1996 XG Butterfly Tuo : latest discussion on blog

[Bad Jedi]

Well , have a little bit different experience
I have two tongs of Chen Sheng Lao Ban Zhang Wang 2007 and this tea aging a little bit different but here is my guess , one tong was factory wrapped till today and only opened for tasting few weeks before but second one already 4 years aging without factory wrapping as separate cakes. All of this cakes from same batch and only the difference is that one part is aging in tong and second part with no tight bamboo wrapper.

[gingkoseto]

Hi guys, I was away for the past 2 months and am glad that I'm back in time to go over this discussion (please do let me know if I've missed out anything else )

I'm not sure how much I should say though as I'm always unsure how appropriate to comment on my own stuff on a tea forum, especially when it involves potential defensiveness (?)

But I do enjoy reading this discussion and the linked blog discussion. So maybe I should let the discussions go ahead without interfering too much with them? Any emails directed to me for inquiries and discussions are always welcome. I can somewhat understand sometimes people don't want to make it personal by sending emails to me, so I appreciate forum discussions and blog discussions too.

One thing I'm not sure, is what people talk about, when they talk about mold. Do people all refer to the same thing? For example, this is the picture linked to the steepster discussion about this tea and the owner of this piece of tea thought the picture showed mold, but I didn't see mold on it just from the picture (and I did look hard)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68772416@N ... otostream/

I also want to mention that as soon as I saw the steepster discussion on this tea indicating mold (http://steepster.com/Nick305/posts/115832#comments), as much as I disagree with it, I immediately linked it on the vendor page of this product, as I suppose potential buyers of any product would like to consider various sources of comments about it, including positive and negative ones, and especially negative ones.

For brewing of this tea (and a lot of other dry-stored sheng of this age), I would recommend brewing method closed to what you usually do with a younger sheng. I usually use 5g in 120g vessel with short initial infusions (5-10 sec.) but that may not represent everybody's brewing method. When brewed very dark, I do think this tea would have a hint of "taste of wall" (not that I've tasted a wall ) and the "wall" taste would fade a little if the tea is broken and rested for a while.

[gasninja]

I myself own a butterfly you from Ginko. I like it but it is a little TOO dry stored. I drink allot of traditional stored tea and my tuo at least has never been through the traditional storage process If anyone has a butterfly tuo that they feel is too wet stored for them and would like to trade for a dry one I'm game (as long as there is no yellow mold). tuochas need traditional storage.
But I also think that there is this thought in the west that if a tea was not stored in Kunming or Texas it is wet stored. Before recently tea was considered dry stored as long as it did not spend time in a steamy honkong basement. The 88qing the cake that brought attention to dry storage still spent its life in hot humid Hong Kong.

[benm3]

Hello all, I would like to chime in again.

I first want to repeat that I purchased this Tuo from a very reliable, honest, and knowledgeable vendor. I have enjoyed many teas purchased from Life in a Teacup, and I suspect that I will continue to do so in the future. If you have not yet tried ordering teas from this site, I strongly recommend that you go online and purchase some samples today; you are almost certain to find some good teas to your liking.

I also want to repeat that my 96 Tuo has a fair amount of mold, both on the outside and also the inside. I realize that sometimes when using a Tuo-pick or puerh-knife one can cause slight damage to the leaves that looks faintly like mold. I agree with Ginko that the photo she links is not clearly showing mold. However, my Tuo does have mold. I even took a piece into my work, asked a friendly biologist down the hall for some help, got to use a fun and fancy microscope, and we saw mold.

In my view, mold on puerh is not necessarily such a terrible thing. In fact, other than a slight but noticeable mustiness in the rinse and first few infusions, I personally don't find the mold on my Tuo all that offensive.

I basically think the Tuo tastes pretty good, and I totally believe the claim that it includes at least a good portion of leaves from really old trees. for me, this tea has a refined qi, not so a strong, but easy to notice nonetheless, slightly focussing, pleasant and warming, not at all jittery and even in large doses it seems to soothe rather than make my temples explode. I usually brew using a 100ml ish Yixing and maybe 10ish grams of tea. that might be strong for some people's taste, but in my experience it does not yield an overly astringent tea at all.

