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Extended Episode Pu’erh Regional Primer [Inbetweenisode 124]
An extended episode covering the big pu’erh regions of Yunnan. References to babelcarp and a couple of the regional TeaDB articles. http://babelcarp.org/babelcarp/ https://teadb.org/yunnan/
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Baseball Closers, 99 Bottles of Wine (Drink Your Damn Tea & Buy the Good Shit)
In major league baseball a team’s best relief pitcher is nearly always their closer. For years, the closer has been only used under very specific criteria. (a) Their team is ahead by three runs or less (b) there is one inning left. As advanced statistics and improved game theory have seeped into the sport, some…
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Early Yunnan Sourcing Production Aging Mini-Report & Some Pu’erh Thoughts
Many of the original pu’erh productions by western-facing vendor were in the 2009 or 2010 and principally done by Essence of Tea and Yunnan Sourcing. A lot has changed since then, and while there’s the odd production that has stayed somewhat consistent (i.e. YS Wuliang) both vendors are making from very different gardens and areas…
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Tea Drinking Reflections 2016 & 15 Cake Challenge 2017
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…
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Pu’erh Home Storage — TeaDB James InBetweenIsode Episode #112
A non-drinking episode covering some topics of home storage. Basic ideas of storage, pumidors, and some dangers of storing pu’erh. Further reading: Home Pumidor Survey, Kunming Storage
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How Dry is Kunming Storage & What Does That Mean For Western Home Storage?
“At least it’s not Kunming storage.” “Stored in Kunming….. Maybe it’ll be ready in 50 years.” -Anonymous Pu’erh Heads Kunming has developed a reputation as the whipping boy of storage locations. Anyone who’s sampled a tea aged in Kunming knows it’s way different and tea is much slower to change than something like dry Hong Kong storage.…
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Practical Brewing Nuances
There’s quite a bit to take into account when brewing. Most of us figure out how they work in our setup and fall into routines that eventually get filed away into muscle memory.. It can take being removed from our familiar home setups for us to really think and utilize improvisational gong-fu skills to bring the most out of a tea. Maybe, you’re used…
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Pu’erh Nerdy Q&A — TeaDB James InBetweenIsode Episode #97
Answering a few more of the pu’erh questions we didn’t get to in our Q&A episode.
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How Much is Your Vendor Marking Up Your Pu’erh?
No one wants to pay for unnecessary things, but even so very few of us know the actual cost of goods, or actual item cost that the vendor bought the tea for. We’re often left clueless about what their markup might be. There are inevitable costs of running a business that we as consumers don’t…
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Mature Pu’erh Report [March 2016]
I drank through these teas in March of 2016. The last mature report was about 16 months ago, but with my Taiwan trip approaching I figured it was about time to drink through my lingering pile of samples.. This report is a mix of teas I own, teas still available from western vendors, and other teas…