the_skua steeps

This four out of six day blogging streak is about to come to an end. I’ll be on the road soon for a mix of business and pleasure. When I return, I look for to introducing and starting in on the 9th Official TeaChat TeaTasting Initiative (OTTI) – 90s sheng puerh! I certainly had not intended to produce such a spate of non-stop tea reviews, but good fortune fell in my lap and I really enjoy having a cross-section of teas to compare that share a common element.

Today is a departure from the past few days of sunshine, as a light winter drizzle brings calming grayness and humidity. Today also turned out to be a significant departure in tea character from the previous three Yunnan Sourcing cakes I’ve sampled. I must say how lucky I feel to have a good-sized sample of such a rare cake, made from highly demanded and expensive Ban Zhang leaf. The website for this tea indicates that only 84 cakes were pressed!

Opening the pouch and selecting five grams, a gentle sandalwood and citrus stem aroma rise. The first scent off the rinsed leaf is briny, green, and pushes towards delicate paler fruits: plum, apricot, pear, and pineapple. The first two steeps are rather light, but by the third, the excellent quality of this tea has revealed itself, mouthfeel. A silky, glossy, smooth coating texture runs over the tongue, holds in the back of the mouth, and then swells and steams a while longer. A slight ethereal hint of spearmint or wintergreen alights on the roof of the mouth. Lacking that raucous, dry parching sensation that both the Bu Lang and the You Le had, I revel in the delightful heaviness of this tea.

The flavors are solid and delightful in fresh, ripe, light fruit, but for me, this tea takes it home with a thick, coating, almost syrupy rich soup. The texture shows itself as a warm pleasing, gentle, and calm grip of theanine settles over me. I could linger on this sensation, the delicate flavor and the rich texture of this tea until all time has been lost.

REFERENCES

The Half-Dipper – 2009 Yunzhiyuan/Ruicaoxiang “Banzhang Chunqing”

MattCha – Yunnan Sourcing Mystery Sample ‘Epsilon’ ( Later Found To Be: 2009 Ban Zhang Chun Qing)

The 39 Steeps – Review Series Pu-erh 5: “Epsilon” by Yunnan Sourcing

5 Element Cloud – 2009 BanZhang Chun Qing (Yunnan Sourcing)

Black Dragon Tea Bar – Banzhang Chun Qing Puer

Tea Goober – 2009 Yunnan Sourcing Ban Zhang – Revisited

Tags: 2009, ban zhang, pu'er, sheng

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 8th, 2011 at 9:51 AM and is filed under pu'er, sheng. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.