pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou

I’ve had the 2005 Rocket Yiwu sitting in my sheng tea cabinet for awhile – time to break into it. This is a very interesting tea with nice complexity. Hints of smoke and storage found in the first 2 cups but this drops off quickly. The flavor profile shifts throughout the session – wet wood, vegetal, floral, spice. Nice enough finish. I began to feel a relaxing qi hit after the third cup and it continued to build during the session. Great value found in this 10+ year aged Yiwu area cake – only $0.22 per gram. One of the many reasons why I am always interested in Paul’s mid-aged finds!

Today I drank the 2008 Dayi Golden Needle White Lotus from Menghai Tea Factory, obtained from King Tea on Aliexpress. This was definitely real. Both the outer seal and inner ticket or neifei glowed green under the black light. It was also wrapped right for a Dayi. And the taste was there too. It was quite good. It had a fair amount of fermentation flavor left to it, I’d say noticeable into the fourth steep or so. I was bittersweet at the start slowly transforming into a nice sweet ripe puerh. There were some notes of chocolate in there and you could say it had a creamy aspect to it. This was one of the best ripe teas I have had in a long while. While it still need to age some it was really good and King Tea had it for a really good price over the price on EBay. I think it goes for $115 on EBay, I paid $74 on sale at King Tea. It is so good I want to buy another. I’m not sure if King Tea is still selling it. He had discontinued it before my purchase, but when I asked him about it he brought it back for me. His store has excellent service and is one of the few Aliexpress stores I know I can trust.

Today I drank the 2015 Yunnan Sourcing Qing Mei Shan Old Arbor Puerh Tea that I received a couple of weeks ago. This was overall good. There was an initial sour note that didn’t last more than two steeps. It was sweet with little bitterness and notes of apricots and stonefruits. A fairly typical young sheng for sheng of reasonably good quality. I did nont find this spectacular but enjoyed it in the end. I am starting to feel some qi off of it.

Liquid Proust’s Dark Kitchen Sink. This was so good, I was late getting back to my desk after lunch because I just wanted to linger over my cup.

I’m enjoying the 2006 Haiwan Certified Organic Pasha Mountain sheng. Has a kind of baby sheng fruity taste at first. Nice throatiness with a fair amount of sweetness. I think this was a great deal for what I paid for it and this is yet another one where I bought it strictly from reading a note from Dignitea – happy I got two.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BEWt4mcwx7B/

2008 MENGHAI QI ZI ZHI GE RIPE PU-ERH by Yunnan Sourcing

this is a sample i got from AllanK to compare to the same tea i got from Aliexpress seller couple years ago. Thank you AllanK !
this tea also goes under different name of 2008 Menghai Dayi Song of Chi Tse

http://steepster.com/teas/menghai-tea-factory-berylleb-on-ebay/35786-2008-menghai-dayi-song-of-chi-tse-ripe-puer-tea

first couple steeps had the fermentation flavor that quickly gone.
The tea is rich, sweet and clean. i did enjoyed the same as i currently own. i havent noticed any difference, maybe only if i would do side by side. but i wasnt in the mood today to drink a lot of shou today.
one thing i realized while its perfectly fine nice shou i didnt care much for it. it was …boring. My preference now is for large leaf shou. it lasts longer and is generally more complex.

Currently drinking 2007 Repave from White2Tea. A nice semi aged tea that I’m enjoying so far

Today I once again drank the mystery puerh I got at an apothecary in Toronto. It left me feeling incredibly mellow even after the third steep.

When I first tried the Tea it had a very sharp fruity apple tone which I think may have been due to storage as that is not really present now. The first couple of steeps are kind of herbal and licorice like but by the fifth steep the Tea opens up and sweetens considerablly with more soft fruit and honey notes among woody herbal notes. I wish I knew more about the Tea. It is certainly packaged interestingly. https://www.instagram.com/p/4rKjd4GKx7/

Today I drank an aged loose ripe from my Aliexpress order, the Ripened Tea 1998 Tae Tea Dayi Loose Tea Orchid Flavor Shou Cha. Generally it is wise to be a bit leery of an aged tea advertised on Aliexpress but this tea comes from the one source on Aliexpress I have found I can trust, King Tea. Taste wise it certainly seemed like an aged ripe. It was actually advertised as a 1988 tea but John at King Tea told me it was from 1998 and asked me if I would like to cancel my order. I decided to try it anyway. It tasted aged. For one thing it has cleared. There is virtually no fermentation taste to this tea. There is enough of what I would describe as an aftertaste that you can tell it is a shou not a sheng. It had developed a wet storage taste common in older teas. Wet wood was a prominent note for the first two steeps. It had lost the creamy note of a young shou and I found no chocolate taste, also I think common with a younger shou. As to if this is a Dayi ripe tea, there is no way I can tell from the label, it might be written in Chinese and the famous Dayi logo was not yet in use in 1998 so that is not on the package. A sweet note developed later in this tea although I am unsure how to characterize it. Don’t really know if I found the Orchid flavor that was advertised. Overall this was an excellent tea. I don’t think it is available for sale anymore but I could be wrong.

This morning I am enjoying the warmth of a very solid daily drinking shu from YS – 2012 Man Tang Hong Te Ji. Overall, this is an enjoyable tea that has a roasted, earthy aroma, with a mellow and balanced bitterness and a lingering, satisfying aftertaste. Pressed in 2012 using 3 yr old spring Yong De area material, the quality of the source material is evident. At less than $0.09 per gram, this is a low cost reliable ripe puer.