2008 Rougui

Let’s continue the Wuyi theme with another classic tea from this region of China: Rougui. The name means ‘cinnamon’ (in the meaning of ‘cassia’) and refers, predictably, to the heady spicy aroma exuded by both dry leaf and brew.

While not as ubiquitous as Shuixian, Rougui is a fairly common tea. This example from 2008 is again from the Dragon Tea House on eBay, and I bought for the extremely modic sum of $8 / 100g (interestingly, the 2009 now on offer at this merchant has increased to $18).

This is proper tea: it becomes obvious as soon as you look at the leaves. They are long, intact, and well taken care of. There’s a distinctive and nicely nuanced spicy aroma, perhaps of cinnamon tree bark if you insist. Far less roasted and chocolatey than your usual Wuyi tea, and surely less than either of the Shuixian I reviewed a few days ago. The tea’s medium body and moderate roast are also obvious in the colour, which is never darker than a deep orange-amber.

The tea’s ‘attack’ when you take a sip into your mouth is strongly spicy, indeed redolent of powdered cinnamon, but the whole is not very distinctive in flavour: from mid-palate on it recedes into a fairly vague Wuyi typicity, before a well tannic and perhaps slightly mineral finish. I have found that the most enjoyable sessions are those with a very high dosage (6–7g / 100ml of water) and short infusion times. There’s never much roast in the foreground but a very strong spiciness especially in the first infusion (later, it tends to wane rather quickly).

The short-livedness of the cinnamonny aroma and the somewhat cloudy appearance led me to think this tea could actually be a fake. I mean a tea artificially flavoured with powdered spice. Mind you, should my intuition be confirmed, it’s been done in a fairly subtle, well-handled way, but I couldn’t help thinking that heady tree bark aroma was a little too obvious and disjointed to be really natural. (It’s fairly common to see China’s most popular tea sbeing counterfeited by artificial aromatisation: ‘Milk Oolong’ – see review here – is another frequent example). Looking at the wet leaf it’s obviously a plantation tea: leaves are thin and fragile with litte structure, but processing has been good.

Dragon Tea House are a reputable merchant and I’m keen to give them the benefit of a doubt on this tea, which if you disregard where the spicy aroma is coming from, is actually a nicely balanced, moreish tea that’s excellent value for money.

A Tale of Three Shuixians

Comparative tasting rocks. Tasting different things together is a perfect wake-me-up. You become more perceptive to the minute differences and analogies even of very similar things.

The setup.

I recently realised that among my 50+ tea reviews on this blog, one important tea family was still missing: Wuyi. ‘Cliff’ or ‘rock’ tea from eastern China’s Fujian. The Bordeaux of tea. Many, many tea drinkers’ favourite oolong. It’s not my favourite, but as every wine drinker with Bordeaux, I have several bins in the tea cellar, and enjoy them from time to time.

Shuixian (Western translation: Water Sprite) is the most popular and widely available oolong tea from Wuyi (and elsewhere in Fujian). It’s a generic name that refers both to a varietal of tea tree and to the style of tea that is obtained from it. As all Wuyi oolongs this is over 50%-oxidised  and medium- to heavy-roasted. Of all Wuyi teas, Shuixian is considered to see the highest roast, though as will all things tea this varies from producer to producer.

Here I have a comparative look at three Shuixians. One was purchased in Poland from online merchant eHerbata and I infer it’s a 2008; it cost the equivalent of 6€ / 100g. (Hereafter referred to as sample ‘A’). Shuixian ‘B’ is the 2008 Premium Laocong (‘Old Tree’) from Dragon Tea House ($20 / 100g; now available in the 2009 vintage). ‘C’ is the 2008 Traditional Shuixian from Jing Tea ($26 / 100g).

Dry leaf appearance is similar in all three. We have the typical Wuyi long, twisted leaves that vary in colour from very deep green to almost black, but mostly are medium and medium dark brown. There’s little qualitative information to be drawn from the visual aspect alone, other than ‘A’ and ‘B’ contain a varying proportion of broken leaf while ‘C’ is the most intact (something you can’t really see on the photo above). Also, A is altogether lighter in colour with a degree of light brown leaves; hard to say why for the moment but it’s a hint I’ll elaborate on later.

