TeaChat

A really nice session with a sample of spring 2010 Lao Ban Pen loose Mao Cha from Norbu. A little smoky, a little spicy, but strongest notes are sweet, anise, herbs, and if I am not careful enough about the still-near-flash infusions, bitterness.

06 Youle Shan Yinzhen Bing -

This is almost all buds. Strangely the most prominent note is caramel causing it to resemble hongcha quite a bit. There are vanilla and sugarcane notes also. This has not aged much since I bought it in 06, which affirms what I already knew...I'm going to have to pay for aged teas, because it ain't happening here.

Buds don't age like leaves do.

shah82 wrote:Buds don't age like leaves do.

Any other information?

Some green 2008 - to lazy to figure out what it is, but it's decent. Cake seems a tad dry, working on an inexpensive but solid humidity solution that is almost done - testing it out on my crappy shou first - heh.

There are lots of buddy teas that either fade or gets hongcha-esque.

http://www.twodogteablog.com/2012/10/23 ... uer-2000s/

Also, in general, the badder plantation teas are just really slow to age, and truly needs that humidity.

shah82 wrote:There are lots of buddy teas that either fade or gets hongcha-esque.

http://www.twodogteablog.com/2012/10/23 ... uer-2000s/

Also, in general, the badder plantation teas are just really slow to age, and truly needs that humidity.

This was actually not too bad....not really like a pu....but it was the first cake I had ever bought. I think it was $10 back in the day. Compared to the Two Dog example....the spent leaves of my cake were all darkish....also looking like hongcha. No doubt that I would never buy another.

Buds don't age much, but they sure can make a nice tasting young tea (if you're into that thing).

puerhking wrote:I think it was $10 back in the day. Compared to the Two Dog example....the spent leaves of my cake were all darkish....also looking like hongcha. No doubt that I would never buy another.

$10 isn't a bad deal for a cake like that. I think it is probably ~$25 or so now, which still isn't bad, if you want hongcha. Hell of a lot cheaper than buying 350g of most red teas.

In my experience, most purely bud cakes age towards hongcha character. Huangpian have their rightful place in the world.

TwoDog2 wrote:
$10 isn't a bad deal for a cake like that. I think it is probably ~$25 or so now, which still isn't bad, if you want hongcha. Hell of a lot cheaper than buying 350g of most red teas.

In my experience, most purely bud cakes age towards hongcha character. Huangpian have their rightful place in the world.

So bud cakes are considered Huangpian also?

puerhking wrote: So bud cakes are considered Huangpian also?

No no, what I meant was, Huangpian serve a purpose in a cake. As do the other leaves. If you make a cake of pure buds, it doesn't age well and is less interesting. Some people (usually for the sake of aesthetics) will take out all the huangpian, or take out everything but the buds to make bud cakes which cost more and look pretty, but make a less multi-dimensional tea. I meant that I am a fan of huangpian and think they have earned their rightful place in cakes, because they add certain character that is missing without them.

TwoDog2 wrote:
No no, what I meant was, Huangpian serve a purpose in a cake. As do the other leaves. If you make a cake of pure buds, it doesn't age well and is less interesting. Some people (usually for the sake of aesthetics) will take out all the huangpian, or take out everything but the buds to make bud cakes which cost more and look pretty, but make a less multi-dimensional tea. I meant that I am a fan of huangpian and think they have earned their rightful place in cakes, because they add certain character that is missing without them.

Oookay....lol....I thought that sounded strange. I'll have to take your word on the huangpian. I don't have enough experience with it to render an opinion.

puerhking wrote: Oookay....lol....I thought that sounded strange. I'll have to take your word on the huangpian. I don't have enough experience with it to render an opinion.

Huangpian are the big leaf at the base of where they pick, named for their color (huang meaning yellow). Here is a pic of a cake of Guafengzhai huangpian (2009) I got this spring to give a visual in case people don't know what huangpian look like.



Some people pick these all out and make cakes without them. Personally, I think that is a mistake, since I like the character they add. You can also just brew them by themselves and they are very good -or at least I enjoy them, some people don't.

Most people feel they are visually ugly, which is why they pick them out, and why there are cakes like this made of exclusively huangpian. Rather than throw out the huangpian, the farmers make them into cakes or sell them as maocha.

The Red mark had huang pian in the mix. For that matter so did Zhou Yu's 2007 remake.
I have a couple huang pin cakes I like to drink them at night since there is almost no caffeine. One is pretty old I found an edamame pod in it.

gasninja wrote:The Red mark had huang pian in the mix. For that matter so did Zhou Yu's 2007 remake.
I have a couple huang pin cakes I like to drink them at night since there is almost no caffeine. One is pretty old I found an edamame pod in it.

Right! Almost any old cake has some huangpian in the mix, and they turned out well.

I am right with you, I often brew up huangpian and drink them later in the day. Some people I know boil them until they are syrupy and sweet.