PuerhShop.com

The last of my samples provided by Tommy. This one goes down real smooth and doesn’t have much else to it other than earthiness, but I’m enjoying that earthiness a lot. I’m really enjoying pu-erh right now, I think I’ll actually buy some soon.

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while after a swap with Tommy I’ve been steeping it for the past 4 days. After having it and other Touchas, in the future when buying Pu-Erh I will probably say I could have had a V8. All I have to say is holy cow! Eight! Eight lovely dark Pu-Erh pots from one toucha. Notice I didn’t say cups. It’s very smooth. Dark like coffee. Unfortunately I think the stash is all gone cause I can not find it on the website any more. Sadness. This is a very good offering though.

I thought I was out of tea but then I remembered that I had a couple samples left from Tommy, this being one of them. Now having a little experience with ripe pu-erh, I was very curious about trying a raw pu-erh. This one was very simple, clean, and approachable. It was very mellow with little to no odor, and a pleasant flavor that is hard for me to describe. I guess I would say it was a little earthy (but in a light and pleasant way), with a slight alkaline flavor. It felt very organic and was different than any other tea I’ve experienced. Although I’m not quite convinced that a pu-erh is my “cup of tea”, I like this quite a bit, thanks Tommy.

The Shu was rather interesting. It had a very mild duiwei. I usually like my ripe puerhs to have a far stronger aroma, but I thought I’d take a chance with this one.

After the initial wash, I took notice that the leaves gave off quite the pleasant aroma. I was quickly captivated by this puerh. The first brew was a rather light golden brown color and also had a very light earthy flavor, even woodiness to it. The second was a bit bolder of a flavor, still retaining a bit of astringency to it, but not necessarily in a negative way. I found the third brew to be the best. There was just a perfect balance between flavor, color, and aroma. The later infusion were still great, up to about the 6th brew. Then the intensity of flavor began to fade quickly. I maxed out the tea at about 10 steeps.

I actually like this Pu quite a bit, and I will be looking forward to trying it again in a few months.

Delicious! Simply put, this tea has a fruity sweetness that I haven’t tasted in a while. There is a light astringency to it, but not at all bad. Did not get more than 10 brews (last one did steep for about 6 minutes), but the flavor stayed rather consistent until the end.

Also, a very faint woodiness to it that I thoroughly loved. Great tea. Cannot wait to buy more and age them a bit more.

Highly Recommend this Pu!

A sample I purchased, I love the aroma of the wet leaves after brewing – wood smoke and lemon. Very nice!

Overall, I think PuerhShop has done a good job of describing this one. It does seem to be aging nicely and shedding off bitterness. It does have a bit of smoke present in the flavor. I am finding it slightly tart, a bit of apple cider notes. Some definite astringency is hitting me on the back end. I might have to spend some more time with this one but for me, personally I’m not sure it’s a keeper. Would I buy a whole cake? No. It’s 8 years old now and I’d say it still has a way to go and I’m not one of those people that collects pu-erhs for the purpose of aging them. I prefer some of their milder shengs I’ve sampled recently but I suppose it depends on what you are looking for.

3rd and 4th infusions are starting to mellow out a bit and are getting sweeter and fruitier, but I am still on the fence a bit about this tea.

Prepared gong fu style

Just received the AH 1005 today in the mail, alongside a vast selection of other Pu’s from PuerhShop. I decided to use my gaiwan for some gongfu, since my only yixing at the moment is reserved for Raw puerh.

Ok, well this ripe pu had a great aroma to begin with. Had that Duiwei (pond/fishy smell) that I seek for in puerh. After rinsing the leaves I began steeping the pu starting at about 10 secs and adding 5 for every succeeding infusion. The liquor started out a dark, opaque brown and the aroma enthralled me. I must say, I was rather disappointed in the flavor though. Not as strong as I originally anticipated. I did a few more infusions before I finally began tasting those bolder flavors that I love so much. After the 11th infusion though I knew that it was pretty much done.

Don’t recommend this tea if you like stronger Puerh. Great for the price, though.

I had never heard of Liu Bao tea until I found it on the PuerhShop.com website… and since this is my first Liu Bao I don’t know if it is good or bad compared to other ones.

