A Tea Addict's Journal

Tuesday June 6, 2006

June 6, 2006 · 1 Comment

I drank the early 90s CNNP sample from Imperial Tea Court today. It was rather interesting, and seems to hold some promise for further aging. The leaves are mostly buds on the cover of the cake, and larger leaves in the middle. Seems like your typical receipe cake, although I have no idea which one. The tea was strong, and flavourful. I didn’t take detailed notes today, so there’s not a lot of detail I can tell you. The tea still tastes youngish — obviously aged but probably not what you’d expect from a 15+ year tea. Is this the San Francisco environment slowing the aging down? It’s hard for me to say.

One thing that didn’t come out so well is that the tea has a slight persistent sourness/astringency that I couldn’t get rid of. Towards the end, around infusion 6, it started going away, so perhaps it is just something that the tea hasn’t shaken off yet because it needs more time. I would think it would’ve gotten rid of it by now, but it hasn’t.

This is not to say I didn’t like it. It’s, I think, better than the 93 tuo, which is less complex in aroma and taste. I guess only time will tell how it will further develop.

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1 response so far ↓

  • davelcorp // June 7, 2006 at 3:55 am | Reply

    I think this is the best cake that ITC offers. It has the generic CNNP wrapper, but is probably made by the XiaGuan factory, I have no idea as to which recipe.

    I would say the young quality is due to the Bay Area climate. To my understanding this tea is warehoused in Oakland which is warmer and dryer than SF. Every aged green that I’ve had from ITC is much greener than anything of equivalent age from HouDe, etc.

    I find this to be a very complex cake — astringent body with floral, vanilla, cinnamon flavors that come and go with each brewing. It’ll be interesting to see how it ages when I move to a different climate in a few years.

    Glad you are enjoying.

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