SOTD- sheng of the day

GN? · Mar 27, 2012

this morning 86 yi wu spring tips this is quite good. I wish I had some of that 80's loose old leaf from that was at houde. That I think would make for a mind blowing blend.

Shah to me the CNNP bore very little similarity to an 8582 aside from the leaf grade. I liked it, but personally I wouldn't spend the money on a dryer cake like that. They just sold out anyway. I think that the bada still needed time to breath from its trip. There is sometyhing hinky with that douji Bada.

GN? · Mar 29, 2012

Yesterday I finally got around to trying the mushu cha I might have been into it for $50 but not $70. Its to bad i'm a sucker for nice looking leaf and this certainly had that. It just didn't stay interesting long enough.
Today a sample 98 dong 7542 Wow this thing packs a serious huigan. for the first five or so infusions the huigan was very potent. The flavor is a little awkward being more dry stored than I would have imagined and still being in that transitory stage between becomingmore mellow. It's ashame I wish i had tryed this back when it was around two hundred dollars a cake.

shah8 · Mar 29, 2012

dong?

It does take a long time for a 7542 to be non-awkward. I've never really had 7542 with serious huigans, though.

Had a fabulous session with Nadacha Bangwei. Much more fully flavored and huigan-y than I usually get. No soapy florals, either.

EdoB · Mar 30, 2012

Yesterday's SOTD was the 2000 FuHai brick from Jing Tea Shop, from a sample. I very much enjoyed this tea. I bought the sample not knowing what to expect. It clearly has some signs of age but was definitely dry stored (of the HK or Taiwan variety I would guess, not of the Kunming variety). The tea was rather complex. It had some taste of age in the amber soup but it also had some smokiness, camphor?, and bittterness/astringecy, all in the right balance. The qi was rather strong although not overpowering. I prefer this to the 2003 brick recently at HouDe. I found this brick to be a bit smoother, less dry and there was something a bit better about the taste that is difficult to describe. A few days ago when the HouDe brick popped back up I tried it again and decided to pass again. After having this I decided to order a couple of bricks. I admit it isn't a cheap tea but the value is decent. It reminds me somewhat of the 2000 Kunming Lan Yin tie bing.

Today I had a sample of the 1995 Menghai cake from PurePuerh. It also seems to have been dry stored although the soup is medium brown. This tea has greater bitterness and astringency than the FuHai brick. For me, this tea would really require more age and/or more wet storage to be readily drinkable. I find it to be too bitter or rough.

P_K · Mar 30, 2012

06 Douji Organic Old Tree of Yiwu Shan -

Wood, dried fruit, a hint of camphor and some nice mature storage flavors makes for a very nice session.

grasshopper · Mar 31, 2012

EdoB said:
Yesterday's SOTD was the 2000 FuHai brick from Jing Tea Shop, from a sample. I very much enjoyed this tea. I bought the sample not knowing what to expect. It clearly has some signs of age but was definitely dry stored (of the HK or Taiwan variety I would guess, not of the Kunming variety). The tea was rather complex. It had some taste of age in the amber soup but it also had some smokiness, camphor?, and bittterness/astringecy, all in the right balance. The qi was rather strong although not overpowering. I prefer this to the 2003 brick recently at HouDe. I found this brick to be a bit smoother, less dry and there was something a bit better about the taste that is difficult to describe. A few days ago when the HouDe brick popped back up I tried it again and decided to pass again. After having this I decided to order a couple of bricks. I admit it isn't a cheap tea but the value is decent. It reminds me somewhat of the 2000 Kunming Lan Yin tie bing.

I very much concur with this description. I also bought a sample of the Jing brick and wondered for awhile today if I should buy a brick or two--despite that I have enough pu'er for this lifetime and the next. The Jing brick is indeed preferable to the HouDe brick. The Jing brick tastes cleaner, less musty.

Two weeks of air made all the difference for the Jing brick but did not rescue the HouDe brick.

A buddy into pu'er sourced an early nineties XG sheng tuo cha recently in Taiwan. I do not know its history. This tuo also benefited tremendously from airing. It is a strange beast: quite dark, almost black--apparently very wet-stored but no wet laundry or saddle blanket flavors.

So anyway tonight I am mixing the Jing brick and the dark sheng Taiwan tuo in equal parts--using a teapot I bought at Seb and Jing's maestro's teashop in Guangzhou. That teapot is a little large for my current taste, but I employ it tonight because I miss them, and I hope all is well in their world. I wish I could travel there again.

Seb and Jing taught me that a bit of sheng in with the shu is always good--no matter their ages. Old sheng and old shu at about 1:5 ratio can make a great blend.

