2015 Hai Lang Hao 'Gao Shan Chen Yun'

A tea from derk, originally (for sure) from mrmopar. Thank you both!

Today afternoon I was in a mood for gongfu, especially after shoveling in greenhouse while outside being zero centigrade. I hit my little finger which hurts even 5 hours later. Luckily, it’s left hand and I am being right-handed. But it is unpleasant, won’t lie.

I did again quite a random steepings, because somehow I can’t focus on time while steeping. My mind can’t calm down somehow recently.

But, anyway I have to decided to try. I have started with rinse, which brought out mostly floral notes of lily of the valley, violets and fruit tree flowers. It wasn’t overpowering, rather I noticed there as well notes of vegetables, hay and a bit of herbaceous notes.

Steeps were, as I wrote, rather random. While I started, with 5 seconds, I have tried my best doing some common increments and first few steeps I was able to. Then, something happened and I lose my counts.

The first steeps were actually quite enjoyable and smooth, mouthcoating and without any astringency. I even can call it sweet, which is quite uncommon descriptor for me. Later, I have noticed stronger vegetal notes — somewhere between peas and green beans. Okay, it is weird, isn’t it?

With longer steeps I feel it is rather more harsh, but not bitter nor astringent. The aftertaste is long, even with shorter steeps.

This tea, brought me a mood for writing, that’s why is this note a bit longer… and overall brought me warmness all over the body. My mind stopped overthinking as well, which is certainly a good thing and overall, I feel quite relaxed.

This tea is unoffensive, easy-drinking pu. However, it does not up to my tastes. It seems even a bit flat to me? I know I know… I wrote lots of descriptors. Weridly, I haven’t noticed any tobacco from it. Haven’t expecting much, and it is not crazy of flavours, but well, something IS missing there. I can’t say what… but nah, I would not necessary get more of it.

Thank you derk for sending though and maybe, it wasn’t just a correct time for this tea. Maybe early spring would be better than a day with white stuff outside.

Starts very smooth: dark mushrooms, wood, loam, ice-cream, light herbal, and faint caramel. Slight bitterness in the middle with moderate astringency in the aftertaste. This is right up my alley – buying another.

TEA
I guess this was a very cheap cake at one point. It is now only $58 USD for 400g. Plantation Yiwu tea from 2012 aged 3 years before pressing. It’s developing aged tastes. I wonder where the maocha was stored for those 3 years.

Appealing, appetite-stimulating aromas come from the dry leaf like beef jerky, hickory smoke, cranberry and a mild honey-brown sugar. When warmed the sweetness smells more like caramel. The aroma is of tang, smoke, strong camphor and wintergreen and a meaty umami. With the rinse I pick up on old furniture and books, steak and camphor.

Once brewed, the aroma is of marshmallow and tobacco. The main flavor of the tea is straw which displays itself in a somewhat viscous body. The tea is kind of sweet in a nectar-caramel-red fruit way with some added florals and bright tobacco, hints of leather, minerals and decaying wood, somewhat metallic. A tangy, mild bitterness penetrates the tongue, leaving it uncomfortably numbed. I feel camphor deep in my throat. The aftertaste is the strong point. It is definitely violet with very light caramel.

This is a short-lived tea with decent mouthfeel and a strong aftertaste, good for a daily drinker. It’s not a bad tea by any means but my preferences in sheng do not lean this way. It was nice to try an Yiwu plantation tea with what seems like some humid aging taste to it, so thanks for the exposure, mrmopar :) At some point, I’ll be making another note when I move into a round of tasting all the Hai Lang Hao puerh I have.

LIFE
I didn’t get any sleep. First my old girl woke me, hissing and spitting at the sliding glass door to the garden. Then I was startled awake shortly thereafter by what sounded like a massive explosion. And then again at 5am by my neighbor across the street banging on the front door. My first thought was oh-fuck-is-there-a-fire-are-we-evacuating.

Turns out some amateur lifted my motorcycle from the front yard and out into the street. Lifted — because the steering lock was on. Ran into our trash cans on the curb because amateur thief and trash night. He woke up my neighbor who chased him off several times over the course of getting ready for work before putting a cable and lock through the back wheel. The amateur totally bashed the steering lock cylinder, so now I can’t even unlock the bike to move it. And he left his hammer, which the police took. What’s amusing is that I have a tool kit with all kinds of useful things in an easily accessible compartment on my bike.