As is common practice with Wuyi oolong, I brewed these teas in a gongfu succession of very short steeps on a large amount of leaf (4.5g for 75 ml of water; 15s, 15s, 25s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 1m etc.). The colour of the first brew is rather similar:

Tea ‘A’ came out rather unpleasant. It’s dominated by roast, and tastes both a little stale and overbrewed, with an untasty wet wood and soaked raisin profile. Bitterish and tannic in an unpleasant, unclean way on the finish. Later brewings are a little nicer, coming close ot a black tea in expression with a mulchy, sweaty character. This tea has much deteriorated since fall 2008 when I bought it (at the time it was a basic but essentially correct and pleasant tea). And it makes me think it’s not necessarily a 2008 but perhaps an older stock.

Tea ‘B’ gives a solid performance. It’s a chewy, rustic rendition of Shuixian with little in terms of finesse, and it’s slightly dominated by roast. The reason I compared Wuyi tea with Bordeaux is not casual, as I tend to think of roast in teas as similar to oak in wines. Oak is very easy to overdo. In youth, many red wines are dominated by oak; some shake this off with ageing, some don’t. This Shuixian probably won’t integrate its roast even if you age it for years. It’s also a tannic, mildly astringent tea. Good quality here: at least tastes like the real thing. I particularly like the middle infusions here (#2–5), where the roast recedes a bit, leaving an impressive, almost physical thickness to this oily brew. Later, chocolate comes back again.

Tea ‘C’ is quite different from the other two. It has a delightful clean bitter chocolate aroma to the warmed leaves, and shows lighter than ‘A’ or ‘B’, especially in later infusions whose colour is never darker than deep amber. Never an overpowering tea, this seems less roasted, with the leaf oxidation influencing the profile. It’s quite assertive throughout the middle infusions, semi-rich and rather buttery than milky (milk-chocolatey is often used as a mouthfeel descriptor for Shuixian). A very enjoyable tea with a transparent, high-quality profile and considerable finesse for a Wuyi tea.

Here’s a photo of the final 20-minute brewing:

As you can see tea ‘C’ is quite lighter in colour while ‘A’ and ‘B’ still brew very dark. Let’s have a closer look at the expired leaves now:

Here the observations from the dry leaf and the comparative tasting find their final confirmation. ‘A’ and ‘B’ are showing a high amount of broken leaf, leaf fragments, and in the case of ‘A’ also of stems. ‘C’ has the largest and most intact leaves that are also the lightest in colour; they open almost completely, showing that the roasting was at its lightest and most skillful here (long, careful roasting preserved the leaves better while quick commercial roast in electric machines at high temperatures tends to burn the leaves). Tea ‘A’ has leaves of different colour that remain twisted and rolled: the poorest roasting shows here. ‘B’ looks almost as good as ‘C’ but the leaves are consistently fragmented. It’s a slightly lower grade apparently than ‘C’, although the cup is quite pleasant.

It was an interesting tasting also in how to buy teas. Whether on the internet or in a physical shop we’re often confronted with elaborate prose on a given tea’s origins, and few technical details on how it was actually made. ‘Premium’, ‘Supreme’, ‘Traditional’ are meaningless terms that add to the confusion. Looking at the dry leaf and, if you have a chance, at the expired one (some online merchants post photos of these) can reasonably help you make an educated purchase. But best is, of course, trying the tea before you shell out the $25.

2008 Traditional Shuixian (Jing Tea), expired leaf after 10 infusions.

2007 Heavy-Roasted Winter Shanlinshi

Photo taken Wednesday last in the Saxon Park in Warsaw.

No Indian summer for Poland this year. Last Wednesday we’ve had the first snowfall of this season, and temperatures continue around the 5C mark. It’s grey, dull and chilly and my thoughts naturally drift towards comfortable, heart-warming, unadventurous tastes.

Feeling like a nicely chilled Vinho Verde?