I found this little article on Red Circle tea about how Liu Bao is made incase you’re interested: http://www.redcircletea.com/blog/?p=183

Anyway, onto the tea, this comes in a paper bag, excellent, no plastic always a bonus! I guess this tea is good when it’s aged as well, which means it’s probably better to store it in paper so it has a chance to breathe. The dry leaf does look a bit like a loose leaf pu-erh and I did pick up on some camphor notes just from smelling this in the bag.

I am steeping this gong fu style and I am really just loving it! There’s a slight hint of camphor here and the tea has some interesting notes similar to pu-erh, like woodsy and earthy but is much lighter, with excellent sweetness and a round mouthfeel. A bit of fruitiness is lingering there in the background. And I wish I wasn’t still a bit congested because I’m sure there are some things present here which I can’t even pick up on yet.

I will definitely be re-ordering this, very nice!

This is my afternoon tea. I’ve been trying to drink more of my shus in the cold weather because that’s when I seem to crave them the most. According to Chinese medicine pu’erh tea is a good antidote for dampness so maybe that explains it.

I have about 1/2 the cake left. In comparison to the Zi Yun cake, this isn’t as creamy and smooth. It has more of a woody and cherry flavor in my opinion. It is a beautiful color and brews up to a nice reddish-brown. I don’t seem to get sick of this one. If you think shu puerhs all taste of fermentation and fish, you should really check this one out. It hardly has any fermentation flavor and tastes more like a really good black tea. I would even drink this as a breakfast tea.

Steeped about 8 times today before it lost flavor and I gave up on it…

I feel like I should go through my puerhs and log them into the cupboard. I have 2 shoeboxes full of puerh and I don’t think they’re all there. I’ve heard of people complaining that Steepster dropped some teas out of their cupboard recently and that makes me wonder if I should spend the time. Is anyone still having problems?

For some reason I haven’t been drinking a lot of puerhs lately. It’s not often I break out a shu and even less often I break out a sheng, even though I have two boxes of each. I should really remedy that situation! One reason is for this oversight is I usually drink puerh tea in the afternoons, but lately I haven’t been drinking any caffeinated teas after noon. However, today I have my first writing class tonight and I thought it would be beneficial to be more alert than I normally am… ;-)

I did several steeps of this in my yixing teapot. I’m getting some interesting notes that remind me a bit of coffee or bittersweet chocolate. I recall I liked this cake a lot when I first tried it, and it still seems really good to me. I gave up on wanting more after the 4th steep but I’m glad I revisited this.

Wow – this is delicious. Overnight it seems like I’ve become a Menghai factory tea convert!

This little cake is 100 grams and comes in a cute red box, well what more could you ask for?

I broke off a small piece and did two short steeps in the gaiwan for around 30 seconds to make the cup of tea I am drinking now. This has a slight “forest floor” aroma but it just really smooth, creamy, slightly sweet and with a bit of fruity aftertaste. Smells a bit musty, but IMO no weird “off” flavors like barnyard, fishy, etc. But I always rinse my puerh in boiling water before the first steep.

Definitely a tasty little shu. I wish I had more time to linger over this one but I have to get myself ready for the SF International Tea Festival today!!!

I am finally finishing off this sample today. This is a fairly nice cuppa in my opinion, especially for the price. It is still $14.90 for the entire cake on Puerhshop.com. Why does that make me suspicious?? I want to believe that a really expensive tea is better somehow. :-P

This has a nice woodsy flavor and seems citrusy/orange to me with some effervescent quality. The finish is definitely on the bitter side but not overwhelmingly so. This is quite a good bargain, I can’t find anything really bad to say about it, only it seems a bit stale which is probably my fault as I’ve stored it improperly in an old ziploc bag. I would like to try some more puerhs from Jingmai mountain. Anyone else have a favorite?

I still have quite a bit of this sample left that I purchased from PuerhShop.com, but I don’t know how well it is aging in a ziploc bag.

