pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou
I had a pleasant 2009 Aged Chenpi Ripened Tangerine Pu-erh yesterday in the office. It made a change from the usual fare, but I noticed that it set my bowels to rumbling and gurgling like a broken drain. I’ve noticed this lately with shu pu particularly that I may like the tea but my insides not so much. Anyone else run into this issue?
Today I got back to my Puerhshop order and drank the 2006 Bulang Yangshan Ripen Puerh Tea Cake. This tea was good but not spectacular. It was bittersweet with a fair amount of fermentation flavor. The bitterness didn’t last long and the fermentation lasted only about four steeps. It was a clean taste, not fishy. I keep hoping I will find a ripe from 2006 that has actually cleared as far as the fermentation flavor goes. So far I’ve only found one, the 2008 Song of Chi Tse by Berylleb King Tea.
I had a fun time this afternoon watching the TeaDB episode on the YQH 2005 Tsiang Liu while drinking some along with them. It definitely enhanced the experience. Tomorrow I intend to do the same with the 2000 EoT Peacock.
I came downstairs and wondered why I smelled shou. Then realized my wife was cooking fish. Not sure what this says about me.
2014 menghai golden needle white lotus YS. Enjoyed this
2015 hekai Chawangshop just about to tuck into .
Hhmmm I see, just like me, you started tea sipping early today. Unfortunately none of the three pu’er teas I tried this morning are anything to write home about. With lunch I think I need a decent shou to lift up my tea spirits…
Indeed Sunday’s first 5 tastings were to forget about including throwing away the rest of the samples of 3 of them and the other two were added to my teas cocktail storage bag. In order to avoid a total loss I ended the day with the current rescue from misery tea: Chawangshop 2015 He Kai, forever dependable tea for this type of rescues.
The Hekai is the mislabled one wasnt it. It was a W2T bosch you said?
five fails in a row is pretty poor luck (or good luck depending on the size of your wallet)
2006 jingmai terre de ciel. Im really enjoying it. not too much of an aged taste like some others, its a nice balanced cup leaning towards the fruity.
Kettle is broken so I drank a Yunnan Sourcing ripe mini tuo grandpa style. I was worried it’d be a bit nasty because I didn’t use a particularly large mug with the 5g of it, but it turned out pretty good. I was able to drink about 4 mugs before the flavor gave out.
Today I’m drinking a sheng I got from Yunnan Sourcing, the 2011 Xiaguan “Golden Memory” Aged Mao Cha Raw Puerh Tea Cake. This is not rerally a 2011 cake. It was pressed in 2011 from already aged mao cha. The Yunnan Sourcing site does not say how old the mao cha was. However, I’m guessing six or seven years old as evident by the color of the brewed tea and the aged taste. The color was much that of a shou, very dark. The initial notes were somewhat unpleasant, tobacco and leather. These persisted for a while, I would say eight steeps. After this a smooth raw puerh with a sweet profile emerged. This was not the apricot sweetness of a young sheng however but more subtle. As to qi, this has some and it is a fairly relaxing qi. It does not, however, have the massive, in your face qi of a Yangqinghao tea. It is much more subtle. Overall this was a good tea. If someone has not tried a semi aged tea and wants to drink something from 2004 or 2005 this is actually a good choice. Even though the year says 2011 this is a semi aged sheng and the price tag won’t break the bank like some more expensive teas.
Really enjoying Old Bear Fangcha from W2t. Very smokey but not astringent at all. Wife thought I was smoking cigars though!
Today I drank a raw sent to me by Liquid Proust. It was a 2007 Mengku that he got off of Taobao. This was a well stored tea. There were no noticeable storage tastes. There was not too much of an unpleasant aged taste, just a little in the first infusion then no more. After this it developed a bit of a fruity note but with a muted sweetness. It did not have the apricot sweetness of a young sheng. Overall this was a tea that was better than it’s price tag.
I’ve also been enjoying this one. A very easy drinker. Do you happen to know any further details? I’d like to pick up some more.
I tried that too couple days ago. Nice everyday sheng. The only negative is I developed a headache. I hope it’s not related to this sheng. I will retry in a few days.
I think Liquid Proust is planning on selling this sheng for anyone who does not want to deal with Taobao. I ordered one of these through Taobao Focus and it was quite cheap. I’m sure I paid less than Liquid Proust will charge.
2000 Yiwu Shan sheng puerh from YS. Its the most compressed tea I have ever had. And there is a lot of damp storage taste & im quite a few steeps in (10+) The chunk in there is pretty hefty though as my scales have ran out of batteries.
Its not unpleasant, I am enjoying drinking it even though it tastes like damp pile
mine is really just a lot of wet storage taste. I used wayyyy to much in my gaiwan though. Maybe thats it, and the other flavours will come out sometime. But they havent yet
Yeah I think too much leaf, so everytime the chunk loosens up the steep gets another load of wet storage taste.
review on YS site: ‘When it says wet storage, it means WET storage’ so its not just me :D
As someone who lives in HK, where almost all pu erh is wet storage, break it up and let it air out. It’ll help significantly with storage aromas!
If it was really, really wet storage…it would just fall apart. Doesn’t sound that bad then! ;)
Reminds me of one of those Xiaguan pu erh tuo chas, which are usually pretty compressed to make sure they can press their logo visibly on the tuocha.
Ironically, I also had this tea yesterday, though through a different source. Super compressed and quite nicely aged. Typical yiwu notes (woody, etc.) and a brown sugar sweetness with raisin notes. My only complaint is that it’s very one-note. Great example of aged taste though.
funny enough, the review here has all these notes. I dont get this at all. its broken apart by now… I admit Im not a pu snob quite yet, but I know a good aged taste, woody, raisins etc I really am not getting any notes apart from damp. It really tastes like a different tea from what everyone else has described!
Excessively wet storage needs lots of airing out and you still might not get much flavor and aroma. What you do get is a softer, smoother tea than it would’ve been otherwise. I treat that kind of pu erh like shu and use my shu pots for it.
One week is not enough. Leave it for couple months. Did you buy the whole brick or it’s just a sample? Too bad your batteries were low. Maybe you just overleaf it?
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