It’s the sort of season that gradually taught me to appreciate roasted oolong teas. I’m an aromatic sort of guy and at the beginning of my road to tea, I appreciated teas for their bouquet more than anything else. At that time, fresh unroasted Tieguanyin, Taiwanese gaoshan and especially Baozhong were favourites. Those aren’t particularly well-structured teas but I was fully satisfied by that intensely flower-scented first cup.

I remember my first couple of orders with Taiwanese specialist Tea Masters and adding, out of curiosity, some of the numerous references of the medium-roasted rolled oolongs that Stéphane stocks. I couldn’t warm up to them. I used to think the added body and patience were not worth sacrificing the heavy bouquet.

Today I am coming back to these teas with real delight. One such comfort tea that never disappoints is the 2007 Heavy-Roasted Winter Shanlinshi (30€ / 100g). It’s one of a dozen or so selections of rolled mountain oolongs from the Luanze (a.k.a. Qingxin) varietal of tea tree available from Tea Masters. Coming from a winter harvest with lower aromatics but deeper, more consistent mouthfeel, it’s another masterpiece of balanced roast (see this review for another example). It might lack the assertive floral notes of unroasted gaoshan but surely sits very comfortably in the mouth, and is all about elegance and balance. The smooth buttery texture is underpinned by gentle notes of toasted grain. Although Tea Masters by comparison to other ‘cuvées’ call this a heavy roast, it is never as present as in a Wuyi ‘cliff tea’ from Fujian in China; I’d call it MT+ as is the habit for oak barrels for wine.

Infusion no. 3 (15 seconds) in gaiwan.

One remarkable thing about this tea (and this tea family in general) is its endurance. It seems to brew endlessly. I usually grow bored of a single tea after 6–7 infusions but yesterday went up to a good 15 cups without any visible decrease in quality and intensity. Dosage is not so important (even 2.5–3g per 100 ml of water works fine) but it is crucial to keep the initial steeps short. I never rinse, and keep the first infusion long enough for the leaves to half-open, while the subsequent steeps are 10–15s. The patience of this tea is amazing, as is its stability of colour: even after 15 infusions it’s the same orange-amber, and the leaves do not open completely (a sign of highish roast) but remain healthy and green (a sign of well-balanced roast) and could seemingly march on forever. It’s good to know there’s someone with you who never gives up.

In Praise of Water

I opened this bottle at a recent WINO Magazine panel tasting. It’s from the Adriatic region of the Marche in eastern Italy, made from a typical local grape called Verdicchio. Sartarelli is one of the very best producers there. Although Verdicchio has been increasingly catching the public’s attention of late, with its mineral expression of terroir and versatility with food, it remains a somewhat rustic white wine, and the appellation still has some way to go towards consistent quality and personality.

This Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico 2008 weighs in at 12.5% and is delightful from the very first aroma that reaches the nose. It’s quite unfruity but has a wide mineralic panorama that’s really a delight to watch unfolding. A democratic mix of saline, peppery and crystalline notes, it vaguely reminds me of the granite-grown Muscadet wines of the Loire. I’ve long not encountered a more purely and directly mineral aroma in a wine – even in the recent bunch of Rieslings reviewed here.

On the palate, the impressions are equally positive. There is a light to medium body with fine balance and a hint of appley flavour, again offset by a distinctive, salty, mildly alkaline minerality. It’s a clean, consistent and engaging wine. It’s really very, very good but…

It’s obviously diluted. Thin. Watery. The flavour is rather light, and the finish is non-existing as the mild mineral flavour is washed away with dilution. This is initially quite puzzling. With a wine of such high quality of both grapes and vinification, it’s rare to see such a drastic lack of concentration. It tastes a little as if you added a part of water to four parts of wine in your glass.

The back label largely clarifies the mystery. The producer declares a yield of 120q (12 tonnes) per hectare, with a planting density of 2300 vines / ha. This translates into around 5kg of grapes per vine. That’s a lot! Fine wine is usually made with 1–1.5kg / vine, while a commercial white can climb to 2.5–3kg but I’ve never heard a vintner confessing 5kg. (Incidentally when I visited Sartarelli in 2001 the owner, amiable Mr Chiacchiarini declared they used a maximum of 80q/ha, as opposed to the outrageous appellation cap of 140q).

