If Loving You is Wrong...

...then I absolutely, categorically, and unambiguously do not wish to be right.

The object of this statement is your friend and mine, the 2003 Jin Dayi, or "JD" as he is otherwise known.

If you are thinking that "JD" refers to bad American Bourbon at this stage, then I submit to you that an upgrade of your drinks cabinet is in order.

Long-time suckers readers may recall the above image, in which the hand of Apache (much famed for being the hand that he uses to execute his deadly one-inch-punches) holds aloft JD during a sesh from last year.

This sample was kindly provided by the benevolence of His Apacheness, and which I was saving for a special day.  I figured today is that day.  The kettle is on, the small, red leaves of JD are in the chahe.

I might be caught in the mad throes of confirmation bias, but the leaves pictured below even look like Menghai to me these days, let alone smell or taste of Menghai.

My knackered old tetsubin stretches its weary bones, and gets into the zone.  Before long, it is bubbling nicely, made new once again with every boil, its own form of reincarnation.

I'd like to say that this water has collected by me from a rarified stream, bubbling 'twixt pre-Cambrian stones somewhere in the Highlands, laden with minerals from the nubile loins of the Earth, but the reality is that the water is from a large bottle that I collected from my local supermarket.

That said, it is good water, and totally worthy of good old JD.

I'm not a huge Dayi fanboy.  Don't get me wrong, I have the gaiwan and like the cakes, but it's not as if I have Dayi wallpaper or anything.  At least, not in every room.

However, JD is good tea and I like it very much.  Is it worth the king's ransom caused by the speculations of every troglodyte homunculus on the Mainland?  Probably not.  Is it superbad, grade A, first-class, uncut premium ninjitsu?  Yes.  Yes, it is.

I like my premium ninjitsu in its uncut state, as it happens.

I would go so far as to say that the JD is bigger and badder and rougher and tougher, in the words of the old poem.  It is all things to all men: fat, bloated, sharp, sweet, charming, precise, and very long-lived.

There is a line that separates Good Tea from the rest: after a dozen or so infusions, with my tetsubin singing like a recovering alcoholic opera diva, good old JD continues to evolve, while retaining his trousers.

Unlike so many other pretenders to the throne, the colour becomes deeper orange as the morning progresses.  Whereas the young and feeble Dayi might collapse into leafy mediocrity, this Jin Dayi, which marks, I think, the end of an era, teaches you how it should be done.  How it may once be done again.

It is fine indeed.  I think that I would rather not spend three hundred English pounds on it, given that I would feel rather profligate by doing so, and that this really is not worth that much money, but that's between each man and his wallet.

That malty rotundity is enchanting, and it would be a delight if my tong of the 2011 Baby JD turned into something similar.  Stranger things have happened, and perhaps Menghai might redeem themselves through good production of this sort.  We can but wait and see.  It'll be great fun finding out, whichever direction the years take it.

Ladies and gentlemen, the 2003 Jin Dayi has now left the building.