pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou
After an early morning Bitterleafteas 2013 Jingmai I am now halfway through a session of Terre de Ciel’s 2015 Yiwu sheng. Both teas are mild, smooth and with a sweet aftertaste. The Jingmai one also had an excellent viscosity while the Yiwu one also tasted nutty in the first couple of steeps.
Mentally preparing myself for a Puehrsk NAKA session this afternoon…
Today I enjoyed a session with White2Tea’s Repave. Not much to say other than I still find it quite enjoyable
2004 Xiaguan raw cake from Adventure in Every Cup. Not every day you have a cake which can exhibit its changing flavor profile throughout a decade all in one session!
Raw/Ripe blend today. 2006 Gongting Ripe and 2012 Ruiyuan Nannuo Raw, both from White2Tea. I wanted to give the Nannuo another go, but I didn’t want to get burned, so after a couple of infusions of straight Nannuo I added the Gongting to balance things out. The combined taste was fantastic, double chocolate chip cookie, but the energy hit me really hard. The energy actually seemed alright during the session, but a little while after I’d finished drinking it became a bit much. I actually steeped up a small amount of aged red later to try and help balance out as well (~10yr old dianhong from Yunnan Sourcing), but this only seemed to amplify things (or maybe there was nothing to be done). Not an unpleasant result per se, but definitely not something for regular consumption.
2006 YQH Qixiang, from Pubertea. Making faces as I drink this – is the qi worth the taste? The jury is still out, but probably. 17g/150ml.
Probably nothing is wrong with it, and it’s just my taste preferences, but there is is a certain part of it (maybe 15%? – there’s quite a bit going on) that I find rather repulsive. It could just be that I’ve simply over-leafed, but I regularly brew with heavy leaf/water ratios, and while sometimes the result is pretty intense, it’s usually not really off-putting. I’m not really sure how I’d describe the particular flavor.
I’ve held off on YQH because I feel the cakes are seriously overpriced…repulsive is a strong word! Now I’m curious about trying some YQH…and also not. Lol
Also the name pubertea makes me wonder if I’d find errant pubes in my tea…
Yeah, I found the prices scary too, hence why I’m only getting round to trying some thanks to Pubertea. Not sure YQH is really overpriced, though, just expensive thanks to the market and whatnot. The qi on this is legit, and I’m still drinking away as a result.
Heh, you don’t need to be part of Pubertea to find pubes in puer… don’t ask me how I know.
YQH teas do have a particular flavor, I just call it storage for lack of a better word, though I’ve also heard it called Chinese medicine. I have tried several YQH teas, and they’ve all had it. I think allowing them to air out for a few months vastly improves the flavor and diminishes that particular note. I’d go a little lighter on the leaf too, they are quite strong. Just my two cents.
Honestly, I don’t know. Others may speak to that better than I can. I will say it is pretty distinctive. I am far from being any kind of a pu expert, especially with regard to the aged stuff, but I’m confident I could pick a YQH out of a lineup without fail.
Maybe it is a storage flavor. It is mellowing out as I continue steeping; still there but less off-putting.
curlygc, you’ve tried my HK traditional storage 7542—do YQH teas have a similar kind of flavor to them?
No pubic hairs in my pu yet (knock on wood), but I did get some well aged loose shu from a very good Hong Kong tea dealer that had more long human hair in it than I was comfortable with, and it was embedded in the tea. I only bought 38-75g worth (we use old fashioned taels here, at 37.8g), but I still have some of that tea from five years ago. LOL. The hair totally put me off
a bad pasty: At least one of my YQH tasted significantly different (better) after it had rested for a few months, so maybe give it another try after a while.
Jay: The YQH has nothing in common with your 7542, you just need to try out some yourself someday to find out.
Gotcha, was just trying to identify the issue and see if it was a humid storage thing! I’ll have to get some in to see what the fuss is about :)
Continuing the Qixiang on day 2, and the flavor is now tolerable, but most of the qi has left. Notable about his tea is how comfortable the qi was on the first day, in spite of its strength. I got to the point where I was super-energized yesterday, and I’d had enough, but I also felt like I could have had more and would have been just fine.
Definitely sounds like I would have enjoyed the taste on this more if I’d aired it out first.
That’s some pretty intense parameters even for YQH which I tend to like leafed up more than most puerh. If you have more I’d try more normal 1:15 or 1:10 next session. As for the storage taste, it’s nothing like HK at all. It’s not even like most TW storage tbh, very distinct to their tea. It does slowly air out though and the tea starts to taste more classically Yiwu. Qixiang being a 6m blend is a bit different than most yqh though. Cheers and have fun experimenting
Perhaps I should explain the “logic” of my brewing parameters. I generally prefer around 1:10 with my raw pu (it really depends on the tea though), and was expecting a 12-14g sample of this, not really enough to split into two good sized sessions. So I garbed my 150ml pot. When I was pouring it in it seemed like a lot, and what do you know, 17g. I measured out 14g then thought to myself “what am I going to do with 3g?” and threw it in. Of course I wouldn’t have considered this if YQH didn’t have a reputation.
It’s nice to hear that the storage is unique; hopefully I’ll prefer the Wistaria house flavor.
I should actually try using more leaf, as YQH (all Yiwu teas basically) tend to be lighter in body, so what Grill says about leafing up more than most puerh makes sense.
Starting the W2T terroir set so I can firmly get in my mind classic tea terroir taste. So first up & todays is the Menghai. Seems pretty classic fruity young sheng taste so far turning to classic bitterness.
And recently I have noticed sheng becoming an even greater level of easy-to-drink, which is great! I do need a pumidor though as I dont want my tea to lose its taste by drying out too much
Drinking 2016 Cats from CLT. Soft pollen, honey and grass. Maybe a little hay. Intrigued about blending it next.
Finished my sample of Year of the Monkey Yiwu from Bitterleaf earlier. Now drinking a session of my 07 Mengku raw cake that I got from LP at one point. Later, I hope to finish off my sample of 2015 Pin from W2T and get a review of that up :) Sheng alllll daaaay. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
Just waking up and I think I’ll start with some Jingmai maocha in Jianshui today. Need a break from green tea and green oolongs!
Number 2 Terroir set, the Lancang/Jingmai. Only a few steeps in & had to post here because something about this tea is wonderful. The Menghai one tasted pretty standard (basic?) fruity but this one is floral & complex & lush. Slight bittersweet & other goodness. milky body, weird huigan.
I think this might also be my recent upgrade to intermediate sheng level, its taken a good two years but my tastebuds are getting more aligned exponentially every day, I taste different depths in the tea now for some reason, whereas a few months ago I couldnt.
Really enjoying this session but its changing already by steep 5. The first two steeps were stellar though!
I think your nervous system has to rewire itself before you can taste sheng properly. When you first start drinking it, the taste is like a blast of noise. After a few hundred tries, you start hearing the music. So to speak.
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