Yancha lovers?

[LeoFox]

Am hoping to get some advice:

I've accumulated some bad yancha that are totally undrinkable. What is the best thing to do? If I leave them to age for a long time, will they become more drinkable?

The problems with these teas include painful throat-stabbing astringency, horrible burnt flavors, and extreme bitterness. Can these settle with time?

[Balthazar]

Could be wrong, but I doubt they'll age into something you like if they have that many qualities you find off putting at present.

If the alternative is the trash can, you could always try giving them away. Most of them are from popular vendors, right? One man's trash is another man's treasure and all that

[Youzi]

Not sure how they are packaged, but if they are packed individually, then you can open the bags, let them sit open for an hour or two, then use fold back and clip the bags. Or if they are resealable, then close them back. This method worked for many too bitter, overly roasted yanchas.

[Andrew S]

My very limited experience of home-storing a bit of yancha for a few years has been that the roast tends to subside overall and tends to harmonise and integrate with the underlying tea leaf flavour, but it obviously won't make a bad tea good (just like with wine).

I stored a bai ji guan for about ten years, more or less by accident. It didn't have a very strong roast, but it took on somewhat sweeter, darker, fruitier flavours. I didn't take notes though, and now it's all gone... Some shui xian and a rou gui that I stored for about two or three years in big bags lost the touch of astringency that they had before and became very pleasant to drink, but then again, I enjoyed them a lot even when they were fresh.

If the astringency and bitterness are more leaf-related than fresh roast-related, then I'm not sure that storing the tea will help much. And if they taste "burnt", then perhaps they're beyond saving. Besides, you don't want to go to the effort of storing bad tea (or tea you don't like) when you could be storing good tea.

Have you tried blending them together to see if they can cancel out each other's rougher aspects?

Some people seem to get some pleasure out of brewing yancha with low leaf to water ratios, but I've found that that makes them taste boring.

Of course, if you do keep some around, you should definitely report back in a few years' time to let us know what happened.

And I agree that individually-sealed tiny packets of yancha seem to be overrated; if I'm trying some new ones, I always try to open a few up and pour them into jars for a week or more before trying them.

Andrew

[LeoFox]

Thank you for all your advice! I think I will let it go for a year and see what happens! Just brewed up a ~1$/g dhp from teahabitat that I thought was a bit boring before. After half a year of being open, it has gotten quite better - gaining fruit complexity while still embraced by a comforting charcoal roast. Nothing great but very drinkable. Aftertaste still a little harsh

[mbanu]

Am hoping to get some advice:

I've accumulated some bad yancha that are totally undrinkable. What is the best thing to do? If I leave them to age for a long time, will they become more drinkable?

The problems with these teas include painful throat-stabbing astringency, horrible burnt flavors, and extreme bitterness. Can these settle with time?

Have you tried them with sugar? Back in the 18th and 19th century when oolong was popular in the UK and America, adding sugar was a common way to smooth out a rough oolong. It should help with the bitterness and astringency, the big challenge will be the burnt flavors, unless they are burnt like a honey-baked ham burnt.

Another thing that might help is to try brewing them with hard water. If your local water is soft, many bottled mineral waters are types of hard water. These waters tend to blunt strong flavors in tea, both bad and good, but sometimes the net result is a good tea.

[LeoFox]

Am hoping to get some advice:

I've accumulated some bad yancha that are totally undrinkable. What is the best thing to do? If I leave them to age for a long time, will they become more drinkable?

The problems with these teas include painful throat-stabbing astringency, horrible burnt flavors, and extreme bitterness. Can these settle with time?

Have you tried them with sugar? Back in the 18th and 19th century when oolong was popular in the UK and America, adding sugar was a common way to smooth out a rough oolong. It should help with the bitterness and astringency, the big challenge will be the burnt flavors, unless they are burnt like a honey-baked ham burnt.

Another thing that might help is to try brewing them with hard water. If your local water is soft, many bottled mineral waters are types of hard water. These waters tend to blunt strong flavors in tea, both bad and good, but sometimes the net result is a good tea.

