2006 White2Tea Old Bear Fangcha

Dry leaves: tobacco, ash, smoke, camphor
Wet leaves: sweet baked pear/apple, camphor, cork, old wood.

1
The leaves this time are quite chopped up. First infusion is rich, sweet, on the verge of being bitter/astringent but somehow everything feels under control. Body is medium, interesting texture, light smoky huigan. A pleasure to drink.

2
A good balance of various elements, medicinal, warming, satisfying. Light huigan.

3
Around this point it gets rougher. Herbal, dry, with a beginning of cooling feeling. More intense, bittersweet aftertaste, reminiscent of roots like ginseng or liquorice.

4 & 5
Spicy. Strong. Traditional Chinese medicine. Rich chicken soup. Feels good. Interesting wine-cork element is still present. It doesn’t seem to have much Qi.
I feel slightly more relaxed, in a gentle way.

Soothing smoky peaty sweetness. Later woodsy, slightly fruity. Delicate bitterness that never overwhelms. Cozy as hell.

I should have added more of this to my Black Friday order. I still have like 90g left so I have time but meh. I always forget something.

Well, this tea has been pretty much covered so I’ll add a little personification for fun.

Old Bear reminds me of a good friend I have who likens himself to a cross between a black bear and a gorilla with dark hair the color of this leaf and some red in his beard like the color of the brew. He happens to like roughing it a lot and is no stranger to a good smokey campfire and a swig of peaty scotch. Even the toughest jabs seem to glance off of him. He comes across as bold, brash, bitter and gruff with a hard to penetrate exterior but once he opens up, he’s very sweet and even-tempered. I wouldn’t call him dry, even though this tea can be at times. A solid, thick, no-nonsense beast who always delivers.

I’ll have to take this little brick with me next time we meet up in the wilderness and see what he thinks of this tea.

5g, 100mL, 212F, 20s rinse, 8 steeps at 4×20s/30/35/45/45 then lost count after that. Oh yeah, high and sustained amount of caffeine and a nice softening of the gaze. I was gifted an animal hair in my first chip off the brick. It was tan and white, coarse and wiry. Maybe pig? Who knows.

Great smoky flavour with a good level of bitterness. The most bang on description of a tea I think I’ve ever read. Does well in both gongfu and grandpa brewing. I hope the smoke doesn’t fade too soon, I love this one.

Cedar smoke and petroleum. It tastes like going camping, taking off your smoke saturated wool shirt, boiling it, and throwing some oxidized oolong in the water. This is good.

Malt, smoke and caffeine…pretty simple. Reminds me of a German rauchbier or perhaps Alaskan smoked porter not peat smoky like a scotch but wood smoke. If you are the type who likes to eat burnt ends from leftover barbecue for breakfast whilst getting wired on cheap coffee, get you a cake of this.

Iron compression. Leaf material is mostly black, with a few dull gold bits. Dry leaf smells sweet, woodsy, and slightly smokey. Brewed aroma is, mostly, a heavy campfire smoke, with an underlying sweetness. The sweetness reminds me a bit of tar now. After two washes, I start brewing.Brews up thick, and lubricating. Color wise, it’s sort of a peach-yellow/orange. First sip is smokey. There’s a pine tree sap sweetness to the smoke. Pine tree is actually a perfect descriptor for this tea. That’s about it. There’s very little evolution in this tea.

A solid aged sheng. The tea had a pleasant, smoky flavor which didn’t change much over the course of ~15 infusions. While the flavor was not very complex, it was pleasantly rustic with notes of wood smoke.

Pretty much every other review is spot on. A solid, semi aged sheng that’s got a good amount of smokiness to it. I personally can’t stand tightly compressed cakes just for the sake of getting off enough for a session without breaking a sweat or stabbing myself, and this brick is nearly as compressed as an actual brick. I know this would have likely aged differently given a different level of compression, but I would give a higher ranking right this second for convenience sake if it was a little less compressed.

Another sample from the Beginners puerh box. The first three steps were lovely, smooth tobacco smoke flavor, no bitterness. If Lapsong is like campfire smoke, this is your grandfathers soothing pipe smoke. Subsequent steeps had too much bitterness that overwhelmed the dwindling smoky taste. I’ve added this to my wish list because I am wondering how it will age in the next 5-10 years.