pu-erh of the day. Sheng or Shou
I’ve been binging on 2014 Qing Mei Shan for the past few days. I’m using a double glass infuser to make the tea so I overleaf to make it last a few days. This is one of my favorite teas ever, this version is developing more depth as it ages, the dried fruits with honey is more like dark dried fruit and maple-y (reminds me of man zhuan notes at times); the mushroom notes are turning more woody and grain like; there’s a bit of spiciness to it that feeds into the camphor sensation. There’s more complexity to it, but I can’t describe it right now. I should take a shot at it at home with a gaiwan.
Today’s was a 2012 Yunnan Sourcing Zhu Peng Zhai in a 60ml gaiwan. Just starting to try sheng, but this is certainly interesting and good. I definitely have a while to go with samples before I can really say what I’m talking about but this will be a fun journey.
2008 Ming Jing (YouLe) from Chen Yuan Hao (Sheng Olympiad sponsor box). This tea needs a couple more years before it would be 100% ready to drink. The dry storage is nice, I just can’t help wishing it had been a touch more humid. That, or perhaps the tea would go down a bit easier after it had some time to rest from shipping. Anyways, I liked it: full in the mouth, active, long aftertaste, tasty.
Today I went for my oldest sample, 2005 Mengku Wild Arbor “Zheng Shan Da Ye” Raw. This is exceptionally good, amd has really interesting tasting notes. I’m getting a lot of tobacco flavors, but good ones, not like the smoking section of a casino. There’s some earthy flavors too. I’m not the best at describing flavors yet, but I’m inclined to pick up a cake. It has a nice and creamy mouthfeel.
I’ve had that one in my daily rotation a couple of times. I decided it has potential to be something I’ll really like in maybe another 5 years or so and got a couple of more cakes.
I’m definitely buying a whole cake, and it tastes so good now it would be interesting to see what it tastes like in 5 years.
Started a session with a 2014 Haiwan 908. Seems like a good basic shou, no off flavors or fermentation notes. Not too strong, so next time I’ll push it longer for time to see what that is like. Didn’t finish the session, will do that tomorrow.
2010 Menghai V93 today, shou for those who are not familiar with it. This is a very nice shou with a completely different flavor that I’m used to shou having, my guess is due to the age. I let this air out for a week and the tuo still smells funky but this tasted great. Kinda sweet and malty and chocolatey or something like that. I’m impressed for the price, especially since it is inexpensive and easy to get older tuos for a good price.
Went to a lovely pop-up tea event tonight, and tried a bunch of tasty stuff! It was focused on white2tea’s 2015 Poundcake, which was nice, but we also tried their 2016 Tyler, which I liked better. Juicy stonefruit sweetness lodged deep in the throat. Finally got to try White Whale too, which was slightly smoky and pleasantly mulchy, and someone brought some older non-w2t sheng that was even danker and tasted kinda like oily dirty raw potato but in a good way.
Today was a 2012 Yunnan Sourcing “Yi Dian Hong” ripe. This is pretty nice and made of much nicer leaves than big factory shou, also not as tightly compressed. Lots of tasty flavors and nothing funky so it is a winner in my book. Lasted through lots of steeps too.
This morning I had the 2008 V93 Dayi ripe tuo. Though I am a Dayi Ripe lover, I hadn’t tried a V93 until today! I just ordered a tong of the 2010 version from King Tea Mall since it has been reviewed so well. Then I was going through my stash this weekend, and lo and behold, I found a 2008 tuo! It was probably acquired from Mandala or Yunnan Sourcing several years ago. So I was excited to try it. However, I was disappointed. I might just have a bad tuo, but it tastes very astringent and lacks good flavor, and maybe has a bad aftertaste as well. Has anyone had this happen, where a very well-reviewed tea tastes off? I assume this happens sometimes, particularly in large batch factory teas. I know it has happened to me in the past (even though I have good storage, I use a closet pumidor). I am still looking forward to trying the 2010 tuo, hopefully it will better represent this recipe.
I have also tried a few V93 but not 2008. I did not get any astringent tendency like you mentioned, but they did lack flavor. I did not see the reviews, but I would skip this tea. Lately I am less and less impressed by Dayi ripe tea. Maybe the 2010 will be a better tuo
Today is a 2015 Hai Lang Hao “Gao Shan Chen” sheng that is made from 2012 maocha. I only saw the date when brewing and it looked older than 2015, then tasted the first infusion and knew it definitely was older than 2015. This is fantastic, I didn’t finish the session before work, but it had some really nice flavors. Had a little bit of astringency, but not enough to be unpleasant. Also really liked the fact that it was fairly loose pressing. This is full cake worthy in my opinion.
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