A Tea Addict's Journal

Entries tagged as ‘aged puerh’

A parting meeting

December 23, 2007 · 2 Comments

I went to Wisteria today, to see Aaron and a couple who are making a documentary about tea. I met the couple once already, but since I figured Aaron might be able to help them a lot more (seeing as he’s in Taiwan and all) we planned to meet together before we left. After some discussion, the meeting ended up being at Wisteria.

We started with a tea that Aaron brought with him — some tea from Tibet. It’s a mixture, actually — a tea with some other plant. Aaron thinks it’s a white tea plus some moss-like herb. We really have no clue. It reminded me of the incense smell I get from flipping some of these old books that I regularly have to read, most likely because the books were stored in places where incense was burned regularly. It’s a very calming tea, actually, and the plant, whatever it is, has a sort of citrus like taste and a great aftertaste. I could feel the medicinal quality of this thing. Very very nice stuff.

Then we had a 1930s puerh called “Shuang Hua” or twin flowers. Not one of the most famous brands out there, but it’s still old nonetheless. It’s a relaxing tea — mellow, good soft qi, but not too powerful (there’s a reason it’s not that famous). Still, one can’t complain about drinking stuff like this.

It was a nice tea meeting to end my visit in Taiwan this time. They sometimes call Taiwan “Treasure Island” here. For the tea enthusiast, there’s a lot of treasures to be found, provided that you’ve got the time, energy, and patience to deal with it. It took me a while before I had a sort of breakthrough in finding good stuff, but I think eventually I found some pretty nice teas and teaware along the way. I’m sure I’ll come back, but for now… I am looking ahead at a 24 hours trip through SFO and IAD to CMH. I wonder if I’ll see snow tomorrow?

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Border tea

December 7, 2007 · 4 Comments

New candy from my candy store.

I went back to the candy store to see if she has any more teas for me. One of the reasons I keep going back to this place is because unlike a lot of old shops, the laobanniang is very kind here and lets me do my thing, and doesn’t mind me asking questions, asking to see things, play with things, etc. A lot of these shops don’t really want to deal with you, and that makes things hard. When it’s a shop like this where the varieties of teas are in probably the hundreds when you account for all the various vintages (among which are gems and duds) it’s not possible to go through everything at once. If I had my way, I’d have all the bins open and spend an afternoon there opening every single bag. But alas, I can’t.

I picked some stuff up, and rummaged through some of her bins. Among the things she showed me were an aged qianlixiang (thousand miles fragrance), old oriental beauty, a slightly sour huangjingui, two bags of old puerh — one cooked, one a mixed bag of cooked and raw — and then some of these old pieces of puerh she has. Old is relative, of course. They sit in the back of the room, in this wall cabinet full of crap, basically, and in there are some leftover puerh from when they still sold this stuff (it’s gotten too expensive for them to buy these things, and they’re not really in this business anymore). Nothing too interesting, but I found this cake above, and it’s very cheap, so I figured, why not.

From the looks of it it looks like border tea — probably Vietnam tea. At first I thought it looked like Guangdong bing, but then the shape of it is not right, so that’s ruled out. It looks the most like some of the “new” Tongqing cakes that some Taiwanese guys made in the 80s. Those are usually wet stored to high heaven. This one’s not too wet, but definitely hasn’t been dry stored either. The dark and smallish leaves, and the smallish indentation in the back, sort of made me think this is the same thing, without the neifei (which is basically just slightly stuck on anyway). Things like this sell for a ridiculous price at M3T in Paris, at least I remember seeing one of them from a guy who bought it there.

The colour of the tea looks ok

But the taste is distinctly different. If you’ve had these a few times, you’d know what it is. I remember reading about it — how in Hong Kong, back in the day (and even now) loose puerh is sometimes (or often) made with Vietnam tea because they’re cheaper, and because back then, the supply of puerh was inconsistent. They probably go into blends, among other things. Even now, they’re supposed to be making their way into puerh cakes and what not.

