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As chance has it I've reviewed 2003 and 2004 versions of Dayi (Taetea / Menghai) 7542 sheng pu'er versions in the last few months. One was from a Liquid Proust tasting set, the other from a local Chinatown shop.

Of course that second source raises an alarm that the version might not be genuine, and there's something to that concern. Per the shop owners they bought it at a Dayi outlet in 2004 themselves, quite a bit of the tea, so it's definitely not some type of knock-off. If you trust them, and I do. I didn't intend for it to go there but one post drifts through some discussion of reviewing how to tell if it's real (but it's definitely not a guide to identifying 7542 of that age, just a walk through some review).

Since I don't know the batch numbers of either there is a limit to tracing back to the origins. Storage input is enough of a concern that to me judging final outcome is more of an issue than sorting out cause and effect sequences, trying to isolate a starting point versus where it ended up, and why storage input worked out that way. The 2003 experienced "natural" Hong Kong storage, as presented, and the 2004 stayed where I live and that shop is, in Bangkok.

My take on natural storage is that it only relates to not controlling the environment to a set parameter level, so that it would fluctuate with seasons. Even though climate should be somewhat consistent in and around Hong Kong that would still vary a lot with specific locations. Hong Kong is much cooler than here, per my experience in visiting there a few times, and a bit less humid (but still humid), so presumably tea would age a lot slower. That's not what I experienced with those two versions though; the Liquid Proust 2003 version tasted like Liu Bao out of the gate, heavy on warm mineral towards slate or even cement block. The 2004 version stored here (Bangkok) was clean in character from the early rounds. I think air-flow contact changes a lot, but I'll skip the guessing about variable inputs here.

If longish review descriptions are of interest those follow:

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.co ... -puer.html

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.co ... sheng.html


I was thinking that I reviewed climate graphs in different places before, in order to back that claim that Hong Kong is less humid, but this post on all that doesn't mention Bangkok's graph:

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.co ... ative.html


Given the consistent high relative humidity in Hong Kong (70 to 80+ % RH) that can't be higher here, but given we're in essentially the same range and it's much, much hotter it definitely comes across as more humid. I was in Hong Kong last in March of 2019 and it was quite cold, as that graph in that post shows with averages being under 20 from December through March (in C; that's 68 F or less in "freedom" degrees, as someone mentioned in a discussion recently).

Hi.. some thoughts as I've been sorting through aged cakes from the mid Nineties thru till early Naughties...

Thoughts on storage...

1. as the teas age, to me it's more a matter of quality of storage. Natural storage in the sense of keeping things clean and well, natural is best, but most aged cakes available today unless home stored, would have experienced mixed storage at best...

2. The Bangkok tea you reviewed, from the reading I feel it needs time to air out and perhaps revitalise. Life as a tea cake in a window in a shop is harsh man. Is the shop air conditioned? The spent leaves look like they haven't fermented or at best had it retarded. Trick now is to kick it off again... Warmth and humidity in a tin can for a few weeks. When the can starts to smell nice...

3. The HKG stored cake sounds yummy man. Give it more air if you can, leave it alone for a bit and come back to it. Steep it as it feels because tea that age should do well with flash pours up to brew 5-6... The mustiness will leave and integrate with the mineral earthiness of the soft palate

Nice discussing, getting feedback.

1. As I take it natural storage relates to the environment not being controlled, not being held in a humidity and temperature adjusted environment, which could still relate to lots of different range. I'm not sure what "mixed storage" would mean. As for spending the time at home rather than in a warehouse, or other type of holding environment, I guess that difference would depend on conditions in those two or more types of places.

2. It's hard to imagine a shop selling teas that spent time sitting in the window. I saw tea stored like that in Hong Kong shops but just assumed that it was there for the long haul, converted to being a prop, a decoration. The cake I just bought spent most of the last 16 years in a dark, isolated place (I think), probably too isolated from any air contact for conditions to be optimum.

About the tea not fermenting, that would be best judged by looking at the color of the brewed tea and the completely wet leaves, wouldn't it? A friend just commented on how he thought 7542 blends tend to not turn as dark or as red as some other aged sheng versions (the brewed liquid), a comment I didn't find it easy to place. Maybe. The wet leaves are all but black; as I judge the aspects and that color implication this tea aged, it's well-fermented.

At this humidity level, or especially related to Malaysian storage, teas can go too far, and can pick up really musty character, or onto geosmin aspect range, tasting like dirt (literally). I don't think this was completely through a fermentation cycle but pretty far along. I associate those negative aspects with being stored too wet, in an environment with too much humidity, more than to a specific fermentation level, but that type of perspective is what I'm still working on.


3. The HK tea I only had a sample of; no way to check on how the cake is doing without buying one, and I didn't like it enough to even consider that as an option. It's hard to guess out with any certainty but I don't think that initial wet slate (Liu Bao-like) character stands much chance of fading. I took that as relating to degree of fermentation along with type of effect (now I might seem to be mixing ideas), which can't be "undone."

There's a good chance I'll have these sort of issues better sorted out later, so maybe that's completely wrong. That said I did buy some actual Liu Bao that was really musty once and after about a year a lot of that had dropped out, after it aired out, increasing in air contact for being stored in a sealed envelop I would open every few months.

I can explain part of that apparent contradiction. Mustiness seems to be one thing and geosmin / slate mineral / char character something else altogether. It seems like aged sheng can recover from certain types of storage condition inputs better than the process just going a bit far. On the dryer storage issue side people claim that a tea going flat, getting woody tasting, or even sour can only be reversed to a limited degree, but I don't have much exposure to that to have much opinion on it. To some extent I'm making informed guesses though, based on limited input. I've experienced cakes here "cleaning up" from seeming storage related mustiness, as that Liu Bao did, but I tend to not extend that expectation to one tasting like geosmin or char, or wet slate, as that 7542 did.