pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou

7959 Replies
Cwyn said

2008 Haiwan Lao Ban Zhang from blogger Wilson’s new store. Perfect storage. This tea is so bitter and arse-kicking, I feel like I had hot sweaty sex in the afternoon and went back to work. I don’t know if this is real LBZ, but doesn’t matter to me. Sometimes sheng has a presence like meeting a real person, this one has got it. Wish I’d bought more.

AllanK said

Wilson has a store? What is his website again?

Cwyn said

adventureineverycup.com

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MrQuackers said

I figured if I was going to read about pu-erh tea, I should go and get myself some stuff aged in a cave for 5 years. So I go into the store, and the lady tells me that everytime they get an order, some woman buys it all up. So no tea for me. :(

Rasseru said

In my (very limited compared to others here) experience I seem to have ok luck with 10 years as a good starting point to get aged flavours (in sheng)

AllanK said

If you want to buy puerh, local stores aren’t usually the best option. Online is better. My favorite is Yunnan Sourcing at www.yunnansourcing.com and www.yunnansourcing.us. The second website ships from Oregon.

TeaLife.HK said

If you want cave-aged, HK old school storage is about as close as you’re gonna get :D dank warehouses by the harbor, full of tons of pu

5 years too short. 7 at least, 10 better.

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MrQuackers said

Well, I got my hands on some little wrapped puerh pieces. Puehr Tuo Cha it said on the third party label. I tossed one in a bowl, and steeped it with 500 mL of boiling water for 2 minutes.

It is luxuriously dark and opaque and smells either like the ground after a lot of rainy days in the fall, or like a fish store. Actually, I eat raw fish sometimes, so who cares? :)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BIOVz4bBAOl/

Wocket said

Mmm, suspect quality Shu pu! Just be aware, there’s a whole world of pu out there that doesn’t have that same… funk?

AllanK said

Tuo Cha are usually made from lower quality leaves or the left overs of a fermentation batch. This being said there are some high quality mini tuo cha out there too. Mandala tea sells one called Temple Stairs that is very good.
http://shopmandalatea.com/ripe-pu-er/mini-tuocha/temple-stairs-ripe-pu-er-mini-tuocha.html

MrQuackers said

The leaves smell kinda tobacco before brewing.

TeaLife.HK said

OK…

#1, those mini-tuos are probably crap. 99% probability

#2, you need to rinse shu pu erh twice…and sometimes three times

#3, you could be drinking much better pu erh

#4, you actually liked it! Wait until you try something good. :D

MrQuackers said

Can you describe the rinsing process for me, please?

So you’re saying that I have a 1% chance that I won the puerh lottery? ;)

TeaLife.HK said

Maybe 1% was too generous an estimate. :D

Yeah, if you’re brewing in a bowl, you would preheat it with boiling water, then dump the water. Add the tuo, add water (no need to reboil), let it sit for 20-30 seconds and then toss that water (without the tea leaves). You could use a strainer…I use a teapot or gaiwan for pu erh (and I don’t usually drink mini-tuos, even if they were free)! Pour on water again after a minute’s rest, pour out after 5-10 seconds. Then reboil the water, add to the bowl/pot/mug/whatever and let it steep.

It should improve the taste of the tea somewhat, but I’d suggest buying samples from Yunnansourcing or Chawangshop or any of the other vendors that serve the tea community (those are just the two online vendors I buy from most often).

AllanK said

Yunnan Sourcing has some particularly good ripe house blends if you are looking for ripe tea. And they are pesticide free since I think 2013.

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https://instagram.com/p/BIOu5MPgatP/

I lost 1/2 my shou and 1/3 my sheng to improper storage tonight. Don’t make the same mistake I did!

I had them in plastic tubs with a cup of water and a humidity/temp sensor. They read between 60-70% RH and I opened them about once a week for ventilation. I did not unwrap them all very often.

Now let’s all drink a toast to my unopened 2012 Wild Monk cake may it and it’s friends rest in moldy peace :(

Cwyn said

Brush off the mold, sweetie and dry them out. They will be fine, I promise you.

mrmopar said

Don’t toss that cake.

Bitterleaf said

While it’s easy to panic after seeing mold, all might not be lost. It’s not yellow mold, which is good. I’ve mostly just seen light white mold, so I’m not sure about green/blue, but if you dust it off and dry it out, you might be able to save your stash.

TeaLife.HK said

If you like, I can ask one of the people who has been storing pu erh in humid Hong Kong for their entire lifetime for their opinion on the mold.

I’ve never seen mold quite like that on pu here, so I’m a little wary of telling you to brush it off and drink away. White, gray, yellow, bugs, bug feces, I’d be less concerned with. Blue green stuff like that…a little too exotic for me without a pro’s opinion

Cwyn said

I’d let the moldy teas dry out 6 months at least. I’ve pushed tuos to green mold before in the process of testing various storage containers. They return to their previous state eventually. The worst I could say is the sheng was cloudy for awhile. Green mold needs heavy humidity and dark to survive. Deprived of that it dies. No one is saying brush and drink now, but a decent drying period should take care of it.

