The ’06 Langhe Tuo is lovely.  It consistently brews crystal clear with a dark red-black hue that is a true pleasure to look at, like Naomi Campbell.  Langhe productions are famous for their light fermentation style that gives rise to a very clean-tasting result.  For some reason, this seems to give rise to a chocolately result ranging from milk to baker’s chocolate.  If this production underwent light “fermentation,” then it is not evident to the Junky’s palate nor does it possess any chocolate.

There is no doubt that from the time when I first acquired it two years ago to the present that the ’06 Langhe Tuo’s character has changed.  I remember noting anise and slight bit of humidity.  I now notice that the first few infusions are quite sweet with the pronounced camphor of last year settling into a more suffuse medicinal note– a strangely evocative sense of “am I drinking cough medicine” plays vaguely in your mind as you steal another glimpse of its pomegranate lustre and take another sip to ponder some more.  The humid note remains but this is not what I would consider remotely wet-stored, just has some humidity adding to the complexity of a darn ponderous creation.  The one constant is its beauty.  You remember Naomi Campbell don’t you?  Just that pretty!

About infusing… I used 10g Langhe Tuo in a 150ml zisha teapot. About 10m after wake and rinse, started with 30s, then 2nd-3rd about 15s, then 5, before giving it a minute for the 5th-6th.  Each infusion brews crystal clear.

A lower water temp isn’t going to make that raw production you hate any tastier, but it can make a big difference with finer productions like dragon pearls.  I know to some that this is a heresy.  For older productions the use of hot water makes sense.  More cooking of the leaves has to occur in order to get the stuff out.  This is less so with young productions because the same stuff is in a much more active state.  The concern is less with getting stuff out than with getting too much.

How do you know if you’ve gotten too much?  Do your own experimenting.  See if by lowering the water temp whether a truer nature of the tea is expressed.  One writer, in speaking on the matter, makes reference to “scorched leaves” in the context of bitterness and astringency.  She also noted mitigating factors like brewing vessel, pour-rate, and the leaving the lid on or off as the leaves cool.  Much to consider…

One of the chief reasons why the hot water dogma seems counter-intuitive is because a degree of any type of cooking requires a sensitivity to the qualities of the thing being cooked.  Cooking all leaves at a set temperature seems to place the standard of performance at the temp itself, as opposed to where the tea performs best based on its nature.  Once raws are open, they don’t require the cooking of a ripe, rather a coaxing.  This is especially the case with young raws, where the ideal water temp might more closely approach your favourite drinking temp than something unnecessarily hotter.

The Chinese mandarins like them some dainty-delicate.  Dragon pearls epitomize this, as each pearl is made from carefully selected leaves.  This shape, beyond being extremely convenient, confers a mandarin meaning.  This is why productions usually don’t have names beyond the terrior from which they hail.  The names themselves carry great mandarin appeal.  This suggests to me that a heavy hand in infusing (you see I didn’t say “brewing”) is inconsistent with the dragon pearl shape.  By the same token, a lighter hand shouldn’t mean that the brew is weak and tasteless.  If that is so, it has less to do with the temperature of the water than it does with the overall quality of the tea itself.

There’s a Japanese gyokuro, I believe, that is being served with an ice cube.  I tried that once with a puerh and it was horrible.  I might keep trying.  There’s nothing wrong with experimenting.  Young raws tend to taste better at a lower temperature served from porcelain.  This is especially the case with dragon pearls from the elegant terriors, like Bingdao, Xigui, and traditional six great mts, like Bow Village and Yi-wu Zheng Mt, not just Yi-wu.

So the warm weather provides proper conditions for diving into the dragon pearls.  This week I visited Bing-dao’s neglected sister Xigui.  Really, I don’t know how neglected but Xigui is considerably less hyped.

I’ve run across writings that are totally contradictory regarding the taste profiles of certain terrior.  It’s reasonable to suppose that the differences stem from which side of the mountain the garden lies.  On the whole, whenever I think of Lincang productions a high floral quality comes to mind that I associate with neither Bing-dao nor Xigui, more like with Feng-qing and Jing-gu.  Many Mengku Rongshi productions are like this.  What I’ve sampled of Da Xue Shan have also had this quality, along with the Lunar Series of Six Great Tea Mts.  It gets confusing.  It is probably best to familiarize oneself with particular brands, because often across productions there is a signature expressed by the brand itself.

This is all a way of prefacing what I’ll express about the Xigui taste profile.  Xigui is a mandarin tea.  It’s not going to bop you over the head or resort to flowery gimmicks to get you to like it.  Think more of a Daoist ascetic drinking the dew from the petals of lilies.  As I mentioned before, 2014 was a kind of golden year for the production of dragon pearls.  The value added by making pearls still made since relative the cost of labour and the prices that maocha commanded outright.  In any case, many producers who were keen on the Dragon Pearl enterprise have gotten out or greatly reduced their selection and quality, which I surmise has everything to do with the cost of labour.

