Vintages in Puerh

[berkeleyluddite]

There are a lot of similarities between the terroir nuances between wine grapes and tea leaves.... At least for wine grapes, the more stressed the vines are, the higher quality of wine is ultimately produced.

Having said that, please keep in mind that when you ask tea producers in Yunnan about the "quality" of their annual harvest, they usually emphasize more on quantity vs. actual "quality." For example, for the 2007 harvest, due to drought conditions, producer saw noticeable drop in harvest quantity... but in many ways, it turned into higher quality teas overall. So when asked about 2007 harvest, most tea producers will tell you it was a bad year!

[vibrantdragon]

There are a lot of similarities between the terroir nuances between wine grapes and tea leaves.... At least for wine grapes, the more stressed the vines are, the higher quality of wine is ultimately produced.

Having said that, please keep in mind that when you ask tea producers in Yunnan about the "quality" of their annual harvest, they usually emphasize more on quantity vs. actual "quality." For example, for the 2007 harvest, due to drought conditions, producer saw noticeable drop in harvest quantity... but in many ways, it turned into higher quality teas overall. So when asked about 2007 harvest, most tea producers will tell you it was a bad year!

This is a great question, how does stress affect tea quality. We know from Oolong that it is very important. I hope as more add vintage infomation we can start to correlate some of this back to Pu'er.

Also if you look in "The new tea companion" page 38 and 39 they talk a little about fungus and root rot that can affect the tea plants. The trees will be a little different, but I know from the houses I have owned over theyears that trees do have fungus issues and need care to prevent it.

[Herb_Master]

As far as wine is concerned not all fungus is bad.

Though some people rave about Eiswein the truly great dessert wines - from Sauternes, Barsac, Quarts De Chaume (Coteaux du Layon), Vouvray, Pacherence du Vic Bilh, Jurancon, Tokay and certain German Wines - only occur when the grapes are affected by Noble Rot - Botrytis Cinerea

This fungus grows on a fruit not a leaf - but most of it's effect is to consume water hence concentrating the flavour elements that remain.

Now seeing that tea production involves drying it is tantalizing to imagine that a fungus could affect a Tea Bush's leaves so as to improve them

I suppose the nearest we get is those leaves that have been visited by insects leaving behind their own additional flavours.

[tony shlongini]

There are a lot of similarities between the terroir nuances between wine grapes and tea leaves.... At least for wine grapes, the more stressed the vines are, the higher quality of wine is ultimately produced.

Having said that, please keep in mind that when you ask tea producers in Yunnan about the "quality" of their annual harvest, they usually emphasize more on quantity vs. actual "quality." For example, for the 2007 harvest, due to drought conditions, producer saw noticeable drop in harvest quantity... but in many ways, it turned into higher quality teas overall. So when asked about 2007 harvest, most tea producers will tell you it was a bad year!

Great analogy- spot on.

With wine, vieilles vignes (old vines) is a big selling point, precisely because older vines yield less (but more concentrated) fruit.

[TIM]

Thank you all the Wine Aficionados for clearing the uses of Vintage. At least, a little clearer for me now Interesting to see how many of you draw parallel between both tea and wine experiences.

[berkeleyluddite]

So with the combined knowledge of this board, can we start listing pu-erh vintages we are familiar with??? I'm a relatively new pu-erh drinker so I don't have much teas of the same vintages that dates before 1999. Please keep in mind storage plays a huge factor in the older teas.

Here's the vintages that I'm familiar with:
1999: Great Yiwu teas but others regions seems spotty
2001: Very astringent and strong tannins. The tea still needs a lot of time aging.
2005: Generally a decent tea since it's balanced and well rounded. High yielding year.
2007: Yiwu and LBZ have high tannins and acidity that should make tea age worthy.
2008: Seems the overall quality was murky and low acidity. Not a lot of aging potential.

[thanks]

So with the combined knowledge of this board, can we start listing pu-erh vintages we are familiar with??? I'm a relatively new pu-erh drinker so I don't have much teas of the same vintages that dates before 1999. Please keep in mind storage plays a huge factor in the older teas.

Here's the vintages that I'm familiar with:
1999: Great Yiwu teas but others regions seems spotty
2001: Very astringent and strong tannins. The tea still needs a lot of time aging.
2005: Generally a decent tea since it's balanced and well rounded. High yielding year.
2007: Yiwu and LBZ have high tannins and acidity that should make tea age worthy.
2008: Seems the overall quality was murky and low acidity. Not a lot of aging potential.

I really don't think we'll ever all agree on any of these lists. I think you answered your own question with "Please keep in mind storage plays a huge factor in the older teas."

Storage plays a HUGE factor in all teas, really. After about three years the differences are big. Another problem with these lists is we have no clue when a tea is truly 100% Yiwu or truly even a fraction of Lao Banzhang, and not to mention claims of wild/big/semi-wild, etc. status. Also people have selective memories, we'd all like to think (if we were drinking new pu'er in the 90's) that we were there for the end of pu'er's glory days before big industry "killed" the quality completely. You'd think the market was so bleak that anything after 2003 wasn't worth it's weight in dirt from some of the things I've heard from people.

