Official Pu of the day

[debunix]

Last nite the shelf holding my jars of old puerh Failed. I came home to a pile of ceramic and old puerh. I strongly suspect feline sabotage. Thankfully the jars holding my dry storred 1989 7542 and my 1986 yiwu spring buds somehow remained intact with only a little spilled. The jars containing , 1970s Tong qing hao , 70s da ye moacha, 85 8582 and 1999 broken teacake from Sunsing where not as fortunate. The real problem with this is the 1999 teacakes. They are in no way in the same league as,the other teas quality or age but They look similar enough especialy to , the 8582 that it is difficult to separate them.

This morning I am brewing a piece of what I am reasonably sure is Tong Qing Hao.

kill that filthy animal.

No, no, no. The cat was simply trying to free you help you enter the world of purest tea appreciation, unfettered by expectations derived from labels and other people's opinions of various teas. Celebrate, do not punish.

After all, it was the human who failed to realize it was cat-accessible and/or cat-vulnerable.

[Rui]

No, no, no. The cat was simply trying to free you help you enter the world of purest tea appreciation, unfettered by expectations derived from labels and other people's opinions of various teas. Celebrate, do not punish.

After all, it was the human who failed to realize it was cat-accessible and/or cat-vulnerable.

On top of it the cat might have produced an unique blend which could be the envy of many people.

[kyarazen]

No, no, no. The cat was simply trying to free you help you enter the world of purest tea appreciation, unfettered by expectations derived from labels and other people's opinions of various teas. Celebrate, do not punish.

After all, it was the human who failed to realize it was cat-accessible and/or cat-vulnerable.

On top of it the cat might have produced an unique blend which could be the envy of many people.

poo-erh luwak anyone?

[Rui]

No, no, no. The cat was simply trying to free you help you enter the world of purest tea appreciation, unfettered by expectations derived from labels and other people's opinions of various teas. Celebrate, do not punish.

After all, it was the human who failed to realize it was cat-accessible and/or cat-vulnerable.

On top of it the cat might have produced an unique blend which could be the envy of many people.

poo-erh luwak anyone?

My English skills sometimes fail me. LOL

[kyarazen]

No, no, no. The cat was simply trying to free you help you enter the world of purest tea appreciation, unfettered by expectations derived from labels and other people's opinions of various teas. Celebrate, do not punish.

After all, it was the human who failed to realize it was cat-accessible and/or cat-vulnerable.

On top of it the cat might have produced an unique blend which could be the envy of many people.

poo-erh luwak anyone?

My English skills sometimes fail me. LOL

just a parody of kopi-luwak, or civet cat coffee where the cat eats coffee berries, defacate the poorly digested seeds and "connoisseurs" find it rather sought after.

coincidentally, there's a type of pu-erh known as poo-poo-pu-erh, insect poop tea...

[gasninja]

Last nite the shelf holding my jars of old puerh Failed. I came home to a pile of ceramic and old puerh. I strongly suspect feline sabotage. Thankfully the jars holding my dry storred 1989 7542 and my 1986 yiwu spring buds somehow remained intact with only a little spilled. The jars containing , 1970s Tong qing hao , 70s da ye moacha, 85 8582 and 1999 broken teacake from Sunsing where not as fortunate. The real problem with this is the 1999 teacakes. They are in no way in the same league as,the other teas quality or age but They look similar enough especialy to , the 8582 that it is difficult to separate them.

This morning I am brewing a piece of what I am reasonably sure is Tong Qing Hao.

kill that filthy animal.

No, no, no. The cat was simply trying to free you help you enter the world of purest tea appreciation, unfettered by expectations derived from labels and other people's opinions of various teas. Celebrate, do not punish.

After all, it was the human who failed to realize it was cat-accessible and/or cat-vulnerable.

I like that. I am just thankful my yixing pots on the shelf below somehow made it through the tea shower un harmed.

Today's Sheng is spring 2005 Douji yisheng red wrapper. I haven't tried this one in a couple years. It has improved quite a bit. I think I might bury this one again I think this one will be really nice in another 5 years.
This cake makes me regret the my earlier tendency of stamp collecting puerh. ( purchasing a cake or two of as many different quality teas as I could. ) While it is awesome having a bunch of different good teas to try. I pay big tuition bill as well. Now I have to ration almost every tea that I truly enjoy. When I could have just spent my tea loot on a multiple cakes of the really good stuff and be much happier now.

[Tead Off]

This cake makes me regret the my earlier tendency of stamp collecting puerh. ( purchasing a cake or two of as many different quality teas as I could. ) While it is awesome having a bunch of different good teas to try. I pay big tuition bill as well. Now I have to ration almost every tea that I truly enjoy. When I could have just spent my tea loot on a multiple cakes of the really good stuff and be much happier now.

That is big wisdom speaking, fellow pu-heads!!

[shah82]

Eeeehh, Tead Off, Gasninja, as well as me, has an expensive taste in puerh. Hitting it hard means committing multiple thousands in one go.

Even so, this presumes you hit *several* teas hard. If you didn't, then that day when you have to ration inevitably arrives.

