Puerh Tin Report

Posted on by Yang-chu
06 Mar

The Puerh Tin Report takes the reader deep into the doings the Puerh Junky.  This time it involves testing the effects of tinning of two productions after only two weeks.  Well, more precisely one after a week and the other after two.  They are both 6FTM productions: week one ’06 Fohai and week two ’07 Pig.  Sooner or later the the Fohai will be offered, whereas the Pig is part of the Lunar Series.

Recently yours truly raved about the findings from tinning the raw puerh cake Fu for three years. Would it be necessary to tin for such a long time to obtain the same results?  The Fohai and the Pig struck me as good candidates for different reasons.  The former didn’t possess the same zing as when originally purchased, and the latter has always struck the Puerh Junky as too zingy.

I tried the Fohai after a week.  The tin above is one that I found on a dock in the marina after returning from a three-day sailing trip about eight years ago.  I figured it must have been a gift from the gods and it contained chun-mee that I’ve possibly had three times.  The tin has double-lid action.  Something might have to be done about that.

The first thing this Puerh Tin Reporter noted was a storagey aroma that also affected the taste of the first two infusions.  This will have to be watched.  Nonetheless, the liveliness initially found had returned much to my delight.  Preliminary findings are cautiously optimistic and remarkable after only one week.

Week two featured the Pig from a Folger’s tin from the 60s.  I got this from my since-passed 90 something neighbor, who was storing some black tea in it also from the 60s.  You can tell this tin is old and actual tin because of the visible seam.  Would it impart a metallic taste?  Kazaaa!

For the first time the Pig was spectacular.  I used a conservative 4.5g in my slow pour, florally designated zisha.  The piercing edginess was not only no longer there but the same lively tangerinesque attributes also present in the Fohai.

Puerh Tinned Report tentatively reports overall very positive findings from the tinning of two raw puerh cakes from 6FTM.  These are two floral offerings, but it is doubtful that tinning in anyway is better for one type of expression over another, say tobacco vs Zen vs floral.  We’ll have to wait and see.

Yeah, I still have that black tea from the 60s, in case you were wondering.

Puerh Junky Report: Fruit Monster

Posted on by Yang-chu
01 Mar

So on Friday my wife and I were up for some heavy drinking.  I only remember thinking Fruit Monster would probably round the sesh out nicely, since the other offerings were higher on the keyboard.  Fruit Monster, being from 2011 and dry stored, isn’t exactly full of low notes.  However, it does have quite a bit of smoke and grit, along with a bit of incense.  The fruit muskmelon notes of yore are no longer detectable and its bratty finish lead the Puerh Junky to conclude that in some regards it’s about three years off.

The Puerh Junky Report: Fruit Monster concerns leftovers from Friday.  Today is Monday.  A couple infusions consumed on Saturday led to a final infusion forgotten amidst the welter of puerh treasures.  Water remained in the bell pepper pot for two days.  This morning I thought I give it a try, expecting a bitter lesson.

Bell Pepper Pot with the ’01 GM Puerh

To my astonishment, the Fruit Monster tasted of strawberries.  This is a taste usually evident of productions at least fifteen years old.  It portends the return of fruit to the monster, but I will have to wait a while.

This reminds us that puerh is a moving target, particularly raws.   The Puerh Junky found a similar progression with the Dali Tuo, where now enticing strawberry fruitiness starts expressing after about the fourth infusion.  It’s the same fruit note so common to many ripes.  In fact, upon recent tasting only this weekend, the Silver Peacock is starting to express fruit notes as well.

We’ll see how the the Fruit Monster progresses.  Right now the days of musky fruit are long gone.  Its edginess and depth are satisfactory but not where they will be in a few years.  In some cases these variables would have the Puerh Junky state outright that it is not ready, but from very early on Fruit Monster has proven itself a solid tobacco-class drinker.  However, the course of changes from this weekend portend the return of a different fruit to the monster sometime in an unknown future.

Boiling Ripe Puerh

Posted on by Yang-chu
27 Feb

So, for the past two weeks your trusty Puerh Junky has taken to Boiling Ripe Puerh.  This has become a bit of a morning ritual from the leftovers drunk the previous day.  Most often these have been samples or recently acquired offerings.  There was at least one item from the archives as well.

