1999 Fuhai Yiwu Yesheng

This sheng pu comes from essence of tea a well known England based tea shop. I tried most of their young shengs and a couple of aged one as well. I think most of them are reasonably priced. Unfortunately I am limited by my budged but this one was still affordable. Let’s see what does it shows.

5g/ 100ml zisha

10sec rinse, 10s, 10s, 20s, 35s, 1min, 2min, 10min, overnight

The dry leaves have a sweet-nutty fragrance, the aged character is there. After the first rinse an old but clean(!) basement scent is released, pleasant overall. The liquor still has something from its youth but I would categorize it as an aged one in its early years. The aroma cup gives a thick sweetness with some woody elements, the taste is good but not that impressive. Its stays on the simple sweet tobacco-woody side 

 

The colour of the liquor is rather bright for a 12 old sheng. I was going relatively light in terms of brewing parameters so therefore no bitterness was observed, however the astringency was a bit disturbing for me. Though I am not experienced enough I thing the described simple character and lack of depth may be attributed to the plantation origin of part of the leaves used for this cake, nevertheless the wet leaves looks yummy. 

Anyways, it was a good session, especially from the tea education point of view. It’s an average tasting, semi aged, dry stored sheng, but I think there are better values out there (also in EoT) for the price.  
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update 5.4.2012

I tried this tea with cca 9 g of leaves and the result was better, however the mouth drying astringent character prevent me to like it. I was drinking it through 2 days and I have done many infusions and it is clear that the tea has the energy. The aged character is nice but I just can not to enjoy it yet. I guess within a decade after the edges fade it can become a very nice aged sheng.