pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou
I’ve been away for a while on a trip, but I’ve been stalking the steepster emails on my inbox to keep up as I could. I’ve only been avoiding YQH notes because I want to try the samples a friend sent me to then read the notes.
But after a few weeks with out proper Puerh I’m going with YS’ 2010 Gedeng. I know this one and it is refreshing to try something you like after not having tea at all for a while. I think now I enjoy its subtle notes a bit more and the richness. I think it has a sort of muted and musky floral character if that makes sense. Think about a musky but sweet melon with some gentle floral notes that don’t get in the way of the subtle notes.
Nice tea to feel at home.
I been avoiding the YQH discussion too. Going to he hard enough sneaking the TU group buy in the house.
LOL! I told you we can build that tunnel, send pressurized capsules of Pu. I need to buy from TU, but Scott receives an alert from my bank every time I get a check and puts a discount on his site.
Ain’t that the truth. I got a couple hundred in the China cart waiting. Some are tea tools for the grandson but there is tea for me as well. I can justify that purchase since the youngster will benefit from it. I will label them as ‘his cakes’ but keep them in my pumidor.
LOL unfortunately I have no children… Therefore I am forced to use stealth techniques to bring tea cakes home. My wife never understood the daily usage of a big backpack…
mrmopar, I though you rang the doorbell and then catapulted it through the window into the pumidor while she was answering the bell.
Fortunately I have just moved away from home for a year. The current pay packet has been eaten up by moving costs, but I fully expect to be in the tea-buying market shortly. When I return home, I shall just say “What? Don’t you remember complaining about the amount of tea I brought away with me when I moved here last year? This is what’s left.” I love the “What this old thing?” approach.
Roughage I have left a window open to put something in rather han carry it through the front door.
Having the 2007 Jingjiatang Bada Raw from What-Cha tonight.
I actually brought it out and rinsed it and sit it a while.
I grabbed about 10 grams off the cake. It has a bit of compression and came off in chunks and that was the rinse and wait basis.
The first 3 brews were very light on aroma and taste. My guess was the compression still opening up. The tea does have a nice golden color to it. Steeps 4-5 bring out the Bada Shan side of it. There is more in the way of a light floral aroma to it and there is the touch of bitterness cutting through the floral. Steeps 6,7,8 start to kick in nicely. The tea becomes stronger with a tobacco in there with the bitterness.
Pushing it a bit harder it comes across a bit tannic and the bitterness and tobacco kind of overpower the rest. I will brew the rest with shorter steeps. Dropping back for brews 9,10,11 the brew calms down and some hint of maybe lemon and saltiness emerge.
The tea as it cools down has a sweet sugary undertone. I let it sit and cool a touch on steep 11. I think this tea will go a few more as it still carries along fairly well.
Flavors: Bitter, Floral, Lemon, Salt, Tannin, Tobacco
Today I went back to my Awazon order and steeped the 2007 Fuhai Tea Factory “Dynamic Yunnan” Ripe Puerh Tea Cake 500g. This was a good tea but was probably not what you call spectacular. It had a fair amount of fermentation flavor left to it. It was bittersweet in the start. This bitterness gradually transformed into sweetness. I’d say that there were some notes of chocolate in there although they were not real strong and it did develop a fruity taste later on. Overall this was good ripe tea. It was one of Awazon’s more expensive ripes at around $50.
Drinking the remaining 4.5g of my 2015 YS Ye Zhu Tang which I got from Liquid Proust. Used 190 deg. water instead of boiling this time. It’s purely sweet, without the bitter hints I got from the last session. Numerous steeps of just floral and nutty-vegetal (reminding me of edamame) flavor. Body isn’t as thick (though is still decently thick), which is probably as much due to the lower amount of tea used than the lower temp.
Edit: Also getting a bit of fruitiness in the aftertaste now.
im having a session of it right now. I used off boil water, that what i usually do with young sheng. Short steeps.Buttery sweet, some vegetal. very enjoyable.
Yea I really enjoyed it as well. One of my favorite sheng puerhs I’ve had so far (from a relatively small sample size).
Related question – When ppl say “off boil” does that mean they boil the water then just wait for it to stop actually boiling? Thanks.
often people judge by the size of the bubbles – you might hear the term ‘fish eye’ which means take off the heat when the bubbles are this size
I use small pitcher( if I missed reading bubbles). Pour in pitcher and pour right away to a pot or gaiwan.
