Chawang shop

This is the first tea I got to sampling out of the recent Chawangshop group buy put together by Andresito. I was a little worried about it after reading Dr. Jim‘s tasting note, as I am not a big fan of really smoky teas. I sort of figured I’d try this one first and “get it out of the way” before moving on to some of Chawang’s other shengs. The dry leaves did indeed sport a bit of a smoky scent, along with straw and maybe some tobacco. After a rinse, the smoke aroma was more noticeable, I’d say at a moderate level, but I could also smell some sweeter notes underneath.

The first couple steeps were visually unattractive, being a bit cloudy. There definitely was a smokiness to the flavor, especially in the first 3-4 steeps, but it was not overpowering or gross. Instead of tasting mostly like smoke, the smokiness lent a savory layer to the tea’s flavor. The finish was slightly woody with a fast and sweet huigan (I think that’s exactly what it says in the tea’s description on the site, but it’s true). Steeped as carefully as one might normally brew a young sheng, bitterness was never an issue, though around the third steep, right as the smoke was starting to fade from the flavor, a bit of astringency started to build up in the front of the sip. It reached a peak around the fifth steep, and dropped off from there. I took this tea probably around twelve or thirteen steeps, and even near the end, it could punish with some bitterness if I accidentally let it infuse too long. That suggests it probably had a bit more to give than when I stopped it. The sweet finish and huigan lasted throughout as well.

I was pleasantly surprised by this tea. I didn’t find it too smoky, though the early steeps are not the most pleasant to my palate. This cake comes in at a very good price, and if others’ experience with the same tea in past years holds true, the smoke should be gone within just a couple years. I certainly believe that, based on the character of it in my sessions with this tea. I imagine it would age decently well, with the smoke contributing to a greater complexity of flavor, at least in the short(er) term.

First thing I have to say about this tea is that new material can still be found at a great deal like this cake here. $55 for 200g for what this is… great deal.

Now I have to get on to some other thoughts that I’ll make concise.

1) I disagree with Chawangshop about this tea having a bitterness to it.
2) The ‘fast huigan’ is a real thing with this, no way to not take a sip and not realize how quick it hits
3) There’s a good blend going on with what was pressed here. I found a three leaf and a bud in my first session with many 2 leaf one bud as well.
4) Very clean, but the astringency builds upon itself as the mouth is bombarded with hot liquids :p
5) I should of drank the lower end prior to the higher end… woops

It’ll be hard to not buy a cake of this before I get through trying the others though as this is something I think is my type of newer material.

This is really smoky. I actually like smoky teas, and thought this one was pretty good in a smoky/woody style. Got a little bitter in the later steeps, but the early steeps were very approachable (did I mention the smoke?). I liked it , but others might not.

From the group buy organized by Andresito.

The nose is herbaceous, with hints of wood. Taste has some veggie, straw, and good mouth-feel. Very clean taste, and good clean finish. 2nd steep: Floral nose has hints of vegetation, apricot, and straw. The taste is more apricot, with a hint of bitterness. Finish is very tannic, but not bitter. This is definitely my favorite of the 2016 ChawangShop teas so far. Not a whole lot of cha qi. Later steeps show more of a tobacco/wood profile that is increasingly tannic, but still interesting, as the fruit and floral notes slowly fade away.

I’ve decided to go back and review all of the samples I got via the 2016 group buy. I’ve had the samples about 6 months, stored in a room that has averaged 60% humidity. This was the first sample, and the good taste is what inspired me to try all the others. I may have to place an order.

The first steep didn’t have much nose, but the taste is good: straw with some stone fruit underneath. Nice chewy texture. 2nd steep (10s): Much nicer nose shows spice and old leather. Powerful taste with full body in the mouth and strong finish. Strong cha qi. Strong, yet elegant. Slightly acidic, but not very tannic or bitter. 3rd (20s): Big and spicy and beginning to get very tannic (my mouth is all puckered). 4th (30s): Still very good, but I’m seeing less flavor; just tannin, though less than before. 5th (1m): Nose is rich and spicy. Excellent taste also shows spice. Much less tannic. I got another 6 steeps or so (much more than I normally get from a 4 gram sample. They were all very enjoyable, with good taste, not much bitterness, and gradually becoming less complex.

I was part of the group buy organized by andresito and am pretty much just drinking one tea per day. I realized that since these are relatively new teas, it was important to publish notes.