It started with one such recent Dec ’20 acquisition.  It’s an Yiwu purported to be from ’03 and pressed in ’18.  There’s certainly no wodui to it and seems to be old enough but perhaps because it’s in a plastic-wrapped cardboard gift box it’s been robbed of a bit of umph.  Right now it is very light, and am not sure that it meets any brewing standard, so I decided to give it a boil while I wait for it to come around if ever.  That’s how the Boiling Ripe Puerh routine started.

Over the course of these two weeks, perhaps six or seven productions have been boiled.  The taste of boiled ripes is not the same as brewed.  Without exception, the boiled potions possess a certain cereal quality, some like Wheaties and others like Malt O Meal.

Interestingly, the overly light-brewed ripes take to brewing quite nicely.  In other words, they’re better boiled than brewed.  More richness comes through while never becoming overpowering.  Speaking of overpowering, my wife rarely says a production is too much, but such was the case with a ’04 Dayi tuo, which is very similar to old tea nuggets.  That was a remarkable treasure, with tastes of incense and brine.    Diluted it was dandy and water could be added two more times.

Zhongcha from the Archives

Another unique and especially pleasant experience came from the archives with a “Zhongcha” I picked up back in late ’13 or thereabouts.  This is labeled as a High Mt Wild, the very last of which was sold in Jan.  It has a weird cheesy rubber band taste to it, which I was hoping to no avail would dissipate to an undetectable level.  In any event the Puerh Junky’s wife simply loved it, first brewed and then even more boiled.  She went on and on about how smooth and tasty it was.  I chunked down on a cheesy ripe a couple months ago from Liming, which should become avail in Oct or Nov.

Time to rap up, but not without mentioning the pot.  I’m not much for the teaware fetish when that money could go toward perfectly good puerh.  The thing about the teapot pictured above is that you can place it directly upon a flame, so it’s super convenient.  No doubt these can be found on your regular shopping sites and at a reasonable price.  They’re super handy and well worth having for purposes such as boiling tea.

Boiling Ripe Puerh offers a nice change of pace to the standard gong-fu brewing method.  The cereal notes come through much more strongly with boiling than brewing.  It goes without mention that this allows you to get the very most from your ripe treasures.  Boiling seems to be especially appropriate for light ripes that don’t perform well when infused in the typical fashion.

 

Puerh Junky’s Lincang Lament

Posted on by Yang-chu
26 Feb

The Puerh Junky’s Lincang Lament may arouse giggles, perhaps even guffaws among readers.  Don’t.  No giggles or guffaws allowed.  The Puerh Junky in me needs your commiseration.  Regard  (that’s French for “check it”)!  The perils of hanky-panky processing have proliferated and no region is more guilty of such crimes than Lincang.

“Oh, you’re just a strung out Puerh Junky,” retorts the skeptic in you.  Perhaps, but that has nill to do with hanky-panky processing (HPP).  By this I mean the so-called “new processing.”  This sleight-of-hand affords vendors and farmers to sell “gushu” to enthusiastic buyers many with no intention of storing long term.  Still, some do think they can take their sugary prizes and store them for some later date.

What sugar cereal is this?

This won’t happen.  They’re not “gushu.”  They’re oolong processed.  They’re that sugary breakfast cereal that you can eat a box of, only filling up on the milk.  They are a scourge to the real puerh drinker.  That’s right, I have drawn that line in the sand between the real and the faux puerh drinker, and more than a handful fall into the latter category.

But we’re talking about Lincang. . . There are two types of Lincang roughly speaking, western which is floral and eastern which is fruity.  It’s the eastern, with names like Qianjiazhai, Bingdao, and Bangdong being some of the frequently listed offerings.  Oh, let’s not forget Xigui!

Come to think of it, many Kunming TF’s productions are western Lincang blends. Thing is they can never be accused of HPP, certainly not before ’15, when I stopped buying them because their prices started exploding.  I got burned once by a very high-end vendor in ’15, whom I surmise were themselves burned; they’ve never offered from that village since.  Around the same time, I found another Lincang vendor that went belly up last in 2020, as far as I can tell.  I’ll have to collaborate more closely with my buyer with this one if there’s any hope, as they have a Bingdao Huangpian that after two years settling is spot on.

