pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou

2017 Rock Rhyme Lincang Bangdong by gylxtea
Starting this out with an 8 gram sample. The dry leaf has a nice sweet aroma to it.
Using the duanni clay pot. I warmed the pot and poured the water out and tossed in the leaves. Aroma get sweeter in the steam.
Flash rinse and the aroma intensifies with more of the sweet aroma with some honey in there. First steep very quick into the cup. The teas seems well processed as there wasn’t much char in the filter. First sips, sweet , floral , honey in there some mineral and some middle tongue notes.
Second steep, tea gets much thicker and active. Still the underlying sweetness. The bitter has crept in which means shorter steeps as I continue.
I paused a few minutes to soak in. Aftertaste is pretty nice on this one.
Third steep, still strength in this one. Sweet and bitter mixing in. A little of the mineral slips back in as well. Still clean in the filter and the leaf is slowly starting to unfurl.

Flavors: Bitter, Floral, Honey, Mineral, Sweet, Thick

i like sheng pu-erh. I tried sheng pu-erh when i visited Yunan, China last year. Very fresh, and strong sweet after it drunk. But the price always higher than any other teas.

2016 Menghai Dayi Chun Pin (upgraded 7572)
I just posted my tasting notes.

https://steepster.com/teas/menghai-dayi-tea-factory/79505-2016-menghai-dayi-chun-pin-upgraded-7572

“Mystery” tea today. I’m house sitting, and pulled out a sample bag I had packed and stained my memory to try and remember out what I had put in it. The sniff test wasn’t too helpful, likely strained by the fact that the nefei of the original sample was still in there stinking it up. I decided to have a go at it anyways, making a guess of 2010 Nanjian (definitely raw).

The tea was having the darnedest time of opening up, my usual in-and-out infusion times for puer were looking quite inadequate. Many infusions later it hit me that I had put the 2015 Green Shroom from W2T in the bag; which I had steamed open over a year ago. The taste wouldn’t have given away, this tea has lost a lot of its greeness, brutality, and aroma due to being steamed open. It’s nice, but part of me misses the younger version.

Not much action around here lately.

I have a jar labelled ‘BTTC 7542’ but am pretty sure it’s really the ‘92 ’Mei Shu Zi,’ gonna drink some now.

At the World Tea Expo, we had an opportunity to attend a tasting of “Best Dark Teas.” We were given two poker chips to place in containers to vote for the two we liked best. The best puerh entry for me was a “wild shou” sold by a Japanese company called Ito En. This loose leaf tea tasted like it had some age, and had that “old book” flavor to the storage. The young man serving it could not answer any questions about the age or origin of the tea. The tea is sold out on the website.

I felt a little odd placing a poker chip in for a Japanese company with a sourced puerh but it was good enough to deserve the vote. The only other puerh served was a Pistachio flavored puerh and no way, I was not going to drink that. So I returned one unspent poker chip.

Today I drank a classic blend the 2017 Menghai 7572 and it was good. No fishy taste or unpleasant taste to the fermentation. Because they don’t release their ripe right away it did not have that just fermented taste. It was nice and sweet.

Today (and the last few days) I’ve been drinking 2014 Haiwan 908 shu pu’erh. Found it pleasant though simple and logged my impressions.

https://steepster.com/teas/haiwan-tea-factory-hai-wan-cha-han/75966-2014-haiwan-recipe-908-ripe-pu-erh

A few interesting teas of late:

2005 Naka from W2T. My fourth go at this one, and while I like it, especially in how much it coats the throat, I don’t get the special qi I’ve seen this rumored to have.

2013 Manzhuan from pu-erh.sk. My second go on this one, and oddly I remember more qi from the first time I had this with only 7g. With 10g it just had too much enema effect. Good tea.

2016 Yi Mei Ren (sp?) Wuliang Black from YS. This is a puer varietal, that is listed as a black, but has somewhat of a lighter oolong vibe to it. It’s good and cheap, and I can see myself getting more. Energizing and tasty.

2007 Dayi Adorned in Red Shu. Another nice value tea. This is full in the mouth in an interesting way, almost as if you’re drinking a ball or something. I’m not sure where my sample was sourced from, but I can see myself snagging a couple of these from YS. I think I prefer this to the 2007 GNWL.

Actual tea of today was 2017 Mengsong Gushu from the W2T club. This tea is thick and juicy, with a bit of nice feels to it. Sadly, it can’t match up to my memory of the 2016 Mengsong from W2T, which I thought was really special. Or even the Baked Dingo, for that matter.

2012 Bada from pu-erh.sk. Compared to the ‘13 Bada, both of which were recently aquired from the site. Most obvious at first, both in aroma and flavor, is less of a humid character than the ’13. Could also have been less of a “fermenting” flavor perhaps, but my first thought was ’less humid’. A good thing for drinking now, but less ideal for Western storage. Same with the energy. This tea hit less upfront than the ‘13, but hit plenty hard all the same, just with a bit of delay. Another ’better for drinking now than aging’ attribute. Plenty of activity at the top of the throat. A cake of this is not cheap, but it sure is tempting.