aged puer tea Archives - Two Dog Tea Blog

1980’s Wild Tree Loose Puer

January 29, 2014January 29, 2014 TwoDog2 Leave a comment

Aged Puer Tea

Lovely old puer teas have engrossing stories to tell. This aged puer from origintea has the odor of musty books. Wood unfurls out of the the gongbei [shared cup, glass pitcher] after a rinse. The dust covered smells then morph into a deep caramelized sugar, and then vanish. The leaves smell damp after a long sleep. I wait about two minutes after the rinse before I start steeping. I smell the lid of my yixing and there is a sharp smell of wetness that a lot of older teas have inevitably collected in their long lifetime.

Any hint of the sharp smell vanishes within moments. I place the lid back, wait a moment, and smell again, and again the smell has transformed to fragrant wood and earth. Teas like this are captivating. Their constant changes are a sort of theatrical performance. The sharpness makes a brief cameo appearance, takes a bow, and leaves the stage. The wood is a main character, acting in scenes with the earth and the sweetness. All of the acts being performed amidst a backdrop of smoothness and warmth, the setting of the play. This is what good puer tea should be!

Dry 1980's raw puer tea — Dry 1980’s raw puer tea

The early steeps were thin. The tea was just beginning to wake up, and had a direct thinness similar to aged Liubao tea. As the session progressed this thin character began to widen out.

On the fifth steep I smell the leaves and get a smell of browned stew meat. I did not see him in the playbill! Honestly, I questioned whether I should write this note down, since some puer aficionados are going to read stew meat and think I am an idiot, but it was just the first thing that came to mind. The smell of raw beef that you are browning in the pan. When you take it out of the fire and it sits for a moment and has a sickly, meat smell. That was the connection my brain made. A definite first.

Petr Novak Cup — A view of the dark red brown soup, in a cup from Petr Novak

The star of the show is difficult to pick in such an intense drama. The lingering huigan [sweet aftertaste] is one the best assets of the tea. The smooth texture of the tea and warming body feel are enviable. This is a must see show. A Tony award winner (ha!). Enough with the hackneyed theatrical references, try the tea!

Never Say Never, ManSong 2001 Raw Puer

September 22, 2013September 29, 2013 TwoDog2 3 Comments

Cloudy Tea & the Trappings of Conventional Opinion

After countless experiences being proven dead wrong when speaking in puer absolutes, I should know better by now. Today’s tea, a 2001 ManSong raw puer pushes back on a couple of puerisms that many people toss around:

Aged teas tend to lose their youthful fragrances over time in non-dry storage
Cloudy soup is an indicator of “bad” tea

Both of these pieces of knowledge are generally true. An aged tea will often leave it’s floral scents of youth after a decade, or sometimes much faster, depending on the storage. And cloudy soup can be an indicator of a variety of woeful situations, like tea picked after rain or even poor processing, both things which tend to impact the quality of the tea.

Nine times out of ten, these things are right. And then you have the tenth tea.

Zisha Teapot — Dry Maocha about to go into the pot

This tea is roughly a decade old, but smells more fragrant than most young teas.

The first rinse left an intoxicating aroma in the gongbei [shared cup], but as you can see from the image above, it is very low on the clarity scale. Once in awhile you get some fall teas picked after heavy rain which are less cloudy than this. I have no idea where this opacity comes from, but most puer snobs would scoff at the color of the liquor.

Mansong Puerh Tea — Cloudy Tea (Partly to my bad camerasmanshipbility)

I am a snob and I scoffed as well. Then, I took a sip, followed by a bite of humble pie. The first steep had remnants of astringency, but was smooth and thick in the back of the throat. A mix of fruity caramel flavors and a fast huigan [sweet aftertaste] that followed a light bitter body. Don’t judge books by their covers and all that.

Mansong Puer Tea — The soup, getting a bit less cloudy and more red in color

Speaking of prejudice, I was a little bit down on ManSong tea and several other teas from that area before this Spring. Probably because I had a few bad encounters and wrote it off. After visiting several areas around Xiangming and ManZhuan I changed my opinion. Just another re-learning of the lesson to keep an open mind and two open eyes when looking for good tea.

Mansong Pu-erh — Spent leaves, all very hearty

* Might be wrong on the date here, but that is what the farmer wrote on a slip of paper in the bag

2003 Purple Dayi

May 26, 2013May 26, 2013 TwoDog2 Leave a comment

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.

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.

1997 Henglichang Bulang

December 18, 2012December 18, 2012 TwoDog2 2 Comments

Henglichang Bulang

This Henglichang Bulang tea has gotten some mention from other bloggers with widely varying opinions. Thanks to Apache, I had a chance to try a sample. Luckily, I had not read any other reviews prior to sitting down for my session – so the scribbles in my little notebook were from an unbiased mind – relatively speaking.

