Spring 2016 Nanzuo Lao Shengtai

I first bought a cake of this on a whim in december 2017 (drunk, impulsive, same thing). It was coincidentally also one of my first shengs and I hated it. Coming back to it now after six months and having developed my taste more, here are my thoughts.

The leaves are easy to pry off. You can do it easily with a butter knife if you wanted. I did 1gr to 15ml gongfu style in a jianshui teapot. The tea started out soft with an astringency that sticks with you throughout the sessions. It settles in the back of your throat. The tea soup is quite thick and in the mouth it feels smooth and almost oily.

Only in the fourth steep or so did a bit of sweetness come through, but only peeking out so much before the taste turned flowery. It is hard to explain, but once you’ve swallowed the tea, you’re left with a strange bitter and flowery aroma and taste in your mouth. Like you’ve munched on some rose petals is the best to describe it (and yes, I have done that to know). It is not at all unpleasant, but I can see why I did not like this tea very much back when I was new to puerh tea.

The bitter flowery taste becomes more apparent and around steep number seven I found it leaning just a little bit towards orange peels. The soup kind of sticks against the back of your throat and with further steeps, I found it to begin to have some tardiness to it. Astringency is still there. Towards the end, it was mostly bitter with no further notes or aromas.

Cha qi is quite strong. I felt very alert and aware of my surroundings after, some lightness in the head and almost fidgety. Something I don’t get often either. It gives me great energy.

This is a tea that is not for everyone. I remember regretting buying a whole cake of this, but having revisited it now I can see how I might crave a tea like this once in a while. It’s definitely not a daily drinker for me. There’s still quite some bitterness in it and I was glad to have the jianshui teapot to take some of the edge off. I don’t think most people would enjoy this tea. It’s not necessarily complex in taste, but it has a very straightforward character that will only do for some. I enjoy it, but only once in a while.

Very fresh, slightly bitter-sweet and a bit astringent.
Images and more at https://puerh.blog/teanotes/2016-nanzuo-lao-shengtai-bana

Very durable and enjoyable. Easy to drink.
You always ask yourself: wherever it is possible to get one more cup from session, than one more, more, more :)

Finished off another Farmerleaf Sample today in a teachat hangout. This one was pretty nice, though not particularly remarkable. The dry leaf had a sweet straw and young sheng aroma. After a rinse, it got a bit more green tobacco-y.

The flavor on the first two steeps was grassy with a bit of a marine, briney note. It was thick from the beginning. On the second steep, there was a bit of fruitiness in the finish – a portent of things to come.

The main body of this session was characterized by a thick fruitiness – I described it as “jammy” in my notes. I wouldn’t call it apricot, like you get in a lot of young sheng, but it certainly wasn’t a dark fruit like raisin or plum or anything. It was a little unclear, kind of just a murky fruity flavor with accompanying thickness. One session out of the three I did yielded more of a floral flavor for some reason – still murky and thick, with slight fruitiness though.

As the tea starts to wane, the fruitiness leaves and the thickness diminishes, leaving a moderately sweet floral taste.

A decent offering again from Farmerleaf. Haven’t yet had a bad tea from them. A couple good ones – no great ones. I’ve been saving most of the higher end ones for last though, so we’ll see what those sessions yield.

This is the second sheng I have drank from Farmerleaf. I like this tea. It started out very smooth and with no bitterness. But the leaves had yet to open up. It was a very densely packed cake. When the leaves opened up around steep three the bitterness too over. This was not the sort of bitterness I call an abiding bitterness but it was the dominant flavor for a few steeps. I would say the bitterness persisted until about steep seven. After this a smooth note took over that was not quite apricots but almost. It was definitely a sweet note of a young sheng, one peculiar to young sheng that I am not really certain what is the best description for. There was also a mild amount of astringency to this tea. Judging from the sample, this is a good one to buy if you want to drink it now. I have no way to know how it might age. As they are a new company they don’t yet sell anything aged to my knowledge.

I steeped this teat twelve times in a 150ml gaiwan with 8g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 min. The tea would have gone past twelve steeps it was not yet watery but I was at my caffeine limit.