pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou

7959 Replies
Roughage said

I’m at the end of my pot of 2004 Hai Lang Hao “Big Snow Mountain” sheng now. It has been a splendid experience, and if I were to describe any tea as having cha qi, then this is the one. Drinking it has been a relaxing, meditative experience that has helped me focus on my work. It makes me glad I bought a whole beeng on spec, instead of just going for a sample.

MzPriss said

I have this bookmarked to order as soon as I get home and am not on a hotel internet connection. Your note on it was awesome and made me want it.

Roughage said

I hope it lives up to expectations for you. From what I read cha qi is an individual thing so I hope you get a lot from it.

Sounds great

Amy Alice said

Really impressive I would definitely like to taste this tea.Thanks for sharing.

JC said

I love Da Xue Shan, I need to get more from that area.

I cannot seem to find the link on Yunnan Sourcing to buy this one. Does anyone know a site aside from Yunnan Sourcing?

Yang-chu said

site seems to be down for the moment.

I just checked again and it is up! Thank you! :)

MzPriss said

Login or sign up to post a message.

Finally broke out of my habit of drinking well known items in my stash and took out a sample of 2008 Menghai “Springtime Water” Raw that I got from YS many months ago. The sample was tightly compressed so I broke off a 10g chunk for my 100 ml gaiwan. Gave it 2 rinses followed by several minutes of sitting time after each to get the chunk to loosen up a bit. Launched into a series of short steeps. Once the leaf fully opened it filled the little gaiwan to the brim! Initial steeps had a vegetal note, but that disappeared by steep 4. Liquor looked like golden apple juice. A tartness like green apples mixed with a nice underlying sweetness and hints of spice and a lively mouthfeel continued through the middle steeps. I got great energy from this sheng, leaving me energized but not wired. I’m on day 2, just finished the 20th steep and it’s finally starting to give out. Will try this again with less leaf, but overall I’m impressed with it’s smoothness and energy. I’m not an expert on sheng, but this is one of the best I’ve had so far.

Nice!

Javan said

Wonderful exposition on this tea. Thanks!

Yang-chu said

I have a tea that is downright sour. Not sure what to make of it, since it’s so anomalous.

Roughage said

Great description and that sounds like a really nice tea.

mrmopar said

This is a “Hidden Gem” at Yunnan Sourcing. I got a sample and then went for the cake.

Ubacat said

That sounds like a really great sheng. will have to put that on my wish list.

It was mrmopar’s review about 4 months ago that spurred me to add a sample of this to my December YS order, then I forgot about it until just recently (waaay too many teas in the queue). I’m going to add a cake to my next order. If you’ve not tried it, this is worth buying a sample.

MzPriss said

This sounds sooo good!

Ubacat said

I went looking for this tea on YS website but couldn’t find. Of course they have so many! lol

mrmopar said

Login or sign up to post a message.

Roughage said

I have sustained myself today with a 2008 Xiaguan ‘Dream of the Red Chamber’ sheng. I’ve not had much time to really focus on it, but it has been very pleasant just the same. It’s smoky and sweet, and most of the taste seems to be on the front of my tongue. While not totally blown away, I am happy with this tea and look forward to using up the rest of the sample. Thank you, nameless Steepsterite.

Login or sign up to post a message.

mrmopar said

Having a 2008 Fragrant “Xiang Zhu” Raw Puerh from the Canton tea company I received in a swap a while back. Thanks to the sender as it is a unique tea. I brought this one out to brew in a ceramic infuser cup. I gave it a 10 second soak to loosen it up a bit.
I has a nice aroma of hay and pine to it when I opened the lid up. It gave a decent color to the brew. It has light hints of smoke albeit somewhat subdued and hints of fresh hay on the palate.
It seems to be a pretty nice tea not strong and overpowering but enough of the hay, pine and touch of smoke with nice color that made it an enjoyable experience. I may just have to pick some of this up to add to the ever growing puerh stock I have.

Roughage said

Glad you liked this one. I am now tempted to dig it out and have some.

mrmopar said

Yeah this was nice. I really liked the bamboo fragrance and addition to the tea.

JC said

Bamboo Fragrance Puerh can be very pleasant. I don’t like it as an everyday thing, but I do find myself craving/missing its weird/unique(good way) notes. I’ll have to try this one.

Login or sign up to post a message.

Javan said

With all these sheng notes lately, I just had to have one. Tonight I tried the 2011 Yunnan Sourcing Ai Lao Mountain sheng. It was wonderful. Here is my note: This tea has really mellowed in the last two years. It brews to a light orange color, and is both gentle and flavorful. Interesting flavors of grass, oranges, and honey linger in my taste with increased salivation, and a slight touch of bitterness at the end. An altogether pleasant experience.
My memory of this tea from two years ago was of a harsher, more astringent and alfalfa or grass like tea that I thought would age well. It is. Lovely stuff. Two very short rinses to awaken, then 15 to 30 second steeps in three stages in a 160 ml yixing pot.

Yang-chu said

sounds quite nice.

