Which HEI CHA are you drinking?

[jayinhk]

Tried a 2007 liu an (Sun Yi Shun) via miig here on the forum--one of his friends is from HK and came home for a short break and brought the tea with him! This tea was originally purchased from Chawangshop. The fermented kind of liu an is far more common here in HK, so I was eager to try this type and it is really quite nice. Miig included the neifei and some of the bamboo wrapper, which was cool to check out, as I only ever buy liu an by the tael/catty (jin). I brewed up the tea with the wrapper.

This is quite a nice tea. Seems to be a hint of smokey aroma, but lots of plummy notes on the palate, sweetness and bitterness and a strong cooling effect in the first few infusions. There were quite a few stray hairs in the tea that I picked out before brewing. I decided to rinse twice since there's no way in heck I'm rinsing once with random hair from multiple people in the tea!

All in all, quite a nice experience. Oddly this is the second time I've received hei cha through a German (go figure)! A customer and friend of mine (not a tea customer) brought me a 500g basket of 2007 Wuzhou tea earlier this year.

This liu an is definitely very different from the liu an sold here in HK, but there are definite similarities, too since both start with similar base material. I wanted to send miig some of my four-year home storage liu an (which has seen serious humidity), but since I moved the 500g of it that I have left into my office, I didn't have time to pack any up before meeting his buddy at the airport last night. Since my stash of it is limited, I am just letting it age away for my own consumption and only drinking 10-15g a year. I did send him some nice cha tou I picked up in Kunming in the spring that have mellowed out and sweetened up considerably since coming home.

I may pick up some older baskets of Sun Yi Shun for my own consumption and aging.

[miig]

Hey,

I'm glad you like it! I also was happy about that tea, especially since it is not expensive. Sorry about the hair, there was some bad luck involved, because I didn't notice many of them.
While the four-year-Liuan would have been interesting, I have drunk a lot of Liubaos, most of them quite humid, so I guess I have an idea of what this would have been like, or do you think that the character is fundementally different?

I'm looking forward to trying your tea

[jayinhk]

Hey,

I'm glad you like it! I also was happy about that tea, especially since it is not expensive. Sorry about the hair, there was some bad luck involved, because I didn't notice many of them.
While the four-year-Liuan would have been interesting, I have drunk a lot of Liubaos, most of them quite humid, so I guess I have an idea of what this would have been like, or do you think that the character is fundementally different?

I'm looking forward to trying your tea

Liu an and liu bao are very different for sure, even with humid storage. Really heavy storage would make them much harder to tell apart. My home/office storage is nowhere near as intense as traditional storage, which can remove all or almost all of the aroma--with mine you can still tell it's liu an! Just smoother and with a tiny bit of storage taste. I used to live by the waterfront, so it got very very humid at certain times of year.

[bes]

I have this tea below. I'm not really sure what it is. It may be a Puerh or it could be another heicha. The seller said it was from yunnan. Another person identified it as Tian Xiang ( it sounded like across between a x an l and an aspirated sound in the first syllable of Xiang) and said again it was from yunnan unless I really misheard Hunan. I was very tired during this conversation. She did tell me the tea was still quite young and should age for longer.

When I first bought the tea. The flavour was quite tart. A year later the tea tastes very herbal with a buttery mouth feel over a developing sweetness with hints of tart fruit. It has a strong mellowing effect on my body. Any help is welcome. If they meant Tian Jian it is definitely a non smokey one.

It came wrapped in an old days silver wrapper.

[stevorama]

Revisiting the 1994 Liu'An from TealifeHK this morning. Pleasant ginseng fragrance and smooth mouth feel. Enjoyable!

[jayinhk]

Thanks Steve! Discovered some unopened 90s baskets of liu an yesterday, so all is not lost--there will be more aged liu an! Also discovered some 1970s shuixian, but at nosebleed prices. I might pick up a single tael to try.

Started a 10g/150ml Three Cranes liu bao sample session yesterday, and I'm still drinking it today. Very nice, clean tasting liu bao direct from Wuzhou. Really very enjoyable. I tried it out in a brand new modern zini pot. I have found a lot of modern zini has a smell to it that I REALLY don't like. This pot isn't as bad as two of the others and the color is closer to actual zini. There is also sand mixed in for that pin zini-like texture. The pot worked well with the liu bao, but might not with traditional storage hei cha and pu. The liu bao has an almost sweet aged taste to it. Really quite a nice tea!

[jayinhk]

2007 Three Cranes Liu Bao, aged in Wuzhou, basement style. Drinking it very light in a 185ml early 80s Hong Kong market F1 pin zini pot. Storage aroma all gone now. I get a light note that is somewhat like camphor, but more like incense. Quite nice after a Shanghainese meal and brewed up so light, it won't keep me up either.

[stevorama]

2002 Wild 803 Liu Bao. Very pleasant. Many stems in this one. I tried a brew with stems removed and was surprised at the improvement in body of the brew.

[jayinhk]

2002 Wild 803 Liu Bao. Very pleasant. Many stems in this one. I tried a brew with stems removed and was surprised at the improvement in body of the brew.

One of the dealers who supplies me removes stems from loose shu pu for precisely this reason! I've seen him and his team sort through very large amounts of shou pu and pick out all the stems.

[stevorama]

One of the dealers who supplies me removes stems from loose shu pu for precisely this reason! I've seen him and his team sort through very large amounts of shou pu and pick out all the stems.

That's interesting! Stems are maybe 1/4 of the tea so I don't think I'll do this all the time, but it definitely enhanced the brew. I assume the stems are a feature of this grade of liu bao?

It's like the old days, gotta remove the stems and seeds.

[ethan]

One of the dealers who supplies me removes stems from loose shu pu

In Taiwan bubble tea vendors buy stems to make their cheapest tea drinks.

[cwj]

One of the dealers who supplies me removes stems from loose shu pu for precisely this reason! I've seen him and his team sort through very large amounts of shou pu and pick out all the stems.

That's interesting! Stems are maybe 1/4 of the tea so I don't think I'll do this all the time, but it definitely enhanced the brew. I assume the stems are a feature of this grade of liu bao?

It's like the old days, gotta remove the stems and seeds.

[jayinhk]

One of the dealers who supplies me removes stems from loose shu pu for precisely this reason! I've seen him and his team sort through very large amounts of shou pu and pick out all the stems.

That's interesting! Stems are maybe 1/4 of the tea so I don't think I'll do this all the time, but it definitely enhanced the brew. I assume the stems are a feature of this grade of liu bao?

It's like the old days, gotta remove the stems and seeds.

I still pick out stems and seeds in certain places in Asia

[stevorama]

2001 Golden flower Liu Bao. My first golden flower tea! Remarkably smooth and easy-going tea. I think I was expecting more drama from a tea with visible mold spores!

[Teasenz]

Currently drinking a Liu Bao tea. It's a dark tea from Guangxi. I've steeped Liu Bao cha in an Yixing teapot and it worked pretty great.
https://www.teasenz.com/chinese-tea/how ... o-tea.html

The flavour was very smooth like a shou pu erh, but the taste was different, kind of more herbal. I can't wait to revisit it again when the 'Jin Hua' starts to develop. Probably it's gonna take another 3 years at least.