Show off your Pu!!!!!!!

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


Jul 14th, '11, 22:50
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Re: Show off your Pu!!!!!!!

by auhckw » Jul 14th, '11, 22:50

apache wrote: Thank you for showing us your collection, auhckw. That's a lot of tea for one person to drink (I assume you are the only person at home drinking it). You must have tried a lot of them at least once at the shop before you bought them, but have you open any of them and sampled them in leisure at home sometime later? My experience told me that the same tea can taste different even I brew it the same way, and certainly even I only bought very few teas from an actual shop, it tastes different at home than in the shop. I normally sample the same tea for a good number of times before I can form a definite opinion.
Yes, I drink alone at home 99% of the time. These days since I drink a lot in tea shops, I rarely brew at home any more.

No, 90% of my tea I have not open yet as I can still sample most of them at the tea shops. I plan to wait for it to be at least 8 years old and above to open it or if I cannot find them any more at teashops.

Your experience is right. I too have encounter slight different taste at tea shop and home. Sometimes, I find it taste better at the shop. Also the same tea being brewed by diff person can also taste differently. Brewing method, style of pouring the water can cause the taste to differ.

Frankly, I am not really a picky person. If the tea is not too expensive kind and if it doesn't taste bad, I'll just buy some just for collecting it. If I can turn back time, I would not have buy in toong, but in 3 pieces and all varieties.

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Jul 15th, '11, 08:28
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Re: Show off your Pu!!!!!!!

by apache » Jul 15th, '11, 08:28

auhckw wrote: You sound like a tea drinker who require strong flavor or kick to sense it... next time try increase the amount of leaves or soak them longer. I probably cannot join you for tea then cause I don't like my tea strong :cry:
I like tea has a kick, but it doesn't mean plantation roughness. Using more leaves and increase brewing time mostly make the fault of a tea more obvious. This in fact is stressing the tea and one should normal do it in a tea shop before buying. If the nasty bitterness stay and doesn't melt, then you know you better forget that one and try anothers.

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Jul 15th, '11, 08:36
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Re: Show off your Pu!!!!!!!

by apache » Jul 15th, '11, 08:36

auhckw wrote:
apache wrote: Thank you for showing us your collection, auhckw. That's a lot of tea for one person to drink (I assume you are the only person at home drinking it). You must have tried a lot of them at least once at the shop before you bought them, but have you open any of them and sampled them in leisure at home sometime later? My experience told me that the same tea can taste different even I brew it the same way, and certainly even I only bought very few teas from an actual shop, it tastes different at home than in the shop. I normally sample the same tea for a good number of times before I can form a definite opinion.
Yes, I drink alone at home 99% of the time. These days since I drink a lot in tea shops, I rarely brew at home any more.

No, 90% of my tea I have not open yet as I can still sample most of them at the tea shops. I plan to wait for it to be at least 8 years old and above to open it or if I cannot find them any more at teashops.

Your experience is right. I too have encounter slight different taste at tea shop and home. Sometimes, I find it taste better at the shop. Also the same tea being brewed by diff person can also taste differently. Brewing method, style of pouring the water can cause the taste to differ.

Frankly, I am not really a picky person. If the tea is not too expensive kind and if it doesn't taste bad, I'll just buy some just for collecting it. If I can turn back time, I would not have buy in toong, but in 3 pieces and all varieties.
Why wait 8 years, I would try them every 6 months to see if they are storing well and aging into the direction I want. Put it this way, if you bought some shares from the stock market for investment, you wouldn't only check the stock price after 8 years, would you?

Sampling them every now and then is fun and sometime you would notice thing you haven't noticed before.

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Jul 15th, '11, 09:07
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Re: Show off your Pu!!!!!!!

by gingkoseto » Jul 15th, '11, 09:07

apache wrote:
gingkoseto wrote:
Indeed a lot of shu seems tasteless to me too (not including those with offensive taste). I have been suspecting they fall on my blind spot too. But I've had a lot more shus that are not tasteless to me. On the other hand, liubao rarely tastes offensive to me, but just tasteless.
The best liubao used to be very very cheap. I am not familiar with the liubao market, but guess even today it's by far less expensive than puerh. Is it a right or wrong impression?
But I can understand old liubao, no matter how much it costs, is rare.
You are lucky, only have a few tasting blind spots, I think I got an arm length. Most of the followings are tasteless to me: oolong, almost any green tea, shu, a number of LBZ sheng (including Chen Sheng Hao LBZ), most wet store sheng and some aged sheng (including Mengku YYX!). Just because I can't sense them, I don't mean all these teas are bad or bland, surely a lot of people enjoy drinking them. I also cannot taste fine wine: a hind of lemon grass, butterscotch, blackcurrant and vanilla all sound foreign to me. All I can tell is whether the wine taste sour, smooth or rough.

