Chawangshop

I must confess I don’t know what category of tea this is. Maybe hei cha? It tastes like a cross between a ripe pu erh, aged white, and red (Hong cha). It is clean tasting, with notes of ripe age, tart, and black tea. It is really different. It is not at all pretty, it is very dark, with stems, broken leaves, and whole leaves. An interesting one that I think ripe pu erh lovers would enjoy.

This was a fun tea to unwrap. It comes in the shape of a small pillow, about 2" on a side. Looks like a puerh cake, but is much lighter because it is uncompressed. It was easy to flake off 3 grams (out of about 20) for my pot. 5 oz water, 1 min steeps.

Sadly, the fun ended when I began to drink. The first steep was very light, with only a mild toast flavor. Simple and uninteresting. Second steep was pretty much the same, so I increased the steep time, which only added some bitterness. This looked like a bargain, but I guess you sometimes get what you pay for.

Fortunate to get 100gm of this before it’s departure from Chawangshop. As pointed out by Cwyn and Boychik, this is a delightful stoner tea. Also as pointed out by another tea friend who shall remain nameless here, " we drink tea not for it’s taste, but for it’s affect on the body". Cheers.

Chawangshop has some great ripes, at really low prices. This is a $6 100g cake, and it is really good. Pretty smooth, very little fermentation flavor, just deep and rich and hearty. Later steeps had just a touch of tart cherry. It is not earth shattering, but it is really good.

Trying this one I got a number of months ago. This is a cheap $10 ripe cake from Chawangshop, made with purple leaves (at least in part). I’ve never tried a purple leaf ripe. I can’t say I noticed much that was unique about it. But it is a very good tea, killer for the price. A little bitter and acidic, but deep and rich, a little chocolate creaminess, and a whisper of smoke. The flavors mingle well. It tastes nicely aged at this point.

2016 Sheng Olympics

I got 3 steeps into this tea today and hit my caffeine level. I can’t take much caffeine these days (another reason why I hardly have any black teas).

It was a really good sheng. I didn’t take any notes but each steep was honey sweet with woodsy notes. A bit of apricot too and a thick creamy mouth feel to it. Steeped at 90C , 10 sec or less each steep and no bitterness at all. I really enjoyed this one.

Triple Laos border tea taste test:

This was my favourite of the three. I loved the rounded less fruity but dense flavour. I would like to say hints of veg & cream in there. I really enjoyed it, and every round this one just had a bit more than the blue one had.

I didnt take notes per se, just noted every round which one I preferred and this one was the winner.

Triple taste test with the Laos ‘Border teas’ from Chawangshop.

This one sat in the middle for me, I liked the flavour which was rounded, soft, not as fruity as the payasi. It wasnt as bold as the black label.

Realised I hadnt tried these yet & did a triple taste session.

This was the fruitiest of the Laos ‘border teas’ but also had some weird bitterness occasionally. I wasnt bad though, and turned into a nicer tea a bit later. I think brewing times are important with this one. It had a cooling effect & tasted younger/sharper than the others, It was a little feisty with its flavours, perhaps a good one to age.

I didnt really take notes, I just tried them at the same time and noted which I preferred each round. This was my least favourite but I still liked it enough to pick up a cake, which shows how much I liked the teas from Chawangshop.

This is a tea that I will be stocking up on! It’s unbelievably fantastic!

The cake is nothing special with a very typical scent of a dark wood and some dry grass. I warmed up my yixing and popped it in. I had very low if not any expectations for this tea. I was not impressed, and I thought it to be a very basic sheng. I lifted my teapot’s lid, and all my doubt was instantly washed away. An incredible intense aroma of warm honey, mahogany, and pure maple syrup engulfed my tea room. The taste was so sweet and so potent, I was salivating. I washed the leaves once and prepared for brewing. The sweet and dessert flavor remained except a vibrant spinach tone now lie in the background. The liquor was a crystal amber color and steamed with delicate fumes. The brew began with a cleansing grass tone with a smooth floral wash. A quick nip at the tongue kept me alert and ready for the grand finale. Immediately after I swallow, a beautiful and deep huigan drowned my senses. I cannot describe how powerful and clear the honey aftertaste was. I literally looked up from my tea table and “wow’d”. This brew was so good, so potent, so balanced… I was in love. The flavor continued with a well arranged floral delicacy and tangy sweetness that lasted well into the night. The fragrance from my pot grew stronger and filled my tea room with an intoxicating perfume. The only fall this tea has, is the qi is very quiet and acts as a background fuzz that just slightly lifts the drinker. The sensation was subtle and obscure, but it still was a nice companion. This tea is fantastic if you want a sweet, decadent, and memorable sheng. I highly recommend it, and I will hopefully be buying a tong or two.

