This episode, James reviews a big cake that is a little over a decade old. Sitting at under $0.10/g or $0.10/g on the US website, this is a great value pu’erh.
Thank you to JD for the sample!
2007 CNNP "8891 Red Label" Raw Pu-erh Tea Cake
5.4 Rating.
In this extended episode, James & Garrett talk about their drinking habits and how they’ve changed over the past few years. They also give theoretical advice to themselves earlier on in their tea hobbies.
A while back I crunched the numbers for climates in some eastern and western cities and compared them to Kunming. One of the takeaways from that article is that despite its reputation, Kunming’s humidity is not that much lower than places with a more humid reputation, i.e. Hong Kong or Taipei. The more significant difference is in the temperature. On a similar note, Seattle (my hometown) is similar in relative humidity but is even colder than Kunming. Hotter air holds more water content and in that article I noted the sometimes under-emphasized importance of temperature. I stand by this, but I now read the climate data a little differently, especially when it comes to the implications of home storage in the west. (more…)
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.
A sample was very generously sent as a wedding gift by Su who has stored this tea for a couple decades in Malaysia. Thanks so much for your generosity Su! (more…)
This episode, Denny & James drink a boutique raw pu’erh pressed into a ball, by Chenyuan Hao (a well known Taiwanese boutique). Thank you to Liquid Proust for providing the tea.
This episode, Denny and James complete the raw pu’erh portion of the Yunnan Sourcing blind tasting. Tasting has been coordinated by Matt of http://mattchasblog.blogspot.com/ and Yunnan Sourcing https://yunnansourcing.com/ . Big thank you to Matt and Scott!
The tea covered in this episode are Epsilon & Gamma, which are Yunnan Sourcing’s 2017 Qingmeishan & 2017 Yibang cake.
It’s no secret that the pu’erh market has changed a lot. Old factories like Dayi and Xiaguan have remained mainstays, but are pretty different entities than they were 30 or 40 years ago. Boutiques and more recently westward facing vendors have popped up. Some have pressed long enough to fall into certain patterns for what they offer, i.e. vendor X sells tea as Wuliang every year. As we’ve examined in what western vendors put into their inventory, boutique western facing vendors don’t necessarily offer a balanced selection of pu’erh. So are these big Chinese vendors offering the same sort of tea as we see places like Yunnan Sourcing or White2Tea are? Not exactly. (more…)
This episode Denny and James do part 2 in their Yunnan Sourcing blind tasting.Tasting has been coordinated by Matt of http://mattchasblog.blogspot.com/ and Yunnan Sourcing https://yunnansourcing.com/ . Big thank you to Matt and Scott!
The tea covered in this episode is Delta, which is Yunnan Sourcing’s 2017 Jingmai cake.
This is not a review.. In this episode, James and Garrett have a very long discussion on (IMO) the best English-language book on pu’erh around. They discuss what they like about the book and dive deeper into some of the topics brought up by Zhang (the author).
This episode Denny and James start a three episode series on some Yunnan Sourcing teas, tasted blind. Tasting has been coordinated by Matt of http://mattchasblog.blogspot.com/ and Yunnan Sourcing https://yunnansourcing.com/ . Big thank you to Matt and Scott!
The teas covered in this episode are Alpha and Beta.
Alpha is the 2017 YS Mushucha.
Beta is the 2017 YS Hetaodi.