pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou

Interesting indeed! I wonder if some of the difference is due to the sample I got having a chance to air out. Now I wonder if the cakes I get will disappoint. All of this has got me thinking I jumped the gun and wasted money on bad fake tea. I did love the sample. I shall compare it to the cake once I get it.

The links to your pics don’t seem to work when I click on them.

Rich, my page is set to private. Follow me on Instagram and be logged in and you will be able to see them.

Usually wettter stored tea has a musk to it combined with a woody bitterness that dries your mouth a bit. This doesn’t mean it’s bad, usually giving it a good wash takes care of the problem. Also, usually reddish/broze is more likely to mean wetter stored for that age, dry stored that age have a more reddish-amber than a red-bronze. I know that doesn’t help much lol.

Well Rich, does it matter if it is fake or real; as long as you enjoyed the tea & felt it worth the price, that is all that matters :)

My guess is this is a lightly fermented shou which was then pressed and stored wet. I have found that on EBay and such, some sellers call tea “aged” which really means cooked, aged out or shou, if not directly meant to fool people.

I was waiting for Cwyn to chime in! That very well could be. If so, it makes an interesting and enjoyable tea nonetheless.

“Is it from the Zhong Cha factory?” I think you mean Kunming Tea Factory.

This cake looked nothing like a shou, lightly fermented or otherwise.

Asaf Mazar pointed out a great artcle on this topic posted yesterday!
http://teadb.org/cnnp-zhongcha/

There is no way, no how, any tea seller is going to sell a real naturally aged 1997 sheng for $75 a cake. The tea is a shou, or shou/sheng mix. Entire businesses exist to to produce teas like this. Tea can be fermented in 10 days, anyone can do it and call it sheng because 10 days earlier it was sheng. A “dark reddish brown” or “cola” colored says it all.

It may very well be something like that. I am drinking this tea again this morning. To me, the leaves do look somewhat like shu, as does the color of the broth. But again, i am no expert. Bottom line is I really am enjoying the flavor. I think in the end, that’s what matters most, as others have pointed out. I bought a sample first, so it is all on me as to whether I decided to buy more, I do not feel it is the seller’s fault. I’m happy to share some of this tea; if any of you are curious, pm me and when I get my cakes I will send you a sample.

After you’re done sessioning it dump all the wet leaves and take a picture. That might help to determine if it’s sheng or shu or a blend.

Here are some pics:
https://instagram.com/p/5UyZNrHNEY
https://instagram.com/p/5UyQ3xnNEE

Not 100% sure but looks like sheng that has seen some humid storage to me. There are some darkish looking leaves mixed in that I suppose could be shu. I would just treat it as a white label pu’erh with some age on it.

Just comparing the color of the leaves it looks most similar to something like this http://www.white2tea.com/tea-shop/2001-dayi-jianyun-7542-menghai-factory/

but not as dark as an actual shu http://www.white2tea.com/tea-shop/2001-cnnp-orange-mark-shu/.

and not as dry-stored as http://www.white2tea.com/tea-shop/1997-aged-yiwu-raw-puer-dry-storage/.

On a sidenote, the ebay 1997 liquor picture is very misleading. Clearly much darker.

Looks like a blend.

OK, thanks for your responses here and on TeaDb, James, and from everyone else in general. This has been an educational experience. I am more of a newbie than I thought. I didn’t realize that good 1990s teas were all crazy expensive, I thought that some were to be had at lower prices. I also learned that some fake teas can be good and quite interesting, and worth paying for. Now I also have a bit more experience with flavors. I can sense a bit more of the humid storage taste in this tea the second time around, though again, it is kind of interesting tasting and I like it in this tea.

So again, thanks everyone, and please keep in mind that many of us are trying to learn here.

The dude who writes the half-dipper speaks most indecorously about dry-stored pu’er. It’s really funny. http://half-dipper.blogspot.com/

No problem. There’s nothing at all wrong with tea with a bit of humidity. Most all of the 1950s/1960s/1970s cakes had varying degrees of humid storage at some point.

You can probably find some loose pu’erh that’s 1990s or close for not too much money but from somewhere famous like Yiwu (you’ll pay up). It’s just that most of what is out there is not exactly what it’s marketed as. I think this is one of the reasons TwoDog has been moving increasingly away from labels. Too often empty words.

Here’s the link to the cake I was referring to:
http://www.bestteaonline.com/store/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=19&products_id=29

It’s historic and I think Best Tea House basically has a monopoly on the stock but legitimate 1990s Yiwu Gushu is up against stuff like this.

