I wasn’t really feeling myself today so I needed a refreshing and warming tea. Almost all of Tea Encounter‘s samples are gone and the one I drank today is the 2015 Nannuo Duo Yi Zhai. I’ve drunk other teas from Nannuo so I was pretty excited to have this one.
If you’re interested in other teas from Tea Encounter, click the following links:
- 2003 Yuanjiutang Ban Zhang Tea Tasting (Tea Encounter)
- Zheng Si Long 2015 Wa Long (Tea Encounter)
- Bai Yin Shan Yesheng Tea Tasting (Tea Enounter)
- 2013 Chen Xi Hao Gao Shan Zhai Tea Tasting (Tea Encounter)
- 2019 Bang Dong Tea Tasting (Tea Encounter)
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2015 Nannuo Duo Yi Zhai
This is a tea from Spring 2015 from Duo Yi Zhai. This is the highest altitude puer growing village in Nannuo, Yunnan. I’ve had a shou puer from Nannuo before so it will be difficult to compare, but it’s nice to drink teas from the same region. This cake was pressed with only the year and village on it so there is no more information available. It’s always good fun to have a session like this one because you don’t really know what to expect.
The colour of the dry leaves is dark brown but I also see some white buds in there. The shape is rather long and twisted and it’s loosely compressed. The aroma is complex as it’s a bit sweet but I’m also getting light notes of oranges.
After the session, the leaves have a uniform green colour. The aroma is very unusual! When smelling the leaves, it reminds me of mulled wine around Christmas time. Different shapes and sizes but they look really beautiful.
Tea Tasting
- Water 90°C
- 6.5g for a 150ml Jianshui teapot
- 1 rinse
- 7 infusions
Infusions 1-4
I followed their advice and started the session with short infusions. The first four infusions were 10, 15, 20 and 30 seconds. It started out really subtle and sweet. Nothing stood out but it was good enough as a first infusion. The second one was not so different but it became a bit creamy, especially in the aftertaste. I have to say that even though there were no dominant flavours, the subtle ones were really clean. The third one was visibly different. The colour became more orange and the flavours were more intense. The sweetness was prominent and I even got some subtle oranges (you really have to look for it). During the fourth infusion, the oranges moved towards the finish and aftertaste. I got a feeling these infusions were a bit too subtle so I did longer ones for the rest of the session.
Infusions 5 and 6
I decided to group these infusions together because these were vastly different from the first four. As I mentioned above, I felt that the infusions were a bit too subtle so I increased the length from the fifth infusion onwards. The infusions were several minutes each. The main thing that was different was the tobacco flavour. There was also a light sweetness but these infusions were dominated by tobacco. It also had a bite once I did these longer infusions.
Infusion 7
This infusion was different from the previous two. It was more like the earlier ones as it was subtle and sweet. I ended the session after this one because I wasn’t really feeling in the right mood to brew more tea.
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Conclusion
I have to say that this was an interesting session, even though it was a short one. I did not have a lot of information about this tea so I didn’t really know what to expect. The early infusions were quite basic and subtle but the flavours were good. Once I started doing longer infusions, it almost became a different tea! The colour was a lot darker and I also experienced tobacco flavours all of a sudden. The sweetness was still noticeable, but not as prominent. I got two infusions that were dominated by tobacco and once those were over, the subtle sweetness was back. A final aspect to keep in mind is that the later infusions had a certain bite to them. This wasn’t the case in the early steeps.
If you want to buy this tea, you can click this link to go to Tea Encounter’s website.