However, there’s still one of their Dahuzhai available in the shop.  I’ll admit I went through a stint of serious anxiety around that offering.  Still another caused even greater angst and turmoil because it was from the same village that had burned el-fancy vendor.  In this last week of Feb of 2021, your trusty Puerh Junky is happy to announce that although that little treasure did go through some adjustment period where it started to fall off, it has entered a phase where it is picking up.  More importantly, it can be drunk through.

What is drinking through?  It’s that your puerh never starts to taste of sencha after two or three infusions.  Excessive sweetness with a back end of sencha is a dead giveaway that you’re drinking an HPP offering.  A flat taste isn’t the clearest giveaway because that could just as easily be poor storage.  I had started to suspect the worse, as this sparkling cake started to express some bitterness, not astringency but bitterness.  The progression struck me as strange, but each offering has its own personality that’s going to evolve.  Throughout its brief life, however, it has never EVER expressed sencha notes.  Any of these sweet productions that leave that sencha impression (ahem), are gross offenders.

So, sometime before the cake of non-mention (because none are available anymore) took its turn, I picked up that vendor’s Xigui, a Lincang village that I’ve followed probably more than any other.  That one was about twice the price of the other village.  Well, it is Xigui.  What could I expect?

What a dud it was.  I started to reflect upon my furtive readings of discussion boards about so-and-so’s one or two year production being “so delicious”, utterly amazed by people’s ability to score such fantastic productions at such young ages.  Had I been foundering in a puerh-addled Chinese factory hell?  And what with all this talk about good for aging?  I mean a puerh that doesn’t age isn’t a puerh, right? RIGHT?!!  Where had I gone wrong? Whom should I blame: politicians? parenting? that English teacher in 10th-grade?  Clearly, I was loosing my mooring, and there was only Lincang to blame.

Btw, you ever had a real Bingdao?  But, I digress.  I was talking about that dud of a Xigui, which has actually turned out to be fantastic.  That vendor, which I suspect was a maker of sorts, is now defunct, as I said.  I fear I won’t find another like it given the prevalence of HPP these days.  Such are the travails of the Puerh Junky.  I’m going to talk to my buyer, maybe he can help a Junky out.

Puerh Tinned Three Years

Posted on by Yang-chu
19 Feb

Puerh Tinned Three Years is about putting to test tin storage in controlled conditions.  The verdict so far is an emphatic “INNOCENT.”  The general advice is to not break up one’s cake/brick/tuo till say a week or two before drinking.  Only then, a drinking portion should be broken endeavoring to keep the cake in form as much as possible.

The Puerh Tinned Three Years in this case is ’12 Fu, ZC.  Upon last tasting from a cake sample stored in the container, I figured that it had gone into hibernation.  This third week of February 2021, the Puerh Junky was gobsmacked by the tin version of Fu.  It was bright and lively.  Furthermore, over the three days in which it was drunk it maintained an intensity and brightness that impressed me as being tea from the very highest quality of leaves coming from Bingdao.  It’s dreadfully good.  It’s as bright as I first got it but the brightness and sweetness continue beyond the superficial infusions.

To test the rectitude of the conclusions regarding tinning, proper junky etiquette (PJE) requires revisiting the cake version.  At least one posting from blog recently has reported problems with cardboard storage.  Results with the tin are the exact opposite.  The direction of cardboard is outward and draining, whereas the tin is inward and boosting.  The metal imparts nothing on the tea’s taste, while doing a stupendous job of cooking the leaves.  Instead of like the container which can be like a roast the tin is slow steam.  The difference is huge.

At least with the tin in the refrigerator, we’re getting neither dryness nor inordinate oxidation.   The leaves are cooking, moreover fairly evenly compared to a cake.  Of course, compression of Fu is quite moderate, so it broke up fairly evenly.

Big Leaf Sancha Puerh

Posted on by Yang-chu

A few years back I picked up some big leaf sancha advertised as wet stored.  Sancha is also maocha, i.e., loose leaf.  Although there was some wet-stored quality to it, the overriding sense was that it was too vegetal and just not very tasty.  Sunday 7 Feb 2021, I thought I would give it a try.  What a difference.

