Tag: old trees

Viet Sun Giàng Pằng 1 Big Tree sheng pu’er spring 2024

Giàng Pằng, it was the discovery of this village and its history, its culture and the ancestral nature of its landscapes that began what would be the focus of my attention for the last two years.

If we were in other parts of the world people would be there taking photos, absorbed, writing farewell poems about the transience of some exotic flower and the ephemeral duration of youth, but here there are only people, real people bent over by fatigue, with their colorful bandanas, clinging to their tenacity and resilience.

The streets are harsh, steep, the cinnamon bark is exposed to the sun, the tea is drying on bamboo mats, even the chickens think of the ephemerality of youth perched on wooden beams.

Here where not even the setting sun seems to find rest, the old tea trees appear like lignified bodies in an archaic dance, in a land that loves no middle ground. The clouds and rains rage in a despotic manner while the fog calms down giving a conciliatory impression, each element is in a disorderly way part of an atavistic work, a fragment of the dawn of the ages.

An anti-geometric vision where modernity barely finds space, where the succession of mountains in the distance creates its own rhythm in a primordial and perpetual order.

This is where VN tea becomes great and it can only be like this, because like every other mountain where the gods have found refuge, great things do not happen on slopes that do not bring suffering.

This Viet Sun teacomes from a batch processed by Steve, from a single big tree, in the spring of 2024, and is the juxtaposition between verticality and softness, between flesh, bone and soul.

The leaves are reminiscent of wild sour green plums, dehydrated longan with a slightly smoky streak, the aromas then focus on the undergrowth, apple wood and then give way to plum, aromatic herbs and light leathery nuances.

The sip is sartorially silky, measuredly round, with light bitterness and light astringency that ends with an excellent huigan. The strong qi accompanies an aromatic playground that goes from green melon to persimmons, in a continuous evolution infusion after infusion until it fades into accords of plum jam and alpine flowers bouquet.

14 July 2024
A few words about Giàng Pằng, the village above the clouds, brewing a reviving 2023 spring sheng pu’er

You could hear the army advancing among the ancient tea trees, the march on the wet ground through those wooden body embraced by moss interrupted the solemn silence, the metallic noises of the pots and pans being brought along and that of the rifle shells dictated the rhythm of a macabre dance.
The H’Mông children looked at the soldiers, seeing every last remnant of soul in their eyes, acts of tenderness could still be observed on those difficult paths where the yellow grass interrupted the recurring reddish texture of the soaked clay, and so on for kilometers up to Phình Hồ accompanied by the abiding humidity that penetrated the bones and the scent of cinnamon trees mixed with that of the grease of damp weapons, and finally to Giàng Pằng.

This must be what Tô Hoài saw on his travels to Sùng Đô, Giàng Pằng, a village above the clouds whose houses at night, lit by fire, appeared to him like the fervent eyes of a young revolutionary woman, and when the fog vanished was like lifting the thin veil that covered her countenance.

Surrounded around the fire, the crackling of the bonfires reverberates on the branches above, producing a melody consecrating images and sounds of another world; the gaze turned to the forest of those who produce tea here seems persuaded by the same lifeblood of the camellia, of those who, despite the suffering and pain of loss, manage to live the “here and now” of their being without anything else, those who manage, despite it all, to consist in the last act of present.

Only in recent years the government tried to enhance this forest and the resilience and tenacity of its inhabitants, an attempt to return a product that is a reflection of the extraordinary uniqueness of its primordial topography and of its territory, rich in ancient tea trees and with an unimaginable potential.

The leaves of this 2023 spring sheng pu’er are harvested in Giàng Pằng, Yên Bái province, at 1400 m altitude. It is a mountain tea whose aromas unfold creating an ascension itinerary to the summit, the wet leaves begin with notes of wild flowers and medlars, enveloped in the scents of a pot in which peach jam is cooking. The interesting complexity develops in a crescendo of fermentative notes and macerated plum, tomato sauce and a bouquet of aromatic herbs accompanied by typical bread-making scents.
The sip has a medium thickness, is vibrant, fresh and surprisingly sweet, with low bitterness and astringency, adorned with a pleasant floral component and supported by a good huigan and a slight tang of wild berries.

19 February 2024
Reflections on ripe pu’er and an alchemical potion from Vietnam – Viet Sun Thượng Sơn Gushu Ripe 2017

I have always loved ripe pu’er fermented in small batches, artisanal productions that made me forget those old hypertrophic factories of Menghai, with those endless expanses of concrete on which the leaves are turned over and battered with old rusty construction shovels.

However, I hate many contemporary shu hyper-fermented in piles as tall as buildings, so thick that you struggle to move them with the tongue in your mouth and whose swallowing simulates an attempted suffocation.

