I've had a couple of times where my ripe cakes have an off flavor from Tuochatea. It's kind of like a chemical flavor. Once from a Menghai hou pu cake, and another time from a guyi ripe cake. Is it possible this is due to the tea absorbing flavors in transit? Like fumes and such from all the places and vehicles the tea has travelled in? It is strange because my raw cakes don't have this happen in the same shipment. I will let this air out, of course, to see what happens.
Have others had this experience? And more generally, what is your strategy for airing out cakes once you get them? Do you have off flavors that dissipate?
Re: Off flavors due to transport?
I have had the Menghai Hou Pu cake with no off flavors that I noticed except a touch of fermentation flavor left over. The tea has not yet completely cleared yet.Rdeitz wrote:I've had a couple of times where my ripe cakes have an off flavor from Tuochatea. It's kind of like a chemical flavor. Once from a Menghai hou pu cake, and another time from a guyi ripe cake. Is it possible this is due to the tea absorbing flavors in transit? Like fumes and such from all the places and vehicles the tea has travelled in? It is strange because my raw cakes don't have this happen in the same shipment. I will let this air out, of course, to see what happens.
Have others had this experience? And more generally, what is your strategy for airing out cakes once you get them? Do you have off flavors that dissipate?
Jun 22nd, '14, 15:54
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Re: Off flavors due to transport?
I had the opposite happen. My shou was fine but my sheng had an off aroma. I aired them out on a shelf and fanned them with a hand fan a couple times every day. After a few weeks they seemed to have lost any offensive odors.
Re: Off flavors due to transport?
Once I bought a couple of bings from Taobao and the agent I used...used newspaper with a lot of colored ink. They didn't put the tea in a plastic bag...just stuck them in a box for some kind of snack food with the newsprint around it. When I brewed the tea it smelled like diesel and burned my throat. After a year of airing out they smelled and tasted the same. They were ruined and I threw them out. Lost out on almost $80.