The first steep showed a really fine nose: rich and fruity. Good taste has layers of flavor. Sweet and fruity with hints of tobacco and straw. Flavor is all on the roof of the mouth, not the tongue. By the second steep the fruit was dominated by an excess of tannin (though not really bitterness), particularly in the finish. The fruit still appears occasionally, but the tannin dominates. I kept trying to like the tea, but it was just too tannic. Perhaps this will improve with age, but I’m afraid the fruit will fade away.

I’m not giving a numerical score. I initially had a fairly high score, probably based upon the first couple of steeps, but upon reflection thought that was probably too high.

I was hoping this would taste like the 2015 version. Unfortunately, it is quite different. It’s not that bad, but it lacks the floral sweet nature of its 2015 brethren.

This is a very nice, simple, high quality young sheng. It brews up thick, and the leaf quality is very nice. The flavor is not too complex – just a nice simple buttery fruity young sheng. There is very little bitterness until later steepings, and even then, it is muted. It is a great tea, and very cheap for this quality – only $24 for a 200g cake.

This was in many ways a good tea. It did however have a lot of wet storage taste to it. So much so that I rerally couldn’t taste the fermentation over it. There was not a lot of fermentation taste but there was some. In the end it developed to a sweet note with a slight aftertaste of wet storage flavor or wet wood as it is referred to. I find that I dislike wet storage taste a little less than I did a couple of years ago. It still bothers me a little but not as much. There were of course other flavors behind the wet storage but it was hard to pin them down. Overall this was a good tea as long as you can tolerate some wet storage flavors. Some people really won’t like it. This is not one where I would order a tong, but I will put the cake in dry storage for six months and see if the wet storage flavors go away. This is what happened with the White2Tea White Tuo. Six months in dry storage and the wet storage flavors were gone.

I steeped this tea twelve times in a 130ml teapot with 10.1g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 minutes. Judging by the color of the tea in the twelfth steep I would say there were two or three more steeps left to this one if I wanted to continue.

Steeps: rinse, f, f, f, 15s, 30s, 1min, 2, 3, 3, grandpa style.

Sadly, I don’t have much to say about this tea. It looked promising at first – not too tightly compressed, long sivery leaves, honey and floral aromas after rinsing … But the tea itself was consistently bitter with a barely noticable astringency over multiple steeps. Maybe there was some sweet aftertaste in the initial steeps. The body was on the thin side.
It wasn’t a bad tea and the bitterness wouldn’t be an issue if it had anything else to offer.

Maybe it just needs some time to calm down?

2003-2005 Hong TaiChang Ripe tea
The Initial smell of this tea was a bit off-putting as it smelt moldy. I decided to do two quick washes. The first steep that I drunk was earthy and very smooth. The tea seemed really thin to me, but it was also sweet. There were bits of mushroom tastes and perhaps a delicious wood flavor. I also believe there was a blonde hair in the piece of the tea. Oh well. The main thing that I really noticed about this tea, was that the lump of tea was really compressed through the first 5 steeps as none of the tea broke apart! I have not had a tea so far that did this. After the seventh steep the tea finally started breaking apart, but only a few little bits. I believe that I finally stopped drinking this after about the 12th steep or so, as I really lost track of how many times I poured water in the Gaiwan.
After all was said and done, I inspected the leaves and discovered that there was still some actual dry spots in the actual tea lump! This too was a first and it was really amazing. A good tea that would make a good daily drinker.

This tea needs a lot more time to get to where it needs to go—lots of smoke. The material is promising. Lots of chopped leaf, but good flavor and aroma and strength, which I like. This is the kind of tea I like to age, but the extremely high compression mean I probably won’t want to drink this for another ten years, even with Hong Kong storage. When it IS ready, though, I expect it to be incredible!

I bought this tea cake from Andrew (Liquid Proust) for a very fair price. That being said, I can now see why it was a cheaper cake. I used 8 grams in a 100ml gaiwan and after about 5 or 6 steeps came to the conclusion that this is just a weaker black tea. I couldn’t quite coax much of a malty black tea flavor out of it. It had a little bit of a tannic after taste but it wasn’t bitter. It just kind of tasted like a generic, weak, black tea.

Now, I am not a quitter and I know for a fact that teas can change. I am willing to experiment with this one some more but as of now… Eh. Not much promise.

Realised I hadnt tried these yet & did a triple taste session.

This was the fruitiest of the Laos ‘border teas’ but also had some weird bitterness occasionally. I wasnt bad though, and turned into a nicer tea a bit later. I think brewing times are important with this one. It had a cooling effect & tasted younger/sharper than the others, It was a little feisty with its flavours, perhaps a good one to age.