This wine had me reflecting on my (and our) attitude toward wine. Our perception is directly derived from our expectations. We have a range of pre-set criteria to assess the quality of a wine. For the unseasoned drinker, it might be soft tannins and intense sweet fruit (and so they pick a New World Merlot or Shiraz). Wine aficionados usually have a wide array of personal preferences that might go from strongly mineral Rieslings to lavishly perfumed Viogniers and iron-cast Tannats. However, we universally expect a wine to be concentrated. Dilution is almost always a vice (there are few exceptions: Portuguese vinho verde, French Muscadet, bottom-range German QbA Riesling might be forgiven for being ‘light’). We don’t so much like water in our wine. Even a Soave or a Beaujolais are expected to show, if not high concentration, at last ‘consistency’.

But there’s another side to the coin. Overconcentration is a serious problem in many wines around the world. Not least in the New World where climatic conditions contribute to increasingly thick wines. Palate density and lushness of texture work against what should be one of wine’s major assets (in my opinion): a sense of refreshment. I rarely, if ever, want to feed on a wine.

Thinking why Sartarelli would have decided to allow such a high yield for their Verdicchio, there’s one obvious explanation. Verdicchio might not be the most exacerbated example but it’s a grape that can reach quite some concentration of sugars. In some later harvested examples I tasted the alcohol exceeded 14.5 or even 15% (see Coroncino, for example, or the top bottling from Santa Barbara). We all complain about rising alcohol levels in wine. Among the proposed solutions are reverse osmosis or spinning cone column techniques to remove the alcohol from the solution (invasive and with an impact on flavour), harvesting earlier (for some, raising issues of ‘phenolically unripe’ flavours) or mixing a normal and earlier harvest (as above). It’s no secret many wineries in the New World and even some in Europe (where it’s strictly illegal) simply add water.

It’s easily forgotten that the least invasive and controversial way of bringing sugars (and consequently alcohol) down is to increase the yield. Less concentration in the grapes means you can easily bring the figure down by 1 or 1.5%. This Sartarelli Verdicchio has 12.5%. Sealed with a plastic cork, it’s meant to be drunk within a year or two (for something more ageworthy the same winery makes a single-vineyard Tralivio and an off-dry Balciana). And I really don’t so much mind a bit of water in my glass. At the price of a pizza (8€) this wine is a perfect solution, if you can forget your prejudice against dilution.

Beautiful tea

Oriental Beauty (a.k.a. Baihao) is one of the most renowned tea ‘appellations’. And it’s also one of the world’s strangest teas. With its unique production method and its distinctive bouquet, it is among teas roughly what oxidative dry sherry – amontillado and oloroso – is in the domain of wine.

You’ll find an extensive introduction to Oriental Beauty here. To summarise, it’s a lowland, summer, partly-oxidised (oolong) tea from northern Taiwan. More often than not produced from the Dapa varietal, its uniqueness lies in how it’s grown: in summer, local insects called tea jassids are encouraged to feed on the leaves; their bites initiate a process of oxidation within the leaves that later translates into a distinctive, spicy bouquet. Oriental Beauty is a tea with high oxidation (>50%, in which it differs from lighter oolongs from Central Taiwan and comes close to black tea) but little or no roast.

My duo of Oriental Beauties comes from Teamasters and comprises the 2008 Hsin Chu Oriental Beauty (hereafter ‘2008 OB’) and the 2008 Hsin Chu Oriental Beauty ‘Top’ (see vendor notes here). The latter is a limited selection that includes jassid-bitten leaves exclusively. The difference in price is huge: 33€ / 100g for the straight OB and no less than 100€ / 100g (sold in 25g packages) for the ‘Top’. This latter price is more a factor of rarity and prestige than actual ‘objective’ value. (Please note Teamasters are now offering the 2009 version of both teas).

