When it comes to classic and expensive teas like 2009 BingDao Ancient Tree , I try to use the best water source to steep the tea.
In other word, if you wanna know how good the water quality is, use the BingDao tea to do what I call the "water quality testing"
Let's get start with Fiji water!
At the first 3 steeps,
After a sip , rich nectar honey aroma surrounding your throat , very smooth, high in fragramce. My friend once told me the fragrance is too much for him LOl
You can feel the coolness and the frangrance between your teeth, all around in your mouth. If you have sensitive feelings, the coolness gets down deeply to your stomach.
The coolness that I mentioned here is the coolness after astringency(HuiGan), or we call it the sweet coolness ?
I think this tea has very mild astringency, which I preferred. THE characteristics of teas from Mengku region like BingDao are very much about the wild flower and honey frangrance. The tea soup body is very thick, rich and deep, some new teas are so rich like diluted honey.
Smelling the cup after drinking the tea, you can smell that dry flower scents. It is like how the loose tea leaves smell before steeping.
BingDao tea will never go wrong for "water test" because only the good water can bring out the best of BingDao Tea!
Back home in China, my father goes to a certain remote mountain to refill spring water for our tea shop every weekend.
Before starting to steep the BingDao Tea, I strongly wish to have someone who loves tea to share it with me! But I ended up, siting with myself again , enjoying this tea with Fiji water.
At the 9-10th infusion, the tea's aroma or frangrance start fading. now, you can taste the tea soup itself. THE WIRD THING IS It deliver more astringency at the later steeps. If you like astringency in teas, this tea's later infusion will be perfect for you. Usually PuEr teas from the Southern YunNan MengHai area like LaoBanzhang and LaoManE deliver strong astringency which will disappear immediately in your mouth and turn into sweet coolness. BingDao tea and Teas from MengKu give you the floral frangrance first, then at the 4th steeps, they begin to deliver some astringency.
Maybe this stronger astringency comes from the higher water temperature too. In the beginning, I tend to use lower temperature water to steep the tea in order to retain its aroma. I have learned that MengKu area teas are ideal to steep with lower temperature water, at lease at the first few steeps.
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I rarely steep BingDao Tea. In the past, I steep BingDao only if there's special occation. But today, I decided to give the Fiji water a try ! Using my belove tea to "test the quality of FiJi water"
I have been told by a good friend from college many years ago that Fiji bottel water is the best. HE is from Fiji too! But... I never had the intention to buy Fiji water for tea steeping, because Fiji water is the most expensive bottel water on the shelf. Lol
Second reason is, we use so much water for tea steeping .... FIJI WATER is not an optimal solution for better water because the amount of water we use everyday .
By the way, I gave the tea a 3mins steep for the 13th steep, it has a very strong body, darker soup colour. The sweetness hits your tongue immediately ! And the sweetness continues to come!
When we look at the steeped leaves, it is not as big as the Hu's Valley ancient tea trees.
Many know that the ages of BingDao tea trees are actually younger than tea trees from many other tea villages nearby . OLD Tea trees from BingDao are between 100-500 years old according to village records.
(Hu Valley Ancient Tree)I enjoy this rare Bingdao tea cake very much! And I didnt use a tea filer , I poured the tea liquid directly to my cup, so I can get the original taste of the tea.
Steeping time is between 3sec to 3mins for later infusions.
In my conclusion .. yes... I really like the FiJi water ! It does enhance so much of the tea taste! I have tried different kinds of bottel water for tea steeping, I still havn't found a high quality spring water in canada for Tea steeping. I tried Eska, Real canadian, Evian.. As many as you can find on the retail shelf ..
Other bottel water brands contain lots of White powder in the water after boiling , and they made my tea taste salty and like infused with dust water..
The Fiji water has less "white powder" after boiling..
And it does bring out the REAL original taste of BingDao Tea , it is very similar to the taste back home.
Sounds like doing an advertisement for FiJi water lol
If you have any good experiences with water , please share your experiences with me :) !
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BingDao tea cake from 2013:
http://www.tanlongtea.com/collections/products-of-the-week/products/iceland-bingdao-puer-tea-gold-stamp
