Can you tell about the quality of a bing/tou from appearanc?
Posted: Apr 21st, '13, 14:26
I bought this on ebay as a gamble. It waas $11.
It is supposed to be "2004 Aged Yunnan Arbor Old Tree Tea Pu'er"
How much can one tell by just looking at a cake?:
These leaves look matted dark green, with stems, and possibly dirty. I decided to rinse this tea twice before drinking.
My favorite dark-green young sheng pot the filter and cha hai.
Still a touch cloudy. Something about cloudy tea grosses me out a little. But, I tried it.
And what do you know it's... OK! It has the astringency of youth, but not the chalky kind from very young cakes. It puts a nice tickle (maybe with a little chalk) in the back of the throat. Despite all of this it isn't bitter. There is something troubling mild about it though, don't know if it will keep flavor as it gets older.
Spent leaves looked more alive than I'd expected.
Now, I'm not going to run off and buy a tong of this stuff. It's not really THAT good. But, I will enjoy tasting it from time to time to see how it changes.
Though, I still think the cake itself is ugly.
Now this is a good-looking cake:
This is on of the 2012 cakes from essence of tea. The leaves seem clean and well-defined. It also tastes a lot better than the "2004 Aged Yunnan Arbor Old Tree Tea Pu'er" ebay tea.
But is the taste related to the looks?
So, what I want to know is appearance important? How much can you tell about tea by looking at it? Are there things you avoid like the plague? Things you look for?
And is it just me or is there something shu-like in the appearance of this raw tou?
It just seems kind of ... reddish looking. Like it's been fermented.