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Oh my belly. While I love upfront bitterness, this has a kind of flat alkalinity that my body can’t handle. Five years of EoT storage is apparent in the dark, dry leaf (plus one year in Mediterranean California climate) with notes of forest floor, grain and very faint smoke. The warm leaf smells spicy with pronounced baked bread, some type of citrus (maybe pomelo), licorice root, impression of cherry. Rinsing changes the profile into something very pungent and vegetal. Parsley and celery root come to mind, root vegetables in general, more forest floor, dark soil clinging to tree roots.

From there… eh… flat alkalinity is upsetting my stomach. Thin body, tastes are… eh… thin with that same forest floor, moving later to something more tobacco-leathery but still ever-thin; mild, diffuse bitterness. Mellow aged aroma with a touch of cherry-prune. Light camphor feeling. Aftertaste later is citric sour. This tea is giving me a drowsing, heavy limb effect similar to the other Bangwai sheng I’ve tried though too dopey for my liking.

Long Lan Xu, back to the crock with you.

I’m supposed to be making carnitas.

Right now, this sheng has me kicked back in my chair with my feet on the bed. I’m transported back to Akron, in the old house, winter. Living room, French doors closed, wood-burning stove roaring, tomato soup bubbling away on top, the sound of Skyward Sword in the background. Cocooned in a blanket. My ears are burning from the heat. So drowsy and comfortable, that feeling as you succumb to the fading in of sleep, reality slowly stipples away at your periphery, defocusing your gaze, the fire crackles, eyelids lower, dreamtime seamlessly folds over the diminishing edges of this moment. I think about the wrapping of a puer cake, everything points to the beenghole. A nice package.

It’s difficult to describe the actual tea when the qi is so distinctive. This is very close in profile to the 2016 Bang Wai Gu Cha I tried last night. Much less sweet, which I prefer, more balanced, spicier, brighter. Good returning sweetness and longer lasting, more distinctive fruity peach-mango-apricot aftertaste. The oiliness isn’t as pronounced but it’s felt later lining my tongue. Not yet sure about longevity. Very nice for a young one and arguably worth the tenths of a cent more per gram :P Might cake. Can’t go wrong at $0.14/g. Edit: Will cake this weekend. Please don’t buy them out.

I’m having deja vu. I’ve typed this note before.

First sheng from Yunnan Craft.

2016 Bang Wai Gu Cha seems like a good deal for the $23 I paid for a 200g beeng (now sold out). Impressive dry and warmed leaf aroma with a heavy and tangy mixture of toffee-plum-strawberry and faint aged florals. Balanced toffee/ripe papaya like sweetness that’s sticky but not cloying. Full sip thins nicely on the swallow. Tingling, mouthwatering, oily long after swallow until the end of my session, some camphor/menthol, very light bitterness and astringency. At one point, some chili pepper heat lit up my mouth. Light fruity aftertaste. Later steeps fade into lightly sweet hay-rice porridge?

The longevity of this tea is mid-ranged; combined with some relaxing, head-clouding qi and low caffeine, this made for a pleasant evening brew. Plenty of 2 leaf and bud sets with no obvious oxidation.

Not complex in taste but what it does, it does very well. For me, it needs some acidity to brighten things up a bit. I’d direct those newer to sheng toward this sweet daily drinker.

First sheng from Farmerleaf.

Of all the Jingmai sheng I’ve tried in the past few weeks, this is the most subtle. The dry leaf aroma is bright and fruity-floral-honey, much stronger than the liquor fragrance which is something close to osmanthus but savory-musky. The profile is light-bodied (becoming medium with longer, later steeps) and oily, very clean, highly mineral with a very active salty mouthfeel. At first it is soothing then plenty of young woody astringency and soft, cactus-like bitterness emerge. Fresh, golden straw glinting in the sun with mild orchid florals — this isn’t giving me a headache like other perfumed Jingmai. Quiet honey-orchid-brown sugar aftertaste. It takes a few steeps, but a stevia returning sweetness presents at my sinuses before emerging from deeper in my throat as brown sugar. Mildly menthol cooling in the chest.

I don’t want to fault this tea for anything, but the caffeine content is much too high for me. The energy is soothing at first until the caffeine kicks in and I become scattered and shakey. Otherwise, this is a fantastic, subtle tea. I’d love to experience the development of this tea over the years. I’d highly recommend Spring 2018 Jingmai Gulan to more experienced drinkers.

Starts off with a great mouthfeel, very viscous, rolls around. It feels on my tongue like what I used to call a ‘sea cucumber’ toy felt in my hand. Unfortunately I can’t find a picture online of the toy. Leaves a clean swallow followed by lots of side-tongue tingling that later turns pleasantly metallic. Astringency is controlled. Overall, very mild vegetal-dry grass like taste accompanied by bitterness that is also controlled, though it does become more pronounced. Soft and yeasty, honeyed plum-melon aftertaste is light and short. It reminds a bit of some Yiwu flavors. Peppery warmth in throat. Thin stevia-like returning sweetness sits at my sinuses. I feel in the future a lot of camphor will come out in this blend as I can in its young age already feel it in my ears, throat and chest. Sweating, calm, tight feeling in my head like there are dry florals hiding in the tea. Edit: That tight feeling later developed into a headache. It’s a good tea that in its current state doesn’t jive with my constitution.

As far as the leaf, one is still olive green; another noticeably browner, my guess is aged or autumn leaf or maybe even wild material. Some leaves, like oolong, possess oxidation along the serrated leaf edges. It all looks healthy and somewhat stemmy.

Delicate in taste yet strong feeling in the body (acidic in the gut), certainly a clean tea. Good tea for stepping up from more introductory sheng. Not my bag but I’m happy to sit on the rest of this sample for several more years. Realistically, it won’t last that long.