Roughage said

That does sound rather good.

Login or sign up to post a message.

JC said

2005 Qing Beencha ‘Golden Sail’ NanNuo Shan. I just ranted about this one’s overly tight compression… regardless it is a very pleasant drink. I’ve been using the same 8gm all day at work and I’m sure it will take a few more steeps.

Pleasant Honey and Floral notes that can trick the palate with some almost fruity notes. I’d buy more if it dropped like $20, the compression is way too tight to maintain the leaf integrity once you start digging the middle of cake.

Login or sign up to post a message.

Rich select said

I’ve been more interested in shu’s as of late, so I ordered a bunch of samples from Yunnan Souring. The first one I tried from this batch was the Man Tang Hong Te Ji. It is a perfectly nice everyday drinker. It’s got medium body and a well fermented dark flavor, definitely no off (fishy) taste, kind of the typical middle-range roasty bitter chocolate shu. Because of the bitterness, it’s not super smooth, and one wonders whether that will change with age or not. I’d guess not. But it’s an OK type of astringency. At just $22, I think this one is quite a bargain, so for those of you looking for shus in this price range, I think it is a good one. YS has plenty of these in stock (hundreds), so no hurry! You can also get samples of it. This makes two nice bargain shu’s from YS I’ve tried recently – the Yong De organic and this one. I’ll try to post some more reviews of the other ones I try in the near future.

Just want to take this opportunity to thank all of the other reviewers in this post (especially the man behind the post – mrmopar!). It gives us all ideas about what to try. I am making an effort to put reviews up to help others, and am grateful for those that write reviews for us all to see!

Yes, I love reading everyone’s notes! Thanks to all who post here!

Ubacat said

Does Yunnan Sourcing have samples? I went looking on their website but didn’t see samples.

mrmopar said

Yeah just use the dropdown menu on the site. Yunnan Sourcing has a pretty good selection of them.

MzPriss said

Agreed Rich – This is where I learn so much about the pu. And yes high five to mrmopar, the pu-ru.

Yang-chu said

Yes. The posts are appreciated.

mrmopar said

No Pu-ru, we all have contributed and that’s what makes this post keep growing. I can’t take credit as I just had an idea for a topic and many have joined in.

MzPriss said

So mrmopar – I was a pu-erh class at Zhi tea a couple of weekends ago. The guy teaching the class was talking about pus and storage, etc. Then he said, “I don’t remember where I saw this, but some guy even has a PUMIDOR!” And I gigglesnorted and said “that would be mrmopar on Steepster. The pu-ru.” I just really, really appreciate how willing you and all the other pu people on here are to teach and share. I have learned so much. This is a sweet little community right here. ALL y’all are awesome.

mrmopar said

I think you had a leg up at this class. I would like to attend one of these classes one day to learn. Agreed great community, that’s why I have stuck around here a while. My other half calls it my tea facebook. " We all learn from each other". And I will stick by that. I have learned a lot on here also. When I started I couldn’t tell one tea factory from another but the learning curve clicked in and off I went.

MzPriss said

It was a shu class and we tried three shus. There is going to be a sheng one – which I am looking forward to – this weekend or soon I think. It was fun.

mrmopar said

MzPriss you will have to give us reports from this class. Should be interesting.

MzPriss said

I will. I need to check and see if they are having it as I haven’t gotten an email yet.

Ubacat said

MzPriss, I’d love to hear about it. Just getting my feet wet with sheng so far and wondering why I haven’t tried it all these years.

Login or sign up to post a message.

Ubacat said

I tried the 2011 Mandala Wild Mountain Green Raw Pu’er today. Thanks mrmopar for suggesting this. This is an excellent raw for someone (me) just beginning to taste the shengs. It seems a bit more simple than Wild Monk which has a few complex notes going on in it. Because I love the buttery notes from some green and oolong teas, I enjoyed it coming through a bit in this tea.

MzPriss said

I love the Wild Mountain Green, I’m so glad you liked it.

mrmopar said

Glad you liked it also. It is a very nice tea. I remember the sample I got and Garret had simply wrote on the instructions as “you know what to do”. That made me feel very good that I had learned the parameters for puerh tea. I was glad he had confidence in me to brew a good product the “right” way.

Login or sign up to post a message.

Roughage said

I have been enjoying the 2008 Xiaguan ‘Dream of the Red Chamber’ sheng done grandpa style in my Yixing flask since yesterday. It lends itself well to drinking that way and has lasted for two days, although it is about finished now.

Yang-chu said

yum. awesome name too.

MzPriss said

I was gonna say Best. Name. Ever. ever.

Login or sign up to post a message.

Sammerz314 said

I received my third puerh from JalamTeas subscription the other day. This puerh is a 2013 Autumn Meng Hun (North face of Bulang) sheng. The soup is smooth with a pleasant sweetness to it. There are subtle vegetal notes. Not much hui gan in this tea but there is a nice mouth feel. I’d say the smoothness is the prominent feature of this tea. 80/100

Yum

Login or sign up to post a message.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.