pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou
This year Die Kunst des Tees in Germany offered the purchase of 8 different Spring 2016 maocha samples to their customers. This morning I tasted the first one, a maocha from Ma Hei in Yi Wu. Besides the strong fresh aroma of the leaves, dry or wet, the liquor was completely clear with a beautiful light yellow colour, very slightly bitter taste upfront (usually the case for such a young tea) followed by a delicate sweetness which coated the mouth and throat very nicely. The steepings so far (I am about to do the 6th) were done at 90 degrees C.
Sipping on a 2015 Last Thoughts. Such a well balanced yet deceptively powerful young sheng. This is the first and will probably be the only cake I have bought this year…unless there is a 2016 version coming out.
Today I am drinking a semi aged sheng I recently purchased from Puerhshop, the 2005 Changtai Bulang Raw. This is a nice semi aged sheng. It has a fairly strong taste initially but has not yet developed notes of tobacco and leather. There was some bitterness initially. This steeped out fairly soon and I was left with a nice sweet note. Never did pin down the sweet note. More sweet as the absence of all bitterness than sweet in the sense of sugar mind you. When I refer to a tea as sweet it never means as sweet as sugar.
I’m drinking the Lao Man E from Liquid Proust’s MX/King purchase. It is surprisingly good, and the cha qi kicks like a mule. I’m really pleased with the purchase and looking forward to the other teas.
Steeping in new gaiwan and sipping from new cup from Chawang shop order that also arrived today.
Tried the 2015 Lao Man E from Liquid Proust’s group buy. The first thing I will say is I doubt this is Lao Man E tea. It is BanZhang LaoManE brand tea. A brand King Tea sells a lot of and generally a good brand. They are not, however for the most part either BanZhang or LaoManE leaves in these teas. This one was strong and quite bitter. It had a kick your ass sort of bitterness in the first four or five steeps. This slowly turned into something sweeter although I would not use the word apricots. Overall this was a good tea and it may have some aging potential.
Drinking an unknown maocha I bought in Kunming a few days ago. Decent for the money, but tastes a little aged (not a bad thing). Sweet strawberry-like aroma, and also a bit of black tea. I’m getting less aroma at home than I was in Kunming, but I also just stepped off a two-hour-flight with the tea.
After the third infusion, I took a big shot of 100 proof rice wine from Dali, a touristy old town in Yunnan. I definitely feel the burn. Came in an amazing clay pot that you have to snap the top off to get to the liquor within!
I would love to visit Kunming someday. I suspect you live a lot closer than I do in New York.
If I ever went to Kunming I’d bring an empty suitcase with me to have space for all the tea I know I’d end up buying. Did you get to go to Yunnan Sourcing? I don’t even know if they sell tea directly or only online.
I’ve tasted a few that have that strawberry flair. Interestingly, some of it came from the eastern part of Yunnan, rather close to Viet.
The food section of the Walmart in Kunming is killer.
I got some fresh strawberry tasting maocha that they claimed was from Jingmai. Problem with tea markets in China is they’ll tell you absolutely anything to sell you tea. No scruples whatsoever! They’ll try to screw you in any way possible so you have to be on your toes. At the very least they’ll short you a few grams on the scale by not including the weight of the bag. I pointed this out, jokingly, and they threw more tea in.
Walmart does indeed sell tea, but nothing you’d want to buy. :) there are tea stores everywhere and massive tea markets, but you have to bargain your ass off to get a fair price. For any serious cakes I’ll stick to Taobao and the online sellers. I only brought home maocha, dianhong and cha tou. When I can buy direct from one of the largest Dayi dealers in Kunming at amazing prices, there was no reason to buy factory cakes, and the small producer stuff I tried was all subpar and overpriced. It made the western facing dealers look like tea warriors! I’ll gladly pay YS and Chawang prices, and after meeting Bitterleafteas I’d like to try their teas too.
Maocha is a serious pain to transport. I carried a kg in my hands, all the way from Kunming to my doorstep! Lol
2012 Bada Zhanglang raw today from CWS. This tea was as cheap as chips when I bought it, so I was expecting it to just be good, but to my surprise it was pretty great today. Sweet, tasty, some complexity and thickness, and a decent amount of qi. I can feel it a bit in the stomach, but it’s pretty comfortable as far as young puer goes.
1993 Wild Leaf Sheng from Red Blossom tea is amazing. I got super generous sample from teafriend. Very unusual notes I don’t find often in aged Sheng. It is savory and sweet. Fennel, allspice, cinnamon comes to mind. Really good with longer steeps I pushed to a minute and longer. Very dark and syrupy consistency.
What do yall think of Mandala Tea? Lots of their stuff is highly rated, but yet I don’t seem to hear much of them from the pu-heads. Back before I was familiar with puerh I got both sampler packs from them and was very impressed. Anybody love anything from Mandala Tea? Also, how do they compare to other highly-regarded companies like W2T, Yunnan Sourcing, etc?
I quite liked a sampler from them as well. I actually considered getting a mini-tong (700g) of one tea I particularly liked, but somehow talked myself out of it. They also appear to source some of their teas from Yunnan Sourcing, so probably have some similar tastes.
But ultimately, if you were impressed, isn’t that enough? We all have different tastes.
Definitely going to try and explore their lineup in the near future regardless of other’s opinions, but I am curious either way of your favorites or unique recommendations!
Well, my favorite was the 2012 Heart of the Old Tree. I had one session, in which I found the tea bracingly strong (generally a good thing in my book) due to astringency; complex, tasty, and qifull. The fact that I still remember it fondly perhaps tells you something.
Also, if you haven’t tried any Shaungjian Mengku factory teas yet you might give the 2012 Mu Ye Chun a sample. I quite enjoy the 2007 Mu Ye Chun, as have others. I’ve found what I’ve tried of Mengku’s cakes to be good, and without much of the hype that surrounds some other brands like Dayi.
90s Taiwan storage CNNP 7581. This tea sat on a shelf in Taipei for twenty years and morphed into sweet date and jujube with no off flavors at all. The best example of a well-aged natural storage shu I’ve ever had. I have high hopes for my HK home storage pu erh after tasting this stuff, and it was very reasonably priced too!
Storage makes more of a difference than year, IMO, unless you’re dealing with really new tea. I’ve had some EXTREMELY wet traditional storage 7581 (I have a brick of it) from HK that barely tastes like 7581, and only after airing out for months, and I have 12-13 bricks of Kunming-storage stuff from 2005 that arrived crispy and crumbly, and that I’m hoping I can revive with exposure to HK heat and humidity. I have some 2013/2014 stuff, too, that I won’t touch for a decade or two!
In Kunming last week, I needed a hoody at night and it was nice and comfortable during the day. None of the places I stayed at had air conditioning (there was no need). Got back to HK and took an airport shuttle home (only eight minutes from the airport). Lugged my suitcase through the mall and ended up covered in sweat by the time I got to my door. 100 degrees and 78% humidity! I have to say Kunming is a much nicer place to live, as far as weather goes, but HK or Taiwan would be my pick for tea storage.
7581 is my go to recipe for shu now. The taste of properly stored 7581 is exactly what I look for in shu pu erh.
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