Wistaria Puerh Ranked/ Overview

I am grateful to have received some of these top picks from the Wistaria Tea House which I really enjoyed sampling this winter.  In this post I will simply rank them in order of enjoyment not considering price with a brief statement about their old school cred…

1-      2003 Wistaria Zipin Tuo- highest old school cred out of these samples with a distinct old school processing and feeling mixed with a bit of factory feeling, the qi and bodyfeelings are substaitial, this one is widely thought to be the best of the bunch by many others… and I concur.

2-      2007 Wistaria Lanyin –This is very bitter and ehas a very strong Qi and bodyfeeling, overall a strong puerh in an old school sense but produced more in line with newer processing, very clean and spacious tastes, this puerh is all about the Qi that takes you places

3-      2007 Wistaria Hongyin- very muich a new factory style that we saw coming out of China at this time, this purerh is all about the very complex layered sweet taste experience with stronger Qi layered in.

4-      2003 Wistaria Qingteng- has a strong robust Qi sensation and a compartmentalized dry stored sweet and pond taste.  Not much old school feeling here other than the Qi sensation maybe.

5-      2006 Wistaria Taihe Maocha-produced in more of a way leaning to modern gushu type productions this is a really enjoyable puerh with a very interesting mouth numbing feeling.

The prices of these, like many other Taiwanese Botique puerh vendors, is strongly controlled by the vendor and the prices of these are of good value for what you get compared to other things out there these days.  I think mainly you have to be alright with the dry storage of these puerh.  All of these are pretty enjoyable for me and I think it’s completely possible that I do a purchase of many of the above cakes and put them to a speed test to find out which I really prefer… they are all so enjoyable, I really don’t know which would come out on top…

Peace

2003 Wistaria Zi Pin (Purple Lable): Old School Purple Haze!

2003 Wistaria Zi Pin is a popular pressing from Wistaria that has had many reviews from famous puerh bloggers (see below).  This 2003Wistaria Zi Pin 100g tuo goes for approx. $83.00.

Dry leaves smell of sweet candy and rose floral over a pondy marshy odour.

The first infusion has a buttery and smooth creamy almost but not really sweet onset.  It finishes watery and pond in the mouth.

The second the tuo is still opening up… with pond sweet pea vegetal tastes almost woody and watery with a creamy not very sweet taste with lingering talc cherry finish in the mouth.  Nice dry storage tastes.

The third infusion has a buttery creamy sweet woody, pea, kind of forest-not-really-incense and almost talc cherry finish.  The mouthfeeling is becoming a strong full chalky feeling with a long and deep cooling throat which pushes a smooth creamy talc almost cherry sweetness out long on the breath.  The Qi is very relaxing and strong focusing with a strong chest thumping and extending to arms Qi sensation.  There are candy like suggestions minutes later.  Nice complex dry storage tastes.  A strong body sensation in the chest and arms.

The fourth infusion has a creamy buttery almost woody subtle complex taste.  The mouthfeel is thick and full chalky powdery there is some layered woody tastes and a deep cool throat.  Big Qi in here with a strong chest and Heart thumping with strong excitation and focusing energy.  A fine candy finish on the breathe. 

5^th has a creamy buttery almost sweet that kind of expands in the mouth through a mid-section of woody, foresty, talc kind of sweet cherry and faint candy marshmallow finish.  Big Qi and a full powdery mouthfeeling.  Minutes long creamy candy finish with faint pond.  Nice complexity in here and strong Qi.  Nice dry storage.

The 6^th has a smokey incense with slight creamy buttery and soft savory tastes onset that has a bit of talc sweetness and some dry wood forest over a thin powdery aftertaste.  There is a thin deeper cooling in the throat with pond and faint candy.  Nice focusing Qi.

7^th has a sweet pond taste with a creamy buttery and woody and incense onset.  The relaxing Qi is powerful and alerting and exerts a strong bodyfeeling.  There is a long talc cherry and powdery candy like breath over a chalky/powdery mouthcoating.  The aftertaste is elegant and long and pungent sweet with a touch of incense smoke.

