2003 Yunnan Nonpareil Lao Cha Tuo Old Tea Nubs Ripe Puer Tea

All day raining means one thing. It’s time for shu!

Random choice of tea I have received… an year ago? Certainly from Michelle, who got it from Rich. I took 8 grams for my 125 ml gaiwan, because I really wanted some rich and bold taste of tea.

20 seconds rinse of small chunks. I am not sure if it was even pressed into cake form in the past. Also… it is almost 20 years old tea, so it’s some precaution.

I have wrote following steeping times: 10, 10, 30, 30, 45, 45, 60, 60 seconds. But I wasn’t much paying attention to it and honestly I think I did some steeps 3 times with same time.

It isn’t overly complex tea. The mouthfeel is very nice though, velvet feeling on the throat and it was smooth. In the flavour terms, it was lacking the complexity, but again it was very nice one. I would say wet forest floor, sometimes cacao, chocolate, creamy, some kind of sweetness (brown sugar maybe).

As autumn has come strongly (today maximum 20°C; with all day raining) to my country, I think I will focus on those bold teas.

Yikes, I’ve been very very bad about drinking tea lately, and even worse when it comes to sharing my thoughts on teas with you guys. Hm, I think I really need to get myself a blog, but until then this tea forum will have to do, haha. I’ll definitely keep you guys posted if I do end up making one.

So these past few months I’ve only really been drinking raw puer, and when I first started out in tea it was the opposite, I used to neglect the raw puer for the ripe. I guess I have a bad habit of just liking one tea for a certain time, and with this tea tasting, I decided that I should start drinking shou once more. It’s great when you find yourself not wanting to drink ripes to ease yourself into it with an aged ripe, as this will probably give you the complexity of flavour that you are used to with raw puer. The thing i’ve noticed with the two puers is that ripe puer is the best with texture, but is sometimes lacking with the complexity of flavor. It will always be so smooth, and relaxed, whereas raw puer will often times just have your normal texture, and you’ll have to play a very fine game of balancing the bitterness until it’s just right. I’ve found, that ripe puer is best for a lazy day, or in my case studying.

I’ve been neglecting tea for a while, because on weekends, when I usually drink tea, I’ll often times be studying, so that I won’t have to cram in the middle of the week. So ripe puer has reminded me, that it can be the perfect tea for when I don’t have time to focus 100% of my attention towards brewing.

[If you want info on the tea this paragraph is for you, haha]

So this tea is a very good ripe in my opinion. The name might suggest that it’s a weird tea, I mean I’ve never drank a Nonpareil tea before, but this tea is an absolute jem as regards to ripes. It’s the perfect balance between flavour in texture. It starts out, hen first opening up, very flavorful, and so smooth. These nubs take a very long time to open up, so if you have a lot of time on your hands, and people to share tea with, this tea is for you. I stopped at around 6 steeps, but looking into the gaiwan these nubs hadn’t even opened up the whole way yet. I’d probably guess that they could go until steep 15, or 18, it’s a tea that doesn’t give up. Since I hadn’t just drank the tea, I really couldn’t give you every flavour note, or how the flavour changed over time. What I can remember was the general consensus that this tea was very good.

Got this tea as a free sample with my recent order to Berylleb King Tea and I must say it is good. It was if anything just short of phenomenal. There was very little in the way of fermentation taste to it. Once the tea opened up a little crept in there but it was weak and didn’t last long. This tea is very nearly cleared. Not sure if I would say any notes of chocolate emerged but it developed a nice sweet flavor. This tea is hard to beat for a ripe puerh. It is as good as just about anything I have drank. There is something about Lao Cha Tou nuggets that I like. This one is definitely on my list of teas to buy. I think it is somewhat expensive but I may buy it anyway. Also, I didn’t find any negative flavors from the teas storage. It seemed to have been stored very cleanly by Berylleb or someone else.

I steeped this tea twelve times in a 150ml gaiwan with 11g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min,1.5 min, and 2 min.