Because for me a great tea is a cultural fact as well as a substance, which still represents people and territories, something that according to Dumas should be drunk on knees and with bare heads, which responds to the order of its terroir and not vice versa, a distillate of that perspective that the Greeks called aidos, the honest recognition that other things and people are more important than ourselves and not something to be lumped together until the bacteria perform some kind of transubstantiation.

This 2017 @vietsuntea pu’er comes from gushu in Thượng Sơn and it is more than a great tea, it is a remedy, an alchemical potion, an extract of those sunsets whose light reflected by the rice fields seems to create an apparent contrast between two skies.

It presents itself with a dark leather brown colour, the scent pervade the room with hints of molasses, rice pudding, hong dou sha, leavening dough, cocoa beans and dried fruit, all enveloped in hints of leather, antique wood and fermented leaves.

The liqueur is also peculiar, it is creamy, enveloping, silky but without that excessive thickness resulting from a fetishism for the jaw fatigue of some post-modern yunnanese shu. The sip is firm, old-fashioned, with a nostalgic sweetness of those times when the bitterness of Lao Man E was considered even slightly vulgar.

The qi is frighteningly tangible, the aromas almost recall those of a 30 year old Hermitage, the hint of licorice tells of a Greece it has never been to and the earthy and ricey accords gather with them the whole soul of its people. Around the world in a cup.

19 February 2024
Another great sheng pu from Vietnam. Viet Sun Sơn La 2023

When you drink teas like those of Sơn La you are pervaded by a sense of satisfaction and touched by a contemplative streak, they are acrobatic teas capable of pushing themselves to the limit with a strong personality while maintaining balance and harmony, like a painting in which all the lines of force resolve into their own whole.

This tea comes from Bắc Yên, a place characterized by a complex mountainous terrain at 1800-1900 m inhabited mainly by H’Mong ethniciy, in the province of Sơn La, a wild paradise full of travellers, but who instead of wandering on foot as composedly as in a painting by Camille Pissarro, they jolt disorderly on 4×4 trucks and scooters towards the summit.

One evening, in a Vietnamese grocery shop on the way home, I heard the name Sơn La for the first time. An elderly lady slipped a sticky rice cake, the Bánh giầy, translucent and fragrant, from her experienced and elegant hands. She removed it from the banana leaf to put it on the charcoal, then took a jar containing some fermented apples. It was a vinegar made with water, sugar and táo mèo from the previous year (cat apple or Docynia indica, a typical fruit of these areas), letting herself go back to childhood memories, of springs now gone, spent in the white shadow of the Quả táo mèo in bloom, betraying a bit of emotion visible in the glimmers of her thick silvery hair.

That slight scent of embers, that wok hei can be found in the wet tea leaves, tamed by notes of green meadow, rosehip and white peach. During the infusions, notes of poached pear and kumquat, elusive scent of grapefruit peel and green pepper are revealed with a sweet nuance of canned sugar.

The sip is unique, archetypal, enveloping and enlivened by a dynamism that alternates vibrant acidity with sweetness, a moderate bitterness of bergamot with a rocky minerality. The liqueur develops in its complexity on lingering aroma of white peach and accompanied by fragrances of jasmine, persimmon and subtle notes of serpillo.

It is already an extremely enjoyable sheng but I am sure that with the embrace of time it will guarantee memorable and contemplative sessions.

1 October 2023
A cup that smells like an orchard next to a creek. TTdC Sanmai 2013 sheng pu from hundred-year-old trees

The sheng pu of Thès Terre de Ciel is the reflection of an extraordinary terroir such as that of Sanmai, a village that follows the limelight of Mengsong teas, preserving its pure fruity appearance and sugary touch and at the same time sheltered from oracular exaltation and censorship which brought many teas from these areas at now crazy prices.

Sanmai pu’er are nostalgic stimulants, a perpetual conversation with the hippocampus like opening an album of memories on your lap. This 2013, from old trees at 1600 meters above sea level, has the traits of someone who brings with him the first charms of the time while retaining that enlivening and exuberant youthful verve.

The color of the liqueur is amber, the hints of the wet leaves echo peach jelly, dried plums, yellow rock sugar and custard cream. Its olfactory fervor is an unfolding of different layers of complexity, a swing of evolved notes and other more naive and fresh ones.
The spectrum then turns to naturalism, with olfactory memories of pickled bamboo, of mountain flowers up to the progression of reminiscence first of undergrowth, then minerals and iodines, like an orchard next to a creek, enjoying dried tropical fruit and Moroccan biscuits.