The dry leaves of both versions are distinctive and beautiful. OB’s other Chinese name is wusicha, ‘the tea of five colours’, and you’ll see this unmistakeable mix of black, dark brown, beige, and tippy white hues on the photo:

The 2008 Top seems to have somewhat smaller leaves, impeccably sorted, and perhaps with fewer brownish ‘flakes’, but the aspect is similar. The dry leaf aroma of the 2008 OB is very distinctive and preannounces the flavour of the cup. Very spicy, with hints of tree bark, Chinese medicine, oriental mushrooms, and minor dry fruits, it’s quite unlike any other tea. The 2008 Top shows a slightly more fruity (dried fruits) bouquet and the impression of lighter, less earthy spiciness is reinforced as the leaves are put in a warmed cup.

2008 Hsin Chu Oriental Beauty: brewing no. 1 (45 seconds) and 6 (2 minutes).

As you can see from the photo above the colour of the infused 2008 OB is not particularly dark. With that spicy, mushroomey, cinnamonny aroma again, we are lured to a palate of lovely balance and presence. Laden with spice and dried fruits in a crisp, light framework, this tea shows an amazing sweet huigan aftertaste and a stunning sense of refreshment. It’s not particularly deep or intense but has a remarkable cleanliness and authenticity about it. I’m also impressed by the durability. I rarely go beyond 5–6 brewings with an oolong tea but here, 10 are easily possible, with the later ones taking minutes of steeping and still yielding the same medium-bodied, intensely perfumed result.

The 2008 Top shows a subtle but evident variation to the straight 2008 OB. It seems a little more oxidative, and less formulaic in its spicy, fruity bouquet. Whereas on the nose the register seemed lighter and fruitier, on the palate we have a more structured, tannic, almost austere tea. Intensity, breadth and length are also superior. These are milimetric differences but the step up from the 2008 OB is obvious. Is it worth the extra 70€? I guess not, but that’s not the point. Teamasters’ Stéphane Erler wanted to shows the highest grade of Oriental Beauty that can be obtained, and he’s there.

2008 Hsin Chu Oriental Beauty ‘Top’: spent leaves after 10 infusions.

The best part of Oriental Beauty, for me, is looking at the wet leaf. (I find myself increasingly examining spent leaves of my teas: there’s a lot of information to be gathered). Here we have some of the most immaculately processed leaves I have encountered. It’s a classic maofeng grade (two leaves and a bud), and the leaves are small, perfectly shaped, and undamaged. They are uniformly brown in colour due to their high oxidation but look as fresh and vigorous as if they were freshly picked; there is absolutely nothing ‘spent’ or ‘expired’ about them.

2008 Hsin Chu Oriental Beauty: spent leaves after 10 infusions.

 

In tea as in wine quality, the saying goes, is never an accident but always the result of intelligent effort. There has been a lot of intelligent effort put in the harvesting and production of this tea. What is purely a technical quality – proper handling of tea leaves – becomes an aesthetic one. This tea embodies perfection. It is distinctive, pure, deep, intense and rewarding. My favourite tea.

The good, the bad and the sulphury

I have been drinking through a series of ambitious Rieslings recently, and it's interesting what a mixed bunch they’ve been. Riesling is the wine lover’s puppy, having a unique ability to convey a sense of place and a natural tension between fruit, minerality, acidity and sugar. But it’s also a fairly demanding and capricious grape: the margin of error is smaller than when making Chardonnay or Syrah. Leave a bit too much sugar and your acidity will not balance the whole; pick the grapes a bit late for dry wine and alcohol will soar: while 13.5% in a Sauvignon Blanc is no big deal, it often spoils a good Riesling. Riesling is also one of the grapes, in my experience, with the highest incidence of corked bottles (the proportion of TCA taint is the same with other wines but it’s a lot easier to perceive in a filigree Riesling). And it's extremely sensitive to tasting conditions.

