Purple Dayi Puer 2003

2003 Purple Dayi

Dayi Purple

This generous sample was sent over by Apache, and it spent a long time in my sample bin before making it to the gaiwan, and an even longer time in my draft posts before leaping on to the tea blog. Recently some people have been stirring the online marketing pot for a new production of purple Dayi, so what better time to review this old classic from 2003?

Purple Dayi Puer Tea
Dry Purple Dayi from 2003

Lately a lot of Dayi chit chat has been flung around on various forums where i lurk, most of which is speculating on the prices of Dayi for 2013. Hkteaforums, home to the most Dayi loving folk on our fine planet, has some particularly egregious Dayi butt licking. How many of these people are adbots is a mystery, but it seems that anyone who is excited about paying over $30 for 2013 7542 (China taobao price) must be on the payroll. With at least a few nifty plantation teas with 5 years of age abound for that price, I am hard pressed to think of reasons to buy 7542, which is just a plantation blend after all.

Purple Dayi Soup
Purple Dayi Soup

The 2003 hunk i have is full of buds, and tightly packed. The small pouch poofed a sweet soft smell upon opening.  After a rinse there was trace of smoke, which dissipated after the first steep.

Purple Menghai Puer
Purple Dayi Soup Closeup

Sweetness was lingering throughout the session and most youthful abrasiveness had been smoothed out, with only a little tooth remaining.

Purple Dayi Puerh
Wet Puer leaves during the brewing process, with plenty of sunlight to wash out the photo

The purple dayi gave out around the 8th steep, which is to be expected from most plantation factory productions.

Dayi Big Leaf
A larger leaf amongst the choppy Puer

The Purple Dayi was a very enjoyable session and Apache footing the bill for the sample allowed me to distance myself from the cost of this very dear cake. My advice would be to shovel some coal in your time machine and travel back to a time when this cake was cheap, rather than buy it now. But, if you are going through that much trouble, you might consider warping back a few more years and buying old arbor Guafengzhai and Apple stock in the 90’s instead.

Two Dog Puerh Tea Blog

Three More Non-Puerh Related Things from Yunnan Spring

Puerh Bloggin Return

I am adding h’s to my puerh for this post because I am an SEO sell out who wants to show up on searches for “puerh” in google at least once. But if this post is any indication of puerh edification I can potentially provide to new readers, they are screwed. Furthermore, I don’t even know if that is how SEO works. What I do know, is that if you google “Puerh Blog Bathroom Tile Young Vixens”, this will be the first result.

Here is more non-tea related non-sense from my Spring in Yunnan. I swear I will get back to puerh blogging after I catch my breath. In the meantime, take a look at the top three interest bits from the back end of my trip. I saved the pictures of a water buffalo being butchered (an honorable mention coming in fourth place) in favor of the following.

1. Bathroom with Tiles of Young Vixens

Sensual tile
Front view of the hotel bathroom, complete with sensual tile
Toilet view puerh town
Toilet view
Toilet tank sticker model
Toilet tank sticker model

For those of you keeping track, that is not one, but two attractive young women who will be staring at you while you drop some kids off at the pool. What makes this aesthetic decision of placing this tile all the more enjoyable is how intentional it is. Somebody sat down one day and thought, “You know what would be a great idea? A picture of a scantily clad vixen in a nighty right above the squat toilets in my new hotel. I love having beautiful women watch me take a dump, and I assume the guests in my hotel will as well.” Which is great logic, if you want to telegraph your taboo fetish to the world. And for the record, I am not judging people with such fetishes. I don’t want anybody checking my browser history anymore than the next guy; my only point is that this tile may not have been the classiest choice for a hotel bathroom.

2. Raw Sour Olive Moonshine

Moonshine tea
Moonshine steeped with sour fruit

Drinking moonshine is a mandatory task on trips to meet with tea farmers. Some brew their own booze, others buy high octane swill from the local distillery. This bottle was one of my favorites from the entire trip. This tea farmer from lower Hekai village bought the  50%-60% corn alcohol from a local still and then steeped it with these raw olive like fruit. If you eat the fruit fresh it is incredibly sour, but after the sour wave passes there is a wake of sweetness in the mouth. Couple that sour/sweet combo with the burning/warm of the liquor and you have yourself an interesting shot. The pork in the background of the picture was also delicious. Props to the pork fat for preventing my stomach from being scorched to death by the liquor.

3. Myanmar Medicine Lady

Myanmar Medicine Woman
Yamaha, I am waiting for payment for product placement

Nothing like a woman with a bindle full of heavy prescription strength medicine from Burma to soothe what ails you. Want to treat that malaria? No need to drive to that pesky hospital 5 hours away on mountain roads, just pick up some Mefloquin some this lady. Discontinue use if you start seeing pink elephants.

Her presence adds convenience to villagers who are a long journey from the nearest health clinic, but you have to wonder about the safety of these drugs, when even mainstream pharmaceuticals in major Chinese cities have had a questionable quality control track record. The elder women smoking and chatting with her did not share my concerns.

Woman smoking a pipe tea blog
Woman smoking a pipe at the pharmacy