pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou
Starting the day off with a pleasant 2009 EoT Wuliang Wild Puerh. 6 grams to ~140 ml of water (I prefer my tea on the weaker side) brings out wonderful notes of honey. This is one of those teas that make you reconsider what a “good” puerh really is.
2011 Xiaguan FT Baoyan Jincha, Super seductive smell like mint and sweet smoke and something, I’d keep this thing around just to sniff, do they make this in incense form? The actual brewed tea is much lighter and mellower than I was expecting though (but still tasty), I was expecting something dark and orange and heavy, maybe i just need to use a lot more leaves.
This morning I pulled out a sheng pu-erh I’ve been meaning to try. It is a 2003 Meng Song “Dai Tribe” raw bamboo pu-erh. Described here: http://www.yunnansourcing.us/store/product.php?id_product=175 it is a fascinating slightly smoky, orchid aroma tea with a pleasant slightly fruity flavor that is quite “pure”. I’ve wanted to try it since reading about the process of its making, and I’m not disappointed. Very tightly packed, it has the taste of sheng but moving toward an aged quality that I like. Thumbs up from me. (6.5 grams in a yixing teapot, rinsed, steeped three times and combined.)
Tasting a sheng, 2013, from Fengqing. I love that musky taste. In the shop, they said that it is Mao Cha or ‘rough’ tea. Is it only with Pu Erh that this term is used?
By all means drink it! this is the form of Pu Erh before it is pressed into a cake or brick. Maocha is really loose Pu Erh tea. just like you would buy loose tea. it is basically the same.
Thanks. I sure did. I was more thinking in terms of availability. As you say, basically the same, loose pu erh and maocha, but is there a difference? Or just marketing?
I think just marketing. sellers purchase maocha from producers to process Pu Erh. I think availability may be low but I think maocha is the product that starts the process. It is dried and rolled and really the first step in making Pu erh. You basically have a very lightly processed tea. I would bet it is good and with some aging even better!
Thanks, that clears it up some.
For the moment, I only have 100gr, so far the aging part :)
It’s very good and it definitely makes me want to taste more pu erh of the Feng Qing region.
First tastes of Yunnan Sourcing 2012 Wuliang cake, so far its just sort of light and floral and grassy. I just got it and the cake has no scent at all leading me to believe that It’s currently dormant (probably from the cold dry weather) and I should give it a month or 2 before trying it again. The last young YS cake i had also arrived super young and green tasting and it opened up and massively deepened very rapidly.
Brewed up some 2012 MGH 1106 from Puerh Shop for the first time in a while. It’s got that clean, pure Lincang taste, but it’s much more aggressive than the others I’ve tried. Strong and bitter with a good qi.
I’m feeling more than a bit tea drunk, and enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon with fresh strings on my guitar. Doesn’t get much better than that
Enjoying a wonderful 1996 CNNP Sheng. I believe this tea was stored in slightly wetter conditions as it exhibits beautiful notes of earthiness and woodiness. Excellent tea which is available at the Essence of Tea.
We’ll slide down the surface of things…shu time. Comparing a 2002 Kunming brick, a 2005 Zhenkang Gu Cha disc and a 2005 nest of Menghai.
Just added yesterday’s 2012 Shue Yu Cha Xiang to the test. So far, the 2002 Kunming, 7581, brick impresses me most, it has a very natural and pure taste, not the typical cooked ‘brown’ flavour. Apparently, the 7581 tea recipe has some raw pu erh mixed to the formula. No wonder, I like it that much.
2006 CNNP Yellow Label (shu).
I tried brewing this early Qing Dynasty style with salt and milk (almond milk for me!). It was not very palatable. The second infusion was drunk straight.
I’ll definitely be ending the day with my beloved Aged Qizi (shu) from Yezi Tea. It seems to be my go-to pu-erh ever since being introduced to it. :)
Having a 2006 Menghai “Mount Elephant” sheng tonight. I have been working this one for three days now. It is a truly amazing tea. The strength of this one is amazing. It comes across with a mineral, citrus and honey notes. At times it has hits of camphor and “saltiness” that stays on the tip of the tongue. You can feel this one way down after drinking. I wish I had made some notes of the earlier steeping s. I plan to brew this one till it has nothing left as I think it will continue to yield more. This is probably the oldest sheng I have had and I can understand why people talk about aged sheng. Pure unadulterated Menghai at its best before the commercialization of it the following year. I think a whole beeng of this is on the shopping list.
Don’t you just love a nice sheng that has a great mouth feel and taste…and keeps delivering cup after cup!? Sounds very nice. I will need to try and locate this one. Thanks for the insight and sharing your thoughts.
I got it from Royal Puer. It was a 50 gram sample and I wish I had bought more. Really nice tea.
Day number four. It is much weaker now but still has some taste and lots of color in the cup. I just pulled the trigger to get one of these cakes.
“At times it has hits of camphor and “saltiness” that stays on the tip of the tongue.”
Could you elaborate further on the “saltiness”? Is it a salt-like flavor or do you think there maybe sodium in this sheng? Thanks!
loosetman I guess it was like the little buzz on the tip of the tongue that some sheng gives and then comes through with a second note of almost like a thin salty clear soup broth. Really hard to describe as it may have been the tea drawing my salivary gland to overdrive. I would not say “sodium” but probably the overdrive of the glands.
mrmopar, “a thin salty clear soup broth” – Sounds quite different compared with the full-bodied unflavored Orthodox black teas I’ve tasted. Is this characteristic more likely to be found in sheng as opposed to shou? Or, is this a trait associated with the Menghai factory? Thanks!
I think more associated with sheng in notes of the brothy and saltiness. I don’t think I have had any shou that gives me that sensation.
A tea that’s described as a soup or broth is not something I’ve yet experienced. Is this a highly valued characteristic in sheng? Are we taking Campbell’s, Progresso, or home-made? ;-)
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