What HeiCha are you drinking

[Bok]

A modest haul from a visit to my home town, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia...

[Balthazar]

I'll keep this in mind. The fu cha that I've seen on sites though is so cheap compared to other teas it's like why bother getting a sample. To be honest, I've sort of stopped buying samples after the first couple of orders. I found that some vendors will send free samples and they are typically the only samples I buy, unless I hear about this incredible cake that goes for $$$/100g or more. Then I might buy a sample.

Yeah, for teas I'm somewhat familiar with I usually don't buy samples unless we're talking really expensive stuff. For heicha bricks of 800-1000 grams, though, it feels like a big commitment to take the chance if I'm not yet familiar with the brand.

The whole things from China = bad/dirty prejudice is strong here for sure. I had a package from another vendor strangely go through the port here with no clearance or tax on it so it got sent to the local customs office and I had to go pick it up in person. Super unpleasant experience with them making me to open all the packages and them sticking their dirty fingers and noses in my tea saying how "it looks dirty"

Imagine what they would say if your order contained fuzhuan bricks full of jinhua. You'd probably be sent directly to prison

@StoneLadle: Damn! Hope you left some behind for the other inhabitants. Also, we need names

[faj]

Also, we need names

Hopefully this is the inventory @StoneLadle is intending to ship to us fellow TF members.

[StoneLadle]

The boxes are:

https://legend-of-tea.com.my/Liu-Bao?product_id=138

https://legend-of-tea.com.my/Liu-Bao?product_id=136

The 2004 shows good legs and promise with a refreshing strong taste perfect for hot days and lazy drinking. The 80s tea is something else, had it made three different ways and it's a keeper.

The baskets are a decade old SYS LA, funny thing is, the first two steeps you go no way, this smells like oolong man... But it don't taste like one and by three its all clear, light woodiness and pine vwith the developing earthy base. It's still young and probably stored a tad dry looking at the bamboo and also maybe next to some other stuff, Shui xian maybe?

And the stuff in the bags, those are one Kati/Jin/600g bags of a 90s basket compressed LB and a 80s one of the same. Commissioned and stored by Leong Swee Sang Tea Merchant (since 1940) of Market Street, Ipoh. They also have their own brand of packaged LB of at least 10 years of age that's sold almost everywhere in the country by Chinese medicine shops and served in restaurants and coffee shops

[OCTO]

A modest haul from a visit to my home town, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia...

Nice catch... hahaha....

[StoneLadle]

A modest haul from a visit to my home town, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia...

Nice catch... hahaha....

Was a big day out at sea, made it back to home port before the heavens opened!

[faj]

The 80s tea is something else, had it made three different ways and it's a keeper.

Trying to translate in Google seems to yield "end of the nineties" as the description for this tea. Is that a bad translation?

Can you tell a bit more about that one?

[StoneLadle]

The 80s tea is something else, had it made three different ways and it's a keeper.

Trying to translate in Google seems to yield "end of the nineties" as the description for this tea. Is that a bad translation?

Can you tell a bit more about that one?

Hey sure... From the slow cook clay pot it was a refreshing pop in the mouth cool betelnuttiness and plenty of bass, grounded yet clear to eye and nose, had two bowls of this, it was a hot humid day and it was yummy

Gong Fu was as expected, good progression, solid performer.

The real shiner was when it was cooked, boiled on a stove after a gongfu session and naughtily we cooked up some fresh leaves and POW!

[Balthazar]

2018 Jiu Yang Chun Jian Fu (2018年久扬春尖茯富硒金花手筑茯砖茶) – Probably one of the nicest dry leaf smells I’ve ever experienced. The taste is great too, with a lingering sweetness that coats the mouth, but I find its body a bit lacking.

If they sold smaller sized bricks I’d pick one up in a heartbeat. Nice as it is, I’m not going to get a kilo of this.

hc0.jpg (204.05 KiB) Viewed 7520 times

Toss the leaves in a cast iron kettle after about 14 steeps for a final, cloudy brew. With such nice leaves and taste it would be a shame not to.

hc1.jpg (425.13 KiB) Viewed 7520 times

hc2.jpg (122.76 KiB) Viewed 7520 times

hc3.jpg (157.16 KiB) Viewed 7520 times

[Balthazar]

Is it solipsistic in here or is it just me?

