Things I like & dislike.

Western Pumidor Storage is Humid Storage?

I’ve seen this suggested a few times on facebook and reddit. The thought seems to be that pumidors will result in some sort of HK traditionally stored tea. I think this assertion exists because we are trying to alter the natural conditions in the west to be more humid than they otherwise would be. When made, this assertion is over-generalized, absurd and very inaccurate. If we omit the 1% fringe cases where temperature and/or humidity are intentionally inflated to extreme heights, most evidence points towards the majority of western setups result in dry-stored tea. Some of the evidence: (a) actual examples of different western storage (b) the default for pu’erh storage is more humid than most of the west (c) we are worried about dryness for a reason. There are a ton of western examples of tea being stored too dry. I can’t think of a single tea I’ve tried that’s been predominantly stored in the west that is too wet.

One counter-argument could be that western setups can get mold. This is absolutely true, but I think we shouldn’t reduce our thinking to a singular spectrum of wet and dry. There are a lot of ways to get mold, some of which can occur in what would otherwise be considered dry-storage. It’s unclear where exactly these storage setups will be in the spectrum, but the claim that these western pumidor storage as wet storage is highly questionable and does not have much evidence to support it.

Listening to Tea Videos in 1.5-2x Speed

I fully support this for those listening to our videos. I rarely watch our videos after they’ve been edited a few videos excepted. They’re not intensely visual and play out fine as podcasts. This means listening to them at an accelerated speed you don’t miss much substance.

I’ve recently had to re-watch a couple episodes and the speed is too slow for me! Watching in 1.5x or even 2x speed fixed this and made the episodes move much faster. The natural reactions and comedic timing end up a bit off, but if you are watching sheerly for information or tasting notes I think watching episodes at an increased speed works well. You have my permission to do so (not that you need it).

Binghole Samples

This sucks. For most people a 25 gram sample is 3-5 sessions. That’s a fair amount of drinking tea. The way a cake breaks it is quite possible to get stuck with the whole binghole as your sample. If this happens you probably won’t even have another piece of the cake.

Getting the binghole sucks if you’re trying to evaluate the tea for a future purchase. It also sucks if you are just drinking for pleasure with no intention of further evaluation. I don’t fault vendors but as a consumer it does really stink. It can be difficult to brew and isn’t necessarily representative of the whole cake, especially if it’s heavily pressed.

A couple possible solutions, both of which will make vendors grit their teeth. (a) The vendor breaks up the binghole more and spreads the burden around. (b) Separate out the binghole and sell it as a different and cheaper sample option, probably also marking up the normal 25 gram samples. This makes sense, because you’re kind of getting a different product.

• Personally I think solution A is the better and more plausible solution.

People Willing to Share Bad Storage Experiences

A big thumbs up here for anyone willing to share about their storage experiences good or bad. A store like Yunnan Sourcing selling pu’erh to the west has existed for nearly 15 years now. This is a long time but the amount of datapoints of people storing pu’erh in the west are still limited.

Sharing of information is a good thing even when it comes out of a negative experience. It seems like most people that come out of the woodwork want to get a diagnostic on what went wrong.. But it’s also good if people are willing to share their experience even when they know what went wrong. It’s very understandable why people don’t come forward with these cases, but you may be able to help someone from making a similar mistake. Consider it a public service..

Dedicating a Pot to Something Overly Specific

This pot is dedicated to 7 year old Yunnan Sourcing brand that has been stored only in Kunming…

I think if you are prioritizing functionality, there’s no need to be so specific. If you’re a collector do whatever you like, but for a drinker a keeping it simple approach is best. Most veteran drinkers I know only use a handful of pots regularly.

Here’s the categories I think are worth dedicating a pot to, provided you drink that type of tea. Remove a category if you don’t drink it much (I only have pots for 4 of these 6 categories)..

• Semi-Aged Pu’erh.
• Ripe Pu’erh.
• Traditionally Stored Pu’erh.
• Wuyi Oolongs.
• Roasted Oolongs.
• Aged Oolongs.

Bought too many pots? I’ve found it’s pretty easy to unload these on the secondary market if you have to.