TeaForum.org

Wang Family Beishan Wuyi attended by some Novakware

@Tillerman Tea:
Hehuanshan Gaoshan brewed in a Kobiwako pot(Cheat Code)
This imho had some yancha characteristics to it.
The roast was very well done and it didn't overpower the flavor profile of the material.
This was lovely, it had complexity and tasted great. I only noticed the fruity aftertaste after the 2nd steep.
After the 5th steep I was relaxed and the tea had more to give.

I'm looking forward to trying everything in my order.

YS King of Duck Sh!t Dancong. This is good tea (must...resist....off-color joke) but sadly I'm not treating it to the best brewing conditions.

I'm on vacation in a hotel and somehow forgotmy travel gaiwan set at home (*flagellates self*).

So, I'm using a (presumably) 240-oz coffee cup with a single-holed lid as my brewing vessel. Going light on normal tea-to-water ratio since this thing is the definition of slow pour.

Still, it's better than drinking the stuff in the hotel room, by a mile.

klepto wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 24, 2021 3:49 pm

I'm looking forward to trying everything in my order.

@klepto .... Looks like someone is very happy with Kobi... hahahahaha....

Test run with Hojo's ban tian yao yancha at 0.75/g (from shi zi feng, Zheng yan)

Brewed 3.3g in 85 mL gaiwan - flash steeps until flavor declined. This was what the vendor recommended. Lasted a good 8 steeps.

Also for several steeps, poured tea into the joaka clay teapot and tasted side by side with tea direct from gaiwan.

The tea is very very fragrant. It filled my whole house with the tea fragrance. There is a strong flavor of peaches and honey. As steeps progressed, the tea soup became sweeter and sweeter. There was no bitter taste. Later steeps tasted like almond. Astringency was felt some time after the session as a slight tightening in the stomach. There was no drying sensation in the mouth or throat.

In the comparison between the clay and gaiwan, the tea soup from the clay had a fuller body and sweeter after taste. Additionally, the tea had a smoother mouthfeel. This was more apparent after the 3rd infusion. I couldn't sense anything obvious being muted. A good sign for the pot.

The elephant in the room is that the tea does not taste like your typical yancha, but reminds me much more of dancong with its fragrance and peachy honey notes.

this is based on discussion with unnamed cognescenti:
From the leaves, the processing seems uneven - at least some blending probably happened. Oxidation level seems high. Considering relatively low cost (1$/g), unlikely to be real ban tian yao, which is rare and very hard to find.

Update:
After a few sessions in the teapot:
The fresh fruity characteristics have calmed down and mellowed. Flaws are more apparent in the pot: greater astringency in the early fast steepings. To control this, I cannot use more than 4g /110mL in the teapot

Flash steeping also tastes more flat after 4 infusions. Therefore, I have increased the time by 20 second intervals starting at steep 4 until 1 min. Then I go to 2 min and longer steepings. 4g goes a long way

The early steepings are primarily dominated by sweet fresh fruits but with an astringent edge. The middle longer steeps have more roast flavor. The later long steeps really shine: thick fruity and with a nice aftertaste that is at once like fruit and at once mineraly. The minerality is more akin to unflavored vitamin tablets..just slightly bitter and drying.

The cooled first rinse is honey sweet and reminds me of roasted concubine oolong but with more structure and aftertaste.

@LeoFox: it seems very lightly roasted for a yan cha; does that accord with what you experienced?

I can brew heavy-roasted yan cha with a heavy hand, and similarly with good quality medium-roasted yan cha (though it can be a bit more difficult to get right sometimes), but I would be careful brewing lightly-roasted yan cha too strongly or with too much leaf.

Perhaps that is why Hojo suggests using less leaf, as you mentioned before.

Ultimately, it is a question of style, taste, and getting the most out of your leaves, but, to me, 'yan cha' connotes something darker than these leaves. Of course, they may well look and taste darker in person.

Andrew

Andrew S wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 26, 2021 1:48 pm

LeoFox: it seems very lightly roasted for a yan cha; does that accord with what you experienced?

I can brew heavy-roasted yan cha with a heavy hand, and similarly with good quality medium-roasted yan cha (though it can be a bit more difficult to get right sometimes), but I would be careful brewing lightly-roasted yan cha too strongly or with too much leaf.

Perhaps that is why Hojo suggests using less leaf, as you mentioned before.

Ultimately, it is a question of style, taste, and getting the most out of your leaves, but, to me, 'yan cha' connotes something darker than these leaves. Of course, they may well look and taste darker in person.

Andrew

Yes, the roast is very light. I could only taste it in the little bit of the first infusion that I left to cool in my tiny dehua cup.

From my inexperienced point of view, the tea tastes quite good and beats a lot of similarly expensive dan cong.

