Chawangshop

This is a most excellent Jingmai tea, the positive things of Jingmai being furthered by the addition of tea flowers. An excellent combination. Still strong, should age well.

A bit about this one at: http://jakubtomek.blogspot.com/2012/01/several-pieces-from-chawangshop.html

I generally rather enjoyed this one. Nicely aged, very smooth and pleasant.

A very enjoyable tea – typical meadow-flowery You Le. Not as fine as Jinuoshan production, but that is two times as expensive.

This is a very nice tea for usual drinking, nicely aging, not having any obvious flaws, definitely enjoyable.

http://jakubtomek.blogspot.com/2012/01/2003-jinggu-bai-long-organic-te-ji.html

This is a very nice and “proper” Jinggu tea, I presume it is made from wilder and/or older trees. Clean taste, pleasant, silky bitterness and, considering it is Jinggu, very above-average amount of character.

This cake is a nice piece of sunshine conserved in Chinese leaf. Youle has easily become one of my favourite areas, I like its bittersweet taste, changeable profile, it is never boring and as far as I can say thanks to my brand new experience, it ages nicely.

As I do not have much experience with aged tea, I really cannot say much about its expected characteristics. I can only tell that to me, it tasted almost like some lighter excellent shupu. It is rather sweet and earthy, less fruity and flowery but still sweet. It smells wonderful, like a mixture of old wet leaves and soil with all its richness and beauty.

Drinking this tea, I enjoy the sweetness which turns into bittersweet aftertaste at the back of the tongue. I left the leaf longer than I usually do as I wanted to taste the whole potential of the tea, it reacted nicely. When steeped longer, the amount of bitterness develops and brings with a tone of bitter almond.

To read the whole tea session review, see the blog:
http://teadropping.blogspot.com/2011/12/1998-cnnp-youle-qiaomu.html

Another real bargain from Chawangshop. I really like pu with a strong character and I like to hunt for them. Yes, it’s pretty unique sheng: decent price for an aged cake, outstanding aroma/taste of boiled prunes, unusual pu area (Mengma).
Very similar to aged Xiaguan tuos, but more interesting for my taste. I’m not sure but I think that it’s a purple puerh. Hard to say because leaves are almost black :)
What a wonderful smell of brewed leaves after ending tea session! Love it, just an example to me how good aged sheng can be!

P.s I recommend to do few rinses with boiling water before brewing. It helps to remove all odours of wet storage. But then you should brew tea with water slightly cooler than usual to get more flavour and more delicate taste.
Nov 2011

Probably one of the best (and safe!) buys. If you are going to make an order at Chawangshop (or taobao maybe) I recommend to try this pu. Highly recommended to anyone. At this price, it’s a steal!
I didn’t expect that cheap Mengku cake could be SO good. I tasted a lot of Mengku young shengs: different vendors, different villages, different prices. This cake is a winner!
When I smelled the sample, it was outstanding! The strongest “floral & honey” aroma. When I tasted the soup, I was surprised again… Beautiful scene without any doubts! Reminds me a lot of a mix of the best of Mengku, excellent Nannuo and good green tea.
Thick and potent for a Mengku sheng. Definetely more “beefy” than most of Mengku. I can only imagine how good is pure Xigui gushu. Maybe I’m wrong but I believe in aging potencial of this cake.
One of my everyday choices. Usually I blend it with something different: something nutty (jingmai) or something solid as a rock in terms of taste (menghai/bulang) or something fruity (some autumn youle/yiwu). Everytime the result is great!
Nov 2011

Very good sweet Menghai shu with chocolate notes. Not the best but very good pu. Recommended as inexpensive “everyday shu”.
Nov 2011

Surprisingly good offer from Yong Pin Hao for it’s price.
The taste is pretty unusual for yiwu: rice (very unusual for spring cake!), little bit of honey and cinnamon. Creamy and balanced with sweet aftertaste.
It’s “dark” version of yiwu pu and reminds me more autumn youle than spring yiwu.
Anyway it’s well-valued cake.
Nov 2011

Typical Yibang.
I read a lot about Yibang and I know that many people like it. But all Yibang pu I’ve tasted are the same. Pretty sweet yellow soup without any traces of bitterness (and flowers/honey/mushrooms) and it seems boring for my taste.
Just not my kind of pu.
Nov 2011

Another decent cake from ChawangShop. Sweet aroma and taste with hints of honey and lemon.
Great cooling sensation in the mouth. Just reduce water temperature to feel this effect.
Pretty good Nan Po sheng similar to GOOD Bingdao. If you like Bingdao – try this cake.