I almost forgot one of the biggest reasons for these lists not being accurate is that a lot of companies don't use same year raw material when they press a cake. Menghai Dayi rarely does, and usually uses a blend of the past two years materials and since the blend is pretty much a secret, we have no idea how much or how little of each of the years involved in the blend actually make it into the cake. This happens constantly, and couldn't really be tracked for every cake. This is another reason why I've had some good teas from years people said were awful.

[sp1key]

I almost forgot one of the biggest reasons for these lists not being accurate is that a lot of companies don't use same year raw material when they press a cake. Menghai Dayi rarely does, and usually uses a blend of the past two years materials and since the blend is pretty much a secret, we have no idea how much or how little of each of the years involved in the blend actually make it into the cake.

agree! like I said "puerh depends more on the manufacturer/blending recipe of individual cakes"

for those associated with wine, its like have a bottle of 82 red burgundy (5/10 vintage) blended with 82 red bordeaux (10/10) vintage. so what vintage do we have now? 7.5? bearing in mind that blended puerh easily consist leaves of more than 2 areas too

[berkeleyluddite]

I totally agree with the variations of formulas within different companies. That's not even mentioning the fraudulent claims that's out there!

Preference and pallet is such a personal thing... I'm not trying to create a Robert Parker vintages guide for tea or anything :) I'm more curious what other people's perceptions of various vintages to keep my pallet more attuned.

Any general thoughts vintages to vintages?

[berkeleyluddite]

I think the best classification of wine that have similar production recipes would be the Champagne region. Majority of Champange are made into NV (non-vintage) or in Krug's case, MV (multi-vintage). However on exceptional years, single vineyard or single vintage Champagnes are made.

Net net, there's got to be a way for all us to pool our knowledge into figuring out which of the last 10-20years of Puerh tea production are worth a damn... price/value aside.

[thanks]

I think the best classification of wine that have similar production recipes would be the Champagne region. Majority of Champange are made into NV (non-vintage) or in Krug's case, MV (multi-vintage). However on exceptional years, single vineyard or single vintage Champagnes are made.

Net net, there's got to be a way for all us to pool our knowledge into figuring out which of the last 10-20years of Puerh tea production are worth a damn... price/value aside.

This also unfortunately brings up another problem of availability. Honestly I think it's best to judge teas individually especially since older teas are getting harder and harder to procure. I think if you really want a rough, rough guide in my small experience I'd say that all pu'er had a chance to be great before 2006. 06, 07 are generally agreed upon to be inferior production years. The leaves felt, tasted, and looked exhausted. Then you have the breakdown of 99-05 which is mentioned elsewhere. 08 had a lot of mixed views, although personally I thought overall it was in between 05 and 06. It wasn't excellent, but it definitely wasn't bad, either. I've heard other people compare it to 06, which I humbly disagree with. There's also vendor specific year ranges, for instance I've heard before that there's a range of a handful of years where Xiaguan was just plain bad due to a change in steaming temperatures or something to that effect. Some people say they still are!

To me, it's just all too crazy to keep track of. I've had good teas from 06 and 07 that I enjoy, and I've had teas from 05 and before that I really didn't care for much. Too much conflicting information.

Don't even get me started on Menghai Dayi production recipes, batch numbers of those recipes, etc. either. For instance the 7582 went through twenty some odd years of not being produced once until 2006! Now the trend seems to show that this is a fairly common recipe. I don't see much reason a tea like this would be faked as an older one as it was a pretty obscure recipe (although you can never be sure). That's why if you see an older 7582 for sale in Zhongcha wrapper it's most likely very old and legit. I will tell you though that Dayi recipes seem to be fairly consistent. 7532 especially excels in this, IMHO. 7542 can sometimes taste slightly different, as can the 8582, but overall the recipes are pretty amazingly close. If you don't believe me pick up a sample of the 07 7532 and buy a cake of the 08 7532 for a recent example. Now was this the case thirty years ago, or even ten? Who knows.

[tony shlongini]

for those associated with wine, its like have a bottle of 82 red burgundy (5/10 vintage) blended with 82 red bordeaux (10/10) vintage. so what vintage do we have now? 7.5?

You'd have a "2", at best.

[sp1key]

only a 2?! very strict quality control there

[TIM]

I think the best classification of wine that have similar production recipes would be the Champagne region. Majority of Champange are made into NV (non-vintage) or in Krug's case, MV (multi-vintage). However on exceptional years, single vineyard or single vintage Champagnes are made.

Net net, there's got to be a way for all us to pool our knowledge into figuring out which of the last 10-20years of Puerh tea production are worth a damn... price/value aside.

I finally turned this Puerh chapter to a Wine Forum

[tony shlongini]

only a 2?! very strict quality control there

If you mixed a great Burgundy with a great Bordeaux, you'd still probably only get a "2".

http://badgerandblade.com/gallery/displ ... geid=13628

http://badgerandblade.com/gallery/displ ... geid=13877

http://badgerandblade.com/gallery/displ ... geid=13627

http://badgerandblade.com/gallery/displ ... geid=13626

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Anyone mention wine?