Official Pu of the day

[apache]

2009 Douji "Jingmai" cakes been sitting on my shelf over two years and I never have the incentive to try them as I'm not a great fan of Jingmai area. You might ask why the hell I bought them in the first place, well I bought them in the early days of my puerh journey before I knew what my own taste is. With trepidation, I have a go and I have to say it tastes rather good. It's quite floral with balance level of huigan, the only slight down side is it is not very enduring, but again, I tend to brew my tea with rather long steeping time. Will them age gracefully? May be for medium term, but certainly it's fairly nice to drink them now. Mmmm ... perhaps Jingmai is not that bad after all.

[Drax]

Spent the day with two xiaguan tuos; one 'red karma' from 2007 and one 'te ji' from 2009. Both were quite enjoyable shengs. The 'te ji' has been almost floral and quite a shift from the usual XG flavor profile.

[MIKE_B]

My first ever sheng. A sample of 2005 Hai Lang Hao, Nan Nuo Shan Gu Shu.
Much more mellow than I was expecting. Nice gold liquor. A little fruity.

[gasninja]

not a bad first sheng

Today I'm drinking XZH 2006 Lao Bhanzhang Tai Chi Yan I really love this tea. Its looks trully like ancient tree leaves and You can taste the depth that comes with it. The cooling sensation is so strong when I exhale I expect to seee my breath.

[shah82]

It's better than the 2005, I tell ya. Just slightly different from the usual profile...

[G-off-re]

Drinking tea @ lau yu fat and henry trading in hong kong. Such amazing tea to try but far to expensive. Though I did enjoy a nice 1999 cake from lau yu fat for hk1600/usd210. I've been to almost all of the shops listed on nicholastang list. Best tea house felt rather off to me. Followed me around like I was gonna steal. If I picked up a cake she would say "you buy" a few times. Most of the other shops offered to brew me something before asking if I'd buy anything. Bought a couple large early 90's toucha from henry's. Too bad these teashops are 6000mi away.

[apache]

Thank for sharing your experience of tea shopping in HK. So which 1999 cake you like from Lau Yu Fat? Although they are thousands of miles away, but some of them, like Lau Yu Fat do accept mail order and I bought a few cakes from them via email and Paypal in the past.

Given the price BTH selling their goods, may be they should have security guards carrying sub-machine guns guarding the shop ....

[gasninja]

G-off-re How where your experiences at other shops.

[G-off-re]

I'm sure the women @ bth had a shotgun under the counter. Ha. My experience with other shops was for the most part pretty good. I've walked around and checked out a few that were not on the list but those ones seemed to be sorta shady. Some had pretty high prices but didn't seem to match the quality and storage. I found lau yu Fat to be rather expensive but the condition of the cakes was very clean. Henry trading on the other hand had a very sloppy setup. Ripe and raw tossed in piles together. His brewing was the same way but he was a nice guy and his products seemed to be price very fair. Sunsing was very touristy as stated before. I only tried the loose 1986 spring tips and found it to be good but not mindblowing. Definetly much better than the 80's Wang zi but also with a much higher price tag, $.49/g vs $.24/g Wang zi. I'm planing on going back to try 1995 7581 brick, priced @ $50. I'm alredy nearly half way through my tea budget with 3 cakes and 3 toucha. The cakes are all from Taiwan. Nothing fancy, just everyday teas. Glad I left the credit cards at home or I'd be coming back with 3x as much.

[auhckw]

2011 Dayi Dragon Pillar Ripe - Just arrived. So far I have not seen any nicer Dayi carton box other than this.

Smell of the beeng? Fishy. Taste? The new 'Wo dui' / fishy taste is quite obvious. Not so nice. Probably because it is just out from container/store and newly opened. I will try this again 2 weeks later after it adjust itself.

[G-off-re]

Tonight i'm drinking 90's small yellow label with water from my new antique tetsubin. I've been rather unhappy with the feel and taste of the water from my kamjove so i decided it was time to try iron or clay. As luck has it i found a few tetsubin kettles at a local japanese antique store and the price was right. It was labeled as being from the Meiji era 1868-1912. The age is believable but all that really matters to me is that the water is tasty and it is so far. Thicker and sweeter. Link picture of kettle http://www.flickr.com/photos/59374371@N02/

[auhckw]

2011 Dayi Phoenix Pillar Raw - Dragon pillar ripe? This Phoenix pillar is raw. First time it is released. No nice carton box or beeng box like the dragon. It is said that the material is of 3 years old (as per printed on the carton), but not stated on the beeng wrapper.

Taste? Doesn't taste like a 3 years old, cause the fresh taste is quite obvious. This tea leaves quite a good aftertaste in the mouth area. For a new Dayi tea at the price it is (not too expensive), this is kind of value for money. This reminds me a little of the gold dayi but 1/2 the price. Will need to revisit this again in 2 more weeks as this is also newly arrived/opened.








Phoenix Vs Dragon

[auhckw]

1970s expired red tea - Not cheap for an expired tea. Taste is not that bad. Hard to describe...

[auhckw]

1970s Doudeli Liubao - The old, woody, herbal taste is superb. This tea is very clean, don't have the typical wet stored taste for liubao. Lasted many brew. At the 10+ brew onward when it is light, it taste like aged liuan too.









We then tried the 2003 version of this. 1 word = Yuck. Price difference about 15x

[auhckw]

2011 Dayi Love Raw - Photo from the net. This is preorder here now. Comes with Raw and Ripe.... packaging looks nice as usual...