House Mark Puerhs
Today I drank the ’07 HK Returns 100g tuo and got to thinking about House Mark Puerhs. It’s a hard thing to get one’s finger on it, but it exists, so why don’t I explain through the HK tuo.
The year 2007 marked the production of many Zhongcha series. I just recently learned the English is simply “China Tea,” as so clearly present on many wrappers, I suppose. I’ve not noticed to be honest, though maybe so on products from the past year or two.
Many of the ’07s I’ve tasted are offered. I continue to gather them. Some of them are exceptional, but over all what stands out is the consistency from one production to the next. The HK Returns tuo embodies the Zhong Cha raw taste, which surprisingly enough is soft and fuzzy. Presumably that taste is the presence of Lincang material.
This taste can range from pencil shavings and wax to peach fuzz. It is not harsh or abrasive. There’s fruitiness. They can be drunk young but by all accounts even at 13 years, most of them still strike me as being quite young. I’ve personally been storing this tuo since ’16 and were it served to me blind I’d guess this production in the ’12-14 range.
2018 Shot
7th Infusion May 2020
I felt by the seventh infusion that the production was starting to bottom out, flatness astringency. The two prior were sweet and playful, more so than is typical of the Kunming Tea Factory (aka KMTF, zhongcha). At the same time there is some citrus reminiscent of the ’14 Jade Mark. There’s no tobacco, fire, roast, smoke, leather, chicken as with Xiaguan.
Overall, the Zhongcha profile is quite Zen, raw or ripe. There’s wood vanilla Zen, wax Zen, playful Zen, like the HK Returns tuo, or the why-the-fk-you-serve-me-water Zen. There’s an ’07 HK Returns iron cake that is bursting with the taste and aroma of black grapes, very much an outlier even within a series comprised of a tuo, 100g square, 250g brick, a raw and ripe 357g cake. I’ve sampled a few and it’s hard to believe that each shape consists of the same material and the factory and those who know aren’t saying or don’t think it bears mentioning.
It makes sense that some houses would vary style based on production shape. I’ve seen this to be a clearer objective with Liming than any other factory.
