A 2004 Feitai production with the classic 8653 recipe. Stored in southern Taiwan, this tea firmly fits into the semi-aged category and is an upgrade over the 2005 XG FT8653-5 that was previously reviewed.
Tea is provided courtesy of Toby (https://www.instagram.com/toby8653/) and Emilio (https://www.instagram.com/thejadeleaf/).
An old ripe tuo stored in Kunming via Yunnan Sourcing.
A special Northern Yunnan production from Xizihao. A very complex, dynamic tea that was fun to session with other pu-heads.
In what is becoming a yearly tradition, I spent too much and bought too much in 2016. An extended trip to Asia didn’t help matters. Unlike 2015 I’m actually pretty happy with what I spent money on. Part of this is just having another a year under my belt to both learn about tea and my own preferences. For instance, 85-90% of the pu’erh I bought comes from 2003-2007. This hits the right mark for me of affordability, quality of base material and storage. I’ve avoided buying young pu’erh, a category I tend to not drink much and have bought too much of in the past. I bought a bit less mature pu’erh than 2015, but that’s more because I’ve found it difficult to match some of the traditionally stored pu’erh I found in Hong Kong during my brief trip there in 2015. (more…)
The W2T Club November tea. A young recently-pressed raw pu’erh from Lincang.
To commemorate our new location, this episode we drink a high-end sheng from boutique Taiwanese producer, Chenyuan Hao. Dry-stored by a collector in Malaysia, this is a wonderful tea to enjoy with our tea heads.
The tea is made from wild Yiwu leaves.
An extended episode that shows James brewing a light traditionally stored 2003 Brown Changtai in both grandpa style and gong-fu style brewing.
Relevant: http://www.marshaln.com/whats-grandpa-style/
Tea is provided courtesy of Toby (https://www.instagram.com/toby8653/) and Emilio (https://www.instagram.com/thejadeleaf/).
A review of a very affordable, strong young pu’erh from Yunnan Sourcing.
A house-blended mix of 13yr+ pu’erh mixed in together. Generously sent to us courtesy of Geraldo at Far Wenwa.
The idea of a pumidor is simple. Create an enclosed space where conditions like relative humidity can be manipulated to better maintain and age pu’erh. In the west, this usually means creating an environment where the humidity is higher than the ambient conditions. Much of the western hemisphere west is a cold, and dry relative to pu-hotspots in east Asia. If Kunming is dry compared with places that pu’erh was traditionally exported and stored at, then a good chunk of the US is the desert. With the risk of the tea drying out or simply not evolving or maturing, it is no surprise that the western pu’erh world is filled with people trying to create artificial ways of aging. One such way is the pumidor, a riff on humidor, an airtight device for aging cigars. (more…)