Affordable Aged Teas: A Look at Qiful Life's 1990 Tea Collection
Hello, friends!
There’s a certain thrill to tasting aged teas that reminds me of the way people collect fine wines and spirits; the idea that time itself has become an integral part of what you’re drinking and that the flavors have become more complex with age creates an alluring draw for many. In fact, the Western puerh world tends to borrow much from the wine industry, from tasting terms to analogies and more, puerh is treated as the “tea meant for time.” However, while puerh may get the attention and hype that comes with age, other categories are often underexplored or left out, which is why I was very excited to see aged Tibetan heicha offered from Qiful Life. They already have a phenomenally built-out aged tea selection on their website, but the 1990 shou puerh and 1990 Tibetan dark tea really caught my attention. Knowing that I’m a heicha fanatic, their team reached out to me and offered to send me some of their aged material for review, which I readily accepted. Qiful Life provided the teas featured in this review and as always, all of my opinions, tasting notes, and editorial conclusions are my own and Qiful Life had no editorial influence over or input on this review.
I see you asking now “why, of all the teas, are those two the ones you looked at?” Well, friends, a few reasons:
1.) The teas are both heicha, or Chinese dark teas, from the same year, giving me a unique opportunity to explore whether two teas from the same year could tell very different stories about what happens to tea with age.
2.) The Tibetan tea is uniquely a fuzhuan from Ya’An, a Sichuanese city known for heicha production, as the sort-of “gateway” to the Tibetan tea trade. I have had aged fuzhuan before, and Ya’An material, but not Ya’An border tea from the 1990s, as the vast majority of the material produced in Ya’An stays domestic or is exported to the borderland (Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Bhutan, Nepal, and Himalayan areas like Ladakh), making this an incredibly rare opportunity. Unlike puerh, which has developed a significant international collector market, much of Ya’an’s border tea has historically remained in domestic circulation or traveled to the borderlands it was produced to serve, particularly the Tibetan regions to the west.
3.) Both teas have been dry stored for 36 years, meaning that through this tasting I can better understand the impacts tasting conditions have on tea, especially dry aging heicha. Finding two vintages that were stored in the same condition is a difficult feat in itself, so major props to Alex at Qiful life for finding these.
Another question I see you asking is on the authenticity of the teas themselves: “how do we know that these teas are actually 36 years old?” Great question! There is no laboratory test to determine “yes, this tea is legitimate [insert tea year and type here],” which makes authentication difficult. With aged tea, authentication is a matter of experience and accumulated evidence, especially when we, as customers, were not there for all 36 years of storage with this tea. However, there are factors we can look at: the appearance and structure of the leaf material, how it behaves in the brewing vessel, the aroma and character of the brewed tea, the mouthfeel, aftertaste, and the cha qi of the tea can all be used to help solidify vendor claims of age. I’ll get into this a bit more when we talk about the Tibetan tea, as I feel that that tea is a perfect example of this.
So, with two teas from 1990 now sitting in front of me, I had one thing on my mind: what exactly does 36 years of aging do to a tea? Without further ado, let’s explore these two teas together.
A note on brewing:
Alex at Qiful Life recommended doing gongfu brewing for the shou puerh, cutting the bag open and adding the leaves to my zisha teapot, and using a clay mug for the Tibetan material. Alex’s reasoning was that the Tibetan tea is a bit more powdery, possibly too powdery for a teapot, and keeping it in the bag makes more sense. In his words, “clay mugs are recommended in order to get the full taste, similar to how you would use Zisha instead of porcelain for puerh.” Friends, you know me: I wasn’t about to put a 1990 heicha into a tea mug and call it a day. I kept their suggested tea-to-water ratio and brewed it gongfu style in my teapot, allowing me to really push the leaves to their limits and explore what the material could do in a standard session, as Qiful Life offers bagged, bricks, and loose-leaf forms of their heicha. The teabags are compostable PLA (polylactic acid, or a plant-based mesh) and contain 4g of tea in each bag. I also did get more than 3 steeps out of each tea, getting 8 steeps with the shou puerh and 6 steeps with the Tibetan tea, though for the sake of length, only the first 3 steeps of tasting notes have been included for each tea.
Brewing parameters and basic info:
212F/100C water
4g leaf (teabag)
Dry stored, sourced in Xishuangbanna, Summer 1990 harvest
Dry Leaf: coarser, broken leaves with a uniform, dark appearance; strong agarwood and old timber aroma
Warmed teapot: The leaves have a strong, warmed aromatic woodiness to it, alongside a prominent aged aroma (chen xiang, “陈香”), which is present as camphor and a clean, deep, earthy wet smell.
