Want some earth with your earth? „90’s CNNP Guang Yun Gong Beeng“

Name: „1990’s CNNP Guang Yun Gong Beeng“
Source: Sampletea
Origin: „processed and compressed in Guangdong“
Link: Tea at Sampletea

For this session i used 9 g in a 150ml celadon teapot with boiling water.
If you want to read some thoughts about my way of tea tasting: beginners mind ‎

The smell of the dry leaves is quite earthy and i like the look of the dry tea very much. Maybe that is because of the long stems visible in the tea. I`m quite excited to taste this tea, because it is supposedly 26 years old already.
The smell is reminding me, same as with the tea i was drinking yesterday, of shu puerh, but this time it is a little bit less obvious and more earthy without the sweet, little bit compost like, aroma wich ripe tea often has, – it smells more like dry grey earth.

Smell of the rinse:
a sweet, earthy aroma, with slight hints of fruit – i can`t smell much to be honest

First steeping: 15 seconds, maybe it will take 2 or 3 more rounds to fully let the tea open up, it is still very thin. Very earthy, but not this kind of slightly rotten wet earth – this one is extremely clean and dry – super-dry!
For the body sensation / „Cha qi“ (good text at „teamasters blog“ here) part:
i started to sweat right after the first 2 or 3 cups, my heartbeat rate went up, i feel a „opening up“ kind of feeling between my eyes and suddenly feel much more awake.

2:
about 25 seconds, this time the color already tells me that it will be much stronger than the previous one.
To be honest: it tastes (for my still fairly uneducated tongue) like a ripe puerh – but without the stuff because of which i don`t like ripe tea… it do has however everything i like in ripe teas, less the mustiness and less any noticeable sweetness (and that`s a big difference, because most of the shu i tried tasted very sweet).
Forgetting about the comparison with shu, … i find this tea, in way… how can i say… boring?!
It tastes like earth, like a lot of earth… like the most clean and dry earth imaginable. Mhmm. And to make it clear, there is nothing in it wich i don`t like… but there is not any really noticeable sweetness, not much bitterness… no any of those complex aromas, because of what i like puerh so much.

Ah, but the mouthfeel… the mouthfeel is very good as well.

After all that exitment before steep nr. 1 i have to find something for wich i can give this tea some love… but only the mouthfeel?!

mhmmmmm….
Again speaking about this mysterious „Cha qi“ (is that it?) thing… it still moves me while i drink it… i have not much experience with this kind of „tea energy“ … but if i ever felt a lot of this … than it is today while drinking round no. 2 of this tea.

*slurping*

It has a really good mouthfeel… yes.

The more i drink of this mysterious nothingness… this driest earth on earth… the more i enjoy. Don`t ask me why…

*mumbling* … really good mouthfeel

Am i fantasizing now…? Is this the taste of some extrem far away, slight, fruity notes?!! …maybe just my imagination gone wild. I`m like a wanderer in the desert, hallucinating about the far away oasis. … fruit notes… no, there are no fruit notes, or are they there?

I came across the statement, sometimes while reading about tea, that the real and only valid reason why people (in China) are drinking such very old tea and spending very big money on it… is never the taste or anything like that… not even mouthfeel or anything else but…

„Cha qi“

I was very skeptical about that statement every time,… but now, for the first time, i consider it could be true. There is a lot of stuff going on in my body, wich i normally not feel during tea… very enjoyable experience.

A little bit more mellow now. I was secretly hoping, that now, in this 5th round, some special aroma-explosion will happen… but it does not.
I accept my destiny as a wanderer in the dessert, no more looking out for fictional oases.

This tea is quite boring when focusing on the taste.

is this a little citrus fruitiness? a little bit more sweetness now…

more sweetness… the rest stays almost (earthy as usual) the same.
So far, my most favorite round…
You might think that i`m not enjoying this session, but i do, i made my peace with this desert-tea, i even enjoy.. yes.

Personal Conclusion