2004 Junkyfactory "Shicang", 2012 Zhengjian "Cangyan Gufeng"

You can't win 'em all.

This Cangyan Gefeng [ANCIENT STYLE!] cake, made by an outfit named "Zhengjian" looks great.

It has long leaves, pictured below, and makes me very expectant of Good Things.  Everything seems right: strength of aroma, depth and endurance of scent, appearance and strength of leaves.

The photograph below actually makes me thirsty again.  I happen to be drinking the 2012 Ruiyuan as I write this, and consequently wince in welcome agony.

The compression is that "hand-pressed" level that suggests some poor soul has been moving heavy pieces of stone around.

Following his pursuance of all things bargain, twodog2 offers this cake for under 30 units of American currency.

This is one of those cakes that really reminds you not to make snap judgements: if I may be frank, it starts off excellent and then its glory rapidly diminishes as its base of taidicha begins to make itself felt.

It is definitely Yiwu, and has all the good characteristics for which one would hope: purity and density of sweetness, decent throatiness, a minor huigan.  The body is moderately robust and the light kuwei [good bitterness] seems quite enjoyable.  Underneath, however, the base of thick, green leaves lurks like the white whale beneath the surface.

By the time of the fifth infusion, the whale has surfaced and is busy making light of your harpoons.  It is a struggle, and not one that I enjoyed excessively, due to its baseness and roughness.  I seem to remember being extremely tired when I tried this cake, and consequently was unimpressed by its surliness.

JUNKYFACTORY, however, seemed to be an entirely different kettle of aquatic craniates.

I do so loves me my rancid, damp, humid darkness, and this cake has all of that and more.

I don't know if I'd say that it was "wet stored", from just the leaves - perhaps more "stored in a very hot and humid environment".  It is the architypical Hong Kong / Singapore cake, with its flinty, mineral sweetness.  It didn't turn the corner into being "wet", for me.

Bring it on!  Delicious, humid, macabre characteristics abound, which make me very glad to be at the tea-table.  It washes away the green abrasion of the Cangyan Gufeng and reminds me that everything is going to be OK, after all.

The colour of the soup pictured above tells you everything you need to know about this cake from the famous JUNKYFACTORY.  It is completely stereotypical, and entirely delicious.  It probably cost around 20 RMB when it was new, and has aged into something fine.  By fine, I mean evil.

Sweet, long, powdery, humid, eternally throaty.  I drink this for a good hour or so, filling up pages of my diary with my latest blatherings.

The above compares JUNKYFACTORY and the Cangyan Gefeng, and I will let you decide which is which.  Note the presence of some really rather long, well-preserved leaves in the former.

Marvellous stuff.  Cheap (I assume) and exceptionally cheerful.  It reminds me of the 2006 Tiandiren "Bulang" that I drink most days in my lab, but with more humidity.