The aromatic approach in the mouth is that of a good, true pu’er, without excesses of fame or rhetoric. On the palate it is sweet and accommodating, with a practically absent bitterness and astringency. The sip is enveloping, of medium thickness, the sweetness of dark sugar and peach cream is integrated and it speeds it up, the note of pomelo zest is subservient to a set of bakery ad fruity aromas that recall a fruit tart. Excellent persistence of a finish with a fascinating floral and wild apple weaving.

29 September 2023
Sanmai, the village in Mengsong where time seems to have stopped

Sanmai has gained more and more attention from pu’er enthusiasts in recent years, following the growing interest in the forests of Naka and the Mengsong area.

It is surrounded by some of the most famous mountains in Menghai county, about an hour north of Banpo zhai in the Nannuo area, and an hour and a half south of Huazhuliangzi, reachable passing through the villages of Bameng and Baotang. The forests alternate with the taidicha like an ecological clash between human and nature,the primitive and forest scenarios intensify as you enter the trees towards the North, on the road to Sanmai Laozhai. Once in Sanmai Shangzhai there are only a few kilometers to walk towards the ancient gardens where the natural severity and the inexorability of the woods continues up to the gates of Nanben Laozhai.

Some Mengsong areas seem to open up towards the immense, they consecrate themselves in that “Open” which for Heidegger was the condition in which things, places, people can appear for what they are and not for their numerical value. From the ancient gardens of Sanmai, the valley sloping down to Jinghong, it seems like a mirage that would have elicited a surprised smile, despite his countless trips, even at Frederic Edwin Church.

The lichens and saprophytic plants embrace the shrubs in those slopes born from an insane verticalism, which forced the few pickers who bet part of their existence on tea to remain more anchored to the anxieties of concreteness, where the violet of their cheeks was the only chromatic hint among the shades of that primordial greenery.

Beyond the narrow and steep road, the rugged gorges and the road surface in which every ravine seems an existential leap, the Hani have found a home for centuries, what was previously a settlement became a security hub in 1934 under the name of Nanben Hebao, for then seeing his own name, Sanmai, only in 1956. Caravans often interrupted their journey here, the rains broke in for days, the oxen slipping caused them to lose the equipment entrusted to them and hence the legend of the name Sanmai, or the place where the tools were tied forming a trellis in the saddle of the ox.

In the ancient gardens tea trees are scattered, some tall yet young seem to converse with the conical bodies of Moso bamboo which often makes this forest look like the ecosystem of Huazhuliangzi.
Here, on the contrary, the bamboo was planted artificially, when tea had not yet reached its current economic importance, as a cash crop for building and textile purposes, and to restore the excessive soil reclamation which led to extremely important erosive phenomena. However, now its removal and reconversion of the land is a problem that inhabitants are facing with difficulty.

The descendants of those exiled souls who bet on the tea of Mengsong and Sanmai now reap the fruit of a legacy that expands beyond its disciplinary limits, to the point of involving the destiny of their own territory.

The rural scenes give value to the time that has passed, the villages develop on the open ridges of the mountains,where the approximately 500 families, mainly Hani, still live mainly thanks to livestock and farming. During the Gatangpa festival you can smell the scent of glutinous rice cakes in the alleys, people walk along the beaten path to reach the place of offerings, and then gather with their families drinking tea and rice wine, even some hens seem busy running out of the old wooden sheds; the black of the ethnic clothes, adorned with silver and silk tassels and the colorful bandanas with geometric motifs offer the only chromatic contrast from the red of the clay soil, as if their smiles were in that instant the only color detail on a black and white background.

Despite the growing awareness of the value of their tea, it seems that the jianghu forged by conflicts of personality and self-affirmation has not arrived here, their leaves still manage to offer an experience saturated with meaning, freed from economic conflicts and apocryphal slogans; they develop an extended atmosphere in which the link with a past emerges, with those identities, of those perceptions beyond time, which have the ability to bring the aesthetic experience of this village back to the dimension of the present in a different, imperceptible and at the same time sensitive in its liquid revelation.

9 September 2023
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 forest out of this world, shaped by a Caravaggesque hand. This is Paliang

Passing the muddy paths close to Bulang, with those mountains behind you that seem to have been born from the virtuosity of a Caravaggesque hand, shaped by tectonic inclemency, by geological tension, the sun shines burning over the tropical karst sinkholes, a place where nature and men weave millenary relationships, meeting in the most inaccessible forest and in the architectural remains of the imperial era.

The light filters through the dense forest, radiating the tea trees that look like illuminated actors in a naturalistic work twisted in lignified gestures, while the boys in the village load the trucks with cassava and laughter intones a background melody. Here stands the ancient village of Paliang, an out of this world place at about 1850 meters above sea level, surrounded by primitive works, where popular customs are preserved in their amnioticism.

