Tag: 2022

Metaphysics of Pu’er blend with Moychay 2022 Melting Reality sheng pu’er

We live in an era where you can potentially know everything about a tea, the garden it comes from, the grower, the exact location of the trees, but the tea market has not always been like this. Blends were so popular in the past that there were few single-origin teas before the 2000s.

Some of the greatest recipes to come out from the Dayi, Xiaguan and Rongshi factories or from the minds of pioneers like Ye Binghuai, Vesper Chan and Chen Huaiyuan who commissioned, produced or supervised them, were blends.

But what can elevate a blend and bring the art of blending back to the forefront of consideration? I believe that when the condition of need and economy is overcome, the blend can become expression and genius, a journey into the unexplored, a domain without potential rules, a disorder channeled into the eternal overcoming of all the contradictions that compose it. But this is on condition that the raw material is of such extraordinary quality as to support the greatness of the intention.

The blend is not a mere offspring of an uncoordinated material, it must be able to fuel the creation of other structures, of superstructures capable of capturing and interpreting the reality and the thoughts of those who create them, something also capable of escaping the premeditation and contingency of the possible and of making us forget those mixtures of leaves devoid of any persuasive power.

The lack of rules and the impossibility of serving the leaves and erecting them as a symbol of a place brings technique and thinking to the limit and, as in art, to experiment the extreme ease of failure but also to the configuration of unique potential, since the technique can be exalted only where it manages to experiment its most radical impotence.

In this Melting Reality, a Moychay 2022 blend, you can find that unexplored, that quality of the first time, of that reality so accentuated and exaggerated that it seems unreal. Like a Blanes painting the drink is stratified on more rural and dark tones of leather and maritime forest which alternate with other sweeter and brighter ones of gooseberry, dried figs, candied fruit and orange blossom as in a delicate play of lights.

It is a liquor where the ephemeral and the real alternate, the light bitterness and medium softness integrate well with the good huigan and the hint of tamarind sauce that give bite and announce chaos in an incessant symphony of notes of candied cedar and honey, orange custard and cooked wheat.

31 August 2024
Unbound by fragrance – The tea of Ba Nuo through a 2022 teng tiao gushu

In recent years I have repeatedly had the pleasure of trying Ba Nuo teas, it is one of the places that perhaps more than others has taught me to free myself from the “aromatic” dimension of tea and to concentrate on the sip, on the tactile sensations, on the physicality of the brew.

Ba Nuo is a village accessible via narrow, dirt roads, you can still see the old houses, some with sheet metal roofs, flanked by other newer and larger ones, the result of overbuilding and the rush to compulsive urbanism that followed the economic growth of the tea villages.
Ba Nuo is located at 1900 meters above sea level, located on the eastern mountain range of Mengku, Dong Ban Shan, populated by around 300 families of the Han and Lahu ethnic groups, practically all of whom work in the tea industry. From the top you can see the villages on the western side, the Xi Ban Shan range, Dong Guo, Xiao Hu Sai, Da Hu Sai, Baka, as if immersed in a Bierstadt painting.

The soils contain a good amount of clay and organic matter, are acidic or sub-acid, with no stones on the surface, but what is striking are the Teng Tiao, also called “vine trees”, which appear like bony and lignified hands dating back to soil, without other plants to counteract them. Pruning the lateral branches favors the apical dominance of the plant, which will develop very elongated branching and leaves placed only on the tips.

Yang, a farmer from Ba Nuo, explained to me how it is not a natural way of cultivation, the land has been prepared, even weeded up to 15 years ago, the surrounding forest has been partly cut down to allow the tea trees to receive more light. Many trees were planted by the Lahu people as early as 300 years ago but the influence of the Han and modernization over time led to the development of this type of cultivation.

Despite the altitude, the agronomic peculiarities, it is not a tea that impresses with its aromas, it is not a complacent palliative for the slaves of fragrance. It took me five months to revisit this tea, perhaps among the most misunderstood in Yunnan, but also one of the most particular.

This Teasenz sheng was harvested in spring 2022 from teng tiao gushu, after being aged 7 months as maocha. I waited 5 months before trying it again, stored at 65% RH, slightly lower than what I store my teas at (68-69% RH).
Timidly the leaves began to advance notes of orchid, dandelion root, wood and toasted cereals. The sip was soft, with aromas of honey, chrysanthemum, apricot, but where it really struck was the qi. It wasn’t a sip that simply came and went, but it came again and again, it continually returned after each infusion and continued even far from the cup, the huigan accentuated the honeyed sweetness even more, surrounded by a light minerality that made the sip every time more pleasant.

7 July 2024
The forest of Hoàng Su Phì and reconciliation with the truth. Soliloquy with Viet Sun black tea from ancient trees

The sound of the horn in the Dao rituals dictates the rhythm of a place that seems alive in the eternal instant of a perpetual past, the thunders are rhythmic like the steps of the Jade Emperor on his journey to earth.