8^th is a thick woody almost syrupy incense with a slight buttery and creamy edge.  The buttery taste reminds me of Youle.  There is a long deep pungency in the throat that teases out woody-incense, some floral and even faint hard to grasp candy tastes.  Big focusing Qi.

9^th has a smoky incense creamy almost woody forest tobacco juicy initial taste.  The mouthfeel is oilier here with a slightly cooling foresty woody incense finish.  This infusion has lots its sweetness but still feels condensed, somewhat complex and a bit oily in the mouth.  The Qi has a relaxing sustained focused feeling.

10^th has a woody, oily tobacco, incense taste in a faint deep cool pungent mouth.  The mouthfeeling in oily and a bit chalky.  Qi is still big. 

11^th has a smoky incense woody oily taste with a deep faint throaty coolness.  The Qi continues to build more in the mind and less in the body.

12^th has a brown sugar very quick moving faint sweetness over woody tastes.  The mouthfeel is becoming a slightly grabbing chalkiness and it pushes a faint coolness down the throat with an almost brown sugar and slight cinnamon taste.  There is still an interesting and changing complexity to this puerh.

13^th has a bit of a sweet spicy woody onset with a deep faint cooling breath.  These infusions are a nice spicy cinnamon.  With a Qi that is moving to more relaxing.

I mug steep out the rest and it gives off mainly moderately bitter, incense with a creamy underbelly and a low deep throaty cool pungent that finishes a marshmallow on the breath.

Overall, this is a nicely dry stored and Qi powerful puerh with lots of complexity and nice movement through the infusions.  It has an older school feeling and I think I would probably place this as a very nice Xiaguan tuo if I had it blind.  It has a factory sensibility to it but is a bit more.  Overall, I like this puerh quite a lot.

Pictured left is the 2007 Wistaria Hong Yin which days long steeped is still very sweet and a bit oily.  Pictured right is this 2003 Wistaria Zi Pin which days long steeped is still very nuanced and complex with forest tastes, long coolness in the throat and breath with a nice retuning sweetness over wood and decent incense smoke.  These are both very different puerh.  The 2007 Wistaria Hong Yin is very common with some of the newer factories coming out of mainland China in the mid-2000s.  The 2003 Wistaria Zi Pin has a very old school something in between a factory production but better kind of older school production with the heavier smoke.  Both are quite dry stored.  Both have fairly strong Qi with the 2003 Zi Pin having very strong body sensations as well.

James’ (TeaDB) Tasting Notes (in report and here)

Marshal’N (A Tea Addicts Journal) Tasting Notes

Shah8’s and TwoDawg Tasting Notes can be found here

Marco’s (Late Steeps) Tasting Notes

Hobbes’ (The Half-Dipper) Tasting Notes

Peace

2003 Wistaria Qing Teng vs 2004 NanQiao Bulang King

 This cake goes for approx. $240.00 for 357g cake or $0.67/g.  It has been heavily reviewed and is usually favorable...

The dry leaves has a sweet dry bubble gum candy with a slight dry woody odour and faint pond/fishiness.

The first infusion has a mild watery pond/marshland/fishiness with ghostly faint quick to disappear white sugar and a building and expanding saltiness.  The mouthfeel is flat chalky in the mouth.  Weird faint salty surgary tastes play out in the aftertaste.

The second infusion has a clear sugar sweet onset with fishy pondy taste and subtle faint incense with dry wood.  The taste is really clear but light.  The candy like aftertaste takes a while to expand in the throat it turns into something kind of fruity/vegetal.  It comes and goes over a backdrop of pond tastes, not really bitter dry wood and saltiness.  The tastes are really clear and pure and almost singular in their presentation.  The Qi is really gentle in the body and has a faint body relaxing bodyfeeling.  The Qi is gently reassuring in the mind slowly bringing me out of my morning fatigue.