I think I saw that cake at Bana tea, though they don’t seem to have it anymore. Bana seems to have some nice (factory) teas, a few aged ones, though they are all expensive.

Ahh yes. Found it! The description helps to unpack some of that history.

http://www.banateacompany.com/pages/puerh_teas-Truly_Simple.html

Yeah, that’s pretty much Bana Tea. Highly reliable and great quality tea. Not cheap.

My view is I’ll have some genuine 20 year old puerh in about 10 years, when what I have aging is that old. I don’t have the money to spend on $6000 puerh.

OK, so I asked the seller how they knew that the tea was from 1997, and how they knew it was from Yiwu. They responded:

The follow for you:
1. We stored this tea in 1997. so, we know it’s from 1997.
2. Yiwu is “易武” in Chinese, it’s Yiwu mount. in Yunnan of China. you can find this Chinese"易武" on the package of paper.

As for the year, I suppose there’s no way to prove that. Who knows how much we should trust the seller on that. Yang-chu, is this an accurate translation of the Chinese characters? And do your see that on the picture of the wrapper Alan posted?

易武— yeah that’s Yiwu. I don’t Instagram, but the wrapper on Ebay says exactly what’s translated.
Having lived in China, I’ve found that sometimes sellers aren’t so concerned with um, honesty. They figure, if you’re stupid enough to fall for their lies, then you deserve it. It’s largely just the way business is done. It’s true buyer beware.
Recently, someone posted some tests on olive oil conducted by UC Davis, I believe. Surprise, surprise. These popular brands of olive oil were adulterated, often with very little olive oil at all.
This is just to demonstrate that duplicity is more or less a feature of mkt economics than any particular nation.

Here is my (edited) review of the ‘1997 CNNP Zhong Cha Yunnan Yiwu Wild Puer Raw’
Dry leaf has a light musty aroma.
Wet leaf after rinse has a nice aged aroma.
First infusions tasted fine. Somewhat Light body but decent aged flavor.
Wet leaves are a mix of dark brown and olive green. small, broken leaves.

In my experience, this tea does not have the vitality, the oomph, the special character that good puer can have.
Its nothing like the 92 da ye loose leaf sheng from essence of tea, for example.

I keep returning to the conclusion that its more cost effective and satisfying to buy premium tea from well curated selections by reputable vendors than to hunt for bargains.

I sent a message to streetshop about the wrapper appearing very new compared to the tea. they say they had re-wrapped it.

Re wrapped it? That sounds crazy. Given our interactions with them, they are coming across as quite dishonest. I’m tempted to try to return my cakes.

In fact, I am going to return mine. Between saying they bought it in 1997 and rewrapped over a hundred cakes, they are obviously being dishonest. Even though yours is opened, you could also request a refund and threaten with nasty feedback if they refuse. I’ve bought some good stuff from Streetshop88, but they are off my list now.

That seems really sketchy :(

Rich, I’m confused. If you like the tea, what has actually changed?

I don’t like buying from dishonest people, especially when they go out of their way to be deceitful. I guess it just made me really mad and will taint my experience of drinking the tea.

Yeah, I suppose if you won’t enjoy the product then that’s another thing.

Rich. I hate to say it but it may not be worth the expense of returning the tea. USPS shipping to China with tracking is crazy expensive. If you return it to them without tracking they can claim to never have received it. It would probably cost $50 to ship back to China.

Here’s the response I got when requesting a return, I mentioned the wrapper issue:

“Sorry for inconvenience! We think you are a wonderful exprience puerh teaer. the follow for you: 1)- We checked your order, you put 50g this tea sample order on Jun 12,2015, We think you should taste this tea taste, it’s aged teaste, then you put the complete cake, right? 2)- The puer tea package condition was decided by the store. 3)- In normal, the package paper was hole by the bamboo bug when you store the puerh tea 5-10 years, this also was decide the store condition and the bamboo shell. not only the many hole package is aged puer tea. 4)- You know, there are two condition store in China, One is dry store, another is wet store. 5)- This tea was stored by ourself in dry store in 1997. we store them very carefully in good air store so that it’s in good condition. 6)- We had sold many this tea in past 3-5 years, you can review the sale history on ebay. the buyer are all feel this tea is good puerh.

It still seems implausible. It implies they have the ability to reproduce the wrapper. So they have the tools to counterfeit. Am I reading that correctly? Anyway, they did offer a full refund if I want it, and also offered a $11 per cake refund if I don’t. But as Alan says, it may not be worth it. Maybe I’ll just store the tea, get over my upsetness, and hopefully enjoy the tea at a later date.

