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“Have had this twice now, with similar ish ratios (5.5 or 6.5 g to 90ml). Once with gaiwan, once in zhuni, both boiling. It’s decent, but I don’t think I’ll buy it because I hate dealing with iron...” Read full tasting note
This is an iron-pressed cake made in 2001 and stored ever since in dry Malaysian storage. Despite its appearance and the fact that it was purchased at the time from an official Xiaguan dealer, it is likely not an official Xiaguan 8653 production, so we are calling it 2001 Iron Zhongcha. At the same time, this really impressed our tasting panel, being better than or as good as the official 8653 iron cakes we have tried from the same era. The excellent storage here has taken away nearly all the smokiness, and left a rich, concentrated and dark brew with nice camphor and aged taste. This is the ideal Zhongcha situation for us: a great tea with superb storage, but unofficial, bringing the price down to more reasonable levels.
310g cake
Have had this twice now, with similar ish ratios (5.5 or 6.5 g to 90ml). Once with gaiwan, once in zhuni, both boiling. It’s decent, but I don’t think I’ll buy it because I hate dealing with iron cakes. It takes one rinse to open up the chunk slightly, and then another longer rinse to soften it so it’s able to be fully picked apart. Even then I have to use my fingers to separate chunks into manageable pieces which is fine for drinking alone if a real hassle, but I would definitely not do if I was brewing for others.
Wet leaf: sweet (tomato-like?), woody, light smoke, pond
Taste is mostly woody, grass jelly, herbal/medicinal, sometimes apple-like and bitter adjacent but not quite bitter in the oversteeped heizhuan/fu way. Good texture, though taste isn’t terribly exciting most of the time. Which is a good thing, i think, since it seems clean. Feeling is comfortable, slightly warming. It’s in a good spot as far as I can tell, though for price point, I think I’m leaning towards caking the 7532 TWL carries.
Were you able to find samples of these? I thought TWL doesn’t really sell samples. Would love to try some of their teas before dropping hundreds on a cake haha
Sample trade with a tea friend! Really the only way, since due to the logistics complications, I doubt TWL will ever sell samples of these cakes.
Ahh I figured. Yea it’s unfortunate because I was hoping there were some samples available somewhere haha