How often do you evaluate your aging puerh

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Dec 11th, '12, 23:29
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How often do you evaluate your aging puerh

by Exempt » Dec 11th, '12, 23:29

For all you that are much more experienced than me at aging puerh (probably everyone on here) how often do you sample your cakes to evaluate how they are aging. I've seen people say that they try their cakes monthly, and I've seen people say they only try them every 10 years. I'm thinking of going for either 6 months or a year, but I'm interested to see what others opinions are.

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Dec 11th, '12, 23:48
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Re: How often do you evaluate your aging puerh

by wyardley » Dec 11th, '12, 23:48

I try to forget about them, mostly

Dec 11th, '12, 23:52
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How often do you evaluate your aging puerh

by Exempt » Dec 11th, '12, 23:52

wyardley wrote:I try to forget about them, mostly
Be prepared for a myriad of questions. How many are you aging? How long have you been aging? How do you decide when to start drinking them if you don't evaluate them? Do you have a separate stash to drink immediately? Are your aging and drink now teas separate? How often, if at all, do you rotate your aging teas?

Dec 16th, '12, 01:05
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Re: How often do you evaluate your aging puerh

by ChengduCha » Dec 16th, '12, 01:05

Exempt wrote:I've seen people say that they try their cakes monthly, and I've seen people say they only try them every 10 years. I'm thinking of going for either 6 months or a year, but I'm interested to see what others opinions are.
I think 6 months is the earliest in a humid climate. In a dry climate probably a year. You can also air out broken up sheng in a glass for 2 weeks in a humid climate to get an idea what aging might do to it.

If you try a cake every month there most likely won't be much left of it in 3 years. :D

Dec 16th, '12, 01:13
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Re: How often do you evaluate your aging puerh

by ChengduCha » Dec 16th, '12, 01:13

Exempt wrote:
wyardley wrote:I try to forget about them, mostly
Be prepared for a myriad of questions. How many are you aging? How long have you been aging? How do you decide when to start drinking them if you don't evaluate them? Do you have a separate stash to drink immediately? Are your aging and drink now teas separate? How often, if at all, do you rotate your aging teas?
I think most people that buy fresh shengs are looking to age them for at least 5 years before trying them again after the initial tasting as this seems to be the general agreed to age where a sheng is considered drinkable.

Aging by yourself is partially a money saving exercise and the other part is the fact that lots of small runs like YS productions probably won't be on the market in 10+ years for you to try.

If you have plenty of money to buy $100+ cakes there is no point in aging by yourself unless you're aiming for 30-40 years (I'll probably be dead by then :D ) when things get to the 10k+ range for certain productions.

Try some shengs with the same recipe and different ages to see what you prefer. Not everybody likes 50 year old tea, some even prefer fresh shengs.

Shus highly vary when it comes to aging, some don't age at all because they were very heavily fermented, so storing them for aging is pointless.

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Dec 18th, '12, 02:49
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Re: How often do you evaluate your aging puerh

by TwoDog2 » Dec 18th, '12, 02:49

There are some teas I am particularly curious about that I drop in on once a year. Others, I haven't touched in years.

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Dec 19th, '12, 01:24
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Re: How often do you evaluate your aging puerh

by HifideliTea » Dec 19th, '12, 01:24

In tropical climates where it's rainy and cooler now than what it was 6 months ago, which was hot and dry, I do check the conditions and move them around the house. Stored teas (in Yixing containers), especially ripe pu erh's, now smells more musky and looks damp than what it was during the summer period. There is a need to air them for a while to remove the muskiness. Removing the lids from the containers helps to dry it out.

I am still learning about this hobby and hearing from various sources on the many approaches to handling and storage of pu erh's. I group the raws from the ripes and store them separately and move the teas around the house (attic, upstairs and downstairs). It does takes some work to move them every 6 months.

I do not consume raw pu erh much, thus do not take samples to try them out. These are usually left as is, with visual checks off and on.

I have also been advised to store older teas in porcelain jars instead of the more porous yixing pots.
ChengduCha wrote:
Exempt wrote:I've seen people say that they try their cakes monthly, and I've seen people say they only try them every 10 years. I'm thinking of going for either 6 months or a year, but I'm interested to see what others opinions are.
I think 6 months is the earliest in a humid climate. In a dry climate probably a year. You can also air out broken up sheng in a glass for 2 weeks in a humid climate to get an idea what aging might do to it.

If you try a cake every month there most likely won't be much left of it in 3 years. :D

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Re: How often do you evaluate your aging puerh

by bagua7 » Dec 19th, '12, 05:35

As stated earlier, store them and go check 20 years later. This is my policy but I haven't gone even close to the 20-year mark, have I? :mrgreen:

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Jan 12th, '13, 02:40
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Re: How often do you evaluate your aging puerh

by Teaism » Jan 12th, '13, 02:40

Hello!

I usually evualuate the (Pu Er) tea every 3 months is possible or within 6 month. All my tea are dry storage, so the change is rather slow but the flavour retain very well that way.

I also kept many aged tea e.g Darjeeling, Wuyi rock tea, black tee, heavy bake Tie Guan Yin which I evaluate ocassionally , say every 3-6 months.
Interestingly, I have aged white and green tea and they are nice in a different way. That is beside your topic.

For Pu Er evaluation, I usually brew them in Gaiwan, sometimes pair them with another tea for comparison and interest.

For newer tea, if wild tea, I usually reduce the amount tea and sometimes brew at lower temperature, of fast brew with higher temperature.

Usually I observe the color, taste, huigan, sweetness, bitterness, the flavour, aroma, the nose, length etc etc to evaluate the tea. The change can be observed, within that 3-6 months even with dry storage.

Cheers!

Jan 13th, '13, 15:49
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Re: How often do you evaluate your aging puerh

by theredbaron » Jan 13th, '13, 15:49

For the first couple of years i don't test most of them. Maybe after 4 or 5 years i try them, leave them for a year or two before trying again. I start regularly drinking them after maybe 9 or 10 years, but keeping a cake or so for one day having 20 + years Pu Erh. Some of my cakes will have reached that point soon. The plan is that when i am a bit older than 50 that i have a constant supply of 20 years plus Pu.
What i do regularly - especially during during the rain season - is sniffing the cakes and move them around.

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