Black Butte Tea

Not the blackest butte I've ever seen.  Please forgive the titular pun.

Or, Tea on Vacation Part II.  This past week I've again been fortunate enough to vacation away from home.  This time I've returned to a time-honored summer haunt for my family--Black Butte Ranch in central Oregon.  It's been a great week full of relaxation, physical recreation (including a scenic climb up the pictured butte), productivity (music for a couple of songs and a handful of textual contributions), and--of course--tea drinking!  As I mentioned but didn't document at the time of our last visit, Black Butte is home to a delightful and accessible spring, from which I've been drawing my tea water for the week.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's also been a week of numerous minor tea learning experiences at the mild, reflective pace of a good vacation.  Compared with my last trip, I brought almost everything but the kitchen sink (in terms of tea équipage, that is).  The tetsubin, two yixing pots, a gaiwan, and a dozen or so different types of tea.  Lesson #1: Even on a "fully-equipped" vacation, it's probably still smartest to focus on one tea type, because you probably won't make full use of all the different teas you brought, and you get the benefit of close comparison between different teas of the same genre.  Although I made green tea and a delicious Dong-Ding, I mostly drank aged pu-erh.  If I had left the other teas at home, I could have left the gaiwan and one of the pots, not to mention the tea storage space--ah, the joys of over-packing to avoid silly fear of "not enough variety." 

It was a pretty decadent week, since I usually only drink an aged pu-erh every couple of weeks, but all of the repetition was illuminating.  Firstly, a muted session with an '80's shou/sheng brick reminded me that different weather conditions (it's quite dry here) can affect my sensory faculties and, perhaps, the performance of the tea leaves themselves.  Secondly, the failure of an extremely tight chunk of '80's tuo to fully unfurl reminded me that breaking up large chunks (as gently and possible, even if it's difficult) greatly improves the quality of the session--you don't have to separate individual leaves, but getting the chunk into quarters is significant.  Thirdly, a sublime one-off session with my 1993 7542 reminded me how not all sessions with a single tea are created equal and that there's no shame in the notion that a certain chunk of the cake might be contain a just right combination of leaves, while others may not (Lessons #2-4, respectively).

The final learning experience relates to perspective.  Two years ago--drinking many of the same teas I drank this week, incidentally--I was deliriously eager to try my tetsubin and teas out with mountain spring water.  With a couple more years' experience under my belt, my attitudes to spring water and tea preparation in general have mellowed quite a bit.  Whether it's my rustic palate or my lackadaisical approach, the difference between filtered/Lynnwood spring/Black Butte spring water is not especially apparent to me.  Maybe with some close attention I could tell a difference, but that might spoil the relaxation!  Probably the most enjoyable part of making tea with this spring water is retrieving it--it's really enjoyable to collect the fresh, cold water straight out of the earth and reflect on and feel connected to the elements that come together for a good tea session (definitely nowhere close to the extent that those who are attentive to Chinese elemental tradition do, though).  The water tastes amazing right out of the ground--perfectly cold for a hot day after the bike ride to the spring.  It's also interesting to note that, two years after acquiring the tetsubin and using it with spring water, it still hasn't developed much of a mineral scale/patina at all.  I was really nervous when I first noticed the patina was receding, but now I'm little less anxious; the thing still makes good tea water, and preferable to my other kettles--even to my simpleton's palate.  If anything, I'm wondering whether or not it's really necessary to drive up to Lynnwood to regularly collect water, since the patina hasn't returned.  We'll see after I use up the 10 gallons of water I'm bringing back with me.

Where'd that come from?

The spring is a great spot--issuing straight out of the ground below where I stood to take this photo and running across the ranch.  There's also a stone bench--a great spot to sit and read, write or quietly enjoy the babbling stream, insects, rodents, birds and wind through the pines.

Water mushrooms.

Unlike the Lynnwood spring, which is technically an "artesian well" (meaning that it was originally human-drilled and since then produces water without pumping), this is an honest-to-goodness spring, bubbling straight out of the ground.  While not quite as convenient for jug-filling, it's an invigorating sight to behold.  Here's to drinking tea in the aid of relaxation and contemplation, and to continually learning about it without getting too scientific!

1999 Menghai 7352 from Jing Tea Shop

I...might've glid before...

More sheng pu-erh! This is a sample of Menghai's 7352 recipe purchased from Jing Tea Shop. It dates from 1999 and, according to its brief description, it's 'dry stored,' which could mean any number of things. Perhaps more informatively, it's been dry stored in Guangdong province, China, which we can assume means something different from 'it's been dry stored in Phoenix, Arizona,' probably in a good way. There's so much debate online about the proper storage of aging pu-erh, especially from a humidity perspective, that this tea is even more interesting to try from an academic perspective. Most of the aged pu-erh I've had the opportunity to try has been supplied via Taiwan, which comes with certain biases regarding ideal flavor, storage, which cakes achieve popularity amongst the booming afficionado market etc., so it's especially informative to receive a more diverse example. Considering the cupboard I've got full of pu-erh cakes, I'm already invested in this debate, so it's with bated breath that I try and learn just how dry and cool a storage environment can be without destroying a cake's chances of aging. I consider this cake a key piece of information in the spectrum of different storage styles and conditions.

The leaves of the sample are already well-separated, which doesn't really bother me (as long as they're not powdered), though I probably prefer larger chunks. They're still looking pretty young, but not excessively so--they're darkening and looking just a bit frosted. Rinsed in the pot, the aroma has that dusty sweetness that I have come to lovingly associate with the few delicious dry-stored aged pu-erhs I've had the privilege to enjoy. The leaf aroma also betrays a healthy remnant of smokiness. I'm happy that it appears to be diminishing, leading me to wonder how many more years until it's gone completely.

