puyuan wrote:Having my expectations defied by this weird session, I decided to try another CYH Yiwu that was stored in Guangzhou, from 2007 spring, a supposedly nice production I had never seen named anywhere.
It was an even weirder surprise. The dry leaves look very oxidized but also very clean. I was expecting an elegant, sweet, energetic Yiwu guafengzhai-ish tea. The brew does taste clean, but way older than 7 seven years, and has quite a bit of camphor. Because of the surprise factor, I was disappointed at first, but it won me over quickly as I adjusted to what it really was. The material used is good and because of the "accelerated" and nice aging this tea is very worth its price. It will taste like a 20+ year tea in no time, just not what I'd expect from its area of origin. There's already some aged psychoactivity (which I suspect was absent from the young tea). I know the storage was wet and all, but I have to wonder if they used aged maocha to press this guy?
i'm not surprised if they did blend in some aged, or some light to mid fermentation tea leaves to nucleate the process, after all most high end tea factory owners are superb tea blenders/tasters, and often not "simple". not that blending is bad though.