2006 Haiwan Certified Organic Pasha Mountain Raw

If you enjoy green tea, then this is a very good “sheng” or “raw” pu-erh tea to introduce you to the complexity to be found in this type of tea. It is wonderfully aromatic, astringent, slightly bitter, and very complex. The flavors in the initial steepings are a combination of freshly turned soil, fresh hay, with light camphorous aspects and only a hint of floral notes in the background.

After 3 short steepings of approximately 30 to 45 seconds each, the next few take on aspects with more sweetness and hints of dried fruit. What a nice journey! :)

I ordered a 25 gram sample through Yunnan Sourcing’s new US website (http://www.yunnansourcing.us), along with two other organic sheng pu-erhs so I will be sharing further notes when I try this tea head to head with the others over the next week.

Tight, tippy, tobacco, and T. The four T’s. Jakub, fellow puer enthusiast and blogger, sent this 2006 Haiwan Pasha puer.

The tips are welded together…

http://www.twodogteablog.com/2012/11/23/2006-haiwan-pasha/

I didn’t feel much compelled to revisit the Golden Monkey from earlier today and want something I’ll drink a full 200mL per serving of. That generally means puerh for me unless I’m testing something out for work. I’m glad to see someone happened to have this guy already in the system. Scott is still selling the 2006 bingcha that he listed alongside this little guy, but ran out of the mini-bings quite a while ago.

I bought this mini-bingcha right at the start of 2009 and have pretty much left it alone since that summer. I haven’t been moving it around like I should have – it’s been sitting in its wrapper, inside the box, inside an open nylon mesh bag, in the coolest corner of the coolest room in the house since mid-2009 when I should’ve introduced it to a bit more warmth at least once by now. Sitting raw puerh in cool, dry conditions really does nothing for it but allow the outside to stale a bit if it has any breathing room. The innards are still able to shift for the positive a tad in terms of mitigating bitterness, but that’s about it.

Three back-to-back infusions at 85C and 30sec each following a rinse. I used flakes pulled from the top portion of the cake, penetrating to the center depression on the other side, further separated (wriggled, not snapped) into portions .5-1.5cm in diameter and shaken free of any dust. 8g/200mL in my duan ni shi piao pot for young sheng puerh and mao cha.

This is a very green cake with a lot of silvery buds across the top. Underside has a bit more twigs, but the leaf composition is pretty young overall. Steeped leaves are slightly muddy yellow with a greenish tinge (in-between olive and a cooler ochre). Infusion color is gold and very clear.

Dry fragrance is very much like old Bai Mu Dan… Dry fallen leaves, a touch of hay, a hint of carnation and muscat grape. Wet leaf aroma is crazy-scary-smoky. Very potent right after a rinse and diminished to a more approachable mix of burned driftwood, gravelly sand, and juniper after three short infusions. Liquor aroma carries these notes in a milder aspect and accompanied by a distinct pollen characteristic. Combines wonderfully with the taste, which is lacking any smokiness.

First infusion is very crisp, high end of moderate body, and lightly mouthwatering. Mineral impression makes up bulk of flavor. Mixed with liquor aroma it is highly reminiscent of the taste and smell of the air on a cold foggy summer morning on a beach on Mendocino’s coast. I suppose Monterey is similar, but the beaches tend to be a tad coarser sand and the combined smell of cyprus and redwood is a bit more prevalent farther north.
Second Infusion brings pollen characteristics to the tongue in a big way. Pleasant, light bitterness and almost-yolk, slightly cottony flavor pops in a second or two after swallowing with a resurgence a few more seconds later. Leaves the mineral taste (gravelly) lingering afterwards… Comes off as a rocky crisp-sweetness. When cooled, the rocky and polleny flavors merge to form sort of a warm, dry hardwood flavor.
Third infusion has a much more evident crispness to it – I hesitate to say “snap”, as that has more of a vegetal connotation to me and “zing” a tannic connotation, but it is a very refreshing and lasting crispness. Walk up to a waterfall on a warm day ‘til the cold mist is soaking your clothes, open wide and breathe deep. Lotsa oaky leafy-acorny-woody-polleny goodness… Kinda tastes like Yosemite’s Mist Trail smells in late spring or early summer. As it cools, it takes on a sort of cattail characteristic in the nose – this is helped by a somewhat starchy aftertaste. More evidently woody as it cools, too. Body is a tad thicker now, but still just the low end of what I’d call full-bodied… about on par with 20% by volume sugar water. Speaking of sugar – about a minute after finishing my cup the back quarter of my tongue and throat are hit with the same encompassing sweetness I get when emptying a packet of Stevia or Splenda into a paper cup and forget to hold my breath. Certainly not the sweetest tea around, but with this late aftertaste I’ve gotta categorize it as a sweet tea for me.

