Liubao Dirt Tea
I just reviewed two more Liu Bao that I picked up in a recent visit to Chinatown. Neither tastes all that much like dirt, or musty, although one has slate and charcoal as primary flavor aspects, which is bit on the earthy side, with just a touch of mustiness. The other came across as much cleaner, with a good bit of mineral still, and some tone like dark wood, but beyond that a flavor aspect not unlike spice, or a little like that sweet aromatic aspect in loose leaf chewing tobacco. Maybe that resembled betel nut (per a product description mention) but I’m not familiar with that.
http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2017/10/liu-bao-from-double-dogs-tea-shop.html
Sounds like you got more representative examples of good liu bao there. THe slate/charcoal/rain flavor is very liu bao, and the cleaner, spicier, chewing tobacco kind is what I like best. :)
Betelnut is something you have to try some time! I chew it very infrequently but I do find the differences in betel culture between countries to be very interesting. I like the way the Burmese/Taiwanese/Hainanese chew betel best.
Just throwing this out there, for those who had a similar dirt tea experience. https://steepster.com/apefuzz/posts/364905
Persevere and you might be rewarded!
I tried a tea as part of a Yiwu (pu’er) tasting over the weekend that was presented as a 1960s Liu Bao. It was pretty good; a little better than the others I’d tried, but not as different as I might have expected. It didn’t taste like dirt. It did still taste a bit like a similar mineral, like slate, to me, with plenty of other range that’s harder to summarize.
That sounds good. I have some liu bao I bought from a specialist dealer in Malaysia. The guy is an art and Yixing connoisseur! He sold me some very good aged liu bao. I haven’t visited it in a while, but there is no slate/dirt/anything from that end of the spectrum there. I really need to revisit it! I haven’t had any in about a year and I bought the bag three or four years ago. If I’d known more about Yixing then, I would’ve looked at his pots, but I still know very little!
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