This stuff isn’t high grade stuff, and don’t taste as good and rich as real Yunnan puerh. There’s a certain edge to it, and the sweetness is not quite there, in comparison. I’ve always wanted a more or less authentic cake of unadulterated border tea. I think I found it 🙂

I also came home with some supposedly 35 years old dongding that really reminded me of the liu’an I had yesterday, oddly enough, as well as some of the biyuzhu I had last week. I should’ve gotten a sample of the old oriental beauty. Oh well, there’s always next time.

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The hermit store

November 28, 2007 · 3 Comments

I was running an errand today that took me somewhere very near a store that was recommended to me. I had some extra time, and it was tea time anyway…. so why not?

I found the place after walking a little bit. The store can be best described as… shabby. On a scale of 1-10 for decor, it rates a 0. It is dark, with an old table, some old teaware, old tea (lots of it), a broken display case with some old cakes in it, and after some time drinking tea there, an old cockroach running around that the owner killed with bugspray.

If nobody recommended this place, I don’t think I would’ve spent much time in it.

But, the guy said this store has a lot of old tea, so, heck, why not.

When I walked in a woman was chanting Buddhish sutra loudly. She didn’t even notice me, and it was only after I (deliberately) made some noise fumbling the (some broken) teaware that she realized somebody’s in the store. After some talking, she called the owner back. He’s her husband, and probably in his 60s. An interesting looking guy, who, after sizing me up, asked me what I want to try. 80s? 90s? 00s? Sheng? Shu? I tentatively suggested 90s sheng, and then he asked “do you want the strong ones or the smooth ones?”. Strong. So… he reached back into a little canister, pulled out some tea, and started making it.

It’s some early 90s 7542. Not bad at all. Sweet, a bit mellow now, not too rough…. quite right, actually, and definitely dry stored. Then we had an early 90s 8653 (Traditional Character) that was stronger, lasts more infusion, but also a little rougher. Very good tea, both. I wonder if either of them might be worth the asking price.

Here’s the dilemma… it’s a cake that isn’t quite yet good for drinking, but is obviously much closer than anything newish. I suppose the price is affordable, but is it worth that much?

Food for thought. For now though, he’s said if I want to I can come back and drink tea with him. I’ll probably go back at some point.

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Waking up another tea

October 22, 2007 · 5 Comments

First off: A reminder of the contest going on that I posted at the bottom of this entry. There’ve been some guesses, but anybody is welcomed to join. You have about 24 hours to do so :).

Last time I tried this tea, I felt it was a bit odd. It loooked strong, but it didn’t taste the way it looked. After the encouraging results from waking up my loose leaf puerh a few days ago, I decided to revisit this sample again today.

The liquor looks more or less the same

But this time, the tea tastes better. Sweeter, smoother, less bitter, overall a better, rounder tea. I really do think that perhaps the wettish environment the past few weeks has done something good to it. It was raining (or at least threatening to rain) for at least a week or more in the interim. Then, the northerly wind came in and dried everything. Perhaps having gone through that cycle, the tea improved. Either way — I know in this case it’s not placebo, because last time I wasn’t fully enjoying this tea, but this time I am. Since water didn’t change and vessel didn’t change, the only thing that changed, I think, is the tea itself.

The tea is obviously wet stored, but it isn’t very heavily wet stored.

The leaves are quite ok and probably good for some more aging.

So there’s a definite science involving the waking up of a tea. From what I was told anyway, the process of waking up a tea involves at least moving air, and a certian amount of moisture in the moving air. Bone dry air moving through the tea doesn’t make it better (or, I suspect, carry away the nasty bits). It merely makes the tea dry, as I’ve experienced before with deliberately dried tea left out in a desert weather warehouse (the owner of the cakes was precisely trying to improve the tea — but ruined them instead without realizing it, even after the fact). Breaking a cake up will obviously improve the process, and so will, I think, spreading the tea out. However, I suppose that too much spreading out might be bad. So, at the end of the day, it depends on what the purpose is and what time frame one’s working with. To make a tea immediately good for drinking, perhaps breaking a cake apart, spread it out on a plate and putting it in a humid climate will do best. If it’s just for short to medium term (within a year or so?) drinking, then perhaps sticking them in a jar will do. Long term storage, and you don’t break it open at all.