The third infusion has a sweet woody incense pond onset with an expanding white granulated sugary taste that is really long and turns into an almost fruity/floral taste and then in the aftertaste into more of a candy sweetness.  The sweetness isn’t dense or complex but evolves in the seconds and minutes after swallowing.  The initial mild bitterness and almost flat slight gripping tongue feeling opens the throat deeply to create space.  The result is an almost gripping mildly bitter mouthfeeling but long clear simple but evolving sweetness.  The Qi is really a slow slumbering and gentle feeling like a slow clear sunrise.  The bodyfeeling is very mild.

The fourth infusion has a woody incense onset with faint sugar which expands in the flat mild gripping tongue coating.  There is some movement to fruity and candy but it is faint.  The throatfeeling is deep but faint and empty feeling.  Faint, light qi sensation.

The 5^th has an incense woody faint bitter which pushes out a more clear sugar sweet taste which expands in the throat to something fruity and then evolves into the aftertaste with a candy like finish.  The taste is really fine, clear, uncomplicated.  It is all about following the thin but obvious sweetness, move in the mouth, change, and evolve in the aftertaste.  Even minutes later there is candy.  There is a salty base taste to this puerh.  Calming and soothing soft Qi in the mind with a subtle relaxing bodyfeeling.

The 6^th infusion has a woody salty incense taste with a fine thin surgery sweetness that turns to a building and more distinct longer candy floral taste in the breath.  The mouthfeeling is thin and slightly gripping chalk.  Peaceful Qi.

The 7^th has a more distinct longer chalky talc bubble gum finish that presents long from start to finish.  Its really very satisfying.  There are very faint suggestions of fine dry woods and incense but these are so faint as the long show of sweetness dominates here over a chalky slightly gripping tongue coating and a deeper simulating throat feeling.

The 8^th has a woody almost faint coco bitterness with almost a plum taste underneath which turns to floral candy in the aftertaste.  This infusion is a bit bitterer and much less sweet with an aftertaste which is less long.

9^th is pond/fish woody with not much sweetness nor bitterness.  10^th is a bit bitter woody.  11^th is bitter salty pond/marshland wood… it’s a bitter profile here now.

I mug steep out the rest…

Not sure how this compares to older puerh productions as it just doesn’t seem to have too much of that feel to me… it has the strong robust Qi sensation for sure but in the dry storage and clear compartmentalized tastes it really had to compare to older styles of puerh… but it’s pretty damn good Mengsong!

Compare to 2004 NanQiao Bulang King it really tastes similar especially in the later infusions.  Very similar location (Bulang & Mengsong), storage (Dry Taiwanese and similar tasting storage taste), and age 2004/03.  Bulang King is more powerful for sure. The Qingteng is much sweeter and clear flavours.  The stronger sweet taste adds a certain complexity that the 2004 Bulang King will never actualize because of its near lack of sweet taste although in some ways the Bulang King is denser, nuanced and layered in taste.  Overall, the Qingteng is the more complex choice but the King is still the King of Qi!

James’ (TeaDB) Tasting Notes (here and here)

Paul’s (white2tea) Tasting Notes

Marco’s (Late Steeps) Tasting Notes

Jakob’s (T) Tasting Notes

Peace

 

Mouth Numbingly Delicious: 2006 Wistaria Tai He Maocha

This interesting puerh piqued my interest as not much is written about this Wistaria production.  It turns out that there is both a 2005 & 2006 cake and maocha options for the Taihe pressings.  This 2006 Wistaria Tai He Maocha goes for approx  $26.60 for 50g or $0.53/g.

Dry leaves smell of very dry woody odours with a fine piercing candy floral high noted lingering odour.

The first infusion has a very pungent and spicy quick moving tingling tongue taste and feel.  The tonguefeeling is numbing and the taste pungent and deep woody and medicinal.  The taste is very pungent and alive, with some juicy fruitiness, lots of cooling and warming complex pungency as well as a mild bitterness that offers an extraordinarily complex presentation.  The Qi is immediately calm in the body and hypnotic in the mind.  There is a long complex spicy and cooling with some woody and sweetness to finish.

The second infusion has a strong pungent onset with a deep reverberation numbness in the mouth.  There is dry woody, composting leaf, caramel, floral, camphor…. This puerh reminds me of some of the old school very camphor tasting cakes.  That is the direction of aging on this one and I think it will be very nice.  The complex taste hits all at once and has a hypnotic feeling to it.  The mouthfeeeing is so numbing and the taste so vibrantly complex pungent. 

