pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou

2016 W2T Daily Drinker. I really like the aftertaste of this one – nice upfront but mellow taste, not so light-fruity or Yiwu-veg, more thick-medium-complex-menthol but with a fruity/floral/light-methol huigan.

Really good for the price. Oolong owls review is spot on, a gullet stuffer, for I have been stuffing my gullet with it today

My body makeup is now about 40% sheng, 40% Oolong & 20% other tea

After three days on The Pin, started up on mrmopar’s 2012 Haiwan shou sample. Very clean tea. Colder than hell frozen over right now, facing -20F this weekend…

Another aged sheng from Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company today. This tea claims to be:
1990’s, if not precisely from 1990 itself
Spring Crop
Yiwu
Old Arbor
Natural Taiwan Storage
Blessed by Three Virgins

As with other teas I’ve had from BTTC, I really dig the storage. A touch of humidity, which I consider a positive, but not too much. Plenty of strength for an old yiwu, with some nice chocolatey taste and pleasant aroma. I’m not really feeling anything in the qi department, but this is definitely ready to drink. A long steeper, at this point I don’t know how long, and very chuggable.

Having major sipdowns of all my YS teas, still have a lot of samplers to finish.

2015 Da Qing Gushu, soft & thick, also a bit weird taste in it, cant make out what it is (but its odd & not quite ‘nice’). Also interesting grape-like taste-aroma. Sweetness.

Too-strong Qi or caffeine.

Warming up with the last sample of the 2004 Yang Pin Hao from W2T, I’ve been having it for two days now. Its going strong. Its not super interesting or complex, but it does mid-aged taste and mouthfeel right which gives you a warming sensation this time of the year. It also gets smoother as smaller particles usually invade on the first few steeps. Liquor started a darker/dull amber and now they are closer to burgundy or a redish-amber color.

Today I drank a sheng I picked up perhaps a year ago and lost track of in my storage, the 2007 Boyou “0708f”. This was over the course of twelve steeps quite a good tea. The initial steeps were not as good however. There was some smoke for the first two steeps. Not sure if it picked this up being accidentally stored with a smoky tea for a couple of months or if it’s natural. There were some notes of leather and tobacco trying to pop through in the first five or so steeps to. They were never really strong. Then there was a bit of a sour note for a few steeps though. The tea got past all this by the sixth steep however and evolved into a nice sweet tea. I am not sure how to characterize the sweet notes but they were not the apricots of a young sheng. In the end this tea was very good and I gave it twelve steeps. I brewed it in my 160ml Solid Silver teapot purchased from Yunnan Sourcing. The tea was obtained from Berylleb King Tea on Ebay.

EoT 3-Leaf liu bao today. Not exactly puer, but whatever. My first try of this tea was somewhat lucklaster. Still good, but I think the description on the product’s page set my expectations to high.

Today I upped the ante by bringing out a 60mL yixing and brewing clown-car style. The tea seemed barely fazed by my attempts to push it, becoming neither harsh or more interesting. This tea reminds me of gongting ripe puer; hits pretty hard early on, but not too long lasting. I think I actually prefer the 2008 big leaf Liu Bao sold by EoT, despite it’s weirdness.

Drank the 2014 Dayi Shan Shui Yun tonight.
I grabbed 10 grams off the cake. Easy to do as the cake was loose pressed for a Dayi. The leaves are a mix of chopped and some full leaf in there. I gave it a wash and let it sit a few minutes. There is some color in the wash so that is promising.
First brew 5 seconds. Golden color. Tastes , a bit smoky with typical shot of BuLang bitterness. It hits with smoke and mineral on the middle part of the tongue.
Second steep, 5 secs, more color getting golden now. A bit stronger on the bitterness with some hints of sweet coming through. Cooling down give some tongue tingle.
Third steep, 5 seconds, color dropping a bit. Still has a good punch some drying at first. Mint and cooling on the breathe intake now. Some more sweetness. Leaves unrolling now and able to see some color variance in them.
I did this tea nine times two days ago and didn’t do many notes. It finally tailed off for my tastes at nine. You may be able to steep it a bit more.

Flavors: Bitter, Mineral, Mint, Smoke, Sweet

For the second half of this day I’ve been drinking a tea I’ve had before, but didn’t have quite the same experience I’ve been having with it. I am drinking a tea from Aliexpress that was sold as Big Snow Mountain wild trees 2009. Outside of a number of months the main difference is in how I leafed the tea. I used more leaf this time @ 6 g vs probably closer to 4 the last time.

This time it has had powerful effects on my body. Even now when the number of steeps is well into the teens. This Sheng created a strong sense of energy within my body pulsing into my toes . This is not what I normally get from caffeine highs. It made me very restless at one point but at the same time I wanted to sleep if that makes sense. It also made me very cold.. This is the first time where I could really see Where TCM’s classification of Sheng as a cooling tea comes from.

The last time I drank this tea I got smoky green tea opening to apricots and spun sugar. This time the initial taste was a mix of mushroom, bitter greens, cool floral like cotton flower opening into a fruity sweetness that is almost grape like. The tea became quite thick in body after the third steep and the aftertaste is quite sweet and lingering combined with a peppery spice on the tongue. I had to stop drinking this at one point, curled up under a blanket to get warm. Then promptly fell asleep for three hours. I thought that the tea may have mellowed after so many steeps so I tried a few more and my feet are again tingling.

2014 Lao Yun from Chawangshop, this time from the full cake rather than a sample. There are two versions of this tea, regular processing and traditional processing. I have the traditional which is the one that smells like campfire wood smoke. By airing for a year and a half the campfire is mostly gone now. I bought this version as it what the old ladies who process this tea make for themselves. Cost me all of $12 for a full cake.

After eating some salty chips yesterday and then pasta today, I’m paying with edema in my legs and feet. So that is why I reached for this one, in hopes of some easement. 4g/60ml. This tea is very bitter now, tongue punishing and has nowhere left to go but sweetness. Quick mouth huigan. Three cups in and I’m sweating and the ache in my feet eased up. Good tea for this old lady’s maladies.