In this episode, Emilio and James drink a tea from one of Toby’s Curated Boxes, the 2009 Menghai 7542. Toby’s curated boxes are a project done by Emilio and Toby to expose people to samples of different pu’erh teas.
https://thejadeleaf.com/
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This episode, James and Denny bring on an old favorite from a years back, Morning Crane Tea’s Korean Hwangcha (Balhyocha), different from Chinese Yellow Tea. With very small buds, this is a complex, delicate, floral tea!
In this episode James visits Emilio Del Pozo’s (The Jade Leaf) headquarters in Taiwan. We take a look and discuss his new electric kiln as well as some of his wood-fired wares.
In this episode, Denny and James review a private label Yiwu made in 2005. Really tasty, lively, with some strong energy.
After I had scheduled this post for publication, Marshaln published a post on Caffeine Detox. This is worth reading over. The comments section also includes some personal experiences about overconsumption / overdosing on caffeine.
I suspect the vast majority of the people crazy enough to read this blog and buy tea from the internet started out drinking tea prolifically. Getting home from work or school to a big package of 30+ samples at 6:30PM and starting a five tea marathon session until midnight. Good luck sleeping off that! After a while most of us settle into certain rhythms of when we do or don’t drink tea and end up with fairly different habits than when we first got started into the tea world. (more…)
This inbetweenisode, James drinks WuyiOrigin’s Qidan. On the lighter roasted side of Wuyi and very aromatic. Qidan is one of the common varietals used as a close cousin of Dahongpao.
This episode, Denny and James drink a HK traditionally stored pu’erh, acquired by James during his stay in Taiwan. No frills, solid drinker.
This episode, James talks about the tricky topic of tree age, a common marketing point for dealers of modern pu’erh.
Not a rerun! This is a tasting of the first raw pu’erh we ever brought onto the show, the classic Dayi recipe 7542.
Pu’erh marketing is filled with noise that ranges from the mildly inaccurate to absurdist comedy. One of the most important lessons you learn early is to filter out out information that isn’t important. In the end most of us can come to an agreement that the most important thing is the tea quality, taste and your own enjoyment. That is a lot easier said than done when trying to figure out what to try online. Information and descriptions still play a key role in decision making for purchases. You may just say sample.. But none of us want to or can afford to try everything. This is also the treacherous land of pu’erh, where you will be far better off playing the role of the skeptic until proven otherwise. A vendor like TwoDog has gone so far as to basically refuse to give out any information on his teas. He’s received a fair amount of negative feedback but his point remains. With so much BS out there, do those cookie cutter pu’erh descriptions (xx village, yy tree age, etc.) mean anything at all? (more…)