All of these, of course, without a whole lot of practical experience to back it up other than small experiments and bits of drinking experience here and there, along with information told to me by others who are indeed more knowledgable. But I think in this case it is possible to deduce these things…

Anyway, Lew, I think this tea is not a bad buy!

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Awakening a tea

October 19, 2007 · 5 Comments

Some of you may have heard of a practice called “xingcha” 醒茶, or “awakening a tea”. Generally this refers to letting an older cake of puerh come to life before drinking it. Everybody has a different routine, but it generally involves taking the cake out, perhaps breaking it up into pieces, air it out a little, put it in a jar, let it sit for a while, before actually drinking it. This process is supposed to improve the tea’s taste — it will be better than if you dive into it right away.

One can do this with loose puerh too, because I’ve talked to an owner of an old teashop in Hong Kong who said I should spread the stuff out on a plate or something, let it air out for a little, before drinking his tea. It will be smoother and better. Since last time I tried the loose tea I bought from Off-Chaism did not produce a good result, I decided I’ll do this to the bag of tea. I had a feeling that between the air-tight seal and the little pouch of anti-oxidation stuff they put in the bag (keeps oxygen out of the bag, I guess — I don’t know why they did this for a puerh) did the tea in, causing it to taste worse than it did at the store. I shook the tea around in the bag from time to time, and just generally let it air, hoping it will make the tea get better.

So I decided to give it another spin today.

Still the big leaves

Still the same colour

But I am happy to report that after a few infusions, it became obvious that the tea is, indeed, better. It is noticeably less rough than the last time I tried the tea, which was one of my complaints. It also wasn’t as sharp on the tongue or as obviously bitter (though it was definitely still there). Instead, the tea acquired a little more aromatics. Much more pleasant to drink this time around. Obviously a dry stored tea still, but it is a Taiwan dry stored one — not the driest of dry, with just enough aging to give it that aged taste.

Which makes me wonder even more — why did they pack this tea they way they did? I guess they mostly sell oolongs, so there’s a need to pack it well. But…. this isn’t an oolong. Given all the packaging materials that went into the box, you’d think they can take enough care to package it the way it should be — maybe with a little less care so the tea doesn’t taste nasty out of the box.

The tea held up quite well for many infusions. This is a later one… probably 12?

The leaves are still the same, of course — a mixed bag.

I’m happier with this purchase now, although I’m still not sure if it’s worth the price. I suppose though, for a dry stored tea with obvious aging… it’s not so bad.

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Menghai 1998 tuo

October 7, 2007 · Leave a Comment

This is a tuo I got at a local tea shop when buying stuff with Action Jackson while she was visiting town. We went to this place and tasted a few things, and she bought one of these. I helped her get a few more, as she is obviously no longer in town, and got one for myself, which I broke up…

The shop owner says this is from 1998, and compared to the 2000 Xiaguan tuo that she also sells, this tuo obviously tasted more aged. It also has a darker hue. There’s this little piece of paper that comes along with the wrapper that has 1998 stamped on it, but as any puerh collector knows…. these things aren’t very trustworthy and are very, very easily faked.

The tea looks like what it was in the store

Somehow though, it tastes a little different. I seem to remember in the store it tasted a bit more aged — there’s a little more of the “aged” taste of a puerh that showed through. It does still taste like that, but somehow not quite as obvious as I remember. It was, after all, almost two months ago. It was also right after we drank some pretty young stuff, so perhaps my tongue was picking up more on the aged notes of the tea. There’s also water and other things to consider. Who knows, but it’s always a little frustrating when a tea tastes a bit different at home. It’s also a bit on the rough side — considering that it supposedly has 10 years of aging in it, the tea was still rough. Roughness, after all, doesn’t go away very fast, and perhaps in a tuo it’s even worse.

