pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou

2008 Haiwan Lao Tong Zhi High Mountain Sheng

5 g to 150 ml

I just stumbled upon this group last night! Awesome!
For the last hour or so I’ve been enjoying Mandala’s Silver Buds 2008 (White Sheng). I love the way it starts out crisp, becomes creamy, & leaves a resinous feeling to the mouth.
4G + 4oz Gaiwan

I like to follow Sheng with Shu, so I’m just getting started on Special Dark Ripe Loose Leaf Pu’er 2006, also from Mandala. I’m following Garret’s suggestion of:
1Tb + 8oz X 30 (+15 per additional steepings)

1998 CNNP 7542 from the Puerh shop. Excellent tea. Smooth with some notes of peach. Astringency is minimal. about 10 g to 150 ml. I used Luso water for this particular steeping.

It seems to be a pu’erh kind of day. Several tasting notes about it on my dashboard, several posts here. I haven’t had any for awhile, don’t seem to be gravitating towards it now that it’s hot outside. But being inspired with all the talk, I broke some leaves off my Mandala Wild Monk Sheng cake.
I love Mandala pu’erhs and this one is no exception. I’m still working on my second cup, will write a tasting note later, but so far so good. This is another awesome, fantastic tea.

Today’s tea is a very young CNNP sheng pu-erh tuo cha which I picked up at a local import store (All Under Heaven). I cannot tell what year it was produced but it is quite young which I can tell by its astringency. It has a clean slightly earthy aroma, tastes of alfalfa and grass, and has a strong and slightly bitter astringency (in the blend of steepings 2-4. I believe I will bury this one deep in my tea drawer and approach it again in two or three years. I used a 160 ml yixing teapot, 6.3 grams of tea, and after an initial wash, combined steeps 2-4 in a glazed teapot. This was a good educational experience about very young sheng pu-erh.
On a different note, I transplanted the two tea plants I had ordered this spring into larger pots today and put them in the area where I intend to grow them. I daydreamed about someday making some pu-erh after learning how on a trip to China, but we will see about that.

Terri, I got mine at www.Greenteaplants.com. I had tried their seeds the prior year and could not get them to germinate, so I asked for plants and they are doing okay. I have no idea if they will thrive in my climate, but I’m going to try. I’m thinking green tea in a few years!

2006 Sheng Jingmai Qiaomu Arbor. Nice little brick composing 50 grams of tea that is showing good promise!

Oh Terri don’t look at aliexpress…….

Earlier today I drank from Blood Orange Shu, which only really served to remind me that I’d rather have my Puer plain.

Then it was the Silver Buds ‘08 from Mandala again, even though I only drank it the other day, mainly because it’s the first day of the month & it’s the 1st raw puer on my list.

I think I’m not allowed to order any more Puer until I’ve drank each of the ones I currently have. So that is my goal for the month!

It doesn’t happen often that a wild stone pressed wild picked yabao that’s been aged comes along…and the one I tasted today was a gift I’d been saving for a special occasion. Today was that day. Well worth the wait too! Barely smoky in the beginning…smooth, gently sweet with elegance. I posted a review and picture, but my point here is that if you ever get the chance to get an aged yabao try it out.