I didnt really take notes, I just tried them at the same time and noted which I preferred each round. This was my least favourite but I still liked it enough to pick up a cake, which shows how much I liked the teas from Chawangshop.

From the Sheng Olympics 2016
(10s): pale straw color. Taste starts light but builds impressive power for a 1st steep. Taste is straw with hints of wood and black pepper. 2nd (10s): Wow: very soft and sweet with grassy, somewhat floral notes. Very approachable, but not overly interesting. Fairly strong cha qi. Developed some structure (acidity and astringency) in 3rd/4th steeps. Still fairly straightforward, but more interesting than before. Gradually got more interesting in the next few steeps but I wouldn’t call it complex.

This would be an excellent introduction to sheng. It starts out gentle then gradually shows a bit more bite. Not something I’d want more of unless it was to put into the beginner’s TTB.

This tea tastes very mineral to me. Hardly any bitterness. Just a small amount that makes it quite pleasant. I’m not getting any apricot or fruity notes I get from some young shengs. Earlier infusions were thick and silky on the tongue – a bit creamy. It was a bit less on later infusions. A bit of sweetness. Overall a nice smooth sheng.

2016 Sheng Olympics

This is by far the smoothest raw pu’erh I’ve ever had; you can say border tea or whatever, but Chawang already remarked towards that (https://www.instagram.com/p/BAV5oDdxYFX/)

I’ve only had this Laos tea as of today, buy I’ll remark on it briefly. This doesn’t provide a feel, rather it provides a smooth taste that doesn’t deviate between steeps. I’m unsure how long this can go on… I brewed it 14 times and it tasted the same at 14 as it did at 1. Much of that may do with how I broke it up completely after soaking the leaf, regardless it keeps its taste throughout very well. There isn’t a remarkable taste nor did it provide a feeling as I said, but for what it is… I really can’t see how anyone could deny the value of such a tea as this.
I can easily promise that after I finish all three of the Laos cakes, I will be buying one of them for sure; unsure if it will be this one, we shall see which ones comes out. I’m just amazed at how well this steeps and how light it is because I love light tasting tea that allows me to continue to sip it for hours.

Thank you Liquid Proust for making this aged oolong sampler happen. This is an interesting tea. It has I would say a medium to medium strong roast. It was roasty until at least the fifth steep. I gave this tea eight steeps and it is a little too roasty for me. Although it did get noticeably better in the seventh and eighth steep. I’m not sure how to describe the notes that developed after the roast flavor went away but it did get noticeably smoother. I used the entire sample of 6.7g in a gaiwan around 120ml or so.

I steeped this tea eight times in a 120ml gaiwan with 6.7g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, anad 30 sec. I stopped at eight steeps because I have hada a large amount of tea today and I am at my caffeine limit anyway.

This is the first tea that I drank from the Aged Oolong sampler I put together and it was such a joy to finally drink something I’ve been working on for awhile.

I meant to pick out a cheaper tea to have the other look weak when I get to them, but this is not doing that. The leaf may be small and a bit beaten up, yet when you look at it you can tell that it hasn’t been abused in regards to roasting because you can see its green color to it.
I ended up only using 3grams with a few ounces of water at a time at 187c (or so) for 30 seconds to a minute. Each steep was absolutely amazing. Don’t tell anyone…. I drank 4 steeps back to back within three minutes. The taste changes depending on the steep time. If you steep it for 30 seconds its possible to get the buttery texture because the light roast doesn’t settle in as much. Steeping at a minute gives it a defined taste like a roasted bancha from Japan which is strange to compare to. This was a fun tea to play with because I was able to get a buttered texture and a slightly roasted texture. The taste lingers for a long time which is great. There are nutty remarks and sweet undertones to the tea as well. All together, this is just fabulous.
What’s better? This is the same tea that What Cha has which means that I can compare two different styles of storage :)

https://www.instagram.com/p/-XAiGpRYAU/
p.s. though I don’t want to pull in price here, THIS IS ONLY $4’ISH PER OUNCE!

Thanks to Boychik for this sample! She knows what I like…we have very similar tastes! This tea has a hint of smoke, a bit of bitterness, but it’s smooth and has a medium oily texture…love the oily ones! The aroma is sweet and vegetal. Turns out, it’s not super sweet, but has a bit of complexity that I like. Boychik reminded me that this is not puerh, but border tea. Still tasty though, and that’s all that really matters to me. :)