Tag: Chenshenghao

Chenshenghao Puerh

2012 Chenshenghao Yiwu

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Yiwu Puer, Calm and Quiet

Another tea from the Chenshenghao brand, this time an Yiwu puer. I may have made the mistake of leading with the strongest in a bunch of samples in my previous post. From here on out, my enthusiasm for the brand dwindles. (NO! WAIT! Don’t click close! This review is really interesting, I swear!)

Puer tea
Dried puer leaves atop a lid

The dry leaves show a good blend of tippy material with some larger leaves. The tangle of leaves carries a pungent, sweet aroma.

puer stem
Detail of a leaf and stem

After a rinse, the aroma becomes even sweeter with some light overtones of fruit.

The first few infusions are creamy, pleasant.

Pleasantness is nice, but if highschool taught me anything, it is the limitations of pleasantness. Pleasant is good for a chat in the cafeteria, but it will never get you a date with a prom queen. It’s better to have an attitude. A motorcycle. A name like Dylan McKay.

That was a terrible analogy/90210 reference, but what I am getting at is the general Milquetoast nature of this tea. The following infusions barely deviate at all. If one was looking for a tea with depth or evolution, this would not be the cake to settle on. There is a gentle kuwei [pleasant bitterness] and …and…and that is about all. Not a whole lot of character, just a quiet and generic Yiwu puer.

Yiwu puer
Cup of young yellow soup

Whether this kind of Yiwu puer ages well is anybody’s guess, but I refer my readers to this thread on teachat, where some experienced puer drinkers have a discussion that dances around this issue. This tea probably does not have the strength to age beyond 5-10 years, but that is just this humble puer junkies semi-educated guess. With a lack of strength and definitive character at such a young age, it is not a gamble I would want to take.  We shall see , maybe this tea will be worth USD 500 a decade from now and i will have to bake up some humble pie.

Knowing Chenshenghao’s tendency to push up their prices, I may need to preheat my oven.

Puerh leaves on a cup
Some spent leaves on a cup

 

Chenshenghao

2012 Chen Sheng Yi Hao

TwoDog2 4 Comments

Chenshenghao

Before going into this tea, a brief explanation of Chen Sheng Hao (陈升号). The Chenshenghao brand is currently one of the priciest brands of puer tea on the market. The Chenshenghao label is generally known for securing lots of Ban Zhang region material, being famous, and being expensive.

This cake, the Cheng Sheng Yi Hao, is one of the least pricey puer teas the brand has to offer.

Chenshenghao
A look at the dry Chenshenghao puer

The picture above is a little on the blue side of the color spectrum, but the young raw puer is that dark.  It was fragrant, with a couple of larger leaves (front right) mixed in amongst a majority of buds.

Chenshenghao raw puer
Steeping Chenshenghao

The gaiwan lid had a breezy smoke on it, which was also present early in the session. This smoke will probably drift away with time, and is likely due to the processing, but it was smooth and not at all unpleasant.

After the first couple of steepings, the smoke transitioned into tobacco, with an intense bitterness. The soup heavily coated the throat and had a little bit of huigan [sweet afterglow], but not in perfect balance with the kuwei [pleasant bitterness], which was burly. Had the huigan been in proportion, my mouth would have been very sweet indeed.

Chengshenghao puerh
Tea in the cup

The sample I brewed was roughly 9 grams (I noted, but forgot to weigh), and had decent staying power. Roughly 12 steeps and the tea continued forward. It was willing to go on, but I was ready to hang up my hat and call it a day. I noted:

Still smooth until the end. Pretty damn decent

Usually when I write something like “pretty damn decent”, it is sort of a nod to my initial bias being wrong. I have not given Chenshenghao too much credit in the past, thinking of the brand as the LV of tea. A designer brand with a famous name and equally famous prices. But hey, LV makes some good designs. That’s one of the reasons they are well known. (That, and marketing)

Chen Sheng Hao Puerh
Spent pile

 

I should also note, recently I whipped through a pile of samples from older Chenguanghe Tang samples, and despite not writing them up, I did enjoy several of  the older teas. (Marshaln has blogged several of them, poke around)** There were mixed results, sometimes the price defies logic, and in other cases, the teas are well blended and well made. This tea falls into the latter category.

The Chen Sheng Yi Hao (陈升一号) tea in this article varies in its Taobao retail price, between roughly USD 50 – USD 75 per 400 gram cake. If you are interested in exploring this brand, I think this is a fine place to begin.

Also, some self promotion news: I am testing out an online shop to source some of the puer I enjoy – will be in full swing shortly!

 

**Edit: I made a mistake in associating Chen Zhitong and Chenguanghe Tang with Chenshenghao – the two are totally separate and have no relation