The people do their utmost in the preparation of the traditional ceremony in their black tunic whose red drapes blown by the wind seem to give them a permanent dynamism, while their clothes and the folds on their faces seem to merge with the sky broken by lightning, letting the viewer try to understand the silent emotions they express.

Places like Hoàng Su Phì revive that pure, almost mythological naturalism, saving it from being a mere memory. The paths seem a return to the eras of myths and magic, spiritualism, tenacity and subsistence, far from the paved road of self-flagellation materialism. It is those paths that force us to reformulate contingency, those smells of an extinct nature that ask us, as Derrida said, to rethink our relationship with the truth. They are forests where not only the camellia orchestrate a unique opéra in harvest time, but they are real metaphysical theater for find again time and conciliation with history, acts of rediscovery of a lost essentiality.

A particularly interesting Viet Sun tea from 2022, sourced from ancient trees in the Hoàng Su Phì forest in Hà Giang province. The notes of the wet leaves are extremely special, aromas of chestnut honey, cocoa and malt biscuits are perceptible, accompanied by dried sour cherries combined with more floral nuances of violet and lilac. A more particular weaving approaches timidly, in the background you can feel the dried straw, tamarind sauce and dry cranberry, to then arrange on very clear memories of distilled grape skin, muscat grappa and notes of old, freshly waxed wood.

The sip is coherent, medium-bodied, sensations of cocoa combine beautifully with those of malted barley and honey, enlivened by a never tiring, balanced and persistent sweetness.

27 August 2023
A visceral bond with time that has never been broken and a history that has never been betrayed. Journey to Lùng Vài through this Viet Sun 2022 sheng pu’erh

The rain poured down, the people in the highland villages returned home after working in the fields all day, the light fades as people’s voices approach, dispersing the fatigue of the harvest in their song. The forests stand between the terraced fields like polychromatic marvels, the mountain farmers appear like artists when their work creates such harmonious beauty, one that would have enraptured Holderlin and which he would have described as an art inspired by that original mutual belonging between sky and earth.

As the sunlight disperses the mist, the fields fill with water like sparkling mirrors reflecting the sun and clouds. A now dim light filters through the palm roofs, the rural architecture seems aged and embraced by moss, but still firm and representative of times gone by. One can see an ancient splendor that is renewed with every glance at it, imagining a visceral bond with time that has never been broken and a history that has never been betrayed.

This Viet Sun Lùng Vài tea, like the architecture in this area, bears witness to the events, they are beyond the present, not as a relic of the post-history but as narrating entities surviving in the subsistence of their descendants.

This is a sheng from an extremely interesting and characteristic terroir, located on the eastern side of Tây Côn Lĩnh mountain, Hà Giang province, from ancient tea trees. The dried leaves have an intensely floral scent, once wet they show an evocative and complex character made up of citrus tones, charcoal-cooked fruit, fragrances of dried mango, pear soaked in white wine, candied orange and apple custard. The sip is both juicy and vibrant, refreshing, wisely balanced and medium-bodied, with an initial and subtle bitterness.

A good huigan accommodates aromas that recall lemon cream, citrus honey, flambéed fruits on a background of alpine herbs; notes of orange peel and carrot plumcake conclude a dynamic and intensely meaningful session.

19 August 2023
A tea that is a symbol of redemption, of radical change and self-determination. Viet Sun Lùng Vài pressed white tea 2022

A long time has passed, from Chinese cultural domination, from French colonization, from the 30 years of struggle for independence, the time necessary for the rain to give respite to the memory from the pain of the loss. But tea in Vietnam resisted everything as an observer of events, as a symbol of the zeitgeist, the spirit of the time and as such able to invest every era, to be reflected in literature and philosophy, in arts and everyday practice.

Tea here is not a subject of dispute, the object of a claimed originality, of authenticity, but it is a symbol of restoration and self-affirmation, of a common thread with the past through a new way of doing things, it is a narrator of epics and tragedies, epitome of imaginative experiences of past places, of the old shops of Hanoi, of the narrow and terraced architecture leaning against the alleys full of vendors and trucks, of the old agricultural research stations abandoned and rebuilt in the late 70’s.

The laobaicha of Viet Sun comes from material of 2022 collected from centenary trees in the area of Lùng Vài, Ha Giang, in the district of Vị Xuyên, at an altitude of 1000-1100 m. Vị Xuyên was the scene of one of the saddest battles that Vietnam saw in its history, a war that until 1985 repelled hundreds of thousands of soldiers, but which is now the district of one of the most interesting productive areas of the country. Tea in this case is a distillate of its place of origin, so expressive as to bear an almost salvific garment for a place, to extract from it its opposite, to exercise their ancient alchemical propositions of transmutation and renewal and at the same time to preserve and protect the scents of an original flowering.

