thai maochas ageing

these four maochas are a perfect example of what ageing, maturing teas can do to their tasting experience, I would not recommend them to beginners as their intial state, the first four five brews can get really ‘nasty’ in terms of bitterness and astrigency, still if someone is really into the thing and it is still learning, as we all do, then it should compare similar maocha or pressed shengs of similar age but from plantation tea, then it may start to understand the old tea tree difference, these I called ‘nasty’ things will be with plantation tea really really nasty bitter and even undrinkable (no returning sweetness) until one likes to torture himself, or simply gets used to them,

these teas are tricky to drink, especially if one compares them in one go, the first 3-4 brews the older the tea is the more tasty is but once brews goest from 6th higher, the oldest can be more ‘rude’ to you than the youngest one that is your ‘best friend’ by now,

certainly these teas are not a gourment top notch of chinese famous tea mountains but rather strong gushu puerh teas that are perfect to age and enjoy their qualities after they got close 10 and more years, you may notice this with the 1980 maocha that should be the same material as these teas, once you get over the 3 brews maybe a few more, the tea leaves will reveal the secret of aging, very slow fermentation process when subtle humidity ‘drops’ that super slowly re-create, ferment the tea leaves and pull out of them the essence of tea syrup that is melted in our cup,

even the 2016 with later brews is stronger, much more stronger than 2019, it is emiting a full blow of flavours of tea leaves and what is important in more balance composition, as if ageing is also balancing, infusing and melting various components of tea into a more tasty soup,

by the 9th-10th brew teas 2019, 2018 and 2017 gets very close to its taste but the 2016 keeps kicking around and still climbing up to its peak performance, 2017 will still catch up as if it was made of older tea trees,

foot notes or a fast read of the whole blog:
2016: sweet and aged, balanced, a well aged maocha, long runner along with ’17one, an old guy with wisdom
2017: biscuits notes, most piercing bitterness at some stage, most pronounced flavours, a show off
2018: deep dark chocolates notes, woody and dry, the most colourful outfit
2019: soft and caring, warm, best for beginers and chilling mood, if not pushed to hard then calm and patient guy