pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou
2012 Bulang Thick Brick, Hailang Hao, YS. Thought I’d reach into something I’ve had stashed away. This production smells great and is a crystal-clear gorgeous, red chestnut once it gets going. It smells quite similar to the ‘07 Gupuer Square that they (YS) still have. That’s where the similarities between the two end, because this brick after several years of coaxing still occupies a hallowed place in the Hall of Bone Dry Ripes, which is on the way to the Room of Dark Treasures, where you can find that ’07.
This production comes closest to the stuff that we’d drink with Uighur food, what was simply called brick tea, where cleansing the palate or washing down the lamb grease was more important than actual taste. The Bulang Thick is one of the most astringent ripes I’ve ever tried, reflecting what seems to be some hong-cha inspiration without the aromatics in the leaf. A very dry wood and cardboard taste. Much drier “aka cleaner” than even say the ‘06 Langhe Peacock Tribute, which is starting to change up a bit. It’s so astringent I even picked up some sour at first, what I thought I was imagining on the front end, but in the next pot very much present on the back end, in the astringency itself. This production would probably be best enjoyed with bold and rich foods. Come to think of it, there is a bit of sour in cardboard.
I always wondered what tea the Chinese drink with food.
I drink very plain oolong with mine here in the UK. We dont have puerh to choose from at the restaurants I have seen. If we do it’s very rare
It depends on what part of China you’re talking about. In the north it is primarily jasmine, like 99.999% of the time. The western Chinese, i.e., Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, Inner-Mongolia prefer brick tea that pretty much tastes like a cigarette. You basically use the tea to wash you bowl and plate.
In HK and Malaysia it’s roasted oolong usually very weak.
There’s a Sichuan restaurant in the 626 which serves puer. It might be heicha from Sichuan. I couldn’t recognize some typical puerh features, but it was very tasty.
2004 menghai old tree ripe from berylleb.
The storage isn’t so strong with this but still there, as the main tea isn’t very strong either.
Not as rich as I would like, but I couldn’t fault it for its price if this was an entry to aged ripe puerh – its very easy to drink. Not off-putting apart from a little warehouse flavour.
Pushing it and you get some nice dry flavour and some raisin but it really isn’t shouting anything out
Terre de ciel sent me a sample of some wild puerh. It’s a zhengyan 2011 and I cant find info on it anywhere.
Is like the kunlu bit really weak. In bitter and huigan. But still wondrous, when you can taste it. Like berries and herbs. mint perhaps.
Really nice if it could be stronger!
The next test is steeping 30 secs or a minute for steep 1
2012 Chen Sheng Hao Golden Ban Zhang from @john_kingtea
A smooth, lightly sweet and medium cream yummy tea.
2004 Cha Ma Gu Dao raw.
Sour fruit skin – forward, less tobacco or storage which is desirable for me. This sourness being the main protagonist in the story works to keep it from being too woodsy or smokey or warehouse-y.
I do find with many of the aged teas I have tried that they all taste quite rough and this isn’t an exception.
I picked up a cake of this in November 2016, shortly after it appeared on the YS-China site, where I got the impression from the write-up that it had come more or less directly from it’s Guangdong storage.
I sampled it a month after receiving it and got pretty much the taste profile you describe. Eight months later the sour note was mostly gone, as was the tobacco note. Instead I tasted cinnamon, wheat and citrus.
I believe this will continue to evolve the more time it spends in my ‘relatively dry’ storage (air conditioned room in Florida).
Hmmm my storage is dry but I was pushing this one a lot.
I have been brewing 10/20/30 etc with sheng to push the flavour and stress the tea
I store my puerh in my workshop, a pre-fabricated building on my property, which is not as air-tight as the main house. Even with air conditioning it still averages around 75% humidity but the tea seems to respond really well to this. What are your storage conditions?
I tend to start off with somewhat shorter steeps when approaching an unknown sheng (10/10/15/20), then get more aggressive in the middle steeps to see how it responds to being pushed. My notes show that’s how I steeped this one as well.
Yeah i do flash or 5/10/15 or stronger depending on mood.
