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Re: Is ripe pu-erh for me?

Posted: Jun 3rd, '13, 21:58
by MrEffendi
So to change the subject a bit (sorry I'm a bit flighty). What's your favorite mellow-out tea? I have a GABA oolong that makes me want to melt into the couch; tastes like honey. It's almost too soothing; like xanax tea. Sorry about all the drug references.

Re: Is ripe pu-erh for me?

Posted: Jun 3rd, '13, 22:23
by lordsbm
MrEffendi wrote:So to change the subject a bit (sorry I'm a bit flighty). What's your favorite mellow-out tea? I have a GABA oolong that makes me want to melt into the couch; tastes like honey. It's almost too soothing; like xanax tea. Sorry about all the drug references.
I only drink pu erh, for health reason :lol: So mine is still a pu erh, also I like mine not too mellow. :lol:

Recent favourite brand name shen will be 2011 Tulin legend, non-brand will be a 2009 Pasha old tree. As for shu brand name shu 2008 Tulin 100g brick, non-brand will be that 2012 Bulang gushu huangpian I posted early.

Legend flavour is light and refreshing. Changes from butter like flavor to fruity flavor to longan flavor. Decent huigan, good shengjin. Refreshing, sweet, mild bitterness, low astringent.

Pasha is bitter sweet type of tea. Sweet like honey, bitterness dissolved quick. Astringent level depends on the temperature, at 95 Celsius above it's too much, but at 93 Celsius below the astringent is week.

2008 Tulin shu brick has a grainy taste and texture. Kinda like soya milk taste. :lol: Mellow and sweet enough. Duiwei (storage smell) is mild.

Re: Is ripe pu-erh for me?

Posted: Jun 4th, '13, 02:25
by Tead Off
MrEffendi wrote:I might be partially put off that the soup looks more like coffee than tea. Coffee... the devil's drink.
Some very good Turkish coffee in Turkey. :D and everywhere else!

Coming from Taiwan tea to Puerh can be a difficult road. I know very well this road. After being tortured with horrible Puerh for years, the doors opened and I began to appreciate these teas. Somehow, you have to switch gears in your head and begin to appreciate the new flavors that Puerh offers. They do tend to be on the bitter side like coffee. But that bitterness gives way to something else. Some Puerh is not bitter at all. Finding those cakes that sit well on your tongue is not an easy job. It takes persistence and money. You have to have the desire to crack the code of these teas. Plus, there is so much bad stuff that becoming frustrated is easy.

The best shu I've had was from Nannuo mountain, Banpozhai village. This area is known for their sweeter teas. Shu can be very mellow and tasty.

Re: Is ripe pu-erh for me?

Posted: Jun 4th, '13, 06:00
by theredbaron
Shu Pu Erh does not excite me that much, so i don't drink it, unless a cup is offered to me.
No problem - there are so many other teas available. I don't need to like every tea.

Re: Is ripe pu-erh for me?

Posted: Jun 4th, '13, 20:49
by MrEffendi
Ach, so it looks like Mr. Effendi and his house guests might be sticking to oolong and properly aged sheeng for a while. If I come across a shu that looks exciting I'll be sure to let you know. Thanks friends!

Edit: to change the subject again (my apologies), I came across an "arbor king" cake in 2006 that was out of this world. The leaves were absolutely huge. The compression was loose. Despite it not being thoroughly aged the soup was wonderfully thick and it tasted like a forest. I haven't found this tea again as I think it may be discontinued. Any recommendations for a THICK tasting arbor puerh with huge leaves? I've been missing this tea for 7 years now and I haven't found another like it. Sorry, no pictures.

Re: Is ripe pu-erh for me?

Posted: Jun 4th, '13, 21:42
by shah82
Arbor King is a pretty generic name...

The most famous of these is either this one:

http://rjtea.net/pu-erh-tea/puerh-tea-c ... -cake.html

or a Douji version, which is also refered to as Shengtai Gushu.

Re: Is ripe pu-erh for me?

Posted: Jun 7th, '13, 22:25
by MrEffendi
I'm familiar with that one. The one I'm thinking of came in a white wrapper with green writing and wasn't from a major factory. I think I bought it at a certain puerh shop.

Re: Is ripe pu-erh for me?

Posted: Jun 24th, '13, 18:43
by bagua7
lordsbm wrote:As for shu brand name shu 2008 Tulin 100g brick, non-brand will be that 2012 Bulang gushu huangpian I posted early.
Any idea about YS's cake version?

Is it an enjoyable ripe?

Re: Is ripe pu-erh for me?