Best to all--
~grasshopper

mosomoso · Apr 1, 2012

Makes sense, Grasshopper. I haven't done that blend for a while, but I have a crumbly old shu of Liming which is yum, but a bit of rip-up-the-middle from a pinch of sheng should make it even better. And, no, I'm not sure what rip-up-the-middle means - I just want some.

Regards to all drinkers of the raw

Rob

GN? · Apr 2, 2012

Today early morning with the Fuhai 90's 7532 not nearly as good as my last session. This tea needs more leaf to shine and I only had five grams left in my sample and tried to go with a 115ml pot . That ended up with a weak brew. Moved it down to my 75ml after round three and it was better but it had lost something. I felt the same way with the fu hai 99 yi wu. The first to times I tried it with my normal amount of leaf and was unimpressed. But when I bumped up the leaf I was really shocked by the difference.
also Yi Ru chang Flowing Water this is a wierd pu-erh. It has an strong frosty huigan. But it is has green tea like astringncy and no pu-erh chunkyness. I dont know how it will age but I likle it to drink now but you nevr know maybe it will fill out. Its really good to drink right now if you don't think of it as drinking a pu-erh and more as a green tea.

P_K · Apr 2, 2012

2010 Mangfei Mao Cha from Western Yunnan -

Freshly mowed field...herbal notes with some light smoke....not much else. Not doing much for me.....on to the next.

GN? · Apr 4, 2012

1996 purple dayi mmmmmmmm yummy I can still feel the cooling sensation in the back of my throat five minutes after I drank it. Dayi started off right. Yesterday pu-erh.sk Yibang still really good but not as mindblowing as my first session with it.

grasshopper · Apr 7, 2012

2011 Yunnan Sourcing Cha Qi Pu-erh Tea Cake. This came as a sample, and it is a pleasure to drink. Powerful, complex, and sweet flavor burst. Off we go on the Bulang Mustang!

EdoB · Apr 12, 2012

Quiet here lately! Well SOTD yesterday was the 2009 Mengku Certified Organic from a Nic Tang sample. This wasn't a bad tea - some decent mouthfeel, but rather light in taste. The qi was light and pleasant. At the YS price of $24 this might not be a bad choice for an everyday tea for those who like their tea light. However at the price of $59 at DTH, this seems rather overpriced but then again the DTH cake appears to have had more humid storage so perhaps it is better (but I don't think I will find out). See another, older review here: http://blog.polishwineguide.com/2010/12/20/2009-mengku-certified-organic/

I followed up with the 2011 YS Nan Po Zhai (2 km from Bing Dao in Mengku county). I have to say, this tea didn't do much for me (again). I didn't think it had much in the way of mouthfeel. The taste had some light sweetness and then became bitter quickly. I don't get the $70 price of this cake although I know there was a fan or two of this tea over on TC.

Today I had the 2010 XZH Lao Wu Shan Gu Cha. I am almost at the end of this sample. I find this tea to be lacking in mouthfeel and find it to be rather light in taste. As I have noted before, unlike the YS cakes and Nada's cakes I often find newly pressed XZH cakes to be ever so slightly oxidized (the soup is slightly orange, as opposed to pure yellow). This was true for this tea as well. And although I used more leaf than usual, I didn't notice any qi. At $95 I really don't get this tea either.

shah8 · Apr 12, 2012

Oh my, and I thought *I* would be the one to bump up this thread...

2011 Tea Urchin Spring Lao Man'E:

I don't really like Man'E teas that much, and while I enjoyed this tea, it also clarified my non-preference. This was a relatively dynamic tea over the course of the session, demostrating the blend of maocha that went into the bing. In the beginning, it had that kind of solid mushroom taste that you'd find in LBZ-to-Hekai area teas. Very light, slightly rough in the back of the mouth (but turns smooth quickly). Good thickness, and stayed thick for as long as I wanted to drink. Wasn't really fruity, and the tea can give off an odd burst of sulfer (but not bad). The third and fourth brews, while not tasting like it, is enjoyed as much as you would bittersweet chocolate. The early brews gave off very nice, complex, if light, perfume. The soup stays complex and bitter until about brew 7. The bitterness was nowhere near as nasty as what the HLH Ban'E could offer. Not anything remotely as nice as Mansai, and the Nadacha Bulang, while stronger in its bitterness, is also better-tasting. The cha-qi was okay. Not going to knock me over, and mostly warms. Caffeine feel to the head, and not especially narcotic. Good energy in the mouth early on, and later on, about after the 7th brew, starts behaving faintly like an LBZ with flavor transformations and cooling. Very little sweetness until very late, about 9-12th brews. Durability is at least 13, and probably a few more brews.

