1997 8582

To me, the flavors depart from the realm of agriculture and nature. The flavors no longer taste like tea to me, they taste like the basement in which the tea was stored. Full of talc, basement, salt peter, attic, wet cardboard, old paper, medicine, and grandmothers, I feel as though these flavors lead me on one of my father’s genealogy expeditions or a trip into an historic copper mine shaft than through a sub-tropical forest or a farm of any kind. I do appreciate the woody, ginseng-like herbal qualities, but always end up vacillating between an appreciation of those flavors and a distaste for the damp, musty ones heralding a basement storage. I think I was a little too far gone to really focus on the flavors when I had the 1985 Menghai 8582 with Tim at The Mandarin’s Tea Room, but have a pouch of 1980s Menghai 79092 Loose Ripe which perplexes me in the same way for its super-heavy talc, grandmother, medicine and basement flavors.

Everyone has their own palate, suited to certain flavors and textures. Obviously, with aged sheng puerh being very popular, there are quite a few people for whom the flavor profile of this type of stored tea matches their palate. However, I think I am more attracted to the young, fresh, and fruit-like earth tones of teas such as young sheng puerh, certain oolongs, whites and dark green japanese teas. All that said, I’m still excited to try the other two examples in this tasting to see what variations in storage condition can elicit from the tea.

Full blog post: http://tea.theskua.com/?p=387

I’ve had this tea aging in my cupboard for about 4 years already. The last time I tried it (2 years ago) I remember the flavors being quite vibrant, but I thought I’d give it another try this afternoon.
Parameters: water just under boiling; infusion times 45s, 20s, 25s, 30s, 35s, and so on, for about 12 infusions. I filled up about 1/4 of my gaiwan with leaf.

Dry leaf: Wet hay, a little musty, grassy notes.
Wet leaf: Leather, cedar, loam, finishing with caramel and vanilla notes.
“ChaQi”: A surprising feeling! Heat, all along the neck, and a flushed face. First sadness and nostalgia (infusion 3) followed by calm (infusion 6).

This tea tastes exactly like it smells. The first few infusions yielded an earthy, pleasantly dirty flavor with an utterly creamy mouthfeel. There is no bitterness. As you drink it, you can imagine you are in a cabin in the woods, and that it is raining outside. Infusions 4, 5 yielded new mineral notes. Infusions 6, 7, 8 became increasingly sweet, with the distinct aftertaste of wild blueberries along the sides of the tongue. I look forward to this tea becoming even smoother as it ages.