Aged Pu-erh of the Day, Week, or Month

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


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Re: Aged Pu-erh of the Day, Week, or Month

by Drax » Mar 26th, '12, 21:01

gasninja wrote:96 CNNP Da Ye from EOT probably the most dry stored EOT cake that I have had other than maybe the dry stored traditional character. Similar flavor profile to the 98 camaphor taste yi wu that Auchwk offered the recent 03 houde brick or tai lan yin.
Thanks for the review on that 'new' offering from EoT! Camphor teas are always a pleasure to find.

Speaking of which, that 2003 hou de brick is back in stock... probably not fair to compare it to the Da Ye, being 7 years younger, but it's also 1/5th the price....

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Re: Aged Pu-erh of the Day, Week, or Month

by gasninja » Apr 4th, '12, 14:30

This weekend I'm going to the Penn State Tea Institute's Korean Tea Festival. I am gonna bring down a couple old tea's to brew if any one is going or in the neighborhood.

Purple dayi today yum.

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Re: Aged Pu-erh of the Day, Week, or Month

by BioHorn » Apr 6th, '12, 22:31

Today was time for something good.
from HouDe:
11.2g 1998 MengHai Yieh Shen Chia Mu (Wild Arbor) Ching Beeng
in a 100ml pot with filtered tap water heated in a tetsubin.

Hardly "aged" this hearty pu is delivering in spades!

Layers of complexity surrounded by that rich bitey/piney camphor mouthfeel. Such a joy to experience it's unfolding to a wonderful balance by steep #5-6. It leaves a lingering flavor in the back of the mouth. I started drinking it about 5 hours ago. It should go on nicely for days.

I drank the foot water and looking back it would have been a real shame to have tossed it! It was intense with deep layers of flavor.

This tea could easily take another 20 years of aging and probably still taste wonderful. Just wish I had bought more! Anyone here have beengs?
:D

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Re: Aged Pu-erh of the Day, Week, or Month

by shah82 » Apr 7th, '12, 10:27

It was sold out at Houde nearly instantly, when bings were for sale. Only $250 back then.

This is one of the famous, heavily marketed teas from the late 90s, tho' people haven't gone on about it nearly as much as the BGTs or Changtais.

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Re: Aged Pu-erh of the Day, Week, or Month

by Drax » Apr 7th, '12, 13:06

Hrm, not sure I ever tried any of that one... I might have a sample laying around here, I'll have to check.

I was pretty surprised...! I just checked Hou De's "aged" puerh section, and it's pretty bare... somebody apparently bought up a lot of the stuff...!

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Re: Aged Pu-erh of the Day, Week, or Month

by shah82 » Apr 7th, '12, 14:28

It's bare because it's near impossible to buy good aged teas at prices Westerners will pay. You have to scrounge.

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Re: Aged Pu-erh of the Day, Week, or Month

by G-off-re » Apr 7th, '12, 15:17

shah82 wrote:It's bare because it's near impossible to buy good aged teas at prices Westerners will pay. You have to scrounge.
Is that what they told you?

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Re: Aged Pu-erh of the Day, Week, or Month

by shah82 » Apr 7th, '12, 17:25

?;~)

Who is "they"?

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Re: Aged Pu-erh of the Day, Week, or Month

by G-off-re » Apr 7th, '12, 18:31

shah82 wrote:?;~)

Who is "they"?
Drax wrote:Hrm, not sure I ever tried any of that one... I might have a sample laying around here, I'll have to check.

I was pretty surprised...! I just checked Hou De's "aged" puerh section, and it's pretty bare... somebody apparently bought up a lot of the stuff...!

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Re: Aged Pu-erh of the Day, Week, or Month

by shah82 » Apr 7th, '12, 19:21

Now I'm glad I asked first.

I have no clue what you're getting at...

I suppose I should say that I don't have conversations with Guang or Irene about business climate. I do observe the site and the blog closely, because I am actually interested in Hou De, essentially as a business story. Moreover, I read all the old livejournal and teadisc posts back when Guang was posting more often. I try to reconstruct how they think and intend to profit from wares and methods. More nerd than stalker, if you get me.

As far as the whole scrounge thing, over the last two years, the Mainland have been vacuuming up tea out of Taiwan, where some of our tea merchants stop for aged puerh. This has been a noted phenomenon particularly on taiwanese blogs, which, with the magic of Google Translate, I read on a regular basis. You can even see this sentiment in a recent post by Nada.

Lastly, individuals, such as you, or TomVerlain, can go overseas and sample/shop/buy lovely teas. It works in the nonprofit sense primarily because you are actually there to sample, and you can comfortably buy any number of fairly anon sheng/shu, and maybe even drag out a decent Dayi at non-extortionate prices at some hole in the wall. For a teashop, the wares are one thing. The marketing is entirely another. Puerh in the West is driven by a symbiotic relationship teashops and teablogs, whether their own, or someone independent like The Half Dipper. It's one thing to buy a Dayi 8582. It's quite another to buy a CNNP 8582, made by god-knows-who. When Nada sells something like that, he has to go the extra mile in selling the tea via words, via samples, and via the reputation that Nada wouldn't sell you anything bad. Not only all of that, but peeps have to get *enough* tea to make this all worthwhile, and that means relationships (and politics) with people who has alot of any one tea. Of course, this can get people in hot water, like that '03 Bulang Boutique HouDe sells, because insiders decided to be hinky without telling anyone else.

