Special procurement of 100 logs of Wild 2018 Shiliang. Wildlife Recorder is a raucous ride of taste and effects to delight the heavyweight tea drinker. Cherries and dates, smoke and leather, sandalwood and cardamom, barnyard and oud, caramel and nuts - this tea has it all!
Anhua 'Liang' tea is an ancient style of dark tea pressed into logs for transportation along the old tea-horse routes. It is another style of Anhua dark tea like Fu Zhuan or Tian Jian Basket tea which was most commonly traded with the high mountain border regions of China.
'Liang' refers to an ancient measurement of weight (approx 37g but then standardized to 50g in 1959). The logs are tightly compressed tea making them suitable for transporting and are traditionally made into Qian Liang (a thousand Liang) or Bai Liang (one hundred Liang).
This Shiliang means 'ten liang' which is 500g.
Wildlife Recorder is made from Wild Tian Jian tea bushes over 70 years old.
The freshly picked leaves are withered and wood-fire baked before being rolled and piled to ferment for a day. Then the leaves are sun-dried and stored loose for at least 6 months to continue to develop.
The leaves are then steamed to soften before being pressed into log shapes and corseted in bamboo. This kickstarts the fermentation once again and due to the very tight pressing, the logs take a couple of months to dry (all the while fermenting further).
Wildlife Recorder has been further aged an extra 7 years in Hunan to build richness and smoothness.
In many ways, the short pile-fermentation followed by long storage, pressing and ageing makes this tea reminiscent of an aged raw PuErh and the colour of the liquor is closer to this tea type than most Ripened tea.
The taste is also nuanced and complex like an aged Raw PuErh combining the vanilla, dried fruits, leathers and sweet tobacco of some of the finest vintage PuErh with the unmistakable funk of a fermented Heicha.
First, your nose is hot with the trademark sweet smoky note of Anhua dark tea (from the wood-fired baking) which which meld into fermented soya sauce, sandalwood, cardamom and an everprescent barnyard funk reminiscent of the greatest Cambodian Ouds.
The nose is thick and resinous, becoming sweeter once you get past that funky start to furnish you with sticky dates, deep vanilla pods and toffee.
In the mouth, the tea dances with textures and taste.
The mouthfeel is fast-moving with the liquor running away in the mouth, tumbling away to leave a bone dry finish on the top of your tongue and flooding sweet jujube juiciness which lasts for hours.
The taste has chocolate, hazelnut and malted soya milk to provide a warm underbelly. There is the intrigue of sweet fruit woods, smoke, resins and leathers. And it is all capped off with the delightful juiciness of dried cherries and baked apples.
As for the body sensation, Wildlife Recorder can hit you in two ways.
If you brew relatively gently then this tea will be your perfect daytime companion giving you bright and clear energy with a settled digestif warmth.
But if you decide to brew strong or boil this tea, you may find that the energy starts tingling up and down your spine before you are shot up into the air like a firework, with your head fizzing in the sky. I have had some wild times on Wildlife Recorder!
There are 100 logs of Wildlife Recorder, and we will not make any samplers because they are so hard to break without wasting too much of this precious tea.
