Guan Zi Zai Tea Factory

So back in November 2015, I was envisioning how I would spend Christmas holiday drinking good tea and getting back to some steepster reviews .. well, seems like that didn’t happen. I drank all the tea of course, but confusingly steepster is kind of unpractical as a tea log, so I stayed silent about it.

Anyway, it’s not every day I notice a $300+ tea on Yunnan Sourcing, probably because I filter them out for my own safety. This Jingmai caught my attention though. According to description, it hails from mangjing, which I believe is considered more aggressive than “jingmai proper”, in general.

I tasted the rinse and drank the first (flash) infusion thinking “seems a little soft?”, but obviously it was silence before the storm, I had even seen the forecast. Come second infusion, strong mouth-coating bitterness that stayed around ever since, along with astringency. Great mouth-cooling effect and throat feel, makes itself known all the way down, and the buzz is evident. Nice and consistent leaf quality in my sample, crystal clear brew. At about 8g/160ml gaiwan, it’s still potent at about steep 8-10, but it is yielding to become a softer, more balanced drink. Either that, or my palate is completely lost for the day, it’s not clear.

Value-wise, $0.80/g seems in line with todays market for a limited availability high-end tea, but it comes as a big 400g cake, and a $320 entry fee it is a little hard to swallow, but worth considering.

It could become 100 days of pure ecstasy at a shitty retirement home, is that worth $300 less in hand today, plus babysitting it? I will reconsider if it’s still in stock when I get around to finishing the sample – “Limited Quantity”.

Edit: Been brewing this on and off for two more days; it did indeed calm down and has been brewing quite stable sweet/fruity with good texture and a little bite.

I’m not really entirely sure why I’m posting this review as I am confident my palate is off today. I’ve been sick for a couple of days and decided to do a bit of sheng pu drinking today. I’ve had this beng for about 3 years now and each time I have it it becomes more drinkable. I’m not quite sure if I really like the tea or if it just average. I’ve had both good and bad tasting sessions over the years. The early times the tea was an astringent mess of bitterness. One other time I had a session and can recall very pleasant young apricot like flavors. But during this current session I’m ot getting anything as far a flavors but simply a sweetness, a sensation at the rear of the mouth by the tonsils (if I still had mine). There is no astringency or bitterness at all, but not a lot of flavor either. I take several deep breaths from the yixing and can feel the same sweetness and coating in the olfactory gland inside my nose and the same coating sweetness in the rear of my mouth, but again there is no discernable flavor. Strange. But with all that said there is discernable chaqi and a bit of tea drunkeness, maybe tea tipsy is a better term as I’ve had teas with much better qi. At any rate, this is likely a throw away tasting note but even mediocre sessions provide context.

http://jakubtomek.blogspot.com/2011/08/2009-guang-zi-zai-zao-chun-nan-nuo.html