2006 Yiwuzhengshan - Douji "Shengtai Gushu"

I like this tea, very much.  I was going to buy a cake, given its niceness.  The Douji-frenzy that overtook some of us Westerners has caused Scott of Yunnan Sourcing to sell out of his stock.  Perhaps it's time to trawl the mighty Taobaowang...

"Shengtai Gushu" means, approximately, "Ecological Ancient Tree", and is (was!) sold under the name "Organic Old Tree" at Yunnan Sourcing.  Scott writes that it is a "blend of wild arbor and ancient arbor tea leaves from the first flush of spring, 2006."

The leaves are very pretty, wouldn't you say?  They are large and separate, and have been handled quite well, as shown above and below.  Douji can sometimes turn out very reasonable cakes; even their day-to-day produce is quite respectable.  That stability, combined with around five years of age, can make for some very decent tea.

As with its 2005 and 2006 companions, this Douji brews orange, and the soup has the heavy, sweet aroma of its dry leaves.  The flavour is that of a very well-aged cake: it is heavy, dark, low, and filled with the dense tones of tobacco that permeate some of Douji's older cakes.

There is a distinct shengjin: a mouthwatering quality, which is present alongside a surprisingly strong cooling effect and effervescence.  Perhaps there is something to those claims of old-tree leaves, at least in part.

For someone that writes about tea as much as I do, it seems that I often miss out on some of the cakes that I love.  These days, I rather like missing out.  A Zen master, Shunryu Suzuki, once said that to love something but to not indulge in it is good karma.  I'm sure he had something in mind along the lines of dissolving the ties of attachment; sometimes, it is good to yearn, and yet not to be satiated.  The anticipation is oftentimes more enjoyable than the event itself.

I console myself with such thoughts, and weep quietly into my teacup for my lost "Shengtai Gushu".

Taobao has the 601 for RMB850, which is more than it is worth.  The 701, from the same seller, is RMB350, which is a little more palatable...

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Addendum
October, 2011

Reading the above, you might be forgiven for chuckling at the frailty of the human condition.  Well chuckle no longer, ye chucklers, for the mighty generosity of teachum, Apache, has delivered unto us...

"I hope that you have a good day at work and that you enjoy the tea - Apache", reads the little card that comes along with the cake, in Apache's trademarked green-ink handwriting.

In awe of Apache kindness, I save the cake for a special morning, when all the deadlines have passed, and when term has settled into comfortable routine.  Now, and only now, is the time right for this excellent cake.

Encountering the sticky label on the back of the wrapper (pictured above), my starry-eyed happiness turns to amusement, as I recall that it is almost impossible to get into a Douji cake without tearing something.  You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, so they say...

Douji do what they do very well.  That doing is usually coming up with dark, heavy, stable, potent blends with the "house style" of a rich tobacco, combined with a penetrating sweetness.  Every now and again, they branch out in single-mountain territory, but my heart remains dedicated to these "older" Douji cakes (the company isn't exceedingly old), in which they do what they do best.

You might be able to infer from the rubbishness of my photography that I rose early in the morning to drink this tea, before the sun rose.  I sat there at my table, scribbling my miscellaneous thoughts into my diary, for over three hours, and must have consumed over 1.5 litres of this tea.  (More accurately, 1.5 litres of water were used, although I drank less than this - I typically give a cup from each infusion to Qingchan, my zisha toad, and Zidu, my zisha pot.)  That corresponds to an awfully large number of infusions, and this tea was solid, sweet, and tobacco-laden until the end.  My son began to wake, and so the session ended with me taking toast and (English breakfast) tea up to his sleeping mother.

Thanks again to Apache for such a generous and entirely delicious surprise.

2011 Hailanghao "Yuanshengxiang"

Here, "Yuansheng" means "original life" and is often translated as "primeval" (Babelcarp) or "primary ecology" (Hanping).  It sells for a reasonable $49, where Scott of Yunnan Sourcing notes that this is a blend of various "wild and ancient" leaves from Xishuangbanna, with "gushu [ancient tree] material that has enough power and density to age well."

A part of me hopes that this cake harks back to the halcyon days of Hailanghao, back before the owner lost his marbles.  The 2008 "Ban'e Laoshu" was, for example, really very tasty, and the tong I have on my shelves is getting better every year.

The dry leaves are highly aromatic, assaulting the nose with a grievous-bodily-harm mixture of purple fruits and over-the-top sweetness.  I like its violence very much.  

Heavy yellow infusions await, pictured below, where the thick scents and heavy colours correspond to a sweet, solid tea that mixes a robust tobacco base with fresh, grass-like overtones.  

Likewise, its kuwei is a slap across the chops, but it is the slap of a friend.  

It is a well-balanced tea, with a solid character that hangs on the tongue and refuses to budge.  For $49, I rather like it.

The fat tobacco base swells and grows, while its anonymous blend does it many favours: it is stable, and has a number of interesting features that keep the attention.  Sharp citrus, heavy tobacco, brisk kuwei, some throaty sweetness.  I can imagine that this quite potent, heavy character will provide a useful foundation on which the years can build.  However, the downside of this blend is that there is a lack of a definite characteristic that endures through the infusions, and it soon tastes like thin, bitter sweetness, with a gentle hint of tobacco.

(Partial) redemption for Mingxiangyayuan.  It just goes to show that, no matter how much you suck, you can always pick yourself up and produce good work once more.

Puddle of Tea

puddle of tea

flees the broken teapot

and baby's cries