2005 Yiwu Manluo - Changdahao "Yiwu Zhengshan"

A wise man (Davelcorp) once said that the common thread linking the enjoyment of pu'er, cigars, and single-malt Scotch whisky is the appreciation of earth and dirt. These sagacious words were resounding in my mind from the minute that I had my first sip of this cake, at Xiaomei's shop in Maliandao.

If it's clear from the accompanying photographs, this cake looks like dirt, literally. It appears to be matt and somewhat, well, dirt-like. The aroma is dusty, and the flavour is very much like drinking earth with flints in it. Somehow, this unlikely series of characteristics make for a rather winning cake.

It's from the Manluo Tea Company, which is somewhere near Mengla mountain. I recall it costing something around the 200-300 RMB mark [£14-21, $28-42].

The leaves are chunky and dark, and the smell is pleasantly on its way to being aged. I've enjoyed this cake on a number of occasions since my return, but today I had the pleasure of sharing it with Lei, so that these notes can have the benefit of a second opinion (and one not biased by the fact that I paid for it).


The soup itself is very energetic, causing a lovely buzzing on the lips, and on the tongue - something I have come to associate with good tea of all ages. Soon, the inevitable: "This tastes like drinking soil. In a good way."

Combined with the immediate earthiness (which is very appealing, happily enough), it has a mineral, alkaline character at the back which Lei likens to that from Gorgonzola cheese. In concert with this, it is tangy, and gives a long, tantalising huigan.

It brews a rich amber colour, and has a very sweet aroma. This is the part where it most seems like a Yiwu, before departing for earth-and-flint territory.

The wet leaves can be seen to be large, but quite untidy - and there are plenty of sections of pure stalk mixed in, which rather reminds me of the modern Taiwanese cakes that we've been encountering. The leaves are healthy, and robust, at least.

Overall, it's a fine tea. It doesn't evolve much, however, staying well within its earthy, mineral limits - but that's fine by me, and, apparently, by Lei too. Good stuff.

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Addendum
August, 2009

It's been a long time since I visited this cake. I've recently found it for sale on Taobao for approximately the same price as I bought in Maliandao, from a friend of MarshalN, two years ago, and so it's time to get reacquainted.

The leaves are still dark and dusty - no surprise there, given that this is a solid shicang [SHER-TSANG, wet store] cake. The compression is fair, if a touch loose, and the leaves come away easily enough without being damaged.

Pictured below, you can see how easily the leaves come away from the cake. The wrapper alone holds lots of shrapnel, some of which I take for my session, and the remainder of which goes into my "lucky dip" container of mixed-up leftover leaves, for drinking another day.

This is a particularly interesting cake, because it's one of the biggest-leaf shicang examples that I have. As you can see below, there are some proper-sized leaves in this cake. Chopped blends can be fine, and I enjoy them as much as the next man, but there's a special place in my heart for good-looking, whole leaves.

Drinking this tea, I am taken back to Maliandao, on the first storey of the mall that hold's Xiaomei's shop. It's a very warm day, and I'm taking the day away from lectures at Qinghua, a large university in the northwest of the city.

Sitting in Xiaomei's shop, I joined an old, retired lecturer in Buddhist Studies, Xiaomei and her sister, and the owner of the shop, visiting from another city with his girlfriend. When I arrived, they were all drinking this. When I left, I had a few cakes in my bag and a belly full of good tea.

It has a vibrant body filled with sweet wood, which is thick and full. The huigan is very solid, and gives plenty of room for pause. The distant hints of shicang have, I believe, been somewhat attenuated following its two years of dryer storage in England.

This is falls into one of my favourite age-brackets for pu'er: that edgy territory between youth and maturity. It has a little of both genres, but belongs to neither, containing plenty of kuwei [pleasant bitter taste] from its youth, but also plenty of woodiness from its age. The high sweetness of Yiwu is very welcome.

I originally wrote that this was like "drinking earth with flints in it", the latter being the mineral-like character that I use to describe some types of shicang. If anything, it has become sweeter, and more interesting.

If the Taobao cakes turn out to be even slightly similar to this one, I will consider myself a happy man.

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Addendum
May, 2010

I've bought the same cake from several different vendors, with prices ranging around the RMB 200 mark ($29).

Can you spot the odd-one-out?

Happily, all of these cakes seem to be very close to my original cakes, which is a relief.  This also means that I probably don't have to buy any more after this experiment, as I have a little more than a tong remaining.

The packaging was similarly good from all vendors, and the cakes arrived undamaged.

It is an appealing cake

As before, the leaves are very decent - quite whole, and easily separated.  This is a reedy, yellow-wood tea that I enjoy very much.  The "earth with flints in it" feeling is also present in these recently-acquired cakes.

A reassuring warm yellow colour in keeping with its five years of age

Presumably, these cakes have been in various types of storage, scattered around Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong, but they all taste rather similar.  I can thoroughly recommend them.  Yet again, Xiaomei proves that she can pick mighty fine tea.

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Addendum
August, 2011

  Many thanks to Apache for this addition to the family: a 2005 Changdahao.

This is a beautiful cake.  I am very happy with its price, compared with its quality.  Perhaps it is one of the cakes that plays to my idiosyncrasies, but I thoroughly enjoy it.

Breaking open the cake reveals a quiet shicang [wet store] aroma, which is to say that it is the scent of humid air - I'm sure this hasn't actually been in a dedicated wet-storehouse.  The leaves look very clean, as shown below.  A little shicang goes a long way, and I rather approve of a touch of humidity in the storage.

The leaves come away easily enough, and I am pleased by their aging appearance...

The soup is a clean, rusty-orange fluid, and it carries the aroma of humidity from its leaves.  As with my own version of this cake, it has a pleasing metallic flavour - low and broad, and then penetrating under the tongue.

Slightly tangy, pleasantly solid in its body - I am reminded why I have had such enduring feelings for this simple, yet lovely, little tea ever since buying some from Xiaomei.  Thanks again to Apache.