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“A fairly decent well-priced aged offering from Xiaguan. Notes of leather,resin, a hint of plum in the background. A nice sweetness that carries through each steep. It’s not mind blowingly complex...” Read full tasting note
“A Taiwan stored version that had some traditional storage on it. There are hints of the strorage in the first cup. Very small touch of bitter hardly there. A little drying that goes fairly to sweet...” Read full tasting note
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A fairly decent well-priced aged offering from Xiaguan. Notes of leather,resin, a hint of plum in the background. A nice sweetness that carries through each steep. It’s not mind blowingly complex or anything, but for the price ($40 a cake) it’s really enjoyable and goes down easily. Qi was a little bit fast for my liking. Definitely a tea that’ll kick-start your day. I’d rank it a bit above their Jia Ji tuo’s. While those are a little one-note, this will give you more to ponder on during your session.
If you enjoy XG then you’ll almost certainly enjoy this. They once again have proven that you don’t need to blow your wallet to get a good aged sheng.
Flavors: Leather, Plum, Resin, Sweet
A Taiwan stored version that had some traditional storage on it. There are hints of the strorage in the first cup. Very small touch of bitter hardly there. A little drying that goes fairly to sweet quickly. Second cup brings more of the bitter note that rounds the corner with some camphor and mintiness hiding in there as well.
I don’t get the thickess as I do with some teas but this coats the mouth and feels a bit slippery for a few seconds on the tongue. Some mintiness but the Camphor on this is really nice. Good to find a tea that has some storage that doesn’t wash it out completely. I am probably getting the bitter as a harder hit since I was brewing the scraps of a few cakes up. Def a good one if you want to explore puerh a bit more. Some of the older factory cakes are way better and less pricey than most of the new factory stuff.
We got a live one!
Yeah had to do a few cups. Switched over some of my drinking habits. Back to the good stuff.
I’m always surprised that Xiaguan teas don’t get as much attention in Western tea communities as some of the other big factory teas. I also remember when both Xiaguan and some of the better Xiaguan fakes were extremely cheap. I snapped up a bunch from several different sources between 2015-2017. I won’t even go near Dayi stuff now unless I can get reasonably priced samples. Their newer cakes are just too expensive for me, and I don’t think the quality is there compared to some of the older productions.
@eastkyteaguy I feel the same. Properly aged XG is nice and they are the second biggest producer in China. They have had a rap as a smoky tea early on and the older stuff for sure has that aspect to it. The newer stuff is processed differently in many occasions. I have been buying up some good older XG and way cheaper than the new Dayi and boutique productions out there. When you can buy a new Dayi for $100+ I will opt for getting 2 XG’s with age for the same price.
Could not agree more that XG with 15-20 years on it is a damned fine thing. I had some iron cakes stored in Malaysia and they were mighty good.
@ J-P I am actually selling some XG products and some other stuff on the side. It has allowed me to dig up some really good older stuff.
