November Tri-Tip: Three Tippy Puerhs
Here we’re visiting three tippy puerh productions from ’04, ’05, and ’07:
- ’04 6FTM (6GTM) 100g tuo
- ’05 Jingmai “003” LCGC 125g mini-cake
- ’07 Tippy Puerh Tuo, Tulin
I was curious about how the ’04 6FTM tuo tasted relative their Lunar Series. Storage was faintly humid and cool. The tuo is tightly pressed, breaking off crispy flecks and chunks. After several sessions, so far I don’t feel it is very good. There is a bit of funk, neither dank nor clean. Possibly old taste. The spring notes are greatly muted. They’re there but don’t rise above other equally muted tastes. Seems to need about two years in LA storage to come around. No memorable qi. Fengqing material like the Lunar Series, just no where near as resolute.
There’s no way to put it but that the ’05 Jingmai “003” is high class tea. The storage is perfect. The cake is stone pressed with care. The taste is high and assertive. The notes struck are sure and clear. In contrast to their Tiger, which is woody with incense notes and rougher edges, “003” is essentially a silver needle processed as puerh. It’s more aggressive than silver needle but with the same florality.
A step up in aggressiveness is the ’07 Tippy Puer Tuo, Tulin. I got this about three years ago when I was in my Tulin stage. Clean processed and stored, it possesses much qi and astringency. High floral notes accent the aftertaste. Robust and flavourful, it has a recognizable “tea” sharpness which makes it popular.
None of these three have all that much in common beyond being small productions. The two tuo vary widely in terms of aggressiveness. The Tippy Tuo and “003” both have pronounced floral notes, though the “003” tastes truer, clearer, and more refined. Already stored for 6m here in LA, the 6FTM tuo still needs a couple years of storage for me to form a more definitive opinion. So far it seems bland, not in a good way.