If this is what a tuo tastes like in dry storage after 10 years in Taiwan…. one really wonders if there’s a point in dry storing a tuo at all. I’ve never been sure, so I have never been a big buyer of tuo, opting only for a few pieces here and there as a sort of curiosity more than anything else. Action Jackson, though, said she went for the tuo during her recent bout of sickness, which is how she decided she wanted more. Maybe it’s just this particular one that I’m drinking? Maybe I’m brewing it all wrong?

It’s probably worth revisiting this one.

The leaves are… like leaves in a tuo

I played with the white balance a little…. but I’m not sure whether this is a little too red. Digital cameras can really lie sometimes.

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Why do we bother with puerh?

September 26, 2007 · 4 Comments

I drank some loose, wet stored puerh that I bought on the cheap in Hong Kong. It’s nothing fancy, but it gets the job done.

What I increasingly realized, at least for myself, is that I really am not all that interested in aged puerh right now — aged puerh that are aged by other people and sold at very high prices. I am certainly not disputing that a Red Label or some such are really good tea. I am, however, not convinced that it’s worth that much money for me, other than perhaps in small doses of an ounce or so.

I’ve had a number of aged cakes ranging from stuff from the 90s to stuff from the 20s. I do think that if it’s a good tea, it can be incredibly good. What I think is not true, however, is that everything aged is good. One of the teas I had this past weekend was a late 80s, somewhat wet stored 7542. It’s probably about $300, which isn’t all too expensive, all things considered, but it really wasn’t that good. I mean, sure, it’s better than the loose puerh I just drank…. but it’s also many times the price of this tea. At $300 per 350g, I can buy Wuyi yancha of extremely quality and which I will enjoy much more than this mediocre 7542. A better 7542 from a few years before, and which was stored better, was double the price. Sure, it’s nice…. but is it really worth $600?

I think I am hardly alone in thinking this. My friend YP, who’s been drinking and storing tea for more than 15 years now, said back in the day, you drank Red Label all the time. It was (relatively) expensive, but still affordable. You whip it out once in a while. Then she saw how the prices skyrocket, and thought…. maybe I should save this up, and started drinking Yellow Labels. Now, even that’s getting a bit pricey for her, and she still has, I believe, a few tongs of it up her sleeve.

One of the things Aaron Fisher said during our meeting was that good tea come to you — you don’t always have to look for it. I agree with that part — some of the best teas I’ve had are from other people. I think he’s had the same experience. In the current market conditions…. who really buys whole cakes of this stuff? Mainland nouveaux riche, obviously, but anybody else? Those are the people driving the prices up these days — Chinese who recently got fabulously wealthy, combined with an urge to discover some sort of “traditional” culture, however invented that may be, and a desire to display that wealth, as well as their high taste, in a conspicuous but not obnoxious fashion…. and tea is a perfect combination of all those things. Whether or not they succeed in that, especially the non-obnoxious factor, is another matter. What is obvious though is that demand for this stuff is still going up.

So combined with an ever expanding market for such old things is a relatively small and shrinking supply. Shrinking, because these teas from 90s and earlier are only going to get consumed over time through drinking or attrition, and because they aren’t going to be produced any longer. If one can afford it, buying some might be a wise investment. For the pure drinking like me though…. I’m really not sure if it’s worth all that fuss. Perhaps if I were not a poor grad student, it might seem less of an issue, but even then, I don’t think many (I’m not saying all – I’ll gladly buy some of YP’s Zhongcha traditional character!) of these aged teas are really worth their salt. They’re in demand not always because of their taste… but because of market conditions. That’s a very different thing. Nor, do I think, is it a good argument that “if you don’t buy it now, it’ll be 20% more in a year!”. I am drinking tea, not money, and if the tea itself isn’t worth current year prices to me, it doesn’t matter how much it will appreciate — it’s still not worth it, unless, of course, I plan to sell it again.

