Light and dancing PuErh with a bright minerality and long, flowery sweetness from the 'little Bing Dao' village of Zheng Qi Tang.
Bodega Spectator is so different from the other teas that we source from Mengku and is a departure from our usual heavy-hitting PuErh approach.
That's not to say that this tea does not come to play, it's just that it brings a light, bright and perky character with a high-mountain purity that sends you skywards.
Bodega Spectator comes from the most ancient trees (around 300 years) growing around the village of Zheng Qi Tang nearly 2000m up in the east of Mengku. This village is a bit of a sanctuary from the more widely sourced areas of Mengku and it certainly has its little secrets.
Zheng Qi Tang is sometimes called 'little Bing Dao' and one taste of this will tell you why - it possesses that unique Bing Dao quality of bright and rocky minerality which open up to dancing taste before transforming to the most enduring sweetness.
But Zheng Qi Tang is different - while it has the richness and that uniquely searing minerality, it is more effervescent and light than its heavier Bing Dao counterparts. That little birdy suits the tea perfectly - dancing and hopping around with a flighty nature.
The tea trees in Zheng Qi Tang are different too. Their ancient trees are called rattan-style and are thin and spindly with much longer stems between leaves. This means that this tea is more 'stemmy' which changes the character of the taste.
The aroma is fruity with tinned, syrupy thickness and floral fog floating atop a caramel and rock foundation. Then those stems bring in little fleeting puffs of snapped rhubarb.
The mouthfeel is hard to pin down too - medium and soft moves to oily and thck moves to light and hydrating.
Your first taste of Bodega Spectator might leave you quizzical - minerals and milks but where are all of those fruits and flowers? Patience, they are coming.
Because locked into all of that mineral brightness is a panoply of notes that will only reveal themselves once the minerality dissolves.
Then they come (many minutes after your first sip), fresh apricots and grapes, fruit milks and caramel, tree sap and the sweet dew of high mountains all with that fascinating perkiness of rhubarb.
Subtle, clean, pure to begin with but building into a symphony of sweetness and culminating in the epic hum of jasmine fragrance which continues for hours.
In many ways this tea is the most easy-sipping refresher for the summer months which remind me of the joys of our Young Gushu series.
But it is also engaging in its uniquely effervescent character and perky richness. It is the definition of a charming PuErh.
The body sensation is bright and focused with a fun little hop in your step, perfect for flying through your chores or sitting to watch the world go by.
