Tea, tea all around but not a drop to drink...

I have been unusually quiet on the blog since the start of last month. The reason for this is quite simple, I just don't have any new tea to review I'm afraid. It's not that I haven't ordered any, in fact, I have been waiting almost two months for one shipment of Xiaguan samples to arrive (something which happens quite often when shipping from China). I also have a considerable collection of tea now and I am busy making my way through my tea mountain before stocking up on new teas. I'm also waiting out for Nadacha to stock it's 2010 bings of which I wish to buy a couple of each I think.

As I'm typing this I am happily finishing off my '93 7542, very nice it is too!

2007 Mengku Lao Ban Zhang mini brick (YS)

The story of this tea brick is as repetitive as a Hollywood blockbuster, an expedition travels to Ban Zhang and picks leaves off old trees that were cut back in the Cultural Revolution. As if I haven't heard that one before!

The brick itself is quite 'cute', small in size and very light in the hand. There is a warning that the bricks might not reach the 100 gram mark due to inconsistent pressing, mine came in at 81 grams, a long way short of the century!

The pressing is indeed very light and it was easy to pry off a nice chunk for my pot without too much bludgeoning, something I am quite guilty of in the past

After the rinse the pot still produced a strong legume aroma with a slightly smokey background. It was more reminiscent of a 2008 or 2009 tea. The soup was still yellow and thin, the initial flavour was exactly how I expected it to be, not too potent and still quite fresh.

The lack of potency caused me to adjust my brewing times longer to try to extract more character. This improved things bringing out some more bitterness, a little lemon rind and some apricot tones to the huigan aftertaste. It troubles me though that I have to really beat the flavours out of the leaf. In my mind a good tea will happily give you it's complexities and retain a nice energetic feeling to it. By brewing longer you might produce more layers to a tea but they still seem rather dull in the mouth.

Well, it didn't cost a lot, about £8 for the brick so that'll work out at around about 50p per session, the price of a Twix. This brick will most definitely be moved into my everyday tea group, and it's not going to be at the front of that queue either.

Nothing to do in Llandudno

The North Welsh coast in February, nothing to drink but pots of PG Tips and fighting off seagulls the size of velociraptors.

2007 Pu Jing Hao Yi Wu (Sampan Tea)

Reams of smoke and heavy, heavy tobacco are what this tea is about. It's like drinking a dark potent oak casked whisky and the red grape huigan aftertaste is fills the mouth especially around the lower palette.

At first I found this tea to be rather too much but I have grown to enjoy it when I want a dense and rewarding session. Sometimes when you revisit a tea it seems to offer nothing, all the attributes you remember don't show up but this tea has never failed. It's quite a brute, and I like that.

Just a quick review, I have herbal formulas to commit to memory. Pictures courtesy of my Hipstamatic vintage camera, take the colours with a pinch of salt!

2009 Zhi Ming Du Lao Ban Zhang (Chinese Kung Fu Tea Art)

Yes, another week and another Ban Zhang tea, it's been a re-occuring theme of mine recently and I'm not done yet. I purchased this tea following a rather glowing review by Adam on his Sip Tip blog and it sounded rather too good to miss out on. It has come at a cost though as it's the most expensive Ban Zhang I have I believe coming in at £23 ($36) per bing but the bing itself is only 100 grams.

I enjoy bludgening the cuteness out of the tiny bing and am left with two fascinating layers that really display the fine spindly nature of the leaf (no pictures I'm afraid he says cursing his Olympus).

The rinsed leaf has a somewhat vegetal aroma to it, shades of Japan. The first infusion is light and green with a good vibrancy on the tongue and is absent from any obvious bitterness. Nothing too captivating here yet.

The second infusion is more potent and thick which retains the vibrancy on the tongue tip and also has a curious numbing of the rear tongue as the huigan issues forth. It certainly fills the mouth with flavours and watering reactions, superbly complex!

By now I'm more relaxed and enjoying this tea's lingering, multi faceted huigan. I would compare it with Yunnan Sourcing's chun qing as both give similar experiences but, memory allowing, I'd give the edge to the zhi ming du as it's complex without going overboard with the perfumed sweetness. One must bear in mind though that it's almost double the price!

I'm glad I've tried this tea and that I've got 95 grams left over for future visits. Yes, it was expensive but I have spent a lot more on yancha in the past. I just wish it had a bit more bitter kick to it.

Happy Chinese New Year fellow tea people

For may this year bring us much mao cha and good company to drink it with...

I just don't get shu

It's always a pleasure to receive little freebie's in tea orders, long may the vendors feel obliged to throw in goodies! Today's free hit was a small 100g cooked pu erh cake, quite attractive and 'cute' to behold, so I thought I'd give it a spin.

The aroma of the bing was rather lacklustre and reminded me of cardboard, the comparison to the sheng pu erh cake I received in the same order is not even on the same planet. Out with my cha dao and off with it's head! Separating nicely I congratulate myself for some fine handy work when something catches my eye. Is it a chip of stone? Hard to say as it could well be a shard of glass, either way I don't want it in my tea. I start to wonder if the leaves were swiped up off the floor at some point?

That's scuppered my mood for this tea I'm afraid. For sure you find odd things in pu erh from time to time and I remember seeing a picture recently of a cigarette filter from another blog that escapes me for now. A couple of rinses and I still give this tea a go but except for one small hit of huigan to me it just tastes bland and like the other ripe pu erh I've drunk. Until proven wrong I just don't get this!

Is this just me?