Another year, another tea. Wakoucha tasting, tea N°16: Kawane Koshun, 1st flush 2018, De Theeliefhebber

Tea is a natural product that is made from a plant that grows in an environment. We call this environment terroir. This environment is not a fixed and static thing, it is something rooted in nature and influenced by climate. Just like for wine, a tea plant will behave differently in a dry year than in a wet year, and react differently to a cool spring as to a warm spring. So it is normal that two vintages from the same tea garden will be different from year to year. Of course, during the tea making proces the tea producer has a strong influence to push his product into the direction he wants. As most teas, like most wines, are blends, he can soften extreme weather influences by mixing teas from cooler or dryer gardens with better situated ones. So when I found out that I had Masui Etsuro's Koshun both in the 2017 and the 2018 vintage I wanted to compare them. You can read my tasting notes on the 2017 in the previous post, here comes the 2018.

source: https://teaholics.co.jp/en/2017/01/30/best-brewing/

Koushun, Kawane, Masui Etsuro, 2018, De theeliefhebber: 

10th of August, 2019, in the evening, windy and cloudy and a leaf day. Imported from Japan by De Theeliefhebber, a Belgian company. 98°C, 3 gram, 2 mins, 150ml.

Wet leaves smell like a classic black tea but with a whiff of almonds and vanilla. Coppery red brown infusion. The infusion has a beautiful smell, very pleasant but also complex, with flowers and almond, and very compact. In the mouth a nice body, a nice complexity, but a rather short finish. Very nice sweetness and almost no astringency.

Second brew was nice and sweet, with less complexity, but worth the trouble.

😊😊😊(😊)

When we compare the two the most striking difference was the level of astringency that was a lot higher in the 2017. The smell of the wet leaves was also more in the black tea register, with less flower. The colour of the infusion was very different, with the 2017 bright orange and the 2018 darker and more red. As for the taste, the 2017 was more floral and more elegant but with more astringency that gave it structure when hot but was a bit too much when cooler. The 2018 was softer and mellower, with sufficient but less agressive astringency and more spices and more sweetness, a very 'round' tea.

Both teas were recognisable in their Koshun characteristics, the cultivar coming out very clearly but were different in structure. There is of course also the fact that the 2017 is a year older and this could be the explanation for the elegance and less obvious sweetness, but my general feeling was that 2018 is a year that brought more volume and more body, but 2017 more complexity and structure and a far longer finish, and I preferred the 2017. Both are sold out, but you should keep an eye out for Masui Etsuro's 2019.