SOTD- sheng of the day

Sheng of the day today was gift set sheng. Only thing unusual (besides being great) was that much of the cooling sensation got to my nose, and it was cold at my desk, so...

I did some idle searching for where this Pu Zheng tea could be sourced from. My current unwarranted speculation is that it's not actually from Si Mao (Pu Erh), but from Ji Liang county to the north. I made the judgement because there are other place names that are similar to DaShiSi--Naxi type name, I gather. It's incredibly difficult to keep place names and administrative counties and prefectures names in context. I mean, I associated wuliang as a subset of jinggu tea, which wouldn't be right, as those buds are pretty far north close to the original 6ftms. The bamboo mountain teas are from Nin'ger county but not mojiang county closest to the Yiwu area even though we think of them as Yiwu outlier teas. Some of these places seem really far from one another...Luxi in Dehong is really far away from Guafengzhai, for example...

maps are fun, and I'm pretty sure I'm wrong about Li Jiang, but hell, it sounds like a great place to visit as a tourist so...

Sheng of the day was '10 YS Bangdong. There was less oxidised leaf and more whole leaf in this part of the sample, so I got a fairly green and more roughly pungent tea. It was alright, but it seems pretty clear to me so far than the Yongxueshan is more expensive for a reason.

Speaking of YS pu'er, I notice that my bookmarks menu will not open eBay's Yunnan Sourcing. Scott's Yunnan Sourcing Global Online Store (the non-eBay site) DOES open. I'll be interested to learn whether he's rearranging or has made a permanent change. I've a sufficiency of sheng, and I'm pu'er-poor, so I've not been Scott's best customer for a year or even more now. Still, his business is iconic, he's always been attentive and friendly, and I hope all's well with him. ~grasshopper

2010 EoT - Bangwai

Fantastic and pure. Can't go wrong.

SotD: 2007 XZH Yiwu Chawang. Much better than the last time. I remember now that this is a blend, and my set of leaves can vary. Not especially sweet, but not tannic, and more importantly, much deeper and balanced taste of wood and young yiwu taste, with some good back-mouth action. A very slight touch of sour, mostly adds depth to the taste. This stuff really isn't quite worth the cash, but this is a very decent Yiwu. I'm not going to buy it, but I am curious about the HLH fall Yi Chan Mo. That one is $89 at YS, and if it's genuinely in elite class, might well be worth a flyer for that fall discount.

Yeah, I think I will not be buying any more cakes for a long while. Just too many impulsive purchases this year. Next year will be getting seconds of XZH and Nada 2011 should he produce any.

2004 Yiwu Mahei acquired through TBF. Mellow and woody. A nice, easy going, yummy puerh ! Will look forward to visiting this one again!

Hmm, I guess I have enough spare tea for box passes these days...

Hou De is not listing the 2007 fall Pu Zheng anymore. I really hope that's just some churning and not someone buying 10 bings at once. Was counting on being able to buy that spare for aging later on...

SotD: '10 YS Gedeng. Initial brews was a mix of Bulang grain, egg/milk umami, and a back-mouth berry taste for a very muesli experience. The tea transitions to a more Youle experience. The liquer is very nice and thick. Going by all the reading I've been doing about puerh, this tea is slightly wokked too high. Some green tea astringency showing up at about round 3 and green tea dies with a scream of drying roughness at about 5. Tea dies at about 7. I think this is interesting tea, but I probably would not buy this tea over even 07 XZH division C teas like the longfeng and 7542. $19, in hindsight and in the spotlight, is rather expensive for what this 250gm bing is, if you have the option of Nada's '10 selection. Much like the Youle, this makes me wonder about how good a premium leaf bing would be for me.

Today I had 2 pu. I found some bits of YS samples that I thought were gone so Beta and Delta went straight down the hatch. I have just a touch of Epsilon remaining so that'll go tomorrow.

arghblech said:

Today I had 2 pu. I found some bits of YS samples that I thought were gone so Beta and Delta went straight down the hatch. I have just a touch of Epsilon remaining so that'll go tomorrow.

Click to expand...

Sounds very experimental. Was the result tasty ?

tieguanyin said:

Sounds very experimental. Was the result tasty ?

Click to expand...

I didn't mix them. I thought about it, though. I just did two shorter sessions.

Today I'm drinking Epsilon.

I had a sample fragment left of the xzh dinjinnuer, so I added some xzh dxs maocha to top it off to 7 gms. It wasn't all that great, but I think it was a really good way to compare teas. It's not that hard to tell the two contributions apart, and it's easier to feel flaws that you may or may not tolerate than two brews from seperate gaiwans.

I think the DXS maocha has gotten much more sour and bitter than when I first opened the bag. It seems to take a great deal of brews before it was really ok to drink. I think maocha, like the Nannuo and the Lincang are mostly rejects that are still mostly okay. The dinjinnuer did not respond very well to me trying to dodge the other component's badness. Early round's chaqi was pretty leveling though. Could barely think straight and the whole body was puddly. Another nice effect was incense huigan in one of the flash brews.

