This episode, we drink an aged Heicha kindly provided by tea friend Atlas. Liuan is a type of Heicha grown in Anhui and is often consumed with part of the bamboo basket it is stored in.
The tea has a fun and interesting aged profile with depth and complexity.
We drink a very high-quality, small-production Yiwu tea. The tea is made by Biyun Hao a Taizhong based pu’erh vendor. Unfortunately this tea is not available but a few are.
Thank you to the folks over at Teas We Like for providing the tea. You can check out TWL for other BYH products.
We go back to an old favorite, High-Mountain oolong. This tea is crisp, fresh, and very enjoyable. Thank you to the folks over at Tributary Teas for providing it!
This is about as strong a tea as you will encounter. I think this episode is enjoyable, when it becomes obvious that Denny and I are completely taken aback from the power of the tea. This was the 3rd episode of the day filmed consecutively and in TeaDB vs. the 2012 YQH Yegu, we easily lost.
The tea itself is strong, potent, bitter, and substantive.
One pumidor-related topic I contemplate is the correct way to think about the chosen container. Given we store a tea at identical temperature and humidity (say 70F/65RH), if we store the same tea for five years in two different ways, a food-grade plastic box versus an old wine cooler, how much will they differ? What about an odor-free wood cabinet or a crock? Or a natural solution in a humid place? Should we just be thinking about the container and methodology as a vessel to get the desired temperature and humidity, provided it can hit a few checkpoints (dark, odor-free)? Or is there something inherent with the choice we make here that can make a substantial impact to the finished product even if we’re able to store the tea otherwise identically.
(more…)Recently, Char (Oolong Owl) joined me for an inbetweenisode to discuss aging and aged white tea. Aged whites have become a topic of increasing interest in the west, and while Denny and I have brought a few onto the show it has not been a principal area of interest for us. Here’s a few of the big points and takeaways I had from that conversation with her. I highly recommend checking out Oolong Owl’s blog and reading up on white teas. She’s written as extensively as any English-language blogger on different aged whites. I recommend watching the original video for those interested in this topic. This is my summation and interpretation of much of the material discussed in the video.
(more…)The history of storing pu’erh.
Pu’erh storage terminology.
Storing pu’erh in the US or Europe.
Pu’erh is a tea grown in Yunnan for export to Hong Kong and other parts of southern China and southeast Asia. Here it was stored by vendors for consumption. For many decades, this was done in a process that is referred to as traditional storage. But at some point this changed and people began to store pu’erh in different climates with different methods.
There are a few common pu’erh terms typically used to describe storage (12:57). I also explore a few of the major challenges in storing pu’erh in an inherently different, colder, and drier climate.
Voices:
Garrett ( https://www.instagram.com/islikewater/?hl=en )
Kelsey Schergen: http://www.kelseyschergen.com
Referenced:
http://www.marshaln.com/2011/01/traditional-not-wet/
http://www.puerh.fr/en/article/vesper_chan.htm
https://www.banateacompany.com/pages/storage.html
This episode features an inexpensive, but flavorful huangpian production. If you like the flavor, this is an excellent value coming in around barely over $0.05/g. Friendly but not weak, this is a solid young sheng to enjoy.
In this episode, we drink an aged Gongmei white tea from Yunnan Sourcing. The tea is semi-aged and while it retains younger white tea characteristics it’s starting to develop other flavors. I particularly enjoy the later, stronger steeps.
When I’m buying cakes of tea I tend to gravitate towards certain price ranges and have a mental ceiling of how much I’m willing to spend on tea. It’s not really based off of anything well reasoned or rationalized and I’ll occasionally break it, but more of an innate psychological barrier. This $/g line ends up being a pretty modest $0.25/g-$0.30/g. Occasionally I’ll spend up but if I look back at the purchases I’ve made in the past few years, the vast majority fall in this range or lower. This to me, seems like natural behavior and I think most folks will have impulses on what they’re willing to spend, especially once they’ve had a couple years of drinking and buying. People’s own price tendencies and intuitions undoubtedly vary person to person. Many have yet to convert to the $/g school so these decisions may manifest itself in $/cake numbers as well. For some, this could be $30 cakes or $100 cakes. For those who think in $/g, this may be $0.50/g or $0.10/g.
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