My results with Skip4Tea (HIGHLY picture intensive)

[Drax]

All right, so this will take some time for me to post, but in total I'll have 3 posts in this thread detailing the teas that I bought through Skip4Tea.

For those that don't know, Skip4Tea is a consignment house where people can put up their teas for sale. Lots range from 1 to 1000+, from tuos to bings, etc. They even have teaware. The place is located in Malaysia (I believe?). They accept payment via paypal, so it's pretty easy to join, look around, and buy tea.

I posted pictures in the "Show off your pu" thread of the bings, so I won't repost those.

In total, I got:

2 x 2000 CNNP Green Mark (50 RMB each = $13.23 USD each)
2 x 2003 CNNP Yellow Mark (63 RMB each = $16.70 USD each)
1 x 2000 CNNP Orange Mark (63 RMB each = $16.70 USD each)

Shipping was 157 RMB (or ~$42). USD is based off of what I was charged via Paypal, which was ~$118 for everything (including S&H). So "in hand" each cake cost about 23.50... so use that as your benchmark.

A bit of warning before I begin. I am still a pu'erh light-weight. I especially don't have much knowledge about the different CNNP marks, so I really don't know what "to expect" from a yellow to a green to an orange (other than I think I've had a yellow mark once before).

I started with the 2000 Green Mark. I used the yixing pot that I use for young shengs, a "da hong pao" pot, ~140mL, putting in ~6g and using water just after boiling.

First some pictures of the tea itself:






The dry leaves have a dark tone, with reddish tints, but not too strong. Has that dark tea smell, with a smattering of lighter notes.

It had a compression easy to pry apart, so I prepared the pot...



I rinsed the tea with boiling water for 15 seconds and poured away the results.

Then I prepared the first cup, with an infusion time of 15 seconds:




The first cup had a nice aroma of a dark tea with the typical sheng tones, and a hint of woodiness. The color was a medium amber-yellow, clear. I say 'amber-yellow' because it had amber qualities, but a vibrancy of yellow (this will actually apply to other CNNPs as well). And finally, the taste was carmely straw with darker tones... rather mellow, lightly skirting a black tea in flavor at times.

I moved onto the second cup... another 15 seconds:




I show the second cup above with flash and without. From now one, I'll avoid the flash. The second cup was similar in color, but had a stronger aroma and a stronger hint of woodiness atop of the straw. The flavor was rich, strong, filling the mouth, and (to me) had a complexity to it that made me think upon many different things... still quite strong in the mouth.

I pushed into the third cup... still at 15 seconds... with similar qualities, my mouth is beginning to buzz, and a pleasant sweet aftertaste lingers.

I continue on... the 5th cup:



And finally the 9th cup:



By the 9th cup (10 min infusion), the tea is a light amber, and I am left with a light straw flavor and high tone hints of woodiness. I could have continued, but....

The leaves were chocolatey brown, with some curled in tightly. I could see some rather fat stems, and the leaves seemed to tear easily:



In all, 9 cups (15s, 15s, 15s, 25s, 45s, 90s, 3m, 5m, 10m).

I might normally be at the 10th cup when infusion @ 10m. In any case, all in all, this was rather enjoyable...

So what will the Yellow Mark bring..........?

[Drax]

Onto the Yellow Mark... see my previous post for info. Here I used 5g in my ~140mL pot.

The dry leaves have a dark tone with a moderate aroma. As you can see, the wrapper and neifei are extremely clean (esp compared to the green and orange mark)... this might have been very dry stored?

The compression was quite easy, though, and I easily got off a chunk.






Since I had a bigger chunk, I went slightly longer on my initial times. My rinse was 20s, followed by the first cup steeped also at 20 seconds:




The aroma here consisted entirely of straw and hay, the usual sort of young sheng aromas. The liquor was a light amber with more marked yellow tones. And the tea itself... just like the aroma, mostly of the sheng-straw taste... at about medium punch.

I moved onto the second cup (also at 20s):



Similar to the first cup, but slightly stronger, and a faint kick/bitterness to it. It has all the hallmarks of a young sheng, but maybe with the faintest hint of an older, 'darker' tone...?

I pressed on. The third cup gave more of a bite. The fourth cup started to numb my taste. The fifth cup had only a faint echo of the strawiness. So I waited out the night...

The next morning I picked up the tea again and got another 4 cups out of it, all with the usual straw-type flavor.



The leaves were chopped, though found a couple of larger ones (about the size of 2 US quarters).

All in all, I went 9 cups (20s, 20s, 20s, 25s, 45s, 70s, 2.5m, 5m, 10m) with some pauses in between. I have to say that this tea hasn't really aged much in 6 years, though I haven't tried any other 2003 CNNPs for comparison...