I wonder how such a tightly packed Xiaguan Tuo could have achieved such a smoothness without a fair amount of moisture in it's aging? It is for this reason that I suspected that my original sample (which did not have any obvious mold) might have been at least slightly wet stored. when I received my whole Tuo and saw all the mold, I felt confirmed in my hypothesis that this tea had been through more traditional aging.

Am I certain that this Tuo was wet stored? No.

Am I certain that my Tuo has mold? Yes.

Do I think it is a good tea. Yes.

Do I respect the seller and hope to buy even more tea for my hoard from them? Yes.

[wyardley]

One thing I'm not sure, is what people talk about, when they talk about mold. Do people all refer to the same thing? For example, this is the picture linked to the steepster discussion about this tea and the owner of this piece of tea thought the picture showed mold, but I didn't see mold on it just from the picture (and I did look hard)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68772416@N ... otostream/

Isn't that white frost on the surface of the cake? Did you look at the highest resolution version? Even at the lowest resolution, I can see what appears to be white frost, though I could be wrong. If it's not, what do you think the whitish stuff on the outside is?

That is the type of mold that's supposed to be fine (vs. the yellow kind).

[teaisme]

Isn't that white frost on the surface of the cake?

yes that is what I thought too in the linked photo, more so in the top right regions and the top middle left

looks pretty similar to my samples

[gingkoseto]

One thing I'm not sure, is what people talk about, when they talk about mold. Do people all refer to the same thing? For example, this is the picture linked to the steepster discussion about this tea and the owner of this piece of tea thought the picture showed mold, but I didn't see mold on it just from the picture (and I did look hard)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68772416@N ... otostream/

Isn't that white frost on the surface of the cake? Did you look at the highest resolution version? Even at the lowest resolution, I can see what appears to be white frost, though I could be wrong. If it's not, what do you think the whitish stuff on the outside is?

That is the type of mold that's supposed to be fine (vs. the yellow kind).

From the photo and from my experience with this tea, I guess the white color is from broken stem end (solid white dots) and crystallization on the surface of the leaves. I just don't see mold. But for people who believe there is mold, probably these pictures (from the product page) have better resolution to spot any white or yellow colors. So maybe my pictures look even "moldier" than the above-linked picture?
http://bit.ly/Pshqhy
http://bit.ly/RsWfiT
http://bit.ly/NXmm2f
The last photo (wet leaves) was included to show that those little hairs were grown by the stem and leaf themselves, not by another creature

As I mentioned in the steepster discussion, I thought it was pretty easy to distinguish wet and dry storage, mold and non-mold. Maybe I just underestimated things?

By picture, you can always find some white and yellow, hairy and non-hairy spots. For example, are these teas molded?
http://bit.ly/Tw4s3p
http://bit.ly/NCPTIE
http://bit.ly/OvQ5KA
http://bit.ly/RZwSHZ
http://bit.ly/SSqrWt
http://www.lanhuas.com/upload/2012-06/6 ... 358287.JPG

[teaisme]

http://www.lanhuas.com/upload/2012-06/6 ... 358287.JPG

Your green tea has mold

[gingkoseto]

http://www.lanhuas.com/upload/2012-06/6 ... 358287.JPG

Your green tea has mold

That's a test who reads (and clicks) till the last line. And you passed!

[MarshalN]

Interesting discussion. Someone suggested I write a post about mold. I just might.

[solitude]

Interesting discussion. Someone suggested I write a post about mold. I just might.

Please do!
I am confused about this mold thing, and I dont know how to recognize the early signs of mold.

[Bad Jedi]

Interesting discussion. Someone suggested I write a post about mold. I just might.

Please do!
I am confused about this mold thing, and I dont know how to recognize the early signs of mold.

Don't get confused between real mold and crystallized minerals which quite similar looking as mold .

I believe MarshalN have much more to say regarding this mold issue .

