pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou
Wistaria Nannuo today, again from Pubertea. Wanted to properly compare to the Qixiang, so steeped 17g/150mL. Still “Do not try this at home” parameters, which I cannot recommend. I drank through this in ~3 mini-sessions throughout the day. I’m enjoying the taste of this one a lot more, I guess this may be what you’d call leather. I wouldn’t really search out this flavor, but it’s done nicely here, with various hints of other flavors popping up here and there. Qi doesn’t come anywhere near the Qixaing, but there’s something, and it’s of the more calming variety.
It feels kinda off to mention which tea is better, but I can’t help myself – to my preferences, it’s the Qixiang; no contest.
To follow up, where as I find leafing up works well with YQH, I’ve found the opposite to work with most wisteria tea. For some some reason they do better with some extra room. Again it’s really all about preference and experimentation. Cheers!
Interesting grill. This go didn’t taste over-brewed to me, just a bit strong in the opening brews, but I’ll try this tea with less leaf later anyways and compare. Cheers!
+1 what Grill said. These Wistaria teas are fairly susceptible to brewing parameters in my experience. Worth experimenting to see which way you like it brewed.
Drank the second half of my 2006 10 Year Anniversary sheng from Sunsing tea via Pubertea. ~7g/100mL. Super thick in the first half of the session and quite tasty as well. Not a whole lot of qi, but some good mouth and throat feel to it.
The Pubertea Files #3: 2004 Yunnan Treasure from Bana Tea.
17g/150mL, of course. Eventually I’ll get to the point where the samples are smaller and I’ll have to stop the insanity, but I’m not there yet. Flavor of this one is my favorite so far, a nice fruity sort of taste, and despite my brewing parameters, this doesn’t taste at all strong to me; just right. Then again that may be a slight insult – I like my tea strong. Pleasant calming effects and some body feel. When my roommate came downstairs, I asked if she wanted to try some and she obliged, responding to a small sip: “Tastes like sucking on an old lady’s taint.” You heard it here first.
Revisited Fade and 2015 72 Hours from white2tea. Both teas have tightened up a great deal. Fade huang pian is no longer brewing up greenish, is now a golden yellow and thick, lasted about 9 steeps.
I last tried 72 Hours within just weeks of pressing. It too is now more yellow, and very thick. I’m on day 3 of 72 Hours 12+ steeps, not ready to quit yet, I’m only at 30 seconds still.I finally got around to tasting 72 hrs last weekend, after having a sample lying around for maybe 6 months but not the time for “focused brewing” and an inclination to drink young sheng simultaneously. For the first few steeps I was all like “why do people spend so much $$ on this,” but then the answer became obvious.
I basically always just steep out my tea in one sitting, but this time I had to finish it the next day. It still had some faint, interesting scent after 20+ infusions.
I had fun this afternoon drinking the Tea Urchin 2016 Peacock side-by-side with the 2013 version. I prefer the 2013 but suspect that it may just be showing more maturity. They are both quite good and great value.
I enjoyed the 2016 Orange Drop from this month’s White2Tea club box. Learn more about the tea and about chenpi on today’s blog :)
http://www.aguywithagaiwan.com/2016/10/14/2016-orange-drop-white2tea/
2010 Ya Quan Hao LBZ bought from Terre de Ciel in France. Light burnt sienna coloured soup, smooth, medium viscosity, tiny bit of smoke in the first couple os steepings and a sweet aftertaste. Some light bitterness developed in later steeps, probably a sign of future even better tea with further storage which is being done at around 20 degrees C and 70% relative humidity.
A challenger Approaches – 2005 Hong Tai Chang. Brewed 17g/150mL, like all the cool kids are doing these days.
For the CDO among us, it may be beneficial to know that for the other Pubertea samples, although I would qualify my brewing as starting with flash steeps, there was technically a slight pause before I lifted the pot to pour, maybe a second. In brewing this tea, I eliminated that slight pause. I guess I was less confident this tea could take the heat. Does this really matter? I don’t know.
This was the most mellow tea yet. You might call it weak, but there was enough going on, so mellow seems appropriate enough. This seemed to me like it was a notch down in quality for the other samples so far, but then again, if this is the tea I think it is, it’s a few notches down in price, so arguably a bargain. (I think it’s this? http://tea-side.com/puer-tea-thailand-trees/sheng-puer-2005-hongtaichang-thai-tea-trees/) Part of me thinks this worth picking up a cake of, due the appealing price-quality-age combo, and another part thinks you should really just be saving up your chips for some YQH or something.
ZSL YìWǔ Zheng Liang Zi from pu-erh.sk
This has only had ~24hrs to rest form shipping, and I’m brewing at 17g/150mL, so take these notes with a grain of salt.
Although this is an yiwu, it tastes like it spent a lot of time hanging out on the street corner with a Bulang gang called the ‘New Amerykas’ or something – which means it’s right up my alley. Not only was I jiving with the flavor, but there was some interesting creeper qi that showed up at the end of the session. Like other teas brewed with these parameters, I didn’t steep it out in one go, but with this tea I was tempted.
Is there any reason you keep up with these extreme brewing parameters? Seems like you’re wasting a lot of really great tea.
Good Question. I’ve been steeping this way because I enjoy brewing teas with heavy parameters, and then steeping out over a day or two, or sometimes even three or more. One of the dangers with this sort of brewing is that the tea will become boring, and that I would lose interest, but all of these have been interesting. Also, while some people enjoy splitting up samples into smaller sessions and having multiple goes at a tea to get an idea of it, I find that having a long multi-vist session gives me a good idea; to each their own. Additionally, hitting it hard and getting good results is a feature generally shared by both more aged and higher quality teas; younger and/or lesser quality teas tend not to be able to take the heat. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, while I haven’t been explicit about it, I have not wasted any of these teas, and have steeped them all out, often over two days. Actually, today a friend came over who also likes strong tea, and he helped me steep out both yesterday’s and today’s tea.
I do plan on coming back to some of these teas (that I have larger samples of) and trying more normal brewing parameters. Maybe I will even prefer that for some of them.
I can feel my liver shiver just from reading those parameters, haha. Good thing it heals.
Heh. Actually, increased tea consumption may be beneficial to the liver, e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7711535 – Increasing consumption to >=10cups/day seems to be beneficial. It’s hard to say though, as this study (like most) looks at green tea consumption, and puer may be a different beast.
I thought I had pretty much steeped this tea to death yesterday, but I decided to throw the leaves in a thermos (which will stay undrinkably hot for ~7hrs) along with some boiling water for good measure. Came back around 6hrs later and strained it out. I was expecting something sweetwater-like, but got a surprisingly strong cup, with some qi to boot. Good stuff.
You deserve a medal or maybe a patch. I’ve brewed farmer style before and I can feel my hair vaporize off my head.
‘Farmer style’? Didn’t know it was called that; you learn something new every day.
Well, the fine chap(s) over at pu-erh.sk did include a complimentary “don’t drink tea – drink pu-erh” shirt along with my order, does that count? It’s a bit large on me, but I shall do my best to wear it with pride.
Maybe take it up a notch & brew ‘competitive-farmer’ style & see if you transcend into a being of pure tea
I actally have found the idea of ‘competative-farmer’ style appealing, but I suspect thermoses don’t come in 50mL sizes.
Maybe I could dress up as a tea leaf for Hallowen? I could be bug-bitten.
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