Official Pu of the day

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


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Apr 23rd, '15, 11:07
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Re: Official Pu of the day

by kyarazen » Apr 23rd, '15, 11:07

Drax wrote:Paxl -- it's a way to think about the flavor landscape as a sound/music landscape. A similar conversion happens when people say 'darker' and 'brighter'... we're trying to convert taste into other senses that are perhaps a bit easier to describe.

There's actually no guarantee that two people will convert the same flavor profile in the same way. And come to think of it, I've never tried to backward convert -- that is, if a tea makes me think of 'low notes,' I'm not sure I've identified what is actually in the taste that makes me think of it that way. Maybe somebody else can throw out some ideas (different topic/thread, perhaps?) -- is a richer mouthfeel lower in tone? Is bitterness higher? Hm.

Hope that helps a little... :D

its a fun topic :P dabbling a wee bit into perfumery i realized that there are different aroma wheels for different cultures.. the chinese one is different from the european one..

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Apr 23rd, '15, 12:21
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Re: Official Pu of the day

by Drax » Apr 23rd, '15, 12:21

AdmiralKelvinator wrote:For the record, I think you can have a tea that has very rich and complex top notes, and it can also have a deeper, "rounder" bitterness as well.
Absolutely! Just like you can have a bassoon and a flute playing simultaneously. Sometimes the analogies really do work well... :D

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Re: Official Pu of the day

by Drax » Apr 23rd, '15, 12:23

kyarazen wrote:there are different aroma wheels for different cultures.. the chinese one is different from the european one..
Interesting! A good example of why it's nice to have these conversations every once in awhile... :D

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Apr 24th, '15, 12:27
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Re: Official Pu of the day

by William » Apr 24th, '15, 12:27

Just finished some wild DXS from the 2014 harvest.
After the first 2/3 brews, the tea became oily and thick on the tongue, maintaining a nice balance between aftertaste's length and body's thickness.

Surely a nice surprise (since I opened the untouched bag few minutes before). :)

Apr 24th, '15, 15:20
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Re: Official Pu of the day

by mam2431 » Apr 24th, '15, 15:20

Having fun today with Yunnan Sourcing’s 2009 Lao Ban Zhang Premium sheng. This is a very interesting selection from YS recommended by a few whose opinions I value. Reportedly a special production by the Mengku Tea Factory and according to YS, the tea is 100% Ban Zhang Wild Ancient Arbor. The leaves of the cake appear to be clean, thick and stout. Bright and clear tea liquor. Floral-fruity scent on top of a smooth woody base which is long lasting and powerful. The sip is full and complex yet strongly sweet. There is a pleasant bitterness but this quickly dissipates then a full, delicious, sweet taste dominates and remains in the mouth for quite some time. Nice mouth feel – tongue and mouth tingle after just a few small sips. Good chaqi which begins to come forward after the first cup and builds over several infusions. Nice tea!

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Apr 25th, '15, 03:33
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Re: Official Pu of the day

by Tead Off » Apr 25th, '15, 03:33

2009 Spring Yiwu from Tea Urchin. Very nice tea that is still getting better after 6 years.
Seong il 100ml gaiwan, 2009 Yiwu.jpg
Seong il 100ml gaiwan, 2009 Yiwu.jpg (48.74 KiB) Viewed 1363 times

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Apr 29th, '15, 03:14
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Re: Official Pu of the day

by Rui » Apr 29th, '15, 03:14

2014 Spring Natural Tea Gardens from Bannacha. Finishing the cake ahead of any 2015 tea releases.

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Re: Official Pu of the day

by mr mopu » Apr 30th, '15, 21:20

Having a 2013 “YI SHAN LAO ZHAI” gu shu sheng From Yunnan Sourcing.
Go this on my last order to try as Jinggu teas can be quite good.
I broke out 10 grams and went with the gaiwan to brew with. I gave it a quick rinse and let it sit a few minutes to open up. I saw a recent post someone else had reflected on their way of letting the tea breathe before brewing fully. It is said to akin to opening a bottle of wine to breathe before you pour it. I think it works for puerh as well.
The tea, it brew up nicely aromatic with a nice golden yellow hue to it. Very clear in the cup. It is semi-thick with some bitterness at first. Just a whisp of the smoke is left in this and not really noticeable till after the swallow. It gives some buttery, salty creamy notes and seems to be active and stimulating. The notes of wet hay and floral are in there as well.
An interesting one and not bad for the price it is offered at. The leaf material can be seen opening up after a few infusions. Nice size some displaying a leaf and a bud on a stem in there. Nice pungent and pretty tasty.

