Taste comparison of sealed/pumidor stored tea to unsealed/dry stored

Back in 2012 when we built the pumidor I set aside a few cakes to store “dry” in the open shelves in my dining room, hoping someday to do a taste comparison. Then in 2013 when I decided to seal my cakes in addition to keeping them in the humidified pumidor, I continued to leave these few cakes unsealed and stored on an open shelf. These unsealed “dry stored” cakes have been there now for nearly 9 years, unsealed and with no effort made to be sure they were getting adequate humidity. I decided to finally do the big taste comparison today for two of these teas.

2008 Treasures from Five Mountains raw puerh

I purchased this tea from Bana Tea Company in the smaller 200g size in the fall of 2011. I see you can still buy this cake in the larger 400g size from Best Tea House (though no longer at the $38/cake price I bought these for). Because of the popularity of this tea (it’s said to have won a few awards) Best Tea House produced it again in 2011. Bana Tea Company has the 2011 one currently available for sale in two sizes, 100g and 400g. I’ve never sampled the 2011 one so I can’t compare it with the 2008. 

2008 Treasures from Five Mountains

The rinsed leaves of the unsealed and dry stored cake had a light aroma of what I would call sweet meadow. It’s no longer that harsher hay or grass aroma that’s so common in young puerh but it hasn’t yet transformed past these ‘greener’ scents. It had a light sweetness to it but not very pronounced, and while it still smells rather green it’s a smoother, lightly sweet green (hence, “sweet meadow”). In comparison, the one that’s been sealed and stored in the pumidor has a surprisingly deeper aroma, no sweetness but bordering on a BBQ scent or roasted mushrooms. It wasn’t heavy with smoke, though. Sort of a smokeless BBQ, you could say. It was clearly in the savory category and much lower/deeper than the unsealed cake. 

unsealed tea on left, sealed on right

In the mouth, both teas had a light thickness to them though the tea that had been sealed was definitely rounder in flavor. The taste seemed to fill all the way out to the cheeks while the unsealed tea was thinner and more watery tasting. Neither tea had much in the way of energy or qi. I pushed the last infusion, curious to see what might show up. The sealed tea carried quite a bit more bitterness than the unsealed tea and was also a tiny bit darker in color. 

2007 Douji ‘Six Ancient Tea Mountain raw puerh

I picked up these 200g cakes for $39 each back in 2011 from China ChaDao (which no longer appears to be in business, at least I can’t find a website for them anymore). Interestingly, although they were sold as a 2007 tea you can see the year 2006 hidden among the Chinese characters on the wrapper. This was one of my first multiple cake purchases. I fell in love with this tea for the grounding qi and energy I felt while drinking it. This was another one that was said to have won a few awards, though honestly I’ve always wondered how meaningful these awards really are. For a while there it seemed like a lot of teas were “award winning”, a good marketing point if nothing else (and marketing hype often trumps actual quality). 

2007 Douji 'Six Ancient Tea Mountain'

Similar to the 2008 Treasures from Five Mountains, I found the aroma of the rinsed leaves from the unsealed tea to be lighter and a bit sweeter than the sealed one. The unsealed cake still has plenty of green in the scent leaning closer to a rough, sweet hay aroma. It would fade very quickly, too. In contrast, the aroma from the sealed cake was deeper and has clearly turned the corner toward a solidly woody scent with no greenness present at all. When I would push an infusion both teas became predictably more bitter in flavor though nothing over the top. 

Most interesting was the matter of energy and qi. While these were present in both teas, they were definitely stronger in the sealed tea. I ended up brewing these teas a second time, separately, just to focus on this aspect since it can hard to distinguish differences in this area when you’re sipping two teas simultaneously. While the unsealed tea had pretty good energy and a light qi felt mostly in the head, the sealed tea was easily double on these fronts, especially with regard to the strength of qi felt. 

