Xiaguan Tea Factory

…so I let the leaves dry overnight and did one more 2-minute-ish steep (the third one) this morning. Strange things happening…

First, this is getting darker with every steep. It’s almost ebony in color instead of letting up.

Second, I’m sitting peacefully in my happy chair enjoying a quiet house with the heater not running for a change and I hear this funny ringing sound coming from the end table. Specifically, from my tea mug. Warily, I pick it up. Yep, my cup is fizzing. High pitched snap, crackle, pop. Does pu-erh do that?

OK, even if it’s wrong, who doesn’t want to taste-test magical-colored ebony fizzing tea? Maybe it was the “bubbly” notion influencing my taste buds, but … yep … cola flavor.

This wins my prize for most humorously bizarre tea tasting experience. Honorable mention, anyway.

You experts would snicker at the clumsy and inelegant way I handle this tuocha; impatient with all the shaving and chipping it takes, today I just broke the confounded thing into manageable clumps and put them in my trusty Mason jar.

But the nice thing about this is it takes “clumsy and inelegant” without batting an elephant eyelash. Prime steeping time appears to be right at the 2 minute mark; results in a lovely, almost syrupy, medium-dark cuppa sweetness.

The fact that I giggle at the tea lump and think of elephant dung every time I open the packet probably means I’m not mature enough to drink this!

Shaved off what I thought looked like 3 cups’ worth this morning and gave it a cautious 2 1/2 minute steep. It does not taste the spare part of an elephant. Sweet and a little earthy. Pretty pleasant. I’ll give it two trunks up.

For the full review and pictures, see: www.southern-sips.blogspot.com

There was plenty for me to learn concerning this tea, most importantly of it potency. This was my first Xiaguan tea, and I guess they are known for their strength. No words could describe or indicate the pungency and bitterness from this tea. I prepared it with the same amount of leaves as my other puerhs and oolongs – enough to cover most of the bottom of the gaiwan. This I found out was not such a great idea! My mouth was insulted with its bitterness and my stomach began to speak to me as well, because of this dreadful brew. After trying several infusions, there was no found “mellowed/sweet tea”, again promised by the retailer. This almost discouraged me altogether pursuing this tea at this time, maybe more time is needed to allow this sheng to age.

I must say that the owner of the online shop, was most helpful and willing to guide me to this tea’s sweetness and mellowed taste. It only took me a couple more settings with this tea to finally get what was desired. The trick all came down to lessening the amount of tea used. It really only took about 1/4 the leaves of what I normally use and shortening my steep to 5 seconds instead of 15, to bring out the best from this Tibetan brick. There really is a sweetness and very nice savoriness to this tea, once all the right conditions are met. I’m glad that I now do not have to wait a few more years to try this one again – it will certainly not last that long now!

Bought from Ebay store ‘Pot in Pot’ run by seller badtzmaru1216 item number 300358197995. Paid $6.99 for 100g {that’s 3.5oz} on Sept. 15, 2012 and it arrived Oct 12 {they actually shipped on Sep 18} total of 25 days transit time directly from China. Probably be a long time before I actually taste this, as it’s going into my stash to age a bit.

I encourage anyone wanting the puerhs and other ‘exotic’ chinese teas to buy directly from China. It’s more about patience than price. If you have the time, you can get great tea for a fraction of what some uber-upscale tea vendor in the US will charge. Although, the US vendor will change the name slightly, and put the tea in awesome packaging, you WILL DEFINITLY pay more per ounce, and not know where it came from or much about it. Besides, buying it directly, and having a parcel show up from a foreign country will impress the post man and you’ll develope a reputation as a tea snob ever so much faster LOL! :D

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This is a higher grade of tuo, but the price is not too much steeper. I really like these, their packaging is sooo cute!! If you buy any much older than 2007, the price goes up a lot though :(

So this one little unloved and unwanted tuocha was sitting on the shelves at Fox Farm this week … locally, you can probably count the people who know what to do with it on one hand. So at a whopping $2.39 clearance price, what was I to do but adopt it?

I’m making jokes about people who don’t know what to do with tuocha, but in truth, I am one. I’ve just graduated from total ignorance to knowing what it is. And I still grin at the prospect of chipping petrified leaves off something that looks unfortunately like an elephant dropping. (Sorry! I’ll try to be classier from here on.)