I really appreciate everyone’s help!! :)

Rasseru said

im no expert at all (with pumidors at all) but ive had a mouldy cake and after advice on here I let it dry out and after 6 months it was fine again

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Cwyn said

Drank both 2016 Teadontlie and Head by white2tea and reviewed them on my blog. Teadontlie is an interesting blend, a real Denture cleaner, and Head is a savory brew that is good for my edema. I’ve had a wonderful week of tea with these cakes, Wilson’s Haiwan LBZ, and the fabulous Treachery. Life’s been rough and depressing after I took a fall last week but all the better when I can get through it with teas like these.

Zennenn said

It’s so hard to be immobilized. And for those of us that have it, easy to take our mobility for granted. Glad you had some fantastic distractions.

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MrQuackers said

I’m looking over some reviews of white or green puehr. Maybe it’s for me?!

One place in the archives wanted what worked out to be $40 / 100g. A little steep in price considering you can get some high quality Japanese tea for the same money.

Still, the whole family farm and hand processing sounded interesting.

TeaLife.HK said

There is no white pu erh, just white tea pressed in cakes. Some vendors will try to push it as white pu erh.

Also raw pu erh, or sheng pu erh, is what we call the green stuff. Now if you want ‘green’ pu erh…that’s a whole other ball game. :D Tea that has been killed with too much heat so it doesn’t age like real pu erh, but tastes good now…

AllanK said

It is true that the “white puerh” is not really in any sense of the word puerh. It is one form or the other sold as white tea. The theory is that it will age for a few years. But it will not age indefinitely like a good puerh tea under the right storage. As for green puerh some vendors call their raw puerh green puerh. A very good website called www.purepuer.com calls all of their raw green puerh cakes. But with this site they are raw cakes and not processed in the method mentioned above with too much heat.

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AllanK said

Today I drank an aged ripe from Yunnan Sourcing, the 2004 Mengyang “Chen Xiang” Aged Ripe Puerh Tea Cake. This was an interesting tea with both good and bad things about it. First there was virtually no fermentation flavor to this tea, maybe a tiny amount in the first steep but I’m not even sure about that. This tea has cleared. There was a nice semi sweet note from the beginning with this tea, perhaps mushrooms is a good description, perhaps someone else will come up with a better description. There was also a negative note that developed around the third steep and lasted several steeps. It did not last that long. Also I have to say that the fermentation taste on this tea was replaced by a bit of a flat taste to it, but not real strong. The most unusual thing about this tea is it has some qi to it. I am feeling it right now, an energizing qi. Most ripe I drink I get zero qi from. In the end I have mixed feelings about this tea but it was an interesting experience in my teacup. This might be one worth sampling to some people simply because it really had a near total lack of fermentation flavor. How many ripes do you find that have completely cleared?

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Wocket said

Today I drank the 2007 BingDao Ice Queen from Bitterleaf. A very fine tea, and no mistaking.

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AllanK said

Today I drank a tea obtained from Yunnan Sourcing, the 2013 Mengku “Wild Arbor King” Raw Puerh Tea Brick. This was a good quality tea for a brick I think. It was quite bitter in the start. It took a while for the bitterness to go away, about eight steeps. Around steep nine I started to notice a nice sweet note. Not quite sure if I would say it was sweet enough to use the term apricots, but it was good. On a side note. I got my teamail while I was brewing this. My mailman is a little odd. He asked me for a cup of tea as he knows he is always bringing me tea. So I gave him what I think was the fourth steeping of this tea. It may have been a bit of a shock being suddenly exposed to sheng, and a bitter one at that. We’ll see if he ever asks me for tea again or if he tells me he threw it out.

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Wocket said

2016 Secret Garden by Bitterleaf. If there was a secret, I didn’t uncover it. The tea was just fine, and a rather appealing drink (with no unintended side effects a la my last young sheng adventure), but nothing compelling, at least to me.

Perhaps strangely, I’d rather have their Huangpian.

JC said

Have you had W2T’s 2015 Fade? If not it is a solid one.

Wocket said

I haven’t, but I hope to soon!

TeaLife.HK said

From meeting with bitterleaf and discussing the Secret Garden, this is a tea I really want to try. It’s from a location they won’t disclose in order to protect it. Your last two reviews make me want to check out their offerings. :) Our respective schedules meant that couldn’t happen when I was in Kunming.

Wocket said

While it may have seemed I was lukewarm on Secret Garden, I think it suffered from its proximity to my Ice Queen session, plus my preference for sheng with some age.

I’d definitely recommend it if you’re into newer shengs!

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