PuerhShop.com

A handful of these little guys showed up in the mailbox today. They are cute little flat disks. I told my little boy (5YO) that they were candy. His excitement was short-lived.
Anyway, I tossed one into my Yixing pot,and gave it a quick wash. The dry tuocha aroma was unremarkable. With the addition of hot water, the tea comes to life. I was surprised to see the cake break apart so quickly, but this doesn’t seem to affect its endurance. I’m on number 6 or 7 steep, and this tea is showing no signs of waning.

The aroma of the wet leaves is fairly typical puerhy. Leather, wet soil, barky are my first impressions…all favorable and not overwhelming. There is a hint of ….hmmm… maybe soapiness, in a nice way. A slightly refreshing aromatic ending. Maybe they say this is the date, but its kinda soapy for me.

As for the taste, this one is smooth. In my opinion, this relatively thick, deep mahogany colored liquor is one of the smoothest and mellowest I’ve tasted. This attribute is the high point for this tea. What it has in smoothness, it lacks in depth of flavor. From steep to steep, there is a certain monotony in this tea. An expert would refer to this as “lack of rhythm”. With an undoubtedly pleasant taste, I am not too disappointed. I just would like to be able to decipher an evolution of flavors. This tea leaves me with a reasonably clean finish, but without that certain numbing pleasantness we can see in really good Puerhs.
The positive: clean, pleasant flavor, good endurance, nice aroma.
The negative: lack of rhythm.

Overall a nice tea and well worth drinking. Also the quality/price ratio is very high.

No notes yet.

This review is going to be done in my new yixing teapot from teavivre so some of the points I’m making will be about the teapot.

Dry smell: This tea has a very nice dry smell. It has no fishiness. It is lighter and sweeter smelling than various other puerhs I’ve tried. It has a light aroma of wet tree bark and a dough like smell.

Taste: This tea has a nice dry flavor. I can sense a woody flavor and also a wet earthy flavor. It is a lot darker flavor than I expected. Although it is not sweet like it smelled, it has no astringency and is very smooth. I can still taste what I sensed as the doughy smell. It tastes like a cracker. This is a nice smooth Puerh and I’ll be ordering more soon.

Wet smell: The wet smell is a lot like the dry smell, it is just lacking the sweet scent. The pot adds a deep earthy smell

What the pot does: I drank this tea a couple times before I got my yixing pot from my gaiwan. I was somewhat skeptical of how much the yixing would actually affect the flavor but there is a notable difference. It gets rid of the natural sharpness the tea has and flattens it out. I can tell it is absorbing some of the flavor because it is slightly lighter, and I am very excited to see what the pot provides after it is fully seasoned.

This tea is extraordinarily drinkable; it has a kind of “creamy” texture. I don’t like this type of tea as well as the “rawer” green puerh variety, but as far as it goes it is quite delicious and flavorful, and makes one think of what an ideal Darjeeling tea might taste like…with absolutely no bitterness or tannins.

I’m guessing that this is typical, run-of-the-mill, puerh tea, hence, its agreeable price. The taste is “earthy” but not disagreeable. No bells or whistles, and quite mild in body. The brick itself is extremely dry and brittle. The physical effect is nice; it’s quite drinkable — one could do much worse for an everyday puerh tea! By the third infusion, this has the feel of a very satisfying puerh tea, but still nothing to write home about. I consider this a “value” tea, rather than a stellar standout.

“Aroma” is right, but it’s funky…quite fishy and maybe a little smoky….not exactly inviting. The tea is quite drinkable, but for all its “aroma” has hardly any flavor. Seems mild in effect also. Every time I steep a pot it’s like I’m standing outside of a fish-processing plant. Hard to believe anyone really enjoys this smell. Tea is brownish red in color, which gets deeper by the potful. I find that as the day wears on, I’m not looking forward to drinking more….it’s a little bit like drinking sewage. It’s basically a caffeine delivery vehicle.

This is without question the blandest puerh tea I’ve ever tasted. There is nothing disagreeable about it, but that’s only because there’s nothing there! It seemed weak in every respect…I tried steeping it longer than normal but it made little difference.

Yet another sample and a bit too small for me to be able to give a true review of it as I normally use a bit more ripe puerh at a time. Despite brewing light it has a smooth edge to it. Even though this ripe puerh was said to be made with really premium leaves I can not really tell that much of a difference. Sure it is a good puerh on its own merits but if you expect this one to be special or above the rest then you will be in for a disappointing cup of tea.