2008 Purple Tip raw puerh

This is another smaller 200g cake that I have both sealed and unsealed, but for the life of me I can’t locate the sealed one in the pumidor. After digging deep into the back of the shelves, with towering stacks of cakes falling left and right and creating quite a mess, I gave up. But tasting the unsealed one was such a delight I feel it deserves a mention. My history of tasting notes with this one always describes how incredible the aroma is. When I brewed up the unsealed cake I was surprised to find the aroma just as amazing. Clearly, having been unsealed and left on an open shelf for the past 9 years hasn’t killed it off (at least not aromatically). I swear to god, this one smells like a cookie. Initially the aroma is big with very sweet fruit, mostly sweet purple fruits like grapes and plums. Maybe the name “Purple Tip” colors my interpretation of the fruits in this aroma, but it really does (to me, anyway) smell of sweet purple-colored fruits. Just underneath the sweet grape and plum scents is a deeper but equally sweet caramel note. By the third steeping the sweet fruits have taken a back seat to this candy-like caramel scent, which turns to a yummy and very cookie-like vanilla aroma as the leaves dry down. 

In the mouth the tea isn’t nearly as exciting, sadly. It’s a bit thin in the mouth, a bit watery in flavor, with no detectable energy or qi. But being the kind of person who drinks tea as much for the aroma as anything else, I’m very happy to have this unique “cookie tea” on the shelf. 

2008 Purple Tip

In search of vanilla black tea

 Every once in a while I get an itch for something different. Nothing too ‘blended’, I’ve never been able to get into teas with lots of non-tea flavoring ingredients like bits of fruit and nuts, colorful flower petals, etc. But the simple addition of vanilla to a good black tea has always struck me as having the potential for real yumminess. Grocery store shelves are always stocked with a couple of vanilla black teas from the big brands but I decided to search out some lesser-known ones in the hope of finding a black tea base of higher quality. There are plenty more vanilla black teas out there than what I’ve sampled here, but as usual whenever I start dipping into flavored teas I’m quickly reminded how much more I enjoy a great UN-flavored tea. But here’s what I’ve tried so far. I’ll list them from my least favorite to my most favorite. 

Kusmi Tea, Vanilla Black Tea

Ingredients: black tea, bourbon vanilla extract. 

This one comes in little muslin sachets for easy brewing. The taste is chemically with a bitter aftertaste. I didn’t find this one enjoyable at all. 

Golden Moon Tea, Madagascar Vanilla

Ingredients: black tea (organic Indian tea base), vanilla flavor, organic vanilla pieces. 

I like Golden Moon’s Coconut Pouchong. It's always a hit when I’m having tea with friends who like grocery store tea and aren’t into “tea geekery”. The Coconut Pouchong is full of great aroma and flavor (clearly a flavored tea, and one of the few I like) but the Madagascar Vanilla, in contrast, doesn’t pull through for me in the same way. It’s a decent black tea, nothing fancy, but not a lot of vanilla scent or flavor. (no photos of this one, sorry)

Theodor,  The’ a la Vanille 

Ingredients: Black teas, vanilla flavor. 

This is a French tea company that specializes in flavored and blended teas, though they also offer “plain teas”. The dry leaf smells distinctly peachy, while the wet leaf gives off an initial peach-strawberry aroma with no vanilla detected. The taste is round and smooth with no tanginess or bitterness, but I get more peach and berry notes from this tea than vanilla. The closest vanilla scent I can find is in the dry-down in the bottom of the cup which has a sort of “peaches and cream” scent. This is a fine tea for someone who simply enjoys black tea and isn’t into the geekery of whole leaf tea with all its nuance, but this is more of a peach and strawberry note tea. I don’t get any vanilla from this one.

Mariage Freres, Vanille des Iles

Ingredients: “black tea flavored with the sweet Bourbon vanilla” (from the label, sort of vague)

Pictures of this tea online show large pieces of cut vanilla beans exposing the seedy interior mixed in with the leaves but I couldn’t find anything even closely resembling that in the tea I received. The ingredient list is vague but I’m pretty sure this is flavored with extract and not actual beans.  The aroma is smooth with a berry-like vanilla note (most closely blueberry). As the leaves dry down the aroma takes on more of a soft vanilla scent. The taste is a little tangy like some black teas can be, but smooth overall with a nice, light vanilla aftertaste. This is a fine and enjoyable vanilla black tea for someone who simply enjoys black tea and isn’t into the geekery of whole leaf tea with all its nuance. 

