5 Tasting Notes

90

Taste wise there’s some healthy kuwei and a rather complex northern, sweet floral honey profile that covers the entire cavity and gets even sweeter as the session moves on. The flavors are accompanied by equally perfumy, slightly less intense complex aromas playing around a central honey theme that stay in the cup for quite a while.
Decent above-average dynamics, great stamina and fast huigan leading to one of the deepest, most intense and complex aftertastes I’ve experienced in a while, lingering on the palate for more than 20 mins. There are some somatics as well, sneaking up up the cheeks, moving around the nose, the eyes and ears, apart from that I didn’t notice (or miss) any noteworthy stimulative or calming effects.
I managed to get the last of these cakes last year but would happily buy more if they were still available – lovely stuff.

Preparation
5 g 3 OZ / 80 ML

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70

I bought two of these cakes some time ago, they don’t seem to have aged that much in the last 10 years even though the wrappers have some brown stains.
I keep this short here. This tea reminds me a lot of some late 8653 non-FT Xiaguans (2012, 2013) – a tad less smoky, but with a fresher, more herbal taste profile. There’s not much complexity but quite a bit of bitterness and astringency and the aftertaste lingers on for more than 10 minutes. Overall a rather powerful and pungent sheng with decent viscosity and mouthfeel and if you have a soft spot for the average fresh XG tuo or something of that sort and don’t mind a bit of smoke and …loads of caffeine this could make for a decent daily drinker.
Back into storage for a couple more years.

Preparation
5 g 3 OZ / 80 ML

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84

2016 ‘Han Gu Di’ Old Arbor [YS via greenteaguru]

For some reason I couldn’t wait to get my hands on some of this stuff. Brewed up 5g of the great looking leaves in one of my favorite high-fired 80ml zhu ni pots. The session starts out pretty mellow with quite a bit of sweetness, the main theme are florals and honey, leaving a complex honey-ish aroma in the empty cup after the first few steeps; the outside of the pot smells of my ex’s skin :lol: . The tip of my tongue and my gums slightly tingle through the entire session, my empty stomach feels OK, steep by steep there’s more bitterness coming through, but the florals and honey are remarkably steadfast and turn into a long, intense aftertaste – pretty impressive. I got more than 10 interesting steeps out of those 5g and could easily smell the aroma of the 12th steep from 2ft away – not too bad.
This tea reminds me a lot of Honza’s 2015 Old Tree Mengsong but I’d prefer this one over the more affordable, slightly sweeter (candy) and thicker but less durable and complex chawangpu.
If I miss anything here it’d be dynamics, there are just no twists and turns to talk about but I guess I’ll get a cake anyway.

Preparation
5 g 3 OZ / 80 ML
mrmopar

I got one aging away…

tanluwils

This one has good depth from the start. I think you made a good choice.

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Bio

I bought my first serious tea aged 15, used to live and work in Darjeeling and Nepal for some years and been to Yunnan a couple times in the late 90s and early ’00s.
I still drink more Himalayan teas and sheng pu than anything else and love to experiment with all things tea.

Location

Behind a steaming vessel

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