All this is defined by leaves that show in an objective elegance what is an empathetic initiation to Bulang teas. The infusions reveal a more restrained astringency, a character devoid of that fatherly austerity represented by the strong bitterness of some teas that are encountered a few tens of miles away.

This sheng pu comes from material harvested in 2021 in Paliang. The scents of the leaves are like taking a look at an ancestral view, when wet they recall charcoal-cooked tropical fruit, the wild flowers bring back memories of an excursion on the bank of a wooded river, surrounded by deep forest moss, pervaded by the smell of wet rock. Almost primitive and mineral scents are accompanied by those of the juiciness of a basket of ripe fruit, there are notes of toasted dried fruit and slight hints of ancient leather.

In the mouth it flaunts a smooth texture, it seems wrapped in silk drapes, the bitterness is contained although present, tempered by the soft and deep echoes of a sweetness resulting from the juiciness of a ripe peach. The sip recalls the sensations of a good Montrachet, the palate is soon refreshed by a peculiar minerality and eagerly seeking the next contact with the cup.

19 August 2023
An emotional tea along Xiangling Highway. Mr Quen Cun An and his early 2000’s Manzhuan pu’er

Along the Xianglun Highway, the entrances to the forest alternate with those of the taidicha, a single main road connects the village of Manzhuang to that of Manlin. The primeval essence of the tropical forest can be seen from the few patches of bare earth left; the age, mineralogy and extensive leaching of acrisol, which have led to low levels of plant nutrients, counteract the silt-clay undertones of the iron- and aluminum-rich ferrarsol in which the camellia has found its home.

In the teahouses you drink the liquid consequence of a territory and its time, of a history of sacrifices and the search for the truest self-assertion. They become a place to find a family, a group or a simple shelter where one can abstract oneself from taxes or from any contradiction of contingencies, where every soul, even if tacit, does not wander alone, but together with other worn out and thirsty souls.

Mr. Quen’s Manzhuan sheng pu’er expresses the charm of the lived, it is the example of those teas that seem to simplify what is most hidden and arcane and complicate what is simpler, making a set of organoleptic notes a complex symphony and a vivid image.

The liqueur has a reddish color with orange reflections, reminiscent of the nuances of a tawny port. The scents of the wet leaves enriched with jinhua bring back memories of raw and primitive landscapes as Bruegel the Elder would have imagined them, with notes of damp earth, dried mushrooms, undergrowth, leading to a wood cabin under the rain, with the smell of aged mahogany, old books and a bouquet of faded flowers. Light balsamic tones take over in the background, together with those of burnt wood, laurel, dried plums, piloto tobacco, black pepper and dried longan.

The gloomy evening atmosphere becomes more vivid with the appearance of notes of leather, cognac and typical hints of aging in oak barrels.
The body is medium thick, the sip has notes of walnut, dried plums and aromatic herbs which are the prelude to the nuances of leather, old wood, cinchona, dried citrus peel and filter coffee.

It is a sheng of great balance and sensory complexity, the bitterness is now perfectly integrated and not very perceptible as is the astringency, excellent huigan and remarkable persistence.
Material from Ba Zhong Zhai village, Manzhuan area, family garden of Quen Cun An.

19 August 2023
The Shangkang festival, the reconciliation of civilization, a nostalgic tea. Thoughts through a 2021 Wengji sheng pu from Moychay

People gathered at the Shankang festival, their predecessors were honored, the offerings placed at the foot of a distant past in which every year the memory revived. It was an occasion to dance, to be involved in a moment when time seemed to stop, saturated with a sense that was difficult to translate into words, where society was reconciled and perfected, new relationships were woven and in the dance a harmonious idea of freedom and order was restored.

The intense emanation of life was palpable also through the negatives of the photographs still hanging to dry, in those images you could see the dynamism of movements, conversations, aspirations, through that dance was reconstituted a kind of social consciousness, a “to be for others” even through the individualism, an assignment of virtue reflected in rhythmic and modal imposition, in traditional customs, in emphasized forms of courtesy, creating a link between distance and proximity, freedom and respect, confidence and discipline.

In an age of collective utopias, among the mountain forests of Wengji flourishes instead the sense of dwelling, tea is evocative of a feeling of belonging, a vital civilization supported by the ability to live for its territory and its history alongside its neighbors, a loyalty to its land and the narration of its importance.

In the gaiwan there is a 2021 Wengji sheng pu from Moychay, a complex tea where the typical character of Jingmai emerges in the notes of honey and flowers, orange peel, caramelized apricot, cooked strawberry and pandolce, with more primitive nuances in the background. The body is medium thick, the aromas direct and defined, the huigan emerges early after the advance of a archetypical and balanced bitterness.

19 August 2023