Another sample so once again this review is based upon a single session. Nothing really stood out to me as that remarkable of this tea as it is more of a standard young sheng that one can drink young without being overwhelmed with harshness. The only thing that stood out was when I forgot about in infusion that the result was stronger but still very drinkable.

Another free sample from PuerhShop so this is based on a single shot brew. I flash brewed it in a gaiwan with pretty good results. Overall the tea comes off as a light and sweet brew that comes off as being closer to a green tea than sheng puerh. Also for people that have a sensitive stomach when it comes to sheng this seems to be a very stomach friendly sheng.

2006 Dayi 7572, this one has a sweet aroma from the dry cake and after the first rinse it turned into a slightly sweet mushoomy type aroma that is very nice it takes you to the edge of a damp forest after the rain at dusk and you smell the sweet forest floor covered with mushrooms and other strange things. 1st infusion you are walking into that forest and dusk is now night and you can taste the woods and earth and mushrooms. 2nd infusion and your nearing the middle of the forest and the woods are getting thicker and the mushrooms are huge and and it’s much darker about midnight now. 3rd infusion you decide to have a sit down on the forest floor for a while you are surrounded by a ring of mushrooms and its very dark, you hear a sound in the distant but you don’t mind you are peaceful and calm, you loose yourself for a while as you close your eyes and drink in the forest….bliss. 4th infusion you open your eyes and you see that its not quite as dark as before you know that dawn must be near so you stand up and start leaving the thick dark forest, its light enough now that you can find your way home. 5th infusion you’ve made it out of the thick forest into the outer woods it is dawn now and you can see you house through the sticks and shrubs you take one last look back at the dark forest and as you turn back around you are at your table and you realize that you did not just have a walk through a Dark Damp Forest from Dusk till Dawn, You just spent an hour with a really great tea that’s all. I’ve heard a saying before that went something like “each cup of tea is an imaginary journey” This Tea was an amazing Journey!I’ve had this similar aroma and experience from many puerh and its always strangely enjoyable, this is what tea can do for you if you let it :)

http://toadsteablog.blogspot.com/

At the time of my first purchase I had no Clue about this “Golden
Flowers” so I was like WTF is this in my Tea? I later learned
about it and realized that I love it, Before I knew about it I wouldn’t
keep the first purchase in the house My only though was to get that
Fungus as far away from Lance as possible(gave it to my brother)
because I didn’t realize it was harmless to him too,
I thought it may damage his lungs
because he isn’t well (long Story) but that is a thing of the past and
now that I know we can both enjoy the Fu Zhuan.
It’s nothing spectacular but I enjoy it a lot it has a very earthy
flavor and It does kinda taste haylike to me, I use it when I make
my Butter Tea and use it for other recipes also.
This Tea looks like something you would not want to drink, it is
full of stems and sticks and the leaves really look old and crusty
but it really is not bad, This particular one has less “Golden Flower”
but still tastes pretty good. Very smooth and kinda hard to
actually describe the taste it almost has a raw/green puerh taste
but brews up like a ripe puerh tho I personally wouldn’t even call it
a Puerh myself it is something else. The Gold dust is good and not
scary at all you guys should try this one. This one has very little “Golden
Flower”

http://toadsteablog.blogspot.com/

The saga of the sore throat continues. I put absolutely no thought into this tea selection; it was the first thing I pulled out of my pu’er box. I just needed something hot on the throat, no more. It satisfies that purpose well enough. The taste is pretty unremarkable though. It’s not bad; it just tastes like very standard sheng. It’s pretty docile though, doesn’t seem as dry as some other sheng (which is good, the last thing I want is any more dryness in my throat). It does get pretty repulsively sour if left oversteeped though. Ever since coming across that weird strong sourness in another pu’er I tried, I seem to be very aware of it in other sheng, and I really don’t think I like it. It’s not like lemon-sour, it’s a savory sour, like vinegar or curdled milk. I wonder if that’s just a standard sheng characteristic (and I’m odd in finding it unpleasant) or if it’s something that can be avoided. I need to go back and try some of my favorite sheng with this newly-developed palette and see if I can find the sourness in them.

On a random note, I went to the farmer’s market today and picked up some radishes. Really spicy radishes. So I find myself wondering, what kind of tea would pair well with radishes? Hmmmm..

A nice thicker and smooth ripe puerh. Early infusions had a slight malty edge mixed in with the smoothness that gave way to pure smoothness in later infusions. Not sure if it is because it is a nugget puerh or simply the longer age but this one while it is a good tea unlike the other Mengku ones seems to be lacking the unique Mengku taste to it.