But there are many other vehicles of investment that are both safer and probably better. Tea is actually not a great investment tool, monetarily speaking. It’s very illiquid, runs a high risk of damage/destruction, and also has an unknown potential for growth. While prices of older teas are high because of their limited supply, the reverse is true for stuff that were made after maybe 2002/2003 or so. Supply has skyrocketed, and nowadays there are many people with literally tonnes of tea sitting in some warehouse, aging, hoping it will give returns similar to those old teas…. but I think the vast majority of it won’t, simply because there’s a lot of it now, and the quality of those teas are not going to justify the high returns.

So why do we even bother? Why not just buy these teas 10 years from now when you know which one’s good and which one isn’t, and in the meantime, park the money somewhere else? It’s a compelling argument, really, but I think, for me at least, part of the fun is to figure out what works, what doesn’t work, what tea will be good, and what tea won’t be. Watching them grow old, trying them over time…. and knowing that should you score something really good now, the price of it could, indeed, be quite expensive… it’s not so much the economic returns, but rather the elation at having spotted a treasure when it was young. I think that is why I bother with all this work, of going to places looking for good tea, of trying to find the right bargains. I guess hobbies, by definition, are not entirely rational.

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Sample from Hong Kong, via Vancouver and New York

September 24, 2007 · 3 Comments

Today I drank a sample sent to me from Lew, creator of babelcarp. This is from Aroma teahouse in Vancouver, which is actually a branch of Lam Kie Yuen in Hong Kong, operated by the daughter of Mr. Lam in Hong Kong and selling, I believe, mostly the same teas. This is something he bought there, and he said what it tasted like in the store is a bit different than when he got home. I got a sample of this along with a sample of his own pressed cake in Yunnan.

The dry leaves look like a recipe cake

With the outside surface coated with smaller buds while the inside uses bigger leaves. The dry leaves are rather brown, and smell a little wet stored.

The tea brews a slightly cloudy (initially) and dark liquor.

The taste is a little funny. Despite the strong colour, the tea is not particularly strong in taste. At first there’s an obvious taste of the storage, but after that fades, the tea gets a little more bitter and there’s also a bit of sour in there. Despite what must be at least somewhat wet storage, there isn’t a lot of the smooth sweetness I expect. The tea is smooth, but not that sweet. I am thinking it probably needs more time, actually. It still seems rather young for some teas.

The leaves seem to show more age than the taste though. I’m not sure why

All in all, a pretty curious tea. I do wonder if the act of shipping it over in a small envelope has done something to it, or perhaps the Vancouver storage has changed it a bit. I’m not sure of the answer to any of those question….

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Conspiracy theory

September 22, 2007 · 5 Comments

I went tea shopping today. The shopping itself wasn’t the most fascinating, although I did buy some stuff for Action Jackson, who wanted some of the tuos we had last time we went to this store.

What was interesting was the conversation I had with the owner of the store today. It wasn’t the first time I heard this theory, and it won’t be the last. It probably also isn’t the last time either that I’ll hear this.

Basically, the theory is that pure dry storage is a sham, cooked up by self-interested merchants who basically got lucky.

It goes something like this — prior to the concept of “dry storage”, everything was wet stored. There were the accidental dry stored puerhs, but those are rare. For the most part, a proper puerh would’ve gone through the traditional HK storage. How much is appropriate was always up for debate, but it always went through SOME such storage.

However, in the late 80s/early 90s, there were people who wanted to get in, but who didn’t have years of old tea to supply themselves — all they had were newish cakes.

What do you do?

You claim that everybody can store it in their house and that it is, in fact, better to home store them. Dry storage, as a concept, was born. And from there… we got to where we are now. New teas are expensive, sometimes way more expensive than old teas, and many of them are still not drinkable years from now. In places like mainland China, even 5 years old tea can sometimes be considered “old”, whereas traditionally that would’ve merely been a “young” cake.

