Another day, another turmoil. This time, it's the installation of bookcases downstairs. Our old favourites come out of storage, for filing in their new homes, much as with our pu'ercha before Christmas. It's good to get life back to normal.
In the package of samples so kindly sent by Jerry of China Chadao came this Nannuo cake, for which I feel both undeserving and entirely grateful - thanks again, Jerry.
As always, the Douji seal on the back of the cake (pictured above) is both informative, and obstructive.
The cake itself is a fine-looking fellow, comprising whole, small leaves, and a loose-but-not-too-loose compression.
By the time I free some leaves from the cake, the sun has risen, and so the remainder of my accompanying photographs appear to have normal daylight.
I often associate Nannuo cakes as being floral, sweet, and somewhat feminine. This Douji Nannuo is, as always, a decent blend of plantation with some real Nannuo-tasting leaves - it has clean hints of laoshu in there, without the citric notes of, say, the 2010 Douji Yiwu.
Solid and sweet in the mouth, if I were buying a cake from the 2010 range, it may well be this Nannuo - hence, I am delighted and grateful to have a whole bing to try in the coming years. It's not the kind of cake that I'd need to own in great quantity, but it's a fine example of the area, and, most importantly, a very enjoyable tea.
Why would you have three different versions of the Hongloumeng from Penguin?
ReplyDeleteGood eye!
ReplyDeleteNever judge a book by its cover - they're all the same translation, it's just that the (five volume) Penguin Classics translation is so, well, classic that it's been reprinted tons of times over the years, and hence each volume has a different cover depending on when I bought it. :)
Toodlepip,
Hobbes
Yeah, I know it's the same translation. So you bought the different volumes at different times? Shouldn't volume 1 be the oldest reprint, instead of the youngest?
ReplyDeleteThe covers are those which the booksellers had at the time I bought them!
ReplyDeleteAh, wish I had a used book store around here.
ReplyDeleteThere's some good karma to be had in second-hand bookshops. That said, they're rapidly closing in England. The major surviving example is the second-hand department of Blackwells, our (moderately) famous bookshop. The second-hand prices are about 90% the cost of the originals, in fact. ;)
ReplyDeleteToodlepip,
Hobbes
Well, for some books, that might actually still be a bargain.
ReplyDelete