1st steep 30s: There is a lovely, very prominent chen wei (“陈味”), or “aged taste” to go alongside the earlier mentioned aged aroma. This aged aroma and flavor is hard to explain, but in essence it’s sort of a clean, deep, earthy flavor with hints of leather and camphor. It’s brewing up a lovely ruby-red for this first steep and the tea itself is hinting at having a more oily and thick mouthfeels lurking in the future.
1st steep shou being poured 2nd steep shou 3rd steep in gongdaobei
2nd steep 30s: There’s an immediate color shift here. The tea is now a lovely reddish-black and noticeably thicker in texture. It coats the mouth as you sip, thanks to the high concentration of tea oils. The dry aging has given it a crisp and clear taste with no mustiness or moldiness like with other “aged” shou puerh. There’s also a note of red beans and a sort of complex, aged agarwood-like flavor to it. The colors are impressive, brewing up a deep opaque blackness in the pitcher but with a brilliant, crystal-clear ruby-red hue when held to a light or poured into the teacup, as shown here.
3rd steep 60s: The color is a dark reddish black with a lovely reddish-gold rim and a prominent, oily surface. The mouthfeel is still nice and thick, with a slight starchiness to it. The astringency is very low, with little-to-no drying in the mouth. Flavor wise, it retains that camphorated wood note but with a prominent sweetness to it, making it an easily chuggable tea.
1st and 2nd steeps of puerh The 3rd steep of shou 3rd Steep of Shou Puerh
Overall verdict: This is a lovely example of what dry-aging can do to a tea. Now, not having been there in 1990 when this tea was harvested, I cannot say for sure just how much it’s impacted the tea, but I can say that what I’ve noticed is a crisp, clean, and polished tea. It has a strong rock sugar-like sweetness that coats the tongue like honey yet has a clean, mineral sweetness of a quality spring water to it. It’s lovely and absolutely a treat for the shou puerh lover, and at the price ($28.00/12 bags or $38.95/1 ounce (~30g) loose leaf), it is an incredibly affordable way to experience the wonders of aged tea without breaking your bank.
Brewing Parameters and basic info:
212F/100C Water, yixing zini brewing vessel
1 teabag (4g)
Dry storage, Ya'An, Sichuan, Spring 1990 harvest
Warmed tea leaves: nongxiang baijiu-like aroma (tropical fruits and esters)
5s rinse: Light gold color with a complex, strong aroma to it, reminiscent of a good strong baijiu
1990 Tibetan Tea in Bag The Rinse Pouring the 1st steep
1st steep 30s: Dark red liquor similar to port wine in color. The nongxiang baijiu characteristic makes itself known- that aromatic tropical fruitiness with a strong, striking aroma that fills the whole mouth; notes of alfalfa and cocoa/chocolate are present, with a strong, prominent aged flavor to the tea. There are notes of red dates and haw flake candies, with a slightly greener, grassier huigan. The body and mouthfeel of this tea are impressive at this steep- thicker, almost starchy in nature, similar to a mochi in the mouth.
2nd steep 30s: Woah. This tea has power. The qi has hit hard. It’s heady and I’m burping a bit. There are notes of overripe fruits and stonefruit, with a pleasant tartness to it. There’s also a green grassiness lurking in the background with a noticeable minerality in the mouth, especially near the roof of the mouth and tip of the tongue. This is the baijiu of heicha, it’s wild and I love it.
3rd steep 90s: Thick, mochi-like starchiness to the mouthfeel with that pineapple-heavy fruity note to it.
4th steep 90s: Tangier with a nice tartness to it. There’s that baijiu-like flavor and there’s a nice oily throat feel to the tea. It’s also very cooling when breathing in.
Pouring the 2nd steep 3rd Steep of tea being poured 3rd steep Tibetan Tea
The 1990 Tibetan heicha is not what I would call a beginners tea, and I mean that as a compliment. This tea has the kind of personality that rewards an experienced palate, especially someone who enjoys the stranger, funkier corners of post-fermented teas. Let’s look first at the leaves here: coarser, broken leaf with bits of stems, but a uniform brown color to the leaves. As fuzhuan ages, the colors shift from greenish-brown to a deep, matte, bark-like color with a dry, leathery texture, similar to flaked tobacco. As far as brewing parameters go, Qiful Life recommends this one for mug brewing, using boiling water for 30-90 seconds depending on your desired strength.
