pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou

2014 Spring Laobanzhang. Head is still spinning. Luckily this sessions bill was not on me. Heavy, heavy qi.

Today at work I’m having 2009 Wu Liang Shan Xiao Bing(W0901) from ChaWangShop. It is ‘Meh’ for me. That’s half the reason I brought it to work. It has a deep amber liquor and it has mellow sweetness and mellow floral, to me it seems flat, nothing worth paying too much attention for.

It is at $14 for 200gm, but as I said it is rather flat and tastes a bit more aged than it should, nothing off just possibly wetter storage(aged taste, not musty) on the overall scent and taste; tastes older than 2009.

Sampling a 2005 Yiwu that Nicolas, from Misty Peak Teas, sent me. This material is from the same garden/family Nicolas sources his tea from. The leaves are wonderful to look at and brew a dark amber soup with no cloudiness whatsoever. Interesting nose that I cannot seem to describe but am enjoying. The soup has no bitterness to it and exhibits a very nice subtle sweetness to it. There are other notes that, again, I cannot seem to describe. From my experience, similar notes can be found in old leaf puerh (ie. puerh produced from big mature leaves opposed to young tender leaves as most are). Nice thickness and mouthfeel. Hui gan lasts atleast a full minute. Very happy to have the pleasure of drinking this tea.

I personally requested older samples from his garden. He sent me samples from 1998 and 2005 =). He doesn’t actually sell cakes from those years though.

I’m having about my 6th or 7th infusion of Tea Urchin’s Bulang Beauty, courtesy the generous gesture of JC. For starters, the dry leaves are gorgeous, also smell awesome, maybe like a scrumptious oatmeal cookie that your granny would have made. This is now the fourth TU tea I’ve sampled, so I’m getting a real sense of their taste profile. Like the others, the taste is always smooth, with little astringency and a very pristine liquor, nice round mouth feel and a teensy hint of bitterness. It has an unmistakable fruity quality, but I can’t place the fruit, maybe banana? I remember tasting hints of sour in second infusion. The first few infusions of the brew also smelled deep fruity but now it’s moving more toward that metallic smell of which I’m not big fan. I started out brewing at 175 now I’m at 195, about 20s. This is my first raw Bulang that doesn’t have any of the characteristic bite that I associate with it. This one is perfect for those who aren’t big fans of smoke. There isn’t any in this. Ready to drink now, I wonder what kind of aging potential exists for such gentle teas? In short, sweet with harmonizing fruit elements.

Didn’t like my tea tonight early on. Had an oolong, then sencha/gyokuro mix, still felt out of sorts. Brewed up 1990s Ding Xing Hao raw, 12 brews n all is well…;)

Today’s tea is a 2007 You Le Shan sample that I bought from Zhi Zheng when they still had a webshop. I have quite enjoyed the previous samples I got from them, but this one is just bland and uninteresting. The light hay aroma of the dry leaf is pleasant. The first sips have the promised pleasing bitterness but, unfortunately, that only lasted in the first cup or two. Apart from that the tea had little to offer. I found it watery and insipid regardless of what I tried by way of varying the brewing parameters. I’m chalking this one up to experience and moving on. I don’t have time for shrinking violets that bottle up their flavour. I want my tea to come in gats blazing, or at least to offer up something interesting when probed more deeply. Sadly this little afternoon family drama did neither.

It’s not my first pu’erh, but it is my first post on this thread!

I made the Yunnan Aged Gudian Pu-erh Tea by Yezi Tea from a sample they had sent me. I believe it is a shou from 2005.

I hope you guys don’t mind me asking, but are you able to tell from the descriptions if these are, in fact, all shous? That’s what they look like to me. The Aged Qizi says “shu cha”, but the rest do not. If not, no worries. I can always email Yezi. :)

http://www.yezitea.com/collections/puerh-tea

Last night I thought I’d try out the Cheng-shan 2012 Golden Peacock, ripe. Cheng-shan isn’t a mountain but the brand, lets call it Honest Goodness brand. For starters it was the best smelling ripe pu’er outta da box I’ve ever come across, smelling like cocoa. The brew is clear burgundy and true, with taste in the Lang-he vein of semi-fermented: there’s zero off taste. Peanut notes along with chocolate are detectable but very subtly expressed. It lacks a certain depth, there’s no leather, tobacco, cherry, or amontillado, the latter two being among the exotic flavours that our fellow steepsters seem to detect in ripes, but which I’ve yet advanced to. In any case, this has an excellent cha-qi, that made me give a good sigh of satisfaction. The finish is quite dry and I can tell that this is a good phlegm cutting tea, perfect for weightloss and digestive sluggishness. Problem. I usually don’t have issues with drinking ripe teas in the evening. My wife and I both had about three cup, you know Chinese tea cups that hold about an oz of water, at a little before 8:00pm. Both of us had the darnedest time sleeping even into 3:00 am.

After the earlier disappointment I dug through the boxes for a sure bet and picked out the 2011 Canton Special from Canton Tea Co. Looking back, I realise that I last drank this two years ago and have written nothing about it since. I think I shall do a proper tasting tomorrow, but for tonight I’m just going to knock it back and enjoy the strength, tobacco and cooling sensation on my tongue. This makes me feel much better.