So Cloud thinks the RM &BM where drily stored cakes, at least the ones he is thinking about:wyardley wrote:In my very limited experience, and from what I've heard others say, storage varies quite a bit among all these landmark cakes, i.e., some are better / more cleanly stored than others. So storage matters, and you can tell something about how a tea was stored from tasting it. I think that the concept of, or interest in, dry storage doesn't come about until at least the 90s, and further, most, if not all, of the places where pu'er was stored in large quantities in those days were in fairly humid climates.apache wrote: Is the same can be said to other Mark grade teas? There is no dry storage? Or there is no dry stored tea before 88 Qing?
And I think even 88 qing bing has had some "traditional" storage early in its life, and its later storage in HK was still humid; just drier than some.
apache wrote: Another question: if one does not enjoy wet storage tea, would that person not very likely appreciate the Red Mark?
I guess it depends what "one" means by "wet storage tea". That term means different things to different people, and when you're talking about a tea that's 60+ years... that's a lot of history -- it's unlikely that the tea was stored in the same place for its whole life. Also, "wet" is not necessarily the same as "not dry". To me, well aged old tea just tastes like old tea....there shouldn't be any unpleasant storage taste left at this point, even if the tea was traditionally stored earlier on.
http://www.cloudsteacollection.com/html ... 008_e.html
Only 'normal' warehouse humidity vs purpose wet-stored humidity the 88 BT 7542 could have been subjected to pre-BT selling them off, would have been right after they were made, and no more, perhaps less than a few years.When Cloud appreciated the naturally stored Eighty-eight Raw Tea Cake in 2003, the slight plum fragrance (emphasis, it was a very special plum taste which was different from the slightly aged tea broth taste mentioned in the previous paragraphs) was quite similar to the plum fragrance from the aged and drily stored Masterpiece Puerh Vintage, the Blue Mark - Grade A or Blue Mark - Grade B. Cloud having such subjective impression was because Cloud often drank these fine 1960's aged Puerh vintages at that time. There were some similarities between them. To be concise, drily stored good tea, possibly, might share similar aging tracks and taste styles.
The Eighty-eight Raw Tea Cake was a batch of tea cakes manufactured from 1989 to 1991. The owner who had been hoarding them for more than 10 years in Hong Kong was Mr. Chan of the Best Tea House (a Hong Kong local tea shop doing the art of tea business). He acquired the whole batch of tea cakes from a tea wholesaler in 1993.
In 1993, the Puerh tea market in Hong Kong did not approve dry storage tea cakes. Tea drinkers were of the view that these raw and astringent drily stored tea cakes were too green and astringent to be appreciated. Thus, few people enquired for the whole batch of Eighty-eight Raw Tea Cake at that time. The tea wholesaler contacted Mr. Chan in 1993. He remembered that the tea had a very special fresh aroma which was very attractive to him. He then decided to purchase the entire batch from the tea wholesaler. That was a fortune to the Eighty-eight Raw Tea Cake because the main stream of handling raw tea cakes in the early 1990's was to store the tea cakes in a relatively high humid environment in order to enable tea cakes to have a quicker "aging" process. However, Mr. Chan loved tea and did not do so.
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Repeating the History
Someone says, "History repeats, but only with different eras and people." Cloud agrees with these words. The story of this batch of tea cakes is similar to the story of the Red Mark happened in the 1950's as the Red Mark was too astringent to be sold in the market 60 years ago. The consumers in the 1950's and the 1960's did not accept such taste. Because of the fact that it was not a trend to store tea cakes by consumers in the old days, the tastes of tea cakes was very decisive at the time when a customer bought the tea cake. If the taste was too young, no consumer was willing to buy.