2010 Nan Nuo from the Essence of Tea
Fresh and pure, Soft and gentle entry on the nose and the mouth. Intensity is ok. There were honey, minerals, and some tea flavors. Freshness was the theme here. This was due to a lot of tea leaves of higher grade (good amount of tea buds and very young leaves). Behind those yummy flavor and sweetness, there is also ok amount of bitterness (noticed when the tea broth was cool). Quite quenching and not bad at all penetration. All in all, a nice tea for those enjoying the higher spectrum of tea flavors and fragrance.
Now the question for the tea geek is:
Does this tea represent Nan Nuo well enough? Where is the famous Nan Nuo fragrance? I didn't notice any.
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Have you had a puerh, say from a region you are familiar with, and yet you don't quite recogize it? Let's take 2010 Banpen (a neighbor to Lao Ban Zhang) and Mansai(southernmost tip of Bulang range) from Essence of Tea. Somebody wraps them up in different papers and tell you these puerhs are from Lao Ban Zhang and Bulang respectively, how well do you think they represent the regions after tasting them? When I tasted the Banpen, it immediately reminded me of the 2007 Mengku Lao Ban Zhang Ancient Tree Brick * 100 gram brick from YSLLC. Does the latter represent Lao Ban Zhang well? Or better with Banpen? How many times we tasted a Yiwu and we said "Mmm...not exactly as I remember what Yiwu should be. It has something in common but just not quite there."?
Going through the above questions it would seem eliminating a lot of problems present in the puerh world nowadays . We know Lao Ban Zhang tries to protect its reputation and sets up check points at the main roads/access, so that no one can carry teas from other regions into the Lao Ban Zhang village and sell them as Lao Ban Zhang puerh. Obviously, for marketing and better price, Banpen is used and sold as LaoBanZhang. Now let's expand the scenario: Da Xue Shan and BingDao. The two regions become famous, and people try to capitalize the fame and expand the region from the original place to greater outer area. When you are presented puerhs with these two names on the wrapper, how do you think they represent the original regions well? Now let's even expand the concept further, say someone harvest tea leaves from tea areas outside of Yunnan, and make and sell them as puerhs. How do you think they represent Yunnan well?
Puerh sounds complicated and with a lot of mystery, which probably is. But I think there is a simple and straight way to remove most if not all.
Using a benchmark.
1. Pick one puerh tea from Yiwu or a subclimate Mahei (any would be fine at the beginning) and use it as a benchmark
2. Compare other puerhs so-claimed from this region
3. If the benchmark is better, keep using it.
4. If the other puerh tea is better, use it as the new benchmark.
5. By repeating 1-4 you would have a very reliable benchmark in a few years.
Apply 1-5 to other regions/mountains.
If you have similar experience, please share your thoughts and experience. Anything from Yiwu, Nannuo, BanZhang, Da Xue Shan, Jingmai, etc.
What's your bench mark? How did you come up with it?
Re: Discussion by Example -- Puerhs represent the region well?
It doesn't have to do with the Nannuo. Comments on just any benchmark (with Yiwu, Ban Zhang, Jingmai, etc.) you have and how you came up with are welcome! Thanks.