Puerhshop Tasting Group's "Year of Green Pu-erh"

One of the intentionally aged teas, Pu-Erh has a loyal following.


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Jul 8th, '08, 11:50
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by Dizzwave » Jul 8th, '08, 11:50

augie wrote:I just can't get into Sheng (raw) pu ehr.
Hey Augie..
After spending some time away from my Year of Green samples, and drinking sheng from what are my now-favorite factories (Mengku, Yongde, and some others).. and then coming back to the Year of Green... I can't drink it! It's nothing like the good stuff.
So.. Anyone interested in my "leftovers", PM me. :) and Augie, I'll take the Kahlua if it's still available!
-dave

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Jul 8th, '08, 18:34
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by augie » Jul 8th, '08, 18:34

Dizzwave wrote:After spending some time away from my Year of Green samples, and drinking sheng from what are my now-favorite factories (Mengku, Yongde, and some others).. and then coming back to the Year of Green... I can't drink it! It's nothing like the good stuff.
I have done that before too, tried it again in a few weeks. Not working this time. Maybe it was just these particular samples, I dunno. I used to love raw Pu, now I don't! I just hate chucking it, but it's taking up a lot of real estate.
Dizzwave wrote:So.. Anyone interested in my "leftovers", PM me. :)
Maybe we should move to the swap thread, however I don't necessarily want to trade. Just hate throwing it away.
Dave wrote:Augie, I'll take the Kahlua if it's still available!-dave
bought those thinking I couldn't get into much trouble -- less alcohol, but too much sugar. Then I get home and realize I have Kahlua & Stoli in my pantry . . . duh. Could have had a killer White Russian. I'm going to go take the edge off and polish off that last one now, sorry! Free up some more counter space! :lol:

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Aug 16th, '08, 16:30
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2007 Mengsa Arbor

by PolyhymnianMuse » Aug 16th, '08, 16:30

2007 Mengsa Arbor - So I had a little bit of this one for awhile and finally got to trying it. Its really nice, mellow, doesnt bite back at all. The leaves are a really nice quality, not all little broken pieces, I'll be buying at least one of these cakes for how cheap it is.

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by Drax » Jan 4th, '09, 15:15

I don't like dredging up old threads, but oh well. I've been trying a sample of the 2007 Menghai Feet of Crab today, and was searching around for some other thoughts on it, and found this thread.

First, I was surprised at all the comments about the odd taste. It hasn't been tasting too odd for me, especially coming off of yesterday's powerful sheng I was trying. But I wonder if 8-9 months have something to do with it? The original tastings for this were back in April of 2008.

Further, I got a lot of chuckles about everybody freaking out about the Feet of Crab. I think it's great all the information everybody was able to find. But I also noted a lot of general . . . overreaction about the Feet of Crab.

From what I remember from medicinal botany (which granted was over 10 years ago), mistletoe contains a compound that acts as a vasodilator -- that is, it lowers your blood pressure by relaxing (dilating) your veins and arteries. I remember this distinctly, because the professor showed pictures of "mistletoe tea" from a vitamin and supplement store, which included dried mistletoe berries, which would be the most deadly of the entire tea.

It's true, it's not a good idea to drink mistletoe tea.

However, what we have w/ the Feet of Crab is a plant related to mistletoe. We have a good link to its use in Nepalese medicine, which if you note, talks about its use in bone dislocation treatment, as an anti-pyrretic (fever reducer), and as an aphrodisiac (probably because of the vasodilation... viagra works this way).

Further, the Feet of Crab has only had twigs added. To be honest, they look like old twigs, too, and there's really not a lot. Twigs/stalks don't usually contain as much of any active compounds as berries and leaves. What all this means is that there's probably not much to worry about from the Feet of Crab.

The really funny part about this, to me, is that this is what a large part of tea is. It's extracting chemicals from plants and absorbing them into your own body. Even in the absence of the Feet of Crab, tea affects your body chemistry. So it's good to be very aware about what you're putting into your body, and not just in this case because it sounds weird.

Maybe the Feet of Crab just made people more keenly aware (and uncomfortable?) with that reality.

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by Salsero » Jan 4th, '09, 15:46

Amazing coincidence that you are drinking this tea the very day after I received a pu order from Jim into which he had stuffed an old Feet of Crab wrapper! And that I choose to include it as the unlikely background for a Chinese green tea photo for today!

Thanks for the dose of reason about our worries over being slain by our tea. It all makes sense now, and even has the ring of science about it ... something I am always impressed with.

Personally, I think resurrecting old threads is almost always a good idea ... unless the thread was stupid to begin with. In fact, in the Puerhshop.com - Reviews thread I refer new readers back to this old thread. Several of these teas are still available.

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by Ron Gilmour » Jan 4th, '09, 16:00

I think I'm the primary guilty party in the great "Feet of Crab" panic of '08. :oops:

Thanks for the dose of very well-reasoned perspective!

