Stamp Collecting Experiences. Dangers of a Single Session Sample

Posted on April 20, 2019 by

Stamp collecting in the pu’erh world means buying single cakes of a bunch of different teas. The appeal is obvious. A cake is a decent quantity of tea, especially for a single person, and you can chisel a little at a time to drink while it slowly ages. It’s also not a strategy I’m personally when put to its extreme and I try to avoid stamp collecting tendencies. I sometimes think of what I’ll be drinking in 10-15 years. Having a hundred single cakes where I’ve consumed 10-40 grams each feels daunting in a bad way.. It’s also quite easy to spend a lot of money with a little bit of this and a little bit of that and accumulate decades of pu’erh. Continue reading →

Posted in Article, Oolong, Raw Pu'erh | 2 Comments

Old Ways Tea Baijiguan Wuyi Oolong [Episode 310]

Posted on April 16, 2019 by

This episode, Denny and I drink one of the four famous Wuyi bushes, Baijiguan. This is perhaps the most unique of the four and usually processed towards the greener end. We discuss how it differs from your average Wuyi and fits into the Wuyi spectrum. Another solid tea from Old Ways Tea.

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1990s Ripe Pu’erh Brick, TW Stored [Inbetweenisode 195]

Posted on April 12, 2019 by

This episode, I drink a 1990s ripe pu’erh kindly given as a gift to me by Garrett. It’s smooth, ginsengy, and slightly wet. The off-brand label makes it quite affordable. Decent tea for an inexpensive price (was ~$35/250g).

Rating: 6.0

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2005 Chenyuan Hao Shanzhong Chuanqi via TWL [Episode 309]

Posted on April 9, 2019 by

This episode, Denny and I drink a Taiwan Stored 2005 Chenyuan Hao Shanzhong Chuanqi from Teas We Like. I’ve had a wetter stored version (also TW Stored) previously and was not impressed. This tea is considerably more impressive with the more moderate storage allowing the high-quality tea material more room to shine. It is rich and deceptively potent. Thank you Marco for sending the sample!

https://teaswelike.com/product/2005-chenyuan-hao-shanzong-chuanqi/

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Things I Like & Dislike. Marco’s Hotbox, Flying Blind, Sharing Tea..

Posted on April 6, 2019 by

More things i like & dislike.

Marco’s Hotbox Experiment

Read here:

I am pro hotbox experiment. This 1.5 year long test will help to address how much of an impact heat has on the maturation of tea. Even if the jury is still out on how tea turns out in the long-term, there are a lot of interesting implications and takeaways in Marco’s experiment. Continue reading →

Posted in Article, Raw Pu'erh | 5 Comments

Deep Dive: An Exploration of Pour & Steep Time [Inbetweenisode 194]

Posted on April 4, 2019 by

This is a non-tea drinking show where I test and explore the topic of pour time. Over the course of this episode I test the pour times of eight different vessels I use regularly to brew tea, ranging from small gaiwans to a large blue pot I use to do casual sessions of ripe in the morning. It is a nerdy episode, but in my opinion is quite informative for anyone that wants to think a little deeper about how they are brewing tea.

During these very basic tests I also explore how things with controllable pours like gaiwans and shiboridashi’s brew a little differently with tea than teapots. I conclude by examining the pre-pour steep time that occurs after you poured from your kettle. I specifically test how this time differs if you pour with the kettle from your left or right hand. The spreadsheet is a little complicated for this part, my apologies.

Posted in Podcasts | 5 Comments

5th Annual r/tea Seattle Meetup [Episode 308]

Posted on April 1, 2019 by

Super special TeaDB episode! The can’t miss event this spring is the r/tea Seattle Meetup. Don’t miss out on the only event of the year where you can see all of your favorite tea-related personalities.

Featuring Garrett, Meet, Denny and James.

Posted in Green Tea, Oolong, Podcasts, Raw Pu'erh, Ripe Pu'erh | 2 Comments

Old Ways Tea Laocong Shuixian [Episode 307]

Posted on March 26, 2019 by

This episode, Denny and I drink a tea from what has become a popular source for Wuyi Oolongs, Old Ways Tea. This is our first (and blind) try at Old Ways Tea and we started with one of the classics in the Yancha genre, Laocong Shuixian (Old Bush Shui Xian).

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A Look at Prices From 2011-2018 Through Nine Yunnan Sourcing Productions

Posted on March 23, 2019 by

In 2012, Yunnan Sourcing released a spring Wuliang tea that sold for $23/400g. Since then, Scott has pressed five more spring Wuliangs, most recently in 2018. This time it was priced at $43/400g, an effective price raise of 87%. This post is an investigation on how the release price of nine different tea productions by Yunnan Sourcing have shifted over the years. It is another data-centric way to look at price change over the years. It’s more simplistic than previous investigations but is intuitive and easy to understand. Continue reading →

Posted in Article, Raw Pu'erh | Tagged | 8 Comments

AMA Q&A [Episode 306]

Posted on March 19, 2019 by

This episode, Denny and I do an AMA (Ask Me Anything) covering a wide array of topics. Thank you for all who sent in questions. Enjoy!

Posted in Oolong, Podcasts, Raw Pu'erh, Ripe Pu'erh | 1 Comment