She does have a point, and I’ve often wondered the same thing. Teas that have gone through some HK storage, I think, can often taste better, change faster, and ultimately achieve better results. Pure dry storage has its merit, but is it enough?

To put it in perspective — the same person who was telling me this stuff also sells a bunch of newish cakes, many of which haven’t gone through HK storage, so it is not really the concept of dry storage that she has a problem with — it’s the results. I think what she really had issue with was 1) the idea that the drier the better, when in fact, you need certain humidity to achieve optimal aging conditions. 2) The idea that a cake that is under some number (say, 10) can be considered properly “puerh”.

I think I can agree with those points, for the most part. I don’t think cakes will age well in any climate. There’s a reaosn I am sticking all my teas, save a few things, in Hong Kong. I think I have seen enough cakes that are “drier” stored in places like Hong Kong or Taiwan that are quite good though, so I think it is not impossible to home store good tea. It is merely that it should not be taken to the extreme.

So perhaps the term “dry storage” (or gancang in Chinese) should really be tempered — it should just be “drier storage” instead, or better yet, “non traditional storage” or some such.

There’s definitely some financial interests involved here as well — “dry storage” has made a lot of people a good bit of money. But as tea drinkers, it is perhaps important to remember that ultimately — we are going to drink our teas.

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Loose puerh from Off-Chaism

September 13, 2007 · 6 Comments

Before I start ranting for the day… I should apologize for what must be an obvious lack of attention recently on this little venture of mine. I’ve been spending whole days at the library hammering out data these days, so it’s been a bit… taxing on the fingers and the brain for me to spend too much time on blogging.

But still, a man needs his tea, and keeping a diary of what I drink and what thoughts occurred to me was and still is the primary purpose of this thing.

I decided to start partaking some of the things I have purchased since I got here. I’ve already tried that cake I bought once, but the other stuff, I haven’t yet. It’s high time to try them now, a month after arrival and two earthquakes later…

This tea is a loose leaf puerh, allegedly aged 10 years, that I bought from Off-Chaism, one of the shops in the Yongkang area. It’s a bit expensive for what it is, but I wanted to buy some and try it, because it was a bit…. interesting when I tried it in the shop. Packaging in these high end shops tend to be nice

The original box is the darker brown one, then inside is the light brown envelope thing, within which is the foil bag. The little bag of moisture-soaking pebbles was enclosed within the foil bag. A lot of packaging for 100g of tea, really.

The tea looks nondescript, but you can smell a bit of agedness from it. I should probably leave the bag in open air for a bit — it should help the tea.

It brews up somewhat aged looking tea

This tea is odd. At first it was really quite nice…. impressive aroma, great depth, pretty reasonable qi. It was not rough, still bitter, and overall quite decent. Somewhere in the middle, though, it starts to fade a little. Perhaps because it is loose leaf, it doesn’t last quite as long as compressed teas. The bitterness also stays quite constant, which was slightly annoying. I think it could be because it’s still transitioning, and perhaps if I air it out a bit it will get better, but I also think that the tea probably wasn’t a great tea from a great area when young — it reminds me of Lincang area stuff, or maybe even border tea of some sort.

The wet leaves turn out to perhaps prove my point

The leaves are large, but there’s a sort of roughness to the surface of the tea and a certain stiffness. Some of the leaves feel like yellow leaves, which are stiffer, rougher, as well as less flexible. Even the smaller buds don’t feel too great. This might possibly be due to storage too — I think the tea is a touch wet stored — but I don’t think wet storage in so light a condition would cause this alone. More likely, it was simply inferior leaves when it first started out.

I definitely won’t get this one again, although that initial few cups were quite ok. I think if I brew it with a lighter touch, I can get more of the aroma and less of the problems from the tea. At the price I paid though, I could spend some more and get a whole cake of stuff that’s probably better — or at the very least, with a lot more potential. Lesson learned, but it’s an interesting lesson nevertheless. Who knows, maybe give it another 10 years and it’ll be a fine tea, although I suspect the remaining ninety something grams won’t make it that far.

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