Whispering Pines Tea, Cocoa Amore

Ingredients: spring harvest black tea, hand-cut Tahitian vanilla beans. 

I discovered this tea company while searching Steepster’s tea rankings. It’s no wonder they get high praise. Brendan, the owner of Whispering Pines Tea, really knows his black teas and offers a great and quality variety on the website. I’ve tried many of their offerings (most of them unflavored) and have been very impressed. Whispering Pines has become my go-to company now for excellent black tea. The tasting notes on the website are thorough and accurate, too, which I appreciate. Although this particular tea is called “Cocoa Amore” it’s a blend of black tea and Tahitian vanilla beans, which have more of a chocolate-cherry vibe than Madagascar beans. There's no vanilla extract involved, but it doesn’t need it. Somehow the combination of a carefully chosen whole-leaf black tea and the slightly less common Tahitian vanilla bean really DOES result in the most chocolately black tea I’ve ever tried (and I’ve tried a few). The aroma is closest to a dry milk chocolate, not too sweet. The taste carries a fruity bittersweet chocolate flavor. If you’ve ever geeked out on single-origin dark chocolate bars, this tea really mimics the fruitier dark chocolates although it’s not quite as dark in scent or flavor as really dark chocolate. The leaf in this tea appears to be all tips, fine and thin, interspersed with equally finely cut vanilla bean. The beans have been carefully cut into short, fine threads that blend perfectly with the tea leaves, instead of the big chunky bean pieces you find in other teas (the ones that have actual beans and not just flavoring).

Whispering Pines Tea,
Cocoa Amore

Whispering Pines Tea, Golden Orchid

Ingredients: blend of black teas, hand-cut Madagascar vanilla beans. 

THIS is what vanilla black teas should all aspire to. Once I found this tea my search ended. If you’ve already gone to the Whispering Pines Tea website in search of this tea or the Cocoa Amore, you probably won’t find it. The reason is that these teas sell out extremely fast. My best advice is to get on their mailing list and jump on purchasing as soon as they come available. The last time I saw this one for sale was August of last year. Onto the tasting notes: The aroma is a beautiful, deep, rounded malty vanilla scent. The taste is less fruity than Cocoa Amore, more smooth and rounded. The leaf is whole and of good quality. The ingredients note this is a blend of black teas and you can see the mix of different kinds of leaf, some a lighter brown color, some finer and some thicker leaves, all thoughtfully chosen and blended to perfectly complement the Madagascar vanilla. Again, the hand-cut beans are carefully cut into long thin strands of about 1” (give or take). In fact, it appears to me the threads of vanilla bean are left longer and a little thicker in this blend presumably to complement the longer leaf size, and cut shorter in the Cocoa Amore the match the shorter leaves of that one. I really love this tea. It’s my favorite of the two and the best vanilla black tea I've tried, full and satisfying, a great tea for those who appreciate quality whole-leaf tea and dream of what magic could result with the addition of pure vanilla bean. This is the real deal. 

Whispering Pines Tea, Golden Orchid

The Ding Xing abides

Does anyone remember the buzz on this cake from way back in the day? The 90's Ding Xing. I managed to pick some up back in 2011 from a Taobao vendor recommended by another tea blogger. This tea has always been a favorite of mine, partly because it's one of the very few 90's puerh on my shelves, and partly because I honestly love the wrapper design. Simple characters (I've always wondered what they say) in purple ink, and that moon and star at the top -- makes me happy. I tasted it again today and was even happier to find the aroma strong and full of cherries and wood. Yes, cherries. Although it's not unusual to find berry notes in an aged puerh (mostly raspberry and blackberry) I've had only one other tea that was so clearly a cherry note, an aged oolong that smelled and tasted just like chocolate covered cherries (oh how I miss that one). This Ding Xing is more cherries and dark wood (no chocolate, sadly) and still going strong. The passing of the years has finally smoothed out the roughness on the tongue I used to get with this one. It was some happy nostalgia to bring this one to the table again. 