I was reminded of this adage when I opened two bottles of Heymann-Löwenstein’s within a few days. The Schieferterrassen Riesling 2004 is Löwenstein’s entry-level bottling but proved extremely satisfying, with wonderful minerality, crystalline fruit and a great sense of balance. The Röttgen Erste Lage Riesling 2005 is a prestigious grand cru bottling that should show superior to the Schieferterrassen but didn’t. Sure, there was the same mineral signature of Löwenstein’s (ripe minerality reminiscent of warm sea: imagine a juxtaposition of Chablis and Santorini) but the wine seemed flat and overly sugary, with little fruit expression. It was purely a matter of momentary perception: on a cloudy, rainy day that was a ‘root day’ in the biodynamic calendar (the worst type of day to taste wines; look for flower days and fruit days for the best results) the wine just tasted opaque and fruitless.

The Egon Müller / Le Gallais Wiltinger Braune Kupp Riesling Spätlese 2002 and Joh. Jos. Prüm Graacher Himmelreich Riesling Auslese 1996 tasted alongside shared the same fate. They’ve now eaten their sulphur (of which the Prüm surely contained heroic amounts) and are showing some nice minerality but were neither very rich or expressive and for such prestigious bottlings, simple and underwhelming.

A few days later on a ‘flower day’, a bottle with far more modest pedigree just shone. The Winninger Uhlen Riesling Spätlese trocken 2006 from Reinhard & Beate Knebel in the lower Moselle was all a dry slate-grown Riesling should be: powerfully expressive, substantial, mineral and tense. It’s a fairly boisterous style with some botrytis grapes used for this wine, a deep orange colour, plenty of spice on nose and a broad, rich palate. Much an Auslese trocken in style, it’s a little unbalanced and perhaps controversial on less luckily bio-influenced day, but today it just tasted right.

Deep-coloured Riesling.

Hímesudvar Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttonyos 1993

As I mentioned in my earlier post on puer tea, autumn is the time to pop the cork off some sweet botrytised wines. The chilly, misty mornings and low afternoon sun we’re currently experiencing in Central Europe are a clear reminder of the conditions in which the world’s greatest sweet wines are made. Morning humidity combined with sunny, warm daytime weather allow the development of so-called noble rot. Botrytis cinerea is a microscopic fungus that if proper conditions are maintained over several weeks, will gradually dry the grapes to raisins, concentrating sugar, acidity and flavour.

Botrytis wines are made throughout the world but three European regions are responsible for the best examples: Bordeaux’s Sauternes, Northern Germany (the Rhine and Moselle where wines are made from the Riesling grape) and the Hungarian region of Tokaj. (Some might want to add the Loire Valley, Alsace, and the Austrian Neusiedl Lake to this list).

I’ve already given an introduction to Tokaj here. For the first bottle of this new wine season, I was tempted to open some of the best stuff from my cellar such as István Szepsy or Királyudvar but went for this modest wine instead. The Hímesudvar Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttonyos 1993 comes from a small estate run by the Várhegyi family that is better known for its delightful wine shop and tavern located in the centre of Tokaj town. Over the last years their wines have been somewhat erratic with volatile acidity and unclean flavours especially in the dry and semi-dry Furmint, but this sweet Aszú comes from a legendary vintage that many still consider the best of the modern Tokaj era. (1999, 2000, 2002 and 2006 are serious challengers). It’s a bit like 1982 in Bordeaux, or 1990 in Tuscany – everybody made great wine and drinking these bottles today, provided the price is reasonable, is a consistent delight.

Purchased in 2001 for something like 20€, this wine is wonderfully preserved and showing the sheer class of that unrepeatable vintage. A slowly maturing amber colour with hints of red. Classic Tokaj nose, very mineral, not so sweet, though with a brown sugar edge of botrytis; also mixed spices, poppy seed (a common aroma with aged Tokaj) and quince. Lots of allure and depth here; a very good surprise. Medium sweet on palate with that wonderful balance of aged Tokaj (especially in the 5 puttonyos category), almost dry on the finish. Broad without really being very opulent, this is rather restrained and classic but with plenty of intensity, complexity and interest. Acidity is not so high perceptively (until recently, many 1993s were quite sharp); there’s minor bitterness on end but no VA. A brilliant wine and a fitting start to the autumn.

 Tokaj town, not far from the Hímesudvar winery.

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Those who followed the blind tea tasting exercise in the previous post can now see the teas’ identity revealed at the bottom of post here.