The more I sample different teas, the more I notice that only a small handful of pu which I really enjoy. Fortunately, I never find EoT young Bulang tasteless, if that ever happen, I think I drink Coca-cola instead!
Good to know other people have blind spots too :D
Oh the mysterious Chen Sheng LBZ, in fact, anything you feel about it, believe in your intuition, not the label... :!:

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Jul 15th, '11, 09:13
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Re: Show off your Pu!!!!!!!

by gingkoseto » Jul 15th, '11, 09:13

auhckw wrote:These days since I drink a lot in tea shops...

...90% of my tea I have not open yet as I can still sample most of them at the tea shops.
I've noticed that's a common life style for many tea drinkers in Beijing too. Even I, never a customer of a shop, had the luck to drink a lot of great (and free) tea with friends who are frequent visitors. That's something I really envy a lot! This kind of thing didn't exist in Beijing or other Chinese major cities 10-15 years ago. I think this is a significant sign of the rising tea culture, more significant than all the taobao stores and real stores :D

Jul 15th, '11, 09:31
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Re: Show off your Pu!!!!!!!

by auhckw » Jul 15th, '11, 09:31

apache wrote: Why wait 8 years, I would try them every 6 months to see if they are storing well and aging into the direction I want. Put it this way, if you bought some shares from the stock market for investment, you wouldn't only check the stock price after 8 years, would you?

Sampling them every now and then is fun and sometime you would notice thing you haven't noticed before.
Yes, I do sample them now and then... but at tea shops and not my own stocks :mrgreen: So far all my tea are still less than 1 year of personal storage, so I doubt there will be any big difference.

Also, for some of the more expensive tea that I bought I do request some samples which I kept aside at home. Can try them in the future.

Jul 15th, '11, 09:37
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Re: Show off your Pu!!!!!!!

by auhckw » Jul 15th, '11, 09:37

gingkoseto wrote:
auhckw wrote:These days since I drink a lot in tea shops...

...90% of my tea I have not open yet as I can still sample most of them at the tea shops.
I've noticed that's a common life style for many tea drinkers in Beijing too. Even I, never a customer of a shop, had the luck to drink a lot of great (and free) tea with friends who are frequent visitors. That's something I really envy a lot! This kind of thing didn't exist in Beijing or other Chinese major cities 10-15 years ago. I think this is a significant sign of the rising tea culture, more significant than all the taobao stores and real stores :D
Most of the tea shops here, we can try/sample tea for free. If you are frequent or maintain good relationship with the seller, sometimes they may take out their private collection and treat.

Not only that, some tea drinkers (customers) will bring their own private collection to the tea shops and share too. I have tasted many aged tea because of generosity of sellers and customers.

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Jul 15th, '11, 10:27
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Re: Show off your Pu!!!!!!!

by David R. » Jul 15th, '11, 10:27

I've read several times on the net that Dayi stuff, especially after 2006, when the firm changed its policy to a (even) more commercial one, is really not the best candidate for ageing, that their goal is to produce a tea which is ready to drink now and not to be saved for later, as they used to.

I don't know where is the truth in all this, but I know a few people who really discouraged me to buy recent Dayi puerh. Maybe some could elaborate.

Jul 15th, '11, 11:03
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Re: Show off your Pu!!!!!!!

by shah82 » Jul 15th, '11, 11:03

People are being snobs (a little).

1) Much of Dayi's early 2k stuff, if it isn't the big traditionals, are diddled with, too. Most of the really desirable stuff from that time comes from private commissions that wanted more potent/better leaves and didn't process them too much or poorly.

2) There are definitely 2006 and 2007 teas that are beginning to do well, from Dayi, but most of those teas are not the '06 and '07 versions of highly regarded '05s.

You more or less have to taste them, each on their own merits.

