SOTD- sheng of the day

I started drinking some mini-tuochas instead of my usual greens/whites at work, but after reading though a lot of this thread I made my first good pu-erh order. It included a proper Day Yi Gaiwan and cups, a bamboo table and some sheng and shu.

I hope I made some good choices for Pu and accesories, let me know what you think

2008 King of Bulang Ripe Puerh 357g
2008 Xiaguan FT Baoyan "Mushroom Tuo" Raw Pu-erh tea -250g
2008 Xiaguan FT "Happy Tuo" Raw Puerh Tea in box -100g
2008 Menghai V93 Premium Ripe Puerh Tuo -100g
2009 Menghai Day Yi Gong Tuo Ripe Puerh Tea -100g
Raw Puerh Sampler:
2008 Menghai 8582 25g
2008 Menghai 7542 25g
2008 Menghai 7532 25g
2008 Xiaguan Exquisite Elegance 25g
2008 Xiaguan Yun Mei 25g

Day Yi 125ml Gaiwan and 6 Day Yi 40ml cups
Sharing Pitcher and Strainer
Medium Bamboo Table

I ordered from Jas-e-tea as he is also a B&B member

Can't go wrong with the bao yan. I have been thinking about picking up the 02 mushroom that Steve has.

Yesterday I brewed the EOT Nannuo and Mannuo side by side wow the Mannuo didn't even compare to the Nannuo. I am sort of bothered by this because I ordered two separate samples of Mannuo and remember both being stellar. Oh well I got the cake for free and it is good so either way im happy.
Sunsing 99 yiwu .the tea started off very sour. It was not very pleasant to drink. But I am glad I stuck with it.the sourness faded to the background and finally disappeared after several infusions. This ended up being a pretty Good tea. Although I would probably prefer the 99 fu hai yiwu ye sheng or the 01Jin Chang hao? This tea does have highlights and I think will improve allot more as it settles into maturity. The most noticable thing was the qi fog on almost ever infusion.swirling around the cup and not disappearing until sometimes more than half the cup had been drunk.

ChrisD said:

I started drinking some mini-tuochas instead of my usual greens/whites at work, but after reading though a lot of this thread I made my first good pu-erh order. It included a proper Day Yi Gaiwan and cups, a bamboo table and some sheng and shu.

I hope I made some good choices for Pu and accesories, let me know what you think

2008 King of Bulang Ripe Puerh 357g
2008 Xiaguan FT Baoyan "Mushroom Tuo" Raw Pu-erh tea -250g
2008 Xiaguan FT "Happy Tuo" Raw Puerh Tea in box -100g
2008 Menghai V93 Premium Ripe Puerh Tuo -100g
2009 Menghai Day Yi Gong Tuo Ripe Puerh Tea -100g
Raw Puerh Sampler:
2008 Menghai 8582 25g
2008 Menghai 7542 25g
2008 Menghai 7532 25g
2008 Xiaguan Exquisite Elegance 25g
2008 Xiaguan Yun Mei 25g

Day Yi 125ml Gaiwan and 6 Day Yi 40ml cups
Sharing Pitcher and Strainer
Medium Bamboo Table

I ordered from Jas-e-tea as he is also a B&B member

Click to expand...

That's a terrific order.

GN?, what's the difference between the Mannuo cakes and Mannuo samples? Why is the Nannuo so much better? Ultimately, it doesn't matter to me as that I have two of both. Also, grams/ml? Thinking of that facemelting session of HLChang.

Trying to conserve good tea by drinking '06 Sunsing "yiwu" brick. Tolerable, sorta.

GN? said:

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

Click to expand...

GN? - Ok, you made me tear apart the beautiful packaging to get at the Golden Brick. They didn't make it easy to open that thing. As for the tea, hmmmm....I thought this was a solid tea, with strong bass note flavors. To me the soup was slightly orange and had what I am now beginning to think of as a signature XZH taste although many of their teas (2007 Yiwu, 2009 Jingmai) taste much like greener puerh. I liked this more than the 2010 offerings that HouDe offered but not yet convinced that this is worth the price. I will say though that it is a beautiful brick where the compression has not been too great and you can see many whole good-size leaves.
Now, what about your latest session made you decide it was worth picking up another brick?
Thanks!

2011 YS Wuliang -

Bean, herbs and melon....perhaps a little grassiness. Yum.

Tried a blend of Dayi Highland Bada tuo 4.8g + Sunsing Dayi Bada 1.6g. Hongcha vs Wetcha. Didn't work out so well, and they sorta clashed.

