Kuala Lumpur visit

[HifideliTea]

I am in Kuala Lumpur this week. Went to a number of tea shops, visited the home of a tea merchant and fueled the economy by buying some teas back.

1) Visited a tea shop in the basement of a shopping mall that has many tea shops chains around the city. They were also slow cooking and selling tea eggs and the smell of the eggs totally overwhelmed the teas that I was tasting....bad.
The first brew of a 2011 raw spring gushu was bitter. Other brews were not terribly impressive, though they have a 06 that was quite drinkable. I suspect their storage is a problem as most teas have a slight"damp socks in sweaty shoes" smell after rinsing (signs of wet stored?)

2) Next was a teashop located upstairs. The owner was very patient and brewed Ai Lao Shan wild tea, Bulang shan, Bing dao, Lao Hei zhai, Mei Lan wu liang shan, chiuchow oolongs and sencha almost right up to midnight.
Purchased some raw teas for longer term consumption.

3) In between lunch on Wednesday, a visit to a tea shop run by a lady who opened it since 2004. She offered me a inexpensive tea that was slightly bitter and had little huigan and no mouth feel. I left without buying anything. Disappointed for such merchants to waste time when I expressed my interest of visiting to purchase something and stated my drinking profile. Was informed that there is a 3500 year old tree tea available for consumption already...myth or hype?

4) Visited 2 stores both located in Kepong (outskirts of KL). One was a distributor of a reputable brand who's been in the business for years. He use Guangzhou as a transit point for storage and logistics between Yunnan and KL. The teas are clean and dry stored, but his prices are rather steep. Tried various ripe and raw teas, one was particularly overwhelmingly strong with "complex non tea" smell with the first few infusions. I ended up buying a toong of late 90's Zhongcha raw tea from a factory that is defunct, but did not pay "bankruptcy sale" prices for it, mid 2000 ripe mini bings and paid a lot more (>20%) than in Beijing for a carton of 28 bings of 2011 ripe tea back in November

Another store brands their own teas, and claims all the teas are spring pickings. I sampled 3 teas, different Bulang shans with honey and one with a slightly menthol flavors, another was rather bland on drinking but has subtle after taste. The ripe was not particularly interesting, I suspect that the fermentation process was not done well.
They had an offer on the 2011 bricks and tuos, I ended buying some. The leaves are young shoots.

5) Tasted a 1950's tea that had so much character, anything of positive character in a tea...it is in the cup. It was followed by a series of raw loose and rare exotic leaf teas from various mountains. All this consumed at his home in KL.

[auhckw]

Welcome to KL.

Number 1,2,4. Easily could have guess where you were referring

Number 3, 5 = Not sure

I ended up buying a toong of late 90's Zhongcha raw tea from a factory that is defunct, but did not pay "bankruptcy sale" prices for it,

Can you take a photo of the wrapper?

[David R.]

I only visited one teashop when I was in KL, that would be number 2 !

[Drax]

Sounds like a great trip, thanks for sharing, KC...!

So.... how did those tea eggs taste...?

[HifideliTea]

There just wasn't enough time to visit most areas in KL where tea shops are located, ie Serdang, Klang, Petaling Street. By the time my day is through in the office, most stores would have been closed given the brutal traffic situation in KL.

auhckw, here's the wrapper of the 1997 bing of wood flavored wild leaf tea.

Wrapper

ZhangXiang YeSheng Cha.jpg (19.78 KiB) Viewed 1098 times

The 1950's tea was consumed in the owner's home (read "mansion"). He told me many stories of his adventures in Yunnan, and how feathers, hairpins, etc ends up in your teas...but there are worse ones too that gets evaporated or dissolved in the process

drax, I did not taste the eggs. I was able to smell it though as it was permeating all around the store!

[bryan_drinks_tea]

Fantastic post! I enjoyed reading about your journey. Maybe one day some of us other TC'ers will make a journey of our own.