When I decided to make a post about the Henglichang Bulang, I poked around to see what others had wrote, finding some divergent views. A 2010 review from Hobbes begins:

Some cakes give you hope. …

This Henglichang* cake is an excellent example of an aged cake that has real “trousers”. The leaves are homogenous in colour – there is no partial blend of type (i) leaves. The whole tea is a big, mahogany treat. It is a big, bold tea that is doing very well for its years. I appreciate its power, its duration, and its complexity.

Where as Marshaln mentions in his recent post:

There’s no real complexity and offers none of the surprises of a well aged tea. After trying this, now I know why this tea is a complete unknown this side of the Pacific. There are lots of options for late 90s teas, and this one isn’t a representative example of a good one.

These two reviews are fairly divergent, which is fine. I will quote my own notes below, which fall somewhere in between Hobbes and Marshaln. I can relate to the trousers and the lack of real complexity. It has both; thick bitterness and a lack of much else going on.

The rest of the quotes are direct from my notes:

Looks very dry. Lots of tips, smells of dusty books

Bulang Puerh — Close up of the dry leaves

Further noting:

Deep throaty kuwei right out of the gate, active salivary glands. Chocolatey.

Strong kuwei. Horehound

…

Heroic staying power, 20+ steeps

That was the abridged version of the notes. After looking over what I wrote, I noticed a surprising lack of adjectives such as good or bad. Very little in the way of judgmental adjectives, which is not that common for me. My notebook is usually littered with swear words or praise, or in some cases, both. It has been a couple of months since I drank this tea, but I remember drinking it for over an hour before a basketball game one Sunday. (We did win the game, which i must partially credit the Henglichang bulang for)

I do not throw around the phrase Heoric staying power lightly. I do remember this tea having a never ending rolling bitterness, which I enjoyed. I do also remember there not being much change or complexity, but I didn’t mind. Also, this is probably the first and only time I have encountered a note of horehound, which is a nostalgic flavor of a candy (derived from a plant) that my grandfather enjoyed and I ate on trips in South Dakota in my youth. Probably to do with the thick coating and dark syrupy tea.

Additional reviews, which i jacked from Marshaln/Jakub’s posts include: Jakub T , The Skua , and Wuxingcloud. And now you can add my notes to the pile.

2005 Liming Qiaomu Chawang

September 27, 2012September 27, 2012 TwoDog2 6 Comments

Qiaomu and Other Oft Used B.S.

Oh, Liming Factory! Never bashful about overstating the quality of your tea. You are the American student of tea factories, 1st in confidence, 37th in ability. Alright, I am unfairly singling out Liming factory, as the entire puer tea industry is filled with this kind of over ambitious labeling. This particular puer tea, labeled Qiaomu Chawang [Arbor Tea King] is certainly high on ambition. Maybe a less regal title, something more in the middle management range. Maybe Qiaomu Junior Supervisor. And arbor…we would need to change that too. But, I guess Plantation Junior Supervisor just isn’t sexy enough to sell cakes.

The leaves are a beautiful dark brown color, and they smell how they look; brown, rich and aged. I noted their smell was “enchanting”, so maybe we should promote this tea to the position of Qiaomu Baron.

The first steeps left a lot of aged tobacco flavor in the gaiwan, with a creamy scent on the lid. The first several infusions presented a nice kuwei [pleasant bitterness] and a fast huigan [sweet aftertaste]. The soup was a little bit thin overall, but there were several flavors warring for dominance. Also, for a tea that was a bit thin, it had some staying power. The tobacco flavor that was so prevalent in the first four steepings trailed off and the later session was dominated by some throat coating bitterness, which was quite pleasant, even if the flavor became a bit generic. Overall, the body feeling and general feeling of the tea was fairly average, for a tea with a higher than average price tag of around USD 90 on Taobao.

The tea has some potential to age further, as it still retains a fair amount of strength, but I would rather drink several other teas with lower price tags, were I buying factory productions from this time period.