Posted: Jul 1st, '13, 01:13
by MrEffendi
lordsbm wrote: I only drink pu erh, for health reason :lol: So mine is still a pu erh, also I like mine not too mellow. :lol:

Recent favourite brand name shen will be 2011 Tulin legend, non-brand will be a 2009 Pasha old tree. As for shu brand name shu 2008 Tulin 100g brick, non-brand will be that 2012 Bulang gushu huangpian I posted early.

Legend flavour is light and refreshing. Changes from butter like flavor to fruity flavor to longan flavor. Decent huigan, good shengjin. Refreshing, sweet, mild bitterness, low astringent.

Pasha is bitter sweet type of tea. Sweet like honey, bitterness dissolved quick. Astringent level depends on the temperature, at 95 Celsius above it's too much, but at 93 Celsius below the astringent is week.

2008 Tulin shu brick has a grainy taste and texture. Kinda like soya milk taste. :lol: Mellow and sweet enough. Duiwei (storage smell) is mild.
Alright. I had to revisit this thread tonight because there are many great responses! You had me hooked at "butter flavor." However, I cannot find a vender of this "Tulin Legend." Would you mind PMing me a link to a reputable vendor? Thank you!

Re: Is ripe pu-erh for me?

Posted: Jul 1st, '13, 04:43
by ChengduCha
lordsbm wrote:
MrEffendi wrote:Any recommendations for a smooth, mellow, SWEET, ripe tea with plenty of pleasant and relaxing qi? Maybe ripe teas go "taste" better in cold climates? I'm not sure. Again, I'm quite put off by camphor and smoke. Is ripened pu for me? Should I simply admit my prejudice against the black stuff?
It's harder to find a right shu than a sheng :lol:
I'd say it's the opposite, especially if online shops are your only available source of pu erh. I have only had really good shu (as in clean, smooth, no off-tastes, not too overpowering brew with a really good cha qi) in local tea shops in China.

If you want floral you won't get it with shu. Oranges, tangerine and chinese date are the most common tastes that floral flavors convert to in the fermentation process.

Ultimately some people just don't like shu much - hard to argue about tastes.

I like to drink it even in the hot and humid chinese summer right now, but lots of people don't feel comfortable drinking such teas in the summer.

Re: Is ripe pu-erh for me?

Posted: Jul 11th, '13, 21:30
by MrEffendi
Alright, a bit of an update about my deluge into ripe tea. Skip the part above the dashed line if you don't care for back-story or skip to the very bottom for the TL;DR.

I bought a 2007 Xiaguan Tibetan Flame Tuocha (shu) around 2008. I brewed it once and I remember the stuff tasting absolutely insipid; undrinkable. I never touched the stuff again after that. Not just Tibetan marketed teas but cooked puerh in general. From then on out, it was only oolongs, lots of well aged sheng, and the occasional sencha.

Me and my friend Lars along with his wife had a tea session last night (it's rare for his wife to join us as she mostly just drinks bagged Twinnings). Lars is a great tea enthusiast just like me and his wife simply tolerates his strange tea habits (You spent HOW much on tea this week?!). It's good to have a friend who understands our leafy obsessions.

I continue to digress. We brewed a 2002 sheng. It was a Yong Pin Hao (arbor) and got a solid 10 steeps out of it. Brewed a ~12 gram CHUNK in a decent sized kyusu (bear in mind we were brewing for three). Lars has all the paraphernalia: cha hai, innumerable brewing vessels, beautiful cups, etc. The tea was divine but this is all beside the point. Lars was getting a high degree of psychoactive effects from the leaf but he is not as used to well aged sheng as myself (he likes oolongs and dabbles in sheng cha): "I feel slightly stoned. These lights are awfully bright."

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When I got home I decided to write a little prose- a little story I've been working on about Persian Opium smugglers and bandit-kings. You can't write good prose without good tea and my thirst was not yet quenched. I felt adventurous enough to dig out the old Tibetan Flame Toucha (shu). I wasn't expecting much but I was wrong.

Now I know the "Tibetan teas" don't have the best reputation among enthusiast. However, after airing out in my closet for a solid five years the tea was absolutely divine. I live in a very humid subtropical climate (don't bother with a pumidor, rH is usually high regardless). So I'm not sure to what extent this effected the aging process.

The color was not that of coffee which I associate with shu but more of a dark translucent gold. The mouth and throat feel was that of silk and left a very pleasant coating in my palette; sort of like drinking milk. The taste had no "off flavors." It did not taste like mud or a musty warehouse but had a certain je ne sais quoi about it. It tasted almost... "English" I dare say? Maybe with just a touch of Chinese medicine- just very smooth and sweet with hardly any astringency. Anyway, I had a very good experience with a semi-aged shu that doesn't even have a good reputation among most connoisseurs and am now looking to buy more.

TL;DR: dug out an old shu toucha from my closet that tasted horrible in 2008 but tastes wonderful now. It was my first good experience with shu.