90's Ding Xing

When is a puerh tea dead?

 Tasting through these cakes most every day is proving to be lots of fun. I try not to read my previous tasting notes, wanting to come to the teas as fresh and unbiased as possible. I’m also curious to see if I’m finding continuity from one year to the next. For the most part I seem to be, though there are some exceptions. Not sure how much is due to the tea developing with age, and how much to the development of my own skills of discernment. 

I’d neglected my collection the past couple of years, leaving some cakes unsealed for that time. For the most part, I seem to find the aromas concentrated from sealing. Almost invariably, the unsealed cakes are much weaker aromatically, overall. But again, there are occasional exceptions. It appears the last time I unsealed a bunch of cakes I was focusing on the ban zhangs. That’s what most of them are. One of these, a 2006 Ban Zhang Limited Edition from Best Tea House in Richmond, BC, is still exhibiting a terrifically strong aroma even though it’s been unsealed a few years, along with great flavor, a very active energy in the body and a mellow, easy qi making it very fun to drink. Definitely one of the stand-outs of the teas I’ve sampled the past several days. I see it's still available for purchase, although at a MUCH steeper price than I originally paid (no surprise given how good this one is).

2006 Ban Zhang Ltd. Edition

There have been some duds too, as expected. Many years ago I picked up a handful of various Xi Zhi Hao teas. I have to say, for the most part I’ve found them uninteresting, although I was never able to grab any of the highly-touted ones, except for the 2006 Meng Hai Nu Er Zhuan brick, which I’ve enjoyed a lot in the past (I need to find this one again to see how it’s doing). It’s one of these XZH teas I sampled recently that was about as dead a tea I’ve ever tasted, the 2007 XZH Spring Ku Zhu Shan Ji Pin Gu Shu, and it was even sealed! Virtually no aroma at all, very watery in taste and nothing going on energetically. My first thought was, did I kill it? Did I fail to store it well? I don’t think so. With the exception of the last two years I’ve been very careful with maintaining humidity levels around 60% and temps around 70F. Even though I’ve been sealing since around 2013, I still keep the sealed cakes in my humidified cabinet as I know there’s still some degree of permeability through the polyolefin shrink wrap. Granted, the last few years I haven’t been keeping my humidifier working all the time, but the natural humidity of the Pacific Northwest means it never gets super dry here. Also, while I’ve been tasting a few uninteresting “binners” here and there none have been so clearly dead as this XZH cake. A couple years of not-so-careful storage conditions haven’t spelled the end for any other teas, even the ones that have always been lackluster in the past, so I’m inclined to think this one just didn’t have the bones for a long life. 

Winners and binners

 It’s no surprise that my tea collection includes a number of lackluster teas. “Tuition teas” I’ve heard them called on other tea blogs. Some were gifts from friends, most were purchased based on someone else’s review, or my own naïve gullibility for a vendor’s marketing hype. Up until now I’ve kept them all owing mostly to my desire to learn how a tea will change through the years. But it’s time to start culling them (is that my overfull tea cabinet applauding in the other room?). They’ll be added to the compost pile which is, I think, a noble ending for a cake that once held high hopes for someone. I’ve always been reluctant to publish tasting notes for a tea I find lacking, not wanting to contribute damage to a vendor’s or manufacturer’s reputation, but there’s a lot of puerh out there and not all of it is good, at least not to my preferences. Maybe I’ll break off a chunk of these cakes to keep for future comparison? I do find it instructive to sample these on occasion, testing my own skills of discernment, but not enough to take up valuable space in the cabinet. 

But first, a couple of winners –

2003-2004 Dual Secret Stamps Brown Changtai, dry storage

What a classic and enjoyable tea this is! The aroma is all sweet berries on a woody base, maybe a little spice thrown in at times. This tea shines on all fronts. Its classic profile reminds me a lot of some Wistaria teas I’ve had. The aroma has great strength, the flavor is pronounced and classic, and as the session moves along the energy and qi of this tea grows and fills the body. There’s nothing not to like about this one. Glad I picked up a couple of cakes of it, from Clouds Teahouse. 