This tea is in a transitory phase between the young, raw characteristics I'm very familiar with, and the aged maturity that is less readily available in quantity. Somebody in one of the Art of Tea magazines said that teas of this maturity aren't fun to drink, but I have to disagree--if the aging characteristics were only very slight, I might concur, but here it's really straddling the line, which I find quite pleasant. I have to admit that I have found myself a bit bummed that some of my favorite characteristics found in young sheng have been nowhere to be found in some of the aged pu-erhs I've tried, and it's nice to taste that light, airy quality that makes the tea very active in the mouth. The first couple of infusions are healthily bitter, but the bitterness recedes and partially sweetens in the aftertaste. The liquor's color surely shows the aging progress, and that mist on top of the cup is always fun to take in. The smoke is quite subdued in the flavor, and what's more prominent is a mushroomy, sweet wood flavor that sweetens more with air and as the tea cools. Astringency is still potent, though pleasant--could be my proclivity for yen cha, but I don't mind a bit of saliva when I'm drinking tea (as long as it's my own). The aroma in my tea pitcher is definitely less engaging than the last tea I tasted, leaning toward the smoky and sharp side, kind of an emphasis on that mustardy smell I mentioned in the last notes. Interestingly enough, the final, long and mellowing infusions are where this tea's aged qualities become most pronounced and a thicker musty sweetness becomes the dominant flavor. I don't know anything about this blend (it seems not to be one of the very top blends from Menghai) but this tea drinking experience is on a really promising track.

If the aging of this tea continues the way it has, I could see it being really dynamite in another 10 years--no more smoke, no astringency, and no bitterness, and it would be just like that delicious 80's 7542 ching bing that Hou De used to have samples of. From a personal perspective, since this tea has very definite aging progress and very definite room to complete its maturity, I should be able to monitor its progress (or lack thereof) fairly accurately as I try to determine firsthand whether or not pu-erh can actually be aged in the Pacific Northwest's climate, or if I should stop buying young pu-erh. Let the hand-wringing continue.

1993 Menghai 7542

I've found myself in a pu-erh mood this week for a number of reasons--I got a selection of samples from NadaCha, I finally found a good pu-erh pot through Life of Tea, Hobbes has been posting about pu-erhs that I've tried, and it just sounds good. All signs point to a pu-erh review.

In some senses, the very idea of me reviewing an aged pu-erh is a bit absurd, considering how few examples I've experienced and even how little experience I have with contemporary productions of the same famous blended cakes. With me, it's always a learning process, though, and this is more of a personal journal than a critical forum. I can say with great enthusiasm that Nada's generous mission has multiplied my aged pu-erh drinking experience several-fold. If only there were just a few more vendors online attempting to sell quality and aged pu-erh at reasonable prices, the online pu-erh community might have a little more actual experience to go from, rather than blindly and hopefully accepting the oft-perpetuated 'facts' about this most mysterious and complex of teas. Enough meta-commentary, let's get to the tea.


Nada's shop notes for this tea are brief but tantalizing nonetheless. Since you don't have to know a whole lot about pu-erh to have heard about the famous 7542, I was very excited to add to my smidge of experience with this tea (a beautifully dry-stored sample of an 80's cake from Hou De, all of which is now sold out). The well-separated and treated leaves of my sample don't reveal a whole lot when dry; a bit of a frosting on the leaves does indicate they've received plenty of humidity. Nada is certainly not afraid of wetter-stored teas, which certainly broadens the list of options. For the most part, I'm lousy at pointing out specific other things that a tea tastes like, so I'll try and focus on some other descriptive aspects to convey my experience with this tea.

This tea's aroma is worth the price alone. When I say aroma, I mean a combination of 3 things: The tea's liquor in the cup, the hot/wet leaves in the pot, and the fair cup after pouring. Some teas put off completely different aromas in all three, and this is one of them. The cup aroma seemed to most closely resemble the flavor, starting off bold with an almost acrid edge (maybe not the best word choice, because I still found it pleasant). This was the most "basementy" showing the aroma gave me. The leaves were delightful to smell for about 4 infusions, alternating between a strong storage smell and a woody, chocolatey, rainy aroma until mellowing into a rather plain pu-erh aroma. The fair cup was another story again. I don't really enjoy aroma cups quite as much--a lot of trouble to use and clean, and I can never really get the aroma as well as I can burying my face inside the fair cup. If I hit it at the right time (not immediately after pouring, but before the pitcher's heat had evaporated nearly all of the tea residue), the fair cup aroma alternated between dark and light smells with some incredible results. On maybe the 7th infusion (I don't really count, sorry!) I impressed myself by taking a whiff and saying "Mustard! That's what that smells like!" But really the aroma tread a wide path across many varying sensations.

Flavor-wise, this tea certainly satisfied me. Though not as complex as the aroma, the flavor began with a gently pressing and very slight bitterness (maybe I oversteeped by a few seconds) that eased off after a couple steeps. Nada seems to have a flair for choosing more affordable teas that were clearly stored with plenty of humidity yet aren't overpowered by that characteristic. Though I've been most blown-away by the dry-stored aged teas I've tasted, I can see where Nada is coming from in many ways. I found the tea's flavor changed markedly depending on how much air I took while slurping, which is another good sign for complexity. Dark and light alternation probably best sums up my overall experience.

One last thing I noticed was a light astringency. Strange, though, because it was different from your average unaged sheng astringency--primarily in the mouth, and only lingering temporarily. Something that would go away with a few more decades of aging, or par for the course with aged pu-erh? Hmm. Maybe someone out there with more experience could enlighten me.

This tea was very fun to drink; I could see myself demolishing an entire bing in just a few months trying to understand all of its complexity. As it stands, I've got a small sample to keep tantalizing me as to its potential.