TeaDB

Category: Raw Pu’erh

  • Why Storage Advice from Humid Parts of East Asia isn’t Always Very Useful for the West

    Storage: keep in cool, clean, dry, ventilated, no peculiar smell, no pollutant, no direct sunlight place.

    This sort of advice is common. It’s especially prevalent when looking at vendor descriptions on ebay or amazon or whatever. For a novice it all looks pretty uncontroversial, and for certain parts of the world it’s pretty good advice. But there are some real issues when this advice is directly applied to a drier climate. The first issue is with cool. This advice seems translated and copy/pasted from a place where temperatures are often higher. It’s important to keep in mind that places where pu’erh has been stored for the longest are hot. If you interpreted storing your tea “cool” relative to room temperature you may end up doing something dumb, like storing your tea in the garage at sub 50F degree weather for an extended amount of time. There is also ventilated. Airflow is a hotly contested topic in western circles, but leaving your tea in an open air environment in the west where room temperature air is a lot drier is not great for the long-term outlook of the tea.With the help of Titan Garage Doors Vancouver experts you can secure your garage with a great quality door. (more…)

  • Storage Deep Dive featuring 2007 YQH Lingya [Inbetweenisode 183]

    This episode is my second deep dive into looking at the storage . I recently acquired a cake of Lingya from a non-Yang source in Taiwan and decided to compare it with the tea I’ve been storing. The first cake is a cake I’ve kept in my own pumidor storage (an unplugged wine cooler) for three years and was previously acquired from Yang. The second cake is one that I’ve stored in a pumidor for a year in a half and then on my shelf in a ziploc for another year in a half. This is the cake I’ve consumed out of and I’ve drank up around half of it. The final cake is the aforementioned cake acquired from Taiwan.

    The tea featured is the 2007 YQH Lingya Yiwu. In my opinion this is a very decent Yiwu and I enjoy drinking it quite often.

    The episode is set around a mix of visual examination/narration and direct comparison. I begin by taking a look at dry leaves and the humidity generated by them. I then compare the three teas with each other, before concluding with a wet leaf examination and some overall thoughts/takeaways,

    If you are are pu’erh nerd or at all interested in storing pu’erh I think you will enjoy this episode. If you want to learn more about storage conditions, please check out some of our other storage related content.

    Feedback for this episode is highly appreciated!

    From Yang/Fridge/Shelf Rating: 7.5.
    From Yang/Wine Cooler Rating: 7.7.
    From TW/Non-Yang Rating: 6.1.

    If you missed it, please check out the deep dive on the storage of the 2006 Chenguanghetang Yiwu Yecha .

  • What’s a Bargain? Some Musings on Relative Price in Tea

    What’s a real bargain? Below are some of my musings on how we think about price.

    The restaurant I probably go to most often in Seattle is a local taco joint. Their menu is simple and they execute their food well. I’ve been going pretty much since they opened. It’s a little  more expensive than taco trucks but in a city that’s becoming increasingly expensive, paying around $8 or $9 for a meal is pretty good. When I leave I feel satisfied and feel as if I earned some well-earned frugality points. My wife and I also eat a good deal of seafood. Sometimes we will indulge in something nice like Black Cod, which our local Asian market had on sale for $18/lb. Typically around .5-.6 lbs is enough to feed us for a meal (with rice and veggie sides). This puts our the cost for two people around $9-11, quite a lot for a home meal. These meals feel like a splurge and sometimes induce a tinge of guilt. But the cost of the fancy-feeling Black Cod meal per person is actually less than the cost of my tacos. So why do I feel like Mr. Fancy Pants for the Black Cod and frugal for the other? (more…)

  • 2001 Zhongcha Huangyin via TWL Raw Pu’erh [Inbetweenisode 182]

    This episode, I drink a tea that is currently being sourced by some tea friends on their new project Teas We Like. The tea has been aged in Taiwan and is well-balanced, decently potent, with a strong huigan that mixes a lot of positive traits into a solid session.

    https://teaswelike.com/

    Rating: 6.7

  • 2018 W2T Lucky Puppy Raw Pu’erh [Episode 287]

    This episode, Denny and I drink one of the premium pu’erhs from White2Tea’s 2018 line. This one is very strong and powerful. It makes a big contrast from what we’ve both been drinking lately.

  • Storage Deep Dive featuring 2006 CGHT Yiwu Yecha [Inbetweenisode 181]

    This episode is a deep dive into looking at the storage . I recently acquired a duplicate . This is a cake I’ve kept in my own pumidor storage for three years and was previously stored in Houston Texas, a fairly humid place of the US compared with a cake I recently bought from taobao. The tea featured is the 2006 Chenguanghe tang Autumn Yiwu Yecha. It’s an alright tea, but the purpose of this episode is mainly to evaluate and attempt to analyze the storage.

    In the episode I take a look at the humidity generated by the dry leaves of the cake, examine the visual differences of the dry and wet leaf, have a comparison tasting session, and finally drink the tea under more normal conditions. The episode concludes with some of my own takeaways.

    If you are are pu’erh nerd or at all interested in storing pu’erh I think you will enjoy this episode. If you want to learn more about storage conditions, please check out some of our other storage related content.

    Any feedback for this episode is highly appreciated!

    Rating: 5.7.

  • Garrett Post-Taiwan Travel Recap [Inbetweenisode 180]

    In this episode, Garrett and I discuss his recent trip to Taipei and some of his tea-related adventures. We talk about teas he was interested in and ended up buying, meeting up with tea friends, and communicating with teashops abroad (+a creative solution).

    You can see the pre-Taiwan episode here.

  • Five More Things I Like & Dislike. Heicha is Overly Broad, XXL Home Storage Setups, Vendors Speaking Out.

    Things I like & dislike. (more…)

  • Advice I’d Give to Someone Just Starting With Pu’erh

    One good thing about TeaDB is it encompaseses a large chunk of Denny and my tea journey. This includes when we were new and fresh in the western tea world and while it results in some early embarrassing episodes, it also helps to document our own learning and progression. Here’s the advice I’d give to myself (beyond which specific teas to buy) if I were to rewind 6 years or to someone just starting in pu’erh now. (more…)

  • Rare Tea: 1970s Ripe Tuocha

    This tea was generously gifted to me by Su as a wedding gift. Thanks so much for your generosity!

    About the Tea (& Is it Legit?)

    Ripe pu’erh was invented in the 1970s, so this represents an extremely early specimen. The process has been tinkered with throughout the years so this humble tuo might show us a bit of how ripe has changed with time. (more…)