pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou

I spent the weekend enjoying the 2003 XiaGuan Grade A Blue Mark sheng I purchased from finepuer.com several months ago. Although we often think of younger XiaGuan products as carrying too much smoke in their aroma and taste, the mature teas have had time to work through this. Twelve years of aging has allowed this cake to mature into a softer, smoother tea with only the slightest hint of smoke in the scent of the dry leaf and not any to be found in the taste. Built from high grade maocha, there is more than enough in this tea to hold your interest. Good sized leaves with a deep brown color. A proper aged orange soup that is bright and clear. No sourness or bitterness. Rich, enduring fruitiness. Leaves a nice coating in the back of the throat and a slight honey-like aftertaste. This tea is smooth yet it has depth and a good energy.

Today I drank the 2013 Hai Lang Hao “Bu Lang Old Tree” Brick Ripe from Yunnan Sourcing. This was really good tea. There was only a little bitterness in the early steeps. There was a fair amount of fermentation flavor as well. I have a lot of this tea as it is a 2kg brick. I’m glad it’s good. It had a naturally sweet flavor to it as well.

Today I drank an aged sheng from the Fengyuan Teashop on EBay, the 1990s Yunnan Loose Sheng Puerh Tea Raw. This was a tasty tea that I have little to compare it to as I have never drank something of this age before. Judging from the color of the tea soup, I would judge that the age is accurate. The the looked like a ripe tea judging by the tea soup. Judging by the taste it was definitely sheng. It had not developed any particularly unpleasant aged flavors in storage so it must have been stored right. It was cheap, I only paid around $25 for 250g of tea. I would describe the flavor as that of burnt honey or sugar but without the sweetness of sugar. I am not saying it had not developed any sweetness but not in the sense of sugar. To me this is a tea of contradictions and I am not used to it. It was both bitter and not bitter. That is it was not bitter like a young sheng but had its own bitterness in the early steeps. It turned into something quite pleasant after ten steeps. I think this tea was far from finished and would probably gone another ten steeps with more and more time. I, however, have had enough caffeine at ten steeps.

2013 Dayi Wuzidengke. Damn this is a solid little tea. Very hearty, thick, oily. Love it. Anyone tried the 2014 version?

Having daxue five century this morning. 6.4 grams to my 120 ml yixing.
I am very found of this particular young sheng puerh.

Has nice honey date flavor notes with just the right amount of bitter almost floral characteristics to remind me why I’m drinking a ShengCha.

Today I am drinking a ripe from Streetshop88 and I would say a good one, the 2011 yr Yunnan Supreme Gong Ting Golden Buds Puerh Tea Ripe Cake. Picked this one out from their selection at random. It is pretty good. There was a fair amount of fermentation flavor in the early steeps and a certain amount of bitterness. The bitterness went away quickly and the fermentation flavor a little later. It was a nice slightly sweet puerh with I think a lot of potential. I bought the whole bing of this one and I am not in the least unhappy.

One note, I cannot verify that it is actually gong ting grade tea or that there are more buds in this tea although someone who is good at identifying pictures might look at my Instagram and see if they can tell.

https://instagram.com/p/23-jh0TDUG/?taken-by=allanckeanepuerhtea
https://instagram.com/p/23-cRxTDT5/?taken-by=allanckeanepuerhtea

Yesterday I sessioned the 2004 Changtai YiChangHao Jing Pin purchased a few months ago from the Chinese Tea Shop online store. With material from old Yiwu arbor trees, the JingPin is a pleasing mellow aged tea with a full body and a mix of fruit, honey, nuts, wood and camphor flavors – very smooth with interesting complexity. The tea is not just elegant, its power is easily felt — respectable Qi; enough strength in the leaf to endure many infusions; lingering pleasant aftertaste. For those of you seeking the “heavy hitters”, this one might not seem particularly exciting but for all the other pu fans, this is a worthy tea from a factory with long established traditions – quality raw material, old processing techniques and stone pressing.

Today I drank a delicious ripe tea from Yunnan Sourcing, an inexpensive tea called 2010 Xinghai Gong Ting Tribute Ripe Puerh Tea. This tea was pretty damn good. It had a fair amount of fermentation flavor in the early steeps. It is not one for the feint of heart. It had little bitterness and a fair note of natural sweetness to it. Not sure how to best describe the sweet notes but this was a nice tea. At only something like $20 it is a bargain.

Drinking 2012 Yiwu Zhengshan Ripe Puerh Tea Cake by Puerh Shop this morning.
This tea is definitely ok, but nothing stands out about it, except the nice artwork on the wrapper. A good every day drinker at only $15 a cake. The materials seem nice. The flavor is a bit bland, but it brews up dark, with some wood and sweetness and no off flavors.

Today I drank the 2010 American Hao 1002 LBZ Green Puerh Tea Cake. This is a good tea but not quite as good as you would expect a LBZ to be. It was bitter in the early steeps and a nice sweetness emerged later. The question that is impossible to answer with certainty, is it real LBZ material. Many say automatically no because it was sold too cheap. I personally will refrain from calling the people at Puerhshop liars but others have done so. That being said, it was I felt not as good as some samples of LBZ tea that I have drank in the past but no worse than one I had a sample of from another merchant. In all I think the tea was worth the price I paid. I am skeptical whether any tea is worth what they get for genuine LBZ tea from definite sources. The only thing I can say for sure is I liked the tea.