I have been drinking an excellent aged, roasted oolong that was put into urns in 1998 that were unsealed about 20 months ago.
I love it & have praised it & thought that there was nothing much more to say about it. It is smooth & tasty without flaws. It is interesting & enjoyable even if drinking a large quantity & over hours. Great! But last week I tried the same tea from urns that were left sealed until a couple of weeks ago.
The tea that had almost 2 more years of aging is even better. The difference has given me pleasure & conern. Of course, I enjoy better quality even though I had never felt that what I had been drinking lacked quality. So why would I wish that the tea that had been left to age in urns longer had never been offered to me?
1. The tea that was aged more, costs more;
2. After drinking so much of both teas of 1998, I have little to say about why one is better. It does not taste differently except better;
3. I sought analysis of why less than 10% more aging time could have such an impact on the tea; & my mind which does not handle science well strained to understand various possible explanations;
4. Then, I came to feel like a fool for not being true to myself. I have always said that the main behavior that we should rule me with tea is taste & enjoyment. One tea tastes better than another enough for me to regret not getting the more expensive tea. Decision is made by that fact. So I could relax. When I finally relaxed, a key question arose: Was all the tea, harvested at the same time; were all the steps of production done exactly the same; etc.? It was 1998. Same farmer/producer etc. but no one remembered whether all of the tea that was selected for the roasting & aging, was totally treated etc. at very exact times. Did the extra time in the aging urns, matter so much? Don't know. So, ha, ha
Back to gaoshan:
I am longer interested in the shanlinxi that I have drunk in quantity & have sold a bit. Because of Covid-19, I concentrate on tea more than before. The SLX does not please me enough. It is inexpensive; but, $ that I might save by continuing to drink the SLX, cannot be spent on a trip to Thailand etc.
I ran out of longfengxia some months ago. I was almost sure that I would buy only dayuling this season because my memory of the LFX was fuzzy..... However, comparing this season's LFX & DYL now in tasting sessions, I cannot see myself or others missing the DYL while drinking LFX. Difference in taste between them is minute. I think there is no real difference in quality between them. LFX is my choice for the gaoshan of this season that I will be drinking. If arithmetic is science, science leads me to choose LFX. It is cheaper. If saving $ is pleasure, then pleasure leads me to choose it. My work is done. Cheers
