Official Pu of the day

[Rui]

Sipping for the first time the White2Tea's 2009 Yiwu Raw Puer. Well matured young to medium aged tea with wet leaves aroma that remind me of a very nice Black Forest cake or even a German Apple cake (Apfelstrudel) with lots of cinnamon. I am really enjoying this one after few days of young sheng.

[Rui]

Sipping a fairly young but very pleasant mini tuo from Yi Wu with mostly unbroken leaves.

http://www.diekunstdestees.de/epages/63 ... /CN-PE14-1

[debunix]

Lao Cha Tou from Norbu, those lovely nuggets of shu pu that just keep giving and giving and giving, infusion after infusion. Plummy, earthy, sweet, wonderful.

[jayinhk]

Drinking late 80s CNNP 7581 (HK traditional storage) with 20+ year old traditionally stored sheng (also from HK). Very nice combo. Both were stored VERY wet for quite a while. The shu on its own is just warm, black water with a hint of storage taste, but with thick body. This brick had a light layer of white/gray mold on it, and after all of those years of humid warehouse storage, I could break it apart by hand.

The sheng is a little spicy with a much more pronounced storage taste, even after airing it out for two years+. Together, the brew is kind of like aged date and sweet, too, with a little storage taste in the cup. Overall it's extremely smooth drinking, which is what Hong Kong bo lei drinkers are all about. Old school HK pu erh today! Even the blend is classic HK style drinking. Lower fired zini is perfect for traditional storage pu as it reduces the storage aromas. Brewed nice and strong, too...looks like black coffee in the cup.

[jayinhk]

2015 EoT San Jia Zhai. This is lovely stuff. Looks good dry, after the first infusion and in the cup, it just tastes clean. Floral, gu shu like flavor with no bitterness in the first infusion, delicate sweetness and lovely hui gan. Smooth, too--no throat irritation or eyewatering astringency here. I've had a couple of fingers of Singleton 12 (single malt) tonight but I can tell that this is great material. The cake isn't cheap, but if you're looking for a lovely Yiwu cake, this cake definitely fits the bill. EoT said it tested pesticide free and it definitely tastes and feels like it. Perhaps the best new sheng I've had to date, although both YS and Chawang had lovely 2015 sheng cakes IMO.

Second infusion is a little tiny bit bitter, but barely bitter at all. Still intensely floral a la gushu cha. The leaves look and smell incredible.

Third infusion the next morning...and now I see what all the cha qi discussion was about. Very good cha qi. Interestingly I didn't feel it at all after drinking Scotch, but I do now.

[stevorama]

Drinking late 80s CNNP 7581 (HK traditional storage) with 20+ year old traditionally stored sheng (also from HK). Very nice combo. Both were stored VERY wet for quite a while. The shu on its own is just warm, black water with a hint of storage taste, but with thick body. This brick had a light layer of white/gray mold on it, and after all of those years of humid warehouse storage, I could break it apart by hand.

The sheng is a little spicy with a much more pronounced storage taste, even after airing it out for two years+. Together, the brew is kind of like aged date and sweet, too, with a little storage taste in the cup. Overall it's extremely smooth drinking, which is what Hong Kong bo lei drinkers are all about. Old school HK pu erh today! Even the blend is classic HK style drinking. Lower fired zini is perfect for traditional storage pu as it reduces the storage aromas. Brewed nice and strong, too...looks like black coffee in the cup.

Sounds like an enjoyable tea session. I've been feeling the draw to more humid stored teas recently. Although I don't think I've had anything as wet stored as you are describing.

[jayinhk]

Drinking late 80s CNNP 7581 (HK traditional storage) with 20+ year old traditionally stored sheng (also from HK). Very nice combo. Both were stored VERY wet for quite a while. The shu on its own is just warm, black water with a hint of storage taste, but with thick body. This brick had a light layer of white/gray mold on it, and after all of those years of humid warehouse storage, I could break it apart by hand.

The sheng is a little spicy with a much more pronounced storage taste, even after airing it out for two years+. Together, the brew is kind of like aged date and sweet, too, with a little storage taste in the cup. Overall it's extremely smooth drinking, which is what Hong Kong bo lei drinkers are all about. Old school HK pu erh today! Even the blend is classic HK style drinking. Lower fired zini is perfect for traditional storage pu as it reduces the storage aromas. Brewed nice and strong, too...looks like black coffee in the cup.

Sounds like an enjoyable tea session. I've been feeling the draw to more humid stored teas recently. Although I don't think I've had anything as wet stored as you are describing.

The really wet stuff is not something I want to drink all the time anymore, but when I first got on TeaChat, that's all I knew of pu erh. My brother, who isn't into tea, was amazed the first time I gave him dry storage pu erh. Again, growing up in HK, we'd never even encountered it! We mostly drank traditionally stored shu with meals at restaurants, although my dad was drinking traditionally stored sheng at work and probably had no idea it was sheng.

I didn't know at the time that really wet pu erh was very much a HK thing. These teas are so wet, that even after 2-3 years of airing out at home, broken up, the sheng STILL tastes wet. I don't know how long it was aired out by the dealer before I bought it.

Interestingly, dealers in Guangdong are trying to replicate this kind of storage now and claiming HK storage so they can charge more for their tea. I tried some very poorly stored Guangdong examples earlier this year. There definitely is an art to HK traditional storage; wet, but not so wet that it tastes horrible. The best traditional storage (and airing out by the dealer) tastes only a little wet, but the tea brews up like something much older.