Once such company is Kebu Tea company.  In 2014 they produced two varieties of the Xigui dragon pearl, an expensive one and a cheap one.  I’ve consistently found the cheap one better.  I don’t want to belabour “dew from the petals of lilies.”  It works for the summer.  The less bitter the better.  This production has zero bitterness.  For such a light taste, the ensuing astringency on the cheeks and tongue is intriguing.  Reminds me of that drink Vitamin Water, light and sweet with astringency.

Somewhere between the grade of the selection, the season in which it was picked, the degree of dry-storage, and the Lancang Factory signature, you’re going to get slapped around.  Somewhere at the extremes of cost efficiency and consumer abuse, you’ll find the ’08 Year of the Rat.  I’ve broken a light sweat and my gut feels oppressed.  It’s sorta like the feeling you get before you heave.  It is extremely bitter and astringent by the second infusion.  There is no sign of wild-weed taste.  The perfume in the liquor and aftertaste is oppressive.  It lasts for a considerable spell building to a crescendo after 3m.  The sweetness and the thickness are there but the expression is aggressive like teas that are only one or two years old.  There’s no attempt at any type of humidifying it while it aged.  Two years in LA have not seemed to have altered it in this regard.

The bitter “ba qi” productions are often gut bombs.  This is no exception.  I brewed it in the green clay pot because I wanted to see if it would mellow any, but it doesn’t.  It is by far the most bitter and astringent in the collection.  It might be the first in the Lancang lunar series.  I don’t know because I’ve only been able to track down three of their lunar tuo productions, ’10 Tiger and ’09 Ox being the other two.  Among the three, the Rat is their smallest, cheapest, and wrapped in brown paper, whereas in subsequent years they were wrapped in white cotton paper.

For whatever reason, the 250g Tiger tuo has aged most.  I mention this because even though there are some qualitative differences between the two that might have to do with recipe or variations from one year to the next, the Tiger has started to express some noteworthy scented- wood notes.  I want to say sandalwood, but to be honest I think that would be pretentious because of a very limited scented-wood repertoire.  I can tell you, it’s not cedar, and it’s only in its very incipient stages of expressing.

I’m not sure if this character would come out in the production under wet storage.  It would be very interesting to compare because it seems to me that some aspect of this type of wood expression comes from being dry.

I tasted many puerhs of this sort in Kunming, even ones that cost relatively handsome prices but made me feel either on the verge of passing out or throwing up.  Even in later infusions, the Rat busts the gut, which doesn’t burp out completely like others.

This brings up the question of “bad tea.”  It seems that one trait of a bad tea is that it bottoms out, which this doesn’t.  Another trait is that the taste is flat and possesses little complexity, not applicable here.   Bad tea for me definitely has that weed taste, which might be something to do with abandoned material.  No sign of it here.  I keep drinking these types in the hope I’ll learn something.  So far the Rat is too much for me.

Boy, this Nanzhao has really, really changed.  Vrrrrrrp.  A couple months back I was gifted a pot with that green clay.  No stamp at the bottom.  I have another of the same clay, also a gift which I found to make an excellent pot of Yunnan Gold.  I have some others with the red and the dark clay.  I seem to have noticed that those all produce bitter results with the sheng, which I don’t enjoy.  This green seems to raise good shengs to another level, maybe not such good ones too.

The Nanzhao in this vessel is “POW” into the second infusion.  At the end of my first cup, I thought it tasted really good.  The clear and overriding flavor is camphor, like peppermint candy mixed with thick zinganoids that hang in the mouth, on the tongue and cheeks with an ever so slight hint of sour and something metallic.

By the fourth infusion I became positively concerned that the pot was drinking my tea.  The tea remained sweet and flavourful but not nearly as thick.  The fifth was given a good 30+s and was richer though as it cooled the bitter came through.  Thoroughly enjoyable though I doubt it can be pushed beyond seven.  Stays sweet and smooth throughout.

The 2010 Classic Red is among a slew of revolutionary productions from no-name companies.  They range from down and dirty to dirty-dirty down and dirty.  What I mean here by dirty is really thickness.  Most all of these productions are garish in their unctuousness.  The 2010 Classic Red is no exception, so what makes it noteworthy?

It isn’t difficult.  It is in a most moderately pressed brick which airs out and breaks apart easily.  The air has allowed the processing to dissipate.  The water soaks the leaves easily.  The second and third flash infusions are the richest.  Gives a full mouthfeel, numbing, sweet, those notes of some kind of dried fruit, possibly cherry.  Very chocolately.  It’s like a quick parade through a small town where they throw chocolates to the eager crowd, vanishing as quickly as it appeared.

Still, there’s the tingle that’s left in the mouth.  A satisfaction in the gut.  It’s richer, thicker, sweeter than most but doesn’t last nearly as long either.  I can’t imagine much beyond six infusions, with the last being about two min.  The mouth zing lasts throughout and in the mouth a good five minutes.