Lao Man'E, to me, is just not an especially pleasant tea. Very intellectual as well. Does hold the attention. However, I'd really rather drink a good Hekai for subtle drinking or ManNuo for LBZ style excitement. It's just not a very good sub for LBZ, or at least not any better than many Bulangs. At least it did a better job than that sample of Nadacha BanPen.

EdoB, I suspect both the Nanpozhai and the Mushucha will improve by increasing floral taste by this time next year. Of course, the cost is still unreasonable. Just not so much better than the YS '10 Yongde Da Xue Shan. As for Shuangjiang Mengku/Rongshi, don't buy anything later than '06.

As for all the other tea I've been drinking and haven't been commenting, I suppose all I can say is that I still love the Tai Lian, and the last of the tea I tinned was very broadly wood and masculine floral in a way that was very aromatic in the mouth. The 2001 HeShiHua Jingmai was very nice my second try as well, and it's a reasonably good value at $160 from SampleTea.

shah8 · Apr 12, 2012

I'm seeing recent comments in asian forums that Bingdao tea is now officially more expensive than Lao BanZhang. Not sure how credible that is, though.

EdoB · Apr 13, 2012

SOTD: 2003 Wistaria 青藤 (Chin-Tang) - Mengsong area? - this tea shows some signs of humid storage (it was at their shop until last summer) but not overdone. The soup is reasonably orange. Complexity was fairly low, no noticeable huigan, and fairly strong bitterness was generally present. I just noticed a touch of some qi near the end of the session.

GN? · Apr 15, 2012

I haven't been posting lately due to my lap top meeting it's demise at the hands of my two year old armed with a cup of juice.

Yesterday I had a face meltingly intense session with the Heng Li Chang eleven grams in a hundred ml pot pretty crazy for the first seven or so flash infusions. But it payed off after the Bitterness subsided.

This morning I started drinking the early 80,s sun yi shun liu an. It was really tasty but the qi was making me very sleepy. so I put that session on hold until tonite and got some young sheng to wake me up. I decided to see if the xzh yi wu lbz brick has woke up any. I am having the best session so far with my brick. The leaf is beautiful the brick is composed of only large fat hairy buds. The mouthfeel and hui gan are excellent. but it is still missing that up front flavor explosion that was present in my sample and not in the brick I received. At least I am no longer regretting the purchase.i feel that if this is given some more time it will really start to shine.

EdoB · Apr 15, 2012

SOTD: Had a fast session with Nada's (EoT) 2011 Nannuo - good mouthfeel and nice balance of some floral taste with good kuwei. Energizing qi. I wonder what the EoT lineup will bring this year (other than higher prices).

GN? - I should crack open my Golden brick as well. I have only had the sample. I've been wondering about this purchase as well.

GN? · Apr 15, 2012

Edob there is no doubt that this brick is made up of some top notch leaf. The sample I got was loaded with up front flavor but the brick I received had every thing but that burst of mushroom chocolate and cherry flavor that I got from the sample. I think it was not blended well or some time in my humidor has done allot of goodl? the session I had today was enough to make me roll the dice on a second brick. One left.

The Nannuo is my favorite of the 2011 EOT lineup, edging out the mannuo. The Mannuo like the golden"Brock" :wacko:

the cake did not seem to be as good as the sample.

shah8 · Apr 15, 2012

I don't plan to touch my Nannuo until later this fall and winter. Waiting for more floral elements to show up.

I didn't bother with samples of the Nada teas (tho' I almost did with Man Nuo). Therefore, I never had to deal with disappointment wrt samples. OTOH, samples tend to undersell, not oversell, in my book. Samples I have had with the XZH PuZhen and XiShangMeiShao (as well as XiShangJiaXi) all have fairly significant differences from the cakes, which I assume to result from different storage. I have to wonder whether if the issue is that the brick GN? has is a different batch generally from the brick broken up for sampling. Samples, in general, are a waste of time and money beyond figuring out whether you can trust a vendor or brand. A cake is a sample, and a tong is a cake, and that's really what there is to it. Makes fast sellouts and price rises very frustrating.

A little Yongxueshan this morning.

nff · Apr 16, 2012

menghai 69th aniversery. no pics of it because i did a video for a friend.
its still a bruiser of a being. after about 4-5 infusions my mouth went numb. ill finish it off later.
anyways its still astringant but nicely if not over infused. its a bit floral and it a bit smokey. im out of practice on my tea and i dident take any notes so excuse the lame discription.
im feeling a bit light headed.... maybe i should of eased myself back into tea instead of jumping straight into the hard stuff.

edit : im starting to notice the being ageing a bit now its got earthy tones woody even... and after a while it takes a almost sweet smoke almost hickory bbq sauce ish aftertaste