Fun fact: one half of the wrapper art is tattooed across my shoulders.

Theme of the teatime: make the best of what’s available.

Two full packages of this to burn through, one from my aunt and the other from my work father. It makes a good cold brew 3 bags to a pint overnight. Tangy rosehips with mellow interjections of floral, woody cinnamon, perhaps earthy herbaceousness from the passionflower. Nothing more.

Speaking of work father, next weekend I will be packing up my belongings to live with him and his wife for an indefinite period of time so my housemate can return home. I’ve house/dog-sat for them many times, gone over for dinner and work parties but this will be, um, new, living with them.

I miss things. Such a mood right now. RHCP, Venice Queen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s86rJvMIS0

Theme of the meantime: make the best of what’s available.

June 2019 harvest, January 2020 grind

I am inexperienced with matcha. No sieve, no scoop, no bowl. My only tool is a bamboo whisk. It’s like when I started gongfu brewing and was using a mason jar to brew in and a fork to strain the leaves as I poured the tea into another mason jar. I got good results that way. In the same manner, I feel like I’m getting good results with matcha using only the whisk and a glass condiment bowl. Frothy and smooth, silky, always in suspension.

I preferred using water off the boil instead of water temperature as low as 150?F. Off the boil produced a more deeply aromatic cup and more bitterness. The taste seemed earthy, almost like cacao, with a deep and dark grassy umami. The sip was semi-sweet moving to a fast, spreading bitterness on the swallow.

The experience of drinking matcha is a big adjustment to my palate. I couldn’t pick up any nuances in flavor. I still so greatly enjoyed the 25g over only a week that I ordered another 100g. This matcha was really a perfect morning drink. The taste was bracing enough to wake up my senses and it was surprisingly kind on my stomach. I barely noticed the caffeine buzz because it was so dang smooth and long-lasting. That’s what really drew me into consuming the entirety of the bag so quickly.

This deep baked baozhong hits the senses strikingly like a qilan rock oolong, though it exhibits more of the grassy/plant stem/banana leaf greenness of Taiwanese oolongs than a light-roasted Wuyi qilan can offer. Rich milk chocolate and caramel aroma of the dry leaf, with hints of charred wood and dill, yields to the roast and spice bread after warming and rinsing. The strength of the tea lies in its dense and heady chocolate and floral aromatics which are less expressed as pure flavor. There is some alkalinity from the roast in the first few steeps and pleasing astringency throughout. Roasty, floral and mineral sweet with a peach impression. Lingering fragrance in the mouth and light yet long banana leaf and sugared peach gummi aftertaste that later hints at buttery osmanthus. Somewhat cooling, alpine feel.

Deeply relaxing tea, so much that I forewent trying the remainder of my sample both western and grandpa. This tea lends itself very well to evening gongfu sessions. Either the caffeine content is low and/or the high, creamy florals lull me into not noticing or caring.

All through this week into my days off on Sunday and Monday, the weather should be cool and cloudy with some rain. This is the perfect spring weather to sample my other baozhong oolong of varying roast levels and to sipdown the last of the pure green stuff I have.

Song pairing: Placebo — Haemoglobin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuvD4d80vJ0
Shoot, maybe all of the Black Market Music album. One of those nights.

Dropping this here. The handwriting of a special tea friend is difficult to read ;-P I thought the label said ‘2003 Mengku 7542’ but Steepster came up empty. With some knowledge of who this came from and a quick internet search, I’m almost positive it’s ‘2003 Menghai 7542.’ If my assumption is incorrect let me know. Somehow I’ve managed to drink through a whole bag of this pu without logging it. Sipdown it is.

Red-orange-gold-hay tea, not muddy dark. The lightness of the body took several steeps for me to register. Very clean taste with subtleties that lie beyond the smokey fireplace and a dry peaty, woody bitterness that leaves my tongue tingling. The feeling is almost effervescent in its prickliness, like tiny pop-pop-pops. The tangy/acidic fruity tone of this tea reminds me of currant jam and cooked cranberries. Very light baked bread, rocky crag and clean storage flavors. The camphor hints at its cooling presence in the back of the mouth before making its strength known in that lovely warming/cooling sensation I love in my ears. Each inhale cools my whole mouth and I’m left with that dry smoke and bitterness. Lacks pronounced cha qi but makes up for it in its aged profile.

I get it. This tea is nice. I would guess more years of storage will smooth out the acidity and tannic drying quality. Gonna need some water after this, though.

Thank you <3

Song pairing: Sierra Ferrell — In Dreams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fPqmceCf90

Song pairing: Darkside — Heart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h7jfUUSj3M
Ethereal nature of jasmine combined with the cold and rainy front approaching quickly this morning. I better mow the lawn right now.

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I can’t recall what I was drinking or eating. I remember the intoxication, though.

She sat at the table next to me, both of us seeking respite, tucked away in the rear section of the tea house away from the ant-like movement of the tourists throughout the ferry building. I commented on the aroma escaping in wispy fingers from her gaiwan. We made eye contact and I was floored by the beauty that radiated from within her. She wore jasmine in her hair, plucked from somewhere in the city on her way to this quiet moment. In a style of interaction that I realize now will never happen in a post-pandemic timeline, she offered her next pour to me. I put a stranger’s cup to my lips and drank her perfume, supposedly the finest jasmine tea in the world.

Foolish decisions leave lasting impressions.

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I found in the kitchen a large tin of this tea of unknown age; old, that’s for sure (the address on the bag in the tin is for the original Imperial Tea Court location on Powell Street in San Francisco), but it’s still very good. Best western. Very strong jasmine can get chemical tasting if brewed grandpa style.