This ripe sancha is no longer vegetal.  Sancha (散茶）shouldn’t be confused with the Japanese sencha (煎茶）; the former references how the production looks at market, whereas the former references a processing method particular to green tea.

This particular Wild Big Leaf sancha purported to be from ’03.  Maybe.  Items of this sort, however hard to find, I can’t imagine being the ages they purport.  It’s often hard to tell given storage conditions but even so, I’d say that many are as off as many as seven years but usually 3-5.  This “offness” in years makes it difficult to determine how good the production actually is either at the time of tasting or in the future.

The blackness of the leaves here are indicative of a shou.  The taste and colour are more deceptive.  Furthermore, there is zero humidity or old taste, a la newspaper, to tip the hand one way or another.  This is a faint cinnamon, however, suggesting aged raw and a superior ripe accomplishment.

The overriding expression of berry, reminiscent of some raw and ripe productions in the ’99 to ’07 range is exhilarating.  At the same time, the light cinnamon note makes it extraordinary.

It brews crystal clear.  There is nothing murky or dank or “ripe” about it.  This is mandarin ripe, not a coffee substitute.  It doesn’t angle toward coffee but toward old raws, the way real ripes should.

Puerh Update: Jade Mark

Posted on by Yang-chu
08 Feb

This Puerh Update is on the ’14 Jade Mark, Zhongcha.  This factory constantly merits reminding the reader that all Zhongcha after ’06 refers exclusively to the Kunming Tea Factory.  As a whole KMTF is more highly regarded for their bricks and ripe productions.  They do and have been making raw cakes but have been overshadowed by Xiaguan and Dayi.

KMTF has continued with producing “mark” category productions, though their recipes aren’t the same as back in the day, and experts will tell you that all the classic recipes are marked by periodicity, that is they change from time to time.  KMTF also added “marks” that never existed, such as the Jade Mark.

The Jade Mark has distinguished itself from most ZC productions in that it presented itself as a vivacious sweet and citrusy raw that was immediately drinkable.  Obviously, this raised the issue of whether they had succumbed to the bad practice of oolong processing, a sleight of hand that provides a certain immediate gratification to the drinker but possesses zero storage potential.

Jade Mark is aging properly.  It is lasting now for more infusions, meaning the sweetness lasts longer.  There is a sturdiness of character that comes with some bitterness; it strikes of good quality Bulang.  At the same time and especially in later infusions, the huigan is simultaneous with the liquor, along with an aftertaste of tangerine peel.  None of this is evident with oolong processed productions.

I’ve always liked the Jade Mark.  I like to see how it was never overly sweet but that as it ages the sweetness is deepening.  It speaks to the quality of the underlying organic material.  I’ll post some shot later.  At only six years old it still qualifies as a very young and green raw puerh.

 

Puerh Eternal: Green Mark

Posted on by Yang-chu
07 Feb

Puerh Eternal: Green Mark– The Quest Continues

This week had the Puerh Junky embarking on a recovery mission.  If you haven’t been brought up to speed about Puerh Storage Horrors, you need to.  One of the cakes that I’m endeavoring to revive is an ’02 Green Mark (A), GPE.  It was one of the most expensive and deadly productions that I’d ever had when first sampled in April of 2020.  By August of the same year it had tamed considerably, but I hadn’t put two-and-two together to identify the cardboard box as the culprit for than a less favourable turn.

This February 2021 marks the one-year mark of having that cake.  Since it was so damn expensive, I put it in cardboard thinking that I was giving it the best of love, only to be slowly suffocating it.  What a contrast to ze Marquis du Green Mark, whom I stuffed in the Zhongcha box where he has not missed a beat.

Since the ’02 Green Mark (A), GPE had only been stored for a year in the box, it was not as drained of blood as some of the other top-shelf victims.  The others, even after day two of drinking, were quite boring and it may be the case that it’ll take a full year for them to revive, for my poor ’03 7542, DQZ even longer.  On the other hand, the GPE may only need only as few as three months.