Well then... what will the Orange Mark bring..........?

[Drax]

Onto the Orange Mark. I only got one of these (that was actually all that was left in the lot). For this tea, I used about 5g in my ~140mL pot...

The leaves were dark with some reddish tint to them, but not a lot. The wrapped and insert definitely look well-stained (could it have been wet(ter)-stored?) -- it comes apart very easily and has a very nice aroma with no odd smells (not that the others had any odd smells, but at this point, I'm trying to hunt out any weird stuff).





I got mostly loose leaf when prying apart the tea, so I went a lot shorter than normal (for me) in my infusion times. The rinse was 10s, followed by the first cup also at 10s:




This first cup already has a rich, strong, deep straw aroma to it with a woody tone. The liquor is a light amber, clear, and can see "fuzzy tips" swirling around. But the taste... I immediately like this one the best! It's very nice. It has a balance of straw-sheng with a wood-aged flavor. It's so nice, that I note it twice. It's smooth, rich, with a deep mouthfeel, no bitterness, and I can't detect any off-flavors (or at least, none that I'm familiar with ).

I move onto the second cup, also at 10 seconds:



The tea is perhaps a little darker than the first, and it delivers another great cup... the woodiness mixed in with the tea give it a nice dark flavor, and it has a great aftertaste.

By the third cup, the woodiness of the tea has built up a tingling in my mouth that is beginning to override the other flavors. By the fifth cup, I note that the tea looks a bit more yellow, but I'm still enjoying the flavor... or has it just imprinted itself on my pysche?



By the 6th cup, I'm definitely wondering about this imprint possibility... that the tea itself is much weaker, but just sipping this weaker brew restores the initial rush of enjoyment that I had in the first few cups? Hmmm. So perhaps it's not as strong now, but I still really like it.

I take it to a 10th infusion, where now the tea is a medium yellow (pretty strong yellow for this late in the game); I'm still getting a straw flavor here as well as the buzz... nice!



The leaves are a dark green, but tending a bit toward brown. They look pretty chopped...




Ahhh, I definitely enjoyed that one the most of the three. Too bad there was only one to buy! Alas. At least I have another 300+g or so to enjoy in the future.

In any case, if you made it this far, congratulations! Thanks for reading.

If you have any questions not covered here (somehow), please let me know

And of course, if you've bought from Skip4Tea, too, chime in on your experience. I can see how easy it would be to pick up some bad stuff, but all in all, I can't complain!

[MarshalN]

They all look decent, especially for the price. I'd suggest trying them with a little more leaves in the pot and you might find a bigger difference among the three, both in terms of longevity (number of infusions you get) and also in taste/texture.

[Drax]

So... interesting you say use more leaf.

The last time I posted a review in which I used more leaf than what I did here, I was told (quite summarily) that was a sign of a inferior tea.

I would rather this thread stay about the Skip4Tea experience for those interested. What I can do but shrug? I'm all for experimenting, I'll try it differently next time...

[shogun89]

Wow Drax, Very impressive! That seems to be some pretty nice tea for the money. Also very nice job on the reviews, and as always the pictures were a perfect touch! I do agree that you should try adding a little more leaf, it will give you a more full bodied complex flavor. The reason you were told before it was inferior tea to need to add more leaf was becuase it was a new cake, a fresh cake you should have a very strong intense brew with 5g. The older they are the more leaf you should use.

Great job!

[xuancheng]

Excellent review, Drax. Thanks for posting. I have been tempted to check out that site, as lots of the prices seem decent.

This is kind of a pedantic correction, but you reported the wrong currency. You paid in RM or Malaysian ringgits, not in RMB (RenMinBi), the currency of the People's Republic of China.

[Drax]

This is kind of a pedantic correction, but you reported the wrong currency. You paid in RM or Malaysian ringgits, not in RMB (RenMinBi), the currency of the People's Republic of China.

Oho! That's very good to know. I knew it was ringgits, so I was sort of wondering where that "B" was coming from... haha.

Well shoot, I feel like a doofus for holding back on the amount of leaf all this time with older stuff (or apparently with oolongs, too, in general). I think I've compensated in part by longer initial infusion times (I rarely/never go <10 seconds). This is an extraction game, so that is one way to level the playing field.

In any case, I will look forward into breaking forth into a new realm of tasting (for me)...

Oh, one last thing I forgot to note. I think I had about a 3-5% loss rate from each of the bings. That is, they all had ~10-15g that were loose in the wrappers. I cleaned them up a bit, and stored the loose stuff in my collection jar. Not a big deal, but just thought I'd mention it.

