The most interesting storage experiment in the west is a heated cooler filled with mylar bags of pu’erh in Toronto. This is of course Marco’s hotbox experiment where cakes are conditioned to generate 63-69RH and then stored at fixed temperatures. I was lucky enough to get two five gram samples of tea from Marco that were stored in the box for two years. One was stored at both 23C (~73-74F) and the other at 32C (~89-90F) sent by Marco.
(more…)Author: James
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2019 Tea Encounter Baiyingshan Raw Pu’erh [Episode 349]
This episode, Denny and I drink an aromatic approachable young sheng from Tea Encounter. This is part of Tea Encounter’s inaugural set of productions. Congrats to Tiago!
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2017 White2Tea Sunday Special Ripe Pu’erh [Episode 348]
This episode, Denny and I drink a thick, well-balanced ripe pu’erh from an old favorite. Thank you to shah8 for sending this tea in. I consumed this tea a couple years ago when it was released and it is interesting to see how it has evolved in the meantime.
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2019 Tea & TeaDB Reflections
2019 may be one of the more boring years from TeaDB to write about. I drank tea, bought a little, Denny and I continued our episode per week pace, and I wrote a bit. My habits are more settled, a steady trend at this point. I know what I like and tend to follow predictable patterns.
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Lazy Cat Tea Space Cat Rougui Wuyi Oolong [Episode 347]
This episode, Denny and I drink a very high-quality Yancha from Lazy Cat Teas. The tea is extremely aromatic, dynamic, complex, with a great aftertaste. Thank you to Atlas for sending this to us! https://www.lazycattea.com/
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2005 Nanqiao Bulang Double Lions Teas We Like Raw Pu’erh [Episode 346]
This episode, Denny and I drink one of the most powerful teas we’ve brought onto the show, the 2005 Nanqiao Bulang Double Lions. The tea has been stored very well in Malaysia and packs strength powerful enough that indicates it could be aged for another 15 years!
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WuyiOrigin Jin Mao Hou Wuyi Oolong Tea [Episode 345]
This episode, Denny and I drink an aromatic, tasty Yancha (rock oolong) from Wuyi Origin. In the video we mistakenly thought this was a black tea (Hong Cha). It is actually an oolong.
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2019 Pu’erh from Western Vendors are More Expensive Than Ever. Three Ways to Look at Price.
I’ve been updating a spreadsheet on pu’erh prices on release for the past few years in order to get an idea of tea being offered to western consumers and any possible trends. The well-known popular narrative is that fresh pu’erh prices have gone up and this certainly seems true in the data. Last year the prices looked about the same as the previous year. And when and how much the price has gone up depends on how we look at this and there’s a handful of different ways to look at the data and options available (I do three here).
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2018 W2T Censers White Tea [Episode 344]
In this video, Denny and I drink a pressed white tea blend from White2Tea. The tea is still quite fresh but dynamic and quite complex. https://white2tea.com/
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1974 Everlasting Tea’s Baozhong Aged Oolong [Episode 343]
This episode, Denny and I drink a very old oolong (~45 years old!). It is remarkably clean, with an earthy smooth profile. For me this makes the ultimate comfort tea that is warming to the core and highly enjoyable.
http://www.everlastingteas.com/