901 7542... mostly broken bits that I'd picked over many times before. I drank it so I wouldn't feel guilty throwing out the bag I have a tong of this tea set aside and a spare cake that I drink from every so often. Pretty solid session but I really wasn't paying all that much attention.

Got my cakes of the '07 DinJinNuer in, and dived into my Jingmei Tang Bulang sample. Brewed what was loose, so it was a mixture of leaf and fannings.

The results are:

1) This is a bulang that's supposed to stimulate Banzhang to some extent. It does not taste as banzhangy as Ban Pen or Jie Lang does, but there is a distinctive Banzhang tint to it.

2) Given its age, I think it's roughly as powerful as Nada's bulang. Endurance is not as good, about 11 brews or so. Enough to be said to be worth storing, I guess. I did not get much in the way of huigan--this tea is far more like the '06 XZH brick or Nada's Mansai in that lasting aftertastes and yun is the big part of the appeal. It's somewhat tastier than Nada's bulang. There is a dose of sour, but the main issue is that this tea is far more astringent than it needs to be, and is unpleasantly drying of mouth.

3) Really is just too expensive for what it is. The '03 Menghai Bulang and the '06 XZH menghai brick are both superior options at similar or lower price per gram. Moreover, if I wanted something with potency, sourness, and roughness, the '09 XZH Jingmai is a vastly better product with those flaws, for a few extra dollars--it really is quite tasty, and aging the roughness away should lead to something very nice.

It doesn't help matters when the black tea that got thrown in, Xiao-Yeh, was a markedly better gong-fu experience. Very sour for a tea, but pretty bleepin' awesome despite that. Brewed it close to 20 times now, actually. Could have brewed it more. While it was sour, it had extreme complexity of flavors, had sweet and very lasting aftertastes, got qi, great mouthfeel, and no bitterness. As the leaves are as robust as pu-leaves, I'm thinking that this is a prime canidate for aging.

'06 ODB tonight... Sweet earthiness with a touch of smoke make this tea very enjoyable on a cold night. I will have to get some more if my stash is to last the winter.

2006 Yiwu from Mandarin's Tea Room - a fine puerh indeed.

I tried the JMT bulang again, with a proper chunk. Really tasty, but still leaves you with persimmon-mouth until late in the session.

I tried Nada's Bulang. It was very much like JMT, so at least I can surmise that it's from Guang Bien Lao Zhai, or somewheres close by. It's smoother, more bitter and more prone to huigan. The JMT is a bit more complex and mellow and more astringent. Wrestling with this tea didn't make me very happy, so I decided to break off a chunk of the '06 XZH brick and it turned out to be extremely sweet, like diabetic-shock-if-you-add-sugar sweet. Lasted much longer than last time, 20+ rounds. I'm happy now.

It does make me think that bulangs of this nature are getting extremely overpriced these days. Anyways, cruising around the stores, checking the likely suspects, it looks like Jas-eteas has the last 6 unsold Douji Banzhang Wild Arbor. Haven't seen any interesting 2010 Douji single estate material. If the prices of the JMT isn't a shoeshine-boy-with-stock-tips thing, I suggest that those of you without a good banzhang and is thinking about getting some should decide soon. Dragon Teahouse sells the 75gm brick form for $25, and Zhimingdu sells those 100gm bings for $37 so...

Last two days has been Tai Lian commemorative bing '02. The cake isn't well blended and the bing doesn't hold together that well, but the leaves are rather tasty. May do another round tomorrow since I have some leftovers of the debris crumbs I took out.

Today was Ding Jia Zhai ZhenSiLong '09. Yiwu, at least of the very young sort, just isn't my thing. Maybe I need to level up on the quality or something. It had some nice flavors and all that, but it wasn't much more than an interesting tasting green tea with big flaws. Weak aftertaste, little throatiness, no qi. Did last longer than 7 brews at least.

I had some of Imen's Gold Tip Dian Hong, and that was a revelation. Yunnan black tea really does age well for at least a year, doesn't it? It was also a revelation in terms of price. I bought it for $22 for 100gms. That's almost 30 servings. Roughly about 76 cents a serving. A 250g xiaobing only has 35 servings--I use 3.5g for blacks and 7g for puerh. In general, if I'm paying about $24/100g ratio or better, I'm getting really freakin' good black tea, and if I get large-leafed black tea, like those from Houde or a Yunnan something, I get stuff that will age at least like shu/oolong. Paying more than $20 for a 250g bing is a really big flashing light for me now. The tea has to be good, as in genuinely good, and not promissy kind of good. A puer can't be more than about 12 cents a gram without having to be good right now or have reasonable expectations of goodness, because there are genuinely good alternatives for me in terms of black tea.

I had a horrible experience with using Nestle bottled water for ZSL '09 Guafengzhai. After a prolonged tortuous session in which I hoped things got better, I ignored my kidneys and did a very nice, pleasant session with my Bada. Tasted like a normal Bada too, none of that marshmallow and lavender stuff. Maybe I have to leave out the leaves for a couple of weeks to get it. Anyways, it lasted longer too.