I am finally getting around to replacing my dwindling stock of aged and semi aged Bulang. I must only have around a cake left of aged Bulang at my disposal. I have a few more cakes of some semi-aged that I dip into but that isn’t aged out enough yet to drink. At this rate the drinkable stuff will be gone in a year or so- not good. In a way, composing this post is also guiding or putting into print exactly what I am looking for in some replacement Bulang.
I do have a bit of experience with the Bulang area. Interestingly, most of my experience with Bulang
was around 15 years ago so the stuff I was drinking at that time was mainly 90s
more humidly stored Bulang. A lot of it was sometimes hard to for me to distinguish from aged Menghai. What is
going on now with Bulang is probably a lot different than what I’m used
to. It seems like not that much is
actually going on with Western puerh vendors pressing fresh Bulang these days. I predict a resurgence in interest in Bulang
over the next few years for Westren puerh drinkers much in the same way Lao Man
E experienced a surge in the West over the last 2 years. New trends aside, I’m used to classic Bulang
character anyways and that’s what I’m after…
The simplest
reduction of the Bulang character for me is that it has a bitter profile in
the first handful of infusions which then turn into sweet infusions around steeps
5-8 onward. There is always a strong,
alerting chaqi which is especially apparent in the chest. There is always smoke even if just faintly or
on the dry leaf but sometimes the smoke on Bulang can be a bit aggressive. It is my understanding that the reason that (at
least historically) Bulang had some smokey notes is because of the remoteness
of Bulang. The processing was done a lot
more crudely by local minorities that were geographically isolated from puerh
factories. Anyways, most
bulang are this: always bitter, then sweet, and have strong qi and some smoke.
When I think about Bulang I usually think about three different character types of Bulang
puerh. Bulang is a huge producing area and
covers a lot of territory and there is much more variability in its overall
character than some smaller puerh regions.
In reality these character types can overlap or can even contain a bit
of each but for clarity’s sake I keep them separate in my head:
1-
The
bitter and creamy sweet Bulang.
This bulang starts with a distinct flat
bitterness from which a creamy often coco or milky sweetness emerges in the returning
sweetness after a pungent coolness. This
profile is highlights the balance of bitter and sweet leaning to more bitter
usually. This profile seems to be accentuated
by/ or as a result of more humid than dry aging.
2-
The herbaceous,
woody, and medicinal Bulang.
This bulang has very little if any
sweetness but still has bitter and tastes woody, herby, sometimes like cooking
herbs and other times like medicinal herbs.
This profile highlights subtle medicinal nuances. As it ages it develops Traditional Chinese
Medicine like tastes.
3-
The
fruity, floral and less bitter Bulang.
This Bulang has some brighter fruit and/or floral
sweetnesses throughout the profile that are often brought out by the
bitterness. This profile highlights
lighter and sweeter notes such as fruits and florals but often the flat
bitterness is still the main taste. This
profile has a subtle and distant resemblance to the Ban Zhang producing area
and some even reminds me of Lao Ban Zhang.
This profile seems to do better with drier storage, I believe.
Personally, I prefer mainly the first profile but that is
mainly due to my exposure and purchasing that stuff many years ago. This is my bias towards more classic tasting
Bulang. I think I would be open to the
other profiles as well if it were done well or nicely integrated with the first
profile.
Ok… we got some really great Bulang Mountain puerh coming up here... let’s start Bulang sampling…
Peace
No comments:
Post a Comment