So a while ago I ordered a ton of samples from puerhshop. Pretty much anything I could order in a sample size, kind of blindly. And most of those that I have tried, thus far, has been, to be quite honest, not terribly remarkable. With all fairness, as far as I know, young sheng (what most of these samples are), according to my research, are for aging, not immediate drinking, so I guess I’m not surprised. But I keep hoping by drinking a ton of it, from different areas/factories, I’ll at least get some sort of….learning experience.

This tea, though. This one is different, kind of strange. It feels very thick and heavy in the mouth, almost oily. And it has this very distinct sour taste. It’s like a bowl of hot and sour soup. Very savory. I’m actually not really sure I like it (the sour note puts me off a little) but it’s just very surprising as compared to all the other pu’er I’ve had lately.

The sourness gets really pronounced as the tea cools, to the point that I can’t bring myself to drink it at that point. But it’s just so very interesting. I can’t get over how heavy it feels, a nearly clear liquid with the mouthfeel of.. whole milk or even cream. I’m actually starting to feel full from sipping on it; my brain seems to think I’m eating something substantial and nourishing.

I went and reboiled the water five or so steeps in, under the logic that if the sourness is more pronounced as the tea cools, I should try keeping it as hot as possible. It actually does help a little— the sourness is still detectable but in a much smaller amount.. in fact, in this tiny amount it tastes more familiar.. I think that little element is actually present in many other sheng I have tried; I just didn’t really notice it until it was really in my face. So this has been a learning experience, after all.

I’m really going to make a better effort to keep more notes on these assorted pu’ers. Most of them aren’t on Steepster; I had to add this one, for example. Pu’er doesn’t really seem to have much of a following here, so I seem to be kind of stumbling through the dark. But at the same time, it seems pretty exciting.

Holy COW this is good!

Apparently after a few years, the “fragrance” becomes one with the brick. This is such a sweet, delicious brew that both smells and tastes like raisins, citrus, and plums; with a slightly peachy aftertaste. Smooth mouthfeel. Nice, dark honey color. Long lasting aftertaste. Yum, yum, yum!

Bought this to age, but I’ll definitely be drinking more of this brick. I figured all that “award winning” talk was just conjecture, but it really is a top-notch brick.

What a visually appealing cake! I could tell by the pictures on PuerhShop’s site that this sheng puerh would be full of large leaves and buds, but seeing it in person really makes you realize how nice the source materials are. I had no problem picking off 6g of large leaves and buds for use in my 100ml yixing pot. Accurately describing this tea, however, was another matter entirely.
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Rinse: Yum. Golden sweetness.

First cup (10s): Soft and sweet. Not even bitter after it cools. Wow. I notice a little fruit-y aftertaste and a cooling sensation that’s left behind on my tongue. Immediately, I notice an increased sense of perception that tells me this young cake certainly has qi.

Second cup (15s): A good puerh makes you stop everything and focus on the tea, whether you like it or not. That is exactly what is happening to me. This cup feels smoother sliding down my throat, but leaves the front of my tongue dry. It still tastes sweet to me and smells wonderful. Cooled, there’s a bit of bitterness comes to the front, but it’s so well balanced I welcome it with open arms. Very nice.

Third Cup (20s): A pleasant aroma. Pleasant taste. Yeesh, I’m running out of words here. Should probably take a break, but I don’t particularly want to. Throat is dry; mind is clear. Peach-y notes are starting to come back in the aftertaste. Wow. Tastes like what I think a sheng should taste like, but particularly smooth and refined.
….
The rest of my notes on this tea are scattered and short. I was able to get about 5 more infusions out of this puerh before I eventually decided to toss the leaves in some boiling water and leave it going for a couple hours. Even then, it still had a very pleasing sheng taste that I enjoyed; with a delicious aftertaste that left my tongue slightly silky. I didn’t particularly want to toss out the leaves, but there comes a time when you have to move onto the next tea.
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I purchased this cake as a higher-end option for everyday consumption, and I have to say it fits the bill wonderfully. It doesn’t have the smooth mouthfeel in the early infusions that I really enjoy in certain young sheng puerhs (that comes later on), nor does it have a lot of overwhelming, novel flavors that jumped out at me when I was drinking it. Instead, it has a nice, persistent qi and a great balance of all the nuances I like in a cup of puerh without the (sometimes) overwhelming bitterness.

Very pleased with this cake.

This is a very pleasant and pleasing puerh, with its full and dark brew. The color of the liquid is a deeper reddish coffee and comes off silky smooth from the cup. I found no hint of aquatic or fishiness in the aroma or flavor. There was no discernible bitterness, but rather a good dry astrengency after the sip.

