pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou
I’m still drinking that crazy Blue Mark I blogged about two weeks ago. Yep same leaves. Two cups a night. I expect at least another week. Expensive tea starts to become a bargain when the same leaves brew for weeks at a time.
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Well, to celebrate the Verdant Tea company Cyber Monday sale today (some lovely deals) from which I ordered the sheng 2015 300 year tree cake, the sheng 2015 1000 year old tree cake, and the sheng 2011 800 year old tree cake, I pulled out and tried the 2012 Qianjiazhai old growth 2012 sheng, and it was wonderful. Strong, tannic, bitter, and with a kick, it is a wonderful tea with complex flavors and great potential and I wish I had more than the sample I have. I’m looking forward to the cakes on the way.
Shoops this morning, as I woke up feeling groggy and nauseous. Big mason jar of W2T LCT. Really hitting the spot, clean, thick, chocolaty.
Today I drank an excellent aged ripe from Tea Trekker, the Loose Leaf Vintage 1995 Wild Arbor Shou Puerh. This was an excellent ripe with barely a vestige of fermentation flavor. I could tell I was drinking a ripe, not a raw and there was just a barely perceptible taste of the fermentation in the first steep. This was gone by the second steep. There was no bitterness to this tea. It was sweet from the get go. This tea has some qi to it too as I am still feeling the effects. I wouldn’t use the word tea drunk but it was there, rare for a ripe. I noticed a variety of notes as I drank this the most prominent was the sweet note that I would equate with dates or plums one or the other. This tea was not expensive either. At $30 for 4 ounces it is a bargain I think. I trust the source of this tea so I believe it is probably spring tea and wild arbor as they claim. As to the age of the tea, the lack of fermentation flavor is evidence it is really from 1995. This was one good tea.
Right now it’s Yunnan Sourcing’s 2014 ripe “Year of the Horse”.
There’s some funk left in there, not much and much less than when I bought it. Also, it’s pretty strong and one has to be careful not to overbrew it. With the right parameters, though, it’ll be sweet, bitter and thick. Other flavours: wood, leather, mushroom, walnuts – pretty normal.
Having 2011 Yang Qing Hao “KuYun Bulang Gushu” tonight.
Finally get to pull this one out of storage.
This cake is double wrapped and compressed like crazy. I had to break out the big pick on this one.
I pulled 10 grams out and gave it a rinse to open up a bit. The first 3 steeps were about 5 seconds each and combined into my big mug. The tea has decent body to it. The tongue is alive a bit as well. There is a touch of humid as well as floral notes and it goes very sweet quickly at the finish.
Next 3 were about 5 seconds as well and combined. I had let the leaf sit about an hour by this time. There is a little of the smoke and some of the nice bitterness is coming out as the humid part fades away. It is an almost sharp metallic hit in there somewhere. It is still alive and keeping the tongue alive and almost numb. This is till young at 4 years and is reminiscent of the other small sourced Bulangs I have drank. I think this has a bit more hit to it and I think this will be a wow tea in 5 more years, it is quite good now.
I haven’t had the Qui effect but it is still early . It does warm you as you drink it.
Steeped in the gaiwan.
Flavors: Bitter, Metallic, Smoke, Sweet
2012 Xin Ban Zhang. This has sort of lost its fresh fruity complexity, which is to be expected. Currently, it is textured and bitter, with woodsy, tobacco and floral notes.
2014 Crimson Lotus Bulang— Smoky and Japanese, the most Japanesezy tea I think I’ve ever had, definitely the most Japanesezy pu’er.
Lots of umami. Nice cha-qi. Can you hear the shakuhaci? Aren’t your knees already a wee bit sore from kneeling?
Still quite young. Prepubescent riffraff are playing with a multicoloured ball outside. Thoughts of my granny with a cigarette.
Sample courtesy a fellow Steepstarian.
Have you had the Colbert Holland from W2T? I found that one to be a bit sencha-y as well… also supposedly from near Bulang-shan.
I do play the Shakuhachi, but I left it home on that sourcing trip. I did bring a Xaphoon with to Bulang though.
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