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…)
Category: Ripe Pu’erh
-
2018 YS Year of the Dog Blue Label Ripe Pu’erh [Inbetweenisode 185]
This episode I drink a tea from Scott’s 2018 ripe line. Bought blind, this has been a regular tea in my rotation for the past few weeks. An enjoyable tea that is very clean, smooth, and a great daily drink.
-
2014 YS Man Tang Hong 3 Ripe Pu’erh [Inbetweenisode 184]
This episode, I finish up a ripe pu’erh cake I bought a while ago from Scott. The cake is part of Yunnan Sourcing‘s Man Tang Hong line, a series of teas I’ve had decent experiences with. The tea is brewed in a fashion that I normally drink my ripe pue’rh, in a big pot fairly casually.
-
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…)
-
2017 Hailang Hao Yishanmo Ripe Pu’erh via YS [Episode 290]
This episode Denny and I drink a premium ripe pu’erh made by Hailang Hao and sourced by Yunnan Sourcing. This is a subtle but rewarding tea that stands out for its texture, depth, and aftertaste.
-
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…)
-
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.
-
2015 White2Tea Ol Reliable Ripe Pu’erh [Inbetweenisode 178]
This episode I revisit the Ol Reliable ripe pue’rh from White2Tea. This is intended as a steady daily drinker and is priced accordingly. This is one of my very last sessions with this cake.
5.9 Rating.
-
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…)