pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou
Tasted a bunch of different young Jingmais yesterday, and found a Mangjing sample at the end of the session as I was wrapping up with some liu bao, seems like I missed one! Guess that one is on the menu for tonight!
For now I’ll boil out the (nearly!) spent leaves of a commissioned 7542 with breakfast, have a quick session with some Mengku shou before heading out to work which I intend to finish when I get back, and pack some 2014 Autumn Jingmai for drinking at work.
Today I am sipping my first cold brew sheng, 2014 Yiwu Beauty from TeaUrchin. I really dig it! :)
Oh, hey! Welcome to the young sheng cold brewing club! :)
Fantastic for spring and summer mornings, yum!
Having a 2002 Bulang from a friend. It was labeled “Smoky in the early steeps and like LBZ in the later ones”
I will probably only have one brew from this tonight and continue on tomorrow.
I put 10 grams in the easy steeper and gave a quick rinse. The color came a nice amber in just the rinse water. When brewed at 5 seconds the color stayed about the same. The smoke and woodiness is apparent in the aroma and in the taste of this one. This is nice and thick and very brothy with a bit of saltiness in the early cup. This one is pretty strong with these notes. It has a fantastic punch in the mouth. It seems to be very warming and active to drink. I really wished I had started this tomorrow to give a bit more into it but the night is short due to the work schedule. I think this is one I need to find out about as to it’s availability. I think I am going to enjoy the progression of this one. It has a lot of the profiles I enjoy.
Oh, yum, saltiness! I don’t get that often from pu’er, but do enjoy it in some liu bao from time to time!
I’m at work now with an Yiwu from, I believe 2009, but I’m not entirely sure. Opens up nice and fruity, and tends to turn to a more malty, almost hongcha-esque flavour later on.
This particular one was from a cake I steamed apart some time ago and kept flaked in a jar.
I have more of this with the rest of my tea and am evaluating it as I’m packing up a teabox to mail away. They’re 100gram xiaobings, and I always think they make cute gifts!
I’d have to crack open a new tong though, so I’m not sure if it’s worth it.
We’ll see how this tea progresses, it’s been a while since I’ve had it, and I will decide tonight if I’ll open that tong. (And see how those cakes compare to the one I steamed apart!)
Something along the lines of what is described near the bottom here:
http://www.houdeasianart.com/index.php?main_page=puerhinfo
It’s not something I usually do, this cake was one of a few I steamed apart for fun and experimentation. I normally prefer keeping my tea intact and flaking off what I need when I need it, or taking off tea for 2 – 3 sessions and keeping some at hand in a little jar by the teatable.
On a side note, I’ve been following Tea Urchin in Facebook, and they have been posting photos of their sourcing trip. It’s quite amazing. To see what people go though and the places our tea comes from. Sometimes when I am tasting a tea I don’t like, or I am analyzing it without simply enjoying it, I remember what I am drinking from halfway around the world, from these amazing old tea trees, often in mountain forests, with all these people picking and processing it, and shipping it to my door. Quite amazing when you think about it.
I enjoyed a 2008 Dayi 8582 provided by a generous Steepsterite yesterday while organizing the corner of my kitchen devoted to tea which had gotten completely out of hand. It was a nice choice to get me through that chore (although fiddling with my tea makes me happy). I really liked the sweetness, little bit of fruitiness and total lack of astringency. Very nice.
Spent time over the past 24 hours with Yunnan Sourcing’s 2009 Ban Zhang Chun Qing.
Whole long, healthy-looking leaves mixed with only a few pieces and stems. Pleasant aroma from the dry leaf. The wet leaves smell sweet – honey-like but this is a complex and full aroma. Clear, deep gold tea liquor. The scent of the liquor is surprisingly light – leather and tobacco with sweet and floral notes mixed in. Crisp, bright and clean flavor in the sip – a quiet sweetness with a complimentary spiciness. Nice mouthfeel. Good texture throughout the first 5-6 infusions and then it fades. A pleasant bitterness builds which eventually becomes mouth drying. Nice aftertaste. Good Cha Qi. These 2009 cakes have been sold out for a long time. Even if the cake was still available, I doubt that I would purchase it for the tea lacks the complexity and durability I would expect of material from the Banzhang area.
Yiwu 2013 autumn Pu-erh.sk
I received this tea as a free sample with the purchase of teaware.
This tea is beautiful. the chunk consisted of intact leaves. Smelled so good.
it was roughly around 7g.
Went with my 95ml gaiwan. The tea opened up around 5-6 steep. it is smooth, creamy and incredibly clean taste. Some bitterness,not excessive and easily controlled with short steeps. it gave me so much positive energy. I felt relaxed and happy. A little sleepy too. Today is my 3rd day of drinking it. Still strong.
7g 95ml gaiwan 205F rinse/pause/3/5/3/3/5/7/sec etc
https://instagram.com/p/1nlHVuhwhh/
Sounds great! I haven’t had that one, but I think Peter always manages to find really nice teas! :)
Steaming action— Today I steamed a 250g brick alleged to be from ‘07 or so. I thought I’d share my findings. First, I used a wok and bamboo steamer. The three min suggested on the Hou De site was insufficient and I ended up doing about 10 min. This way I could open the brick, but it was still a bit dry on the inside. The outter leaves were a little hard to handle, being so floppy and hot so I worked from the center out. Got lots of much more whole leaf action and could see overall characteristics of the leaves, could also smell the tea, very green and cheery, fruity. I still ended up breaking apart chips of leaf-chunk. As it cooled, the leaves were less pliable, much more brittle. This might mean a more strategic approach to working with material this size, softening up to divide in half, steamed separately. Still, I got much more leaf than ever before. I threw a couple chips that amounted to 8g into a 140ml gaiwan. Immediately, I tasted the bamboo, but only in the first “throwaway” rinse. I ask you, hadn’t the steam already awakened the leaves? The first official infusion was nice and fruity with no noticeable bamboo taste. Anyway, I the steaming technique seems preferable to the chisel method especially if you want to break apart the whole amount.
Nice post. I have done this before, I agree that the steaming awakens the leaves for sure, I still like to clean them with a very quick rinse though.
I actually have a favor to ask you about this, I did this twice with two cakes… I loved it at first, but I started noticing that the tea ‘suffered’ from this process later on. The leaves that I used that same day or not far from when I steamed them were perfect, but then they become a lot weaker over time.
That makes a lot of sense. So the leaves became weaker did they, not so much seasoned, huh? How did you store it? I let mine sit out for a little less than an hour before placing in a tin, which I don’t seal. I used a low-risk brick. Will revisit in a month or so.
The first one I stored in a tin with no lid and the second one in a Yunnan Clay pot after allowing the tea to dry a bit. The second one did much better, but of course I risked that it wasn’t dry enough and it developing mold. But the tea still didn’t like being steamed in the long run :/
Having a 2011 Menghia “Older More Fragrant”.
Not sure on the “more fragrant” as of yet. Aroma of a normal sheng.
I pulled this from the “pumidor” to check it’s progress.
I got 10 grams out and gave a quick rinse to wake it up. Brewed in the easy gaiwan, the color looks a bit darker than the first time. The color really came after the second steep. The bitterness in this is pretty strong. It kind of overwhelms the palate a bit and goes a bit to the slightly sweet after some time. This one is still growing and needs more time to mellow out a bit.
A re-taste in a year hopefully will show a bit more progress.
Flavors: Biting, Bitter, Sweet, warm grass
Login or sign up to leave a comment.