2006 Liming "Tuowang"

"More tea?" says the kindly old porter with a grin...

Liming is a factory from the 1980s with a little history - they have already spawned a second company when, in 1993, a certain Mr. Huang Xudong (the manager) left to found the Nanqiao factory. It seems that in the tea business, you're not a real factory unless you've poached your personnel from somewhere else. One manager of Menghai (Mr. Zhou Bingliang) founded Haiwan, another Menghai manager (Mr. Ruan Dianrong) founded 6FTM, while a Menghai blender (Ms. Dong Guoyan) founded Mengyang Guoyan. I sometimes wonder who's left at Menghai.

This tea is from Bulangshan, famous for its brutal terroire. To add further kudos, it claims to be "qiaomu" [old/big tree] and "shengtai" [ecological - camphor trees instead of pesticides, &c.], recalling that qiaomu-claimed teas often contain more bitterness. Combine that with the fact that this is a tuocha, where high compression usually results in broken leaves, and so further increased bitterness, and I am scared of this tea before I have even unwrapped it.

The leaves are small (above), as befits tuocha, combining fragmented baby leaves with tiny tips. This is fine by me - I don't need a pretty tea, and it's only in the last few years that producers have been concentrating on making their tea look attractive.

It's not easy to separate this tea into individual leaves, and to attempt it would surely bring untold destruction (and agonising bitterness), and so I settle with some small lumps in the pot. The aroma is exceptionally fresh and sweet - it almost jumps out of the chahe, and disperses rapidly around the room. Great stuff so far, but I'm still scared.

The unusually aromatic nature of the dry leaves continues in the wenxiangbei: the first stage of the aroma (the beidixiang, or cup-bottom-scent), during which the "high notes" of the scent are felt, is very long and candy-sweet. Eventually, these high notes evaporate to leave a similarly long second stage (the lengxiang, or cool-scent), where the "bass notes" are evident - sticky brown sugar, in this case. Does this translate into good character and endurance in the mouth?

Indeed it does - there is a great deal "in the cup", even from the first infusion - I find this surprising, given that the tea has not fully separated out from its initial lumps; I was expecting a much thinner brew. Even the colour looks chunky, being a heavy yellow (above).

This is a dry, grain-like tea, with some of that lovely sourness that I associate with Bulang. Near the finish, there is a sweet smokiness akin to Germanic cheese.

As expected, there is plenty of acidity and bitterness, but (and this is the key factor for me) there is plenty of that complex grain-like flavour to accompany it.

This tea has to be respected, and brewed just right. The leaf quantity and infusion times are unforgiving: keep it short due to its potency, but not too short that it becomes thin. I make it out to the ninth infusion managing to balance the two extremes, and it pays dividends to be attentive.

This is a challenging tea, but a very well-made product. If your tastes run to the conservative in young shengpu, you might not want to spend much time on this. If, like me, you enjoy some rugged acidity alongside a heady mix of sour flavours, you might really enjoy this. I can believe that there is at least a portion of qiaomu-esque content in here.

Supremely energetic and brightening, yet without the caffeine-ache of coffee, this tea is at the same time soothing. That's the magic of pu'er.

(Pricewise: it's $40 from Royal Puer - worth a look, if you like a challenge. It's the Talisker of tuocha.)

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Addendum
4 May, 2008

Revisiting this tea, it seems a touch thin and not quite as full and enjoyable as I previously remember. I have downgraded by "to buy" list from its original 2 tuo to just a single tuo.

I am reminded that the abrasive character of this tea is not to everyone's liking, as my dear wife noted that, "This tastes like unpleasantly overbrewed green tea."