pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou
Enjoying a sample from White 2 Tea’s collection today – 1998 CNNP Liming 7542. Very smooth tea with nice depth and complexity. Clean and bright deep red tea soup. I discovered woody, sweet and spicy tastes combined in an interesting way. Qi hit me during the second cup – appeared as a fullness in my head and this continued through the session. I did not detect any bitterness or astringency and hope to enjoy another session with the same leaves. Unable to justify the price of a whole cake but I am delighted to have a generous sample to use over several different sessions.
Today I drank a sample of an aged tea sent to me by John at King Tea on Aliexpress. All I know about this tea is that it is thirty year old shou. The age of the tea seems genuine. It has totally cleared. There was no fermentation taste that I noticed. There were also no wet storage flavors. This tea had clearly been dry stored for it’s entire lifetime. The taste was very sweet and very clean. There were some minor notes of tobacco and leather but they were not strong. There was a note that seemed to me dark cherries but without the extreme sweetness of cherries. There was another complex note, deep and dark, but I did not pin it down. This is another aged tea from King Tea that has apparently had perfect storage. I got no unpleasant flavors from it at all. It was very sweet. I have to send John an email trying to find out what tea this is and how expensive it is. I do not even know if it is a loose ripe or if it is from a cake. It was labeled only in Chinese. I will post the Instagram photo in case anyone can read the Chinese.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BFUCReVzDeYnyAFkBLXHxGPcy2xtqIWB4Aq3kI0/?taken-by=allanckeanepuerhtea
I used one of those apps that translate signs and got
‘temple hand nine sweet aged zero’ :D
it couldnt really decide, i think the handwriting was too messy
King Tea in Aliexpress has posted a 1980’s ZhongCha brick which could be the one we are talking about here. At £21 for a 1980’s 250 grams brick does not look too expensive if it is the same one.
Full name:
King Tea 80’s ZhongCha NanTianZi Brick Zhuan 250g YunNan MengHai Organic Pu’erh Puerh Ripe Cooked Tea Shou Cha
Be careful here. If the tea tastes good to you, it could be worth purchasing but question whether it is really a 1980s tea for less than $30/250g. That said, good fakes may well be worth purchasing. As one who has been working with John at King Tea Aliexpress since he opened his site, I must point out that he is a reseller of countless teas. He simply buys from local vendors to resell to us and he does not have extensive knowledge about any particular tea. He tells us what the local vendor has told him. I am not convinced that his older teas are all authentic for I have had to question a few of them and did not believe what the vendor told him when I questioned the authenticity. My best example is with a 2005 Haiwan cake that reeked of smoke and the printing on the wrapper seemed unusual. He reported back to me that the tea vendor explained that all Haiwan teas were full of smoke. Already owning several older Haiwan productions myself, I know that this is a ridiculous response. Please know that I continue to purchase from John but I do so carefully. The newly listed Zhong brick may very well be an enjoyable tea but better not to purchase thinking it is really a 1980s production. As they say….Buyer Beware.;-)
The price should be the first indication that it is not what it purports to be. Almost all Zhongcha’s older than ‘07 are fakes and if they’re not then you’re going to pay. It’s really just that simple. Some sellers will sell fakes that meet a certain standard but even those will cost accordingly.
I am still waiting for John to tell me if that was the tea I drank. If the tea I drank is in the $30 range it it quite a buy. While I cannot be sure of the age it had cleared, to me that usually indicates age or wet storage. This had no wet storage taste so it must have cleared due to age. If not an 80s product it is certainly old. But like I said, John still hasn’t gotten back to me with a url for the tea I drank.
Revisited the 2014 Manzhuan from w2t that I broke up and put into a Lin’s Ceramics jar a year ago. At that time, it had been in my pumidor for a year already. I felt like it had a bit of dry sour char starting to show up in the flavor that wasn’t noticeable when the tea was new. The tea does not have very much char by puerh standards, but I’m getting to the point where I can taste what it does in drier storage. Since I love this tea so much, and it is one of the cleaner teas I own, I wanted to baby it. Breaking up the cake seems to have helped for any charred bits to flake out into my pu tray.