Ok, thanks. I use my variable temp kettle, but I used to watch the bubbles before I got it :)
My variable after 1 yr of crazy usage stopped being variable. As of now – boil at any setting :(. I also got boiler from Taiwan Sourcing which is great and start reading bubbles
Mine stopped working at all after ~3 months. Thankfully it was under warranty so they sent me a new one for $11, but I’m hoping it doesn’t happen again.
Haven’t been as active posting but I have been drinking. Had the 09 yiwu from the W2T club box and various shous (Old reliable, green miracle, mysterious 2008 coins from local shop).
I can’t wait for this semester to be over. Having time to drink down my stash will be much appreciated :)
2015 Tea Urchin Pasha sheng
I am working my way through several teas produced by Tea Urchin using 2015 material. Material from Pasha Mountain in Menghai is hard to come by so I am always on the look out. This Pasha cake is beautiful to look at. Pleasant fresh smells come from the dry leaf. The tea liquor is a clear yellow-gold color. Thick and smooth with only the lightest touch of bitterness. Vegetal with a definite buttery sweetness. Coats the tongue nicely. The qi hit me after the third infusion – a nice relaxing feeling took over. I think this has possibilities.
The most beautiful looking young raw pu’er tea I have seen: 2015 Yunnan Sourcing Lao Shu. Bai Cha with old arbor leaves. As it is so young I have steeped it between 80 and 90 degrees C. When wet, the leaves have a fresh vegetal aroma with the liquor looking like blanc de blanc champagne and a very nice yummy taste.
With this one I took a chance of drinking the rinse which had the colour os a blanc de blanc champagne which had a light fruit taste like peach or plum. Later it was very slight bitter upfront followed by a light sweet aftertaste. Throughtout it had a light fruit almost alcoholic like very light plum schnapps. One of the things that amazed me most was the colour of the leaves after a couple of steepings almost light terre vert rather than the usual sap green. I reduced the temperature to 80 degrees C to appreciate its light delicate flavours as mentioned and aromas of orchid or oyster. I have packed a sample for you Rasseru.
Today it was a ripe from Streetshop88, the 2012 Yunnan Yiwu Arbor Tree Wild Gong Ting Puerh Tea Ripe Cake. This tea got off to a bad start. There was a lot of fermentation taste to it and that flavor was quite unpleasant. It was also bittersweet at the start. It did slowly get better. I don’t think it’s that I didn’t air this one out long enough, I think it just needs to age a couple more years. It may simply have been heavily fermented in the first place.
funny coincidence I have just bought a gong ting cake earlier today. As far as i’m aware gong ting is a certain style of cake with high grade leaf and should be softer and more like chocolate
My cake should hopefully be here tomorrow
Gong ting grade doesn’t refer to the quality of the leaf but the size of the leaf. I believe it is the smallest leaf size. Gong ting grade can be higher quality but not always. The one above was just average quality in my opinion.
http://hojotea.com/en/posts-60/ im going by this article, and he says to not confuse leaf grade and leaf quality as well. It says here gong ting should have a lot of buds
Had some of my sample of Yunnan Sourcing’s 2014 Impressions Cake last night and thought that was a pretty good one, though a bit overly mouth-drying in the early steeps. Nice and sweet flavor throughout however with just a bit of smokiness.
Excited about some puerh and things coming in the mail. Have a 2015 Hai Lang Hao cake made from aged material coming from YS, along with my first order from Tea Urchin, which includes a cake of the 2013 Yiwu Peacock Blend and some samples. Also just hopped on the White 2 Tea club, so I’m pretty sure that means I’ll get the April shipment when it goes out. Exciting stuff on the way! :)
Peacock is another nice one. That Impression in a few years will be a darn good one I think. Scott has done well blending those cakes. The 2015 has a cool wrapper on it. I bought it just for that.
I had my eye on the Peacock cake and saw there were only 3 left I believe so I jumped on it while I had the chance. I might pick up a whole cake of one of the Impressions one at some point. Just starting to buy whole cakes at this point, haven’t really done it before now. Need to figure out some kind of decent storage solution if I’m gonna keep going.
ive got some peacock coming my way, depending on how I like the TU bits im getting im going to purchase some. I think the snake blend is a nice one too
The snake blend is one of the samples I added. A bit expensive to just buy the cake without trying imo :)
Yeah. It was a standout one for me, i liked it the first time, and the second upped my rating and now I cant stop thinking about buying some. Its a really interesting tea, less fruity and sharp and good because of it
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