Wednesday, September 05, 2012

Bus Ride to Yiwu

This Monday, I brewed up 90's Yiwu from Hoffman sent to me by Emmett in an effort to get a better grip on dry storage. For those of you who are aspiring to age sheng in the dryer colder climes of the world,  it helps to know how you will like the taste of such dry-stored tea. If you don't and you have tongs of it, don't worry.  You'll grow to like it.  Dealing with such cognitive dissonance is one of the our most useful and necessary defense mechanisms not only as a tea drinker but as a generally well-functioning human being.   MarshalN has mentioned that my teas are aging very very slowly but I take comfort that my beengs are not dead. It's the start of foggy season in the Bay Area which means I'm cheered up every morning to see my hygrometer register 60% inside my tea closet.  Delusions make life more palatable and I'm solidly clinging onto the notion that DIY aging in Berkeley will turn out.

When I brew up the Hoffman Yiwu which must have spent the latter part of it's life in Hoffman's Marin cave, I'm surprised how young it tastes and how long my own teas will have to go. Then I notice  this sample tastes like a blend.  The fruity notes of Yiwu are accompanied by a plantation roughness which recedes after subsequent brews.  By the sixth brew, the lesser leaves turn sweet or have toned down.  The web lore has us believe that pure mountain cakes were kind of rare and blends tended to be the norm before this century so it makes sense this nineties cake is a blend.  According to this informative bannacha article, the Yao minority who live in the wilder parts of Yiwu cut most of their ancient tea gardens to grow rice as recent as fifteen years ago as price for their tea had been dirt cheap.  What regret.

I'll take the HLH Yiwu Chawang as a benchmark for readily available pure Yiwu.  And out of curiosity, I brew up the 2012 YS Gao Shan Zhai which was an enjoyable session but now I don't remember much other than marveling that good quality Yiwu's don't bother my stomach as much.  I wonder how this Hoffman's cake compares with other Yiwu blends. A friend brought me a cheap cheap tong of 6 FTM blends which I have never touched but tonight's the night to crack open the Spirit of Yiwu blend to see how Hoffman's supposed Yiwu fares.

I've held a low low opinion of 6 FTM ever since the 2005 Year of the Rooster Cake.  That astringent smoky production probably  accelerated if not triggered the start of my sheng problems.  My friend got this 2005 6 FTM Yiwu Yinji blend at Meliandao for less than $4 so I was expecting a flabby barely Yiwu experience.  But instead I get a decent Yiwu sweetness. Not too complex but fantastic for a $4 beeng. Probably in 2005, 6 FTM could still source decent maocha. I dare not buy any new 6 FTM now even for cheap.

Let's take stock of the rides I had to Yiwu. At the top end, a deluxe 4x4 limo service took me to a half- day tour of the highlights of Yiwu.  Like such high-end luxury tours, that HLH was definitely overpriced.   At the bottom end, a bus ride dropped me off on the outskirts of Mahei.  Another was an old school communist van tour packed with some frowning lao tong zhis.  But I still managed to get to some part of Yiwu and enjoy the views. Even if I can a afford nicer ride, it's fun to see what the local bus action is all about. There's uncomfortable sardine packed bus rides of the South American and Indian variety, but this FTM Yiwu but is more like a country Korean bus, roomy and not a bad way to travel for cheap.  I've read repeatedly that early few years of FTM production were of decent quality. Probably 2004-2005 is some cutoff point.

Are boutique productions always superior to mass produced beengs from big factories.  It's mostly true when there's a steep cost differential. A $4-$15 beeng cannot compete fairly with a hand-crafted $200 beeng. You can watch the 6FTM company production video here to see how such low grade industrial beengs are made.  I've ripped the most interesting shots below in case you cannot tolerate the brutal dramatic soundtrack or the terrible buffering from China.



12 comments:

  1. I actually returned this tea as I feel that Hoffman should not sell this tea with out letting people know that it hasn't aged. At all. He sells this only but the tong and claims it to be late 80s early 90s this is at the very least misleading

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    1. Dear Bradley-

      You are a most successful returner of unsatisfactory beengs. Many people keep them to fester it seems.

      I think this example tastes late nineties if that. I was debating if this tea was young tasting due to storage conditions or it's not as old as advertised or a double whammy. Hoffman and I have similar aging conditions except his cave is colder than my house. Perhaps Emmett can shed some light on what he thinks about the real age of this cake.
      H

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  2. Hoffman did tell me that he purchased the tongs in 92, and they were from that year, but that they were all different quality when he started to open them up a few years ago. So he did give them at a lower price for a early 90's tea. $125 for a tong. About 18 bucks each cake for something 20 years old but tasting of maybe ten years max is not bad. He was very informative as to what the tea was when I asked, but I will say the descriptions on his list are somewhat misleading. I recommend if someone is to order from him call and talk to him first as to what you are expecting and he is usually very happy to give you the info he has. This tea is not bad, I actually really like the ones I got and I split the tong with a friend so got three cakes for aging and half a cake for drinking. But Hoffman did say every tong was different so who knows what others got, and they are all sold out now so who knows now.

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    1. Wait wait, the Yiwu that Hoffman is selling is this 6FTM one? Am I reading that wrong?

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    2. Or, if it isn't - nobody was going to Yiwu to buy tea in 1992. Nobody can tell you their tea is from Yiwu in 1992, because that simply did not happen. Until an exploratory trip in 1995 by a bunch of Taiwanese and Hong Kong tea guys to Yiwu, there was no real interest in Yiwu, at all - the last time people paid real attention was prior to 1949. Hoffman either could predict the future (and got Chinese accomplices to help him - not likely) or he's making it up, sorry.

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    3. Emmet- I'm sorry about this scrutiny on a cake you like. I didn't mean there to be any controversy and tried hard to tone down my usual ball-busting style.

      I really would be interested in MarshalN's take of how much of this is really Yiwu. I drank the two other Yiwu's after Hoffman's sample(one 100% and one the 6 FTM blend) just to see if I can tell if Hoffman's blend included any real Yiwu. His tea does have some sugary fruity top notes which could be taken for Yiwu by a novice like me. I'd say the 6 FTM blend is slightly more Yiwu-ish than Hoffman's and I'll send you that one to see what you think.

      Hster

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  3. It is not the 6FTM, And the actual cakes in the tong have no wrapper or neifei and the tong is not stamped either. So there is no other info about them other than what he said. I can send you some if you would like MarshalN so you can maybe figure out something about it.

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    1. Got any pictures?

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    2. Check my blog http://chakungfu.blogspot.com/2012/07/early-90s-yiwu-sheng.html the pictures arent good quality but you can get some clos ups of the dry and infused leaf.

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  4. I can believe that's Yiwu, I have a very hard time believing it's 92

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    1. Wait wait! How do you know this cake Yiwu from the pictures alone? What are you looking for in particular?

      I'm totally going to make up a "guess this mountain" test for you!

      H

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    2. I didn't say I know this is Yiwu, I said I can believe it's Yiwu - i.e. the pictures don't rule it out right away.

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