A Tea Basics episode covering tea compression and how it affects brewing! Teas featured are the Dali Tuo and Poundcake.
Author: James
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Time Machine! Pu’erh Snapshot… 2008
If only I got into pu’erh 5 years earlier…
-Every single pu’erh addict (regardless of when they got into pu’erh).The year is 2008. Obama was elected. Lil Wayne was weird but still OK to like. In the midst of the steroids crisis, MLB considered A-Rod the great clean hope. The world economy took a dump… And perhaps most importantly, the commodity known as pu’erh had just busted.. in the autumn of 2007. With the power of hindsight and the way back machine, let’s search the depths of the internet and see what the pu’erh scene looked like in 2008… (more…)
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2002 Smoky LEE, 2002 White Whale — TeaDB James InBetweenIsode Episode #52
A reprieve from all the premium tea. This week’s cup is courteously provided by Joe, of Joey’s Tea House. The Pu-erh.sk’s 2002 Smoky Lee put up against White2Tea’s breadwinner, the White Whale.
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Essence of Tea’s 2014 Yuanwei [Episode 128]
A raw pu’erh from Essence of Tea’s lineup, the 2014 Yuanwei.
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2015 Chenyuan Hao Mansong via Teapals — TeaDB James InBetweenIsode Episode #51
Another winner from Grill and Teapals. Thanks for the sample!
A tea supposedly from the tribute area of Mansong. Fruity, complex, and lots of qi!
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Baxian (Taobao) Yancha [Episode 127]
A good for the price Yancha directly from China.
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Cross Tea Price Comparisons
I’ve written in the past about relative price comparisons and a couple different models of how we frame tea cost. Tea vs. coffee. Tea vs. wine, etc. How about inner-tea comparisons. Aged pu’erh frequently gets put up against younger tea, Taiwanese Oolong high-mountain tea, low-elevation, Yancha. One comparison I only occasionally see made is types of tea put up against one another. If you focus too heavily on specifics of raw pu’erh like 2015 $100/beeng gushu A vs. 2015 $120/beeng gushu B, it can be easy to miss the big picture. You may forget that according to your taste perhaps raw pu’erh as a whole is under or overvalued. Instead of asking if a $0.40/g ripe pu’erh is twice as good as $0.20/g ripe pu’erh, maybe you should ask if you’d rather have the $0.40/g ripe pu’erh or $0.40/g Taiwanese Gaoshan. This is a casual, fun little thought experiment that tries to make these comparisons. As expected, It’s impossible to make this comparison clean. Vendor markup varies one to one, but here’s what I would choose at these ranges! (more…)
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Yunnan Sourcing’s 2015 Green Miracle Ripe Pu’erh [Episode 126]
A lightly fermented ripe pu’erh from Yunnan Sourcing. Good base material and tasty now, but will likely improve with time.
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Tea Reports 2015 & 2016, Soliciting Feedback & Looking Forward
As many of you may have noticed the tea of the month reports haven’t exactly been on schedule. They’ve often gone longer than expected and I still have countless unfinished samples which I am trying to drink through. First things first.. I’ll be finishing the last two reports at the end of 2015, Taiwanese oolongs to age & the box (aka aged oolongs). While it may seem premature to brainstorm/discuss how to continue these sorts of reports, it often takes a time to get these together without placing extraneous orders. These reports are the most personal tea journeyish projects that I do on TeaDB, but I’d certainly be curious to solicit some feedback. (more…)