This is a white tea that gives a perfect daily drink, saturated with sense and without unnecessary garments. Its character is punctuated by ancestral scents, the olfactory notes recall those of a bouquet of roses resting on an antique piece of furniture, in which woody scents are linked to the fragrances of fresh and withered flowers, emerge the fragrance of apricots and kumquats stored in a bamboo basket, while those of spices and leather complete an intense and decadent picture, enlivened by a mnemonic expressiveness not always so frequently experienced.

The mouthfeel is medium-thick, enveloping, lingering and balanced, distinctive and not similar to any other, enriched with spicy notes and ripe fruit, rhubarb and medicinal herbs. I thank Vietsun project for having contributed greatly to the in-depth discovery of Vietnamese teas, providing excellent material and information for the study of this country, its terroir and its history.

19 August 2023
All the fragrance of Naka

Naka is one of those places whose tea manages to make the contemplative intent coexist with the liberation that accompanies a state of inebriation, of marked well-being. The teas from this mountain are often not famous for their complexity but rather enliven the experience with their persistent sweetness, an immediate sugary sensation that is almost palpable beyond the blanket of initial bitterness, a sip that returns a sensation that shines through as an existential parable where suffering and gratification alternate.

Teas like those of Naka, Bingdao or Laobanzhang transport us to another dimension of thinking, more ancient and simple, the one that makes us grasp Holderlin’s vision of a “measure common to all”, the one removed from our evaluations, the one of a taste purity capable of embodying the reason and essence of a place.
They are unique scenes, to which even if we don’t belong, we adopt as a spiritual homeland.

Naka’s is perhaps the most representative of Mengsong’s teas; here the woods surround the village in which there are approximately 40-50 hectares of ancient tea trees, most between 300 and 500 years old. The 1660-meter high peak is located on the eastern slope of Huazhuliangzi, the ground is sandy and rocky, the climate is humid and rainfall is abundant and more frequent than in other areas.

The small-leaf variety predominates along with the medium-sized variety, which is a unique condition in the Menghai area. From Da’an to Nongbeng, from Baotang to Damengsong each village here has its own microclimate and its own shrewdness in the processing of the leaves; Lahu and Han with their respective dialects and cultural traditions have lived together for centuries in these mountains where time seems to have stopped.

This 2022 Eastern Leaves sheng pu is a tea that is not afraid of meditation or of the most convivial moonlight. The wet leaves are a unique journey just outside the village, the memory is that of a pastry shop in the middle of the forest where the scents of the woods and wet leaves envelop you, among the rocky tones you can perceive scents of apricot curd, peach , mountain flowers and citrus fruits.
The liqueur has an antique gold dress; on the palate it is soft, enveloping, beautifully balanced and progressive in the bitter tones that quickly unfold in a sugary dimension, an endless sweetness that seems almost chewable. It is a tea with an excellent structure already in its youth but whose time can only act as its guardian.

18 August 2023
Along the road to Lhasa: a break with Eastern Leaves’ Huangxiaocha 2022

Mengdingshan is one of the areas of Sichuan best known to tea enthusiasts, a universe of its own, an almost oracular function of a system apparently disconnected from the world with gardens immersed in the clouds that cover them creating an intense environmental and philosophical contrast, a metaphor for the history of this region which was the cradle of the civilization of the camellia sinensis, of its taming and of being the guardian of time.

But as true of civilization throughout history as it is of the tea plant, while sky covers the earth sustains, with the great fertility of the eastern plains that open beyond Chengdu as a source of sustenance during times of famine and wars, but it is beyond the mountains of Ya’an, on the road that leads to Kangding, on the slopes at an altitude of 3000 m whose paths lead to Garze and finally to Lhasa that the cultural heritage and identity of an entire people must be sought. It is among the peaks Jingquanfeng, Qingfeng, Lingjiaofeng Ganlufeng, Yanufeng that the Mengdingshan imperial tea was harvested before Qingmingjie and sent to the imperial court, it is here that the present is reconciled with history, where the order of things meets natural disorder, where earth and sky become organs of that Heraclitean measure that escapes being cadenced by human planning.

Eastern Leaves Huangxiaocha was harvested at the end of March 2022 on Mengding Mountain. The dried leaves express buttery, biscuity and hazelnut chocolate hints. When infused, they take on nuances of white truffles, chestnuts, then biscuit and cooked vegetables hints until they become floral with wild flowers scents before the occurrence of toasted pumpkin seeds and orchard hay memories. The sip is coherent, balanced, soft with a sugary thickness and a sweeter sensations the more you continue with the infusions. Aromas of shortbread and cane sugar, toasted seeds and hazelnut emerge in a lingering finish that leaves the palate sweet with an extremely satisfying sensory sensation

18 August 2023