I have 90s and 2000s 7581s from Kunming and Taiwan, too (dry storage), and the Taiwanese dry storage is the best because of the higher humidity. The Kunming one tastes much younger than it should and doesn't have the intensity and depth of flavor that the Taiwanese bricks have, but it's already starting to improve here. Whether it will ever catch up with the Taiwanese bricks is debatable, though.

The HK one has almost no 7581 flavor at all! I only detected a tiny bit of 7581 character very recently, and it was a fleeting moment.

I recently realized a dealer I buy loose pu erh from quite regularly uses 7581 in their loose pu erh mixes, but again, the traditional storage is so wet that you can't tell it was ever 7581! 7581 has such a lovely flavor when dry stored (with sufficient humidity, a la Taiwan or HK home storage) that I feel it is a pity to lose that flavor to storage. Still, tradition counts for a lot here, and sometimes I just need a good ol' HK bo lei fix. I especially like drinking it at my office, when I know the old school tea dealers and their warehouses are all around me! I feel like part of HK tea history then.

[stevorama]

.......Still, tradition counts for a lot here, and sometimes I just need a good ol' HK bo lei fix. I especially like drinking it at my office, when I know the old school tea dealers and their warehouses are all around me! I feel like part of HK tea history then.

Good to hear your perspective and story. I don't think I've had a sheng puer that was so wet stored as to lose it's character. Some with hint of white frost, but plenty of character. I have some shu puer with more humid storage that I love, but it's well aired and has a nice old aged aroma without funk. I'm curious now to try some more wet stuff.

[jayinhk]

I sent someone on here a shu/sheng blend from across the street and he was amazed at how wet the storage was. I usually air traditional storage tea out for months or even years. That helps a lot with the ol storage aromas. Low to medium fired zini takes care of almost all of the rest!

[Rui]

Sipping a pleasant Jingmai 2007 from Terre de Ciel in France. Nice tea already showing its middle age with astringency and bitterness mostly gone but unlike their other (now sold out) 2007 Jingmai this one is showing slight notes of what feels like some historical wet storage.

http://en.the-puer.com/p/shop.html#274

[jayinhk]

2008 Menghai Hong Yun Yuan Cha. This tea appears to have softened in the months since I got it. It was very crumbly when it arrived, but I just cleanly snapped a chunk off now with almost no residual dust. Much smoother drinking and sweeter aroma too. Good enough that I want to buy a bunch up!

[Frisbeehead]

I'm starting down the long, deep tunnel that is pu'erh.

http://imgur.com/a/D6EzN

Set up a pumidor using a mini fridge the other day. I have a decent digital hygrometer, and I am using Boveda packs (and a glass of water at the moment) for humidity control. It hovers around 70-72%, so it is working, which makes me very happy. I am also happy that I was able to find a cheap and clean fridge, and that I only had to do minimal cleaning and odor-eliminating.

I got my order of YQH the other day as well. I got the 2007 Lingya and the 2004 Teji (split with someone). So far I have only tried the Lingya, and I like it! It is smooth, sweet, gentle, aromatic, and very mildly bitter, though mostly smooth. It has a nice mouthfeel and mild thickness to it, and I get a good throat feeling from it. I think I am beginning my pu'erh addiction...or at least semi-aged/aged sheng, as I have not tried much young sheng yet. I am looking forward to exploring the different flavor profiles of pu'erh more.

I also ordered YS' 2002 Yiwu Ancient Spirit yesterday, as I have heard good things about that cake. I figured it would be a good base cake to begin my collection. The Lingya was the first full cake I have ever bought, so it will be nice to have the Ancient Spirit to switch to so that I don't drink too much of the Lingya. I'd like to save that one as much as I can.

In the near future I'd like to try some of White2Tea's sheng. i bought their basics setup a long time ago, and it wasn't bad. But I would like to try their better offerings for sure. Looking at the New Amerykah (2?), the Pin, and a couple others.

Looking forward to learning more about pu'erh in the years to come

[Rui]

Today and for the next few days I am trying to finish Tea Urchin's 2013 Snake Blend which has served me very well. Looking forward to find a similar replacing cake for this one or White2Tea's Bosch.

[Rui]

Sipping a very nicely stored 7542 of 2005.

[daidokorocha]

I don't think I have any Pu... need to replenish. I might have a small sample somewhere, but other than that, nothing. So I just placed an order from yunnan sourcing. I purchased the following:

2005 * CNNP * 1938 Anniversary Premium Ripe Pu-erh Tea
2005 CNNP 1938 Anniversary Yi Wu Zheng Shan Pu-erh tea
2002 Yong Pin Hao "Red Yi Wu Zheng Shan" Raw Pu-erh tea from Yi Wu
2008 Menghai "Yang Chun San Yue" Raw Pu-erh tea cake
2015 Yunnan Sourcing "Nuo Mi Xiang" Ripe Pu-erh tea and Sticky Rice Herb
2015 Yunnan Sourcing "Tian Tang Cao" Ripe Pu-erh tea and Jiaogulan
2015 Yunnan Sourcing "Ying Shan Hong" Purple Black Tea and Snow Chrysanthemum (Well, this isn't puer!)
2013 Yunnan Sourcing Ripe Pu-erh and Snow Chrysanthemum tea mini cake
2005 Menghai 7592 501 Ripe Pu-erh Tea cake

I imagine this will keep me busy for awhile. Perhaps a little too heavy on the ripe, but I thought the cheap "Journey to the West" set seemed like an interesting thing to drink. Other than that it was 3 raw, 2 ripe. I suppose I will not see them for two weeks or so. In the meantime, I will try to search down that sample somewhere and give me some puer that I have been craving.