Inspired by you, I did try making russian caravan
viewtopic.php?p=33924#p33924

Maybe I will try again using keemun instead of ceylon

Adding sugar is a no no for me but harder water is interesting. I will wait until winter when my water gets much harder after a snow

[LeoFox]

Interesting passage on problem with aging yancha that have high but shallow firing:

With lower fire versions that you may get nowadays, which should have a distinct bouquet aroma, the tea can be consumed fresh. The down side would be with high fire short baking for oolongs, the tea may have a good chance of “fan qing” upon storage — a condition that the residual enzymes in the leaves altering the taste composition, resulting in a grassy overtone.

https://www.teaguardian.com/what-is-tea ... ying-tips/

[Andrew S]

I think that that reinforces the importance of describing the roast of a yancha more carefully than just high, medium or low (though there is a limit to how we can describe such things by words alone).

Out of interest, @LeoFox, which yanchas have you found to be most to your liking so far in your tea adventures?

I've had good experiences with the EoT ones over a few years, but I'm not sure if many others here order yancha from them, and I'm not very good as describing things such as flavour and aroma.

I've just taken delivery of a yancha package, so there may be some reviews / vague descriptions forthcoming from me, either here or on the wulong page.

Andrew

[LeoFox]

@Andrew S pm sent

[Victoria]

I happen to find 2.5g of LazyCat’s SpaceCat RouGui from two years ago. The taste degraded about 30% downhill, even though it was stored tightly sealed in the bag with a clip, inside the canister it came with. It’s possible that had there been 50g in there the flavor profile would have been more stable. Unfortunately, so little leaf clipped in a biggish bag, inside a 50g tin, probably allowed a little air and moisture to circulate downgrading the character of the tea.

[Chadrinkincat]

I happen to find 2.5g of LazyCat’s SpaceCat RouGui from two years ago. The taste degraded about 30% downhill, even though it was stored tightly sealed in the bag with a clip, inside the canister it came with. It’s possible that had there been 50g in there the flavor profile would have been more stable. Unfortunately, so little leaf clipped in a biggish bag, inside a 50g tin, probably allowed a little air and moisture to circulate downgrading the character of the tea.

I recently cracked open my 1/4 can of this tea and was a bit disappointed that it has mellowed a bit too much. I still can’t believe I forgot to drink this up in a more timely manor.

@LeoFox

A few years of storage should soften the roast. 10+ years might do it some good if it is still undrinkable. I had a few cans of seadyke oolong that were down right nasty but evolved to slightly bitter dark chocolate syrup after 10-12yrs.

[LeoFox]

I happen to find 2.5g of LazyCat’s SpaceCat RouGui from two years ago. The taste degraded about 30% downhill, even though it was stored tightly sealed in the bag with a clip, inside the canister it came with. It’s possible that had there been 50g in there the flavor profile would have been more stable. Unfortunately, so little leaf clipped in a biggish bag, inside a 50g tin, probably allowed a little air and moisture to circulate downgrading the character of the tea.

How did you brew 2.5g?

What I have been doing with "remainders" of nice yancha is putting them together as my own blend and then drinking them when I have enough material for a session.

@Chadrinkincat thank you for sharing your experience!

[Victoria]

I happen to find 2.5g of LazyCat’s SpaceCat RouGui from two years ago. The taste degraded about 30% downhill, even though it was stored tightly sealed in the bag with a clip, inside the canister it came with. It’s possible that had there been 50g in there the flavor profile would have been more stable. Unfortunately, so little leaf clipped in a biggish bag, inside a 50g tin, probably allowed a little air and moisture to circulate downgrading the character of the tea.

How did you brew 2.5g?

What I have been doing with "remainders" of nice yancha is putting them together as my own blend and then drinking them when I have enough material for a session.

Chadrinkincat thank you for sharing your experience!

I just put it in my preheated yancha loving Yamada Sou mayake 80ml kyusu and only used 35ml of off-boiling water for each steep. Maybe a 40ml pot would have been better with so little leaf, to hug in the heat.

[Andrew S]

* * * WARNING: the following post is NSFB (Not Safe For @Bok) * * *



First world problems... Any advice?

How do others around here deal with disturbingly-large yancha (or probably more commonly, dan cong) leaves?

Andrew