pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou

Went on to drink a ripe bought from Dragon Tea House, the 2015 Classical Menghai Dayi Puerh Tuo Cha 250g. That is what they called it anyway. Not really sure if the is some incarnation of the V93 Tuo Cha. This was an excellent ripe tea. It had a fair amount of fermentation flavor at first but that flavor was not so unpleasant. There was little bitterness to this tea. There was a nice sweet note to the tea. I would venture to say there were some notes of chocolate in there and it did develop a bit of a fruity taste in later steeps, without the intense sweetness of a real fruit mind you. All in all this was an excellent ripe. While there have been some issues where Dragon Tea House may have sold fakes this one seemed real to me. First it tasted much like other Dayi ripes to me and secondly it had all the green glowing security markings. At about $28 for two 250g tuo chas this was in my estimate a bargain.

I had the rather excellent, but not so excellent to me, 2014 Autumn Da Qing Gu Shu from YS. Glad I just had a small sample or I might risk drinking it again.

Had the last bit of a sample of alleged LBZ that I put out of its misery.

2013 Li Gong Jin Shi from Chadao.de. One for the bitter leaf lovers

Today I drank a sheng from Berylleb King Tea, the 2016 Dr Pu’er Tea Spring Dawn 1st Batch Of Spring Tea Leaf Raw Puerh Tea 200g. This was an interesting tea that changed a lot over the course of eight steeps. It started out fairly sweet. In about the third steep, after the leaves had opened up it developed a bit of an odd note. I would describe the note as a cross between roasted chestnuts and a medicinal taste. This lasted about two steeps and the tea was back to a sweet note. In the eighth note I would even use the term apricot to describe it. I conducted an experiment of sorts with this. I ate a fresh apricot before drinking this tea to see if I would still use the term apricot to describe a sheng. While the tea was nowhere as sweet as the apricot it did seem to have somewhat of a comparable flavor note to it. I liked this tea despite the odd note I got. It wasn’t really an unpleasant note, just odd.

I tried my first aged raw pu-erh last night (2001 Jingmai Ancient tree from EOT).

I was excited that it arrived, although in hind sight I probably shouldn’t have started at 8pm, it’s a tea with serious balls.

I’ve tried a bit of Pu-erh in the past but mainly shu, or cheap young sheng. I really enjoyed this older sheng. I’ve never tasted anything so much like the smell of an old chinese medicine shop. I recently got handed down my great-grand mothers camphor-wood box, so finally understood what people mean when they describe camphor tastes/aromas in old pu-erh.

Today i tried some of the 2000 green peacock sample I ordered, also from EOT. Not nearly as intense as the Jingmai, it was ok though I guess. Looking forward to trying the other samples I ordered, and wandering further into the world of aged pu-erh.

Zi Cha from Teanami (through a free sample from them)
Dry – Rich bittersweet note, dried apricot, faint toasty/smoke note and a maybe warm sugar.
Wet – Thick/rich apricot, musky (like musky melon), floral bitterness, ‘green’ wood note/herbaceous.

This was fairly pleasant, but it does resemble most silver needle puerh I’ve had before (edit: I forgot to mention that I’m not saying it is a silver needle, just comparing it to it because to me it resembles it), I will say that it is very aromatic when dry which is very pleasant to open and smell and the initial notes are thicker than most silver needle puerh. This was a nice free sample from Teanami. I have to check out their other samples and I’ll probably revisit this one later after I air it a bit more.

Day 5 on 2016 Treachery. Past 20 steeps and still curling my teeth.

Today it’s a ripe from Yunnan Sourcing, the 2011 Nan Jian Certified Organic Mushroom Ripe Puerh Tea. This was a nice tea with a fair amount of fermentation flavor left. It also had notes of dark cocoa and camphor with camphor dominating. There was also a sweet note in there. Overall this was a nice ripe. Which is good because after seeing the positive reviews of this tea I bought the three pack. So I have 750g of the stuff.

Doing a side-by-side tasting with the lady (Cherokee on Steepster) to help her learn about puerh :) Starting with an easy comparison – A ripe vs. a raw puerh. 2015 Green Miracle from Yunnan Sourcing and 2015 Little Walk from W2T. Step one in getting past the, “it all tastes the same” period. We’ll see how this goes and progress from there!