What Pu'er Are You Drinking

[thommes]

So far of all the shou pu I've been drinking, I really like the 2017 Nannuo Mini Mushroom Shou / Ripe Puerh from Crimson Lotus Tea. I bought "a lot" of it when it was on sale, but not enough. If anyone has had this tea and knows of similar tasting puers, I love to hear about them. The sad thing is unlike other puers this tea does not last long. I might get 3-4 8oz cups from it.

[thommes]

Decided to try another sheng. Broke into the aged puer sampler and grabbed 2003 Changtai "Ji Nian / Memorial" Sheng from CLT. I had to read the package a second time. Then I looked it up... and looked it up elsewhere. This sheng, and I know I have little experience, is nothing like a sheng! It's more like a shou. If aged sheng is like this tea... lord... I love aged sheng then. The liquor color and texture said shou. The taste said shou. All the other shengs I've tried have had a green tea like taste to them and the color is very light with a yellow/green tint. This tea brews dark brown. If you had put this tea in front of me and asked if it's a sheng or a shou, I would have lost EVERYTHING I own betting that it was a shou. So much to learn.

[debunix]

wish the cake I was prying into six hours ago was easy to break apart...still nursing my punctured blood vessel! Next time I’ll be using a special glove on my other hand. Never had a problem before, but the Bingslayer literally went from pointing at 12:00 to stabbing be at 9:00

Cut-resistant gloves, made with some metal thread knit into the fabric, are great for poking apart puerh* as well as for grating cheese and other tasks with high risk of shredding my skin.

*I use my chocolate breaker

most of the time for this, but sometimes use a letter-opener or a sturdy not-sharp tool from a swiss-army knife; I do not have a puerh-only tool.

[Noonie]

wish the cake I was prying into six hours ago was easy to break apart...still nursing my punctured blood vessel! Next time I’ll be using a special glove on my other hand. Never had a problem before, but the Bingslayer literally went from pointing at 12:00 to stabbing be at 9:00

Cut-resistant gloves, made with some metal thread knit into the fabric, are great for poking apart puerh* as well as for grating cheese and other tasks with high risk of shredding my skin.

*I use my chocolate breaker

most of the time for this, but sometimes use a letter-opener or a sturdy not-sharp tool from a swiss-army knife; I do not have a puerh-only tool.

I used a special glove like that day when I broke up a couple cakes. No injury this time!

[Stephen]

Highlights of the past week:

2012 Ming Shen Hao Bulang shou. Got this four years ago from CWS and it's starting to shine. Quality leaves and lighter fermentation. Organic even - if that's to be believed.

Jinggu sheng. A 100g cake from YS. Strong yet smooth. Juicy and just a touch smoky. Can't remember the year. Pictured here. If anyone recognizes it let me know!

[ali.r.quliyev]

Had some loose shou from 1980 yesterday: a trade sample from a HK vendor after we got talking about traditional storage shu pu. He gave it to me at the beginning of the month, and absolutely made my day with it since I was born in 1980. I saved the sample for my birthday (yesterday), and put the whole 12g or so into a 185ml green label zini shuiping (HK market exclusive, made to a higher standard than normal for Factory 1).

It was very smooth and pleasant and still had some good, thick liquor in the second infusion. There was also some residual bitterness, which I didn't expect. Most of the traditional storage taste has aged out and the tea had more longevity than two of us could handle! I finished it off this morning and got two very solid infusions out of the material. A lovely tea, and it was both calming and energizing.

Good day dear friend.

I'm seeking Chinese and indian teas from 1980. Maybe you could advise me how I can find it.
Thank you in advance. Seeking Vintage India Tea

[tealifehk]

Had some loose shou from 1980 yesterday: a trade sample from a HK vendor after we got talking about traditional storage shu pu. He gave it to me at the beginning of the month, and absolutely made my day with it since I was born in 1980. I saved the sample for my birthday (yesterday), and put the whole 12g or so into a 185ml green label zini shuiping (HK market exclusive, made to a higher standard than normal for Factory 1).