1997 Tung Ching Hao (Tong Qing Hao), Chi Chang

I pulled this one from the very back of the cabinet this morning. It seems after purchasing I must have been re-organizing the cabinet and it got buried on the bottom, never opened or tasted. This will be my first tasting of this tea, purchased from what appears to be a now-defunct vendor, Tea Classico. The English on the wrapper makes me smile – “To be sure it is ‘Tung – Ching’ trademark when you get it”. Okay then.

 

1997 Tung Ching Hao, Chi Chang

The compression of this cake is intense, reminding me of the 2000 Kunming Lan Yin Tie except this cake has rounded edges while the Kunming’s edges are sharp. The initial aroma off the leaves after the first rinse is decidedly smokey with a woody base. It’s not as smokey as the Kunming, but there’s clearly smoke there. The rinse water is a deep mahogany color, too, making me wonder if this might actually be a shou. Curious now, I look up my notes on when and why I purchased this. I picked this one up thanks to a review from the Half-Dipper’s blog back in 2014. 

The smokey aspect of the aroma disappears with a second rinse, settling into one of my favorite aromatic profiles in an aged puerh, full of sweet ripe berries on a strong woody base. As the session continues I’m increasingly impressed with the strength of this tea. It has a clean edge to it and a body-filling energy and qi that I almost never find in a shou. It must be that Hong Kong storage mentioned in Hobbes’ review. This tea just keeps going strong, infusion after infusion. I think I stopped after 10 or so even though it hadn’t slowed down yet. A wonderfully enjoyable tea. 

Alright then, onto the binners. It’s goodbye to the 2011 Gao Shan Zhai “Ancient Arbor” raw from Yunnan Sourcing, and the Autumn 2011 Three Peak from McIntosh Tea. No need to go into tasting notes. Maybe these are winners for other folks, but my garden will get more use from them than I will. 

There’s one, though, I think I may keep even though it scares the bejeezus out of me. But it’s just so damn perplexing and unique. It’s the 1998 Gan Xiang Jiu Yun purchased from ChaWang Shop (my only purchase from them). I think I’ve written about this one here before. The aromas from it are reminiscent of a make-up counter in a drug store in the 70’s, all granny face powder and cheap waxy lipstick, sometimes with a little hint of Bandaid from the first aid aisle. The leaf in this tea is low grade stuff, full of stripped-off leaf veins and twigs. Taste-wise it leans almost toward sour with a funky sweetish aftertaste that’s definitely not huigan. Honestly, I take only the tiniest sips from it just to learn what’s present, fearing what toxic chemicals might be in the mix. 

So I’d like to put a question out to you readers (the few still left – lol!). It’s a longshot, I know, but does anyone know of any chemicals that could be added to a cheap puerh that would give it that strange sweet aftertaste? I’m wondering if there was something being used back in the 90’s for this sort of thing. Also, being a no-name puerh it’s probably a longshot, but does anyone have any more information on this tea? It’s such a strange bird, I’m curious. Here’s what ChaWang Shop wrote about this tea, and the reason why I even bought it in the first place back in 2011:

This 400g aged raw puerh cake is little bit rare and interesting. Using Yunnan large leaf tea harvested in the late 1990s as material and storing in cool, dry place about 6 or 7 years. In 2004, some Kunming tea businessmen found this tea in Lincang, after two years - 2006, they made the tea into 400g cakes and 250g bricks.

The material is not select - leaves with long stalks. Open the cake, the leaf surface is shiny and smooth, that's a good sign, it means the tea is rich in pectin. The taste is very unique for raw puerh tea, a bit like 1990s aged oolong. Flavor of raisins and some dried fruits, sweet with comfortable aftertaste, the liquor has very nice orange brown color. Maybe loose leaves kept for a long time and later pressed to cake caused the taste so unique and different from other aged raw puerh tea. What a magical fusion!

