Puerh Cake Take: Red Star
This Puerh Cake Take is on Red Star, a ’11 Xiaguan raw iron cake. I chose it to round out a trio of floral puerhs that I had just written upon. It turns out that didn’t happen because the Red Star didn’t cooperate. Shall I proceed?
I remember the Red Star expressing a strong early spring signature with some of the trademark XG smoke. I didn’t consider it typical of an XG production, not particularly smoky. Now I do. Easily a tobacco class, certifiably middle-age puerh. The taste is starting to strike me as more like whiskey than tobacco because of the smoke. There’s something that I suppose is peaty, something minerally, and saccharine sweet, but now that smoke takes a much more center stage.
April ’16 Photo
Red Star now shares the XG house taste typified by the Dali Tuo. However, where petrol fruit seems to be the theme with the Dali Tuo, Red Star is starting to take on a more medicinal bent. Along with that is ashtray and edginess that could stand to age out, if it ever does. As I said, I didn’t really notice the smoke in its first two years. Stranger still, smoke is one of the attributes that would most predictably age OUT not age in.
It’s been a fascinating discovery aging raw puerh. This iron cake has been stored in Los Angeles since April ’16. In that time it has changed in an unpredictable fashion revealing a personality of its own. Similar whiplash occurred with the Vanilla Palace, but with the Red Star the flowers have transformed into the XG taste as opposed to vanilla and root beer.
Compared to some of the middle-aged raw puerh that I’ve been drinking recently, the Red Star strikes me as a bit more utilitarian. For a factory that is 50% state owned with a significant percentage designated for Tibet, “utilitarian” probably strikes XG is fine.