So this tea is 5 years old now and I think it is aging nicely so far. It still has a bit of wildness in the finish of the flavor, but is mostly mellow with nice woodsy flavors and a bit of smoke. I am drinking this out of the xiying teapot this morning, it’s been nice to revisit this one. I would consider buying a cake of this but maybe I should work on drinking more of the teas I have :)

Another sheng sample from Puershop.com. :)

I gave this one a quick rinse and steeped it for about 45 seconds in an infuser mug, it’s light yellow and is mildly smoky and woodsy with a sweet aftertaste. This is a nice mellow sheng which is certainly ready to drink now. It doesn’t have a lot of complexity, I assume that might evolve over time as this is only 3 years old. I liked it though, it’s quite ready to drink now if you wanted to….

It’s time for the afternoon pu-erh ritual, and I’m finishing off the last one of these that were generously sent to me by Tommy – delicious!

Yesterday I was at home sick and plotting my next order from PuerhShop.com, they sure have a lot of great stuff! I will probably get more of these. See my previous notes. :)

I’m keeping the pu-erh addiction alive today… lol

One reason these are great for the office is I can use the same leaf for hours and keep going back to the hot water dispenser to steep it for 30 seconds or so which cuts down on the amount of times I have to get up. :)

Normally I’m not so keen on touchas especially since they can be made with inferior ingredients….

I thought this was great, very flavorful and nice shu with the chinese date, or jujube aroma. Supposedly a very smooth Menghai taste, I’m just starting to learn what that is. :)

It’s smooth and mellow with no grit like you sometimes find after steeping a tuocha (is that from dust, I don’t know?) I am enjoying the redwood type flavor with fruitiness in the finish. It reminds me a bit of raisins rather than dates, but you get the point.

No weird off flavors or fishiness… and no camphor. I only got four of these but I wish I had gotten more – they’re nice!

I really think I might buy one of these cakes after trying the sample. It’s nice to find a sheng that is mild like this and has a nice sweet aftertaste instead of bitter. I upped the rating a few points today.

I find that the more sheng I drink the more I sort of come to crave it and like it…

This came as a sample from Puershop.com, the sample was pretty inexpensive and they give you a good amount to play around with. This is not an expensive cake anyway, the entire beeng is only $19.

This tastes like what it is, a Chinese green tea. It’s slightly earthy and woodsy with no extreme astringent or bitter flavors, it has a bit of a sweet aftertaste. I did accidentally leave my first steep too long which made the tea pretty harsh. But, I should know better! My second steep was around 30 seconds and that was a good amount for this one.

I’m not a sheng expert but thought this was a good value for the price, especially if you can keep the steeping times very short. It did not blow my mind but it’s quite ready to drink now…

One way I have made this tea better is by mixing it with ginger root, now it seems as good as most flavored pu-erhs I have had… ha ha.

I did start airing this out at home in my cupboard to see if I could get the weird odor to dissipate. From what I have read it isn’t a good idea to store pu-erh in plastic anyway. It does seem better than it did when I first tried it – I am upped the score a teeny bit today. This is not a world class pu-erh but it was very affordable and benefited greatly by a hot water rinse and short steeping times. I will probably finish the cake someday but will not be in a big hurry to do so. I think it needs more time to air out, frankly.

Mediocre pu-erh is just so sad…

This came with my recent order from PuerShop.com, after I placed the order I read the other reviews and I was really wishing I had NOT ordered it because they are quite dismal. In any case the entire beeng was only $18 so I’m not losing out on much by trying it.

I broke off a small chunk of it to stick it in an infuser mug. I definitely wanted to rinse this one quite thoroughly. After that I let it steep for about 1 minute. I’m not getting any aromas of a dirty pond, which is what I was afraid of from the first review. But okay, it might be a tad bit “eau du barnyard”.

This is kind of woodsy, and earthy, it also has a big chocolate-y element. It isn’t the most interesting shu I’ve ever had it terms of flavor and quality but it isn’t that bad either… I didn’t think it was very light like another reviewer said. Could there be a vast difference in the quality of these beengs or maybe I just don’t know what I am talking about when it comes to pu-erhs? lol. It’s true I’ve only been drinking them for about a year.

Since I have the whole cake I might just let this one air out and age for a while too…

I found this cake stored away in the back of a closet recently. With longer steep times it has a slightly stronger scent with a hint of smoke, decidedly amber color, but the flavor is still mild and there is little mouth feel. It’s not bad, just bland and I can’t see bothering to brew it again.