Highlights:
- 100% pure ancient trees
- Full Yiwu taste: sweet, thick, strong, well balanced
- Really strong aftertaste and huigan
- Impacting and grounding Qi
From first cup it’s obviously immediate pure clean ancient tree taste and Qi. Thanks to its dry Taiwan storage this tea can be pushed to make a very strong, refined brew without having much astringency.
Declared “from 700 year old trees in a secret location in Yiwu forest“, this is CYH’s flagship yearly cake from the late 2000s till today. Reminiscent of 2007 CYH Yiwu ChaWang Autumn and 2007 CYH ZhiWang, it has the characteristic ‘honey-like’ sweetness and a lot of depth.
Great quality and price too (CYH normal price is almost $1000). PS: this tea is mainly known as Chen Yi Hao. ChaWang means “tea king” and is not to be confused with ChaWangShu which is a specific Yiwu garden in Gua Feng Zhai.
Note October ’22: Slightly upgraded rating to between T4+ and T5- in light of new appreciation of this tea (brewing it really hard brings some extremely satisfying uniquely intense cups)
This tea was the subject of week 3 of the Brew Puerh like a Pro course:
Big 357g cakes, available as 1/4 slice (approx. 80-85g) and sample too.
Nick M. –
As soon as some dry leaf was prised from the cake and put into the pot it was obviously that this was going to be very aromatic, and neither the wet leaves nor the aromas from the bowl disappointed. Visually the cake comprises some white leaves and a mix of different hues of darker aged leaves. Extremely smooth and gently sweet from the start, the sort of purity of sweetness that you get from a cocoa pod’s fleshy white pulp. Incredibly striking and persistent perfume, like a mix of jasmin and winter flowers from a Daphne bush. The bowl is empty yet it overflows with floral scent. Pot leaf aromas are earthier. I’m brewing rather cool for the first few steeps to capture as much of the perfume as possible and to profit from the cashmere-soft qualities of the tea. Let’s see what happens when I brew hotter and harder (from brew 5). An attractive astringency damps down the sweetness a bit and adds a ‘grain’ to the soup without in any way impacting the aromas from the empty bowl. There’s still almost no perceivable bitterness. But the astringency is gone as soon as the next steep leaving a beautifully balanced, mineral yet sweet tea and a high throat cooling sensation. Cleansing. Classy tea for all the senses.
Guillaume C. (verified owner) –
This instantly became the reference ancient-tree Yiwu for me. I’d also recommend ‘playing’ a bit with it, even very strong brews are uniquely satisfying. The smoothness of the soup alone makes for an unforgettable session.
Paul –
In my huble opinion, this tea is at par -if not superior- to the GFZ Gold mark. Or put it like this i enjoyed it more — quite surprised to find it in the T4- category.
I wouldn’t neccessarily say that’s a stereotypical Yiwu though, since i’d associate that with pure sweetness. To me, this tea started off quite bitter, with a pronounced bacon taste, later turning into camphor, and even later mushroom. Nevertheless it is certainly sweet, yet the above mentioned profile caught me by suprise.
Even though i wouldn’t say it’s a reference for Yiwu, i would say it’s a reference for ChaWang tea –highest class material.