Excellent stuff! Premium spring arbor maocha without doubt.
I started to cough after tasting first cups of GSZ. It’s very powerful and complex!
Main notes: strength, thickness (slightly oily), vegetal profile.
Even more potent than some BanZhang I tested. Recommended for all Yiwu fans (like me).
Nov 2011

Pretty good and inexpensive aged autumn youle.
Main notes: dried fruits, sweetness, little bit of cinnamon. Slightly woody.
Nov 2011

The best hei cha I’ve ever tasted. Spicy (strong “orchid/cinnamon” aroma) and very sweet (thanks to golden flowers). Reminds me good dark oolongs but in a more interesting way (not so aggressive).
If you like dark oolongs and/or chinese black tea (hei cha) you have to taste this product. Recommended!
Nov 2011

I have had the cake at home for a few weeks already and have been coming back to it once in a while to get a more complex impression of its character. It is a nice cake with quite dark broken leaf which had been chopped on purpose (this is at least the official story from the vendor). Some cakes with large leaf are intentionally pressed with the leaf broken which is said to be the tradition, or in order to age well. In my personal humble opinion this tea would be more interesting if pressed more carefully and less traditionally.

The smell of dry leaf is sweet and fruity, and it is not hard to identify the typical Nannuo aroma, it is intense fruity and spicy. The cake is pressed medium light, it is easy to separate chunks of leaf. Due to its rather broken character, it is however quite difficult to get a regular sample and separate the leaves well. After unwrapping the cake there were quite many small particles and fragments of what used to be leaves, and since it was stored in dry environment it is also quite fragile. It seems to contain some amount of stems and huang pian too, yellowed leaves which are normally culled from Pu’er maocha before pressing, but may be worth brewing nonetheless .

The colour of the first infusion is very dark despite short steeping time, it even resembles some hongcha (red tea) in both taste and look. It is sweet on the top of the tongue and very citric afterwards. The citric and a bit minty flavour is so intense that it even paralyzes the tongue for a while. It seems to be the former astringency transformed through some years of aging already, as there are still gentle bitter-astringent tones present in the flavour.

Despite the lemonish trace, the flavour is still sweet and fruity, thirst quenching and refreshing. The leaf is very potent but due to the rather broken character of the leaf it is easy to overbrew it. Everything comes out of the leaf particles immediately in water, you can taste the whole complex character of the tea in the first few infusions. The later infusions are less intense, more mellow but the overall characteristics of the flavour and aroma develop quickly. The rest of the session you can enjoy less citric and more fruity and sweet tones and go like this for approximately ten or twelve infusions, depending on the amount of leaf and water.

Too see some photo documentation of this tea session and to read the full review see my blog entry: http://teadropping.blogspot.com/2011/11/2005-nannuoshan-menghai-banzhang.html

i like that tea because you can make lots of tasty caps, good quality for good price :)

i never had better tea than that !!!! this tea has lots of fresh taste

This is one of the most incredible teas I have ever had. The apricot notes are out of this world and yet the roast of the tea is so smooth and well rounded. each infusion was a slight variation on these flavors. I drank this tea for 5 infusions but I have no doubt that it could withstand 10-15 brews. I look forward to my next session with it which will hopefully be a cha xi with my dedicated phoenix pot.

Delicious tea, resembles a mixture of spice (maybe cinnamon), nuts and herbs. The colour is dark red-brown and transparent, the taste is so rich that it is extremely hard to describe. Good tea for colder days despite the fact that hei cha is considered a “cooling” kind of tea. It works well with gongfu style, this kind of preparation allows you to fully enjoy the abundance of tastes of the tea.

A nice brick, wonderful smell. Rather young but perfectly drinkable. I have tried twice so far, still trying to find proper words how to describe the taste: softer in taste, stronger in effect, resembles gentle green tea with some floral scent. Still experimenting with steep time and temperature.

http://jakubtomek.blogspot.com/2011/04/2004-jinuo-shan-you-le-spring-400g-cake.html

This is a great tea. However, it was bought in limited quantity and it is difficult to obtain exactly the same cakes (stored in the same way). Nevertheless, it shows that Jinuoshan factory is very potent and You Le 2004 is often great (be especially careful with autumn harvests though).