Phase 1: Collect Puerh Cakes. Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit!

[jayinhk]

My sheng/shu ratio is about 1:1...it's the Hong Kong in me. Until I got on TeaChat, pu erh was simply shu. I had never even heard of sheng pu erh!

Heh, so is shu much more popular in general in Hong Kong, then? Is there any reason why?

Yes...shu was devised as a shortcut to traditional storage sheng. 20-30 years of intense HK traditional storage will turn sheng into something a lot like traditional storage shu. When I first had sheng like that I had to go back to ask the guy what the heck he sold me. LOL. I didn't believe it was sheng and I was very confused, since the store had such a great reputation. Shu made drinking 'aged' pu erh a lot more accessible, even when pu erh was cheap here.

Once shu was invented, it became the dominant form of pu erh here, and traditionally stored sheng became much less common on the market. There's still a lot around, however, and I'm going to offer different types and levels of storage since not much of the good stuff is sold outside HK. Couple that with the price of old sheng today and not many people are going to pony up big bucks to drink 30 year old sheng with their meals, although back in the day, before shu, that was par for course! People simply drink what their parents did, and often buy from exactly the same stores their parents went to, too. Shu is the flavor that people here are familiar with--most have never tried a dry storage sheng.

Without HK's penchant for bo lei, there would probably be no shu pu erh, and there would probably never have been a pu erh boom, which occurred when dry storage became a thing here.

[whatsinaname]

Thanks for the great discussion, friends. Drax and I seem to have bought many of the same cakes around the same time. Agreed about the significant price appreciation and market disappearance of so many of the bings in my collection. Just today I saw Wilson selling 7542-901 at $45/bing. We bought that in 2009 for $10/bing. Consider what the 2009-2011 vintages of Nadacha are worth now. And, yes, I did mean the word "profit" in the sense of adding value to my tea-life by owning and drinking teas I can no longer afford to buy or sell.

Sheng Puerh tea is just too expensive for me to buy any more. NO way I'm shelling out $200+ per cake these days! So, I'm glad I have enough to last my lifetime. I've also moved on to Green and Oolong teas (and, more recently, Yerba Mate), so drink less puerh overall as well. Many of my favorite oolongs have nearly doubled in price since 2008 as well; so I can no longer afford many of those either. Yerba Mate is still inexpensive enough for me to drink daily.

I got into Sheng because I like green tea. It was only after a couple years of that I became aware of HK storage and the wonders of "cellar tea". I started a few old threads on the topic back in the day.

Early on, my tea was stored in rubbermaid totes with moisture beads. Then several years ago, reports of off flavor and aroma from the beads started to surface. So, I removed the beads and conditioned the boxes like MandarinTim blogged about. This was the condition for a couple of years, and then I sealed up the cakes in food-grade vacuum bags a couple of years ago (based on some of the chatter on here). I know this is impacting aging potential, so now I am back in the hunt for a pumidor solution. Cwyn's writing on crock storage and recent reply about bagging cakes has me rethinking my storage conditions (love your blog!).

Right now trying to decide between a hardwood cabinet or pu-fridge for a pumidor. While I accept the fact that I'll never have HK-like aged tea here in New England I would at least like to prevent my tea from aging poorly to the point of sour, dry, tasteless, lifeless blandness.

Troubled, I'm troubled, troubled in mind...

[jayinhk]

I wonder how well a cling-film wrapped cardboard box would work, with a hole or two for air exchange?

[Cwyn]

Washington DC is probably really good for puerh. A pal sent me a Fu brick sample and his was just packed with golden flowers, yum.

I got into crock storage specifically because cardboard is a failure. When I started storing pu in 2009, all the advice was about cardboard boxes, based on Cloud's postings. 4 years later I had cardboard tasting puerh that had also faded. Far too dry. I think tongs which are paper AND bamboo wrapped stored in cardboard in Asia are fine. But cardboard is too dry here and without the bamboo the box imparts flavor. Crock storage is the traditional method in my part of the world for storage, outside of refrigeration. But DC is pretty humid compared to where I live.

[jayinhk]

Yup, that's why I suggested saran wrap--to prevent drying out. I bet that would trap in the cardboard aromas.

Cardboard here doesn't smell like anything after a year or two...the heat and humidity breaks it down a little and it's just cellulose after! Crock storage sounds like the way to go, though, and is absolutely what I'd do if I lived somewhere dry. I'm thinking about storing tongs in my home in Mumbai, India, but the last time I left a rattan stick there, the bugs started eating it. They got in through the cracks around the doors and windows. My pu would probably get decimated in a year!

[Tead Off]

Washington DC is probably really good for puerh. A pal sent me a Fu brick sample and his was just packed with golden flowers, yum.

I got into crock storage specifically because cardboard is a failure. When I started storing pu in 2009, all the advice was about cardboard boxes, based on Cloud's postings. 4 years later I had cardboard tasting puerh that had also faded. Far too dry. I think tongs which are paper AND bamboo wrapped stored in cardboard in Asia are fine. But cardboard is too dry here and without the bamboo the box imparts flavor. Crock storage is the traditional method in my part of the world for storage, outside of refrigeration. But DC is pretty humid compared to where I live.

There are many kinds of cardboard. Most are probably treated with some chemicals. Here in Bangkok, I've had no problems with cardboard storage. Actually, I use Chinese cardboard boxes that were originally made for storing valuable porcelains and larger art objects. They have a silk exterior and unbleached paper lining the interior walls. They also have cool looking plastic (ivory looking) hooks that slip through 2 eyelets to keep the boxes closed. Picked them up in Hong Kong almost 25 years ago. That may also have something to do with them being relatively odor free. But most of my cakes are in food grade ziplocked bags cooking nicely.

[jayinhk]

Ah, those boxes. There should be adhesive between the silk and cardboard, no? I think cardboard is fine in a humid environment, but not so much in a dry one since it allows for moisture exchange. Ziplocks allow for some air exchange so they'd work. I prefer glass cabinets myself, but if I'm going to buy bulk quantities of new cakes I'm going to have to go to cardboard or just stack tongs on shelves. I've seen both approaches used in HK. I even know of a retailer who has a few hundred tongs on his floor in bamboo wrappers!

I saw a lot of tongs and cakes sitting on shelves in Kunming. Cardboard boxes are used for both tongs and loose teas there, and for loose stuff the tea is often in plastic bags in cardboard boxes. Pretty much the whole of China stores pu in cartons!

[Tead Off]

Ah, those boxes. There should be adhesive between the silk and cardboard, no? I think cardboard is fine in a humid environment, but not so much in a dry one since it allows for moisture exchange. Ziplocks allow for some air exchange so they'd work. I prefer glass cabinets myself, but if I'm going to buy bulk quantities of new cakes I'm going to have to go to cardboard or just stack tongs on shelves. I've seen both approaches used in HK. I even know of a retailer who has a few hundred tongs on his floor in bamboo wrappers!

I saw a lot of tongs and cakes sitting on shelves in Kunming. Cardboard boxes are used for both tongs and loose teas there, and for loose stuff the tea is often in plastic bags in cardboard boxes. Pretty much the whole of China stores pu in cartons!

Yes, there is adhesive for both the silk exterior and paper lined interior. What kind of adhesive is unknown. Traditionally, they used a rice glue like they use for scrolls. All I know is that there is no smell that I can detect. After 25 years, fumes would be long gone, I imagine. They work for me.

[jayinhk]

Those boxes are pretty, too. I remember buying a pair of baoding balls when I was a kid and they came in a box like that. I was amazed at how cheap they were and how fancy the box was, especially for the price paid. Wish I still had em!