I feel like I should be writing more reviews. I realize I’ve been only doing teas that I feel obligated to review (TTB donations) or teas that affected me strongly one way or another. My dashboard on steepster has been sparse lately, so I suspect many others are drifting into the same mode of operation.

This is a nice average sheng. The only thing that stands out is the fairly strong cha qi. I was feeling it in my shoulders after drinking about one ounce. I took a break after my second cup so can’t fully estimate its power, but it’s pretty strong. For me the feeling is more physical than mental. The tea has a pleasant toasted straw flavor, with some bitterness at the beginning of the finish and some tropical fruit that comes out from behind the bitterness late in the finish. I was going to recommend the tea as an inexpensive tea drunk, but see that it is now out of stock. Another opportunity missed.

Another Liu bao last night. very interesting.
the leaf material is really nice, long intact and not too much sticks.
same parameters as i have for sheng
5g/80ml yixing 212F
rinse/short steeps

this Liu bao is nice, smoky not overly. it has that cooling pine needle /minty flavor.
But… its not a midnight drink. I was starving and had to fix myself a breakfast. eggs, mini bagel and cheddar. i felt quite energized and packed few more never ending boxes ( moving to a new place next week)

To sum up: it is a better version of Lapsang Sauchong. it is smooth and smoke is not harsh. i bet it will only improve in a few years

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Ok people. my Liu Bao affair continues. I have Liu Bao almost every night.

I really like this one. it is non smoky. it tastes clean even though its young in Liu bao age. the color is lovely orange. it is sweet and spicy. nothing overpowering or off putting. very safe introduction to Liu bao i think. it is pretty complex and qi is noticeable.
Very nice night drink
i brew it as i would do sheng
5g/80ml yixing 212F
rinse/ very short steeps increasing to my liking

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This is a pretty good daily drinker with a lot of cha qi. I had my pot set at 190 F for the first two steeps, resulting in alight straw flavor. After setting it back to 200, the tea had more bite, with a fair amount of tannin, and the straw flavor drifted more toward wood. However, I could still detect a bit of stone fruit under the wood and tannin, and there wasn’t much bitterness, despite a fair amount of dust in my sample.

Dried leaves: mild sweet grass aroma.
Wet Leaves: sweeter tropical fruit on top of what seems almost like steamed potatoes.

Mostly small, in-tact plump buds and the tea soup is of a deeper gold tone with nice clarity. Great base material here—full-bodied, nice kuwei and huigan, and notes of tropical fruits, raw honey, and sweet hay-like base. The energy in the tea creates a nice body-feel. For now, in terms of 2015 chawangpu ranking, it’s Hekai, Lao Yu, and then Mengsong—though I anticipate this order will change with age. I still need to try their 2015 Bada Old Tree.

Addendum: After 7 to 8 months of resting and settling, this tea is now performing well, better than the other teas I’ve purchased from CWS. Cooling and mouth activity are turned up a notch compared to earlier this spring. Bitterness and tobacco mingle nicely with dominant sweet caramelized pineapple notes. There isn’t much depth here but a solid Menghai base of sweet hay and bitters.

It took me a while to get to drinking this tea. They are now out of stock. They no longer list it on their website so I couldn’t get a photo. This was pretty good overall. It started out fairly bitter and a little sour. Both these notes passed quickly and I was left with a sweet note and a flavor I don’t know how to describe that is I think typical liu bao. Maybe a little bit peaty, not sure if that is the word for this note. I know I have gotten similar notes from other liu bao teas in the past. This one had no traces of fermentation. I don’t even know for sure that this was a fermented liu bao or not. It also had no traces of wet storage, or any other storage notes I could detect. Overall I liked this tea.

I steeped this eight times in a 120ml gaiwan with 8.2g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a ten minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, and 30 sec. There was a little left in the leaves but not much. I suspect I could get two or three more steeps out of them.

One of the joys of pu’er is exploring the various terroirs of Yunnan. Hekai is right in the middle of all those regions in Menghai county that tend to be overpriced, and perhaps even over harvested. This tea seems to defy all of that—it’s inexpensive relative to 2015’s maocha prices (still at $36 for 200 g!) and quite pungent. Really, Hekai is where you can get the pu’er version of quality dry chardonnay.

The leaves on this cake are mostly highly fragrant, silvery plump buds. The aroma is dynamic and evolves with each steep—making it hard to place initially (perhaps sweet pistachio?). Around the 5th steep I smelled roasted peanuts. This is wonderfully full-bodied with a pleasurable mouthfeel, potent qi, nice huigan, and a bittersweet, dry chardonnay-like aftertaste that stays for quite some time.

