2006 Haiwan Lao Tongzhi Deep Mountain Gushu

I drank a session of this over the past weekend. I’d had some broken off the cake and airing out for a week or 10 days. This is a loosely compressed cake, at least around the edge I was nibbling at. I easily got 15g or so of leaf just by poking at it with a pick. It’s large pieces of leaf, few whole ones, with rather a lot of sticks or stems. The color of the leaf is brown of roasted coffee bean to almost black. The dry leaf has a faint aroma of incense, which strengthens some as it is warmed in a heated gaiwan.

The loose, large-leaf material is easily soaked with a 10-second rinse: a wide pour leaves almost nothing caught in the filter. Noting the absence of choppy stuff I determine to start with longish steeps and hit it like 20s, 15s, 15s, 15s, 10s, 15s, 20s, 25s,…45s, 60s, 75s… 120s. I think it went 16-17 infusions before it was played out. Had I not hammered so hard on it early I’m sure it would be good for 20.

The incense aroma of the dry leaf survived the rinse and made it into the first few infusions. These also had a strong sweet mouthfeel which grew increasingly bitter and astringent, with early development of the characteristic woody medicinal profile of mature raw tea. After the first 5-6 cups there is a thick, strong, sweet dry-cup aroma, I’m sitting there huffing it between steeps. By the 8th steep or so I’m thinking that there is still considerable greenness here that could develop over future years, but I bought this as a daily drinker so that’s probably not going to happen to this cake.

By about the 10th steep the dominant note is a bright tangy tart taste with mouth-drying astringency. This stays in following steeps gradually fading until it reaches the faintly-sweet-colored-water stage.

From Liquid Proust’s MX-King group buy.

This is just an initial review. I’ll do more detail after the tea has a chance to rest from its travels. Nice nose is smoky with some wood and fruit. Taste has a fair amount of texture, and a flavor that is on the veggie side of tropical fruit. Flavors continue into the finish. Not sure I like the veggie notes. 2nd steep: The smoke is showing that slightly bitter ash taste that I’ve disliked in previous wet-stored teas, though this doesn’t otherwise taste of wet storage. Very interesting. There’s a lot going on here. Still pretty powerful. Strong finish is bitter, but still shows a bit of fruit. Just a bit of cha qi. 4th steep is a bit more mellow. Less fruit but also less wood. Good texture in the mouth. Unspectacular but enjoyable.