pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou
Today I drank a really good raw puerh tea, the 2016 Yunnan Sourcing “Bing Dao Lao Zhai” Raw Puerh Tea Cake. This tea was quite good. It started out as a complex mix if bitter, sweet and astringent. There was no smoke. It was too young for storage flavors. Over the course of sixteen steeps this slowly evolved into a nice sweet raw puerh tea, as sweet as any raw gets. I would even say notes of apricots and stonefruits. This was definitely one of the best raw puerh teas I have had. Normally I would wonder if a tea claiming to be Bing Dao was a fake, because that region is much faked. But because I bought it from Scott at Yunnan Sourcing I trust that this is real. The leaves on this one are from 100 to 300 year old trees making it gushu even if just barely. This was one good tea and I definitely recommend everyone get a sample of this one. I went with a whole cake because the 2014 Yunnan Sourcing Autumn Bing Dao was so damn good I took a risk.
Li Gong Jin Shi Bing 2013 from shop.chadao.de – I love this one so much, expensive but very worth it. Ive been drinking the same bit for three days and its still giving out something nice. A (very good) bitter & milky steamed apricot sheng.
in fact my favourite sheng ive ever tasted. whatever that type of bitterness is, thats the style I like
Today I dug into one of my old boxes and tried a tea I bought last year but never tried, the 2008 Yunnan Menghai ShengShi Gong Ting Puerh Tea Ripe Cake from Streetshop88. The first thing I have to say is my storage seems sufficient for ripe tea at least. I did not notice any flavor associated with too dry storage like sour notes, etc. There was a lot of fermentation flavor to this tea. I was noticing it in even the tenth steep. There were notes of dark bittersweet chocolate early on. The tea gradually evolved into a sweet ripe, or at least as sweet as ripe gets mind you. Overall this was a good tea and the price was reasonable at around $30. I don’t know if it is still for sale.
did a short review of the 2007 yexiang wang wild elephant king from w2t.
the qi sort of crept up on me after i reviewed. ive been spacing out a little lol.
2012 Haiwan Dragon Spirit, sample swap with mrmopar. Dunno where he acquired it from. A heavier shou. Had this sealed up in the sample bag for over a year, suffered none for the wait. Strong fermentation flavor, but a clear brown cup. Heavy qi, burps and hiccups. I have several sessions left. Nice tea!
2013 MGH Wild Grown Bulang from puerhshop.com – It seems like a solid potential daily drinker – has some of the bitterness with good sweet finish that I look for in Bulang sheng. Not done with my session yet, but seems to be a solid one. Glad to see some of puerhshop’s pressings are decent.
2016 Last Thoughts from White2Tea today. This is a tea that, in my mind, laughs at the prospect of being aged. It already has a deep dark base to accompany the lighter yiwu florals, and it feels great. Then again, I suspect there is some lightly aged material in this blend; the leaves are an olive color, as opposed to the nuclear green one can get from other fresh pressings. Hits various parts of the mouth and throat, but does so at its own pace, so if you are not watching you might miss it.
Any tips on how to tell what puerhs have high/low caffeine content? I had always assumed they are generally high, but now I’m hearing of some claiming low caffeine in some puerhs.
So I got this sample from Yunnan Sourcing, 2007 Zhen Si Long “Autumn Harvest Yi Wu” Raw. The tea had an odd scent and flavor, I couldn’t really put my finger on it, but I had several steeps last night and thought that it could go a few more, so I put the leaves on a plastic plate in my pumidor and went back to them today. They’re still a little damp, but I noticed upon closer inspection that some of the leaves appear to be burned. I don’t know if I’ve ever noticed this before. I don’t know if it accounts for the odd taste/smell; I can’t say it’s a “burnt” smell/flavor, I honestly cannot put my finger on it. It did fade somewhat the more I steeped it.
So I wonder if this is the result of poor processing, or if it’s normal. I’ll admit I haven’t seen anything like this before, but maybe I just haven’t paid close enough attention.
Here are some photos, one taken in the house, the other outside.
Those are just how most overnight leaves look. I see the same darkening in the stuff I reuse the next day.
I think it is just the leaves oxidizing a bit. I see a lot of it. Char will usually show up as little black specks in a filter. It is seen more in factory teas that I have as opposed to the private producers. It is a fall tea and they usually don’t carry the punch of a spring tea.
I bet you could duplicate the pictures by repeating the process.
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