This episode I answer a series of questions on tea, covering a pretty wide range of topics. Topics include vendors for aged oolongs, water, tea books, caffeine content, judging pu’erh, and some pu’erh recommendations.
Thanks for all the great questions sent in! I answered as many as I could, but unfortunately could not get to everything.
I had the pleasure of meeting tea vendors and Russian expats Valerii and Jane when I went to Chiang Mai. I had not been planning on any tea meetups on this trip, but Valerii happened to see I was traveling to Chiang Mai on Instagram and we met up for tea. Valerii’s family was very generous and we ended up meeting up a few times during my brief trip, including an outdoor excursion and tea session to the scenic Bua Tong waterfall. After we parted and he sent me home to Seattle with a ton of samples, we agreed to do an interview on the interesting niche he occupies, selling Thai teas. (more…)
In this episode, we discuss Garrett’s upcoming trip to Taiwan in September. We talk about shopping for tea abroad, what he hopes to buy, and some aspects of traveling there.
After he returns from his trip in late September, we plan to do a recap episode.
Sometimes when I’m sipping a particularly delicious aged oolong, I’ll glance over at my tea fridge and then to my wine cooler and get some major self doubt. I enjoy drinking pu’erh and happen to own enough that I’ll be aging it for a very long time. But I I also really do enjoy aged oolong… And for partly inexplicable reasons have hardly even a pu’erh cake worth of oolong put away for the long haul. (more…)
It’s no secret that aged pu’erh is scarce out west. The western vendor scene is dominated by vendors traveling to Yunnan bringing back predominantly young tea to sell. For this exercise, I added all of the older teas from western vendors I could think of. Unlike some of my other data compilations, this one didn’t take long at all.. The cutoff for aged pu’erh (both raw and ripe) was set at 18 years (2000 and older). Setting it at 18 years puts it firmly above semi-aged, but also not high enough (25 years) where we would have no teas making the cut. It’s a number that’s probably going to annoy some people off because its too low and others because it isn’t high enough (ask Su what aged tea is!). (more…)
In this episode, regular guest Garrett comes back to discuss why more people aren’t aging oolong. The episode focuses on difference in pu’erh when it comes to aging, storage, and ease in the west.
Today, James & Denny drink a unique loose raw stored purportedly from 1993. The tea has been processed like a pu’erh but was harvested and aged in Northern Thailand. Clearly aged, clean, and quite relaxing. Big thanks to Valeri!
https://tea-side.com/aged-raw-pu-erh-tea-1993/
https://tea-side.com/
(My apologies for the audio, the recording was corrupted so we had to use the audio from the camera)
85-90% of the tea being sold is young pu’erh, and the remainder is almost exclusively ripe or 5-10 year old semi-pu’erh. Old-school, traditionally stored pu’erh is an afterthought or an afterthought of an afterthought… This sort of tea can be hit or miss and more of an acquired taste for many.. For me, it’s always been a tea category I personally enjoy and turn to on a regular basis (~25% of the time). I also think if you can find decent examples it is well-worth exploring. As “traditionally stored” implies, this is a style of pu’erh that has been around for a long time. The pu’erh scene has changed and this sort of tea isn’t viewed fashionably or favorably as other sorts of pu’erh (this is not just restricted to the west). (more…)
It’s common in the pu’erh-verse to note the seemingly always rising price of freshly produced tea. Every year more expensive than the last… Even with the limited scope of western-vendor labeled pu’erh, we can take a quick look at the Way Back Machine and glance at what pu’erhs were selling for a few years ago and compare it to 2017/2018 prices.. It’s also an interesting exercise to look at old Half-Dipper reviews and realize that a lot of tea is simply no longer available. It used to be noteworthy when a fresh cake sold for three figures, now it’s commonplace. Those times are gone.. Oh and that cake is probably 200 grams… (more…)
In this episode, James is joined by recurring guest Garrett for another long conversation on pu’erh.
The first half of the conversation involves a post written by James on Indoor vs. Outdoor Storage and some of the implications on home storage.
The second half of the conversation involves Aging Cigars and how the scenes compare. They discuss the different stages of cigar aging, the importance of temperature, dew point, etc.