Tea Encounter

This is a fairly mellow, low-toned Yiwu sheng. Woody, forest floor dark feel mixed with plummy caramel sweetness. Body warmth and menthol cooling arrive quickly with the second steep. Later steeps become woody-bitter, lightly acidic-metallic and mouth-watering. The aftertaste is certainly the strength of this tea. It mostly a dry powdery, bittersweet violet with very long-lasting retronasal action. At times the aftertaste also presented with Juicy Fruit gum, honeydew-cucumber and blueberry skin florality — delightful. I’m not too drawn to this tea currently, but I could see it aging into a reliable daily drinker.

Unsure how to approach a note for this sheng from the Yiwu region, mostly because of its complexity. The long list of flavors at the end of this note (I also include aromas) is not a joke. Have some stream of consciousness notes from a few different sessions…

Dry leaf smells of sweet tropical fruits and flowers, orchid, rose. Warm has a deep sweetness like butter-caramel-golden syrup and pungent fruit punch. The rinse hits with a big camphor-minty note first. Unlike any tea I’ve smelled before. Rainforest — fruits, flowers, bark, everything, wet. Incredibly fragrant.

First session Prepared 6.x grams in a 110mL clay teapot with a long pour, boiling water.]

First steep of 10s is so thick and bitter. Wow. Aroma is like bark and vanilla marshmallow that hits on sip and fills the mouth. Swallows into menthol spice in throat. Balanced.

Second steeps of 10s is the same. Feel like I have honey breath even though it doesn’t taste like honey. Lingering perfume. I’m kind of speechless. Feeling grounded.

I don’t know where I stopped with this session, maybe 8 steeps.

Second and third sessions Prepared 4g in a 60mL porcelain gaiwan, water off boiling, flash steeps for the first six]

First steep: Lingering peach-apricot-osmanthus-caramel aftertaste. Clean and mouthwatering. Full, thick body leaves an oily swallow.

Second: Same, balanced astringency and bitterness, almost warming but mostly cooling, feel it in my arms, deep.

Third: Smooth, medium viscosity down throat, vaporous cherry aftertaste.

Fourth: Creamy, caramel, mineral, wet rocks, saline, deep woody base. Feel it in shoulders and arms. Pulling back into myself, heady.

Fifth: Aroma of cherrywood and osmanthus. Savory taste. Starting to feel bite in throat and some acid.

Sixth: Almost citrus tinge, metallic, seawater. I feel pink and brown. Flower petals reflected in clear stream water, can see different colored river rocks and pebbles beneath.

Seventh: Finally notice returning sweetness, cherry blossom aftertaste, still very cooling. Tired but active mind, sheng burps.

Went several more steeps, trailing off with notes.

I would need a cake to get a good grasp on this tea. It has a lot of dynamic qualities and a punchiness that I wasn’t expecting from a Yiwu tea. The sweetness also isn’t at the forefront like I’ve experienced with other Yiwu. This is some really good leaf.

One of my favorite tea mountains and a really good year for Yiwu area tea. Big, thick forest notes and smooth bitterness harmonizing with the sweetness. Notes of fruit and honey. Fairly long steeper. Nice drowsing yet alerting and contemplative qi. This is sold as gushu but I’m not sure of the age of the trees as the leaves are firm but the stems are significantly thinner than some top shelf GeDeng teas I’ve had. Those teas were twice the price and somewhat better than this tea but not twice as good…diminishing returns. If you want a solid GeDeng tea at a reasonable price this is the one I recommend.

I don’t get plums or bubblegum either . I don’t get much huigan. I do get cedar minty smooth bitterness that I associate with Banzhang tea though I doubt this is the real deal. It is clearly a clean stored Menghai area tea, judging from stem size likely a blend of terrace and younger forest tea. It is very pleasant and I get about a dozen steeps. Going by memory it reminds me a little of Hai Lang Hao 2005 Nannuo only a bit sweeter and milder in the qi department. For someone looking for a reasonably priced semi aged Menghai sheng for their collection this is a decent choice. Clean, pleasant, relaxing but subtle qi. Personally I don’t think I’ll buy a cake because I feel that there are similarly priced and aged Lincang teas that perform better for the price.

I ordered a sample of this to try. It’s a clean semi-aged raw. I found it to be very straightforward. There is some Qi in the tea. I felt it in my head and especially around my temples, but for me, it wasn’t all that pleasant. This isn’t a knock on the tea. It could have been me. I have been drinking tea all day, so maybe I just hit my limit. The tea does not contain a lot of complex tastes that I can detect. I get some woody tannin bitterness, but also some sweetness. There is also some of the leatheriness you get with a lot of raws. I did not experience much hui gan. There was some lingering bitterness but not any returning sweetness that I could detect. I did not have any aftertaste. After writing my notes, I went looking for reviews and found Matt’s (Mattcha blog) notes about bubble gum, and I was like say whaaa? So, I went back and practically gargled the tea warm and cool to try to find some bubble gum. I might have found what he describes. It brought back an old memory of Bazooka bubble gum and how it was sort of chalky and sweet when first chewed. I needed his suggestion and a lot of searching to detect it, though. This is named Ban Zhang, but even Tea Encounter throws in a disclaimer, so it probably (almost certainly?) isn’t. I’m going to pass on this one even though other reviewers rated it highly.