I couldn’t bring myself to throw out this tea.  I gave it several long infusions the next day and then let it soak overnight, a doing that has prompted this post.  Tremendous.  A sweetness, depth, and incense that does not remotely disappoint.

One of the most confusing aspects of puerh is how one production or recipe can have so many different makers and how the same maker can go through so many different versions of presenting the same production.  In the case of GPE the answer in part has to do with the era in which it emerged.  This was the decade of transition, basically ’97-’06.  Factories would  generally follow the prevailing marketing trend and often paid some type of fee to use the Zhongcha label.  Sometimes there were outright collaborations.  It’s hard to say, but the neifei gives NO indication that it is a GPE production.  This is where you just have to defer to the vendor, who’s not steered me wrong yet.

 

Square Deal: Puerh Tea

Posted on by Yang-chu
07 Feb

Square Deal: Puerh Tea visit a particular ’07 Square, by GPE.  If you get a chance to try or buy it you should.  GPE came on the scene in the late ’90s.  In the first year, their ripe puerh square (fangcha) won a best in show award.  That ’99? production is highly valued.  As late as 2018 productions could still be found fairly easily but after then not so much.

That tight embossed kinda brick

The GPE square was probably the second most popular ripe square on the market next to Zhongcha’s.  ZC’s square is hand’s down the most popular square with a number of fakes out there.  Here’s a closeup of the iconic tea character associated with ZC displayed on GPE’s square:

The GPE icon is  the “cha” character surrounded by 12 (haven’t counted) “gu” characters.  “Gu” means old or ancient.  The most popular gu in puerh circles is “gu-shu” (old-tree).

The GPE Square didn’t have camphor, humidity, fruit or anything to make it stick out beyond a richness reflecting the generally sturdy material from which they derive their products.

You can see the liquor has some clarity but it also looks darker than most Puerh Junky offerings.  Anyway, there’s no need to carry on about this square since it’s no where to be found.  In fact, no occurrence of any other GPE ripes even come to mind.

 

Lonely Days: Fuhai’s 7536

Posted on by Yang-chu
06 Feb

Lonely Days takes up the baffling disregard for Fuhai’s 7536 recipe.  On the one hand, that’s a relatively good thing because the price hasn’t exploded for still relatively aged material from a well-recognized brand.  On the other hand, it seems a same that it doesn’t get the love it deserves.

I’ve only tasted the ’07 version of the 7536 but have purchased or sampled a few of their other offerings.  The 7536 is their benchmark raw recipe, as they’re known for raws and ripes.  I read somewhere that it was supposed to be Fuhai’s take on the 7542 (maybe the writer meant the 7532), but their 7536 is decidedly less floral, which might account for its tepid reception among Western drinkers in particular.  This Fuhai has considerably less petrol than the standard, with more sweet roots and aromatic pods.  Cardamom and bay laurel  also come to mind.

I took it out on Sunday (31 Jan ’21) and had a very enjoyable session with it for two days.  I left it out and now is much bolder aromatically, with a waft of smoke as it’s taken from the plastic.  The cake smells like smoke-cured wood, deep.  From the dry heated clay comes a burst of fruitiness, the bay laurel.

Even the rinse is ready and tastes sweet.  The aroma from the leaves is rich, sugary, spiked with light spices.  There is NO hint of any floral.  A lot of sugar cane, brown sugar with top notes of sandalwood that just fade away into the sugar.  The smoke is evident in the broth, but it is a nice complement.  The aroma in the cup is also of incense.

The second and third infusions are visibly frothy, which carries over into mouthfeel.  The wood starts to make a considerable presence along with the smoke and you start to ask yourself whether you hang with the hounds or piss with the pups.  The sweetness is very addictive; it coats the mouth, lips, and throat, such that all questions of philosophy are lost.  The astringency has never been an issue with this production and now is quite lubricious on the lips and teeth.

No matter how many years drunk, this production still evokes a sense of Christmas.  It’s very warming and cheery, like Christmas.  It exudes the smell of a fire and Christmas spices, hence its name Mincemeat, visions of Tiny Tim and Tchaikovsky all in one.  It forms an interesting contrast to the Water Blue Mark, which is also sweet and woody, but with strong plum notes, whereas 7536 is more incense and spice.  Neither are remotely floral.