2007 YQH Xishi Shenpin
CONTEXT: This is a cake I know very well from the brand I know the most from the category and age of tea I drink the most. This statement has been true and growing over about 4 years. I've almost gone through this whole cake and have tapped others of it before. It is a 500g cake.
We're in Bohetang territory with this tea. It's an Yiwu-Bohetang blend.
VISUALS: High quality, big, beautiful leaf. It's YQH and it's Bohetang region...
DRY HEAT: Warm and inviting. Surprisingly, maybe a slight biscuit. A teensy bit of storage note, but my Xishis were primarily Malaysia-Dry storage (good dry storage, not Kunming...) for likely 10-14 yrs or so of their life (and it's a 2007 tea in 2025 so...you know).
Yeah, very inviting, makes me smile 🙂
I pulled up the KyaraZen tea wheel for aroma, fire element > roasted > bready is where I was going in my head. Though not "Manzhuan bready" as those teas are want to do. This is more subtle and "baked in" rather than "in the bakery", excuse the pun.
WET HEAT: Still fire element, still inviting, some subtle spice working in now.
Some sweet and sour citrus lean coming in on the nose as well, which doesn't surprise me this is a tea I find apricot fruit in as well. Some may call this a subtle "tang" 🍊
STEEPS: This is technically a slightly "bitter" tea, but I hate bitter...and I like this.
There's a nicely bundled complexity to this tea where the bitterness, the sweetness, the fruitiness, and even this...cocoa note just barely skimming the top layer of the palate, exist in harmony.
That was all steep one...
Great viscosity, good texture, slight pleasant drying as a well crafted dry wine.
Nuanced and complex, deep and rich backbone, solid foundation, very high quality material.
It is a tiny bit astringent as time goes on, but in a welcoming way. Sometime I'll write a "Red Snoot Rant" (hey, that's pretty good! think I'll use that 😀) about astringency vs dryness vs minerality vs bitterness. I suppose comment below if that's of interest.
Some hui gan, real hui gan, can write an article on that too perhaps...very back side of the mouth salivation driven. That's here.
It's sweet at the tip of the tongue, that sweetness returns in the back sides after the sip, there's some sour leaning citrus and some juicy fruit leaning apricot, there's some bitterness and astringency as a backbone, and some other fun subtleties thrown in to boot. Well rounded, great texture, balanced but bold.
PUNCHLINE: It's good.
