I recently acquired a sample of 1996 8582 from Nada which I will use to compare with my 8582 901. Taste/flavor will be excluded from this discussion for obvious reasons. However, maybe dry & wet leaf comparisons can yield some answers.
I've also heard that both mouthfeel & longevity (# of infusions) can affect the aging-potential of a Puerh. I will consider these as well.
I'll just post all the pics first.
Ok, so the first item of discussion is the leaf itself. You can't discern much from the dry leaves as the '96 is pretty compressed. When the wet leaves are spread out however, they look pretty similar. Even more surprising is that when I went hunting for whole and intact leaves, the '09 had many more. However, this could be due to aging, or compression, or any number of factors.
Next up is mouthfeel, the '09 was pretty thin, while the '96 was thick & syrupy. I'm not sure if the '96 could have picked up mouthfeel by aging, I suppose it's possible.
Last on the list is longevity, which had some dramatic differences. The '09 lasted 15 steeps, the last being a full 5 minutes. The '96 lasted 22 steeps and only required 3 minutes on the last one. Keep in mind that I used pretty much the same amount of leaf for both tastings.
This is a pretty tricky subject, as all these concerns could possibly be explained through aging, storage, or any number of other factors besides the leaf quality itself. I also think it is worth exploring, as I (and many of you) have a decent amount of modern Dayi in my collection and would like to see it age nicely. Also, I am intrigued by comparing recipes of different ages.
The taste difference between these 2 was massive!In conclusion, no conclusions were reached.
What do you guys think?
Well, I am hoping this is not correct as I too have some stock of them. Right off the bat I would suggest that they wont come anywhere close to samples like your '96 vintage there. Will they age? of course they are puerh and thats what it does, however how well will they age is the big question. I think that they will get that thick malty flavor with time but it may not be as complex and have the longevity of older samples. I used to be all about buying young teas but seeing the potential issues at hand im trying to pick up all the slightly aged stuff that I can now before it goes away. Hopefully these cakes age well and if they do it shouldn't be too difficult for us to find aged product in 10-20 years considering the quantity being produced.