filipes wrote: ↑Tue Jan 02, 2024 9:19 am
when the base tea is already top, the smoking can only make it different, not really better I guess.. but it’s so delicious:) ..but as I read somewhere, traditional smoking is becoming a rarity due to low demand..
yep, I feel the same. Yet, I have to say , smoked Lapsang is more appealing to me than puerh. Sometimes I feel like my body requires that sausage-ish taste ( or do I just miss our Moravian smoked meat ?
And yes, it is low demand on that traditional heavy smoke stuff, yet there is a demand on light smoked ( which hard to achieve by general farmer using traditional method in his wooden barn ) . There are some producers making it in special chambers with more accurate control of the smoke influence ,yet I can't say if they use at least on log of pine tree or some artificial solutions to add that unique aroma ( but I believe those would be big TF who have state controlled stuff , not just some random chemicals ) .
Also have to add, that the smoke notes particularly, have different spectrum taste in different storage environments ( at least for puerh , not sure about Lapsang coz I haven't tried wet stored one yet ).
With puerh , after storing such a tea in Guangzhou for example , in 2 years the smoke in leaves blends in and turns in to some kind of weird sweet fruit ( can't describe exact taste ) combination , which probably some enthusiast could write an essay about
The only downside of this is, that once you bring it home ( to not that wet environment ) it will "dry off" ( loose that moisture ) and those sweet notes will turn back to the smokey ones, and in many cases, adding some excessive disturbing sourness or other ugly notes ( especially if you are not expecting this ) .
Although Wuyi is located in area with higher humidity , they pack the tea mostly in small packs and so the moisture is preserved well inside alright , so wouldn't be worry much about that...this is mostly referring to puerh.
But I can imagine that few years stored ( in not air tight pack and semi-humid environment ) smoked lapsang might be interesting. I had a Dancong from 2016y and it was cool.