Puerh Junky Visits Langhe Ripes
Puerh Junky Visits Langhe Ripes takes a turn toward the oft neglected shu puerh. Here the Langhe TF garners the spotlight, in particular the ’06 Peacock Tribute. This offering has been spending its days in Los Angeles since 2014, back when I would buy onezies instead of at least threezies. The Peacock Tribute isn’t for sale but it provides a good opportunity to talk about fermentation and storage.
Langhe is a very well regarded factory for their ripes, but don’t take my word for it here’s Scott at Yunnan Sourcing’s blurb:
Langhe 郎河 : Langhe is a factory of Menghai 勐海 that was founded in 1995. Since then it has built a strong reputation, won awards, and has become one of Yunnan’s most renowned brands. Langhe ripe teas are the most sought after from this tea factory. Classic Langhe recipes include 9599, 9579, 9559, High Mountain Ripe, and Gong Ting Ripe. Langhe ripe teas are excellent for long-term aging because they employ traditional light fermentation “wo dui” technique. This light fermentation allows for gradual aging of the ripe teas and retain much of the character of a raw pu-erh tea.
Now it’s official. Curiously, there isn’t much chatter about Langhe. A quick check on the puerh group on FB for example turns up only maybe four posts. One of them is simply of the neipiao and another conjectures about authenticity. There’s such paralysis around fakes that people don’t get that the only productions/factories that are faked are the ones that everyone knows. It’s simply not cost effective to fake everything. You fake what you know will sell. Yes. Langhe has a strong reputation, but that’s among those who know more than Dayi, Xiaguan, and Yangqinghao. Faking is a business decision and until quite recently where prices have made widespread faking more justifiable, it just has made no business sense to fake lesser known brands and productions.
Boss Neifei
The Peacock Tribute possessed all the attributes of a Kunming dry-stored acquisition. However, in contrast to some of Langhe’s other ripes, it is next-level astringent. Is this what all the “small batch” craze is about? In any event, whereas other treasures like the ’11 Imperial Round and the ’06 East is Red came into form relatively quickly, the former in six months and the latter 18, PT had never come into something resembling form until the tasting of 12 Aug ’22.
East is Red
It’s not because it is a gongting production because so are the aforementioned. Neither is it because it hasn’t had sufficient time, as its age is identical to the East is Red. Nor can storage be entirely attributable to its lack of performance because all three were and are essentially stored the same. No. It has to do with PT‘s needs or its personality. Now, I can see a production with little sweetness and hella astringency striking some drinkers’ fancy, especially those who like to add milk and sugar to their brew. Unfortunately, even those drinkers might be a shade disappointed because there’s no floral note to speak of like black teas, i.e., hongcha, that take doctoring. Anyway, if I want kind of astringency, I’ll go for Lipton. Ripes (or raws for that matter) should not be astringent like this. If they are, then they’re impersonating a hongcha of questionable quality.
Gongting Scene
It seems that this astringency has to do with the processing. Langhe is known for their ripes because of their light processing, which makes for good storing and resemblance to old raws. With the PT, it appears that they took their processing to the next-level of “light.” Even though the most recent tasting was considerably better, a year or two of a good Guangdong punishing would do it well. That said, let’s get onto the specifics of the session.
Knowing this tea’s personality, I decide to mitigate against the astringency by flash brewing in gaiwan, 120ml, with 5.5g. Immediately, the Peacock Tribute possessed a sweetness that wasn’t there before. We’re not talking heavy sweetness, but nonetheless mild and pleasant. The flavour of walnuts prevails and there’s a light camphor note at the end that matches the sweetness. The aroma is unpleasant. No other words to describe it but unpleasant. The qi is strong. The gaiwan choice successfully tames the astringency and there isn’t much to complain about in the first infusion. Clarity, as with all Langhes, is outstandingly gorgeous.
Subsequent infusions always possess a weirdly unpleasant aroma, which fortunately doesn’t carry over into the brew. The sweetness continues for about six infusions never building. The same can be said for the camphor. Walnuts is its overriding taste. The most outstanding qualities are clarity and qi, both ranking at a five. The body of is light, not thin but light.
Gongting Cashed
At the end, I let the brew sit overnight to see what the morning would bring. More of the same only lighter. Positively no sweetness. Overall, the experience was greatly improved through gaiwan and emergent sweetness, but it’s still very “young” given the astringency and lack of full sweetness. Peacock Tribute will need another couple years and a move to more intense storage in approach a satisfactory stage in the Puerh Junky’s book. Far superior offerings in a similar vein include T8371, Macau Brick, and Silver Peacock.
