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.