Whenever I visit Oolong farmers during picking season they are always drinking Maocha - this is tea which is unfinished usually before the final sorting and roasting. You can tell almost everything about the quality of an Oolong from tasting the Maocha (once you get used to that raw, green and bitter taste). But it is never, ever as good as the finished tea.
I stupidly assumed that this was similar to young Sheng PuErh. I always watched farmers drinking their freshly sun dried tea and assumed that it would never be as good as when it had been aged a little. I tried a little from various farmers and it was mouth puckeringly astringent and sent my stomach into little somersaults.
But I had made the schoolboy error of assuming that a couple of tastes was all I needed to make a judgement about this tea type. It all changed in Jingmai when I tasted this tea. Instead of an overbearing astringency I was met with a bold freshness, a shifting palette of ambrosial flavour and the transformation of bitterness to a heavenly and persistant sweetness.
I remember going nuts and looking at the farmer who was smiling that smile that farmers do when they know that you 'get' his tea. He spoke to the interpreter and peppered throughout his explanation was the single word that made it all make sense. 'GUSHU' - those old tea trees have leaves that taste heavenly from day 1 not year 10.
The tea in this video has sold out but I have committed to buy at least one Young Gushu PuErh every season. Sure you can age it for 5 years but I can't resist drinking it up fresh.
