At Home with 2005 Mengyang Guoyan "Lao Banzhang"

Crossing timezones eastwards can be shattering. We arrived back at home feeling physically exhausted from jet lag, carrying a ski-bag entirely destroyed by United Airlines, and frustratingly having left my favourite C&B brush behind in Montana.

Imagine, then, the true delight of returning to a peaceful home, and a grinning college porter who handed me the following, saying "More tea?"

Nada, you're a star - thank you so much for the "welcome home" box. We wish you the very best of travels, which I recall were kicking off today with a hop to the "Fragrant Port", Hong Kong... (Do follow Nada's voyage around the Orient at a Felicific Life.)

Aside from the eponymous tea of this article, into which we dived straight away, Nada was kind enough to include a beautiful plate (pictured below) - though we used it for tea today (as you will see), we have found it a permanent home resting under the feet of our Buddha figurine - a fitting spot, given its history.

So, then, the Mengyang Guoyan cake from autumn 2005, made from 100% "Lao Banzhang" leaves - traditionally, the really brutal variety of pu'er. I always remember Phyll Sheng's description: "Like being hit by a truck."

We have a chunky bing before us, with a comely selection of whole leaves making a great first impression. Plenty of tips, plenty of bigger "basis flavour" leaves, some stems (for those so inclined).

Biting into the cake (yum), we find that the compression is good enough to hold it together, but loose enough to allow the pretty leaves to be separated with little effort and no breakage (and so hopefully avoiding excess Banzhang bitterness). Cue Nada's lovely plate...

The leaves are particularly sweet, without much lower aroma. I am often struck by just how much of the character of a tea one can anticipate from examination of the dry leaves, and this tea is a textbook example...

...because the soup is a chunky yellow, and dominated by sweetness, without a heavy "bass" component. It is high, sweet, pleasantly mushroom-like, and this corresponds conveniently with the characteristics of the dry leaves.

The texture is decent, while a slight effervescence on lips and tongue is evidence of good leaf quality.

I find myself concentrating on the physical sensations delivered by a tea these days, and that effervescent, energetic quality in good leaves is becoming more obvious to me the more pu'er I drink. It often coincides with decent chaqi (mysticism alert, run for the lifeboats).

Some tea authors refer to this as "yun", translating it as "sensation", but I am told that this is not an accurate translation of the character which otherwise refers to the ephemeral "charm" of a thing (where a common example refers to the "yun" of a mature, pleasant lady - an imparted quality through association, rather than a physical sensation). I will leave this to the sinologists to debate, and quietly step aside...

Considering the leaves...

...they are delicious indeed, corresponding well with the assumptions gleaned from the dry leaves. This bing has good quality leaves running throughout its interior, and is thankfully not merely dressed in a thin veneer of prettiness. They are hand-picked, well-handled, and rather erotically appealing, wouldn't you agree?

I must confess that I really love nearly all teas. Teas which are gifts from good friends already leave me well-disposed before even tasting them. Happily, though, the 2005 Mengyang Guoyan is a pleasure to drink - sweet and acidic, becoming more mellow out past the tenth infusion (though it is not aggressive by any means). It has some green grassiness to it, but it is a young tea after all.

Thanks again to Nada for his great generosity.

Before we close the photo-book on Montana, here's another favourite of mine... I think this represents a cultural misunderstanding, because in the UK, "corned beef" is a grotty sandwich meat akin to Spam. With that in mind, you can appreciate the traffic-stopping excellence of the following roadside advertisement...

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Addendum

This cake (wrapper stamped "Teji" in red) was apparently made for a Kunming dealer, and was not sold as a Mengyang Guoyan production, perhaps explaining its unusual quality for a factory that doesn't usually impress me.

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Addendum
22 March, 2009

This cake is very high, and particularly sweet, but a little empty underneath. This is emphasised by the switch from our stainless-steel induction kettle to the iron of a tetsubin. I was concerned that the body of this tea had diminished, but was encouraged to read from my description that I originally noted a lack of "bass" components.

It is smooth and pleasant, and I'm happy to have acquired another two cakes since.

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Addendum
August, 2009

This has the "teji" [TER-GEE, special grade] stamp on the front in red, marking it as the special pressing for the Kunming collector. Iv'e recently found this for sale on Taobao, and am revisiting it in order to be ready for comparison with new candidates.

The tips are already turning a rusty orange colour, and it comes out as well as I remembered: thick, sweet, straw-like, with a great tanginess in the finish that reminds me it still has a grip on its youth. It has a coarse, lighter woodiness, rather than the heavy oak of old age. With any luck, this will result in another tong being found, if the Taobao tea is similar.

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Addendum
February, 2015

This is sweet and soft, and aging well.  There is a pinelike sweetness that is most encouraging.  It certainly seems improved over my notes from 2009, some six years ago.