pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou
i am mainly sheng during the summer. Shou is too heavy for hot days.
having some mao cha i got from misty peaks today at work.
You should get some ‘woody’ and well aged Shous they are packed with camphor and they can be refreshing in the summer.
im still trying to place the “camphor” taste. after finding out that Vicks vapor rub contains camphor, i came to a conclusion. Have you had the Phatty Cake II from Mandala Tea? that cake has a hard to place taste that i cam calling camphor. yea or nay?
Sadly, I haven’t tried that cake yet, so I can’t tell. :/ But it can be a wide spectrum, from slightly refreshing to almost minty. Aged Sheng also carries it, but it requires more age and not all develop it.
Brian, maybe this one more close to camphor taste (minty cool sensation in after taste) but not Phatty cake II
Spent the afternoon with a Meng Song raw the from Berylleb King Tea, the 2011 Yunnan Menghai Dayi Meng Song Teardrop Raw Puerh. This tea was interesting and had aged a good bit for a 2011 tea. It had a bitter character that never completely left it even after twelve steeps. It had a smoky character that I would describe as deep but not biting. It did develop some sweetness but as the smoky character was always there I would not describe it as either stonefruits or apricots. This was a tea that lasted well. Even as far as I took the tea, steep twelve it had a nice color to it. The leaves of the tea were a dark black, almost as dark as a ripe tea. The tea liquid started out, by the second steep with what I would describe as light orange or dark yellow. This tea only sells for around $30 or so so it is a good value. I got it during one of Berylleb’s frequent sales so I got it for %15 off list. What I do not know about this tea is if it is a good representation of the Meng Song region or not as this is the first raw I have tried from Meng Song. I have another I have yet to try from Xiaguan but that will have to wait until next week.
Two days spent with the 2006 Haiwan Organic Pasha Mountain Raw. I’ve had this one for awhile now but this is my first session. Certified organic + authentic ancient arbor leaves from Pasha Mountain meant that my expectations for this tea were rather high. It did not disappoint. Full of whole leaves with some large silver needle-like tips. Sweet and mellow sips with nice mouth and throat feel. A hint of tobacco to balance the sweetness and a lovely fragrance throughout the session. Haiwan produced this 2006 Pasha as both a 200g and 400g cake. I have the smaller 200g cake but YS now lists only the 400g at the high price of $110 (reportedly $50 in late 2012). I purchased my 200g cake from Angelina’s Teas (located right here in North Carolina) at the very reasonable price of $32 and I see that they still have it listed so I decided to pick up a second one. For those of you who are also fond of Hobbes’ tea notes, you’ll see that he quite enjoyed this one which is what triggered my original purchase decision.
I’ve noticed a few sites on the States side that have pretty low prices. I suppose it’s because they’re not keeping track of the price changes at the source or are keeping in mind their mkt. Sounds like a very good tea, just haven’t gotten around to trying any Haiwan. Btw, was it branded as Haiwan exclusively or as another Lao Tong Zhi?
I had one of yunnan sourcing’s 2013 shou minis today, it was ok, smooth and very clean, but not much flavor or strength, and didn’t last very long, it looked like way less leaf than i normally use though so that’s probably part of the problem.
I had those recently. They’re about 6g. I doubled up on it last night and it was much more rich and lasted longer.
I don’t have a scale, so I guess I’ve been using a lot more puerh per session that I’d thought I was. The usefulness of individually wrapped minis kinda diminishes if you have to use more than one per serving though.
sansnipple i suggested Tealizzy to use 2 tuo because she has a larger pot. 6g in 100cc gaiwan was fine to me.
I’ve use one mini in as much as 20oz of water, when I want it on the lighter side. That’s the Lao Cang brand which is plenty strong. When I do minis it’s not gong-fu style, nor gang-nam, but steeped for 10 min in a thermos. The tea just stays in the thermos till I’m done drinking, often more than 4 hrs. If it’s on the longer side, I end up adding water.
Having a 2013 “YI SHAN LAO ZHAI” gu shu sheng From Yunnan Sourcing.
Go this on my last order to try as Jinggu teas can be quite good.
I broke out 10 grams and went with the gaiwan to brew with. I gave it a quick rinse and let it sit a few minutes to open up. I saw a recent post someone else had reflected on their way of letting the tea breathe before brewing fully. It is said to akin to opening a bottle of wine to breathe before you pour it. I think it works for puerh as well.
The tea, it brew up nicely aromatic with a nice golden yellow hue to it. Very clear in the cup. It is semi-thick with some bitterness at first. Just a whisp of the smoke is left in this and not really noticeable till after the swallow. It gives some buttery, salty creamy notes and seems to be active and stimulating. The notes of wet hay and floral are in there as well.
An interesting one and not bad for the price it is offered at. The leaf material can be seen opening up after a few infusions. Nice size some displaying a leaf and a bud on a stem in there. Nice pungent and pretty tasty.
Flavors: Butter, Creamy, Floral, Smoke, wet hay.
Today I drank a smoky raw puerh from Streetshop88 called 800g 2006yr Organic GuHuaXiang Yunnan Lincang Puerh Tea Raw Brick. This tea was very smoky in a deep and abiding way. There was a bitterness to this tea that lasted, even somewhat in the tenth steep. It took about eight or so steeps for the smoky flavor to recede. There was a underlying sweetness to this but not in an apricot way, in a rough sort of way. This tea reminded me a little of the Old Bear by White2Tea. I am not saying it was as good mind you but that is what it reminded me of. This tea was an excellent price even though I am not that into smoky teas. It was about $45 for an 800g brick. If anyone wants one Streetshop88 had only one left at last count. I enjoyed this tea a lot despite how smoky it was.
An amigo of mine living in HK sent me a pic of a brand that he called “bling tea” in Singapore. I’ve never heard of it, TWG or WG for short. Does any know anything about this?
twgtea.com
They are installed in Harrod’s now. Seems like a brand trying to give the French brands a run for their money. The BBC reported a few months back on the trend now away from Asian teas to Western style teas and brewing as a new trend of status. Classes in English tea brewing and manners are over $1000 an hour.
That’s funny. I saw one of their pu’er cakes. Thx for the link. I gonna takes some of those classes once I get either to HK or Singapore.
https://twgtea.com/news/details?id=43 here’s the very cake he showed me. the music was inspiring, gotta say. ;-)
From what I understand twg is building itself as a luxury brand. We mostly get the flavoured teas here. In Canada they are available from the Urban Tea merchant. Here’s the link to the cake. http://www.urbantea.com/products/twg-tea-yunnan-pu-erh-tea-brick. They also are known to buy up whole harvests and market them as premium teas like MF. I think more of those teas are available from Singapore. They also have a loose puerhhttp://www.urbantea.com/products/emperor-pu-erh-100g
Today I drank the 1999 Tai Eng “Koko Tea” Ripe Puerh Tea of Menghai from Yunnan Sourcing USA. When I drank this I had forgotten I had already sampled it from Yunnan Sourcing China Site. I had not like it then, reporting it still had a lot of fermentation flavor. Having drank the one from the Oregon storage was different. There was less fermentation flavor, only in the first couple of steeps. There was a slight taste of wet wood, only in the first two or three steeps. There was some bitterness in the early steeps that soon went away. It turned into a nice sweet ripe puerh with no unpleasant flavors at all. I find myself wanting a bing of this for sure. I would definitely want to buy the Oregon storage though as I did not like the one from China storage. I steeped this tea twelve times and it was good in every steep. Looking at my two separate reviews they couldn’t be more different for this tea.
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