I’ve had this sheng cake in 62%RH storage for a few years, and today decided to crack open the now 20-yr-old cake and give it a try! The cake was fairly loose and I could just pull off a pinch without needing my pu-pik. The dry aroma was pleasing with notes of leather and tobacco, and a bit of malt. The appearance of the cake and infusions were just like the photos on the YS website, which I copied to this listing. Steeped Western style, 5g leaf in 8oz boiling alpine spring water serially for 30 s, 45 s, 90 s, and 120 s using a stainless micropore infusion basket. *Wow! this tastes good! With my first cup, this is already among my top raw pu-erhs. No bitterness, no astringency, just sweet and smooth deep flavors of assamica maltiness, leather and autumn leaves, with some tongue-tingling peppery spice. I did not detect any orchid or floral notes in this, but that may be due to my process. There is a bit of dampness on the tongue and nose even in the 4th infusion, probably originating with the Guangdong aging and persisting through my own humid storage. It wasn’t fishy or objectionable, though. Next day I did two more steepings of the leaf, for 3 min and 8 min, and in that final (6th) infusion the tea was noticeably petering out. I look forward to airing this cake out for six months or so, and then having a nice gongfu session to see if I can coax out something reminiscent of orchid flowers, or reveal further complexity. I will recommend and rate this as 88 for now.
Flavors: Autumn Leaf Pile, Leather, Malt, Pepper, Spicy, Sweet, Tobacco
Preparation
People who liked this
Comments
bump
Pretty neat that you are humidifying some of your teas – Do you use a cigar humidor or something? Since I live in Las Vegas, I definitely have a concern of teas drying out, and I’ve had a few that seemed to lose their pizazz after a very short while in my cabinet. I’m not really interested in long-term storage because that seems like a major investment of time and money, but I think it might make sense to get a humidor for my short-term stash of tea just to maintain its freshness.
You can google upall sorts of exotic and simple tea storage systems. I’m only using humidity control for my pu-erh teas when I’m trying to let them continue to age. I just have some large plastic food storage tubs, with tight fitting lids, which accommodate 4 standard 367 g cakes each, and include a humidity control packet and an indicator or cheap digital hygrometer in each one. I open the tub every few months to allow fresh air into the tea. Once a puerh reaches a point where I want to air it out to remove composty notes and let it age in a drier manner, I use a jelly jar or mason jar, with a paper coffee filter lid held in place using the canning ring in lieu of a sealed lid, to let the tea breathe while keeping it clean. And I have a dedicated cupboard for this, so the tea doesn’t get contaminated with food or spice aromas in the kitchen. For black teas, oolongs, greens, or flavored teas, I use an airtight tin or jar, or leave the tea in its mylar bag. Do NOT store tea in zipper sandwich bags, because they are not airtight. I had some cinnamon tea in small zip baggies stored in a jar with a bag of brown sugar (coincidence) and found in a few months that I had inadvertently perfumed the sugar with cinnamon. I had to throw the sugar away!
Wow, thanks for sharing that info, TeaEarlGreyHot!
bump
Pretty neat that you are humidifying some of your teas – Do you use a cigar humidor or something? Since I live in Las Vegas, I definitely have a concern of teas drying out, and I’ve had a few that seemed to lose their pizazz after a very short while in my cabinet. I’m not really interested in long-term storage because that seems like a major investment of time and money, but I think it might make sense to get a humidor for my short-term stash of tea just to maintain its freshness.
You can google upall sorts of exotic and simple tea storage systems. I’m only using humidity control for my pu-erh teas when I’m trying to let them continue to age. I just have some large plastic food storage tubs, with tight fitting lids, which accommodate 4 standard 367 g cakes each, and include a humidity control packet and an indicator or cheap digital hygrometer in each one. I open the tub every few months to allow fresh air into the tea. Once a puerh reaches a point where I want to air it out to remove composty notes and let it age in a drier manner, I use a jelly jar or mason jar, with a paper coffee filter lid held in place using the canning ring in lieu of a sealed lid, to let the tea breathe while keeping it clean. And I have a dedicated cupboard for this, so the tea doesn’t get contaminated with food or spice aromas in the kitchen. For black teas, oolongs, greens, or flavored teas, I use an airtight tin or jar, or leave the tea in its mylar bag. Do NOT store tea in zipper sandwich bags, because they are not airtight. I had some cinnamon tea in small zip baggies stored in a jar with a bag of brown sugar (coincidence) and found in a few months that I had inadvertently perfumed the sugar with cinnamon. I had to throw the sugar away!
Wow, thanks for sharing that info, TeaEarlGreyHot!