Today, another cake from a little known Chinese supplier, Shu Daizi (translation: Bookworm or Nerd). The logo of the company is a large-headed, thin-necked Chinese Doug Funny with glasses, which makes me wonder who they want drinking their tea. Marketing is a very vague brand of voodoo in China, and they miss the mark by quite a margin when trying to figure out their target demographic. The resulting marketing tactic for online retail is generally "cast a wide net, see who we catch". Shu Daizi is such a company, operating under the pretense of "boutique" and "quality based" tea, but really is online subsidiary presence of pu'er distribution and wholesale giant Kunming Hongde Tea Co. Ltd - a massive tea distributor in Kunming. It's no wonder that the 2 "golden crown" seller rating of Shu Daizi Teashop on Taobao.com is a feat few tea vendors have achieved. One thing can be sure about buying tea from Shu Daizi or Hongde for that matter: it's not going to be fake tea. Hongde works directly with the factories to carry, store, and distribute teas by many of the largest names in Pu'er (Dayi, Xiaguan, 6FTM, CNNP, etc). This is Kunming storage on the largest scale. You will not find prized 25 year old CNNP or Dayi teas in their shop, which is a good thing. Anyone trying to sell aged big name plantation cake on Taobao is worthy of suspicion, regardless of gleaming reputations or high vendor ratings. I will talk more about this after the tasting. That brings us to the tea we have today - an attempt by Shu Daizi to private label and produce tea of their own.
The cake is loosely compressed in the China sense, much more similar to many of the western laowai productions. I'm not sure why western vendors loosely press teas, though I am fairly confident in saying most Chinese cakes are tighter than expat cakes. This is a tangent for a another post. Inspecting the leaves, a fair amount of bud, indicating some care was put forth in sorting the raw material which is comforting. At the price of 26 dollars, I wasn't expecting a whole lot, though that's not to say a 26 dollar cake cant knock my socks off. Quite a lot of broken leaves too which is a bummer, but not a deal breaker in any real sense.
tippy, buddy, broken
The honest bit of information we are told about one of Shu Daizi's best sellers, the 2005"ish" Bingdao shengpu is the "ish". The description of the tea states that the maocha (loose processed tea) was from around 2005. I'm not sure about the variance in years, but at least we know it's about ten years old at the time of this writing. Taobao vendors will be downright shameless in lying about age. Shu Daizi does not do this for any other of their cakes, which are labeled by year and place quite clearly. I'm not sure why this cake stands out, but I appreciate the attempt at semi honesty.
I brew this in a 100cc teapot with water just under boiling for 6-8 seconds (including the time it takes to pour out). If the material is good, and the tea is aged, the first brew will start to suggest some character without throwing me warning signs to back off. In the case of this tea, so far so good. True golden amber now, much thicker than the rinse, viscous in appearance. I'm happy to see this tea is boldly showing its colors in the first steeping. There is a mineral/medicinal smell coming from the liquor which is generally unwelcome for me, but it's faint and hopefully will not be apparent so much on the mouth as it is in the nose. Oh no, this tea looks a little dry.
first brew, yo
I must say the first brewing of this cake is strong and astringent. The bitterness is not a flash in the pan but a persistent gnawing at the corners of the mouth. That sounds more discouraging than it actually is. There's a difference between the sour bitterness of bad or overbrewed tea and the thumping waves of kuwei that can become other things like nuttiness or sweetness or even better, huigan. The medicinal aspect of the tea is still there, and I fear it will remain or intensify. This tea seems to have dried out a little in its Kunming storage. Putting two and two together, $26, probably kept in a large, airy warehouse for 10 years in Kunming dry storage, I'm apprehensive about what comes next. I move on cautiously into the second brewing. I will not be pushing this tea much harder so the parameters will be slightly cooler, for the same amount of time.
The bitterness is a little calmer in the second and third steepings, and the medicinal has given way slightly to the mineral aspects of the tea. The sweetness and nuttiness all make brief but fleeting appearances. Huigan is present yet illusive in a way that's hard to explain. The more I concentrate on the existence of huigan, the less it seems to actually exist. Phantom tea.
in the cup
I can't say that all the positive notes of the tea are washed away by how hard the tea is to figure out. I truly think the storage conditions ruined it a little or made it harder to navigate. I can see signs of potential, and small things I might do differently next time I drink it, but I don't think I'll be revisiting it anytime soon. It'll be interesting to see how it ages past the "around" 10 year mark in a wetter storage condition. At 26 dollars per cake, I think it's fairly priced. Certainly not undrinkable, but certainly not something I will crave.
#imconfused