SOTD- sheng of the day

2011 Wan Bang Mei Lan Zhu Ju -

Primarily, this has a bean, grain/hay profile. Solid yellow soup. Subdued. Though I will say that the leaves are not wulonged or overly heated in the wok. Occasional floral note. Not bad for the very cheap price.

Had a great session with Nadacha '10 Man Mai. A well rounded sheng that does everything well. Especially that qi part, which plenty of more expensive teas don't have. Only thing that could be better is a more full bodied taste with more bottom registers, but I think that comes with humidity and age.

Douji 2012 Naka Shan - The only thing worth discussing with this tea is the price. I got a chunk off of a sample 100g mini-bing. The 357g cakes retail at something like 600 RMB (~ USD 100) The tea is good and solid, but not 100 damn dollars good. For a young puer to command that kind of price, it really needs to be something special. (see: 100 damn dollars good)

I liked Edob's :

Maybe I'm a puerh Philistine, in this term of the meaning: one uninformed in a special area of knowledge.

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Maybe I just don't see the true value of this young Naka? (And it should be noted, I am a really big Naka fan in general) But, more likely, this is just the aftermath of Chen Sheng Hao contracting out most of the Naka material - high high prices for good, but not great tea. Another note, after that contract came out, Douji raised their Naka prices across the board for all of their past productions. Cakes that were 290 RMB were suddenly 700 RMB. I am guessing at the numbers, but the rough concept is accurate.

I've had Naka, from Nada's '09 production. It's nice, but not that interesting to me. Does blend beautifully with Bangwei. I've also had a more dubious bamboo packed naka, which is also nice for what it is...

Anyways, if you're looking for more Naka, try:
http://www.royalpuer.com/Na-Ka-Gu-Shu-Bing-Cha.asp

while I look up this ChenSheng business.

The ChenSheng business is just what I have been told, as to why the Naka maocha prices were so high this year, and will continue to climb next year. According to my understanding, they have purchased a large amount of the crop, locking in a price for a large amount of tea from farmers. This reduces the amount of maocha that gets to the public market, driving up the price considerably. It is essentially the same thing they did with LBZ.

I also wanted the Naka tea for blending, rather than just Naka material. But, it is prohibitively expensive. But, it isn't just Naka...Douji's prices are getting further and further out of whack, imo. I still have a few other 2012 teas to try from Douji, but so far, I have been put off by the prices.

The last of my 2008 Menghai 7542 801 sample. Still yummy after all these years (OOHHHHHH). Still yummy after all these years.

06 Mengyang Guoyan Youle meets Nannuo -

Some signs of dry aging. A bit of mushroom, wood and camphor. Lingering finish. Good session.

2003 Yongpinhao tuocha. It be fine.

Hobbesoxon said:

2003 Yongpinhao tuocha. It be fine.

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I always found their sheng to be good, but weak.

I think that Yongpinhao 2001-2 (and some of 3) are quite awesome... But after that, not that great indeed (at least they tend to keep the prices reasonable).

My SotD is YS's Gaoshanzhai of 2012. It is not bad. On the other hand, when I saw the price, my jaw dropped. When I found out that the price is for 250g cake, an australian farmer discovered my jaw in his cellar. I know, all the premium cakes are expensive this year, but why to buy this young tea at all?

Drinking some Yieh Sheng now, but I wanted to bring to attention the fact that teatrekker is selling a couple of Douji and S. Mengku teas from 2009 at reasonable prices for Western norms of reasonable, when it comes to Douji and S. Mengku. Douji is rather overpriced here and there, for what are solid teas. S. Mengku teas, for some reason, tend to have very large differentials between taobao prices and western oriented shop prices.

http://www.teatrekker.com/teas/all/all/pu-erh-tea

Very good price indeed. I wonder how many cakes they have to sell?

http://shop64414099.taobao.com/sear...J+rLoz7XB0A==&checkedRange=true&queryType=cat

I notice some of the older TB shops selling Douji no longer trading and they are replaced by a lot of smaller shops selling a few here and there.

Now I'm drinking Scott's Lao Man'E from 2009. Not too memorable. It has its moments, but it's hardly groundbreaking.

2010 EoT Bangwei -

Mown field turns into layers of herbs and transitions into a bit of fruit. Later infusions include butter and grain. No smoke appearing in this session. Yum.

apache said:

I notice some of the older TB shops selling Douji no longer trading and they are replaced by a lot of smaller shops selling a few here and there.

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This seems to be the trend. I have had a few of their 2012 teas, and the prices seem pretty....ambitious. I could understand why most of the TB sellers are looking elsewhere. That shops you posted seems more the exception than the rule.

SOTD: 2002 Dayi 7542 (201) Qing Bing - The aging seems like it hasn't taken off as much of the edge as you would expect for 10 years. It's fairly smooth, a little uneventful.

Had the Tai Lian--got more of a Bingdao experience...

TwoDog2, find the *special production* teas from early 2k Dayi. Your simplified yuns (the normal CNNP green mark version seems to be the desired one), your 7542-208, Gold/Silver Dayi 301...That sort of thing. The normal ones are fine, but...

TwoDog2 said:

This seems to be the trend. I have had a few of their 2012 teas, and the prices seem pretty....ambitious. I could understand why most of the TB sellers are looking elsewhere. That shops you posted seems more the exception than the rule. ...

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That TB shop I posted means just to show the price of that two Douji cakes in China, most other shops don't have that many different types of Douji cakes to sell.

shah8 said:

The normal ones are fine, but...

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but.....boring as hell? haha

I snagged a sample of it from someone, and the cake was reasonably priced. After drinking the tea, i see where the price came from.


SOTD: An unlabeled tea from a friend in Shanghai - I haven't asked what year it is from, or where it is from, so it made for a fun guessing game. There was some savory smokeyness in the beginning, a strong huigan throughout ten steeps, particularly strong in the middle of the session. Some pleasant kuwei, and a creamyness that arrived at the end. It puttered out around steep 10, but it was interesting enough to keep me involved. He just wrote "zi zhi" （自制 - self selected? homemade? ） on the packet and nothing else. Well. Alright, then.

2006 Douji Dayeqingbing. The first cake that I bought in serious quantity (tong+), from Maliandao, and it's aging very nicely, having spent its whole life in England. I enjoyed its dense sweetness, and the particular "sweet straw" sub-genre of Yiwu tea, into which this cake falls, always appeals to me. A most encouraging tea session - this cake was "asleep" in January of last year, and seems to have woken into something sweet and long, 1.5 years later.


Toodlepip,

Hobbes

Changtai 2005 Peak of the Cloud. Very nice!