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Teaism wrote:Taste of good and bad tea is relative. Some iconic great tea taste horrible in the first 10 years then changed to something excellent.

From your experience, do you find those new sheng with offensive smoky taste, aged to become something with good consistency with some bitter notes that dissolved fast?

edit: Don't have to be true or facts, just how you feel. Nobody can be 100% sure on stuff like this. Just trying to gather some feedbacks Thanks

lordsbm wrote:

Teaism wrote:Taste of good and bad tea is relative. Some iconic great tea taste horrible in the first 10 years then changed to something excellent.

From your experience, do you find those new sheng with offensive smoky taste, aged to become something with good consistency with some bitter notes that dissolved fast?

Hi lordsbm,

Just to share some personal experience....
Smoky tea is ok, but try to detect bake dry tea. They are close but trained nose can detect it. Bake dry tea kill a lot of the microorganism which is required for aging. So it is not a good attribute.

Bitterness can be good or bad point. A well rounded bitterness with sweet undertone is good. Plantation tea when pluck at the bottom can be bitter but sharp and pokey. Also Ku Thing or Ma Lao Mi can be added to simulate bitterness. These 2 inherently cheaper tea can trick experience drinker. I learned to detect Ku Thing And MLM by drinking them for weeks and then try to detect them in Puer. It was a really bitter experience.

Also look at the leaves, if long enough, you can narrow down whether it is bushes or wild or old tea or spring or summer tea by touching the texture and studying the structure of the leaves. Tea leaves especially after brewing speaks volume of its quality and character.

Takes many years, but still always on learning curve.

Thanks a lot for the reply Ya bake and "fried" dry tea aren't favored in pu erh community. To the extend people get skeptical over hong ye

Correct me if I'm wrong, hong ye is often found in gushu and laoshu, especially in Yiwu tea. Those Yiwu that claims to be pure laoshu/gushu but don't have hong ye, that would be more worrying

Think I have about 500g of ku ding, never really drink it, maybe should start. Pardon my ignorance but what's MLM, is that canto?

To my limited knowledge, ma ti is the most common way to tell if it's early spring, but it's not true as autumn tea also can have that. One of the good articles I found on leaves is http://www.puerzg.cn/puerwh/html/1060164.html

Don't think that will be useful to you, but it'll be useful for other beginners

The sample tea technique I posted before is actually good for testing new tea. Normally pure plantation and young tree cannot pass that test. The results you get from it will be really personal. The taste will really speak for itself At least that's how I feel. I think you mention before (or was it another person), a good tea taste good regardless if it's a newbie or a seasoned drinker.

Thanks again for your reply, it helps spark new directions to my tea education

edit: I agree one should always be on the learning curve. Anyone/anything can be 良师.

Teaism wrote:Hi lordsbm,

Just to share some personal experience....
Smoky tea is ok, but try to detect bake dry tea. They are close but trained nose can detect it. Bake dry tea kill a lot of the microorganism which is required for aging. So it is not a good attribute.

Bitterness can be good or bad point. A well rounded bitterness with sweet undertone is good. Plantation tea when pluck at the bottom can be bitter but sharp and pokey. Also Ku Thing or Ma Lao Mi can be added to simulate bitterness. These 2 inherently cheaper tea can trick experience drinker. I learned to detect Ku Thing And MLM by drinking them for weeks and then try to detect them in Puer. It was a really bitter experience.

Also look at the leaves, if long enough, you can narrow down whether it is bushes or wild or old tea or spring or summer tea by touching the texture and studying the structure of the leaves. Tea leaves especially after brewing speaks volume of its quality and character.

Takes many years, but still always on learning curve.

Hi,
I am not sure about the term of hong ye or ma ti. Will check it out later.

Ma Lao Mi is another bitter tea, different from Ku Thing. It is Cantonese, by literal translation means monkey pluck. It was said that it got its name because the monkey climb up the tea tree and pluck the big leaf for making the tea. In olden days, they come in long 6 to 8 inches of thin rolled cigar shape in almost black colour. We drink it when we have sore throat. Normally, we just dip the roll in hot water for less than a second and the water will taste bitter. Nowadays they are available in shorter roll of around 1 to 2 inches length.

So a dap will make the water bitter and the fakers normally process it in dust form and mix into Puer to simulate the fake bitterness of better grade tea.

