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Spring 2014 Bing Dao raw pu'er from Terre de Ciel in France.

Welcome to Northern Italy. 26°C, 67% humidity. Time for pu'erh!




2018 Jing Mai Mountain from Yunnan Sourcing. A nice shu, smooth and full-bodied.
Also featuring the last of Stefan Andersson's shibos from puer.sk. I was lucky enough to catch this beauty before they ran out.

Oh, nice to see your hygrometer and beautiful Shiboridashi. Pu’erh sound good too Looks like summer is around the corner in northern Italy.

Victoria wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 07, 2019 12:43 pm

Oh, nice to see your hygrometer and beautiful Shiboridashi. Pu’erh sound good too Looks like summer is around the corner in northern Italy.

Summer lasts longer for me - say from april to mid-october - but yeah, most people would say it's coming. A good time to stock up on pu'erh.

Dipping into some 2007 Wu Liang "Single Arbor" Purple Sheng Puer that has been in dry storage since receiving it as a gift 12 years ago. I remember this being very strong when I tried it new. It has aged quite nicely, much smoother but retaining some astringency/bitterness that balances the floral and sweetness, thick mouth feel, hints of green apple.

This is inspiring. I feel like I should go back and revisit some of my puerh at least once a year, in some semi-organized way, with notes.

2016 Yunnan Sourcing Mang Zhi Ancient Arbor raw pu'er. I am still working on finishing off all these samples I have accumulated!

2019 White2Tea Astro Kittens
BItterness with an underlying dragonwell note. Definite lao man e vibes. Maybe the green tea taste is because it is so young, could visit again in a few months. It's really bitter, and not particularly sweet. There might even be man xing long in here, it seems like all the bitter areas mixed together. It doesn't contain that bulang sweetness or complex bulang flavors. It's as if my entire tongue only had bitter taste buds and was full of grapefruit peel.
That's what it said on the tin, so... when I'm in the mood for something upsettingly hardcore, I know what to drink.

Had a bit of a marathon session with some friends yesterday:
- Naka 2018 (CSH) - good as always, might be a blend but if so it's a solid one.

- Liu An 2001

- 90s Yiwu - smooth and grounding, some humid storage but not overdone.

- Last Thoughts 2016 (W2T) - sweet grass? not my kind of tea. Yet to find a w2t sheng I actually find above average.

- Padian Fall 2018 (KTM) - Excellent value and no surpise its sold out

- 2005 Yiwu (YangpinHao) - very good, broad flavour profile and so very comforting. Some very fruity notes in the longer steeps. Wish I had stocked up on more of this before the price hike from $60 -> $100

- A cheap mid/late 2000s nian jian tuo that thanks to some great Taiwan storage punches far above its weight.

- 2003 Brown Changtai - When I first had this a few years ago I wasn't sure what the fuss was about, now it is one of my
favourites.

- 2017 Jingdong Wild from EoT - a shadow of what it used to be. This is the second EoT tea that has just been flat and subdued about 18 months after purchase. Makes me question my storage except all my other teas are thriving. Confused and a bit sad as both teas are amongst my favourites. Fingers crossed that they are just going through a sleepy phase.

A friend gave me this cake. It doesnt have a date anywhere that I see, but my guess is 8-10 years old. It still has some of its wild youth character left, but is definitely starting to age. I'm looking forward to see how it mellows and developed over time. I think it has some good promise.

All I know is it says Yiwu gushu ... I take that with a grain of salt, but it is nice. Does anyone recognize this wrapper?

2017 Yunnan Sourcing Zhang Jia Wan raw pu'er. A very pleasant tea. From the sample one can see that the leaves have been compressed to almost like an iron cake.

Rickpatbrown wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 17, 2019 10:18 pm

A friend gave me this cake. It doesnt have a date anywhere that I see, but my guess is 8-10 years old. It still has some of its wild youth character left, but is definitely starting to age. I'm looking forward to see how it mellows and developed over time. I think it has some good promise.

All I know is it says Yiwu gushu ... I take that with a grain of salt, but it is nice. Does anyone recognize this wrapper?

20190615_135236.jpg

500g cake sold as 2002 and 2005 year. price below 100CNY in Kunming. hope didn't ruin the "special" moment more than likely tai di cha , stored in Menghai or made in GZ ( if wet notes ). Important to enjoy the taste. Even if 05y , it wouldn't be that cheap, so I guess it's one of those "fast matured" products. That's the way they do it here. Mature few years (2-3) in GZ then bring it to KM and sell as 10+ years.
So if that's the case, drink it now, coz it's not going to mature much ( that fast maturing is sort of fermentation ) , so leafs can continue better mature if create at least the same environment as it was before ( means hot and wet like in GZ ). If bring to dry place, the aging seriously slows down and u might not the spot the difference in 1 year or two. And what could happen is , that leafs have certain moisture right now, so I bet it's very vivid scent / aromatic etc. Well, in 1 or 2 year that will dry off and tea will turn to the "hey" like taste, like dry grass. You will experience woody notes but too woody without any other taste.
To sum this up : I'd suggest to have it as daily drinker and enjoy the tea.
For storage / aging need to choose bit different models.
Just in simple exmp: It's like when u cook food on high temperature for 1h and next day u think need cook more, so use low temp. and maybe just 10min , hoping that food will cook properly , but in matter of fact u just heat it up. Im not sure if this is understandable example
Basically the tea got some "extreme" conditions ( hot & wet ) , so the minor conditions ( moderate humidity and short time storage ) not going to make noticeable changes. Probably same as exercising muscles , heavy weight from beginning and light weight after not going to boost the muscle neither gain the size.
Enzymes in leaf got that extreme "training" from beginning, so have been transformed to stage where need more time to be noticeable. Like when u cut hair and longer it grows, less change ( length ) is visible

hope those examples help to understand a bit

KTM's Padian Fall 2018 - Finished my second small cake. Ticks most of the boxes for what I look for in young sheng.

Xiaguan 2005 T8653 Thick paper - Didn't hit the spot quite as much as usual, which I think has more to do with what I was in the mood for rather than the tea itself.

Next up the CYH 2011 jincha.

Drinking Xishuangbanna Single Trunk Ancient Tree Aged Sheng Pu Erh -- has a very oily mouthfeel and is satisfying to drink. Leaves have been aged for 18 years.