Xiaguan Elegant Frisbee 2008

I'm back into the groove of drinking pu erh again. Today's bing has something of a toy like attraction to it, I say that because holding this cake after the chubby, flakey Ding Xing has really intrigued me. The iron compression so typical of Xiaguan has rendered the leaves into a tea frisbee! It's hard and well defined, it's edges are cutting and sharp. I have no doubt that if I were to venture down to the park today I could let loose and this baby would fly.

Fearing that my cha dao would be repelled by the tight weave of the tiny leaves I plunged into it and found that a 15 gram lump easily came off, (in a Homer style) mmm tobacco. Calculating one third I plopped it into my pot admiring the silver tips as it went in. One quick rinse and off we go.

I have had some quite aromatic teas in the last week or so so I was expecting some more fireworks out of my fragrance cup but there wasn't a whole lot going on first up. The smell reminded me of something from my childhood, hot orange cordial. The second infusion woke up the Benson and Hedges in this tea and it suddenly become very, very tobacco. It's orange hue soup was a little more rough and ready than I was expecting but led itself into a very interesting huigan that gripped my tongue.

I pushed the brewing a little further, a little brave considering how brutish the tea was. The outcome was an even heavier tobacco kick with more perfume, a quick cooling sensation on the lips and a much stronger huigan. I'm quite amused by the gripping feeling on my tongue. It doesn't last forever though, I'm not sure of how many infusions I made but my 1.5 litre bottle of Evian is nearly done.

How would such a tea age? I am most curious. I was given possible sneak preview of how my belolved but rather scary Nada Bulang would turn out by sampling Nada's Heng Li Chang Bu Lang. I know very little about Xiaguan teas and I would love to know of a sample that would give me a heads up on how Father Time would treat this tea.

A very worthwhile tea that is full of character in it's form and also in it's soup. I mean, isn't pu erh just great? It's an almost endless journey of discovery.

** It is at this point that I realise that I have already, in fact, blogged this tea in sample form. It turns out that I didn't really care for it much first time around. Perhaps my ability to appreciate tea has grown over the last year or so, or perhaps I just had an off session. I am certainly enjoying my life a lot more now than then and that could have a huge impact on how much I bond with my tea **