Highlights:
- Old tree artisanal cake
- Strong calming and comfortable Qi
- Can be really sweet, with some thickness and flavour roundedness and great patience
A cake from old Yibang trees, made by a small taiwanese producer, this is very high on the list of rare and exclusive old tree tea made in the early 2000s that just couldn’t be made today (environment is not as clean and old tree leaves are much more expensive). Like for CYH, the name “Tong Xing” is a homage to an old puerh producer.
Comes from the same collector as our CYH 04 Song Pin Hao, CYH 07 Yiwu Chawang, he reckons this Jia He Tang is about the same quality as the various 03-05 CYH and he’s been storing it himself since the 2000s. I have to agree this tea reminds me a lot of 2003 CYH Yibang and is about the same quality, though different processing styles. Good taiwanese storage (the first steep can have a small hint of storage taste, the rest feels otherwise clean).
Warning: brewing technique required to really get that sweetness out. Here’s what I did (after trying a few times): flash steeps at first, then steep much longer than I’m used to from steep 4. Steep really hard unless I get too much bitterness, this produces many very very sweet satisfying infusions from mid session on. I use a modern Yixing HongNi (red clay) teapot, I’m unsure if this relevant.
Excellent price/quality on this one, 1 tong only, can’t be re-stocked.
Approx. 357g cakes, available as 1/4 slice too (approx. 85g).
Aleksei Kurtsanov (verified owner) –
I’m drinking this tea while writing these words, or should I say I’m writing these words while drinking this tea? Nevertheless, so far so good. Hot leather, some prune, some flowers and something else I would describe as “nobleness”. Yes, it is good, noble sheng. Worth to try. I’m waiting promised sweetness, I do hope I’ll catch it.
Aleksei Kurtsanov (verified owner) –
Five star sheng! I liked it!
Anonymous (verified owner) –
Fantastic. Thick and smooth with a very calming qi