The third infusion is left to cool and is a deeply pungent sweet caramel woody taste.  The tastes flood in all at once and a long pungency is overwhelmingly dominant as is a numbing mouth sensation.

The fourth infusion has a buttery pungent fruity note with more of a mild flavor overall.  There is still woody, pungency, numbing, camphor, sweet fruity, caramel, leaf.  Still complex but not as strong.  Nice focusing and hypnotic Qi.

The fifth infusion spicy, pungent, fruity, has a brilliant wine grape taste that is common in aged maocha.  Long complex lingering sweet pungent aftertaste.  This infusions has a lot of fruity tastes.  Nice hypno-Qi.

The sixth infusion has a nice coco raison woody, fruity almost wine like grape taste.  Long wine like sweetness.  These later infusions are not as tongue numbing, and not as pungent or woody but getting more complexly sweet.  Nice Qi.  Feels good a bit light in the shoulder blades.

The seventh infusion has a woody wine like grape with a deep throaty pungency and sweet brown sugar aftertaste.  The aftertaste is really long and brown sugar sweet.  The Qi makes me feel very happy and with light arms.  Very nice.

The eighth infusion has a woody incense still floral even peachy taste to it.  There is a bit of wine notes and a deeper cooling pungency.  This infusion is also sweeter.  As the day goes, the happy energy continues.  My body feels slightly light… I feel good.

The ninth infusion starts woody incense but with an emerging sweet bread taste.  There is a strong piercing pungency to it.  It has a long lingering taste in a soft but mild numbing mouthfeeling. 

10^th has a mellow woody onset with a pungency that is slower to develop but lingers deep in the throat and on the aftertaste with many fruity pear and peach and almost wine like sweet tastes.

11^th has a more woody camphor pungent taste.  The taste is still quite sweet in the aftertaste- fruity, sweet bread, brown sugar.

12^th has a bit more dry woodiness, less pungent and sweet but still much the same with a deep relaxing qi.  Very good durability for maocha of this age.

I run out of time in a day.

The next day I do a long steep and it pushes out a mainly caramel and bitter almost salty woody taste.  The caramel taste is long and fulfilling it reaches in the deeper throat and lingers in the aftertaste.  The bitterness also goes long throughout the profile.  There is even a metallic taste left in the mouth minutes later.

Nice blended very dynamic and energizing experience. I liked it a lot.  The strongest point is the vibrantly simulating numbing mouthfeeling which deeps the experience with a livening complex taste, Qi, and bodyfeeling.  The end result is a party in the body and all the senses are invited.

Steepster Tasting Notes

Peace

2007 Wistaria Lan Yin (Blue Mark): Brilliant Power

This is one of the more famous Wistaria productions.  A cake goes for approx $183.00 for 357g cake (or $0.51/g).  This is a famous cake that is named and modelled after a really famous cake, the 1950s Blue Mark … This review follows my review of the 2007 Wistaria Hong Yin (Red Mark).

Dry leaves smell of sweet vegetal almost pondy/fishiness.

The first infusion has a watery bitter flat taste with some vegetal and subtle creaminess underneath.  It has a flat metallic finish almost sweet melon in the aftertaste.  The mouthcoating is silky and very soft but full in the mouth.

The second infusion has a woody soft bitter and sweet creamy vegetal taste up front.  The woody bitterness has a mild gripping while the sweet creamy vegetal almost melon taste is soft and soothing.  There is an apparent balance of strength and softness apparent in this subtly.  The mouthfeeling and throatfeeling are really nice thick simulating silky soft and deeper in the throat with a long faint cooling and melon sweet returning.  Shoulder releasing Qi. Strong clear body effect. The bitterness is such that it is long and you can taste it in the mouth minutes later.  Relaxing almost sedating mind.

