Yang Qing Hao 80s Anxi Tie Guan Yin Oolong
CONTEXT: 10g sample, 5g of best leaf, 60s hongni.
While most brews are Empirical Water Glacial (link below), slightly heavier empirical water cross between glacial and spring was used for this tea. It was 40% spring per recipe, 60% filtered tap in this batch. After some feeling it out, the water is a middle point between glacial and spring; may mute high notes, may slightly remove some mouth sensations like cooling, but doesn't get rid of complexity completely; may deepen base notes. Still prefer glacial for standard testing and daily drinking.
VISUALS: Oolong. Aged. Dark. Leaves seem nice.
DRY HEAT: Blind, I don't think I'd say "house note" signature to Yang. Chocolate notes that are really cool, some old book and such that's not overpowering at all, and the ghost of a lingering roast from former days.
WET HEAT: Confusing but pleasant nose, had to pull out the wheel. Also, peep this color off the flash rinse đź‘€
Like a blend between subtle wood element > old book and some fire element > roast...but old roast...if that makes any sense. I can detect (and think I would blind clearly too) the ghost of the roast.
STEEPS: Pleasant. Retains the roast, but marries like a pasta with it's sauce this...sour (not 'sour'), tang (not really), genuine hui-gan esq rear-sides of the palate salivation effect.
Quite surprised how light this is, how light the roast is still there...crazily, almost a white donut peach note striking the memory on a retrohale (dragon breath). Maybe a greenness that somehow survived this long? But not in a bad way; in a way I had to find the term on the second steep as a surprisingly pleasant note way.
Could be because I just haven't had many examples of very aged, roasted TGYs, but this is quite good. Soft, round, high / upper register notes, some light ghost roast letting you know it was once there, no house note, no storage note...just mellow and solid. Some sweetness...actually, some menthol cooling in the bottom lip.
Yeah, steep 3 - getting full mouth cooling building now, super nice. Qingqi.
Very dynamic, very evolving. Honestly for that alone it might be worth the buck a gram; not a lot of teas do a genuine, full dance with you during a session. Usually I find most just build, bloom, and recede in similar character - and you're left caring more about how durable it was and how it ended. This truly changes with a delicate dance of different Qingqi. The roast really has staying power, but is so light and interesting.
PUNCHLINE: Good body, good texture, juicy, liquid, not sandy / grainy / abrasive, clean but subtle building astringency on the tongue.
Fun tea, unique, very aged, dynamic, evolves over the steeps, worth trying - if your bag, maybe worth a bag. I do think if you drank this blind you would not associate it with YQH.
$1/g...eh...yes? - smacks lips tasting in contemplation - Yeah probably...probably not for bags and bags, but probably for one 75g bag to enjoy in rotation. I guess it depends though, there's serious stuff you can get for a buck a gram, or save toward more high end; but I'm also not a diehard "tHiS DoEs NoT meEt tHe eXpeCTaTiOn fOr tHiS PriCe & iS tHerFOrE tRaSh" person, so...do with that what you will. Drink what you like. I'd get a bag.
Gosh...I'm having a really hard time pegging price:value. I guess "objectively"...no?...aargghhh...I really don't know. Probably not, but the voice saying probably not isn't necessarily my own, it's the secondary logic voice, not the voice of instinct. Instinct thinks the above.
REFERENCES:
- QingQi (article coming soon)
- Empirical Water (Glacial Recipe)
Arby Avanesian
Looking for a run-through of my tasting process? Check that out here:
(article coming soon)