Very nice ripe dark tea with good age and maturity. It can only get better from here!

A nice light and smooth green puerh that comes off as sweet and not harsh. Enjoyable to drink as a free sample but not something that I would want to buy to have around as a regular tea.

Received a sample of this tea, and LOVED the mouthfeel and marshmallow-y sweetness that lasted for the first four infusions. Nice, dense, and thick brew — very impressed with how far a small sample went in my 100ml gaiwan.

For those who like to let their shu soak for 30 mins to get a deep, rich brew, this might be a good way to save a little bit of money. I’ve only tried 6 or 7 shu cakes, so I’m no expert, but I feel like 10-15 second steeps tasted more like 2/3 minute steeps of my newer cakes.

Yum!

I finally got around to trying this brick a couple weeks ago, and it’s a killer bang for the buck. After gently opening the paper packaging (another great use for that tiny Tuocha pick!), I was impressed by the relatively large leaves that comprised the outside of the brick. It’s not super-dense (like a particular 250g Douji “rock” that I ordered), but it’s firm enough that you’ll want a good picking utensil if you don’t want to mangle it completely.

Once I put the ~3g in my tiny, warmed Yixing pot, I combined my 10sec. wash and a 15sec. first steep into my faircup. I was very impressed by the slightly sweet/slightly astringent first cup, but I LOVED the silky mouthfeel and warming energy that popped up in the later infusions. Usually I’ll make a cup and get distracted by something else, but this one kept me coming back to see how the next cup progressed. I don’t know if I wasn’t using enough leaves (or if I timed my pours just right), but it never quite developed that bitter edge that I’ve come to associate with some young shengs.

I’ve had a couple other cakes and samples that fell flat or didn’t change too much after that first cup, and I’m excited to see how this one ages over time. For something I got on a whim, I’d certainly recommend this to beginners or pu-drinkers on a budget. I’m both of those things, and it worked out great for me.

First things first: You MUST have a puerh pick for this brick (or be ready to steam it). I made the mistake of bringing this brick (sans pick) to a friends house since the pictures make it look like you can just pick off a couple leaves to try this tea. But after both of us took our turns chopping, prying, and stabbing this brick to no avail, we had to abort. So, I decided to do something new: steam and dry this brick!

Using a smaller, taller saucepan (with lid) and a mesh ladle, I was finally able to jam my pick in there after about 3-5 minutes of steaming. After scraping, poking, and breaking the brick apart, I was able to turn this rock into 100g of leaves, stems, and buds with relatively little dust. This method works great! I allowed the leaves to dry on a couple foil sheets overnight, and tossed it into a glazed stoneware jar to (hopefully) breathe and age nicely afterwards.

I figured I had to sample this one at the outset to see how it tastes, and was very pleasantly surprised to find a tea with tons of smokiness and very little bitter edge. The first couple infusions were more astringent and felt dryer on the back of my throat, while the later ones felt softer on my tongue with a sweeter aftertaste. Neat! I’m not sure if the steaming made it taste smokier (to me), but I’ll report back once this tea has a little time to breathe.

Personally, I like the smoky, umami notes this tea has; and look forward to seeing how it ages now that it’s all broken up. This $5 “tuition brick” was a great pick!

I love the compact, perfect little size of these Mini Tuochas! You would have thought the holidays had already come, and a little boy was opening a carefully wrapped gift. You find the same care and attention to detail of the wrapping, as you find in the larger tuochas. The paper used for these tuochas, seems like a perfect idea for a collection of some sort. Surely, there are already ideas out there. This may require a little more research, now that I think about it.

There is plenty of body with this tea – very full, green puerh. You will find quite a bit of astringency that lingers, however you can control its bitterness in the mouth by holding it towards the middle of the tongue – back of the throat. I found the tea to deliver more flavor after it had set for a minute or two.

This is a very young tasting sheng and certainly reflects its green qualities. It is green along the lines of older dandelions, that have been simmered and stewed down – without the mouth puckering bitterness. This bitterness is much drier and feels quite nice around 20-30 minutes after you finish drinking the tea. The liquid is more green melon in color.

Overall, you can’t complain about this tea not matching the total investment. These small broken leaf mini tuochas are great for a small pot of tea and are good enough for multiple infusions.

This sample comes off to me as being an unusually sweet and smooth young puerh. Quite honestly if it was not labeled as and brewed as puerh, I would believe it was a green tea if somebody were to hand me a cup of it and not tell me what it was first. Or at least the early infusions after which while it kept up on the same smooth sweet taste it started to turn my stomach in not such a good way so I threw out the rest of it.