1998 Gan Xiang Jiu Yun

A tale of two ban zhangs

I'm having fun pulling teas from the cabinet that I haven't tasted in a long time, checking on them to see how they're changing and evolving. It just so happened I randomly pulled a couple of similarly aged ban zhang teas to try this morning. One of these days I'll have to pull out all the ban zhang cakes for a full-on "Battle of the Ban Zhangs", but this morning it's just these two fellas. 

2010 Douji Ban Zhang “Pure Series”

In 2013 this Douji Ban Zhang was still plenty green in aroma. Most of my notes talk about the thickness of the soup, good energy in the mouth and some very mild huigan. By 2016 the aroma was developing more savory characteristics. One note says “earthy, not sweet, not woody”. I was still finding the soup to be of good thickness, coating the mouth well. I noted a mild bitterness, “mildly active in the mouth and throat, mild warming in the chest but not much else going on.”

This morning I revisited this one again. The aromas have definitely settled into the savory realm. My first reaction was salty butterscotch but without any sweetness to it. At times it would come across as a buttery scent, moving eventually to roasted mushrooms. The soup is still nicely thick. All throughout the session there was a persistent bitterness to the taste, but it was a mild, enjoyable bitterness and not off-putting. Nothing like the rough bitterness you sometimes get with young puerh. The tea is still mainly active in the mouth although it concentrates mostly at the center of the tongue. As the session wore on the energy of this tea spread a bit to the upper chest, but was mostly concentrated in the mouth. I kept hoping for some huigan with all that mild bitterness going on but really didn’t get much. Maybe just a smidgen, again concentrated mostly on the center of the tongue. I felt little-to-no qi with this tea. 

2011 Hai Lang Hao Lao Ban Zhang Gu Shu

In 2013 I found this tea to have good strength of aroma although still very green, and a very strong qi. I didn’t elaborate much more in my notes. 

This morning the aroma still has good strength to it. Like the Douji above, it’s a savory and not a sweet aroma. I often struggle to describe savory scents, often using language like “salty caramel but not sweet” or “butterscotch without the sweetness”. The tea soup is thick to the point of syrupy. I’m even surprised to see how it pours out over my tea tray, flowing in a syrupy way. It coats the mouth and throat so nicely. I get no bitterness in the taste, not even when I purposely push the steep. Still, this tea is very active and energetic not just in the mouth but spreading through the whole body. As the session continues its pulling both salivation in the mouth and perspiration throughout the body, with a menthol-like airiness in the throat and mouth. The qi is strong but diffuse and not concentrated or focused. There’s a little huigan going on but not a lot. 

Essence of Tea 2012 Banwei, Essence of Tea 2014 Du Quan, Best Tea House 2005 High Mountain Tea Brick

Hello again, and many thanks to the ones who have asked me to make this blog public again. I’d resisted until now. Why the change of heart? I guess it was time, and maybe also a little something to do with shocking craziness of the times. Fear is a funny thing. It makes people do crazy shit and believe crazy things. There are a lot of fearful people in the US right now. 

thé la résistance!

I have a confession. I got away from tea the past few years. Hardly drank it at all. Life got busy and complicated and there were other things that needed attending to. Also, I’ve never been the kind of person to drink tea all day, or who needs to have a cup of tea or coffee every morning (as shocking as this may be to some!). The only way I enjoy tea is by approaching it as a practice -- ‘listening’, essentially, to the act of making and drinking tea, noticing everything about it, appreciating it’s every nuance. There’s a reason it’s called “the way of tea.”

So it’s back to tea blogging for me. It’ll be interesting to see how this unfolds. 

Today I pulled three cakes (technically, two cakes and one brick) from the cabinet. No fancy photos for this post. My excuse? I’m rusty. :)  

First up, the 2012 Bangwei from Essence of Tea. No previous tasting notes on this one, and I don’t keep track of when I first seal up a tea, but this one has likely been sealed for many years. Maybe even from when I first got it. The aroma of the wet leaves after the first rinse shows a somewhat fruit-forward meadow. It’s not sugar-sweet but more of that astringent, almost citris-like sweetness. Aroma from the second rinse gives way to a deeper, rounder, plummier sweetness. I tend to think the first-rinse aroma is more about airing off the top-note volatiles while the second rinse gives better hints at what may develop with age, generally. 