The leaves filled up the jar leaving an inch at the top. Lin’s jars have a hollow lid with a half inch of space inside. The lid is unglazed with a hole you can use to add a bit of wet cloth, or you can wet the unglazed clay a little, which I did from time to time over the winter.
Now the tea tastes much cleaner with the bitter and somewhat fruity profile I remember. It is a bitter that has a long huigan lasting about two hours in my mouth. I find myself attracted more and more to highly bitter teas, not so much to drink every day but just that there is more depth here than some of the very monotone sweet teas everyone seems to be selling now. I love this tea and wish now I’d bought more.
Today I drank another aged sample from King Tea on Aliexpress. All I really know about this is that it is twenty years old. It is apparently called the Hong Yin Tuo Cha. I don’t know the exact year. It was fairly good, but not as good as the other sample I reviewed a few days ago. This one had some wet storage to it. It was also sweet. It had cleared at least 95% of the way. There were few traces of fermentation left. It was overall pretty good. Not sure what the exact tea on this one is. I will have to send John a message asking just what this tea is.
Today I got a start on my King Tea order. I drank a ripe, the 2007 Lao Man’E BanZhang Tuo Cha Shou Cha. It should be notes that this is not a BanZhang tea but a BanZhang brand tea. LaoMan’E BanZhang is a good brand of tea that King Tea sells quite a lot of. This turned out to be a nice ripe. It had partially cleared, not having too much fermentation flavor. It was fairly bittersweet in the start but got slowly sweeter as the gongfu session progressed. There were some notes of chocolate in there and it did develop a fruity taste in later steeps. What it wasn’t was long lasting. I gave it eight steeps because I was using a large, 195ml teapot and the eighth steep was fairly weak. I used 14.1g of tea so I think I used enough tea that it shouldn’t have been weak in the eighth steep. Overall this was an excellent tea.
Killed off the sample of 2006 Xiaguan T8653 from Berylleb, then finished off a packet of DHP from What-Cha (9 grams in a gaiwan that should have used 7, but I don’t have a jar of leftover oolong bits), then put the 2007 Repave from W2T out of its misery.
1. It was a day for ending things.
2. I know it’s not “oolong of the day” but 2/3 isn’t bad.
3. I’m starting to see the charm of Xiaguan products.
Been focused on a lot of fresh Spring non-puerh teas, so been a bit slacking. Of all that I have had since last writing, today’s 2011 Wild Tree Raw Pu-erh Tea Brick Dehong from Yunnan Sourcing has been the stand out. I tried it once when I first got it back a month or so ago, and it was good. But now it’s REALLY good. Powerful, juicy, sweet. A bit wild. Loving it!
2004 Hai Lang Hao Big Snow Mountain.
Its a bit strong for me, in bitterness & caffeine. I’m surprised as it has some age, and tastes to me bitter like younger shengs I have tried.
W2T Often Tuo. This one is getting better with time. I think it has been the most exposed of all my teas (not in container) and it has gone through dry (40% relative humidity to 80+% That’s DC climate) And it is doing extremely well, I think the fact that my apt is usually in the 60s-70s in temperature make those change in humidity not as harsh. This is still savory/broth-like in the from with developing sweeter notes with mushroom, tobacco, floral and even some honey notes at the end. It is a good everyday, but I’d recommend it for colder weather, it has a filling effect that feel cozy.
Today I went back to a Yunnan Sourcing order from a few weeks ago and drank the 2015 Yunnan Sourcing Nuo Mi Xiang ripe puerh tea and sticky rice herb. This tea was quite good. The flavor of the sticky rice herb does a fair job of imitating the taste of actual sticky rice. I don’t know just how to describe the taste of this herb but to say it has a sweet nature. There was also a fair amount of fermentation flavor to this tea. It had muted a bit since it was produced a year ago but it is still quite noticeable. The sticky rice flavor mutes this flavor a bit I think. There was really no bitterness to this tea. Overall it was quite good. Better I think than the sticky rice mini tuocha I have had even the one from Yunnan Sourcing.
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