[Tead Off]

Eeeehh, Tead Off, Gasninja, as well as me, has an expensive taste in puerh. Hitting it hard means committing multiple thousands in one go.

Even so, this presumes you hit *several* teas hard. If you didn't, then that day when you have to ration inevitably arrives.

This wisdom is for the benefit of the younger drinkers who have 20-40 years of patience, or life expectancy, to 'raise' their cakes and have a lifetime supply of excellent teas.

[AdmiralKelvinator]

Sitting down with a BanZhang tea I picked up at Wistaria a few months ago. I posted a few pages back about this tea, how I was curiously disappointed with how thin and bitter it was compared to when I had tried it in the teahouse. But today, after much wrangling and experimenting I think I may have found a solution.



Instead of my normal stainless kettle, using a stoneware kettle to heat the water significantly changed the character of the tea for the better: smoothing off the bitterness that develops in the high register and significantly boosting the bottom end, the "bass" if you will of the flavor profile. The tea has much more body now and rings in the mouth for a long time. It's not a fancy purion kettle or anything, but even so the difference is quite noticeable.

I don't think that clay necessarily improves every variety of tea (since it tends to mute high notes which are otherwise desirable), but I think at least for bitter bulang teas the clay is a good fit.

[paxl13]

Anyone can point me out to what a 'bass' and 'high' flavor not mean? I think I missed the memo!

Cheers!

[Drax]

Paxl -- it's a way to think about the flavor landscape as a sound/music landscape. A similar conversion happens when people say 'darker' and 'brighter'... we're trying to convert taste into other senses that are perhaps a bit easier to describe.

There's actually no guarantee that two people will convert the same flavor profile in the same way. And come to think of it, I've never tried to backward convert -- that is, if a tea makes me think of 'low notes,' I'm not sure I've identified what is actually in the taste that makes me think of it that way. Maybe somebody else can throw out some ideas (different topic/thread, perhaps?) -- is a richer mouthfeel lower in tone? Is bitterness higher? Hm.

Hope that helps a little...

[gasninja]

2001 Simao Gu Puer Bangwei from the six Famous tea Mtns set. I. Remember this set as being about 50/50 good and so so when I first got samples. This Bangwei is a really great tea though it tastes older than it is. Strong cha qi check cooling aftertaste check huigan check. There is,even a good amount of granny face powder normally found in older tea. As I am thinking about this I remember that Bangwei has a giant 1700 +year , old mother tree right near/in the village. I ponder how puer was not this exhaulted thing in 2001 but just common tea. If I was a farmer looking for tea Would I go hiking through the junggle to find the leaf or would I climb the giant tea tree in my back yard. Hmmmmm


But it could as easily be taidi cha from
from Hunan.

[bonescwa]

Paxl -- it's a way to think about the flavor landscape as a sound/music landscape. A similar conversion happens when people say 'darker' and 'brighter'... we're trying to convert taste into other senses that are perhaps a bit easier to describe.

There's actually no guarantee that two people will convert the same flavor profile in the same way. And come to think of it, I've never tried to backward convert -- that is, if a tea makes me think of 'low notes,' I'm not sure I've identified what is actually in the taste that makes me think of it that way. Maybe somebody else can throw out some ideas (different topic/thread, perhaps?) -- is a richer mouthfeel lower in tone? Is bitterness higher? Hm.

Hope that helps a little...

It would be interesting to know if the molecules that create 'heavier' aroma/flavor are actually heavier and less volatile than those that create 'bright' aromas/flavors. It would make sense, floral and citrus aromas are there to be sensed by pollinators.

[AdmiralKelvinator]

Paxl -- it's a way to think about the flavor landscape as a sound/music landscape. A similar conversion happens when people say 'darker' and 'brighter'... we're trying to convert taste into other senses that are perhaps a bit easier to describe.

There's actually no guarantee that two people will convert the same flavor profile in the same way. And come to think of it, I've never tried to backward convert -- that is, if a tea makes me think of 'low notes,' I'm not sure I've identified what is actually in the taste that makes me think of it that way. Maybe somebody else can throw out some ideas (different topic/thread, perhaps?) -- is a richer mouthfeel lower in tone? Is bitterness higher? Hm.

Hope that helps a little...

indeed it's an analogy to musical timbre, and although in a sense all comparisons are imperfect by nature, coming from a musical background its the first frame of reference I reach for.

I guess what I mean by "high register" is actually more temporal in nature, its the flavors that hit the palate first, in that there's no delay between the sip and the first impressions. Using a stainless kettle, the bitterness of the Banzhang hits quickly and it's somewhat "sharp" (again an imperfect analogy but hey). The clay mutes the bitterness, rounds it out and gives the tea a heavier, mouth-filling sensation that feels more "bassy" to me. For me, a good tea has a flavor that morphs as you hold it in your mouth, from high to low and eventually the finish and huigan or what have you.

For the record, I think you can have a tea that has very rich and complex top notes, and it can also have a deeper, "rounder" bitterness as well.