Working on the theory that the 2002 Tai Lian International is a factory blend (like 7542 or 7532) with a mostly Lincang leaf (most of it is Xigui or something like it, then a handful of Bingdao/B area, and perhaps a little Snowy Mountains) with Jingmai tips. I came to this stage because 7 Cups has a 2005 cake with a wrapper that looks like the 2003 YS TL Jingmai. The description sez that it's mostly Tian Jin Lincang (size 3 to 7) with Jingmai tips. Tian Jin could be Tian Xi, which looks to be an area proper designation, like zhengshan. Full of conjecture, and probably wrong, but conjecture's fun, especially when you prove something illogical, logical.

Wandering around this hypothesis also leads me to believe that people just didn't have a great idea of what is actually Bingdao or Xigui or whatever until very recently. People said that merchants used to fake LBZ with Bingdao leaves, and well--that can't be it. Bingdao is much more like, say, a Yangta Jing Gu than LBZ, and it would have to be someone very inexperienced to fall for that. Xigui, on the other hand, has the huigans, it sorta has the fragrance, and it has a bit firmer mushroom body. Then there are all the other teas that are labeled as Bingdao. I strongly suspect that tea Nada gave me is actually a Ben Nuo, because Ben Nuo are said to have rose elements, and Nada's tea certainly was rose-y.

Today I had some Mandala Tea 2011 Silver Buds Raw Puerh
http://shopmandalatea.com/raw-pu-er-tea/250-gram-mandala-silver-buds-raw-2011.html

Brewed in a small ceramic teapot with 208 degree filtered water. 15s, 10s, 7s, 15s, 30s, 60s, 90s, 75s

This tea has a strong cha chi, and the flavor can almost be described as sour with a sweet aftertaste. It got bitter on the 90s infusion, but regained its composure when i Brought it down to a 75s infusion for the last cup.

I thought it was a very good tea, and certainly did wake me up and make my feel energized. Not sure if I would purchase again because there are so many other teas that I want to experiment with, but it definetely is pretty good. Will try the 2008 sample that I have later.

Today was SE Memorial, grabbed some of the top layer stuff, got a good session dominated by good Jing Gu. Obviously, the other Menhai, Bulang leaf is crap leaf, only good for preventing boring sessions.

Yesterday was Tai Lian. Was very thick and silky, and I found more of those very large leaves than I usually find in the used leaf pile, after 15+ brews.

Not a Sheng, but today I am brewing up some Shu

2008 King of Bulang
http://shopmandalatea.com/ripe-pu-er/cakes-bricks/357-gram-king-of-bu-lang-2008.html

This cake was reccomended to me at the local shop when I asked for a good starter Pu-erh. He said it was a good step up from the mini-tuo's, and it already had a few years of age so it should be ready for drinking.

Brewed this one up in a small porcelain teapot with 208 degree water. only on infusion #3: 15s, 7s, 15s

This one brews up nice and dark, looks like a rich coffee:

Tastes fainlty of fermentation, has a thick mouthfeel, and a pleasant almost sweet/savory aftertaste, a little bitterness. Not very high on the cha chi scale, but a calming tea for sure. I chose to brew it today instead of a sheng sample, because I went to the pizza buffet for lunch and was hoping this would help with digestion.

I think I may have put too much leaf in the pot today, I may try to add more water and lessen the infusin times. This one is usually a little more sweet, and a little less bitter. Still getting the hang of brewing sheng/shu rather than the whites and greens I used to prefer.


EDIT:
After further infusions with more water and shorter steeping times, this one is starting to have a mouth covering sweetness that covers the whole tounge, and I'm definetely experiencing some energizing cha chi, which is good because the SWMBO says im on cooking duty tonight for dinner

SOTD: Had the 2009 XZH Golden Brick again. Heavy taste, no highlights. Not a bad tea. I had too many other teas to know where any qi came from....

Shah- that Heng Li Chang I broke off 10 grams plus probably a gram or two off wrapper dust in a 115 ml pot.

Edob- I have had ver mixed experiences with this tea ranging from spectacular to blah. Every session I had with the sample was spectacular my brick has been less so. I tried it again the other day and it was another good session but the first four times I tried it I had hard time beliving it was the same tea as my sample. it was just kinda bitter and uninteresting but the last two sessions i could pick up on lbz flavor with some good yiwu mouthfeel. The last two sessions have reminded me of the 05 YQH yi wu. Not necessarilly in flavor but more in the way the tea behaves. Having little upfront flavor but good mouthfeel drops and aftertaste.
Today 1995 Small tickett 7542 from sunsing.This tea is not labeled as a shui lan yin but it looks like one. I was expecting this to be much wetter given the description of three wateR drops but it really is not bad. The storage flavor only is a little off in the first infusion. There is allot going on but the main theme would be camphor taste and a milky hot cocoa aroma. There is a nice cooling hui gan though not as intense as the 98 dong 7542. If those two teas where the same price I would purchase this one the flavor seems a little more dynamic. But since there is over a hundred dollar price difference I would grab the 98. The joys of the 7542.

