This episode features an inexpensive, but flavorful huangpian production. If you like the flavor, this is an excellent value coming in around barely over $0.05/g. Friendly but not weak, this is a solid young sheng to enjoy.
Category: Raw Pu’erh
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Sample Upwards! Why You Should Consider Trying Teas You Have No Intention in Buying
When I’m buying cakes of tea I tend to gravitate towards certain price ranges and have a mental ceiling of how much I’m willing to spend on tea. It’s not really based off of anything well reasoned or rationalized and I’ll occasionally break it, but more of an innate psychological barrier. This $/g line ends up being a pretty modest $0.25/g-$0.30/g. Occasionally I’ll spend up but if I look back at the purchases I’ve made in the past few years, the vast majority fall in this range or lower. This to me, seems like natural behavior and I think most folks will have impulses on what they’re willing to spend, especially once they’ve had a couple years of drinking and buying. People’s own price tendencies and intuitions undoubtedly vary person to person. Many have yet to convert to the $/g school so these decisions may manifest itself in $/cake numbers as well. For some, this could be $30 cakes or $100 cakes. For those who think in $/g, this may be $0.50/g or $0.10/g.
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2009 Chensheng Hao Yiwu via Yunnan Sourcing [Episode 334]
In episode 334, Denny and I drink a 2009 raw pu’erh stored in Guangdong. This is from a well-known brand Chensheng Hao and is one of their earlier productions. They’re well known for their Xishuangbanna tea but this tea is from Yiwu. It’s a relatively burly Yiwu production and has good strength that has allowed the more humid storage to create something fairly interesting. Thank you to Meng for providing the tea!
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Boutique Pu’erh. How Much of a Story Does the Top End of the Western Boutique Pu’erh Market Tell?
If you follow what gets said about prices each year, you would end up with the impression that the average price of tea has gone up. But more specifically the price at the most sought after regions (say Lao Banzhang, Bingdao) have gone completely through the roof. A lot of this narrative is anecdotal. Tales of rich Chinese buying up all the top-end product from X area. Part of it can also be seen when someone in the Sinosphere posts the maocha prices per location. These lists come with all sorts of contextual caveats, but the trend seems real. I don’t see any red flags to really doubt this storyline, but I was curious if it’d show up by looking at some of the data of prices on production by western facing vendors.
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Five Things I Like & Dislike. China as a Monolith, Tea Instagram, Small Vendors Selling Semi-Aged Pu’erh
Five more things I like & dislike.
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Why Simple Storage Solution are Often A Better Fit for the Western Hobbyist
If you stick around the western pu’erh scene long enough, you’ll hear about people setting up a variety of different storage setups. Unfortunately there is only a light track record for us to draw on. A handful of 10-15 year old western stored pu’erh has been lightly circulated but this isn’t exactly a quick feedback loop. While some folks flirt with fairly complex systems of storage, most people end up settling on something relatively simple. Why is that?
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Three 20ish Year old Dayi Teas [Inbetweenisode 208]
In this episode, I talk about three older Menghai Tea Factory teas that are all around 20 years old. While I don’t drink them on camera, I share my thoughts on each and my overarching impression and how I think they fit into my own understanding of Menghai Tea Factory Tea.
Relevant article published on these teas.
The samples were purchased from: http://taishunhe.com/.
NOTE: I’m not too satisfied with how the video turned out with me reading from a script I pre-wrote. I think it wasn’t particularly well-executed and I’d do it differently if I were to do it again. Nevertheless I think the concept of the episode and what is portrayed still works so I decided to release the video anyways.
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A Few Considerations in a Group Session
I’ve had the opportunity to participate and host a number of group sessions since I got into tea. The context varies.. Some have been with a couple people unfamiliar with tea, others are with regular tea friends. This article on a couple approaches to choosing what to brew sequentially in a group setting and a few more of my thoughts that I thought I’d share.
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Storing Pu’erh in North America (& The West). Pu’erh Storage Q&A [Inbetweenisode 207]
This episode, I answer a series of questions sent in about pu’erh storage. This is one of the more hot button topics in the west.
Over the course of the episode, I give some context on how pu’erh storage has been stored in east Asia, and talk about what I find to be acceptable parameters. Also talked about are how my teas have been aging in the 5 years I’ve stored them here in Seattle. Many more questions answered as well.
Thank you for those who sent in questions!
Mentioned:
Marco’s Hotbox, https://mgualt.com/tealog/2018/08/04/temp-control-experiment-w2t-bosch/ and https://mgualt.com/tealog/2019/07/20/storage-experiment-2016-w2t-bosch-two-years-in/Washington Progress Report and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9oflRNrCOM
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2010 Yunnan Sourcing Xikong Spring Raw Pu’erh [Episode 325]
This episode, Denny and I drink a 9 year old, US-Stored raw pu’erh sent to us by shah. This tea was at or towards the top of Scott’s 2010 Spring lineup and has been aged around the Atlanta, Georgia area for close to a decade. Xikong is near Yibang and this production also uses the small leaf varietal. The storage is definitely dry, the tea is quite approachable but gets stronger as the session goes on. Overall, a well-above average tea that still tastes great. Thanks shah!