Official Pu of the day

[chrl42]

Man Nan of bulang..

first time trying this tea...pretty good so far.

Cha Qi, huigan, pronounced yet balanced flavor, a town of Bulang almost never disappoint me

[kuánglóng]

2016 'Han Gu Di' Old Arbor [YS via greenteaguru]

A decent, balanced sheng, with nice florals, honey, cotton candy in the cup and schnotz and impressive aftertaste, pretty durable as well, I could smell the aroma of the 12th steep from 2 feet away - not bad. I'll probably get a cake or two ... if I only knew where to store them

[William]

I drank this afternoon some BuLang material (2016). Strong bitter body, anise/herbaceous/woody flavours .. strong on body and mind, lovely!

With young puerh I generally use clays with really low porosity, e.g. 60s/70s Hongni. This time I wanted to go heavy with the amount of leaves used, so I took a 50 ml F1 Zini SP from late 70s / early 80s and brewed almost 5 grams .. I think I went beyond 12/15 brews, well balanced aromatics/flavors. It hit me like a dragon. Lovely tea.

[ethan]

kruanglong and william,

Getting a vocabulary and poetry lesson from you: "schnotz" or "hit me like a dragon". Your terms are colorful though perhaps not totally clear. Thanks.

[William]

kruanglong and william,

Getting a vocabulary and poetry lesson from you: "schnotz" or "hit me like a dragon". Your terms are colorful though perhaps not totally clear. Thanks.

Thanks Ethan, kind as always!

With "hit me like a dragon", I refer to the strong feeling I always have with strong BuLang material, hence the reference to a fierce and powerful animal.

I literally felt the energy of this tea starting to accumulate in my head after brew 3 or 4, then being released like an electric shock, first on my spine, then arms and legs, lastly, feet and hands. Call it however you want, caffeine, blood circulation, energy, Qi .. etc ..

Oddly, I have this kind of feelings only with strong puerh from BuLang.

[Psyck]

Schnoz is an informal term for nose.

[kuánglóng]

...
Your terms are colorful though perhaps not totally clear. Thanks.

Thanks for the reminder. Ethan.
We've used the term 'schnotz' (nose) an awful lot back in the day, even though it's a bit ambigous since the term also refers to a viscous substance that's secreted by some membranes in aforementioned protuberance.
William's 'hit me like a dragon' OTOH immediately rings a bell over here. I'm actually feeling pretty tea buzzed right now after just three small cups of some Burmese sheng a friend brought back from a trip last week; this stuff smacks me like a stun gun

[William]

Having a gentle YiWu (2010) for breakfast; I bought it (400 gr beengcha) a couple of years ago online, probably YS, a small tea-factory-production for sure.
I truly like gentle YiWu material, its sweetish/sugary/woody flavors are so appealing to me.
I definitely need to buy some YiWu gushu material from this harvest's season .. it will probably cost a leg!

Brewing it with a F1 mid/late 60s SP 70 ml, lovely teapot!

Have a lovely day tea fellows!

[William]

Having a late breakfast with some 2005 7542. Not a big fan of Dayi puer, especially when young, but this one in particular is rather nice, classic sugary/woody/a-tiny-bit of camphor flavors.
The storage has been excellent (definitely unusual), so I am using a F1 Hongni BaLe from the early/mid 70s (pre green-label period). I'm glad I chose it this morning, wonderful tea!

[kuánglóng]

Not a big fan of Dayi puer, especially when young, ...

We're two now ... anyone else?

but this one in particular is rather nice, classic sugary/woody/a-tiny-bit of camphor flavors.

Seconded, there are exceptions. I have some decent humid aged (HK / Guangdong) shengs from their first years but wouldn't want to drink them on a daily basis since Dayis and some CNNPs are about the only teas that still give me the jitters - big time. For some reason I have no such issues with anything made by Xiaguan or any other mass produced factory stuff I've sampled over the years - pretty strange.

[William]

We're two now ... anyone else?

Seconded, there are exceptions. I have some decent humid aged (HK / Guangdong) shengs from their first years but wouldn't want to drink them on a daily basis since Dayis and some CNNPs are about the only teas that still give me the jitters - big time. For some reason I have no such issues with anything made by Xiaguan or any other mass produced factory stuff I've sampled over the years - pretty strange.

Interesting! I personally can't stand the smokiness of Xiaguan production, simply too much for me, as well as most shou puerh .. as you can see, every tea drinker have a no-drink zone

Will you buy anything from this new season's harvest?

[kuánglóng]

Interesting! I personally can't stand the smokiness of Xiaguan production, simply too much for me, as well as most shou puerh .. as you can see, every tea drinker have a no-drink zone

I'm not much of a shu afficionado either but I have a soft spot for some Xiaguans, especially from the early 2000s and before (heavy ex-smoker ).

Will you buy anything from this new season's harvest?

First and foremost dozens of Darjeelings and Nepali teas, like every year. As to new shengs I'm focused on wild grown leaves and will collect samples from all over the place, as usual but I'll probably spend more money on higher grade mid-aged and older shengs this year, before some of them are gone for good.

How about you? Any shopping plans this year?

Enjoy your Easter weekend, everyone. Happy sipping!

