Holiday tea session - Sheng from Ba Da Shan

As I mentioned before, Im enjoying holiday at Casta Papiernicka- a place where I go every summer since I was one year old :-) Last year I took some teaware and teas and discovered it was a brilliant idea! Preparing the tea in such a beautiful enviroment took the tea into different dimension. Of course I had to repeat such pleasant experience this year :-)

I found a nice spot on the side of forest creek. Surrounded by trees and with the sound of running water in my ears I unpacked the tea utensils and prepared my mind for simple, yet extraordinary tea session.

It was rather rainy recently, so I wasnt shure if the water from the creek was safe for drinking. Never mind, tap water is very clean and soft here anyway :-) It is very good idea to take your tea with you on travels. Since every water has different composition the tea will taste different too :-) Not necessarily worse or better- just different. Like when you use different clay yixings for the same tea.

 In my oppinion, simplicity is the key for succesful tea session in nature- if you take too many pieces of teaware you will be troubled if it doesnt break, if you take something too heavy you will be tired and stop at first suitable place and maybe miss something really special.. So as you can see I took only one teacup, pot, thermos of hot water and of course tea.

I decided to brew one of the samples of fresh shengs kindly given by Peter Stanik (I also have most of my teapots from his shop) and namely- Ba Da Shan 2011.
Ba Da Shan (巴达山) is region in the north of Menghai county. Definitely not famous as Yiwu or Ban Zhang, but when I tried Sheng from this locality for the very first time it immediately became one of my favourites.
I havent seen this years cake yet, but last years batch was stone-pressed into 200g cakes, that can be divided very easily- no fight to death like when trying to break hardly pressed Tuo Cha :-)  Mao Cha was harvested from old trees.
   

    Dry leaves release sweet fruity aroma. When steamed - the aroma gets stronger and you can recognise fragrances of cane sugar and peaches, compared to last years "BaDa" I have, theres a fresh orange accentInfusions are very clear and the tea tastes really fruity, but not that kind of fruityness that is typical for Lincang shengs- way more fresh and less rought, very good tea for drink it now, but Im going to make some stocks for some longer storage. 

This was a really pleasant session thanks both to the "Genius loci" of the place and the tea itself.  One of the main reasons I took these samples with me was to taste them and decide which cakes to buy and in what quantities. And Ba Da is definitely a "Tong candidate" .

The weather is getting worse now, but I hope I can make some nice photos outside and present you another tea session in nature. :-) Thank you for reading and have a nice day.