[MarshalN]

Well, I only suggested more leaves because it sounds like you could've gotten more from it

Now, from what I remember, you can't tell who you bought the tea from on skip4tea right? Or is there a place that tells you who the real seller actually is?

What I'm trying to ask is -- would you know where to go back to if you wanted more of these cakes?

[xuancheng]

...
Now, from what I remember, you can't tell who you bought the tea from on skip4tea right? Or is there a place that tells you who the real seller actually is?

What I'm trying to ask is -- would you know where to go back to if you wanted more of these cakes?

This could also be useful to know if you got a cake which was badly stored. Then you could never buy from this seller again, and also warn the rest of us

[MarshalN]

This could also be useful to know if you got a cake which was badly stored. Then you could never buy from this seller again, and also warn the rest of us

That's what I was thinking -- if we are interested by this post and want to buy some of this -- how do we know which one?

Similarly... if one of the sellers sells horrible cakes, how do we know which one it is exactly to avoid?

A lot of the cakes on that site are CNNP... on real info, and it's hard to tell one from the other since not all the pics are nice either.

[wyardley]

That's always been one of the big reasons I don't buy from skip4tea. Granted, there are some of the same problems with more traditional shops selling aged tea, but I think the consigment model has some problems, especially the way they're approaching it.

While I think they claim to do some appraisal / quality control (at least in certain circumstances) no one is infallible, and since the shop didn't buy the tea when it was new, they have mainly the seller's assurance that the tea is what they say it is.

[Drax]

Well, hey, I'm excited. If I enjoy the tea this much now when making it "weak,"...

I do not doubt that every skip4tea experience will be different. For my first try, I think it came out pretty well.

I don't recall if they actually tell you who the seller is (probably not). I think your "safest" bet would be to find a huge lot for sale, order one, try it out immediately and then determine whether or not to buy more from that same lot (and hope that it's still around that much later... thus the reason for picking a bigger lot and hoping for the best).

If you're in Malaysia and are near the place, they actually have a method for you to drop by and taste-test.

So hey, if you're in Malaysia, and are near this place, maybe you can charge a "tasting fee" for people to go test some teas and help people decide from there? Sort of like a sommelier...

The biggest benefit that I've seen from this place is for those of us who will never make it to China or some other decent tea shop, it provides ready access to a large variety of 'vintages' that I can't normally get.... and the prices are pretty good, too.

I will probably place another order some time later this year, maybe try for a tong of something in the 1995-1999 range to help build up some older stock... we shall see!

Personally, I think the business has the best incentive to make sure people get what they think they're getting -- and that is: repeat business! Positive experiences breed more business, etc. So I highly recommend that people who order from skip4tea continue to post their experiences... and we'll start to get a feel for how well this system really works.

[oldmanteapot]

If you're in Malaysia and are near the place, they actually have a method for you to drop by and taste-test.

So hey, if you're in Malaysia, and are near this place, maybe you can charge a "tasting fee" for people to go test some teas and help people decide from there? Sort of like a sommelier...

No one will pay for tea tasting. It customary that teashops offer you to sample their tea with compliments from the house. In Malaysia, we are allowed to sample any tea that is offered on sale on the shelves at no charge. If you know the owner or is a regular customer, they would even offer to share their "priced vintage" with you. For example, I just had a Vintage 1977 Sheng over lunch time yesterday, compliments of the shop.

The biggest benefit that I've seen from this place is for those of us who will never make it to China or some other decent tea shop, it provides ready access to a large variety of 'vintages' that I can't normally get.... and the prices are pretty good, too.

Pu stored in Malaysia are highly sort after because of the constant humidity and weather here.

Cheers!!

[xuancheng]

If you're in Malaysia and are near the place, they actually have a method for you to drop by and taste-test.

So hey, if you're in Malaysia, and are near this place, maybe you can charge a "tasting fee" for people to go test some teas and help people decide from there? Sort of like a sommelier...

No one will pay for tea tasting. It customary that teashops offer you to sample their tea with compliments from the house. In Malaysia, we are allowed to sample any tea that is offered on sale on the shelves at no charge.

What he meant was for example, I (xuancheng) want to buy an expensive lot of puer from skip4tea in Malaysia, and Drax happens to be going to Malaysia, I would ask him to sample the tea for me (and pay any expenses he happens to incur while tasting it.) Then, if it is good, Drax will advise me to buy the lot, or buy it for me and send it over.

Perhaps not a likely scenario, but highly tempting. I would certainly consider a trip to Malaysia if enough people wanted to pay my "Tasting expenses."