I hope the night happenings aren’t a sign of things to come today.

nice cheap Daily Drinker for that Yiwu taste, that will last you for a small number of good brews.
Used to be great value, but price jump made it only good value..
I’ve noticed a couple of times HLH teas getting a price increase of 10%-33%.. that’s fair play in the puer world, but a 33% increase can really make or break a tea’s value-for-money..

This caused great confusion, because to me the initial scent and taste are of mugicha, roast barley tea! When you steep it on the long side and get a slight bitter edge on the roast. The sheng characteristics then come in, with lots of sweetness and a lingering astringency. I’ve not had any other shengs like this.

Sheng mugicha!

This is an ok tea for the price, but I definitely didn’t find it better than other raw pu-erh teas in the same price category. The dry leaf has a herbaceous aroma with hints of pineapple skin and tobacco. The tobacco smell becomes really strong after the rinse. I also noticed medicinal, earthy and fireplace scents. As for the liquor itself, it mostly smells like decayed wood and moss.

The main problem I have with the tea is that I am not too fond of the taste profile. It starts off with flavours of cannabis, leather, camphor and green pepper (meaning unripe black pepper). Later on, it gets sweeter and vegetal, but retains some savouriness. Notes of resin, raisins, tree bark emerge. The aftertaste is relatively long, with distinct fruitiness and persistent sweet wood quality.

As for the mouthfeel, it has decent viscosity, although cannot compete with most non-plantation teas. It has a little astringency, but nothing too drying.

I feel like the tea is a bit awkward right now and could benefit from more aging. I think I rate it lower because its profile doesn’t quite appeal to me, but I think other people might like it more.

5.6g in 90mL, Sheng TTB #3
The lid is of musty honey
Certainly very well priced for what it is—2012 material. indeed a very solid bargain, given that it delivers on being mid-aged despite only being 6 years old. (At least what i’d call mature, given my newness to this). Musty honey, active in the mouth, and a bitter finish that is well balanced—I like! Others might like the storage taste on this one, but I’m not super into it and unfortunately because of it I don’t think I’ll be picking this up in the near future. However, still pretty great, especially if you’re looking for a solid mid-aged tea. Would highly recommend.

This is fantastic and right from the start you can tell it is from older material than the pressing date. Starts off with some sweet tobacco and earthy notes, slowly evolving to a greener pleasant mild astringency. This brews up real nice and is a bargain at the current price. Will probably be even more amazing in a few years.

This tea is in the top three for surprise productions. The leaf is silvery and spindle like with sweet and light floral tones as well as some high notes of soft wood. I warmed my gaiwan and slipped some inside. The scent opens into highly sweet aromas with incredible high “white” notes (unripe mango?). I washed the leaves once and prepared for brewing. The base of the tea is cedar with some lovely high notes of pink lady apples. The brew yields a lasting oily honeycomb sweetness with sunflower florals on the exhale. The drink has few sticky rice tones along with a robust caramel color and succulent sweet vapor rising from the cup. I was pulled in tight with this one! A pleasant sour note comes through later as a complimenting bitter, and it provides some good tongue curling. However, this tea its all about the exhale. I was pulling great marshmallow sweetness that engulfed my senses. The qi is high cooling sensation that targets the head and provides nice uplifting sensations. I was picking up Bosc pear by steep 3. The brew ends with a cane-sugar sweetness and the qi drives towards the back of the head with good pressure. Now, after this session I was curious as to what this tea cost. I know with Hai Lang Hao it is either a bit pricey or its cheap. This is the later, and it surprised me quite a bit. This is a great example of the fact that its all about storage and processing. I am a big buff on quality material, but if you don’t know what you’re doing you can really f*$# up. This tea has amazing tones, huigan, and a bit kuwei for the price, plus the qi is actually notable; in which, I find that quality to be rare with plantation tea (especially) at this price.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQ52gfEgKNc/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel&hl=en

Awesome awesome awesome. I wasn’t taking notes when I had this yesterday but man it was really good. Very easy to brew and drink, mellow and sweet. Would be an excellent daily drinker, especially at 7.5 cents/g. I will definitely be buying a cake!