* Entirely hand-written, no AI has been used. *
1) Astringency is the sensation of mouth puckering (like having eaten a lemon) and particularly the feeling of dryness in the mouth and especially near the tip of tongue. This is not the same as bitterness. Although they’re very often found together, bitterness is actually desirable by itself, what we dislike is Astringency. We generally refer to low Astringency as “Elegance”.
2) Density is the combination of how much aftertaste there is and how rich the liquor feels in the mouth, with the important caveat that the two should broadly be at the same level. Otherwise if the tea feels very flavourful but has little aftertaste, this is a “Pulong” (see notes on Processing below), not a Dense tea. We generally refer to high Density as “Strength”.
- How much aftertaste is left in the mouth and how deep – does it reach the side of the mouth? deep in the throat? how long does it last? Huigan (“returning sweetness”) can be seen as a particular kind of aftertaste (the sweet side of it)
- How much flavour is there in the liquor in the mouth? Texture and immediate sweetness are also highly correlated with Density as defined here
A lot of people mistake a tea that has a certain level of Astringency to be more interesting and lively in the mouth, but what’s really happening is the body is being disturbed (beyond a certain level, Astringency can even be harmful to parts of the gastrointestinal tract). So yes, a more Astringent tea feels more engaging, but arguably not in a positive way.
When one has not been used to drinking smooth (eg: low Astringency) teas, one is very tempted to judge tea only on strength (eg: Density), and one can reach conclusions that are very different from the point of view of most expert long-term puerh drinkers and masters, who value smoothness/elegance (low Astringency) very highly.
This can be seen by the fact that
- 1st spring pick generally costs twice as much as the 2nd spring pick and is much harder to source
- The 1st spring pick only has a bit better Density, but dramatically less Astringency than the 2nd spring pick
- Therefore it’s clear there’s a significant population of experts that value smoothness/elegance very highly
Rich Chinese connoisseurs are much more well trained than an average westerner in recognising Density, Astringency and “pulong processing”. However, to a certain extent, as a group they still prefer teas that are super Dense compared to ones with very low Astringency. This group also prefer teas with a very distinctive taste as it’s much easier to brag about them with their friends (examples: LaoBanZhang, Xigui, BingDaoLaoZhai, TaoZiZhai…).
This means there still exists teas which have very high quality but without a very distinctive taste, on the side of Low Astringency and high Density (see chart at the top of the page), that are still much better value for the real experts consumers, even if they don’t have the money to compete for the very distinctive terroirs. There particularly is a niche of extremely elegant teas that are still undervalued (examples: MiDi, SanChaQing, FengHuangWo and other high elevation Wangong, the huge king trees in Lincang…).
An alternative visualisation of the first chart:
Of course this and the first chart refer only to terroir, the other 7 factors below will influence the overall performance of a tea in both dimensions.
What gives tea their specific Density and Astringency
- Terroir (and tree type)
- Environment
- Tree age
- Picking standard
- Picking frequency
- Elevation
- Processing
- Aging
The central principle expressed in factors 2 to 6 is that the more leaves a tree makes (compared to their roots) in a given time, the less “good” nutrients (leading to the tea being less Dense) and more Astringency each leaf will have. So for instance a fertilised plantation terrace tea bush will make so much more “leaves per root length” than an ancient huge tree in an unmanaged barren mountain (huangshan) environment. Another example is that 1st spring pick leaves at high elevation are significantly slower growing than a 2nd spring pick at low elevation.
1 Terroir (and tree type)
Southern teas (Xishuangbanna) have more density than Northern, with Puerh (Simao) province being halfway between Banna (most density) and Lincang (least density of the three major regions). The saving grace of Lincang is that there are bigger trees and at higher elevations than in Banna (see below at Tree age and Elevation).
There are a lot of different ‘standard varietals’ in Puerh, with a lot of variance between each other. For instance the Banzhang-like leaf tree is more Astringent and Denser than most others. Yibang small leaf varietal tends to have very low Astringency while conserving medium Density (and a special sweetness too), etc.
Clearly some terroirs are special, generally speaking they are denser then the rest of the region they are in because of different soil composition. The canonical example is ManSong which is especially rich even in already-rich Yibang. To name just a few more KunLuShan, BingDao, XiGui, LvShuiTang are much the same case, a noticeably denser tea than the areas nearby.
2 Environment
A cleaner environment, especially if not very human managed, produces teas that are mainly Denser.
Did you know a lot of gushu trees have been cut in the 1970s-2000s era? Overall this also makes more leaves and less Dense tea.
As an aside, pesticide use feels similar to Astringency, but besides the drying on the tongue one generally also finds the throat feels very closed.
3 Tree age
Of course by now you know nobody can precisely tell age of ancient puerh trees without cutting them down and when you see a precise number the real age is likely very far away from it. With that said, a rough market classification:
- King Tree (Shuwang), – 500/1000 year trees old depending on who you ask, 4kg+ of dry leaf
- Single Ancient Tree (Danzhu) – 200/500yr old depending on who you ask, generally 1.5kg+ of dry leaf
- Gushu grade 1 / “Ancient trees” – 100/300yr old depending on who you ask
- Gushu grade 2 / “Old trees” – 50/100yr old depending on who you ask
- Small tree (Xiaoshu)
- Terraced plantation (Taidi)
The older the tree, the less Astringency and the more Density.
