One question I get asked is how my tastes have changed since getting into tea. I’ve consumed tea intentionally as a hobby for around 8 years now and while TeaDB serves as a nice document for looking and reflecting back it doesn’t necessarily track my own interests in tea with 100% accuracy. (more…)
Author: James
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Tea Home Dongding (Legend of) & My Experience Drinking TW Oolongs [Inbetweenisode 211]
This episode I bring on a decent, very reasonably priced Taiwanese oolong from Nantou-based vendor Tea Home. The tea is a mid-fired Dongding and is sweet, slightly nutty, and well-balanced. This video is also a bit of an oddity as one of the very few TW oolongs featured on an inbetweenisode. A good example of something I drink regularly.
Tea: 風華再現【老凍頂】高山烏龍茶
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2006 Hailang Hao Laobanzhang Raw Pu’erh [Episode 358]
This episode, Denny and I have the pleasure of drinking a 14 year old dry-stored raw pu’erh from Hailang Hao. As many know, Lao Banzhang is one of the most famous of areas. The tea is powerful and has an immediate impact as you can easily tell from watching the video.
Thank you to Dipu for generously sending a sample of this tea.
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2019 Yunnan Sourcing Bawang Ripe Pu’erh [Inbetweenisode 210]
This episode, I drink an interesting ripe blend from Yunnan Sourcing, the 2019 Bawang. The tea has a strong base, good body, and some solid bitterness. I very much enjoy it and think it may improve with time. https://yunnansourcing.com/
Rating: 6.6
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2019 White2Tea Modern Witch Ripe Pu’erh [Episode 357]
Denny and I drink a higher-end ripe from W2T. The tea is complex and layered. Well above average ripe pu’erh. https://white2tea.com/
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Young Sheng Variety Pack. The Western Tea Scene Has Loads of Young Sheng Options
In my first couple years of drinking pu’erh I sampled heavily. Many vendors and many different teas. While I originally did not go into it with a goal of trying specifically young pu’erh, this ended up making a pretty strong majority of pu’erh that I sampled. This is due to a few factors. One is that there’s a predictable vendor drop with the harvest, sometime in late Spring/early summer or in mid-Autumn. This generates demand and buzz amongst the tea community. The second is that young pu’erh makes up the vast majority of raw pu’erh being sold to the west. If you put together a list of the five most popular western pu’erh-centric vendors and listed all of the teas they’ve released in the past year and randomly picked 10, you’d likely end up with ~8 or so being young pu’erh. You actually need to be pretty intentional about not picking young pu’erh if you want to try a different category of raw pu’erh..
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2019 WuyiOrigin Premium Tieluohan [Episode 356]
This episode, Denny and I drink a premium Yancha from WuyiOrigin. The tea is complex, dynamic, and very tasty. https://www.wuyiorigin.com/
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2019 Yunnan Sourcing Last Laugh Ripe Pu’erh [Inbetweenisode 218]
I drink a ripe from Yunnan Sourcing’s 2019 line here. The tea has been my morning brew for a week or so and is partly creamy and woody and well-balanced.
Rating: 5.9
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2009 Yongde Daxueshan Raw Pu’erh & Storage Progress Report [Inbetweenisode 217]
This episode I drink a tea I originally featured about 5 years ago on the show, the 2009 Yongde Daxueshan. Now that tea is 11 years old and it is an interesting revisit to test both the tea and my storage.
Rating: 6.5
2020 Progress Report: https://teadb.org/2020-tea-progress-report/
Original Episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwrAhUfg4gk&feature=emb_title
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Storage is Wicked. Long & Short Feedback Loops. Innovation in Pu’erh Storage
David Epstein’s book Range makes the case for generalization in a world that has become increasingly specialized. One of the ways the book categorizes areas of interest are as wicked and kind environments. Kind environments are where information and feedback is very available, patterns repeat, and situations are more constrained. Examples of mostly kind learning environments are golf or classical music. Wicked environments are inherently trickier, noisier and typically involve situations where not all information is available. Conditions are dynamic and involve other people and judgement where feedback is not automatic. And when feedback is given it may be partial or inaccurate.
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