Official Pu of the day

[debunix]

2006 Haiwan 'Peacock Quest' Shu, a nice mellow earthy tea shared with a visiting student today, along with the url for teachat. She enjoyed it, although she liked yesterday's TGY better.

[TIM]

I think the plus of Kunming storage is the mellowing without the rapid change, if you like that sort of thing. I suspect the bigger issue is that storage was often poor until recently. So they do brown out instead of mellowing out. My singular experience with ten years old Kunming stored puerh was that it did get milder, but gets less brittle-ly young after a year + in Atlanta. Does depend on where it's from. Difference between lincangs stored in Taiwan and Kunming is much less than the difference between Bulangs stored in Taiwan and Kunming, in my limited experience.

Im kind of lost Shah82. Mellowing means maturing? Or mellowing means stale? For example, a stale or dry aged rosemarry could be mellow. A hong kong storage bulang could be matured. There is a way to mature a bulang in Kunming without being stale or lost of aroma and body.

[shah82]

I think the plus of Kunming storage is the mellowing without the rapid change, if you like that sort of thing. I suspect the bigger issue is that storage was often poor until recently. So they do brown out instead of mellowing out. My singular experience with ten years old Kunming stored puerh was that it did get milder, but gets less brittle-ly young after a year + in Atlanta. Does depend on where it's from. Difference between lincangs stored in Taiwan and Kunming is much less than the difference between Bulangs stored in Taiwan and Kunming, in my limited experience.

[TIM]

Aweful is a harsh word. I would say they taste stale.

[MarshalN]

Yeah I wouldn't use kunming levels as a guide if you want your cakes to mature within fifty years. Any time I have tried a ten plus year old kunming stored tea it has been still very green.

And they taste awful

[135F2]

Yeah I wouldn't use kunming levels as a guide if you want your cakes to mature within fifty years. Any time I have tried a ten plus year old kunming stored tea it has been still very green.

That's interesting to know. Thanks.

[gasninja]

Yeah I wouldn't use kunming levels as a guide if you want your cakes to mature within fifty years. Any time I have tried a ten plus year old kunming stored tea it has been still very green.

[135F2]

This is a great example F2, since you have a good experience of this 7 years dry storage. Perhaps a wake up call for all new collectors whom been doing "Dry" storage for 1 or 2 years and hoping for a miracle.

This is something on my mind a lot recently.

I'm slowly but surely building my puerh collection, however I want to be sure my environment is adequately wet. What numbers (in your opinion) do you think I should be aiming for?
Cloud wrote 20-30C and 70-80% ... is this the general consensus?

That's within Hong Kong / Guangzhou average climate ranges, where Cloud is, so it should be a good, proven range. I don't know if it's the consensus, however. Kunming, for one, is a bit colder and dryer, as far as I can tell from Googling it up.

[tst]

This is a great example F2, since you have a good experience of this 7 years dry storage. Perhaps a wake up call for all new collectors whom been doing "Dry" storage for 1 or 2 years and hoping for a miracle.

This is something on my mind a lot recently.

I'm slowly but surely building my puerh collection, however I want to be sure my environment is adequately wet. What numbers (in your opinion) do you think I should be aiming for?
Cloud wrote 20-30C and 70-80% ... is this the general consensus?

[debunix]

I am enjoying a session today with one of my first beengs, a 2007 'white bud' sheng from Norbu. It's an odd little tea, which has lost some of the smokiness that was a good part of it's appeal early on, but it still has enough of the floral/fruity quality to be worth finishing the cake. It doesn't seem likely to age into something special, especially not in the air conditioned office setting, but I bought it for present drinkability, and really, that's enough.

[the_economist]

Certainly helpful, I'm always grateful for good pictures!

[shah82]

I don't know about miracles, but good puerh *does* get better and age over the short term, in many cases.

I think the better lesson is that low quality tea does not age, except in forever, if it ages at all. I think the biggest impact will be standard big factory cakes roughly 2005 and later. There are going to be a ton of disappointed puerh owners in 2015, I think.

[135F2]

This is a great example F2, since you have a good experience of this 7 years dry storage. Perhaps a wake up call for all new collectors whom been doing "Dry" storage for 1 or 2 years and hoping for a miracle.

Right! Look how greenish the wet leaves still are after all these years. Everyone should learn from my 7-years mistake

One thing I know when looking at your pics is that they're properly white balanced

I hope at least some people will find the photos useful as visual references. Colors do speak volume about the tea, I assume?

[MarshalN]

This is a great example F2, since you have a good experience of this 7 years dry storage. Perhaps a wake up call for all new collectors whom been doing "Dry" storage for 1 or 2 years and hoping for a miracle.

Right! Look how greenish the wet leaves still are after all these years. Everyone should learn from my 7-years mistake

One thing I know when looking at your pics is that they're properly white balanced

[135F2]

This is a great example F2, since you have a good experience of this 7 years dry storage. Perhaps a wake up call for all new collectors whom been doing "Dry" storage for 1 or 2 years and hoping for a miracle.

Right! Look how greenish the wet leaves still are after all these years. Everyone should learn from my 7-years mistake