The third has a bitter woody almost coco and sort of tart cherry onset that carries a silky full mouthfeeling and a deep cooling throat sensation.  There is a soft gripping feeling in the mouth. A creamy woody mainly bitter almost melon.  There is a real strong spacy-ness to the Qi as well as a shoulder and neck releasing disjoining feeling bodyfeel.  This bodyfeeling is strong, a tension buster in the muscles. Strong Qi.  This is a strong puerh through and through.  The bitterness and slight sweet balance, storage, and age remind me a lot of the 2001 Huang Yin from Teas We Like I grandpa steeped yesterday.  This puerh is much much more complex than this and has a much different Qi profile and mouthfeeling.  There is something similar though in its taste a bit.

The fourth has a tart berry/cherry onset with a bitter woody depth.  There is a silky, full, gripping mouthfeeling with a deep cooling throatfeeling.  There is a creamy almost melon and bitter aftertaste.  The softness of the creamy melon taste is opposed to the bitter.  The Qi is really big and pushes one into a stoned state with strong upperbody release and floating shoulders to the ears feeling.  Spacy but intense Qi.  The bitterness really simulates the throat to salivate.  So powerful.

The fifth infusion is cooled down now and tastes of maple woody, moderate long bitterness, with a barely bready sweetness and deep cool throat.  Silky silty smooth mouthfeeling.  Deeply spacy Qi.

The sixth infusion has a watery vegetal almost creamy sweetness with a more mild bitterness now.  The bitterness is still long.  The creamy sweetness is a bit more here, it is fluffy and chalky in the mouth now that the bitterness has receded.  Spacy Qi.

7^th has a tangy fruity onset with an expanding bitterness and wood.  There is still deep pungent tastes and a returning fruity subtle bitter taste.  Deeply relaxing now. Not as full thin silty mouthfeeling.

8^th infusion has a tangy fruity woody sweetness with a moderate creamy retuning sweetness that comes with deep pungent throat.

9^th has a woody almost incense bitter not that sweet presentation.  Bland vegetal woody aftertaste.  This puerh has flattened out here.

10^th a fruity faint papery faint taste begins with a faint background bitterness that finishes sandy thin fine flat in the mouth.  The deep throat sensation of cool is less now and the aftertaste is very faint ghostly fruits.

11^th is a longer 30 second steep and pushes out a bitter woody tart almost-not –really fruity sweetness.  There is a chalky aged vegetal finish.  Qi is mainly relaxing here.

12^th is a minute long steeping and pushes out tart cherry bitterness with layers of dry woody and faint cool deep throat sensations.  The bitterness dominates here and is very long in the mouth.  This is overall a strong bitter Qi heavy puerh.

I mug steep it out…

Overall, this is a really powerful puerh with very good powerful and unique bodyfeeling of upper body tension release in the muscles.  While the Qi sensation in the mind is equally powerful and pushes you into an immediate stoned state.  The taste is super interesting too with a dance of subtle gentle sweet notes that slowly get overtaken by the strong bitter profile but by the time they do you are completely entranced by the stoner Qi that you strangely embrace the power.  I like this a lot.  It is definitely more brilliant than the early reviews suggests as many of these compare it to Dayi.  This is only Dayi in its bitterness that’s it.  It’s much more than Dayi.  Definitely the strongest Qi of all the Wistaria puerh I sampled in the group.  The downfall is both its weaker throatfeeling and not so great stamina.

How does this compare to older puerh styles…. This one has a Qi that I think would be typical or valued in older style puerh and it also has the bitter backbone as well.  In this way, this puerh could be considered comparable to older style puerh, I think.

Marco’s (Late Steeps) Tasting Notes

Hobbes’ (The Half-Dipper) Tasting Notes

James’ (TeaDB) Tasting Notes From Drinking Report

Shah8’s Tasting Notes

Peace

2007 Wistaria Hong Yin (Red Mark): Sweet Complexities

This is one of the more famous Wistaria productions.  A cake goes for approx

$243.00 for 357g cake(or $0.68/g).  This is a famous cake that is named and modeled after a really famous cake, the 1950s Red Mark…

The dry leaves smell of very sweet cake and creamy caramel with a distant pondy like odour underneath.  Vibrant, mouthwateringly tasty, and sweet smelling.

