pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou

Today I drank an excellent raw from Streetshop88 on EBay, the 2011 Nonpareil Supreme Ancient Tree Daughter Puer Tea Raw Cake. This was a tea that looked like it was just starting to age. The color was not a pale yellow but a golden color. It was sweet with little bitterness from the start. It still had the apricot and stonefruit notes of a young sheng. It had notes of camphor and notes of spice. It had a strong feeling in the back of the throat as I drank it. Is that huigan? Not sure. I cannot be sure that this tea was actually ancient tree but it was quite good. It definitely had some qi to it very relaxing even though I would not use the word teadrunk. I had a feeling this would be a good tea before I drank it. Streetshop88 usually only labels their best teas nonpareil. This was an excellent tea that I enjoyed immensely.

I found this to be a very tasty tea, one of the best house ripes I have tried from Yunnan Sourcing. It is a blend of gushu and plantation material. Despite their saying that this tea is ‘lightly’ fermented, I found it to be quite dark and deep, with just a touch of fermentation funk. It is quite delicious – notes of earthy cocoa, some sweetness, bread dough in later steeps, and only a touch of bitterness. The best flavors did dissipate after the first couple of steeps, but it was still quite good after that. I think this is a great tea and a good candidate for aging.

Still steeping out 2014 Ai Lao from Yunnan Sourcing. This was one of the damaged wrapper cakes a few of us bought a couple months ago. I really like this tea. The first two cups increased my heart rate a lot, so I’m only taking a couple of cups at a time.

2015 Yunnan Sourcing Green Miracle Wild Arbor Ripe.
Scott over at Yunnan Sourcing seems to have ‘ripened’ some skills this season! I really enjoyed this tea, and I love that it is wild arbor. It is very chocolatey. I found it to be deep and bold, very smooth, somewhat sweet, and quite durable. I bet if this was sold as a premium Dayi product, it would fetch at least double the price. Another winner, and one of the reasons I find that it is better to discover gems from small independent labels you can trust, than to simply buy factory teas (no knock to good factory teas, though!).

Today I finally got around to trying the tea from October’s Global Tea Hut, Spring 2015 “Cloud Hidden” Shou Puerh. This incredibly delicious tea is border tea from Laos and it is without a doubt the best loose leaf puerh I have ever had. It had a fair amount of fermentation flavor of course because it was newly fermented. It was however a clean taste with no fishy taste. It was sweet from the beginning with virtually no bitterness. I woud say it developed the flavors of chocolate and even dates. It had a fruity taste towards the final steeps. This is I think a long lasting tea. I have given it twelve steeps so far and it is not done. I will probably go back for a couple more steeps. The only thing I really dislike about this tea is the impossibility of getting more. Global Tea Hut doesn’t send teas that are commercially available from Dragon Tea House or any other vendor in China. Only one time have I identified the source of one of their teas. Usually it is impossible to find more. I wish Global Tea Hut sent a bigger sample but they only send between ten and twelve grams of tea in general. This tea like most of theirs is clearly of the highest quality. People often look down on border tea but this one is as good as anything produced in China. Global Tea Hut actually said that the part of Laos where this was made used to be a part of China. This tea was excellent, beyond compare as far as loose puerh goes in my opnion.

Daaaaamn, I pulled out a 9g inner chunk of Scott’s 2013 San Ke She to steep in my office all day. Obviously isn’t brewing evenly, but that’s just fine. Bright yellow soup, extremely pure, biting kuwei, great texture, and green vegetal sweetness.

SHOU! I’m finding the sheng I’m trying to be a bit too funky. I gotta try more, me thinks.

2006 Tulin “Silvers” 100g. tuo— Been tasting this all summer. Today was the best. That means it wasn’t bitter.
Wuliang Mt is one of my favs. I like medicinal notes. They’re stronger as the tea ages.
This tuo is packed perfectly. It was stored with nice humidity. The oxidation is evident.
The cold weather seems to have tempered these youngish-old teas in a way that has made them exceptional.
There’s soft notes of melon in there. I let the last two rounds infuse for a a couple minutes. It never got bitter.
The liquor is clear going into the fifth infusion or so.
5.8g. in a 120ml gaiwan. I removed the lid after the first four infusions so it wouldn’t keep cooking. The cold has played significantly in perfecting the taste.

Drinking 2012 Xue Ju Shu Puerh with Snow Chrysanthemum today. What a strange tea! My first cup tasted of Dr Pepper and tea tree oil. That went away a bit with the second and subsequent cups but it was still in the background, just behind the earthy, cedar wood, and chilli pepper notes. This might be an acquired taste!

I tried the 2015 Pin from w2t other day. I might have been in a really good tea drinking mood because this one seems to be the best buy from the 2015 w2t line up. Complex aroma, the taste is not particularly strong but the mouthfeel and activity were intense. Plenty of stamina without going rough. Towards the end of the second steep the qi kicked in with a weirdly pleasant feeling of pressure on the chest and an overall good mood. I will try it again in a week or so to confirm my findings, but in the mean time I ordered another cake :)