm very sensitive to caffeine and most teas will have a negative affect on my sleep if consumed too late. Not so with this one.
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Balthazar
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Sun Aug 22, 2021 12:13 pm

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Left: Yunshang Yezhen Qianliang (2018), right: Baishaxi Bailiang (late 90s (>=1997))

Been comparing these teas recently. Very similar and very different. I wonder how much is due to the processing (fermentation level in particular), how much is due to the base material and how much is due to aging.

Right now I'm sipping on the second boil of the latter, with the third and today's last boil underway.
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Balthazar
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Fri Sep 17, 2021 12:58 pm

Wang Junan’s 2019 QLC

Wang Junan rose to semi-fame in the small world of Anhua heicha following his inclusion in an episode of the travel documentary series “远方的家” (16:20-22:50 here). This is the first of his teas I’ve tried, and it doesn’t disappoint. The material is from Gaomaerxi gardens, and while it is similar to Yunshang’s yezhen qianliang in the texture and huigan departments (where both teas shine) the flavor profile is quite different (this one more medicinal).

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slipshod
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Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:43 pm

I don't remember how I came across this vendor. Possibly thru online googling chinese characters. The bottom line is that Ireland decided to punish Britain by applying same customs criteria to the rest of the world. So tea is zero duty and this got here in less than two weeks, only to be returned back due to insufficient paperwork. Three 230g bricks 1103 liubao 36 bucks each with prepaid vat thru eBay. And their EU h/quarters are in Dublin. Ironic. Luckily, thru pandemic I diversed thru EU vendors. So this one was ace card, emergencies only.

https://www.laenggasstee.ch/onlineshop/ ... u-bao.html

Price ? You can get top quality range cake 100g for 30 EUR from three sips Hungarian vendor. Or less direct.

But it was very different. Maybe caffeine. But my bones were buzzing.

And I loved varietal breakdown.

https://www.laenggasstee.ch/index.php?m ... getlang=en

The postage a bit steep 14 chf untracked.

So ordered 300g version of 2008, the year that seems to be a lot of liubao about.

So, another wild card is purple cloud from auburn.

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