pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou

Today it was the Yunnan Sourcing Hi Tech Raw Puerh Tea Dragon Ball Rolled Puerh. This was pretty damn good. It took two steeps for it to open up so the first steep was a little weak. It was slightly bitter but not in an overpowering way. It was sweet from the beginning with the classic notes of apricots and stonefruits. This was just one good young sheng. I believe the website says there will be a lot a variation between different dragon balls so some will be excellent like this one, a few might be spectacular.

Mild gall bladder issues all weekend not responding to meds or my usual teas. Brewed up a strong one today of 2009 CNNP 7572, two cups of that and marked improvement. Finally able to stay out of the bathroom an hour after taking the tea. Am good enough now to take a short walk. I guess highly fermented shou is doing a better job than my gall bladder can in clearing fats from my system.

The 2013 Menghai Dayi 7562 Classic Ripe 250g brick turned out to be a good early AM “wake me up” dark tea. There is a deep sweetness backed up by a touch of light bitterness. Decent mouthfeel with an appealing lingering aftertaste. Turns out this was a very cost effective purchase – 250g brick purchased in March 2014 for $14 (less than $.06 per gram).

Today I drank the final tea from my Yangqinghao order the 2007 Jincha. This is what you might call entry level in the world of Yangqinghao Teas. It is only $130. For me to describe it likes that seems strange to me but the expensive stuff is more like $600. This tea had some initial notes of tobacco and leather. There was a fair amount of bitterness. This tea evolved into something fairly sweet as aged teas go. Not the fruity apricots of a young sheng however, it was more of a subdued sweetness. I liked this one overall. The only thing I would say is this did not have the massive qi of the other Yangqinghao teas. I did enjoy it. It was good.

Having Yunnan Sourcing’s 2015 ‘Ye Zhu Tang’ or Wild Pig Pool. Sounds interesting doesn’t it.
I finally found the time to properly review this after drinking it for the last 2 days.
I let this one sit a while as it had a 5 week trip to me.
I got a little over 10 grams out to start and gave a quick rinse. The initial aroma has a slight floral note to it. The tea itself brews a slight amber golden in the cup. The first sips come in full in the front part of the mouth with some slight bitterness that fades into an edamame or fresh picked snow pea note.
Sipping the tea and holding it a few seconds the thickness comes in and the tea has a stronger bitter note. A few minutes after drinking this you can still feel the pucker factor going on.
I looked through some of the spent leaves and found good full leaf with thick veins on many of them. The bitter isn’t like a young tree bitter but quite a bit softer and subdued. The tea is a softer tea that would be a good intro easing someone into a stronger more bitter tea. A starter as some would say.
I brewed this in a 230 ml shiboridashi as this has become a favorite brew vessel lately.

Flavors: Beany, Bitter, Floral, Thick

Today I drank an excellent ripe from Awazon Tea, www.pu-erhtea.com, the 2006 Awazon Fine Aged Royal Puerh Tea Ripe Cake. This tea was very enjoyable. It started out bittersweet with a fair amount of fermentation flavor. It was dark and rich in the early infusions. The fermentation and bitterness left after four or five steeps. What was left was a nice mildly sweet tea. There were no storage tastes to this tea despite it being ten years old. It would seem that Awazon’s storage of their teas is very clean and dry. So far that is my impression. This was good stuff comparable to some of the better ripe I have gotten from Yunnan Sourcing or Mandala.

2006 Fall Lao Ban Zhang Sheng
I do not drink this tea for the taste (although it is good) but rather I enjoy this one for the great cha qi. It has never let me down. I was shocked to see the current price (understandable given the current market demand for authentic LBZ) since I paid less than half this amount when purchasing my cake in June 2014 from Yunnan Sourcing. Very glad I decided to commit to purchasing after my first session almost two years ago!

Today I drank a ripe from Yunnan Sourcing USA, the 2010 Nan Jian “Phoenix Ripe Tuo” Organic Ripe Puerh Tea. This one was heavily fermented. It was good if you don’t have an aversion to fermentation flavor. This one was strong. There was a sweet note too, but I couldn’t really get the other notes on this one past the fermentation flavor. It was that strong. It was noticeable in the sixth steep and detectable in the eighth steep. It was really one of the strongest fermentation tastes I have encountered. That being said, it was fairly clean. I didn’t get any fishy taste that I could discern.

Today I was feeling lazy, so I drank a mini tuocha from my Streetshop88 order, the 2010 Year Supreme Yunnan Haiwan LaoTongZhi Puerh Tea Mini Ripe Cake. This tea was decent but not spectacular. It was I think good quality for a mini tuocha. It was bitter at the start but developed into a nice sweet ripe puerh. There may have been some notes of chocolate in there and it did develop a bit of a fruity taste in later steeps. This was good but by no means spectacular.

Early this morning I sipped an excellent, sweet and yummy 2005 Yong Pin Hao Bamboo House from a sample bought from www.greenteaguru.co.uk

This afternoon I am enjoying a 2005 HK traditionally stored Dayi 7542 sample also bought from the same company. This is also a great tea but I might get a cake for storage bearing in mind that this is one of the few ‘7542’ raw pu’er teas I enjoyed without any hesitation of saying so.