[William]

First and foremost dozens of Darjeelings and Nepali teas, like every year. As to new shengs I'm focused on wild grown leaves and will collect samples from all over the place, as usual but I'll probably spend more money on higher grade mid-aged and older shengs this year, before some of them are gone for good.

How about you? Any shopping plans this year?

Enjoy your Easter weekend, everyone. Happy sipping!

Thanks, enjoy your holidays you too!

As every year, I will mainly focus on Gaoshan from Taiwan, Yancha from Wuyi, Gushu puer from Yunnan. There are good dealers here in Japan (totally unexpected) who deal with unmixed Gushu and Gaoshan material, but their prices are obviously high, especially for Gushu from well-known areas (Yiwu, Guafengzhai, Yibang, etc ..) and high mountain Gaoshan, so I will probably purchase small amounts of each one ..

[Tead Off]

First and foremost dozens of Darjeelings and Nepali teas, like every year. As to new shengs I'm focused on wild grown leaves and will collect samples from all over the place, as usual but I'll probably spend more money on higher grade mid-aged and older shengs this year, before some of them are gone for good.

How about you? Any shopping plans this year?

Enjoy your Easter weekend, everyone. Happy sipping!

Thanks, enjoy your holidays you too!

As every year, I will mainly focus on Gaoshan from Taiwan, Yancha from Wuyi, Gushu puer from Yunnan. There are good dealers here in Japan (totally unexpected) who deal with unmixed Gushu and Gaoshan material, but their prices are obviously high, especially for Gushu from well-known areas (Yiwu, Guafengzhai, Yibang, etc ..) and high mountain Gaoshan, so I will probably purchase small amounts of each one ..

I just returned from Yunnan and drank a lot of tea with a lot of people that know puerh well. These are people with money who have all the connections to get some of the top teas. One guy had a 500g bag of gushu Shincha from Bing Dao. This was maocha, not yet pressed. The wholesale cost of the tea was 4000RMB=about $600 for 1kg. The leaves were absolutely beautiful, unbroken, and big. The taste was delicious.

What impressed me more was the gushu shincha from Menghai. Wow. Such a fruitiness and delight it was in my mouth. Very impressive tea. All the maocha I had there was better than I had ever gotten from any online seller, and for someone who does not like shincha, I was turned around by the quality. Most of these teas were beyond my budget but seeing what was available was eye opening. Unless we pay the price, there is little chance to drink on this level. But in Yunnan, you can find exceptional teas for less than what we pay online sellers, in most cases. Of course, not everyone can go there to buy.

It is rare that you can find unmixed gushu unless you are buying direct from the farmers and have a relationship with them. There is a lot of monkey business in the tea business. The Chinese have a lot of buyers taking the best of the best. Kyarazen's Wuyi articles are very informative about how the tea biz goes.

Another thing that I came face to face with in Kunming was how dry the climate really is. My nose bled for lack of humidity so when faced with buying Kunming stored cakes, dry storage is really dry storage so don't expect much aging to take place.

Also, to my surprise, most drinkers were using about 7g of tea per 100ml, and in the case of Bing Dao shincha, 10g!

[William]

I just returned from Yunnan and drank a lot of tea with a lot of people that know puerh well. These are people with money who have all the connections to get some of the top teas. One guy had a 500g bag of gushu Shincha from Bing Dao. This was maocha, not yet pressed. The wholesale cost of the tea was 4000RMB=about $600 for 1kg. The leaves were absolutely beautiful, unbroken, and big. The taste was delicious.

What impressed me more was the gushu shincha from Menghai. Wow. Such a fruitiness and delight it was in my mouth. Very impressive tea. All the maocha I had there was better than I had ever gotten from any online seller, and for someone who does not like shincha, I was turned around by the quality. Most of these teas were beyond my budget but seeing what was available was eye opening. Unless we pay the price, there is little chance to drink on this level. But in Yunnan, you can find exceptional teas for less than what we pay online sellers, in most cases. Of course, not everyone can go there to buy.

It is rare that you can find unmixed gushu unless you are buying direct from the farmers and have a relationship with them. There is a lot of monkey business in the tea business. The Chinese have a lot of buyers taking the best of the best. Kyarazen's Wuyi articles are very informative about how the tea biz goes.

Another thing that I came face to face with in Kunming was how dry the climate really is. My nose bled for lack of humidity so when faced with buying Kunming stored cakes, dry storage is really dry storage so don't expect much aging to take place.

Also, to my surprise, most drinkers were using about 7g of tea per 100ml, and in the case of Bing Dao shincha, 10g!

TO, such a wonderful experience, I envy you so much! Thanks for sharing with us!
I totally agree with you, quality costs, always! Buying directly from Yunnan would be awesome, though connections in this case are essential, but us mere mortals need to rely on dealers .. the Gushu material I bought here in Japan last year was quite delicious, probably not the peak of the productions, but still tasty and satisfying! Hope the same for this year's harvests.
AFAIK, those dealers buy directly from farmers, but knowing the truth isn't possible, so I need to rely exclusively on my nose and tongue .. and trust a-tiny-bit of course.
If I happen to buy more that what I originally planned (depends on price), will send you some!