pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou

Drank the 2013 COFCO Jingpin 7581 Ripe today. IT was pretty good even if it had a lot of fermentation flavor left. It was sweet with a hint of camphor, tasty.

1992 Menghai Red Star to by Tea Classico. Some humidity, dark like coffee. Yum! Got some photos on my blog, it is good tea and glad I bought a sample.

I am enjoying a nice 2006 Yiwu sheng today – 2006 Six Famous Tea Mountains YiWu Mountain Millenial Raw. Like many others, I am a fan of most teas from Yiwu. This cake is rather dark and mysterious and it holds a special place in my collection. The raw material is from purely Yi Wu old-growth tea trees. The giant whole leaves are clearly hand arranged and wrapped to form the cake – unlike anything I have seen before and when I opened the cake wrapper I was reminded a little of the grapevine wreaths you buy from craft stores.
The cake has a lovely loose compression of large dark leaves. The wet leaf produces the scent of sweetness mixed with roasted grains and a clear gold tea soup. This is certainly not the most flavorful YiWu tea I have but with a bit of age on them, the leaves produce extremely smooth, sweet and buttery sips with decent cha-qi. While there is not a particularly thick tea soup, I enjoyed eight quite pleasant cups today. There is definitely a dose of caffeine in each cup but the tea left me calmed and comforted.

Earlier today I sampled 2004 Six Famous Tea Mountains Organic Ban Zhang Raw, from YS. I was in need of perking up & it hit the spot there, but also was wonderfully sweet & fruity. I’m working from home tomorrow, so I plan to pick up where I left off. :)
Meanwhile, I was just loitering at the YS site, & here’s their special announcement:

48 hour sale starts now, ends 9/24 at 03:00 am (China Time).
15% off all RIPE PU-ERH tea! * ENTER CODE: RIPE15

Today I drank the 2008 Menghai Mt Elephant shou puerh. It was incredibly good. I steeped it 14 times. There were notes of plums and dark chocolate at various points. I did use a small amount of sugar which may have accentuated the plum notes, but not much. This cake was strong until around the 10th steep and reasonably strong until the 12th steep. It was pretty weak by the 14th steep. This is the most steepings I have ever done with a puerh, period. This was damn good.

Today was my first sampling of Jalam’s offering for Sept, Ba Ka Ngoi Fermented Puer. Most of the teas they have sent have been of the Raw variety, & although admittedly, I still haven’t sampled all of them, the ones I’ve tried have been very good, & I’m really happy to be part of that tea club.

This one arrived over the weekend, & since I was craving a Shou this afternoon, I decided to go with this one. No weird tastes or aromas, it’s a very nice, sweet & clean tea, starting out like a dense boston brown bread sweetened with molasses. The texture is creamy, even with a cream taste spread on top. As I sipped it all afternoon, there was mild camphor, leather, tree, copper, followed with a sourdough rye kind of taste. Now it’s a sweet-water :)
I have a lingering pleasant sweet tangy taste & sensation in my mouth. As I mentioned before, it has a very clean quality, a strength to it, & immediately I felt great energy spreading throughout my body, revitalizing me from head to toe!

I am currently on the fourth steep of the 2014 (Menghai) Ancient Tree Ripe Puerh Tea Brick from Puerhshop. It is pretty good with little fermentation flavor. It is actually 2010 tea pressed in 2014 so has aged a bit. The puerhshop page describes coffee and dark cocoa notes with plum and black currant notes. This description is not that far off, if stretching the truth or at least open to interpretation. IT is an excellent tea though. I think I will steep it two more times then stop because I will be at my caffeine limit for the night. Good stuff and worth the small price. Not an expensive tea.

Today was a work day for me, & I’m happy to share that in my most recent YS order, I included the Kamjove gongfu steeper. It’s really handy!
http://yunnansourcing.com/en/portable-brewing-devices-and-travel-sets/474-kamjovetp-120portablegongfuteabrewingmug200ml.html

I also got an electric kettle for work last week, thanks to a gift card I had received.

So today I took my last Temple Stairs mini-tuo from the sample Garret had sent to me awhile back, & it was just right for that little steeper. It was also just right for me this afternoon, as I was feeling pretty exasperated with my students. The tea was delicious, & although I don’t really have any notes to share on it, it was satisfying & rich, & just what I needed.

Tonight I am drinking the 2010 Yunnan Camphor Tree Ripe which I got from my swap with Mr Mopar. It is tasty with a nice camphor taste. The camphor taste is not too overpowering. This is only my second experience drinking a tea that I reasonably believe was grown amongst camphor trees. Other teas I have drank that tasted of camphor I cannot confirm where they were grown. This tea has a small to moderate amount of fermentation flavor and some sweet notes alongside the camphor.

Earlier this evening I enjoyed sampling Tea Urchin’s 2012 Yi Bang, courtesy of Stephanie. The tea is a beautiful orangish amber, rich, sweet, & tangy. Like all good shengs, it was restorative, & nicely clarifying to my mind. The flavor kind of reminded me of juicy fruit gum!
Or maybe I’m just so tired now that I’m delirious?
Yawn…
Off to bed!