At this point, though I am not sure, I'm far more concerned about LBZ. The sense I'm getting is that the older ones, to around '05 are significantly more potent than newer LBZ. I'm tasting pretty decent young Yiwu often enough, but every newer LBZ analogue other the the Ban'E (which I think is really mostly high quality but diddled Lao Man'er leaves) is pretty disappointing in terms of the potency of experience when I taste or read about them.

Jul 15th, '11, 11:08
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Re: Show off your Pu!!!!!!!

by auhckw » Jul 15th, '11, 11:08

David R. wrote:I've read several times on the net that Dayi stuff, especially after 2006, when the firm changed its policy to a (even) more commercial one, is really not the best candidate for ageing, that their goal is to produce a tea which is ready to drink now and not to be saved for later, as they used to.

I don't know where is the truth in all this, but I know a few people who really discouraged me to buy recent Dayi puerh. Maybe some could elaborate.
I agree that pre 2006 raw material could be better and the production was not as massive as post 2006.

I disagree that post 2006 is designed to drink now and cannot be aged. Eg, Try drinking y2011 7542 and 7742. Not something that you can really enjoy to drink now. It definitely need to go through aging before you can enjoy. Whether it will turn out extremely good or not is a different case. Not all pre 2006 is extremely good either.

Jul 15th, '11, 11:41
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Re: Show off your Pu!!!!!!!

by auhckw » Jul 15th, '11, 11:41

2006 – Xia Guan Cang Shan Yin Hao Bing Cha – Raw Pu-erh – 400g Beeng - I tasted the Tuo version but bought the Iron Been version

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Jul 16th, '11, 11:36
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Re: Show off your Pu!!!!!!!

by Dass » Jul 16th, '11, 11:36

auhckw wrote:
gingkoseto wrote:
auhckw wrote:These days since I drink a lot in tea shops...

...90% of my tea I have not open yet as I can still sample most of them at the tea shops.
I've noticed that's a common life style for many tea drinkers in Beijing too. Even I, never a customer of a shop, had the luck to drink a lot of great (and free) tea with friends who are frequent visitors. That's something I really envy a lot! This kind of thing didn't exist in Beijing or other Chinese major cities 10-15 years ago. I think this is a significant sign of the rising tea culture, more significant than all the taobao stores and real stores :D
Most of the tea shops here, we can try/sample tea for free. If you are frequent or maintain good relationship with the seller, sometimes they may take out their private collection and treat.

Not only that, some tea drinkers (customers) will bring their own private collection to the tea shops and share too. I have tasted many aged tea because of generosity of sellers and customers.
He is right,the shop that we go frequently,brewed 1970's yellow mark yesterday.It Cost RM10K a cake here. USD2570

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Jul 16th, '11, 13:19
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Re: Show off your Pu!!!!!!!

by gingkoseto » Jul 16th, '11, 13:19

Dass wrote:
auhckw wrote:
gingkoseto wrote:
auhckw wrote:These days since I drink a lot in tea shops...

...90% of my tea I have not open yet as I can still sample most of them at the tea shops.
I've noticed that's a common life style for many tea drinkers in Beijing too. Even I, never a customer of a shop, had the luck to drink a lot of great (and free) tea with friends who are frequent visitors. That's something I really envy a lot! This kind of thing didn't exist in Beijing or other Chinese major cities 10-15 years ago. I think this is a significant sign of the rising tea culture, more significant than all the taobao stores and real stores :D
Most of the tea shops here, we can try/sample tea for free. If you are frequent or maintain good relationship with the seller, sometimes they may take out their private collection and treat.

Not only that, some tea drinkers (customers) will bring their own private collection to the tea shops and share too. I have tasted many aged tea because of generosity of sellers and customers.
He is right,the shop that we go frequently,brewed 1970's yellow mark yesterday.It Cost RM10K a cake here. USD2570
That's so nice! I think that's a sign that Malaysia has very promising tea market.

Jul 21st, '11, 11:45
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Re: Show off your Pu!!!!!!!

by auhckw » Jul 21st, '11, 11:45

2007 Dayi Silver Colour Raw x3 - I bought it at the price which is 100% more when it is new/pre-order in 2007. Consider rental fees.

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Jul 22nd, '11, 08:27
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Re: Show off your Pu!!!!!!!

by Tobias » Jul 22nd, '11, 08:27

My pu-erh shelf:
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