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“2017 wild LCSX 6g, 90 mL gaiwan Wet leaf: sweet, baking spices, graham cracker, smoke. Gaiwan lid once cooled is a dark inky sweet smell 1. Having finished these cups, something in the lingering...” Read full tasting note
野放老樅水仙 2017年
Medium roast wild-harvested laocong shuixian from an isolated 2017 production, outside the Zhengyan-proper region of Wuyishan.
Suggestion: 6-8g / 100 ml, 95-100C.
Company description not available.
2017 wild LCSX
6g, 90 mL gaiwan
Wet leaf: sweet, baking spices, graham cracker, smoke. Gaiwan lid once cooled is a dark inky sweet smell
1. Having finished these cups, something in the lingering aftertaste is a dead ringer for not-sweet bland purple dragon fruit. Sometimes those are duds with a particular taste that is also here
Octagon cup: Medicinal, smoke, sour, sweet quickly after. Slight cooling and green taste in finish
Cup F: more woody sour. Not as rich, but maybe just from having cooled more?
Kangiiten tall cup: also more sour woody. Maybe taste buds just saturated now
2. slight bitter, medicinal. Drank quicker and i think previous differences are due to temp. Oops. Sugary aftertaste lingers a bit and somewhat extends to throat
3 and 4. Woody
Ended w half cup of steep one that brought back all the highlights: inky florals, minty, sweet, wood. Nice way to finish
thermos’d the leaves and ended with a nice mug. nice tea, though not quite berry forward as the notes I saw online. maybe those are fading? it is approaching year 8 after all…
I also wonder how much the differences noticed in cup comparisons are due to temperature. I have a bunch of cups now, so I should do one myself. :)
@Leafhopper You should! It’s fun to bring things out in rotation, and you’ll probably figure out general preferences. I mostly use a hagi ware cup that I really like for almost all teas, and then sometimes bring out the Kangiiten and DXJD cups. One antique Japanese cup I own makes green teas taste kind of sharp, so that might be something in the glaze reacting, and kind of interesting. While others don’t usually taste too different, I learned I don’t like most teas in the really beautiful but thin lipped hand painted Korean cups I have from TShopNY. A shame because they were rather expensive…
Oof! You really do have more cups than me. I have some big, inexpensive porcelain cups that I use regularly, as well as a Buchangqi Gaoyibei and 1980s wood-fired porcelain Ruoshen cup from DXJD. I also have a very small blue line ROC porcelain cup that I hardly use at all. I don’t have any clay cups for comparison. I should have rectified that when I made my big Hojo order recently.
@Leafhopper Porcelain is king for good reason anyway, haha. The gaoyibei is nice! (As are the smaller vintage cups from DXJD, though I find those impractical for solo drinking outside of saving a small amount of the first steeps of oolongs.) Have since stopped amassing cups, having learned my lesson w costs + space to stop buying either a ton of cheap cups or a few expensive cups and just be happy with the few I gravitate towards.
I didn’t know Hojo sold cups. I mostly see people buying teapots from him. The Japanese clay cups I have are glazed, so other than the reactive one, they’re mostly very neutral. I bought some off eBay and my favorite from Tezumi. Tezumi still has a few nice Hagi options if you’re interested, though shipping from Thailand can be a bit pricey.
I also tend not to use my smaller cups, such as the ROC blue line porcelain and the wood-fired one from DXJD. I’ve basically stopped buying small cups for this reason.
I just checked his website and Hojo sells Kobiwako, Mumyoi, and Nosaka cups, though you’re right that people mostly buy pots from him. I did a bunch of research a long time ago about which of his clays are best for gaoshan (Mumyoi, Iga, and maybe Nosaka, I think). I don’t want to spend a bunch of money just to learn I can’t tell the difference!