Ku thing simulation is slightly different as Ku thing leaves looks like tea leaves. Most often they are blended in. You can identify them from brewed leaves. So it is good you have some of it so learn to taste and identify it and look out for it when you sample tea,

Yes I am always very humbled by the topic of tea. Learning and de-learning is very important. It is very basic, only tea, water and the interaction of both, but eventually after decades of learning, we are always back to the basic. I always start the day, everyday, telling myself that I know nothing about tea, then start with a new curious question on tea and let it unfold.....

Teaism wrote:Hi,
I am not sure about the term of hong ye or ma ti. Will check it out later.

Hong ye means red leaf. You often see that after u run hot water on new tea. It can be a sign that the tea is baked or "fried". However according to some tea buyer in the mountains, you will likely find that in gushu and laoshu also even if it's only sun dry.

Ma ti direct translate is horse hoot. This is how the end of the stem appears which resemblance horse hoot. You'll find a lot of these in spring tea, specially tou chun (early spring). As I mentioned not a sure sign to tell if it's a spring, but you'll find more in spring tea.

lordsbm wrote:

Teaism wrote:Hi,
I am not sure about the term of hong ye or ma ti. Will check it out later.

Hong ye means red leaf. You often see that after u run hot water on new tea. It can be a sign that the tea is baked or "fried". However according to some tea buyer in the mountains, you will likely find that in gushu and laoshu also even if it's only sun dry.

Ma ti direct translate is horse hoot. This is how the end of the stem appears which resemblance horse hoot. You'll find a lot of these in spring tea, specially tou chun (early spring). As I mentioned not a sure sign to tell if it's a spring, but you'll find more in spring tea.

Thanks! Learned something today.

The red leaves can also be due the processing and fermentation. Ma ti is interesting observation. Some very skilled tea masters use the yancha style to process Puer and the result is incredible. They shake the tea leaves to bruise the tip to bring out the sweetness of the tea.
I usually judge by texture, profile and color of the leave and of course by the brews.

Thank you my friend, great to learn something today.

Cheers!

Teaism wrote:Thanks! Learned something today.

The red leaves can also be due the processing and fermentation. Ma ti is interesting observation. Some very skilled tea masters use the yancha style to process Puer and the result is incredible. They shake the tea leaves to bruise the tip to bring out the sweetness of the tea.
I usually judge by texture, profile and color of the leave and of course by the brews.

Thank you my friend, great to learn something today.

Cheers!

Thanks I also learn stuffs from you too Especially "fake" tea used in pu erh. In China it's known as 雨水料. Most don't talk much about this topic, unless non-tea ingredients are used like Chinese celery

Actually XG and other brand sheng blend use some semi-fermented leaves to to achieve certain taste.

It is rather interesting how same water, same tea, even same equipment can produce different tea result just by rate/way you pour the water, slight difference in temperature. I often try write down how I brew each tea, so I can reproduce the same result if I like it. But it's never that easy, especially the water flow rate control

Thanks again for everything

While I agree that it is important whether or not I actually enjoy the tea, I am unable to disregard the issue of its authenticity. Even if based on nothing other than the principle of the matter.

Thank you everyone for your input, I really appreciate it. Hopefully this helps others in some way.

On a side note, nicolas, you have a PM

Just for fun of looking...
*Probable* fake dayi dragon seal
On this page, of the 4 products, one is xiaguan and irrelevant. The other three are dayi dragon seal. One is a 10rmb sample. And, between the other two, can we see something there?
http://pecha.taobao.com/?q=%C1%FA%D3%A1 ... z_20130427

非卖品? Cut-out bin puerh?

tst wrote:While I agree that it is important whether or not I actually enjoy the tea, I am unable to disregard the issue of its authenticity. Even if based on nothing other than the principle of the matter.

Thank you everyone for your input, I really appreciate it. Hopefully this helps others in some way.

On a side note, nicolas, you have a PM

Care to share your source for the possible fakes? I do agree with Nicolas with his assessment.

It's a bit late but better than never. Here I saw some useful info regarding how to verify real Dayi since 2006. Anything before 2006, you need to ask other experts.

http://www.daye-tea.com/%E9%98%B2%E5%81 ... %A3%9B.htm

Very nice info post! This will help a lot of people.

apache wrote:It's a bit late but better than never. Here I saw some useful info regarding how to verify real Dayi since 2006. Anything before 2006, you need to ask other experts.

http://www.daye-tea.com/%E9%98%B2%E5%81 ... %A3%9B.htm

Now probably the fake tea makers have studied this carefully And before they studied this, they've probably already started using real product wrappers for fake teas.
I think the best way to inhibit fake dayi is not to value real dayi more than its real value. But probably this won't happen anytime soon