A tea friend from Vietnam visited Bangkok not long ago and passed on samples of sheng pu'er from Vietnam (the same tea whether you want to apply the names "sheng" and "pu'er" or not).
It's not exactly the same as Chinese sheng, and the locals in Ha Giang (that Northern province) call it "dried tea" instead. One of the two versions I reviewed in a comparison is closer to white tea, it seemed, and the other relatively similar to sheng, just not identical. The "whiter" version was milder and sweeter, but in later steeps the character picked up a little bitterness and did resemble sheng more. The other seemed like sheng initially, but went through an interesting cycle of transition from warm spice tones to more dried fruit onto more bitterness later.
Two other things have come up related to Vietnamese and Laotian local teas lately, a tour of cities in Europe by Olivier Schneider that includes tasting some of those (the pu'erh.fr research blog author), and an education themed tour by William Osmont of Farmerleaf to help Northern Laotian farmers improve their tea processing methods. The world is changing related to little-known sheng-oriented teas coming to light. I've got samples at home or on the way of two differently sourced sets of Thai versions too. All those links, with a second for another Vietnamese sheng I reviewed earlier this year added:
http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.co ... mples.html
http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.co ... sheng.html
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... 475&type=3
https://youtu.be/12_OvXetTmQ