Very tasty and easy drinking, whereas it was a tad more aggressive than I preferred right when I got it. There’s enough potency that I feel I can let it rest in its cool hiding spot another year without adverse effects, but I do think it’s time that this summer I’ll expose it to a bit more warmth and humidity. Kind of a joke to attempt any aging on a mini-bing, but if I can succeed in not finishing this off super fast I’ll be happy.

Dry leaves smell of plums and prune, a bit sweet and tart. Wet, the leaves also pick up a vegetal note.
15 second rinse with a long rest due to work distractions.

Steep/Time: Notes
1/20s: Very gentle bit of sweetness. Bit of a fruity note.
2/15s: Bit more vetetal. Was aiming for 10s. Still has a round sweet finish. Starts slightly bitter, then melts into a bit of sweetness.
3/15s: Full body, crisp finish. Turns a little bitter if the tea cools too much. Finish is still nice.
4/15s: I think I have a bit too much leaf in the pot this time. Still a slight bitterness going on. On the plus side, the cha qi is growing quite nicely.
5/15s: Keep missing my 10s steep time _. Getting a lot of bitterness I didn’t get with my first session. Not overpowering, but very upfront.
6/5s: Almost are rinse. Reduced the bitterness. I hate when I get too much leaf in the pot, but it seems that my scale is always a little off when measuring less than 10g. Have to start going by volume measurements I guess.
7/10s: Here we go! Nice sweetness, bittner note gone. Lovely mouthfeel. Crisp finish.
8/10s: Same as previous

Had do leave for a short trip to a hotel and took my teapot and kettle with me. I got 4 or 5 more steeps and was impressed at how far the cha qi carries in this tea. Not sure I’ll buy a whole cake, but I have enough for at least 2 more sessions so I’m looking forward to sitting with this on again.

This one started off really smooth without any bitterness. After a few steepings I increased the time and got some really subtle bitterness combined with a nice sweet aftertaste.
I went outside and even after about half an hour i still had the reminiscence of it on my tongue. Pretty nice.

Certified organic + authentic ancient arbor leaves from Pasha Mountain means that my expectations for this tea are rather high. It does not disappoint. Attractive whole leaves make up the cake and it is full of silver needle-like tips. Sweet smell comes from the dry leaves but after the first rinse, the smell intensifies. Deep gold tea liquor which is beginning to reveal a light orange hue. The fragrance from the cup is lovely. The tea is mellow and smooth with a cooling sweet sensation after the 2nd cup. Definite tobacco notes revealed in the sip but this balances out the sweetness. Nice mouth and throat feel with good staying power – 10 steeps for me before I decided it was time to move on to another tea. Haiwan produced this 2006 Pasha as both a 200g and 400g cake. I have the smaller 200g cake but YS now lists only the 400g at the high price of $110 (reportedly $50 in late 2012). I purchased my 200g cake from Angelina’s Teas (located right here in North Carolina) at the very reasonable price of $32.

Hate to say it but so far sheng has been something I drank and didn’t enjoy but kept at it because older, wiser people seem to enjoy it. A parallel of unpalatable alcohols like Jaegermeister or jamo come to mind, at first you drink them and because its almost a question of your masculinity but after repeated forced consumption you actually start to like and in some cases (jamo) start to prefer it. This has been the case with sheng for me it has been sour, bitter, dehydrating, petrol like and in worst cases draining to the point of me catching a cold, but I have forced myself to drink a new sample every sunday because worst case scenario I do not have much to do anyway.

-Review
This was the most pleasant sheng I have tasted so far, it was even better than yi wu’s that I have tried taste wise. ZERO smokiness ZERO bitterness ZERO sourness, literally the first sheng I haven’t forced myself to drink.

Dry leaf
Smelled similar to the 006 I tasted last sunday a grapey, slightly sour almost robotussin like scent(bare with me).

Liqueur
DEEP orange like I have seen in pu erh blogs but first time I have seen it(still not sure if it translates anything to taste, chemical components, age, leaf composition, etc). The tea tasted slightly milky/vanilla/creamy, not to the degree of a jin xuan (milk oolong) but just a texture/sweetness combination. Later infusions brought a sweet fruitiness and by the 10th steeping it got to be “leafy” in taste where I could tell it was starting to fade but continued to go for another few infusions. The last infusion I left for probably a good 20-30 mins (forgot about it) and drank it cool expecting a sour, astringent, insipid cup but to my surprise it was actually the best cup of the session, it was creamy/fruity but like the first few steepings.

Qi
Was not the strongest energy wise a steady, calm, contemplative state but I am starting to realize just like other green teas if they posses stimulating alkaloids and you throw boiling water on them they probably will not taste the greatest. Then again it was hydrating instead of drying like other shengs I have tasted.

Long story short this will be my first cake purchase as a result of tasting a sample. (added bonus it is in stock at yunnan sourcing U.S. site so only $2 shipping and wont have to wait a month)