The tea liquor in the cup smells wonderful with a solid sweetness to it. The mouthfeel is creamy thick, a characteristic I find (and appreciate) in so many Essence of Tea teas.  As I drink this one a warming energy grows deep in the chest and down the throat, accompanied by an almost-menthol coolness in the throat. As the session lengthens the warmth reaches all the way down to my toes. This is one of those teas you drink with your whole body. 

The aromas of this tea stay solidly strong throughout the session, and by the 4th steep it’s pulling plenty of salivation in the mouth. There isn’t much in the way of mind-affecting qi, just a subtle note there. This tea seems to be much more about the deep, strong energy in the body. 

Next up is the 2014 Du Quan from Essence of Tea, which I see was also in the line-up in my last post here, back in 2017. It’s got a few more years on it now, sitting at close to 7 years which can sometimes be an awkward age for a puerh. But it showed so strongly before, I’m curious to see how it’s doing now. Right out of the gate, the aroma after the first rinse is a ‘wow’. So complex and sweet. Lots of sweet fruit with an almost floral note to it. Strong, deep and complex. This is what I call a perfume. The dry-down in the cup echoes the aroma from the wet leaves. I’d wear this scent on my wrist if I could capture it somehow. 

The aroma from the second rinse brings out the base notes, a meaty sweet mushroom scent bringing a grounding to the sweet fruit of the first rinse. Deep red fruit notes are present as the leaves dry down. For a seven year old cake it seems to have leap-frogged that awkward adolescent stage. The mouthfeel is very silky, lighter when hot and thickening up as the liquor cools, filling the mouth all around. The taste is smooth and agreeable. Clean. 

The second steep brings a bit of bitterness to the forefront lending some grip in the mouth. This could be due to my using too much leaf in the gaiwan, but it’s not a bad bitterness. More a testament to the underlying structure of the tea, I think. As the session wears on a slow-growing but wonderfully relaxing qi takes hold. There’s plenty of huigan to enjoy, as well (returning sweetness). Overall a beautiful and well-rounded tea that I expect will get better and better with age. This one is a keeper for the long haul. 

Last in the line-up this morning is the 2005 High Mountain Tea Brick, purchased on the recommendation of the proprietor of Best Tea House in Richmond, BC. I can’t find my prior tasting notes on this one but I know it well. I’ve learned to be careful with it. It packs a punch on several levels. In the past I always found it to have a whopper of a mind-buzzing qi effect along with a stomach-eating effect on my digestion. Curious to see what it’s up to now.

I notice this one has a broken seal from a tasting years ago, meaning it’s been unsealed for some time. The aroma from the first rinse is initially all rough hay but then gives way almost immediately to a candy sweetness which quickly weakens and fades. I suspect, from experience, this quick-to-weaken character is owing to the fact of it’s having been unsealed for some time. That’s one of the things I love best about sealing my teas, it does a great job of concentrating aroma, in particular. This is also why I started to seal my teas in the first place, because they seemed to be weakening quickly (especially aroma) from storage in the pumidor despite the fact that my pumidor is stuffed to the gills with barely any room for more. I love what sealing the teas does for them. 

The dry down aroma from the bottom of the cup after the first rinse has some interesting malty notes coming up, along with that yummy candy sweetness. With a second rinse the aroma of the wet leaves takes on a brioche-like sweet baked goods scent. Interesting and nice. As usual, this tea packs a powerful mind-blurring qi punch right from the first sips. The mouthfeel is on the thin side. I love EoT’s careful curating of mouthfeel and find myself missing it when it’s not present in a tea. 

The third steeping has the aroma turning decidedly savory with spicy top notes. Again, the aroma weakens quickly. This afternoon I plan to set this tea brick in the pumidor with the humidity cranked up a tiny bit for a week or so, then I’ll seal it back up to store again. Taste-wise, this tea has definitely lost the stomach-eating roughness it once had (thank god), though I’m always careful to brew this one conservatively given my experience with it.