TeaDB

Category: Article

  • Time Machine! Pu’erh Snapshot… 2008

    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…)

  • 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…)

  • 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…)

  • Can’t I Just Settle Down? Menghai County Raw Pu’erh [September 2015 Tea Drinking Report]

    Can’t I Just Settle Down? Menghai County Raw Pu’erh [September 2015 Tea Drinking Report]

    Shoutouts to Meng, Carolyn, Bellmont, and Dignitea for providing teas for this month and allowing the content to be what it is!

    Menghai County Part 2! This is the last of the pu’erh reports for 2015. I’ll be traveling to Taiwan and Hong Kong in October and will finish up the year with a pair of oolong reports (more on this later week). It also probably represents the last young pu’erh report for quite sometime (more on this later in the report and next week). Similar to the last Menghai report, this is a continuation of the previous year’s Nannuo and Bulang reports. (more…)

  • Relative Price & Tea

    I have two friends, MS and SK, that I occasionally drink tea with. If I’m at a 9 or 10 (out of 10) as far as tea fanaticism, they’d both be around a 5 or 6. They drink daily, but have a more normal (healthy) appreciation of camellia sinensis. MS’ tea of choice is usually Yancha or occasionally a Dancong. SK is a little more broad but is similar, usually opting for darker, roasty oolongs (Yancha, Dancong, Taiwanese). Neither one has particularly gaudy/expensive tastes and they both pay similar amounts on rent, food, and living. Both also got introduced to tea around the same time and are willing to spend some spare money on acquiring reasonable quality loose-leaf tea.. That’s where the similarities end.. SK just graduated from nursing school where she accumulated student debt and has just started to work it off. MS graduated with a technical engineering degree five years ago and has had consistent, decent-paying engineering jobs since. (more…)

  • Loving the Crane is Hard to Do. Tuition/Xiaguan Report Log for the Newb [August 2015 Drinking Report]

    Loving the Crane is Hard to Do. Tuition/Xiaguan Report Log for the Newb [August 2015 Drinking Report]

    After such wonderful raw pu’erhs in previous months, why subject yourself to lowly factory tea. Believe me. I asked these questions many times. So why do it? (a) I really need to do a stash check and determine how these teas really are. (b) I’ve made alot of mistakes in buying pu’erh, wasting both space and money. Many of these were my tuition, and I think it can be an illuminating exercise to look back and reflect. If you’re only interested in my opinion on young or old premium tea you can probably stop reading and come back when the younger Menghai County report comes out in a few weeks. (more…)

  • Evaluating & Purchasing Teas. A Few Things That Might Alter Your Perception.

    You’ve just come back from an amazing experience at a tea shop at your local Chinatown. Not only did you strike up an engaging conversation with the tea shop owner but you got to drink through several different teas and eventually pick out your favorite of the bunch. Eager to recreate the experience, you dump $40-100 on a 150g bag of tea (not saying it was cheap). Except there’s one problem. You can’t make the tea taste the same. It’s not necessarily bad or worse, just different. You’ve tried using a lot of leaf, a little leaf, brewing for a long time, brewing for a short time, different water, lower temperature, higher temperature, yixing, no yixing, etc.. Other than adding cream & sugar (because you have a soul), you’ve pretty much tried everything. Disregarding the possibility of being duped (bait & switch) or other sorts of foul play, what’s going on here? (more…)

  • 5+ Year Old “Menghai County” Raw Pu’erh [July 2015 Tea Drinking Report]

    5+ Year Old “Menghai County” Raw Pu’erh [July 2015 Tea Drinking Report]

    Shoutouts to Dignitea, Brian (double B), and Hster for providing teas for this month and allowing the content to be what it is!

    By now you know the drill. I drink a bunch of teas following a certain theme. Blah, blah, blah. This month is Menghai County. One problem.. Menghai County is big and I have a ton of teas that qualify. So, like the Yiwu reports (1, 2) I’ve split this in two. So why am I doing 5+ year old Menghai County tea first? Simply, I’m more calibrated for these semi-aged teas because I more recently have been tasting through similarly aged “Yiwu” teas. (more…)

  • CNNP Zhongcha: Inconsistency, the Bubble & Bargain Hunters

    CNNP Zhongcha: Inconsistency, the Bubble & Bargain Hunters

    Editor’s Note: After the episode on the 1997 CNNP 7581 (acquired via Yunnan Sourcing) (a good tea) we received several emails showing other options for late 1990s 7581. Some were drastically cheaper and others were more expensive. Such inconsistency in pricing indicates either faked age or drastic difference in quality/mark-up. Much of this inconsistency is associated heavily with the Zhong Cha brand.

    Established in 1949, CNNP, or Zhong Cha, is one of the oldest, most classical pu’erh brands. CNNP wrappers are perhaps the most iconic, featuring the tea character surrounded by the Zhong (China) character. This logo is found on the majority of pu’erh beengs from the 1950s to the 1990s, including all of the famous pu’erh vintages from that time period. Productions in the 2000s used the same logo and similar wrapper as the original Zhong Cha wearing cakes printed in 1951, Still, the brand and the label on its own means very little in terms of a quality product. Far less than a consistent Menghai or Xiaguan product. In the opinion of many, these labels have become increasingly watered down over time but neither has fallen as far as the CNNP brand. In fact, contemporary CNNP of the last 20 years is almost renowned for its inconsistency. (more…)

  • Not Quite so Young “Yiwu” Raw Pu’erh [June 2015 Tea Drinking Report]

    Not Quite so Young “Yiwu” Raw Pu’erh [June 2015 Tea Drinking Report]

    Big shoutouts to Dignitea and Brian (double B) for providing teas for this month and allowing the content to be what it is!

    Welcome to Part 2 of the overly-indulgent Yiwu report. Part 1 was young teas and was composed principally of western vendor’s own productions. This month represents a portion of not quite sp young teas, marketed and sold as Yiwu. With a little over 20 teas, it’s shorter than last month. As most pu-heads know the landscape has been very dynamic in the last 20 years. Even though much of the tea from this month is only a few years older than Part 1, it’s a very different era. I’m also going to be preemptively splitting my Menghai County report into two (July and August). (more…)