Anyways, if you don't believe me, why not check out GenerationTea, Sunsing, The Chinese Tea Shop, or any of the other places that sells alot of that "whatever" kind of aged tea? What kind of turnover do you see? When I look at The Chinese Tea Shop, what I see, is that as with HouDe, they've added primarily teas from around '05 since I first became aware of that site. Chinese places that sold to the West have, even including Yunnan Sourcing, virtually stopped adding anything older than '03. Not Dragon Teahouse. Not Red Lantern. New Changtai from '05, but no new Dayi sheng from older than '05, even though there is most definitly a lust for aged tea in the West. I take it that it's actually *hard* to find aged tea to stock in your shop at a profit. Sampletea.com was the only major splash in awhile, man...

I do think that people who like to drool over aged tea might enjoy the vendor sections of tea-area.com. Lots of cool stuff in the storefronts there, assuming non-fakes.

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Re: Aged Pu-erh of the Day, Week, or Month

by BioHorn » Apr 7th, '12, 20:43

shah82 wrote:Now I'm glad I asked first.

I have no clue what you're getting at...

I suppose...
snip
I do think that people who like to drool over aged tea might enjoy the vendor sections of tea-area.com. Lots of cool stuff in the storefronts there, assuming non-fakes.

Funnny. Their first post is on the rising values of old puerh. Also many on how to store puerh! :lol:

Shah is right about the hoovering of old stuff from Taiwan. Nada could not get any more 1993 7542 and HIS dealers wanted to buy it back from him.

"via the reputation that Nada wouldn't sell you anything bad. " You hit the nail on the head for westerners wanting to get good aged teas. Otherwise it is a total crapshoot. i.e. I for one have not bought a single tea from Generation Tea, but maybe it is decent, maybe it is crispy dried to dust. It is tempting, but I prefer mainly sure buys when it comes to older shu.

...BTW, this '98 Dayi is drinking very very nicely on day three. It continues to leave it's mark in the back of my throat (after 12-13 brews?) I am losing count!

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Re: Aged Pu-erh of the Day, Week, or Month

by shah82 » Apr 7th, '12, 21:30

I drank mine too quickly, shared with the bro. Ten grams is not enough!!!

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Re: Aged Pu-erh of the Day, Week, or Month

by G-off-re » Apr 7th, '12, 22:53

shah82 wrote:Now I'm glad I asked first.

I have no clue what you're getting at...

I suppose I should say that I don't have conversations with Guang or Irene about business climate. I do observe the site and the blog closely, because I am actually interested in Hou De, essentially as a business story. Moreover, I read all the old livejournal and teadisc posts back when Guang was posting more often. I try to reconstruct how they think and intend to profit from wares and methods. More nerd than stalker, if you get me.

As far as the whole scrounge thing, over the last two years, the Mainland have been vacuuming up tea out of Taiwan, where some of our tea merchants stop for aged puerh. This has been a noted phenomenon particularly on taiwanese blogs, which, with the magic of Google Translate, I read on a regular basis. You can even see this sentiment in a recent post by Nada.

Lastly, individuals, such as you, or TomVerlain, can go overseas and sample/shop/buy lovely teas. It works in the nonprofit sense primarily because you are actually there to sample, and you can comfortably buy any number of fairly anon sheng/shu, and maybe even drag out a decent Dayi at non-extortionate prices at some hole in the wall. For a teashop, the wares are one thing. The marketing is entirely another. Puerh in the West is driven by a symbiotic relationship teashops and teablogs, whether their own, or someone independent like The Half Dipper. It's one thing to buy a Dayi 8582. It's quite another to buy a CNNP 8582, made by god-knows-who. When Nada sells something like that, he has to go the extra mile in selling the tea via words, via samples, and via the reputation that Nada wouldn't sell you anything bad. Not only all of that, but peeps have to get *enough* tea to make this all worthwhile, and that means relationships (and politics) with people who has alot of any one tea. Of course, this can get people in hot water, like that '03 Bulang Boutique HouDe sells, because insiders decided to be hinky without telling anyone else.

Anyways, if you don't believe me, why not check out GenerationTea, Sunsing, The Chinese Tea Shop, or any of the other places that sells alot of that "whatever" kind of aged tea? What kind of turnover do you see? When I look at The Chinese Tea Shop, what I see, is that as with HouDe, they've added primarily teas from around '05 since I first became aware of that site. Chinese places that sold to the West have, even including Yunnan Sourcing, virtually stopped adding anything older than '03. Not Dragon Teahouse. Not Red Lantern. New Changtai from '05, but no new Dayi sheng from older than '05, even though there is most definitly a lust for aged tea in the West. I take it that it's actually *hard* to find aged tea to stock in your shop at a profit. Sampletea.com was the only major splash in awhile, man...

I do think that people who like to drool over aged tea might enjoy the vendor sections of tea-area.com. Lots of cool stuff in the storefronts there, assuming non-fakes.
I was only asking because i've been curious as wether it was a supply issue or a change in direction for their business.

Apr 8th, '12, 00:50
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Re: Aged Pu-erh of the Day, Week, or Month

by shah82 » Apr 8th, '12, 00:50

OOOOOOoooooohhh. Use more words!

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Re: Aged Pu-erh of the Day, Week, or Month

by Tatter » Apr 11th, '12, 20:51

Just found this --- http://www.cguardian.com/tabid/77/Defau ... ageindex=1

(hope that link shows up)

I'm just fascinated at the (supposed) age of most of these cakes, and am wondering if anyone here knows about auctions like these, or has experience with them? Not that I'm thinking of bidding on anything. I'm just curious!

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