[TIM]

Interesting discussion. Someone suggested I write a post about mold. I just might.

Please do!
I am confused about this mold thing, and I dont know how to recognize the early signs of mold.

Don't get confused between real mold and crystallized minerals which quite similar looking as mold .

I believe MarshalN have much more to say regarding this mold issue .

Bloom and mold are much very different thing...

[wh&yel-apprentice]

Interesting discussion. Someone suggested I write a post about mold. I just might.

Please do!
I am confused about this mold thing, and I dont know how to recognize the early signs of mold.

Don't get confused between real mold and crystallized minerals which quite similar looking as mold .

I believe MarshalN have much more to say regarding this mold issue .

Bloom and mold are much very different thing...

unless referring to cigars again, Tim is incorrect

preserve.harvard.edu/guidelines/mold_contamination.pdf

NATURE OF MOLD
Mold and mildew are words that refer to more than 100,000 species of fungi. Mold
spores are present everywhere in our environment, generally in a dormant state where
they do little damage. Spores require moisture to become active. They do not require
light.
When water or high relative humidity provides the necessary moisture, dormant spores
will germinate, grow fine web-like structures, and eventually produce fruiting bodies that
release more spores. Most molds will germinate at 65 percent relative humidity. Increases
in temperature can speed the growth rate of active mold.
IDENTIFICATION OF MOLD
Mold blooms in many colors and is often confused with dust, dirt, foxing, or cobwebs.
Both active and inactive mold can have a distinctive smell, which most people describe
as musty.
• Active mold in the early stages of a bloom has hair-like filaments in webs, which
develop a more bushy appearance as the bloom matures. This is more easily seen
under magnification. Active mold is soft and may smear when touched with a fine
brush. It may also be slimy and damp.

• Inactive mold is dry and powdery and will seem to brush off materials readily.

HUMAN HEALTH RISKS
Some molds that grow on library collections pose a health hazard to people. Mold spores
are introduced to the human body by inhalation and through small breaks in the skin.
Although serious consequences are rare, active mold can cause respiratory problems, skin
and eye irritation, and infections. Such reactions may result from short-term exposure to

someone should go buy a cheap stereoscopic microscope w/low res camera off of Amazon and take some pix....


yeah, and how much relative humidity on aver...again, is in Kumming or Tejas?
89 Qing beeng>>> Hong Kong dry-stored cake of fame, was not stored out on the streets of HK, lol. It was *dry* stored in relative controlled humidity...d'oh.

[wh&yel-apprentice]

From the photo and from my experience with this tea, I guess the white color is from broken stem end (solid white dots) and crystallization on the surface of the leaves. I just don't see mold. But for people who believe there is mold, probably these pictures (from the product page) have better resolution to spot any white or yellow colors. So maybe my pictures look even "moldier" than the above-linked picture?
http://bit.ly/Pshqhy
http://bit.ly/RsWfiT
http://bit.ly/NXmm2f
The last photo (wet leaves) was included to show that those little hairs were grown by the stem and leaf themselves, not by another creature

As I mentioned in the steepster discussion, I thought it was pretty easy to distinguish wet and dry storage, mold and non-mold. Maybe I just underestimated things?

By picture, you can always find some white and yellow, hairy and non-hairy spots. For example, are these teas molded?
http://bit.ly/Tw4s3p
http://bit.ly/NCPTIE
http://bit.ly/OvQ5KA
http://bit.ly/RZwSHZ
http://bit.ly/SSqrWt
http://www.lanhuas.com/upload/2012-06/6 ... 358287.JPG

white vs yellow? again, ginko? more racistist statement...and tea pr0n talk too. hairy vs non-hairy...well I never :p (sorry Chip) ...need more popcorn with Marshal & Tim being appoligists for ginko...yeah sure guys, she must of just sent the wrong thing, like accidentally sent the moldy tea as a mistake, for dry??? As she mentioned she only sells dry stored, so I guess the mistake was just a loose sample of moldy tea that somehow got into customers orders??? Uh-huh, credibility/stretches believability much guys?

Someone pull out the microscope already