Highlights:
- Mr Chen’s home Taiwan dry storage
- Strong, thick, sweet taste
- Enlivening Qi
Taste is a personal favourite: smooth, mineral sweetness, lots of strength.
Not much is known about these cakes, as Tong Xing Hao used to be an old tea shop and the name has been used over the years by various producers to make “homage” cakes.
For lovers of old tea and particularly dry-stored smooth and strong sheng puerh, this tea is a great find.
Mr Chen’s introduction
There’s actually a lot of old tea in Taiwan at much more reasonable prices than in mainland China, unfortunately most of what is found in Taiwan is too wet stored. Mr Chen, a personal friend of ours, old time collector, bought a few tongs of various teas during the 90s and early 2000s (before prices skyrocketed), and has been storing them in his home (dryly) since.
This kind of tea in China sells for crazy money, it’s very lucky we’ve access to these at all, Mr Chen has sold them to us at a very generous price and we pass the great deal on to you. For this quality of tea and dry storage, I believe pricing is very good.
357g cakes nominal, weight loss over the years because of aging
Nick M. (verified owner) –
This is a beguiling tea. Not the quickest out of the blocks, not the flashiest. But it picks up the pace on the 3rd or 4th steep, and offers up a good degree of endurance, subtlety, in those mid session steeps a creamy texture, and above all, aromas that fill the room. It was the perfume that took me by surprise, because in the pot the wet leaves aren’t the most aromatic, don’t have the obvious frankincense punch of some mature cakes, yet there’s a ethereal quality to this tea notwithstanding its maturity. If it comes back into stock, grab some for immediate drinking; it comes recommended and is fair value thanks to impeccable storage.