This episode I drink a very unique Yiwu tea from Teas We Like. The tea is interesting for both its pedigree and its storage. It is decidedly old school and nothing like the boutique Yiwus that are often produced in more recent years. The tea (est. production 1999-2002) was seal stored in Taiwan which gives it a greener feel.
Rating: 6.3
This episode, Denny and I drink a raw pu’erh kindly sent to us by Darius. Thank you! The tea is a special opportunity to try something that has been dry-stored in the US (near Atlanta) for many years. It is a particularly interesting session because most of the Xizi Hao being circulated has been stored in Taiwan. We have also tried a TW stored version of this tea before and it is totally different.
Darius’ stored version is clean, punchy, and quite powerful. The tea tastes greener and rawer but it rewards in complexity and aroma.
Thank you to Su for sending both this gift. This episode Denny and I drink a smooth, easy-drinking Dayeh (Big Leaf) Pu’erh from Su. It’s an extremely comfortable and likable tea.
I got into tea in 2012. One of the first things I did was read everything I could in the western tea scene. This included old forum posts, new forum posts, blogs like Marshaln, Half-Dipper and the Chadao Blogspot. One constant I found was the constant bemoaning the ever-rising price of pu’erh, as long as there’s been dialogue about it on the internet. It didn’t matter if the post was written in 2008 or 2012… Since 2012, the situation hasn’t exactly improved. The most dramatic rises have been in maocha and current year productions. The majority of the highest-priced tea being peddled from popular online sources definitely isn’t old vintage tea, it’s something made in 2018 (OK, maybe 2017)!! Notably not everything has gone up equally. Things like YQH Qizhong, while never cheap in the first place have been fairly stable in price even since my initial foray into pu’erh. For the value-minded, this has made some of these semi-aged teas the target for people like myself. (more…)
About a year ago, I used the Way Back Machine/Archive.org to go back and examine the prices at conception of tea from western vendors since 2011. This was a valuable exercise and produced some interesting findings on a range of things, from price fluctuation, to the specific market each vendor aims for, etc. Crunching the numbers also statistically confirmed what many have long known. Fresh/young pu’erh prices have gone up in price by a whole lot in this decade.. I decided to update that post with teas that were added since. I added 55 spring productions in total, 51 productions from 2018 and 4 from Chawangshop’s 2017 (they were slow to add them to their site in 2017). (more…)
This episode I drink a tea that I own quite a lot of, the 2013 Xiaguan Love Forever Paper Tong. This tea has become fairly popular in the specialized western pu’erh in the last couple years. Despite being pressed six years ago, the tea material is older (from 2003) making this a tea with significant age on it. The tea is also special to me as my wife and I were gifted a tong of this on our wedding day from the tea community.
The tea itself is quite strong, with a very dense taste and a long lasting mouthfeel. It is also not really like other Xiaguan teas as it was made by Feitai (FT) under the Xiaguan label. While it is semi-aged, this is a tea with a lot of potency to be aged in the future. In the video I also go over a bit of the history of this tea and talk a bit about the bamboo tong version, which is not as good.
Rating: 6.3
This episode, I drink a semi-aged raw pu’erh from W2T. The tea is from one of my pu’erh areas, Yiwu and stands out for its decent storage, clean profile, and good aftertaste. Finding affordable Yiwu can be difficult and this one is solid and doesn’t cost too much.
2018 has been a year where I’ve continued to settle into regular habits of drinking my own tea rather than a year of exploration. I still very much enjoy drinking tea and have it at least once daily but the hobby is more restrained than a few years back. I haven’t bought teaware in several years and I drink from the few categories of tea I enjoy and not much else. Call me a grump, but I got a good idea what I like and what I’ll drink. (more…)
This episode Denny and I drink a companion to the 2014 Gedeng a few episodes back. This tea is the XZH Grade B Manzhuan and is also from the 6FM area. This session is a bit more balanced and the tea shows off a strong aftertaste and body feel. It is quite potent, but it integrates well and hits us more easily than the Gedeng. A very high-quality tea and session. Thank you Darius for providing the leaves!
This episode Denny and I drink a very high-end tea from the six famous mountains range, the Gedeng. This productions uses some very high-quality leaves and is easily one of the most potent brews we’ve had on the show. If you are a lover of incoherence and substance abuse, this is the episode for you. Thank you Peter for providing the tea!