Quick! Quick!

quick! quick!

the whole bus is waiting

for you to finish!

2003 6FTM "Youle Gucha"

There are several people whom I've encountered that are genuinely kind individuals. Among them is my wife's sister, who is visiting us from China, and who helps to look after Xiaohu. Her generosity of spirit consistently amazes me; when she came back to the family home at Christmas, my family were likewise glowing in their praise of her kindness.

Another truly generous person is Keng, a teachum from Singapore. He has sent Lei and me box after box of carefully-packaged and selected cakes that he has bought from his (apparently superbly stocked) local pu'ercha vendor, with nothing more than a desire to share tea and to talk about cakes. The sheer quantity of tea, ranging from 1995 to 2007, and the care with which it is picked, is entirely flabbergasting.

When unpacking our collection the other day, I came across a cake from Keng that had slipped through our fingers, and which we hadn't yet tried:

"Chagu Leyou"

I'm often quite hard on 6FTM, because, like modern CNNP, they seem to have produced very low-quality, mainstream cakes over the past few years.  However, something at 6FTM has definitely changed, because their earlier output is as different from their recent cakes as night from day.

Note above, the traditional-style wrapper, with large characters surrounding the factory logo.  It is rustic, simple, and informed by the conventional "zhongcha" wrapper style.  This cake was made before 6FTM shifted their focus into a more "modern" approach, which happened somewhere in the interval of 2004 - 2006.

Thick and chunky, this is fat bingcha

Pictured above and below, the large, delicious leaves of the cake couldn't be more different from today's androgynous, chopped melange.  While chopped leaves feature regularly in older cakes from other producers, 6FTM used to make big-leaf cakes like this.  Keng has kindly provided several examples of the genre, but this Youle is one of the most striking.

Easily separated leaves of all grades

The cake is an excellent blend of good shengpu leaves, properly aged into a rich, darker brown, with some copper-tinted tips.  There are a few heavier leaves mixed in, which is something that I consider to be an advantage: an eclectic blend of leaves from tips to base can make for an interesting, varied tea, without the need to bring in leaves from other mountains.  It's an excellent way to keep a single-mountain cake lively and engaging.

Dark, rich, with a very decent woody aroma attest to proper aging

It brews a rich, dark orange.  Correspondingly, the feeling is woody and clean, but with plenty of sharpness and liveliness to keep things interesting (and to remind us that this cake could very easily improve further, given another eight years).  My mouth waters long after the swallow, as the sweetness grips hold of the tongue and squeezes tightly.

Eminently quaffable

It is on the simpler side, and yet it is aged so properly, and comforts the stomach so well, that its £20 price-tag looks like a huge bargain.  I'd be happy to make this charming, woody tea a regular guest at our tea-table.

As always, thanks again to Keng for a mighty fine tea session.

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P.s. Always slow on the uptake, I recently came across an excellent blog from another UK-based drinker.  If you haven't visited yet, have a peek; I've been busily consuming the past year's worth of posts that slipped under my radar:

Wuxingcloud's teablog

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Addendum
September, 2013

The day after the happy chaos of my eldest son's three-year birthday party, I sat down at the tea table for a session with this reliable old tea, surrounded by balloons...

Recalling that this tea has entered the "stable, woody" zone, I felt confident in using lots of leaves.  The result has a heavy, dense soup (pictured above) that had the long-lasting sweetness of sharp, but welcoming, rosewood.  In the dense, red humidity is a complex character of old fruits: apricots, plums, and so on.  It requires long brews after the third infusion, and is impossible to overbrew, suggesting that it is not the world's most potent tea, but it is comforting and continues to impress.  Certainly, for £20, it far exceeds expectations and is a delight to revisit.

A Host of Tiny Concerns

Did you have a good Christmas? I certainly hope so.

Chrimble at my family home is an odd affair. I'm 6 feet tall, and am the shortest of the family, which is almost exclusively male - the odd female* is drafted in every now and again for the purposes of creating the next generation of thugs. Family meetings are like the reunion of a rugby club.

*Chinese, in my case, or Japanese, in the case of my cousin.

In keeping with this tradition of tall, violent males, I received the following charming gift from my youngest cousin:

Look upon my ale, ye mighty, and despair

This is a "yard", much beloved by students for its ability to contain approx. 2.4 litres of (typically quite grim) beer.  Thus, after fuelling ourselves on a large Christmas lunch, it was only natural that the twenty- and thirty-something males in our brood ended up on the farmhouse doorstep timing one another in the consumption of unpleasant Belgian lager*.  Amusingly, the family record for consuming the yard is held by my female cousin, Naomi, who now has a family of two children of her own (both of whom are tall, violent boys).

*If indeed one could call Stella Artois a Belgian lager (and which is colloquially blessed with the charming pseudonym "Wifebeater" in the UK).

Of course, despite picking up bad habits at university, the men in my family, being English, are naturally uxorious.  It is the women in the family who hold the real power, but our wives and girlfriends allow us the illusion of freedom.  It is telling that I write this entry in between running to a nearby room to ask if my dear wife needs help with Xiaohu.

 Christmas was an excellent opportunity to introduce the Big Man to his relatives.

His royal cuddliness, the Marquis des Chubs

There is, as I often write, no place like home.  As always, I conclude that the purpose of travel is to remind oneself of how much one adores ones home.  If an Englishman's home is his castle, then allow me to introduce you to our newly-refurbished Keep...

Has it come to this?

"Whatever you do, don't let Chinese Mama see that."  Such was the advice of my dear wife, who shows remarkable tolerance of my tea habit.  Our collection is quite humble in comparison to those truly mighty hoards amassed by many in the world of pu'ercha, but it is getting a bit sizable, nonetheless.  

I keep an inventory of our cakes, primarily so that I can remember what it is that we have on our shelves, but also as an amusing game of observing how the prices have changed since we bought them.  The  spreadsheet  reports that the total cost to us is now a number I'd rather not consider, which is terrifying.  Though I wouldn't sell them, and don't believe in collecting for any reason other than drinking, I often wonder at their current value.  The majority are younger than 2003, so perhaps the difference in value isn't too great.

As I unpacked our cakes onto the shelves, I realised that most of them had been stored in large boxes for the last three years.  Due to constant house moving and refurbishing, it has been that long since I've been able to access the entire lot.  To see them all together is disconcerting... but the room smells brilliant.