TeaDB

Category: Drinking Report

  • 2020 Tea Progress Report

    I’ve stored tea for around six years now in Seattle and while I’ve fussed a bit over a few small things, the methodology has been overall consistent. The pu’erh has been stored in an enclosed container with Boveda packs to ramp up the humidity to around 65RH. Airflow is low. Most people would call this…

  • Marco Hotbox Experiment (Bosch) Comparison

    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…

  • Three Menghai Tea Factory Teas Between 1997-2001

    Thanks to Nug, I had the opportunity to sample a few older and thereby quite expensive Menghai TF teas. I no longer sample as often as I used to, and try to be focused on very interesting teas when I do. These teas were sold to us by Taizhong based vendor Wang JF who will…

  • Tea Progress Report – Washington State Stored Tea 2019

    This is an extremely overdue tea drinking report. It was conceived for two reasons. (1) I recently reconfigured my storage into a larger setup. (2) I have a yearly tradition of picking some teas out of deep storage to retry and note their progression (or lack thereof). The latter allows me to get a better…

  • Old Tea: 1967 Baozhong

    I picked up this tea from a vendor in Taiwan in 2017. Generally speaking, I lean skeptical of age and even moreso extreme claims of this extent. But I spent considerable time with this vendor and trust them more than most. Call me a chump, but I mainly believe it in this case. Finding tea…

  • YQH Retrospective & The YQH Value Spot

    In our small little westerm tea community, there was quite a stir over YQH in 2015 and 2016. I’ll personally admit to being caught up in both the dialog and purchasing of these teas. YQH remains available via Emmett, the most important figure in making these teas accessible). And while YQH as a conversation piece in the…

  • Rare Tea: Dry-Stored 1980s/1990s Zhongcha 7542

    It wouldn’t be without the generosity of experienced tea hands that I’d be able to do posts like these. A sample was provided by Peter from a cake from Su’s collcetion. Thank you to both of you! About the Tea This tea is not famous when put in comparison with previous teas like the 1988 QB…

  • Famous Tea: 1988 Qing Bing

    The 1988 Qing Bing is a very famous cakes from the 1980s and early 1990s. Like the 1999 BGT I thought I would share my experiences with it. Phyll Sheng lays out the criteria for 1988 QB in this informative post. They are Menghai Factory-produced 7542 tea cakes from 1989-1992, and They are dry-and-naturally stored. A sample…

  • Don’t Call it Wet! YS Guangdong and Banna Stored Tastings

    Yunnan Sourcing has quietly added quite a selection of semi-aged pu’erh stored in more humid conditions, not a bad feat for a vendor mainly known for Kunming dry-stored tea and the YS label. Getting the sample itch, I convinced my local tea friend Garrett (also featured in the MX report) to split a few samples and…

  • Strong, Burly, and not too Expensive. Semi-Aged Xiaguan, MX-Tea Report [Feat. Garrett]

    Sorry to all the people who like the drinking reports. 2017 has been sparse. This tasting is composed of a few teas that piqued my interest, affordable, semi-aged teas from Guangdong based Taobao Vendor MX-Tea. For this group of teas, I invited my local tea friend Garrett to join in. Garrett has a similar tea…