Key flavors are cotton candy, moscato grapes, broccoli rabe and mustard greens, and in that order. It starts to fade at steep 7, but the leaves still give tasty cups of tea until they fade completely at steep 13 or so. What a great value!

I think Allan wrote an accurate review of this tea. It is strong, dark, and full flavored with just a touch of bitterness and fermentation flavor. Bittersweet is a good characterization. It is quite tasty and a good bargain.

From the Sheng Olympics 2016
(10s): pale straw color. Taste starts light but builds impressive power for a 1st steep. Taste is straw with hints of wood and black pepper. 2nd (10s): Wow: very soft and sweet with grassy, somewhat floral notes. Very approachable, but not overly interesting. Fairly strong cha qi. Developed some structure (acidity and astringency) in 3rd/4th steeps. Still fairly straightforward, but more interesting than before. Gradually got more interesting in the next few steeps but I wouldn’t call it complex.

This would be an excellent introduction to sheng. It starts out gentle then gradually shows a bit more bite. Not something I’d want more of unless it was to put into the beginner’s TTB.

I’m digging through old samples trying to sip down some of my collection but it’s very slow going. When I first got serious about puerh a couple of years ago I figured that if the tea was meant to be drunk aged, I should try to buy stuff that was old. Since I was just getting into it, however, I tried to do it on a budget. The result is a bunch of teas like this one, made with chopped leaves and very, very smoky.

It really makes sense that the higher quality teas from over a decade ago wouldn’t be kicking around in the back of someone’s warehouse for more than a decade, but I keep hoping. Of course quality teas do exist, but I have to be willing to pay up for them, which I’m starting to do.

At any rate, this tea is a better than average example of the genre. It is no longer available but I bought a sample from Chawang Shop at a reasonable cost about a year ago. I was hit by a strong smoke aroma pretty much then the water first hit the leaves. I was surprised to find that it dissipated almost immediately and left a tea that was a light straw flavor with hints of tropical fruits. This was the first (and best) steep. After that, the smoke pretty much dominated for the next 4 steeps. If I didn’t like smoky teas, I probably would have dumped it and moved on. However, the finish was better balanced, and hinted that there was a good tea lurking under all that smoke.

I kept drinking and the smoke slowly faded, but the underlying tea faded at pretty much the same rate, and the finish began to get a bit of that ash flavor that smoky teas sometimes produce. Around the 5th steep, the tea developed a sweetness that was stronger than the smoke and the taste became more like leather, with smoke underneath. The finish also improved: no more ash, though somewhat bitter.

The later steeps were quite pleasant, but I had to pass through smoke and ash to get there. I probably rated this too high, but that first and later steeps were really pleasant, and I do like a smoky tea. One funny note: I didn’t really notice much cha qi, but the first time I had this tea I rated it high for cha qi. May depend on my mood?

Rather dark brew from this one. The taste is on the mild side with sweet notes throughout the steeps simple mouth body and easy to brew. Ideally to be drank when working on other things as complexity is not within this tea making it one to enjoy while being busy. Depending on the price and storage conditions it could be a daily morning cup while driving to work. I think a little wet storage on this would make it pop a bit

This tea tastes very mineral to me. Hardly any bitterness. Just a small amount that makes it quite pleasant. I’m not getting any apricot or fruity notes I get from some young shengs. Earlier infusions were thick and silky on the tongue – a bit creamy. It was a bit less on later infusions. A bit of sweetness. Overall a nice smooth sheng.

Comparing notes to the 2006 Benshan.
This particular tea has more of a woodsy and roasted taste profile while the 2006 has a slight cocoa (dry chocolate) taste. I prefer the cocoa taste notes, especially when the tea thins out. For those who like a medium roast profile, being less than most roasted tgy have, this is a tea that can last for hours. There isn’t much that has to open up for this leaf which helps with a consistent brew. My suggestion with this, as with most roasted teas, I advise to drink some water between steeps because the back of the throat dries out pretty easily after 20oz; this is my experience. My personal preference for Benshan is of a lower roast while tgy is higher and overall I prefer the roast profile found in wuyi teas. This is surely a hit for many, but the few (such as I) this leads to just a sampling.

This has a pleasant apricot color. The scent of the liquor is mineral and rock though. The taste is like a white tea, but not a great white tea. It’s kind of drying and I mainly get rock and some mild grassiness. Subsequent steeps didn’t really reveal any new flavor notes. S’okay but nothing I need again. Glad to have tried it, thanks to James for sending a share of the Sheng Olympics my way. :)