It has been a brilliant week of 2023 GuaFengZhai area Gushus…. But the first one I was eggar to try was from an area of Northwestern GuaFengZhai called Bai Cha Yuan which I first heard about from this post of Alex’s here. It’s always exciting to try puerh from new areas… but new GuaFengZhai sub-areas are more fun. This is another complimentary sample but this 2023 ChenYuan Hao Bai Cha Yuan goes for approx $784.00 for 357 g cake or $2.20/g.
Dry leaves have a woody slight barnyard pungency to them. Faint icing sugar sweetness is not that obvious.
The wet leaves smell sort of grassy and mineral slight fruity sweet.
First infusion has a warm spicy peppery pungency in watery broth. Subtle fruity faint edges in the far distance. Slight sticky mouthfeel.
Second is left to cool and gives off a pungent spicy watery onset with an expanding sweetness. There is some faint gamey note initially in there as well then returns with a very ghostly banana sweetness under a sticky mouthfeel. There is a chest bubbling feeling in the body and a bit mind slowing Qi.
Third infusion has a slight watery warming pungent almost barnyard start with glimpses of melon and almost potato and flowers. Lots of subtle complexity. The mouthfeel is a fairly present gripping stickiness. The returning taste is melon creamy with long cooling breath and mind slowing Qi. Mind stopping effect is strong. Chest expanding and lightness. Melon forest breath.
Fourth infusion has a watery forest sweet taste with an increasingly stronger mouth feel. There is a mainly watery forest taste up front with a peppery spice mid taste and some sweeter melon creamy sweet with cool breath finish. The mouthfeel is start to finish all coating with a sticky gripping lips drying feeling. Qi has a mind slowing feeling.
Fifth infusion has a woody watery almost barnyard forest taste with some sweet edges and cooling in the aftertaste. Slight rubbery aftertaste and mind slowing spacy Qi. Sticky lips drying mouthfeel.
Sixth has a watery rubbery taste no more sweetness really just faintly following the cool breath. Open chest and light limbs with spacy mind slowing.
7th is a long thermos steeping… hour later it is a barnyard juicy melon pungent Forest woody tasting puerh. With sticky dry lips. Some mild puckering. Spacy mind Qi.
Peace
Very nice - only had the 2019 BCY from CYH but it was a nice one too: https://puerh.blog/teanotes/2019-chenyuan-hao-bai-cha-yuan
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately this area is rather hard to come by and expensive so my experience with it is limited - but the two I had this far were nice, so good to read that the 2023 is a good one as well :-)
Alex,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing that link. I did not read your review of the 2019 yet. I find it most interesting that we both picked up on a very unique bodyfeeling- we both described it as a bubbling in the body. I described the body feel as “chest bubbling” and you as “Heart bubbling”. I really enjoyed this 2023 and hope you will get a chance to try it!
Peace