It was very smooth and pleasant and still had some good, thick liquor in the second infusion. There was also some residual bitterness, which I didn't expect. Most of the traditional storage taste has aged out and the tea had more longevity than two of us could handle! I finished it off this morning and got two very solid infusions out of the material. A lovely tea, and it was both calming and energizing.

Good day dear friend.

I'm seeking Chinese and indian teas from 1980. Maybe you could advise me how I can find it.
Thank you in advance. Seeking Vintage India Tea

Hi Ali! Welcome to the site. I have the 1980s HK traditional storage loose shou up on my website:

http://www.tealifehk.com

I wouldn't know where to start as far as 1980s Indian tea!

[ali.r.quliyev]

Had some loose shou from 1980 yesterday: a trade sample from a HK vendor after we got talking about traditional storage shu pu. He gave it to me at the beginning of the month, and absolutely made my day with it since I was born in 1980. I saved the sample for my birthday (yesterday), and put the whole 12g or so into a 185ml green label zini shuiping (HK market exclusive, made to a higher standard than normal for Factory 1).

It was very smooth and pleasant and still had some good, thick liquor in the second infusion. There was also some residual bitterness, which I didn't expect. Most of the traditional storage taste has aged out and the tea had more longevity than two of us could handle! I finished it off this morning and got two very solid infusions out of the material. A lovely tea, and it was both calming and energizing.

Good day dear friend.

I'm seeking Chinese and indian teas from 1980. Maybe you could advise me how I can find it.
Thank you in advance. Seeking Vintage India Tea

Hi Ali! Welcome to the site. I have the 1980s HK traditional storage loose shou up on my website:

http://www.tealifehk.com

I wouldn't know where to start as far as 1980s Indian tea!

Thank you! I will check your web-site.

[Bok]

Here we see the limits of tea categories... had a wild dashu as seen below given to me by a friend. Fresh Puerh leaves, yet not fermented or aged or anything, so the resulting brew is closer to a light oolong.

Amazingly sweet and citrusy aromas from the dry, dark green leaves.

The brew has notes of dried apple, something I’ve noticed a couple of times with Puerh, young and old. Compared to my previous atrocious experience with fresh Puerh, this one is de-light-ful. Not a very strong tea overall, but clean and it leaves a powerful coating in the throat, again dried apples, that lingers for a long time.

Nice for a change, but I would probably not invest the fortune that this kind of old tree costs nowadays...

[thommes]

Here we see the limits of tea categories... had a wild dashu as seen below given to me by a friend. Fresh Puerh leaves, yet not fermented or aged or anything, so the resulting brew is closer to a light oolong.

Amazingly sweet and citrusy aromas from the dry, dark green leaves.

The brew has notes of dried apple, something I’ve noticed a couple of times with Puerh, young and old. Compared to my previous atrocious experience with fresh Puerh, this one is de-light-ful. Not a very strong tea overall, but clean and it leaves a powerful coating in the throat, again dried apples, that lingers for a long time.

Nice for a change, but I would probably not invest the fortune that this kind of old tree costs nowadays...

Hi Bok. Your message raises some questions. Dashu? I looked this term up. I doubt that you mean uncle? Is this in reference to the province in China? so the tea came from that province?

Fresh pu leaves? I get that the leaves are not fermented but what then makes the leaves specifically pu leaves? Is it just that the tea leaves from that area are typically made into pu? So you're basically tasting the leaves before the fermentation process is performed and the shou is aged? That would be interesting to taste a sample of the stock to see how it compares to both the sheng and the shou made from the leaves.

[Bok]

@thommes how do you look up a term in Chinese written in Latin characters? Chinese is more complicated than that, you’d need the Chinese characters for that. Any given Latin transcription has a variety of possible characters with different pronunciations.

In this case it means “big tree” 大樹. So wild big tree leaves, which also means old tree growth as young ones won’t be big

Puerh tea varietal. So what you make of it is another matter. But the base material is
Puerh tea leaves. Not automatically what is consumed mostly now. The farmers there almost only drink Maocha, means the almost un processed fresh tea leaves. It wasn’t until the 80s that the worth of aged tea was really discovered and the boom began. So what makes a Puerh is the leaf, not the processing. But as the tea is typically processed in a certain way it has become synonymous with fermented tea.