So, I very gingerly whacked off about a teaspoonful of leaf this morning, did a quickie rinse once the water had boiled, and did my first steep at 30 seconds. Too weak for me.

At a minute, it was a nice caramel color, a little minerally and a a little sweet. A really different personality for somebody who is dependent on stout Irish Breakfast to wake up in the morning, but still pretty nice.

I’m on the second steep, this time 1:30 and it’s darkened in color. Mineral taste has largely washed out and I’m getting a good, rye-bready vibe. The rest of the pot is going into the fridge for an afternoon treat.

Bumbling preparation aside, this has been an interesting and inexpensive little educational junket!

Thought I’d update this tasting log. For the last few weeks I’ve been doing all of my brewing in a gaiwan instead of a yixing. After drink a couple of steeps I reviewed my previous tasting note from about a year ago. This tea really seems to be aging, the color of the dry leaves have changed from a green hue to a very shu like brown appearance. As I mentioned before, the leave material is heavily processed meaning that the brick is made up of material in tiny pieces almost like it was run through a mulching lawn mower , but it still brews a very clean orange cup ut will gather a bit of sedimentation in the bottom of the cup. One thing that I noted this time that I did not mention before is the smokey aroma of the wet leaves. The astringency is all but gone and the tea is now much smoother than what I recall and has lost a lot of the young sheng characteristics. Not sure but I’m guessing the mellowing has to do with the size of the material in the brick. Also the leaves seem to give up after just 4 or 5 infusions but those first five are very enjoyable, a smooth feeling hat envelops the mouth, with apricot present and some flavors of a tippy black tea. I’m finishing with my sixth infusion now doing a very long 2+ minute steep to see if I can get just one last cup out of it. Nope.

Enjoying this tea for the second time. The first thing about this cake is that the brick itself and the leaves have a very Japanese tea appearance as far as size and texture but of course the color of the leaves and the compression is distinctly puerh. Being a sheng pu this tea brews up in a crystal clear orange color that reminds me of a maple tree changing colors in the fall… interestingly, the liquor matches almost exactly the shirt I have on today. Flavor wise it has a lot in common with a Royal Phoenix Stone Oolong that I am familiar with but obviously with a puerh twist. Heavy tones of fruit, specifically citrus, almost pithy in the first infusions. Also keeping with the younger sheng characteritics there is a fair amount of astringency. Deeper down upon aerating the liquor in the mouth there are definite fungal tones, mushroons. As always I am amazed at the variety of flavors that can be attained over different varieties, growing locations, processing and even different infusions of the same tea during the same session. This tea is one of the ones that calms me down, and makes me contemplative. It’s not a “wowsa” kind of cup but it is definitely something I look forward to drinking for years into the future. In fact I can see ordering more in the future.

Wet leaves are showing heavy aromas of smoke and tobacco and that transfers to the tea itself. Still slightly bitter but really heavy on smoke and tobacco. I find it, ultimately, a onedimensional tea without much complexity. It has a stong ‘huigan’ but accompanied with dryness in your mouth.
After 8 infusions the flavour profile doesn’t change at all and starts to become slightly boring.
I cannot see myself drinking this tea regularly cause of its signature Xiaguan smoke and simpleness. I like my teas lively and complex even if they are more bitter. I tasted the ’09 version of this tea and liked it a bit more, go figure!

The rainy weather today put me in the mood for a bit of puerh. However, my mom did a bit of tidying up, so it took a while to locate this. After describing what it was, she brought me a plastic food container sealed with brown packaging tape with a label written in black marker: “Tea Block”.

My prying off skills are next to nonexistent, so I ended up with a fair amount of tea dust. Popped it in my teeny 50ml yixing. The dark orange tea soup tasted a bit woody, with this minty thing going on, and somewhat sweet. No smokiness that I can determine. To my untrained palate, this was pretty likeable, and with the price (less than $5 for 250g) I don’t have to worry about knocking it about with my bad brewing. However for some reason after I drink this my stomach acts up, so maybe it needs to be set aside for a little more time for me to be able to handle it. :( Pity, I really liked how it tastes now.

Very drinkable for a young sheng. Leaves have a pronounced barn smell which transforms into forest scents after brewing. Astringency is very high which is to be expected from a young tuo but it isn’t off putting. Liquor is colored green with a slight trace of orange.
I steeped this one with water slightly below boiling point as the young sheng would be destroyed with boiling water