Official Pu of the day

[shah82]

I've had...

2006 Spring XZH Yiwu. Very complex and energetic. Is very fussy about brewing and often disappoints.

2006 Fall CGT Guafengzhai. Complex, agreeable, but not very powerful or enduring.

Both have more fruit along with the caramel. Neither ever gets very woody.

2007 Spring XZH Yiwu. Relatively powerful for a Yiwu, despite a customer comment. Fairly tannic for one as well, but has intense vanilla and caramel flavors along with elegant wood taste.

2001 MingYuanHao. Very variable. If you get plenty of the Yiwu Zhengshan, then you have a pretty decent mild camphor + caramel + wood taste. If you get mostly plantation, you get lots of camphor + funky umami and a bit of Yiwu taste. Both tends to leave very long-lasting taste in the mouth.


Yiwus are very nice, if you can get a good one. It's very difficult to get one with a great deal of power with typical Yiwu finesse. Think most Yiwus of real worth are privately sourced and taken out of the general market, and the ones that remain are tremendously expensive.

I sprung for the Zheng Si Long Yiwu sample set, so as to understand Yiwus more though...

[Drax]

The Pu today is a 2003 Menghai Bulang "Jing Pin" from the Menghai Tea factory. I bought a sample of this from Hou De a long time ago and never got around to trying it.

This tea still is still quite potent!

[Proinsias]

94 liu an, not quite pu but close enough for me, so here it goes.

I bought this a year or two ago for a group tasting and put a little aside, been drinking it over the last few days and enjoying it more than I remember. Certainly still quite a bit of youthful character in this stuff, although from what I gather liu an generally takes quite a bit longer than pu to age.

[Drax]

Today's pu-erh, a 1980s CNNP Guang Dong shu, apparently called "Shin Ya." Picked it up from Hou De earlier this year, but unfortunately it sold out (and they took down the info) before I copied over any notes on it...

In any case, this tea is very potent and has a very nice hui gan. It has certainly gained aged qualities beyond the usual young shu. Very nice.

[nickE]

So...no favorites?

I *am* curious about the Guafengzhai...How do you like the 2009 and 2010 and compared to other yiwus?

Hmm... not sure about favorites, such a tough call. I really love the Yiwus from TeaMasters and EoT.

Both Guafengzhai from YS are good, clean Yiwu IMO. The 2010 had some campfire smoke in it when I tried it but that'll hopefully dissipate.

It was really interesting to compare the 2009 Guafengzhai to the 2009 Ma Hei, both from YS. I could really pick up on some of the floral characteristics that Ma Hei is known for.

[auhckw]

Got some sample for this 2009 2kg brick



7g:150ml
2 touch and go rinsing
1st brewing: 1 min
2nd brewing: 30 sec
3rd brewing: 30 sec
4th brewing: 1 min

Conclusion: Real disappointment. Not much taste. Real light. Lucky I get to taste this first, nearly wanting to buy this as collection since it is 2kg.

[auhckw]

Puerh Marathon

2007 GuoYan Ripe - Yellow Stamp
90s Gong Ting Ripe
2007 GuoYan Raw - 66
2007 GuoYan Raw - 88
2007 GuoYan Raw - 99
2006 Kunming Raw - 6611
2006 Kunming Raw - Di Yi Ping (export)
2006 Kunming Ripe - Di Yi Ping (export)
2007 GuoYan Ripe - Red Stamp
2003 Menghai Raw - 7542
1999 Xia Guan Raw
Winner of course goes to: 70s Raw - USD1700 / beeng

[nickE]

1960s WangZi Loose from EoT. At almost 50 years old, this is the oldest I've tried. More than twice my age.

For the price it is quite good and definitely worth checking out. The leaves are hardened and completely black. Reminiscent of Shupu, but not quite. The taste is surprisingly sweet, decently complex. I used 8g in my 80ml yixing which yielded an extremely thick liquor. Flavors of note include soil, moss, herbs, and some mushroom. Sadly I didn't pick up much Qi from this.

[shogun89]

1960s WangZi Loose from EoT. At almost 50 years old, this is the oldest I've tried. More than twice my age.

For the price it is quite good and definitely worth checking out. The leaves are hardened and completely black. Reminiscent of Shupu, but not quite. The taste is surprisingly sweet, decently complex. I used 8g in my 80ml yixing which yielded an extremely thick liquor. Flavors of note include soil, moss, herbs, and some mushroom. Sadly I didn't pick up much Qi from this.

Beautiful pot there Nick at a great size, may I ask for the link of where you purchased it? Also, how do you like it? Thanks!!
-Shogun

[nickE]

Beautiful pot there Nick at a great size, may I ask for the link of where you purchased it? Also, how do you like it? Thanks!!
-Shogun

Shogun! Long time no see!

The pot is from TeaMasters, I wrote about it here:
http://www.teachat.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 85#p174876

I'm really impressed with it so far. It's not an artisan pot or anything, which is why I believe Stephane (@TeaMasters) has a few to sell. But at $55, I like it a lot better than a pot I got at YS for the same price.

[shogun89]

Beautiful pot there Nick at a great size, may I ask for the link of where you purchased it? Also, how do you like it? Thanks!!
-Shogun

Shogun! Long time no see!

The pot is from TeaMasters, I wrote about it here:
http://www.teachat.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 85#p174876

I'm really impressed with it so far. It's not an artisan pot or anything, which is why I believe Stephane (@TeaMasters) has a few to sell. But at $55, I like it a lot better than a pot I got at YS for the same price.

Yes my friend, it has been much too long. College is taking up alot of my free time unfortunately but hopefully I will be around more with the holidays around the corner. Thanks for the link, I think I will have to purchase one!

[debunix]

2009 spring Wuliang Shan from Norbu, such a nice series of infusions that I can read the exchange in a nearby topic about pu for aging and think, as long as I can get plenty of young stuff like this, why worry about the price of the aged?

[nickE]

The wet-stored HouDe cake, 2004 Changtai. Not bad, but I seem to remember liking it more previously. Maybe it was just a bad session.

[debunix]

2007 White bud sheng puerh from Norbu, making friends and influencing people. Two new-to-my-tea drinkers enjoyed it today, one exclaiming to another, "It's the first time I didn't put any honey or sugar in my tea!"

Heh.

[nickE]

2007 Mengku Muyechun.

Seems to be aging a bit (under my care). Definitely a deeper orange-ish color as well as more wood in the taste. Still has decent mouthfeel & ku which I appreciate.