First infusion has a smooth creamy approach with a slight sugary sweet base with slight woody taste and an almost dry woody incense finish with a pond and dry wood bark aftertaste.  The thin sugary sweetness is long in the profile but drops quickly in the aftertaste.  The mouthfeeling in a thin soft silky mouthcoating with a slight open throat.

The second infusion has a sugary sweet onset with dry wood base this time with more substantial smokiness that follows.  There is a smooth rich sweet smoky finish with a bit of pondy taste.  The mouthfeeling is thicker and more gripping and full now.  The Qi is strong in the mind and opening in the chest here.

The third infusion has a thick rich sweet sugary and thick woody presentation with a full woody thickness in the mouth.  There is a returning sugar taste with distinct moderate smoke.  Thick mouthfeeling with open top throat.  Strong powerful energy push and full woody feeling in mouth with strong heady Qi and open chest body feeling.  It has a strange Yi Wu/ Man Zhuan vibe to it.

The fourth infusion has a perfume with sweet sugar plum and fruity onset.  There are nuances of cake, plum, figs, and apricot, a nice fruity and complex sweet feeling with some chalky mouthfeeling.  There is a nice faint smoke underneath with a sweet taste left in the mouth.  Overall, quite sweet with a bit of woody, perfume and smoke to add contrast and complexity.  Nice mind focusing Qi.

The fifth infusion has a quick faint smoke with a strong sweet fruitiness.  There is a chalky mouth coating and faint smoky finish.  There are some woody nuances but overall nicely sweet and full feeling.  A bit of Heart racing and numb face sensations.  Stronger focusing Qi now and developing bodyfeelings.

The sixth infusion pretty fruity sweet onset with a nice juicy peachy and plum tastes almost creamy sweet with faint wood with some wood underneath.  The smoke can’t be detected in this infusion.  A nice thin chalky mouthfeeling with open top throat a tiny bit of returning sweetness. Nice heady and relaxing Qi.  The Qi of the body and mind are very nice.

The seventh infusion has a fruity plum and apricot that turns into a creamy peachy sweetness on the breath. The cooled cup is very creamy and fruity with a faint smoke with a woody background.  The sweet and fruity tastes are really supported by a thicker feeling in the mouth.  Nice relaxing Qi.

The 8^th infusion has a creamy peach sweetness with dry woody over a chalky mouthfeeling.  The Qi is almost spacy and hypnotic now.

The 9^th infusion is a watery woody slight smoky onset with some sugary faint aftertaste under a smoky woody taste.  The mouthfeeling has thinned out considerably and so has the taste.

The 10^th has a pear fruity flat woody taste now.  The mouthfeel is flat and dry and aftertaste is faint.  Some pond, presumably storage aftertastes. Not that sweet anymore.

I go to a mug steeping now…

The mug steeps are very pungent resin with a woody light bitter incense no sweetness left. Kind of a spacy relaxing Qi.

Overall, this puerh has a very layered, full, and complex sweet presentation with woody, incense, resin, and smoke to provide contrast, balance and depth.  The sweet thick tastes in these first infusions are very nice.  The Qi comes fast and strong but after the first handful of infusions is really relaxing and stoning.  The Qi is also quite memorable.  The aftertaste and throat feeling is the weakest point of this puerh as well as its stamina.  I liked this puerh a lot but the lack of stamina makes me weigh a purchase…

How would I compare this to older style puerh cakes … well this is the only puerh I sampled out of the Wistaria bunch that hardly resembles old style puerh at all.  It’s too clean and elegant for this comparison.  It’s only closeness is in Qi.  To me this has a feeling of Taiwanese boutique puerh or maybe even closer to the newer style factories that were coming out of China in the mid aughts like Douji and Chenshenghao.  I guess it makes a lot of sense that Chang Tai helped produce this puerh because it kind of has that vibe to it… but it’s just really good, much better than any Changtai I have tried.

Jakob’s (T) Tasting Notes

James (TeaDB) Drinking Report notes and newer tasting notes

Shah8’s Tasting Notes

Peace