The first thing that struck me was just how complex it was. There was the classic heicha funk (which, to be honest, is not that jarring when it comes to fuzhuan- it’s subtler and sweeter) with an earthy depth and range of savory and aromatic notes that kept shifting as I drank it. It wasn’t trying to be delicate. It clearly has character, and plenty of it. The closest comparison I could come up with was Nongxiang baijiu (浓香型白酒), not because it tasted like baijiu, but because it shared a lot of the same tasting characteristics as a good baijiu. Straight out of the gate, once the leaves were warmed, the leaves had a similar aromatic profile to nongxiang baijiu: overripe fruits, especially tropical fruits like pineapples, and that sort of wonderfully-layered complexity that comes from the fermentation-derived aromatics in baijiu. Unlike the shou puerh, I gave this one a quick 5 second rinse and discarded it, just to help wake the leaves up and coax out more of their complex flavors.
By the first proper steep, that had developed into a dark red liquor, almost port wine-like in color, with the nongxiang character becoming unmistakable. The tropical fruit and pineapple were joined by notes of alfalfa and cocoa, along with red dates and haw flakes. There was also a slightly greener, grassier huigan and a noticeable minerality developing in the mouth. It had far more body than I expected from such broken material.
And then I had the second steep. The tea became heady almost immediately, accompanied by that unmistakable feeling of being a little tea drunk. At the same time, the flavor opened further into overripe fruit and stone fruit, with a pleasant tartness underneath. Green grassiness remained in the background, while the minerality became more pronounced, particularly across the roof of the mouth and the tip of the tongue. This tea has POWER. The later infusions continued to show that same personality rather than simply falling apart. The third steep brought back that thick, oily coating and the mochi-like starchiness alongside a pronounced pineapple character. By the fourth, the tea had become tangier, with a pleasant tartness, that unmistakable baijiu-like aromatic quality, and a slick, oily sensation in the throat. Breathing in produced a particularly nice cooling sensation that lingered after the sip. Despite the coarse, broken appearance, this isn't what I would consider low-grade material, like most fuzhuan heicha from that era. The tea is potent, complex, deeply aged, and remarkably expressive. That, to me, is what makes this tea so fascinating. The bag looks humble. The leaf looks humble. But once you add boiling water, there is nothing humble about what comes out of it. Honestly, I would also recommend boiling the leaves afterwards to really push the tea to its fullest and get every drop out of the leaves.
The Cha Qi of Aged Tea
Friends, I am not exaggerating here when I say that this is a qi bomb of a tea. They list it as a “medium high-balanced qi” on their website. I am not one to talk too much on cha qi (“茶氣,” “tea energy”), as it’s something that differs from person to person (for example, a tea that might make me tea drunk (Cha Zui "茶醉") may have no impact on you, and a tea that may get you tea drunk may have no impact on me), but this is one worth mentioning as it made for a wonderful session. The qi was heavy-hitting behind the eyes and generated a deep warmth that settled through my midsection and stomach. As the session progressed, I got that heady, slightly-dreamy feeling that some teas can bring on, followed by a sense of sleepy relaxation. It was a remarkably physical tea experience, one that I felt as much as I tasted, which really added something special to this session. Now, I mention qi here because it helps authenticate the material used in the tea bag. To me, this intense qi shows that Qiful Life isn’t sweeping up low-grade materials for their tea bags but are using legitimate, potent, and well-aged material. Low-quality heicha never produces a heavy, heady qi or the clean minerality I was noticing. You also cannot fake a heavy, head-swaying cha zui feeling. It only happens when the conditions are right: usually, the material is old and very clean, and genuinely powerful stuff. That being said, you may have an entirely different experience with the tea. That's the nature of tasting. These notes accurately reflect my experience with the material, and after drinking it, I have no reservations about the quality of the material I was given.
Aged Tea at an Affordable Price:
Overall, I’m very pleased with these two aged teas. Aged tea, especially puerh, tends to be a rather expensive luxury, making these two teas a lovely bang-for-your-buck situation. You get the opportunity to experience two teas from the same year that tell two drastically different stories. It’s truly fascinating to experience these two, especially that Tibetan heicha. Whether you’re new to tea and wanting to explore aged teas, or a true aged tea connoisseur, these teas are sure to please. If you’re a fan of the uncommon and rare, definitely check out Qiful Life’s aged tea selection, you won’t be disappointed. Cheers, friends!
1990 Shou Puerh in Cup 1990 shou puerh poured Ruby-red shou! rinse and 1st steep Tibetan tea 5th steep Tibetan tea Qiful Life Packaging
Disclosure: Tea provided by Qiful Life for review. All opinions and tasting notes are my own.
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