Teas from the Origin

After a recent tea exchange with the generous proprietor of the Taiwan based Origin Tea , I have been whimsically drifting through a variety of aged teas. The slightly more mature teas are a pleasant break from drinking raw 2013 Spring/Fall samples. Nothing against the young and the raw, but fall and winter are a great time for darker teas.

The 2005 Chen Guang He Tang tea was apparently not made by Chen Zhi Tong, but it was purchased by him. Purchasing tea might not sound sexy, but having great taste and picking good tea is a skill unto itself. As Ira Glass once pointed out, killer taste is how every great artist begins their journey.

This tea is supposedly wild tea from the Menghai region, an expansive area that I expansively love. The tea has likely been stored in Taiwan for most of its life (never checked this fact). The taste is similar to Taiwan storage, and the color of the soup is on it’s way to a mature brown. The tea holds a tempered edge of sweetness.

The smells on the lid of the gaiwan are richer than any run of the mill menghai blend. Malty and thick with a smell of caramel and light cigar wrappers.

The soup continues to be smooth and sweet in the mouth. There is depth that most menghai cakes touch the edge of, but unfortunately most cakes rarely breech the boundary into depth and complexity. In the middle of the session, this tea dips into that trench. What awelcome companion for this cool afternoon, I should hope I try this tea again in the future. Many thanks to Origintea for the sample.