Before Covid lockdowns hit, I had tea with TeaDB and he gave me a sample of Yunnan Sourcing’s 2019 Ba Wang shou. I enjoyed this shou so much, I ordered a cake, holding onto my review until I got my cake so I can have nice photos. Well, that package got lost in the Covid China Post shutdown nightmare, along with everyone else’s packages, tea or not.
A year later, I reordered my Ba Wang cake and finally getting this review up! Also known as Badass King, 2019 Ba Wang is a blend of three Menghai villages.
Leaf and Steeping Method
The sample I had a year ago was funky but richly earthy in scent. My cake was less funky as it had time to settle down.
I used 1 gram of leaf per 15ml of vessel size, gongfu steeped in boiling water. Steeped up, the leaves in the gaiwan have a nose itching pithy bitter scent along with deeply strong earth.
Tasting of Yunnan Sourcing’s 2019 Ba Wang Shou Puer
First and Second Infusion: 2019 Ba Wang sips in nicely sweet rock sugar along with vanilla swirls and mineral earth. At the end of the sip, there is an aspirin bitterness that tickles the back of the throat. My sample a year ago had some funky pile smells, but they are absent in my cake.
The contrasts of Ba Wang are interesting – it’s bittersweet and pinches, but also creamy, thick, oily, and smooth.
Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Infusion: Ba Wang shou is now bittersweet cocoa and mineral in taste. This tea also has a philippine mango fruity aftertaste for me – sweet, fruity, custardy, and slightly tangy.
I am noticing this tea is thunking down like bricks in my stomach. There is an eye-opening pep in my step as the tea drunk rushes through. Not very often I get ripped on shou, but it does happen.
Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Infusion: Ba Wang shou is finally lightening up, but it’s still fruity, vanilla, bittersweet milky chocolate, wet river rocks, with a fruity mango aftertaste. With each steeping, it gets lighter and fruity tangier.
Comments
Yunnan Sourcing’s 2019 Ba Wang shou puer impressed me thoroughly with its balanced complexity and interesting notes, but also the tea drunk cha qi quality. Ba Wang is a fun tea for the shou lover wanting something on the pricier side. At $40+ a cake, I’d say it’s worth the jump to pay over a cheaper shou.
I would purchase more cakes of this, but I have so much tea I cannot justify it. That said, there is more of this tea for the rest of you, so snag one before the price jumps or it disappears!
