Official Pu of the day

[PuerhCollector]

Drinking the EOT 2009 Bulang brings back memories.

Looking at some highlights of 2009 - Barack Obama becomes US President - Abhisit Vejjajiva is Thailand Prime Minister - Sri Lankan Civil War ends after 26 years of fighting - Michael Jackson passes away - H1N1 swine flu causes international concern - the puerh market continues to recover from the bursting of the 2007 bubble - and of course the highlight, the EOT 2009 Bulang was released to puerh enthusiasts worldwide.

The tea itself is still full on. The dark floral like aromas are intense followed by a background of sweetness. The taste has slightly darken and mellow with time but is still powerful and potent. The brew is nicely textured and feels filling in the mouth. It is my impression that Bulang teas don’t quite have the complexity of Banzhang but I can see this aging really well. My problem is I have 1 ½ teacakes remaining, so when it finally matures into a classic age tea in maybe a few decades in the future I may have only 10g left for a final pot

A toast to 2009 and a big thank you to EOT!
VP

[mr mopu]

2013 Yunnan Sourcing Autumn Mang Fei Sheng.
Breaking into this one a day after getting it? Yes indeed. I usually let these sit a few weeks in the pumidor to open up a bit. The dry aroma on this said “drink me now”. so I will. I rinsed this last night to prepare for this evening. The leaves are an olive color and look really nice in the Yixing. When hit with the hot water the aromatics of hay and flowers come to mind. I did 3 short steeps into one 10 oz. cup.There is a nice golden amber color to this one in the cup.
First sips say mang Fei for sure. Strong kick on this one. Very strong for an Autumn tea. It hits full on. Very thick active mouthfeel on this one. Fantastic tingle on the tongue with a bit of drying after sipping. The bitterness of this progresses from a sharp bite to a bit of drying a few seconds after to a semi-sweet floral grassy note. In terms of strength steep this one very quick. It is a very potent Autumn tea and has that kick butt attitude when you drink it. Very nice . They say the strongest teas age well, I think I am going to be really interested in this one in a few years. A truly wonderful Autumn tea.

Flavors: Bitter, Drying, Flowers, Hay, Thick

[quikstep]

2008 Chen Yuan Hao Yiwu Zhengshan Mushroom-shaped pu-erh (2008 陳远号 易武正山 紧茶)

Drank and reviewed this tea some time ago. While the 'yun' is good, the 'huigan' sweetness is hit-and-miss. While I don't doubt it's maocha from dashu (old tree), it's probably from autumn.

The tea itself is very clean and clear and void of any foreign smell. The leaves are long but slender; whole and not bits and pieces nonetheless. Enjoyable.

[Drax]

Yeah, that's what I do as well. Come to think of it, that's kind of similar to my approach to dried spaghetti pasta, too... haha.

[kyarazen]

Question... these leaves are incredibly long and the cake is pretty loose so I was able to extract the leaves fairly easily without breaking them. As you can see they kind of stick out of my ~100ml yixing. In these situations I just rinse the leaves in this state, and then it is easy to just push them in after for the first real infusion. How do you all approach this situation?

thats how most do it too.. since breaking the leaf is detrimental

[futurebird]

"We're gonna need a bigger pot."

No idea. Never had that happen. Seems like an awful lot of stem to me...

[Anteaque]

2005 Ming-Yuan Hao Yi-Wu Wild Old Tree Cake (raw) from houde.

Two years ago, this tea was super smoky. Too much so for my taste. The smoky flavor now has dissipated almost completely. The aroma from the first three steeps was incredibly sweet and floral. After four, the aroma dropped off but the body continued with a good mouth feel with some lingering taste.

Basically no astringency until I really started to push it near the end.

Question... these leaves are incredibly long and the cake is pretty loose so I was able to extract the leaves fairly easily without breaking them. As you can see they kind of stick out of my ~100ml yixing. In these situations I just rinse the leaves in this state, and then it is easy to just push them in after for the first real infusion. How do you all approach this situation?

2005 Ming-Yuan Hao Yi-Wu Wild Old Tree Cake

2005_Ming-Yuan_Hao_Yi-Wu.jpg (64.34 KiB) Viewed 1722 times

[BW85]

2008 Bulang from Essence of Tea
This is easily my favorite tea I've ever had in terms of flavor and smell. It hits an emotional cord because the heavy vanilla smell of the liquid reminds me of my dad's pancakes as a younger person, so every time I taste this not only do I love the flavor but it's doing what all foodies famously want, a gateway back into their child hood.

Yes this is a very good tea

[Zacherywolf7]

2008 Bulang from Essence of Tea
This is easily my favorite tea I've ever had in terms of flavor and smell. It hits an emotional cord because the heavy vanilla smell of the liquid reminds me of my dad's pancakes as a younger person, so every time I taste this not only do I love the flavor but it's doing what all foodies famously want, a gateway back into their child hood.

[j.p.rich]

Today it's a sample of Tea Urchin's 2014 Lao Ban Zhang, my first sampling of this type. I can see where all the hype comes from, this tea is full of sizzle, it's bitterness is very pleasant even for someone like myself who normally shies away from this. The Qi is solid and pleasant.

Problem is the cost of entry is high at $323 for a little cake which translates to $577 for a "normal" sized offering. Personally I cannot see it, would rather pay much less for something like the Last Thoughts.

[j.p.rich]

EoT Yun Yun. My favorite of their 2014 vintage. Damn, that cake is tiny, may not last long enough to age. Seems like a young (maybe weaker?) version of the green stamp?

[shah82]

Hey, Sanhetang practically exists for this reason!

Also hard to know what their actual preference is. Dry stored is one thing, but people would need to know more.

[futurebird]

Wedding sheng?

What sheng would make a good wedding gift with the idea that the betrothed could drink an always improving tea every year for a long marriage? Supposing I spend $70-200 commensurate with quality?

These folks like classic dry stored sheng.

[Puerlife]

1998 white wrapper tuo from white2tea.

Most other bloggers have gotten a good take on this, but...

1) This was relatively high in caffeine, and some that + qi shows up.
2) Fairly thick soup
3) Has a theme for flavor/aroma, a sweet flavor. First couple of brew has dried out warehousing taste in it.

Not so much on the plus side
1) Definitely isn't particularly clean wrt hairs. Geez
2) The taste is relatively thin, and very constant, not much complexity.
3) There is a lot of suspension of microparticles in the soup, making for a gritty experience at times.

I like the 2002 zhongcha 7572 sold at white2tea better, as an all around tea. Also think that this tea is best dealt with english style and not gongfu, for max thick taste and max pork fat cleansing.

That pretty much says it all for me, too. So I tried four grams in a big mug. That's way too much! Drank two cups but it was too dankly intense. The next day, using the same leaves, I actually mixed a little coffee in with the first mug and that was really good. The last cup was just the tea leaves and it was finally down to a pleasantly drinkable strength and I finally got the sweetness.
Today I grandpa styled 1.1 grams in a mug and the first cup was very similar to that very last cup I just described above. The second cup was a bit watery but not bad. Thank you for the mug idea, Shah. It's definitely the way (for me) to brew this particular one.

[Tead Off]

Relevant reading for pu heads: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/ ... tside-game

Really?