LeoFox wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 26, 2021 1:54 pm

the tea tastes quite good and beats a lot of similarly expensive dan cong

I think that that's all you need to worry about, so it sounds like a good tea. Perhaps just not my preferred style of yan cha.

I think it is worthwhile for all of us to bear in mind that categories such as 'yan cha' can describe various different styles of processing, each with different characters and with different advocates in their favour.

It might be interesting to see if any dan cong lovers can give their thoughts on a tea like this, since it sounds more similar to that style of tea, and they're both well outside my limited experience.

Andrew

OCTO wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 26, 2021 9:20 am

klepto wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 24, 2021 3:49 pm

I'm looking forward to trying everything in my order.

klepto .... Looks like someone is very happy with Kobi... hahahahaha....

Quite happy, pots that improve your tea experience are worth the price of admission.

LeoFox wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 07, 2021 7:33 pm

Next up da hong pao from tea habitat at ~1$/g.

The leaves are large and smell of heavy roast

Brewed 6g/85 mL gaiwan using 90 tds water
Rinse, 20s, 30s, 45s 1min, 1min25s, 1min45s, 2min, 2min30s, 3min30s 5min, 8min, steeped out

The fragrance is nothing to write home about. The flavor is interesting. The tea is light and dominated by higher tier notes of candy and mango. The early steeps, including the cooled down rinse, has a slight chalky texture and light chocolate/coffee notes. There is almost no astringency. The later steeps are creamy, and overall has a dessert like quality. There is a lingering sweetness and minerality. Everything is subtle. I cannot imagine brewing this in anything other than porcelain due to the lightness. However, despite the lightness, the tea steeped out many times consistently and had good persistence.

Worth the price? Maybe ... I feel my mouth watering as I post this... but...1$/g? Questionable.. is it 4x better than the muzha TGY I had earlier in the day? No way.

I get the feeling this tea demands very low tds water, as it was selected per Imen's preference.

Brewing this very light tasting dhp from tea habitat. That is, light tasting in gaiwan. In joaka...

Flavor is too intense. I need to use shorter brew times. The harsher roast notes suddenly jump forward, along with all the other flavors. I barely tasted the roast in the gaiwan. I said flavors were subtle before. I was wrong. They are strong in this pot!

@LeoFox is having a blast!!!!!

OCTO wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 26, 2021 9:27 pm

LeoFox is having a blast!!!!!

Hahaha I found my yancha pot for sure. It seems this pot can probably work well with any tea as long as quality is good. If bad, this pot will also make the bad tea taste worse.

At last the Lazy cat order has arrived!

First up is 0.31/g 2019 rougui. This is their entry level stuff.

The dry leaf has a nice roasty smell with a spiciness that I've come to identify in chinese 13 spice blend - with maybe a touch more licorice.
Brewed up 6g in 80 mL gaiwan. Rinse and then pushed it with 20s and 30s. That was followed by shorter steeps. Was able to get around 10 solid steeps. Flash brewing from the start could make it last longer.
The tea has a robust aroma and immediate flavor that is coffee-like but spiced with what I smelled in the dry leaf. Early steeps were more sweet. From time to time, some mild dried fruit flavor would arise in the background. The base flavor reminded me of sweet baked yams. As the tea cooled down, it developed a plummy acidity. Bitterness was well controlled and there was no uncomfortable astringency. There was a persistent but mild caramel aftertaste

Edit: after a few sessions with this tea, I can say that flash steeping is not the best approach, at least in a gaiwan. The body is thin and needs a robust 15s+ first infusion to get things started. After some time, the aftertaste develops a mineral rockiness. It is also great to throw the leaves in a mug after 6-7 infusions and let it sit infusing in the mug for o/n.

Interestingly, in a non-muting pot, the tea becomes unbalanced and acrid if steeped longer than 10s initially.

Here is my comparison with some other yancha I've tried recently:
Overall, this is very good for the price relative to the other yancha.

Drinking some mi lan xiang in a relatively new zini pot I got from yinchen. I really like this pot! Figured I would use it exclusively for a while for all the teas I drink, not designating it for anything. It’s got a really fast pour and seems to excel at dancong!

@Tillerman's Lao shi 2020 winter dong ding in Peter Kuo pot.

I find the flavors amplified and more integrated compared to the brew from a thin gaiwan. As my kuo pot gets more and more seasoned, it seems to round out the edges less and simply make tea taste stronger - both the good flavors and the bad flavors. This lao shi shines in this pot.

The similarly priced 2020 winter eco cha dong ding is bitter in this pot...a disappointment to me because the 2020 spring was so much better. The eco cha tastes acceptable in the gaiwan under similar brewing parameters.


Also, I want to add that lao shi dong ding really sings in terms of complexity and sweetness as the tea cools down.