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by Drax » Jan 4th, '09, 19:56

Salsero wrote:Amazing coincidence that you are drinking this tea the very day after I received a pu order from Jim into which he had stuffed an old Feet of Crab wrapper! And that I choose to include it as the unlikely background for a Chinese green tea photo for today!
Yes! I about sprayed Feet of Crab tea all over my laptop screen when I saw it.

Well, no, not really. That would be bad for the tea and for my laptop. But mentally. Mentally.

I do think we're safe in the case of this tea, but I will still throw out some cautions. That mistletoe tea I mentioned that my professor found was available in a store at an American mall (granted about 15 years ago). And I'm not sure what any of the checks or regulations there are for things like tea being imported into the US. This is probably my biggest worry when I drink tea from China.

But there are plenty of other things that can kill you, so it's very wise to find out what information you can (so it was very cool to see the info everybody was able to track down on this stuff). I remember stories of a couple dying after brewing tea from Foxglove (which contains digitalis), a health nut that died after drinking an appleseed milkshake (contains a cyanogen), yew bushes/leaves/berries are also very bad, etc, etc.

Fortunately tea seems to have more good stuff than bad ;)

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Re: Puerhshop Tasting Group's "Year of Green Pu-erh"

by Drax » Aug 22nd, '12, 13:26

I thought I would bump this old thread to note that Scott is selling crab's claw over at YS.... he lists a genus/species (Juncus diastrophanthus) that is different from the one discussed here, so I suppose they are different? But there's enough similarities here to warrant some connection.

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Re: Puerhshop Tasting Group's "Year of Green Pu-erh"

by apache » Aug 22nd, '12, 18:34

According to the two names, they can't be further apart.

Viscum articulatum Burm. f. (accepted name) is a eudicot
Juncus diastrophanthus Buchenau (accepted name) is a monocot

The phylogenetic tree only join at phylum level: Angiospermae

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Re: Puerhshop Tasting Group's "Year of Green Pu-erh"

by apache » Aug 22nd, '12, 18:54

Just read on Scott site:
"Crab's Claw vine is a parasitic plant related to orchids that grows on the branches of wild and ancient arbor tea trees ..."

If he means Juncus diastrophanthus Buchenau taxonomically related to orchids, that also a bit far fetch, although both are moncots, but they are in different families. I think he means the epiphytic or parasitic plants, but I'm not sure whether Juncus diastrophanthus is an epiphyte? And what more, no orchids are parasitic, only epiphytic or mycoheterotrophic.

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Re: Puerhshop Tasting Group's "Year of Green Pu-erh"

by dobermanlover » Aug 22nd, '12, 20:52

Hi Apache and others...

I am certainly open to finding the correct latin name for this plant.

This source and others on the chinese language internet identified it as "Juncus diastrophanthus Buchen", but perhaps it's not correct?

http://baike.baidu.com/view/843902.htm

I think it's quite safe to drink... perhaps not gallons a day but I do know that alot of people in China are drinking this "crab's claw" very often without any problems.

- Scott

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Re: Puerhshop Tasting Group's "Year of Green Pu-erh"

by dobermanlover » Aug 22nd, '12, 20:58

Reading some more sources now and more carefully... it seems the Yunnan Crab's Claw should be "Viscum articulatum Burm. f"

I suspect one or more of you folks is a botanist?

:-)

- Scott

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Aug 22nd, '12, 23:00
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Re: Puerhshop Tasting Group's "Year of Green Pu-erh"

by TwoDog2 » Aug 22nd, '12, 23:00

yunnan_sourcing wrote:Reading some more sources now and more carefully... it seems the Yunnan Crab's Claw should be "Viscum articulatum Burm. f"

I suspect one or more of you folks is a botanist?

:-)

- Scott

I can't help with the Latin name, but I can vote that "Yunnan's Crab Claw" is a much better name than "Feet of the crab". Big upgrade.

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Re: Puerhshop Tasting Group's "Year of Green Pu-erh"

by dobermanlover » Aug 22nd, '12, 23:25

TwoDog2 wrote:
yunnan_sourcing wrote:Reading some more sources now and more carefully... it seems the Yunnan Crab's Claw should be "Viscum articulatum Burm. f"

I suspect one or more of you folks is a botanist?

:-)

- Scott

I can't help with the Latin name, but I can vote that "Yunnan's Crab Claw" is a much better name than "Feet of the crab". Big upgrade.
Haha... Feet of the Crab... that's super chinglish! Even with the name upgrade I don't expect it to be a big seller. I had a few customers who kept "nagging" me to sell it, so i figured it was time. Hopefully I can figure out the exact latin name...

- Scott

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Aug 23rd, '12, 03:10
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Re: Puerhshop Tasting Group's "Year of Green Pu-erh"

by MarshalN » Aug 23rd, '12, 03:10

That stuff is kinda nasty, IMHO, but I guess there's a crowd who likes it.

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