Note that Lincang has many more King Trees and even Big Single Ancient Trees than Banna and Simao. This fact combined with the very high Elevation found in Lincang (see below) make for extremely smooth (low Astringency) teas with decent Density.
4 Picking standard
1st spring is the best standard, good Density and more importantly very little Astringency (compared to other picks).
1st spring pick generally costs between 1.8 and 2.5 times as much as the 2nd spring pick, therefore it’s generally reserved for wealthy Chinese buyers, it’s very rare to see genuine 100% 1st spring puerh from in demand terroirs being sold.
Because 2nd spring leaves are grown in such a short time compared to 1st spring pick, they have less nutrient Density and a lot more caffeine and Astringency.
2nd spring is the most common pick for genuine “gushu” teas (or sometimes 1st + 2nd spring blended together). Unless the tea specifies it’s 100% pure 1st spring, it’s safe to assume it’s 2nd (or worse, there’s even 3rd spring sometimes).
Autumn pickings are also possible, generally at a cost a bit below 2nd spring, with a bit less Density but also a bit less Astringency.
5 Picking frequency
The more often a tree is picked, the less Dense and the more Astringent it will be.
The canonical case is BoHeTang which used to be the very best terroir of Yiwu back in the mid 2010s, but the trees have now been overpicked and as a result the Density is much, much lower than it used to be. FengHuangWo is now widely recognised (by experts at least) to be the best terroir in Yiwu instead.
6 Elevation
Lower elevation is more Astringent (and bitter) than higher elevation. To be precise it’s the cooler weather that slows down the growth of leaves but in most of Yunnan elevation and climate are very well correlated.
Again the canonical example is BoHeTang (~1400 m) which is just a long stone throw from FengHuangWo (~1700m), even before accounting for overpicking the quality of the two was roughly similar with FengHuangWo a much less Astringent and slightly less Dense tea. (Nowadays with the overpicking of BoHeTang, FengHuangWo has the edge, as seen above).
7 Processing
Essentially no producer still uses the “traditional processing” as was done for factory cakes in the 60s-90s.
Nowadays processing is a spectrum that goes from “greener” (where traditional factory processing was very green) to “darker”/more oxidized, that’s to say various ways of making the tea, to some extent, either closer to an oolong (“pulong”) or a black tea (“puhongcha”).
- Length of withering. Shorter = greener
- Duration of frying (shaqing). Shorter = greener.
- Rolling (and related techniques to increase oxidization). Minimal = greener
Having a “darker” version of any of these 3 processes removes Astringency, but at the cost of also removing aftertaste (eg: removing Density for our purposes here). There is another obvious drawback: the ‘darker’ a tea is, the less well it ages (eg: it transforms slower).
Average quality leaf must be processed “darker” to be palatable to be drank now. Otherwise the Astringency is just too high, and it just can’t be sold.
In short, you can tell this type of “darker” processing because they tend to be full of perfume and even a lot of flavour, but they leave very little aftertaste. It’s not the right kind of smooth which we called Dense (which also has strong aftertaste), it’s an empty-weak smooth that feels like drinking flavoured water, it was drank and there’s no remains in the body.
Excellent quality leaf already has a good balance of Density and Astringency already and therefore can be processed in a greener way, closer to more traditional processing (this is what we do).
8 Aging
Increases Density mostly in the sense of texture and sweetness, while aftertaste and even flavour density are not very changed.
It also slowly decreases Astringency. Note that a lot of older teas can feel smoother but if you pay attention what happens is that they’re very dense and this Density is “masking” the Astringency that’s still present.
The aging trajectory is roughly logarithmic: tea will feel much less green in 1 year, then again same degree of change in ~2 more years, then 4-5 years and so on.
Qi
Qi can be analysed in two distinct dimensions:
- how Intense it is (highly correlated to taste Density)
- how Comfortable it is (highly correlated to low Astringency)
Generally speaking, a smoother (less Astringent) tea has a more comfortable Qi, and a denser tea has a more intense Qi. That provides a direct mapping with all the factors we’ve listed before. The correlation is maybe 80-90% but I’m not aware of different specific factors that make a big impact on Qi so most of what we listed above (environment, picking standard, tree age, picking frequency, elevation, processing) will determine how Intense and Comfortable the qi of a specific tea is.
Qi however also has a third dimension of being on a spectrum from “Awakening” (energysing, bright mind, creative) to “Calming“, this is dependent mostly on terroir. The canonical example here is BanZhang as the archetypal Awakening tea and high elevation Yiwu GuoYouLin (State protected forest) as the archetypal Calming tea.
Another deviation is that the aging process tends to make all Puerh not just more comfortable and a bit more intense, but also shifts the third dimension towards Calming.
One might wonder: “How does a un-aged tea with extremely comfortable but also intense Qi even feel? FengHuangWo is a great example.