TuochaTea.com

And Puerh Plus Box #4 has arrived and we have 2008, Menghai Dayi 8582. Using my 80ml yixing, I rinse the tea once and then gave it a quick flash steep to open up the leaves. But I tasted this infusion anyway. It was really clear, sweet, wood and just a touch of bitter on the back end.

First infusion I got a slightly darker, almost light honey color, Its just starting to show age on the tea now. Its still tastes pretty young though and has a little bitterness on the end still. The flavors were oak, wet wood, bitter, mushrooms? And a tiny bit of sour, just a teeny bit.

Second infusion was much the same with more woody tones coming out now, I guess thats to be expected in a mid aged raw. I think the guys over on TeaDb called this pencil shaving flavor…

Third infusion much the same, its staying pretty consistent with flavor and aroma, maybe a bit more mushroom. Im getting a teeny… tiny hint of medicinal at this point.

IM guessing based on this, this one is going to steep out 10-14 times at least. I get the feeling Im going to be drinking a lot of tea and get a little tea drunk the next week. For this tea, I think a few more years would make this spectacular.

Recommended

I managed to enjoy this tea but there were some negative notes. There were pronounced sour notes, especially in the first four steeps. There were also sweet notes. I didn’t give this tea any time to acclimate to it’s new environment, having just received it yesterday. I have been told you should give a puerh a week to acclimate. I don’t know if this advice is valid but I have been told by good sources including Scott at Yunnan Sourcing that it may be the case. As to the sour note, I have been told that that is a condition of dry storage so this tea probably did not experience much humidity.

I steeped this tea eight times in a 120ml gaiwan with 7.9g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, and 30 sec. I will say I have generally had good luck with teas from Tuocha Tea in general so am hopeful this one will improve. Perhaps I will clear a spot in my pumidor for it.

Just got my TuochaTea order and this was the first tea that I tried. I love the silver bud pu-erh teas, as they are very approachable: almost like a white tea with added depth. Probably a good tea for someone who wants to gradually ease into sheng.

Things started out badly. The photo on the website shows a perfectly silver beeng, but what I got was more like salt and pepper. Also, the tea came in an original wrapper that was all Chinese (Greek to me) and an outer wrapper that had a sticker saying 2008 silver buds, rather than the 2011 on the website. I’m not going to complain, since one normally pays a premium for older tea. I noticed that once I steeped the tea, the volume of buds vs non-bud was about 10 to 1 so can’t really complain about the non-bud leaves either.

My first cup was wonderful: exactly what I was hoping for from this tea. It was very light, with a sort of honeysuckle aroma and a taste of raw cane sugar (we used to buy sugar cane as a treat when I was a kid). The finish was wonderful. In the second cup, the cha qi became very noticeable, putting me an in excellent mood. The third pot was also great, but the fourth was noticeably weaker, with a woody flavor replacing the sugar and honeysuckle. I was able to get a couple more pots out of it by using longer steeps, but they lacked the finesse of the first 3 pots. I use 2 grams per 2 oz water and 10, 20, 30 s steeps, so typically get fewer steeps than those who use more tea. Still, I usually get more than this.

This was a great value at $26 per beeng. My only complaint is that I ordered it two days after Thanksgiving and it arrived 3 days after Valentine’s day. Next time I’ll pay (through the nose) for air mail.

There are at least three listings for Tuocha Tea, so I just chose one and went with it. I actually started this yesterday and I am still drinking it but thought I would post. This is less than half the price on Tuocha Tea as it is elsewhere.

I kind of messed up the first mug. I used boiling and a 45 second steep with no wash. The leaf smelled like wet carpet and the cup was very bitter and drying. My fault. Beyond the eeewww, this is a little sweet, and a little woodsy.

The second 10 oz mug at 10 seconds is pretty good. The wet leaf is a pleasant woodsy mushroom with a hint of smoke. This is sweet. It feels a bit syrupy. The taste is of stone and mushroom. This is a very enjoyable cup with nothing off-tasting.

The third mug at 20 seconds is stone and mushroom, and I detect a light smoke late in the sip. This is the best cup yet.

This is a raw puerh, and it still has some of that sheng brightness, but it is aging nicely and seems pretty decent.

I have been drinking the 2005 Six Famous Tea Mountain Jia Ji Raw Pu-erh Tuocha from Mengla in Xishuangbanna for the last three days. (Purchased here: http://www.tuochatea.com/6ftm-jia-ji-pu-erh-tuocha-p2/). It is quite interesting as it has changed each time I’ve tried it over several days. I brews to a light orange color, and at first was rich, mouthfilling, smoky, and citric. Later steepings have been “younger” tasting to me and current steep #11 is back to alfalfa, green, and mouth watering. It isn’t the most intense tuo I’ve had, but it holds my interest, and I keep coming back to it for the taste and experience. Quite nice all in all.

Quite a treat, this beautiful 2011 silver melon raw pu-erh brews a light orange color at this writing (03/2014), with a light sweet lasting taste, with hints of oat straw, and a depth of persistent flavor that bodes well for aging. I suggested putting it away for a few years, but my partner objected saying she liked it right now. Luckily it is a 500 gram melon so we can both have it the way we would like.

Needed a refreshing and special tea to calm after a particularly long work day. This one continues to delight me anew each time I drink it.

This is an incredible tea, particularly after aging it for an additional three years. It’s lost it’s astringency and the liquor has gotten darker and darker, yet it has a rich grassy characteristic not found in standard pu-erhs.