2017 Yun Tai Shan Huang Shan Hei Zhuan (2017年云台山荒山黑砖茶)

Wow! This is the kind of tea I really should save my superlatives for. The mineral profile is just exquisite, quite unlike anything I've had, perhaps outside the realm of oolongs. Combined with a mild honey sweetness, a good body and a very pleasant effect on the drinker's body, this is a real winner. Brews forever too, went through something like 20 brews before I tossed the leaves into my cast iron pot to simmer out the last remains.

It retains a bit of youthfulness and a very faint smoke flavor far in the background. A little more aging will probably turn this into something even better.

Also, I remain in awe of how such compressed tea can contain quite complete leaves... These come in bricks of 980 grams, measuring 24 cm x 13 cm x 3 cm. For comparison, yesterday's Jiu Yang come in kilo bricks measuring 37 cm x 26 cm x 7 cm. So a density of 0.96 cm3 per gram for this one vs. 6.73 cm3 per gram for the Jiu Yang!

hc4.jpg (220.32 KiB) Viewed 7490 times

hc5.jpg (494.96 KiB) Viewed 7490 times

[StoneLadle]

@Balthazar

I know nothing about this heicha stuff, and been on an Oolong bender this past week with consumption of LB limited to the morning bowls...

But I did grab a bag of this, ordered from Wuzhou and kept in baskets in KL and packaged by the same merchant...

By Kean Guan Tea Merchants, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

IMG_20200914_162716.jpg (285.07 KiB) Viewed 7466 times

[Balthazar]

@StoneLadle: Looks good! Let us know how it tastes

Couldn't help noticing that the bag says “云南大茶树” (and no less than 1700 years). I‘m assuming that refers to the pictured tree on the bag, and not the leaf material inside the bag

[StoneLadle]

I'd refer to the stick on label... I can't read squiggles and am also surprised that it says Yunnan on the pack, but this vendor has been around for ages... Also, originally these are 250g bags but been "upgraded" for 300g use with the LB

[Balthazar]

Yeah, I was thinking it might be an image they're using as a general purpose logo of sorts.

In any case, awaiting to hear how it tastes

[wave_code]

had some of the 2015 first grade liu bao from Chawang today. continuing some pot experiments... I've had it a few times recently in my new jianshui which seems to be sucking all the flavor out of things for the time being and with @OCTO bringing up Japanese pots here and there I thought maybe it was time to do an experiment I'd been meaning to try again for a while.

so, I took a cheap banko pot I have kicking around and boiled it for a bit to try and re-set it. I could see the oils that were released on the top of the water and I couldn't smell anything after the clay had cooled down so good enough for a little test. since I had just re-set the pot its a little tough to say how much 'muting' was happening as a result of what the pot would normally do and what was it also soaking some things up. either way, right after being reset I think the pot did quite well considering. the thick clay seemed to have just as good heat retention as the jianshui. really long steeps later on made for the handle and button on the lid to get a little bit hot, but no worse than holding a really hot gaiwan, and with much better results with those longer steeps resulting in much darker liquor than from other pots I have. it muted some of the more dank/fermented notes, maybe a bit too much, so the tea was very rounded out but also maybe a little less interesting. but the body seemed thicker, more like how this tea was in nixing clay. I'll try it a few more times to see how 'muting' it actually is, and the jianshui experiment continues, but kinda interesting to see a $35 kyusu with a less than ideal shape maybe outdoing a pot 2-3x its price.

I'll maybe dry a more heavy storage tea next go around to see how that does. with all the talk of muting just as much as accenting positives when we talk about tea I've been thinking about whether that is something I want from my pots and how much... with more and more western vendor options there is plenty of choice between more wet or dry and plenty of clean storage tea to be found (maybe not always at the price point one wants though), so I'd rather aim to buy or drink what I wanted in the first place. while I do like plenty of more betel nut and woody/nutty and sweet liu baos, at the same time if I didn't like the earthy forest floor and basement flavors too, and specifically want them sometimes, well then I'd probably just drink oolong or something.