In my case it wasn’t pressed in cakes or aged. Normally that would not be fit for consumption, too bitter and aggressive on the body, but this one is delicious.

[thommes]

thommes how do you look up a term in Chinese written in Latin characters? Chinese is more complicated than that, you’d need the Chinese characters for that. Any given Latin transcription has a variety of possible characters with different pronunciations.

In this case it means “big tree” 大樹. So wild big tree leaves, which also means old tree growth as young ones won’t be big

Puerh tea varietal. So what you make of it is another matter. But the base material is
Puerh tea leaves. Not automatically what is consumed mostly now. The farmers there almost only drink Maocha, means the almost un processed fresh tea leaves. It wasn’t until the 80s that the worth of aged tea was really discovered and the boom began. So what makes a Puerh is the leaf, not the processing. But as the tea is typically processed in a certain way it has become synonymous with fermented tea.

In my case it wasn’t pressed in cakes or aged. Normally that would not be fit for consumption, too bitter and aggressive on the body, but this one is delicious.

Your message didn't have the chinese character, just dashu. So I googled dashu and google suggested uncle or a province in China. The search results did bring up the term gushu, ancient tree, and if I had looked closely I might have figured out that dashu meant something specific about a tree. Not sure why dashu meaning big tree wasn't found. No worries, when I don't understand something I post here.

Where did you learn that puerh tea was varietal? Of all the articles I've read, none of them mentioned that puer tea came from a specific variety of tree. The articles only mention the fermentation process that distinguishes puer tea from the rest of the types of teas. I had heard of maocha and knew that it was basically raw tea leaves. So is that what you're saying that you basically drank? So do you think that the difference in the with this fresh pu and the others you've had was that the leaves came from a more mature tree and that made the difference in the taste?

Thanks for the info.

[Bok]

Maybe someone with deeper knowledge on Puerh can chime in, but I was under the impression that there are different varietals among Puerh, same as it is in Taiwanese teas, e.g. qingxin, jinxuan, sichichun, tieguanyin. Most teas are camellia sinensis as the main group and then subdivided I’m smaller and smaller categories. Surely the leaf of a Puerh is not the same as it is for a longjing/Yancha/Dancong etc.

I am not sure if what I had is just young Puerh/maocha or green Puerh. Need to ask my friend. The old growth tree would explain why it doesn’t have the unpleasantness of a standard young Puerh from younger bushes.

[mrmopu]

Here are some common terms for puerh.
Gu Shu ( ancient tree ) , Dan Zhu ( single tree ), Lao Qiao Mu ( old arbor ), Lao Shu ( old tree ) , Da Shu ( big tree ), Qiao Mu ( arbor tree ) , Mu Shu ( mother tree ) , Xiao Shu ( small tree ) , Xiao Qiao Mu ( small arbor ) , Tai Di Cha ( bush / tableland tea )

[.m.]

Where did you learn that puerh tea was varietal? Of all the articles I've read, none of them mentioned that puer tea came from a specific variety of tree. The articles only mention the fermentation process that distinguishes puer tea from the rest of the types of teas. I had heard of maocha and knew that it was basically raw tea leaves.

There are many varietal involved in puerh. There small leaf/big leaf varietals, wild purple, wild bitter, etc. And there's the terroir. In the end, any tea that is a) processed as puerh b) comes from certain geographic area of yunnan, is a puerh.
Processing is extremely important in puerh (at least in sheng). It affects how the tea will age. Even though local people in yunnan might have drinked puerh mostly young, the processing that is conductive to good aging was likely one that was in demand by the tea merchants.
I dont believe that aging puerh was "discovered" in the 80's. You can still encounter chinese herbal shops, where tea is sold as medicinal herb, and aged tea is appreciated for its properties (and so are some other herbs, like chen pi). The 80's are more the time of certain cultural shift, when new trends of tea appreciation emerged, at least in Taiwan, and the market for aged tea started to grow slowly (but really took of in the early 2000's).