The leaves were fairly heavily fragmented. The leaf pictured above is one of the bigger leaves I could find when rummaging around the gaiwan. If I were to lay a bet, the label of qiaomu on this tea is pretty misleading, seems like mostly plantation material. The title of tea king is not worth discussing – there can only be one king, and that is clearly Tiandiren. (ha)

For the price/quality of this tea, I am just not sure who is buying this stuff? To prove I am not just relentlessly crapping all over Liming factory, there is a ripe Liming cake that I really enjoy. I will break it out and take some photos one of these days, as a penance for my treason against the king.

puerh tea leaves — Wet leaves in the gaiwan (before the lid cracked)

2007 Bai Cha Tang 3rd Generation Iron Cake

September 11, 2012September 11, 2012 TwoDog2 Leave a comment

Bai Cha Tang Puer

Bai Cha Tang (百茶堂) is a brand that I had yet to delve into, until a suggestion from Shah (of teachat fame). From what I have read, this cake is a middle of the road entry point to their productions – not old or precious, but still quite good. This cakes proper name is sandai [third generation] tiebing [iron cake] , which boasts gushu [old arbor] material. As you can see from the leaves below, they are typical of an tiebing (see: pressed into oblivion).

Sweet aged smell coming off of the leaves. The friend who sent me this puer was in Guangzhou, but I think this cake spent some of its life in Kunming. The Guangzhou storage shows, as its age is more apparent than say, this 7542 i recently reviewed, with twice its age.

As one would expect with a tiebing, it takes a little while to gear up. The aged flavor is accompanied by balanced kuwei [pleasant bitterness] and a thick coating in the throat and mouth. The tea also had a noticeable qi [mystical voodoo magic or body calm].

As you can see, the gaiwan was stuffed. The tea carried on for an impressive 20 steeps, which was partly due to the 10g-12g in the gaiwan and partly due to the puer itself. Midway through this marathon session there was a vibrancy on my lips and huigan [sweet aftertaste], both of which were pleasant. This tea just marked its fifth birthday and seems to have plenty of potential for further aging.

The tea is not exactly pretty, but when the tea is good, I tend not to care about such superficial things. I will keep an eye out for some Baichatang cakes to add to my own coffers, they are fairly reasonably priced and well made.

A random note: this blog post of a 2008 Bai Cha Tang 3rd Gen Tiebing turned up in my searching and it interested me because the author’s leaves were so much larger than mine and mostly unbroken! It could be that the samples I had were broken off haphazardly or that my cake was just more heavily chopped. Who knows. Seems that author of the seemingly defunct blog enjoyed the cake too.

1970’s Sheng Puer Mao Cha (Taiwan Storage)

August 8, 2012August 23, 2012 TwoDog2 Leave a comment

In an effort to start off on the right foot, I am publishing my first posts on 8/8, a lucky day in Chinese culture, as 8’s are an auspicious number. And in an effort to further my fortune, i will be leading with a well aged sheng puer. Last weekend, this tea was shared between some friends and I at Tao Cha Ju. About 10g of the 1970’s raw puer was parceled out into a gaiwan, to be split many ways, as you can tell by the long row of cups below.

However, before we dove into the tea, someone suggested we grab lunch. A fine suggestion, except that I had little interest in cigarettes and baijiu on a Sunday afternoon. Baijiu, for the ~~fortunate~~ uninitiated, is a traditional Chinese liquor made from Sorghum or other grains, around 50% alcohol. I believe it varies from about 30% all the way up to the 60% range. It is useful for cleaning carburetors. In any case, I am not a smoker, and had little interest in getting drunk at noon on a Sunday. However, being the low man on the totem pole of the social situation, I had little say in the matter. Off we went to lunch.

1970's Sheng Puer Loose Tea — 1970’s Sheng Puer Loose Tea

After lunch we came back, and 10g of the aged sheng puer was weighed and placed in the gaiwan. I am not sure of the exact origins of this tea, but supposedly most of its tenure was spent in Taiwan. As you would expect with such an old mao cha, it has lost quite a bit of its strength. That loss of strength is duly compensated with a smoothness that comes with long aging. The initial smells off of the leaves were soft and spoke to the humid storage of the tea – not quite like a musty Hong Kong storage, but in the ballpark.

1970's Sheng Puer in the Gaiwan — 1970’s Sheng Puer in the Gaiwan

The first steep of the sheng puer — The first sheng puer steeping, and a line of cups

I was able to dodge the baijiu bullet at lunch, as was Xiao Yun Qing (the owner of Tao Cha Ju). After we came back from lunch, several of our compatriots were slowly fading from the booze. This was much to mine and Yun Qing’s advantage, as after about the fourth or fifth steep, what was originally six cups became two, and he and I drank the remaining 15 steeps.

Sheng puer being poured — Blurry image of the pour

The tea has a creamy smoothness, and a wet storage flavor that carried throughout. A light sweetness was more present the further we steeped. A brief cooling in the mouth and throat. More important than flavors, this tea left me feeling airy. That is part of the mystique of older teas like this, they leave behind harshness and aspects of their young character, and embrace an easy going nature. We should all be so lucky.