SOTD: A 2006 Spring Xikong from Tea Urchin (sample) - Tthis tea showed some age in the appearance of the leaf and the soup. It had very little fragrance/aroma. The taste was understated with some underlying fruitiness balanced by some bitterness. There was a slight hint of the maple syrup flavor that was in the YS autumn Xikong. The qi was light and pleasant.

In the TeaUrchin column that refers to the Xikong, it's explicitly stated that the gushu Xikong is much less fragrant, but also less bitter than Tai Di Xikong. So I kinda scratched my head... I'm also thinking about Nada's Naka '09, whether that's simply very good taidi cha or gushu (because if I accept public narrative, Naka, like Bingdao, Mansong, and all those other uber places, has very small acreage of the good stuff). The YS Xikong is relatively fragrant and can be very bitter. On the other hand, unlike the Taidi Xikong in the blogpost, it's pretty smooth--smoother than most young Yibangs on offer, and goes down nicely. Makes me just throw up my hands and say, hey is that a good cup of tea? It is? Then it's good!

Samples really need to be cheaper so people can figure what's what, without any labels like gushu or organic, or "from famous place!"

My tea of the day was YS '09 Dong Fang Bu Bai, which is Man Mu Zhai Bulang tea. It's huskyfied, and there is a consequential strong camphor scent and into taste, derived from the smoking and processing. The flavors are muted, with some things going on, huigans and all that. Some cups are very cooling. A touch of qi. Struggles with sourness and dryness. It's not tremendously different, actually, from the Yangpinhao sample that Sampletea is giving out. Stronger complex flavors and aftertastes, but the Yangpinhao has about the same, maybe a bit more qi, better textured thickness, and is generally consistently pleasant. This Man Mu should age alright, but it's a tragedy. You just don't do this kind of thing to decent single estate leaf!

Got an email conformation today that my order from Jas-E-Tea is on the way, so soon I will have lots of good puerh to sample.

But for today I finished off my sample of 2008 Silver Buds Puerh from Mandala Tea
http://shopmandalatea.com/raw-pu-er-tea/250-gram-mandalawinona-silver-buds-raw-2008.html

208 degree filetered water in a small porcelain teapot.

10s rinse

7s first infusion:
-light butterscotch color
-fragrance slightly smokey
-no bitterness, slightly smokey taste. lingering pleasant hui gan type aftertaste.

10s second infusion"
-a little darker color
-more smokey flavor, and slightly sour
-reminisicent of a really light lapsang souchon

15s third infusion
-color darker still
-definetely smokier

Chai qi is moderate, and slightly uplifting. Interested to see how this one keeps going through the remaining contents of my 1.7 liter water kettle. So far, I would probably not buy this one again, it is lacking any real sweetness or astringincy, jut a strong smoky flavor, with little to moderate chai qi.

Tonights brew is a 2007 Lao Cang Mini-Tuocha
http://shopmandalatea.com/ripe-pu-er/mini-tuocha/2007-lao-cang-ripe-mini-tuo.html

Definetely nothing to write home about, but pretty tasty nonetheless

I would buy more of these, but i'm on to purchasing bings, and tuo's from now on


Going to steep up the rest on the morning and load up my coffee mug with it on my way out the door

ok 7532 802 time i'v had it since 2010 and never touched it untill yesterday



one 10s rinse.


first infusion: 95c 10s: light astringancy slightly smokey with vegital notes.


2nd 10s: medium astringantcy with wood and smoke notes.


3rd 15s: less astringant woody verry dry mouthfeel


4th 20s: astringant but *notes un-readable*


5th: 30s: woody earthy


6th 45s: same as above.

7th 1m: light flavor


8th 1:30s: longer needed

9th 2:30s: woody but needs longer.


10th 5 min : thats all i can milk out of it.

I still have a few bings of the 7532 <801> and it's one of my favorites.

SOTD: Puersom 2008 Spring HeKai. I think this cake sat in Jinghong before its trip to me; it shows some age and is fairly brown but doesn't have any damp storage taste at all. The soup was rather orange and the taste was really rather light with just a bit of underlying fruitiness and the occasional hint of huigan. I find the recent vintage HeKai to be rather light and sweet and have wondered (doubted???) how well it might age. The qi was rather light but present. This is ok as an everyday tea but not that interesting.

I really like your gaiwan nff. I've got the same one, with 6 matching Dayi 40ml cups, on the way from Jas-E-Tea. Seems like the perfect, standard, 125ml Gaiwan.