I hate to say it but it is probably easy for them to get fake vintage CNNP wrappers. When I bought this tea I figured there was a good chance it was a fake and I decided to try it anyway. I don’t buy their theory that it is dry stored however. They could have rewrapped it. If you have seen some pictures of older teas on Aliexpress they often show bug eaten wrappers. They might have thought nothing of rewrapping the tea. That at least is somewhat plausible in my mind. They might figure a new wrapper is better than a bug eaten wrapper. Or on the other hand it could all be a load of horse manure and it could be a 2006 tea. The fact is we can never know.

It’s my experience, limited as it might be, that almost all of those trying to peddle product from previous decades engage in wet-storing.

I see a lot of shops rewrapping. At least they were honest about that. Sometimes the original wrappers just don’t hold up to time. We’ve got a bunch of cakes from just 2005 whose wrappers in some cases are barely held together. We may have to rewrap them. The cakes are fine but the paper is just falling apart.

And yes it’s easy to get vintage looking or even vintage CNNP papers. Think about how many cakes you’ve drank. Anyone can save and hold on to old wrappers.

I actually asked them specifically about the organic label. They replied that these teas were ‘ancient tree’, meaning gushu, implying that this was synonymous with organic. Not sure if that is ignorance, a translation problem, or downright misrepresentation.

The real distinction between pu’ers is taidi (terraced farms) or other. The stuff that isn’t taidi receives minimal doctoring. It seems fair to assume that procuring the actual organic label costs a bit, as it does here in the States. Taidi puer can be organic, but may be more likely to be designated as such. Someone can probably say more about this.

Regarding chemicals and old trees, check out this article.
https://www.essenceoftea.com/tasting-for-chemicals-a-guide.html

They have another more recent article… seems there’s more and more pesticide usage… https://www.essenceoftea.com/blog/2015/05/13/devastated-aka-pesticides-and-puerh-tea-in-2015/

Just finished watching it. it was very interesting. thank you for doing it.

Very interesting video.

I tried this tea last week, and I agree, it is a powerful tea. I loved it! Truly great tea from Jalam, as usual.

Oh, I see yours was 2012. I tried this month’s Bulang offering, it was really great.

I’ve really enjoyed being part of Jalam’s club, although I’m currently taking a few months off. I’ve also been reading Jeff’s book, it’s long, and interesting!

This sounds egg-cellent. Thx for sharing!

The good, expensive teas are often a better value than that the cheap, mediocre teas (and of course there are expensive mediocre teas) The one ting I keep learning is, even though its tempting to buy a large amount to get a better price per gram, get a small sample first. Event if there are glowing review on the net.
Another thing that I feel that I must point out is, people seem to be drinking a lot of new sheng puer teas. This stuff is cold and harsh on the body, affecting more than just the stomach. read this: http://www.marshaln.com/2008/05/thursday-may-8-2008/

That’s an interesting blog post. Young sheng usually doesn’t cause me stomach issues but many other things deemed harmless do.

Sheng cha is cooling. Those with a cooler constitution should be moderate in their consumption of cold foods: yoghurt, raw vegetables, and fruit. One of the easiest ways to determine constitution, though not foolproof, is to measure one’s heart-rate. Under 65 bpm is borderline cold, under 60 should drink sheng perhaps once a week and below 55 should never drink it.
Conversely, if you’re experiencing heart-rate above 70, then sheng is preferable. This is just a rule of thumb.

The only teas I can drink on an empty stomach are black Yunnan varieties.
I also have to be careful with Sheng, the greener oolongs, darjeelings, & green teas, as all of them can cause queasiness if I get too carried away, & sometimes sheng is also rough on my kidney’s. Generally if it’s a young sheng, I use less leaf, that seems to help. On the other hand, I love the way Sheng opens up my sinuses & seems to relieve my allergies somewhat.

Yang-chu – That’s interesting stuff. I’m going to say I probably lean towards a cooler constitution, with my resting heart rate between right around 65, and an average body temp of 97.8 (although that may not factor in). I’m not a big fan of cold foods, coincidentally, and mostly live off of homemade soups & stews, & hot tea year around. :)

Yes Terry, body temp definitely factors. A significant part of my practice is just having people stop taking in cold stuff that’s “good” for you, i.e., salads, fruit, green tea, green veggie drinks. All that is just no good for cold types.

wow, these are useful info! thanks!!!

Very interesting article. The 2014 was not as brutal as that description but close.

AliExpress is always cheaper than ebay. Even vendors like Dragon Tea House, who have a presence in both ebay & AliExpress, sell the same wares cheaper or with promotions/discounts/coupons on Aliexpress.