Flavors: Butter, Creamy, Floral, Smoke, wet hay.

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May 1st, '15, 06:21
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Re: Official Pu of the day

by Balthazar » May 1st, '15, 06:21

Finished a sample of "2000 Fuyuanchang Yibang" procured from white2tea about a year ago. Oh boy, another example of Norwegian Storage doing some heavy damage to good tea.

Of course expecting 15ish grams of tea to remain unchanged for a year (not to mention aging in a positive way) would probably be naive under any storage conditions. But the havoc that has been brought on this tea is nonetheless surprising. What used to be very smooth, full-bodied and flavorful is now simply undrinkable. Sour, sour, sour, the stomach reacts after the first few sips.

I've mentioned all this before, but I'm glad I didn't go on a puer shopping spree last year. I'm especially glad I didn't buy a tong of tuochatea's very reasonable 2008 8582, which was very tasty when it arrived, but now is also just sour. The 5-6 cakes of raw puer I have are all pretty much undrinkable, though, and my girlfriend bought a bunch of stuff from China last summer that I imagine has fared no better. More recently procured stuff, like the White Whale, has also turned bad in a similar way. I don't think they started deteriorating much at all before winter arrived. And this has been a pretty mild winter, I wonder how bad it would have turned out had it been a more intense one.

There may be a hidden positive effect in all this. I can't imagine ever becoming completely obsessed with raw puer so long as I live where I do (I don't think I'll ever set up a pumidor), so financially speaking this may be for the best. The only way to go from here on is to buy a limited amount of samples each spring, probably only stuff that's already been aged for a while under decent conditions, and finish them all before winter arrives. I think April-late October/early November is pretty safe. If I do buy one or two cakes, they will need to be sealed. I do have a cake of the 2003 Keyi Xing from, which has been stored in a zip-lock bag. Like the rest of the bunch it's lost a little of what it had, but significantly more of its good qualities remain.

Oh, and the shu puer has kept pretty well. Speaking of which, I think I will have some now.

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by bonescwa » May 1st, '15, 10:06

Just get a stoneware crock and put a little wet sponge with a zip lock back around it so the tea doesn't get wet. Open it periodically to let the air circulate so it doesn't mold.

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May 1st, '15, 14:34
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Re: Official Pu of the day

by Balthazar » May 1st, '15, 14:34

I did recently start putting a few of my teas in crocks, using tobacco pouches to keep the humidity at an acceptable level. It helps, but I doubt it will able to do much for the goners.

It will be interesting to see other people's experiences with crocks in a few years time. I am under the impression quite a few people have started trying it out, largely thanks to cwyn's informative posts.

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May 1st, '15, 15:07
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Re: Official Pu of the day

by kyarazen » May 1st, '15, 15:07

hmm.. what was the temperature that the teas were stored at?

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May 1st, '15, 18:53
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Re: Official Pu of the day

by Balthazar » May 1st, '15, 18:53

Around 20 degrees Celsius, fluctuating between 18 and 23 in winter time. Air humidity as low as 20% on bad days, usually around 30%. (In summer it's usually in the range of 35-50%, sometimes a bit higher.)

So it's no great puzzle, especially as I did not go to any great lengths to make the best out of these sub-par conditions but rather haphazardly stored the teas in cardboard boxes on a top shelf. The only surprise for me was how fast they deteriorated. I would have expected the teas to retain a bit of what made them pleasant for a year. Live and learn. The oolongs are all doing great, though :)

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Re: Official Pu of the day

by Rdeitz » May 1st, '15, 22:12

I'm no expert by any means, but this seems an extreme reaction if it were just a low humidity problem for one winter. I thought low humidity would basically retard development for the most part. Is it possible there are other issues? I wonder if undersirable microbes took hold? Maybe from your environment? I think there are probably lots of people who have dry winter conditions who don't see their teas turn sour. But I'd be curious what others think.

May 2nd, '15, 01:27
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Re: Official Pu of the day

by BW85 » May 2nd, '15, 01:27

Conditions like that will definitely turn sheng thin, sharp and sour. One winter is enough. I learned the same lesson in the past. RH of 50-65 would be more likely to slow or halt aging, but that low of humidity as described is death for tea. The cakes need babied in the dry western winters

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