I have a box with sheng and it can go from 40-60% and English cold-25c. I have just bought a fridge to keep things airtight and constant, it’s coming tomorrow or the day after. My tea seems to go a bit flat currently.
This one was the last of the tea club sample sent from last year – most aged tea 15 years or over I find really woodsy/sour/storage-y/boring. But modern aged sheng from 2008 onwards tastes nice to me.
This is interesting because the puerh bubble peaked and popped in 2007. I wonder if us westerners can manage to get decent 2007+ because high production and less people buying due to price crash?
Or people started storing more good puerh then. Idk
I’m just now getting back into drinking Pu-erh. Earlier it was a few test steeps of the 2006 Top Yunnan Lucky Dragon Aged Ripe Pu-erh from Streetshop88/GOARtea. Since I don’t have to work tomorrow, I’m now drinking the Wode Shucha (2009 Menghai Imperial Ripe Brick) from Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company.
Initial impressions: the Lucky Dragon came across as extremely woody and earthy with a drying finish that emphasized earthiness and gave away a little sweetness on the tail end. Most people seemed to like this one, but I wasn’t so sure it would work for me going in. I ended up liking it considerably more than expected and will try a gongfu session with it soon. The Wode Shucha was exactly as advertised, a smooth, mellow shu for daily drinking. It didn’t display as much longevity as hoped, but it was still a very nice experience. Very cooling, almost playful energy to it.
2014 Zhongcha Jade Mark Raw
First off, this smells super sweet straight from the dry leaves. Reminded me of “In Memory of Young Girls in Flower”, by Liquid Proust, in that you wonder if its _too _ sweet. The wet leaf has a nice vegetal aroma. Of course, one generally dosen’t drink pu for the aroma, but that’s part of what made it stand out here.
More oddites in the cup: No bitterness, and no stomach churning (it was stimulating on the stomach though fwiw). Actually this tea is pretty easy going for a puer all around. I prefer my puers to have more of a slap you in the face quality, but I can’t really complain about this one.
In general I’d say that Zhongcha productions are more feminine (rou) than macho (ba).
I guess you didn’t pick out any of that bergamot/petitgrain.
Interesting. When I’m dealing with young factory raw, I automatically assume macho until proven otherwise. And now that you mention it, bergamot is a good way to describe the flavor, I wasn’t sure where to place it while drinking.
I’ve been dealing with many higher quality productions from the Bang-dong village of Na Han, Yi-bang and the Burmese village Guogan. None of them are the least bit macho. All of them really young.
About a year ago I purchased a cake of EoT 2012 Bulang (U.K. stored) and a sample of the same tea stored in Malaysia. I’ve dipped into the U.K. stored cake a few times but it’s more bitter than I like and way more smoky than I like. But this Malaysia stored is very nice! It’s like drinking an 80-85% chocolate bar. :)
https://www.essenceoftea.com/blog/2015/08/27/more-malaysian-storage-comparisons/
2007 Banzhang Tuocha Organic 250g. Very complex an changing production that is not for the feint of heart. This is the third production from this factory I’ve tried. Each has not disappointed on delivering. Landed on the stomach a bit like a rock so I could only do two pots. Six pots over course of day one. Has a kinda Xiaguan personality that I didn’t pick up on day one.
Hitting a 2000 CNNP 7532 sample hard! 6.5 gm in 75ml. Very earthy sweet and easy to drink even at this strong. Dark liquor. Comforting.
Where did you get that? If I’m not mistaken that is a Dayi recipe. Is it a Dayi under the Zhongcha label?
https://steepster.com/teas/menghai-tea-factory/35548-2012-menghai-dayi-7532
Dayi started their own label about 1990. They were producing only under the Dayi label by 1996. They were part of the CNNP which later split to Dayi, Anning HaiWan, XiaGuan , BoYou and a few others. CNNP was a huge operation at one time.
I could swear I’ve seen authentic Menghai factory #2 productions under the Zhongcha label post ‘96. I’ll have to pay closer attention. Dunno. They were outta my price-range anyway. hahahahaha.
May have been some slip through I am sure. The guys on the HKteaforum mention them as well. I think there was still some getting through the cracks. Much harder nowadays.
Got a sample labeled from W2tea. They directly say its probably a rewrap. Tastes good though.
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